Seal stands in amazement at the artistic display Miana just demonstrated. At the fall of Malfeshnekor, Seal gives a big thumbs up to Miana with a toothy grin. Soon after, Seal's rage ends. His eyes roll back into his head and the dwarf falls to the ground with a thud.
After a minute, Seal comes to and regains his weapons. He then takes the wand of CLW from Lucian and starts tapping all of the claw and bite marks he received.
17/43
After the last three charges, Seal raises up the wand in a fit of anger as if he was to break it over his knee. At the last minute, he changes his mind and returns the wand to Lucian.
"I could barely touch that thing. It kept blinking in and out of the room. Sneaky bugger but I bet that gives you a headache. You guys did good. I wish I could have ice come out of my hands. Then I would change my name to Frostypaws!"
The Varisian boy heals any injuries that needs to be mended.
Then Lucian casts detect magic and studies the object carefully for curses, following Rissi's insight.
"I don't think it's cursed, Rissi. By the way, fantastic curse you had there. It saved us all."
"I often find simple divinations are inadequate to *chhh* locate subtle defects in items. Besides, you and I should know from *squeak* history that Thassilonian magics, even minor ones, should not be trifled with." Her tone is almost academic in its lecturing.
She pauses. "Thank you for the compliments, but in truth *chhh* each of us has unique talents the work together. Let us focus on finding Nualia"
Lucian blushes, a little ashamed of his hasty judgement. "You're right, of course Rissi. Shall we look for Nualia?"
|
"Your words are kind, Sealman. I can only thank Irori for my ability to defeat this foe. Although I must agree with little Rissi, it was our victory together against this scourge against good."
She pauses in reflection at the dwarf's last line. "I cannot see you doing much with being able to control the elements other than keeping your ale cold and your food hot!", she smirks.
"I still have a some fight left within me, although I did have to expend all of my gifts to bring down that foe."
Miana pauses once again. "And perhaps I'll use my 'evil sense' to figure out if we need to prepare before opening the door.", nothing the party's lack of preparation nearly cost them dearly.
Seal recommends the single door to the north.
The party squeezes into the narrow corridor and heads through the northern door!
Wide stone ledges of red marble line the curving walls of this room, which is well lit by four burning skulls that sit in each corner. Three chairs rest in the room, and both stone ledges are covered with old books, scrolls, teeth, bones, scrimshaw artwork, jars of deformed creatures soaking in brine, taxidermied animals and limbs, and other strange objects. To the north, a large round fountain filled with frothy blue water fills the room with the gentle sound of bubbling.
Another yeth hound stands guard before the entrance to the room but further in you can see a woman with silver hair and violet eyes, lovely but for the fact that her left hand has been transformed into a red demonic talon and scars criss-cross her shapely figure.
"So you're the heroes who have been killing off my goblins? Pawns, that's all. But now you face the Queen."
"Well, once a great master of dungeons said, 'You did fine until that last room.'" If the ring is of true power, it maybe Kufieno should wear it since he's been involved with the wetworks the last couple of fights.
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As Seal throws open the single door, he is left in shock. Not by the demon woman in the room. But by the fact that she was supposed to be in the double door room!
"Demon-b!tch! It is you who shall face, THE SEAL! WOO-WHA-WHA-WAH!"
Seal out jukes the yeth hound with a fake lateral to nobody. He deftly performs a Sandersque spin move to get behind the hound. The raging barbarian swings his dorn at Nualia's face!
:P
Rissi shrieks at the Yeth hound before it can shriek at them.
Lucian blesses his friend with Desna's benevolent guidance.
Miana moves in to the hound but misses! Seal has much better aim and deals Nualia a nasty blow, opening a bleeding wound in her side. Rissi shrieks at the hound and Lucian blesses the party!
---
Nualia's face is an impassive mask save for her eyes, which blaze with anger at the dwarf assaulting her!
Rissi continues to try and keep the yeth hound out of the fight...
Lucian casts burst of radiance on Nualia and her hound, seeking to blind them!
Seal dodges the attack and takes a step back give him distance between himself Nualia and Hound. Lowering his defenses even more, Seal cleave into Nualia and through the Yeth Hound
"What's wrong doggy, cat got your tongue? I can fix that. Thunderpus attack!"
