Session 1: The Yawning Portal and the Search for Floon

It starts with five men walking into a bar. They are clearly a group used to working together, but the dark dwarf appears to be their leader. The bar is one of some renown, the Yawning Portal, and they are their to meet a contact. The Duergar, Dagrim, is a necromancer and fence, and though he has some contacts with the Zhentarim, he hopes to build a closer working relationship with them. He heard that local bruiser Yagra Stonefist needed someone to do a job. With him is his crew. There are two half-elves, his adopted nephews, Hank Sword and Chip Sword-Fitzcarraldo. Yinrick is a druid who specializes in fungus. Finally, the pirate Rasool yn Zyad el Dumein rounds out the group, providing some much needed muscle. Sitting at the bar, amid a host of people who don't matter, are two nobles about to fall in with Uncle Dagri's crew: Durai Essex and Cuysen Muccilleigh.

Chip Sword-Fitzcarraldo

The group immediately spots their contact. At 7 feet, Yagra Stonefist dominates any room she is in. At the moment though, she seems preoccupied with the bald-pated man in front of her, his head covered in tattoos shaped like eyes. "“Ya pig! Like killin' me mates, does ya?” he cries out as he swings at her. She slips his punch nimbly, and decks him with her counter-punch, but four of his friends are already on her. Fortunately, Chip and Rasool leap in to help, as do Essex and Cuysen, and after some punches and a rap of the blunt end of Rasool's glaive, the thugs slink back into the shadows. "Not that I need the help, mind," Yagra says, "But thanks." And she invites Dagrim's crew, along with Essex and Cuysen to join her. It turns out, it isn't Yagra, exactly, that needs their help. A friend of hers, who should have been here by now, needs some help. She offers to buy the group a round of drinks [ed -- suggested group name, the Fun Guys], and just as the drinks arrive, a round of cries come from near the well at the center of the tavern. "Dip! Dip! Dip!"

The inspiration for this call appears to be a slender yet muscular young man, in the process of slapping a gold piece on the bar. In reply, the bartender Durnan hands him a wooden cup and a silver bell, and he heads to the well and he quaffs a beer as the bar breaks out in riotous song:

THE DIPPING SONG

Deep and dark down below,

where only fools and braggarts go,

where monster roam and dangers mortal,

few survive the Yawning Portal,

stand your ground or ring the bell,

and hope you make it up the well!

The beer quaffed, he throws the cup down the well, grabs the rope, and holds on as his friends begin to lower him. Bets on how long it will take him to climb out begin to fly around the bar, and Hank Sword, having sized the man up with his keen eye, bets a nearby patron that the man will make it out in under three minutes. After two minutes, the bar is restless as bets are settled, but he makes it back out in just under three minutes, and Hank wins a dragon for his trouble. Things seems settled, but then people notice the troll climbing out of the well, stirges hovering around its head.

Durnan grabs a sword from under the bar, and he and Yagra race at the troll, yelling for the party to take care of the stirges. The fight goes quickly, with Yinrick and Dagrim knocking out the stirges, while Yagra and Durnan are aided by Cuysen and Chip in taking down the troll. As the fight ends, Durnan announces a 'troll special': a round of drinks on the house. As the tables picks up their drinks, a figure with a floppy hat, mustache, and scarf approaches the table. "Volothamp Geddarm, at your service." He is impressed with the party's flair against the troll and stirges, and eager to hire them to help him with his problem. His friend, Floon Blagmaar, has disappeared. He was last seen at the Skewered Dragon, where Volo left him after deciding to make it an early night. The next day, Floon's wife (who's existence was a surprise to Volo!), showed up, asking Volo if he knew where Floon was. Volo offered 10 dragons each upfront, and 100 dragons each when Floon was found.

Volo recommend the group start searching at the tavern, but they decided to go to talk to the wife first. She evinced concern for her husband, but the party was unable to learn anything useful from her, so they headed to the Skewered Dragon. On the way to the bar, they passed some guardsmen in the process of arresting some Zhentartim thugs with the tell-tale flying black snake tattoos. They pass a weird purple shop, and continue to the bar, nestled among the tenements. At the Skewered Dragon, they learn that Floon met up with a friend, an uppity noble type, and when they left, they were followed by several men, one of whom had a tattoo of a black flying snake. Asking around the neighborhood, our heroes find out that Floon and his friend were attacked outside of the purple store, known as the Xoblob Shop. Walking through the crime scene, they enter the shop and question the proprietor, Xoblob. The deep gnome tells them that he saw the attack, but not what happened afterwards.

Stuck for a lead, the crew decide to talk to the Zhentarim. Cuysen uses his influence to convince the City Watch to let them take the thugs in, and Dagrim knows of a nearby safehouse, a warehouse on Candle Lane. Something appeared to be amiss when they arrived -- there was a dead winged snake in the yard. The doors were locked, but after a few tries, the party was able to enter the storage facility. Nothing seemed to be immediately wrong, but once most of them were inside, arrows flew at them from behind a stack of boxes! Four kenku were in the warehouse, and the party was under attack. Chip was hit hard, but a well placed sleep spell incapacitated three of the kenku, and Rasool downed the fourth with his glaive. Clearly, something had transpired to make this house less than safe.