At the end of last session, we left our heroes deep below the Sunless Citadel in the hitherto unknown second level of the place. The party moved down the corridor and Krorz listened at one of the doors. Hearing nothing, the PCs opened the door and discovered a huge room full of mushrooms, fungi and other noisome growths.
Faded frescos covered the room’s wall, but the party feared lurking danger and progressed no further. Back in the main corridor, they continued onwards. Reaching another set of double doors, they listened and again hearing nothing opened them. Sadly, the room beyond was occupied by a small white dragon and sadly it had heard them coming!
As Kemmo opened the door, the dragon breathed injuring several of the party. Immediately, Belivar and Krorz stepped forward and attacked the beast badly injuring it. Again, the beast breathed on the party freezing the very blood in the heroes’ veins, but a desperate blow from Krorz slew the beast. Healing their wounds as best they could, the party took stock of the mist- and frost-filled room. Finding no treasure, they moved on and discovered a narrow corridor behind the door’s only other room.
The corridor lead to another chamber – this one dominated by a large statue of a rearing dragon. A human cleric of obvious Bakluni origin lurked within, guarded by the two goblin archers earlier encountered as well as four strange humanoid skeletons that seemed to have draconic heads. The skeletons proved extremely strong – Kemmo sadly discovered exactly how strong, suffering several grievous wounds. Eventually, the party forced their way into the room – the divine magic of Kemmo and Klara eventually proving too much for the cleric’s undead guards. While the battle raged, the cleric ranted promising to sacrifice the party’s souls to his dark god – the dragon Ashardalon. Eventually, even his goblin warriors fell and although he almost crushed Kemmo’s skull with a lucky blow, eventually he fell, but not before infecting much of the party with his fell necrotic magics.
Rescuing Kemmo from Nerull’s icy clutches, the party swiftly looted and fled, returning to their base to rest. Quickly, Kemmo recovered from his near-fatal wound, but he refused to return to adventuring for a whole month – instead devoting himself to training and retraining. While Kemmo trained, Klara and Belivar, travelled to the large town of Blasingdell in search of magic. While there, Belivar noted a large rocky outcrop shaped liked a deformed tooth rising above the surrounding forest. (This discovery excited Adoven beyond all reason as he believed the outcrop may mark the location of Durgeddin the Black’s long hidden lair!)
In any event, after stopping at Azurestone on the return journey, Klara and Kemmo again soon re-joined the party and as the month of Patchwall began, the party again returned to the Sunless Citadel. Sadly, disaster almost befell the party when while searching an abandoned library they were attacked by a shadowy dragon. Adoven quickly identified the creature as shadow and he and Klara repeatedly blasted it with their divine magics. Before it could be slain, however, it drained the strength of many of the party – almost killing the stout dwarf; indeed without the discovery of lost clerical healing magic in the library, Adoven would almost certainly have become a shadow himself!
Again, the party retreated to heal their many grievous wounds. When they returned, they explored the rest of the complex, finding gold, silver and copper as well as four zombies – two of which were identified as the lost adventurers (Talgen and Sharwyn) the PCs were searching for. Of the paladin, Sir Braford and his magical sword there was no sign. The party destroyed the zombies and recovered the signet rings sought after by the adventurers’ mother – Kerowyn Hucrele.
Sir Braford’s fate remained a mystery, however, although the party did find fragmentary scrolls hinting at a hidden dragon cult lurking deeper into the mountains.
With nothing else to do, the party sought to breach the magically-held stone door they had discovered months ago. Belivar produced a scroll of knock saved for this very eventuality and managed to defeat the arcane protections barring their progress. Beyond, the party discovered a series of abandoned, dusty chambers which has obviously not been explored for centuries…