The cat bursts into the room, dipping past the hound to protect his master. Thunderpus then tries to bite and trip the Yeth Hound.
WOO-WHA-WHA-WAH!
Rissi continues to shout down the hound while Lucian blasts them with holy light and blinds the two foes! Seal cleaves through Nualia and her hound, taking down the yeth hound!
Miana's stab nearly brings Nualia to her knees, but the warped aasimar still fights on!
Kufieno moves in to deliver another shocking spell.
Kufieno zaps Nualia and ends the life of the tragic aasimar!
Nualia's notes and several journals lie on the tables here. Sorting through these notes will take some time, but eventually reveal the whole of Nualia's story:
Nualia was a foundling raised by Sandpoint's previous religious leader, Ezakien Tobyn, and her childhood was lonely and sad. Her unearthly beauty made the other children either jealous or shy, and many of them took to playing cruel jokes on her. The adults in town weren't much better-many of the superstitious Varisians viewed Nualia as blessed by Desna, a sort of "reverse deformity." Rumors that her touch or proximity could cure warts and rashes, that locks of her hair brewed into tea could increase fertility, and that her voice could drive out evil spirits led to a succession of awkward and humiliating requests over the years. Poor Nualia felt more like a freak than a young girl by the time she came of age, so when Delek Viskanta, a local Varisian youth, began to court her, she practically fell into his arms in gratitude.
Knowing her father wouldn't approve of a relationship with a Varisian (he wanted her to remain pure so she could join a prestigious convent), they kept the affair secret. The couple met many times in hidden places, a favorite being an abandoned smuggler's tunnel under town that Delek had discovered as a child. Before long, Nualia realized she was pregnant. When she told Delek, he revealed his true colors and, after calling her a slut and a harlot, fled Sandpoint rather than face her father's wrath. Nualia's shock quickly turned to rage, yet she had nowhere to vent her anger. She bottled it up, and when her father discovered her delicate condition, his reaction to her indiscretions only furthered her shame and anger. He forbade her to leave the church, lectured her nightly, and made her pray to Desna for forgiveness. In So doing, he unknowingly nurtured her growing hate.
Soon thereafter some vengeful magic took hold of Nualia and she flew into a frenzy. Seven months pregnant, she miscarried her child later that night, a child whose monstrously deformed shape she only glimpsed before blanching midwives stole it away to burn it in secret. As the child had been conceived in the smuggler's tunnels below town, in close proximity to a hidden shrine to Lamashtu, the child itself was deformed and horrific. The double shock of losing a child and the realization that she had been carrying a fiend in her belly for 7 months was too much. Nualia fell into a coma.
As Nualia slept, she dreamed unhealthy dreams. Fueled by the wrathful magic and the taint of Lamashtu, Nualia became further obsessed with the cruel demon goddess and the conviction that her wretched life was inflicted on her by those around her. She came to see her angelic heritage as a curse, and the demon-sent nightmares showed her how to expunge this taint from her body and soul, replacing it with chaos and cruelty. When she finally woke, Nualia was someone new, someone who didn't flinch at what Lamashtu asked of her. She jammed her father's door shut as he slept lit the church on fire, and fled Sandpoint.
The locals assumed Nualia had burned in the fire, a tragedy made all the worse by the death of Father Tobyn as well. Yet Nualia lived. She fled to Magnimar, where she enlisted the aid of a group of Norgorber=-worshiping killers known as the Skinsaw Cult. With their aid, she tracked down Delek and murdered him. Yet his death did not fill her need for revenge-it only quickened her need for more of the same, for Sandpoint and its hated citizens still lived.
