Step, by step.

As I slowly dragged my feet, I glanced up at the horizon, at the dark line that was fast filling the
horizon. It was not weariness that was turning my feet to stone, I had travelled but 4 days from my
father’s farm, 3 days further than I had ever traveled, but no hardship to someone my age. No, it
wasn’t a physical feeling, but trepidation. 

Waterdeep.

That was the name given to the vast city on the horizon that was becoming more a reality to me,
with each step. A place I had never been to, yet somehow I felt I knew so intimately. It had been in
my dreams each night, for many years now. The impossible drawings I had made, that travelers and
visitors of my father swore were exact likenesses for temples, docks and even mundane inns that
they had seen, drew me ever closer. Since I was a child I had been having these dreams; always vivid
images of the same city, as I wondered through it aimlessly, enjoying the colourfulness of it, the
splendor and sights so different from my father’s farm, the ocean, so vast and terrifying for someone
who has never seen a body of water bigger than a few spans. It was beautiful, and all mine… for the
one thing it always lacked, were people. A beautiful city, with nothing living inside, nothing that is,
except for her.

As a child she appeared to me as a mother, an aunt, an elderly woman who led me by the hand and
showed me around, never speaking, calm and reassuring. As a young boy she appeared as a girl my
own age, and we played hide and seek and other games through the maze of seemingly abandoned
streets and alleyways. She laughed and she giggled in our fun, but she never spoke either. As a
young man approaching my 18 nameday she began appearing as a woman my age, so beautiful it
th

took my breath away, as we walked serenely through the city, hand in hand. She also never spoke,
until my nameday, and that is when my story truly began. 

I was exploring the woods during a rare break day from working in the fields with my father and
brothers, and came across a clearing, with a small stream. This was strange to me, as I had been
through these woods many times in my life, and never had I come across such a place. The tress
bending over the stream did not resemble the other trees of the woods, and there should not be a
stream in this part of the woods either. However, these thoughts soon fled my mind as my eyes
spotted the sword, halfway to the hilt in the middle of the stream. I had never seen a real sword
before, only drawings, in the books my father insisted I learn to read. Heroes and adventurers
carried these things, and fought dragons and other beasts and monsters with them. A sudden
adventurous streak emerged in me, and without realizing it I had already crossed the clearing and
had one boot in the stream. As soon as my fingers clasped the hilt, my sight exploded as the clearing
and stream disappeared. 

Before me, around me, surrounding me, was nothing but shapes and images, in greys, blacks and
stark whites. I was standing on black stone so smooth it appeared as if glass. Images continued to
swirl around me, as I saw shadowy castles, creatures vast in size, huge battles involving thousands of
shadowy shapes move before my vision and disappear the next heartbeat. Panicking, though I
couldn’t move, I felt more than saw, the shape move up behind me, slowly reach out and place a
hand on my shoulder. I had never felt such cold. I closed my eyes to black out the images, as my skin
crawled in fear and I heard the voice, a thousand soft whispers from a thousand female mouths, all
rolled in to one.

‘Share with me’.

I began to be aware of the sword hilt, still gripped tight in my left hand, as it became warm to the
touch, such warmth was welcome, so welcome, so counteract the icy coldness of the creature’s
touch, and I began to draw the heat into myself. I don’t know how I did this, it terrifies me that I was
doing so, but incapable of stopping myself.

As quickly as the visions came, they disappeared, and I was back in the clearing, in the woods, near
my father’s farm. The clearing slowly started to….fade…. around me, and as I looked down at my left
hand, at the warmth still flooding in to me, but more slowly, I realized the strangeness was not yet
done with me. The sword, already more than half gone, was slowly falling apart, dissolving before
my very eyes into tiny black grains of what appeared to be sand. The grains swirled around what was
left of the sword in a spiral as they broke from the sword itself… and were entering my hand through
my fingers, knuckles and wrist. I felt powerless to stop it. And some part of me did not want to. I
stood there staring at my hand until it was empty; the grains were gone, inside me now. As I looked
up, the clearing was also gone, and I was once again surrounded by familiar trees.

I used my first magic one week later, as a panicked cow, spooked by the dogs, nearly ran me over.
She should have, I should have been injured, but she was deflected from her path by… something. I
don’t know what I had done, simply that it should not have happened.

That same night, as I took comfort in my dreams of the city and my imaginary friend there, she
appeared agitated, upset, worried… and also very angry. The silent woman who I had known my
whole life, spoke a single word, with absolute conviction:

‘COME!’

SO here I was, approaching a city I needed to enter, a city I thought I knew but had never visited. I
needed to find my female companion, if she even existed outside my head. I needed to find answers
to the strange occurrences that I had been exposed to. Most of all, I needed to find my place. 

Step by step.

First week in the city you have travelled to the shrine of Kelemvor. Seeking answers and guidance.
The priest there directed you to the I&S detective agency run by Cressida Snow, a devotee of the
Temple. She has introduced you to some of the investigators that she has under her wing and given
you some small tasks to perform. Nothing too big but the money is sufficient to put a roof over your
head.

Recently she has invited you to a meeting with two other new investigators, an automaton called
L33tn1ing and an elf who goes by Rory. In the meeting she explains that she has heard that the
renowned author Volotham Geddarm has been hanging round the yawning portal inn. Her contacts
have indicated he has been in quite an emotional state in recent days and she would like him
observed.