#dm diary

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!"

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.

The robed skeletons, armed with gardening shovels and following the lead of the twig blights, attack!

Lugs recalls how he spent his recent short rest soaking in his barrel of water, thinking about home. He's sick of this place, and wishes he could return to his cosy hometown, where he can take a swim whenever he likes. As his rage builds, he reaches out to the element of water that he misses so dearly - he shouts (croaks) in Grung, "I call upon the powers of the swamp!", and a torrent of muddy, brackish water erupts from the ground at his webbed feet, bowling into everyone around him. The rest of the party, as well as the skeletons and twig blights, get hit with this barrage of swamp water dealing bludgeoning damage, as Lugs surges forward and completely obliterates the closest twig blight with his club. Lugs is now a storm herald barbarian - a storm herald of the swamp! Ribbit!

In the adjoining cavern, the bugbear - dressed and equipped like a hunter - notices the battle breaking out, and begins charging into the garden room with his two giant rats, Grip and Fang.

Aelia panics when she sees the giant rats, asking Deku, "what happened to them??" This implies that Aelia doesn't know what regular rats are, let alone giant rats, as though they're cursed ratfolk?! Deku doesn't know what to say.

Lugs runs over to meet the hunter and, with another loud croak, he refreshes his torrent of swamp water. The wave pushes the bugbear against the wall, hitting his head with a yell. Aelia follows up with Toll The Dead, hitting him back against the wall with the force of the magic and making him look a bit concussed.

As the party turns their attention to the bugbear hunter and his giant rats instead of the weaker skeletons and remaining twig blight, Valas uses his Metamagic to shoot two Chaos Bolts, with one boosted by his Tides of Chaos, hitting each giant rat. Grip and Fang fall unconscious with little squeaks, and, without him doing anything, Deku's amulet of the Rat King begins to glow, quickly and automatically teleporting the hurt giant rats away.* The bugbear curses in anger, mentioning that rats are very naughty and that it took ages for him to train them.

After using so much of his magic at once, Valas feels the wild magic surge bubbling up once again. Suddenly, his skin tingles and sparks, and powerful arcs of electricity suddenly burst out of him and strike one of the skeletons, the bugbear, and Lugs. The bugbear is electrocuted, killing him, and he hadn't even had the chance to make a single attack yet. The skeleton is easily killed and turned to ash. Lugs gets zapped too, his silhouette showing his froggy skeleton, but is still standing, thanks to his strong constitution - though he's looking much more worse for wear.

Stunned by all of this, Lurk just stabs the air next to him without even looking, and kills the last twig blight.

With the battle over, the party has a look around. Aelia, disgusted and furious, points at her swamp-soaked dress - once white  but now mud brown at the ends - and says that she'll be sending Lugs her dry-cleaning bill. Lurk sees that there are four well-tended garden pots around, each with a strange mushroom in it. Three of the mushrooms are withered and dull, dead as though they had just failed to thrive, but the fourth mushroom is glowing a vibrant purple. He picks it and shows Lugs, musing about what it could be for, when Lugs just says it's a funny mushroom and jovially slaps his brother on the back. Lurk gulps as he lurches forwards from the hearty blow, and when he turns back to Lugs, he's accidentally swallowed the purple mushroom. His eyes grow wide, and the colours invert so his sclera are black and his pupils are white. Suddenly, he collapses.

Deku panics. He'd cast Detect Poison And Disease just earlier, to check the mushrooms and garden, but the only things that his senses had picked up on were Lugs' and Lurks'  inherent poisonous skin secretions, normal for grungs. He tries to wake Lurk up, as Lugs gets concerned for his brother.

After a moment, Lugs hears Lurk's voice in his mind, telling him "ah, my brother, I have not seen you in quite some time." Though Lurks' lips aren't moving, Lugs is relieved and thinks he must be ok and awake. Lurk does open his eyes, with the white pupils now an unsettling purple, just like the mushroom's colouring. He stares wide and unblinking.

