After doing a little shopping in Waterdeep’s bazaars, the adventurers retire to an upscale inn called the Crossed Axes for a hot bath and a night in a feather bed.

But Garrett and Larion’s evening is spoiled when they spot a floating, miniature beholder lurking outside their window. They alert Beryl to their discovery, but she is unsympathetic.

Meanwhile, Hurk apologizes to Jamna for giving away the plunder of Arauthator’s lair to the frost giantess Imthr. He promises to make it up to her.

The next morning, Laeral Silverhand contacts Garrett to arrange a safe meeting space. She invites them into a mage’s private sanctum in the alley behind the inn.

After learning that the Xanathar is the one sending bounty hunters after Garrett, Laeral provides the party with some information about the beholder crimelord:

• The beholder is scared of her and as a result won’t kill any member of the Lords’ Alliance. However, given the political circumstances and Garrett’s reputation, it would take more than her word to get him in. Garrett isn’t interested in joining a team, just as he wasn’t interested in signing on with the Zhentarim.

• The Xanathar is obsessed with something called “Sylgar,” which could be used to gain leverage over it. Neither Beryl nor Jamna are familiar with it.

• Beholders’ dreams manifest into reality, producing miniature gazers or rival beholders. As a result, the Xanathar is rumored to have commissioned a device that suppresses its dreams to prevent such creations. That could be another avenue to exploit.

• Laeral provides them with a back door entrance to the Xanathar’s Lair in Skullport deep below Waterdeep.

After Laeral takes her leave, the party decides to split up. Garrett and Larion remain in the sanctum, while Jamna checks if her Zhentarim superiors have any information. Beryl and Hurk ask around with local merchants to see if any knows about Sylgar.

An old dwarf glassmaker named Gine tells them about a strange dwarf named Steeltoes who comes by every so often to buy a big fishbowl “for Sylgar.”

Following up the lead on Steeltoes, they check out an herbalist he is known to frequent. The proprietor, a short dwarf woman named Atlag, explains that Ott Steeltoes is passionate about cultivating subterranean mushrooms.

Having heard that he was also seen at the docks, they ask around there and discover that Steeltoes is known to visit the Fin Mill, a converted windmill that serves as a high end fish shop.

Inside, they find the aloof elf proprietress Viri, who does not want to talk about Ott Steeltoes. After Beryl promises to arrange an exclusive contract with the Church of Bahamut, she takes them into the back room.

She says that Steeltoes always buys a particular type of fish, and insists she keep a stock for him ready at all times. She knows he is involved in the Xanathar Guild.

As Beryl and Hurk prepare to leave, the front door is kicked open as a dwarf with a crossbow for an arm and a gang of bugbears burst in.

Having pulled Hurk from the freezing pool in Arauthator’s icy lair, the frost giant bounty hunter Imthr—still charmed by Jamna—recommends they take him somewhere warm and get him out of his wet clothes.

Beryl suggests they return to Maccath’s tent in the ice caves above. Hurk is not opposed to this. Imthr places him inside a bag that she wears like a massive baby bjorn and climbs up the ice chute with him. A protective Jamna hangs onto the giant, and Beryl scales the rope after him.

Garrett and Larion remain below, sharing the dragon’s lair uneasily with Imthr’s winter wolf companion Atla.

After Hurk is settled into the warm tent, wrapped in some of the heavy rugs that make up the floor, Beryl and Jamna have a side conversation. Jamna reveals that she has about 40 minutes of charm spell left on the giantess. They both agree that Imthr needs to die, but first Hurk needs to be restored to fighting shape and then talked into battling the giant.

Down below, Garrett and Larion try to get some information from Atla, but the wolf isn’t sharing. Garrett recalls that dragon parts are valuable and begins carving up Arauthator’s remains.

Upstairs, Beryl and Jamna convince Imthr not to return to Atla and instead stand guard outside the tent.

Hurk insists that they should try to talk the giantess into helping them in the fight against Tiamat and the Cult of the Dragon.

Having thoroughly scavenged the dragon’s remains and spied the sparkling treasure encased in his lair’s icy walls, Garrett heads upstairs. Encountering Imthr outside the tent, he asks about the price on his head. She refuses to quote a figure, but acknowledges that she won’t collect the contract now that they are friends and comrades.

That’s enough for Hurk to go out and chat her up. He offers to let her take the entire treasure hoard if she agrees to drop Garrett’s contract and never take it back up. He also suggests she look up the cloud giant lord Blagothkus and join his anti-dragon crusade. She is amenable, and adds that the party should try to gain leverage over The Xanathar to get it to back off.

The charm spell comes to an end, leaving Imthr startled and wary. After reaffirming that the deal is still in place, she makes her exit, pausing to kiss Hurk on his head.

With the giant gone, the party turns to Maccath’s request that they obtain the writings of the ice toad Marfurlb, who has taken extensive notes going back decades on Arauthator’s arcane research. Maccath wants that information conveyed to the Arcane Brotherhood at the Host Tower of Luskan. A parlay with the ice toads is successful, though Marlfurlb insists on traveling with her records.

Next, they notify the Ice Hunter villagers that the dragon is dead. The Ice Hunters immediately begin preparing to flee the iceberg. Maccath explains that Arauthator has a mate, Arveitrace, who is an infrequent visitor but may seek vengeance. Arveitrace is somewhat mad and still carries on her back the body of a wizard ally who had been riding her.

As the adventurers depart in the Frostskimmr, they spy the small ship that had been following them. Imthr and Atla is about, and the frost giant gives them a wave.

After carefully exiting the Sea of Moving Ice, they stop in the pirate hold of Luskan to drop Marfurlb and her records off at the sinister Host Tower. From there, it is another ten-day’s travel south to Waterdeep.

They are met at the docks by their old associates Leosin and Ontharr Frume. The duo are impressed with their victory, and also alert the party to a recent shakeup in Waterdeep politics.

The city’s long-time Open Lord, Dagult Neverember, has been dismissed by the Masked Lords of Waterdeep and replaced by the renowned adventurer Laeral Silverhand. In addition to various scandals, the Masked Lords had felt that Neverember was too distracted by his efforts rebuilding the city of Neverwinter to manage Waterdeep’s affairs as well.

This change has left things unsettled in the city, although Ontharr Frume is convinced it is for the best. It’s also created some tension on the Council, where Neverember still has a seat as Lord Protector of Neverwinter.

After this update, the party is taken to the Lords’ Palace, where they freshen up before attending a meeting of the Second Council of Waterdeep, now presided over by Laeral Silverhand. They report on their activities in the Sea of Moving Ice. The defeat of Arauthator receives general praise, but Ontharr Frume is unhappy that they did a favor for the morally questionable Arcane Brotherhood of Luskan.

Maccath also provides more information about the Draakhorn. She believes that so long as it is sounded, chromatic dragons within a mile or so of the horn will have their powers bolstered. Silencing the horn will be a priority in any final confrontation with the Cult.

Laeral Silverhand then alerts the party to two missions the Council has for them. Delaan Winterhound of the Emerald Enclave believes that recent dragon attacks against the elves of the Misty Forest are being personally directed by the Cult’s Green Wyrmspeaker. He suspects more attacks are imminent and urges the party to investigate.

The ruler of the Misty Forest, the wood elf King Melandrach, insists that his warriors have secured the forest against further attack and believes the mission is a waste of time, but he has been outvoted on the Council.

Also at the Council session is the mysterious silver-haired woman Elia, who at Laeral’s invitation reveals that the metallic dragons of Faerun are gathering in a conclave to decide what role they will play in the conflict. Elia reveals herself to be a silver dragon and requests that the adventurers participate in the conclave as ambassadors from the younger races of the world.

The party is uncertain which task to undertake first, but Elia tells her that it will still be some time before the metallic dragons can assemble their conclave. So the Misty Forest investigation will have to come first.

After the Council session, Laeral Silverhand approaches the party to ask about the frost giant bounty hunter they briefly mentioned. She doesn’t want them to be distracted by any outside troubles and offers her considerable help in resolving it.

Hyper paranoid about being watched, Garrett is reluctant to discuss the issue outside a secure area. Laeral tells them to spend a few days recuperating and preparing for the next task, and promises to arrange a safe place to chat.

Arauthator the Old White Death narrows his icy blue eyes at the party. Hurk, dangling from a rope (with Jamna hanging onto him), had just spun a story of trying to defend the dragon’s hoard from the frost giantess currently grasping Garrett.

Arauthator thanks the adventurers for their service and asks them to hold the giant there for him. The great white dragon swoops towards them.

Jamna immediately casts a charm spell on the frost giantess, telling her that they are all on the same dragon-killing team now. The large, blue-skinned woman blinks and then agrees, releasing her quarry and turning to face the dragon. Jamna scrambles off of Hurk and onto the giant’s back.

