Rise of the Runelords IC

[CasualViking]

Lizuga Manescu AC 13 (+4 counter), Touch 11, FF 12, CMD 17|Fort +4 Ref +2+1 Will +6+1|HP: 24/24 Lizuga picks up her trusty hammer, then goes to watch over the prisoner.

[Spore]

Adalbert approaches the vile Aasimar with caution and sadness in his heart. It vexes me to see anyone as broken as you, my dear Nualia. What brought you down this walk of life? Your father was a holy man, there is divine blood in your veins. I cannot fathom anything less than tragic has happened to you. It is not much, but maybe we can be friends. Maybe we can help you cope. If you open up to us.

The halfling approaches Nualia dangerously close. He does not need to kneel down to speak with the detained priestess from eye to eye. Before you say anything. Maybe we don't understand. Maybe we cannot imagine your pain. But we can listen. After that, Adalbert patiently awaits her response, with a look of empathy on his face.

Spoiler

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Diplomacy: (1d20+7)[12]

[u-b]

"My father was so kind to f*ck my mother and leave her with no means to raise a child. Old Tobyn was so kind on him, telling "there must have been circumstances" and other bullsh*t, as if divine blood frees you from accountability for your actions. Hah! Be my friend, now that you've killed all my other friends, let's work together to explore the rest of this head and find the riches hidden in it!" She looks at Adalbert and does not see a dawn of understanding. "This f*cking head! What do you think is this island on which you are standing?"

[Spore]

Pulled aback by this amount of vulgarity, Adalbert literally takes a step back. He expected hostility, but also a broken girl, not one cloaked in anger. In hindsight he should have done so. He hated when he was not able to answer a question: A head? he stammers. Are you referring to Thassilonian technology?

[u-b]

"A guardian statue of kingdom Shalast which begins right here and borders kingdom Bakrakhan over there." She waves a hand in reneral direction of Sandpoint. "Shalast. Kingdom of greed, you know. They had a whole pillar of gold in their guardian statue. As Thassilonian as you can hope to get."

[Spore]

The halfling finally regained composure. Even if we allowed you to participate, how would we transport the gold? Adalbert inquired. His motives were noble, but he was only humanoid.

[u-b]

"Nah. Not real. Just shows how they value the value. I'm sure there are things of value beyond. Some might be portable. If not, the gold can be transported piecewise."

[Spore]

We should investigate. After a restful sleep and throwing you into jail of course.

[u-b]

"Of course." says Nualia snarkily. It seems she assumes this ends the discussion.

[DrK]

Justen

Justen joins the others looking at Nualia, his eyes blinking in surprise at the crudeness of the woman and bitterness in her voice. "Watch your tone woman. You have orchestrated an attack that claimed the lives of many of Sandpoint." He looks at SHalelu, Iris and the others and steps out of Nualia's earshot. "What do we do now? There is more to explore here and I feel we should get to the bottom of what happens here?"

He looks at Lebwen - "Its a long walk through a goblin infested forest, shall we rest here for the night and recover ourselves then we can explore this vile place fully before walking home." He looks towards the others " What shall we do? If we bound her and remove all her symbols and magical trinkets would that render her less dangerous?"

Spoiler: OOC query to the team

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Did we loot here by the way?

[Spore]

Did you see what she did to the wall? And to Lebwen? Adalbert claims bluntly, referencing both the brick she broke with her weapon and the almost killed pirate. Nualia, you have ceased hostility when your live was at risk, when you had nothing to loose from it. This, and only this makes me consider a better punishment than death for you. But we should disarm her and remove her armor, just to be sure. And gag her, even if I am a bit uncomfortable with it. I know there are several incantations that are just short prayers to her god.

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We have not looted methinks. I think Iris was in trying to. I want to identify Nualia's gear, and know which holy symbol she carries and uses, to know who her deity is. I assume Lamashtu, as the temple suggested.

[Ghostfoot]

Iris

With the others trying to get information out of Nualia, Iris takes a moment to step into the northern workshop and search for any clues or items of interest.

Spoiler: Search

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Perception (1d20+8)[16]

[CasualViking]

Lizuga Manescu AC 13 (+4 counter), Touch 11, FF 12, CMD 17|Fort +4 Ref +2+1 Will +6+1|HP: 24/24 "Nualia, if I were you, i would start thinking about arguments for why you should not be considered an enemy of all who live."[/I]Lizuga starts stripping the prisoner down to her essentials before tying her back up.

[u-b]

You strip the prisoner of all dangerous and/or valuable posessions, bind her and gag her. Some of the possessions turn out to be magical and Adalbert takes time to carefully identify them. Iris finds a lot of stuff in Nualia's workshop. Nualia's research notes seem to be most interesting, but there is a lot of them and they are not particularly well-sorted. You expect you could be reasonably aware of the details of her research by the evening, if you start sorting through them right now.

