The group proceeds through a passage, and passes through a hallway lined with bas reliefs of demons and devils.  As Shazuu begins to identify each, Mantis notices that a carving of a dretch has strangely colored eyes. Pushing on the sculpture, it swings back to reveal a short doorway that leads to a small room.  Mantis, Shazuu, and Shining Brow’s familiar enter. At the center of the chamber is a wooden armor stand draped with a chain shirt, with a sword driven through it’s chest. A skeletal hand lies on the floor next to it. Mantis hears faint voices as the rest of the party enters.  As the party discusses magically identifying the armaments, Tang Wu picks up the sword to inspect it, only to find he cannot put it down, nor release it from his grasp. Mantis cannot dispel the curse on the blade, and various arguments ensue. With no solution at hand for Tang Wu’s dilemma, the party moves on. 

Shazuu heads south down a passageway, to a room filled with pillars.  A sign at the south exit reads “Certain Death This Way”, so the tiefling leads the group down the western passage instead.  This hallway is filled with niches on either side, evenly spaced, leading a few feet back. Each contains a single full length mirror.  As the party is mostly through the hall, dark figures begin to step from the mirrors and attack the group. As the battle begins, the group realizes that the shadowy figures are mirror opposites of themselves, that drain the strength from their victims.  The group eventually defeats their shadow selves, and moves forward into a room that contains the remains of a campfire. They take a short while to rest and regather their strength.

After an hour, or so, the party forges ahead.  Shining Brow scouts a side passage, and hears voices.  Peeking around a corner, he sees a band of goblins dancing and chanting.  He heads back to inform the party, and Tang decides to launch an attack, using his handy new weapon.  As the group bursts into the room, they see the goblins dancing and chanting a name, as a skeletal figure seems to dance madly.  As Tang attacks, the goblins manipulating the skeletal puppet drop it and join the fight. The party joins the fight, and Shazuu and Tygorr intercept and destroy two bugbears advancing from a nearby chamber. The group nearly defeats the all of the goblins, but one escapes to alert another group in an adjoining room.  Tygorr puts them to sleep and the group finishes off the rest. Tang attempts to shift the cursed blade to the hand of a goblin, but is unsuccessful.

Shining Brow once again takes the lead, as Shazuu’s metal clad body may be dangerous.  He crawls underneath the arcing energy to the safety of a chamber beyond, marking trapped stones as he passes.  Unfortunately, upon reaching the safe chamber beyond, he sets off a switch which re-arranges the pressure plates in the tunnel, sending his comrades into the electricity.  The group passes though, as Shining Brow uses the silver key to open the silver door. The door swings open, and dozens and dozens of metal balls pour out, knocking the tabaxi over, and spreading into the hall of electricity and into the spiked pit.  Both straps are set off, and effectively nullified. Behind is a wooden door bound in iron. The new door is covered in carvings of bears, one with a single arm.

The party re-groups and opens the wooden door.  Behind is a room full of junk and trinkets. Something shiny catches Shining Brow’s eye, and he bolts across the chamber, only to get snatched by an invisible bear trap buried in the junk.  On the far side of the room, a wall opens, revealing skeletal warriors who shamble forward carefully to attack the party. Shining Brow escapes the bear trap and attempts to make his way back to the group, only to be caught again.  Shazuu and Tygorr blast the skeletons from the doorway with a combination of eldritch and divine magics as Shining Brow escapes and gets trapped again. As the last of the skeletons fall, Tygorr heals Shining Brow’s mangled legs, and the group cautiously makes its way to the door across the room.  As they search for the invisible bear traps, they begin to find some interesting items, including a wand, a pouch full of dice, and a creepy porcelain doll, which Tygorr smashes as it starts to speak. They reach the door to exit the junk room, and find another challenge. The hallway beyond is full of spinning blades extending from the walls and floors.  Shining Brow spends a moment, and with his feline speed, races to the far end of the hall and pulls a lever, which stops the death hall.

