Part I

The Black Dragon Company is assembled in the tavern of the Shattered Sword at breakfast, simultaneously brooding over their bard's odd display of musical talent the previous night and trying to forget that the bizarre experience ever happened. A stranger appears in their midst and waits to earn the attention of the adventurers. His sudden appearance puts everyone on edge, some openly tense while others continue to break their fast on rashers of bacon and piles of eggs. Nameless walks over to greet him, and the stranger introduces himself as a Master of Riddles.

He announces that he has kidnapped their minotaur friend, prompting everyone to look around and realize that Loci is noticeably absent. Everyone turns to the stranger angrily, murder in their eyes. Around a mouthful of bacon, Eli mumbles something threateningly. The stranger reaches into his pocket, and Eli swiftly draws his dagger in response while Nameless pulls out his shawm. He reveals the minotaur medallion that shrinks Loci to the size of a man. He informs them that the minotaur is now human-sized and is currently housed comfortably within something very much like an iron maiden. In about four hours, the iron maiden will become quite uncomfortable for the minotaur. Ronin threatens to string him up by his legs and light a fire under him, and Bill inconspicuously circles around to stand between the stranger and the door.

Exercising his prowess as a Master of Riddles, he offers this first one: "I view the world in little space, Am always changing place; No food I eat, but, by my power, Procure what millions do devour." Ronin immediately gives the answer as the sun, and the stranger draws quiet and stares intently at the wizard. Aro-mon dons his gloves of truesight and sees through a glamour surrounding the stranger to recognize one of Ronin's Hilvadan Irregulars, Jimmy. Zandor tries to snatch the amulet from his hand, but it dissolves into a fine pile of dust along with the rest of the glamour. In a stupor, Jimmy falls to the ground unconscious. The curious riddle doesn't seem to be the only puzzle they will need to solve this day. Someone is clearly trying to manipulate them using their acquaintances as pawns.

They pull out a map of the inner ring of Hilvada and decide to head to the Sundial Arena. Before leaving, Otsea leans over to Bill and asks when he last talked to Drexx. She suggests that they may need to be on the lookout for Drexx's hand in this situation, knowing how manipulative the powerful wizard can be.

They arrive at the arena, the infamous face of the riddle master standing stoic at the entrance. Aro-mon raises his bow and sees Oliver, another Irregular, through the glamour. The Master of Riddles, speaking through Oliver, offers a second riddle. "Great deeds with little strength I do, I close the open, open the closed for you. I keep the master's house, the master keeps me, too." The answer leads them to the Locke and Key Mercantile. Ronin permits Aro-mon to use his glove of slapping, and Oliver lands unconscious on the ground. Zandor slaps him awake, only for the poor homeless man to vomit cheap beer all over the gnome's boots. Ronin asks him who he was drinking with last night. Oliver remembers drinking with a tall, bony fellow. Though he can't recall the name, he knows he was a rich man because he kept the coins and beer flowing all night. They started at O'Reilly's pub and then visited every other tavern after that.

They head to the Locke and Key to find their man waiting ever so patiently for them, almost statuesque in his bearing. Once again, the riddle master offers them this puzzle: "I fly to any foreign parts, Assisted by my spreading wings; My body holds an hundred hearts, Nay, I will tell you strange things; When I am not in haste I ride, And then I mend my pace anon; I issue fire from my side." After solving the riddle, they swiftly head to the Silk and Sundries Trading Company. When they arrive, the riddle master is expecting them and gives them their next clue. "What lies in a bed, then stands in the bed? First white, then red. The plumper it gets, the better the old woman likes it?" Aro-mon casually stretches toward the riddle master and sees Toya through the glamour on her. After slapping the illusion off of her, Ronin orders her to return to her square and get back to work.

At the Farmer's Market, they see a tallish figure reminiscent of their man. Behind the magical veneer, they identify Jonah, one of Ronin's enforcers. Puppet Jonah regards them and smiles. "Until I am measured I am not known, Yet how you miss me when I have flown." They run to Baelish Tower while its bells strike the hour, and there is no one around, save for a lone figure. He welcomes them to the end of his little game and asks if they're ready for their final, most devious riddle. "As a whole, I am both safe and secure. Behead me, and I become a place of meeting. Behead me again, and I am the partner of ready. Restore me, and I become the domain of beasts. What am I?" This puzzling clue leads them to the Barrel of Shame Stablery. They rush in, blades drawn, to find Loci drunkenly passed out in the hay. Shocked, and not a little annoyed, they rouse him from his drunken stupor. Loci, abashed at being caught in such a state by his friends, gives a meek, little, "Hi." It turns out last night he went for a walk to clear his head after Nameless' dream and was invited to go out drinking with Ronin's Irregulars. Even after being plied with far too much beer, he can recall the Shattered Sword as one of the stops on their little pub crawl. They all head back to the tavern to ask Telchie if she remembers seeing anything out of the ordinary the prior night.

