(G427 03/10/2020 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM)) WA73

 (G427 03/10/2020 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM)) WA73

[To return to Fenrir and his cold war against the vampires of Westgate]

DAY 482  (27th Kythorn)(June)  cont ...

That night Fenrir had a nightmare. He dreamed of a cave in the forest. As he walked  towards it, he heard cackling from within. As he went in, walking past a campfire, he saw two women leaning over a third. There was a scream, then a baby was held aloft.
The baby had horns...

Fenrir woke with a start. He was sure he had dreamed of Nexelmode, and it probably wasn't a good omen. He did some sums on his fingers. If he had got her pregnant the baby wasn't due for another three months. Or was there sorcery and/or devilry at work? He tried to dimiss it from his mind and get back to sleep.

DAY 483  (28th Kythorn)(June)

Still, he had a spring in his step as he went to work. The sun was shining and the birds were singing. He helped himself to 500 gold from the Watch fund for 'expenses' and went on with his day.

He was getting fed up with stories of trouble at the Dock Ward. The death of Sweetpea was still an issue.

He put that to one side though when a nobleman called Salvis Ssemm came to him, demanding justice from a merchant that he said had cheated him.

In theory Fenrir was now the Supreme Justice of Westgate, but he had little idea of the law (usually being on the wrong side of it - hoho!) so he went to speak to one of his judges.

He had six and the most 'sensible' one (if there is such a thing as a sensible judgein Westgate) - Jenner Fields, a half-orc commoner who had risen to prominence due to her intellect and wisdom.

She looked over the paperwork. It was insurance for a caravan that had been lost.
'It's not been notarised,' she said. 'A technicality that renders these papers legally rubbish. Morally Ssemm is right, he paid for the caravan and the insurance I presume, but legally the merchant is in the right.'

The merchant in question was a halfling caravan leader called Ampy Dung and Fenrir went to see him. It was only a matter of 400 gold, so Fenrir got Ampy to hand over 200 gold and gave it to Ssemm.
So neither party happy, but neither party coming back round to Fenrir's door again so it was all to the good.

(For the record the 6 judges of Westgate are:

Rona Nylo - half-elf male - Good - Adept - Very wise
Duvamil 'Badger' the Proud - half-gnome - Aristocrat female - Lawful and Good - Not Wise and not clever
Darius Mendez - Paladin -  - Lawful and Good - not clever
Rotrick Parsemen - Aristocrat - Lawful - not clever and not wise
Gniess the Dancer - Aristocrat - Dwarf - Chaotic and Good - clever, but not wise
Jenner Fields - half-orc female - Commoner - Neutral in all things - clever and wise
)

Fenrir spent the rest of the day finding out about Katheera Urdo, the next name on his list. She lived at Castle Urdo but could often be found at the Purple Lady.
Fenrir remembered the place as Random (back when he was pretending to be a merchant called Nebulus) had been based there, as had Fenrir for a few days.
It was a house full of expensive tarts, just the sort of place he liked.

That night, he, Veddic and Raz went there, in disguise. They got a table and mingled for a while, keeping their spending low key.
She was not there that night, but they did talk to a man called Degasus Tarensun who said he could arrange a meeting. He need to know Fenrir's name and the name of the target.
Fenrir gave his name as 'Barry Shit-Knees' and the target as 'Veddic Carver'!

Veddic (in disguise) sat bolt upright as he had not been informed of this part of the plan!
'Not an easy target,' said Tarensun, who had heard of Veddic. 'But come here again tomorrow and we can see what happens.'


DAY 484  (29th Kythorn)(June)

There was a minor dispute between the Tavern Keepers Guild and the Watchmen about how much free beer was an acceptable amount to ask for. Fenrir came down on the side if the Watchmen.

The main thing though was the Dock Ward.
'It's total rubbish!' declared Portia. 'Watchmen are being harassed in the street. Getting stones thrown at them by kids and stuff. It's still all about  the death of Sweetpea.'

What Fenrir really wanted to do was go down there and burn it to the ground,
but he decided to think about it first.
He called in the three sheriffs and got three different opinions
"Crush them!", "Don't Crush Them!" and "I don't know!"

(For the record, the three sheriffs are:

    - Rebeca Thorngage - Chaotic and Evil Fighter - Human female - dumb but tough (city)
    - Eme the Stalwart - Lawful and Good human female - Athletic and wise (exterior)
    - Kirken Jenelet - Neutral in all things warrior Half-orc male - tough, not clever (dock)
)

Kirken, who was sheriff of the Dockward also said, 'these things pass...'
So far he had been wrong about that though.
'What about the guilds? Can they not control their workers?' asked Fenrir
'Down there, only about a third of them work in the city,' explained Eme. 'The others are just the dregs. There are some sailors that live there, but they are mainly pirates.'

