You hear the sound of a massive blast and the sound of shattering glass as things crashes through your front windows. Your inn shakes and rattles. Charred bodies and anguished screams fly through the air. A thick cloud of acrid smoke billows outward from the blast, which seems to have occurred right outside your door.
It is just before 8. What is your character doing and how do they react. Quick!
The city guard is incoming.
A search of the bodies accompanied by a successful DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check reveals the following:
Many other people witnessed the fireball without being caught in the blast. Three of them have important information to share.
“I was watering plants in the greenhouse on the second floor of my shop when the blast blew out some of the windows. Lucky I wasn’t injured! Through the smoke, I saw a cloaked man take something from the body of a dead gnome, then start limping away. He was badly burned and casting glances over his shoulder, like he was afraid someone might be following him. He was headed toward the Bent Nail.”
Fala saw Urstul Floxin fleeing the scene with the Stone of Golorr in his clutches. He circled around the Bent Nail (see chapter 2, area T2) on his way out of Trollskull Alley.
A Waterdavian born of wealth and privilege, Jezrynne was leaving the Tiger’s Eye (see chapter 2, area T5), having just hired Vincent Trench to spy on her philandering husband, when she witnessed the following:
“I tell you, it was not a man. More like a puppet shaped like a man. A puppet without strings. It was on the rooftop. It hurled something into the crowd below that caused the explosion. I saw those halflings burned alive! I saw them!”
Jezrynne doesn’t know what the “puppet” hurled to cause the fireball. She took her eyes off the thing during the chaos and doesn’t know where it went.
This 12-year-old boy watched as his halfling friends perished in the flames. He didn’t see much beyond that, but he found something important after the blast went off:
“Right after the explosion, I ducked behind a rain barrel. Then I heard a ‘plop’ and found this in the barrel.”
Martem produces a necklace of fireballs with two beads remaining and a broken clasp. As it fled across a rooftop, the nimblewright accidentally yanked on the necklace, which came off, fell to the roof, slid off the edge, and plopped into the rain barrel next to Martem.
He doesn’t know what to make of this object but was planning to keep it. A character can snatch it from him or convince Martem to relinquish it with a successful DC 8 Charisma (Intimidation or Persuasion) check.
City Watch sergeant Saeth Cromley escorts a member of the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors named Barnibus Blastwind to the crime scene. Barnibus quietly takes charge of the investigation at that point, while Sergeant Cromley directs a force of twenty constables (veterans) to knock on doors and question locals.
Before allowing the corpses to be removed and taken to local temples, Barnibus inspects the scene closely and reaches the following conclusions, which he prefers to keep to himself but might share with other members of the Watchful Order:
Given these findings, Barnibus decides to question the tavern’s owners and occupants, with Sergeant Cromley by his side as a witness and bodyguard. Specifically, Barnibus wants to find out the gnome’s identity and whether he was known to anyone. The characters, having never met Dalakhar, have little information to offer unless they decide to lie.
Neither Barnibus nor Sergeant Cromley is quick to jump to conclusions. They both prefer to have ironclad evidence and testimony from reliable witnesses before making any arrests. Even though the characters are suspects by virtue of their proximity to the crime scene, it hardly seems plausible that they would unleash destructive magic so close to their place of business in broad daylight. Consequently, Barnibus intends not to take up too much of their time.
Barnibus and Sergeant Cromley refuse requests by characters to join the investigation. “That would introduce too many new variables into an already confounding equation,” replies Barnibus with a frown. “Trust in the Watch,” Cromley adds dismissively.
Characters who seem truthful and honest can press Barnibus for further information by making a DC 15 Charisma (Persuasion) check. On a success, they nudge Barnibus into revealing what he has discovered, as outlined above.
The Watch cast gentle repose spells on corpses to preserve them for 10 days to allow investigators to speak with them.
The dead are taken to a City Watch station in the North Ward and kept in a cellar morgue. Clerics from local temples are brought in to cast gentle repose spells on the corpses, to preserve them while the investigation is ongoing. Any character who has a renown of 1 or higher in Force Grey (the Gray Hands), the Harpers, the Lords’ Alliance, the Order of the Gauntlet, or the Zhentarim can petition their faction representative to hire a cleric to cast speak with dead on one or more of the fatalities. The characters can hire a cleric themselves by making a donation of at least 25 gp to the cleric’s temple for each casting of the spell. They must also provide a list of questions they want answered.
A speak with dead spell can pry some or all of the following information from Dalakhar’s corpse if the right questions are asked:
The following information can be learned by casting speak with dead on one or both of the dead Zhentarim sellswords:
Drop into tavern. If he’s told that a gnome and two Zhents were killed in the blast, Renaer drops a bombshell:
When the Lords of Waterdeep ousted my father, I thought his long, dark shadow was finally gone for good. The truth is, I want nothing to do with him. But his spies hound me. One of them, a gnome named Dalakhar, had been watching me for months. Then, about two tendays ago, the spy was suddenly nowhere to be seen. My father didn’t trust many people, but he trusted that gnome. I spoke to a few of Dalakhar’s friends. Apparently, he was on a special mission to retrieve theStone of Golorr and was afraid that the Zhentarim and the Xanathar Guild were close to catching him. When he heard about my kidnapping, he wanted more information about the adventurers who had rescued me. I think Dalakhar was planning to pay you to deliver the Stone of Golorr to my father in Neverwinter.
If the characters tell Renaer that Fala Lefaliir saw a man fleeing Trollskull Alley (see “Eyewitnesses”), Renaer reaches out to his friends in the Harpers. A day later, he returns with the following information:
The House of Inspired Hands, Waterdeep’s temple of Gond, sits on the corner of Seawatch Street and Shark Street in the Sea Ward. The House of Inspired Hands looks like a cross between a temple and a workshop. The symbol of Gond, a toothed cog with four spokes, is displayed prominently. The main hall of the temple holds two dozen marble pedestals. Each one bears a prize-winning invention or a miniature model of some other extraordinary creation. You are met by Valetta, a dragonborn priest of bronze dragon ancenstry. ``The temple of Gond welcomes you. How may I serve you?’’
A wayward nimblewright, gifted to the temple by a wizard, has gone missing.
If character’s say that a nimblewright threw a fireball: get nimblewright detector and 500gp if they destroy the creature. Detector: crystal ball with a piece of nimblewright that rotates faster the closer it gets.
Roll a d100, and a d6(reroll 6) and d4 to determine participants.
Every tenday, get $expenses \times (1d20 \times 0.2)$ (currently $5 \times 1d20+1$). +1 from improved chowder.