The Conclave of Lords was a long time in breaking up. Dagult Neverember and Dauner Ilzimmer did a circuit of the room, devastating the buffet and the bar, all the while backslapping and gladhanding. Dagult broke off from a conversation and intercepted Siegfried. “Siegfried!” the Lord Protector said collegially. “Dagult,” Siegfried responded in kind. “I heard during your oratory that your companions the Champions of Phandalin are interested in exploring the ruins of Dragonspear Castle,” the Lord Protector said. “I guess even they can’t resist adventure’s call forever.” “We have a very full dance card, but we’re working our way through it,” Siegfried replied. “I would expect nothing less,” Dagult smiled. “Now, between you and me,” and at this he leaned in conspiratorially, “there have been reports that the Red Wizards of Thay have been up to no good in that area. The thing about the Red Wizards is, everybody has this idea that they move in lockstep and that they’re all working towards the same goal. That they’re puppets of the lich who leads their kingdom, Szass Tam. That he’s got his bony thumb on every Thayan from Eltebbar to Mirabar. But!” Dagult gestured with his forefinger, quite pleased with himself. “This is not in fact the case.” “Well, with a parliament of the undead, the only way to make a seat available for election, is to make a seat available for election,” Siegfried said. “Precisely,” Dagult replied with a nod. “So, there are Red Wizards, and then there are Red Wizards with whom one can deal. With that in mind, I’m going to give you a name. Now, this name might be a key that opens doors, or a key that locks them forever, depending on where you stick it. But keep it in your pocket, as it may come in handy. That name is Mennek Ariz.” “Mennek Ariz,” Siegfried repeated. “Indeed,” Dagult tapped the side of his nose. “But you didn’t hear it from me.” Siegfried knew that he had to take everything that Dagult said with a grain of salt given the situation between them, but insofar as the Red Wizards of Thay posed a threat to the Sword Coast and the Lords’ Alliance, he surmised that Dagult was attempting to pass along intel that could be used for the group’s advantage. “Do be careful when disturbing the ghosts of that infamous ruin,” Dagult said with a twinkle in his eye. “And have fun, of course.” “Oh, I shall try to contain the Calamity that is Varien Aether,” Siegfried replied. “At least to a localized area.” “Perfect,” Dagult chuckled. “Now then!” he fairly shouted. “Dauner, we’ve got a long ride back to Neverwinter and we need the requisite amount of booze to get us there. Lady Morwen! Point us to your wine cellars forthwith!” He spun about, his cape keeping up with him majestically. His entourage loaded up with game hens and other hors d'oeuvres as Dagult swiped a tray full of canapes from a hapless manservant on his way out the door. Lady Morwen Daggerford scowled for a moment before donning the mask of a gracious host. Ontharr Frume grimaced to himself and then exhaled sharply. “Steady, lad,” he muttered to himself. “They’re your ride home.” Jalaster collared Sir Lanniver and escorted him under guard to an uncertain fate in a warded cell. Siegfried noticed that Ambassador Rhundorth and Connerad Brawnanvil were set on leaving through separate doors if at all possible, neither wishing to be the first to depart with the other noticing. Deciding to give Rhundorth an out, Siegfried called out to Connerad. “Master Brawnanvil! I would like to thank you for your generous offer to assist in the rebuilding of Helm’s Hold, and I was wondering if I could get your feedback on some theories I’ve been refining on architecture, metallurgy, and mine safety,” Siegfried said loudly. Brawnanvil looked taken aback. “Why, uh, yes, of course,” he said with an air of suspicion. Siegfried knew just what to say to get back Brawnanvil’s ironbound defences without triggering his obvious prejudices. “Aye, I see you are a man of culture as well!” Brawnanvil said as Siegfried demonstrated familiarity with the recipe for Dwarven haggis. “They don’t make ‘em anywhere quite like they do back home in the galleys and kitchens of Mithril Hall.” He grew wistful for a moment. “Y’know, when I was king, they served ‘em up to me on platters of hammered palladium, they did.” “Oh, you’ll have to treat me,” Siegfried replied. “No, that would require me taking up the crown again, laddie,” Connerad wagged a finger at the half-orc. “There’s too much else to do, too many forgotten mines to clear out, too many adventures to be had. Of course, I could put in a good word for you should you arrive on the doorstep of Citadel Adbar or one of our northern holds.” Their conversation went on for some time. Erwen sat in a haystack behind the castle, quite content. Chewing a piece of grass, he sniffed the air and frowned. The smells of Daggerford were quite pungent, and not all of them were natural. Daggerford appeared to be a place focused on rude industry, without the efforts made by a city like Waterdeep to lessen the impact of the negative externalities of the work done in factory and workshop. In particular, there was a bridge southwest of him where he could tell was primarily used to dumped waste into the river. To the west of the city, along the river, was a tannery atop a hill that stank to high heaven. This was an affront to Erwen’s