Bargewright Inn

Once a hilltop wayside inn, this site has become a walled community of ramshackle, frequently rebuilt wooden towers and buildings. Its structures now entirely cloak a hill that overlooks the village of Womford across the Dessarin River. A long wood bridge, wide enough across for a single wagon to cross, spans the river between these two settlements. Known as the Ironford Bridge, it has stood for centuries but is showing its age.

Bargewright Inn reeks of manure and filthy mud. It houses dealers who buy and sell horses, mules, and oxen, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, coopers, and wagon-makers. It has inns, stables, and warehouses, and two concentric rings of high walls with gates that are barred at night. (From sunset until dawn, someone who wants to enter or leave can pay a stiff fee to be raised or lowered on a rope-slung chair, but nothing can be taken along beyond what the customer can carry.

Bargewright Inn fell under Zhentarim influence a few years ago. Any member or ally of that faction can find a discreet welcome (and few or low fees) within its walls. Bargewright Inn is ruled by a plutocracy of business owners, most of whom are in the pockets of the Black Network. The unofficial leader is Chalaska Muruin, theterse, cold-eyed "Senior Sword" and master of the militia.

The largest inn, the Old Bargewright, was recently rebuilt as a substantial stone structure with thick walls and private chambers hidden behind secret doors. Innkeeper Nalaskur Thaelond keeps watch over who comes and goes, fore this is where Zhentarim operatives meet to broker deals involving smuggled goods, poisons, dangerous magic, and the like. Nalaskur is a member of the Black Network.

One of the inn's few permanent residents is Arik Stillmarsh, a well-dressed, young-looking man with a sallow complexion who lives like a hermit in a corner room on the uppermost floor of the old inn. Rumor among the rabble has it that Stillmarsh swindled one or more prominent Waterdhavian families, and that the Black Network is sheltering him. In truth, Stillmarsh is a vampire whom Nalaskur occasionally calls upon to dispose of unwanted guests. Stillmarsh has an agreement with Nalaskur not to feed on locals or other guests withouth the Black Network's approval. To sate his appetite at other times, he preys on rural encampments, night travelers on the Long Road, and the poor people of Womford. In Wormford, the vampire is spoken of in whispers as the "Womford Bat."

Stillmarsh's earth-filled coffin is hidden in the attic above his room at the Old Bargewright, accessible through a secret door in the ceiling of a closet. Spotting that door requires a successful DC15 WIS(perception) check.