Ghosts of Saltmarsh (#31) - The Spire VII

In the previous encounter we had taken a battering, so most of the remaining Healing potions were used up trying to get us back to some semblance of good health.

We decided to head westwards first, and the coral pink walled room we next encountered only contained a table and a few benches. However, the mural on the wall was quite outstanding; a large tentacled beast, some whales and giant squid were in action against what we presumed must be some mythological sahuagin heroes. On the table was a silver medallion engraved with a shark and twelve tridents in a star shape. We pocketed the medallion.

The next room was tiled in a deep green. As well as a large bed of seaweed along the north wall there was a spear, a mirror and a coffer with a slot in it the same size as the silver medallion we found in the previous chamber. Navda attempted to open the coffer with the coin, but he somehow managed to miss the trap blade which cut him. Inside the coffer was a bag of rubies, a small stone box with six green potions (which we later found out to be made from Rapture Weed), a gold statue of a shark, a very nice scaled cloak (Cloak of Protection) and a very expensive looking canvas bag. Navda expected the bag to contain something, and his hunch proved correct as his searches revealed a green gem in the lining.

The south wall revealed a hairline crack that denoted a secret door that led to another secret door that opened out into the corridor with the stairs down that we had encountered a while earlier on our travels.

As we had now run out of areas to explore westwards, we decided to head back east and explore that area before we headed down the stairwell. As we moved back towards the main throne room, we heard a bit of a commotion coming from that direction. Navda managed to creep forward and reveal that four sahuagin warriors had entered the throne room and were investigating the bodies and gore floating within it. We decided to go south instead to avoid them as we were not in a fit state for much more fighting.

Unfortunately, as we traversed the corridors southwards we heard more noise from ahead of us; we were about to be trapped. Drakkon could take no more and charged around the corner, the rest of us followed leaving Dharion as rear-guard.

The four sahuagin around the corner were taken by surprise but soon regained their composure when they realised it was only one warrior against them. The sudden arrival of Druss halted them, but one of the sahuagin cast a dazzling light spell that dazed them both. Navda tried to shoot round the corner, but he too was dazed. Luckily, light is my domain and I was able to overcome the spell and used my Radiance of the Dawn special ability. This hurt the sahuagin enough for Drakkon to recover just as one of the warriors rushed past him. He was able to add more hurt to its magical injury as it passed, and between Gladreth's Firebolt and Navda's and Dharion's archery the sahuagin warrior met its demise.

Drakkon was isolated by now and the three sahuagin warriors took him down. To stop any further desecration of our comrade, Dharion managed to kill one of the remining sahuagin with his trusty bow and Gladreth used her magical abilities to stop another from advancing. My Warding Flare stopped me from being attacked whilst tying to administer to Drakkon. Unfortunately, the other sahuagin warrior cut me down.

Whilst I was unconscious, Druss recovered from being dazzled and helped Dharion to kill the third sahuagin warrior. The fourth fell to a combination of everyone else's attacks, with the final blow dealt again by Dharion's archery. Using his last few Healing spells, Dharion brought Drakkon and me round again. We decided that as things were now too dangerous to stay around much longer we should head for the exit.

A final look at where we explored in the Spire

We retraced our steps further southwards towards the stairs out, but in the corridor just before the exit chamber we encountered a school of sharks. Navda and Drakkon quickly dispatched two of the sharks before us and Gladreth and Dharion another that was approaching from our rear. With one remaining shark before us, we could feel a larger commotion approaching the area; it felt like the whole complex was awakening. The last remining shark in our way was killed by Drakkon and we were then, finally, able to climb the stairs out of there.

The upper level was still empty luckily, so we were able to get out of the dungeon and to our rendezvous point in the marsh without any further encounters.

At the rendezvous, we were met not only with the escape boat, but with a small army. We reported to the commander the situation in the spire and gave him all of the intelligence we were able to gather. He called forth his troops and advanced upon the sahuagin hideout.

The return to Saltmarsh was uneventful, and we were ushered straight away into the presence of the town council. We were debriefed and then fully Healed before being given our 1,700 gold crown reward. We were also gifted with a magical longbow which went to Dharion, a magical shield that would catch arrows, and an ioun stone which I somehow managed to acquire, but do not know what to do with just yet.

