PROLOGUE
Quint rolled in, a cheerful smile on his face, his spectacles perched far out on his rather long nose, “Morning folks, we’ve got a rather interesting job three here. Bizzle, Nanny, Strings, and Beard, please report to my lab, I need to get you outfitted. Bring your coats.”
“Quint?” queried Nanny, “Must be an undercover job.”
Beard was still yawning from his week-long nap, but his badger seemed antsy. His trademark forked beard seemed to twitch and wriggle as he sleepily headed for Quint’s lab.
As they filed into his lab, they saw piles of books, and various equipment piled up to, and some of it even resting upon, the ceiling. Every crack and crevice was filled with innumerable gadgets and magicks, potions and tools, maps and rare fungi.
“What do we get? Some sort of secret swords? Compact Ballistas? An army of Golems, stashed in a briefcase?” asked Bizzle in an excited but gruff tone.
“Not today,” Quint said chuckling, “No sir, just a minor glamour to help with the splatter-miffin.”
Quint had a small pail with a brush, the sort one uses to clean out a fireplace, or sweep dirt from surfaces. “Line up please, coats on, arms wide.” Nanny stepped up first.
Quint pulled out the brush, and starting from her collar, he began to sweep her entire coat, meticulously brushing every square inch of the surface. As if he were some sort of painter, he periodically dipped the brush into the pail, although there seemed to be nothing actually visible inside the bucket. Wherever the brush swept though, the surface of the coat appeared to change. The coat itself was still obviously visible, but the coat now bore an image instead of the steely grey that trademarked the protective garment. The image even seemed to move, and when viewed while Nanny stood still, it gave her the appearance of a boat worker, not that of an R&S employee. It was a form of “urban camouflage”.
One by one Quint applied the glamour to each of the team members. Bizzle’s coat cast him as a stablehand, Strings looked more noble, and Beard gave off the appearance of a hermit who wore burlap and bushes.
“Huh, never know quite what it will do, but as long as you have plausible deniability that you work for Mr. Ransom and Mr. Salvage, you’re good.”
He handed the folder to Strings, “Scribe, here’s the contract, read it but you cannot take it with you, this one’s a Black 3.” – Priority 3, but with a clandestine requirement.
Inside the mission packet the contract reads:
Ransom and Salvage Recovery Contract
Location: Neverwinter, BlackgatePrison
Customer: Truoghton Bough, Chief of Redcap Courier Corp, Quastarte
Objectives:
Rescue Wyett Espinalffes, R.C. who has been unlawfully imprisoned
Recover the courier package that the R.C. was delivering
Maintain strict confidentiality regarding the package contents
Minimize harm to bystanders
Background:
R.C. Espinalfes is a member of the Redcap messengers from Quastarte. Two days ago they were expected to return to Quastarte with an encoded message from one of the Lords of Waterdeep. When the courier did not arrive at the expected time, a brief investigation was done and it was discovered that Espinalfes had been arrested in Neverwinter. Lord Protector Neverember’s men arrested the R.C. for “sedition” but given the lawless nature in Neverwinter, these were clearly false charges. It is believed that the S.K.Ls, the Sinister Knives of Lockley, or “Skulls”, are interested in the package contents and that this is a thinly veiled rouse to buy them time to decipher the package. Infiltrate Blackgate prison, and recover Wyett Espinalfes and the courier bag. Discretion is a must, and why Ransom and Salvage are the contractor of choice.
“Do we get a B.A.D.G.R. for this operation?” asked Bizzle.
“Not today, you young whipper-snapper. No you’re going to get close to the prison by navigating in through the sewers. You’ll have to use the A.R.R.M.P.T., the Armored Rapid Response Marine Personnel Transport.”
“The Armpit!” Shouted Beard.
“Those stink,” replied Bizzle.
“Stink or not, Armpits are necessary and perfect for this job. Go check one out from the dockmaster, she’ll give you a map of the canals to get you to the Neverwinter sewers. Plus it will cut up the coast to Neverwinter in no time.”
Strings handed the package back to Quint, and the four trusted employees headed for the R&S dock.
…..
After a half days ride North in the Armpit, the crew is still slightly shaken from the speedy hull bouncing repeatedly across the rough surf. Thickly armored and fast, the Armpit has simple controls and the team rotates shifts as “captain”.
Neverwinter comes into view in the distance, and the sewage canal is exactly where Quint indicated on the map. Slowing the technomantic engine, the Armpit pulls into the canal, barely squeezing into it’s narrow passage. After another fragrant hour in the Armpit surrounded by sewage, the “old well” is visible above a canal crossing. Bringing the Armpit to a silent stop, Stings drops anchor, and the four “experts” step from the Armpit onto the narrow stone ledge. A ladder leads up to the old well opening.
“I’ll say it agin, Armpits stink” quips Bizzle.
“You sure it’s not the sewer?” jokes Nanny.
The party climbs upward.