Fenrir sighed. Blasting the place to oblivion was still sounding like a viable plan.
Still, that evening he went, in disguise, to a few of the Dock Side taverns to see what people were saying.
He got into a conversation with two locals. One was a clerk and the other a stevedore.
'While I agree all this unrest is counter-productive' said the clever young clerk. 'Citizens  of the city have rights. If someone is blown to bits, there should be questions asked. And now  the person that did it is in charge of the Watch. How will Sweetpea ever get justice?'
'He was attacked,' said the disguised Fenrir, 'Was he not meant to defend himself?'
'Pah!' put in the stevedore. 'She was just trying to earn a few bob, like the rest of us. Sure she made a mistake, but from wot I heard, there was hardly anything left of her to bury! Bunch of wankers. One rule for us and one rule for them innit? A nobleman falls off his 'orse and bursts his head open - dead - his family go down the Temple, pay the money and he's back in the land of the living again. What about people like us though eh? Once  we're dead we're dead and that's the end of it.'

Fenrir nodded along with the clerk. He was beginning to get the idea!

(G426 26/09/2020 via Roll20 - AP(GM), JF) LR26

 (G426 26/09/2020 via Roll20 - AP(GM), JF) LR26

[More of my notes from my time on Mid Point Island - where we had defeated the Unseen and had taken control of the island.]

DAY 494 (10th Flamerule) (July) cont ...

I think I've lost track of the days somewhere along the way. The beginning of my life as the 'Warden of Midpoint Island' is a bit of a blur. There was so much to take in and sometimes 'Alfred the Smoke Monster' as I called him would simply just insert information into my head if he thought it would save time.

So for the first few days I felt like I'd been finding and eating magic mushrooms in the Kryptgarden Forest.

For the rest of the day and night, my family and companions left me to talk to Alfred.

Here are my unstructured notes from these conversations:

- The 'One way teleporter' acts as the Greater Teleportation spell. I'm not sure if it is interplanar
- Alfred is 13ft tall, a solid shadow. He can pick up a rock and throw it.
- The nasties that the prison contains come from 'All Planes, All Realities and All Times'
- Mid Point Island has a temperate climate, much the same as Waterdeep. It is 12 miles wide from top to bottom.
- The Island 'appears in times of crisis', and always in the current location. It was last seen 1500 years ago, around lunchtime
- The Warden bestows the 'Mark of Welcome'. Any being with a conscious alignment is affected by the lack of it if they arrive on the island - so humanoids, monsters, undead etc. Animals are not generally affected.
- The last Warden was the creator of the island. A sort of 'White Wizard'. He channeled 'oceans of magical energy' in order to make the island. He lived thousands of years ago and now he is dead.
- The island 'surfaced' again after interference form an outside force - i.e. the Mindflayers
- The trees on the island appeared and grew quickly due to the presence of the strong nature magic of me and Sylvia channeled via Alfred somehow
- I do now know the island (via Intellicus) while not on the island
- The crystal ball in the Teleporter room acts as the Greater Scrying spell
- The Wardenship can be passed on to someone willing and worthy
- The Warden can leave the island whenever he likes. Alfred can send a message if the Warden is needed back

Well, anyway, tonight we are sleeping on the ships.
But while we ate our evening meal we talked of our plans and what to do next. Lavinia had great plans for turning the island into a colony like she did with Farshore.
I don't know what Alfred would think of that, but surely he won't expect us to be daring our own socks?
'What about the caves though?' I asked her.
'People do wander,' chimed in Irritator

I decided to seal off the caves for now (apart from a hole big enough for a druid to get through!).  We can cross that bridge when we came to it.


DAY 495 (11th Flamerule) (July)

Today Lavinia went off in the Black Cat with 2000 gold to go get supplies and try and persuade some people to come and live here.
She took Sylvia, Irritator, Giselle, father and Eno with her.
Corum and Gharlie teleported back, as advance scouts.

We reckoned she'd be gone about a month.

This left just me, Molly and Rolanda on the island, with one empty boat that we have taken to calling 'Sister'.

I've started experimenting with building houses. As a Huge Earth Elemental I have no problem moving rocks around. I can then Stone Shape them into rough dwellings and use Wood Shape to strengthen them.

