Upon arriving in Candlelight, the part noticed a great commotion ahead. Thousands of people were gathered around the beach. Most of them were tritons, goliaths, tabaxi, and halflings. The object of their attention was several massive capstans being turned by a revolving crew of nearly 3000 gnolls. The capstans were winding up chains, hauling in the wreckage of the huge ship that had sunk just days earlier.
One of the capstans was about to break. The party attempted several things simultaneously. Nox was trying to calm the gnolls and get them to move away to safety, and she was surprisingly successful. Dragomir and Cherish were trying to warn the crowd but found they could not shout loudly enough. Fortunately, they managed to convince a goliath woman to repeat their message much louder for them and successfully got the crowd to back away from danger. Cerulean ran across the heads of the gnolls, jumping from head to head until he stood atop the capstan. From there, he called out a warning to the assembled crowd and the workers, before deftly jumping out of the way of the shattering wooden capstan.
With the immediate danger passed, the party was approached by a pompously dressed halfling man who introduced himself as one Edgar Tallow, a nobleman and banker. Saying that the party had a dangerous look about them, he offered them employment to help salvage items from the wreckage. He offered them either one silver piece per day to help haul chains, 1 gold piece per day as divers, or 40 gold to investigate a section of the beach that his men had been avoiding for fear of monsters. The party agreed to investigate this report of monsters, walking down the beach some distance until they came upon two overturned longboats. Underneath the first boat was a woman, a female triton vampire, feeding upon a dead halfling. The vampire fled, pursued by Dragomir, into the ocean. Beneath the waves, the woman circled Dragonair once, then fled deeper into a coral reef. Dragomir, satisfied that this was not the fish man he was looking for, returned to the overturned boats. Clio patted down the dead halfling but didn't search thoroughly. There seemed to be some sort of creature beneath the second boat but they hauled it away, holding it over them like a shell, and the party did not pursue. Coming from the direction of the city, a procession of soldiers armed with pikes escorted a palanquin held aloft by 4 warforged. The party took their 40 gold and hurried towards the outskirts of the city.
Walking through town, reflecting on the events of the past few days, Cherish mentioned how much she dislikes halflings, getting an angry look from a passing halfling. Cherish found Nomi some new clothes, while Nox purchased some bog-aged dusk wood to fashion a flute from. Then everyone regrouped outside of the upper-class section of the city, which was almost entirely populated by tritons. Dragomir used his forgery skills to add a false name to a travel visa that the party had found on the body of a halfling along the marsh road. Cherish took the fake name Ezera Germenaxvorum as suggested by Dragomir and Yu-Yo. The guards were quite skeptical and had the party wait outside the gates as they went to get their superior officer, a triton named Kevos Kenaleth. The party, mostly Clobond, made fun of his name and compared it to a dog kennel. The captain of the guard recognized that Cerulean already had a ship docked in the port, so in the interest of having them leave sooner, allowed the party to enter the inner city, on the condition that they relinquish all their weapons until they were actually ready to leave permanently. It also helped that the captain of the guard recognized Orna as the daughter of the baroness and saw her immediately to the castle, where an invoice from her aunt, Amalia Cassalanter, was already awaiting her.
Dragomir asked the captain of the guard if he had ever heard of the name Amhach Dormineth. The captain said that he had not heard of that name exactly, but the name Dormineth was fairly common and that if Dragomir was really interested he could look into the matter in the castle records.
