Laeral Silverhand

The next day, the party had some breakfast in the Spectre’s Respite before leaving to speak with the other power in the city, the Lady Laeral Silverhand. They had heard from the Blackstaff that she was stubborn and unwilling to work with her even though she had been chosen by the staff itself to run the tower and watch over the city. The Hand of Destiny wanted to meet her and get the other side of the story. They knew there were always two sides to the story. 

As they ate their food, they read the newspaper that circulated through the city. It had various important headlines. The first concerned the escalating violence of the gang wars raging through the city. There were more and more bodies from both sides every day. The next headline announced that the Black Viper was back in town and asking questions about the hidden dragon hoard vault that was purported to hold riches beyond belief. 

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They went out into the city and headed to the office of the Open Lord. The day was getting started just like any other day, with vendors setting up their stalls for the day and stores opening up their doors. They arrived at the office of the Open Lord and introduced themselves as working with the Blackstaff as part of Force Grey and would like to speak with the Open Lord. They were escorted inside the offices and waited in a different but similarly decorated sparse, elegant room. There were guards at the door unlike at Blackstaff Tower and guards at every entrance leading to their waiting room. Security was taken much more seriously than at the Tower. 

After waiting a few minutes in the waiting area, a lady emerged from some double doors on the other side of the entrance, her office, they assumed. She introduced herself as the lady Laeral Silverhand, Interim Open Lord of Waterdeep. The two parties exchanged pleasantries and then got down to it. They explained the situation they were in and let her know that although they had heard this from the Blackstaff, they did not rule her out as a possible ally and friend. They were not in the habit of believing everything they heard. 

She warned them that something was not quite right with the new Blackstaff, but she also explained that she had no real power to find out what or why. Laeral asked them to look into this while stiff completing their duties as members of Force Grey. She knew it was a lot to ask but offered a bit of information as incentive. She needed them to be strong enough to take on the Blackstaff Tower if something did prove to be amiss and so gave them a gift. She went into her office for a few moments and came out holding a piece of parchment in her hands. 

Laeral handed it over and explained what it was. They were holding a map of all the known vaults in the city. One of them might be the great vault that held the purported million dragons stolen from the city by the Lord Nevermember and former Open Lord of Waterdeep. It was conjecture only, as many locations were based on rumors and cryptic clues hidden all over the city. It was the only known map and she would be in terrible trouble if the city found out she had given them the precious piece of parchment. She felt that she could trust them though, and so would happily give it up to save her beloved city. 

The party took the parchment, acknowledging the severity of this exchange. They kept speaking about matters concerning the city. Once they had a better understanding of Laeral and her motivations they began to tell her about the coming problems. Aleera used her telepathy once more to convey the severity of the issue. Again she replayed the death and destruction of the future she kept seeing and again she saw herself die among the prone bodies of her friends and companions. She could not help the few tears that rolled down her face as she saw it again. 

When she was done, Laeral consoled her and took her warning to heart. Unfortunately she could not help much as the city was missing much of their funds due to the recent theft. Also, in order to begin preparations for war or defense she needed to work with the Blackstaff and she thought it would be impossible to come to an agreement. She vowed to try and began to usher them from the room after concluding their meeting. 

The group made their goodbyes and exited the office to continue their day. The meeting had taken no more than an hour and they had to get cracking on some of these pieces of information about the vaults. They headed out into the bright morning sun and tried to decide what to do next. After a bit of a conversation, well away from the guards at the entrance, they decide to investigate the attack that broke the windows a couple of nights ago. Aleera still had the reading in her memory from when she used her tarot deck to find information. They made off as they had many witnesses to interview.