In one day I can build a very small cabin. If I take two days I can build a small house with four small rooms.

After all that fun, in the afternoon, I flew over to both the Waterdeep and Neverwinter fleets to invite them to visit.
The message I left was this:
'The new Warden of Mid Point Island invites you to send an emissary as soon as you like.'

I then looked around for animals to awaken. Currently on the island there are no land animals except for three stray dogs. There are plenty of seagulls though.

As an extra pair of eyes in the sky might be useful I decided to awaken a seagull and began today.

DAY 496 (12th Flamerule) (July)

Finished awakening the seagull. Named him Jonathan.

Built another house.

DAY 497 (13th Flamerule) (July)

Two Jolly boats arrived today, with delegations from Waterdeep and Neverwinter. There were four men on each craft and as they stepped onto the beach the all looked sick and fearful. I remembered to put the 'Mark of Welcome' on them and they perked up after that.

Each side had sent a captain from one of their ships, rough sorts of fellows really. I had a prepared speech:
'I'm the Warden of Mid Point Island now. There is nothing of value here, but if you wish it then you may set up embassies here'

Long-John Arsehole (one of the captains, I forget which one) pipes up;
'What's to stop us from taking the island from you?'

Well, other than all the other things that had been stopping him up until now there was also Alfred, who I introduced them to. 'Meet the Smoke Monster!'

Obviously a 13 foot tall shadow monster made them a bit more polite.
'How?' they asked.
'I'll not go into details,' I answered politely. 'But I'm in charge now.'
They asked who I was and I saw no point in lying. The Temple of Mystra knew who I was, I'd talked to Starseer himself, and it would only be a matter of time before my name was known.
'Rollo Lavius,' I said.

'We need to report back,' they said as they went to leave.

I have the feeling they thought I was a mad man.


DAY 498 (14th Flamerule) (July)

I decided to have a wee tour of the Coffins today, but quickly gave up as it was too terrifying. There are things down on the lower levels that would turn someone's soul inside out and I can barely make it past the first floor.

So, instead I teleported back to the OJB in Waterdeep to see what was going on. Corum was a bit miffed because he had already had representatives of the Open Lord around asking about what his brother (i.e. me) was up to!

Corum was keeping his ear to the ground, but even so he had heard nothing of the Unseen in Waterdeep. They were hard to find, of course, so that did not mean they were not still here.

In disguise, we went to find Reasonable Bob of the Temple of Mystra and let him know that
a) the amulets had worked a treat
b) the island was now secure, and
c) we had stopped the Blue Phage

He was happy with that (particularly 'c') and we agreed that a top Mystran cleric could come over to the island some time to take a look.

Spend the night at the OJB. Lavinia and the Black Cat are not here yet, they will be about halfway.

DAY 499 (15th Flamerule) (July)

Filled my Bag of Holding full of pies, chips and bottles of beer and flew back to the island. Got there about six in the evening.

I gave some chips to Jonathan. He had nothing to report. Something was going on though, he'd not spotted that their were eight people on the island. I could sense them clearly, up on the north side, heading inland.

I flew up their straight away, dropped down beside them and introduced myself, much to their amazement and shock.

They were adventurers, by appearance, a collecting of armoured men, rogues, wizards and clerics.
There was a half orc, an elf and a halfling also in their party. They were heavily armed.
'What are you doing here?' I asked.
'We, ah, are here on a task.'
'That's hardly an answer,' I scoffed. 'This is my island. You are trespassing.'
The leader grunted and waved at me dismissively. 'Don't get in our way.'
'Let me introduce you to the Smoke Monster,' I replied as Alfred appeared beside me.

That put the wind right up them and they started backing off. One of them tried to cast a  spell and failed.
'Stop!' I demanded. 'Stop and talk. Who are you people?'
'Ah!' one yelped. 'We are not at liberty to say!'
At that point they started running back to the coast. I thought of stopping them, but could think of no way that would not end in a punch up.
Alfred could have stopped them and put them in Blue Coffins, but he had told me that this caused terrible agony and I had no desire to visit that on them, whoever they were. Those Blue Coffins give me the heebie-jeebies.

The little halfling threw down some caltrops as they ran. This was an aggressive action, but I let this also pass - even though in a brief flash of anger all I wanted to do was catch the little shit and shove all the caltrops down his throat.

They waded into the water and swam out far enough, beyond the Protection Barrier until one of them could cast Teleportation. And off they went.

I returned to the cave and used the crystal ball to Scrye them.