From above Hurk, Beryl expertly descends to the icy cavern floor and then hits the dragon with sacred flame. The giantess hurls a chunk of ice at the dragon but misses. Larion makes his way down as well and scrambles for cover.

Arauthator then breathes a freezing blast at Hurk, Beryl, and Garrett. The ring of cold resistance softens the blow for Hurk, while Garrett dodges out of the way entirely. Beryl takes the full blast.

Swinging from the rope, Hurk lands on top of the dragon and hacks into it with Hazirawn. The greatsword is excited about this plan. The dragon flies up to scrape the half-orc against the ceiling and he tumbles to the cold hard ground.

Arauthator retreats back across the room. Garrett snipes it with his bow. The dragon calls upon it’s lair to drop falling icicles on Hurk, Garrett and Beryl.

The giantess, with Jamna on her back, charges forward to challenge the dragon. She pelts him solidly with another chunk of ice. Beryls calls upon her divine magics to heal the group.

Arauthator sallies forth to attack the frost giant, filling the room with its frightful presence. Garrett and Jamna are terrified. Hurk shoots the creature with the first arrow of dragonslaying. The Old White Death resists the effects but is still wounded. The second arrow glances off its scales and lands somewhere in the room. Hurk decides to switch back to his sword and go after the dragon.

A pair of sea troll bodyguards arrive to protect their master. They attack Hurk and the giantess. Beryl struggles to keep everyone healed as Arauthator hurls blasts of cold magic at them. A terrified Garrett has trouble hitting it from a distance. Jamna is freaking out, her fingers trembling too much to land a spell on the trolls.

The dragon’s lair summons up a wall of ice to block off view of it from everyone except Garrett. Jamna drops off the giant’s back as she turns to fight the trolls with Hurk. She urges the giant to get the dragon on the ground so Hurk can kill it.

The giantess call on the green man to keep up as she starts to lumber around the wall. After confirming that the giant can throw him onto the dragon, Hurk cuts down a troll and makes his way towards her, flirting the entire time. The giant insists her name isn’t Frosty Girl, but Imthr.

Beryl continues to summon up untapped reserves of healing magic to keep the battered party afloat, even sparing some for the giantess.

Garrett lands a shot on the dragon and shakes off his terror. The dragon’s lair then surrounds him with an obscuring, freezing mist.

Imthr picks up both Hurk and Jamna and carries them around the ice wall, then tosses Hurk. Beryl utters a prayer to Bahamut as the giant winds up, and with her blessing the half-orc lands solidly on the dragon’s back.

This triumph is short lived, however, as Arauthator batters Hurk with his tail, then shakes him off into the freezing slushy pool below. The dragon then pounces, tearing into Hurk. The half-orc, submerged in icy water, responds with a fury of his own and cuts into the dragon, finally piercing its heart with Hazirawn. The dragon’s dying breath freezes half the slush.

As Hurk enters the first stages of hypothermia, Imthr wades into the water and retrieves both the fighter and the dead dragon. The surviving sea troll flees.

Up above, Larion gives Garrett the all clear. As Garrett emerges from the mist cloud, a huge white wolf suddenly appears and chomps down on his leg, trying to knock him over. Imthr hastily calls up to Atla, telling the wolf to stop.

“Are we not still doing this?” the creature asks around a mouthful of Garrett. Imthr insists that they are not and he lets the rogue go.

The adventurers take a short rest in the tent of Maccath the Crimson, having learned from the tiefling wizard that they must vanquish the white dragon Arauthator the Old White Death before they can safely leave the iceberg. Hurk takes this time to attune to his ring of cold resistance.

While they rest, the kobolds that Maccath dismissed earlier return with her food and are accompanied by an ice troll. The tiefling uses illusion magic to hide the party as the troll pokes its head into the tent. But event after, Beryl hears the big monster lurking outside.

The adventurers quickly decide to confront the troll. It manages to call out an alarm before they cut it to pieces and burn the pieces. The party decides to wait and lay an ambush for reinforcements coming up the ice ramp.

Another troll and a band of kobolds rush up, and the ambush is spring. The kobolds quickly gang up on Larion, while the troll considers Beryl’s sacred flame its most pressing threat. The adventurers make short work of most of the kobolds, and the last two try to flee. Garrett and Jamna finish them off.

Beryl and Hurk work together to take out the troll. The ice monster discovers at the last minute that Hazirawn was its greatest threat, as the evil sword greedily feasts upon the troll.

Garrett and Jamna notice that a large group of man-sized ice toads has gathered at the entrance to the chamber. The arctic amphibians watch them impassively with their enormous eyes, but make no aggressive gestures. With a shudder, the rogues retreat back up the ice ramp to join the others.

With no more reinforcements inbound, the adventurers move on to the back entrance to Arauthator’s lair in the heart of the iceberg. The entrance is a vertical chute in the ice, which opens out into a large chamber.

Garrett descends first, relying on his experience as a second-story man to properly climb down while securing a rope line for the others. As he climbs down the rope into the large cavern, he finds himself hanging above a large ice shelf overlooking a vast chamber. On the floor below, there are several slushy pools of water, as well as ice that sparkles with frozen treasure. And hanging from the ceiling above the treasure is the huge, sleeping shape of Arauthator the Old White Death.

But Garrett has more immediate concerns, instinctively swinging aside on the rope avoid the grasp of a frost giant woman who suddenly becomes visible right beside him. Garrett realizes this must be one of the two invisible figures they encountered earlier. He negotiates with her and after being promised she won’t kill him, descends to the ground.

It is then that she pulls out the manacles and explains she is there to collect him for a many-eyed individual in Waterdeep. Garrett is less than enthused by this, but is also concerned that the dragon might notice them. The giantess uses a ring to turn herself invisible again, then grabs him with a big cold hand.

The other adventurers, unclear on what is taking place below, have been descending the rope. Hurk (with Jamna clinging to him) dangles down into the cavern, while up above Beryl’s armor clanks noisily.

The sound echoes across the chamber, stirring the dragon to open one stark blue eye. it rears up angrily. The frost giantess grumbles “why must there always be complications?”

Hurk, meanwhile, breaks out his fabled silver tongue and tries to bluff the dragon into believing that the party are devoted servants trying to stop the giantess from raiding its treasure hoard.

Arauthator’s blue eyes narrow…

Having gathered in the shaman Bonecarver’s yurt and been provided with a map of the first level of the dragon Arauthator’s ice caverns below, the adventurers come up with a plan. Because of how slippery and uneven the caverns are, they also use climbing kits to create makeshift crampons. They then head down through the back entrance beneath the shaman’s hut.

Following their plan, they move stealthily out into the central circular hall and move in a clockwise fashion towards the red lady’s room. They manage to slip past the kobold quarters unseen.

However, the tunnel starts to slope downwards in a steep ramp and they run into trouble trying to traverse it. All but Jamna take a tumble and land in a heap at the bottom of the ramp. An eerie, roiling fog sweeps over them, filling the hallway, and they realize they are not alone. There is something very large in the fog as well.

Rather than investigate, they feel along the wall to head away from the creature and eventually come clear of the fog. They reluctantly pass by the dragon’s trophy room.

The adventurers reach the empty chamber just before the red woman’s room and are confronted with another ice ramp, this one sloping upward. As they ascend, Hurk tumbles back down. This draws the attention of an ice troll standing guard around the corner, who attacks the party. Hurk isn’t able to make his way up the ramp, so the others retreat back towards him.

Garrett is the last to go and takes the brunt of the troll’s attack before escaping downstairs and then winging it with an arrow. Hurk follows suit with two more arrows. The troll jumps down to attack Hurk but can’t get through his armor. Beryl restores Garrett with healing magic. Hurk takes the troll to pieces with Hazirawn.

Using a rope to assist, the party climbs up the ice ramp. They discover a strange tent in the next chamber. Listening carefully, they hear trolls and ice toads in the distance. They also sense other entities closer to home. Jamna sees big footprints in the empty chamber below, while Beryl hears two invisible creatures.

Fearing an ambush, Hurk charges in the general vicinity of the invisible creature Jamna identified, but his sword cleaves only air. Rather than attack, the creature moves past him and up the ramp. It pauses near Larion, Jamna and Garrett, then moves on past the party. A second, faster invisible creature follows it on four legs, pausing in the same spot and sniffing Garrett. The adventurers decide to see where this goes and don’t try to attack the invisible entities.

Garrett and Larion then try to scope out the tent, which is made of many carpets and tapestries hung from a whalebone frame. The invisible creatures appear to have pressed on down a side passage towards the back entrance to the dragon’s lair below.

Entering the tent, the party meets the missing tiefling Maccath the Crimson. She isn’t all that excited to see them. The dragon has pressed her into translating its trove of plundered arcane secrets. They will have to kill the dragon or drive it off before it will be safe for anyone to leave the island. Maccath grudgingly gifts them with a ring of cold resistance and two arrows of dragon slaying and describes the layout of Arauthator’s lair.