When they arrive, Telchie is tending to the bar like normal, but her manner is stiff and terse. Suspicions still on high alert, Aro-mon uses his truesight and discovers that Telchie is actually Chronos, yet another Irregular. After dispelling the glamour, they hear a muffled banging coming from the basement. They rush downstairs where one of the storeroom doors is being pounded on relentlessly. Inside, they find Telchie, bound and gagged and furious as the sun. After they release her, Zandor casts a spell to detect any magic in the area and spies the remnants of a glowing portal at the far side of the room in the exact position as when Queen Silk recently dropped off an explosive housewarming gift. Nameless sends his unseen servant to investigate, and it spots the feet of a prone body hidden in the shadows. To their utter surprise, it is Queen Silk lying in a pool of her own blood, barely alive. Nameless casts a healing word on her after the others bind and gag her. When they are satisfied that she truly poses little threat to them, they release her gag and question her. She reveals that Glarald is the one responsible for leaving her to die in their basement. He had forced open the lingering portal directly to the heart of her domain, defeating her with a new power beyond her understanding and stealing from her the worthless duskblade she bore on her hip, a reminder of a gross betrayal, the sword that cut down her father. Bill sends news of Silk's capture to Drexx and within seconds the imperative, "Here. Now," echoes through the sending stone.

Suddenly, the beams and walls begin to shake and rumble. Dragging their prisoner along, they run upstairs and outside to see the tide washing up the streets of the town. Alarms can be heard ringing throughout Hilvada, and chaos ensues as people begin to evacuate. As the heroes make their way toward the docks, they find a number of skeletons and undead walking up from the sea and into town. Standing on the ocean, seemingly perched on what appears to be barnacled rocks, is a tall undead wight with flowing, white hair.

Bill barks some hasty orders including charging Nameless with the protection of their new captive. Nameless prepares to fly away with Silk if the situation turns dire, and then the battle commences. Silk struggles against Nameless, but he holds her fast and turns them both invisible. Otsea and Eli both shatter skeletons into powdered bone, only for more skeletons to shamble out of the water. Bill casts his hunter's mark on the man standing on the strange stones and calls out for cover while he focuses his attacks on the leader. Aro-mon climbs up on a nearby shack and assists Bill in taking out the target. He shoots at the leader with his longbow, the arrow causing the man to lose his corporeal form and die, an amused cackle escaping, ringing out from the wisp of its shade. The surface of the ocean writhes and undulates as an ancient dragon turtle, forty feet across, emerges from where the leader once stood. Silk, in her terror, reveals that this creature is the destroyer sent by Glarald to demolish the town along with its heroes.

More skeleton hordes bubble to the surface and make their way to the shore. Zandor calls down lightning on one horde while Ronin toasts another cluster with his fireball. The remaining skeletons dash towards the heroes, and the gargantuan creature surges towards the docks and smashes at the supports. Its tail lashes out at Aro-mon, knocking him from the roof to land prone on the ground. With the fragile skeletons within easy reach now, they are easily demolished by each of the heroes, save Otsea who uses her final shattering arrow to take down the turtle by a third of its health. Zandor steps up and prepares to cast polymorph on the massive creature, visions of a little puppy dropped to its death set firmly in his mind. To everyone's dismay, the dragon turtle shrugs off the druid's spell like it was nothing. The destroyer reaches the shallows and swings its head side to side, issuing forth boiling steam over the entire party, erupting the building into splinters of wood, and even annihilating the few remaining skeletons in its devastation.

Keen Bill is determined to lure the creature to dry land, where he believes it would be at a disadvantage. Nameless flies away with Silk towards the ruined church. Bill instructs everyone to keep enough distance not to get hit by the creature and attack from long-range. They begin to draw the turtle through the town, where they hope to limit the amount of death and destruction while buying time to fell the beast. Unfortunately, a few citizens have ignored the order to evacuate, and they are swept up in the devastation, along with a number of buildings that are left flattened in the dragon turtle's wake.

As the heroes desperately continue to lure the turtle along the path of least destruction in the Brown District, Otsea and Eli begin to help the few civilians left behind, doing their best to minimize the loss of life. They draw the turtle towards the more vacant and wooden sections of the Brown district. Everyone keeps their distance as they launch arrows and spells at the beast, desperately trying to wear down its seemingly-infinite health.

Meanwhile, Eli ducks down an alley in an attempt to head off the turtle as it continues to rampage through their town. He makes several turns, left and right, but seems to have miscalculated at some point as he arrives at the next street with no destroyer in sight.

By now, the turtle is very close to the Shattered Sword. Rather than risk their guildhall, they steer the turtle toward the garrison, in the hopes that the city guards will be able to provide some assistance in defeating the giant calamity. Everyone continues to launch their long-range attacks at the beast while it destroys buildings in its path, and Bill calls out for them to head northeast towards the open park and central city square. The few guardsmen who were able to reach the battle are no match for the giant creature, and their corpses litter the ground beneath the turtle's feet.

The heroes finally succeed in herding the dragon turtle to the central park where the collateral damage will be minimal. Waiting there in the center of the open, grassy area, radiant sword in hand, is one halfling rogue. Eli grips his weapon and charges bravely toward the giant turtle, knowing that he must make this attack count for he may not survive to make another. The massive head slowly angles down to take note of the hero foolish enough to attempt close-quarters combat. At the same time, the sword swings upward, slashing through the barnacled hide with enough force to slay the giant creature for good.

Everyone left in Hilvada, including the heroes, can do nothing but stare at the enormous corpse lying in the central square. The shell will make for an impressive landmark, proof that the town survived an epic battle with a legendary dragon turtle. A battle that was paid in innocent blood. The mourning for the families and guardsmen who were cruelly cut down indiscriminately starts in distant wails far to the south. Each step from the ocean of the walking leviathan weighs heavy on the adventurers. Yes, the city is saved and it is a mighty victory, but the toll was high and there is an accounting to be taken on the one who set the ancient force loose on their home.