04/30/2026: A Demon, a Rat and a Very Affectionate Goat

Viktor and Jayce cautiously explore the subterranean chapel. It is empty save for three things: one cage fitted with manacles sized for something with very large arms — or perhaps a neck — one altar, and one ominous door.

At the door behind the altar, Viktor leans in, ear to the wood. Behind it, the unmistakable sound of goats. He hisses at Jayce to get his attention.

The paladin strides over, slides Viktor aside, and smoothly opens the door. No darkvision. No light. Just the sound and smell of animals, growing stronger and more frantic by the second. He raises his lamp. There, on the floor, stands a single goat — white, curious, and possessed of three heads.

Its three mouths bleat frantically.

Viktor and Jayce can deduce nothing useful about the creature. Neither has a Speak with Animals spell, which would simplify things so very much. For now, the goat remains a mystery, standing there with its six eyes and an air of absolute need.

Eyes snapping open with an idea, Jayce tries speaking the Abyssal language. The goat backs away, eyes very wide in its three trembling heads. He follows up with a clarification in Common — “I’m not a demon.” The goat returns to cheerfully head-butting his hip with two of its three heads. It follows them as they leave.

The middle head, Jayce and Viktor agree, is clearly the one in charge.

⚔

The huge room beyond is a military armory of sorts: pole arms along every wall, shields bearing a white swan on a green field hung above them. House Cassalanter. Everyone in Waterdeep knows that sigil. Dante sighs — the Cassalanters, not long ago, lost all their children in some sort of terrible event. Or accident? The war forged cannot recall.

Shaking their head at the misfortune, or possibly the carelessness, Dante explores one of the four doors. Behind it: stairs climb upward, where dawn is beginning to lighten the sky. A watchman in green and white livery snoozes in his guard house. 

They must still be on Cassalanter property.

Dante stealthily descends and goes to find Viktor and Jayce, and meets their new three-headed goat.

⚔

Meanwhile, half a dungeon away, reconnaissance is happening. Jeremiah lies pressed flat against the top of a staircase, peering through the gap beneath a door. He can hear the sounds of a very cultured man moving papers around. Through the narrow gap, he can see a thin strip of a very lush room. Fancy boots cross a very fine carpet. There comes to Jeremiah’s ears the quiet sound of a jar being unscrewed.

Then: brimstone.

That sharp sulfur smell — like a struck match, like something demonic — slips beneath the door. Before Jeremiah can process what this might mean, a set of clawed feet appears next to the fine boots. He cannot see any details above the ankle of either occupant of the richly appointed room.

“Karrel, I have no confidence in the guard’s report that no one is downstairs. I want you to go down and reconnoiter for me. Report back. I do not want you seen. Understood?”

“Understood.” The word is repeated, mimicked, in the same voice. Jeremiah’s eyes go wide as the clawed feet begin walking toward the door.

He makes the very sensible decision to sprint down the stairs. He swings around the corner — barely making it — and presses himself against the wall, waiting to attempt an ambush.

⚔

When Sean began his work with the skillet, the sack containing exactly five rats seemed, at the time, adequate.

It was not adequate. Mork and Ogg clamor for more.

Sean decides to replenish the rat stores. He believes it will not be hard: the dank hallways seem to house an army of them. Stealthily, he creeps toward the nearest creature. He rushes forward —

His foot skates out from beneath him, catching on one of the discarded rodent skins.

By the time the cackler arrives — a small, black-carapaced, rattlesnake-tailed demon approximately half the height of a human — it is delighted to find Sean flat on his back in the hallway. Jeremiah attempted strike it with his brass knuckles…and misses.

The cackler mimics every sound he makes as he swings pointlessly: the, the grunt of exertion, yelp of surprise. Jeremiah backpedals, licking its lips and, without need of words, communicates that it has no doubt that the prone Sean will taste delicious.

⚔

Jeff, holding some of the cooking implements Sean has been working with, sprinkles salt on the hapless Sean — partly as a joke, partly as a desperate improvised solution.

And, to Jeff’s surprise, it works.

The demon, repelled by the salting, backs away in disgust.

“You assaulted Sean,” Bob says reverently, awed by the innovation. And the salt shaker.

Then, perhaps inspired, Bob uncorks a phial of holy water and gulps it. He holds it in his mouth while he kindles his lightning breath, and lets go. The unusual combination strikes the cackler squarely in the chest. The creature lets forth a wail and dissolves into a smelly puddle on the floor.

“Karrel!” A cultured voice calls from the top of the stairs — not a question, but a demand.

Brimstone still hanging in the air, silence falls. Eyes dart at one another. Jeremiah and Sean, now on his feet, move to flank the bottom of the stairs. The rapid scuff of expensive boots begins to descend. Dante, Viktor, and Jayce hide in the filthy straw; Jayce is able to keep the goat quiet.

The boots come all the way down.

Jeremiah steps out from beside the stairway and lands a clean punch, sending the newcomer flying backward. The man spits teeth. He wheels around, lifting his index finger as if to cast a spell —

And nothing happens.

The man’s mouth is bloody, and he is missing multiple teeth that lay scattered on the stairs. He cannot speak, and therefore cannot cast. Dante gasps. They recognize this man. This is Lord Vittorio Cassalanter, one of Waterdeep’s most prominent nobles — publicly said to be searching for his three missing children.

What is he doing with demons in his cellar? Why does he have a demonic underground chapel in the same? Where did he get a three-headed goat? How is all of this connected? When will he tell them?

Now, apparently.

“Maybe we should cast a Zone of Truth,” someone suggests.

Lord Cassalanter straightens and stares at his finger as though it has disappointed him in some vast way. He opens his mouth — but only a spray of blood and a garble of words leave his split lips. He looks up, disturbed.

The party looks back. For a moment, no one can say anything.

“I’ll help him,” volunteers Jayce, and proceeds to grip Lord Cassalanter’s arm. He channels his divinity by laying on hands. The swelling nose and split lips on Lord Cassalanter return to their usual size and shape.

He looks directly at Jayce and says, very politely: “Thank you so very much.”

And then he vanishes.

⚔

In the blame and chaos that follows, Wilrick — who has spent most of the last half hour acquiring a skeleton army through a combination of persuasion and a borrowed whistle — distributes skeleton guardians to any party member who wants one. Four hands go up. Four skeletons position themselves at the sides of their new commanders: Bob, Sean, Dante, and Jayce.

Wilrick stands at the head of his own small bony fleet, eight skeletons in all. The three-headed goat, watching the undead suspiciously with all six of its eyes, slips behind Jayce for protection. Jeff, salt shaker in one hand and cooking ladle in the other, shuffles toward the stairs with Jeremiah and Bob.

Lord Vittorio Cassalanter now knows exactly what they look like. And somewhere above them, he may be plotting revenge for his missing teeth and his kidnapped three-headed goat.

Things are becoming interesting.