They were sitting on benches in a stone walled room.
'Oof!' said one of them. 'That island just aint right!'

(G425 19/09/2020 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM)) WA72

(G425 19/09/2020 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM)) WA72

DAY 480  (25th Kythorn)(June)  cont...

The chair that Raz threw hit Whitey like a meteor, striking him in the chest and sending him flying backwards.

Mayhem erupted.

A rogue called 'Yellow Ferret' threw a chair at Raz, but accidentally hit Whitey's friend 'Sausage Face' in the back. Chairs and bottles flew, people that wanted to avoid the fight surged away and those that wanted part of it surged in.

Fenrir took his eyes off Whitey as a group of adventurers in the corner joined in, a fighter, a rogue and a wizard. He took them out one by one with Painful Slumber. It cost him time though and Raz was also getting swamped, fending off blows left and right.

He lashed out at a 'Mysterious Stranger' - his blow didn't seem to do any damage although it did connect.

The Stranger struck back, a much more powerful blow than Raz had expected from anyone in a dock side tavern. He staggered back.

'IS THIS WHAT THEY CALL A BAR FIGHT?' asked the stranger.

'I suppose so,' muttered Raz as he backed off.

The only sensible one out of the lot of them was Veddic. He avoided the fleeing tarts and the dwarven miners piling in and kept his eyes on Whitey. The rogue was fleeing and headed into the back rooms. Veddic followed, but lost him. He then went outside and saw five watchmen heading for the tavern.

Raz too, by now, had joined the pursuit and deduced that Whitey had escaped by going up the chimney in one of the back rooms. He rushed out and told Fenrir, who cursed and ran out past the fighters to take a look. He ran right into the arms of the watch.

'Look, a bear!' he bluffed, making them all turn, before going invisible and taking to the air.

He spotted a shadowy figure running from roof to roof and followed him. The figure then dropped down and started walking. He then jumped out of his skin as Fenrir appeared before him and said;

'Let's try that again shall we?'

Whitey turned and felt.

Fenrir blasted, but by rare chance the spell fizzled.

'Help! Help! Murder!' shouted Whitey as he reached the door of another pub.

Fenrir hit him with a Painful Slumber spell that made Whitey slump into the doorway.

People were looking out of the doors and windows, and a nosey human female cleric of Umberlee was on  hand and wanted to take a look.

Luckily for Fenrir though, she was as drunk as skunk and he easily ignored her.

By then Raz and Veddic had caught up and they took Whitey away, pretending he was just a drunken friend. They took him up onto a roof a Veddic prepared him to be re-awakened.

Now - dear reader - at this point Fenrir left them all and what happened next I am not at all sure about, but I think he went off to find and talk to the 'Mysterious Stranger'.

What they talked about when he found him I am also not sure about, but I think it simply involved what the stranger was doing in the city and how he was enjoying the food.

Now, I've head it said that Fenrir thought he had met the Personification of Death. But that's impossible as no such being exists!

Fenrir may even have tried to recruit 'Death' to help him in the fight against the Vampires, reasoning that 'Death' would be no friend of the undead.

Whoever this being was though, he was on a schedule and had to leave Westgate later that night. Who had Fenrir met then? I'm not sure, perhaps a powerful demon or angel, or maybe the avatar or servant of one of the gods? Or maybe Fenrir is just making the whole thing up, it's entirely possible.

In any event, he returned to the rooftop half an hour later.

They woke up Whitey and questioned him. He soon gave up the name: Katheera "The Succubus" Urdo

'Where is she?' asked Fenrir.

'In her bed probably,' answered Whitey. He honestly did not know much about her comings and goings, but did know she lived at Castle Urdo with the rest of her noble family.

Satisfied with a single name Fenrir stabbed Whitey in the back of the head and once he was dead

Veddic turned him into an undead skeleton and stuffed him into his Bag of Holding.

Thus was the end of Whitey 'the Kid'.

DAY 481  (26th Kythorn)(June) 

After a solid night's sleep (I should imagine none of the three of them were troubled one wink by the cold blooded murder they had committed the night before!) Fenrir went to work, while Veddic and Raz flew over to Spectre Island to see Random.

There were now nearly 200 people living on the island, mainly refugees from the Plane of Shadow and it was turning into a bustling hive of activity.

'It's all good,' said Random. 'Everything is coming on nicely. We are all ready here for the next step, when you've sorted out the Vampires. If you ever have the desire for a change of pace there are a few pirate and/or goblin infested island around here you could deal with, but there is no rush!'

