The Audience — Xanathar's lair beneath the city
The chamber was vast. Carved from bedrock and lit by phosphorescent fungi and dozens of candles melted into iron brackets, the dome rose thirty feet above a floor worn smooth by something that drifted rather than walked. At the far end, a writing desk buried under scrolls and ledgers. On the desk, a glass bowl. In the bowl, a single orange fish circling slowly in the candlelight.
And above the desk, filling the upper half of the room: him.
The size of a draft horse. Drifting with unsettling patience, the way a cloud drifts — not moving so much as already everywhere it intended to be. A great central eye, yellow and enormous. Ten smaller eyes on stalks, each turning independently, each fixing on something different. The party had been warned not to look at the central eye. Three people entered the room and none of them did the same thing with their gaze.
The creature's voice, when it came, was wet and resonant — not quite human in cadence.
"Tournament winners. I expected more of you to be bleeding."
A pause. The central eye drifted toward Caelith — to the dried blood crusted across his armour.
"The big one is bleeding. That's something."
Caelith met one of the smaller stalk-eyes rather than the great central one. He had been told not to look at it. He did not look at it.
"Hi, I'm Caelith Morn! — Yes, they were hitting hard. But I stood my ground."
The stalk dipped, taking in the damage.
"Caelith Morn. You introduce yourself to everyone, or just things that could kill you? — Stood your ground. Yes. I can see that."
It did not sound like a compliment. It did not sound like an insult either. It sounded like an observation being filed away.
Corrin did not look at the central eye either. He looked at the creature's general enormity with an expression somewhere between reverence and entertainment.
"Oooohh — it's the big almighty Xanathar."
The great central eye swung toward Corrin. Slowly. The ten stalks did not follow — they stayed on the others. Only the central eye moved. Silence for two full seconds. Corrin had opened his mouth with something prepared — something warm and theatrical, some performance of awe.
"You're doing a voice. I've heard that voice before. Usually from people who want something and think flattery is a door."
The central eye swung to Corrin. Slowly. The ten stalks stayed on the others.
"What do you want?"
The Audience — Sylgar circles in his bowl
Lylnyler was not looking at the voice. He was not looking at the stalks. He was looking at the fish. A single eyestalk peeled away from Lylnyler and turned toward the bowl on the desk, then back to Lylnyler, then to the bowl again. The room went very quiet.
"His name is Sylgar."
Each word placed carefully. Slower than the others.
"Are you admiring him. Or are you thinking."
It was not a question.
Lylnyler's eyes had not moved from the fish since they entered.
"That's a nice fish you've got there."
The eyestalk that had been tracking Lylnyler relaxed — just slightly. Something in the voice shifted. Still careful. But warmer.
"He is. Most people don't notice Sylgar. They look at me... He has been with me for eleven years. He does not want anything from me. He does not scheme. He does not disappoint."
The central eye drifted back to the bowl for just a moment.
"You may look at him."
Corrin decides this is a good moment to give his reply to the earlier question.
"You're right. I do want something. Me and my friends here want to join your Guild."
The creature repeated it slowly — tasting the directness of it.
"Honest. Good. I don't like doors. I like windows — you can see through them both ways."
The eye moved across all three of them. A pause.
"I have one question before I decide if you are worth my time. What can you do for me that my current people cannot."
Lylnyler's eyes did not move from the bowl. Without looking up:
"I can feed your fish."
A sound came from the creature — low and resonant. It took a moment to identify. He was laughing.
"Sylgar has a keeper. Grix. Grix feeds him at the fourth bell and the eighth bell. Grix has fed him for six years."
A pause.
"Grix is not funny."
The eye lingered on Lylnyler a moment longer than necessary. Then it swung to Corrin, and held, waiting for his reply.
"We're not that special, but we can fight well — as you might have seen in the tournament."
The central eye didn't move.
"Not that special."
He repeated it slowly, like he was checking it for traps.
"You were invisible in my gallery for two hours. You placed bets through four different intermediaries. You extracted information from two of my lieutenants without either of them knowing they had spoken to you."
"I have people who can fight. I have fewer people who can do what you did up there and make it look like nothing."