Aelia asks what happened to him when he ate it, and Lurk pauses a moment. Telepathically, he asks, "what mushroom?"

After a beat, he smiles. "...oh, that?" He shakes his head. "Heh. That was so long ago." Lurk's mind has been awakened to all of space and time in just an instant. He has mentally transcended this mortal coil. Normally, grungs can only use 10% of their brain power at any one time, but Lurk? Lurk has now unlocked 100% of his brain power, expanding his mind's reach to the cosmos and beyond, and tapping into psychic abilities that regular folk could hardly even comprehend. He is now a soulknife rogue!

The group continues looking around, venturing into the cave where the bugbear came from. It's a large earthy cavern with a tunnel curving out from the back wall, and there's a fire pit, a bed, two rat nests, and a rack of weaponry. After checking the bugbear's body, Lugs takes his flail, which has runes written on the chain links. He swings it around in glee. Under the bed, Aelia finds a little box with about 780 gold in it - she pockets 200 of it in secret (though Valas notices, and Lurk does too, staring at her unblinkingly - neither says anything) and then evenly splits the rest of it amongst the whole party.

The group doubles back to the garden. There are two more doors: one on the eastern wall, and one in the southeast corner. Lurk checks the eastern door for a lock or traps, and then sneaks through.

Beyond the door is a large laboratory, with three more doors on either side of it and one at the end. All but one of the doors on either side of the room are ajar, and they hear squishing noises from one of the closest rooms, as well as the sounds of soft conversations. Lurk continues to sneak around, and finds that the room where the squelching is coming from has two goblin interns in it, squishing fruit into goon with their feet as part of a big wine creation and straining process. They don't notice him.

He peeks into another room, and sees a goblin bandit and two interns standing around a table in a room with more lab and medical equipment, as well as dry blood splatters on the floor. The goblins are doing busywork around the room, and there appears to be a near-naked human strapped spread-eagled to the table, not moving.

Lurk uses his new abilities; he sees a cross-section of the goblin bandit's body, and sends a small blade of psychic energy cutting through the spinal cord. Without a physical wound or the noise of a weapon, the goblin collapses, killed instantly. The two interns spin around at the sound of him hitting the floor, and rush to his side, confused and trying to rouse him. One of them gets up and says they're going to get some help. Lurk waits around the corner as they step out of the room, before he silently closes the door behind them and stabs them from behind with another psychic blade. The intern yelps and falls to the ground, dead.

Hearing the remaining intern inside get up to check out the noise, Lurk presses his back against the door to keep it closed. Soon enough, he feels a pressure on the other side of the door, and his feet start to slide as he gets pushed along with it. Concentrating, he uses some telekinetic energy to reinforce himself and overpower the goblin, keeping the door closed. The intern mutters, "hey, what the fuck?" and rattles the doorknob.

Lurk spins around and opens the door, staring the surprised intern dead in the eyes for a beat, before a purple psychic knife phases out of his head and shoots straight through the intern. Lurk drags the two bodies back inside the room, and takes a cursory glance at the human on the table - their eyes are closed and they're not moving, so he telepathically communicates to the rest of the party that they're obviously dead, before he goes to check out another room.

Lugs starts creeping towards the wine-making goblins when Aelia, behind him, accidentally trips on the wet and muddy hems of her dress. The goblins notice the noise and freeze, slowly drawing their clubs. Lugs, staring at them, walks up to the door and closes it. Deku, also trying to sneak into the  lab, accidentally makes a loud clang with his heavy armour, and Valas yelps as he almost slips on the mud from Aelia's dress as well. A goblin intern walks up to the door from inside one of the rooms, where they and another intern were patching up some damaged leather armour sets, to check out the noise, but stops dead in their tracks when they notice the party in the laboratory. Terrified, they close the door on themselves. Lurk walks straight up to it and knocks, telling them that they'll be killed unless they open up. They oblige, and he then demands that the two interns go stand in the corner and just quietly stare at the wall, mentioning that the other goblins here are all dead. He closes the door on them.

