#collect the treasure and exit the vault before it closes shut!

[lotro-tooltips-daily]

[redfire-blackash-whitegold]

Heist

In order to rob a bank, the Fakes first had to get in the building. It had to be silent, a covert op that couldn’t be noticed, at least not right away. After all, it wouldn’t do to have the police on them before they could even get into the vault, now would it? Ryan fiddled with the electronic door opening tool Matt had given him, and meanwhile Geoff and Jack rolled up onto the scene of the hottest party east of Manhattan. They were dressed impeccably, Geoff in his signature suit, Jack in a floor length gown, fitting in easily with the crowd of high society folks that had been born into a life of luxury as they had not been. 

Once through the maintenance door, Michael sprinted to the security room being monitored by a sleeping guard in order to quiet the thirty second alarm. Lindsay prepared her blowtorch, and Ryan watched for wandering guards. They didn’t have long before the first watch would be by to check on them, and they needed to be through the door before that point. As soon as Lindsay had cut through the large bolts holding the thick steel door shut, Michael returned, sprinting again, this time because of the hot adrenaline flowing through his veins. 

Lindsay once again used her blowtorch, gently cutting through the lock of the safety deposit box and letting the group see the treasure inside. 

“Matt?” Michael spoke into his com. “We’ve got it.” 

Next was covering their tracks. Michael and Lindsay set to work on getting the other boxes open, in their signature way. 

“Lindsay, what the fuck are you doing? It’s C4, not fucking play-dough. It’s only supposed to be the size of your thumbnail!”

“This is the size of my thumbnail, look asshole!”

“Christ Lindsay your hands are huge! They’re bigger than mine!”

“Sh!” Ryan hushed. “They’re going to hear you.”

Everything was timed down to the second. The demolitions team placed their explosives, their detonators, and waited for when the rotating guard was supposed to be on the other side of his route. Then it was a matter of taking cover on the other side of the vault door, and creating their own kind of art, only with ash marks and steel shrapnel instead of paint and ink.

“I think they heard that,” Ryan switched out his silenced pistol for something with more firepower, in preparation for a fight. Michael whooped in excitement and did the same, fire burning in his eyes. 

“Hold them off while Michael and I get the goods,” Lindsay instructed. “And don’t kill the guards, we need hostages! Matt, send in extraction now!”

“Ah, I’m glad you could make it this evening, I’m sure the great Ramsey has better things to do.” Woodworth greeted Geoff admiring some art, while Jack stood by, playing on her phone. 

“And miss seeing your collection with my own eyes?” Geoff shook his hand and clasped him on the shoulder familiarly. “Of course I came.”

“Are you much of an art lover?” Came the reply. “I wouldn’t have expected it.”

“Well, sure, Victorian paintings aren’t exactly my thing, but I believe in appreciating beautiful art where I see it.”

“And speaking of beautiful art, you are looking lovely this evening, Jacqueline.” At this, Jack looked up, a warm smile gracing her face as he kissed her hand.

“Thank you very much,” She said, and returned to cold indifference.  

“Now tell me, Ramsey, I’ve heard a rather unflattering rumour,” Woodworth said, and Geoff smiled. “That there may be an entirely different reason for your presence tonight. That your interest in my centrepiece this evening is not strictly intellectual. What say you of these rumours?”

“Well, I’d say that if you really believed those rumours, then you wouldn’t have invited us here.” Geoff replied. “Unless, of course, you had another reason for inviting us. If, for example, you did it to keep us close, to ensure that we were safely looking at those decoy jewels you have on display instead of the real ones you have stashed away somewhere else.”

“They’re decoys, are they?” Woodworth cocked an eyebrow. “If that’s the case, where, say you, are the real gems?”

“It doesn’t matter where I think they are.” Geoff said. “What matters is where the Fake AH Crew thinks they are.” Jack faced her phone towards the unsuspecting art collector, showcasing the news. “I certainly hope that you didn’t have anything valuable stored at this bank they are robbing. It sure would be a shame to lose anything that may be inside.”

