A troubled Rooster ambles into the common room studying the papers gripped in his betrayed hands. Slick, Tatters, and Bizzle follow Rooster back to his office. He worriedly retrieves a small metal box from his gnomish filing cabinet and places it in the center of his desk. Rooster reveals that he has uncovered a traitor at R&S. Bizzle and Slick immediately point at each other. No, no, no, the traitor is not in this room.
Rooster flips a switch on the small metal box and the group is suddenly standing on an ocean floor. A fish swims through Tatters and the group relaxes when it does not leave a fish-shaped hole. That and their regular breathing suggest this is an illusion.
The group observes the replay of a historical R&S mission in progress [The Golden Merchant]. Shark-mounted sahuagin harry the Kowalish Apparatus Thingy (KAT). A Craig-the-Insidious-like supervisor declares that the traitor is well-informed in that “they” showed up, but not the expected “they”. Rooster switches off the illusion.
From this bit of intelligence, Rooster has narrowed a short list of suspects which he hands out to Slick and Bizzle. Tatters has to look over their shoulders. On the back of the list is an open warrant to use when the traitor is positively identified. Rooster suggests a low-key interview process of the suspects. And if they want to requisition supplies, see the quartermaster first. 
A zone of truth would be super handy in this situation, so the task force goes to see the quartermaster, a teacup goliath called Andre the Goliath. No, Andre the Goliath does not have a couple of twenty charge zone of truth wands available. No, he can’t get such an item delivered priority next morning either. No, it makes no difference whether it’s ten charges or twenty. The team leaves Andre the Goliath to his incompetence and heads to the common room where there’s a good chance of encountering someone on the list.
Stepping into the common room, they hear the unfortunate sounds of Dischord tuning up his ocarina. To the sonic relief of the common room occupants, Bizzle invites Dischord to the cafeteria for a Pepsi and a chat. Under some light questioning by the party, Dischord claims to be a 20 year scribe at R&S, yet somehow has never met any of them, nor tried Pepsi. Tatters runs his helm of detect thoughts and confirms Dischord’s claims. Slick puts the squeeze on, asking if Dischord has heard the rumors of a traitor at R&S. Tatters reads him as legitimately concerned about a traitor, yet there is a murmuring corner of Dischord’s mind that blocks detection and rejects Tatters. Without evidence of a betrayal, the task force has no choice but to move on.
Conveniently nearby in the kitchen is suspect MMM preparing today’s lunch of seared rothe and mashed catatas. Mostly MMM seems to pedal the power source for the automated gnomish kitchen apparati that are preparing the meal. MMM grunts at their arrival. MMM grunts at their questions. MMM grunts at everything. Tatters catches on to the surprisingly efficient language of grunting and confirms that MMM has enjoyed 37 years of employment as R&S’s pedaling cook. Probing MMM’s thoughts reveals no betrayal, mostly just the pedal-pedal-pedal cadence necessary for his culinary success. MMM’s thoughts do reveal that he is in a great position to hear mealtime rumors of a traitor, and some R&S agents suspect Bizzle because of the timing of his employment. 
Tatters probes for a murmuring corner of MMM’s mind but finds only a void. Bizzle wonders if parasites abandoned MMM’s brain and moved into Dischord’s. Tatters emphasizes the metaphorical nature of the void.
Storm sorcerer Crackle suddenly appears behind the party. Not Cackle the laughing storm sorcerer traitor suspect, but Crackle the storm sorcerer sent by Rooster to help with the investigation of traitor suspects. It’s difficult to keep up without a program which Rooster gave to Crackle, but which Tatters still has to read over their shoulders.
Crackle’s arrival is fortuitous because synergistic peer review is one of his leveragable competencies. They find half-orc Sneak, the next suspect, in the armory. Crackle keeps Sneak off balance with rapid fire queries. Sneak gives six out of ten thumbs up for Rooster’s management style. He rates his own performance three out of ten, or is it ten out of three. It becomes apparent that Sneak doesn’t understand ratios very well, and that’s nothing compared to his problematic grasp of spatial abstraction evidenced by his most frequent customer and reliable friend, his own reflection in a polished battle axe. From mental monitoring by Tatters, it seems unlikely that Sneak is capable of masterminding a betrayal of R&S, but he could easily be subject to unwitting manipulation. Slick notices a dart missing from a dart display on the wall and asks about it. Sneak recounts that hood came in, hood see special dart, hood give money to buy special dart, hood leave. Is the purchase of a single dart by a hooded figure significant? Bizzle buys the 26 silver coins paid for the dart and activates the helm of teleportation to see where the payment associates.
Andre the Goliath demands to know why Bizzle is suddenly in his office. Yes, he recognizes that bag of coins as recently lent to a hooded figure, and here’s the contract on it. The contract is signed, X.
The task force regroups in the common room where Dischord entertains. Crackle requests “The King’s Feet Are Stinky” and they quickly leave to avoid any risk of hearing that piece rendered by Dischord. They head outdoors to locate the next traitor suspect, orange grung Dart.
As they approach Waterdeep Community Park, they can see a figure leaping tree to tree. They catch up with Dart who’s wearing gloves and leather sleeves. Bizzle rudely inquires why Dart’s gloves have so few fingers. Dart explains that five is the most common number of fingers for a grung, but the gloves and sleeves are to protect others from poisonous secretions. Bizzle shakes Dart’s gloved hand and does not die. 
