At the Flaming Fist compound, Scar really did have a job for us concerning the Iron Throne. But first, we wanted to bring me to meet someone else. Scar brought us upstairs, and there we met a familiar senior man in full plate mail.
"Sonny, allow me to reintroduce you to Grand Duke Eltan, one of the lords of the city, commander of the Flaming Fist, and member of the Lord's Alliance," Scar said. "Your party has met the Grand Dukes during the interview concerning the Iron Throne's activities in Cloakwood."
The Lords' Alliance or Council of Lords was a gathering of leaders from various merchant city states in Faerun, including Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter, Waterdeep and Silverymoon. These were some of the main adventuring hubs in Forgotten Realms campaigns (excluding Cormyr and the Ten Towns of Icewind Dale), so the Lord's Alliance was a very significant political presence in many TTRPG games. Through the Lord's Alliance, the leaders of these city states could collude on resisting threats such as the Zhentarim, the Shadow Thieves of Amn, and raiders such as orc hordes and Northlanders. Think of the Lord's Alliance as NATO, but made up only of city states and without a superpower like America to back it up.
What I'm trying to say is that members of the Lords Alliance are a big deal.
Duke Eltan spoke with eloquence and authority, "I am glad to see that you have come. I know that such a meeting is unusual, but in these circumstances it is necessary. Considering the role your party has played in the ongoing Iron Crisis, I would like to personally update all of you on some of the current deliberations of the Council of Four. Normally such sensitive information is not to be shared outside the Council, but I have made the decision to put my trust in your party against the wishes of the other Dukes. It will help explain what work I need your party to do."
He bid us take a seat, as his explanation was going to take some time. "As you know, the Council of Four have been considering the testimony put forth by your party and the prisoners from the Cloakwood mines. I'm sorry to tell you that yours isn't the only evidence that we are weighing. There is also significant evidence which currently points towards the Zhentarim. I know your testimony also accounts for the Iron Throne planting this evidence, but the testimony from the bandits we had captured and other more are not easily discounted."
Seriously?!? We're practically spoon-feeding you guys the evidence you need! I felt like I was having a migraine coming on.
"But the Zhetarim do not profit from the iron shortage at all! The Iron Throne does!" Imoen protested.
Scar gave Imoen a glare for speaking out of turn, but Duke Eltan raised a hand. "I am well aware. The Grand Dukes are not fools. And yet, considering the conflicting evidence, we need more decisive evidence of their wrongdoing. That's of course, where you come in. I need a small group of spies to break into the Iron Throne headquarters and see if they can find any proof of the Throne's involvement with the caravan raids. I you do this for me, you'll be paid extremely well: 2k gold to divide among yourselves. What is your answer?"
Of course we agreed. What choice did we have at this point?
Duke Eltan nodded in satisfaction. "You have made a wise decision. It is a difficult mission that I give you, but I am sure that you have the wherewithal to make it through. Return and report to me once you feel you have enough information to use against the Iron Throne."
We had already stood up when he put up his hand again. "Before you go... hrm."
We waited for him to speak, but Duke Eltan hesitated. "There are other forces at work other than your own party which I cannot disclose. However, if you happen to meet one of the leaders of the Iron Throne, have them come to me for an, uh, interview. By force if necessary. That should work in your favor against the Throne. That is all I can say for now."
---
We hurried to the Iron Throne. To our surprise, no one barred our entry. As a matter of fact, a man dressed in office attire was running out as we walked in.
"Out! Away! Fly while you can! There be madness here and I can stand it no longer!" he cried.
When he tried to side-step us, I barred his way. He nearly bowled me over had Khalid not also done the same. "A moment good ser. What madness has beset this place?"
"Good luck to you, is all I can say!" he responded, still trying to get past. "Madness seethes here and amongst Sarevok's crazed acolytes it overflows. I'm a simple merchant after a pretty coin but I swear it isn't worth it to suffer this place so long."
How kind of him to explain his motivations!
I flashed a bag of coins in front of the man. "I'll make it worth your while. We have business here and we'd rather not catch the madness here ourselves."
