Refresher: Our adventurers Lugs (grung barbarian), Lurk (grung rogue), Aelia (tiefling cleric), and Valas (drow sorcerer) with tagalong Deku (ratfolk cleric) returned to the Rat's Nest from the Sunless Citadel, taking Chadley to get help as well as ferrying the subdued remaining members of the Goblin Gang. Lurk tried to steal the magic items he ordered from Boak's blacksmith while the shop was closed during the night. They also met up with Meepo, who has started helping out around the church and the Yawning Rodent tavern.
Lulu, the church priest, was able to start examining Chadley's condition. Although he looks plant-like now, it seems that he's been transformed into some kind of undead creature. He stayed at the Rat's Nest, knowing he's in no condition to go back to the citadel and save his sister McKennedeigh and remaining mercenary Bradley.
The rest of the party returned to the Sunless Citadel, leaving the Goblin Gang free to leave the Rat's Nest and head towards the next surface city if they so wish. While exploring another shrine room to the red dragon Ashardalon on their way to Belak, Shadows have attacked!
Sunless Citadel spoilers!
The party are caught by surprise as five Shadows rear out from the darkness and strike. Caught in their grasp for just a moment, Lurk feels his strength get drained by the featureless black monster, leaving him weak. The Shadows also seem resistant to most attacks, and even Aelia's fire spells don't do much, unable to penetrate the thick darkness - however, their forms can't withstand much damage, and the adventurers are able to extinguish them. Even Lugs' fire snake companion joined the fight, but after taking some hits from the Shadows, they began to retreat the way they came.
Lugs goes after his fire snake, finding them huddled in the previous room after leaving a small trail of blood. Not proficient in medicine, Lugs reckons the snake is ok, since he loses blood all the time, too, but he's fine. With a "pspspspsps", he manages to convince the snake to calm down and resume following them.
Lurk has a proper look around the shrine room, and finds a loose brick behind the statue - where the Shadows came from. Bracing himself for a trap, he pulls on the brick, but simply finds some gemstones, gold coins, and a golden circlet that resembles interweaving flames and with an inset garnet as the centrepiece. For once, he distributes the gold coins evenly.
As Deku had already had a good search through the ruined library and taken the books and enchantment recipes of interest, the party continues onwards. Lugs tears out some pages from an old book and puts it in his mouth, offering some to Deku. "Ah, I love to consume knowledge, but not really like that..."
Lugs swallows the pages with some difficulty, his face twinged with regret.
They try to start sneaking quietly, but Deku in his large and clunky armour can't help but rattle, and Lugs starts laying out paper for Deku to tread on and crunch for some reason. The next hallway is an underpass, supposedly leading beneath the last arboretum they passed through, and it continues around a corner extremely far. Ditching the stealth, Lurk runs to the end of the hallway, but no traps are set off. He finds two doors, and, after finding them free of traps as well, listens with his head pressed against the wood. He hears nothing from either one.
Lurk goes through the far door, walking into what appears to be a storeroom with crates of dead white tree branches. One of the walls has completely caved in to what appears to be a giant rift that's now become one with the Sunless Citadel, stretching for over 100 feet before a bend where it continues out of view. The floor of the rift is covered in a thick web of dead, sun-starved brambles and shrubbery.
He calls back to the rest of the party in the hallway that it's safe to come in. However, as he walks into the storeroom, twig blights that had been camouflaged amongst the brambles tear themselves out of the ground and start rushing the adventurers! Apart from the brambles proving difficult to safely move through for Aelia and Valas - anyone larger than the two small grung and the ratfolk - the fight is an easy win, as they're used to the aggressive but frail twig blights by now.
Valas, looking down the length of the large rift, spots a humanoid figure in armour just at the bend over 100ft away. The group thinks that it could be McKennedeigh. After they start heading towards the figure, the figure appears to notice them, and begins to shamble their way through the brambles towards our heroes. Their gait is slow and stilted, like they're being controlled with puppet strings. As they get closer, they see that it's a decently muscular human in heavy armour, with short brown hair and pale skin. A second human with long blonde hair, dressed in lighter adventuring robes and with a tome in hand, comes from around the bend following his lead. There's an insignia on her robes that, even from this distance, resembles the Hucrele insignia; she must be McKennedeigh. She's an even paler shade - reminiscent of Chadley's sickly white skin from the experiments performed on him. Deku observes them as they slowly get closer, and says that, if they weren't moving, he would think they were dead, their eyes glazed over and an unnerving shade of red.
From behind them comes a third figure: a human in heavy robes, with a hood over his head. On his back is a quarterstaff, almost strapped to him reminiscent of a plant's stake. He has a cropped beard, and his skin looks like it was once sporting a golden glow and sun spots from working outside, but has since paled and dulled from being underground so long. At his hip are sample collection vials and small gardening implements. He walks more confidently and deliberately behind the two shambling humans, and points a sickle towards the party of adventurers. "Hold a moment, you know not what you do!" he booms out.
Deku is upset and angry, and accuses him of being the one who forced the Goblin Gang to work for him against their will, and experimented on Chadley. He demands that he turn McKennedeigh and Bradley back to normal.
The man - who formerly introduces himself as Belak the Outcast - laughs and says that the two humans are beyond saving now, and that his experiments are great, actually. His previous circle of spellcasters cast him out for his ambitions and experimentations, but he says he has since found his place with the Wizards of the Coast, worshipping Ashardalon.
Behind Belak is a large tree, white and dead in appearance. Belak remarks on this, saying that although it looks dead, it's still alive and is a beautiful wonder. It's called the Gulthias tree, and it grew from a wooden stake that slayed a vampire on this very spot a long time ago. McKennedeigh, Bradley, and Chadley all resemble the tree's white bark, Chadley even more-so with the twigs, leaves, and roots growing out of him.
Aelia and Deku say that Belak will pay for what he's done. Belak, knowing that they already took care of his Goblin Gang employees, is ready. Bradley draws a shield and a longsword with an artful but spiky, jagged hilt, and McKennedeigh takes on a stance that even Lugs recognises to be that of a spellcaster readying a spell. Worried his fire snake will get hurt, Lugs motions for them to retreat back through the storeroom, which they do.
Belak calls out over his shoulder, "Kulket, come! Kill them!"
From the branches of the Gulthias tree leaps out a giant frog, landing in front of Belak to face the adventurers. Belak takes his quarterstaff off his back and uses it to cast Barkskin on himself, armouring himself with a layer of thick and rough skin. With another spell, he casts Shillelagh, and his wooden quarterstaff also starts to split outwards to become jagged and dangerous. The fight begins...
@tamisrandom asked me to help DM a group she had, comprising of herself, @tauntingcrow, @bladeverbena and @wehavekookies. All Tieflings, all wanting D&D Shenanigans and more gay ships than the San Francisco Harbour. Old daddy tieflings would not want to be walking around the forests.
Waterdeep Dragon Heist would be a fun, lighthearted adventure that could be tweaked to focus on character growth in a confined environment. It would also cater to the generally informal play style I suspected the players enjoyed. So I agreed, and began to prep.
How to Prep for the game if you’re a perfectionist but also lazy DM.
1) Prepare the platform for play. Purchase content where available. Oh shit, no I can’t. Roll20 module only loads 25% of the plot based on season, and I want to run the Alexandrain Remix. Damn. Time to purchase the Complete WDH Bundle on DM Guild by Valeur RPG instead! It has nearly every map but Trollskull Alley/Manor. That’s alright, Reddit to the Rescue. Damn, now I must add dynamic lighting boundaries. Okay, that’s fine. I’m getting good with Roll20 shortcuts, this shouldn’t take too long. Note: it did take long.
2) Upload info for the players into Journal. This took too long. Thank you Wikipedia and Google. I made a Witchypedia on Roll20 to summarise some key points of Volo’s Enchiridion, since the characters would know these thing prior to the campaign (All of them are Waterdhavians). I uploaded some key NPCs from the campaign too, with free to access basic info about them. Also, I got to find me sexy Renaer Neverember artwork, mmm. He was always my fave NPC in this.
3) Select classes. Cool, classes chosen. Wait, you’re a what now? Okay rogue. No, you’re a bard now? A rogue/bard. You have a mask, fine. Mysterious. I guess that would be important to your class-- You also want a bromeo/dudeliette romance? Okay, that’s awesome, here’s a hot guy in the story—Aww, you like him. If you respect your dude one more time, so help me god.
4) Integrate backstory for characters. Let’s have the players (all daddies anyway) already be Waterdhavians. Now to give them links to key elements in the plot that will unfold... All the secrets, all woven in, all buttons for emotional pain down the road when I destroy your characters’ lives through the course of the plot. Each character has an arc and a backstory to develop. Everyone has a bond that can make or break them… – thank you for involving me in this process. One is grateful. So now I have a bunch of early 40s old guys with Back Story™ who somehow… are level 2. Okay, life happens. Over 40s maybe don’t really get into the adventuring gig so don’t level up.
5) Integrate characters into setting. Damn, now they need residences, jobs, contacts. I’m lazy, let’s have them think stuff up. Okay they are into it, cool. OKAY they are TOO into this. ACK! That’s a lot of NPCs! Distract! Get them to design houses for their guys instead! Now they all have residences – with maps for in-game visits and bonking. It’s oddly character-building to create one’s residence. Hold up, is there only one character here with a legitimate source of income? And one janitor.