With that, I think we have completed the whole of the Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign. We levelled up - we are now all 7th level - and updated our character sheets accordingly. We divvied up the treasure and sold what we had found on our adventures. We then bought anything that we had the money for to enhance our character - I bought a stack of Potions of Healing.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing this campaign. Fantasy Grounds worked pretty well in allowing us to immerse ourselves into the adventure - along with Discord for the communications (voice) part, this felt as close to a face-to-face series of sessions as we could get. I recommend this setup to anyone that has a bunch of gaming buddies that cannot meet up often enough in real-life due to time constraints and distance circumstances.

The DM has another scenario lined up that we may use these characters again for. Or, maybe, we will roll up new ones if we feel like a change of pace. I guess we will find out what is happening next session.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh (#30) - The Spire VI

We decided to leave the room behind us, as we were only on this mission to gather information and not get into too many skirmishes - we were on a time limit and we had already used up half of our time. We decided to retrace our steps and investigate the other side of the entrance hall.

The first room we encountered from the last time that we had passed that way still had the sahuagin guards in it. We charged into the room in order to rid ourselves of any chance of being blocked on our way out if we needed to exit quicky. It was a short melee; Gladreth was badly hurt by the magic from one of the priestesses in the room, so retaliated angrily by Fireballing the room, which led to a third priestess emerging from the seaweed patch in the corner. Unfortunately for her, she did not get time to cause us any harm and was dealt with by my missile armed compatriots swiftly, as Gladreth Firebolted the last remaining sahuagin warrior. A quick search of the room revealed only a small treasure - a set of thieves' tools and a silver goblet.

We headed south from there and ended up in another chamber similar to so many of the others. This one had dark green walls, a light green ceiling and the usual table, coffer and beds. There was not a lot in here either, only a number of those harnesses we had previously found (but this time with silver buckles), a small bag of gold coins, and a locket on a chain with a picture of a small girl and a lock of hair inside.

We explored to the end of the corridor and eventually reached a door. Again, we could hear a lot of noise from beyond it. Navda stealthily opened the door a crack to take a look inside. It was a very large room with an indigo floor, dark blue ceiling and light blue walls, with three tables, several coffers and at least 30 sahuagin warriors inside. He just as stealthily reclosed it and reported back what he had found. We got away from there quickly.

As we had completed exploring the southern part of the dungeon, we headed back north to the entrance hall and went through the final exit in the north. We explored a few of the newly built corridors and decided upon finally heading westwards. At a north-south junction we cautiously went south and found ourselves outside a room where many sahuagin warriors, champions and sharks were cheering and shouting at a fight between a couple of very large lobsters. We slowly backed away and headed further north within the complex.

Lobster Fight

The corridor ended at a set of steps that headed downwards, but we retraced our steps and explored the corridor that headed east halfway along it. We passed a small chamber that was cut off from the main corridor by a portcullis. Beyond the barrier was a light green tiled room full of live starfish and shellfish, which we assumed was some kind of live feed larder.

The eastward leading corridor ended with a door which opened quite easily. Beyond the door was a huge ornate banquet hall. Several black pillars supported the coral white roof, and the walls were tiled with an array of black, white and coral pink tiles. A statue situated in an alcove above the floor level was of a lizardman head, only it was twice the normal size. Opposite the head was a gold-leaf door, which opened suddenly leaving Navda exposed.

The underwater dungeon so far

Beyond the door was a short corridor that opened out in to a large indigo walled, dark blue floored throne room occupied by a very large four-armed sahuagin lord seated upon a massive pale blue marble throne, a priestess on the dais beside him, a number of warriors and some sharks. 

The priestess performed a small ritual and Dharion vanished from the room. We were all shocked, Gladreth most of all, and she cast a Lightning Bolt the length of the corridor and into the room severely injuring four of the sahuagin. Dharion reappeared as suddenly as he had disappeared and we surmised that he had been Banished. The melee was hard and deadly, but without Gladreth's magic and lots of Healing we would have been defeated.

Upon reappearing Dharion killed a sahuagin warrior very quickly, and seemingly in the blinking of an eye he had killed the second champion. The rest of us helped keep the sahuagin lord at bay, but not before the priestess had cast a Guiding Bolt on Gladreth which felled her. I was on hand to bring our wizard round again and my skills were called upon very quickly thereafter to remove the Curse the priestess had put on Dharion.

Gladreth was really annoyed again by now, so cast a Fireball amongst the remaining sahuagin and sharks causing a huge amount of injury to them, but they all still fought or swam towards us.

The combat with the sahuagin and sharks began to take its toll on the fighters in the party, so I had to cast my third and final Prayer of Healing to make sure that no-one else fell to the spears and tridents of the sahuagin warriors.