The adventurers’ latest mission has them sailing north to the Sea of Moving Ice aboard the longship Frostskimmr, seeking the iceberg that was the last known location of a tiefling woman, Maccath the Crimson. She is a renowned expert on the Draakhorn, an artifact being used by the Cult of the Dragon. Maccath hasn’t been heard from in three years, and it is feared that she may have run afoul of the dragon Arauthator, the Old White Death.

After leaving Waterdeep’s harbor, good omens of dancing dolphins are soon drowned by a winter gale. The further north the Frostskimmr sails, the colder it gets and the more ice drifts they encounter. Eventually, the ice floes are big enough that Captain Lerustah has the longship pulled onto a big ice floe at night. He assures them that all is well.

It is bitterly cold in the open air vessel and keeps getting worse. Jamna spends much of the trip bundled up inside Hurk’s greatcoat for warmth. She insists its simply a matter of her small body mass proving less effective at retaining heat. Yeah, that’s it.

As the Frostskimmr ventures into the shifting archipelago of icebergs, the crew spots a distant ship following them. After a discussion with Lerustah, the party decides to press onward rather than confronting their pursuer.

It takes five days of searching in the sea of moving ice before they find the iceberg mentioned in Maccath’s notes. They approach cautiously, and Lerustah observes signs of Ice Hunters, the human tribes native to the region. The are not known to be hostile.

The party decides to have the longship pulled up onto an ice shelf at the base of the iceberg. A huge pile of bones is there, showing bite marks from a large predator, likely the dragon according to Lerustah. The party leaves him to shore up defenses while they press on to the icy plateau above.

They are greeted by the sight of ten corpses frozen in a wall of ice, three Luskar warriors, a dwarf, and six Ice Hunters, the nomadic people of the Sea of Moving Ice. Beyond, they discover a hidden village of Ice Hunters. The villagers hastily run out to confront them. Beryl casts tongues on Hurk so he could negotiate with them in their native language, as none speak Common.

The Ice Hunter chieftain immediately tells Hurk to leave. Garrett spots a couple villagers slipping away to the meeting hall in the village. The rogue also notices there are no elderly among the tribe. Hurk realizes they are lying and challenges them. The chieftain suggests a contest of strength and valor to earn their place in the village. Hurk will face their champion, Orcaheart. The two will hurt each other until one is unconscious. Magic is forbidden to be used.

Orcaheart gets the upper hand and Hurk realizes he won’t be able to batter the man down. He tries to knock Orcaheart over, but the champion won’t budge. So a badly wounded Hurk decides to switch from swords to his silver tongue, and demands to know what happened to the Ice Hunter elders.

An intimidated Orcaheart quietly admits that the dragon slew them and its lair is inside the iceberg. He reveals that the Ice Hunters have been forced to serve it. Hurk convinces him that the party can slay the creature.

So they attempt to fake Orcaheart losing the fight. The initial swing obviously doesn’t connect and Orcaheart falls unconvincingly to the ground. He then starts clutching at his face, pretending the half-orc threw something in his eyes. While he writhes around on the ground, Hurk finally manages to land a blow on him. Orcaheart goes limb, pretending to have been knocked unconscious.

It’s a passable showing that convinces most of the village, but Hurk suspects the chieftain and the young shaman Bonecarver have their doubts. As Bonecarver treats Orcaheart’s “wounds,” he whispers something to her.

The chieftain welcomes the adventurers to the village and says they will be tended to by Bonecarver. She takes them to her yurt, and comes clean. The dragon has effectively enslaved the villagers, using them as spies and demanding they provide food and tribute. She believes that the village will eventually be destroyed by the dragon, and has had visions that the totem spirits would send heroes to slay it. She prays that the party are those heroes.

She explains that the dragon has been alerted to their presence and she is expected to poison them so they can be taken prisoner. She gives them a general description of the ice cavern’s layout and warns them of the dragon’s servants, including ice trolls and ice toads.

“Frogs,” Jamna shivers, “why does it always have to be frogs.”

There is a little used entrance to the caves under Bonecarver’s hut, and a more frequently used one under the meeting hall. She also tells them that the one they seek, Maccath the Crimson, is also being held prisoner below. The party tries to determine the best route through the caverns to get to the dragon without running into a lot of minions.

Still perched up in the tree he was sniping from, Garrett is ambushed by an invisible stalker. The creature whispers “The Xanathar sends its regards” into the rogue’s ear as it attacks. Both Beryl and Larion notice Garrett flailing about trying to get free of the creature but mistakenly think he’s trying to swat a fly.

Then the invisible being of air grabs him by the throat and lifts him up, making it clear something is very wrong. Garrett stabs it ineffectually with a dagger.

Larion scrambles up the tree to try to slash the unseen entity with his scimitar, but never hits. Beryl rushes over and tries to restore Garrett with a healing word and hit the elemental with sacred flame, a combo she repeats multiple times with mixed success.

Jamna blasts away at the thing with her ray of frost. Each time she hits it, half the creature is briefly outlined with ice crystals. Hurk brings out the Longbow of the Golden Hart, but none of his arrows strike true—although two of them do strike Garrett. Eventually, Captain Khalia and the confused paladins join in with heavy crossbows, hitting the invisible stalker with a couple bolts.

Garrett finally manages to slip away from the creature’s ever-shifting grasp and scrambles down the tree and out into the open. The invisible stalker continues to pursue him. Hurk finally discards the bow and charges the entity with Hazirawn, tearing it apart.

Garrett then gets some paper from the paladins and writes an obscene note to The Xanathar. He then finds an underworld contact in the tent city to convey it to the beholder.

As the party recovers from the one-two of the cult ambush and the assassination attempt, their dwarven guide Thali arrives. She tells them about invisible stalkers, elemental entities that are summoned to kill specific targets that they can always track down. This does not reassure Garrett or Larion.

After resting up, the next day the party sets out for Waterdeep. It takes more than a ten-day to reach the metropolis, with Garrett jumping at every random gust of wind along the way. On arriving, they report to the Council about Varram’s capture and death, as well as the information they extracted from him. Lord Dagult Neverember and the other Councilmembers appear to be impressed with their handling of the situation.

The Council tasks them with tracking down Maccath the Crimson, a sorcerer from the Arcane Brotherhood who is an expert on the artifact known as the Draakhorn. She’s gone missing in the Sea of Moving Ice far to the north, presumed a captive of the white dragon Arauthator.

Jamna reunites with the adventurers after the Council session, giddy with her promotion in the Zhentarim. They go shopping for winter gear, then head to the Yawning Portal. While Hurk and Jamna chat each other up and Beryl gets drunk on two beers, Garrett and Larion spot Igach watching them. They spend the night sleeping in shifts, having set up candles to spot any stray breeze.

The next morning, the party heads to the dock to meet with the longship the Council arranged to take them north. They meet with Lerustah Half-Face, captain of the Frostskimmr, who welcomes them aboard. Soon, they are sailing out of Waterdeep and towards the Sea of Moving Ice.

Having discovered an impending cultist ambush at the Boareskyre Bridge, the adventurers race to disrupt the plot. Beryl and Hurk warn the paladin Captain Khalia to summon reinforcements, while Garrett, Larion, and Jamna attempt to do something about the barrels planted at Bolo’s Tentside Inn.

While trying to sneak in the back of the inn’s pavilion, Larion and Garrett spot a rapidly approaching blue dragon. They realize that it is lining up a strafing run across the row of barrels. Inside the tent, Jamna disguises herself as an inspector for the Guild of Inns and Taverns and demands that the barrels be rolled outside. Unfortunately, her bluster isn’t quite convincing.

So it falls to Garrett, alarmed by the incoming dragon, to burst into the tent and start shouting “Fire! Fire!” His genuine fear convinces the crowd and sparks a stampede for the exit, just as Beryl and Hurk arrive.

Beryl stands firm against the throng but Hurk is immediately bowled over. Jamna likewise is knocked to the ground and trampled. Beryl senses a fellow dragon nearby and casts her gaze up to see the diving wyrm. She also sees several individuals in full Cult of the Dragon regalia dashing from one of the nearby tents into the cover of the tree line.

Beryl pulls Hurk onto his feet and warns him about both dangers. The two of them elbow their way out of the crowd as Hurk unslings the Longbow of the Golden Hart and readies a shot at the dragon.

Inside the pavilion, Garrett urges Larion to pick up Jamna and make a break for it. The half-elf collects the gnome and carries her to the threshold, where she wriggles free and slips into the crowd. Garrett himself rushes out through the back of the tent and up into a nearby tree a safe distance away.

By this point, the dragon’s approach is noticed by the crowd of evacuated patrons and an even greater panic starts to set it. Their surprise spoiled, the cultists decide to reveal themselves. The blue half-dragon leads his band of cultists out into view, shouting “The dragons rise! None can stop Tiamat’s return!”