"You are more special than you are telling me. I want to know if that is modesty or if you are hiding something."
Corrin held the eye without flinching.
"I was just trying to be honest here. But apparently you think more of me than I think of myself."
A pause. Then:
"Honest twice in one conversation. That is unusual."
The cadence had changed: slower, quieter, each word placed carefully.
"You won three bouts. The last team — the ettin — that should have killed the bleeding one."
The stalk swung back to Caelith.
"It didn't. I want to know why."
The room held. All ten stalks had found places to rest. Caelith answered plainly.
"Torm watches over me."
The central eye held on Caelith. For the first time since the party entered, all ten stalks went still — briefly, completely.
"Torm."
He repeats it, not a question but tasting the word.
"A god."
Another pause. Longer than the others.
"I have killed people who were watched over by gods. They died the same as everyone else."
The eye moved down to the dried blood on Caelith's armour, then back up.
"But you are still here. And the ettin is not."
Something shifted in the voice — not warmth, not respect exactly. Recognition, maybe.
"I will remember that name. Torm."
The stalks shifted — a slow, thoughtful redistribution across all three of them.
"Most people who stand where you are standing try to impress me. They bring me lists of things they have done. Names they have killed. Vaults they have opened."
"You brought me a fish compliment and two honest sentences."
The creature drifted forward — closer, the central eye level with Corrin's face now.
"I am going to give you a task. If you complete it, you are in my Guild. If you fail, you leave Waterdeep. If you lie to me about either outcome —"
The eye moved, almost gently, to the bowl on the desk. Then back.
"— Sylgar will have to watch something unpleasant."
Lylnyler, still looking at the fish, said quietly that he did not wish such a scene on Sylgar.
"Good. Then don't fail."
The task: a man. A Gray Hands operative. He had been asking questions in the Dock Ward about the Guild. Careful. Did not look like what he was.
"I want to know who sent him. I want proof. I do not want him dead — dead men stop talking, and I have questions of my own."
Caelith asked directly:
"Does this man have a name?"
A stalk dipped, reading Caelith.
"You asked for a name. Most people don't ask. They just go look. Why did you ask?"
"Because people don't wear name tags in public. There may be many Gray Hands operatives. How do we know we have the correct one?"
Silence. Then the laugh again — shorter than the ones Lylnyler had earned, but genuine.
"Fair."
A stalk relaxed.
"Silvermane. He uses other names. But that is the one his mother gave him."
"Human. Middle years. Light hair going grey at the temples. Moves like a soldier who has learned not to look like one. Last seen near the Muleskull Tavern, Dock Ward — three days ago."
The central eye pulled back, taking in all three of them.
"You have four days. Come back through The Hanged Man — tell Noska you are returning a book. He will bring you to me."
A pause. The eye drifted, almost lazily, toward the bowl on the desk.
"Sylgar has enjoyed this conversation."
"I have also enjoyed this conversation."
"They are not the same thing. But today they are close."
Noska appeared at the far door without being summoned. The audience was over.
The party had arrived carrying a name they already knew. They had listened to the task without flinching, accepted it without hesitation, and left without telling Xanathar that the man he wanted found was standing in the corridor outside.
The Corridor — leaving Skullport in silence
Noska led them back the way they had come — the same passages, the same guards who didn't speak, the same tunnels that smelled of wet stone and something older.
Jalester Silvermane was in the corridor outside the audience chamber. Yagra was beside him, standing straight despite the damage she was carrying from the tournament bouts. Neither had been in the room. Neither knew what name had just been spoken inside.
Caelith walked past Jalester without breaking stride. Corrin passed half a second later — no words. His eyes cut once toward the door they had come through, then forward, then a slight tilt of the head: not here, not now, keep moving. Jalester rose without a word and fell in behind the party.
Nobody spoke until they were three blocks from The Hanged Man.
Trollskull Manor smelled of sawdust and wet plaster. Gwynda's crew had been at the upper floor since dawn. Caelith closed the door. Renaer was already downstairs — he had been called before they left that morning.
Caelith addressed Jalester directly. He told him he had been identified. By name. He told him the party had been given the task. He recommended Jalester avoid the north docks and anything near the Xanathar Guild's territory until this was resolved.
