You find yourselves standing outside in the cold outside the Queen of the Damned nightclub. There is a small crowd here braving the weather, but you are in Lower Menthis you are too far down for the rain to fall directly on you. You find the rest of your group and enter below the illusion of a drinking dragon. Two warforged guards eye you up and down as you approach, but open the doors as you enter. You enter into a wave of noise, heat and dreamlilly fumes. This venue is packed. You leave (almost) all your weapons at the check and enter the main area. A variety of creatures are filling the space, gambling, drinking, partaking and enjoying the show on the stage. You note a variety of human and halfling working girls going around the crowd and occasionally luring someone up some stairs at the back. You all make your way to the bar, order drinks and get to know each other. After a time you decide that you should probably get to work, so you call over a barman and tell him you are here to see Delgo d'Gallanda. He leaves and soon one of the warforged security comes up to you. "The boss wants to talk with you" he says, and you follow. You are taken past another guard who follows you as you go past, up some narrow stairs and past doors where you hear feminine giggling and muffled male voices until you arrive in a plush waiting area. "Wait here", says one of the warforged and goes through another door. You wait for far too long in this area overlooking the stage through a window to the south. Eventually the door opens again and a goblin pokes his head into the room. "Da boss will sees yous now". You enter a very fancy office with halfling sized furniture. A large window on the north wall looks through the illusionary dragon and you can see the street outside and towers rising up out of sight. A very well dressed halfling is sitting behind the desk, and the goblin, a bugbear and a human are also in the room. The halfling jumps up out of his chair. "Hey, am I pleased to meet you guys. You must be Dresk, Peck has told me a lot about you. He tells me you are very capable. And this is the team you've rustled up. They look pretty tough. Good work for very short notice. Guess I'd better get to know you all. After all, if you are going to do some work for me that makes us family in a way. You know how that works? You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. If you know what I mean. Anyways, tell me who you all are". This charismatic halfling then gets you all to introduce yourselves one by one, finds out what you are good at, and in Dusty's case even gleans that he has family in jail. "Well, lets see if I can help with that huh? I know some people. But that would be contingent on you helping me first. See favours gain you favours and that's what this is all about. See despite what you may have heard, we ain't no thugs. We try and get on with our business with no trouble. If you want thuggery, go talk to Daask, they are a bunch of violent murderous thugs and we don't hold no truck with them. You'd know all about that hey Dresk. Anyways, as I say, clan Broromar and the law, we get on OK. That's why I need your help. I've been asked by an old friend from the watch, Germaine Vilroy, to send some people who aren't too connected to Boromar or the Watch to help her with something. She didn't tell me much, but it sounds like she has a witness to something serious that she needs you to find. She needs to meet you tonight. Midnight, on the top of Lyrandar Tower". "He then looks at Dresk. "But not you Dresk, something has come up. I have been challenged and I need someone who is very brave but expendable if worst comes to worst. You stay here and talk with me". He waves a hand and the other people in the room escort all of you except Dresk out. Having decided to take the job you decide that it would be best for you to get there quickly and without incident, so Topsy hails a skycoach and pays for the journey. At this point you realise that Delgo never discussed payment or reward. You arrive at the top of Lyrander Tower at about 11:00pm, so wait for an hour. It would be a beautiful view if it wasn't for the driving rain and the darkness, but it is what it is. After an hour, a lift on the side of the tower brings up a figure. She looks at you suspiciously. "Germaine Vilroy?" you ask. "That's Sargeant Germaine Vilroy", she grunts back. She is well armoured, and wears a red cloak which signals that she is an elite soldier within the watch. There is an awkward silence. "Um, Delgo d'Gallanda sent us". She looks you all up and down. You can see she is memorising all your faces and features. "Alright then. Thanks for telling me. She looks at Cronk and Dusty. You looked like you might be Daask operatives sent to stop me. Good for you that you're not. So, if you are what Delgo has sent me, then you are what I will work with. I'm going to be straight with you. I don't like using your services and I don't want to use your services, but times being what they are, I can't rely on my colleagues in Daggerwatch. I need your help, as I can't go where I've been asked to go". Germaine explains "I have been asked to meet with a warforged