HotDK 28: "Castle Crawl 2 – deeper in”

After dispatching the Dragonclaws, you head up the stairs into what is clearly a library where you find and dispatch of a Dragonwing and several cultists. During the fight, Snapjaw retrieves a special dagger hidden within the Black Dragon head of the Tiamat statue you passed by and gives it to Malice. While taking a few minutes to look among the collection of books, Malice identifies the dagger as being a Dagger of Venom. He also selects several tomes to take that would not only have valuable knowledge but would easily fetch a price of around 1500GP in Waterdeep or the like. Snapjaw points out his craftsmanship on the statue saying he knew the dagger was there because the “black dragon lady” asked for the secret compartment to be there and he later saw her hide the dagger there before it was moved to this location in the castle.

You exit the area that lead up to the library into a court yard where you see a group of Bullywugs mocking a group of Lizardfolk that are training. Snapjaw points out that these are some of the Lizardfolk the “one-eyed elf” that runs the castle selected as elite guards from among the Scaly Death tribe.

In keeping the promise to help Snapjaw with his revolt, you immediately attack the Bullywugs, to their extreme surprise. Snapjaw moves to intervene between you and the Lizardfolk who at first seem to ignore him and begin moving toward you, albeit without too much urgency since you are pretty much slaughtering the Bullywugs.

It takes a few tense moments but the Lizardfolk finally listen to Snapjaw and accept that you are there to help them break free from the Bullywug oppression and the “dragon kneelers”. This group of Lizardfolk, being stationed in the castle as guards, know the movements of Pharblex. They know he spends a lot of time “underneath” but also stays upstairs at night. The last time they saw him he was going toward where to get to “underneath” and so they show you to the stairs that lead there.

You find yourselves in a damp cave, albeit well-lit with lanterns. A shallow pool of water floods the floor from a small opening to the northeast. Stairs lead to up the north and down to the east…