Breakfast at Trollskull Manor was quiet — bread, ale, the polite silence of people who had seen enough the previous week. Renaer sat at the far end of the table, turning his cup in his hands. Caelith reached for bread. And then the Sending arrived.
He went still. Not the stillness of thought — the stillness of a man receiving something he had not asked for. The voice of the Blackstaff was brief and flat, arriving with the purposeful economy of a military dispatch.
"Caelith. Gray Hands business. Meloon Wardragon — Force Grey veteran, blonde, carries Azuredge — has missed three check-ins. Find him. Observe. Do not engage without cause. Report back."
Caelith relayed the message to the table. Renaer set down his cup. Force Grey, he said. The famous axe — there were stories about Azuredge in half the taverns in Waterdeep. But his question was sharper than that: why send three untested outsiders after a Force Grey veteran instead of Force Grey itself?
Caelith used his reply window carefully.
"We can certainly do that, but I'd like to know more about this. Why send us?"
A second Sending arrived a few minutes later, Vajra casting again.
"Force Grey searched. Nothing. Someone close to him may be compromised. You are new. Unknown. Untainted by whatever this is. Find him."
The sentence landed at the table. Renaer understood it immediately. She doesn't trust her own people around this. When Caelith asked about last known whereabouts, the third sending was brief.
"Dock Ward. The Muleskull Tavern. Three weeks ago. After that — nothing. He simply stopped."
The party divided. Corrin would go to Gralhund Villa — close enough to North Ward to case on foot — while Caelith and Lylnyler followed the Meloon thread south to the Dock Ward. Corrin left without ceremony. The other two finished their bread.
The Villa sat in the North Ward like it always had — three stories of old stone, iron railings, a walled garden at the rear. Two City Watch guards stood at the front gate, facing the street, touching nothing. Something had happened here in the night, and whatever it was had already been called in.
Corrin moved through the streets the way he always did: unhurried, small, entirely forgettable. The Watch guards faced forward. Neither looked sideways. He slipped around the perimeter without drawing a second glance.
He stopped at the neighbours first. The first door opened on a middle-aged woman, sympathetic but not especially useful. The second was more promising — an older man in a house robe who had been waiting all morning for someone to ask him about this.
"The Watch? Oh, they weren't here last night — they showed up this morning. Whatever happened in there, happened in the night. Heard it myself. Sometime after midnight — crashing, like furniture going over. Thought it was a burglary at first. Then it went quiet all at once. That sudden kind of quiet, you know? Worse than the noise."
He had noticed the rough lot too — not servants, wrong bearing — coming and going at odd hours over recent weeks. And Lady Yalah, he said without prompting, is the one who runs things.
The east side of the Villa had a ground-floor window with shutters not fully latched. Through the gap, Corrin read the room: two chairs overturned, a side table on its side, broken glass on the floor, a dark stain on the rug near the door. Blood, dried. And on the floor near the overturned table, half under a chair, something small and flat and metallic.
He assessed the sight lines, the distance to the voices from deeper in the house, the time required. In and out in under a minute if nothing went wrong. He went in.
The voices — low, controlled, at least two people — continued unchanged as he crossed the sill. His fingers found the medallion. Black iron, thumbnail-sized. A winged snake rendered in fine detail. He pocketed it and edged toward the open doorframe.
A piece of broken glass caught his foot. It skittered an inch. The voices stopped.
"Did you hear that?"
A pause.
"...Probably the cat."
The voices resumed, quieter. Corrin had not moved in ten seconds. Slow, one inch at a time, he made it to the doorframe.
"...the Watch won't hold forever, my lady..."
"...Urstul made a mess of everything. If he'd done it cleanly—"
A pause. Then, quieter:
"...the stone is what matters. Everything else is noise."
"...and when the Zhentarim come looking for their people?"
"We were never here. As far as anyone is concerned, the Zhentarim broke in, fought amongst themselves, and left. That is the story the Watch will hear."
"...and the nimblewright?"
"Already gone. It has what it needs."
Footsteps moved deeper into the house, away from the doorframe.
"Have the servants finish by tenth bell. I want this house empty and clean before the Watch decides to knock."
Corrin was back through the window — shutters eased to exactly where he had found them, feet on the cobblestones — before the echo of her footsteps faded.
He went to the Watch post at the front gate. The younger guard stepped forward immediately when Corrin spun his story — a friend, kidnapped, brought in here last night. The older guard put a hand out and crouched to his eye level.
