Rooster announces that Tricksy, Slick, Bizzle, and brooding svirfneblin rogue loner Dagger are hired as bodyguards for a special envoy with an exclusive invitation to an auction of collectible items, which rumor has were stolen from the lords of waterdeep. Rooster doesn’t want the job traced back to R&S so disguises are mandatory, discretion is emphasized, and greycoats are forbidden. The team presents itself to senior provisioning manager Quint. He collects the greycoats and issues appropriate attire from an impossibly well-stocked wardrobe. Bizzle selects an outdated brown suit over his rumpled stiltskins with an extra charismatic brown bowler. For Tricksy, it’s long pants embroidered with shou brocaid to cover her rumpled stiltskins.
Slick fancies a fancy dress but settles for a dwarven kilt that’s a little on the frock side. Dagger requests a menacing black suit and trench coat which he’d be wearing on his day off anyway.
Rooster introduces client Finde Wervanion. She is an objective beauty made even more charming by an ear-to-throat scar. She wears her abruptly skeptical disposition like she wears her gold dress. She loudly doubts the team’s competence in general and Slick’s dress in particular. Smitten hue-mon Bizzle wins her confidence by introducing himself as Byron The Carpenter and attempting to bisect Rooster’s desk with a quick flourish of concealed scimitars.
Finde hands Bizzle / Byron a paper disclosing their destination, Ye Olde Bakery. Tricksy, connoisseur of scones, knows right where to go. Bizzle hails a carriage with his disproportionately short arms and makes himself a complete nuisance trying to intimidate the cabby for no good purpose, much to the cabby’s
amusement. Slick reasons that one may simply hire a carriage with coin and demonstrates the effectiveness of said capitalism by paying the cabby 2 gp for a ride to Ye Olde Bakery. Bizzle opens the carriage door for Finde and sees that Dagger is already comfortably seated without anyone noticing. How does he do that?
They arrive without further incident at Ye Olde Bakery. A beggar at the door strongly suggests a contribution of some sort, and he blocks the door when Bizzle reaches to open it. Dagger sizes up the beggar, but instead of discerning hidden weapons he notices the beggar tugging a string that goes through the wall. Finde remarks on the positive attributes of the bakery’s day old bread. The beggar agrees, provided it’s Secondday. Finde drops a coat button in his mug. The beggar knocks on the wall in a pattern, and they are admitted into the bakery.
Four thugs poorly impersonating bakers conceal loaded crossbows behind the counter. Finde leads her bodyguards to a back room containing commercial quantities of bakers’ ingredients. Finde indicates an arbor of dried vines against the wall, and Bizzle enters the portal first. He arrives in a dungeon on the other side. The portal is one way. A natural cavern is to the right, a worked stone passageway is to the left through closed double doors. Fendi follows Bizzle through. Dagger comes through, not that anyone notices, followed by Slick and Tricksy.
Tricksy and Slick open the double doors. A Darkwater Cartage gnoll is guarding the antechamber beyond. Bizzle positions himself face to face with the gnoll while Fendi passes. Fendi directs them down a narrow passage that opens to a great hall. The team fans out around Fendi to guard her from the crowd of powerful Sword Coast shakers and their hired goons. The groups collect around illusory displays to study the offered items.
In a surprise for the Ransom and Salvage regulars, R&S principal Frug Ransom is attending the auction with protector Squat with his war maul. The anonymous mission and officious nature of the auction strictly precludes any mutual acknowledgement. Frug seems interested in a ship’s steering wheel.
A couple of arcane fellows loiter intently around a display of an orange crystal. A spellguardsman loiters intently around the arcane fellows. Quastarte must be collecting orange crystals for some reason.
R&S nemeses Darkwater Cartage aren’t concealing their presence at all. Three gnolls, including Bizzle’s personal archrival and role model, Mutt, mind a mysterious figure, Mr. Gray, covered head to toe in a dark, cloaking garment.
A well-dressed gnome, Quoji Caltix Uricorin Toryn, brought along a half-orc for muscle. Quoji is very chatty, but his attempts to socialize are rebuffed by the other participants guarding their intentions, bidding and otherwise.
Three cackling hags of three ages in three colors brought no muscle at all. Fendi greets them as “mothers”.
A jovial tiefling, Mr. Forgiveness, brought along a couple of golem protectors for power servos.
Fendi checks out the displays, but the object of her interest is not evident.
Mr. Cartwright, half-elf auctioneer, welcomes the bidders from the dais and explains the rules of the silent auction. A unwelcoming fog obscures a moving something behind Mr. Cartwright. Slick notices an exquisite sword with a scaled blue hilt on Mr. Cartwright’s hip. Dagger uses his helm of telepathy to probe the fog for intelligence. Feedback knocks him to the ground creating a scene. Bizzle drags Dagger out of the hall to minimize Fendi’s embarrassment.
Tricksy and Slick continue to study the fog. Dagger focuses his helm on the mysterious Mr. Gray and learns of his keen interest in a bone harp. Bizzle keeps himself between Fendi and any approacher. Cartwright reappears to begin the auction, and bidders are summoned to the bidding brazier.
First item up is a pair of evening gloves to store items like a wine goblet or a dagger. Mr. Forgiveness gets the high bid, beating out the mysterious Mr. Gray.
Next up is the bone harp of enchantment breaking. Unsurprisingly, the mysterious Mr. Gray wins this object of his obvious desire.
