Today is the Midsummer festival in Waterdeep, where love and music was celebrated through feast. In addition, today is also Ray's birthday! With Renaer distracting him with an errand outside the tavern, the rest of the party set up a surprise birthday party for him, complete with sea salt cake baked by the one and only chef, Chef the Warforged Chef. When the time came, the team surprised Ray with his birthday cake and had a little party in the early morning of the Midsummer festival, with Renaer saying he had Chef make him this special cake. It was all very heartwarming, and just as Ray was getting ready to make the first slice... A loud explosion went off outside, shaking the building and nearly blowing out the windows of the building!! With Marcellus trying to keep everybody calm in the tavern, the rest of the party, lead by Enigma, ran outside to see what had happened. Enigma, knowing city protocol fairly well by now, knew the Watch would be on the scene within minutes, but it would give the team enough time to investigate the scene - an immense scorch mark on the ground with eleven dead bodies. Among the dead was an elderly woman, four halfling children, a rock gnome, three noble servants and two men dressed in dark leather armor. Enigma found quickly that one of the armored men had a snake tattoo on his forearm - clearly a sign he was a Zhentarim agent. He also found a pouch of gemstones on the gnome's body, which when he tried to remove, someone saw him doing it and quickly left the scene. That totally didn't look suspicious! Oops. Meanwhile, Ray was questioning the locals. The explosion happened right outside Fala's herb shop, and while they were shaken up, they were unharmed, though it looks like the windows of her second floor greenhouse didn't fare much better, having been blown out entirely. They said that after the explosion happened and they looked out the window, they saw a man, who had been badly burned, take something from the fallen gnome and run off down the street toward the Bent Nail. He appeared to be a heavyset, squat man. Ray also found a small child who had seen his halfling friends burn up into flames, and when he questioned the boy, the child had found a small piece of jewelry that fell into the rain barrel he had ducked into to hide. It was a gold chain with two red pearls attached by small gold chain, and a third gold chain with nothing attached. Ray convinced the boy, who had intended to keep it, to hand over the item, which he reluctantly agreed. Yuan, suspicious, tuned into his magical sensitivity, and found that the item had radiated magic - evocation magic, at that, meaning it was capable of potentially destructive power. Hmmm... Indeed, Sigurd's magical knowledge had concluded that the explosion was likely the result of someone casting a Fireball into the street. For his part, Enigma managed to also find a third witness, an older woman who was leaving the Tiger's Eye, who said she saw some kind of puppet without strings, a wooden man, up on the roof and throw something into the street, resulting in the large explosion. She didn't see where the puppet man had went. It occurred to Sigurd later that this lanky, puppet-like figure sounded awfully familiar, as his mind drifted to the Nimblewrights, the constructs found commonly in the Day of Wonders parades, and at the Temple of Gond... But before anybody else could do much, they were stopped by a horde of City Guard, with a Griffon Cavalry flying overhead, who held down the area and prevented anybody from moving around too much until the Watchful Order arrived. The captain immediately questioned Enigma, who had been seen taking something from the dead gnome and suspected him of wrongdoing, but Enigma showed his identity with his Lord's Alliance ring and apologized for looking suspicious. The captain took the gemstones as evidence and marched off to help retain order, clearly displeased about this situation. Soon, the authorities arrived, as two men took over the crime scene. Barnibus Blastwind, a mage in the Watchful Order of Magists and Protectors, followed by his friend, Saeth Cromley, a City Watch sergeant. As Cromley sent constables to question witnesses, Blastwind investigated the scene, scanning everything carefully, his search eventually leading him to Ray, and after they introduced each other, Ray presented to him the necklace. Blastwind took the item, suspecting it had something to do with the crime, and took Ray's statement, as Cromley talked to Enigma, whom he recognized as being part of the Lord's Alliance. The two of them wondered if the party had anything to do with the crime but realized that the explosion took place so close to their place of business, and it is unlikely they were suspects. As such, they didn't intend to take too much of their time and eventually allowed people to get on their way as they began cleaning up the crime scene. Ray tried to follow the trail of the man who had run away, and while Avi and Embric weren't much help, Tally, the carpenter, did say he saw someone who looked to be a bit on the crispy side fleeing east down the road, but didn't get a look at his face. He appeared to be a larger gentleman, which fit the description Fala had given earlier. It was at this time that Renaer dropped a bombshell of information - that he had recognized the gnome laying on the ground. He had been intending to tell the group after the birthday party about this, but it appears the news beat him to the punch. The gnome was a man named Dalakhar, and he is a spy of Dagult Neverember, Renaer's father. Previously, before the group had been associating with Renaer, Renaer had spotted the gnome spying on him from time to time, but about a month ago it suddenly stopped. He questioned Dalakhar's friends about it and learned he had somehow acquired the Stone of Golorr