The door at the end of the blade hall leads to a circular room.  A lone pillow sits on a platform, and on top of the pillow is a single unique coin.  The group realizes this will gain them access to the “Coin Room” and rush back through the Blue Alley.  Tygorr inserts the coin, and the door opens to a small room. A pedestal holds a single lantern covered with runes, sitting on top of a note.  Tygorr takes the lantern, and reads the note, which offers congratulations, and says to cross your name off the book to leave. The party scrambles back to the beginning.  Tygorr begins to scratch off the party’s names, and each finds themselves outside the shield. They also notice that Tang’s name had been scratched out. Shazuu settles his bet with the old men who sit at the entrance, and the party returns to Trollskull Manor.

Back at the Manor, they settle in to identify the items they found, and Mantis takes the unicorn statue back to Mirt.  The group gets their payment, and sleep. The next few days are spent running the affairs of the Manor, and Tygorr finally begins to run his gambling table.  On the 14th of Tarsakh, a strange visitor arrives. A woman from Chult, sent by Volothamp asks to hire the party. She says her name is Obaya Uday from Port Lanzaru, and was sent by the wizard Okama Wakanu.  The city of Waterdeep is famed for the magical items that can be purchased in the streets, but she has had little luck. She has heard that many magics are hidden in the Undermountain beneath the city, and she is willing to pay for any that the party can procure.  She will be staying at the Yawning Portal for several weeks, and apparently has a fortune at her disposal. The party agrees, and begins preparations. Shining Brow obtains supplies and spell components. Mantis speaks to the Harpers to get a bag of holding to carry our loot.  

As preparations near completion, the group receives a note from Durnan at the Yawning Portal.  It contains two warnings as to the dangers awaiting them, and warns us of a mage named Halaster who has made his home there.  Durnan suggests looking for the Arcane Chambers, The Willowood, and Selune’s Tears. He also asks if we reach Skullport that we visit the Guts and Garters, and see someone named Quietude about 100gp owed to Durnan.

The Undermountain awaits…

After moving down a hall, they find a room with a glittering gem on a pedestal. Upon grabbing the gem they’re attacked by a disembodied sword, but easily beat it away. Tang Wu examines the gem to find reflected back from each of it’s facets is the image of an iron gate. They find several hidden rooms, and avoid a few more traps, but find no more treasure other than more of the strange phrases…. “CAN DO”, “WHAT MIGHT AND” and “A SOFT TOUCH”.

They backtrack again, and head down the silver labeled hall. Two doors present themselves, but Ty’s keen eye spots a secret door behind a fresco. They ignore the obvious exists, and take the secret door, which leads them into a reception room, of sorts. They hear a muffled noise from one door, and open it to find a statue with piercing blue eyes. “Well, do you have a riddle for me?” the statue asks. Shazuu consults his notes, and intones: “What might and strength cannot get through, this tool with a soft touch can do.” The status sighs, and answers “That’s an easy one… the answer is, of course, a KEY.”. With a click, a wand falls from the statue’s base and lands at Shazuu’s feet. Inscribed along the edge, in a mix of abyssal and draconic, is the phrase: “All that is yours is mine, and what is mine cannot be hidden.” 

The group continues on, and opens a door into a room heaping with gold. Distrusting the obvious treasure, they move through the room, not touching anything. In the next room they find a set of iron gates fastened to the far wall. A voice booms loudly as he enters: “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.”  The gate on the wall reminds Tang Wu of the gem, which he produces from a pocket. Tang Wu interprets the riddle to mean that he must enter the gate as he was born… naked. He strips down and, holding the gem in one hand, grasps the gate with the other.

With a loud ‘POP!’, Tang Wu disappears, and the gem clatters to the floor.

Assuming that Tang Wu must have made a mistake, is elsewhere in the dungeon, or is simply gone, they gather the gem and backtrack. Entering the next room, they find an elaborate maze of yellow and black tiles. They follow the maze to a far door, and open it to find mirrored walls and floors reflecting a hundred images of a unicorn statue, which lays on a pedestal in the center of the room. A voice intones: “Everything you see is mine”. 