DAY 482  (27th Kythorn)(June) 

Again this morning Fenrir went to work. He was 'laying low' for a while to see what the fallout was from the death of Whitey.

He talked to Portia about it who told him;

'I've heard about the ruckus of course, but so far it's being considered as just another wild night in the Dock Ward.'

Fenrir smiled, put his feet on the desk and steepled his fingers together. Now he had to come up with a way of getting his hands on Katheera Urdo. 

(G424 05/09/2020 via Roll20 - AP(GM), JF) LR25

 (G424 05/09/2020 via Roll20 - AP(GM), JF) LR25

[While Fenrir was getting into a bar fight in Westgate, I was still pouring loads of summoned critters into the caves of the mind-flayers]

DAY 493 (9th Flamerule) (July) cont ...

More beasts were summoned, two more apes, one fiendish wolf, then packs of regular wolves until we had all run out of spells.

Again we advanced into the cleared areas, finding two dead ogres, a dead doppleganger and more dead mindflayers.

We also found treasure, gold and other coins, gems, scrolls and potions.

The caves opened up into a huge cavern, the size of a cathedral, and we could see massive crystals everywhere, in lumps as big as houses and growths as big as tree trunks. Jiggle was sent forward, from the entrance to take a look, while we  others stepped back into the tunnel.

On her return she reported that she saw a bunch of mindflayers gathered around one of the massive crystals, doing something arcane to it.

We had no magic left for another assault though, so we left them to it for today and went back outside to rest.

DAY 494 (10th Flamerule) (July)

In the morning we snuck back to the huge cave without being blocked or attacked. This far in, our magic barely functioned at all, but summoning was still the safest form of attack against enemies like mindflayers.

Wolves were sent in, a Yeth hound and several apes. Sylvia kept watch and listened to the fighting. Spell after spell failed, nullified by the anti-magic effect of the caves. A mindflayer was killed, then an ogre.

More spells failed and another ogre approached. More dopplegangers lurked further back. It looked dicey for a moment and I considered teleporting out and just going back to Waterdeep, admitting defeat and getting the Temple of Mystra to finish this off.

But I realised we had finally come to the point where we were relying too much on magic and I ordered everyone to start using their bows and crossbows.

This, combined with a lucky Celestial Bison that Sylvia summoned, did the trick. The Bison trampled the ogre and the arrows dealt with the dopplegangers.

I also managed to summon a Flaming Sphere, that together with the bison finally slew the last ogre.

Now Jiggles, armed with the magical bow I had loaned her, came into her own, and one by one she sniped the remaining mindflayers with deadly shots aimed from the shadows.

There were four, she killed one, then another, then the last two rushed at us. Sylvia summoned a Celestial bomb beetle and I summoned three hippogriffs. These only delayed them, but it was enough to give Jiggles time to stick arrows in them too.

The battle was over, so we went over the crystal that they had been so intent on. There was a nether-brain inside it, and judging by the cracks in the glass the mindflayers had been trying to release it.

Out of nowhere a giant black shadowy being - easily 30 feet tall - suddenly appeared and using some mysterious means began to repair the crystal.

After that he turned his attention to the cave and we watched in awe as all the crystal growths receded until only the 'crystal coffins' were left.

The shadow giant was not threatening, so while he attended to his business we wandered the cavern. We could see that there were creatures inside the 'coffins', all sorts of nasty things. Some of them we could tell that - somehow - they were observing us as we passed, which made us very uneasy.

I could feel them probing at my mind, a crushing pressure, and hear them cursing in dead languages and unknown tongues.

After about ten minutes the shadow giant seemed to have finished his tidy-up. It turned and looked at us. I gave it a friendly wave.
It raised a hand and we were frozen to the spot.

'Thank you, protectors,' is said inside our heads. 'Now you must choose a warden from your company.' We asked some questions and gathered that this was a sort of prison and that there must always be a warden.
'What if none of us want this job?' I squeaked.
'For this world and all worlds to remain,' it intoned. 'A warden must be present.'

I could hardly volunteer anyone else, so I mentally stepped forward. There was a surge of power in my head and it was suddenly full of knowledge that I scarcely wanted about this dreadful place and I passed out.

When I awoke I felt great. I felt aware of the entire island, like I was there looking at every part of it at once. Without being told I also knew that there were 66 'floors' below this cavern and from each floor led out six tunnels, each with more of the coffins and more of the prisoners within them. The further down you went, the nastier the prisoners. Up top was bad enough with nether-brains and what-have-you, but at the bottom there were nasties so nasty that they ate demogorgons for breakfast.

