With the Scarlet Marpenoth fully under control, the team set above to exploring the rest of the vessel. There were some standard rooms, such as a galley/kitchen and a pantry, as well as a pleasant dining room, but the more interesting things were found in the staterooms of what was suspected to be for the three drow gunslingers lead by Soluun Xibrindas... and a fourth room, likely used by none other than Jarlaxle himself. In Soluun's room, Ray found a rather grotesque statue dedicated to Lolth, the spider queen of the drow, along with some minor bits of treasure and a healing potion. He also found some kind of weird, thick padded outfit that had a fishbowl helmet, which Sigurd would identify later as a Lantanese diving suit, useful for deep sea exploring. In Fel'rekt's room, Sigurd found only a few personal effects, such as a dragon bone comb and some well made obsidian dice, but not much else of value. In Krebbyg's room, Yuan found even less - only the hammock used to sleep in. The room was otherwise completely devoid of anything noteworthy. However, the big prize would come from Enigma's exploration of Jarlaxle's stateroom, which had a tall harp, a fancy harpsichord, a freestanding mirror, and a large wooden trunk. Investigating the trunk, Enigma only found... a swarm of mechanical spiders! They began crawling out of compartments set on each side of the trunk, and attempted to attack him; however, the other members of the party fortunately heard the commotion before they could get him, as Yuan and Ray were able to squish them before they could cause any damage. Quite the jumpscare, at least... Checking the trunk, though, it seemed to be empty, which made little sense. Even with Ray's help, he was unable to find a hidden compartment, but Sigurd pointed out that it likely had a false bottom, revealing that the bottom part of the trunk could indeed be lifted, and inside were... a set of documents, and nothing else. Reviewing the documents briefly, Enigma found that they were contracts, deeds, and various other investments. Peculiar, though... he recognized the handwriting as that of Victor Cassalanter, whose writing he had seen up close after perusing his journal back at Cassalanter Villa. What the heck was Cassalanter paperwork doing on the Scarlet Marpenoth??? Additionally, he found one regarding Emmek Frewn - some kind of agreement between Victoro and Emmek's place of business, Frewn's Brews, which is now defunct... The mystery would only get thicker when Enigma opened the closet door to find a collection of vintage wines - Sigurd estimated the value of which to be a whopping fifteen hundred dragons. Even more peculiar was a wine crate stashed in the corner, which Enigma opened up only to find not wine, but a burlap sack filled with... something. Pulling it out, it seemed rather heavy and lumpy... When the team opened the contents, they found... a dwarf. A very unconscious dwarf, wearing a bowler hat and some suspenders, who was also gagged and blindfolded. When Ray voiced concern this is another one of Jarlaxle's disguises, Sigurd was able to dispel the idea by simply lifting the dwarf's hat - nothing happened, save for finding a bald spot on the dwarf's head. He even scanned the dwarf with his Wand of Magic Detection and found nothing - though, instead of finding something on the dwarf, he found that the nearby wall radiated transmutation magic. When Enigma went to poke it, the wall turned into a see-through window. A one-way window for Jarlaxle to look out through. Could he have known that the team was here? Enigma thought it might be possible that Jarlaxle saw the team coming and fled, but Sigurd countered that if he had known the team was coming, he likely would have tried to defend the submarine instead of running away. It meant at least that Jarlaxle was probably not hiding on the Scarlet Marpenoth, but could be elsewhere on one of the Faire's ships. Regarding the dwarf, though, looking him over, it was concluded that he was asleep not due to some kind of magic, but a poison, a rather potent one at that, as Valetta pointed out that the drow commonly used poison tactics in their schemes, and it was recalled that during the fight in the tavern against Bregan D'aerthe soldiers, Jalester had been hit with a poisoned crossbow bolt and fell asleep. While he was able to be snapped out of his stupor, this particular poisoned dwarf had something much more potent used on him, to the point where he could not be awakened by any amount of jostling. Fortunately, Valetta came prepared, having expected that drow poison might come into play during the adventure, and used the Lesser Restoration spell, removing the condition on the dwarf. The man began to stir awake, and panicked when he realized he was bound and gagged. Ripping the gag off his mouth, and Ray removing the blindfold, the dwarf sat up and looked at the party and questioned what was going on. While the party didn't recognize him when he introduced himself - Barendd "Barrel" Delg Hatchett - the dwarf seemed to know them . He pointed out that he was familiar with the party due to their ownership of Trollskull Manor, what was now known as The Song and Spirit tavern, and when asked what he does, he mentioned that he owns a brewery. Hatchett Brewery... uh oh. The party realized that something was very amiss about this situation. Sigurd asked what had happened up to this point, and Mr. Hatchett recounted his tale - a few days ago, he received an interesting offer from a fellow named Ronquan Mystere, a dapper fellow with a fancy hat (of course) who had recently acquired the property where Frewn's Brews used to sit. However, he had heard some nasty rumors about fireballs and other shenanigans around the place, and decided to re-sell the property. Mr. Hatchett took him up on the offer, sensing an amazing business opportunity, and signed transfer papers - with a magister present no less - to acquire the deed from Mr. Mystere. Everything seemed to be going well, and they finalized everything over a dinner at a fancy tavern. However, during the meal, Mr. Hatchett began to feel ill and went to rest, feeling very groggy. He passed out some time later and that's the last thing he remembered. A peculiar story, as the party had been informed "Mr. Hatchett" wished to take them up on a tour of the nearby brewery in Trollskull Alley... Thinking about the situation, some possibilities were presented. Ray thought maybe an Illusory Script spell was used to fool Mr. Hatchett into signing a false document, but Sigurd pointed out this was impossible - the deed for Emmek's place was already written and owned by Victoro, and Jarlaxle would have had to write the original script for the spell to work, which he did not do. However, he posited another possibility after some logical