Fireball
"But this is terrible," Lady Jezyrnne said, face scrunching like she'd tasted something sour. "Worse than I could have possibly imagined."
"Not the response I was expecting," Dawnbringer said in Kuhl's mind.
The half-elf was confused as well, but based on her expression and the way the woman with graying blond hair fidgeted with the butterfly shaped hat in her lap, she was upset with the news he'd just given. Kuhl glanced at Sky sitting next to him, but the tabaxi was busy playing a game involving hiding a ball of cotton under one of three cups and trying to guess which one contained it after a rapid series of switches. She seemed to be delighted and amused whenever she fooled herself. The half-elf spared a look towards the other in the taproom, hoping for some insight, but Fargas and the shou server, Xia were busy prepping the Trollskull for its lunchtime opening.
"Lady Hornraven," Kuhl said, turning back towards his client. "You hired us because you suspected your husband of… taking comfort in the arms of another."
"The term in polite society is philandering, gentle sir," Jezyrnne said.
"Philandering," the half-elf said, nodding. "But we found he isn't. So, shouldn't you be pleased?"
"Pleased?" the woman said. "Pleased? I took the advice of the other ladies of my social club to hire investigative services based on my suspicions. But what am I supposed to tell them the next time I see them? That my husband has not been sneaking off for extramarital liaisons but instead to play some stupid game of imagination?"
"Papers and Paychecks," Kuhl said, supplying the name of the game. "It's actually not stupid. We played what they call a one-shot and I still don't understand all the rules. Very complex. Your husband plays a level ten accountant, which as I understand is quite advanced."
"An accountant?" Jezyrnne asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Like the workers in a counting house," the half-elf answered.
"We own a counting house," the woman said, throwing up her hands. "Why would he pretend to be the same thing in some imaginary world?"
"Don't really know," Sky said, speaking at last, though still engrossed in her game with the cups and cotton ball. "It's a world without magic or monsters or even tabaxi. I fell asleep. Kuhl kept having to wake me up when it was my turn to roll the weirdly shaped dice, which was the only fun part."
"This is just like him," Jezyrnne snorted, scooping up her butterfly shaped hat and slamming it down on the top of her head. "Couldn't have a dockside doxie like a normal husband. Instead has to make me the laughingstock of my ladies club."
She stood, then her blue eyes sparkled with some new thought.
"But you get what you pay for," the woman said, snapping her fingers. "The ladies advised me to hire the Tiger's Eye Agency, but I saw your sign and couldn't resist a bargain. You must be mistaken. I'll hire this other detective and get the truth of it."
She hurried out of the Trollskull, stride purposeful.
"Another satisfied customer?" Fargas said, wandering over.
"Wouldn't say that," Kuhl sighed.
"That assignment was just so boring," Sky huffed. "I mean it sounded boring from the start, but then I thought, who knows? Her husband could be under the influence of a succubus. Or suffering from a lycanthropic curse. Or going through a magic portal to a plane of enchantment. But oh no, none of those things, just playing a boring game with some friends."
Her tail lashed irritably.
"Well that was rude," Aleina called out, coming into the taproom from the street. "I just saw this woman with a really amazing hat shaped like a butterfly. I complimented her on it, then asked where she got it, and she just gave me a condescending look and brushed right past me without a word!"
"Think it was the way we are dressed," Jhelnae said, laughing as she followed the aasimar into the Trollskull. "And probably because we are sweaty and dirty."
Given that both carried their crumpled tunics in their hands and only wore corset-bodices with short trousers and also were sweaty and dirty - Kuhl guessed the half-drow was right. That and Lady Hornraven had seemed very impatient to get to the Tiger's eye when she left.
"About the way you are dressed," Fargas said, voice amused. "I know you two favored running around the Underdark in your underwear, before I met you unfortunately, but care to explain the rationale behind your current attire."
"I got hot!" Aleina said. "My tunic was saturated and I thought, 'Hlam is ancient. No one else is around but Jhelnae. So, why the modesty?' You ever see Kuhl hesitate about ripping off his shirt whenever he wants to? So why should I?"