The half-dragon then belches forth a long bolt of lightning that strikes Hurk square in the chest plate, thoroughly zapping him and putting his hair on end.

Three individuals in the crowd cast off their cloaks, revealing cult regalia beneath. They, too, shout “The dragons rise! None shall defeat them!”

The trio rush up behind Hurk and Beryl, their scimitars at the ready. Meanwhile, two of the cultists from the tree line dash forward and lift off, their capes taking the form of great bat wings to fly them over to the adventurers. They descend sword first, their blades crackling with electricity. Hurk and Beryl both take savage wounds from the attack.

The party realizes that these aren’t second-stringers. The cult is truly bent on killing them in this ambush, and has invested substantial resources to do so. From the shadows of the trees, their old enemy Frulam Mondath watches her cultists do their work.

The blue dragon dives low, flinching only slightly as Hurk wings it with his arrow. It is younger and smaller than the dragon that attacked Greenest so many months ago, but still dangerous. Its lightning breath scorches a line through the pavilion. There is a hissing sound and then multiple explosions tear apart the inn. Larion is singed by the blast. The dragon starts to wheel around for another pass.

Beryl struggles to heal the damage the cultists are dealing out, as she and Hurk bleed from multiple wounds. Garrett looses arrows from his perch in the tree, then ducks back into cover, hidden from view. Larion manages to sneak up to one of the cultists, but his scimitar glances off their armor. Jamna casts color spray and manages to briefly blind two of the three that are flanking Hurk and Beryl from behind.

Hurk drops the longbow and has a cackling Hazirawn to hand an instant later. The greatsword cleaves through one of the dragonwing cultists, but a slash against the second one is parried.

The remaining dragonwing calls for help and the half-dragon marches forward, cutting into Hurk with a vicious falchion. Garrett takes a shot at the half-dragon, but the arrow bounces off its armor. The sighted member of the cultist trio slashes out at the badly wounded Beryl, but swift as a sentinel Hurk lops the top of the man’s head off.

The wounded dragonwing cultist takes a swing at Hurk, but Beryl hooks his leg, throwing him off balance and allowing the fighter to easily bat aside his attacks.

A frustrated Frulam Mondath edges closer to the battle and uses a crackling orb of electrical energy to hurl a bolt of lightning at Beryl. The cleric barely stays on her feet, but is able to recite a healing word that bolsters herself and her allies. She then moves to flank the half-dragon with Hurk.

The young blue dragon swoops down and bites Hurk as it passes by, its teeth easily punching through his armor. The half-orc still has plenty of fight left in him however.

Larion sees his chance and cuts down one of the blinded cultists from behind, then wounds the other badly with a dagger from his off hand. Jamna decides against magic and instead marches out into the open to pop the wounded dragonwing cultist in the knee with her wrench, then splatter his head once he falls to the ground.

With Hazirawn whispering in his ear, Hurk lops off the half-dragon’s sword arm. He the grabs the half-dragon by the shoulder with one hand and rams the evil sword straight through the creature’s armor. Hazirawn’s necrotic energy drinks deep and the half-dragon wilts into a desiccated husk that Hurk casts to the ground.

He casts his gaze over to the last of the three cultists that had been flanking him from behind. This gentleman, having just regained his sight, realizes that he is the last cultist standing in the half-orc’s immediate vicinity. The man, already badly wounded by Larion, tries to disengage and flee. Hurk just flicks out with Hazirawn to spear the cultist’s heart.

Frulam Mondath stares in disbelief at the circle of six dead elite cultists around the blood-spattered Hurk and Beryl. She then uses her orb to fire a bolt of lightning into the sky and starts running. Garrett lets fly with an arrow, but just misses her. The silvery wrath of Beryl’s sacred flame scorches her but does not slow her.

Then the blue dragon, with an air of “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” swoops down to pick up Frulam Mondath and carry her off. Captain Khalia and a lance of mounted knights ride up in time to witness the escape. From his perch in the tree, Garrett flips them off for their tardiness.

The adventurers have a tense interaction with Talis the White, who wants to question the captured Wyrmspeaker Varram the White. This is further complicated by the fact that their guide Thali secretly has a bomb ready to go off if negotiations fail.

After Varram refuses to cooperate, they let Talis ask her questions. Once she does, she informs the adventurers that the cult plans to ambush them at the Boareskyre Bridge. Talis, Larion, and Garrett then have an awkward reunion before she departs.

On their way back through the Serpent Hills, the adventurers question Varram. He reveals the following information:

• The Cult is based out of the Well of Dragons, an ancient dragon burial ground to the south, which the Cult has heavily fortified.
• The Cult can complete its ritual without all of the Wyrmspeaker masks, but every mask that is lost will weaken Tiamat’s avatar when it manifests on Faerun.
• The loss of Wyrmspeaker Rezmir has thrown the Black Dragon sect of the Cult into chaos.
• The Cult’s leader Severin the Red is relying on the magical expertise of exiled Red Wizards of Thay, but the wizards aren’t true believers. They just want to use Tiamat against their enemies in Thay—and those same enemies could intervene against the Cult.
• The Cult has diabolical allies who want to see Tiamat released from the Nine Hells, but other devils make want to thwart this plan and keep her there.
• One fiendish ally of the Cult is a succubus that has compromised some Council staff and has been feeding information to the Cult.

Once the adventurers have heard what they need, they give Jamna the green light. The next morning, Varram is missing. Tracking his “escape,” they discover he has fallen down a ravine to his death. Thali decides she isn’t going to pay to have him raised from the dead.

They approach the tent city at Boareskyre Bridge and see no sign of a cult attack. Jamna turns Garrett invisible so that he can scout the camp. He spots a paladin helping to bring some unruly dogs under control. He also uses this opportunity to try picking some pockets and acquires a strange little bag. At Bolo’s Roadside Inn, Invisible Garrett doesn’t see anyone unusually shady, but does notice something odd about the barrels of ale that the innkeeper is being sold. Five of them smell very chemically.

Invisible Garrett follows the ale merchant back to a tent, where he is conferring with Frulam Mondath, last surviving leader of the Cult’s attack on Greenest many months ago. The Cultists have spotted the party, but are surprised the adventurers haven’t moved on to the inn yet. Frulam says it will be a while before the innkeeper taps the special barrels. She tells the merchant to “suit up.”

Invisible Garrett returns to inform the party, pausing first to surreptitiously tie Hurk’s shoes. They debate what to do. Garrett discovers that his pilfered pouch contains hairy beans that turn into small animals that temporarily obey him. He sends a red squirrel to go gnaw on the funny smelling barrels in order to mark them.

Larion suggests they bring the authorities in on this. Hurk, Beryl and Thali decide to talk to the paladin while the rogues try to abscond with the barrels. The paladin, Captain Khalia, remembers them and agrees to get reinforcements from the nearby watchtower.

At the tavern, the rogues try to find a way to get the barrels removed. Jamna disguises herself as a guild inspector while Garrett and Larion stealth around to the back of the pavilion. Just before they slip inside, they spy a dragon approaching in the distance.

After the party recovers from the bridge battle, Jamna thanks them for saving her. She confesses her secret mission to murder Varram in order to prevent him from revealing details of Zhent operations to the rest of the council. Garrett suggests that they question Varram about the Cult and then kill him. The others are on board with this plan.

They jerry-rig a rope bridge across the chasm and venture deeper into the serpentfolk complex. Following a trail of blood, they arrive at a temple. Six enormous snake statues flank the room, the green flames in their mouths providing eerie illumination. At the far end of the room is a dais with a large stone altar. Behind it is a naga-like yuan-ti priestess, holding a semi-conscious Varram at knife point. Their foe Ssessirex stands near the altar, as does another yuan-ti malison and two lizardfolk warriors.

The priestess calls out to the adventurers, offering to give them the dwarf if they leave. Hurk demands satisfaction against Ssessirex and ultimately arranges for a duel between them. The half-orc confidently brings Hazirawn to bear against the yuan-ti’s scimitar. The baleful blade cuts the yuan-ti down.

But the green flame from one of the six snake statues flits over to the fallen Ssessirex, restoring him to vitality. The serpent-headed man presses the attack. Though Hurk kills him repeatedly, the green flames continue to revive him and the yuan-ti’s own attacks begin to wear down the half-orc, despite Beryl’s healing magic. Hurk cries foul at this, but Ssessirex points out that he is the one who provoked a duel i a temple.

Meanwhile, Garrett and Jamna have been slowly and stealthily creeping across the fringes of the room, moving from snake statue to snake statue. Jamna is ultimately discovered, sparking outrage from the yuan-ti for her interference. As the duel devolves into a battle, the yuan-ti priestess calls for the adventurers to just take the dwarf and leave, using magic to strike terror in them.