Popping out from a shadow somewhere, Navda made a perfect shot with his bow and downed the sahuagin lord. This riled the priestess and she was able to Paralyse Dharion and take down Gladreth again with a Guiding Bolt. Luckily I was on hand to Heal Gladreth again and remove the paralysis from Dharion. In the meantime, the fighters had finally dispatched the last of the sahuagin warriors and sharks.

This just left the priestess to get a taste of her own medicine as I cast a Guiding Bolt back at her and Dharion finished her off straight after with an arrow to the heart.

We were in a mess after this fight but that did not stop us from searching the bodies and throne room for loot. We didn't find much except for the fine looking trident the sahuagin lord had used, a gold earring, some platinum armbands and a gold key; all of which we pocketed.

The Throne Room

The final battle should have been over a lot more quickly and with fewer injuries to the party than what actually happened - we managed to roll so many 1s and 2s in this, and all of the previous combats, we were lucky that we did not suffer a TPK. The use of the big hitting Fireballs and Lightning Bolts, along with plenty of Healing, allowed us to finally overcome our adversaries. The fighters absorbed so much damage it was unreal, and the dice gods (even though the rolls are randomly generated by software within Fantasy Grounds) were definitely not on our side tonight.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh (#29) - The Spire V

As the sahuagin warriors readied their arms and advanced upon us, the orc, hobgoblin and lizardman slaves began to rattle their chains in a bid for freedom. I Blessed the fighters, then Drakkon, Dharion and Druss charged into the room as the rest of us supported them with spells and missile fire.

The combat was over relatively quickly, but several injuries were accrued. We searched the bodies of the overseers and found the keys to the slave chains. We set the slaves free and gave them directions out of the dungeon to safety and told them where the rescue boat would be arriving and when. In return they gave us plenty of useful information regarding what they knew of the set up in this fortress; they had seen around forty sahuagin warriors patrolling the lair; the priestess had sacrificed the previous adventurer band by cutting out their organs; supplies arrived at the fortress in crates and barrels and were taken below; the water level is slowly rising.

After the slaves had gone, Drakkon put on his helm of water breathing and Dharion tried out my cloak. Both were able to swim around under the water without the need for any other apparatus or magic aid. They scouted out the first chamber below and reported back what they had found.

We had been in action now for maybe four or five hours, and what with our accumulated wounds, we decided to lay low for a while. As the fortress was deemed an unsafe place to rest, we headed back to the swamp to recover and restore our spells.

After about eight hours we returned back to where we had left off. It was strange that we did not notice any of the usual patrols outside the spire, and there was no sign of any movement within the fortress; at least from the sigils and signs that Navda and Dharion had set to detect any movement.

Those that did not have any magical items to aid with underwater breathing imbibed the potions with the "3" on them. After a few moments, gills appeared on our necks and our feet and hands became slightly webbed. As our breathing became laboured in the open air, we entered the water to find that we could survive the immersion.

Down to the underwater levels

We arrived at the first chamber that Dharion and Drakkon had already scouted out. There was no sign of any movement so we decided to head west, with Navda scouting the way. The first room he got to had an open door and within it he could see what looked like a guard room with dark blue tiles on the walls and light blue tiles in the ceiling; inside were a few beds, a table and a coffer, as well as four sahuagin guards. He told us what he had found and we decided to avoid a confrontation at that time, so headed back east.

After traversing a twisting corridor, we found our way to another room that was similar to the blue-tiled room. This chamber had a white tiled ceiling and dark green tiled walls. Inside was the same table and coffer set up, as well as a seven foot tall stand of seaweed. There were no guards in this room, so Navda, avoiding the seaweed, advanced upon the coffer. Inside he found six leather harnesses with gold accoutrements, a small bag with two large rubies and a silver mirror. We divided the treasures between us and carried on with our investigation.

Level 2 - the underwater dungeon

The south leading corridor turned east after a while and then, upon turning north, it ended at a stone door with a coral handle, beyond which we could hear a lot of movement and chatter.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh (#28) - The Spire IV

Thursday just gone we got back to our regular Saltmarsh campaign.

Leaving the dead adventurer behind, we headed along the westward corridor. We passed two rooms in a southern offset side corridor. Both rooms were identical in that they had pale blue tiles on the floors and walls, and each contained a table with a few chairs and a couple of empty velvet-lined coffers.