Jalester went very still.
"By name."
He let that sit. Then:
"How long has he known?"
He listened to the account of the audience — what was said, what landed, what made the creature laugh. Lylnyler opened with the goldfish. Jalester looked at him.
"The fish. You led with the fish."
Renaer had been quiet through the full account. When Caelith finished, Renaer looked at Lylnyler.
"He laughed. Xanathar laughed."
A pause.
"Do you understand how many people have died in that room?"
Caelith laid out the plan: fabricate a report, use Vajra to produce it, something tangible enough to satisfy the task. And the Dock Ward work was an opportunity. Corrin had genuine cover there now — a Guild-adjacent credential from the tournament that would draw less attention than a Gray Hands operative operating in the open.
Jalester glanced at Corrin.
"Vajra can produce documents. A fabricated handler's report, a safe house address that doesn't exist — something that looks real and leads nowhere useful. She's done it before."
"And yes. You have cover in the Dock Ward now that most Gray Hands operatives don't. Use it carefully — Noska already knows your face."
Renaer asked the question that had been sitting with him since they came in.
"Did he mention the Stone?"
"No. He didn't."
Renaer held Corrin's eyes for a moment — looking for the hedge, the thing unsaid. He didn't find one.
"Alright."
He exhaled.
"That's either good news or he already has it and doesn't need to ask. I don't know which is worse."
Jalester stood.
"I'll be at Blackstaff Tower within the hour. Expect a sending spell from Vajra before nightfall."
He paused at the door.
"You did well in there."
He said it simply, without decoration, the way soldiers meant it. Then he was gone.
Blackstaff Tower — Vajra's new terms
Caelith and Lylnyler followed Jalester to Blackstaff Tower without waiting for the sending spell. The apprentice who opened the door recognised Caelith and showed them straight through. Vajra was standing when they entered. Jalester was already there, arms folded, his back to the window. He had arrived first and told her everything.
"Sit down. Both of you."
She waited for Caelith's full account — tone, sequence, what exactly Xanathar had said in what order. She listened without interrupting. When Caelith finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"He laughed. Twice."
She looked at Lylnyler.
"Do you understand how few people have made that creature laugh?"
She moved to her desk.
"The fabricated report is straightforward. I can produce a false handler trail — a safe house address that leads nowhere, a name that belongs to a dead man, enough detail to look real for three days before anyone checks. That buys you the four days and a clean exit."
She paused.
"But I want to use this."
"You made him laugh. You answered him honestly. He gave you a name without being pressed. That is not a normal audience with Xanathar — that is an opening."
"I don't want to close it with one report and a disappearing act."
"How far are you willing to take this?"
Caelith said directly that he did not think they were equipped to kill a beholder, if that was what she was asking. Lylnyler said he wanted to feed the goldfish at least once.
"That is not what I'm asking."
A beat.
"Not yet."
She looked at Jalester. Then back at Lylnyler.
"The warlock wants to feed Xanathar's goldfish."
She said it the way someone repeats a sentence to confirm they heard it correctly.
"And Xanathar — one of the most paranoid, dangerous creatures in Waterdeep — let him look at it."
She leaned back.
"Go back. Deliver the report. Let Xanathar believe you're working toward Guild membership. Stay close enough to learn where Meloon is being held, and whether the Stone has reached the lair. You don't need to kill a beholder. You need to be useful enough that he keeps inviting you back."
"Can you do that?"
Caelith said it depended on the next request. The current one was easy enough. But at some point Xanathar would ask for something he was not willing to do, and that was where this would end.
"That is the honest answer. And the right one."
"I'm not asking you to cross lines you haven't drawn yet. I'm asking you to stay in the room long enough to find Meloon and locate the Stone. When Xanathar asks something you won't do — you tell me, and we find another way."
"But I need to know you'll come back after the first report. That you won't deliver it and disappear."
She looked at Caelith directly.
"Torm asks a great deal of the people he watches over. I'm asking for less than that."
Caelith said they weren't going anywhere — they owned a tavern in the city, they would not be disappearing. They just needed to play it carefully.
