I prepped a couple of characters for this: a drow monk follower of Eilistraee, the good drow goddess of nature and the moon, and a deep gnome artificer. When I saw people's other choices for classes, it became apparent we had a thing front line, so I opted for the monk. Granted, I'm using the Sun Soul build out of the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, which is a skirmish build, designed to move back and forth between the front and back lines. I feel she needs a more proper introduction:
Lyrrad Z'Draudei was raised in an enclave of Eilistraee followers in Cormanthor. Among humans, she goes by "Lydia," because humans are like 'Muricans and can't pronounce f'rin names. She went out into the world seeking portents showing the will of gods in the world. She believes it will all work for the better and evil will be defeated. She followed portents to Waterdeep and the Yawning Portal Inn. In this case, following signs posted by Kerowyn Hucrele, who needed some help.
Who else joined her to help this woman? Vrinn, a wood elf rogue played by Lazaro. Phox, a human barbarian played by Kyla. Bruenor, a hill dwarf cleric played by Calvin. Hiro, a human mystic played by Jeff. Auryx, a water genasi druid played by Shannon. Bobby Jay, a forest gnome bard played by Hillary. Squiz, a human fighter played by will. Amnon, a tiefling sorcerer played by Blake.
She was from a nearby village called Oakhurst, close to a ruin called the Sunless Citadel, a fortress that sank into the earth during a mysterious cataclysm. He brother, Talgen, and sister, Hucrele, went adventuring in the citadel and disappeared. She wanted us to go down and search for them, offering 125gp if we could find evidence of their fate, specifically their signet rings and double that if we could return them alive. Lydia knew that the gods would provide good fortune and we'd find them alive and return them. The rest of the party eventually agreed with varying amounts of optimism and pessimism.
We traveled to Oakhurst and asked around for additional information. We learned why adventurers might be interested in the ruin: every year around the summer solstice goblins living there come to the surface and sell an apple. Those that eat it have their ailments cured and are restored to full health and vigor. Like most drow, Lydia was suspicious of goblins. After some more digging, the priest at the local shrine mentioned the goblins sell a corpse-white fruit as mid-winter that is deathly poisonous. We learned that townsfolk would plant the seeds, resulting in only twisted seedlings that would eventually disappear. This piqued Lydia's interest, and she knew Eilistraee had guided her to the town to learn the secret of these apples the goblins sell. A few of the others had their interest piqued as well.
Otherwise, we learned that the citadel was built by a now extinct dragon cult.
We set out for the citadel, finding some columns in a wasted plain just off of an old road near the town. We found a knotted rope still tied off to one of these columns on the lip of a chasm leading to the Citadel. Although weather worn from a few weeks, the rope was still sturdy enough to climb. Staying in character, Lydia climbed down first, doing a super-hero landing when she reached the sandy ledge below. Of course, there were monsters! Some giant rats. It took a while for the rest of the party to reach the ledge, Except for Squiz, who decided to do a "people's elbow" off the ledge and onto one of the rats. It didn't really work out so well. Squiz landed prone and took about as much damage as the rat. At first level, risky moves are much more likely to end poorly.
We continued on, following rough stone steps down into the chasm, coming to a crumbling masonry courtyard that was once a crenelated balcony. While crossing it, Phox was kind enough to find a pit trap with her face. Aside from Phox, it contained some dead goblins, one very freshly dead. It also had another giant rat. Phox handled it quite quickly, chopping it in half with a greatsword.
The door leading deeper in had runes in draconic written over it spelling the word "Ashardalon." This was probably the dragon the cult "worshipped."
Past that we found a ruined tower, again containing only some goblin corpses, one impaled on a spear. After searching around, we found a flagstone sticking up from the ground with an obvious needle trap on it. Vrinn failed to disable the trap, but Hiro used a psychic ability of the Mystic to "borrow" Vrinn's thieves' tools proficiency and disabled it. We triggered this floor switch, opening a secret door into an archer's post containing three skeletons.
Did they animate and attack us? Of course they did strawman reader asking ridiculous questions. Did we dispatch them with alacrity? Again, of course. Stop asking rhetorical questions. We searched through the room and found 3 +1 arrows in special slots on their quivers.
We took a southerly route further into the dungeon, finding another crumbled room. The way forward was a stone door with a dragon carved on it in relief, a keyhole in it's mouth. It was locked, and resisted our attempts to pick it. While some of us were looking around the room trying to find other ways to unlock the door, including Auryx trying that old "peer through the keyhole" trick, Vrinn went off down another corridor, finding another empty room and an old cistern. Laz decided to hold the idiot ball this session, and had Vrinn bring out his crowbar and bash at the cistern, breaking it open and releasing two mephits: a steam one and an ice one.
Mephits are small imps made of para-elemental materials. That is to say, something that is a combination of the four "cardinal" elements. In this case, water and fire (steam) and water and air (ice). The ancient builders of this place probably summoned and bound the critters to the cistern for limits less water. The steam mephit constantly produces steam while the ice one constantly condenses said steam into water. Mephits, like more traditional imps, are malicious little critters, so they attacked their "savior." Vrinn called for help, and we naturally helped.
Mephits are a good thing to challenge a larger, but low level party. They have breath weapons, a fairly large amount of hit points, and explode when they die. Bruenor managed to keep us alive, though. After that fight, we retreated to the empty room and took a long rest.
We moved on, finding a room filled with wrecked furniture, a busted open cage, and a table covered in cloth like an altar. We heard something sobbing under the altar. We peered under there to find a sad kobold. Seeing a large group of well armed adventurers, it cringed, but we decided to talk to it, learning that it's name was Meepo, and it was the clan's dragon-keeper. Meepo explained that the goblins had stolen their dragon: Calcryx. We mentioned we're not fond of the goblins, either, and Meepo took us to see Yusdrayl, the clan's leader. On the way, Meepo taught us a password to let the kobolds know we were friendly as we moved through their territory.
She had arranged some rubble into a throne, part of which featured a rearing dragon. In it's mouth was a key. We surmised it probably unlocked the door we had passed earlier. We bargained to retrieve Calcryx from the goblins in exchange for the key. Yusdrayl also let us know that the adventurers we were looking for had passed this way and gone into goblin territory before disappearing. Yusdrayl was happy to have Meepo guide us into goblin territory to find the dragon and missing adventurers. We reached an accord, and then we broke for the evening.
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