6) Connect characters to each other. Somehow, I can’t remember how, they wound up all being connected through one woman – Madame Chaudron. This woman of unusual magical gifts is the owner of the brothel called the Polished Horn who also runs an information network comprising of mainly non-human gigolos, prostitutes and courtesans. Otho the janitor works there, Antiphony who works for her as a cats-paw has quarters here, Savos identifies odd items for her and visits once a year on his birthday, while Than provides perfectly safe 100% organic recreational restoratives for her masked parties. Through her, all 4 diverse characters are gathered, leading us to…
7) Examine the campaign hook. I don’t want to start with 4 Randos Meet in A Bar. Let’s have Chaudron hear that her friend Volo needs help, and gathers the warlock with the cunning eyes, the rogue with the nimble hands, the janitor with his odd penchant for setting things ablaze, and the doctor who can keep them alive, while also turning into a bear.
8) I turn my back for 2 mins and the tumblr artists are sharing smut pics on discord. I approve of this. It is time for session 0.
Refresher: Our adventurers Lugs (grung barbarian), Lurk (grung rogue), Aelia (tiefling cleric), and Valas (drow sorcerer) with tagalong Deku (ratfolk cleric) defeated the Shadows in the Ashardalon shrine, and finally found the man pulling all the strings behind the Goblin Gang: Belak the Outcast. With him are McKennedeigh and Bradley, who look like undead that Belak is controlling, with similar plant growths and pale skin compared to Chadley.
Sunless Citadel spoilers!
Belak calls upon his giant frog, Kulket, who jumps down in front of him from the branches of the Gulthias tree. Belak climbs onto the frog's back, commanding him to attack Lugs. The frog croaks, before jumping into the air to land in front of the grung, although Lugs fends off Kulket's bite as well as Belak's Shillelagh quarterstaff attacks.
Valas starts shooting Chaos Bolts aided by his Tides of Chaos, and Lurk starts throwing psychic knives at Belak. Belak takes it all despite his Barkskin armour, and when the final psychic knife hits him in-between the eyes, he topples unceremoniously off of Kulket's back and lands face-down in Lugs' swamp water with a splash.
The party rejoices, having defeated the druid. Having expected McKennedeigh and Sir Bradley to hopefully snap out of their mind control, however, they watch in horror as the two almost slump over, before their eyes grow brighter and they start to move, feral and fast. Sprinting to his lifeless body, they begin feverishly consuming their former master.
Valas, overcome by the energy of his own spells, feels the wash of wild magic over him - but, with a sigh of relief, it feels soothing like healing magic, giving him temporary HP this time. Kulket jumps over Lugs' head and lands in front of the sorcerer, not wanting to stick around for more of Lugs' attacks. The party is excited and wants to befriend the giant frog, even as he tries to bite Valas.
McKennedeigh and Bradley's previous wounds from the fight begin to heal over, and when they stand up, they look more vicious and powerful. Bradley runs at Lugs, using his magic sword to smash the barbarian's magic flail and render it unusable. Although the damage could probably be repaired by Boak, Lugs falls to his knees, holding the broken flail and screaming, "nooooooooooooooooooo!" in Grung.
McKennedeigh, her nails long and claw-like, begins scaling the cavern wall, hissing and shooting a Ray of Frost. Bradley moves onto his next target, slashing his sword into Aelia. She stumbles backwards, dodging the second attack but badly wounded. She summons a Spiritual Weapon in the shape of a large glowing mace embedded with gemstones to defend herself with.
Every few seconds, more and more twig blights tear themselves out of the brambles and start running at the party. They're fragile, but the waves keep on coming even though the party keeps trying to beat them back.
Lurk runs past the thick of the battle, taking aim at the Gulthias tree with one of his new Alchemist's Arrows. He shoots, and when the arrow hits the tree, the flask smashes and the bright orange potion quickly sets the dry and dead-looking tree alight. Suddenly, the twig blights all start to converge on him, enraged.
The spellbook on McKennedeigh's hip opens and the pages flutter as she casts Colour Spray on Lurk from her spot on the cavern wall. The flash of lights temporarily blinds him, and, surrounded by the twig blights, he's not in a good position. He uses his new Ring of the Flock to summon a swarm of ravens over his head, and they carry the small grung to safety next to Lugs.
Deku runs forward and bravely casts Sacred Flame on Bradley, still keeping up an upcast Bless spell on the whole party to bolster their saves and their attacks. He and Aelia are both out of spell slots by now, though, and a lot of the party is looking badly hurt. Valas casts another Chaos Bolt, this time sending a powerful shot of force damage that punches a hole straight through Bradley's torso. The undead mercenary grunts and tries to step forward, but after a beat, he falls into the dirt, finished.
Overcome by the excitement and relief of having defeated this terrifying and well-armoured adversary, the power of his magic starts to bubble up and overwhelm Valas once again; he feels the crackle of embers and sparks run along his body. Suddenly, a fireball erupts with him at the centre, flames billowing out in a huge arc around him. He throws his arms up instinctively, quickly casting Absorb Elements to take some of the sting out - luckily, this saves him, as well as his regenerating temporary HP from his prior stint with wild magic. He'd already been trying to physically distance himself from the rest of the party in case of such an occurrence, but Kulket was still in range of the Fireball spell, and the fire damage was too much for him. To Valas' dismay, the giant frog is killed by the blast.
Aelia runs towards the congregated twig blights where Lurk had once been, and channels her divinity to cast Radiance of the Dawn, sending a wave of brilliant radiant light out from herself and blasting into the surrounding enemies. It wipes out almost all of the current twig blights, and even McKennedeigh gets hit, hissing and trying to shut her eyes against the sudden light.
Furious and hurt, McKennedeigh crawls down the cavern wall and jumps off to run at Aelia, ferociously swiping her clawed hands at the cleric and baring her fangs. Aelia backs away from the attacks, and Lugs runs to her aid, swinging his club into McKennedeigh and sending her smashing into the wall. She collapses, finally knocked unconscious from the blow.
The party takes a deep breath now that the fight is just about over. The Gulthias tree continues to burn, and only the twig blights remain. Lurk spots the magic fruit he and Lugs had come here looking for: a bright, shiny, apple-like item growing out of the trunk like a cyst. Before it's harmed by the fire, he sends his swarm of ravens to extract it and bring it back to him. Lugs, proficient in nature knowledge despite his overall lack of Intelligence, calmly tells Lurk not to eat the fruit; this does appear to be the ruby red fruit of legends, able to heal any ailment, that they had been tasked with finding.
No longer threatened by more powerful foes, the adventurers easily take care of the weak twig blights until the tree finally burns out - after that, no more keep appearing from the undergrowth. The smoke filling the cavern is thick, black, and acrid. Valas, a drow born in the Underdark, had never seen anything so bright in his life before this huge tree was set ablaze.
The smoke starts becoming too much before long, and they begin retreating back to the storeroom at the start of the cavern. Deku tied up McKennedeigh, so Aelia and Lugs carefully carry her with them.
Once the tree is nothing but the blackened remains of a trunk, Lugs - immune to poison due to being a grung and strong enough to carry the bodies - ventures back in to haul out Bradley and Belak's remains so the party can inspect them in a safer spot that isn't as eye-watering and toxic. The rest of the cavern appears to be empty of anything but brambles; Belaks' large and lifeless garden. Even now, they can already tell that Belak's corpse wasn't really eaten by McKennedeigh and Bradley - it's more like his blood was drained. Concerned at the vampiric behaviour, the party wonders if Chadley is ok back at the Rat's Nest, as he had gotten slightly worse since they left the Sunless Citadel with him the previous day by developing darkvision and reacting to holy water as though he was undead.
Moving on to find proper shelter from the smoke, so Lurk opens the door to the unexplored room by the storeroom entrance. Inside, it appears to be Belak's study, lined with shelves of books and an untidy desk.
Refresher: Our adventurers Lugs (grung barbarian), Lurk (grung rogue), Aelia (tiefling cleric), and Valas (drow sorcerer) with tagalong Deku (ratfolk cleric) fought Belak, his giant frog, McKennedeigh, and Bradley in Belak's grove. While Belak was taken down fairly easily, his death caused McKennedeigh and Bradley to go in a frenzy, drinking the blood from his body and becoming stronger. After a tough fight, the party managed to kill Bradley, and tie up an unconscious McKennedeigh. Lugs and Lurk grabbed the ruby red fruit of the Gulthias tree before it was set entirely ablaze, filling the cavern with smoke. The party took shelter in what seems to have been Belak's study.
Sunless Citadel spoilers!
Now in Belak's study, Lugs sits at his desk and tries to mime doing work with all the papers. He finds a candle in a candle holder, and deduces that it had been burning several hours ago - someone must have been here recently!!! Thinking hard, he takes the candle stick and eats it.
Aelia finds a few spell scrolls, as well as a mantle of some more valuable items; gemstones, Belak's stash of gold, a glove with a rune design on the back of the hand, and a silver circlet inlaid with a sapphire. Meanwhile, Deku goes through the bookshelves, and finds several titles placed closer to the desk that look more heavily used. One is called Born to Die, a book in Common about the Druidic theories of the life and death cycle. There's also Treasures of the Fire Lords, a collection of ancient journals written in Elven, and, finally, his stolen library book Cults Around the World.
Cults Around the World:
True to the title, it details several cults around the world. One such cult is called the Cult of the Dragon, also known as the Keepers of the Secret Hoard, who lived in the Sunless Citadel for 1400 years until the Cataclysm. The citadel was once called Maetrine Keep, home to a powerful vampire called Illythia. The cult took over, but were a secretive and shadowy group. It's said that a huge red dragon could be seen about the citadel during the cult's reign. The cult is said to have perished when the Sunless Citadel - along with other citadels across the continent - sunk beneath the earth during the Cataclysm 800 years ago.
Although he recognises the popular language the script is written in, Deku passes the old diaries to Valas, who can read Elven. Deku assumes, with disgust, that they're Belak's journals regarding his experiments.
