Dayo looks to Eoghan.
"I am not sure our new friend could cope with another encounter with the Incorporeal undead, and I am also out of holy water."
Unsure about the very magical door, you return to the room with the talking figure.
Virto and Justin take out notepads and start making notes.
With a bit of study, you sure this is Thassilonian. But Thassilonian is a dead language, and this is the first time you've heard from a native speaker.
And oh boy are some of those scolars wrong.
It takes quite a bit of work. Luckily the message keeps endlessly looping.
The fact that the message appears to be incomplete makes it harder, but with a lot of note taking and comarison, Vitro (with some help of Dayo) thinks the message is as follows:
“…is upon us, but I command you remain. Witness my power, how Alaznist’s petty wrath is but a flash compared to my strength. Take my final work to your graves, and let its memory be the last thing you…”.
Vitro keeps stony-faced. Although maybe there's just a lick of excitement there. "Hunh. Not quite how I expected it'd sound. " he mumbles along with the figure, trying to get a grasp for what is apparently the proper pronunciation.
"But, no I'm not sure that's Wrath. He's talking about Wrath like it's a competitor. Considering the door we had to pass through to get here, I think we may be looking at Greed."
He ponders the message a bit more.
"So, are we worried about the final thing he left behind here? Maybe beyond those big doors over there? If it's a creature, to survive this long it'd have to be some kind of construct, undead or outsider. My spells aren't really tuned for that today, and it was apparently content to stay here for milennia.."
"So you're suggesting sleeping on it, and be prepared for stuff tomorrow? That'd be nice. I'm afraid I'm not of much use at the moment, either." Eoghan seems to struggle with lifting his own armour at the moment.
"By the way, why are you exploring this tower, anyway? If this is the last room, and the only thing left unexplored is that door, behind which is possibly an undead thing, why do you want to kill it? Seems to me it's not doing anything wrong at the moment."
"Yeah that's basically it. Existential threats build up over time if you let them. The garden of the world needs preemptive pruning."
"Well. We've been standing around here for a long time and nothing's come through that door. Let's have me and Justin investigate the library. Vy and Dayo can go over the rest of the complex with a fine-toothed comb to make sure this was really the only secret door. Just... don't pull any levers to open doors. Find them, leave them be for now. And Eoghan, you take the rest of the day off."
Vitro and Justin head back to the small library and take a quick inventory.
The objects on the shelves are various holy texts, scrolls, relics, and objects sacred to the worship of Lamashtu.
Scattered troughout are Nualia’s notes and several journals. It takes a few hours to piece it all together, cross referencing older journals, and confirming some info by Snowflake.
Nualia was a foundling raised by Sandpoint’s previous religious leader, a man named 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.
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 Tobyn'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.
When the minor runewell in the Catacombs of Wrath below Sandpoint flared to life, Nualia’s own anger was a magnet to its magic. The wrathful energies suffused her mind 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 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 wrath from below 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 underground 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.
The notes also outline her plans 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 below.
Nualia’s recent success with the ritual to offer her foster father’s corporeal remains to Lamashtu saw her rewarded with a promise of things to come—her left hand has been transformed into a red demonic talon. But with the exception of her demonic hand and her scarred belly, the rest of her body is incongruously beautiful.
The notes go on to detail how to cause sinspawn to manifest from the runewell, and claim that if someone were to overextend the runewell’s stores, it would be deactivated.
Nualia isn’t sure how to reactivate it, and several times stresses that the runewell shouldn’t be used much until after Sandpoint is razed and the deaths of hundreds of angry citizens and goblins have refilled the well.
Snowflake takes a swig from the bottle. Takes one more. Takes a bigger one. Waits. Throws up.
You spend the rest of the day going trough the notes, puzzeling together what happened with Nualia.
The story that emerges from the notes leaves a sour taste in your mouth.
With the day mostly gone, you eat the leftovers of the exelent food Ameiko send you. You barricade yourself into the throne room again.
After an uneventful night, you wake to another damp morning on thistletop.
"I agree."
After a good breakfast, you head back down to the lower level.
The doors to the room are made of stone but bear no handles. An indented outline of a seven pointed star, its shape covered by hollows and slits, graces the spot where handles should be.
The shape matches the weird metal object you find in the room with all the tools.
