TWENTY-SIX JOBS, HONESTLY TOLD

The Curse of the Hells

The murder ghosts of Buddleia's townhouse learned an important lesson about ambushing professionals. I opened with Freedom of the Waves (a crashing column of water through the whole room), then teleported into the middle of the melee, because fear is for people without misty exits, and detonated a blast of cold over everything still standing. Later I Fire Bolted a babbling green horror so Finn could finish it. Ki ended the haunting by pounding the floor until the dead stopped moving through the walls, which is not exorcism, but it is percussion.

Then the real bill arrived. Graz'zt left something in Grai back at the Bastion: the Curse of the Hells, barbed into her flesh. The scholar Lyra Finch cast Legend Lore with hellfire in her eyes and gave us the terms: a Wish removes it clean; anything less leaves "echoes," 4d10 psychic at the end of every long rest, forever. Grai took the echoes. Every morning hell gets one swing at her, and every morning she gets up. I've worked with worse people for worse reasons.

Also: Camilla Tenver's second ring is missing, which means Blaine Kraverrogg almost certainly holds a key to the Shadebarrow. My barrow. We need to move.

The Remnants Lead, and a Black Cloak

Zeloah sent for me. In her quarters, draped over a chair: a fine black cloak. The Clasp's inner circle has a leadership rank called "Spooks," and it is now mine. The rest of the crew spent that hour resting in a park and collecting inspiration. I collected a career.

Westruun. The Clasp bar there is the Saddled Planes Cow, where I found Sable and Kellen (old acquaintances from Kymal, of whom nothing further need be said) and heard the guild war story: the Clasp run out of Kymal, the Myriad victorious, and the Kymal chapter convinced Fetch financed the enemy. At the Underweave Haberdashery I pressed Fetch myself. His signature was forged on Myriad letterhead. Someone is framing a Spireling of Secrets, and in exchange for a sympathetic ear he gave me the prize: the Remnants are in the Shadebarrow at Ebonroot. Home. Of course it's home.

The others found Buddleia Austan, a woman haunted by her dead sister, and relieved her of a cursed signet ring that opens the barrow's iron gate. The shadows in her townhouse rose as we left the pleasantries. Initiative was rolled.

Shopping With Gilmore, or: How We Achieved Zero Gold

Vex handed us eighteen healing potions, which tells you what the professionals think our survival odds are. Gilmore opened his shop at a discount and the crew spent every coin we had on six magic items. I bought nothing. I am choosing to describe our treasury as an investment posture rather than a crime scene.

One piece of real intelligence: the Demon Prince of Indulgence has a name: Graz'zt. Demon lord of the Abyss. We set out to find Calmyros the Unbroken, per the Council's list.

Retreat to Cloudwatch

We began the session losing to a Demon Prince, which concentrates the mind wonderfully. Sendings went to the top three; Skywrite went up over Jorenn Village telling everyone to flee. At the Shady Tap Room (emptied of everyone but Spoons and the washboard player, who I believe would play through the apocalypse) I cast Teleportation Circle, gathered Zeloah, and got us all to Cloudwatch. The official record says "the party escaped." Note the passive voice. Note who drew the circle.

The Cloudwatch Council laid out the board: recruit the League of Miracles' wizard, turn Calmyros the Unbroken's forces, and work the Remnants, who can place the third anchor where it belongs and might recover Alorah Vasorin's soul. Also noted: the Iron Authority is trying to bring back Bane, and a scholar named Magnus Wilds thinks the weave can only be mended with divine essence from many demigods. Cheerful stuff.

The Bastion of the Fading Dawn

Everyone said going north was death, so we went north. Thirty miles of titan-stomped waste, devils crossing the dunes in packs, and then: one defiant alabaster monolith with a garden. Inside: Father Abraham, eighteen years into a one-man prayer shift holding back the infernal residue of the old Battle of Umbra Hills. A genuinely holy man, which I say as someone professionally suspicious of the type. He explained the fall of the dictator Drasig, the rise of Tal'Dorei, and that the veil here is thin and charged for blood magic.

While certain crew members rifled his belongings (I name no gnomes) an explosion shattered his wards. Gold rained from the sky. A dark-iron trident split the heavens into what Zelthrax called a divine gate, and the Demon Prince of Indulgence stepped through and began taking us apart. To be continued, regrettably.

Jorenn Village, a Ghost, and Mama Mara

An abandoned farmhouse in the Umbra Hills. A translucent man petted a dog that wasn't there, went inside, and then magically hanged the entire party. I would like the record to show who cast Banishment and un-hanged them. It was me. It is often me.

Jorenn Village is a silver boom town three times the size of any map, with no Tal'Dorei Council presence: frontier rules, my favorite kind. The Shademaster, Arhanna Lewyn, warned of "complications in the Hills," things that take children. Rumor added a death warning for the north and a Temple of the Dawn Father. At the Shady Tap Room we drank, we performed, and I met the proprietor: Mama Mara, Goliath, magnificent. We are, as of this entry, an item.