The Vampire Diaries:
Written in Elven, this appears to be a collection of journals kept by an old, experienced, and powerful vampire woman called Illythia. It talks about her building a large citadel for herself called Maetrine Keep, in which she ruled over the nearby lands with her army of vampire spawn for approximately 300 years. The land Maetrine Keep stood over is described in the journals as a large and dense forest with a winding river running through it from the ocean, and seems to be set pre-Cataclysm.
Valas flips to the most recent page of the unfinished final diary. The last pages tell of Illythia's army and of the threat of an encroaching army - led by Ashardalon - but doesn't end. Interspersed throughout the journals are much more recent slips of parchment, with a different handwriting and notes taken in common on vampire biology and magic.
Next, Deku tries to read Treasures of the Fire Lords. As he opens it up to the second page, a warding glyph on the paper lights up, activating an icy explosion that fills the room. On instinct, Deku immediately throws the book away from himself before hiding inside his oversized armour like a turtle, and Valas - unable to take much more pain - uses his last spell slot to cast Absorb Elements on himself and take just a quarter of the damage. Wounded from their previous battle, Lurk and Aelia take the full brunt of the explosion, slamming them against the study's walls with ice before they slump to the ground, unconscious. Lugs, brawnier than most, is able to absorb the hit, and he rushes over to his brother's body to start helping him. He tips water from his barrel into Lurk's mouth, filling up his cheeks like a balloon.
Deku comes over and pushes Lugs out of the way, complimenting him on his good work, before gently compressing Lurk's chest so the water squirts out of his mouth like a fountain instead of drowning him. With his cleric knowledge and his medicine kit, he's able to stabilise both Lurk and Aelia. The still conscious party members make some space on the rug for Lurk and Aelia to rest and sleep it off, Lurk propped up on a bed of books that Lugs made for him.
The Treasures of the Fire Lords book is worse for wear now, but what remains seems to be writing in Common matching the annotations in the vampire diaries - Belak's writing, all research notes on his experiments on Chadley, McKennedeigh, and Bradley. It mentions that Chadley was experimented on differently to the latter two, and Valas and Deku are concerned to hear this, unsure if Chadley is currently ok at the Rat's Nest.
Lugs beckons his fire snake to sleep against the storeroom wall outside the study, and the snake does so, as Lugs seems to have had good luck with befriending the creature who's still full on the goblin he fed them. They bring McKennedeigh's tied-up body inside the study so they can keep watch over her, and wedge the doors shut with pitons in case of intruders. Secure, the party takes a long rest for the rest of the day, which passes by without issue.
They have the chance to inspect some of the potentially-magic items they'd picked up recently. The gold circlet with metal woven into flames and a ruby in the centre is called the Circlet of Ignition, which lets the wearer cast the 2nd-level spell Flame Blade once per day. The silver circlet with delicate weaving and a sapphire is the Sojourner's Circlet of Rituals, giving the wearer advantage on maintaining concentration during ritual spells. Lastly, the butler-looking glove is The Master's Glove, which can be used to cast Unseen Servant spell once per day. On the inside of the Sojourner's Circlet of Rituals are etchings in Dwarven, which read, "Made in the Glitterhame caverns of Khundrukar. Quality assured!"
Later, Deku checks up on Aelia and Lurk as they wake up. McKennedeigh has also woken up, and is writhing around, hissing and spitting in a vicious fury. Lugs gives her a few bonks with his club until she passes out again.
Aelia eagerly claims the Circlet of Ignition, Deku takes the Sojourner's Circlet of Rituals, and Lugs takes The Master's Glove.
The party leaves the study and heads back towards the remains of the Gulthias tree, intending on investigating it further now that the fire has gone out. Everyone else stays very far back as Lugs goes on ahead to crack open the burnt husk of the trunk. Inside is a lot of empty space, with burnt vein-like structures twisting all the way down from the outer shell of the tree towards its base, where it all comes together and twists into a wooden stake that's been jammed into the torso of a skeleton with enough force to break several ribs. Just the torso of the skeleton is visible above ground, never having had a proper burial. Lugs chuckles to himself, and uses The Master's Glove to have the unseen servant - an invisible, mindless force - puppet the skeleton's torso while he steps back and feigns surprise and fear. The performance is so overblown and shoddy that it doesn't fool anyone, and the brittle, ancient skeleton begins to break apart as it's manipulated and no longer pinned in place by the stake.
They think this is Illythia's skeleton - the corpse of the slain vampire who initially built this citadel before the Cult of the Dragon moved in.
Lugs breaks off the stake from the rest of the tree that grew from it, while Deku also takes some samples of bone and bark just in case they want to study it later. With nothing else of note, the party begin heading back to the well shaft so they can leave the Sunless Citadel.
Aelia tries to come up with a plan on what they'll say to Yusdrayl when they get back to the upper floor, as they obviously aren't returning with Calcryx like they kept saying they would. She points out that she and Lurk still bear the marks of ice burns from the glyph explosion before their rest, and hopes to use that as proof that they fought Calcryx down here, at least.
They reach the well shaft that is their only known path to the upper level of the citadel, and Lurk climbs on ahead to scout. Lugs takes a barrel and some chains from the laboratory they passed through, combining them with rope to make a big bucket his fire snake can climb into while he carries them up. Unable to carry both the fire snake and McKennedeigh, however, he opts to leave his heavy water barrel behind for the time being, and offers Aelia (the second strongest party member) 100 gold to help him carry his fire snake, which she hesitantly accepts.
When Lurk's about 30 feet from the top of the 80 foot shaft, he hears Yusdrayl's voice calling out to him, asking him how their search went and what happened to Belak. Above him, Yusdrayl is leaning over the lip of the well, her big golden eyes peering down. Panicking, Lurk doesn't answer her question, and instead asks if she has a bathroom he can use. Dumbfounded, Yusdrayl says that the Kobold Gang often just goes out in the Underdark, away from the citadel. Lurk keeps insisting that they must have a bathroom and that he needs to use it, and Yusdrayl asks him why he doesn't just go on the lower floor, which must be empty of threats if they defeated Belak. Lurk gives in and climbs back down, to do his 'number 3s'.
When he gets to the bottom of the shaft, he tells the rest of the party what happened, and that Yusdrayl is on the lookout for them. Unsure of what else they can do, the party climbs up, and hears Yusdrayl calling back down to them again when they're about halfway.
Yusdrayl demands to know where Calcryx is, but Valas asks if they can answer her questions once they're done climbing up the shaft, as they're exhausted and don't want to fall. Yusdrayl says that they better answer her quickly, then. Indignant, Aelia starts arguing with her, confused as to why Yusdrayl has stopped trusting them. Ignoring Yusdrayl's warnings, Aelia continues climbing up the shaft, though she stops when Valas notices Yusdrayl's elite guards leaning over the lip of the well with their slingshots trained on the party.
Valas tells Yusdrayl that they did find Calcryx with Belak as they theorised they would, but that the white dragon was not yet loyal to the druid, and she fled into the Underdark soon after the fighting started. Unable to ignore Belak, the party had to stay and fight him instead of give chase to her. Yusdrayl wants proof of their story, but Valas tells her that they can't have proof because Calcryx is gone. The Kobold Gang leader relents and allows the party to climb up to Durnn's chamber, but on the condition that she'll be sending some of her bandits down to look for any traces of Calcryx to verify their story.
The adventurers climb to the top of the well, and find that they're surrounded by the Kobold Gang. Amongst them is Durnn, grinning sadistically. Yusdrayl explains that she's grateful that they took care of the Goblin Gang for her, but that Durnn had eventually come back to tell her about the party betraying her, saying that they took Calcryx from the Goblin Gang days ago but still never returned her to Yusdrayl. She was convinced that Durnn would just be trying to get her to turn against them, but resolved to see if the party would finally return with only excuses and no white dragon one final time.
Durnn tells her that, if Valas' story is true, Belak's grove and study - where Durnn says the druid would've been - is very far away from the one exit to the Underdark on that floor, which is very close to the well shaft. Valas says that a new rift opened up in the grove, which is where Calcryx escaped, but Durnn just comments how convenient that would be for their story.
Instead of climbing up with the rest of the party, Lurk had instead climbed back down the shaft. Yusdrayl demands to know where he's gone, and Aelia says that he wasn't done 'with his number 3s' yet. 'Number 3s' sound like a truly horrific burden to bear. Yusdrayl sends down two of her bandits as well as an elite guard to the lower floor to investigate for signs of Calcryx, and they pass by Lurk on his way up as they climb back down.
When Lurk reaches the top, he telepathically communicates to Aelia and Valas (as he can only do so with 2 people at a time) that he set his two hunting traps at the base of the shaft. He tells Lugs that in Grung, so the bandits around them don't understand. When the bandits and guard reach the bottom, those up top hear pained screams. The elite guard yells from below that it was trapped, and that one of the bandits is badly hurt. Having used this to wipe out even just 3 of Yusdrayl's followers from the battleground, the party readies to fight her as their betrayal is revealed!
Refresher: Our adventurers Lugs (grung barbarian), Lurk (grung rogue), Aelia (tiefling cleric), and Valas (drow sorcerer) with tagalong Deku (ratfolk cleric) explored Belak's study, finally finding Deku's stolen library book, as well as other books pertaining to vampires, dragons, and life and death cycles. After taking a long rest in the study, they went back to the upper floor of the citadel - however, Yusdrayl and her Kobold Gang were there to greet them, demanding they show proof that they're not lying about Calcryx. Durnn, who had supposedly been released on the surface by Yusdrayl but had actually been kept prisoner, told her about how the party had stolen Calcryx back from the Goblin Gang days ago and hidden her from Yusdrayl, rather than returning her. After some back and forth, the party finally shows their true colours to the Kobold Gang leader by setting traps off on her three guards who went to investigate their claims.