The knowledge I had of Mid Point Island came from a blessing called 'Intellcus.' Other blessings included a near doubling of my Druidic power, but the Shadow told me that this only happened while I was on the island.

I could summon the shadow whenever I wanted, on the island, so I called him Alfred, as he had to be called something. He told me that this place had been created for the worst and most evil of creatures in all of existence, many years ago, a sort of 'dark well of the weave' full of fell power. I barely understood what he meant.

Jiggles had discovered a side tunnel and shouted at us to take a look. There was a chamber at the end of the tunnel with floor tiles and pillars that made it look like a teleportation chamber.
Alfred explained: This chamber can be use to teleport to anywhere in Faerune. It is one way though.
He went on to say that the Island was protected with an 'Anti Teleportation Shield'.

He was forth-coming with information, though it was sometimes delivered in an odd sort of stilted way.

From my questioning of him I gathered the following information:

- The Dopplegangers and Mindflayers were indeed trying to free the Nether-brain
- My main duty as 'Warden' was to protect the island
- The 'Blue Phage' had been an unfortunate by-product of the mind-flayers interfering with the crystals that contain the prisoners
- The 'Blue Phage' could now be expected to be receding from all infections sites across Faerune
- There is a sort of aura or something that makes people feel ill-at-ease on the island unless I give them something that I am now calling the 'Mark of Welcome'. All I need do is will it.

We talked (if you could call it that) for much longer, Alfred and I, and some of it was so stomach-churningly terrifying that I am not fain to record it here in ink.
Perhaps one day.

Now I must rest. I has been a long day, with an end to it that I did not expect.

(G423 29/08/2020 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM)) WA71

 (G423 29/08/2020 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM)) WA71

[Back to Fenrir and his friends. Remember that Fenrir is now the head of the Westgate Watch and is also trying to go after the Nightmasks and their vampire masters]


DAY 481  (26th Kythorn)(June)  

One of Fenrir's duties as Commander of the Watch and Supreme Justice of Westgate was to attend regular council meetings.

These meetings were always sycophantic praise-fests for the glorious leader of Westgate, the Croamarkh Dreydal Trant.
Fenrir, ever the charmer, was at ease in situations like these, perfectly at home shmoozing and buttering up anyone that required it.

After the meetng, during the day he flew over to Spectre Island and talked to Random, who  was back from the Plane of Shadows again.
Fenrir arranged to have some 'garlic bombs' manufactured, the purchase of some mirrors and he also tasked Veddic with casting two Hallow spells (with Aid) on his house.

Back at work, Fenrir talked to Portia, about the factions of Westgate and vampires. She said she would start digging up information for him.
As a check Fenrir held up a mirror to her, and she was clearly reflected in it and not disturbed in any way. He gave it to her as a gift.

He guessed that she was thinking that he was after some big win against the Night Masks in order to impress the Croamarkh.
He asked her directly, 'what do you think about me going after the vampires?'
'I think you are going to die,' she replied bluntly.

That evening, back at home, he thought rather unrealistically of digging a ditch all the way around the city, as he had done around his house, as the first advance against the vampires, but then he remembered that Random had told him to go look for Whitey the Kid, so he got Veddic and Raz roused up and out they all went for a night on the town.

Disguised (using Hats of Disguise) as sellswords it did not take them long to find Whitey in a dockside tavern called 'The Clumsy Haddock' where he was drinking with  three of his friends.

After a couple of drinks Fenrir sidled up to him and said, 'I've a proposition for you.'
Whitey joined them at their table and Fenrir got him a drink.
'Who are you guys?' he asked.
Fenrir gave evasive answers, and Whitey grew impatient, got up and went back to his own table.

Annoyed, Fenrir looked around the tavern. It was busy, there were at least fifty people here, mainly young rogues and tarts, with many dressed in black, meaning that they were either Nightmasks, or wanted to be.
Throwing out any more pretence at subtlety, he snarled at Raz;
'Throw a chair at the wee shite!'
Raz stood and picked up a chair. 'Righto!' he replied cheerfully.

(G422 15/08/2020 via Roll20 - AP(GM), JF) LR24

 (G422 15/08/2020 via Roll20 - AP(GM), JF) LR24

[While Fenrir was getting into hot water in Westgate, I was still slowly being annoying to the  inhabitants of the cave in the mountains of Mid Point Island]

DAY 492 (8th Flamerule) (July) cont ...