deductions... The paperwork "Ronquan Mystere" had shown to Mr. Hatchett was likely a forgery, made using the original documents he would have had access to, as this man was none other than Jarlaxle using a fake name, as is his wont. Technically, Victoro Cassalanter still owns Frewn's Brews and carried the deed, but as it had been stolen, Jarlaxle was likely able to replicate it and alter the text to his favor, somehow managing to fool even Waterdeep's magisters with some behind the scenes shenanigans. After that, he sold the property (which he technically didn't even own) to Mr. Hatchett, with very official looking paperwork. During what is assumed to be a dinner celebrating the transfer, Jarlaxle slips Mr. Hatchett a very strong poison into his food or drink (indeed, it would have had to be very potent to poison a dwarf), causing Mr. Hatchett to fall asleep. He is then kidnapped and stowed away on the Scarlet Marpenoth by some unknown means, and then is summarily replaced by a stand-in, likely either the actual Jarlaxle or one of his agents posing as Mr. Hatchett. Thus, Jarlaxle and the Bregan D'aerthe are using the Hatchett Brewery to spy on the party, and attempted to lure them into a trap! Yet another one of Jarlaxle's insane, baffling schemes to try and undermine the party. Indeed, there was some doubt as to whether Jarlaxle was aware of what the party was doing, as it was highly likely they were being spied upon in Trollskull Alley. But there was nothing to be done about this now - it would be something they have to deal with when they returned to the mainland. At the very least, they had rescued the real Mr. Hatchett, who likely would have never been found unless the party intervened in this manner. Unfortunately, Mr. Hatchett was not a combatant, but Sigurd put him to use by assigning him to check out the vintage wines in Jarlaxle's stateroom, which the dwarf was all too happy to do while the party went back to business. Having recovered from that startling revelation, the party went to plan on how to handle the next steps. They needed to destroy the Eyecatcher ship, but how to do so was the tricky part as there were no explosives on board. Fortunately, Sigurd reminded the party that wooden ships are very flammable, and he had just recently messed with a parade float that had some flammable properties... They would have to proceed up into the hold of the Eyecatcher, and reverse Sigurd's changes to the device, then set it off and run like hell. Reaching the exit of the Marpenoth, Sigurd noticed there was a magical aura in the main room. Before he could explain what it was, Ray realized that clearly, it was a magical pressurization system intended to keep water out of the submarine should the valve wheel be opened while the submarine isn't dock! Valetta was impressed at his observation and chided Sigurd to be more like Ray. Sigurd was at a complete loss for words. With Enigma splashing Dust of Disappearance over the party to render them all invisible for a few minutes, and Yuan giving Enigma a small boost with his newfound ability to bolster his allies through his wild magic, they went on their way up the ladder to the ship. However, they hit a snag - the trapdoor at the top was locked, with some kind of magic according to Sigurd. Ray handed Valetta a scroll of Dispel Magic, who used it to try and unravel the magic lock. It worked like a charm, though now Valetta was rendered visible... she'd have to be extra careful moving about the ship. Climbing out into what appears to be a walk-in closet (an odd place to exit into for sure), Yuan noticed there was a secret exit, aside from the normal one, which he used to exit the closet and into the main part of the ship. With the party following along, they spotted some kind of training area complete with ropes and dummies, and a target board with a shiny dagger sticking out of it. This part of the ship was also well lit, unlike the submarine, so hiding without invisibility would be difficult. It would mean Valetta would have to lag behind a bit and make sure the coast was clear before she proceeded. They proceeded upstairs from there, and entered the lower hold of the ship... back into the hellscape of broken props and giant spiders that looked a little too lifelike to be just props. The spiders were perfectly still, and one could easily mistake them for the real thing, but the team knew of this ruse already. Fortunately, most of them were still invisible, but sneaking over to the machine to mess with it without the help of Enigma's special power was a bit of a gamble. Still, they had to try, as it was the only real way they could subtly set fire to the ship without alerting anyone. Fortunately, they were able to sneak over to the device without spooking the spiders, and Sigurd was able to undo the changes he had made and set fire to the unfinished golden dragon float, causing the canister housing the gas device to shatter. This alerted the spiders, but as the party was still invisible, they were able to sneak away just in time to avoid getting caught by them as they investigated the noise. Making their way out quickly, the team returned to the Scarlet Marpenoth, Sigurd manning the pilot seat as Valetta made sure the gnomes were put to task in maintaining the engineering room and control room. Detaching the submarine from the Eyecatcher, the team was able to send Yuan to retrieve the Apparatus of Kwalish still floating nearby the submarine, as he was the only one strong enough to move it by hand. Pushing it to the surface, he was able to climb in through the hatch without flooding it, as it lacked the special pressurization room the Marpenoth had to prevent flooding if it was opened while undocked. He would follow the Scarlet Marpenoth, being piloted by Sigurd, back toward the pier, as the Eyecatcher quietly smoldered behind them. Time would no longer be on their side - by the time they got there, the Eyecatcher would likely be a flaming ruin easily visible from the pier. They quickly hatched a plan - the only thing left to do now was to detonate the massive quantities of smokepowder hidden in the holds of the Hellraiser and Heartbreaker ships. Sending multiple people to do the job would be cumbersome and the party would likely be easily found, though... It looked like the task would fall upon Enigma, the master of stealth, to complete this critical mission! With Yuan's bolstering magic... Ray's bardic inspiration... Sigurd's gift of swift movement and invisibility... Valetta's magic granting the grace of a cat... And his own shadow arts... Would the drackal be able to bring an end to the Bregan D'aerthe in one swift, decisive strike? Was Jarlaxle aware of their schemes, and would he be able to foil them? Find out next time... on Waterdeep: Dragon Heist!!