Next up is the orange crystal of conspicuous interest to the Quastarte mages. The three hags swoop in to vie for the orange crystal as well. The mysterious Mr. Gray approaches with some interest, but is scorned away by the other glowering bidders. The mages win the auction on a technicality of equivalence when Mr. Cartwright disqualifies the “still beating heart of his chosen enemy” as an acceptable bid from the hags. The hags get extremely tetchy at this rejection and adjourn to the back of the room to start some dubious chanting.
Next up are four horseshoes of zephyring that allow a mount four inches of levitation over normally impassable terrain such as water. Mr. Forgiveness bids so that he can crack a joke about levitating his golems. Garrulous gnome Quoji wins the shoes.
Next up is an unremarkable ship’s steering wheel with a damaged nameplate Quicks– something. It attracts a lot of bidding interest, but Frug Ransom overly outbids the others for a definitive win.
Next up are a matched sword and helm of night. The sword is sharper than any smith could work, capable of cutting cans and then tomatoes and then cans of tomatoes. The helm lets one lurk about in shadow form making it simple to locate and acquire cans of tomatoes. The popular lot is won by Mr. Forgiveness.
Mr. Cartwright presents an unexpected bonus item fetched from the dark fog behind him. Here for their consideration is an old man in chains, but not just any old man in chains. The lords of Waterdeep created a dread disease known as marsember pox. This old man in chains has the only known immunity to marsember pox, and immunity is conveyed through his blood. Mr. Cartwright will even throw in a vial of live marsember pox to the winning bidder. The bidding for the curative old man in chains is fierce, mostly by bidders intent on keeping it away from the other bidders. Only the hags abstain in order to continue chanting up their malfeasance. Mr. Gray casts the winning bid for the curative old man in chains.
Now it’s time to exchange monies for winnings. Mr. Cartwright dispels the backstage fog revealing a dracolich guarding the auctioned items. Mr. Forgiveness and Quoji collect and leave with their items. Mr. Gray approaches to collect his harp and his curative old man in chains at which point Fendi warns Dagger that there’s about to be a kerfuffle. That’s all Dagger ever wanted to hear.
A flash of light marks the completion of hag chanting. A flash of light marks the mages’ counterspell. The spellguardsman clashes in against the hags. Squat’s Old Lady sails in and clocks out one hag. The gnolls surround Mr. Gray protectively.
Tricksy dashes to the ceiling where she can easily watch for threats to Fendi but attracts the mistakenly protective aggro of the dracolich. They exchange mighty attacks, forcing Tricksy to take a potion break.
Dagger notices the dracolich is missing a fang exactly like Mr. Cartwright’s sword. He sprints across the entire hall up to the dais, snatches Mr. Cartwright’s sword right out of his belt, and escapes with it but suffering a dagger wound in his back. On a hunch, Dagger commands the dracolich to heel and to stop attacking. The dracolich obeys a little, but takes a protective bite out of Slick standing too close to Dagger, frightening many on the floor.
Mr. Gray and his gnolls charge the dais. Fendi wants to get to the curative old main in chains before Mr. Gray, but Mr. Cartwright is in the way. Bizzle tries to
shove Mr. Cartwright out of the way but trips on the dais stairs. Dagger and his pet dracolich assault Mr. Gray and his gnolls. Mr. Gray pulls back his hood and gazes into Dagger’s eyes. It isn’t love that medusan Mr. Gray is expressing, it’s petrification.
Dagger’s final act is to douse Mr. Cartwright’s toothsword in basilisk poison, making for an epic statue.
While Mr. Gray’s gnolls are tied up with the dracolich, Fendi and Bizzle slice Mr. Cartwright into a change of heart. Bizzle lets him flee. Fendi protects the curative old man in chains. Slick joins next to her and Tricksy engages Mutt with help from Knit the suturefly. The dracolich takes out one gnoll, but the other two gnolls give Slick the business. Slick sneaks in a finessed axe attack. Mr. Gray gets a little panicked when the dracolich resists his stony gaze and urges the gnomes to meat shield him as he gives up on the harp and the curative old man in chains to retreat. Fendi hugs the curative old man in chains leading Tricksy to conclude that either Fendi has marsember pox or, yes, Fendi’s father is none other than the curative old man in chains. Awwww, kawaii, she mutters in orcish.
Meanwhile, the spellguardsman is surrounded by hags. Swinging Squat charges into the hags, knocking one over. He scoops up the spellguardsman and charges back out. The hags finally have enough and retreat without the orange crystal.
As the gnolls pull back, Bizzle gets the bone harp to play an old human restorative hymn. Dagger oozes back into warm life. The dracolich overrides his helm of telepathy and cordially requests the return of his freedom tooth. Dagger relinquishes the tooth. The dracolich departs heading further into the dungeon, which it turns out is the ancient dwarven mine of Undermountain. Bizzle tosses the bone harp to Mutt, but they’re keeping Fendi’s father. Tricksy, compulsive collector of dangerous knickknacks, collects the vial of marsember pox.
The team gathers around Fendi and her father to escort them out. Squat and his Old Lady guard a portal opened by the Quastarte mages for their egress. Mr. Gray peers at Squat intently. Squat peers back impressively, holding Mr. Gray and gnolls at bay and definitely not petrifying. The team leaves through the portal.