The party made their way to Blackstaff Tower, being allowed entry through a teleport by the mages there as they were being expected. Once there, they were greeted by Mirt and Marcellus of the Harpers, and Vajra Safahr and Meloon Wardragon of Force Grey. Vajra seemed a little annoyed and expressed her disappointment at the party giving Manshoon's spellbook to Driette, before Mirt interrupted her. She sighed and got on with the real reason why everybody is here... The task ahead has gotten somewhat more complicated, as Mirt thinks Xanathar might be making some moves due to the fact that the Cassalanters and Manshoon have been taken out of the running for the vault by the party's actions. On top of that, he hasn't been able to get in touch with his contact, a mole within the Xanathar Thieves' Guild. He reveals the identity of the contact, a dwarven engineer by the name of Thorvin Twinbeard. He has not heard from him in a tenday and is worried he might have been compromised. He appeared to be onto something big, but was working on the details and didn't finish the plan. The overall mission remains the same: recover Sylgar, the goldfish, from Xanathar's Lair, and kill Nihiloor the mind flayer. The goldfish is required for the vault, and Nihiloor will surely crop up again and again if he is left unchecked; his malicious evil ways must be stopped. Optionally, Mirt has asked the party to also do the following tasks: find a way to dismantle Xanathar's operation, preferably in a permanent fashion, and find out what happened to Thorvin and bring him back if he's still alive. To that end, Vajra states that Meloon will be joining the party in their hunt for Nihiloor, and also provides them a few tools to aid them; a packet of Dust of Disappearance, which can turn a group invisible quickly, and a scroll of Locate Creature, which she suggests to use to detect intellect devourers - Nihiloor himself might be protected from divinations, so this is a good way to try and circumvent that. The party is free to use the scroll as they see fit if they find some other way to track down Nihiloor within the lair. From the Harpers, Mirt allows Marcellus to join the team as well, who has been waiting for this chance for quite a while and has already demonstrated his sorcerer abilities to the party on multiple occasions. Vajra warns that a confrontation with Xanathar should be avoided at all costs, as his main eye can project an anti-magic zone and he has many eye rays which can easily flatten the party in a hurry. If an encounter seems inevitable, they better hope to have some kind of overwhelming advantage! Everyone else is fair game though, and Nihiloor's death is required to satisfy Vajra's request. She also goes over the general abilities of the intellect devourers and warns that if one of them gets you, it's going to be lights out. Yuan seems to have forgotten that Meloon learned this the hard way and remarks on how very unfortunate that would be. Before the party leaves, Mirt tells them a code phrase the Harpers use with Thorvin to ascertain they are allies: "pluck the strings of fate". It will let Thorvin know that the team is with the Harpers in a secret manner. With the task at hand apparent, the party makes some last-minute preparations by visiting various shops and adjusting their items accordingly. It becomes time to descend into the belly of the beast... Marcellus shows he knows the way thanks to Mirt's advice by leading the party to a specific sewer entrance in the castle ward, and finding a secret door in the walls of the sewers below, which descends into a spiral staircase. Marcellus states that if they have a god they wish to offer prayer to, they better do so now. Enigma responds with a quick prayer to Tyr, and Meloon wishes for Tymora's luck to bless their dungeon crawl. As they descend, the walls are covered in inscriptions of eyes that seem to watch them where ever they go... spooky. They find the bottom and in the next area, find a hallway full of eyeballs. Gross! They blink irregularly and are unnerving, but otherwise seem harmless. Yuan notices one that stands out, though, a ghostly spectral eyestalk observing the hallway. So much for subtlety... Ray, however, manages to uncover a secret door by finding an eye that isn't quite like the others, all the other eyes seem to have human eyes but one of them has a slitted eye like an animal or lizard. Pressing it, it swings the wall open and allows passage. In the next room, the party sees many lifelife statues of humanoids decorating the walls... in fact, these statues look a little... too lifelike. In addition, their expressions and postures suggest horror and terror. Could these be the victims of Xanathar? They don't get long to contemplate this when Ray and Yuan hear the sounds of capering and prancing down the hallway. Taking to the shadows with the help of Enigma's Pass Without Trace, they spy a... gnome clown cartwheeling down the hallway and practicing tricks and acrobatics by himself. He seems to be having a good time. The party debates on how to handle him, and decide ultimately they need information and this loser might be the ticket. They ambush him and Yuan wraps him up in an armlock, preventing his escape. The clown doesn't seem to try and aggress the party, though, so the situation doesn't escalate further... at least until Ray threatens him directly with death unless he spills the beans. The clown introduces himself as Flutterfoot Zipswiggle, and he's Xanathar's Jester. Apparently, he was practicing his next act in the hallway before he sees Xanathar again, stating that Xanathar often gets grumpy and needs someone to keep him entertained and happy, and he's just the guy for the job! He pleads the party that he wishes to ask them a riddle and then he'll promise he'll show the party around as they seem much more interesting than the others in the dungeon. Enigma seems interested to hear him out, so the party allows it, and he asks the following: I come with a smile; In slaughter, I rest; I can be contagious, But my medicine is best. What am I? Ray, being familiar with these kinds of riddles, answers correct: Laughter! Flutterfoot is pleased and agrees to aid the party in showing them around. He knows the general layout of the dungeon and the locations of secret doors, as well as Xanathar's location - Xanathar is currently contemplating his mortality in the crypt of Xanathars past and