17th Wealsun
Afternoon: The elven twins Lareth and Oreth arrive in the small rural settlement of Oakhurst shortly before Midsummer, enticed by local accounts of a mysterious enchanted fruit with miraculous healing powers which is sold every year at the Solstice by goblins from the nearby ruins known as the Sunless Citadel. For the wizard Lareth, here is an arcane mystery; for the druid Oreth, the puzzle of an unknown, life giving plant. Here they meet Tam, a human warrior eager to test his blade, who plans to accept a contract for the return of two influential local members of an adventuring party which disappeared into the same ruins four weeks past.
After deciding that their goals would be rewarded with cooperation, the three spend the afternoon gathering information on the Sunless Citadel and the missing adventurers and then purchase supplies for their expedition. They then arrange a meeting with Kerowyn Hucrele, matriarch of a wealthy local merchant dynasty and relative to two of the missing adventurers and accept her offer of monetary reward and salvage rights for the return of Talgen and Sharwyn Hucrele or their gold signet rings as proof of their fate.
Evening: Tam, Lareth and Oreth pack their gear and spend a last night in comfort at the King’s Rest Inn.
18th Wealsun
Morning: Tam, Lareth and Oreth as well as Oreth’s wolf, Marrok, set out along the lonely Old Road towards the ruins of the Sunless Citadel. They veer off the path at certain intervals to investigate the remains of burnt out farms but find little other than evidence of goblin aggression.
Meanwhile, Gregory, a rather grim, wandering cleric of St. Cuthbert, arrives in Oakhurst and begins making enquiries of his own about the nature of these parts. Incensed at discovering the double dealings of goblins who sell an enchanted fruit and then steal its saplings before they grow, somewhat dubious about the wisdom of the townsfolk dealing with goblins in the first place and eager to discover the fate of the lost adventurers, Gregory hurries after the human and elves he has heard have already departed for the ruins.
+-5:00 PM Finally the adventurers arrive at a long, narrow ravine which widens into a deep, narrow canyon, its edges topped by ancient plinths reminiscent of Old Faith ruins. They find a rope in good condition tied to one of the plinths and descend some distance into the darkness below, alighting on a raised ledge and battling their way through huge, foul dire rats down worn switchback stairs to the ravine floor.
+-6:30: Here they discover stretching before them the strange and shattered remains of the Sunless Citadel, a twisted mass of pillars, arches, aqueducts and battlements, all of exotic design, surrounded by a sea of rubble.
A crenelated battlement, sunk deep into the earth offers the heroes entrance to the extant ruins and they are undeterred by still operating pit-traps and treacherous masonry. Within the tower they discover evidence of a recent battle and ancient draconic inscriptions, and keen elven eyes spy a secret door wherein they battle the skeletons of long dead archers.
After dealing with the unquiet dead, Tam, Lareth and Oreth are startled by Gregory’s arrival in the Sunless Citadel and, bound by shared goals and the horrors and darkness that surround them, decide to join forces.
+-8:00 PM: The four adventurers decide to make use of the secret archer chamber for safe sleep, bravely spending an unquiet night amid the remains of the undead.
19th Wealsun
+-8: AM: Tam, Gregory, Oreth and Lareth venture out once more into the darkness and begin to explore the silent shattered corridors and chambers of the Sunless Citadel. Tam is unable to force a stone door carved with a detailed bas-relief of a rearing dragon. The company pass by several more mundane, wooden doors but before they can explore these portals they stumble across the pitiful kobold Meepo in what appears to be a kobold shrine. Meepo tells the party of a kobold-goblin conflict, the goblin’s theft of the kobolds’ clan dragon, Calcryx, and his disgrace as a failed Dragon-Keeper. He suggests the adventurers direct their queries to ‘Yusdrayl on her Dragon-Throne’ and they accept his offer to escort them there.
