D&D Diary - The Yawning Rodent, 15
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!