[1] The Lower Road

The professor is yelling so loudly, trying to be heard over the cavern's shaking, that she doesn't hear Laaesh's incantation of the secondary lines. In fact, the cavern is so close to simply blowing apart that even Laaesh isn't certain that anything is happening at first. He's sure he read it right, but is it going to make a difference?

Flames erupt from the spellshield surrounding the elemental, and it seems as if it's going to fall -- no, going to shatter -- but then just as the inevitable is ready to happen, the elemental seems to stretch inside the shield, to warp... and then... silence. It is vanished, gone back to Fernia where it belongs, and the cavern is once again still.

Outside the chamber, the kobolds are in a full-on panic, but the sudden silence causes all of them to freeze and look curiously toward the inner cavern.

The elemental is no longer a threat, but can anyone safely explain to the kobolds why it's a good thing that their god is gone?

The kobolds are but a simple people - at least this tribe is - and so the pronouncement that was strengthened by Laaesh's impromptu hyping makes quite an impression. After the initial uproar, the older kobolds sit down with S'sylin and try to ascertain when their new god would want. In the end, an agreement is reached that they will bring you any interesting baubles they find in exchange for medicine and clothing. To cement this deal, they place is S'sylin's hands a ruby that is at least 40 carats. After you subtract what the kobolds need, it doesn't leave much in terms of living in Sharn, but it should give you a fairly comfortable amount to live on in Stormreach.

Professor Alacandra is not entirely pleased by this turn of events, but even she is forced to acknowledge that if you want to get out of these tunnels without trouble, a god is certainly a convenient thing to be.

After taking your leave of the kobolds and their tunnels, you consider your options. Do you really want to be in charge of a bunch of kobolds? If you do, that's great, you'll get a little extra money every month. If not, what are you going to do about it? There are probably others that would like to take the trade deal off your hands, the dwarves of House Kundarak probably primary among them.

Their tunnels go far, S'sylin learns, but they rarely venture into them. They have heard strange digging sounds down some of them. From their descriptions it seems that perhaps the Stormreach sewers intersects them somewhere along the way.

The Professor needs a couple days to recover, so you all have a short break to go do what you will. There's a myriad of shops in the central part of the city, a vast chaotic marketplace full of stalls and roving salesmen. There's certainly the chance to find a few scrolls.

Oh no, you heard rumors. It's just that you heard so many of them and so many were contradictory, that you can't possibly tell which are true. There were three that stood out.

You've heard that an adventurer is gathering a party to drive an ice dragon away from an island village not too far to the west. You've also heard that it's not a dragon but an ancient warforged that somehow predates House Cannith's invention. There's apparently orc tribes to the southeast of Stormreach that are pushing villagers out of their homes. One of those villagers is wealthy enough to be able to pay someone to retrieve a few old documents he wasn't able to bring with him. Only someone said it wasn't documents that he left, it was spell tomes, and someone else said it was his daughter. Something strange is going on at the local Church of the Silver Flame as well, if a certain friar's stories are to be believed. He wouldn't go into detail - and looked sort of like one of those people who believe that House Kundarak financed the experiments that made the Mournlands and then set them off on purpose - but he said that if you'd meet him behind the church he'd tell you more. S'sylin has also received an orison sent to him by the kobold chief priest (yes, it's just a communication spell, but the kobolds think they're praying to him). There's a troglodyte that's taken up residence near their main encampment and they need a bit of help with it. As in they need someone else to take care of it entirely. Why not have their god do it?

While Laaesh wanders Stormreach's marketplace, he finds two shops with magical scrolls. Although neither of his preferred spells are there, he does find a good variety of scrolls.

At Vankel's Magic EMporium, an ostentatiously named shop that has little more space than his own bedroom, Laaesh finds these scrolls:


The second shop, a group of wagons circled together with a tent over them is call the All-Bazaar, and if full of cheap scrolls:

Normally, Laaesh couldn't afford it, but the shop owner is willing to let him pay half, as long as he pays the other half in one week. It seems like a good deal...

The catch is that if you don't pay it back, you don't owe him anymore, you owe the Coin Lords. They'll distribute your likeness to all the reputable shops (and some of the sketchy ones too!) and you'll get charged a surcharge until you pay back what you owe. There's also interest and servicing fees involved, of course.