SKT Session 13 (3/21/23): Welcome to Waterdeep

"Rising from the shores of its deep harbor to ring the great mountain standing tall out of the Sea of Swords is Waterdeep, the City of Splendors and the Crown of the North. To all of Faerûn, this great metropolis stands as the pinnacle of what a great city might be, in wealth, influence, and stability. Here, the citizens work, the nobles sneer, and the great masked lords plot and scheme, all while merchants dance between them to collect their coins and continue profiting as best they can. Waterdeep’s shops and merchants offer goods of every sort from every corner of Toril, and even the rarest of items can be procured, given sufficient coin and patience. Adventurers lacking one or the other can very easily find all manner of employment, from simple escorting of caravans, to guarding nobility, to investigating a ruin or rumor of monsters anywhere in the North."

The Harpers' guardian of the Waterdeep teleportation circle finished up her spiel and noted that tips from circle users were greatly appreciated. Someone flipped her some gold and she returned down to the circle, walking down steps nested inside of a sarcophagus.

The party made their way into the City of Splendors, Waterdeep. Dhrys split from the party to find a Harper contact. Everyone else made their way towards the Font of Knowledge, one of the larger libraries in Waterdeep, to search for the book that Adonis' page was ripped from.

Both groups were successful, Dhrys making contact with an old friend of his and finding out the Harpers were gathering in three days, and the rest of the party finding the book with the missing page in the library. It was called Magical Prowess of the North. The librarian began to act suspicious once the group asked her whether or not the book was in the library, so they decided to steal it once they found it, rather than checking it out.

Successfully exiting the library with the stolen book, the party reconvened with Dhrys before investigating. The book held more information about Waterdeep's relation to magical augmentation, stating that a lot of the magical augmentations conducted in Waterdeep were found to be connected to criminal operations, and were found to be destructive to the hosts. One operation that was found and believed to be shut down was a lab churning out superhumanoids, creatures crafted with particular skill sets. Finally, the party read that there may be a great source of magic underneath Waterdeep.

Sleeping on this new information, our adventurers picked an inn to stay in and slept through the night. The next morning, they awoke to a panic on the streets; a castle sitting upon clouds was floating over Waterdeep.