Trust No One is the second episode in the Fear Reveals Truth series of Eberron one-shot adventures written by Keith Baker, Wayne Chang, and Anthony Turco. This session was joined by Balkris the kalashtar barbarian, Fie the changeling warlock, Gaius the half elf rogue, Peggy the shifter ranger, and Reckoner the warforged fighter.

Dalia was a young gnome reporter working for the Sharn Inquisitive. She had contacted Renaldo after learning that he was an associate of Serinna the bounty hunter who in turn knew Max Murlock, a private eye whose name had recently been published in an article for the Inquisitive. Dalia wished to interview Renaldo and his friends to confirm some details in the Murlock story. They agreed to meet in Middle Tavick’s Landing at a local restaurant called Kavv’s which was famous for its exotic and spicy cuisine.

Renaldo (aka Fie the Changeling), Reckoner the warforged soldier, and Balkris the gentleman from House Vadalis had run into Dalia in the streets of the Upper City. But Renaldo, sensing that there was more to this meeting than a simple interview, had brought two new companions. They were Peggy, a shifter war veteran from the Karrnathi army who recognized Reckoner from his distinctive dragonborn head; and Gaius, a dragonmarked half-elf rogue of House Lyrandar with an extremely outgoing personality.

The gnome reporter showed the adventurers the copy of the Inquisitive with an article detailing their investigation and rescue of Drevan ir’Roole. However, none of them were mentioned by name. Instead, the article described how Max Murlock had tracked down and rescued the missing noble at the bequest of his distraught young wife, Nora. Only at the end of the article did a brief quote from Drevan ir’Roole himself suggest that he didn’t know who Max Murlock was at all, and that his rescuers were in fact a group of highly competent adventurers.

After concluding the interview, Dalia put down her quill and spoke candidly. She had another reason for wanting to meet Renaldo and his friends. She worked for another organization that was in need of some highly competent individuals to performed a difficult task.

Dalia revealed that the ledger she had been holding when she last saw them in the street had been delivered to a gnome ambassador from Zilargo. But soon after she made her delivery, the ledger was stolen. Dalia’s organization was engaged in some unsavory business with a shadowy organization known as House Tarkanan, so their assets were either tied up or under heavy surveillance. That was why they needed outside help. Dalia offered the adventurers a handsome reward if they could find and bring back the missing ledger, which contained some very valuable and sensitive information. She also gave them a lead to start their investigation.

Following Dalia’s lead, the party headed to the lower city where an informant known as the “Spider” was working for the “Tyrants” in a small cosmetics shop called Honest Faces. Peggy and Fie knew that the Tyrants were an organization in the underbelly of Sharn made up of changelings, doppelgangers, and shifters. Most people believed, or hoped, they were an urban legend, but Peggy and Fie knew better. Fie, knowing that they were headed to a rough neighborhood, cast off her Renaldo persona and donned the persona of a tough lizardfolk warrior named Bouncer.

The party arrived in a neighborhood called Dragoneyes, a changeling enclave. Here the changelings of the city wore their true faces, and changeling children openly played shapeshifting games in the street. The party passed a small makeshift market where a group of hobgoblins were looking intently for something. When Balkris asked about their business, one of the hobgoblins inadvertently revealed that they were tasked by their boss, a man named Jolgar, to find interesting items for his auction.

The party continued and found the entrance to Honest Faces. Upon entering the shop, they were startled to see another half elf who looked exactly like Gaius the rogue! Gaius himself played along and the two of them had the party guessing which one was real. But Peggy’s keen nose told him the difference, and the shifter kept a wary eye upon the half elf behind the counter.

Gaius (the Spider) knew what the party was after. After a bit of amusement, he quickly cut to the chase. He offered to give them the information they were seeking in exchange for performing one of several pressing tasks and explained what needed to be done. After some discussion about which task to perform, the party set off to make a delivery to “Granny” Larabeth of the Boromar Clan, who resided in an orphanage in Middle Dura known as Stonebridge Fosterage.

The orphanage was so named for the large stone bridge that led to the building. The stonework upon the bridge looked old like the rest of the district, and the Sharn Watch in this neighborhood were few and far between. As they crossed the long bridge, the adventurers glimpsed a pair of bird-like shadows circling overhead in the afternoon sun. The shadows grew larger as they descended upon the party, and they soon saw that they were not birds at all but a pair of vicious harpies!

The harpies dove and clawed at the adventurers. They were clearly looking for the package given by the Spider. Yet these were no ordinary couriers but hardy adventurers, and they fought back fiercely. However, one of the harpies sang a luring song that drew Bouncer to the edge of the bridge. Before anyone could stop him, Bouncer had leapt off the stone bridge and plummeted hundreds of feat, hitting the sidewalk at the bottom of the towers.

The heroes, wracked by sorrow and rage at the loss of one of their own, struck back at the winged creatures with volleys of javelins. At last, Balkris flung a pair of handaxes with a nobleman’s battlecry, slaying one harpy and sending the other fleeing into the sky. The battle was won, but at what cost? The party mourned the loss of Bouncer, and indeed it was the last they would see of the lizardfolk. For such were the minds of changelings that even if they were brought back from beyond the grave, the persona that had died would never again be brought forth. For in the changeling’s mind, the story of that persona’s life had truly ended.

Arriving in the Stonebridge Fosterage, which looked less like an orphanage and more like a front for illicit activities, the party delivered their package to Granny Larabeth, an elderly halfling woman who looked like an ordinary grandmother but was treated with the utmost respect, and perhaps a healthy dose of fear by the halfling thugs that staffed the orphanage. She offered them some freshly baked cookies as consolation for the loss of their lizardfolk companion and introduced them to a human cleric of the Sovereign Host named Smith who would join them in his stead.