After reading Nualia's story, Eoghan mutters to himself, "Poor girl. I understand her anger. She's been made fun of, taken advantage of, abused, and more. I could have gone the same way, if my Lady hadn't rescued me." Eoghan clutches his holy symbol. "That said, I don't condone it. I do wish we could do something, though. Worshiping Lamashtu is bad, certainly, but I can understand the reasoning behind it. I'd like to give her a second chance, though."
Eoghan prays to Magdh for a while, then gets up and joins the rest.
Dayo has nothing to compare Nualia's upbringing to. He knew, experienced and offered only communal love and guidance in his little island community.
When you're not sure which children are yours, or who might be your sibling, or which progenitors conceived you, the only option was to love everyone as though they were your own.
He offers no words, but you can tell by the disbelief on his face that he wouldn't even know where to begin.
"Please copy any information you deem usefull from her journals. I'm going to burn it along with her body when we get back to Sandpoint"
Vy says, as he lays new fragrant flowers around her corpse.
He establishes a Life link with Dayo.
Dayo, sword in hand, nods to Justin, "Open the door, please."
Pulling the door open, you see a room primarily lit by a 10-foot-long pit of flickering fire that fills the room with a strange humid heat and the smell of burning hair. In the northern corners of the room, wooden risers each hold several dozen golden candles that burn without melting, while to the south the wall bears an immense carving of a seven-pointed star.
"Do you think that's the key for an even larger door?"
You can't tell if Dayo's question is meant to be humorous or serious.
Dayo will enter.
Dayo steps into the room. Its warmer in here then in the rest of the complex. Looking into the firepit, there is no apparent fuel for the flames.
Dayo circles the pit, making room for the others to maneuver in.
"I don't think anyone's home."
The two alcoves in the room hold racks with candles. You're pretty sure these have to be magical candles too, as you dont see any tallow melting under the candleflames.
"I don't like any of this..." Eoghan mutters, as he steps forward and has a look around.
Eoghan spots a small silver box behind some of the candles in the eastern candle rack.
Eoghan walks over to it, grabs it, and tries to open it.
"For a supposed evil lair, there's a whole lot of nothing. Are you sure there's someone hiding in here?"
Opening the box, Eoghan sees a ring, half buried in white sand. As he reaches to lift it out of the box, there is suddenly a hot breath in his neck.
Suddenly a creature which looks like a cross between a wolf and a bat appears behind Eoghan
It opens its mouth wide and howls in frustration that it had apparently gotten its prey, but it vanished.
Initiative
Round 1
Justin
Snowflake
Vitro
Wolf-bat
Eoghan
Dayo
Justin, Snowflake and Vitro are up!
Knowledge planes to identify the wolf-bat!
Snowflake waits if someone needs healing, imcluding himself.
"I think we were expecting something called a barghest..."
Said to be fiendish relations of all goblinoid races, the hateful barghests come to the Material Plane to feed. As they consume the bodies of innocents, they grow increasingly powerful. A barghest eventually sheds its skin to transform into a greater barghest, at which point it often seeks out a tribe of goblins or other creatures to rule. Judging by its size... this must be a greater Barhgest. A very formidable foe. You are actually not sure if this is a creature you could best.
Barghests have some innate spellcasting abilities. They also have DR/Magic.
Using your knowledge of the arcane, you're pretty sure this Barhgest is uder the effefct of a Blink spell.
Vitro's voice goes flat and his face goes expressionless as he remarks, holding the magical longsword in one handd "Eoghan, you're going to need this sword again, you'd better come here."
He sidles forward to just lurk around the door enjoying its cover to launch a Snowball at the beast around the corner.
"Solet erumpere monstrum omnibus membris et locus suus diu mansit. Sit spes non recedet de. Item, si nocere non possunt esse sine magica arma, Justin potest auxilium vobis cum ea?"
Justin: Justin's magic missle slams into the creature and it growls in pain.
Vitro:
Identifies the creature as a Barghest, and cats a snowball at it. But just as the snowball hits, the creature blinks out of existence, and a second later pops back!
Barghest: The creature looks over its shoulder, annoyed at Justin, but then turns its attention back to Eoghan in front of it.
"No all dëse Joeren wäert ech erëm feieren!"
Initiative
Round 1
Justin
Snowflake
Vitro
Barghest
Eoghan
Dayo
Eoghan and Dayo are up! Snowflake can come out of Delay?
Dayo flinches as Eoghan goes down, but pauses to close his eyes and concentrate on the large wolf.
Dayo opens his eyes, levels his gaze at the creature, and steps up to strike it .