Sunless Citadel spoilers! CW for light body horror descriptions
Yusdrayl, her mustard-yellow scales washing out in the pale violet light of the glowing mushrooms lining the walls, swiftly flicks her wrist into the air. "Fire!" she booms out, jamming a clawed talon at the party of adventurers. The guards around her immediately let loose their slings, the twanging of strings echoing around the chamber as a flurry of sharp stones rocket towards you from every angle.
The adventurers take some hard hits from the onslaught of rocks - a nerve-wracking start to the fight. Lugs goes into a rage, shoving Yusdrayl over the lip of the well. She screams, trying to grab a hold of the vines as she tumbles backwards, but only manages to do so when she's already fallen about halfway down the 80 ft shaft. Her elite guards continue to fight for her, and the party starts backing themselves up against each other, the circular room filled with kobolds.
Aelia casts Flaming Sphere, ramming the ball of fire into an elite guard before positioning it in the doorway, blocking the entrance to the Kobold Gang interns outside the room who don't want to take fire damage.
Durnn fights the party as well, having teamed up with Yusdrayl to kill the adventurers who destroyed his Goblin Gang and threatened him into silence about Calcryx. While he's not fighting at his best anymore, his strong hobgoblin build coupled with his longsword deal some hard blows, and the sheer number of Kobold Gang members in the room all fighting them means that the party is getting worn down.
As Durnn starts getting hurt more than he anticipated - particularly after seeing Yusdrayl get pushed into the well shaft - he starts to try and bargain with the party to let him team up with them instead, so they can all finish off the Kobold Gang. The party laughs in his face, incredulous at his blatant backstabbing, before enthusiastically agreeing that he should help them get rid of the Kobold Gang. However, Lurk uses his Ring of the Flock to summon a swarm of ravens, sicking them on Durnn. The party starts getting the upper hand on the fight.
The fight continues on, everyone stretched to the limit; so much so that you don't even hear him coming. The door to the hall is slammed open, the fog from the dragon hallway leaking in at the feet of the semi-hunched figure. His eyes are wide and bloodshot, pupils small despite the lack of traditional light, and his mouth agape while he pants heavily. The pale, sickly, rough skin immediately gives it away despite the change in demeanour; this is Chadley, looking erratic, frantic, and exhausted. He stumbles forward, and it's hard to tell if the roots at his feet are just being moved with the momentum of walking, or if they're searching for purchase against the stonework floor. His arms hang limp at his sides, until he's suddenly rushing forwards, fingers tensed and clawed not unlike McKennedeigh's, eyes wide and red and thirsty, skin so pale and deathly that you can see through to the red veins beneath.
The mushrooms growing out of his bark-like skin akin to parasites over his upper back and shoulders suddenly pulsate, releasing a large cloud of black pollen into the air. It smells like sulphur and decaying plant matter, with a tinge of iron, making your eyes water and your nose and throat itch.
While Chadley is stuck in the larger hall outside the room because of the Flaming Sphere in the doorway, the pollen permeates the whole area in a sudden puff. The Kobold Gang interns, Lugs, Lurk, and Durnn all start coughing, before they feel a haze come over their minds and they look softly towards Chadley, charmed by him.
As Chadley spots McKennedeigh's unconscious body slumped over by the well after the party had carried her up with them, he starts to freak out. Hysterically, he cries that everyone here is trying to hurt him, and that they've killed his sister. Those charmed by him feel sympathetic to his cause, and are compelled to turn on everyone else to stop them from hurting Chadley.
Valas casts Chaos Bolts at Durnn and the kobold elite guards. Durnn deflects the blow, but the last of the elite guards is finished off by the magic. Feeling his wild magic crackle within him, Valas starts to hear faint, ethereal music playing in the background of his senses; nothing else changes, and with a resigned sigh, he feels like this may be the heavenly music you hear before you die.
Yusdrayl, who's been trying to scale up the vines along the well shaft, finally reaches the top and jumps down from the stone ledge.
Yusdrayl breathes heavily through flaring nostrils, her golden eyes narrow and furious.
"I have worked too hard for this," she growls, "all of this, for it to be taken away from me by the likes of mercenaries!" Frost begins to collect on the scaly hands she's had clenched at her sides, the magic in the air thickening as she draws on her power. Both hands whip in front of her, claws splayed, as she shouts, "Shatter!"
A small bead of icy platinum light then explodes with a thunderous boom, a shockwave of ice and frost tearing viciously through the air.
The Shatter spell goes off in the middle of the congregated party members, missing only Lurk. While everyone successfully braces themselves for the blast of cold damage that threatens to slow down their movements by freezing their joints, Lugs' fire snake takes the most damage, vulnerable to ice by nature. Yusdrayl then tries to cast Ray of Frost at Lugs, eager for revenge for him pushing her into the well, but he easily dodges it.
The fire snake, badly wounded, immediately tries to get away from Yusdrayl after having been helping in the fight against the kobolds. Cornered in by the Kobold Gang interns and Chadley outside the doorway, Snakey proceeds to slither over to Valas and Lurk's side of the group, its radiant fiery scales now partially extinguished and dulled with frost. Lurk - charmed by Chadley - spots the wounded creature, and mercilessly finishes them off with a sneak attack using their psychic blades. Valas hears the thump of the snake's body hitting the ground, and as he whips around, he sees Lurk out of the corner of his eye stab him through the side with another knife of psychic energy, badly hurting him despite the intangible blades leaving no physical wounds.
Durnn runs forward and attacks Aelia, bypassing Lurks' swarm of ravens as they're under Lurks' command and, therefore, now on the same side as Durnn when it comes to defending Chadley. He deals a hard blow on her with his longsword. Deku has been desperately casting his most powerful healing spells to keep the party alive under the onslaught of attacks.
Lugs re-activates his Storm Surge of swamp water, buffeting Yusdrayl, one of her guards, and Aelia who had fled closer to his side of the room in order to get away from Durnn. Aelia loses concentration on the Flaming Sphere. Yusdrayl sees Lugs look between her and Aelia before focusing his sights on the kobold leader, and yells, "don't you dare touch me!"
From out of her robes, she pulls a huge white scale, and holds it ahead of her. The scale gives off a frightening and deadly aura, but Lugs in his enraged state doesn't pay it any heed, and with a sickening crack as he brings the Shatterspike longsword down on her, she tumbles over the lip of the well one last time. The scale clatters to the ground, her eyes glazed over as she falls down the shaft, already dead before she hits the ground.
Lugs roughly shakes his head, the fog over his mind starting to clear as he breaks free of Chadley's influence. Aelia yells at him for getting her robes soaked with swamp water again, but he just points at where Yusdrayl once stood before giving her a thumbs-up, pleased with himself for defeating her.
Aelia, Deku, and Valas keep using magic to finish off most of the kobolds, aside from the interns who've just recently flooded into the room now that the Flaming Sphere spell blocking the doorway has ended. Aelia tries to tell them that their leader, Yusdrayl, is now dead, and that they can team up with the party - however, they yell back that they're going to defend Chadley from the nefarious adventurers, charmed by him.
Amidst the sounds of battle can be heard the clicking footsteps of a creature, large enough to be heard barreling down the corridor towards the violence as it gets close. Through the doorway comes a flash of pearly white scales, followed by a burgundy creature riding atop its back between two folded wings. "Aelia! Deku! Valas! Lugs! Lurk!" cries out the panting and desperate voice of Meepo as Calcryx skids to a stop, icy talons skittering across the stone floor as her intense blue eyes scan the scene. Opening her maw, she roars, and leaps into the fray with a powerful wingbeat.
Meepo and Calcryx have arrived, flanking Chadley! Deku and Aelia, in particular, light up in delight to see their unexpected friends, and teamed-up, no less!
Refresher: Our adventurers Lugs (grung barbarian), Lurk (grung rogue), Aelia (tiefling cleric), and Valas (drow sorcerer) with tagalong Deku (ratfolk cleric) fought Belak, his giant frog, McKennedeigh, and Bradley in Belak's grove. While Belak was taken down fairly easily, his death caused McKennedeigh and Bradley to go in a frenzy, drinking the blood from his body and becoming stronger. After a tough fight, the party managed to kill Bradley, and tie up an unconscious McKennedeigh. Lugs and Lurk grabbed the ruby red fruit of the Gulthias tree before it was set entirely ablaze, filling the cavern with smoke. The party took shelter in what seems to have been Belak's study.
Sunless Citadel spoilers!
Now in Belak's study, Lugs sits at his desk and tries to mime doing work with all the papers. He finds a candle in a candle holder, and deduces that it had been burning several hours ago - someone must have been here recently!!! Thinking hard, he takes the candle stick and eats it.
Aelia finds a few spell scrolls, as well as a mantle of some more valuable items; gem stones, Belak's stash of gold, a glove with a rune on the back of the hand, and a silver circlet inlaid with a sapphire. Meanwhile, Deku goes through the bookshelves, and finds several titles placed closer to the desk that look more heavily used. One is called Born to Die, a book in Common about the Druidic theories of the life and death cycle. There's also Treasures of the Fire Lords, a collection of ancient journals written in Elven, and, finally, his stolen library book Cults Around the World.
Cults Around the World:
True to the title, it details several cults around the world. One such cult is called the Cult of the Dragon, also known as the Keepers of the Secret Hoard, who lived in the Sunless Citadel for 1400 years, until the Cataclysm. The citadel was once called Maetrine Keep, home to a powerful vampire called Illythia. The cult took over, but were a secretive and shadowy group. It's said that a huge red dragon could be seen about the citadel during the cult's reign. The cult is said to have perished when the Sunless Citadel - along with other citadels across the continent - sunk beneath the earth during the Cataclysm 800 years ago.
Although he recognises the popular language the script is written in, Deku passes the old diaries to Valas, who can read Elven. Deku assumes, with disgust, that they're Belak's journals regarding his experiments.
