4A. Nisalisse's Pitch

Nisalisse Lianne offers to make her case to the party and presents them with a job.

Structure

Exposition

Latrans complication while teaching Poison to pickpocket: 

Poison has been practicing on his own and stole something very interesting from one of the Rockport residents. It looks like a diagram showing the way to a dragon's nest with the words "3 eggs" written on it. Poison thinks he took it from someone with red hair, either a gnome or halfling.
Nisalisse wants to make her case for why the PCs should help her campaign instead of Brilies and she's also a client who has a job request for the party.
Her arguments for why the party would benefit from her being mayor are as follows:

• Surely they would have an easier time getting supplies that they need if they didn't have to constantly barter with people based on what they, personally, want in exchange. Wouldn't it be nice to go to a shop and know upfront what to bring to buy the item?
• Ultimately, if dragons start attacking Rockport, the party will be called upon to defend the town. Wouldn't it be better if they had some help or the town was better able to defend itself? Two of them have died already dealing with Tiamat and her forces; do they want to stand alone again?
• The Rockport government has already called on the party to deal with issues that it is stretched too thin to address. Part of the problem is the large number of people who take up Rockport's resources, but don't contribute enough to the running of the town. We obviously shouldn't throw those people out, but shouldn't the people who contribute get more resources, better housing, more privileges?
• They've seen first hand the harm that not screening people who come into Rockport can have. The recent crime wave is a perfect example of that. Even the Kidsaver was stolen!
• Right now, the already built temporary housing was given out by lottery while the rest are staying with volunteers. Shouldn't we give those who contribute the better housing?
• In addition, it is just a fact that Rockport's resources can't support many more people than it does now. If we should take in more people, shouldn't they be people who can expand those resources? That would require some sort of screening system that not only catches people who would pose a danger to Rockport, but also identifies a person's skills and allocates them to the appropriate jobs.
• We've focused far too much on helping Phandalin. Obviously we shouldn't withdraw support, but we should also be spending more time forming ties with Neverwinter, too. They have more people, a huge number of magicians, and more infrastructure. Plus, the drow can actually help with defense beyond a few chromatic dragons who may or may not protect the towns when the chips are down.

Here are the general details of her policies:

1. There should be some criteria as to who we allow into Rockport. That criteria should be based on the skills they would bring to Rockport and whether they would be a danger to the citizens already here. There should also be a quota of how many people can come in to ensure that our resources aren't stretched too thin. Rockport should be our first priority.
2. We must reestablish and enforce a standard money system. It should be based on something other than gold and managed by the government. A committee of business leaders should decide the details of this.
3. Rockport should build defense infrastructure. This should include a wall around the city, including the refugee housing, and magical weapons that can be manned at a moment's notice. We should also be working on a magical alarm system.
4. We should be trying to form a firmer alliance with Neverwinter. They have more people, more magical abilities, and the drow have a reputation for having an incredibly effective military.
5. We should negotiate for actual ownership over the farms that produce our food in Phandalin. We should also build new farms closer to Rockport by clearing the nearby forest.
6. Giving everyone the same amount of resources is disincentivizing work. The government can incentivize work in the fields that need it the most by giving greater privileges or rations to the people who do those jobs.
7. If a citizen receives support from the government, such as the wizard apprenticeships, they should be required to work in fields that have need rather than choosing what they want to do. We need medicine and defense more than drugs.
8. We should be prepared to expel people who are threats to Rockport or who contribute nothing to the town. It makes no sense to waste food on someone who cannot follow the rules.

Conflict

Nisalisse has also come to tell the party that her friend (whose home she's been living in) is bringing the fishermen's catch to Neverwinter.
They've heard of dragons in the area and the merchants are worried that they'll be attacked on the way to Neverwinter (it's about a two hour trip). They want some extra protection and Nisalisse volunteered to ask the party for help. The merchant will wait a bit until the party is ready, but doesn't want to wait too long.
The merchant will offer them 5000 gold for the job with half up front.

Rising Action

The party will meet Quinn Orina and his daughter Adriel Orina at their warehouse on the outskirts of town. They're loading barrels out of the warehouse under the watchful eye of Gluri . Gluri will explain that the fishermen put their excess catch in Quinn's warehouse because he has the wagons necessary to transport it all at once. Now that they have about 30 barrels, they can take it to Neverwinter for payment (mostly wood, ropes, and spell scrolls to maintain their ships). Quinn will get one barrel as payment for his help and a DC 17 perception roll will notice that Gluri is counting the barrels very carefully.
What's happened is that Quinn has taken most of the fish out of three of the barrels, put the dragon eggs inside, and then fish on top as a diversion. The barrels are marked with an invisible magical symbol. If you cast detect magic, you'll see that the wagons and the barrels have cooling magic on them. It will take a DC 25 perception check to notice that three barrels have a slightly different type of magic.
If the barrels are noticed and you ask, Quinn will say that they're marked because one of the workers that checked on them before delivery was worried they'd gone bad and marked them to get double checked. They're fine, though, no need to worry.
If Gluri hears about the marked barrels, she will be very suspicious because the Fishermen's Guild suspects that Quinn has been skimming either the payment or the harvest. The marked barrels are in the first wagon. See the table at the bottom for where they will be walking in the stories.