Spoiler: Loot from Nualia's workshop below

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3 confortable chairs
4 magical "flaming" skulls
3 pieces of scrimshaw artwork
10 jars of pickled deformities
6 taxidermied deformities
12 books on religious topics (general, lower planes, and, mainly, Lamashtu-related; all written in Common)
100 pages of research notes (all written in Common; these will require some time to sort through)
100 pages of blank paper
writing set + ink
1370 gp worth of gold and platinum coins
assorted junk

Spoiler: Loot from Nualia herself

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bastard sword +1
breastplate +1 of unconventional design
a medallion with seven-pointed star
gold holy symbol of Lamashtu (not magical)

Assuming Adalbert takes 10 on spellcraft to identify everything.

This medallion hangs on a leather cord, a silver disc inscribed with the Sihedron. While worn, a Sihedron medallion grants its wearer a +1 resistance bonus on all saving throws. Once per day, as a free action, it may be commanded to bestow the effects of false life on the wearer. Placed on the neck of a dead body, a Sihedron medallion preserves the body indefinitely via a gentle repose effect. It enables scrying by the maker on the wearer.

[DrK]

Justen

As Justen watches the piles of loot and the other assorted trinkets he keeps away from the more odd and deformed things in Nualia's collection. "You, what else is in this place? Is there anything further down below here? We discovered strange tunnels beneath our town - is there anything like that under here?"

He stands, pausing and waiting whilst Lizuga rebinds her, sword and axe in hand in case she tries anything troublesome. He then looks to Iris and Lizuga, "What shall we do now?"

[u-b]

"Why won't you just go and see for yourself? It's not like you'll take my word on what's there. We haven't completed exploring, if that's what you ask."

[Ghostfoot]

Iris

Iris ignores the captive diabolist as she ascends from below. "There's lots down there. Research notes, a whole bunch of religious texts of challenging disposition."

Her eyes widen as the others explain Nualia's confession that she was excavating a guardian statue of ancient Thassilon.

Spoiler: OOC group chat

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I'm okay to carry on, if others are. I'm out of spells, though that's not a huge deal.

Alternatively we can rest and then investigate the remaining tunnels.

I still need to level up too.

When we're ready (either now or after a rest) perhaps Shalelu guards her while the rest of us delve deeper?

[Spore]

Maybe we should take a break then. I am well thanks to Lizuga's intervention. But we used almost all our healing ressources, and I am clueless how to engage further. Maybe these research papers shed some light into the darkness. One mistake and one of us could end up as feed for Lamashtu's various monstrosities. Adalbert looks at Nualia in a disparaging way.

Spoiler

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Adalbert has nothing to give other than badly aimed crossbow bolts and the world's most pitiful dagger attacks.

[CasualViking]

Lizuga Manescu AC 13 (+4 counter), Touch 11, FF 12, CMD 17|Fort +4 Ref +2+1 Will +6+1|HP: 24/24 "I think we can all say in fairness that we have worked hard today, and a rest would be appropriate." Lizuga looks over Nualia's armor with a distasteful expression. "You broke my armor, Nualia. I'll be taking yours instead. Master Adalbert, do you have the magic to clean this?". "I suppose Iris will be busy reading. Justen, can you help me adjust the straps?". She turns her back on Justen, stretches out her arms, and blushes ever so slightly.

[Erloas]

"Well I know a pit we can toss her in over the night while we rest. And I think if we can make sure there isn't any secondary entrances, it would be really easy to guard at the portcullises. We do know that at least a few living goblins know we're here. If that is our plan, which sounds like a reasonable option to me, I would like someone to make a quick trip back to the entrance with me to see if anyone has been through recently. I want to pick up that trap I left at the entrance and put it in the hall just before whatever room we stay in."
Before heading out to check on anything else, Lebwen takes the potion Adalbert gave him earlier and drinks it.

Spoiler: OOC

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assuming no one has any magical healing before I drink the potion
(1d8)[7]

Unless I've missed something, I think that puts me at -1? I was at -8 when I was found in the hole.

It appears we haven't level since I replaced my computer, so I guess I don't have a good save for my PCGen copy of the character to update. I'll have to rebuild it, but shouldn't be any big changes for level 4.

[DrK]

Justen

Justen blushes also as Lizuga starts to strip down and he averts his gaze as much as possible, hoping no-one notices his hands shaking slightly as he straps the armour around Lizuga's neat frame. "Eh, ah.. I thinkw e are done Lizuga" he mutters stepping back. More confident now he nods to Lizuga. "Why don't we rest down here, with the pit and the portcullises and a guard rota we can keep an eye on this one. Maybe we can learn more from the notes what she was doing here?""