"Your friend. Describe him. When did you see them taken in?"
The story developed in layers: the sounds, the drugged ale, waking up across the street in the bushes. The older guard's eyes narrowed — no visible injury, no bruising, not quite convincing. But then Corrin produced tears, pointed inside at Yalah, and said the name: Floon Blagmaar. The younger guard wavered.
"Sarge, someone drugged a halfling and dragged a person into this house during a disturbance we were specifically told to watch. We need to go in."
The older guard relented. He hammered on the gate. A large man in servant's clothes filled the doorframe; behind him, Lady Yalah stepped forward from the shadows — composed, almost bored, with a clean story already prepared. The Zhentarim had broken in, fought amongst themselves, left. She had called the Watch for protection.
Corrin pointed at her and produced more tears. Yalah's composure flickered, just for a moment. The older guard turned back to her.
"My lady — with respect, we do need to take a look inside. Procedure."
"Of course."
Both guards went in. When the older guard reappeared, he asked for a name. Corrin gave him "Jack Blue," and gave him Floon's description. The guard recognized the prior Watch record immediately — Floon Blagmaar, found safe a few weeks back. He wrote it all down and walked Corrin to the Watch House on Sail Street for a formal statement. The Watch now had Floon Blagmaar logged as missing again, connected to Gralhund Villa. Jack Blue's statement was on record. Corrin walked north.
The Muleskull Tavern sat on a side street a block from the waterfront — low ceiling, dark wood, the kind of place that had been here longer than anyone could remember. At mid-morning it was half empty: a few dockhands nursing ales, a woman sitting alone in a corner. The barkeep wiped glasses with a rag that was not doing much good.
Caelith ordered two ales, set coin on the bar, and asked about Meloon Wardragon. The barkeep took the coin without warmth.
"Yagra comes in most evenings. Not a morning person."
He went back to the glasses.
"Meloon. Haven't seen him in a few weeks. Used to be a regular. Big tipper. That's all I know."
Lylnyler looked toward the woman in the corner — a half-elf, watching the room with the careful attention of someone who notices things. They crossed to her table.
"You're not Dock Ward."
When Caelith asked how she knew, she looked at their boots.
"Your boots. And you walk like you're not worried about what's behind you."
She said her name was Mira, and she had information about Meloon. She gave it with the precision of someone who had been replaying the memory for weeks and had worn the details smooth: a big blonde man, the famous axe on his hip, sitting alone at a table for most of the evening, talking to no one. Strange — Meloon talked to everyone. That night he talked to no one. Then a hooded figure came in through the back door. Short. Slim. Moved quietly — not drunk-quiet, trained-quiet. And Meloon, when the hooded one sat down, had not looked pleased to see them.
"He left his drink half full. Meloon never leaves a drink half full."
When Caelith pressed for more, she described the hooded figure — sharp features, slim build, could have been a woman or a slight man — and what she had read in Meloon's face.
"He didn't look pleased to see them. Looked like someone who'd been summoned."
She turned her cup slowly.
"The person he left with — they came from that direction. Not the front door. The back. Which means they didn't want to be seen coming in off the street."
She looked at them both.
"You friends of his?"
Caelith told her they worked for the same people and had the same interest.
"Gray Hands."
Not a question. She glanced at the barkeep, then back.
"The alley out back comes out near Wharf Street. That's Xanathar territory after dark. Has been for months. That's everything I have."
Caelith gave her his blessing before they left.
"Find him."
She turned back to watching the room.
Before they went to the alley, Caelith returned to the barkeep. With better coin and a more direct question, the man leaned on the bar and dropped his voice.
"Aye. I saw it. Didn't sit right with me either. Meloon's been coming here for years. That night he walks in, orders his usual, barely touches it. Then that one comes in through the back — never seen them before or since — whispers something to him and they're gone. Two minutes, maybe less."
He picked up his rag.
"Meloon looked back at me when he left. Just once."
A pause.
"Like he was saying goodbye."
The back door opened onto a narrow alley — barely wide enough for two people abreast. Wet cobblestones, moss on the walls, the smell of the harbour close by. Morning light did not reach down here.
Caelith went first, scanning the alley's length, but three weeks of Waterdeep weather had washed away anything near the entrance. Lylnyler crouched near the Wharf Street end and found it: a small glass vial pressed between two cobblestones, almost flush with the ground, stopper still in. A faint residue inside — dark, slightly iridescent.
He held it up.
