GLASSFANG SYNDICATE — EXPEDITION REPORT

Submitted by: Theodore Crane

Expedition Date: 26 Tarsakh, 1502 DR 

Location: Waterdeep - Blue Alley

SUMMARY A brief factual account of the expedition's objective and outcome.

• Sylk, Roteye, Jaeherys, Vernal and myself were sent by Lord Mert to find a Celestite Unicorn statue to add to his collection in exchange for 250 gp as well as keeping whatever we find.
• We recovered the Unicorn as well as some other treasure: precious gemstones, some sort of magical sword.
• No casualities

ENCOUNTER LOG A chronological account of all hostile engagements.

1. 6 Boggles: 5 Killed, 0 Injured, 1 Unharmed
2. 2 Spectres: 2 Killed, 0 Injured
3. 8 Smoke Mephits: 5 Killed, 3 Unharmed
4. 6 Skeletons: 6 killed
5. 1 Shadow: 1 Killed

FINDINGS & ACQUISITIONS Items, intelligence, or assets recovered.

1. 1 potions of healing
2. Glowing Longsword

RESOURCE EXPENDITURE Consumables used and current stock.

1. Vernal’s sword
2. Jaeheryas' Rope
3. Rotgut's Ink
4. Theodore’s Ink

It was supposed to be a quick job, get the item that was requested, get out. Unfortunatly, the greed of my crew took over and we faced way more perils than was needed. The job is done, anyways. Found quite an interesting illuminating sword, should be a nice adition to my treasury.

(The following is written with obnoxiously neat handwriting.)

The Blue Alley

25-26 Tarsakh, 1502 DR

Jaeherys, Roteye, Sylk (myself), Theodore, and Vernal traveled to the Yawning Portal of Waterdeep and spoke with the Masked Lord, Mert. The task was to retrieve a unicorn statuette made of celestite, in return for two hundred and fifty gold pieces (fifty each, split five ways). We agreed and asked around the tavern for information on the Sea Ward's Blue Alley, finding little but speculation and hearsay as to the wizard's dungeon. Following the Waterdhavian Theodore's lead, we proceeded.

The entrance hallway included a ledger in which attempting adventurers would sign their names for entry. We discovered a mural, containing our visages suffering fates at the behest of traps, a note regarding a secret door fifty feet south of a barred window (undiscovered), as well as options- gold to the west, and silver to the east. Choosing east, we found two doors (later explored) and a relief of a skeleton. A button was pressed in its maw, and a third door opened. We arrived to a rather clean room, and a door beyond housing a voice requesting entertainment. As we perused ideas and played our various instruments, several Boggles accosted us. One swiped Vernal's blade and tossed it into a fiery pit. Another attempted to take Theodore's backpack and my own boots. Though the Boggles weren't necessarily hostile, all but one fell to our attacks, as we could not successfully avoid them. Later, we'd find the strange voice from a bronze statue named Keilier, demanding a specific riddle to be told (undiscovered). Scrawled along the walls was the phrase, "Utter madness. PURE RUBBISH" (undiscovered). We left Keilier to his own devices.

As the fray continued, another room held an illusion of Mystra's clerics, fading into that of Kelemvorites destroyed by undead. A phrase, and part of Keilier's riddle, was along the walls- "GET THROUGH." A tense altercation against two specters occurred. Beyond the illusory room was one with walls of mirrors, containing the celestite unicorn statuette we needed. A brief riddle involving closing one's eyes so their material possessions wouldn't teleport away entertained us. Regardless, we retrieved the statuette. Though our hubris got the better of us, and we desired to investigate the dungeon further after a short rest.

The room before the specter one contained copious piles of coin and a phrase saying "Take only what you can truly afford." We decided to take none of it, especially as the coins seemingly spelled "ALL FAKE" along the ground. The next room beyond contained bars along the edges and the voice of a magic mouth. "Beyond these gates lies paradise. Enter them as you entered life, and you may yet find it; grasp the jewel and grasp the iron, then be whisked away to the truest of rewards." We never discovered the meaning of the jewel or the iron, and decided to come back if we discovered answers. We never did.