Beryl, jamna, Larion, and Ssessirex are all afflict and run. Hurk manages to lead the barely conscious Varram out of the temple chamber. Garrett lingers to take a few potshots at the priestess before following.

Out in the corridor, Jamna runs as fast as her little legs can take her, but the others quickly shake off the priestess’ magic. Ssessirex is caught outside the temple’s magic and is put down viciously.

The adventurers make their way outside of Diderius’ Tomb, where they reunite with Jamna. After dousing Varram with curative magic, the golf dwarf Wyrmspeaker becomes very talkative. He explains that the White Wyrmspeaker mask was stolen from him, so he traveled out to the tomb to use its divining pool to locate it before the theft was known to the rest of the Cult. Unfortunately, the pool revealed that Cult agents had already recovered the stolen mask, leaving Varram’s reputation in shambles.

That is when Talis the White and a band of her followers emerge from one of the ruined buildings outside the tomb. Talis is very disappointed to hear that the White Wyrmspeaker mask was recovered.

Having chased the fleeing lizardfolk through the secret door into the Yuan-ti caverns, the adventurers find another band of reptile people on a bridge over a chasm. Two snake-headed yuan-ti malisons with longbows stand behind the lizardfolk.

Jamna stealthily creeps forward and uses minor illusion to create disturbing roars from the chasm to rattle the scaly warriors.

Garrett shoots the fleeing lizardman in the back with his shortbow. Hurk then rushes forward and tries to bash the wounded lizardman into his fellows on the bridge. The lizardman doesn’t budge. Beryl incinerates it with sacred flame

Larion creeps forward and prepares his scimitar in case the lizardfolk advance.

Having gone out in front, Hurk becomes the target for a barrage of javelins and arrows from the lizardolk and yuan-ti. Jamna starts up another minor illusion of a creepy shadow rising out of the chasm to further scare the enemy.

Garrett fires an arrow, then moves forward stealthily. Hurk charges the enemies on the bridge and cuts through two lizardfolk with Hazirawn. Beryl moves up to heal him.

The yuan-ti order the lizardfolk to hurl the adventurers into the chasm. Two lizardfolk try to heave Hurk, but he shakes them off. Jamna moves up and takes one down, then hides behind Beryl.

Garrett wounds one of the yuan-ti. Hurk fails to take down the second lizardman and ends up driving his sword down into the bridge. A huge crack starts to spread across its surface.

The remaining lizardman freaks out and retreats, getting punched by Hurk as he goes. The reptile folk launch missiles, focusing on Garrett. Jamna retreats off the bridge and blasts one of the yuan-ti with ray of frost. Garrett backs away and kills the wounded serpentman with an arrow.

With great effort, Hurk gets his sword free of the stone. Beryl drags him back to safety as the cracks expand to cause much of the bridge to collapse. The surviving yuan-ti laughs across the chasm that they are at an impasse.

Hurk turns to Jamna and asks if she wants to try a fastball special. She determinedly agrees. He throws her across the broken bridge. Wielding her wrench, she takes down one of the lizardfolk and knocks another off the bridge.

Then it all goes wrong.

Moving lightning fast, the yuan-ti grabs the little gnome by the throat and dramatically drops her off the bridge. She plunges into the dark chasm with a shriek, followed by a sickening wet crunch.

Sneering at the horrified adventurers, the yuan-ti introduces himself as Ssessirex and invites Hurk to seek him out. He and the surviving lizardman then retreat down the stairs deeper into the serpentfolk’s lair.

The party immediately rushes to rescue Jamna, hoping against hope she was alive. Garrett quickly gets out his rope and with the rest of the party anchoring it, hastily descends into the chasm. He uses the dim glow of his magic bow Pokey to see. Garrett discovers that Jamna fortunately fell on the shallower side of the cavern, landing on the body of the lizardman she’d knocked off the side.

Garrett quickly applies a healer’s kit to the unconscious gnome, stabilizing her. He rigs a harness for her to be pulled up and climbs after her. Beryl casts cure wounds on Jamna and the gnome awakes gasping. She admits that the fastball special was a bit to cocky and notes that the yuan-ti had snake-like reflexes. She and Hurk ugly cry over each other.

The adventurers retreat up to the chamber above to rest and recuperate. Jamna awkwardly thanks Garrett, then returns to cuddle at Hurk’s side. The party still needs to find a way across the chasm and discover what has become of their target, Varram the White.

After their experience with the bone boulder trap, the party investigates everything more carefully. They discover a set of sarcophagi hidden behind the hanging tapestries but can’t determine their purpose.

Making sure to perform the holy gesture of Mystril beforehand, the adventurers enter through the large double boors. Beyond they find a throne on a massive dais that resembles a floating cloud concealing a golden sun. Seated on the throne is a twelve-foot tall, regal and well muscled man with a flowing white beard and purple toga. A pile of treasure, most of it copper pieces and cheap trinkets, lies at its feet.

The giant tells them that before seeking Diderius’ wisdom they must first furnish tribute. They each make an offering and the figure gestures for them to pass through the adjacent door.

The passage leads to a dining hall where five bearded devils stand on guard. The devils pay the party little mind until the adventurers strike up polite conversation. The party pays them 200gp in gems for information. They learn that the devils are from “Avernus,” that they serve Varram the White, and that they have been ordered to guard against anything dangerous emerging from the chamber below where undead things slew a cultist. They also learn that Varram has been missing for some time.

The party presses on to the divination chamber, which was apparently the scene of a fight. Beryl uses speak with dead to question a dead cultist, a man with gray hair and a tangled mustache. His corpse reveals that he was killed by Varram as an offering to the pool. Varram is seeking the location of the White Wyrmspeaker mask. The corpse also reveals that Varram came with twelve cultists and five bearded devils. Seven cultists were slain. Larion helpfully recalls the seven graves outside.

Garrett considers trying to contact Talis the White for information on Varram, but realizes it would take too long.

The party presses on to the next room, which contains the tomb of Diderius. He warns them that yuan-ti have taken Varram and offers to open their secret door. The party prepares for battle.

The door opens to reveal a band of lizardmen. Beryl hears one of them rush off to warn the yuan-ti while the rest charge forward. Hurk cuts through two of them, Jamna wrenches one that hurt the half-orc, Beryl fries one, and the last flees.

The party gives chase, stumbling across a band of lizardfolk and two yuan-ti waiting for them on a narrow bridge across a chasm.

Still searching for the wyrmspeaker Varram the White, the party enters the Tomb of Diderius. They had been warned by the statues outside that while the dead wizard Diderius can grant wisdom, they must show him due respect. The hall leading into the tomb is lined with cowled statues. As they approach, they hear a warning in their heads not to peer into the cowls.

Walking through the hall, the statues turn their heads to watch them pass. Garrett realizes that the cowled statues are a magical trap, and Beryl decides to take care of that nonsense by casting dispel magic.

The hallway opens onto a large chamber with an elaborate mosaic of a knight battling a chimera beneath a blazing sun. The adventurers are alarmed when the mosaic chimera comes to life and rises out of the floor to breathe very real fire on them. Then it attacks Garrett.

The adventurers pile on in response and the tiled creature retreats to a ledge in the high vaulted chamber. Beryl blasts it apart with a well struck sacred flame.

With the immediate threat removed, the party has several doors to investigate, one of which has the words “SAFE” scrawled on it in chalk. Inside is a well overgrown with mushrooms. Jamna eats one, while Garrett pockets a few. They realize that trolls sometimes come up through the well. They also notice a strange nearby sluice. They haul up water from the well and pour it into the sluice, but it goes into the next room.

Moving on to a pair of double doors, Garrett avoids crushed as the ceiling of the hall to the next room collapses. With that way blocked, the party heads down a side passage. As they do, there is a soft “click.”

A boulder made of bones pops out of the floor from where the mosaic sun was located. It rattles down the sloped floor towards them. Jamna and Larion dodge out of the way but the others are not so lucky. Skeletal hands grasp them as the boulder strikes and pull them inside the sphere, where they rattle around painfully as it tumbles faster and faster before colliding against a wall.

Hurk administers potions to the bleeding dwarf and human while the worried gnome and half-elf run down to check on them. The adventurers heal and rest up for a bit before proceeding.

The next room they enter looks like a library without books. They encounter the ghost Ilda, who tells hem about the dangers of the divination pool, which demands a cruel price from any who seek to use it. She also warns them of the presence of the yuan-ti., who have infiltrated the tomb. Ilda urges them to return any missing books they find.

The party considers whether they could use the pool to find Varram, while Hurk ponders if he could offer Hazirawn to it.

Having wrapped up their meeting with the Council of Waterdeep, the party is escorted by Leosin to another courtyard to select a guide for their journey. There imediate quest is to hunt down the Wyrmspeaker known as Varram the White, said to be traveling with minimal escort in the vicinity of the Serpent Hills.

