Lif is rebuilt over the next six months and reopens. Half orc Friggiedi and all-human Morn Amblecrown make a visit and find Reade tending bar. Reade offers libations. Morn, referred to the adventurers-for-hire by local character Volo, counteroffers a job to locate a missing person. The bad news is that missing Kressando Rosznar’s last known location was in the undermountain beneath the yawning portal. The further bad news is that Kressando is mixed up with slave traders and Xanathar. If there is any good news at all, it’s that Kressando’s sister Esvele Rosznar is loaded with all that lucrative slavetrader wealth of the Rosznar family, and the dungeon itself might contain some finders-keepers valuables. Kressando, or his fresh corpse, can be identified by his platinum signet ring featuring the Roznar crest, a white falcon on a field of blue and their “Fly high stoop swift” motto.
The new party meets up at the Yawning Party. Janky strikes up a social convo with local down-on-his-luck adventure guy Maloon whose CV includes: attacked by Xanathar, eaten up by a brain dog, and thrown out of Force Gray. Maloon’s professional recommendation, whatever that’s still worth, is to avoid going into the undermountain.
Morn approaches extrovert Volo, busily recounting an unrecognizable version of the liberation of the dragon hoard. Volo explains the ancient history of the undermountain which began as the epic project of one Harrister Allekeep who organized some wizards, started a tower going upward, and then pivoted downward to duergar and drow stratum. Much later, entrepreneur Durnam came along and exploited the commercial potential of the dungeon entrance which inherently and monopolistically prohibits magical ingress and egress.
The party pays Durnam’s descent fees and gets lowered to the bottom of the yawn. Nearby skeletons attest to the perils of not setting aside ascent fees. A secret door, inaccessible from this side, suggests a shortcut out of the dungeon from somewhere.
The only (accessible) path into the dungeon is a tunnel that takes the party to a hall of demons carved into the walls. A skeleton has either been arranged to point to a secret door or someone died pointing to a secret door some time ago. Beyond the secret door, a tunnel descends slightly to a carving that warns of certain death. A stench warns of the certain untreated sewage that floods the chamber at the other end of the tunnel. Just around the corner where the sewage gets deeper the party glimpses a sahuagin statue wearing a magical hat, if detect magic serves.