We left the room sbehind and headed further westwards until we came to a T-junction. Navda spotted a few Sahuagin guards patrolling the north-south corridor on his scouting mission, so we made plans on how to defeat them. A quick melee ensued and we backed up into our corridor as planned so that we could fight them with the corridor width to our advantage. Unfortunately, just a few moments later three more of their compatriots attacked us from the rear; they were some of the ones left that we missed when we encountered the adventurer. We were sorely pushed, even though Dharrion had killed one in the north-south corridor, so I cast a Radiance of the Dawn which injured every one of them as they were all in range of my god's radiant power. Gladreth then quickly took two of them out with her Burning Hands spell, and that just left two very weakened warriors to be dispatched; one by Navda, and after a short chase down the corridor the other by Dharion and Drakkon.

There was not much treasure to be found on the Sahuagin, so we hoped we might find a bit more in the room just to the south of us. Unfortunately, the very ornate door opened into a cold room; most likely a larder judging by the body parts hanging up in there.

As we wanted to cut off the chances of any more support from behind us we decided to explore the southern corridor and found that it all connected up to the hall with the adventurer. We encountered no other enemy on our travels but we did enter what looked like a tool storage room. Navda disabled a glyph trap set at the entrance of the room, so thought that there must be something in here that was worth guarding with magic. He did a quick search of the east wall and discovered a hidden stone door. The small room beyond was rather plain but it contained many treasures.

Drakkon claimed a suit of mithril plate armour and the party suggested I took the leather cloak that was lined with what looked like scales. There were also a couple of pouches that contained some gold coins and gems, as well as a small, locked casket. Navda got cut by the hidden blade as he sprung the trap upon opening it, but inside we saw five potions of some kind of blue liquid with the number "3" written on each of the vials. 

My new cloak

After donning our new items, we explored the only place that we could see that we hadn't been to yet. The door was very ornate and made from a semi-translucent material, but it did not allow us to see through it, although we could hear a number of voices and the sound of metal striking stone from beyond. Navda gently tried the door and found that it opened easily, so he stole a quick glance inside. He spotted three Sahuagin guards; one directly behind the door, and the other two a small distance away watching what was happening in the room. He quickly shut the door again, reported what he saw, and hatched a plan with Dharion and Drakkon.

Drakkon was to push the door open, but only so far as to block anyone to the right of it, and then at the same time Navda and Dharion would shoot the first guard with their bows. The plan worked flawlessly, the door was sprung open to the exact place it needed to go and Navda's shot took the first guard straight in the throat, killing it outright.

A quick glance around the room showed us several work gangs hammering away, overseen by several Sahuagin guards. As soon as the shock of seeing the dead guard topple over wore off and we were noticed, one of the other guards shouted "Save the princess", whereupon one of their number dived straight down the partially constructed stairwell.

Map of the dungeon so far

Note: the final door-opening act required us to roll high so that we could pull off the trick. Drakkon and Navda's players both rolled a natural 20, so the door opened and stopped exactly where we wanted it to, and the damage from the critical, aimed, shot out of cover caused a phenomenal amount of damage to the elite guard killing it outright.

Waterdeep : Dragon Heist

After the fast-paced excitement of Hope's Last Day, we slowed things down a little and returned to D&D 5e. We did not play in our usual Saltmarsh campaign, but went back to 2nd level to start a new campaign in Waterdeep. Again, we were six players and a DM until around half-way through when a couple of the players had to head off home.

Characters - I will update as and when I can...

G : Wizard - (left early)

J : Fighter - (left early)
Erlathan Sylmaer (Ranger)
Rexius Trannyth (Bard)
Zorrion Oakwood (Rogue)
Theratis Wyrmsbane (Cleric)

The new campaign module - Waterdeep

We had been travelling through the Troll Swamps for several days, cold, tired, hungry and in need of a good rest, when lights were spotted in the distance. We had, at last, arrived at our destination - the town of Waterdeep.

The first tavern we came to was the Yawning portal, where we grabbed a table and some well-deserved food and ale. Whilst enquiring about the massive hole in the middle of the floor, which was rumoured to be an entrance to the underworld, or maybe just the sewers depending upon you outlook, a bar-room brawl broke out. The well-oiled machine of the City Watch came in, crashed a few heads together, and carted off the guilty parties. As we enquired about getting work, the barkeep pointed us in the direction of a fellow named Volo, a writer and purveyor of books about monsters, at the far end of the bar, but before we could get there, a troll and a flock of stirges emerged from the aforementioned deep hole.

