Apparently a resort of ancient Elves (as shown in the Gwyddfa that was discovered in A Very Merry Hunt). First encountered in Oh That Island. What's Up With That?
Come morning though, we were more refreshed and ready to see what this castle, manor, citadel thing had in store for us. You know what, I'm just gonna write “Dread Citadel” because that’s what we named this place in the end. Dread Citadel Dread Citadel, Dread Citadel. You following? Great!
So, we walked up to the Dread Citadel and approached the gate. Like the last night, there was still no sound or noise of any sort of people actually living there. I wildshaped into a bird, a lil sparrow, to scout out what's around - and its more or less the same thing. The place looks tended, the beds made, the candles fresh, but no people! After 10 minutes of trying to puzzle this out, i flew back to the group as they opened the gate and inside we went!
(P.S.: No this wasn’t a castle with like a courtyard or walls to explore - more like a mansion where the gate is the front door. Either way, we were indoors from here on out. Which suuuuuuuckkkeed cus I prepared spells for exploring the wilds. Ah well, silly me.)
The Dread Citadel was surprisingly empty to be honest, trying to remember every single room we went and passed through is pretty hard. I’ll try to summarize some sights real quick here:
So we entered the front door and found ourselves in a ball room. Entrance on the western wing i think? Ash talked about splitting up for some reason but I was totally against that. Thankfully Sirxus and Beth agreed it’d be safer together.
We entered two ball rooms, then a dining hall with some weirdly out of place artwork of cultures from the Old World.
A fireplace attacked us after that. Yes, a fire place. Weird, I know. Some writing in Escapee’s Tongue saying ‘get out’ - which is a common sight in the Dread Citadel.
Some kitchen and dining halls and closets
We found a stretch of hallway covered in yellow mold - which reacts to electricity it seems. I tried throwing a buncha spells at it to remove it but it just shrugged everything off! We ended up literally just scraping it off inch by inch. Kinda surprising the solution was so mundane, but I guess when you rely and use magic so much you miss those little things. Also, ugh, yes, literally had to scrape a hallway clear, it was tedious.
Another room. I think this was the one where we say more writing saying ‘get out’ or the like…Ah I just asked Sirxus, this was the one written in Abyssal talking about being ‘flayed alive’. Ugh, that just makes me shiver.
Then we found a bath. Would have been nice to dip my toes in there were it not for the fact the water turned into demons and tried to freeze us to death. It was kinda pretty for a bath house though!
Now that I think about it - why wasn’t that water some sort of elemental? It spoke abyssal, I think.
We patched up and then moved onto a room with a mirror that spoke elvish. At first I was curious and excited to talk to it - but it just turned out to be a big bully! It only spoke when asked a question and it just insults you no matter what it was you asked. Called me a cross between a ‘ginger’ and a ‘rock’ - like what?! ?! Gah, I'm still mad at how mean it was to me. That mirror was the worst, I hope it watches paint dry or something.
Then we saw a torture room. Then another…nope, don’t even care to recognize that place has any reason to exist.
I then kinda carelessly fell into a pitfall trap after that - kinda bruised my hiney in the fall but no problem right? I can fly! Uh, nope. Can’t hear myself talk, breath, or even my own heart beat. It was…scarily quiet - can’t cast spells and I desperately cried for help. Ash was there in no time to rescue me. So i’ll write in the biggest words I can here:
After that it was getting late so we just started moving through the rooms really quick. Found a neat tapestry, some spirals and bottles, oh!
We found a shrine to Shax, apparently a big demon lord.
We found some statues that dance when you don’t look at them
A mural of monsters
Then we found the treasure room. I decided to scout it out before we gathered our loot and good thing too cus some of the coins formed together to make a golem before attacking us. And golems are nasty - can’t hurt them with magic and this one’s fists cursed you against being able to be healed naturally. After the fight we rested up for several hours with me just trying to heal Sirxus and Ash and Beth.
Then a library. And some more closets. Lots of closets to be honest. I sat on a throne like a conqueror, muahaha!
And then we met Spark, the exploding slime! Aw, he’s such a chum, spoke perfect elvish too! He looks and sounds grumpy but he’s a sweetie deep inside his exploding jelly. Oh, he seemed to be cursed to explode every few heartbeats or so, and was working really hard to not explode. He let us pass after I named him Spark.
In the basement where his ‘masters’ wait, we found two demons. Yup, just straight up creepy looking violent demons that want nothing more than to violently hurt you. It was a tough fight but we won out in the end.
After that we figured the whole first floor was explored.