Looking to Shalelu he asks politely "Maybe you could watch her in the morning whilst we explore further? Then we can make sure there is no reason to return to this place in the future.""

[u-b]

You follow the presumed path of the retreated goblin ladies to the end of the bushy maze that is the mainland part of the goblin encampment. You find Lebwen's bear trap there, moved aside from the way and not triggered. You chose not to track goblin ladies further. Taking a long piece of rope, you lower Adalbert 80 feet down from the cliff and let him tie the rope to ghe dog sitting there. You then haul them both up. The dog seems to be quite happy to re-join the party. You then shout your proposal to the goblins that were supposedly hiding north-west outside the wall. After getting no response and shouting that you are otherwise to come after them, the goblins agree to parley. There turns out to be two armed warriors. You disarm them and give them the lot of goblin babies, which had to be packed quite creatively to be transportable by only two goblins, but you suppose these two would be able to re-unite with the rest sooner rather than later, so sent them on their way.

With the man and the woman neatly jailed in their separate cells, still bound and gagged, yo can take some time to dig through the papers, which Adalbert and Iris chose to do. The rest and the dog meanwhile performed guard duty to let Shalelu rest before night's watch as the elf volunteered to take the whole night watch outside.

You learn the following facts from the papers:

1. Some time between the late unpleasantness in Sandpoint (during which the chapel was burned down, killing the priest and, as was thought at the time, Nualia) and the recent events, Nualia was able to secure some funding from an unnamed source. She then used said funding to hire three mercenaries in in the city of Magnimar, namely:
- a male fighter named Orik Vancaskerkin
- a female wizard named Lyrie Akenja
- a male barbarian named Jagen (this one, as is mentioned later in the notes, was killed by the trap that gave you so much problems)

It is not mentioned where and when Nualia allied with Tsuto Kaijitsu, but by this time he was also with her.

2. The party came to Thistletop, where they persuaded and/or bought goblin leadership, including the chief Ripnugged and the bugbear Bruthasmus, but not the druid Gogmurt, which was unable to stop this alliance from happening, but unvilling to abandon his tribe.

3. After securing the goblins' loyalty, or at least a semblence of it, the party started their excavations and explorations, with the mercenaries being motivated by pay and a share of the loot, but not explicitly told Nualia's true motives. Whether they were able to make their own mind was not mentioned, but actual Nualia's activities (as opposed to motives) were not secret and included:
- restoring active service in the chapel dedicated to Lamashtu, with mandatory participation of all goblins ad demonstrations of Lamashtu's and Nualia's powers
- planning and then executing a raid on Sandpoint
- burning Ezakien Tobyn's remains at the altar in chapel of Lamashtu to finalize the first stage of Nualia's deal with Lamashtu, in return being partially transformed into a (half-?) demon
- planning a bigger raid on Sandpoint to burn the whole city

4. The bigger raid was to be performed with the help of other goblin tribes and the barghest Malfeshnekor, which is supposed to be still imprisoned somewhere in Thistletop, in areas the party has not yet reached, and which Nualia intended to set free. The raid was supposed to culminate in burning down the whole town, but that, in itself, was not the end of it. Many goblins were expected to die in the process, and each wrathful soul released was supposed to fuel Minor Runewell of Wrath, located in the catacombs under the city, which can then be used to create loyal servants in the form of Sinspawn in a rather simple process of dropping a single drop of blood in the pool per a Sinspawn to be created. The research papers have it underlined, that the process must be performed only after the raid on the town, because the runewell is currently almost depleted and totally depleting it will shut it down, making it unreceptive to new wrathful souls. The process of re-activating it again is unknown to Nualia, but is supposed to be difficult. Anyway, the razing of the town was supposed to be dedicated to Lamashtu, and in the end, Nualia was supposed to be finally transformed into a (half-?) demon ontop of having a loyal army of sinspawn.

5. The problematic part, on which the party was working recently, is getting further with the exploration. So far they seem to be stuck. There is a hall with Shadows, but it does not seem to lead anywhere. There is also a pillar of "gold" in the hallway, but whether it leads anywhere is also unclear. So far, Nualia was hesitant to do a forced excavation, but was considering the option if no better way would be found.

6. Of other things mentioned in the papers are:
- detailed study of Waters of Lamashtu which ends with a conclusion that this is not the way to go to rid oneself of celestial "taint"
- detailed descriprion of workings of the trap that killed Jagen (when the pressure plate is pressed, drop down the portcullises; if it is still pressed and the portcullises are down, slashing glaives for two rounds; if it is still pressed and the portcullises are down, open pit trap)

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If you have related questions, the papers might or might not contain the answers (the above is just a summary).