LOGUE
Beard climbs out of the sewer well into conspicuous daytime Waterdeep and is immediately arrested by a guard on the charge of climbing out of a sewer well. Clearly the town has some very specific penal codes, but Beard, with no proficiency in jurisprudence, transforms into a fly and leaves. The guard assesses his grasp on reality and the adventurers assess the benefits of doing clandestine work at night.
When the guards change at nightfall, Beard observes they switch to a roving patrol of the roads with up to a 20 minute lapse the group could use to cross the road into a dark alley nearby. Nanny gives a masterful demonstration as she leaves the well and appears to be shrubbery in an alley. Beard appears to be a fly on shrubbery in an alley. Strings appears to be nothingness standing next to a fly on shrubbery in an alley. Bizzle trips exiting the well and appears to be making a commotion lying in the middle of the road, “Oof!”. The night patrol hears the ruckus and takes curfew infractions seriously so the Lord Protector’s men begin rousing the nearby residents for the placement of blame while the party moves quietly down the alley toward the prison. An unsympathetic homeowner observes Nanny outside in the alley and calls for the patrol. A brief hide-and-seek ends with Bizzle running between the two guards with his own mouth mithrilly banded to silence their alarms while Strings sleeps them out and Nanny pours out brandy on them to discredit any stories they might recount when they momentarily awake.
Arriving at the prison walls, the group cases the exterior. There is but one obvious entry door, some barred windows along two sides, a watch tower on one corner, and three visible guards patrolling atop the walls. Nanny reads the thoughts of Fly Beard reconnoitering inside the prison and they learn of a yard with requisite gallows, entry room with two guards, break room with two guards, prison cells about half-occupied, kitchen, dining room, and a tightly sealed door clearly designed to keep out fly-form-druids. Nanny, moving around outside the prison to stay in range of Fly Beard’s thoughts, attracts the attention of a guard in the entry room. Strings, in his nobleman’s glamour, intercedes and suggests maybe the guard would prefer to return to the building and have a little break. The guard agrees and departs for a bit of drinky drinky.
Fly Beard returns with a grain of sugar and buzzily suggests the party teleports into the unoccupied kitchen where they will have access to the sealed area without having to raise the two portcullises that isolate the prison into three sections. The teleport helm works perfectly and Bizzle finds himself standing in a sugar bowl. Beard leads them to the dining room directly across the main hallway from the sealed room of interest. Nanny peers across at the door and can see how it is locked, stealths over, picks the lock, and slips unnoticed into a small foyer connecting two private offices. The office in front of her contains the sought messenger bag and a red cap upon the desk. To the right a staircase leads down. To the left she sees the captain of the guard who jumps up and chases her retreating back across the hall.
Back in the dining room, Strings and Bizzle duck and cover beneath the tables. The captain bursts in right behind Nanny at the exact moment Beard transforms from fly to gnome and the socially myopic captain feels compelled to stab Beard without explanation. Bizzle, ready for that inevitability, cuisinarts the captain’s lower extremities until he passes out. Capitalizing on the display, Bizzle steps into the hall and implores the four guardsmen to desist for their own safety. That they suddenly appear placated probably has more to do with Strings’ hypnotic pattern spell than the threats of a three foot stable hand, but Bizzle remembers it his way.
Finding the portcullises up, Beard leaves to check out the prison cells for anyone wearing a red cap. The inquiries go something like this:
“I’m looking for Wyett Espinalfes. Are you Wyett?”
“Yes! Yes! I’m Violet Espinoza!”
“Good, I’m escorting you to your execution.”
“Oh! Nope, that’s not me.”
And so he works his way down the line.
The rest of the party thread their way through the charmed guards to the captain’s office. Strings, the mission scribe, recovers the messenger bag, the cap, and, from the unconscious captain’s desk, a book that matches the encrypted tome on the mission contract. Bizzle binds the office door with mithril binding to hold out the angry guards now aggregating in the hall and hangs back while Nanny and Strings have a look down the stairs. Nanny finds a narrow passage teeing a down short distance with doors to the left and right. To the right are two murdered guards which she steps around to poke her head through the door.
“Whoops, wrong room,” she tells the Elven caster, Kenku, and two Dragonborn staring at her.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Caster inexplicably apologizes to Nanny. Strings calms the emotions of one Dragonborn who carries an unconscious female, but the caster blinds Nanny and Strings. The mystery gang beats the snot out of blind Nanny and pushes her down. Still blind, she regains her verticality and stumbles away while Strings implores the caster to stop trying to kill them if possible. The caster cups his face lovingly in her hand as they all brush past toward the other door, maybe opening and closing it.