Ty moves into the room, collects the statue, and walks out. Upon crossing the threshold he feels a pull, and as he leaves the room he finds himself naked, and empty handed. All of his belongings are piled around the statue in the center of the room. After some quick thinking, Shazuu casts darkness in the room, and instructs Ty to try again, with Shazuu coaching him from the door. Ty blindly  enters the room, collects his gear and the statue, and exits. The trick works! Since he couldn’t see anything, he was able to remove the items!

They exit, and move further down the hall, discovering some other rooms with little consequence, until they find the other end of the big smokey room. Ty, seeing no alternative, plans on using his wings to fly to the other end of the room…

n the 11th, hungover from the party the night before, the group heads to The Blue Alley.  They sign the guestbook at the entrance and enter. As they do, the light around them dims, and they can see the road stones are blue.  Murals on the walls depict adventurers dying horrible deaths to fiendish traps. The alley comes to a “T” intersection, where a silver arrow points east, and a gold arrow points west. Shining Brow’s familiar, now a raven, flies down the west, seeing doors.They follow west and find a door of ivory, covered with predatory animals hunting their prey. Inside are several chests.  As they investigate, the ceiling colapses. The entire room is a mimic. Tygorr finally destroys the creature. There is a chest in the room that contains a bronze handbell with no clapper, something wrapped in velvet, and about 25 gold.

They move on to a staircase with a door at the top.  Inside is what appears to be a large extradimensional space containing a farm in a pastoral setting. Mantis leads the investigation, checking one of the silos.  Inside are two bull skulls hanging on the walls. Shining Brow senses that they are magic. As they attempt to take the skull down, a minotaur appears and attacks.  During the brief combat, they notice it has a key around its neck. Mantis drops the skull to join the fight, but when he does, the minotaur fades away. The group decides the key is important.  So they pick up the skull again, and when the minotaur appears, Shining Brow uses his skills as an arcane trickster to steal the key. As soon as he does, Mantis drops the skull, and the minotaur fades again.  Unfortunately, so does the key. The group falls back to standard procedure, recalling the minotaur and slaughtering it. This time, the key remains. It is covered with pictures of prey.

The party stops, takes stock of their situation, and decides to rest a moment to recover from the fight…

The party retreats the way that they came with the intent of reaching the surface, and guiding the Blackstaff into the Vault. As they reach the main chanber, they realize that they have been followed. The Cassalanters have also found the vault.  Victoro leads a pack of cultists, imps, a bearded devil, and his chamberlain. “Kill them!”, he sneers.

Mantis, unsurprised, drops a fireball in their midst, and ducks back under cover. Quickly, Victoro dominates Shazuu, turns him agains the group, and battle is joined for real.  Tang holds off Shazuu as he fights the spell. The party deals with the cultists, and the demon wades into combat. Under the overwhelming onslaught of devils, cultists, and the strenght of Shazuu they are forced into a retreat, until Ty whips out a wand, and binds Shazuu in place. Cultsts begin to fall, and finally Mantis’ countercharm breaks Victoro’s hold on Shazuu’s mind. Shazuu, enraged, charges Lord Cassalanter, and knocks him to the ground. Together, with Shining Brow, they finish him off…and the vault falls silent.  

After a short rest to catch their breath, Shining Brow sends his familiar, Jim, to the surface to retrieve Vajra, the Blackstaff. After a glace over the carnage in the room, she steps forward and burns the body of Victoro, claiming that it would lead to questions.  The party leads her back to the Vault, where she confirms their story: Neverember is no longer Open Lord, and the massive treasure that he guards does belong to the city. She slips into another, sharper, gutteral tounge, and they speak or a few mort moments. Shining Brow understands the conversation in Draconic, and learns the ‘dwarf’ is no dwarf, but instead is gold dragon, named Anaurax.  He has been guarding the treasure, and Neverember’s request, and was rewarded for this duty with the magical staff that he holds. While he doesn’t undersand much of the subtext, Shining Brow does take away this: The staff is somehow linked to the protection of the city, and the Blackstaff demands that it must not leave the bounds of Waterdeep. Anaurax agrees to this, if they can keep him stocked with food, he will stay here in the Vault, and mind the staff.