The Vampire Diaries:
Written in Elven, this appears to be a collection of journals kept by an old, experienced, and powerful vampire woman called Illythia. It talks about her building a large citadel for herself called Maetrine Keep, in which she ruled over the nearby lands with her army of vampire spawn for approximately 300 years. The land Maetrine Keep stood over is described in the journals as a large and dense forest with a winding river running through it from the ocean, and seems to be set pre-Cataclysm. There are pieces of more recent parchment in-between some of the pages, with annotations written in Common that seem to be making note of vampire biology.
Valas flips to the most recent page of the unfinished final diary. The last pages tell of Illythia's army and of the threat of an encroaching army - led by Ashardalon - but doesn't end. Interspersed throughout the journals are much more recent slips of parchment, with a different handwriting and notes taken in common on vampire biology and magic.
Next, Deku tries to read Treasures of the Fire Lords. As he opens it up to the second page, a warding glyph on the paper lights up, activating an icy explosion that fills the room. On instinct, Deku immediately throws the book away from himself before hiding inside his oversized armour like a turtle, and Valas - unable to take much more pain - uses his last spell slot to cast Absorb Elements on himself and take just a quarter of the damage. Wounded from their previous battle, Lurk and Aelia take the full brunt of the explosion, slamming them against the study's walls with ice before they slump to the ground, unconscious. Lugs, brawnier than most, is able to absorb the hit, and he rushes over to his brother's body to start helping him. He tips water from his barrel into Lurk's mouth, filling it up his cheeks like a balloon.
Deku comes over and pushes Lugs out of the way, complimenting him on his good work, before gently compressing Lurk's chest so the water squirts out of his mouth like a fountain instead of drowning him. With his cleric knowledge and his medicine kit, he's able to stabilise both Lurk and Aelia. The still conscious party members make some space on the rug for Lurk and Aelia to rest and sleep it off, Lurk on a bed of books that Lugs made him.
The Treasures of the Fire Lords book is worse for wear now, but what remains seems to be writing in Common matching the annotations in the vampire diaries - Belak's writing, research notes on his experiments on Chadley, McKennedeigh, and Bradley. It mentions that Chadley was experimented on differently to the latter two, and Valas and Deku are concerned to hear this - unsure if Chadley is currently ok at the Rat's Nest.
Lugs beckons his fire snake to sleep against the storeroom wall outside the study, and the snake does so, as Lugs seems to have had good luck with befriending the creature who's still full on the goblin he fed them. They bring McKennedeigh's tied-up body inside the study so they can keep watch over her, and wedge the doors shut with pitons in case of intruders. Secure, the party takes a long rest for the rest of the day, which passes by without issue.
They have the chance to inspect some of the potentially-magic items they'd picked up recently. The gold circlet with metal woven into flames and a ruby in the centre is called the Circlet of Ignition, which lets the wearer cast the 2nd-level spell Flame Blade once per day. The silver circlet with delicate weaving and a sapphire is the Sojourner's Circlet of Rituals, giving the wearer advantage on maintaining concentration during ritual spells. Lastly, the butler-looking glove is The Master's Glove, which can be used to cast Unseen Servant once per day. On the inside of the Sojourner's Circlet of Rituals are etchings in Dwarven, which read, "Made in the Glitterhame caverns of Khundrukar. Quality assured!"
Later, Deku checks up on Aelia and Lurk as they wake up. McKennedeigh has also woken up, and is writhing around, hissing and spitting in a vicious fury. Lugs gives her a few bonks with his club until she passes out again.
Aelia eagerly claims the Circlet of Ignition, Deku takes the Sojourner's Circlet of Rituals, and Lugs takes The Master's Glove.
The party leaves the study and heads back towards the remains of the Gulthias tree, intending on investigating it further now that the fire has gone out. Everyone else stays very far back as Lugs goes on ahead to crack open the burnt husk of the trunk. Inside is a lot of empty space, with burnt vein-like structures twisting all the way down from the outer shell of the tree towards its base, where it all comes together and twists into a wooden stake that's been jammed into the torso of a skeleton with enough force to break several ribs. Just the torso of the skeleton is visible above ground, never having had a proper burial. Lugs chuckles to himself, and uses The Master's Glove to have the unseen servant - an invisible, mindless force - puppet the skeleton's torso while he steps back and feigns surprise and fear. The performance is so overblown and shoddy that it doesn't fool anyone, and the brittle, ancient skeleton begins to break apart as it's manipulated and no longer pinned to the earth by the stake.
They think this is Illythia's skeleton - the corpse of the slain vampire who initially built this citadel before the Cult of the Dragon moved in.
Lugs breaks off the steak from the rest of the tree that grew from it, while Deku also takes some samples of bone and bark just in case. With nothing else of note, they begin heading back to the well shaft so they can leave the Sunless Citadel.
Aelia tries to come up with a plan on what they'll say to Yusdrayl when they get back to the upper floor, as they obviously aren't returning with Calcryx like they kept saying they would. She points out that she and Lurk still bear the marks of ice burns from the glyph explosion before their rest, and hopes to use that as proof that they fought Calcryx down here, at least.
They reach the well shaft that is their only known path to the upper level of the citadel, and Lurk climbs on ahead to scout. Lugs takes a barrel and some chains from the laboratory they passed through, combining them with rope to make a big bucket his fire snake can climb into while he carries them up. Unable to carry both the fire snake and McKennedeigh, however, he opts to leave his heavy water barrel behind for the time being, and offers Aelia 100 gold to help him carry his fire snake, which she hesitantly accepts.
When Lurk's about 30 feet from the top of the 80 foot shaft, he hears Yusdrayl's voice calling out to him, asking him how their search went and what happened to Belak. Above him, Yusdrayl is leaning over the lip of the well, her big golden eyes peering down. Panicking, Lurk doesn't answer her question, and instead asks if she has a bathroom he can use. Dumbfounded, Yusdrayl says that the Kobold Gang often just goes out in the Underdark, away from the citadel. Lurk keeps insisting that they must have a bathroom and that he needs to use it, and Yusdrayl asks him why he doesn't just go on the lower floor, which must be empty of threats if they defeated Belak. Lurk gives in and climbs back down, to do his 'number 3s'.
When he gets to the bottom of the shaft, he tells the rest of the party what happened, and that Yusdrayl is on the lookout for them. Unsure of what else they can do, the party climbs up, and hears Yusdrayl calling back down to them again when they're about halfway.
Yusdrayl demands to know where Calcryx is, but Valas asks if they can answer her questions once they're done climbing up the shaft, as they're exhausted and don't want to fall. Yusdrayl says that they better answer her quickly, then. Indignant, Aelia starts arguing with her, confused as to why Yusdrayl has stopped trusting them. Ignoring Yusdrayl's warnings, Aelia continues climbing up the shaft, though she stops when Valas notices Yusdrayl's elite guards leaning over the lip of the well with their slingshots trained on the party.
Valas tells Yusdrayl that they did find Calcryx with Belak as they theorised they would, but that the white dragon was not yet loyal to the druid, and she fled into the Underdark soon after the fighting started. Unable to ignore Belak, the party had to stay and fight him instead of give chase to her. Yusdrayl wants proof of their story, but Valas tells her that they can't have proof because Calcryx is gone. The Kobold Gang leader relents and allows the party to climb up to Durnn's chamber, but on the condition that she'll be sending some of her bandits down to look for any traces of Calcryx to verify their story.
The adventurers climb to the top of the well, and find that they're surrounded by the Kobold Gang. Amongst them is Durnn, grinning sadistically. Yusdrayl explains that she's grateful that they took care of the Goblin Gang for her, but that Durnn had eventually come back to tell her about the party betraying her, saying that they took Calcryx from the Goblin Gang days ago but still never returned her to Yusdrayl. She was convinced that Durnn would just be trying to get her to turn against them, but resolved to see if the party would finally return with only excuses and no white dragon one final time.
Durnn tells her that, if Valas' story is true, Belak's grove and study - where Durnn says the druid would've been - is very far away from the one exit to the Underdark on that floor, which is very close to the well shaft. Valas says that a new rift opened up in the grove, which is where Calcryx escaped, but Durnn just comments how convenient for their story that would be.
Instead of climbing up with the rest of the party, Lurk had instead climbed back down the shaft. Yusdrayl demands to know where he's gone, and Aelia says that he wasn't done 'with his number 3s' yet. 'Number 3s' sound like a truly horrific burden to bear. Yusdrayl sends down two of her bandits as well as an elite guard to the lower floor to investigate for signs of Calcryx, and they pass by Lurk on his way up as they climb back down.
When Lurk reaches the top, he telepathically communicates to Aelia and Valas (as he can only do so with 2 people at a time) that he set his two hunting traps at the base of the shaft. He tells Lugs that in Grung, so the bandits around them don't understand. When the bandits and guard reach the bottom, those up top hear pained screams. The elite guard calls up that it was trapped, and that one of the bandits is badly hurt. Having used this to wipe out even just 3 of Yusdrayl's followers, the party readies to fight her as their betrayal is revealed!
Refresher: Our adventurers Lugs (grung barbarian), Lurk (grung rogue), Aelia (tiefling cleric), and Valas (drow sorcerer) with tagalong Deku (ratfolk cleric) levelled up to 3, and Lugs and Lurk were able to get their new subclass abilities - Lugs becoming a Path of the Storm Herald barbarian with a swamp storm aura, and Lurk becoming a Soulknife rogue using psychic abilities.