The look of fear in the man's eyes was replaced by fascination. "Aye, I guess, but I'll not be long about it. The acolytes I mentioned, they stay with Thaldorn on the fifth floor. Six of them, there are, and their madness comes in pairs: two priests, two mages, two hardened thugs. But there is something wrong about them. If they were here for the simple joys of pretty coin, I'd have no quarrel with them. But no, they would not deign to be so human. There is something more, some secret agenda and I know not what… Ack, even now I can feel their pestilential eyes upon me. Your lure can keep me here no longer, I'm afraid."
I didn't strictly need to give the man my hard-earned money, of course. Especially since I already knew what encounter awaited us above. But the context of my actions was important to my party in order to make my actions believable.
"Two priests, two mages and two hardened thugs. And they're described as Sarevok's acolytes, not Rieltar or the other leaders," I noted to the team.
"Acolytes of whom? Cyric? We've met plenty of worshippers of Cyric amongst the Iron Throne," Neera said.
"If it were worshippers of Cyric, they'd fit right in," Jaheira said. "If another god is involved, we could have found our so-called 'son of murder'…"
As expected, my party catches on quick. After we had our run in with the palm reader, everyone's been cognisant of some divine influence in the seemingly mundane Iron Crisis.
"I'm more interested in the composition. That many spell casters and two warriors could be a challenge, if it comes to that," Imoen noted.
"It's been awhile since we've had an actual challenge," Branwen said with a smile. "I welcome it wholly."
---
Occasionally, a lone guard would politely question our presence.
Correctly duping the guards required for us to pay attention to the dealings of the Iron Throne. Players who read the BG1 manual would know that The Iron Throne were banned from operating in Cormyr due to their nefarious activities there, so trying to pretend to be Iron Throne agents from Cormyr would not make a good cover story. From the letter had intercepted read, we did know that the superiors of the Iron Throne were based in Sembia, and so it was believable for the superiors there to be pass orders to the Baldur's Gate branch leaders (Rieltar Anchev, Brunos Costak and Thaldorn Tenhevich) through messengers.
"We've business with your leaders. We've just come from Sembia and are quite weary, so if you would just step aside, we would be grateful."
---
First things first, we checked out the basement and the exit which leads to the sewers. This sewer exit is an important point to mark in the sewers to visit the Iron Throne in future chapters without being discovered. After shooing away the guard, we helped ourselves to some loot:
Protection scrolls of Protection From Acid, Protection From Cold,
Potion of Storm Giant Strength, Potion of Genius, Potion of Insulation, and a cursed potion.
---
As we climbed up the stairs, one particular guard had some interesting things to say. When he questioned our presence, we made sure to mention we were meeting Sarevok's acolytes, since we already knew about those guys.
"Hmph. Better you than me. Working with that crowd can be downright creepy, some days," the man said.
We asked him to elaborate.
"I seen people go up there with—with one face and—and come back down with another. I don't know how else to say it. I got a keen eye for faces, I do, and I think—I think them people going up and down know it, too, 'cause one time one of them caught me looking at him and he winked right at me and the... and he changed the colors of his left eye, right as I was watching him! It started out a chocolate brown but then it went all quicksilver for a moment, like the mercury the mages play with, and then he was gone and out the door, laughing his high-pitched laugh."
Uh oh. And we had already met the doppelgangers.
The party looked at each other with concern in their eyes.
"Who are the people who go up and come down different?" Jaheira asked.
"Competition of the Iron Throne. Mostly members of the Seven Suns trading coster or the Merchants' League. They have both been attempting to negotiate a tentative peace between the different economic powers in the city. I fear it's not peace they're finding, however... at least not of the type they came looking for. Something's going on upstairs and I'd rather not think about what it could be."
Soon after, the party conferred a moment. Well, perhaps conferred is a strong word since the only word we shared was me asking the rest, "Doppelgangers?"
They all nodded silently. We already knew that the Iron Throne had been replacing their competitors with doppelgangers, though we had undermined their work with the Seven Suns by rescuing Jhasso at Commander's Scar's behest. Hearing more confirmation wasn't particularly pleasing.