Short Synopsis
The party participates in an auction to retrieve the Dragonward artifact. Rasutar manages to keep the party involved until the last round of bidding. A lich wins the bidding and summons a portal to return to its domain.
Kelderrin polymorphs the lich into a turtle and Rasutar runs off with the lich and the artifact. The party escapes the temple and manages to take the lich to the Lord’s Alliance. In a dark underground room, the party attacks the lich and return the stolen Dragonward artifact to the Lord’s Alliance.
Long Synopsis
The party “buckles down” in preparation for the underground auction at the temple in Skullport. Rasutar, with gems “burning a hole in his pocket”, leads Rolann and Kelderrin into the auction area. Meanwhile, Arthas, Jax and Killean array themselves on the perimeter of the temple.
Inside the temple, the other participants include a lich, some warrior women, wealth noblemen and a man hanging out by himself. Ironeye, the dwarf, reveals the first item to be auctioned – a bone dagger that is a ward against dragons. The dwarf explains that there will be three rounds of bidding and it was time “to roll up their sleeves” and get to work.
Rasutar “put on his thinking cap” and conducted the bidding on behalf of the party. He managed to bid enough to get past the first round.
The warrior women lost in the first round of bidding and sullenly left the temple. Arthas, noticing their stash of swords, decided to “thread” himself into their midst and ask them about their day. The leader, Valeria Swiftblade, “spun a yarn” about an ancient red dragon raiding their small island. They had hoped to acquire the Dragonward artifact to protect their village, but failed to do so. Arthas offers the party’s assistance in dealing with the dragon in exchange for some magical swords.
Meanwhile, a second round of bidding eliminated more bidders, leaving only Rasutar and the lich. In the third round, the lich “sewed up” the deal with an offer of immortality and an army of undead army. Defeated, Rasutar and his companions were asked to leave. The lich took the Dragonward knife and opened up a portal to bring his undead army into the temple. Kelderrin, thinking by “the seat of his pants”, disguised himself as a member of the undead to get close to the lich. He *polymorphs* the lich into a turtle and chaos erupted.
“Caught with his pants down”, the lich was picked up by one of his revenant servants. Meanwhile, Rolann stepped up to the revenant threateningly. Rasutar disguised himself like an undead and “wove” his way into the undead army. Jax, Illidan and Killean came to the rescue after Kelderrin’s call for help. Rolann smites the revenant who drops the lich-turtle. Rasutar makes an “off the cuff” decision and picked up the turtle and ran into the portal.
Ironeye activates the insurance policy for the auction, and three devils were summoned into the room. Most of the party makes their way through the portal, except Kelderrin, and Killean manages to pry loose a gem on the portal to deactivate it. Rasutar handles the lich-turtle with “kid gloves” until Rolann retrieves Kelderrin.
The party makes a plan to ensure that “liches-get-stiches”. They teleport to the castle at Waterdeep and request that the Lord’s Alliance provide them a dark room where a wizard has cast silence. After the arrangements are made, Kelderrin releases the polymorph on the lich. Killian, Arthas and Jax make successive attacks against the lich “folds”. After inspecting its remains, they find tattered robes, a ring, an amulet and spellbook that all seem to be magical in some way. Kelderrin inspects Killean’s portal gem and recognizes that it works with the ring to create a magical portal.