senses. The pungent tang of the chemicals used spread like an invisible funk over the city. The locals didn’t seem to be all that bothered by it, but it made Erwen’s eyes water. His frown deepened. Erwen slunk towards the tannery. Grandur cast a divination ritual in the castle library. Incense began to swirl around him as the ritual continued, with Grandur making an offering to the nearest deity who happened to be listening to his chanted query, “If we were to look, where would we find this lich we freed from the grisgol?” Shapes appeared, dissolved, and reformed at the very limits of the wizard’s perception. Grandur’s eyes glazed over as he chanted ever louder. A phrase began to form in his mind as a deep chill ran through his body. A shadowed mantle eclipses Neverwinter Wood; The Hand of Szass Tam reaches and grasps, choking life from the Sword Coast. Grandur fumbled for his notebook and quill, and as he wrote the message down, there was a hiss as the words were fairly branded onto the page. Blue flame gave off an unearthly cold as he wrote the phrase. “Is that you, Santa?” Grandur murmured. The paper was now cold to the touch, and the ink in his quill had frozen solid. The fire died down to ice on the page. “Very, very interesting,” Grandur said. Varien admired his new armour and set about to collect his companions from the castle. He ran into Dagult Neverember and his entourage as they strode loudly through the halls of the castle. Dagult’s eyes flashed with recognition. “Varien Aether, Champion of Phandalin! You know, there’s always room for you to become a Champion of Neverwinter, in spite of what General Sabine may think.” He gave Varien a wink and chuckled knowingly. Varien gave Dagult a bit of a smirk and a nod, then gave way and stood aside to let the Lord Protector and his entourage pass. As Dagult brushed past him, he leaned in and said, “do enjoy Dragonspear Castle. Many would-be heroes have tested their mettle there and be found wanting. I’m sure you’ll be fine.” He popped a canape in his mouth and smacked his lips loudly as he strode away. Varien shook his head as he ventured back to the great hall, catching the eyes of the Trevelyan brothers. “Varien, you look spiffy!” Siegfried called out. He had been busy plying Connerad Brawnanvil with dwarven ale and was now fiddling up a storm on his viol to the point where smoke seemed to be curling up from the instrument’s strings. He furiously fiddled a rousing rendition of a classic dwarven drinking song that had Connerad, in spite of himself, up on the tabletop kicking flagons aside as he danced a merry jig. “You’ve given me a taste of home, me boy!” he shouted at the half-orc. Lady Laeral, a look of amusement on her face, tapped one slippered foot in time with the music. Even Waterbaron Nestra Ruthiol’s scowl had uncreased a bit as she clapped on the beat. Varien gave Siegfried a look and jerked his head towards the door, not interrupting the tavern song. Siegfried worked himself up to a big finish to the applause of the assembly. “I can scarcely recall the last Conclave of Lords that ended on such a high note,” Lady Laeral said with a smile. Siegfried bowed. “So, Varien, we have received an invitation from King Melendrach of the Misty Forest to visit his Palace of the Laughing Hollow either on our way to or from Dragonspear Castle,” Siegfried told Varien. “Also, I’ve been given the name of a certain Red Wizard of Thay who might be present in the area, one Mennek Ariz, who may be involved in plots against the Thayan Lich Lord, Szass Tam. Apparently some necromancers don’t like other necromancers in Thay, and would be down to clown and murder the other necromancers, so to speak. Which makes it easy if you want to turn around and stab the necromancer after the deed is done.” Varien raised his eyebrow until he could raise it no further. A look of realization dawned on Siegfried’s face. “Wait a minute. Didn’t you deal rather harshly with a pair of Red Wizards some time ago?” “That’s right,” Varien said. “Outside Old Owl Well.” “And one of those Red Wizards kept a diary and mentioned contacting a rogue association of Thayans called the Resurrection?” Siegfried continued. He pulled out some papers from his packet and tossed them to Varien. “That sounds right, The Thayan Resurrection,” Varien said. “I wonder which side this Mennek Ariz is really on.” Erwen plodded across the fields towards the promontory atop which sat the stinking tannery. The unnatural odours increase in noxiousness the closer he approached. It was a long rectangular warehouse-style construction with open vents along its roof, from which wafted plumes of visible and invisible pollution. A winding path thick with wagon ruts wound its way up the hillside to its front entrance. The words “THE OLD HIDE HOUSE” were painted on the side of the building in stout letters. The air was thick with the tang of chemicals used for tanning hides and dyeing cloth. Erwen approached the box-like building and saw its main doors, wide enough for two wagons to enter or exit side by side. Nested within the large door was a human-sized door, and nested within that was a halfling-sized door. “Perfect,” Erwen muttered to himself. Beyond the doors he could hear the sounds of men and machinery at work. He opened the smallest door and gained ingress into the industrial facility. Inside, his nostrils were assailed