The party went down the well shaft into the lower floor of the Sunless Citadel, lying to Yusdrayl about still needing to find Calcryx down there when, in reality, they'd found her earlier and taken her to the Rat's Nest to recover from her mistreatment at the hands of the Kobold Gang and Goblin Gang. They defeated a bugbear hunter and his two giant rat pets, and looted his old cave room. Next, they found a laboratory, and subdued the goblin interns working there. They found and rescued Chadley Hucrele, one of the Hucrele siblings they were sent to the Sunless Citadel to rescue in the first place. He'd been experimented on by a man they've heard of called Belak, who seems to be the boss running the lower floor of this citadel and controlling the Goblin Gang, so Chadley had started to transform into a plant creature.
Sunless Citadel spoilers!
The party decides to start exploring more of this floor by checking out the large rift that opened up from the back of one of the laboratory's empty rooms. The tunnel quickly becomes pitch black, with no luminescent fungi growing off the walls and providing light like in the other rooms of the temple. Luckily, Lugs has his candle of Continual Flame strapped to his head to provide a source of light as he goes down first.
Chadley asks if the party knows what they're going to be doing, and if he should do anything as well. Aelia tries to check out if he's got what it takes to fight, but in his current state - sickly, beaten-up, and scared, with plant-like growths growing out of his barky skin, and stripped of his armour and weaponry - it's nearly impossible to tell. Not wanting to send him back upstairs alone, they decide to take Chadley with them.
The rift they're going down looks like the earth has split to either side, probably when the citadel sunk beneath the ground. The lower walls and floor are littered with 2-foot-wide holes. As they go further down, they find what looks like corridors to the left and right sides of them - a single corridor of the citadel that had been rendered straight through when the rift formed, offsetting the two halves from each other. They try the left-side corridor first.
At the end of the corridor is a small room, no traps or locks on the door. The lovely tiling in the room has since been shaken up by the earth, crumbling and falling off the walls and ceiling and smashing on the floor. Everything is covered in thick layers of dust and dirt. On the floor in the centre of the room is a decorative circular tile, with writing on it in Draconic, and in front of it against the back wall is a stone statue of a dragon with a tray in its mouth. Deku translates the writing on the tile into Common, stepping back and telling the others that it says, "let the warrior's strength embolden my body."
Everyone starts having a look around the room. As he's normally quite good at investigating already, Deku casts a spell on Lurk to help boost his abilities even more. He opens his purple eyes and a laser grid shoots out, scanning the area. Lurk determines that this place looks like it was made to be a small offering and prayer chamber for the lower class occupants of this citadel to worship the statue. Aelia, recalling her basic archaeologist research about the Sunless Citadel that she'd looked up before they got here, realises that the statue is of a red dragon in particular, and must be of Ashardalon - the red dragon the Cult of the Dragon (AKA Keepers of the Secret Hoard) worshipped when they once lived here, before the citadel fell. Deku confirms this, having read about it in his Cults Around the World book.
Lugs tries putting 100 gold pieces into the offering tray the statue is holding, but nothing happens. Deku, wondering if the people who would come here to pray would do so while standing on the decorative tile, tells Lugs to stand there and copy the words he says in Draconic; "Let the warrior's strength embolden my body."
Although he doesn't really understand, Lugs is eager to play along as he usually does, and mimics what Deku says while standing on the tile. Suddenly, a torrent of blue flames - not real flames, just an illusion - jet out of the tile's seams and wash over him, imbuing him with strength. He tells Lurk that he feels sturdier than before, as he now has advantage on constitution checks and saves for the next while. Happy with this service, Lugs puts 200 more gold into the offering tray. Amazed, Aelia and Deku scramble to do the same so they can get a boost to their wimpy spellcaster constitutions, but the tile and statue no longer react, even when Aelia tries to offer some gold in the tray. Sighing, she returns all the gold to her pockets.
The party goes back through the corridor to the rift passageway, and Lugs, again, goes first while the others try to look out for any traps. The rift splits into an open cavern, full of more of the holes in the ground and lower walls. Just in front of the doorway is a littering of what appears to be goblin bones, picked clean. At the back of the cave, one of the larger holes glows with a warm red and orange light from within. As Lugs walks gung-ho into the cave and his companions talk amongst themselves behind him, the light from the hole starts to waver, and then disappears further down the hole until it's no longer visible. Suddenly, a large red snake with tendrils of flames licking off its head and body looms out from the hole closest to Lugs, the source of the light now clear as it radiates a hot fiery glow from its body. Lugs' frog skin tingles uncomfortably as it starts to dry out from the close proximity. The fire snake hisses, revealing their long fangs.
Aelia, for some reason not phased at all, marches from the thick of the group up to Lugs and the fire snake. As though she was a snake wrangler in a past life, she wastes no time in outstretching her fingers towards the creature and upcasting Guiding Bolt. A huge flash of light sparks from above her head and shoots towards the snake, and everyone tries to cover their eyes, blinded for a moment from the flare. As their spotty vision returns, they find that the fire snake has already been completely annihilated by the extraordinarily strong spell. Aelia blinks, eyes wide in disbelief at what just happened and how strong her spell was, and slowly lowers her hands.
Lurk goes to check out the rest of the snake's cave, the holes clearly leading to a tunnel system beneath the ground that it had made. In its nest at the back, he finds a few gems, which he pockets immediately. Aelia notices but doesn't say anything, like their secret siphoning off of treasure before the rest of the party notices has now become a game between the two. Nothing else is really in the cavern aside from the remains of toasted goblin skeletons.
The party heads back out into the rift, backtracking to find the other half of the corridor from earlier and going down it. Showing a bit of confidence for once, Chadley smirks and flirts, complimenting Aelia on her strong spell, but she doesn't really take any mind. The door at the end of the hall opens up - as they suspected - the final unexplored door from the garden chamber they'd entered into at the start of this floor, after dropping in from the well shaft above.
As they're back here again, they decide to explore the nearby bugbear hunter's cave tunnel that they'd left behind earlier. Lurk tries to go down it, and it's lit with the luminescent fungi, but it appears to fork, with one path leading upwards and the other path leading further downwards, presumably into the Underdark.
They go back through the laboratory, to where Lugs had once passed through the weapon storeroom and found a door to the adjoining unexplored hallway, its walls decorated with etchings of dragons torching cities. Knowing that Lugs had seen another bugbear gardener with a mean sickle-bladed glaive on their back when he'd poked his head in earlier, Lurk goes on to scout ahead, quietly sneaking out the door and hiding behind a pillar. Sure enough, the bugbear is patrolling the hallway, and doesn't see him. He creeps up behind her, and, after quickly coating his scimitar with the poison from his Grung skin, suddenly stabs her in the back before she even realises he's there.
The bugbear yells in pain and surprise and whirls around, lifting her glaive to defend herself while backing away from Lurk. The grung rogue, not bothered by the normally-intimidating height difference, suggests she drops her weapon and surrender, or he'll kill her. Frustrated and badly hurt, the bugbear hesitantly complies, and Lurk snatches up her glaive as soon as it hits the ground. Having disarmed her, Lurk goes and opens the main door from the laboratory, inviting the rest of the party in. The bugbear, dripping a lot of blood from the wound in her back, sinks to the ground to sit against a pillar, defeated.
They try to ask her questions, but the bugbear is flippant. Lurk tries to offer her 25 gold to buy her loyalty from her boss, Belak, sure that it would beat the wage he pays her. She doesn't seem to care about the money. Growing frustrated with her rude behaviour, Aelia steps forward, hands glowing with a spell to finish the bugbear off - but Lurk stays her hand. He suggests the bugbear leave the citadel and go to the Rat's Nest to find honest work, but she spits back, saying she has no idea what's waiting for her on the upper floor if the party of adventurers have already killed Durnn and the other goblins, suspecting Lurk just wants to send her into a death trap. Valas and Deku realise that she may be right, as the Kobold Gang are still upstairs, and would surely kill anyone they perceive to be a Goblin Gang member if the bugbear were to try and pass them. The bugbear also doesn't know how to get to the Rat's Nest at all. Valas comments that she doesn't seem to necessarily be loyal to Belak or to her job, but just nervous about testing her boss' power. She says she took the job here with her best friend - the bugbear hunter, Balsag - because it just sounded interesting and like she'd get to fight. Additionally, she adds that most of the goblins on this floor are just untrained interns doing research jobs for Belak, not fully trained bandits like Durnn had on the upper floor.
The party starts talking about how they want to proceed. The bugbear says the rooms connecting to this hallway are mostly arboretums where the interns are working, as well mentioning a snake being in one. Deku asks how to get to where Belak is, as she says that he must be working as usual, and she gives him the directions which he dutifully scribbles down onto a piece of parchment: go up through this hallway to the northern arboretum, take the southwest door from there into the big dragon shrine, go up through the library, down and along a very long corridor, and there at the end he'll either be in his study, or he'll be at the back of his massive main garden. Of course, Lurk hears that they should start by going north, and he immediately goes south into a different arboretum.
In there, he finds a few goblin interns and a bandit gathering white fungi from the garden beds into little baskets of test tubes. He casually commands them all to drop to the floor, and the interns immediately do so, hiding their heads beneath their hands as they cower. The one trained fighter in the group initially draws his scimitar, but when he sees that the others have surrendered, he drops his weapon and puts his hands up. Valas, Deku, and Aelia set to work on gathering all the white fungi, convinced it must be the same ingredient used to make the potion that Chadley was forced to drink to turn into a half-plant creature. Valas uses his Frostbite cantrip on the pile of fungi they gather, killing off the plants so that no one can continue using them for such nefarious purposes.
Lurk moves on to the southeast arboretum off the dragon hallway. After a cursory look, he sees that no one is in this one. As he's walking through and having a poke around, another fire snake suddenly rears out from a hole in the centre garden bed, poised to strike him. The realisation dawns on him that, although this room was otherwise empty, a lot of the plants here look burnt and charred, which he'd noticed too late. Before the snake can attack, he flees the room and slams the door shut.