Separately: Finn, Grai, and I handled a disposal matter concerning an individual named Pip. The less in writing the better. The Shadewatch asks fewer questions than a coroner.

The Road to the Umbra Hills

The captured anchor went into the Cobalt Reserve vault in Westruun, the one deposit I've ever made at a bank of monks. Eskil's scry on Liora came back inconclusive: dead, or on another plane. Then the long cold road south, in winds that had no business being that cold in late fall.

The road provided: a retired merchant named Andreas Du Vavier painting obsessively through his grief, with an excellent dog named Gully. We hosted them a night in the mansion, and Ki sat for a portrait. A feminine face made of fire appeared in our fireplace and told Finn he marches to meet "her cousin": his patron, making a house call. A roadside fortune teller dealt Finn and Imdra prophecies I didn't like the smell of. And then Vespera the Dream Stitcher, a moonstone dragon not of this world, gave Ki the Quill of Preservation, described as an anchor if the world begins to unravel. People keep handing this crew doomsday equipment. I try not to take it personally.

The Mawl

We finished the sanctum fight. The mutant with a maw of horrors for a chest went down, and Ana cut an Abyssal Anchor out of its body: a platinum device, chaotic orb, four crystals. Zelthrax confirmed it. Mrs. Mossglow (first name Liora) Dimension Doored out of the fight mid-sentence. The cult has a name now: The Mawl.

When Faith's Sending said their mother might be at the family home, four of us moved. I led the Dimension Door jump with Ki, Grai, and Imdra. Food still set out, a teleportation circle scorched into the back yard, and no Liora. Finn took her hairbrush for scrying. Eskil's scry says dead or another plane. Either way, she's off the board and the anchor is ours; loot included two ritual daggers, 500gp of residuum, and six diamonds. A profitable tragedy, which is the only kind worth attending.

The Mossglow Family

We detoured to Westen to check on Finn's family, which is how I learned that everyone's family is worse than mine. His father Orin: drunk, losing at cards. His mother: running a blood-sacrifice cult headquarters under the old tannery, with an inscription in her manic handwriting: "the anchor is dropped, the anchor is unbarred, the weaver's threads is ours to cut." Finn's name was on the member plinth, scratched out, under a localized rift in reality. Also confirmed: Zarissa, the drow we'd been hunting via Fetch, led this cult, current whereabouts unknown.

It ended as family reunions do: Finn confronting his mother while I hit her with a Synaptic Static for 28. I take no pleasure in striking anyone's mother. I am simply very good at it.

Westruun and the Cobalt Reserve

A day of proper tradecraft. Through Dusty we reached Fetch, Spireling of Secrets, who confirmed the trail on the old drow cult leader and dropped the real headline: Morgranth was an Illithiliche: the spider wore his skull and became a lich, and the trail went cold at his "death." For the curious, the Clasp runs on three legs: Shadows (Zeloah, Golesh), Secrets (Shen), Blades (Morin, Melquior). You did not read that here.

At the Cobalt Reserve, Ana found research on pre-Calamity sister cities (Avolere and Cathmoira) and learned her own city, Cathmoira, lies drowned in the Shattered Teeth. Ki briefed High Curator Griselda Cassius, who cut through everything: get to Umbra Hills immediately. Three anchor alignments confirmed: Gap Shadow (Chained Oblivion), the Vecna temple, and Umbra Hills (Lord of Hells). We were the only asset left to send. Flattering, in a fatal way.

Emon Intel

I bought an Elemental Essence Shard (Water) for 2,400 gold, and everything I have done with water since has justified it. Quash met us at Gilmore's with the crucial constraint: anchors cannot be teleported: hence mules, hence cults. We hold notes for crafting an Unmake Magic spell.

Heavier news: Alorah Vasorin was buried in the cemetery district with the Arch Heart, the first sitting council member to die. And the Lyceum's cleaning staff (Tyce, a professional after my own heart) lifted Dean Damill's spellbook: the Dean cast a 9th-level Modify Memory on Ana. Someone paid ninth-circle money to rewrite my colleague's head. That isn't academia. That's wet work with tenure. Skitter's stakeout of Ana's family home reported a barrister father, a scribe mother, two siblings, all apparently unaware. We rode for Westruun and met Echo and Dusty at the Underwalk Gates.

The Demilich (As Told To Me By Thrack)

I was elsewhere on business that predates my promotion and remains billable, so this entry is reconstructed from Thrack's account, purchased for the price of waffles. The crew finished the mithril-core fight: the invisible spider was a demilich riding a skull spider. It died. Ki kept the gem-crusted skull as an arcane focus, because bards.

Two items of note. First, the second half of the Morgranth/hag correspondence was recovered: the conspiracy has more than one author. Second, Grai came out of that fight with an eerie calm and a crown no one can see, and the word "Lolth" has started appearing in the margins of other people's notes. I notice things. Noticing is free; writing it down costs, so consider this entry paid in full. Thrack's 200gp debt was cleared and he joined us properly. We walked out through Emberhold, his home.