It is the evening now. I will move things on after a day or two.

[Spore]

Papers, letters and books strewn around Adalbert, he concludes a partial success of their personal attack on Thistletop. A few secrets however remain to be explained and discovered.

If we are finished here, I suggest we deplete the runewell. Sealing magical artifacts like that feels stupid. Out of earshot of Nualia he adds further: I am unsure if we can risk keeping Nualia alive. She is half-done with her transformation. I feel only a font of divine energy would be able to purify her. Nothing we nor Father Zantus can do would help her. Do you think Sarenrae's light could help her?

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Is there a way to deplete the runewell without creating sinspawn? Adalbert would be willing to go as far as temporary attribute damage/donating blood or whatever for that, even delving into [evil] spells.

Did we find Tobyn's bones with Nualia?

Does Nualia seem content in her situation right now? Like "they caught me but my master plan continues" content.

[CasualViking]

Lizuga Manescu AC 20 (+4 counter), Touch 11, FF 19, CMD 17|Fort +4 Ref +2+1 Will +6+1|HP: 24/24 Lizuga listens to the recap of the papers silently and with drawn lips. She sighs deeply. [B]"It is with a heavy heart I say this, but I can not see how we can allow this woman to live. She is a murderer, and an orchestrator of mass murder. She is completely without remorse; I think the very concept is alien to her. I will allow her a final prayer, and I will give her body whatever rites she requires. She deserves neither. I will do these things for me, not for her[B]

[u-b]

Lizuga removes Nualia's gag to allow her to pray and require the rites.

Spoiler: Decide if you are present when this happens before opening this spoiler

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Seeing that you are serious, Nualia takes a moment to decide, then grinns sadly. "Will keep your word, will you? Burn me at the altar, that will do. I think I won't actively participate from now on, except fo this prayer... BE DAMNED ALL OF YOU!" With that, she lost the consciousness. Everyone nearby gets hit with a wave of negative energy.

Spoiler

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Channel negative energy (2d6)[9] will DC 15 half

[CasualViking]

Lizuga Manescu AC 20 (+4 counter), Touch 11, FF 19, CMD 17|Fort +5 Ref +2 Will +7|HP: 22/31 Lizuga stoically weathers Nualia's last insult. Then she pierces the woman's black heart with the spike on her polearm. She picks up the body to carry it to the altar, then looks around for coal or firewood. Will - (1d20+7)[10]

[Spore]

Adalbert is present as well. He tried to weigh the options but he felt Nualia was too far gone. Staring at the execution would be a good way to harden his nerves for the things to come. You aimed to kill hundreds. Be it here or in Sandpoint, your sentence will be the same.

The wave of negative energy washes over Adalbert. He doesn't flinch even though black energy opens several small wounds all over his body. Shelyn has a good relation with Desna. Maybe your prayer, Iris, can guide her soul back to Lady Luck rather than down to her new master.

[u-b]

There is nothing readily flamable in the chapel, but Lizuga has seen the goblins store the firewood upstairs near the courtyard. It takes quite a lot of trips to bring enough to burn a body, nearly depleting the goblins' stockpile. When the flames start to consume the body, Lizuga feels the presense of some supernatural entity of malevolent disposition, watching her actions closely and perhaps waiting for her to make a request. She does not make one.

The night passes uneventfully. Shalelu takes the whole night's watch outside and you take turns guarding wherever you're camping.

It is the morning now. Outside, it is signaled in part by the rising sun and in part by the noise of usual day-time activities of seagulls. In the catacombs, though, nothing much seems to have changed.

Spoiler

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One ration per person, please, with the dog counted as person. You restore night rest's worth of hit points.

[Spore]

Adalbert takes the evening to finally rid himself off the partially removed goblins disguise. As he eats his breakfast, a tough cake made from flour and water and a few spices. He offers the dog one of these as well but assumes the dog will ignore it.

Well then, what should we check first? Adalbert cheerily asks. Coping with stress seems to be his easiest trick.

Spoiler

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Day 2 of eating wandermeal:

This tough, dried cake is a halfling invention made from flour, water, and spices. Wandermeal keeps for months without spoiling, travels well, and fills the belly. However, eating it for over a week without other nutrients requires the eater to make a daily Fortitude saving throw (DC 15 + 1 for each additional day) or be sickened. The effect ends 1 day after more nutritious food is eaten. The listed price is for a day’s worth of food.

[CasualViking]

Lizuga Manescu AC 20 (+4 counter), Touch 11, FF 19, CMD 17|Fort +5 Ref +2 Will +7|HP: 26/31 "Who's a good boy? Yes you are. Yes you are. Kisses, muah, muah! You want some of my jerky, boy? Go on. Here you go. Okay, have a little more. Good boy."