A room on the left contained a highly volatile workshop. Theodore retrieved healing potions but warned us not to use fire...

The room at the end of this hallway, as well as the furthest point north we explored, contained a seemingly bottomless pit, and platforms hanging above it by chains in the ceiling. As Jaeherys proceeded ahead of us to retrieve a hanging glowing sword, ash mephits attacked. Our monk friend returned to us as we picked off the flying nuisances, and we shut the doors against other mephits to not need to worry about them. Vernal detonated the workshop when the rest of us had moved on. Fortunately, only an ash mephit was caught in the blaze.

We returned towards the entrance, to the two undiscovered rooms from before. We learned these rooms connected in a horseshoe-like shape though were filled with unfortunate traps. One side placed me in a floating state, nearly electrocuting myself. Using the flight, I attempted to traverse the other hall's spike pit, though the flight wore off before I could reach safety. We navigated everyone through the lightning room and to a silver door, which Roteye and Theodore made short work of. A junk pile appeared before us, though I would be remiss to not call it the Hidden Bear Trap Room. Vernal was caught and skeletons flooded the area. Though Jaeherys and myself nearly met our fates, the tactics of the other three kept us tethered to the Material Plane. Vernal and Roteye poked a discovered altar that contained gemstones. A shadow appeared, felled fast by our skills, but enough was enough. We all left, though fortunately, a bit more wealthy than when we had entered.

Masked Lord Mert was thrilled, paid us for our time, and we began the long walk back to the Glassfang Syndicate.

Loot

• 378gp (250gp from Mert, 128gp from gemstones)
  • 75.6gp to each party member
• 1 Potion of Healing
• 1 Moon-Touched Sword

All notes are listed with accuracy to the best of my memory. -Sylkran "Sylk" Teke'zynge, 26 Tarsakh, 1502 DR

[In a practiced, but unremarkable hand.]

From the Recollection of Roteye Bogrut

The 26th Sun of Tarsakh, Dalereckoning

The very first step into my career as an agent of The Glassfang Syndicate was arduous, and nearly spelt the end for several of our number. Sylk, a drow and apparent catalyst of this excursion, alongside Vernal, perhaps the most odd of the company being a sort of construct, helped carved through the ranks of undead and elsewise with arcane blasts that suited warlocks. It hadn't come up in conversation the source of their power, but it mattered little in that forsaken dungeon, and much less than that they held their own. Jaeherys held the focus of monk, but in the largest frame of a dragonborn I've witnessed such discipline, and at times bold and headlong in the way he took the brunt of the blows. But besides, he kept our spellslingers from much of the harm and that deserves commendation. Theodore, a scholarly sort that carried a roguishness about him in the way he could navigate a lock's tumblers. He knew his way around a prod and tiller as well, carrying with him a hand crossbow. And finally myself, shored up with Waukeen's blessings and a surety that proved to be undeserved.

Our goal, at the behest of one Lord Mert, a mirthsome noble of some renown among Waterdhavians though unfamiliar to me, had been a sculpture carved of pure celestite. Had I more time, I would have like to study its facets and discover more of its origins. I would have also enjoyed some determination of its value, apart from the gold promised for its retrieval. I have my suspicions the margins are canyon-wide between our payment and its appraised value, though fortunately we managed to escape with just a touch more than gold. And it did not come without great peril. To remove some worry, this is where I will say we all managed to come away within our mortal coils if only just. With that, I will make note of some of our encounters within.

The antechamber of the Blue Alley has us all signing a ledger of visitors, ominous in that not every name was marked off. Suspected then, and all but confirmed thereafter, the names were struck from the record for having perished in the arcane vault. A hallway opened to a mural depicted what may have been many of these deaths, and stranger still were depictions of our own potential ends. We would find a room inexorably tidied, and likely being touched up as I write this well after our departure, by dedicated hands of boggles. Strange creatures, perhaps called to task by a wizard's statue of poured bronze that resided in a side closet and demanding entertainment. A song was played, Sylk and Jaeherys with lute and flute respectively, and perhaps to the statue's dissatisfaction the boggles were summoned. Ultimately it wasn't song or show the statue was interested in but a riddle whose prose seemingly would be earned through exploring the vault's chambers exhaustively.