"Alchemical. Not something you'd find in a regular apothecary. Sedative, maybe. Or a paralytic. Something that puts you down quietly."
He looked at Caelith.
"Someone came prepared."
He pocketed the vial. Caelith worked the alley wall toward the Wharf Street end, crouching where the moss was thinner. Near where Lylnyler had found the vial — scrape marks. Fresh enough to still show clean stone beneath, maybe a few weeks old. Two parallel lines, like something heavy had been dragged. They ran from the middle of the alley toward Wharf Street. And at the base of the wall, a small dark stain on the cobblestones.
They stepped out onto Wharf Street. The drag marks ended at the mouth of the alley — too much foot traffic to follow further.
"He didn't walk out of here. Someone carried him."
A dockhand nearby was coiling rope. He barely looked up when Lylnyler asked about suspicious activity — just said *Mate, this is Wharf Street* and went back to his work.
Caelith thought about patrol patterns — one thin Watch sweep every couple of hours at night, a Watch House on Sail Street nearby. A log entry from three weeks ago might have noted something.
The Dock Ward Watch House on Sail Street was a squat stone building, functional, a City Watch sigil above the door. Inside — a duty sergeant at a desk, the quiet industry of a morning shift.
Caelith introduced himself and Lylnyler by full name, described Meloon, and laid out what they had found: the vial, the drag marks, the barkeep's account of the back-door departure. The sergeant listened without expression, wrote brief notes, then disappeared through a back door. The scratch of a filing cabinet. He returned with a ledger.
"Three weeks back, Wharf Street. Night patrol logged an item — 'Large human male, unconscious, carried onto river barge by two individuals, hooded. Barge departed north. Patrol did not intervene — no disturbance, no complaint filed.'"
He looked up.
"They didn't intervene because it looked like someone being helped home drunk."
Caelith pressed for more — a name, markings, a mooring point. The sergeant turned back a page.
"Patrol noted the barge name. The Sable Moon. No registration markings — which they did flag, see here — but with no complaint filed they couldn't hold it. It was gone before they could follow up."
He closed the ledger.
"The Sable Moon isn't in our harbour registry. Which means it's either recently renamed, foreign registered, or it doesn't want to be found. I'd suggest not going looking for it alone."
When Caelith asked about sending men to look, the sergeant was honest about what he had to work with — six on the shift, the entire Dock Ward to cover, no crime on record. He would log it as a missing persons inquiry. If the Sable Moon appeared in harbour again, they would know to hold it.
"Good luck finding him."
He meant it.
All three arrived back at Trollskull Manor at roughly the same time. Renaer was at the table.
"All at once. That's either very good or very bad."
He looked between them.
"Sit down. Someone start."
Corrin went first. He laid everything on the table — the doorbell canvassing, the neighbours, the Watch already posted when he arrived. The window, the broken glass, the blood on the rug. The medallion went on the table with a quiet click. Then Yalah's voice through the doorframe: the nimblewright was already gone. The house being cleared by tenth bell. The Watch gambit — the cover story, the tears, Floon Blagmaar's name. Jack Blue's formal statement on Sail Street.
Renaer stared at the medallion.
"You got inside Gralhund Villa, overheard Lady Yalah, lifted evidence, then talked the Watch into entering and used Floon Blagmaar's name to do it."
A beat.
"That's either brilliant or catastrophic. Possibly both."
He picked up the medallion, turned it over.
"The nimblewright already left. Which means whatever Urstul took from Dalakhar's body is moving through the city right now."
He set it down and looked at Caelith and Lylnyler.
"Your turn."
Caelith let the moment hang before he started.
"Phew, what a story — the lengths things you would go to is..."
"I got the information, didn't I?"
He picked up his ale.
"The tears were a nice touch."
Caelith took the floor. He described the Muleskull, Mira's account, the barkeep who confirmed the back-door exit and the one look Meloon had given him before he left. He put the vial on the table next to the medallion. The drag marks. Wharf Street. The Sail Street Watch House. The Sable Moon, unregistered, heading north.
He added, pointing at Corrin: "It was a suspicious hooded figure — just like this bugger here."
"I am nothing like a hooded figure."
A beat.
"I was in broad daylight."
The humour left the room when Caelith got to the barge. Renaer had gone still.
"The Sable Moon. Heading north."
"North from the Dock Ward waterfront means the Undermountain river channels. Which means Skullport."
He looked at all three of them.