Lugs, instead, pokes his head into the same room, as the snake slithers around to face him. Reaching into his pocket, he grabs the strips of jerky pet treats he'd taken from the bugbear hunter's body, and tosses them in front of the fiery monster while rubbing his fingers together and saying "pspspspspspsps" like trying to coach over a cat. The snake stops, staring him down for a few minutes, before it greedily snaps up the jerky. Lugs grins widely, and dashes off to retrieve one of the goblin carcasses slain by Lurk in the laboratory earlier. He eases into the arboretum to drop the body in front of the snake, before running back to hide behind the door, eagerly peering through the crack to watch. The fire snake, again, stares at him, flicking their tongue in and out and trying to gauge the grung's intentions, before they unhinges their jaws and begins swallowing the goblin whole. Lugs tears a small strip of fabric off of his pants and rubs it on his skin, apparently trying to make sure the fabric clearly has his scent on it, and tosses it over to the snake's meal so the snake can get used to his scent. He closes the door all the way, and turns to Lurk, proudly saying that he's feeding his new pet snake, so Lurk should tell the others not to go in there. Lurk's amused.
The party goes back into the laboratory, taking the bugbear gardener with them. Lurk sets to work rounding up all the surviving goblins they'd terrified into submission (as well as waking up the confused and scared goblins who had been sleeping in the bunk room), but is suddenly surprised that the goblins - particularly the untrained interns - are so scared of them now, shaking in terror as he tells them to all line up. He tries to calm them down, but also says that they have a choice: they can either go up to the upper level and face the Kobold Gang, or they can go into the hunter's Underdark tunnel. Valas cuts in, saying that, as an Underdark native, he says it's definitely not a good idea to send them into the Underdark - they'll surely die, as it's such a dangerous place. Deku asks the goblins why they're torturing humans (like Chadley) for Belak, and the bugbear confirms that the Goblin Gang had been taken over by Belak and his aggressive bugbear crew, giving the weaker goblins the choice of either obeying him or being killed - so they obeyed him.
The adventurers decide to take the goblins and bugbear with them, potentially back to the Rat's Nest or to the surface where they can be let free. Finally, Lurk asks the name of the bugbear they've captured. She says that her name is Grimwarg. They start tying up the prisoners so they're linked around the waists by a rope, still able to climb up the well shaft to the upper level but unable to easily escape their captivity.
Before they leave, Lugs ducks his head into the snake's arboretum again, and says in Grung, "goodbye for now, Snakey, I love you!"
They all climb up the vines in the well to the upper floor, with Valas and Deku leading the way. As they climb up, Deku says that he thinks Valas will do a great job of lying to Yusdrayl about Calcryx, and gives him a friendly pat on the back while stealthily casting a charisma-boosting spell. Valas notices the spell, but wilfully ignores it, taking the encouragement.
When they reach the top of the well, Yusdrayl is dozing in Durnn's old throne, still sitting upright with her head leaning on her propped-up hand. The two elite guards on either side of her tap the stone throne so she wakes up with a start, greeting Valas and Deku and asking how they've gone on their search for Calcryx. Valas tells her that they haven't found the dragon yet, but they did find a laboratory where the real boss controlling the Goblin Gang has been experimenting on people. Since they haven't found Calcryx yet, he theorises that this is because Belak must be keeping her with him, not letting the valuable creature out of his sight. Yusdrayl agrees that that's probably the case.
As Grimwarg and the other goblin prisoners start to come up from the well, Valas also tells Yusdrayl about how they captured most of Belak's workers from his laboratory. The Kobold Gang leader is impressed, and mentions how her guards escorted Durnn and the last of his gang members after the big fight out via the tunnel the Kobold Gang has that leads to the surface, used by their foragers to find and bring back food. She suggests that these prisoners be escorted out by her guards as well, but Valas politely declines the offer, saying they have it handled. Grimwarg comments that this must be the Kobold Gang leader that she's heard about before, and Yusdrayl tilts her chin up at her, boasting about how she's beaten the Goblin Gang and chased Durnn out.
Because of his broken arm, Chadley wasn't able to climb up the well by himself. When Lugs reaches the top, he throws back down a rope that Chadley can hold onto with his foot put through a loop at the end, so the strong grung and everyone else can haul him up. When Yusdrayl sees the human, she's appalled, disgusted at his transformed body, and agrees that Belak must be stopped. Chadley looks embarrassed and ashamed.
The party suggests that Chadley can get seen to at the Rat's Nest, though Chadley says he could probably contact his mother to send someone to fetch him so he can be seen by the family's private and expensive medical professionals. While he would like to stay and help find his sister, he's aware he's in no shape to do so.
Ready to leave the Sunless Citadel so they can take the prisoners away and get themselves a good rest at the inn, the exhausted adventurers leave Yusdrayl and continue on their way out.
Refresher: Our adventurers Lugs (grung barbarian), Lurk (grung rogue), Aelia (tiefling cleric), and Valas (drow sorcerer) with tagalong Deku (ratfolk cleric) and rescued noble Chadley continued exploring the Sunless Citadel, defeating a fire snake and finding a small offering shrine with a statue of the red dragon Ashardalon, once worshipped by the resident cult. They found a bugbear guard on patrol, but captured her, and took her and all of the other goblin interns and bandits they'd scared into submission in the laboratory as prisoners. There are lots of arboretums around here, growing plants for experiment ingredients. Lugs also found a second fire snake, and fed it pet treats and a goblin corpse to try and befriend it.
As most of the party members were hurt and exhausted, they decided to travel back to the Rat's Nest, lying to Yusdrayl when they ran into her on the way to say that they think her stolen dragon wyrmling must be with Belak - the person who runs the lab and has been controlling the Goblin Gang from the shadows.
Sunless Citadel spoilers!
The party leaves the Sunless Citadel, passing through it easily now that it's been cleared of the hostile giant spiders and the Goblin Gang. By now, the way back to the Rat's Nest through the Underdark tunnels is pretty easy, and night is starting to fall outside.
Suddenly, they're attacked by twig blights, who camouflage in with the thick tree roots lining the tunnel walls and tear themselves out to attack. The prisoners and Chadley all scurry back, avoiding the danger. Lugs goes to rage, but hesitates, and in Grung, tells Lurk to ask Valas - the one ally in range of him - if it's ok that he uses his Storm Herald abilities and hits him with the area effect as well. Lurk just tells Valas, "Valas: incoming!" and gives a thumbs up back to Lugs. Lugs grins and gives a thumbs up to Valas, who, confusedly, sputters, "wait, what?" before Lugs rages and a wave of swamp water erupts at his feet. Valas gets hit by the strong, thick torrent of muddy water, while the nearby twig blight digs in its roots and shrugs off the damage.
The rest of the twig blights are defeated easily, especially when Aelia uses a big Fireball spell to start incinerating them. Deku recalls that the twig blights tend to only come out and attack at nighttime.
As the party and the prisoners calm down and continue on, Chadley starts rubbing his eyes. "Is there a hole to the surface open around here? I can see much more than I could the first time I was here - like, even past the torches."
Valas cringes inwardly, knowing that humans don't usually possess darkvision, but thinking that Chadley must have developed it as part of the transformation experiments Belak conducted on him. "You've probably just grown accustomed to it, after being down here for so long."
Chadley believes him, thinking that sounds about right.
After another hour or so of travel through the cave tunnels, they reach the Rat's Nest. Unlike the previous time when they arrived at night, all of the lights in the shops, church, and library are off, closed at this hour. Peach's pop-up tent shop is also gone.
Lurk tells the others that he's going to get the new enchanted Ring of the Flock that he ordered from Boak, the blacksmith, as he's eager to try it out before resting tonight. Deku tells him that the shop is closed for the night, but Lurk is insistent, and Deku shrugs and guesses that, since he'd already paid for the ring, maybe it'd be ok if he goes in and takes it. Valas just turns around and wordlessly leaves for the elevator to the tavern. Lurk takes out his lockpicking tools and sets to work on the door, but just before he's about to set all the pins, a contraption that resembles crocodile jaws pops out from either side of the lock and clamps down on his lockpick, snapping it. Lurk is incredulous that it broke his equipment, when suddenly an alarm bell starts loudly ringing from inside the shop.
Deku flinches, knowing that the alarm system travels back to the cave where he and his brother live, and will surely wake Boak up. As Boak is an armourer artificer, this was probably what was going to happen. He tells the party that he'll be off to go sleep at home while they stay at the tavern tonight, and that he has to go and sheepishly explain to Boak what happened to his shop.
The party goes up the elevator to the Yawning Rodent tavern, where Valas is already waiting for them at the bar with a look on his face that's reminiscent of a disappointed parent. The tavern restaurant has passed rush hour for the night, but there's still a few full tables of travellers finishing off their drinks.
After another two elevator loads, the goblin prisoners - including Grimwarg the bugbear - come up to the tavern as well, starting to talk amongst themselves about how nice the Rat's Nest is. Beni, bartending tonight, cocks his eyebrow and looks back and forth between the adventurers and the large group of 11 goblinoids tied together with ropes. The party tells him that they're bandits of the Goblin Gang in the Sunless Citadel, and they've brought them here to release them on the surface as long as they promise to not go back to a life of crime. While Beni is, at first, hesitant about the situation, all of the goblins but Grimwarg are unhurt and would be fit to travel to the next city over for jobs if they wanted to. For now, they can all sleep in the basic rooms of the Yawning Rodent, especially since the party gave them each 5g to start them off. The goblins awkwardly and sheepishly thank Beni, and shuffle onto the elevator to go up to their rooms once they're untied. Grimwarg does the same, but stays silent and unreadable.
