Don’t Tell Spy Master

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Find Dasher Snobbeetles. I don’t find people, I just follow them. Everyone else finds people. Page says we have to go someplace called the Jade Dancer in the Southern Ward. There’s a weird flying blue globe with dancers along the way. That looks dangerous. The big Jade Dancer statue is a good dancer though, she’s nice. There are some halflings up on the balcony for Red to talk to cuz he looks halfling tonight. He’s up there for a long time, but then he comes down and disappears again. He knows where to go when he gets back, looking like himself again.

We’re all going to go to the Way Moot at noon tomorrow. I’m nervous, I think Spy Master wants me to do this, but what if I miss Dasher? I need the flock’s help.

Red spots him, and I spot Red. He talks to the guy a little, but I can’t get too close, or his friends might spook. Then they head off to an alley, and I follow, close enough to hear. Red tries to get him to leave town. Uh oh, what’s going on? I knew I should have done it myself. Dasher says he’s not leaving, okay good. Then turns into a wererat! Red says he’ll tell his family that he’s not coming back. Apparently wererats are bad for rich families. Red says he’ll go with me to explain to his family. Red’s much better with words, but I’m still nervous. This isn’t what Spy Master said to do.

The family starts saying how their son is dead when Red explains. I don’t understand, he’s just part rat now. The lady seems very sad, and the man is very serious and gives us the money. When we get home Red splits it up, and gives me extra for Spy Master. So, I send it along with a short note. Spy Master sends back a disappointed reply. I was right, I was supposed to do it myself and get all the money for him.

Maybe I can get him money on the next job; Red wants to rob a tomb. It’s a secret though, and dangerous. I have to go with him, I have to bring the shadows and protect the flock. Page and Orange are coming, too. I wonder if maybe Nevi should come, he’s got more magic, but Red doesn’t want a big group. The watch is out in force this week. Stay low, don’t tell, keep quiet.

Red says it’s the tomb of those people who hid the Nimblewright and the stone. They have lots of magic and traps protecting it. An illusory door, webs on the stairs. The first coffin sprayed acid all over me. The halls are full of fog cloud, I guess it could be worse. There’s lots of shiny, fancy things down here. Maybe Spy Master would like some of this. Can’t tell him where it came from though. Then Red set off a big fiery trap that woke up a big stone monster. It hurt Red and Orange a lot, but we crushed it!

New Pets

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, Quill1 Comment

Spy Master,

It has been pretty quiet, but I figured you missed my reports. Everything has settled down now that we have the tower. Mary and I spend most of our time in there. There are so many Books and Kitties! And the little homunculus men in there will make me whatever food I want. I have started adding some poetry and adventure books to the Cabaret’s library. Book binding’s not so hard.

Red pulled a couple pieces of cloth off his clothes and they turned into big Dogs! They are such good dogs and they love to play. Red doesn’t like it when they play though, he wants them to guard the house when we’re not there. That’s okay, they can play when we Are home. He’s trying to get even more pets. I think Orange’s monster in a jar has inspired him.

The Dung Sweepers needed help in the sewers. They were afraid of monsters, so we had to go down with them. Red didn’t come, he had real business to do. It’s gross down there. But still, it was pretty quiet. Until that one day. We got to this big nexus room and Catbard and I were in there looking around when Nevi hollered that someone went missing.

Little guy, Jeremiah, wasn’t with his group anymore. We followed some slime back to a smallish pipe and all the little folk went through while the big folk stayed with the Sweepers. We found this huge wormy, leggy monster with a huge mouth and tentacles. Mary Mouse says it’s called a Carry-on Crawlie. They carried Jeremiah away for sure. Orange and Mary kept them distracted while I went over and pulled the little guy off the wall and out of the room. Orange’s shouting called Nevi and Catbard to help us and we finished them off. Mary grabbed some of the eggs before we left, in case Red might want one, and he took some of their poison, too. I think Red took the eggs to sell, but I’m not sure, the dogs were happy we were home and I lost track.

Quill Scratcher

Fight Club

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, QuillLeave a comment

Journal Notes:

This tower is so cool! It has so many books! And kitties! I gotta learn how to copy the books properly, with bindings and such. Spy Master will know where to go.

…

Orange is gonna go fight a bunch of people and monsters, but none of us are allowed to go. Red let me help him do monster research, though. I’m worried for Orange if he has to fight all these monsters… Red said there’s going to be a Hellhound, and a Harpy, and a Grick. He had me research those for him. He was also looking up a Spined Devil, a Grell, a Sea Hag, and a Displacer Beast. I even heard Catbard telling him about Gargoyles! I don’t understand why he’s fighting all this stuff by himself. Seems a good way to die.

…

Red says he doesn’t have to fight all of them, just some of them, and there’s gonna be other people there, too. We’re still not allowed to go, because We’re not the Right people. He promises Orange won’t die.

…

Orange came home late last night, I was sleeping with the kitties. He says he’s the Champion of Skullport! He won! Against everybody! First he fought in a big group and took down the monsters one by one and some people who annoyed him. Then he made friends with a half orc pirate, and then beat him up. Then he fought a Githza-something Monk, and he won! He says he liked that guy. Then he fought another another half orc, only this one had a big pointy stick, but Orange showed him and won everything!

…

I’m learning how to copy books now. All proper with covers and everything. Haven’t gotten to fight or thieve in a while. Maybe Spy Master will have a job soon. Or maybe Red will need me. I wonder whatever happened to that stone, or those drow. Did the Dragon in the Harbor leave for the winter? Probably, it’s getting really cold now.

Candlekeep

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Spymaster!!!!

