It was a dark, and foggy evening in Waterdeep. Your unit has been on all for over three weeks now, which is unusual. Sitting bored in the guard house, the time is passed with difficulty. As an elite unit of the Waterdeep guard, assign to special problems that require unique skill sets and approaches, each of you is unused to leaving your skills unchallenged for so long. The nobles are calling for your unit to be put to work on street patrol, but your commander will have none of it. Still, the pressure is mounting for you to be doing something, and you feel it more than anyone, more from within than from without.

It comes as a bit of a shock, but a welcome one, when a loud rapping is heard at the doorway of your post. One of the younger guards, stationed to care for your equipment and horses, answers the door, and is almost bowled over by a large, rather flabby man, followed by an entourage of guards, two of them carrying a figurwe wrappped in white linen, most likely dead. Behind them is your commander, who ushers them all in and nods at your group with respect.

"Men", he says, "We have a condundrum on our hands. A deadly one at that." He waves for the two guards to set the linen on a nearby table, which two other guards quickly clean off sending ale mugs and empty plates clattering to the ground.

The commander walks over to the table and unwraps the linen around the face, revealing a very beautiful female visage, with golden skin and dark blonde hair... a sun elf. She looks unharmed, but is clearly not breathing.

"A ship came into port tonight, heavily damaged, and bearing the flag of Evermeet. All of the crew were dead except for this girl, who was near death, though bearing strange wounds in her abdomen, which we have since removed. There was also a man, a strange man bearing strange weapons, who protected the girl and wouldn't let us near her. One of our mages subdued him, and he is now in custody. His weapons and equipment were confiscated."

He pauses as a look of grave discomfort passes his face, "The girl said, with her dying breath.... 'Evermeet... Destroyed'. We can only hope this is not the case, not that the sun elves have ever let us near their waters without an escort, so we need someone to investigate this discreetly. This is not to become a public affair, understood? Question the prisoner and see what he knows... he would not talk to us, but I am sure you can get him to talk. I have to go report tyo the Blackstaff about this... he will want to do his own investigation. Use whatever means you have at your disposal, just remember, Waterdeep's coffers are not deep anymore, and you will have to work out of your own salary and resources. Torm be with you."

Yang stands to his feet as the commander enters the room, and listens intently during the briefing, his eyes darting from the commander to the deceased sun elf, then the flabby man who can preceded their entry.

The words of the dying elf troubled him greatly, for he had spent some time with elves in his younger days, and though he had never been to Evermeet, he understood what it meant to all elves on Faerun.

"Sir, can we have a look at the confiscated weapon before speaking with the prisoner?" He finally asks after the briefing is done. "And also, who might this be?" He nods towards the flabby man, whom he did not recognize as one of the city's guards.

Michael also stands, taking care to place a small feather in his book to hold the place he was at. He sets it aside on a bedside table, and frowns at the description given. "We should send for a cleric of Corellon for rights." Michael pauses, even as the flames from the fire place reflect off of brazen skin. "You said she had wounds in her abdomen that you removed. Can you describe the wounds, or, could we speak with the healer who removed those wounds?"

Nathaniel rises from his usual cross-legged pose near the fireplace and walks over to examine the sun elf.

"Beautiful... such a pity" he mutters quietly before reaching out and closing her eyelids.

He stands up. "If our prisoner was responsible for this, it will not go well for him. I will see to that." The half-elf reaches out and grasps the enormous greatsword strapped to his back as he looks speculatively into the distance. "I have been wanting to go to Evermeet for some time... but not under such circumstances."

"How much do we have to investigate? Do you just want us to discover whether Evermeet has been destroyed, or should we also look into the circumstances of this elf's departure from the land?"

"I do not think that the prisoner would have been responsible for her condition, else why would he be trying to protect her?" muses the monk. "But to be sure, it is something we should investigate. I too, have often heard of Evermeet, but never been there. And as the commander has said, if we are not escorted, we are unlikely to be welcome there."

"Unless we proceed with stealth and some measure of subterfuge."

Michael nods at Yang. "Let's stay focused on what's in front of us. We can't plan for battles that we know nothing about yet." He turns back to the Commander, the guard and the flabby man, waiting for an answer to his question.

The commander nods at the monk and says, "Yes, you have access to that part of the armoury, feel free to take a look, just don't break anything."



