The three get up bright and early and make their way to
Hellknight hill.
On the way, the girl introduces herself as Eevie. At one point she says again
“What am I, chopped liver?” But I can’t remember at what point it was.
They don’t encounter any problems on the way.
They arrive at a smoking, run down Citadel that’s been overgrown with nature.
Krystoff identifies the smell as that of sulfur, usually used in smoke signals.
There are no signs of a battle.
As they are tying up the horse, hidden in the trees, they encounter something
unexpected. A massive Boar that doesn’t seem afraid of humans.
Eevie approaches it and offers it a ration, which the Boar gobbles up,
wiggling it’s tail. The boar has a nametag “Milie”.
Everyone exlaims at how unlikely this is, but are happy
with their luck. Krystoff uses a rope from his pack to get the boar in the cart
and tie it up.
Jae makes his way up to the citadel, and uses a grappling hook to climb onto a
wall to have a better look inside.
Krystoff doesn’t wait and knocks on the door, which is barely hanging from the
hinges.
He hears a growl. Eevie comes up behind him. He knocks again “Hello!? My name
is Krystoff Spirfierd! I’m here on behalf of the council of Breachhill!”, the
only reply was another growl.
He pokes his head through the door and see’s two large, bald dog-looking
creatures. Next to them is a litter of what seems to be their pups.
“Back up slowly, stay behind me” he tells Eevie, which she does.
As he’s backing up, the “dogs” are approaching him menacingly.
They follow them outside the citadel.
“Throw another ration at them!”
Eevie does, and the two creatures start eating it with gusto.
Jae is above the wall and ready to throw daggers at the two creatures if they
were to attack.
Krystoff rushes Eevie to climb up the rope, she does, but slowly, so he climbs
up behind her and pushes her up with his shoulders, once up, he throws another
ration at the creatures, who were looking up with expectation in their eyes.
And they continue to eat them.
After exploring the top area above the citadel entrance, it was made
clear there was no way we could access it from the outside.
They looked down at the bald dog creatures, who were staring up, wagging their
tails expectantly for more food.
They tossed some more of their trail rations down, and the dogs ate them again.
“They seem to have calmed down, let me go down alone and check, you two be
ready to attack them from range if they attack me” Krystoff told Jae and Eevie.
Once he went down, he confirmed the dogs were not
aggressive anymore, Jae and Eevie went down the rope.
They all entered the citadel and arrived at a entry hall that seemed to store a
lot of Hellknight armor. However, it seemed to all be in disarray, most pieces
seemed rusted and unusable. They continued forward and reached a hall full of
Portraits of old Hellknights.
They went left, eventually reaching what at one time must have been the
citadel’s Barracks.
The beds seem to have all been moved to the center of the room, and formed some
sort of tent, or what would look like a fort made by a child.
There were 5 rooms around the area but nothing of interest was found in them.
Krystoff made his way to the “tent” that was in the middle
of the room, moving the sheets aside with his longsword. He saw a medium sized
hairy creature. It was crouched over a dead deer and seemed to be skinning it.
The creature we identified as a Bugbear got startled and rushed at us with its
knife. Kystoff blocked the attack with little effort and knocked the creature
out with the flat side of his blade.
After searching through the tent, we found a Bastard Sword and Krystoff took it
with him.
He also tied up the Bugbear and brought it over to one of the empty bedrooms.
The Bed was against the wall, and when he pulled it down, he found a Minor
Healing potion he put into his bandoleer. He then blocked off the door in case
the Bugbear got free of the ropes.
The group moved on to the next room, they passed through a
kitchen and got to an area with multiple training dummies. Jae found something
in one of them, but I can’t recall what it was.
After inspecting the room, Jae found a Secret Door by the south wall. He opened
it and found that there was a trigger to a trap that would launch a spear bolt
at whoever opened it.
He carefully removed the bolt from the Launcher. It seemed to be a secret stash
of valuables. After looking through it, they found a Low Grade Silver Longsword
that Krystoff picked up, there was also a lockbox that Jae picked with a
mummified elven hand (Hand of the Mage) and some coins in it. There was also a
Hellknight manuscript, it described the Hellknight test in it.
We exited the secret room and found a pantry. Jae picked up some supplies, including Flour. And found a silver knife.
We also picked up some Hellknight insignias and banners.
We entered a what seemed to be a large mess Hall with long rows of tables and broken chairs. It seemed the room had been looted and there was nothing worth taking.
We entered a room with symbols on the floor, and met a
Hellknight Armiger named Alak Stagram. He killed an Imp as we walked in, but
was soon attacked by two more.
We helped him out and defeated them easily.
Alak was not on official business. A member of the Order of
the nail here on personal business looking for his family’s signet ring.
He also answered some other basic questions about what to expect in the Citadel,
and we shortly heard noises coming from the Courtyard.
Once there, we heard goblins shouting from the second floor, as well as a giant
Lizard type thing in the courtyard, with another buried under some collapsed
staircase.
The Lizard attacked us, Jae ignored it and started climbing the wall towards
the Goblins and the Commotion.
Alak, Krystoff and Eevie managed to kill the beast and Krystoff made his way up
the wall as well.
Above, we saw a standoff between the Goblin tribe, and a Halfling, who we
assumed was Calmont.
Calmont was holding a goblin Hostage with a knife to her throat.
After some failed attempts at Diplomacy and intimidation, we had to act.
Calmont managed to cut the Goblin’s throat open and both Jae and Krystoff took
him down.
Krystoff healed the Goblin successfully and Jae tied Calmont up.
By talking to Calmont, the Adventurer’s find out about the
existence of Alseta’s Ring, an Elf gate somewhere in the basement of the
Citadel. He found out about it from Voz’s (his employer’s) notes.
He also set the fire in the town hall as suspected.
The Goblin Calmont was keeping Hostage was named Helba. She
explains how they were living in the basement and many monsters started coming
up from the depths.
She askes the Adventurers to help them reclaim their home from the creatures
that have taken over it.
Krystoff asks her about the Bugbear, and Helba says “oh, that’s Yoletcha” and
says she’s a friend. So Krystoff tells her where she is tied up so she can go
free her, and sends back her Bastard sword he had taken along with his
apologies.
Helba tells us that there’s a secret entrance to the
battlements below from the outside.
Alak does not wish to wait and makes his way down to the secret entrance.
The Adventurers agree to help the Goblins, but first need to return to Breachill with Millie and Calmont and will return the next day. The Goblins, now camp outside the Citadel.
On the way out, Krystoff grabs some pieces of Hellknight Armor that may be
useful.
They go back to town and report their findings to the Council and turn in
Calmont, as well as report our findings to Warbal.
We then bring Millie back to Angus, who’s ecstatic
and sings our praises.
He introduces us to his cousin, Janus, a sort of hobbyist Blacksmith who
specializes in more artistic type of gear.
Janus immediately offers to take the newly found Hellknight armor and restoring
it by morning.
As it is late, Krystoff and Eevie return to the Wizard’s Grace, and Jae,
returns to Cayden’s Keg. And they decide to meet in the morning to head back to
the citadel.