After the events of the Yawning Portal and talking to Volo about his missing friend named Floon, everyone seemed to agree that if there was any hope of finding him we had to leave immediately. Duelo recommended we take something called a Dray, which I had never heard of. It’s a huge carriage pulled by a team of horses. You can even sit on top! This city will never cease to amaze me.
Volo mentioned Floon was last seen at The Skewered Dragon, another tavern in the city but this one is definitely a lot more shady. It was a far cry from The Yawning Portal. On our way there tho someone, I don’t recall who, spotted this eccentric looking shop and like moths drawn to a flame we were all heading inside. I thought finding Floon was of paramount importance? The shop owner Xoblob, which I’m not sure if that’s a real name or something he made up, was just as… unique as his shop window would suggest. We didn’t stay long and Xoblob seemed nice enough. Maybe it is worth taking some time to make contacts around the city.
The next stop was The Skewered Dragon and honestly with such a name I expected a much more interesting facade, not the sad exterior we were greeted with. Inside was not a lot better. It was a subdued atmosphere compared to that of The Yawning Portal and most patrons sat quietly talking amongst themselves. We struck up a conversation with the barkeep and a few patrons at the bar trying to get some information about Floon. Duelo seemed to hone in on one patron in particular and he and I managed to get some useful information about a warehouse out of the guy. It was probably the threat of violence that did it. I don’t know what it is about Duelo but I feel much more confident around him.
We arrived at the warehouse just a few minutes later and quickly noticed the Zhentarim symbol painted on the building. Are they always so overt? I guess you can’t claim you didn’t know you were entering their territory when it’s literally painted on the entrance. The building was locked but we could definitely hear movement inside. Toshi and Duelo worked on opening one of the doors so we could get a better look inside but in the process of sneaking inside they somehow started a fire. I didn’t see what happened but it quickly got out of control. Now we’re trying to extinguish a quickly spreading fire and we’re being attacked by bird people.
This was not the sneak in and quietly get Floon out mission I had envisioned. In fact after all was said and done, Floon wasn’t even there! We did find a person named Renaer Neverember stuffed in a closet while they talked to Floon. According to him the Zhentarim brought him and Floon here to question them about some artifact called The Stone of Golorr but in the middle of that a group of Xanathar showed up, killed all the Zhentarim and took Floon, thinking he was Renaer. This would have been a dead end had it not been for one of the Kenku we captured, the name for the bird people, who was able to tell us they have a hideout in a nearby sewer.
Wonderful.