Cerulean left briefly to return to his ship and smuggle the other tieflings aboard. However, the tieflings proved too difficult to smuggle and were taken into custody by the city guards. Cerulean’s ship was then searched, revealing weapons and drugs. The drugs were noted by the authorities, but not confiscated, while the weapons were taken. The ship was branded as a smuggling vessel and recorded in the city logs. Later, several party members assisted in disguising the brand as artful scroll-work carved into the wood. Meanwhile, Nox was busy flirting with Nomi, and Dragomir was asking around about the ‘fish man’ and the festival everyone seemed to be preparing for. Besides the locals putting up decorations and holy symbols of the gods Pelor and Persana, there were also several festive ships clearly not made by tritons. Three of these ships were gold and purple in color, crewed by human men, and transporting some kind of traveling carnival. A fourth ship appeared to be made of white marble and resembled a sort of floating garden. Investigating the stone ship, which appeared to defy the laws of buoyancy, the party was allowed inside by a triton bouncer. Within the entryway, a sing-song voice emanating from a pool of deep dark water requested an entry fee for each person. From the water, a liquid hand manifested to accept the payment of one gold piece. The party was hesitant to pay, unsure of what exactly awaited inside, when suddenly a handsome human man with a pointed beard and mustache, sporting a wide-brimmed purple hat exited the establishment. As he passed, he told the hesitant group that they should not pass up an opportunity to see Nala Becfola's performance, and then left them with a bow and flourish.
Inside was a spacious parlor with several circular seating areas sunk into the stone floor and round tables floating in the center on columns of water. Shimmering blue light illuminated the walls with rippling patterns and triton women carrying trays with drinks and food to the patrons. Amongst them were several members of the Zhentarim, still armed, as well as a pair of drow carrying firearms, and the bard, Mudei, who set fire to the castle in Ordabaille. The headlining show was a water naiad, named Nala Becfola, who sang a song laced with illusion magic, charming most of the patrons and party. Clio and Nox avoided being charmed but the rest threw a significant amount of gold onto the stage. Clio threw one gold piece to be polite, while Nox used the distraction to rob Mudei of 300 gold pieces.
After visiting Nala's galleon, Dragomir, Cherish, Clio, and the rest sought out a magic store. Inside, they were disappointed to learn that all magical weapons were held in the castle and that the store was closing soon for the festival that evening. While inside, however, two items caught Dragomir’s attention: a dread helm from the infantry forces of the armies of Barovia, as well as a cloak of the bat. Unable to afford the price of these items, Dragomir stepped outside to begin busking, performing simple card tricks, sleight of hand magic, and playing the spoons. After several hours of this, he managed to raise three gold pieces total, one of which was given to him by the man in the wide-brimmed purple hat, who introduced himself as Captain Zardoz Zord. He also met a friendly young acrobat who said that she was a member of The Sea Maiden's Faire and that if he wanted to make a living doing his performances, he should join up with them. He said that he'd consider it and when he learned that they were headed for Waterdeep, told them that he might meet them there.
Following the sound of a commotion, the party found a place atop the roof of a nearby building, alongside a small crowd. Everyone seemed to be watching the water near the base of the nearby bluffs where the water was roiling and crashing, as a colossal hand composed of ice raised half of a ship out of the water and slowly moved it towards land. Atop the cliff was a fortified encampment flying banners with the winged serpent of the Zhentarim as well as the blade and candle of House Tallow. While watching this strange and extraordinary spectacle, Nendrinym, the hexblade, placed their hand upon Dragomir’s shoulder, crackling with the same eldritch energy which had previously incapacitated the vampire. The hexblade asked if Dragomir was enjoying the festival and planning to stay through the evening. They confessed they were surprised to see Dragomir up and about already, but glad they would have this opportunity to witness Mother Tallow’s magic. Careful not to draw attention to themselves, they made thinly veiled threats and asked about Amach, Margo Tyl, and the Moon Curser’s Key, which they seemed to suspect Dragomir and the others knew something about. Dragomir played dumb to everything, and before Nendranym could question him further, the explosive sound of a fireball spell rung out from the distant encampment, along with an orb of orange flame which consumed several tents. Nendranym cursed the timing and left immediately towards the camp. Dragomir and the rest of the party immediately followed towards the camp where they joined in a bucket line, trying to extinguish the fires. Dragonair actually managed to sneak into the camp, breaking away from the bucket line, and tried to have a look around. He noticed the palanquin which he had seen earlier was almost completely destroyed by the fireball and the nearby tent seemed to have been made into a field hospital, where he saw several badly burned bodies before making a hasty exit to avoid being caught.