Climax

Early in their travels, a group of three people, two women and a man, join the caravan going the same direction. These are polymorphed dragons, one of the women is an adult red dragon and the other woman and the man are adult green dragons. They will just start walking with the caravan and striking up a conversation with the people. Quinn will not like this, but everyone thinks he's being ridiculous.
As they go, the party may notice that the new people are trying to get close to the wagons and look inside. They'll ask a lot of questions about what they're transporting, etc. They recognize the two mercenaries who took their eggs, but they don't recognize anyone else, so they assume everyone's in on it unless otherwise specified. As they get closer to Neverwinter, one of them might try to sneak into the lead wagon, assuming that the leader of the caravan would be piloting the one with the eggs in it and the guy wouldn't want to endanger his daughter who's driving the second wagon (they're wrong, Quinn doesn't give a shit). 
They won't be able to find the eggs unless something intervenes and so, when they're about halfway to Neverwinter, they'll transform back into dragon form and attempt to steal both wagons. 
The dragons were planning to join up with Tiamat later, once their eggs had hatched and the children were old enough to travel. But the eggs were stolen first. They're not fanatical about Tiamat, but it seems like a good thing to do since most of their friends are going that way. Their eggs getting stolen has only solidified this conclusion and made them think that Tiamat's fortress is the only really safe place.
The three dragons are in a thruple, but only the green dragons are the biological parents of the eggs.

Falling Action

If the dragons get their eggs back, they will still be angry and will ask for the head of the one responsible, though (which really is Quinn). If you want to save Quinn's life, the party will have to assure the dragons that he will receive a suitable punishment. You can also offer them some sort of compensation or try to get them to stay in Rockport rather than going Tiamat. 
They won't want to stay with humans, but they're not particularly religious. They just want a safe place and figures Tiamat's compound is the safest place for them. They miiiiiight be ok with going to Phandalin with the other chromatic dragons, but they're going to be very skeptical unless the party offers them some sort of benefits beyond "safety."
If they question Quinn about it, he'll say that he had an agreement with the drow monarchy to get them green dragon eggs and, in exchange, the drow would supply him with all the rare jewels he wanted for his jewelry business and open up Neverwinter for his business exclusively. Plus, if Nisalisse gets elected, then he'll have a monopoly on Neverwinter and Rockport. He will beg the party not to tell anyone about this because it will hurt Nisalisse's campaign. 
This whole event will have a serious hit on Nisalisse's campaign if it gets out. Brynn, especially, will latch on to this and claim that either Nisalisse knew and didn't care that her friend and host was selling children into slavery or she was living in his house and didn't know. The latter is the truth. Brynn will also make the argument that this event shows that the people in rockport who are only pursuing profit are morally compromised and should not be given as much power as Nisalisse will give them.

Resolution

• The party figured out that Quinn was trafficking dragon eggs and gave the eggs back to the dragons
• Ulo got to talk to Trich the dragon about it and found out that the dragons were planning to go to Tiamat's citadel once their babies were old enough to travel because that seemed like a good idea for them. Ulo told them that she might be able to find a better place for them to go and be safe.
• They also gave Quinn, Dwali, and Prantha to Kanni for revenge. The dragons picked the people up with no trouble and flew off.
• Gluri understands this choice and Adriel does not
• Ulo got information from Trich about how to get in touch with the dragons later if they want.
• They also found a ledger that showed that Quinn had been stealing fish over and above what he was entitled to take in exchange for transporting it.
• The party also found a note in the ledger from the drow to Quinn promising money and exclusive rights to sell jewelry in Neverwinter in exchange for the three eggs.
• The low-level bureaucrat drow that they gave the fish to knows that Quinn got taken by dragons but doesn't know the significance of it. The party tells him to pass it along to his superiors.
• Back at Rockport, they told Brilies what happened and she said she would be launching a public investigation to determine if any further punishment is warranted (including seizing any ill-gotten gains). She also wants to find out how long the skimming has been going on.
• The party then went to talk to Nisalisse, who said that she didn't know anything about the dragon egg, but Latrans figured out through Detect Thoughts that Nislisse's objection to the plan was less moral and more practical in that it would needlessly anger the dragons and not benefit the town.
• Nisalisse told you more about her plans for the town, but were not convinced. On the way out, the party grabbed a copy of Nisalisse's Public Policy Statement and cracked a stink bomb in the office.
• Ulo also gave her a 2 for 1 coupon for pie and promised to investigate the theft of the Kidsaver, and Nisalisse thinks that maybe she could convince Ulo to switch sides. She said Ulo could come any time to talk.
• That night, the alligator person visited Marco and said that someone had told her that leaving him the last time without changing the dream was really mean and she didn't want to do that. So, she's letting him pick whatever dream he wants to apologize. 
• Marco asked what she wanted from them and she said that he thought he was more important than he was, there wasn't anything particular. Marco said he didn't want to be taken by surprise again and the alligator laughed and said that it's impossible to be really prepared for anything in life so he should just accept that and go with the flow.
• Marco told her to stay safe as she left and she smiled in a way that indicated she found his concerd adorable but wasn't herself concerned about anything.

Parent Plot

4. Enemies Everywhere