The group spends a half an hour loading all the gold into the portable hole. Then, the Blackstaff teleports the group to Castle Waterdeep, and quickly gains an audience with The Open Lord. At the Blackstaff’s urging, Mantis steps forward and tells the tale of the groups efforts to recover the gold. At the conclusion of his tale he dramatically draws out the portable hole, reaches inside, and turns it inside out…  dumping it’s contents all over the throne room.

As a reward, the group are named “Heroes of Waterdeep”. Lady Laeral Silverhand announces in front of the full court that the city will turn over a 50,000gp reward to the party. She, and her retinue, will also patronise Trollskull Manor later that week on “Golden Night”, which will bring prestige to the establishment.

The next morning, the party makes their way through the North Ward to the City of the Dead in the faint predawn light.  Tang Wu leads them directly to the entrance to Brandeth family tombs. As they enter the walled complex, a massive tree voices a warning, “Only members of the Brandeth family are allowed to enter this hallowed place!” Mantis tries to convince the tree that he is a member of the Brandath family, and fails. The rest of the party hangs back, but Shazuu attempts to run past the now moving tree. He soon realizes that more of the trees planted in the complex can move, as several of them close in on him, limbs flailing.  He blasts the tree with eldritch fire, and the rest of the party bolts past their arboreal foes. The largest tree begins to bellow a warning, “Graverobbers! City Watch!”

The party runs and takes refuge in the largest crypt building. With the trees unable to enter, the group begins to explore the complex.  They break into several crypts, destroying doors, urns, and tombs. Shazuu and Tang find an ancient signet ring. Eventually they begin to piece together that Dagult Neverember was married to Lady Danielle Brandeth, and the clues from the Stone of Golorr lead them to an ancient structure containing multiple rooms, several of which are both clean and in good repair.  Within it, Shining Brow, Mantis, and Tygorr find the tomb of Danielle Brandeth. In this well kept chamber, they find a strange circular pattern in the floor. Mantis finds a hidden trigger, and as Tygorr recalls the rest of the group, a circular staircase opens into the floor, leading down into the darkness.

The group descends the staircase, which opens up into a square chamber.  On one side of the room is a massive set of metal doors. They see a large stylized sun is set into the floor.  As they approach, Mantis translates the dwarven runes on the doors. “All that lies within belongs to the Silent Keeper.”  Shining Brow produces the dragon scale, places it on the sun pattern, and casts a daylight spell. Mantis strikes the scale with the mithril hammer, and the metal doors swing open. The group enters the Melairkyn Vault.

It is a huge chamber, with stone pillars extending up into the shadows. A dozen sets of metal doors ring this space, and at the far end, the group can make out a massive stone statue of a dwarf lord.  The doors and statue are covered in runes, which Mantis begins to translate. Each door has a single concept that seems to be important to dwarven culture, and from the runes on the statue, the group decides they must open the one that is most important to dwarves.  Without a dwarf in the party, Mantis contacts the bartenders at Trollskull Manor. The party decides to choose “Clan” as the most important. They open that door, and find a chamber covered in murals beyond, and head up a flight of stairs.