+- 9:00AM: With Meepo’s aid the adventurers negotiate their way past a kobold patrol and seek an audience with Yusdrayl, the apparent ruler of the kobolds, who sits upon a makeshift throne before an altar laden with an assortment of artifacts and whose front features a key in the carving of a rearing dragon. From Yusdrayl, they learn that the kobolds consider themselves the descendents of dragons and have come to the Sunless Citadel to worship them, that the lost human adventurers went forth to battle the ‘dragon-thieving’ goblins and have as yet not returned, and that the ‘treacherous’ goblins serve a being known as ‘the Outcaste’ from whom they receive the enchanted fruit. Impressed by Gregory’s zeal for retribution and Lareth’s draconic eloquence, Yusdrayl offers the adventurers a reward for the safe return of Calcryx, the clan’s dragon abducted in a devastating surprise goblin raid. Lareth and Yusdrayl leave the exact nature of the reward unspecified, though the key or some combination of items from the altar are discussed. Meepo is designated as the kobold’s representative amongst the party and ordered to guide the adventurers to the ‘back way’ from which the goblin attack came.
+-10:00AM: Meepo leads the adventurers back to the kobold shrine and into portions of the Sunless Citadel apparently unclaimed by the kobolds. Lareth reads a draconic inscription on an aged fountain and a strange, oily, pale red substance drips from the dragon-shaped font. Another elaborately carved stone door, this one bearing skeletal dragon motifs, once again holds firm and Tam cannot budge it – the warrior only just avoids a scything blade in the ceiling. Gregory calls upon the power of St. Cuthbert to open the door and the adventurers feel an unnatural chill as they enter a shrine full of images of skeletal dragons and death. After battling the undead inhabitants of several sarcophagi, they discover several unusual items on an obsidian altar. Lareth experiments with a strange translucent metal whistle and to the party’s horror an animate one of the skeletons once more, sending feelings of considerable ‘wrongness’ down their spines. Gregory’s invocation of St. Cuthbert and Tam’s blade end the animation of the dead once more, and the party withdraws from the shrine.
+-10:30 AM: The adventurers set up camp for a second time, this time huddled around the dry fountain.
20th Wealsun
+-6:00 AM: Oreth wakes up sweating in a fever, with a pounding headache and aching bones, and the druid realises he has contracted the dreaded ‘filth fever.’ Nevertheless he decides to press on and after studying spells, sharpening weapons and praying to the gods, the party sets out once more battling their way through dire-rat infested corridoors until they come across another chamber dominated by a dry draconic fountain. Lareth reads the draconic runes inscribed on this fountain only to release poison gas from the dragon-font’s maw; he and Tam are enveloped in a noxious cloud though only Lareth seems to suffer ill effects for it. Gregory and Oreth note iron spikes jamming open pit traps in this chamber.
+-6:00 AM: Oreth wakes up sweating in a fever, with a pounding headache and aching bones, and the druid realises he has contracted the dreaded ‘filth fever.’ Nevertheless he decides to press on and after studying spells, sharpening weapons and praying to the gods, the party sets out once more battling their way through dire-rat infested corridoors until they come across another chamber dominated by a dry draconic fountain. Lareth reads the draconic runes inscribed on this fountain only to release poison gas from the dragon-font’s maw; he and Tam are enveloped in a noxious cloud though only Lareth seems to suffer ill effects for it. Gregory and Oreth note iron spikes jamming open pit traps in this chamber.
+-11:00 AM: The adventurers stumble into the foul nest of the near legendary Guthrash ‘the Bloated One’, a vile, six foot rodent which moves with frightening speed given its rolls of pink fat. The adventurers are initially on the back-foot but Lareth and Gregory dispatch Guthrash’s foul brood and Tam finally slays the rat-mother herself. The adventurers are saddened to find a relatively fresh corpse with a ring inscribed ‘Karakas’ – the name of the ranger who accompanied the previous adventuring party.
+-11:30 AM: The party discovers and assaults what appears to be a watch-post marking a border of the goblins’ dominion with the Sunless Citadel. Quickly storming the sentry post they pursue a fleeing goblin into a more substantial defensive barricade adjacent to some sort of crude training area. A devastating assault by Tam, Gregory, Oreth and Marrok threatens to quickly overwhelm the defenders, but one of the goblins reaches reinforcements and the pendulum begins to swing the goblins’ way. Oreth falls unconscious from fever and bloodloss and loyal Marrok must stand atop his friend to prevent the goblins from finishing him. Eventually as more goblins fall before Tam, Gregory and Marrok’s assault, the remaining defenders lose their nerve and flee into the darkness. Exhausted, the heroes do not pursue and instead withdraw to consider their options.
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