Prologue

3 Tarsakh 1492, Waterdeep

Hail friend, and well met!

I will make my introduction brief, for indeed this tale I pen is not my own, though honored I am to be the one to get to tell it.

My name is Shadriel Silverwillow, a humble bard with a grand vision: to witness the exploits of a group of adventurers and record their deeds for the sake of history, for many similar stories are known only through third-hand accounts and rumors, and so rarely told by direct witness.

To that end, many tendays ago, I returned to the place of my birth, the legendary shining jewel of the Sword Coast: Waterdeep, the city where many great heroes have found adventure and fame. Once inside the gates, I set my sights on a destination which embodies that daring spirit, the Yawning Portal Tavern.

If you have not heard of this inn ere now, let not its sleepy-sounding name fool you: the Yawning Portal Tavern is so named for the great pit at its center which opens into the infinite depths of Undermountain, a vast network of caverns both natural and not, and populated with creatures from all across—and especially under—the Realms. Legends have been forged and fortunes secured within those mysterious depths, and proof of that lies with the proprietor of the Yawning Portal Tavern, a gruff fellow named Durnan who amassed wealth enough to have the Well enclosed by the pub he had constructed around it, whereupon he retired from adventuring and took up a life as a barman and gatekeeper to the Well.

Durnan permits adventurers to follow in his footsteps for a very modest fee, offering a hoist system in the tavern which grants easy access to the Well and all which lies within and below it. Yet in this, the proprietor shows his soft side: he does not accept the fee from—nor allow the use of the hoist by—any would-be adventurers he perceives as having little chance at surviving the shallower layers of the pit.

Indeed, Durnan forbade me to travel into the Well with the group of adventurers who agreed to take me as their scribe, for despite my elven blood and a score of years training in the arts of song, sword, and sorcery, I regrettably have had very little practical experience with the latter two.

We struck a bargain: over the next few tendays, I could earn a small sum of coin playing my viol for the entertainment of the common room, and the waitresses would send to me any would-be adventurers who were similarly deemed too inexperienced to venture into the Well. Together, we would form a company and go forth into the world to hone our skills that we might one day return to challenge Undermountain.

Or perhaps we might seek our fame and fortune elsewhere, for the Sword Coast—and indeed all the world of Toril!—has no shortage of dangerous monsters and villains! Even within supposedly civilized locales—Waterdeep, naturally, but also her neighboring cities of Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter, Luskan, Silverymoon, and Elturel—there lies intrigue and adventure aplenty.

I even had a good idea what sort of mercenary service we might first undertake. For most of the second decade of my life, I lived at the great library at Candlekeep, whose curators pay handsomely for the retrieval of rare volumes which have become lost or stolen or otherwise made difficult to reach.

The first two nights of my temporary employ brought no recruits, though they paid well enough in coin due to the generous spirit engendered by the Waukeentide holiday. But if the saying is true, then the third time will be the charm, and tonight will be the start of a grand adventure!