Session 2: Munificent Volo

General Summary

Deep and dark down below,
where only fools and braggarts go,
where monster roam and dangers mortal,
few survive the Yawning Portal,
stand your ground or ring the bell,
and hope you make it up the well!

The Yawning Portal Dipping song, in which a tankard is thrown down the portal and retrieved.

The Adventuring Party continues in the Candle Lane Zhent Warehouse, where they soon come upon Renaer Neverember, the friend of Floon Blagmaar. The younger nobleman bears some likeness to the description of Floon Blagmaar, but is clearly not quite as pretty. Renaer tells them that he and Floon got jumped, and that they dragged them here. The Zhentarim asked him about a good half million golden Dragons that were supposedly embezzled by Renaer's father, Dagult Neverember. They too ripped off the mourning necklace that Renaer had gotten from his father in memory of his mother. The Adventuring Party takes a look around upstairs and soon find the necklace. The amulet however now shows an empty secret compartment, much to the surprise of Renaer as well.
They are ever so rudely interrupted by the City Watch barging in following reports of fighting between two groups in the warehouse and streets. Some members of the party panic somewhat at this, recalling the two murdered Kenku downstairs as well as the two unconscious Kenku hogtied together and stuffed in a crate. Bear cannot handle this pressure, and decides to smash a window, only to reveal guardsmen standing outside about to kick down the (very strong) door. The guards raise an alarm, and from downstairs heavy iron boots climb the steps as captain of the City Watch Hyustus Staget approaches. Good news tho, as Renaer Neverember takes it up for our party, and his word carries quite some weight still. They tell the guard of the Kenku still alive, and Staget decides to look the other way regarding the dead Kenku, clearly slain in the big brawl when the Xanathar Guild barged in. As they go down, the Kenku are interrogated by a rather annoyed Staget, only screeching about signs, pretty boys out back, and Xanathar sending his regards in all manner of different voices.
The Adventuring Party is asked to escort young lord Neverember, and so they do, were it not for young lord Neverember to decide to save Floon the moment the leave the front door. They head out to the sewers, sadly without their best trackers, and descend into the darkness. They quickly come upon the chalk signs the Kenku were talking about however, and after about an hour of making their way through damp, dark tunnels they come upon a crossroads. Here a grapefruit-sized chunk of meat with a bulging^owo eyeball gazes upon them, snarls at them, then darts into the darkness ahead. They shrug, look for a sign, and soon find the Xanatharian Sewer Hideout.
It is here that things get slightly more dicey as they head onward. Deadset on checking out all the grimy sewer tunnels first, they make their way through the slow and steady stream of putrid sludge multiple times, and not even the goblins shooting arrows at them from slits in the wall can convince them to do otherwise. After a while, as well as one well-placed stab by Bear resulting in a dead Goblin, they decide to try out the door they came past instead. The goblins in the guard chamber are subsequently quickly dealt with. Up ahead they find a more familiar face in the tug from the Yawning Portal tavern fight), arguing with a @[Duergar desperately trying to barricade a door with blankets and furniture, not even stopping when the party kindly asks them what they're doing. Krentz kindly suggest for the party to turn around and leave, which surprisingly they actually do. The two leg it, and as the party returns to the room a gray ooze seeps through the door.
Having disposed of the ooze they set on, coming upon a chamber with an Orc standing with one foot upon the chest of Floon Blagmaar, his hands wreathed in flames. In the background an odd creature sits upon a stone throne petting what is essentially a brain with legs. The creature, elongated and its face tentacled, gets up as it sees the party, puts down his precious little boy and glides towards another door. A fight ensues, the Orc mage in typical Orc mage fashion dying very fast. The brain turns out to be more of a problem, but Bear, unleashing the inner beast, bites it to death after it had knocked her out previously and was now hungrily looking at her head.
Floon is successfully rescued and they ditch the base without really looking at anything else, like rooms or loot. The other denizens seem to have taken a backdoor and escaped, and the same goes for the squidman. They make their way back to the Yawning Portal without much effort, ready to meet the ever bountiful Volothamp Geddarm. Volo is rejoiced that they saved his dear 'friend', but is sadly a bit short on cash as his royalties aren't in yet. The party and especially Bear is not very pleased, and Volo quickly decides to instead hand them a deed to a property named Trollskull Manor. He promises he will meet them there in the morning with a magister to complete the transfer, as well as a little something about a haunting, before quickly leaving the establishment.

Report Date

22 Aug 2019

Primary Location

Candle Lane Zhent Warehouse

Secondary Location

Xanatharian Sewer Hideout