Seeing a kindred spirit in the tortured woman, the mysterious leader of the Skinsaw Cult gave Nualia a medallion bearing a carving of a seven-pointed star called a "Sihedron medallion." Nualia learned that she had a larger role to play, and that her dreams were a map to her destiny. Taking the advice to heart, Nualia returned to Sandpoint and found herself drawn to the brick wall in the smuggler's tunnels where she and Delek had conceived her deformed child. Nualia bashed down the wall, and in so doing, discovered the Catacombs of Wrath and the quasit Erylium, also a follower of Lamashtu. For many months, Nualia studied under Erylium's tutelage. During this time, Nualia received another vision from Lamashtu-a vision of a monstrous goblin wolf imprisoned in an udnerground room. In Nualia's dreams, she learned that this creature, a barghest named Malfeshnekor, was also one of Lamashtu's chosen. If she could find him and free him, he would not only help her achieve her vengeance against the town of Sandpoint, but he would be the key in cleansing her body of what she had come to see as her "celestial taint." Nualia wanted to be one of Lamashtu's children now. She wanted to become a monster herself.
Some of the notes go on to outline her plan to send an army of goblins against Sandpoint and burn the town to the ground, not only to offer it all as a burnt offering to Lamashtu in hopes of being made a half-fiend, but also to fuel the runewell in the Catacombs of Wrath. The notes go on to detail how to cause sinspawn to manifest from the runewell and claim that overextending the stores of the runewell would deactivate it; Nualia was unsure how to reactive it.
"What a sad story... I don't understand her, since she could have chosen a different path. Yet I feel sorry for her."
"This medallion would be the sign of her affiliation, then? Maybe we could try and track down the leader of this cult. Sandpoint would only be safer. And what about the runewell? Maybe we could deactivate it, if the method for reactivation has been lost to ages."
"It is a shame that the human sought such *chhh* extreme methods to seek solace. Lamashtu's worship is only a path of self destruction." She squeaks several times in disapproval. "Well, it seems we have ended the immediate threat to Sandpoint; we should finish our explorations of this place, I think."
Seal takes a long look at the bastard sword and the breast plate.
"I wonder if we loosen up those side straps, that armor might fit. I think that necklace would look good on you Rissi."
Seal starts to unbuckle the armor and collect the weaponry.
"So no more goblin invasion? Shucks. But you know what I think about that Skinsaw cult . . ."
The party heads to the south to complete their exploration!
Four pillars support the domed ceiling of this room. Several dark alcoves containing standing sarcophagi grace the walls, and a statue of a stern man wielding a glaive and holding a book stands in the southern part of the chamber.
After a few moments as the party is looking about the room, three dark shadowy shapes emerge from the sarcophagi, moving to attack the party!
Rissi looks at the shadows with distaste.
"Shadows, the restless dead! Magic weapons, use magic weapons!"
She shoots a cantrip at the shadows, using what little ability she has to draw upon positive energy. disrupt undead, touch 17 for 4
"I can't quite put my finger on who this guy is. He could be the same we saw in the illusion in the other room, though."
"... what, shadows? Ahhh!" screams Lucian, visibly afraid of these.
Trying to regain his composure, Lucian retreats, then casts a burst of radiance spell on the two shadows at the back of the room. "By Sarenrae, let there be light! Begone!"
"OK, let's test her out. What is that, you didn't get anything to drink last time, I can remedy that."
Seal draws out the newly obtained magical bastard sword and moves into the gap left by the part.
"Thunderpus, back away. Back away!"
Treat this attack as a ranged touch attack with a range increment of 10 feet. A flask breaks if thrown against the body of a corporeal creature, but to use it against an incorporeal creature, you must open the flask and pour the holy water out onto the target. Thus, you can douse an incorporeal creature with holy water only if you are adjacent to it. Doing so is a ranged touch attack that does not provoke attacks of opportunity.
Kufieno conjures a snowball and hurls it at the shadow to his south.
Rissi disrupts the first shadow and Miana pours a vial on the shadow, dousing it with holy water! Lucian's burst weakens the far shadows quite a bit and Seal finishes off the closest shadow with a mean hit from Nualia's sword. Kufieno's snowball hits the wall behind the shadows.
The two shadows move up the party's Champion and reach out to touch her!
Lucian charges a curative spell in his hand, then moves and attempts to deliver it on the eastern shadow.
Rissi pulls a wand, targeting the shadow next to Lucian.
"Be careful *chhh* human!"
The shadow jumps away from Lucian's charged hand but Rissi's missile explodes part of the undead!
Seal steps up next to Miana with his sword held high. He tries to bring it down on the 3rd shadow.