"Skullport is where Xanathar operates from. If Meloon was taken onto that barge three weeks ago—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
"You have a missing Force Grey veteran in Xanathar's lair, a nimblewright loose in the city with whatever was taken from Dalakhar, and Lady Yalah feeding the Watch a clean story while her house gets scrubbed."
He looked at the vial and the medallion side by side on the table.
"Which problem do you solve first?"
Caelith said: Vajra first. Report everything.
"That's the right call. She sent you after Meloon — she needs to know where he is. And if anyone in this city has the reach to do something about Skullport, it's the Blackstaff."
He stood and straightened his coat.
"I'll come with you. Vajra knows my face — it may help get you in quickly."
He glanced at the vial and the medallion.
"Bring those."
The door opened before they knocked. A young apprentice looked at the party, then at Renaer, and stepped aside without a word. Vajra Safahr was waiting in the same room as before, at her desk. She looked up.
"You found something."
Not a question.
Caelith laid out the Muleskull thread — Mira's account, the barkeep's account, the vial found in the back alley, the drag marks. The Dock Ward Watch House and the sergeant's log: an unconscious large man carried onto the Sable Moon, heading north. He set the vial on her desk.
Vajra picked it up and held it to the light.
"The Sable Moon."
She set it down carefully.
"I know that name."
She looked at Caelith directly.
"Meloon is alive. I would know if he weren't — we have a bond of service. But alive and himself are two different things."
She moved to the window.
"This vial is a Xanathar Guild sedative. They use it to suppress resistance during — implantation."
She said the last word like it cost her something.
"If Meloon was taken onto that barge three weeks ago, he has something in his head that is not his. And whatever it is has been wearing his face in this city ever since."
She turned back.
"You said you had more. The Villa."
Corrin took over. He laid it out clean — the neighbours, the window, the blood on the rug, the medallion now on her desk next to the vial. Yalah's words: the nimblewright already gone with what it needed. The Watch gambit, Floon's name, the cleared house.
Renaer closed his eyes briefly when Corrin mentioned Floon's name.
Vajra was quiet for a long moment, looking at the medallion.
"Lady Yalah Gralhund is working with the Zhentarim. Or was. It sounds as though she's cutting them loose now that they've served their purpose."
She picked up the medallion.
"The nimblewright carried something out of that house. Given what Dalakhar was carrying when he died — it almost certainly has the Stone of Golorr. Or what remains of it."
She set it down with a quiet click.
"A nimblewright is a construct. It follows instructions. Someone built it, programmed it, and sent it. I need to know who."
She looked at all three of them.
"You've done well this morning. Better than I expected this quickly."
Caelith said — one more thing. He set the necklace of fireballs on her desk. Two beads remaining.
"Yes. I heard."
She set it beside the vial and the medallion. Three items in a row.
"Dalakhar was carrying the Stone of Golorr. Someone knew he had it and where he would be. The fireball was not random — it was an assassination. Dalakhar was the target."
She picked up the necklace.
"The nimblewright triggered this from the rooftop as the distraction. Urstul moved in at street level while the alley was in chaos and took the Stone from Dalakhar's body. They were coordinating. The Gralhunds had both assets in play simultaneously."
She set the necklace down.
"I'll keep this. It's evidence."
She looked at the party.
"How involved do you want to be in what comes next?"
Corrin said full in. Caelith said they needed to bring these people to justice — they were a clear danger to the city.
Something settled in Vajra's expression.
"Good."
She moved to a map on the wall — Waterdeep, detailed, marked in her own hand. Meloon was in Xanathar's lair beneath Skullport; she would not send Gray Hands veterans in blind while she didn't know who among them might already be compromised. The Gralhunds were contained for now — Vajra would handle the Villa angle through official channels.
"Your problem is the nimblewright. It has the Stone of Golorr, it has instructions, and it is somewhere in this city right now. A nimblewright is built — which means someone in Waterdeep has a workshop capable of constructing one. Find who built it. That leads you to who controls it. And that leads you to the Stone. That is your next task."
Renaer stepped forward.
"Nimblewrights are rare. Complicated to build — you need serious artificer knowledge and the right materials. That narrows it considerably in Waterdeep."
He thought for a moment.
"There's a fellow in the Dock Ward — Roxley. Runs a clockwork and curiosities shop on Fillet Lane. He's not an artificer himself but he knows everyone who is, and he deals in the kind of components you'd need for something like a nimblewright. If anyone bought unusual parts recently, Roxley would know about it."
