Rivals of Waterdeep Episode 7

By Dylan Ramsey

The whole group is back! You can watch this episode on Youtube.

Aram Vartian - Dungeon Master

(Surena Marie) Ashbourne - Half-Elf Ranger
(Carlos Luna) Nocnoc - Half-Orc Fighter
(Cicero Holmes) Perrin - Halfling Bard
(Tanya DePass) Selise - Human Paladin of Tyr
(Shareef Jackson) Shaka - Tiefling Warlock
(Brandon Stennis) Rinn - High Elf Sorcerer

After having broken-off to find Rinn, Selise stumbles across Kelm the urchin boy. Kelm says that his job is to make sure that everything on the street works, and the party keep messing things up, so the sooner he can help her and get her out of here, the better. She grabs him, and Kelm points her to an exclusive club where Rinn went on his date with Zayor.

Rinn and Zayor are inside, and are the only people sitting in the VIP section. Zayor says that their next stop is the Grand Showcase. The auction there (where the mysterious kaleidoscope the rest of the party heard about is being sold) is collecting funds to maintain and restore the giant statue guardians that defend Waterdeep. Their glass table suddenly glows green as they get a call from the bouncer outside--Selise is looking for Rinn. She is very disapproving mom about the whole thing when she overhears the waiter say that Rinn has gone through “two beers in ten minutes”.

Carlos and Tanya improv the small-talk between Selise and the bouncer as they’re waiting for Rinn and Zayor. The bouncer notices she hasn’t even tapped her foot to the music coming from inside.

“They trained the rhythm out of me.”

Back at the party, Nocnoc and Shaka. Shaka spots the host for this evening--a dark-haired woman in a white dress decorated in scales with a dragon mask. She tells them that the kaleidoscope is from the time before the city, when the dwarves were first digging under Mount Waterdeep.

Chips ruffles as he lays in Ashbourne’s bag as the two silvery-masked women turn and disappear into the crowd. The fox bounds after them, darting between legs and under dresses. Ash rolls a NAT 20! She finds the women and notices that they have armor, battle scars, and swords under their costumes--the scent that she catches is familiar... it reminds her of the young lord who attacked them after they left Nightstone. They are Melra & Larla, and she overhears that they are the mothers of the lord and his brother, here to exact revenge.

Perrin commands his charmed kobolds to follow after the women. Before they go, one of them acts as a taste-tester for a meal being brought to Perrin and keels over dead--poison! Melra & Larla wanted him to “Perish... Unfitly? I’m saving them for the show.”

While Nocnoc and Shaka freak out about the poison (having heard about it through the mindworm connection), they are approached by a disguised Devonia, Graz’zt’s cambion daughter. She evidently has some time off and is here to enjoy herself.

Selise and Rinn arrive alongside Zayor in a carriage themed half-black/half-white like a chessboard. Zayor gets caught-up in some “high-society bullshit” while the paladin and sorcerer head inside. They see Ash slapping food out of people’s hands, and reunite with the rest of the party. When Selise hears about everything that’s happened since she left, she is flabbergasted.

“I may be a paladin, but you people make me drink!”

Perrin’s performance is about to begin, and he really isn’t worried about an assassination attempt, because they already tried and failed. The three kobolds watching Melra & Larla are stacked up in a lady’s coat like kids trying to sneak into a movie theater, and Nocnoc sidles up next to them like they’re his date. He gives the Middle Kobold a pep-talk. When they turn back, the women are gone! Shaka tries to find them and sees a magical shimmer amid the crowd, and believes that they are using magic to move around the party invisibly.

Lady Amalia Cassalanter comes up onto the stage and introduces Nicholas Fernsberry and Perrin Underbough, noting that the auction will be wrapping up at the end of the performance. Perrin leaps from platform to platform up a staircase, each lighting up as he plays his drums like a lightning bolt. He tells a tale of rising above your station. Puppets act out his tale to the side, controlled by Nicholas using magical runesticks. A projection of the world appears behind Perrin as he gives a closing speech,

“The world is yours if you work for it. The world is yours if you go for it. The world is yours if you believe it.”

BA-BOOM! The crowd goes wild. The hairs on the back of Ash’s neck stand up. One of the ropes up above is cut and a sandbag comes flying towards Perrin! Nocnoc is able to fling his Humming Bird arrow and impale the bag RIGHT before it hits the bard. The bag is yanked to the side and brushes against Perrin’s face. There is a yell and a boom as one of the masked mothers leaps from the stage rigging, sword drawn, coming towards Perrin!

Perrin stomps on the ground as he casts ‘Shatter’ to try and blow the woman away, but the other mother appears with a magical shield in front of her, and they withstand the blast. Selise charges in from the front row and tries to cast ‘Hold Person’ on the shield-bearer, but she resists. People in the crowd start to realize what’s going on as weapons fly and blood spills, and they run, screaming.

Nocnoc asks the Middle Kobold if he wants to be a hero, and they start making their way towards the stage. Nocnoc’s arrow and the kobold’s throwing dagger both strike--thwoom, thwoom! Shaka fires off a pair of ‘Eldritch Blasts’ at the same woman, but only one hits. The shield-bearer furiously deflects the second, and the blast hits Nocnoc instead! She goes to her wounded wife and they both disappear.

In all the commotion, Ashbourne notices a woman with a package under her arm running from the building where the auction was being held as arrows are fired at her from the rooftops of this palatial compound by Ziraj!

Nocnoc action surges and goes for the running woman (who Aram calls “Lavant”) alongside Ashbourne. Shaka fires an ‘Eldritch Blast’ in front of her feet with a NAT 20 and knocks her onto the ground! Her mask tumbles off, and a sapphire eyepatch falls off from her face. Nocnoc brings down his Dragon Fang into her shoulder as she scrambles back to her feet. Ziraj fires his bow at Ashbourne...!

That’s where they call it!