Conspiracy

Conspiracy by J. Robert King is the sixth novella in the Double Diamond Triangle Saga series.

"As the search continues in the Utter East for the kidnapped bride of Waterdeep, the forces of paladins and mercenaries converge. Now, for the first time, the dark secret behind the abduction is revealed, and the searchers realize their quest is only half begun."

Summary
The story continued as the surviving mercenaries led by Artemis Entreri are confronted by the paladins from Waterdeep, led by Miltiades. One group was looking to rescue Eidola of Neverwinter, the abducted bride of Piergeiron the Paladinson, and the other group - to assassinate her. The clash between the groups happened in front of Eldrinpar's Fountain of the Kraken. In battle, one of the Sharkers was slain by the paladins. Jolloth "Anvil" Burbuck was killed, and as Entreri and Miltiades locked their blades, Kastonoph Nesher used his rope of climbing in battle as a lasso. Surprisingly, the magical rope was a golden lasso of truth. The rope restrained both the assassin and the paladins, forcing the truth to come out of their mouths. In anger, Miltiades voiced his disdain for the young noble and blamed him for the death of Harloon. Hurt, upset, and recognizing similarities between the paladin and his father, Noph abandoned the paladins of Tyr and fled alongside the pirates hoping to join them.

The mercenaries revealed to Artemis Entreri and North that Blackfingers Ralingor, in reality, was not one man, but an alias, all the Sharkers were Blackfingers, and he was them. As the pirates were revealing their cards to each other, Artemis Entreri revelaed that he was hired by one of the Lords of Waterdeep, whose identity he did not know. The Lords suspected that Lady Eidola was an agent of the Unseen and wanted her assassinated to protect the City of Splendor.

Entreri knew that Eidola and the bloodforge were likely held in the same place, close to Aetheric III, the Emperor fo Doegan. He wanted to finish his mission and acquire the powerful artifact. The Pirates sunk into the palace and found the Emperor's chambers and his poison-filled impregnable water tank. Entreri deducted that if the gargantuan fish-like monstrosity that Aetheric III was, likely needed the poison in the tank to survive. The assassin used a rare magical item to create a small silver portal in the tank's wall and threw a handful of white pills into the hole. The tablets were a powerful magical purifying agent that cleared the poison in the water. Clean liquid hurt the Emperor, forcing him to break the glass in pain, flooding the castle with the tank water and his grotesque tentacled carcass.

Meanwhile, the paladins heard the Emperor's roar of pain. As that happened, the magical barriers around Eldrinpar failed, flooding the city with fiendish monsters, hordelings, and tanar'ri. The paladins, along with an army of basal golems, fought for their life. Subsequently, the paladins made their way into the Eldrinpar Palace to find it becoming a chaotic battleground like the rest of the city. Noph found himself flushed by the tank waters into the castle's dungeon, where he found Eidola shacked to the wall. Aetheric III kidnaped her in a misguided attempt to bring outside forces to aid the struggling country of Doegan via deceit. Noph freed the noblewoman, but to be sure she was not a monster, he used his lasso of truth on her. A greater doppelganger stood in front of Noph, ensnared by the enchanted rope. In a blink of an eye, it shapeshifter into a crocodile and attacked the youth.

As paladins and pirates faced once again inside the palace, they found severely hurt Noph, who informed them that Eidola, in fact, was a shape changer and was fleeing. The paladins and pirates separated into teams. Some went after the fleeing monster, some stayed to heal the dying young man, while Entreri and Ingrar Welven went to search for Aetheric's bloodforge.

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