The barkeep kept the troll at bay whilst we eliminated the stirges and then we returned to help with the troll, but the majority of the tavern's patrons had left quickly by the door. Volo, the only other person who did not leave the tavern, noticed our competence and offered us a job as we looked like we could handle ourselves in a tight pinch. We were to track down a chap named Flum Blagma, who was kidnapped a few nights ago.

Our enquiries took us to a variety of places and we were able to pick up a few clues; Flum was with the younger Lord Neverember on the night of his disappearance, both were dressed the same, Neverember left the tavern before Flum, both were followed by people in black robes as they left the establishment, Flum was accosted by the Xantharum crew. At one point during our investigations, we noticed three ruffians watching us. We followed them only to come across the results of an alleyway skirmish, but we were ushered away by the Watch.

At the docks we gathered a few more clues; the Xantharum crew marked their properties with a yellow chalked eye symbol. Looking around we found an old warehouse that bore that symbol. Opposite the warehouse was a little curiosity shoppe, where we managed to get more details of the kidnapping after purchasing a few trinkets from the proprietor. So, we recrossed the street and entered the premises, the gate was unlocked after all, to look around.

Our rogue picked the lock on the main door and we slid inside only to find the main warehouse room to be full of boxes, crates, and a dozen dead Xantharum cultists. From the bodies we managed to procure a few weapons and a bag of silver coins, but we were interrupted by three small creatures (Kenku). The bird-like kidnappers yelled out that there was nothing to fear, but our wizard responded to their obvious ruse by yelling back that of course we had nothing to fear from budgie smugglers. The melee was short and bloody.

The budgie smugglers (Kenku)

A search of the rooms in the upper storey of the premises didn't reveal much except a paper origami bird, a pouch of gold coins, thousands of shipping rosters and a couple of alarm bells (we snipped their chords).

We returned downstairs to investigate the only room left - the one under the stairs. The small room was full of linen and rugs etc. under which we found Renier Neverember. The Xantharum cultists had taken him instead of Flum due to a case of mistaken identity. As a reward, he gave us a key that didn't fit any of the rooms in the warehouse, but we pocketed it anyway. At this point, the ever vigilant City Watch had been called and had filed into the warehouse to investigate what was going on. We explained all that had happened and the leader upon hearing that we wanted to find Flum gave us directions to a sewer entrance and a bag of Healing potions - he said that we would need them.

We entered the sewer system via a marked entrance in Shark Street. We splashed along a corridor and stopped at a junction with a large column that supported the roof and a couple of arrow slits. To the north-west was a ledge with a stone door.

We managed to duck under the arrow slits and get to the door without being shot full of arrows and bolts, and found that the key that Renier Neverember gave us turned the lock.

After passing through an obvious armoury we arrived at one of the rooms that held an arrow slit overlooking the sewer outside. The sleeping goblin that was supposed to be on guard was quietly dispatched. Moving along further we came to a small barracks room with another sleeping guard. He too was quietly dealt with, as was the grey ooze that had previously taken a couple of goblins for supper.

The final room was fairly long with a raised dais at the end. In the centre of the room, an orc was torturing Flum whilst being watched by what appeared to be a Mind Flayer and an Intellect Devourer. We froze in horror knowing how powerful such beings were, but after a few moments the Mind Flayer left the room via a wall covering/curtain.

The sewers of Waterdeep

The sewers of Waterdeep from a different perspective

The melee was brief, with the end result being that the orc was defeated and the Intellect Devourer was stamped under foot by the ranger. Flum was untied and rescued. A quick look around the room revealed a small chest behind the throne on the dais that contained a number of coins and a few potions of Healing. Behind the curtain was revealed a room with a hovering sphere with ten rays radiating from it. We just noticed that the Mind Flayer from the previous room had just fiddled with a stone and disappeared into a void that the process opened. We did not follow.

We returned to the Yawning Portal tavern and handed Flum over to Volo. Volo skirted the issue of our payment until we demanded it of him, but all he could promise was a run-down three-storey building in Troll Skull Alley. We were not happy but accepted it none-the-less, but were pleased when the notary sorting out the deal mentioned that when done up it could be worth a lot more than the gold we were offered for the job.

The following day we paid a visit on Lord Neverember to check in on Renier who we rescued, but no reward was forthcoming. The City Watch also only passed a few coins our way and thanked us for our diligent work as we told them about the sewer complex and what we had seen.

At this point two of our players had to leave.