"We will arrange for proper funeral rights when we have concluded the initial investigation. Right now we don't know what we're dealing with and I don't want anyone to know about this that doesn't absolutely have to.", says the commander.



"Right now I want to know what this prisoner knows, and who he is. After you've questioned him, I want you to report to me and we'll discuss next steps.", responds the commander.

"I, for my part, will talk to the Blackstaff about this, who will likely bring it to the Lords. Once I have your report, and the Blackstaff's recommendations, we'll see what our next move is.", he says.

At this point the flabby man comes forward, and says, "I am dockmaster Coth Wrenvis. I have my best men working on the ship, under guard of course,", he says with a glance towards Commander Garrn, "You might want to go investigate the ship before the salvage is done. The damage was quite... curious. Like nothing we've ever seen before."

Nathaniel nods at the commander in gratitude for the information.

"I would like to go and examine the ship; I have some experience with the never-before-seen."

He pauses and looks down again at the sun elf. "After her funeral rites are performed, please have the Cleric erect a small tombstone where she is buried, paid for from my pocket. If someone should eventually come looking for her, it will help them to find her and they will know that we respected her remains."

The commander nods his head at Nathaniel and says, "Interrogate the prisoner first, please. It shouldn't take very long if he is indeed an ally of our deceased elven maiden here, and you may learn something that helps you in your inspection of the ship. Dockmaster Wrenvis, I assume the ship is safe and sound for the night?"

The dockmaster nods his head and says, "Yes work won't begin until the morning. That gives you plenty of time I would say".

"Good", says the commander, "Go get the weapons we found on him, and bring them to the prisoner... have him explain what it is and how it works. Then get the details of what happened at Evermeet, if indeed this is anything more than a ruse by some pirate scum. Once you've got those details go down to the ship and examine the wreckage and do a thorough search to make sure our initial team didn't miss anything. Any questions?"

"Nossir!" Nathaniel salutes smartly.

"None sir." Michael nods as he begins running through his mental checklist for what he will need. Once the commander leaves, he will don his armor, grabbing his shield and flail so he doesn't have to make a return trip after interrogating the prisoner. Other than that, he will take a small notepad or journal and a pencil so he can take notes of interesting things he sees on the ship. He will keep the notepad/journal and pencil in a belt pouch, and only then will he head down to the armory.

"Very well, I'll have a new member joining your squad during all of this as well. I know it's not the best timing, but then again maybe it's just what you need to get up to speed with them. I'll have more information for you soon. Now then... dismissed.", says the commander.

"So, armory first, then prisoner, then ship." Yang nods. "No questions - yet. But I'm guessing we all will have some in the near future." So saying, he follows Michael out the door.

As the commander dismisses you he begins to give orders to the other guards to secure the body somewhere safe. The dockmaster leaves with a nod and a wave, and soon you are left alone in the barracks.

Taking that as your signal to get moving yourself, you head to the armoury. THe guard manning the door unlocks it and waves you in, and you find yourself in a large warehouse, with a plethora of guards watching your every move, including wizards and war priests.

An old man, the caretaker, arrives and leads you to a small room where he pulls out a chest, unlocks it with key on a ring with probably a hundred others, and then smiles, and leaves.

Opening the chest you see mostly common adventuring gear. Studded leather armor of fine workmanship, a couple of rings, a medallion, all probably magic. But the weapons the captain spoke of were hard to miss. A small hand held device with a long tube connected to a handle and trigger, plus two more that are considerably longer, both similar, except one of them has a widened end. You also spot a pouch of black, glittering powder, and dozens of small metal balls and cylinders.

The monk spends a few moments studying all the items without touching them, taking a few extra moments to look at the strange tube-like items, powder and cylinders - before asking either of his companions to sense anything magical about them.

Nathaniel nods at the monk's request, passes his hand before his face and casts 'detect magic' on the haul, scanning for auras.

Yang doesn't notice anything special beyond what he already saw. Nathaniel's spell reveals several of the items glow in a pale yellow light. The three weapons, the armor, a medallion and a ring.

Michael will step up, doing a cursory scan with detect evil on the gear, before picking up the pouch of black powder. He will smell it first to see if it sets off any memories about what it might be (Perhaps Fireworks, depending on how common). Assuming the powder doesn't set off any memories and the medallion doesn't appear to have a religious symbol on it, Michael will pick up the chest after everything gets put back in it. "Let's take it down to him. We can show him these odd crossbows, and maybe he can tell us about them."