And so our assault on the caves continued. I sent in more apes, Sylvia sent in a Yeth Hound. Then  weasels and crocodiles. And after that dogs and wolves.
Even with our spells failing half of the time, we were managing to send in a real menagerie of beasts to chase and kill the denizens of the cave.

We heard lots of noise, and were confident that we'd set them back, but cautious as ever I decided to head back to the camp after all our magic had been expended.

DAY 493 (9th Flamerule) (July)

We entered the caves again and smashed our way through the crystal doors that had been erected to hold us back. Cautiously we entered the caves we had sent our beasts into the day before and found dead dopplegangers, mindflayers and an ogre.

We looted their bodies and continued deeper into the caves. Slow as it was, the tactic of smashing a hole in the next 'door' and summoning as many beasts on the other side as we could seemed to be working.

After the next hole was made, we repeated the process - and in went more apes, wolves,  dire weasels and Yeth hounds. Again we heard the sounds of screams, snarls and fighting echo through the caves.

(G421 08/08/2020 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM)) WA70

(G421 08/08/2020 via Roll20 - AP, JF(GM)) WA70

[Fenrir and friends had returned from the Lost Shrine of Tamoachan.]

DAY 478  (23rd Kythorn)(June)

Spectre Island and Fenrir divvied up the loot. Once everything was sold to Random's shopkeeper they ended up with 16619.46 gold each! A nice little haul that.

From what I gather Dorette went back home, declaring that she had enough gold on her to become the Queen of Pedestal. I don't know if she was joking or not.

Wayney was also somewhat overcome by the amount of gold she was now in possession of and laughed that she might buy herself a castle, but then turning more serious she said she might see if she can use it to get Mr Rattles back from Nexelmode and resurrect him. 

Cavu gave Fenrir seven shards, that had come to him from Random in the FAMP. He briefly explained to him that they were very powerful spells, but like scrolls they could only be used once.

After going over their plans again (although when Fenrir and Cavu get together I can imagine they soon fall into talking about Waterdeep gossip), Fenrir headed home to his townhouse in Westgate.

There, he and Raz discussed how he would be best presented to Westgate society (in his quest to marry Thisle Thalavar!) and decided this:

''

They say lowborn on his mother's side, but in Westgate investigating his father's side for possible highborn connections.

''

It was a decent enough ruse, Raz's mother had been a fighter, a sort of knight attached to a barbarian lord's retinue, so a powerful women in her own right, no just some scullery maid.

But she was lowborn, that much was true.

And Raz's father was highborn, that was also true, but what was not true was that they already knew who he was - the late Lord Argaunt Thalavar. The only problem I could think of that it was a story that invited questions, but otherwise it was good, like all good lies it had some truth to it.

Of course, revealing too early he was the bastard son of Lord Argaunt Thalavar (and a potential heir to the throne of Westgate) would land him in big trouble and most likely a target for arrest or  assassination. 

Remember, dear reader, this is my old pal Raz we are talking about, from back in Sasserine and the Sea Wyvern, the same fellow that smeared his own shit over my harpsichord keys and who used to smell and laugh at his own farts.

So I can only imagine Fenrir did the best with the material he had. It takes a life-time to breed a gentleman and Raz would never be that. What he could be was a 'visiting dignitary' though - someone 'important' that had to be 'humoured' if they did anything out of turn.

Westgate was a large port city, so was used to the strange ways of foreigners so between them they worked out what sort of show they would put on for the nobles when they met them.

They would get their chance the next night, as a Solstice dance would be on, in the fields outside the city, an ancient tradition that welcomed the lowborn and highborn alike.

Thistle Thalavar would be there.

The last thing Fenrir did before retiring for the night was talk to Gelly and ask her about the bards she had hired.

'Well!' she declared. 'The Bards died!'

She'd not dug into it (out of fear) but said she would and get back to him. She also mentioned that there was 'trouble in Dockward' over the death of Sweetpea.

Fenrir had forgotten (he kills a lot of people after all) but she had been a popular maiden in the area, who had been part of the contingent of rogues Fayder the assassin had hired to kill Fenrir.

They'd failed of course, and in typical Fenrir fashion everyone in a local radius of the attempt had been incinerated.

Well, the locals of the ward were upset at Fenrir being the new head of the Watch and there was much grumblings.

DAY 479  (24th Kythorn)(June)

I don't know all that much about what Fenrir was doing at work in these times. I suspect not an awful lot.

He had several key assistants, I think, that kept the day to day stuff running while he thought of higher matters.