“A short person wearing orange and purple, a kid in a wolf jacket, a man with a skull for a head, and a gold helicopter circling in the sky a few blocks away.” Woodworth read calmly off of Jack’s phone.

“You don’t seem worried, do you?” Geoff asked, and the target flashed a brief smile, a sharp thing, the first show of true emotion he had displayed all night.

“If Victorian style art isn’t to your taste, then I suggest you explore other parts of this house. There is so much more to discover, after all. I do hope you find what you’re looking for.” Woodworth took a step back. “It has been a pleasure to meet you both in person, and you especially, Jacqueline. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have something to attend to upstairs.” He made his leave, but paused to speak to a well dressed man who had been standing by, clearly a member of his security. “Don’t let them out of your sight.”

“Alright boys, the chopper is on the roof, come on!” Lindsay called out, looking out at the scene, Michael and Ryan thoroughly enjoying the shootout they had gotten themselves into. The three switched gears, using their hostage as much as they could to move over towards the stairs that would serve as their exit. 

They had gathered quite the crowd, police cars and vans lined up outside, sending in barrage after barrage of officer, but keeping plenty more sidelined, not truly dedicated enough to risk sending their entire force out to die. There was something undeniable, victorious and jubilant, in the way the three Fakes laughed and celebrated before they were even home free. 

“Yo get in!” A masked figure as covered in gold as his helicopter was greeted the Fakes on their way out the door. 

“Thanks for the ride Fredo!” Michael said and jumped into the copilot seat. 

“How much did we make?” Trevor’s voice spoke into the comms as the chopper took off. 

“Well from the lock boxes, maybe two hundred thousand?” Ryan responded, peeking into one of the bags of stolen goods. 

“Which brings our total for the night to two hundred and fifty million dollars!” Jeremy- the real Jeremy, totalled from safety somewhere else. 

Setup/ Heist/ The Reveal

[thatswaterdeep]

Into the Vault

After making a failed run at finding the vault, the party returned home to re-evaluate their options. The Stone of Golorr continued to taunt Q by letting slip that they would need keys. Q was settling in to the adversarial relationship he had with the Stone and was determined to learn more about the keys and the vault itself.

Given another chance, the party also performed a stakeout around the bar to find out what was going on. They found some large rats and took them in an alley to threaten them (thinking they might be wererats). During the interrogation (which consisted of Kava yelling at a bag of screeching rats and then slamming them against the wall), Frewn came out to see what the ruckus was. While Pon tried to distract him from what was going on, Frewn threw his hands up and said, "That's it! I've had it with you!". The party contemplated an immediate, middle-of-the-night assassination attempt, but realized that neither they nor Frewn had actually broken any laws, yet. So, they let him go.

Over the next couple of days, they learned that Frewn was circulating a letter that he wanted neighbors to sign claiming that The Brewding Specter was a front for a gang of wererats and the City Watch should shut them down. Infuriated, the party confronted Frewn, but got nowhere. They decided they needed to somehow contact the only wererats they knew, the Shard Shunners, to see if they knew anything about what was going on.

Soon, the Stone explained that they would need "A unicorn's magic", "A recently silvered warhammer", and "a drunken elf". Q, having just given a test-drive to the hangover cure they were going to sell at the Brewding Specter, figured he could fill that last position himself. Q also realized that he could get more information from the Stone about the lcoation of the Vault. By getting a detailed description of the doors at the entrace to the Vault, he was able to use the locate object spell to determine the rough location of the doors which were, indeed, under the old windmill.

The party seemed to collect all the pieces they needed for another run at the vault before they heard back about meeting the wererats, so they went for it.

The party went back to the windmill where they met Vhaspar, an old priest who was attending to Kalain. He was friendly and helpful to a point, but was completely unaware of the location of the vault. The party re-entered the windmill more quietly and spread out to look harder for the entrance. They also took some time to slash some of the paintings in the event that Kalain would start bringing them to life again. Eventually, Pon found some uneven ground in a small side room. Further investigation found a stone trap door that revealed a staircase winding underground.