Aelia goes to the human on the table and sees that they're still breathing; not dead at all, but unconscious or asleep. They're covered in cuts and bruises, and their skin looks like thick, ghostly-white bark. Roots grow out of their feet and toes, and moss, mushrooms, and branches grow out of their back and shoulders. Their fingers are long and knobbly, like twigs, and their hair looks more like thin leaves. Aelia casts some healing magic on them, and when she's done, their eyes snap open and they start straining against their bindings, panicking and screaming. She calms them down, and sets to work on untying the restraints. "Who are you? How did you  get here? If you were a human before, you don't look very human now."

Insisting he's human, he begins to talk, shaking. He tells her that he's Chadley Hucrele, who she recognises as one of the people they were hired to find - the noble Kar'yn's son. Chadley explains that he and McKennedeigh - his sister - came to the Sunless Citadel with their two hired helpers to find treasure and glory, but, after exploring a bit of the citadel, they were captured by the Goblin Gang and held in a cell for a while, their belongings confiscated. The hobgoblin leader, Durnn, then told them they were being taken to 'the boss', and they were forced to climb down the well shaft to the lower level. While climbing, Chadley slipped and fell, and he suspects he broke his arm. After that, they were taken to the laboratory, where an old man called Belak met them. Belak took McKennedeigh and Bradley away, and kept Chadley here, where he'd occasionally return to feed him a vile potion that made Chadley feel seriously ill. Horrified, Valas wonders aloud if the people here are turning prisoners into twig blights. Chadley says he thinks he's been unconscious most of the time, as he doesn't remember much after that.

Aelia finds his belongings like some under-armour pants and a shirt - though Valas realises Durnn must have been wearing Chadley's armour - in the corner, including his Hucrele ring. She hands it to him. "Your mum was going to pay us just to bring back this ring."

Chadley takes it, downcast. Aelia puts together a makeshift splint and sling for his broken arm, and he pulls on his pants, but can't wear his shirt because of the growths on his back and shoulders.

Lurk also finds a crystal vial of cloudy white liquid amongst the laboratory equipment. He asks if that's what Belak made him drink, and Chadley confirms it. Deku puts it in his pack for safekeeping, as well as a strange stethoscope Lurk also found.

Lugs has a look in two of the other rooms: one is empty but has the back wall caved in, opening up to a rift that continues on into the darkness. The other room is a weapons storeroom, with a short 10ft little entrance hall attached to it. He peeks out the door of the entrance hall, and finds that it opens onto the side of a much bigger hallway, complete with artwork of dragons on the walls. Another bugbear - this one seemingly dressed more like a gardener - walks away from him down the hall. Quietly, he closes the door again and goes back to the lab.

Valas uses mage hand to open the remaining unchecked door. Inside are three goblins, sleeping in bunks in what appears to be a break room. As they haven't woken up yet, they leave them be.

Lurk tells Lugs that Lugs will be the bad cop, and Lurk will play good cop, as they enter the small room where the two interns had been making wine. Reminded of the sour goon and now faced with the image of the goblins' bare feet squishing the fruits to make it, Aelia goes and pukes around the corner. The two goblins are terrified, and beg Lurk and Lugs not to hurt them, as they aren't fighters. Lurk tells them that if they leave this room, Lugs will smash them to a pulp, and they believe the threat as Lugs croaks menacingly and busts his club into a nearby barrel, spraying goon all over himself while he stares the interns down. Sufficiently terrified, the two grungs leave them in there, blocking the door with a chair.

Valas and Aelia double-back to the garden they first entered after their climb down the well, as Valas wants to confirm something. Using one of his daggers, he saws off the branch-like arm of a dead twig blight, and sees that it's wood and bark all the way through. He sighs in relief, having been worried that there'd be some kind of flesh inside that would confirm that they were transformed people.

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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.

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.

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.