#sunlesscitadel

Can't wait to grab and drag my PCs with the Gulthias Tree's roots tonight.

Like every adventurer should, we start cleaning up the sunless citadel of any beasties still lurking within. We found a room with what looked like a giant beer barrel inside it, but it had pipes running into the walls. As stupid people do, we decide to crack it open and look inside, only to be attacked by two very angry mephits. I guess we just broke their house, so their anger is understandable. What we didn’t know was that the little blights can summon more of their kind, so that fight ended up being a bit harder than it had to be.

After a quick rest (those little shits burned me!), we hear some meek “hello?” calls from the entrance of the citadel. I decide to go check it out while everyone else was busy doing less important things, and I see a rather cute man in strange clothing calling out. He doesn’t look too threatening, so I went to see what was up. Turns out he’s from the Harpers; a bard called Zaphiel who was sent by Zelarwen to hurry us up and help us get to Neverwinter before our boat to Chult left. I guess he can help us finish up here.

New bard in tow, carry on through a creepy looking door with some dragon’s face on it. I think we were told it was Ashardalon, an ancient red dragon that terrorised the lands some time ago. We got the door’s key off the kobolds, so I guess they were too scared to check their master’s hidden passages, too.

What happened next was the pinnacle of stupidity.

Opening the door, we see a room with ancient statues of elven warriors, and a glowing, humming crystal ball. Creepy musty room with a lit up arcane object in it, let’s be careful, yeah? Nope, Istimar decides to poke the bear - or in this case, the crystal ball. Hum turns to creepy as fuck music and suddenly everyone but Istimar is fleeing for their lives out of the citadel. To make matters worse, the music wakes a bunch of giant rats up, much to my displeasure.

After overcoming the creepy music and mopping up the last of the disgusting rats, we make our way back to the room, only to find that the door was shut. Has the idiot locked himself in? We check down a corridor leading to the next area, and he’s face down in the dust. I just thought he’d decided to take a nap, but Marduk found some poison arrows stuck in his face and his ass. Pretty funny, but now we have to wait for the imbecile to wake up.

Moving on, we come to an ominous looking mausoleum, with even more elven statues and a large coffin in the middle. Weird though, the coffin looked more like it was keeping something from getting out of it, instead of trying to stop people getting in for whatever treasure this ancient sarcophagus may hold. I decided to watch Marduk flex those muscles of his and break open the coffin.

The weirdest thing was inside it.

A troll!

A really nice-sounding troll with a high elven accent!

I wanted to help him, he sounded so polite and didn’t attack us for no reason. He was a bit gross though, he looked kind of like a zombie - at least, what I’ve read about them - but he seemed to be of sound mind. Well, he was of sound mind, but I guess I just look too delicious because he tried to take a bite out of me.

Yup, that happened.

I guess Istimar was right when he was trying to signal us to attack, but I just feel bad for the poor chap. I guess I know not to trust creepy undead trolls now. We fought it, but the ugly fucker knocked me out, and next thing I know I’ve been dragged to the side while everyone else put it down with some flames. It kinda looked like Istimar was going to drag me away and run? At least, Zaphiel didn’t seem too happy with him.