Lhestyn’s short reign as Open Lord of Waterdeep began in splendour but was marked by personal tragedy. In the Year of the Catacombs (1308 DR), Lhestyn constructed the Palace of Waterdeep on the site of a ruined abbey of Chauntea. In the Year of the Fist (1311 DR), her husband Zelphar was crushed to death by a sorcerous hand of force.

The perpetrator remains unknown to the Lords to this day (in truth, he was murdered by a lich of the Twisted Rune as a favor to the Shadow Thieves).

Zelphar’s death prompted Durnan, himself a hidden Lord, to found the Red Sashes as his personal agents, creating a precaution against blatant disregard for the watch that had grown increasingly common in Dock Ward. Khelben the Elder secretly returned to Arunsun Tower after the death of his son, phasing out and eventually faking the “death” of his guise as Ducat Eattel by the following year. Over the next ten years, he trained his grandson and namesake, as it gradually became known that Khelben the Younger now claimed his “grandfather’s” tower.