A glance at Corrin.
"He responds better to coin than questions. Just so you know."
"Fillet Lane. Go today — before whoever controls that nimblewright realises you're looking."
The party thanked her and turned to leave.
"One more thing."
They stopped.
"The Stone of Golorr contains an aboleth intelligence. It remembers everything — every owner, every hand that has held it. Whoever recovers it next will need to be careful."
A beat.
"It will try to make itself wanted."
She turned back to her desk.
Renaer peeled off outside Blackstaff Tower — a Neverember walking into a Dock Ward parts dealer asking about nimblewrights would be conspicuous. The party went south without him.
Halfway down Fillet Lane, above a door, a small mechanical bird sat on an iron bracket. As they approached it turned its head and clicked twice. The door was unlocked. A bell chimed as they pushed it open — three notes, ascending, like a question.
Inside: shelves floor to ceiling, cluttered with gears, glass components, coiled wire, things that ticked and hummed and spun slowly for no apparent reason. The smell of oil was strong.
"Adventurers. Wonderful. You're either here to sell me something broken or ask me something I shouldn't answer."
He smiled like this delighted him.
"Which is it?"
"Ask you something that you should answer."
"I like him."
He hopped onto a stool behind his counter.
"Ask away. I reserve the right to know nothing."
Caelith and Lylnyler introduced themselves. Corrin asked what would be involved in building a nimblewright. Something shifted behind Roxley's eyes.
"Nimblewrights. Complicated things. Expensive things. You'd need articulated mithral joints — not cheap, not common. An arcane power core, which means someone with serious enchantment knowledge. Sensory crystals for the eyes. And the housing — usually a lightweight alloy, shaped to pass for human at a distance."
He ticked them off on his greasy fingers.
"The kind of components list that would make most artificers in this city laugh and show you the door."
A pause.
"Most."
He looked at Corrin.
"Why do you ask?"
Corrin ignored the question.
"You say 'most' — so who doesn't?"
"That's the kind of question that has a price."
Caelith stepped in: eleven people had died in the fireball in Trollskull Alley, and the nimblewright was connected. They were trying to prevent it from happening again.
"People died."
He read them — not Zhentarim, not Watch.
"Gray Hands?"
Caelith told him they were the new owners of Trollskull Manor. Victims as well.
Roxley exhaled slowly and reached under the counter for a small ledger.
"Three weeks ago. Mithral articulation components, two sensory crystals, a lightweight duralite housing sheet. Paid in full, cash, no name given."
He looked up.
"I don't ask names. But I remember faces. Tall. Human. Dark hair, well dressed. Not a craftsman — hands were too clean. He knew exactly what he wanted, which means someone with real knowledge sent him to buy it."
He leaned on the counter.
"He came back once more, a week later. Picked up a replacement sensory crystal. Didn't say why he needed a replacement."
Caelith asked about a tattoo.
"Left forearm. Saw it when he counted out the coin. Black ink — a snake, I think. Winged."
Corrin set the Zhentarim medallion on the counter without a word.
"...Yes. Like that."
He pushed the medallion back toward Corrin and took a small step back.
"Zhentarim bought the components for that nimblewright."
He said it quietly, like saying it out loud made it more real.
"Which means I sold to the Zhentarim without knowing it."
He looked at Caelith.
"I don't suppose you can keep my name out of whatever comes next."
Caelith told him he couldn't make that promise.
"Fair enough. Then I suppose I'd better tell you everything I know and hope that counts for something."
He folded his hands. The components were specialist work — whoever built the nimblewright knew what they were doing. There were perhaps four people in Waterdeep with that level of skill. Three of them were either strictly legitimate, retired, or dead.
"And Ott Steelquill. Halfling. Works out of a basement workshop in the Southern Ward. He's — less particular about his clients. If the Zhentarim needed something built quietly, Ott is who they'd go to."
The party thanked him and turned to leave. "If you're lucky we don't have to mention your name."
"I like him less than the halfling."
But he was smiling when he said it.
"Ott's workshop is on Copper Street, Southern Ward. Look for a blue door, basement steps on the left side of the building. He doesn't advertise."
A pause as they reached the door.
"One more thing. Ott is particular about his work. He doesn't like it when his creations are used for things he didn't intend. If the nimblewright hurt people, tell him that. He'll talk."
The mechanical bird above the door clicked twice as they stepped back onto Fillet Lane and turned south toward Copper Street.