Journal of Rollo Lavius 2

Entry #408 - Neverwinter Woods

(G408 25/04/2020 via Roll20 - AP(GM), JF) LR17

DAY 470 (15th Kythorn)(June) cont...

Convenient as it is to have a friend who can Teleport, it does rather mean that you arrive in a place in dribs and drabs.

Irritator can only use the spell once per day at the moment so off he went to Waterdeep and I had the rest of the day to myself.

I decided to be as discreet as I could and go about the place asking about this mysterious druidic temple - but at the same time - see what I could find out about the Anubus.

As I went around town I noticed that there were public notices posted on many of the walls, warning the locals about the "Blue Phage" as it was known up here. Any signs of it were to be reported to a Cleric of Mystra.

I started my temple investigations at the Small God Shrine as there are no temples to Sylvanus or Chanteau here. It was a wash out. The caretaker was friendly enough, but new nothing and new nobody to ask.

The Bardic College was worse and sent me on a wild goose chase to a Baker's shop that - apparently - did Druidic Pastry. This turned out to be a man called Garee that did indeed bake animal shaped  cookies and interesting as it was to see how a Baker do his craft - there is no such thing as Druidic Pastry! I didn't have the heart to tell him, the daft old quack.

Where next I wondered? A library? A university? The harpers?

I really needed Jiggles or another accomplished snooper to help me. In the end I talked to a young Ranger back at the tavern for a while and we talked about druidic groups and circles that we knew of.

He thought I might try the Dusk Circle in Kryptgarden, but I already knew them. The last time I
saw them they were helping manage logging in the east of the forest, trying to prevent unnecessary tree felling and such like. They have no interest in history, being real "mushrooms in the beard"  types like good old Basil.

The ranger told me about the Ring of Swords, another coven of druids that lived in the Neverwinter Woods to the east.

They sound interesting, but will not be easy to find.

All alone in Neverwinder tonight, but at least we have good rooms! 'The Fine Flagon' is a dam sight better than that last place.

DAY 471 (16th Kythorn)(June)

Irritator brought in Jiggles, Sylvia and Corum this morning.

So for today I kept up the pretence of looking for fellow druids and asked around about that, while separately Jiggles asked around more discreetly about the Anubus. Sylvia went and healed people at the Small Gods and Corum watched the docks.

Corum had a few drinks at a dockside shop and followed a guy dressed like a crewmember of the Anubus, but lost him in the crowd. Shame, usually my brother is really good at tracking people down in cities - a real blood hound.

Anyway, with no great success recorded by any of us, we met at the 'Flagon' and compared notes over dinner.

DAY 472 (17th Kythorn)(June)

Today I took a flight over the Neverwinter Forest to take a look at it.

Meanwhile Jiggles had more success and found out the exact location of the Anubus. It was anchored in a cove two miles up the coast.

In the evening I turned into a giant owl and with Sylvia on my back we went to take a look. We saw the ship,  and we saw three crewmen camped out on the beach. I turned into a dog and went to take a closer look.

I got close enough to hear what the were talking about, but there was nothing particularly useful.
One of them said, 'It's a dark business,' as if he was having second thoughts about something.
One of the others snarled at him and told him to 'stow that kind of talk.'

They were dressed in good gear and I could detect magic from all of them.

I picked up Sylvia and we went back to the town.
Irritator teleport off to get the others and the rest of us tried to come up with a plan.

Later: Well - bed time now and still no plan!

DAY 473 (18th Kythorn)(June)

Irritator returned with Molly, Stephen (who is a remarkably fat dire wolf) and Phteven the sort-of-dog. Corum has adopted Phteven, or is it the other way round? Molly also likes to play with him and if she can catch him - dress him up.

It was decided that Lavinia would stay in Waterdeep and keep an eye on things there.

Part of the beginning of a small plan for dealing with the Anubus was to catch and charm one of the crew. Corum can cast it, but to increase our chances we bought a scroll of Charm Person and got Irritator to copy it into his spell book.

Well, it seems like that takes ages, so the rest of us went out for a nice walk in the Neverwinter Woods. While out there we bumped into a whole bunch of undead owlbears!

It was not very difficult to dispatch them, especially when Sylvia was with us. We even found a load of treasure in their lair, which was nice.