She gave the half-elf a challenging glance, as if daring him to gainsay her. He raised his hands slightly in a gesture that claimed innocence of any wrongdoing, not sure why his habit of stripping down to cool off after his morning workouts with Dawnbringer or after sparring with Aravae during their travel through the High Forest would have anything to do with Aleina's choice to do the same earlier today.
"You should have seen Hlam's face when she whipped it off," the half-drow said, chuckling. "Seeing his expression almost made it worth getting up before sunrise. Almost."
"That would explain why you took it off on the mountaintop," their halfling friend observed. "But you've hiked back down and through the city since then?"
"Ever put a sweat soaked tunic back on?" the aasimar questioned.
"Done a bit of farm work in my time," Fargas said, nose wrinkling, probably at the memory. "Say no more."
"See," the aasimar said, looking at Xia. "I told you we'd make it back before the Trollskull opened. You could have come with us."
"But then I'd be too tired to work," the shou youth pointed out.
"That's true," Aleina said. "You know, it's strange. Fargas always seems to need you to work on the days I invite you to head up the mountain."
"Wonder why that would be?" Jhelnae asked in a mumbling aside.
Xia and the halfling traded a meaningful look.
"Just the way it has worked out," Fargas put in hurriedly. "We're busy, busy, busy. Speaking of which, shouldn't you two be getting your dirty and sweaty selves out of my taproom before we open?"
"Fine, going," Aleina said, heading for the stairs, legs obviously sore.
"Lucky," half-drow mouthed the word at the shou girl before she started her own stiff legged walk after the aasimar.
Xia responded with a shrug and guilty cringe of apology.
"Thank you for covering for me, Fargas," the shou girl breathed once the pair reached the stairs. "Again."
"Eventually you're just going to have to tell her you hated it and never want to go again," the halfling whispered.
"I sort of lied and told her I loved it," Xia said. "Haven't found the right moment to fess up to that."
Aleina and Jhelnae had only limped up half the steps before the roar of an explosion erupted from the street outside and the windows of the Trollskull rattled. Cries of pain and anguished screams followed and a cloud of smoke billowed against the glass, some flowing through windows that were open to provide airflow and into the taproom. An acrid tang filled the room. Seemingly on its own, the door from the kitchen banged open - Lif coming out to investigate. Sometimes, like when he was surprised, the spirit forgot it could go right through walls.
"What was that?" Dawnbringer asked in Kuhl's mind.
"What was that?" Xia unwittingly repeated.
The half-elf didn't know, but he rushed to the door to find out. Charred bodies were strewn on the cobblestones outside, some squirming and whimpering in pain with more laying disconcertingly still. The paladin went to kneel in front of the moving ones and employed the healing magic gifted to him by Sehanine Moonbow. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Aleina doing the same. One that he healed was Lady Jezrynne Hornraven, her butterfly hat blown off and lost from the explosion. The woman didn't even seem to recognize him as she babbled.
"I saw it!" she said. "It was not a man. More like a puppet shaped like a man. It was on the rooftop and hurled something down on us. Those poor halfling were burned alive! Burned alive!"
The healing magic flowing into her skin soothed and quieted her. Kuhl looked to the rooftop, but saw nothing.
"Sky, Jhelnae, Fargas," he called out. "Watch the rooftops. Something might be up there. Xia, can you come sit with Lady Hornraven?"
"I will keep watch of the rooftops as well," Dawnbringer said in his mind. "Rescue who you can."
Unfortunately most of the victims were beyond healing magic. The four dead halflings really had been burned alive. They looked to be a group of street performers and Kuhl now recalled hearing merry and lively music coming in through open windows in the moments before the blast.
They weren't the only dead.
The half-elf put his fingers to the neck of a burned elderly woman already knowing, like with the others he'd previously examined, he would find no pulse and the body would already be cooling despite a death in a fiery explosion. Aleina similarly touched another of the fallen, met Kuhl's gaze from across the victims, and shook her head.
Eleven corpses in all, including two rough looking cloaked male humans clad in leather armor with sheathed longswords. Their cloaks and armor looked out of place on a warm sunny day and for the affluent North Ward.
"Aleina," Jhelnae called out. "Does this gnome look familiar?"
She stared down at the body of a deep gnome, even more out of place in the North Ward than a couple of probable sellswords. The aasimar joined her and then put a hand over her mouth in surprise.
"Is that.." she began, trailing off.