Nerds Shipped, Spider Found

Back at the Morgranth estate: the grad students were enthralled, one hung from the ceiling with wires draped over his shoulders like a marionette on break. We freed them and shipped them home to the Lyceum. Maylis's notes told the real story: "Finally had a success!" in her hand, then later entries in a script that wasn't human. An Intellect Devourer had been keeping her diary. The data confirmed the nightmare: the Abyssal Anchors are bombs with tenfold the energy of an artifact explosion, tied to Hell, the Abyss, and the Far Realm. And something with three eyes out there is smiling.

Mid-rest, Brom's Sending arrived: Alorah Vasorin is dead, her soul taken. The "not urgent" request from Job 55 became a funeral. We went down into the old mithril mine (webs fine as silk and strong as regret) and found a perfect mithril sphere at the ley-line core, guarded by something small and invisible that asked, in a feminine voice, "Why have you come?" Then everyone started swinging.

The Zarga Lab

We hit Morgranth's estate. The lab was non-Euclidean: wet membrane walls, silver sinew, biofilm floors, cranial tissue where no tissue should be, the whole house pulsing like an organ. Three apprentices (Atarah, Jax, Teyeres) and their void wraiths went down in the first wave; an earth elemental, a pitch tyrant, and a brain devourer in the second. Maylis got exactly one sentence into her monologue before the crew rocked her. Professional courtesy: never let them finish. Monologues are just reinforcements with better diction.

We smashed the magical relays on the way out and took four spellbooks. Somewhere, Morgranth felt his quarterly projections die.

Casing the City

Surveillance week in Yug'Voril. The official record says "details not available." Correct. That's what surveillance means.

Yug'Voril

An underground city, enormous and orderly, once run by mind flayers, with a reversed day cycle, a caste system, and a library containing (Ki checked) no smut. Slavery is legal outside the walls and forbidden within, which is the kind of moral geometry that keeps lawyers fed. We extracted three gnomes from the Hall of Worn Chains for 135 gold ("purchased" is such an ugly word): Grizzle, who immediately ran; Bink and Flicker, who stayed.

Contacts logged: Silvanae, a drow with a genuinely swole drider attendant; Gorthrock Stonehand at the Central Guild Registry, whose secret knock is three sharps, pause, soft. We witnessed the weekly sacrifice to the Chain Mother: a whole city paying protection money to something below. I recognized the business model immediately.

The Price For Dwarves Is Waffles

My journal for this week reads suspiciously like my journal from three weeks prior: mansion, lava tubes, two dead elementals, slavers taking gnomes. Either time looped or someone copied my notes, and in this crew both are live possibilities. New material: the Remembrance book bears the sigil of the Lyceum, and analysis of Grai's frogs concluded the "poison" is mostly numbing agent. Windybranch gave her novelty frogs. The fey economy is built entirely on technicalities.

For the final time: Thrack ran into us at our door. Nobody was "Thracked." Stop.

The Mansion, and a Dwarf at the Door

We established Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion as a base: extradimensional, well-appointed, and free, my three favorite qualities. A dwarf named Thrack ran into us at our door (see errata, see it again, keep seeing it) and negotiated a rate of 2 gold per night not spent in the mansion, which is the finest contract clause I've ever witnessed. He stayed.

Below, in the lava tubes: two elementals, dispatched, and slavers taking gnomes underground. A message arrived from one Alorah Vasorin of the Lyceum, requesting aid, "not urgent." Remember those words. I do.

Zelthrax, the Moon, and the Price of My Left Hand

The cultists came for their book and the seal broke. Out came Zelthrax the Folded Promise, a tiny dragon of living vellum who ate a treatise on planar travel and knows where the Abyssal Anchors sleep. Then Prince Windybranch appeared with an exit and an invoice. Everyone paid: Ana, her origin story and an impossibly heavy figurine of herself; Finn, a rune on his hand; Imdra, eight days bonded to the dragon; Grai, frogs. I paid a left hand, turned to marble, knowingly, professionally, and temporarily, whatever the official record implies about "curses." We teleported through the moon. Through it.

On the Southern Trade Route we met Sylas, Clasp, hauling barrels of black puddings. I flashed the sign; he received it the way a man receives a subpoena. The crew shook him down for 10 platinum anyway, which I logged as an internal audit. He rode off allegedly to murder guards. Not my department. Yet.

The Syngorn Library Job

A book heist. Finally, honest work. The mark: The Remembrance of Fragility of Knowledge and What Has Been Lost, held by the Order of Desolation's Shadow Masters in the Syngorn library. Then the city caught fire mid-operation, and the crew split: Grai, Ana, and Finn lifted the book while Ki, Imdra, and I fought the fire: visible, heroic, and an unimpeachable alibi. That is called cover, and you're welcome.

A vagrant cultist muttered the first of many spider-flavored warnings: "She who watches in silence, guides us. The widow weaves a tangled veil." Lolth, Betrayer God, as we'd learn. Ana warded the book in a wardrobe and it started shaking on its own. In hindsight, the entire campaign was in that wardrobe, rattling.