They have three individuals to choose from. One is a burly and competitive human man named Dalbert Tane, affiliated with the Order of the Gauntlet. Another is a cheerful red-headed dwarf woman called Thali Understone who seems to be carrying an entire warehouse on her back. She does work for the Lords’ Alliance from time to time. The third guide is a rather grim halfling man with a dark beard and a pet eagle he keeps muttering to. His name is Gylan Darkfeather and he is aligned with the Emerald Enclave.

While the adventurers are impressed with all three guides, they ultimately select Thali since her “always prepared” nature would be the most flexible. She thanks them for choosing her and tells them that they can leave tomorrow at first light, as she has some final travel arrangements to make. The adventurers retire to the Yawning Portal Inn to prepare for the trip ahead. That night, they all have strange and portentous dreams.

The next morning, Garrett and Content Not Found: larion wake up to find a horse’s head in their bed. Things go from bad to worse when it starts speaking in the Xanathar’s voice and its ears unfold into giant bat wings. After expressing the beholder’s disappointment, the creature paralyzes Garrett with its frightful shriek.

In a near panic, Larion manages to stab the monster with a dagger. Even from across the hall, Beryl is startled awake by the shriek. She barges into the room, hammer in hand, and calls down a sacred flame that badly scorches the creature. Jamna darts in beside her, wild eyed, and looses a ray of frost that misses the horse head but strikes Garrett in the crotch.

The injury jars the rogue out of his paralysis, giving him a change to fight off the fiending equine head’s attempt to kiss him. Lacking a weapon, Garrett seizes it by its ear-wings and headbutts so savagely the monster’s skull caves in. Hurk arrives in time to help manage the apologetic staff at the Yawning Portal, managing to both get the rooms comped and score a higher quality of breakfast egg.

Inspecting the dead monster, Beryl concludes that it is a fiendish creature called a vargouille. These entities can spread their affliction by paralyzing and then kissing their victims, whose own heads slowly transform into new vargouilles. Garrett and Larion find that they have lost any appetite for breakfast.

Thali arrives late, explaining that someone had beheaded Garrett’s horse. They fill her in on the attack and then decide to let her know that there might be more such ambushes in the future. She finds this whole story fascinating and assures them she can take care of herself.

Beryl gets a sense that Thali has a bit of magic about her, though she’s no priest and no wizard either, despite her plethera of books. After the guide repeatedly assures Garrett and Larion that the horses won’t bite, the party sets out south down the trade way.

Aside from the cold autumn weather, it is a pleasant journey south. Thali makes for a cheery companion and always seems to have anything the adventurers desire near to hand. When Beryl asks for moonshine, Thali breaks out some gnomish liquor and a shot glasses from tourist traps across the Sword Coast. She is even a rapt audience for Beryl’s drunken Bahamut evangelism.

Despite the good cheer, Garrett and Larion continue to keep a wary eye on the horses.

After two weeks of travel, the party arrives at the Boareskyre Bridge. Thali explains a bit of history about the bridge and the monument to the battle between the gods Cyric and Bhaal that took place there. A tent city has grown up about the bridge, serving as a way station for travelers, and the paladins of Elturel have built a small holdfast to serve as shelter in time of danger.

Thali takes them to a large, brightly colored pavilion that serves as an inn. Its proprietor, a middle-aged halfling woman named Bolo, described how Varram and a small band of mercenaries rolled into the camp to hire guides for a trip to the serpent hills. The dwarf picked out a yuan-ti infiltrator and killed the serpent man on the spot, making him a local hero. He and his band left for the hills shortly thereafter and have not been heard from since.

The next day, the party sets out for the Serpent Hills themselves. Thali claims she is able to follow Varram’s trail, and Beryl suspects she is doing so with a little magical assistance. They track the dragon cultists to the ruins of a small settlement located outside some sort of catacombs carved into a cliff face. Thali stays behind with the horses while the adventurers move in to investigate.

Many of the stone buildings are empty shells, long since picked clean by scavengers. Beryl recognizes them as centuries old, holding up well for human work. In one, they find traces of an illusion spell that makes the crumbling furniture and moldy books appear brand new. The books are all written by someone named Diderius and seem to discuss visions and fortune telling.

The party also finds what appears to be the cultists’ camp, which appears abandoned. Seven shallow graves are dug nearby, and three heavy objects appear to have been dragged into a nearby well. Garrett ventures down into the well to find a small tunnel, too narrow even for Jamna to traverse, and no sign of bodies. There are large claw marks on the wall suggesting a creature or creatures climbed out of the well. Worse, the tunnel stinks of troll.

With that cheery discovery, the party approaches the entrance to the catacombs, which is flanked by two statues of robed men. The statues turn and challenge them, demanding to know if they seek “knowledge” or “wisdom” from the mighty Diderius who dwells within. Beryl says that they seek wisdom. The statues bid them enter, but warn that they must show the proper “respect.”

With that final bit of advice, the adventurers step into the catacombs.

The next morning, Garrett is exhausted from a sleepless night while Beryl is battling a hangover. Jamna offers her a gnomish hangover cure, which works for the dwarf but leaves Hurk with an upset stomach. Raeyanne is drawn away on Harper business.

Garrett notices that Igach is waiting in a shadowy corner of the Yawning Portal. After determining that Beryl lacks a method to shield the party from eavesdropping, he seeks out an old contact amid the caravan masters in the South Ward.

Officially, Tenore Edorasil manages the Viridian Chalice service of caravan guides, but his real business is serving as a neutral fixer for Waterdeep’s underworld. For the price of 250gp (plus a hefty tip), he is able to arrange a secure room at the Thirsty Sage where the party can talk.

There, Garrett blurts out his situation to the party and asks for advice, as he is not keen on helping Xanathar. Larion insists that he’s already walked into worse dangers with Garrett and will stick with him. He also suggests seeking out a stronger ally.

Jamna reiterates her offer to join the Zhentarim, and the notoriously independent Garrett weighs the idea. Hurk argues against it, noting that the party can generally take care of itself and that the Zhents’ protection might not be worth much more than what the adventurer can already do.

Garrett decides to tell Igach to pass a “fuck you” on to Mr. X, but holds on to the vulgar cartoon he had Larion draw. Garrett also has to placate an angry Talis who contacts him via sending to ask about her brother.

Once the message to the Xanathar is conveyed, Garrett has a tense evening at the bar followed by a night of cuddles with Larion.

The next morning, the party arrives at the Lords Palace for the meeting of the First Council of Waterdeep. Larion and Jamna are asked to wait outside.

The Council consists of representatives from communities and organizations across the Sword Coast. It is chaired by Lord Dagult Neverember, Open Lord of Waterdeep and Lord of Neverwinter, the most powerful ruler in the region. Grand Duke Ulder Ravenguard of Baldur’s Gate is there, as is the elvish King Melandrach of the Misty Forest, Taern “Thunderspells” Hornblade of Silverymoon, and Sir Isteval of daggerford. Ambassador Connerad Brawnanvil is there representing the dwarves of the north. The Lady Mage of Waterdeep, Lady Laeral Silverhand is there. Remallia Haventree and Leosin Erlanthar are there for the Harpers. Ontharr Frume is there on behalf of the Order of the Gauntlet. Delaan Winterhound is there representing the Emerald Enclave.

The Council asks the party to relay the story of their exploits. Some council members are unhappy with how the dragon egg situation was resolved. Elia then informs everyone about the Draakhorn, which calls to dragons all over the world. It was last seen in the Sea of Moving Ice, which was also where the Draakhorn expert Maccath the Crimson disappeared three years ago.

Before the party can go there, however, Leosin reveals that the Harpers have discovered the location of one of the Cult’s Wyrmspeakers. Varram the White has been seen venturing out into the Serpent Hills northeast of Baldur’s Gate. With their resources spread thin, the Council wants the party to go after him. They offer to provide them with a writ of investigation, which would grant them authority and resources but place the adventurers under the Council’s oversight.

The party has a private huddle and grudgingly agrees to go along. They are informed that horses are available for their use and they have their choice of guide to take them into the Serpent Hills.

Outside the Council chambers, they spy Jamna talking to a mysterious tiefling. Hurk is approached by Ulder Ravenguard, who recruits him into the Lords’ Alliance and promises him an officer’s commission in the Flaming Fists when this is all over. The half-orc agrees.

Beryl is also approached by Ontharr Frume, who recruits her into the Order of the Gauntlet to increase the representation for the Church of Bahamut.

Following their battle with the white dragon Glazhael the Cloud-chaser, the adventurers rest and recover aboard the floating cloud giant castle of Skyreach. Hurk and his evil talking greatsword Hazirawn bicker. Jamna thanks Beryl for keeping the half-orc alive during the battle. Larion thanks Garrett for helping to set him on the right course. Jamna offers Garrett a chance to join the Zhentarim, who can protect him from old enemies. Raeyanne collects her winnings from the ogres’ javelin contest.