and was on the run with it to escape criminal elements who were also after it. Given the circumstances, Renaer suspects that he might have been trying to make his way to the Song and Spirit to hand off the Stone to the party in some way, before the Zhentarim managed to catch him. Marcellus said to Renaer that it's time to put 'that plan' into action. Renaer agreed, and told the party to meet him at the Yawning Portal in about three hours. With that, the two left the alley, leaving the party to their own devices. Sigurd suggested they pay Valetta a visit to ask her about the potential misuse of a Nimblewright, to which the party agreed. When they got there, to the House of Inspired Hands, they saw a humanoid figure on the rooftop sending out a small metal bird... which, after doing some loops, crashed into Enigma unexpectedly and then fell apart. Ouch! Heading inside, the temple looked much more like a museum display than anything, showing off various kinds of crazy technologies. Of import was an interesting miniature replica of a Lantanese submersible, the Scarlet Marpenoth, launched in 1489 DR, which Sigurd recognized as matching the description of what Zelifarn the bronze dragon had seen under one of the ships of the Sea Maidens' Faire... Valetta was immediately dismayed to learn about the crashed bird, and lead the party upstairs to the attic to find the culprit, though had found the lock had been changed on the door. With some nimble fingers by Enigma to pick the lock apart, the lock was opened easily enough and the party found the culprit - a nimblewright which had been named Nim by the temple. Nim used a sort of sign language to communicate as it could not speak, and Valetta relayed its apologies. However, when Sigurd mentioned that a Nimblewright might have caused an incident in Trollskull Alley, she was confused as no nimblewrights had left the building, and Nim cannot leave the temple grounds due to an enchantment. It was then that Nim confessed that, through careful study, he had made another Nimblewright, to combat his loneliness, though this was against Valetta's wishes. The second nimblewright had escaped about a month ago in confused terror, it seems... Valetta ordered the acolytes of the temple to abscond with Nim's creations, forcing it to look on helplessly. It was at this time that an item fell at Ray's feet, some kind of weird device with an umbrella attached. When he picked it up and asked about it, Nim signed to Valetta, who relayed that it was a Nimblewright Detector, which Nim had made to try and find his friend, only to figure out that he could not leave the temple grounds. Valetta allowed them to keep the detector on the condition they use it to find and (quietly) dispose of the errant Nimblewright, which she would pay them handsomely for should they bring back proof of the deed, as the "nimblewrong" was apparently dangerous. She was also asked about the item Ray had found, and she confirmed that it was a Necklace of Fireballs. When asked how it acquired such an object, she said it could not have been from the temple as they don't make or sell such things here, and that it must have gotten it from an outside source. As to why it would choose to blow up a street with it, that is also unknown - maybe someone else had gotten to it between when it left the temple and when it committed its crime... With a new task before them, the party made their way back to the alley, and managed to confirm their suspicion, finding a symbol of Gond on the rooftop near their building, which looked like it had been torn from a cloak. It was clear that the suspect in the fireballing was indeed a Nimblewright construct from the temple... Later, they went to the Yawning Portal, and were greeted by Threestrings, Yagra, and Ismark - members of different factions - who all pointed them toward the closed off meeting room in the back. Inside were Davil Starsong, Mirt and Renaer, and also Jalester Silvermane, who had called a truce between their factions to figure out what was going on, as now things had taken an extremely violent turn. With information gained by Marcellus' investigation, Davil confirmed the man running away was Urstul Floxin, the man responsible for the Zhentarim splinter faction currently in place, at least in part, and his description matched that of other sources, confirming that he - and thus the Zhentarim - are in cahoots with the Gralhunds in some way. Mirt said that while it was a dangerous task, and urged caution, he tasked the party with an optional quest - to inflitrate the Gralhunds, and find the stone and Urstul Floxin, to try and curb the violence before tensions escalated any further in the city. Jalester warned that this was more or less an unofficial ask - it was going to be difficult to grant aid to the party if they were caught trespassing on Gralhund property, though they would do their best if it came to that. While it was dangerous, it was probably the best chance they would have of nabbing the Stone, and an instigator of violence, for a while, as well as potentially exposing the Gralhunds as abetters of criminal elements. Davil did mention to Yuan that this would be an excellent way to strike back at Yalah for her earlier threats against him and his friend Tally, though Mirt once again warned that direct violence against a noble was a very serious crime in Waterdeep. With that, the meeting was concluded quickly, and the party was given full discretion on how to handle this affair. Renaer let them know that Marcellus would give him more information after combing through intel with his Harper contacts by the next morning. Should they or shouldn't they? What lies in store at Gralhund Villa? And what has become of Urstul Floxin and the Stone of Golorr? Find out next time... on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist!!