| Forgotten Realms Campaign 2001 11 June, 2001 |
Player Characters
Sam, a lightfoot halfling of Waterdeep, decided after his most recent "job" that some country air would do him good. Get out of the city, see a bit of the scenery, seize the day, as it were, before anyone seized him. So he took a low-end passenger berth on a boat heading upriver towards Silverymoon.
Sam arrived in Silverymoon on Midsummer, 1372, essentially broke, with a burning question about a hot item.
In a bar-tent at the festival on the north side of the city, Sam met Fraugh, a human and obviously a wizard. Fraugh was knocking back on a beer and making jokes about having his pet toad guess people's weight. Buying Fraugh his next beer, Sam asked the wizard if he could see if a particular item was magic. Never one to turn down a free beer, Fraugh took a moment to investigate an expensive-looking, but non-magical, gold-and-ruby comb.
"It was my mothers," Sam explains.
Disappointed that the comb wasn't magic, Sam then asked if Fraugh knew of a place where he could sell the item. In spite of his sentimental attachment, he just needed the money. Fraugh knew a place, a jewelry store, and the owner Elmerus bought the comb for 600 gp after a bit of dickering.
Back at the festival, Fraugh joined a drinking contest with a table of humans and half-elves, including a rugged-looking--but short--half-elf named, Thartok. The drinking contest got messy as the drinks went down...and sometimes came back up. Fraugh almost made it. But he didn't.
Sam took the oppurtunity to join a knife-throwing contest. He almost backed out when they wouldn't let him use his own knife. The judges were making sure no magical items tainted the contest. But even with a mundane knife, Sam demonstrated a certain amount of skill and managed to stay in the contest until the next-to-last round. The contest was declared a tie between 2 locals. Sam noticed, and not without a bit of jealousy, that the 2 winners walked off laughing with a rather striking-looking human female.
Sam caught up with Fraugh and Thartok as they were...recovering...from their contest.
An archery contest was starting, so Sam and a stumbling Thartok joined that as well. Thartok did as well as a drunken half-elf could probably be expected to. He managed to last for a couple of rounds before the two targets he was aiming at got far enough away that it mattered which one he aimed for. Through an amazing display of luck and skill, Sam came away with first prize: 100 gold pieces and a silver arrow nearly as tall as himself.
Fraugh and Thartok had enough festivities for the moment, and even though it was only mid-afternoon, they headed back to Fraugh's hotel to sleep some of it off. Not tired, but wanting to be fresh later for reasons of his own, Sam went with them and napped as well.
The group came down again a couple hours before midnight to re-join the festival. In the common room of the hotel, a man stopped Sam to ask him a question. He introduced himself as Glen, and asked if Sam had seen his two friends, James and Earl, who had won the knife-throwing contest. Sam told him he hadn't, but would point them to Glen if he ran into them later.
Fraugh and Thartok headed back to the hotel not long after midnight, though the festival was still going (mostly) strong. Sam went with them, but only pretended to go to sleep. After an hour, Sam used his rope of climbing to leave the hotel room and head out into the city, "house hunting".
Finding a likely house, Sam used his rope once again, to climb into a third-story guestroom. Rifling through the room quickly, he found only a small stash of coins (75 gp). As he was finishing up, he heard the occupants of the house returning from the festival. A quick search of the rest of the third story revealed nothing both highly portable and highly expensive, so he sneaked out of the house the same way he came in. Sam headed back to the hotel.
The next day, Shieldmeet, Glen accosted Sam again, telling him that his friends had still not shown up. Someone else had mentioned that they had been spotted, still with the woman Sam had seen, heading into a small copse of trees north of the city. Glen was curious if Thartok could track them. When the party looked dubious, Glen offered 15 gp if they would at least go look.
The trail was no problem to find, and the party followed it east through the copse of trees until it reached the road north of Silverymoon. There it was obvious that the 2 men had gotten into a wagon, but that the woman had continued on by herself. Since the woman's trail was off the road, it was easy to follow. Her trail led around the outskirts of the city around to a Red Wizard enclave, and then inside.
The party explained what they were doing to the guard at the enclave, but managed mostly to confuse him. No woman such as they described had come into the enclave in the last day, and obviously no such woman lived at the enclave (the guard rubbed his hand over his own bald pate for emphasis).
The Thayan guard called over one of the Red Wizards who was in sight to help. The Red Wizard, a tall woman, bald and tattooed, listened impatiently to the guard's explanation and then told the party that no such woman was in the enclave. And then dismissed them.
Sam was convinced that the Red Wizard was the same woman he had seen the day before...but not because he had any proof. Still, there was nothing the party could do without becoming even less welcome, so they headed back to the hotel. Glen gave them 6 gp for their time and thanked them for their efforts. Maybe the 2 would show up in the next day or so.
Everyone got 1500 XP for the session. [an error occurred while processing this directive]