by the strong chemical smells emanating from burbling vats of suspicious looking liquid, like a sinister soup being stirred by masked men. What drew Erwen’s gaze, however, were the piles upon piles of animal hides, stacked everywhere. More hides were stretched on drying racks, while others, which had been more recently skinned, were laying in bloody heaps where children and Halflings alike were busy scraping bits of flesh and fat from their undersides. Near the rear of the building was an office where a number of trappers were waiting in line to exchange hides for coin. A Halfling accountant sat on a tall stool and high desk, giving him an oppressor’s view of the working men in the factory. A rather large, shaggy fellow wearing a stained leather apron and gauntlets over his bare chest and arms squinted at Erwen through a gnomish monocole screwed into his left eye socket. “You there! Break’s over – back to work with you!” He jerked a leather-clad thumb at the assembly line and went back to work fishing something that looked suspiciously like a drowned body from a vat of tanning chemicals with a long wooden gaff. Erwen glanced at where the foreman had been pointing. Several workers were busy at stations along a mechanical apparatus that stretched the length of the building. At the far end of the clockwork conveyor belt were indeed more orderly piles of treated and worked raw leather bound up in rolls stacked nearly to the ceiling. Looming over the operation on the north wall was a large wooden sign that read “DAYS WITHOUT ACCIDENT” and next to that was a hook from which hung a placard with a “4” rudely painted on it. Posters that said “Take the Tenday Safety Challenge” were pasted up on the walls here and there. Erwen nodded to the foreman and found a place at the assembly line, but his keen eyes were searching for a particularly vulnerable point in the gnomish contraption. Each section was labeled with a helpful wooden sign hanging from leather thongs: Soaking, Pressing, Splitting, Shaving, Trimming, Dyeing, Drying, and Conveyor . Finding a likely source for sabotage, he walked over to the safety sign and rooted around in the pile of wooden shingles until he found one with a “0” marked on it. Using a pike he knocked the “4” off and ran the “0” up until it hooked onto the nail in the board. Here and there, workers began to eye Erwen, and one another, uneasily. Erwen then walked over towards the conveyor. The foreman noticed Erwen again and shouted, pointing his wooden gaff at the Halfling. “Hey, you there! Back to work! Back to your station!” His other leatherbound hand drifted towards a coiled leather whip cinched at his leather belt. Erwen deftly retrieved his bear trap from his rucksack and threw it into the mechanical works of the clockwork conveyor belt. There was a ratcheting sound and the screech of metal on metal as the conveyor’s gears forced the jaws of the trap open, then a plaintive ping sound as the grinding gears depressed the trap’s trigger. Instantly there was a metallic chomping sound as the trap went off, biting deep into the wooden gear assembly and sending splinters sizzling through the air. Erwen dodged the hail of flinders while the foreman was peppered by toothpick-sized bits of shrapnel. The foreman howled and dropped his gaff in surprise. There was a strained, grinding sound as the conveyor belt began to bunch and back up, parts of it still trying to carry out its designer’s intent as other parts broke down under the strain of the broken gearbox. Leather belts flew off their wheels and from the backyard of the factory came angry animal noises as the rothé who were tethered to the main gearshaft and flywheel found themselves unable to walk in their sorry circle. There was the sound of a whip cracking, and them a stampeding rumble that shook the walls of the factory. The foreman swiped splinters from his face and balled his leather mitts into fists. “Oi! What’re you, some kinda anarchist? That’s coming out of your pay!” He pointed at the workers. “And your pay as well! Don’t think I don’t think you lackwits didn’t put this saboteur up to this! All of your pay!” Erwen threw down his coin purse. Platinum coins scattered across the wooden floor. “None of you work here anymore. Take the money and leave, as my quarrel is not with you.” He pointed his finger at the foreman. “My quarrel is with you!” he said. “Anyone else can leave here and never come back!” The foreman took a confused half-step backwards as Erwen conjured a pair of giant elk. “Anyone who stays, dies,” Erwen said softly but intently. “Whoa,” the foreman said. There was a mad rush for the door as the employees scooped up the coins and headed for the exits. The foreman and the Halfling office assistant looked about in confusion. As the labourers fled, the foreman high-tailed it out of the tannery via the back entrance. Erwen looked around at the facility around him and cast firestorm as he walked towards the front door. A wall of flames blazed into existence, setting the building aflame. Erwen wildshaped into a grey squirrel and scampered across the grass. Inside the building the flames began to lick at the chemical tuns and there was a tremendous explosion that blew the tannery apart. A mushroom cloud rose skyward as explosion after explosion rocked the building’s collapsing frame. The reek of chemical reactions turned