Back upstairs, Beard realizes the hallway is filling with uncharmed guards cutting him off from the party while he interrogates the imprisoned population of possible Wyett Espinalfes’s. He casts a high level fog across the prison floor blinding all the guards, transforms to a blind-sighted bat, and flies to the arcane locked door Bizzle guards on the other side. Bat Beard flops against the door and a chiroptophobic guard starts hollering about the bat, none of which makes an impression on Bizzle waiting for Beard’s arrival on the opposite side of the door. Realizing his predicament, Beard transforms back to Gnome-with-opposable-thumbs form and lets himself through the door. Trusting the re-sealed mithril banding to hold out a little longer, Bizzle runs down the stairs to see what Strings’s ruckus is about and Beard follows with acrobatic flair. While Strings and Nanny bump around helplessly, Bizzle locates tortuously pulled fingernails and a log of similar activities, to which Strings is directed, in the torture chamber on the right while Beard ignites the locklessly locked door on the left. Beard dispels Strings and Nanny’s blindness and some effort is made to extinguish the fire surrounding the ruined door, mostly by Nanny using her waterskin and prone body. Through the incinerated door the party finds a section of the subterranean sewer system and two rowboats tied up with a third missing, presumably taken by the opposition party. Beard transforms to reef shark form and pulls the first boat occupied by Nanny and Strings tied to the second boat occupied by Bizzle. The shark train takes off through the sewer in pursuit of what they hope will prove to be Wyett Espinalfes and his four kidnappers.
After some time of shark-assisted rowing the sewer splits in two directions. To the left is the ARRMPT blocking the passage which, it eventually occurs to the party, would make a pretty good vehicle for pursuing the kidnapper’s boat, so they pile in and resume the chase. Shortly later, a passage obscured by vines becomes visible. Knowing that obscured sewer passage are tools of the nefarious, Beard steers into the vines but halts the boat when stone arms reach down and roughly grab Bizzle and Strings. Nanny smashes the arm grappling Bizzle, Bizzle smashes the arm grappling Strings, and Beard accelerates away from the trap toward the light at the end of the passage.
Beard coasts the ARRMPT into a large sewer chamber where the kidnappers have just docked their rowboat and are lugging their hostage across the dock to one of two visible exits. Beard throws a wall of fire cutting off their escape and Caster returns a fireball into the ARRMPT. The unmoving hostage is deposited on the dock as both Dragonborns jump into the 3’ grey water and begin approaching. Finding himself in control of the ARRMPT, Bizzle aims at Dragonborn One and gives her the beans. One gets smashed as ARRMPT crashes over him, but Strings is thrown into the bulkhead as the ARRMPT crashes into the wall beyond the Dragonborn. Beard matches Caster’s fireball and gets a piece of the Kenku who sends an oily crossbow bolt back at Bizzle. Dragonborn One climbs aboard ARRMPT to come at Strings who inspires all his teammates before calmly noshing his Salvage Bar in One’s face. Bizzle swings at One with both scimitars but drops Sinistra overboard and takes a hit from One as he jumps in after it. Caster smugly flies off toward the ceiling out of reach, except for Beard’s personal lightning storm which she finds shocking. As Beard observes, “She’s not grounded.” But Caster retorts with her own hail storm of hail on the ARRMPT. The Kenku moves toward the hostage so Bizzle abandons his search for his dropped scimitar and trades hits until the Kenku falls. Beard and the caster trade great balls of fire and storms until a nasty fireball from Beard immolates her. Dragonborn Two boards ARRMPT but breaks both wildly swung shortswords and Strings ducks his desperate grapple. Nanny drops her own shortsword but draws a dagger to her offhand and stabs Two to his end.
Wyett is revived and hastily removed from this nasty hideout. Per contractual obligation, the courier, bag, and book are returned with arguably minimal bystander harm.
EPILOGUE
…. The trip home …
“Quick, get her in the boat before any other skulls come down here” shouts Nanny steering the Armpit to the stone dock.
Bizzle gently lifts the broken form, bloody and bruised, and gingerly lays her in the vessel. Beard and Strings in tandem being to administer healing potions and magicks to stabilize the woman. Opening her remaining eye she says “the package?”
Strings shows her the satchel and the book, and the relaxation in her eye is clear. She drifts back into unconsciousness.
Bizzle takes the helm while Nanny leans over the edge of the boat and grabs an amulet from one of the floating dragonborn “this is how to beat the trap!” she exclaims.
Easing the throttle forward the armpit whips down the sewer back towards the sea.
…
Five hours later, arriving at the R&S dock, the armpit returns to its slip. “We need a a medical evac, stat!” shouts Strings.
Two grunts on watch come running with a stretcher. As Bizzle and Beard lift Wyett up out of the boat, seemingly asleep, he one good arm grabs the bag and pulls it to her chest, “Mission first”, whispers the Redcap, as the grunts lay her on the stretcher. They lift the Redcap and begin to rush out.
“Halt!” shouts Bizzle, “We have to escort her, we can’t let he out of our site until she is handed to the client… Mission First!”
Beard, Strings, Nanny and Bizzle clamber out of the armpit and take positions fore and aft of the prone courier. “Proceed”, says Bizzle, “we have your back.”