The party had learned some news about the escapade that happened yesterday... For one, Jalester heard about the incident at the tavern, and had some bad news: the Shard Shunners, Danika and Kelso, managed to elude the Watch after their arrest by changing into rat form and slipping through their bindings. Not only that, the case against Emmek was dropped because of a lack of evidence, especially since the Shard Shunners had escaped. Apparently, Emmek hired a professional barrister to represent him in court and won his case, clearing him of any wrongdoing, not helped by the fact that the Shard Shunners have a shoddy reputation for rolling over on anyone they can, even if they had nothing to do with their personal crimes. Jalester asked Enigma to see if he could find any evidence of Emmek's criminal dealings, but without drawing attention to himself. Next, Xalvador, the staff supervisor, got in touch with Broxley Fairkettle of the Fellowship of Innkeepers to hire some replacements. Broxley, upset that he had been bamboozled, used his influence and reached out to a small but well respected guild consisting entirely of aarakocra service workers to fill in, named Salleek (or "Sal" for short) and Aera, male and female aarakocra respectively. They are exceptional, professional, and take great pride in their work. Lastly, a new shop apparently opened up during the Sornyn festival, appropriately enough. Nevercott's Resplendent Apparel, a small clothing/haberdashery shop specializing in high fashion and even capable of acquiring magical clothing on special order. Not much is known about the owner, but she is quite affable. The party made plans later that night to go investigate Emmek's place, including Sigurd investing in a chain shirt, which was slightly less protective than his scale mail, but also less noisy... but for now, they would spend some time in Trollskull Alley. Phames was there, chatting up with Yuan on the last day of the Sornyn festival before he heads back home to his farm in Daggerford, and wished him luck on his next endeavour. Next, they paid a visit to Talon, whom Enigma was able to convince to help cause a distraction to force Emmek out of his shop. Talon's heard the stories about Emmek and doesn't have any issues causing a bit of trouble - the Dungsweeper's Guild is quite influential, actually, and they agree to go poke some holes in his trash and cause a commotion as a distraction. Later, they went to the Resplendent Apparel shop, and met the owner, a stout but friendly woman with a keen eye for style. She showcased some of the more magical goods that her shop can get a hold off and had fashions from all over Faerun, from the frigid areas of Neverwinter to the warm deserts of Calimshan. She used to be a traveling merchant, but decided to set up shop here in Waterdeep for the time being to put some roots down. Ray in particular was quite impressed with the high fashion here and made a note to come back here later when he could afford some of the more fanciful goods. Yuan also scanned the place with his magic sensing ability, and made some interesting discoveries... After the party left, they spent some time taking care of business in the tavern, which was operating smoothly today (thank the gods), before the fateful night came to go act on Emmek's place. The Dungsweepers had already been set in motion thanks to Enigma's prior planning, and went and made a racket outside behind the pub. Emmek, furious that the 'damn kids' were making a mess of things again, stormed out of the building to investigate, which gave the party the chance to act. However, it was going to be difficult - they noticed a group of thugs at the tavern wearing green and black leather armor and carrying weapons. Sigurd thought that perhaps they could be Zhentarim thugs, and Yuan had the strange sense that he had seen this design before... Enigma prepared himself by using a Pass Without Trace spell Needing a distraction to slip through the pub unnoticed, Ray used a Minor Illusion to make it sound like one of the other patrons threw an insult at the thugs. The thugs immediately got up and started bullying the poor man, who was completely clueless, and a bar brawl soon ensued, giving the party the distraction needed. However, they also had to remove the barmaiden working the bar at the time, and Enigma threw out a Minor Illusion of his own to make one of the patrons tell her to go find Emmek, which made her run off outside. While the entire bar was distracted with the beatdown, the team slipped into behind the bar and managed to find their way into the cellar thanks to Enigma's lock picking skills. While they didn't find any evidence of Emmek's deal with the Shard Shunners, they did find a bottle of Red Dragon Crush, the Barovian wine that their own tavern was selling, tucked in a corner. They immediately suspected that the Shard Shunners had probably stolen it from their own place, as the rest of Emmek's stock was below average at best, and kept the bottle for themselves. Next, they managed to sneak back out and found Emmek trying to break up the fight and doing a very poor job at it. Apparently, he was very scared of the thugs for some reason... they next snuck into one of the side rooms, and happened to pick the correct one, which seemed to be Emmek's office. They were able to find his ledger, which Sigurd investigated and noticed that some numbers didn't seem to add up - like he had more money to spend than he was actually making from the tavern itself. He soon found the reason, in the form of a note that fell out of the ledger while he was reading it, and found that it was a 150 gp loan from Istrid Horn, the Master of Trade and Coin in Davil's Zhentarim! Yuan finally realized the reason why the thugs were here - they were here to bother Emmek about paying back his loan... it was also painfully obvious that this money was probably used to pay off the Shard Shunners and the professional barrister as well. While this wasn't quite the evidence they were hoping for, they could still use it to their advantage. Yuan decided that he might drop a line to Davil to tell them about this... the party was able to successfully exfiltrate the building without being noticed, thanks to Enigma's abilities Back at the tavern, Yuan got a message out to Davil, and within an hour, he, Yagra and Istrid showed up to talk. Istrid was absolutely furious, having found out that one of her clients had been using her services to harass an associate of hers. The party talked with Davil for a while to decide what to do, and they opted for the 'slow burn' route - while no direct action would be taken, the party knew that Istrid's thugs would come knocking for the loan payment and if Emmek couldn't pay it back, he was going to have a very bad time, as Istrid's penalties for not repaying her loans are quite severe! Davil agreed this was the best route to avoid anybody else getting into trouble, wished Yuan well and reminded him of his upcoming job with Skeemo before taking his leave with his team. Their task was, for the most part, complete. Now it was time to see how Istrid's thugs were going to make an example of Mr. Frewn and his business. What will become of Frewn's Brews? How will the Song and Spirit Tavern fare as a result? Will Emmek get up to any further shenanigans? How badly will he get his ass kicked by Istrid? Find out next time... on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist!!