Smith accompanied the party back to Honest Faces. The Spider had now donned the face and persona of Peggy the Shifter. Peggy (the Spider) was  pleased by the news of the mostly successful delivery. He now revealed the information that the party had sought.

“The ledger you are looking for was stolen by a man named Jolgar. He works for House Tarkanan and has many hobgoblins in his employ. He will put up the ledger for auction tonight at the Tower of the Mad Mage. It’s that crooked-looking building across the street.”

The heroes had precious little time left before the auction. The Spider offered to direct them to a secret entrance if they wished to sneak into the tower. But they decided to walk through the front entrance with Balkris in the lead, pretending to be guests invited to the auction.

Later that evening, the party arrived at the entrance to the tower. Hobgoblin bouncers in ill-fitting suits waved in the wealthy-looking patrons carrying red squares of cloth which appeared to be the invitations to the event. Gaius managed to steal one of the square pieces of cloth from an unwary halfling noble and handed it to Balkris. Balkris showed it to the hobgoblin guard nonchalantly and gained entry for himself and his group of “servants”. The adventurers had to check their weapons, but they managed to conceal several daggers and small weapons between them.

Inside, they saw a splendid hall decorated with glammerweave tapestries and lit by illusory lanterns. A haughty looking man with a dragonmark upon his neck stood before a stage, flanked by hobgoblin guards on either side. The party guessed that he was Jolgar, for he acted the part of the host and was busy chatting with his guests. The guests in the crowd looked wealthy but were also quite diverse. A dwarf noble with gaudy clothing stood with a beautiful half elf lady in a red dress on his arm. A peculiar-looking gnome was trailed by a tall bodyguard in bandages who smelled like rot and decay. A university professor eagerly eyed the auction stage. And a group of bald headed men in long robes stood in a corner, silent and brooding.

The party split up and hid among the crowd, but Balkris, with Reckoner by his side, reached out to Jolgar telepathically and offered to buy the ledger from him for a high price. But as he did so, a darkness briefly shrouded his mind, and he felt a terrible presence that was at once alien and yet familiar. In response, Jolgar gave a signal and several hobgoblin guards escorted Balkris and Reckoner to the stage. Jolgar took a close look at Balkris and gave a hearty laugh.

“We shall see if your pockets as truly as deep as you claim. Let the auction begin!”

At Jolgar’s command, the auction commenced. The curtains were drawn from the stage. Jolgar introduced the auction items one by one. There was a leatherbound tome with silver runes (the ledger) rumored the hold knowledge pertaining to an ancient prophecy; a silver mirror with a strangely dark reflection; a canary in a cage with tentacles protruding from its beak; a golden sphere with unknown properties; and a glass box with a silvery cloud inside.

Jolgar prepared to begin the bidding on the ledger, but before he could do so, a scream went up in the middle of the crowd and a nobleman fell to the floor, bleeding from a vicious knife wound. One of the bald men held up a bloody knife and shouted at the others.

“The Shaper of Nightmares commands us. Get that ledger! And kill everyone in this hall! Fear reveals truth!”

The remaining bald men, now revealed to be cultists who worshipped a being known as the Shaper of Nightmares, brought forth their own knives and began to stab the nearby guests indiscriminately while trying to get closer to the ledger on the stage. Peggy, who was in the outskirts of the hall, began to push his way through the panicking crowd, trying to get closer to the knife-wielding men. Balkris pulled a scimitar from the sheath of a nearby hobgoblin and threw himself against the cultists like a whirling dervish. Reckoner needed no weapon to arm himself with for his metal fists were as hard as warhammers. The warforged fell upon the cultists with a fury, intent on stopping them from hurting any more innocents. All the while, the cleric Smith prayed to the Sovereign Host for deliverance and blessed his companions in their desperate battle.

The fighting was soon joined by the hobgoblin guards of the tower and Jolgar who began to hurl mighty spells into the fray, heedless of whom they might hit. Seeing his opportunity, Gaius snuck up to the stage and grabbed the ledger. Yet as he did so, the mirror upon the stage began to shudder and then fell shattering upon the floor. A great plume of black smoke went up, but when it dissipated, the adventurers saw a bizarre creature from their darkest nightmares. It had the body of an immense slug, many times taller than a man, with twin pincers for arms and a terrible stinger upon its long tail. No one had seen a creature such as this, yet Balkris knew instinctively that it was a quori from Dal Quor, the region of dreams. It must have been trapped in the mirror for a very long time, for it lashed out like a crazed beast looking for sustenance. And quori such as this one fed on the fear and dread of mortal beings.

Gaius was half frozen in terror, but his instinct for survival told him to run. He ran past the bald headed men who slashed him with knives and pummeled him with fists. He ran through the doors of the auction house and into the night, leaving his companions behind to an uncertain fate. He turned back briefly and glimpsed Jolgar pierced in the chest by the quori’s stinger, Balkris and Peggy holding the line against the cultists as the hobgoblins rushed toward their injured master, and Smith the cleric tending to a fallen Reckoner.

Gaius ran all the way back to Kavv’s in Middle Tavick where Dalia was waiting for him, and gave her the ledger she was seeking.

“Oh, you have brought back the ledger. Well done! But what became of the others? Oh, I’m sure we will find out soon enough.”

Gaius left the meeting in a daze with a purse full of Galifars and more questions than answers. What was contained in the ledger that made it so important? What became of his companions in the tower? Was the creature that they saw in the tower something real, or was all of this just a bad dream? Was there anyone in this city who could be trusted?

At least the answer to the last question was a certainty. For in Sharn the City of Towers, you can trust no one.