"The gnome we rescued from that little devil in the City of the Dead," the half-drow answered. "I think it is."
"I brought some healing elixirs," the androgynous wood elf apothecary, Fala Lefaliir said as they came rushing up. "Anyone need them?"
A look down at the unmoving burnt bodies in the street seemed to answer their question, because the wood elf went silent. Like Kuhl and Aleina, however, Fala went about the grim duty of looking for signs of life. Finding none, the apothecary stood with a deep sigh.
"I was watering plants in the greenhouse on the second floor of my shop," they said. "When the blast blew out some of the windows. Luckily I wasn't injured. Through the smoke, I saw a cloaked man take something from the body of this 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 headed that way."
They pointed down the alleyway.
"I'll see if I can catch him," Sky said.
She activated her boots of speed, preparing to run off.
"Sky!" Kuhl called out to her. "You don't even have a weapon!"
"It's one badly burnt man, Kuhl," the tabaxi throwing up her hands. "Tracking only, I promise."
"Take Dawnbringer," the half-elf said.
"Don't. You. Dare!"
The sun sword might have said more, but the mental link was lost after Kuhl tossed her. Sky snatched the hilt out of the air and sped off, weaving her way through a crowd of curious onlookers who had gathered. A large shadow fell over the bystanders and they started looking up and pointing. The half-elf gazed up as well and his eyes widened in surprise. Something very large spiraled slowly downward on an expanse of spread feathered wings - one of Waterdeep's Griffon Cavalry, likely attracted by the smoke.
"What are you doing?" Fala asked.
Kuhl looked down to find Jhelnae kneeling and going through the gnome's pockets.
"Aleina and I rescued this gnome in the City of the Dead," she said. "Rather than thank us, he checked a pocket to reassure himself we did not steal something, then he ran off. And you just told us the burnt man might have taken something off his body. Let's see if he found whatever is so important."
She came up with a pouch, which she handed to Aleina, and a folded up broadsheet article which she examined herself.
"Well he wasn't being robbed," Aleina said, shaking out five gemstones from the pouch into her palm.
They sparkled in the sunlight and looked quite valuable.
"Those need to be turned over to the Watch," the apothecary said, with a nervous glance upward.
"They will be," the half-elf reassured.
"Griffon rider is probably too far to see," Fargas mumbled at the same time. "I say we split them."
"By all that dances!" Jhelnae whispered, before anyone could respond to the halfling.
All eyes went to her and she wordlessly turned the unfolded broadsheet article towards them.
"It's us," Aleina said, voice confused.
It was one of the articles in the Waterdeep Wazoo about the Runaway Aasimar Bride. This one covered the party Renaer Neverember threw in honor of his rescue and a sketch of the aasimar and the half-drow in their gowns was included.
"Why would he be carrying around that article?" Aleina asked.
Wind from above buffeted them and they all instinctively raised a hand to keep kicked up dust out of their eyes. Any lingering smoke from the blast was fanned away as the griffon rider hovered his mount over the confluence of Saerdoun Street and Trollskull Alley. The gathered onlookers standing there scrambled out of the way, but did not go far, gazes upturned away from the carnage on the street and watching with expressions of wonder. The beast was so huge it barely fit between the buildings once you accounted for its wingspan. The giant eagle talons of the forelegs and the claws of the lion back limbs clicked against the cobblestones as it landed.
"Griffons really are half cats," Sky said, jogging up, feline eyes studying the creature.
She shook her head at their questioning looks.
"Didn't find any sign of a cloaked man, burned or otherwise."
The moment she handed back Dawnbringer a chiding feminine voice entered Kuhl's mind.
"When I am transferred between wielders," the sun blade telepathically said. "I would prefer a method that doesn't risk me clattering across the cobblestones."
"I knew she'd catch you," the half-elf thought back. "She has the reflexes of a…"
He mentally trailed off, catching sight of a troop of a dozen soldiers marching up wearing the distinctive green-and-goldenrod doublets and tall steel helmets of the Watch.
"Cat?" Dawnbringer asked into his mind. "Striking snake? Diving falcon?"
"You there!" the sergeant of the approaching troop of Watch officers ordered. "Clear out of the crime scene!"