We went to Candlekeep!!! He kept his promise and we went to the LIBRARY!!! They wouldn’t let us go in to see all the books, but then we did and it was so cool! And people go missing inside their own houses and we can read any book we ask for and they made copies of books for us, too!!! Spymaster it was so cool!!! And now we have a mage’s own house for ourselves, to take with us wherever we want, until we find her. She’s not really there, she’s left the plane, I guess. Red wants to use it for robbing places, but I just want to go inside and read all the books! And play with all the kitties! I need to learn how to make proper books and then I can just copy all her books. She has so many books and we can read them all!!! It’s like we brought Candlekeep home with us!!! Or at least part of it!

Right… proper report. Sorry.

We met the Gate Warden Callum Strongbranch, and he said our books were good enough – I gave him a book on stray cats of Waterdeep from Abena over at the Homeward Bookshop. She writes down all the cats she helps. So many cats, so I made a copy of it to take with me. They’ve never seen anything like that before.

He sent us to the House of Rest. Even their Inn is magical. It’s way bigger inside than the building is. A really friendly librarian, Sprig Summerfoot came then and asked us all what we wanted to read so he could gather all the books for us. Everybody but Red had come, but not everybody had an idea what they wanted. Some of us just wanted to see the Library, but Sprig said we weren’t allowed. So, we picked a bunch of random topics to read about and ate, drank, and went to the spa while we waited.

They wouldn’t let me take my… calligraphy kit into the reading rooms, have to pay for copies of the books, they said, not allowed to make my own. I read about Kenku myths and took notes on that weird Luskan tech for Mary Mouse. He really wants to make some of that stuff himself. But really, we came here to figure out why there are worms in Nevi’s bag of holding.

Sprig says that the book Mary Mouse needs was borrowed by a guy named Matrius, and written by a lady named Fistandia. Both of them have disappeared. Fistandia a while ago, but Matrius just a couple days gone. He says maybe we can help find him, and then we can look at the book. We agree, so after we get done reading, we go to bed to rest before going inside.

A new guy, Parmack meets us the next morning, and he lets us go inside the Library. We can’t look around too much, but it is Amazing!!! So many books, and it’s so big and pretty and… Oh. Sorry. Matrius had gone to Fistandia’s lab to try and find her, so Parmack took us there. She had lots of books and scrolls and all sorts of things in her room. Including the book Mary Mouse wanted – The Joy of Extra-Dimensional Space. It has some other guy on the cover though, Nevi says it’s Mordenkainen, or something like that. I start looking at the books, but Nevi gets real focused on Matrius’ notes and then looks up and says Scepter and a door appeared in the middle of the room.

I wrote a quick note to Parmack and slipped it under the door to him before we all went through the magic door. We found Matrius right inside, and he seems really happy to see us. He couldn’t figure out how to get back out. He has a little statue he wants to check out and invites us to look around for Fistandia. He runs out the door and we heard him scream as the door slammed shut behind him.

The tower we’re in is really cool, but some of the boys want to go outside and play in weird purple mist. That seems like a bad idea, and it is, but Nevi gets really stuck on it for a while. Then we start looking around and we find so many books and kitties! They’re really nice kitties. Well, most of them are, anyway, and… oh… Some of the books aren’t so nice either and attack us. But they figure out that she hid the keyword to get out on the spines of seven books, and this place was a gift from her goddess Mystra. There are two odd little men in the kitchen and Nevi said they should be able to talk, but they can, and they were really nice. They said the faerie dragons in the garden aren’t very nice, so we avoided them. But we found lots of cool books and tools and even a room full of monsters in jars. Orange decided to keep the biggest one to display at the Cabaret, but Nevi said we shouldn’t take too much since a goddess made this place. They still took some alchemy stuff, though.

We also had to fight a chair, and a toad demon, and a bookcase, and some hands. That was really strange, but the Big Guy said they might have animated because of all the magic. Some swords attacked us, too. It’s a strange place, this magic tower, but not too dangerous. There was a really cool room with all the stars in the sky, plus five extra stars that opened an extra door to chained books. They attacked us, too. Orange wanted to break the whole bookcase, but I wouldn’t let him. They looked like important books.

But we found the word to get out, Liberty, and went back outside. Matrius got killed while we were gone. Apparently that statue was a little demon. Silly mage, the imp was pretty squishy. Mary Mouse, Nevi, and Orange got held back as we all left the magic house. By Mystra? She told them we could borrow the house until we find Fistandia and that she’s on a different plane. The librarians were happy we figured things out, even if Matrius got dead, and offered us each any two books we wanted, too. I’m going to copy books from the magic tower, too. She has lots of good books.

Anyway, I’m home again if you need anything.

~QS

A Dragon and a Necromancer

On By ravonlockeIn Journal, Quill1 Comment

Spymaster!

Did you know there’s a dragon in the bay?! He’s Bronze and his name is Zelapharn and I gave him some of the flat shinies because he said he was hungry. He has a stomach just for shiny things! He said that sailors drop things in the water and he collects them if Umberlee doesn’t get them first. Did you know she’s the Queen of the Sea? He’s going to go hibernate soon, but he was really fun.

The City of the Dead is not fun. It’s creepy and scary and the dead things walk around sometimes. There was a big necromancer guy in the House of the Homeless trying to raise a bunch of mommies and their unborn children. Candlekeep called them zombies, and said it would have been really bad. We smashed him, but Ambrose said it was okay because he was really bad.

There was also a big scary vampire up in the Deep Winter vault. He left though. Let us leave, too, because Red convinced him we were too much trouble to bother with. Red’s real smart.

~QS