Shining Brow, Tygorr and Mantis find some gold, and minor trasures… a set of fancy dice, a copper music box, a potion of healing in a spider shaped flask.  On the upper level, Mantis finds a small stateroom that is fanicer than the rest, and in it is large chest. When he tries to open it, the sides fall away, and tiny mechanical spiders swarm out and cover the bard.  Shining Brow throws water on the swarm and Tygorr uses shocking grasp to deactivate the spiders. Inside the chest, the party finds a crystal ball, a pouch filled with crystal shards, and the second Eye of the Stone of Golorr.  Shazuu examines the crystal ball, and learns he can use it to see through the eyes of any of the Nimblewrights that have been placed around Waterdeep, and that the ball can also see through the shards. In addition to the current surroundings, the crystal ball can see past events that the Nimblewrights have witnessed.  Having achieved their goal, the group slips out of both vessels, swim to shore, and return to Trollskull Manor.

At the Manor, Shazuu spends some time “getting to know” the crystal ball.  Mantis and Shining Brow head to the extradimensional space and insert the second Eye into the stone.  Mantis focuses on the artifact, and asks it to show him the location of the third eye.  The Stone of Golorr leads his mind on a path that takes him to the Cassalanter Estate. He sees the last Eye in a drawer with a false bottom in Lord Cassalanter’s office.  Realizing that with the Cassalanters at the ball tonight is the best chance to get in, the group quickly heads out to the Estate.

Shazuu waits nearby the estate, and Tygorr facilitates magical communications. Mantis and Shining Brow sneak over the wall, dodge the guards, and enter the office.  They quickly obtain the Eye, and leave another marker of the Xanathar in the eye’s hiding spot. The two abscond with the Eye, and the group returns to Trollshull Manor without incident.

A tangled barrage of imagery: Twisted underground tunnels lit by strange lights. An endless field of corpses. Halls of stone. A golden dragon, aging so rapidly that scales shed from its skin. The sound of a silver hammer striking stone. A beam of sunlight in a darkened room. A chisel carving Dethek (dwarven) characters which transform themselves into two words: BRANDATH CRYPTS.

A cryptic riddle intoned in a deep, alien voice: Where laid his wife to rest ‘midst bones of son’s blood sealed, there where Anri laid himself to rest lies that which Open Lord concealed.

The ship itself has a main deck, foredeck, and a two-deck aft castle. Mantis climbs to the aft side, and invisibly moves around to a better vantage point.  He only sees a few crew members on deck, and lets the rest of the group know by leaving a message in chalk by the anchor chain.The group tries to sneak on board, they alert the crew when Tang, strangely impatient, leaps directly into combat. His martial arts prowess allows him to easily drop his first opponent, and he mutters “Asmodeus says ‘Kill them All’”. 

As a nearby sailor sounds the alarm, the battle is truly joined. The group drops the sailors on the aft deck, and Mantis, Tang, and Shazuu leap from the upper deck to the next level down, crushing their opponents. Shining Brow begins to search for the Eye on the upper aft deck cabin.  Inside, he finds a richly appointed captain’s cabin. Inside are a drow and a nimblewright. Shining Brow blasts the drow with a lightning bolt from his wand. Meanwhile, on deck, Mantis and Shazuu drop several drow masquerading as sailors. Dark hands again take Shazuu’s opponent’s spirit.  The deck is cleared as Shining Brow begins his search for the Eye. 

The party searches the top half of the ship, finding some loose coin, a treasure chest with a sack of gold, a vial of blue liquid, a pouch with five pearls, and a bottle of “One Eyed Jax” wine.  In a nook in the aft castle, they find a spellbook full of powerful magics.

This chamber contains fancy clothing, and a mannequin wearing silks, an eye patch, and a large hat with a feather. This is obviously Zardoz’s…no, Jarlaxle’s… private chambers. The group finds some piles of jewlery and separates out what’s easily identifiable as real vs costume jewelry: a diamond ring, a string of pearls, and a bracelent.  Shazuu takes the Jarlaxle’s eyepatch, either out of spite or jealousy. As they prepare to leave the room, Shining Brow leaves an assassin’s marker from the Xanathar on the bed.

Manits’ keen eyes spot a trap door in the floor. Could this lead to the submersable? They still haven’t found the eye, and time is running short. What will they do next?