The PC's decide to keep shopping and hoping to find some sort of magical bow in one of these shops. On the way to their next destination - Maglenor's Oddities, they decided to stop by Reny's Marvelous Wands. On the way, Finder noticed that they seem to be being followed and watched. They went into Reny's and Finder browsed through several interesting items, but in the end he decided to hold onto the staff. He did learn that the unique staff was worth about 21,000 gold pieces! Reny was an older shopkeeper with an eyepatch, beneath which was concealed a strange crystal lens which he used to appraise Finder's staff.
As the continued through the fair heading towards the famous Winged Wyvern Bridge, Farooq had had enough and he and the rest decided to set up an ambush to find out who was following them. They found an alley between two businesses and just down the street from a tailor shop so they set their plan into motion. Farooq and Bronn would stall at the end of the alley while Finder, Keeper and Nash ran down the alley and climbed their way up onto the roof (Finder used his spider staff to grant Nash with the ability to climb up the walls - A truly fun experience for Nash). When they were in position Bronn and Farooq went a short ways into the alley and waited to see what would happen.
Sure enough, the men following them turned into the alley and were confronted and challenged by the heroes. The two of them turned into wererats and began attacking Farooq and Bronn with confidence. Arrows and magic flew from the rooftops at the assailants and a flurry of attacks erupted from Farooq. In a flash the fight was over, culminating with Nash spider walking down the wall and driving his longsword through the last wererat. Farooq had ensured that he only knocked out the other wererat.
The Neverwinter Guard were called for and a few minutes later four guards arrived to investigate. A crowd of citizens began gathering around the alley mouth, staying a safe distance away from the potentially dangerous PCs. After some serious questions, the guard captain was called and appeared shortly afterward. It was the same Captain Selbane who they had encountered earlier. She was quite suspicious as to why they were involved in another violent encounter.
After explaining to her what was going on, she thanked them again for their aid to the city. She shared some of the other strange things that were going on in the city. An associate of hers, another captain of the guard had gone missing the day before the fair. He was last seen in the White Dragon Market. Also, there had been some very grisly murders in the River District. No bodies were ever found, but the huge amount of blood left behind left no doubt as to the fate of those poor souls.
The PCs offered to hire themselves out to the city to solve these problems for them. Selbane told them to meet her at the garrison at the Hall of Justice in an hour and she would have some information for them. They agreed and began once again heading for the last remaining bridge crossing the Neverwinter River to the Blacklake district.
Aurelius led them through the main thoroughfare of Blacklake district to Maglenor’s Oddities, across the street from Potter's Potions. Maglenor was an interesting purple skinned tiefling with a slightly exotic accent. She had a goliath bodyguard who mostly stayed out back. She had a wide variety of wonderous items in stock, and quickly appraised Farooq's boots. There was an enchanted Quiver of Ehlona that was of particular interest to the group. She did not have weapons or bows, but directed the group to another shop that might. The PCs said they would go see and likely be back.
They travelled east along the south shore of the Black Lake heading towards the River District. There were many more decrepit, collapsed buildings as they got closer to the district. Whole bocks of buildings were collapsed while others stood fairly intact. They passed through a small market where there were fair day festivities going on and soon they found themselves in front of Breggor's Adventuring Miscellany.
The shop was fairly busy with a few fighter types shopping or loitering in the corner smoking pipes in conversation. The Proprietor was a tall, burly half-orc with an outlandish
northern brogue. He soon directed them to the only magic bow he had on hand at the moment. He proclaimed it an elven boy from lost Illefarn, no doubt millennia old. It was well worn and beautifully adorned with forest scenes all along its length. Farooq managed to talk the man down to a more reasonable price by swearing that it would be used to combat the issues plaguing the city at the moment.
From there the PCs wound their way back through the Blacklake district, across the Winged Wyvern bridge once more, and through the main city center to the Hall of Justice. Following Selbane's directions, the wove their way along the side of the main structure on the second tier past many laborers going about their tasks. They eventually found the barracks and Selbane was there waiting.
She mentioned that she had discovered some information from the captive wererats, that they were an off-shoot of the "Dead Rats", a knows group of thugs who live and operate out of the city sewers. This crew was using the old bell tower across the river as their hide-out. Based on the difficulty the regular guardsmen would have to wound the wererats, this seemed like the perfect job for the PCs. For 500 gold pieces, go and discover what was going on and bring an end to the wererat threat there.
She also offered them 500 gold if they could follow whatever clues they could find and discover what was going on in the River District with all the strange murders happening there. Finally, if they could return the missing guard captain to them, she was authorized to give them another 500 gold. The PCs agreed and soon they were off to investigate the deaths in the River District.
Crossing back over the river once again, they moved towards the River District, keeping a wary eye on the now obvious tall bell tower in the distance. They would deal with the rats later. They moved past the ruins of the district towards the more central area which seemed to have the most buildings standing. They passed by many abandoned orc fortifications on the way. The reason this district has not been worked on as much as the Blacklake District is that until fairly recently, an orc horde had made this part of the city their own. Much evidence of their occupation remained.
They came to an interesting bit of entertainment along one of the streets and stopped to take a look. There was a stage set up with three actors on stage performing a very strange farcical show. A few citizens were passing along the street and would stop for a moment and carry on with their business, not quite getting whatever humor the actors were trying to portray. As the PCs stopped to have a look, things took a very violent turn.
From behind the curtain erupted several ugly barbaric humanoids carrying spiked clubs and they began to immediately attack the actors on the stage while others moved for the citizens nearby. The heroes sprung into action casting spells, firing arrows and leaping onto the stage to fight them. These creatures were no challenge to the Phandalin Five however, and were soon slain to the last. Bronn used a curative spell on one of the actors who was viciously wounded.
As things began to calm down again the citizens were very appreciative of their actions and thanked them from a distance. The PCs decided to start looking for tracks to see where they could lead them....
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