Kuhl and his companions were subsequently thanked for their assistance, then herded off the street back towards the Trollskull. They were interviewed as to events then sent back into the tavern to await further instructions. The gemstones, of course, were confiscated, and Fala was similarly told to wait in their apothecary.
"We actually know the Open Lord," Jhelnae had tried. "We can help."
"Of course you do," the sergeant said, voice actually polite if doubtful. "They say she had a drow sister. Niece? I see the family resemblance. Regardless, she'd want you to leave this to us."
"I'm getting really tired of no one believing us about that," the half-drow said, stamping her foot as the door to the taproom shut behind them.
"Still opening lunch?"
The kenku cook who had come out of the kitchen to stare out the windows of the taproom at the chaos outside used a different voice for each word, the last one recognizably Dariya's, the halfling chef who had trained him and Fargas's girlfriend.
"The Watch is cordoning the street," Fargas said, shaking his head. "I don't think so."
Meanwhile, on a nearby table, an invisible hand scrawled furiously on a smooth clay tablet with a piece of chalk. Because of the angle, Kuhl couldn't read what Lif wrote, but guessed it was a litany of questions, which his halfling friend along with Xia took upon themselves to answer as well as any more inquiries from the kenku.
"Those poor people," Aleina sighed, moving to peer out a window. "You don't think it's because of us? Some kind of Xanathar revenge that missed and took out innocents?"
The others joined her to stare out at the street.
"Would they dare?" Jhelnae asked. "Laeral hung up the mind flayer's head over the Castle gates. It's still up there rotting after a month. She also told us she sent a direct message as well to the Guild, saying any reprisals against the city or her agents would result in another head joining it and specified it would be a big stuffed orb that didn't need to be removed from a body."
"Lady Hornraven said she saw the attacker on the rooftop," Kuhl mused as they sat down at the table closest to the door. "She said it threw something that caused the explosion. Also that it wasn't a man. More like the puppet shape of a man."
"Sounds like a nimblewright," Sky said, tail lashing,
The half-elf nodded. He'd been thinking along the same lines.
"The Sea Maiden's Faire fleet has sailed," the aasimar said, "You think Jarlaxle left one of his nimblewrights behind?"
"The smug bastard is as annoying as they come," the half-drow said, shaking her head. "But killing a bunch of innocents on a city street is not his style."
"You're right," Aleina said. "Doesn't fit. But here is something that does. The nimblewright threw something that exploded. A bead from a necklace of fireballs? Like the one I had in the Underdark?"
"That does fit," the tabaxi said, golden eyes narrowing. She counted with her fingers. "So we have an idea of the who, a nimblewright, the how, fireball, the where is right in front of our tavern, but we have no idea on the why. That is the important piece."
"I think the why has something to do with the gnome who died in the blast," Jhelnae said.
"Gnome?" the tabaxi asked, then he tail lashed and she nodded. "Oh, because Fala said the burned man in the cloak, probably linked with the cloaked dead men with swords, took something from the gnome and fled?"
Since she'd run off in search of the burnt man she'd missed other revelations about the dead gnome.
"There is more," the half-drow said.
She told her of running to the rescue of the gnome during a walk in the City of the Dead as he struggled against an imp, his strange behavior afterward, and finding the gemstones and the cutting of the broadsheet article of the Waterdeep Wazoo.
"Why did the gnome have that article?" Sky asked, pacing. "Maybe I should run up to the library and get my detective hat? I do my best thinking with it on. What did that article say?"
The Watch had confiscated the article along with the gemstones, but Aleina summarized it.
"It was actually fairly flattering," she said, shrugging. "Told about the rescue of Neverember, told about the party he threw in our honor, complimented about the dresses Lady Jalanvaloss put us in, and talked about how the Trollskull was our reward and how we reopened it. Claimed Neverember gave and funded repairs, which they got wrong, no mention of Volo or poor Floon."
"So you rescued him before and the article told him where he could find you," the tabaxi said, voice excited. "That's a link. He wanted your help, but with what?"
Talking about the party at Renaer's manor reminded Kuhl of something. It seemed so long ago, but really only a couple of months had passed.
"Why was Renaer kidnapped?" the half-elf asked.
"They thought he knew the location of…" Aleina started, but trailed off.
Her half-drow friend finished the statement for her.