The party then approached the very doors Q had described and they had two rows of Dwarven letters on them. Unfortunately, nobody in the party could read Dwarvish, so they could only guess what they said. After some shuffling around, a drunken Q finally grabbed the warhammer and the unicorn statue and stood close to the door, and they opened.

Behind the doors, a large vault was revealed with three large, but crumbling pillars supporting three bridges in even worse shape. The main floor had twelve sets of large doors with images of Dwarves in different scenes of life. Over each door was pair of runes which, again, the party could not interpret. On the first pillar they approached, there was a verse written in both Dwarvish and Common. It read:

"Doors abound, doors all around, Beyond is danger or treasure found, Approach to answer, open to speak, Our greatest love hides what you seek."

After beseeching his patron, Pon temporarily gained the ability to get the concept of each of the sets of runes, but he had a harder time interpreting some rather than others. After opening a few that had bad side effects (coins turning to ash, hair falling off, pummeled by rocks), the party settled on a door they wanted to try it it refused to open. At this point Q prayed to Corellon and was given the ability to properly interpret the remaining runes. The party finally decided on "Kin" as the door to open and it worked!

In the next room was an elaborate fresco of Dwarves fighting Goblins that so entranced Tossa that she did not want to leave. Despite the party's best efforts to talk her out of it, she refused to go. Pon decided to use suggestion to try to override the charm and succeeded. That simply allowed the party to get to the upper level and access to the bridges. But, before the bridges were considered, Sychor went to investigate the crack in a long fresco on the back wall. The crack was dark, but allowed no light at all. When Q went over to investigate, a black pudding crawled out and attacked Q and Sychor. During the fight, Tossa bravely hacked at the goo only to divide it into two smaller goos each time! Once it was taken care of, the party could finally consider the bridges.

Through careful walking, rope tricks, and a few near-falls, the party discovered a room with an anvil that granted temporary hit points, a room with a statue that tried to cook you if you pulled on a trap door, and a room with a hidden door that was only revealed by telling a secret never revealed before. This finally, FINALLY, led to a vault... that appeared empty but for an ancient dwarf.

After some conversation (and questions to the Stone of Golorr), the party realized that the dwarf is actually a Gold dragon that is guarding the treasure that Dagult Neverember embezzled. Now, the room only seemed to contain scattered gems and one sizable pile of gold, but clear the vault was big enough for much more. The party is able to convince the dragon to release the gold back to Waterdeep, but he only agrees if the party can bring the current Open Lord of Waterdeep, Laeral Silverhand, to him in person. With a deal in place, the party begins to exit the vault.

As they re-enter the large space upstairs, they are greeted by a flamboyant Drow congratulating them on finding the vault and offering to take it from here. The party is unconvinced and would rather not hand off the return of gold to this person. Then, he introduces himself as Jarlaxle Baenre and reveals that he has been contacting the party all along by disguising himself first as Silverhand, then as the owner of the theater they met at, and finally as Zardoz Zord. Despite this revelation, the party is not interested in helping him. They retreat back to the dragon and warn him about who is coming.

The four gunslingers with Jarlaxle engage with the dragon in what turns out to be a distraction so that Jarlaxle can use a portable hole to steal the gold from the room directly. When the party notices the gold pouring out, Sychor and Q jump through and end up in a wagon parked outside the windmill. As they prepare to fight the guards around the wagon, Meloon Wardragon comes running up and joins the fight. He is more than capable of dispatching or scaring off the guards and helps the party return the gold to the dragon so it can be properly returned to the city. Unfortunately, he also takes custody of the portable hole!

With their new fame and (perceived) fortune, people start to approach the party in the days later asking for help or guidance. It eventually comes out that Frewn desperately wanted Trollskull Manor for himself, so he had hired the wererats so he could get the party evicted. He also now has unpayable debts. The party agrees to help him with his debts and hires him to manage their bar since they've also received a note encouraging them to venture into the Undermountain.

Opportunites abound, suddenly, the bar is doing better and people know about the ones who helped restore the fortune Neverember stole.