That night, Beryl is visited in her dreams by the platinum dragon god Bahamut. He praises her efforts so far in thwarting the Adversary, but warns that greater perils await. He grants Beryl his blessing.

Skyreach arrives at Waterdeep and after some tense negotiations, the authorities allow it to land outside the city. The adventurers reunite with their old contact Leosin, who asks them to gather that night at the Yawning Portal Inn.

Before the meeting, however, the adventurers take their hard-earned gold and go shopping. Beryl picks up a pair of gauntlets of ogre strength, greatly enhancing her physical brawn. Garrett and Hurk also acquired boots of elvenkind. Raeyanne goes off to report to her Harper superiors.

Once the merchandise has been acquired, the party regroups at the Yawning Portal, where they are met by Leosin, the boisterous paladin Ontharr Frume, and the silver-haired woman Elia.

Leosin brings them up to speed on events. The treasure haul that the party liberated amounted to between a quarter or a third of the hoard the Cult had been gathering for Tiamat, but they are still pressing forward. Cult attacks are on the rise and they have even struck within Waterdeep itself, murdering the husband of Harper leader Remallia Haventree. This assassination proved even more significant when it was revealed that Remalia’s husband was one of the Masked Lords of Waterdeep.

In response, a Council has been called summoning leaders from across the Sword Coast to organize a collective response to the threat from the Cult. Leosin says that the Council will meet in two days, and that the adventurers will be asked to share their story.

A sudden icy shiver runs through everyone in the Yawning Portal Tavern, as if they all felt someone walking over their grave. Beryl experiences it differently, however. She hears a a deep and distant horn calling out to her, and realizes that Elia hears the same. The silver-haired woman excuses herself and runs off.

Beryl then proceeds to get smashed. Hurk is in the process of joining her when he encounters an old friend from the Right Bastards mercenary company. The veteran, Orvin, explains that he is fleeing the Sword Coast for Calimport before the dragons attack. Hurk wishes him luck.

Garrett is approached by the elven gangster Igach, who lets him know that the Underboss of Waterdeep, “Mr. X,” wants to meet with him that night. After arranging for Jamna to keep watch over Larion’s room, Garrett sneaks away that night and is led deep below the city to the subterranean lair of the mysterious crimelord.

The Xanathar turns out to be a grinning beholder. He offers Garrett forgiveness for past indiscretions, and even a promotion within the thieves’ guild. In exchange, the rogue is expected to provide regular updates on the Council’s operations against the Cult.

Garrett is skeptical, but the Xanathar claims to merely be a concerned citizen with a vested interest in the Cult’s defeat. The beholder gives Garrett 24 hours to respond to the offer.

While the rest of the party confronts Glazhael the Cloud-chaser down below, Garrett and Larion have been asked by Esclarotta, the spirit of Skyreach, to stop the Cult from scuttling the flying fortress.

Garrett and Larion scale the treacherous ice cliffs of the Skyreach Castle. Every shudder of the glacier sends razor sharp shards of ice cascading down on top of them. Garrett tries to pick up the pace but nearly slips to his death. So they ascend slow and steady, finally arriving at a ledge facing an enormous ice cavern.

Esclarotta warns them that one of the cultists has gone inside and barricaded himself deep within, where he is sabotaging the castle. She does not know what defenses within the tomb yet remain. Larion stops an overeager Garrett from stepping on dangerous pressure plates, and they carefully avoid the trap.

Igniting a torch, they realize there are skeletons within the ice walls of the tunnel. The “honored dead,” Esclarotta calls them, servitors of her family from long ago. Not all of the dead rest easy, however, and one of them bursts out of the wall. It’s eye sockets glow with pale blue fire. Garrett kicks the skeleton into a pit where it is impaled upon an ice-bound stalagmite.

Esclarotta warns that the cultist appears to have some necromantic skill and draws on the skeletons’ fading energies to temporarily imbue Garrett short sword and Larion’s scimitar with frost energy.

Pressing deeper into the ice tunnels, they see at least three more places where skeletons burst out of the wall, but no sign of the undead. They assume the cultist has taken his reinforcements with him.

A powerful jolt runs through the castle, rending a huge crack through the tunnel floor. Garrett nearly slides into it, but is caught by Larion. Esclarotta, now manifesting as a ghostly outline of a frost giant made of swirling snowflakes, strides across the gap. She urges them to hurry, before the castle completely loses its structural integrity. Garrett leaps across and secures a rope, which proves to be quite valuable when Larion flubs his jump and has to be hauled up.

Following Esclarotta’s giant footsteps, they hurry down the tunnel to the main chamber. The enormous double doors are made of the same magically-reinforced ice, but they have an enormous bronze lock built into them 10 feet off the ground. Esclarotta warns that the device is complicated and magically warded. Garrett asks if she has a magic passcode to share, and she tells him “Not to get into the room.”

To reach the giant lock, Garrett has Larion hoist him up on his shoulders, then secures his position by driving pitons into the ice. Using his thieves’ tools and a dagger, he gets to work disabling the three stages of the lock. It is challenging at times, but it brings him back to his second story roots in Waterdeep. A few moments of effort, and the lock clicks open.

The chamber beyond is circular, featuring a gallery made of sculpted pillars made of ice that wraps around a central floor, with a large round depression in the center. The pillars and walls are etched in glowing runes, though some of the symbols flicker or lie dead. A half-orc cultist stands halfway across the giant room, fiddling with a rune using a wand that looks like a giant icicle. Two skeletons lurk in the gallery near him, and two more wait near the entrance.

The half-orc orders his skeletal minions to attack, then uses the wand to blast Garrett with a ray of freezing energy. Garrett and Larion duck into cover behind a pillar, out of view of the skeletons. Garrett notices that there are large icicles hanging from the ceiling above the half-orc. He shoots one with an arrow, sending it plunging down onto the cultist, who is wounded.

The cultist then summons forth billowing wings of greasy smoke, which he uses to fly across the room to a different rune. Garrett concocts a plan involving a bottle of oil and flaming arrows, but Larion fumbles and they end up covered in oil with a broken bottle on the ground. The plan foiled, they race out towards the cultist but slip and fall flat on the ice. They rising unsteadily, they move more carefully across the slick floor. Garrett looses another arrow directly at the cultist, wounding him.

The two closest skeletons close in, one of them wounding Garrett. The other two skeletons, still across the room, sheathe their swords in their ribcages and then draw their bows. Larrion is badly wounded by an arrow.

The half-orc cultists chuckles, then draws energy out of the rune he was meddling with. Runes flare up across the room, flashing randomly, and Garrett gets blasted by one of them. The cultist calls out in excitement that the castle is about to fall. He then flies over to the round depression at the heart of the chamber.

Growing desperate, Garrett slips Larion a healing potion and surveys the room. He picks out the largest icicles in the ceiling and shoots another arrow into it. A huge cascade of ice falls down on the half-orc, crushing him. The animated skeletons crumple into a pile of bones. But the castle starts to shake and shudder violently, the floor tilting dangerously. The runes flash on and off like warning lights.

Esclarotta announces that it is losing altitude rapidly and urges Garrett to find the wand of winter. The rogues dash to the center of the room and grab the wand from the dead hand of the half-orc. They discover that in the sunken center of the room is Esclarotta’s enormous sarcophagus, which features a marble carving of a cloud giant woman. She directs Garrett to touch the wand to a halo of runes around the head of the carving, following a particular pattern. Doing so causes the runes to stop flashing and the descent to halt.

The castle rights itself with a lurch, sending a last wave of ice tumbling down from the ceiling. The rogues manages to protect themselves, but find that the exit is buried under rubble. Esclarotta tells them that they can whisper the word “Blagothkus” into her carving’s ear to be teleported out of the room.

They appear in the control tower of Castle Skyreach, where Blagothkus is bringing the castle under control. He thanks them for saving the castle, which his rash alliance with the Cult had endangered. He promises to take the party to Waterdeep, then head north to rally an army of giants to march against the Cult when the time is right.

Garrett asks if he will help against the white dragon Glazhael, but the cloud giant lord says that their friends have already dealt with that particular wyrm. Blagothkus tells them that he has arranged for guest quarters where they can recover. Barely on their feet, the two rogues thank him for his hospitality and then stumble out of the tower once the giant summons its door.

Having vanquished the Wyrmspeaker Rezmir and come to an amicable resolution with the Red Wizards Rath Modar and Azbara Jos, the adventurers have only one major enemy left on the flying castle of Skyreach: the white dragon Glazhael the Cloud-chaser.

As the party plans their attack, the cloud giant castle begins to shake and tilt disturbingly. An alarm howls through the castle and moments later, the adventurers are contacted by the melodious voice of Esclarotta, the spirit of Skyreach Castle. She warns them that one of the dragon cultists has managed to climb into the inner workings of the castle and is attempting to scuttle the flying palace.