"Trollskull Manor. Yes. I know."
"Carefully is exactly how we play it. The fabricated report will be ready before nightfall. Don't deliver it before day two. Too fast looks eager. Day three is ideal."
Caelith pushed back: Xanathar had asked for tangible evidence. A sending spell would not be enough — it needed to be a written document.
"You're right."
"I'll produce a written intelligence report. Handler's notation, Gray Hands cipher — enough to look authentic to someone who knows what they're looking at, but the cipher will be one we retired two years ago. If Xanathar has a cryptographer, they'll crack it. What they'll find is a trail that leads to a dead man in Baldur's Gate."
"The report will say Jalester reports to a handler named Corvel Dast — deceased, former Gray Hands, killed in a contract dispute eighteen months ago. Everything checks out until someone goes to Baldur's Gate to verify. By then Meloon is home and this is over."
"Delivery method — do you want to collect it, or shall I send it to the manor?"
They asked her to send it. She picked her quill back up. The meeting was over.
In the corridor, out of earshot of the study, Jalester stopped them.
"Thank you. For telling me straight. You didn't have to."
He meant the audience — Xanathar naming him, the full account Caelith had given at the manor. He didn't wait for a response. Just nodded and went back inside.
While Caelith and Lylnyler were at Blackstaff Tower, Corrin was already in the Dock Ward. The tournament win had given him standing in this neighbourhood that a Gray Hands operative could not buy — he had fought in the arena, he had won three bouts, and the Guild-adjacent members of the Dock Ward had clocked him. He was working the Jalester surveillance task under exactly the cover Xanathar had provided, which meant Xanathar's own network would be watching someone who appeared to be doing exactly what they had been told to do.
At the Muleskull Tavern, Corrin established himself with the barkeep quickly enough — the tournament credential landed. The barkeep had secondhand intelligence: a regular had told him about a passenger loaded onto an unregistered barge roughly three weeks ago, not willing, a big fellow who looked like he was sleepwalking. When Corrin pressed for the regular's name, the barkeep shut down and stayed shut down through a second attempt in which Corrin invoked Xanathar's name. The barkeep had been in Guild-adjacent territory for twelve years. He was not moved.
The lead came from a different direction. A half-elf woman at the end of the bar had watched both attempts.
"He doesn't scare easy. Been here twelve years. Whatever you're looking for, that's not how you get it from him."
Her name was Mira. She had her own account — a man she knew from the bar, three or four weeks back, who had walked out on his own two feet but looked summoned, as if told something that left no room for questions. She hadn't connected her memory to the barkeep's "sleepwalking" account until Corrin asked about both. She noted that a paladin in chain mail and an elf had come through asking about the same man a few days earlier.
"Not friends, but I know them."
"Same question, different doors. Either you lot are very thorough or your left hand doesn't know what your right hand is doing."
She gave him the lead without ceremony: a half-orc called Praxton, one tusk, crane crew on the north docks. Drinks at the Muleskull evenings. He had been on shift three or four weeks ago. If someone had been loaded onto an unregistered barge at the north docks in the dark, Praxton had likely seen it.
"Whoever that man was — being loaded onto an unregistered barge against your will is a bad end. And I don't like bad ends."
The half-orcs at the corner table were a different matter. Two of them, watching the door. Corrin worked across the room, loud enough to be heard — describing Jalester to a nearby stranger, grey temples, moves like a soldier. One of the half-orcs glanced at his companion without meaning to. Corrin asked a second stranger the same question. One half-orc left immediately. Corrin moved directly to the one who stayed.
The remaining half-orc was cooperative once the tournament win was confirmed: Jalester was active on the north docks, seen three times in the last week; Noska personally wanted him found, not merely flagged; and two days ago near the harbour master's office, a man and a woman, well-dressed, not Watch and not Guild, had been asking about Jalester by name.
At The Hanged Man, Corrin worked the bar further. A dock worker at the end confirmed Jalester had been in the night before — sat in a corner, watched the door for two hours, and left the moment Noska arrived. The man knew Noska's face and was tracking Guild movements close enough to leave the moment the wrong person walked in.
