Runer's Alley

'''Runer's Alley''' is located in Sea Ward, Waterdeep.

This short, three-branched passage winds through the triangular city block that stands between Julthoon Street, Haltover Street, and the Sutherlane. It is named for the Runer, a minstrel who slept here for years.

A wizard once mistakenly thought Runer’'s pipes were enchanted and his song a magical attack, so he used a dispel magic on the minstrel. It stripped away Runer's magical disguise, revealing him to be a missing noblewoman, Shrylla Manthar.

This eccentric free spirit had fled when her parents told her whom to marry and escaped discovery for almost 30 years. Unmasked, she refused to return to her house and station and lived on in this alley becoming known as Shrylla of the Spiders. Her long, fantastically coifed hair hid not only needle daggers and lockpicks, but a poisonous spider trained to defend her.

Feeling death coming, she climbed Mount Waterdeep to see one last dawn and died there. Her body was not discovered for months among the rocks—-and the spider lived on in her skull, using one empty, staring eye socket as its door.