SATURDAY, MAY 2ND - MASTER AND APPRENTICE CAMPAIGN 1 : SESSION 13 RECAP
Aldor’s Journal : Entry 12
Another day, another dollar (and another time leaving a sewer in disguise)
I knew something was wrong the moment Cullen admitted he hadn’t heard from anyone.
I reached for the sending stone and called Melania. To her credit, she answered—but not with reassurance. She came to us shortly after, tense, eyes darting, wearing the kind of expression that tells you the city has started to rot from the inside out.
She asked about the crown first. I told her the truth: nothing. Whatever the info broker, Ulric, sold The Sons of Algondar, whatever trail led us there, it was a dead end. When I turned the question back on her, that’s when the real story spilled out.
“People—or something resembling people” had been flooding out into the streets. Undead. Attacks. Panic. And every attack seemed to be centered around one place.
Our old store…
Udathar, her former master, had vanished. The Thayan wizard Elezor was still around, she said—but she stood by him too quickly for my taste. I didn’t push. Not yet.
I told her what made sense: get Cullen, Odwin, and Freda out of the city. If someone is stirring the dead and targeting us/The Sons, the fewer loose ends the better. She agreed—and then teleported them all to safety, leaving the three of us behind in Neverwinter, officially dead, hunting the people supposedly working for the city.
Ukalis put it best: we’re hiding in a safe room, in a city that thinks we’re corpses, trying to stop a faction that thinks it’s saving everyone.
We ate the safehouse rations and waited for dusk.
We took the old sewer routes toward the harbor—dry channels, long abandoned. I marked the ladder rungs with ash before we climbed down. If someone came down here while we were out, I wanted to know.
Light ahead. Close. Near the surface.
We masked up, wrapped scarves tight, and surfaced near the ruins of Odds and Ends. Guards were everywhere—heavily armed, clustered, nervous. Neverwinter doesn’t posture like that unless something’s already gone wrong.
The store’s remains were…clean, as far as ruins go. Emptied. Like someone wanted it erased without drawing attention. Nothing obvious.
Then we heard the scream.
A real one. Desperate. Close.
We ran.
Skeletal figures poured into the street—arms bending the wrong way, eye sockets burning with blue flame. With them, a scaled beast: a guard drake, like a sewer - clearing iguana warped by the same magic. Its eyes burned blue too.
Four skeletons. One drake.
Cade didn’t hesitate—bolt out, clean hit. I scattered caltrops and ball bearings, turning cobblestone into a killing field. Ukalis burned one down with a firebolt so clean it punched straight through the thing.
One lunged at a woman and missed. Two dropped to all fours and charged.
One slipped on my caltrops and crashed. The other didn’t even slow down.
That’s when it clicked: they didn’t feel pain.
Cade crushed the prone one anyway — hammer ringing bone like cracked stone. I drove steel into the one threatening the woman and shouted for her to run, then webbed the charger barreling toward us with my new rapier.
Ukalis greased the drake’s footing and sent it skidding. Cade smashed another skeleton flat at his feet.
I finished the one near him in a single slash with the rapier—took its head clean off, webbed it mid‑swing, and smashed it into the street just to make a point.
The last broke free and went for Ukalis. Cade caught it with a brutal side hit, snapping an arm it didn’t even notice. Ukalis torched it while it stumbled back into the caltrops.
Cade put his shield away after that. Just hammer. Just violence. Two strikes, second wind, and the thing finally stayed down.
I ended the last one properly — rapier in, dagger up, split it straight through.
Silence followed. The townsfolk were shaken, but alive.
That’s when the Watch showed up.
We disappeared underground.
We cut away from the harbor culvert and saw it—a floating eye, watching.
It had seen us.
A voice followed. Calm. Mocking.
“Greetings. I thought the three of you were dead.”
An illusion of what appeared to be a Necromancer, threatening us but more importantly, those we held close, then vanished.
Ukalis remembered something from his days in the Tower: whoever was controlling the undead had to be close. Close enough to scry. Close enough to watch.
Which meant whoever this was… wasn’t here.
Above us, the city erupted.
People shouting. Guards yelling for civilians to flee. Someone screamed “Dragon…”
White scales. What sounded like canvas sails flapping in a hurricane as it passed overhead.
I disguised myself and scouted topside—clear… or clear enough to move. That night we set out to warn who we could: Quintus by message, Barfly through the thieves’ guild, and Gideon… personally.
When I got there, He and Galea were arguing about gold when I arrived. Seems as though the old man has done something unsavory for the coin, and his wife was clearly upset about it.
“What have you done old man…” I said leveraging the Message cantrip. Gideon pushed the table up and away and stood up running to the window. By then I had already left my note warning him of the necromancer, and some coin behind. He knew that I may still be alive, whatever that word means anymore, and would soon find out just exactly what it was he was doing for that coin.
Then our party vanished again.
Back in our safehouse, we rested, and Melania checked in. Cullen and the party were safe, and we informed her about our findings. She knew of this Necromancer, “Therhan”. Sounded like he would be a problem. By morning, the city’s streets buzzed. Undead attacks. Dragons. And a new story spreading like rot:
An armored warrior, wearing the Crown of Neverwinter, defending the people.
“A true heir.” - A fake one, and I wanted to know why this rumor was spreading, and why in the hell it was seemingly supported by the false King Neverember.
The whispers all traced back to the Beached Leviathan. Harig’s inn. Seedy. Built around a wrecked ship no one could afford to salvage.
Inside, I spotted Len’Jes — A water genasi, Neverwinter’s master of trade, Neverember’s man. I overheard enough to confirm it: Harig was being paid by the king himself. The rumors were sanctioned.
Why would Neverember want this confusion?
Upstairs, I found the proof. Letters. Bribes. Talk of a “peaceful transition of power.”
Lies, layered carefully.
I came back down disguised as an old sailor just in time to see a fight brewing—young fools preaching a new heir, older dogs loyal to Neverember, all idiots. Leveraging Message again, I played the part of the heir, a prophet, told the young lad the truth would come soon, and the brawl died before it started.
Before I could let my ego grow too much, Captain Sebine of the Royal Guard walked in.
Ukalis recognized her instantly.
She didn’t look like she was here for a drink.
And that’s where the story ends for now — Neverwinter on edge, dead things walking, dragons in the sky, and someone wearing our legend like a mask.
I used to think Vampires were the worst thing about these lands, but I’m starting to think its bloody policitics.