We come in to the shadow-less tower and there are more orcs. Some of them are “steaming”, they seem to be chill-born orcs. We dispatch them, but the female orcs run away with sacks over their shoulders.
In the next chamber we see a huge worked stone suspended over a deep pit. Belgha and Fianna climb down on a rope to see what is underneath. We think that this is a portal and the pit is a safeguard against unwanted visitors coming through the portal.
We all climb down and follow a small cavern for several hundred yards to an opening, we are at the edge of the scar. We see some creatures, smoke orcs, on a rock that has fallen and has wedged in the scar. Along with them is a huge orc, and they start climbing towards us. After many tries we finally knock the big orc off of the ledge. We go back through the tower to the city.
We discover that two kids are following us into the city. They are 13-year olds who live on this side of the river. They are from a group of orphans who are still here looking for their parents. Fianna gives them a sack with 400 hold and tells us that she has a soft spot for orphans. They show us a safehouse that is well secured and fortified. The children have us meet Amberson, one of the orphan caretakers. There are 3 adults and 13 children total here. Zanne gives them an additional 300 gold. Amberson is thankful and asks us how he can help out. We ask him for information.
Amberson explains that this side of the city was the more affluent section. The castle is magically guarded. He thinks that the tower has a wizard in it who uses a portal to visit another plane. We ask Amberson to leave us notes if they find out anything else. We suggest if they need our help, they put a white rag in the window at the top of a nearby tower. Also we tell them to visit the shop and get some healing potions. We go to clear the tower so we’re sure that it is safe for them.
We break into the nearby tower, but a dwarf is holed up here. He is a merchant. We exchange him a long length of chain and a large ruby for some magical rings and a healing potion. Also he has an artifact for Zanne (“Abduction Ki Focus”), and Belgha gives the dwarf a jewel and 2 rings for it. The dwarf tells us that his name is Drook. He has tried to sell his wares on a cart or store on the other side of the wall, but Neverember would not let him. He allows us to go to the top of the tower.
Upon scouring the tower, we find some silver dust. This is Rizidium, used as money in some quarters. We estimate that it is worth about 30,000 gold. Also a scroll case contains an “enchant magic item” scroll and “arcane lock.”
We come into another building and kill a few orcs in here, and suddenly the building starts shuddering and rises off the ground! Several other nearby buildings do too. We jump out of the building and try to tie it down so it does not float away. Suddenly we are blasted off of our feet by a blue wave of energy coming from the scar. We are knocked unconscious. We experience immense pain and our skin shifts around agonizingly. Our eyes glow blue. Miri tells us that we have contracted a magical disease. This is what will come to be known as the Spellplague.
Picking ourselves back up, we see that the Black Tower is also floating above the ground. We go back into the building and search around, here we find a magical spear (“Hungry Spear”). Zanne takes this.
We make our way back to the wall to see what has happened there. There are other buildings still rising up and we see cats and rats running around. We take our things to the safehouse.
We leave a note for the orphans and go back across the bridge to the main part of town. Belgha changes himself to a human form and says that we should now call him Gammon. We see people in chaos as we come to this part of the city, a lot of them crying and yelling. We go to Isabelle’s shop but the door is locked. We go in through the back, and find Isabelle there. Upon asking her about the strange happenings she unfortunately does not have answers.
We go to the nearby temple but it has been barricaded shut by the priest. We manage to climb an exterior wall and gain access. There are books missing off of the shelves. Downstairs we find a man sitting at a drafting table writing but he does not notice us. Gadai tries to talk with him but the man grabs his papers and runs off. Gadai grabs him an dsays we do not want to hurt him, but the man doesn’t listen. Belgha asks the man about the Spellplague but he does not have any answers.
The man finally tells us that his name is Atlavast, and he has been here for years, since the Cataclysm. He is keeping the knowledge safe and copying all of the books in the library. He says that the vault containing all the books will stay closed until one of the true bloodline comes; it is magically sealed. Atlavast says that the texts do not specify anything about this Plague or the “blue eyes” effect. He does know about the “Pale One” however; she has been roving the city looking for “royalty” but he’s not sure why. Gadai tells us that he had a dream that told him “The Pale One was the cause of it all.”
We ask about the castle. Atlavast says that the Neverwinter Nine, a group of ghostly warriors, wo serve Allegondor and will attack us if we try to enter the castle. Also it has been magically sealed off. There are other ghosts there as well. We apologize for interrupting his work and leave.
We squat at a building next to the castle. The next morning we find that most of us have improved from the disease — only Fianna is worse. Several of the party members are healed entirely.
We go to the castle and Gadai tries to climb up to gain access. We climb around onto a wall, 3 tiers below us. We see a few tents here and a Drow comes out. Belgha recognizes him as a possible friendly. We call to him and come down to speak with him. He says that his name is Jarlaxle, and tells us that the Pale One has been around here looking for royal dead people. He says that he has been keeping tabs on us using an information network (he already knew about our “donations” to the orphans). He says that he will allow us to camp in exchange for reporting back with any information on Neverember.
We go back to our message drop but we see no response from the Orphans. We wait one day for the orphans to respond. During this time, Zanne recovers from the plague; Fianna gets worse again and Lennon stays the same.
We finally hear back from the Orphans and they say that things are not going so well for them. The Plague has affected several of the children, and they are trying to get some help from a friend who is a cleric.
We decide to enter the castle underneath the tower that is now floating. First we start off on the eastmost part of the Scar. We see a woman in a nearby house that is hiding with her dead family. They are all torn apart. She has apparently killed them. Gadai quickly kills her with an arrow. The next house we find our old friend the necromancer (who had the 2 drakes). We had killed him before but not he appears to be back as an undead. We kill him again, but he dissolves into a swarm of bugs that attack us. The bugs have a strange skull design on their carapaces.
We take a long rest here. There is a large hole in the floor here. We make a note of it and move on.
In another building, Zanne sees some candles that look magical. This is a Ghost Light Candle; Zanne takes it. We find people here with glowing blue eyes, just like the woman we found. They are acting strangely, but we decide to leave them be.
We head into a store that used to sell clothing. Most of the clothes are nasty now. We find another artifact here, the “Ribbon of Limitless Questions.” We accidentally trip a trap and smoke starts coming out of the building. We bail. Outside we see a young elf in a tree nearby. He introduces himself as Saloce. We give him back the things we took from the clothing store because evidently he owns it. He says that he is a healer and helps Fianna beat the plague with his skills but in the process she becomes permanently scarred, and now sensitive to the occurrence of Spellplague magic and those infected.
In the next 3 houses we search, we find red paint above the door on each one. These look more repaired and possibly inhabited than the other ones we’ve seen. This must be what the dwarf received from traders.
The next 4 houses are unmarked. The first one looks to have been an armorer’s shop and has lots of armor still in it. We find a mint magical armor that protects against lightning attacks.
We continue on and see the dwarf being attacked by the town guard. We take care of them, but he says that our effort was unecessary. He asks if we want employment with him and we decline, taking our leave.