Waterdeep and the Stone Bridge

General Summary

The Muffin Men set out from the Kobold caves outside of Rassalantar and ventured south to the city of splendors, Waterdeep. An easy day’s travel passed without incident, and the Muffin Men were greeted at the North Gate and the imposing Troll Wall of Waterdeep.
The city itself was the typical frenzy of activity it sees at the end of every harvest season, with merchants peddling their wares, caravans of goods leaving from the gates and the port, and denizens of all sorts going about their everyday business.
The first stop in the city for the party was the villa of House Thann, who were long time allies of the Liang family, formerly of Baldur's Gate. Zi’s parents were long gone, lost years ago to the angry coastal waters, but House Thann were close friends of the Liang family, and the butler still held some of Zi’s possessions.
After a short night in the guest house, the party awoke and were quickly helped on their way, presumably before the Master and Lady of the house saw the rabble that was gracing their guest house.
Tengo and Nike both felt uneasy in the city, albeit for different reasons. Tengo longed for the beauty of the natural harbor beyond the walls, and Nike felt something far more nefarious and disquieting. Later, the Muffin Men would see he wasn’t the only one with dragon’s blood who was made uneasy while in the city. The Muffin Men met Izzy, the young wyrmling under the care of the mage Chazlauth Yarghorn. The platinum wyrmling was trouncing around the mage’s yard, chasing cats and raising the 9 hells, with the elderly mage in hot pursuit. Once he had successfully corralled Izzy in his basement, he invited his company in for tea.

Over the next hour or so, the Muffin Men told Chazlauth of the giants and dragons they had encountered over the past fortnight, and about their encounter with the mage Naxene Draxthala in The Goldenfields. Chazlauth, seemingly bored by all of it, dismissed Naxene’s plan to rally the Lords’ Alliance against the giants. Chazlauth said it would be easier to get dragons to agree to be allies than some bickering politicians and nobles. He laid out his plan to send the party to Kryptgarden Forest to seek the help of the green dragon, Claugiyliamatar. The Muffin Men agreed to attempt to ally with Old Gnawbone, but not before taking care of restocking and shopping in Waterdeep. Annoyed, Chazlauth continued about his business… whatever the business of a near-senile, Dragon-obsessed Harper mage was.
While the rest of the party headed to the market district, Tengo and Kaz set out for the Dock Ward in search of the temples of the Dwarven pantheon. After some searching, and travelling from grand temple to slightly less grand temple, down through the row of holy houses for the various Dwarven gods and goddesses, they found a simple stone temple hewn from the rock of Mount Waterdeep itself. Inside, among the grove that looked to spring from the Feywild itself, they found the temple priest… quite drunk, even for a Dwarf.
Kaz sought answers to the strange natural flavor his divine magic had taken as of late, but much to his frustration the priest was seemingly of no help. He told Kaz a bit about Marthammor Duin, and his maverick nature. He even claimed Duin had a thing for Elven girls, although there was no way of telling if this were true or if it was the ale talking. Kaz left fairly disappointed, but not empty handed. The priest left him with a simple bronze signet with the insignia of the Volumtar, and told him he’d not find Duin in some city safe behind the walls.
After the rest of the party managed to convert most of their mundane loot to coin in the market, and Kaz found a vendor to dump his old armor on, the party headed back to the North Ward and into the parlor of their mage friend, “Chaz.”
Chazlauth took the group to his basement to prepare the Harper teleportation circle to send them to the town of Yatar, some days closer to Kryptgarden Forest. During the casting of the spell, however, the wyrmling Izzy chased another one of the resident cats through the messy basement, threatening the ritual. With quick thinking, Kaz tried to root the Dragon in place, and succeeded only to have the dragon belch out his force breath, blowing felines and books and other detritus everywhere. With that, the world inverted and the everything went black.
The Muffin Men appeared some 10 ft. above a hard stone surface which, after getting their bearings, turned out to be the deck of a large stone bridge. No sooner had they landed and caught their breath then they saw the approaching, hulking form of a Fire Giant and his Hell Hound. The Giant, nearly as surprised as the party, drew his massive stone greatsword and charged into battle. The ensuing melee saw Gladstone again laid low, and nearly cost a number of Muffin Men their lives. But again, through tactics and a lot of meat shields, they managed to slay the giant and his hound…
Now they find themselves on a random bridge next to the still-warm corpse of their foe, with little evidence of where they are, and whether the giant was travelling alone.

Report Date

19 Jan 2019

Primary Location

Waterdeep