Meanwhile, Lurk approaches the bar and asks for a glass of water in the crystal goblet he took from Calcryx's trophy room. Lugs sits on one of the stools and, with a big and relieved sigh, un-tenses himself and just starts bleeding all over the furniture and the floor from all of the wounds he'd sustained from earlier today. Aelia sighs, annoyed by the troublesome grung brothers, and pays Beni for a single room. She just goes up the elevator to begin changing into sleep clothes and drop her swampy dress off at the tavern's laundry station.
Without even batting an eye at Lugs, Beni just takes out a rag and starts cleaning the bloody counter, before calling out to the rest of the restaurant, "hey, Meepo! We've got a clean-up over here!"
"Yes, Mr Beni!" Weaving out from in-between the tables with arms full of stacked up dirty mugs is the familiar kobold, a delighted grin spreading over his face when he spots the adventurers. "Oh, you're all back already!! Huh, Lurk, were your eyes always purple?"
Lurk looks him straight in the eye and tells him that Aelia was killed in the Sunless Citadel. Meepo immediately gets distressed, tears welling up in his eyes. Valas quickly cuts him off, telling Meepo that she didn't die, and that Lurk is just lying. Angry, Meepo tells Lurk that he's terrible, and starts grumpily mopping up the blood around Lugs' stool.
Lurk takes out 50g - covering him and Lugs at 25g each - for the 100g four bedroom. As Aelia's already booked her own single room for the night, though, there's only three of them sharing it this time. Valas rolls his eyes, not going to cover the remaining 50g by himself, and hands Beni 33g for his 1/3 share. Eventually, Lurk gives in and pays 67g for himself and Lugs.
In the morning, the party meets up again with Deku in the tavern for breakfast. Grimwarg and the goblins are still sleeping in. With Baba working the morning shift at the bar, Lugs buys more packs of cider to take with him back to the Sunless Citadel, and Valas buys a healing potion.
Meepo, waiting tables for the breakfast rush, runs over to Aelia and gives her a big hug, relieved that she's still alive after all. He tells her that he thought about what she and the others told him about finding a less hurtful path in life, and has been helping out Candice at the church while Lulu takes care of Calcryx, and working a shift at the Yawning Rodent since they left him the previous morning.
The party heads back down the elevator to the Rat's Nest. Lurk immediately heads over to the blacksmith, with Lugs in tow. As soon as they arrive, Boak puts down his work tools and puts his hands on his hips, angry at Lurk for trying to break into his shop last night. Deku had told Boak that it had been Lurk trying to break in, once Boak had woken up from the security alarm in a panic.
Trying to appease him, Lurk piles on all the basic weaponry he took from the Goblin Gang onto the counter as a gift, and offers to sell Boak the gemstones and the gold sapphire ring he found in the Sunless Citadel. Boak doesn't forgive him, but reluctantly accepts the deal. He then fetches the newly-enchanted Ring of the Flock and the 20 Alchemist's Arrows Lurk had had on order.
The party then head to church of the Rat King to have Chadley seen to. Inside is Candice, reading a book while she's had nothing to do. She greets the adventurers warmly. When they say that they need Lulu's help with healing, Candice goes to grab her, as she doesn't know any of that magic herself, and Lulu has been looking after Calcryx. Before she goes, she does ask Lurk, "hey, did your eyes change?"
Lurk throws up his hands, incredulous. "Why does everyone keep saying that?" He hasn't seen a reflection of himself since gaining his psychic powers, which turned his large frog eyes from black to purple.
When Lulu arrives, she's not sure what kind of ailment is afflicting the human-turned-plant Chadley. She has him lay down on the cushioned floor so she can do a basic examination, and he explains how he broke his arm after falling out of the well shaft in the Sunless Citadel. However, when Lulu removes the sling, she finds that the arm isn't broken at all, and Chadley is equally surprised that it doesn't hurt anymore and moves fine. Valas wonders if Chadley had been lying to them just so they'd give him special treatment on the way out of the citadel, but he appears genuinely shocked and confused.
She tries to cast Remove Curse on him when Chadley says he can afford her healing magic services with his family's money, but it doesn't do anything. Chadley's dismayed that he's not cured, but Aelia, Valas, and Deku reassure him that it's good he's not cursed.
Lulu takes some holy water and sprinkles some over his head, but he winces and complains as it starts burning his scalp. The party grimaces, as reacting badly to holy water is usually not a good sign. Valas thinks about it, and thinks the reaction Chadley showed is similar to that of undead creatures in particular.
Chadley says that he at least has his family's private medical team that he can go to, and asks if there's a messaging service in the Rat's Nest or Yawning Rodent. The party recalls that one of Peach's magic services was casting the spell Sending, but her tent is gone for now. Deku also knows that the Yawning Rodent does get the postal service, and has messenger pigeons in case of emergencies.
Chadley also mentions that they need to rescue Bradley as well as his sister, and that Belak - the person who experimented on him, took McKennedeigh and Bradley, and had been controlling the Goblin Gang from the shadows - is an 'old man' - a human. When Valas asks who Bradley is, Chadley says that he thought he'd mentioned it to them before - that he and McKennedeigh hired two mercenaries to help them explore the Sunless Citadel: Bradley and Reignbow. Aelia and Valas recognise the name Reignbow immediately, and Aelia bluntly says that she has Reignbow's ring, taken from her corpse that they found at the giant spider mother's nest. Chadley grimaces, recalling that they'd begun exploring the citadel, but Reignbow had been killed and dragged off by the spider mother shortly before he, McKennedeigh, and Bradley had been captured by the Goblin Gang and Belak.
The group leaves Chadley with Lulu for now, as they plan on returning to the Sunless Citadel to find his sister.
As with the previous day, the party of adventurers has no trouble getting back to the Sunless Citadel through the few hours of Underdark tunnel travel, and through the first floor and down the well shaft of the large building. Yusdrayl greets them as normal, her guards still spread out through the citadel's first floor.
On the lower level, they move through the laboratory, but Valas doubles back and frowns. He calls back, "someone's been through here!", after noticing that some of the lab equipment on the tables have been moved around, and the notes on Chadley that the goblins were working on before Lurk killed them yesterday are now missing.
Lugs checks in on the fire snake he left in their arboretum, and pulls out some more pet treats he bought from Clara's general store. As he enters, the fire snake slowly emerges from their nest, with a huge lumpy shape in their stomach from their goblin meal the previous day. Not recognising that they must be full, Lugs crushes the pet treats in his hand and eagerly offers it to the snake again, who just stares at him.
As his companions go to continue down the hallway according to Grimwarg's directions to find Belak, Lugs opens the door wider and motions for the fire snake to follow him. Understanding his intent and getting used to his scent after he left his scrap of fabric there the day before, the fire snake slowly begins to follow him, staying 20-30 feet behind him as he trails behind the rest of the group.
It now becomes apparent that, when Lugs had asked Lurk to tell the rest of the party, "don't come in here, I'm feeding my snake" the day before, Lurk hadn't done so. Deku notices the fire snake and runs away in fright towards the front of the group, panicking because he's so small that the snake might think him good prey. Taking a better look, however, he realises that the snake's eaten a large meal recently, and shouldn't be hungry again for at least another week.
Aelia turns to Lurk and just says, "what the fuck."
Lurk sighs and rolls his eyes before walking back down the corridor to his brother, wanting to have a proper look at the fire snake "if it's going to be a part of my life from now on." From what he can tell, the fire snake is an elemental, and probably at least understands Ignan - the fire elemental dialect of Primordial. No one in the party knows how to speak it, though.
Continuing on, they pass by another arboretum, this one with the door missing off its hinges for some reason. Aelia spots at least one skeleton gardener inside, tending to the shrubbery. They briefly discuss if they should go and kill the creatures in there and torch the plants again, but decide to move on for now.
The last arboretum is the northern room that Grimwarg told them to go through. This one is empty of workers, and just has different saplings growing in the garden beds. Through the next door - the only door out of this room - they find a short corridor leading to what looks like a larger version of the small offering room they'd found yesterday. The statue of Ashardalon, the red dragon, is much larger, and a red light illuminating the room in front of it glows out from the eye sockets while a deep shadow is cast behind it.
Like before, there's a circular tile in the floor with Draconic writing on it, meant to be the place where the person making the offering would pray. Deku translates it as, "let the sorcerous power illuminate my spirit." The group turns to look at Valas, the one sorcerer in the group. Deku teaches him the Draconic words, and he stands on the tile and recites them, just as Lugs had the previous day when he received the boon of advantage on constitution checks. Similarly, Valas is quickly enveloped in a torrent of a harmless blue flame illusion jetting out of the tile, and he's granted advantage on charisma checks for the next 24 hours.
Lurk inspects the next door, and, like the arboretum doors and the door to this room, it's not trapped or locked, and looks like it's passed through regularly. Stepping inside, Deku finds that it's a ruined library, with shelving that's falling apart and books and scrolls scattered all over the floor as though from an earthquake. With a start, he realises that he still hasn't found his library book that the Goblin Gang stole from him, so he calls out to the others that he's going to take a look in here for it. He starts rummaging through the piles of papers and finds a few enchanting recipes they can give to Boak later (the Epistemological Recipe, the Lunacy Recipe, and the Shadow Recipe), as well as a scroll of Acid Arrow, a scroll of Scorching Ray, and a book written in Draconic called Future of the Ancients. Unfortunately, he doesn't find his book Cults Around The World.
Meanwhile, the rest of the party has stayed in the offering room, watching Lugs lure in his fire snake through the previous door. Lurk, having a poke-around, jumps up onto the Ashardalon statue's back, jovially acting like he's riding it as a mount. Suddenly, the inky black shadow behind the statue shivers and pulsates before stretching upwards from behind the dragon, a physical manifestation of a dark void towering silently over Lurk. Everyone's shocked, and Valas recognises it to be a dangerous undead monster simply known as a 'shadow'...