named Coal at the Cog Carnival tomorrow morning at 8am. That's a warforged bar in High Walls. I'm worried that if I go there I will endanger him."His message said that he has knowledge of a crime being committed in Old Sharn. I need you to meet with Coal. I'll give you 25 Galifars each now and if what he says adds up, either bring him to me or take the appropriate action and I will give you another 50 each". She pulls out a number of small pouches and tosses them towards you. They are heavy with coin. She also gives you some paperwork. "These are some Sharn Watch writs of enforcement. They authorise the bearers to conduct official duties of the Watch under my authority. Don't make me regret giving you these. If you need to find me, I'll be at the Daggerwatch station". At that, she turns and leaves. You now have several hours to kill. "Why don't you come to my house", says Topsy, "I'm not far from here and we can eat while we get out of the rain". So you all troop to Topsy's house where he reveals a machine that dries your clothes as you enter and you come into a facinating store of amazing items. You wait there till morning and then catch another skycoach all the way down to Highwalls. The stench of body odor, garbage, and tobacco mix together in the streets. High walls cut this district’s crumbling, vandalized buildings off from the rest of Sharn, though towers rise over the walls like imposing sentries. Many people stand idly on street corners, eying you suspiciously and keeping to themselves. You make your way to the Cog Carnival, a dilapidated warforged dive bar. The bar has a crumbling stone outside marred with graffiti that says things like, “Forged Are Scrap!” and “Leave, Metalheads!” You pay a small fee to enter and find your way inside. Smoky, low flames in a fireplace barely illuminate the cracked stone walls and filthy floor of this establishment. The single-room space is crowded with warforged with severed digits or limbs, scars, burns, and other wounds. Other warforged in the area are gathered around traditional dice, card, dart, and board games as well as carnival competitions such as throwing metal rings onto posts, tossing a ball at a tower of weighted iron cups hard enough to make them fall down, and striking a homemade machine hard enough with a hammer to make it ring a bell. A small bar in the corner serves cheap ale. Behind this bar, a warforged bartender shouts jeers at patrons losing games. You spot a warforged sitting in a dark corner and approach them. "We've been sent by Sargeant Vilroy" "Why didn't she come", says the warforged in an obviously concerned tone, "I wanted to talk to her. How do I know this isn't some sort of setup?" She eyes Cronk and Dusty very suspiciously. You all reveal your writs of enforcement and explain that the Sargeant thought that her coming down in purpose might put Coal in danger". Coal seems to relax slightly, but is still on edge. "OK", Coal says, "I just wanted to say that they murdered my partner". Coal explains that her partner Razor had served with Coal in the Cyran military during the Last War, during which Coal lost her right arm. Razor and Coal had trouble finding work in Sharn, due to the fact that many businesses are reluctant to hire warforged foreigners. The pair became desperate for money. A month ago, Razor told Coal she had a job working on a long-term secret mission for Alden d’Orien, the scion of a dragonmarked house. Warforged from other parts of the city were also recruited to help in the task of digging for artifacts in old Sharn. The job required physical labor, so Coal’s injury prevented her from being able to do the job. Razor planned to save money then buy Coal a new arm so she could work with her. Razor would often come back from work sullen or wounded but never opened up about the job until shortly before she died. Razor confessed that the job was more dangerous than it seemed when she was recruited. Razor was planning to quit before she died". Just as Coal is finishing her exposition, a bolt of fire explodes inches from Coal’s head. Bedlam erupts in the bar and Coal throws the table away in front of her. "I knew this was a setup", she yells, and bolts out the door. You run after her and see the doorman fighting with three goblins. Cronk grabs one of the goblins and slams it down on another one, smashing both their skulls. The other one is is also quickly dispatched and then you take off after Coal who you see running for all her life is worth. You sprint after her, but the streets are getting busy and you are forced to dodge around all sorts of obstacles. Only Ashana is able to keep up and as she sprints round a corner after Coal she sees him getting ambushed by some kobolds and a shifter. "Sorry Coal", she hears the Shifter say, "this is where it ends". Battle is joined, but with the help of Ashana, followed by Dusty, Topsy and Cronk as they arrive, they are able to defeat the ambushers. "Sorry I didn't trust you", Coal says, "you saved my life. What do we do now?" You decide that you had better take Coal directly to Sargeant Vilroy so climb up a level to where you can hail a skycoach and then fly to the Daggerwatch District.