the grass around the tannery brown. At the bottom of the hill, the workers happily passed around Erwen’s coin purse. On the other side of the hill, the foreman and office manager stared at the conflagration, tears running down soot-stained cheeks. “Good thing the building was insured at the Sword Coast Trader’s Bank,” the office manager said. It didn’t take long for the townspeople in Daggerford to take note of the burning tannery. There was a confused hubbub as the citizens formed a bucket brigade from the river’s edge up the hill, augmented by magic-users conjuring waterspouts. Siegfried thanked Duchess Morwen Daggerford for the aid she’d promised and bid farewell to Lady Laeral Silverhand. Grandur wandered in from the library. “Grandur, can you teleport us to Dragonspear Castle?” Siegfried asked. “I assume you’ve studied the appropriate maps.” Grandur nodded. A small squirrel jumped into Varien’s pocket. The party assembled and Grandur cast the teleport spell. Instantly the party found themselves at the end of the road, literally. They were standing at the end of a wide road that wended its way through the Sword Coast – the Trade Way. Here marked the lands in which civilization had been washed away by the tide of lawless monsters—and nothing made this threshold clearer than the Trade Way itself. From Waterdeep and Daggerford the well-trod dirt of the road that stretched for hundreds of miles north and south simply dissolved into untamed wilderness. A sea of tall grass spread out before the adventurers, and looming over all of it is the silhouette of a once-mighty castle standing upon a hill. An aura of ancient danger surrounded this place. The ruins of Dragonspear Castle crowned a lonely hill at the end of a winding stretch of neglected road branching east of the Trade Way. The miles of untamed fields that surrounded the castle ere dotted with the remains of burnt wagons, gutted cottages, broken fences, and the wooden bones of war machines abandoned long ago. War, neglect, and the elements had worn the once mighty castle down to its present wretched state. Two walls with turrets once encircled the keep, but the outermost wall and its towers had been reduced to rubble, forming a necklace of broken gray stone around the hillside. The inner wall and towers were built on higher ground and are mostly intact, although you see numerous holes punched through the walls and rooftops. Half-hidden behind these crumbling fixtures was the main keep, the entire south side of which had collapsed if the skyline’s abruptly sloping profile was any indication. “I say we hike there, rest up and explore the castle in the morning,” Siegfried said. He called for Violance, and his nightmare steed appeared in a puff of brimstone. Varien summoned the Arcetalos, and Skraper arrived a few moments later, wings pinioning furiously. “If allowed, may I ride with you?” Grandur asked Siegfried. Violance snorted. “That’s your fault for chewing on that book!” Grandur protested. “You need better taste in books,” Violance growled. “You need to stop tasting books!” Grandur retorted. “I have good taste,” Violance replied. Grandur fiddled with his tinker’s tools to make a small leather and parchment chew toy on a string, and dumped a vial of perfume into it. He weighted it with sand and then jammed it into the nightmare’s mouth. “Ptooie!” Violance spat it out. Grandur reeled it back in, ignoring the caustic saliva. Grandur gave it to Violance again. This time, the nightmare made a spitting sound, but kept the chew toy in his mouth. The closer the party got to the castle, the foggier it got. It was deathly quiet as they picked their way across the unincorporated territory outside of the castle. The area was even devoid of animal noises. The party crossed the remains of an ancient battlefield, strewn with broken weapons, bones, and bits of corroded armour. “Varien, I did get some information from my commune ritual, now that I think about it,” Grandur said. He fished around for the parchment he’d written on. “I think this page might be blessed by a snowbound spirit who gives away presents.” Varien took a look at the paper. The ink gave off a cold aura that Varien recognized. Somehow, Grandur had written down words using Stygian ice. “Grandur, you fool, this is Satan, not Santa,” Varien said. “Ah, I see!” Grandur said, looking at the page again. “Guess I forgot to carry the one, er, wand.” The closer the party got to their destination, the less serene and more unnerving the ruins became. The hill and everything on it had a deathly stillness, and amid the weeds and rocks the party could see old bones and broken weapons—more remnants of ancient battles won and lost. As afternoon turned to evening, as they approached, the mists parted to reveal the ominous ruins, criss-crossed in red shadows. The adventurers could also see the castle’s primary distinguishing feature – an immense dragon skeleton spread out atop the main keep. “Well, that’s going to come alive,” Grandur said, pointing. Back in Daggerford, Lady Morwen stood amid the smouldering remains of the tannery, her hands on her hips. “What the hell?” she said with a frown. She kicked aside a pile of ashes that revealed the DAYS WITHOUT ACCIDENT” sign, which, though burned to a crisp, still had the “0” placard affixed to it. “Well,” she said with a shrug, “at least the place was insured.”