Dart’s story checks out, so far. Dart has worked for R&S as an assassin for a couple of years. His specialty is blowguns which he uses to deliver his sweat poison to various political targets assigned by R&S. It’s a good living, except he resents his handle because nobody appreciates the difference between a blowgun needle and a thrown dart. Oh, also there’s that huge problem that Tatters picks up on from Dart’s thoughts: it’s true, Dart has a major gambling problem. He owes Andre the Goliath big time from three dragon ante, and his cheated winnings from alternate nights spent at the local tavern aren’t enough to cover his snowballing debt. Dart is vulnerable to compromise by insidious forces, but Tatters detects no such betrayal in his mind. Crackle detects no stashed hooded garment on his person that would implicate him in the dart purchase, not that Dart would stoop to even use a dart. Just blowguns. Blowguns are distinct from darts in any numerous ways—.
The task forces’ greycoats mercifully interrupt Dart’s enumeration of the differences between darts and blowguns, beeping an urgent summons back to Rooster. Dart needs help, but clearly is not the traitor. Tatters hands him a Gamblers Anonymous contact card and they hasten back to R&S to see what the hubbub is about.
Rooster leads the summoned task force to a secure hallway previously unexplored by any of them. He stops at a door sealed by mithril banding and hands Slick a bucket; it’s going to be bad. Arty the forest gnome, who was independently working the research side of this traitor case, has been murdered. Rooster removes the banding and opens the door.
Arty’s deceased body lies greying on the floor. His desktop has been burned. Slick investigates Arty’s corpse and finds it has been drained of every last drop of blood, yet there is no blood in the room or obvious wound. Tatters looks around for Arty’s research notes and finds a charred scroll which he must have been working on when the desktop was burned. Crackle pulls out Plan B and smacks it on Arty’s forehead. Shadow Arty pops out of his body and frantically looks around. Crackle calms him down.
Tatters starts the helm of detect thoughts on Shadow Arty while Crackle questions him. Arty didn’t see his killer, but he did hear footsteps, like a halfling’s lightness. He was poked in the neck before losing all his blood. Slick has heard enough: they are looking for a one-fang vampire. Tatters is a little more thorough and finds the glass dart, purchased from Sneak, sticking in Arty’s neck. It’s a needle of holding which has extracted Arty’s blood to a pocket dimension. Diabolical.
It seems the traitor has murdered Arty to prevent revelation of his identity, but he didn’t consider Crackle’s plan B. They quickly formulate a plan to flush out the traitor who will be forced into dealing with Shadow Arty to prevent exposure. Crackle casts invisibility on the team and they disperse themselves along a preplanned route that will reveal Arty’s “survival” in a controllable situation.
Arty drags his corpse to the hangar where Cackle is on the BURPS conversating with Jeff the Elemental. Cackle immediately spots Shadow Arty dragging his corpse and is, from Tatters’s read, genuinely dismayed at Arty’s condition. Cackle is not the murderer and therefore not the traitor.
Beaky 27 is also in the hanger, longingly observing PTATAs in flight. Beaky 27 has no concern at all for Arty’s plight, which seems perfectly reasonable once they notice he’s wearing a chalk board to communicate with his hearing co workers. Crackle directs Arty to drag around in front of Beaky 27 so that Tatters can get a read on him. Beaky 27 becomes genuinely concerned when he notices Arty. Beaky 27 is not the murderer and therefore not the traitor.
That’s everyone on the suspect list. Either Rooster overlooked someone, or the task force did. The common room is next on the dragging plan. Hopefully Dischord is still there with his ocarin-playing murmur mind.
Arty drags into the common room while the task force carefully scans the crowd for anyone with a suspect reaction. Dischord is present but has no reaction to seeing Arty. Arty, however, pauses uneasily when he sees Dischord. Tatters goes with a hunch and dispels magic from Dischord, but nothing happens. Slick carefully scrutinizes Dischord’s expression and concludes Dischord knows something about this, like maybe Tatters got the right target in the wrong way. Bizzle hangs back to observe Dischord. Crackle escorts Arty to the infirmary. Slick heads toward Dischord’s quarters to look for evidence to indict weird-acting Dischord. Tatters maneuvers to stay within thought detection range of Dischord. Dischord starts to head for his quarters, not so far behind Slick.
Slick has to break into a second security door that Dischord has installed inside his quarters. Dischord approaches with Bizzle, still invisible, clandestinely trailing close behind. Dischord gets irritated at Tatters following him and commands Tatters to betray. It’s the first indication of open hostility. Tatters counterspells and yells a warning. A head pokes out from an unrelated doorway, retreats, and then red alert klaxons begin wailing their warning of betrayal. Bizzle leaps from invisible stealth and scimitars Dischord so violently that scimitar Destra gets stuck in the newly resurfaced floor tiling. Tatters conjures up magic missiles, but Dischord counters them. Taking advantage of the confusion, Slick charges out of Dischord’s quarters and axes up Dischord with sneaky finesse. Crackle runs in from the infirmary just in time for the moment he’s been awaiting all day with itchy lightning fingers. He sends a bolt of lightning that passes fully through Tatters, then passes fully through Bizzle, then, with the little bit of lightning left over, kills traitor Dischord.
Rooster and a sizable cadre of R&S on-call security officers arrive in time to watch Bizzle cut the top of Dischord’s skull off in case an alien parasite is in there making Dischord do all these terrible deeds. It’s nothing but Dischord’s brain all the way through, so Bizzle plan B’s him for questioning.
Zombie Dischord eats his own exposed brain.