They were:

Mia the Magical - his personal secretary (a goodly soul who was much loved by the watch, a female elf wizard)

Portia Cadger - his 'Special Advisor' (a female halfling rogue)

Rocky "The Fool" Hammertong - Head of the Watch Wizards (a male dwarf wizard and old pal of Random's. Unpredictable)

Relleme Filchbatter - current head of the DAW (a female gnome monk on the back of a giant celestial bee called Honey) 

Today his interest landed on the 'Sweetpea' issue, that seemed to be drawing in more and more resources. He thought of issuing a statement or the like, but Portia advised 'Actions speak louder than words'

He organised a sort of 'community outreach' for the next day.

While that was going on, Raz went to get 200 gold's worth of fancy togs (with a 'Hordeland edge' whatever that means, maybe a tiger tooth necklace or something) for future engagements.

When Fenrir got home from work Gelly told him what she had learned about the bards he had hired.

'They were called Mulligan and O'Hair, from the Sword Coast. They went into one pub and spread the rumours, then another and did the same. In the third pub, about four in the morning some Nightmasks came in and stabbed them to death, then left.'

That evening it was the summer ball, in the meadows outside the city, with maypoles, fun fairs, food and drink. 

Thistle Thalavar was there, arm in arm with Dauntinghorn.

It was a busy party, where nobles and commoners mingled together, there were thousands of people threading between the stalls and playing the various games.

Fenrir, Veddic and Raz, all three of them big fans of rash, ill-thought-out plans hit upon the genius idea of randomly firing off 'Turn Undead's into the crowds to see just how many vampires and whatnots they would flush out.

In the pretence of telling the story of their recent adventures in Tamoachan to Thistle and Dauntinghorn, Veddic demonstrated how 'Turn Undead' worked.

Dauntinghorn gave Veddic a very long and hard look.

Veddic tried again, a really powerful turning attempt. Again Dauntinghorn gritted his teeth and did nothing, but did turn to Thistle, made an excuse and left.

As he did so Veddic detected that Dauntinghorn was indeed undead, and an incredibly powerful one too, as he had just shrugged off two powerful Turnings!

'How odd!' declared Thistle, but then three of her friends joined them at their table.

Twins sisters, and also young red head lass called Janness Ssemm.

Fenrir talked to Janness for a while. They did not have much in common, but she was drawn to his unusualness.

Raz did his best to talk to Thistle, but failed to make a big impression. Her rather plump cousin Primrose Thalavar found him more appealing.

DAY 480  (25th Kythorn)(June)

Fenrir, sensing that he and his friends might have really stirred things up a bit vi's-a-vi's the vampires in Westgate today invested in large quantities of garlic, mirrors and holy symbols, to be distributed around the house.

After he'd done that, he went down to the Dock Ward to see what could be done about the 'Sweetpea situation'. His initial idea of having people come and talk to him didn't work as everyone in the Ward sensed (probably correctly) trouble.

In the end some watchmen, getting the wrong end of the stick, went to round up some 'troublemakers'. 'Here's one of the wee villains been bad mouthing you, yer lordship!' snarled the tough constable as he showed a raggedy man into the watch house.

It was not hard for Fenrir to butter up this one terrified man, but he sensed he would have to do more than a few smooth words to individuals dragged off the street, so he went around the Ward, from pub to pub, with a trail of watchmen behind him, doing his best to... to be honest I'm not entirely sure what he thought he was doing, as (and this should have been no surprise to anyone) all the taverns and pubs were mysteriously empty by the time he got there!

Fenrir then went to Berty's Whelk Shop to 'talk to the local merchants', but apparently Berty was utterly insane and just gibbered, pranced and cavorted until Fenrir gave up and went home.

I fear the most obvious and simple solution to Fenrir's problem of being hated in Dockward for killing their most treasure beauty seemed to continue to elude him.

Well anyway, that evening he went to Spectre Island and talked to Cavu. They decided that it was best to go after the vampires first (prior to killing the Croamarkh and making Raz king!) as Dauntinghorn was now highly suspicious of them.

Cavu promised to send some spies to watch over Dauntinghorn. He also told Fenrir that a good place to start was to go look for a young man called Whitey 'The Kid' who apparently could provide information on the Nightmasks and possibly their vampire overlords.

Fenrir came up with a fairly wild scheme to dig a trench around his house and with pipes and  an Unseen Servant to man the pump maintain a constant flow of running water to keep vampires away.

I can report that two days later he had had this work done and was one step closer to making his house vampire-proof!