"…an embezzled treasure hoard," she said.
"Which many would kill to get or keep others from getting," Kuhl said, gesturing to the carnage outside.
"Kuhl!" Sky said, giving him a sharp toothed smile. "I knew there was a reason I chose you as a junior detective partner! That fits!"
"Didn't she ask Jhelnae before you?" Dawnbringer asked in his mind. "Aleina as well, who then suggested it was something you might enjoy. So she didn't really choose you, more got you by default."
The half-elf found himself wishing, yet again, he'd found a magic sword of radiance with a less sentience. Like maybe none.
"Funny," the weapon thought back, smugness in her mental tone. "Could have sworn there were some tears of joy when we were reunited back in Skullport."
A slight smile touched his lips. She had him there. But a glance through the window at the bodies on the cobblestones outside caused the beginnings of that smile to fade. None of those laying there had thought they'd be dead before midday when they woke this morning.
"Who are these two?" Fargas asked from the window he stared out through. "They look like some characters."
Previously, the griffon rider was likely the high officer on the scene, but he stayed near his mount and seemed to serve as an aweing presence and an alternative focal point to all the bodies strewn out across the cobblestones. As Sky had observed the front half of the creature - head chest, front talons, and wings - was that of a giant golden eagle while the rear half was lion - including a tuft tipped tail. Somehow, despite the oddness of this combination it was a majestic beast and many of those redirected by the cordon glanced the way of the griffon rather than the more grisly scene laid on the street. Now a new pair of individuals came and took over the investigation.
One was tall and one was short. The short one wore a multilayered robe colored in shades of purple with a large golden medallion around his neck and a green tinted pair of spectacles. Kuhl guessed him to be on the younger side of middle aged as his well-groomed beard showed no sign of gray. Still, he used the cane he carried, leaning into it as he crouched down during the initial examination of the bodies, though this might be because the stuffed full satchel at his waist threatened to unbalance him.
The tall one also wore spectacles and had a beard as well, but the former were clear rather than tinted and the latter held streaks of gray hair among the brown. A sword was sheathed at his hip and his green and brown leathers looked well used. He held a little book he constantly wrote in as the pair made their way through the scene.
For a time all in the taproom were quiet as they watched the investigation going outside. Interviews of witnesses were conducted after the pair finished cursorily taking in the scene as a whole. Kuhl felt a pang of guilt as he saw the two talking with Lady Hornraven. He could have at least suggested to the Watch allow her to wait for her interview in the comfort of the Trollskull or helped her find her still missing butterfly hat. She did seem calmer now, however, and calmly pointed up at the rooftops while she spoke. All the while the taller interviewer with the graying beard dutifully took notes in his small, leather bound book.
Other witnesses, however, pointed somewhere else and the half-elf's pulse quickened as the green tinted spectacled gaze of the shorter investigator went from a thoughtful look at the body of the gnome on the cobblestones to the entrance of the Trollskull.
"By all that dances," Jhelnae sighed. "Well, that pretty much confirms it. The deep gnome really was trying to find us."
Okay, finally moving on from the side quests in the module (which I expanded way too much, apologies) and back in the main plot. Hopefully this works okay.
I think the banter at the beginning is inspired by my wife who thinks the sports bra is one of the best things in terms of working out. Aleina was definitely channeling her words from various rants over the years of, "Its not something guys need to worry about..."
Lady Hornraven is from the the module, but I added a twist with her. Papers and Paychecks is also, according to the Wiki, canon to the Forgotten Realms.
Update: so this happens today (the same day I posted). My wife starts complaining her laptop isn't working. As always she responds to "Did you restart it?" With, "YES! I restarted it!"
From previous experience I was pretty sure she hadn't. Told her I was finishing something and would take a look when I was done. Get to the laptop and restart with updates, look out the window and the missus is doing yard work. Finish the restart and it works fine. She comes in with her shirt off and wearing her bra (not sports bra, bra) and I am like," Were you just doing yard-work out front in your bra?"
"I got hot!"
Now of course I think this is amazing because I just posted a very similar scene. So I tell her about it and finish with. "Isn't that interesting?"
She looks at me a bit, shakes her head in exasperation, and asks, "Is my computer working again?"
Come on! What were the chances that would happen the same day I posted?
