Fireball

Volo proudly displays the paper.

WAZZOOIAN HERO'S

The Wazoo could halve its number of grammatical mistakes by melting down the apostrophes. But let's not ruin Volo's day as he hasn't been this happy since that day Vinnie had a source that wasn't "some bloke in a tavern who reckoned...".

"A real scoop, dear boys. A real scoop!"

He smoothes down the paper, caressing the pages in a manner so loving it's almost pervy.

"I said Floon was a story, didn't I, dear boys? Didn't I?"

He taps his bulbous nose leaving a smudge of ink before pulling some bulging leather money pouches from his desk.

"Sales are booming! People are talking about us, dear boys. The Wazoo Dares When Others Don’t. Wazoo - The Real Story. It All Unfolds In The Wazoo. Journalism of Courage. News Before It Is News. Faerun's Fastest Newspaper."

If he's planning on using all those taglines, then there won't be room for the headline, but the pouches each contain your 12 shards and 6 dragons bonus each, so he's allowed to natter.

Volo sits back down, having exhausted himself crowing.

"Please, dear boys! Indulge me. Read me one of your favourite paragraphs."

"Great work on mentioning the nobles, Fynnhorn, dear boy. Never hurts to get in with nobility."

It's not exactly a secret that Volo dreams of becoming a lord one day - an event so improbable that only Vinnie could believe it. He doesn't seem to mind the trashing of The Flounder either. Meh. They were never going to pay for advertising anyway, and it gives Jodelle a veneer of impartiality.

"Active promotion of guides from Patience? Stirring words from Vinnie to straighten the backbone of every right-thinking Waterdhavian who buys the Wazoo? Perfect, dear boys, perfect!

And today's assignment?" Volo opens his arms expansively.

"More please! Find news! Make news!

...but maybe drop in on the Sea Ward, and see if the Black Viper is sneaking into the Cassalanter place."

---

After such an enthusiastic speech, it's disappointing to emerge from the door to find Waterdeep is as quiet as a rogue's mouse and as dead as zombie disco.

There's a seagull on the rooftop opposite. It might be asleep.

The northeast North Ward - could there be anywhere more staid and less newsworthy?

Now the Dock Ward, or Southern Ward? There was life! Or the Trades Ward, they knew how to...

BOOM!

Middle-class windows rattle as the roar of an explosion rolls across the North Ward. A thick black and orange cloud billows from beyond Horn Street. Trollskull Alley?



Cry extra! Let slip the hounds of news!

Our heroes take off towards the danger. As you round the corner of Horn and Whaelgond, you see crowds and smoke billowing out of Saerdoun away from Trollskull Alley.

A patrol of watch officers clatters north along Whaelgond towards the explosion with clerics in tow, running as fast as their robes allow. Gryphon riders vector in from across the city and begin circling the blast.

Knowing that once the Watch arrives, the offices will begin shutting down the scene, our heroes push their way to the fray.

Trollskull alley is a mess. It's usually a mess, but not like this. Not like this.

Four scorched halflings lie dead against the wall - blown higgledy-piggledy by the concussive force of the blast.

There are the remains of a blackened and charred gnome who appears to have taken the worst of the explosion, and near the gnome are a dead pair of leather armoured humans wearing sheathed longswords and whose cloaks still burn.

A pair of human women jumble up with what used to be an elven man and bits of baskets - like some sort of a smashed puzzle; beyond them is an old woman so peppered with stony shrapnel that her death must have been instant.

Most have fled the alley now, and the wits have blasted out of those who remain.

A gentlewoman totters amongst the dead like a drunken hostess at a garden party.

A gang of six dwarven stonemasons stumble through the detritus. Their leather aprons in bloody shreds

An elven woman peers down into the street from the remains of a second-floor greenhouse, blood sheeting from her face across her white druidic robes.

A trio of young guttersnipes peek out from behind a rainwater barrel. One of them, a tiefling boy, clutches at his ears and moans loudly.

One of the raggamuffins, a dark-skinned stocky lad, about nine years old, and carrying a filthy and scorched stuffed owlbear looks up at Patience.

His eyes are so wide that Patience can almost see into his brain trying to process the horror. He reaches into his waistband and pulls out a toy wand, which he shakily points at the mangled pile of dead halflings.

"I.. I... posit that the Lurien lutist and his most entertaining ensemble of harmonising hin have a pressing need for urgent medical assistance, saer."

The kid's as grungy as a half-orcish bard's armpits, but his crystal Common accent would make a Sea Ward elocution teacher beam in pride.

Still maintaining eye contact with the grown-up, the kid blinks hurriedly, perhaps trying to blink away reality because, unfortunately, Patience can see that those halflings he's pointing at are very very dead.

The stunned gentlewoman speaks, or though it's not clear whether she's replying to Jodelle or just speaking to herself.

"I tell you, it was not a man. More like a puppet shaped like a man. A puppet without strings. It was on the rooftop. It hurled something into the crowd below that caused the explosion.

I saw those halflings burned alive! I saw them!"

The Turami boy nods earnestly but doesn't move. His tiefling urchin buddy removes his hands from his ears and whispers in the loud voice of the deafened.

"Did someone pick up the treasure, yeah?

I get we can get a couple or three lhargh* shards for that. Imma spend half mine on doxies, half on whores, half on wenches, and half on rotgut..."

He ticks the halves off on his fingers, and when he realises that he has one finger left adds..

"...and half on strumpets. With jam."

Strumpets seems to be the only word he thinks he knows and he's wrong about that too.

---

*Literally unsound rock, but used by the dwarves as a swearword. Every native Waterdhavian is a polyglot in swearing.

Jodelle finds nothing of interest, nor clues on the halfling bodies. As she checks them over she notices that they're not as scorched as the armoured humans or crispy gnome.

Civilar Stellpence sighs at seeing Vinnie.

"Oi! Reporter! Any tampering with evidence and thy next exposé will be on shockingly filthy state of Snail Street cells. Thee ken?"

She points her Armar at the civilians.

"Dagsohn - witness statements from civvies afore investigators get here.
Notts - run and get magists, will you? We'll need to take statements from deceased."

"WHAT?" shouts the deafened tiefling. The girl urchin, who'd been watching Patience's lips, taps the tiefling on the shoulder and makes some complicated hand signals - some sort of sign language.

"We spied a metal man on the roof. He threw something and we ducked behind this barrel.

Then "BOOM"

Right after the explosion, we heard a 'plop' and be findin' this in the barrel."

He gestures at the Turami boy, who reaches into a pocket of his stuffed owlbear and produces a fabulous necklace with a broken clasp. There are two orange beads on the necklace that roil and glow like solid fire.

"Pretty, ain't it? Gotta be worth a few shards."

If the Watch discovers he's been withholding evidence it'll be worth a few tendays of hard labour, juvenile or not.

Whilst Jodelle keeps the watch occupied, Vinnie ascends a drainpipe. The gryphon riders overhead circle a little tighter over the suspicious halfling, but don't swoop down.

Perspective is a funny thing. The right angle makes everything clear. From up here, Vinnie can see the radial paths of the blast and trace the routes back.

The explosion was centred on the smoking gnome. The two armoured humans were close behind the gnome, possibly following, and then thrown backwards. The halflings and the two women with elf were on the edge of the blast and blown against the wall.