Flutterfoot has heard from Ahmaergo that he doesn't want to be disturbed. The crypt is full of dead beholders in vats and ashes of past Xanathars in urns, it's a very spooky place. They also learn about some other things, including how the eyestalk cameras are operated by a group of wizards called panopticus wizards. They operate the surveillance and state all they see to the audience chamber, which is currently only occupied by the drow advisor and his grell bodyguard (who Sigurd notes is likely Nar'l). He also states that Noska came back recently, and Ahmaergo, the left/right hand man of Xanathar, was pleased lately to have his minotaur partner back in his possession. Sigurd begrudgingly asks if this minotaur is named Raisha and Flutterfoot unfortunately confirms it as such, greatly displeasing the artificer. In addition, they learn about the location of prisoners near the arena, near the entrance to Skullport. That way is blocked by a zombie beholder who only allows those who present a symbol of Xanathar to pass. The prisoners are used in the arena for Xanathar's entertainment, and Flutterfoot also speaks of a tavern area beneath the lair. Yuan seems surprised, but Ray says that the place has to be livable for the bandits to stay here for extended periods, so it makes sense. Meloon makes the comment that it's going to be one hell of a story if they make it out of here, but Marcellus thinks for a moment and asks Flutterfoot the location of Thorvin. He reveals it is at the end of the hall with the statues, inside his workshop. While the party allows Flutterfoot to tag along, they are worried he might give them away, either unwittingly or deliberately, so they opt to do the most sensible thing - tie him to Yuan's back and gag him so he can't make a fuss. Flutterfoot, who is terrified for his life due to Ray's threats, complies. Ray also checks his gear, and while mostly finding only entertainment implements suitable for a clown, he does find a packet of dust of disappearance, bringing his total to two. Flutterfoot is a bit upset that his disappearing act tool was taken away, but when Enigma mentions that now they can make MANY people disappear, Flutterfoot is astounded at his genius and agrees. They decide the first thing they need to do is to knock out the panopticus surveillance system to prevent any more alarms from being tripped. Doubling back the way they came, and entering a hall with pillars made of eyes, they enter the panopticus station through a secret door in the wall which Enigma finds by pressing an oddly-turned eye in the wall, causing a doorway to open. Inside, they find five dwarves with tattoos on their heads and their eyes scrunched shut, one of them speaking upward toward some kind of tuba-looking device in the ceiling while they all sit around some kind of sigil circle on the floor. Not wasting any time, the party sneaks in and strikes! It doesn't take much to bring them down, as Enigma cleans house with two of them, Ray and Marcellus working together to take a third out, and Yuan finishing the job with two quick chops to bring the last two down. The dwarves didn't even stand a chance - Meloon expresses his disappointment that he didn't get to have any fun. Sigurd investigates the circle and finds that it can only be operated by these wizards - he inspects them and realizes they have been surgically and magically altered in some way. He is reminded of the psionic kobolds the party encountered previously, and suspects that this might be Nihiloor's doing. In any case, the scrying circle is useless to them without the correct adjustments, but at least nobody else can use this station to spy on the party. Ray opts to stuff the tuba with a costume with Enigma's helpful use of Mage Hand, and the party moves onward to find Thorvin. Yuan notes the statues seem to be of various individuals, some of them dressed in Xanathar thug outfits. Flutterfoot commented previously that Xanathar sometimes gets a little too angry and zaps minions who fail him... There seem to be many other doorways leading who-knows-where, although Flutterfoot alerts the party to a nearby secret door in a side hall. He says the party can use this to circumvent the audience chamber and go straight to Xanathar's sanctum, where Ott Steeltoes, the fishkeeper, tends to Sylgar, Xanathar's pet goldfish. The party notes the location and returns to the hunt for Thorvin, whom they find indeed working away in a workshop at the end of the hall, elbow deep in strange machinery. However, he has an inconvenient guest, an albino gazer who seems rather... off. Normally, gazers are nasty, demented and territorial creatures, but this one seems oddly friendly and mostly an annoyance to Thorvin. The party manages to sneak in without getting noticed and closes the door behind them, at which point the gazer notices and begins spinning in place. Thorvin realizes he is no longer alone and reacts with sudden alarm until Ray provides the passphrase "pluck the strings of fate." He calms down, but states in a roundabout way that he can't speak openly unless he doesn't have so many eyes watching him, referring obliquely to the gazer nearby. Thinking for a moment, Ray tries to lull it to rest via a lullaby, which he plays on his viola. The performance is incredible, causing the gazer to sway from side to side with the music and eventually settle itself on Ray's shoulder, to take a nap and drool a bit. While Ray is a bit disturbed, Yuan realizes that the gazer might not be all bad, recalling that Sigurd mentioned that gazers are dreamed into existence by beholders and turned into minions, and follow their beholder masters doggedly. Perhaps Xanathar dreamed this gazer into existence to spy on Thorvin, perhaps believing him to be disloyal (which he is, at least to Xanathar), but it turns out the gazer itself is actually the disloyal one. Once the gazer has been placated, Marcellus shows Thorvin his harper badge and tells him Mirt sent the team to find him and learn what he knows about the lair. Thorvin prepares himself to tell the team how to dismantle Xanathar's operation, and it involves a lot of explosives! How exactly did Thorvin manage to get so many bombs into the lair? Will the team be able to complete their objectives and survive the consequences of their actions? How many other weirdos lurk within the lair? Find out next time... on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist!!