```col-mdflexGrow=2.5===# Outline# Introduction > [!read-aloud] **Read Aloud** > > It is early in the morning and the sun is just coming up. Everything is quiet, as most of the city's inhabitants are still asleep. Most of [[article/the-city-watch]] are asleep too, but a few are on duty. > > You are among those few. You are on patrol through the quiet streets, halfway through an uneventful shift. The patrol route takes you past a familiar building, The City Guard Armoury, where the city's weapons, shields and armour are stored. There is normally a guard on duty outside the building, and the last time your route took you past the building, about twenty minutes earlier, you had said hello to your colleague Julio. This time, however, he is not there, and his post is deserted. > # Act I Julio's body is just out of sight inside the building. He has been stabbed. A criminal gang has killed him, and released two ![[1236744]]|Rust Monsters (MM p262) into the armoury. The creatures are currently munching their way through The City Guard's weapons and armour; the PCs must stop them.# Act II The bakery across the street is open, and if the PCs question the owners, they will find out that the baker, Mr. Muffin, and his wife did actually witness [[plots/the-attack]]. Mr. Muffin is reluctant to get involved, but Mrs. Muffin is actually the owner of the dog Billy, who the PCs rescued (or at least tried to rescue) in session 2, so she will be very happy to return the favour by telling the PCs all that she knows.What Mrs. Muffin knows:- A group of shifty looking men attacked the guard without warning. Soon afterwards, a horse and cart turned up with two giant bugs on the back in a wooden cage. The men released the bugs into the armoury, shut the door, and ran away.- Mrs Muffin did actually recognise some of them they had been in her shop a few times while they were (she now realises) casing the joint. They were members of the Shadow Rats gang.- The Shadow Rats gang are a small group of petty criminals, who would not usually be able to carry out an organised attack like this.- She doesn't know where the gang is based.- She has heard rumours recently that the city has a new crime boss someone who is organising all the small gangs into one big gang.- A few days ago she happened to see some of the Shadow Rats outside her shop, in deep discussion with someone she happened to recognize. She recognised this person because he is a local celebrity he was that young wizard chap with the yellow beard who was on the winning team of [[plots/the-escape-dungeon]] tournament a few weeks ago! He lives in the big house on Centaur Street.# Act III When the PCs arrive at Centaur Street, they will find the house locked and apparently empty. The door can be broken down on a DC15 strength check. Inside, it is clear that the house belongs to a wizard. There are papers, books and magical ingredients scattered all over the place.The house is indeed empty, apart from one room, the study, which is locked from the inside. This door can be broken down on a DC12 strength check. Once inside, anyone with any knowledge of arcana will identify that the room's occupier has been focusing on spells to summon monsters, and to open up magic portals. There is a summoning circle painted on the floor.The study also contains all that remains of the young wizard one of his severed feet. The rest of the wizard has been eaten by a ![[1236748]]|Mimic (MM p220) that he summoned and failed to control.The mimic is injured (on half hit points, since Yellowbeard put up a fight) and is now disguised as a chest in the corner, waiting for the PCs to become its next meal.If the PCs search the study they will find a pair of ![[1237901]]|Gauntlets of Ogre Power (DMG p171) which they can keep.# Epilogue The papers reveal that the wizard, Yellowbeard, had recently been recruited by someone called 'The Nameless One' to head up the Shadow Rats and undermine [[article/the-city-watch]] as much as possible. He sent the rust monsters to the armoury, and his next idea had been to install a mimic in the guards' barracks, but this has not gone according to plan.``````col-md![[plots/the-city-watch/table-of-contents|Table of Contents]]```