Esclarotta explains that the chamber is only accessible via a difficult climb and the entrance has been sealed. The servants of her husband, the cloud giant lord Blagothkus, cannot reach it, so she has reached out to the party for assistance.

After a bit of haggling, the adventurers decide that preventing the castle they are on from crashing into the ground is A Good Thing. Garrett is volunteered to put his second story skills to work, and he takes the still-excited Larion with him.

The rest of the adventurers still have the dragon to deal with. Raeyanne concocts a plan to convince the dragon that it has been betrayed and that it should go back to the Parnast Hunting Lodge to regroup with Talis the White. The plan involves using a bit of Jamna’s illusion magic to disguise the Black Wyrmspeaker’s Mask as the White Wyrmspeaker’s Mask. The party believes this plan will work because white dragons are known to be dimwitted.

Hurk remembers a bit of lore about the Wyrmspeaker masks that he overheard during his time in the mercenary company the Right Bastards. The masks, a creation of Tiamat herself, allow the wearers to take on certain aspects of their respective chromatic dragons, causing those particular types of dragons to look upon the wearers favorably in negotiations.

When they descend into the frigid tunnels within the glacier at the heart of Skyreach, they discover a complication. Three of the remaining dragon cultists have regrouped with Glazhael and are conferring with him. Raeyanne insists on attempting the plan anyway, despite a growing sense of foreboding that there would be blood spilled on the ice.

Wearing the illusory White Wyrmspeaker’s Mask, Raeyanne stepped into the cavernous chamber that Glazhael called home and warned the white dragon that the Cult’s leaders planned not to free Tiamat but to control her. Raeyanne claimed that the white dragon faction was withdrawing from the cult and urged Glazhael to regroup with Talis at the hunting lodge.

The real dragon cultists accuse her of being one of the interlopers who had invaded the castle. As Glazhael stands confused, Raeyanne orders the servants of the white dragon to cut down the traitor cultists. She retreats into the tunnel and removes her mask, while Hurk comes charging out, shouting “For the white dragon!”

The half-orc’s evil greatsword Hazirawn cuts down one of the cultists in two swift strokes, yellow-green necromantic energy burning outward from the initial wounds. The two surviving cultists attack Hurk, one of them landing some nasty cuts with his scimitar.

The dragon is perplexed by this violence among the cultists and ineffectually orders them to stop. He also demands to speak with Talis, as she writes him poetry. While Beryl marches forward to heal Hurk, Raeyanne and Jamna stick to the tunnels to attack from afar. Soon there is only one badly wounded cultist left, who retreats around behind the dragon, begging it for help.

The castle continues to shake and shudder, occasionally sending icicles plunging down from the ceiling, causing minor injuries to the dragon and Jamna.

Glazhael proves to be too stupid and bloody-minded to be tricked by Raeyanne. Instead, he rears up, his fearsome magnificence sending a jolt of fear through the adventurers. Hurk’s thoughts keep turning back to the last time he faced dragons close up, during the Battle of Karse where the Right Bastards were wiped out. He can’t bring himself to get closer to the creature.

Glazhael then opens its broad jaws to unleash a gout of frigid cold more terrible than any blizzard. Hurk and Beryl take the full brunt, while Raeyanne and Jamna are somewhat shielded in the tunnels. Hurk nearly freezes sold, but the orcish rages burning in his blood keeps him warm and upright. Beryl, nearly laid low herself, blesses Hurk with her most powerful healing spell.

Still trying to conquer his fear, Hurk takes a defensive stance. Raeyanne abandons her attempts to persuade the dragon, and instead stealthily approaches it, looking for some sort of weakness. Jamna, enraged by what the dragon did to Hurk, charges it. Her wrench merely clangs against its icy scales.

The dragon chomps down on Hurk, nearly dropping him, and wounds Jamna with a claw. Beryl calls upon Bahamut to channel more healing energy into the half-orc, but her powers are running low.

The piercing touch of the dragon’s fangs stirs Hurk from his fearful reverie and he rushes forward, Hazirawn telepathically urging him to sate his bloodlust. The black blade, surging with necromantic energy, carves terrible wounds into the dragon.

The surviving cultist rushes to attack Jamna, wounding her. She leaps up onto the dragon’s back, narrowly avoiding another scimitar strike. From her perch on the creature’s back, Jamna slams her wrench into the joint where the wings meet the dragon’s shoulder.

Glazhael roars in pain and confusion and lays into Hurk, biting and clawing the warrior until he lies broken and bleeding on the ground.

Raeyanne tries and fails to leap atop the dragon, and instead drives her blades into its flank. Glazhael glances at its many wounds with a worried look and says “So you were saying about going to see Talis?”

Beryl summons the last of her healing energy to revive Hurk. The half-orc springs to his feet, roaring “Motherf*****, if you thought I was mad before!”

With two spectacular cuts, Hurk splits Glazhael’s head from Glazhael’s neck. The dragon’s head rolls across the icy floor, necrotic energy still chewing away at it as it tumbles. The last surviving cultist drops to his knees in disbelief, crying out in shock. Jamna watches him for a moment, then conks him out with her wrench. Raeyanne is already collecting white dragon scales.

Suddenly Skyreach Castle lurches violently beneath their feet!

Previously, the adventurers infiltrated the cloud giant castle of Skyreach and negotiated a non-aggression pact with the giants. They have ambushed the cultist leader Rezmir the Black, slain her guard drakes, and dispelled her magic. All that stands before them now is a pissed off half-dragon and her enormous magic greatsword.

Rezmir charges out of her room and tries to cut her way past Hurk, but the half-orc proves too resilient for her. While her hungry greatsword Hazirawn hacks fruitlessly against his defenses, Hurk, Jamna, and Garrett strike back at the cult leader. Raeyanne’s crossbow bolt goes wide, and Larion continues his streak of ineffectiveness. Beryl attempts to strike Rezmir with baleful magic, but the cult leader shies away from her grasp. The cleric then imbues Hurk with a smidgen of healing magic.

Unable to break through the half-orc’s defenses, a badly wounded Rezmir flees down the gigantic corridor, cursing the Red Wizards for failing to assist her despite hearing her calls for aid. Jamna clips her with a ray of frost as she runs, but Rezmir uses the frost to try to blend in with her surroundings. Her copious bleeding, however, gives away her location.

Hurk goes in for the kill, only for Hazirawn’s black blade to block his sword. Rezmir then counter attacks, savagely wounding the half-orc. Only Beryl’s previous healing spell keeps him upright.

Raeyanne misses another shot with her hand crossbow, but moves up to flank the half dragon with Hurk. Larion rushes forward, with Garrett right behind him. The young half-elf circles behind Rezmir and sees an opening. He slashes upward in a vicious arc with his standard-issue cultist scimitar.

And as Garrett watches, Larion Keenblade cuts Rezmir the Black almost in half.

Rezmir’s body erupts in necrotic energy that consumes her, converting her flesh to ash. Among the charred robes, Raeyanne digs out and stows away the Black Wyrmspeaker Mask.She also finds a strange cult insignia that has a magic aura about it.

Garrett, meanwhile, sweeps an astounded Larion into his arms and passionately kisses him. The two continue to squee over this unexpected victory.

Hurk picks up Hazirawn, sensing the power within it but also encountering the sword’s intellect, which snarks that it’s customary for the one who struck the killing blow to claim the spoils. Hurk persuades the weapon that Larion doesn’t have the strength to wield it. Hurk then clues the rest of the party into why he is talking with his sword. Beryl bestows more healing magic on the fighter.

A large squad of cultists in full regalia dash around the corner, but quickly realize they’ve arrived too late. Making some awkward excuses, the cultists back up and then flee.

Rather than give chase, the party decides to hole up in Rezmir’s quarters for a brief respite. Hurk investigates Rezmir’s treasure chest, shaking off its poison trap to discover 3,750gp in gems and coins. Hurk also takes this time to fully attune to Hazirawn and unlock its fearsome powers.

The party debates their next move, ultimately deciding to confront the Red Wizards before moving on to the white dragon Glazhael the Cloud-chaser. Based on the intel Jamna had gathered, they quickly locate the wizards’ quarters. After her experience with the rug of smothering, the gnome is none too happy to find the wizards have covered their entire room in rugs and carpets.

The Red Wizards, Rath Modar and Azbara Jos, are cordial. They explain that while they are allies with the Cult, they have no investment in Rezmir’s scheme and will not oppose the party’s efforts to thwart it. They say that they have been conducting an audit of the Cult’s activities and have uncovered many concerning issues they plan to bring up with the Red Wyrmspeaker Severin. The party leaves the wizards to their deliberations, having concluded the two Thayans pose no immediate threat.

Which means the dragon is the only danger that remains. Fearing the creature’s abilities in the air, they discuss ways to manipulate it into staying on the ground or even using the cave environment like icicles against it.