Crossing a Drow: Confronting the Mhursvayas

===PATH OF FAILURE===

Failing the ambush at the alleyway, the party is bounded, stripped of their gear and prepared for questioning in a dark shack in the middle of seemingly nowhere.

AREA: Dark shack. Low visibility but the shack is well-lived in. The shack smells of freshly cut wood and pine.

SOUNDS: Sounds of an animal racing across the wooden floor can be heard from time to time and the whistling winds from outside.

Mhursvayas the drow has no time for games.

• He aggressively questions the party for the codex. 
• He asks why they chose to betray him
• He takes a jab at their naivity as if thinking that crossing him would bear no repercussions

He whips his victims if they do not cooperate, which is an automatic hit dealing 1d4 bludgeoning damage.

Once Mhursvayas has what he wants to know, he leaves the shack for his carriage, leaving the characters for spider food. 2 Giant Spiders and 4 Giant Wolf Spiders appear out of the woodworks to devour them. After one round of spider attacks, Cha'ab (Scout) makes his way through the door with a gang of 3 Zhent commoners with the intent to rescue them from their restraints.

Each player controls one of the commoner except for Uro who controls Cha'ab by default. It takes one action to release the restraints. The extra NPCs do not roll initiatives and take their turns after their respective player.

  

Cha'ab kept a close eye on Uro knowing the dangers of the city. Once word got out that the Uro and his party was captured, he set up a rescue operation immediately.

Going through this path means that the party has no chance to catch up to Mhursvayas but their names are cleared regardless as the drow assumes them dead after the confrontation.

Path of Failure CONCLUSION: Cha'ab later informs the party that there are 2 other persons looking for them and have intructed their cult to look for them in the city. He reveals the names Pristee Chyden and Broko Shovs from the water and earth cults respectively. Hearing the names also remind Cloak members that the Cloaks are after them for crimes of unsanctioned illegal magic. Taking care of these leaders will help cause disarray in the cult and clear their names for the time being. 

===PATH OF SUCCESS===

Following the instructions given prior, the adventurers stumble upon the shack in the middle of the woods. 

AREA: A small well-maintained shack sitting in the middle of an open grassy field somwhere in the woods.

SOUNDS: Rustling of leaves and whistling winds can be heard.

Mhursvayas waits anxiously in the shack, irritated by the lateness of the hired bounty hunters. Little did he know that they failed and it is he who is hunted instead.

===KNOWING THAT MHURSVAYAS IS A MAGIC USER===

Upon seeing the drow cast his first spell for harmful means and bearing no medallion to the Cloaks, the drow can be arrested and brought to the Cloaks for punishment as an unsanctioned magic user. He must be taken down non-lethally and brought in alive.

 

Giant Spider

Giant Wolf Spider

===TREASURE===

Searching Mhursvayas grants a key to the locked chest in the shack

Searching the shack, the party finds a locked chest of DC20 Strength & Dex check.

• 600 gold pieces
• 2 Potions of Poisons

Potion of Poisons.

This concoction looks, smells, and tastes like a Potion of Healing or other beneficial potion. However, it is actually poison masked by Illusion magic. An Identify spell reveals its true Nature.

If you drink it, you take 3d6 poison damage, and you must succeed on a DC 13 Constitution saving throw or be Poisoned. At the start of each of your turns while you are Poisoned in this way, you take 3d6 poison damage. At the end of each of your turns, you can repeat the saving throw. On a successful save, the poison damage you take on your subsequent turns decreases by 1d6. The poison ends when the damage decreases to 0.

The shack also contains Mhurvayas's notes with several pieces of information:

• Furgis did not want to live his life as a blackmailer anymore, always having to look at his back or be subjected to all manners of violence. Lucky for him, I knew of a place filled with gems and precious stones that can set him up for life. All he had to do was to hand me the Elemental Codex.
• Furgis blackmailed the chief of the Hammers to get his hands on the book. He then sailed to the City of Danger to find me and hired some bodyguards but these so-called bodyguards betrayed him when the Hammers offered more money later.
• I wanted to help Furgis but was too late. Had no choice but to deal with the bodyguards directly. They needed a way in and I knew a way in. In exchange I just needed the codex for a few hours.
• Note to self: Come up with a better story in the future. The story about saving my dark elf people obviously didn't work. 
• They lied to me. I waited and waited and no one came. I returned to the site to see corpses, one of which belonged to Furgis. All that were missing were that slimy Dragonborn and that silvered-haired girl.
• Did some stalking and found that the survivors have now grouped themselves with a half-orc and a scarred man. I should put them in the bounty too just in case. All I need is to question them and feed them to the spiders.
• Research has shown that the codex contains secrets to building a devastation orb of an entirely different energy. An orb of darkness! This will allow me to wreak havoc whenever I please. Can come in very handy.