The tiefling barkeep, Brennar, added the rest. The well-dressed couple had been through The Hanged Man too. They had asked about Jalester by name — not described him, said the name, which meant they had a file before they arrived. The man: approximately forty, dark hair, clean-shaved, good wool coat, signet ring on his right hand with the fist kept closed, crest hidden. The woman: younger, sharp face, no talking, all watching. She had counted the exits while the man asked his questions.
"They'll be back."
Corrin returned to the manor mid-afternoon.
Before Corrin returned, Caelith and Lylnyler stopped at Trollskull Curiosities. Tally Fellbranch was at her workbench, fitting a dovetail joint with the focused patience of someone who had done it ten thousand times.
"The Manor people. How'd the tournament go? Word got around."
She had spoken to Gwynda that morning. The roof tiles were done. The hearth was rebuilt. Gwynda was into the staircase now — another week, maybe ten days, and Tally would be in. She needed three decisions before the interior work could start: bar placement, booth configuration, and a name for the sign painter.
"You do have a name for the place, yes?"
Caelith said they needed income and they wanted people in the space. Lylnyler considered the question about the name and suggested, thoughtfully, the word "Xanathar."
Tally set her dovetail joint down.
"Xanathar. You want to name your tavern after the crime lord whose lair you were in this morning."
A pause.
"In Trollskull Alley."
Another pause.
"Where the City Watch walks past twice a day."
She picked up the dovetail joint and went back to work.
"I'll wait for a final answer."
Then, from next door — through the shared wall — two slow knocks. Lif, from the Manor side, weighing in on the name debate.
The three decisions remained open.
The Reunion — Corrin returns to Trollskull Manor
Corrin returned to the manor mid-afternoon and laid it out: a name he would need to follow up that evening — Praxton, a dockworker who might have seen the boarding. A well-dressed couple who had also been asking about Jalester by name, two days ahead of the party. And the half-orcs — he thought he had read them correctly by working around them instead of at them.
Renaer set his book down.
"Well-dressed and asking about a Gray Hands operative by name. In the Dock Ward."
"That's not Xanathar's people. His people don't dress well and don't need to ask — they already know who's in their territory."
He looked at Corrin.
"Did you see a ring? Any markings?"
"I didn't see them, but the barkeep said the man was wearing a ring. She couldn't see what signet was on it."
Renaer absorbed this.
"A hidden signet. Someone who doesn't want to be placed."
"Could be several people. Could be Zhentarim — they use signet rings internally for rank. Could be someone else entirely."
He glanced at Caelith.
"Either way — two parties hunting the same man, neither of them us. Vajra needs to know about this before she finalises that report."
Then Corrin gave them Praxton's name. A dockworker on the crane crew — the right place at the right time, three or four weeks back. Potentially the closest witness anyone had found to the Sable Moon boarding.
"That's the closest anyone's gotten to a witness."
"If Praxton saw it — he may know where the barge was heading. A specific berth in Skullport, a contact name, anything."
Lylnyler looked at Corrin.
"Are you going alone?"
Corrin was surprised by the question. He hadn't known Lylnyler could talk. He said he wasn't necessarily going alone — he could manage it either way.
"I talk."
A pause.
"Sometimes."
Caelith said he would have offered to go along, but chain mail in a Dock Ward tavern at night was not subtle. The plan was settled: Corrin and Lylnyler to the Muleskull tonight. Caelith at the manor. Four days.
After Renaer had stepped out, Caelith looked at Corrin.
"What was that Xanathar was saying? Are you hiding something from us?"
"I didn't say anything about it because I lost."
Caelith's expression didn't shift.
"You wouldn't throw away a healing potion like that."
He meant the potion Corrin had thrown from the gallery during the tournament — the one that healed Caelith on impact. Not the behaviour of someone who had lost money.
"Well. I didn't want you to die."
Lylnyler, present through all of this, asked:
"How much did you lose?"
"Only 10 GP."
The conversation ended there — unresolved, hanging in the room alongside the fabricated report that was coming before breakfast, the clock counting down to four days, and a witness named Praxton drinking alone at the Muleskull somewhere in the city.