Boggles juggled the task of cleaning the chambers and retaliating after a deadly charge from Vernal that would ultimately push us from the room and deeper into the dungeon, Vernal's sword being lost in the process. Perhaps in search of escape from the commotion, Jaeherys would lead this particular charge into a room of murals from which shadowy spirits ambushed us. It may have been to our advantage we weren't taken much by surprise, already on edge in the ongoing buffeting of boggles. They were dispatched handily enough, and in the muraled chamber we peacefully made our way to our prize. Sat in a room made of a singular unsegmented mirror was the celestine unicorn. Headlong again, Jaeherys attempted to collect the item but an enchantment saw that he would exit with little else but what was granted by nature. The enchantment was bypassed by passing through the threshold with eyes shut, a solution to a disembodied declaration 'all that one saw belonged to it'.

With the unicorn in possession and dragonborn clothed, we would proceed into a room half-masked by smoke and with large metal saucers, each suspended by a single chain that ran to the ceiling. They were arranged in a series of steps like stones in a creek and Jaeherys with considerable agility tasked himself with traversal. We, or rather one of us would know the true depths beyond the layer of smoke the saucers floated above. A thankfully survivable depth that would earn our dragonborn companion an illuminated sword, its value to be determined. Less thankfully, it earned us all a hectic scuffle with a gang of mephits.

Surviving that, and considerably worse for wear, we abandoned what mephits were left behind doors they couldn't open and traced our steps back. We had the intention of hastily looting what could easily be grasped on our way out but those plans quickly fell by the wayside. Two halls that turned out to be joined at the end, one had lightning rods high up the very tall walls arcing elemental energy amongst themselves, and the other a pit of spikes too long to leap. Sylk had the idea, and the rope to enact it, of making a tether for us to reel in should things go awry as he went down the lightning hall. Awry things went as he found a pressure plate. A trap of the arcane variety made him weightless and worse still, floating up towards the crackling webs of energy.

Our quick action pulled him back to safety. though my contributions were up for question given my lacking strength. Truthfully, I felt my own feet lifting from the floor with only my weight lending aide to our efforts at several moments. But a floating Sylk at the end of a rope was found to be to our benefit. We guided him to the other hallway where he could float effortlessly across the spiked pit. Best intentions were whittled by the poor timing of the enchantment's end. Sylk fell from the air and into the pit, subject to grisly piercing and yet another pressure plate. He was elevated again but instead of magic, it was the mechanical throwing of the spikes in the pit towards the ceiling. Still, Sylk would persist with good spirits and a vitality granted by his given arcanism.

Beyond even these trials lied a room that wouldn't be out of place in the tribal strongholds of my youth. All manner of litter coated the floor of the next chamber and in its midst were hunters' biting traps made magically invisible. Each of us that dared to set foot in the room found several traps and certainly not by intention. With several of us either injured, anchored, or both, we were ambushed by armed skeletons that flooded the room. I did get the pleasure of witnessing the natural boons of dragonborns of gold as be breathed a column of fire to soften them up. But he would fall, and Sylk would follow, gravely wounded during the onslaught. The three of us that stood, and barely so by my reckoning, were able to clear the room and keep our allies from the brink, earning a handful of gems and the final attempt of a lone specter that surely aimed to keep them.

Perhaps too much time has been spent already to write this into record, and inopportune as I've yet to clear myself wholly of blood, sweat, and mephit muck. But I hoped to capture the memory and spirit of the slog endured. My prayers to The Golden Lady this evening will be that the coin spent for deserved recuperation doesn't subsume our earnings so much so that generosity is thought to be a burden.