Over the next few weeks we began to renovate our new house and discovered that the origami bird was a magical device where we could write a message on it, say the recipients name and it would deliver the message to them and return once read.

One day we got a knock at the door from the City Watch requesting that we attend the High Magistrate immediately. Upon arrival we are ushered into the High Magistrate's presence to be told that one of the other magistrates has been turned in to a rat and she was needed back urgently. We would need to head to the graveyard to recover a staff that could accomplish this.

We left straight away, the lure of 500 gold crowns being quite the enticer, and eventually found the Lord Greyforce mausoleum in the out of town graveyard. We opened the iron gated entrance and entered the tomb to discover a number of urns and a large stone coffin dedicated to the great wizard Nashblack. We slid the top off the coffin aside and climbed down the spiral staircase within.

At the bottom of the staircase was a large room, in the centre of which was a pedestal with the letters N, E, S and W written on raised disks at the appropriate cardinal points. Our rogue pressed down onto the S disk and was immediately transported off somewhere. Not wanting to be left behind, we all followed suit despite not knowing whether he had just been disintegrated for his troubles.

We ended up in a dark room with a large stone statue holding a sword and shield. This came to life as we approached it and we had to fight for our lives to overcome the guardian. We eventually defeated it and it crumbled to dust revealing a disc with a zig-zag design on it, which we picked up. Two doors were also revealed upon the guardian's defeat.

We exited the northern door only to find ourselves in a similar situation, only there were two statues this time. Again we fought the guardians and caused them to crumble revealing another graven disk and two more doors.

As we were now very badly battered and in need of recovery, we took a long rest and decided to carry on once we had recovered our strength.

After our rest we went through the north door of this chamber as the south door didn't open. The next room revealed another stone statue, as did a fourth room - an encounter with a stone Beholder. We now had four discs with varying symbols on them and knew how the chambers and doors worked.

Within the tomb

After we exited the fourth room with the Beholder statue we ended up back in the first chamber with the N, E, S, W pedestal. We deduced that the discs we had picked up in the other rooms would need to be placed upon the pedestal in the correct order. We gathered they were relevant to each direction and guessed first time - the pedestal began to grate its way open to reveal another descending spiral staircase.

The chamber at the bottom of this staircase was almost identical to the one above except the symbols on its pedestal were linked to the elements, and there were four mirrors in the room; one at each cardinal point.

As we had the gist of what was going on by now, we looked into the first mirror and got transported to a small room containing an air elemental. We fought this being, and like before, when it was defeated, a small white/grey disc appeared on the floor and a mirror appeared on the north wall. We headed on straight through the mirror and encountered an earth elemental. This fight took most of our strength so we took another long rest before continuing onwards with our newly found green/brown disc.

After our recuperation we stepped to the next mirror only to find that the room beyond contained a small earth elemental. We fought this being but got no disc for our troubles. A quick think resulted in us working out what had happened; the rooms had all begun to regenerate their defeated occupants and  had moved round ninety degrees. We fought our way through the last of the elemental rooms to collect the rest of the four discs and got transported back to the first mirrored room with the pedestal. 

Again, we put the discs onto the pedestal in the correct order and the plinth opened to reveal a golden staff. We picked up the staff, wedged open the pedestal just in case and climbed the staircase out of there. We then passed through the upper chamber and emerged back into the crypt.

Pleased with ourselves, we left the crypt in a joyful mood, only to bump into a bent-over wizard with a rat in a cage. The old man, who was familiar to us from somewhere, asked us for the sceptre so that he could change the rat back to a person again. We naively handed over the sceptre and the old wizard duly slammed it onto the ground and released the rat from the cage. The rat turned into a dark-haired male individual, not a female as we were told, and snapped the neck of the wizened man. He then demanded our subservience and, to our shame, we all cowered in fear except for our Ranger who fought the charlatan. We each eventually overcame our fear and joined the melee, and finally defeated the black-haired man by weight of numbers. We reclaimed the staff and two potions of Healing, a pouch of coins and two small candles from the old man's knapsack. After hiding the bodies, we headed back into town to see the High Magistrate.

It turned out that the real High Magistrate, the woman who had supposedly been turned into a rat, had been out of town for a short period of time and that we had been hoodwinked into getting the staff. The old fellow was her scribe but she was unaware who the other man was. She asked us to return the staff to where it came from and that as a reward we could keep anything we found in the scribe's house. This turned out to be a rather splendid magical short sword, a magical quill and ink well and a gold ring with an emerald in it. There was also a ledger detailing more about the family Nashblack.