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Reynard drinks his last extract and steps forward.
Nualia attacks Trox, but again is blocked.
Faywen dances away from the yeth hound and past both Druamin and Erond. From there, she curves another elemental blast around them and crashes it into the monster.
The Yeth Hound snaps at Reynard.
Reynard looks down, and down, and down at the strange hound that attacked him. "No. Bad dog." He says, as he reaches for the creature.
Crit?
Personal Buffs:
Enlarge Person (+2 Str, -2 Dex, -1 AC, bigger weapons)
Feral Mutagen (Bite, 2 Claws, +4 STr, -2 INT, +2 Natural Armor)
Shield (+4 AC)
Druamin nods as Faywen slips past him. "Thank you ma'am." He steps up and swings his battleaxe at the dog.
Erond's silver arrow drops the hound, just as you see it bit Reynard, catching nothing but clothing.
Seeing the hound fall, Reynard focuses his attacks on Nualia, striking home three times.
Trox holds her position, shield up and swings.
Druamin steps over the hound's body and moves straight for Nualia then attacks her.
Nualia dodges both attacks, and responds with a swipe at Trox, who manages to block it with a shield..
"That's right keep swinging at me. See which one of us falls first, yeah?"
Faywen steps forward, summoning water out of the air around her. As soon as she clears the corner and catches sight of the abomination Nualia has turned into, the undine lets loose with a powerful cry.
In a harsh triple whammy, Nualia falls to your attacks, dead before she hits the floor.
Nualia's notes and several journals lie on the tables here. Sorting through these notes takes several hours, but reveals the whole of Nualia's story. 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 Lamashu in hopes of being made a half-fiend, but also to fuel the runewell in the catacombs below.
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.
The chapter primary is a villain bitter aasimar woman named Nualia. She 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. 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.
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 goddess of monstrous births), the child itself was deformed and horrific. The double shock of losing a child and the realization she had been carrying a 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 ofF ather 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 ofWrath 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 ofLamashtu'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.
Searching your defeated foe, the strange, misguided angelic-demon girl, you find that she wields quite the fine bastard sword, likely a magical blade (+1). She also has a masterwork composite longbow in the corner. In addition, she wears a +1 breastplate and a Sihedron medallion, as well as a gold holy symbol (100 gp), 7 pp, 5 gp.
E5. The southern wing of this L-shaped hallway ends at a pair of stone doors carved with the depictions of two skeletons reaching out to clutch a skull between them, while to the east the hallway narrows down to frame a circular carving of what seems to be an immense stack of tens of thousands of gold coins that rises from floor to ceiling. The edges of these coins are carved with tiny, spiky runes.
"That is a fine blade but not right for me. Nice armor too... someone aught to put that on at the least, cant leave fine magic stuff laying around. Well...." he looks around "Yeah, lets get moving then."
Trox clearly is not clear where they would be get moving to but is not going to let that bother him.
Reynard nods in Erond's direction "That's a good point."
Faywen says a quiet prayer over Nualia's corpse before leaving to follow after the others. "I feel sorry for the girl, but it is good that we have ended the mockery of nature she perpetuated." She rolls her neck and looks around at the others, before shrugging. "I am ready to continue, but I'm also in no rush. A rest might be good."
"Yes, that is truly a fine blade and armor. But, alas, I will not wear metal armor." Druamin settles himself on the the floor, leaning against the wall on the west side of the room. He pats the ground to call Kobu over. The porcupine shambles up to Druamin and settles himself right up next to the dwarf's thigh. Druamin rests an arm on his companion.
"Well, I feel like we should rest here tonight. I know I could use a bit of shuteye. I'm not as young as I used to be and these fights just really take it out of me." He starts to shuffle through a few of the notes and journals.
"Besides, I'd like to read through these things."
Druamin spends the next couple of hours going through Nualia's papers. Eventually he nods off and sleeps through the night.
In the morning, Druamin forces himself to stand. Sore muscles make his movement stiff. "Oh, wow. I forgot how uncomfortable it is to sleep on a stone floor." He stretches his body from side to side and his spine cracks in a couple places. After finishing an abbreviated morning routine he looks to the rest of the team.
"I hope the rest of you got a decent rest. So now we're ready to finish exploring this place? Sounds good to me."
The rest does pass uneventfully, so you do seem to be safe, but those papers do suggest additional dangers lie ahead.
Well rested, despite some aching muscles, you are ready to proceed.
E5. The southern wing of this L-shaped hallway ends at a pair of stone doors carved with the depictions of two skeletons reaching out to clutch a skull between them, while to the east the hallway narrows down to frame a circular carving of what seems to be an immense stack of tens of thousands of gold coins that rises from floor to ceiling. The edges of these coins are carved with tiny, spiky runes.
”What do we know about Barghests?” Reynard asks the others.
Erond doesn't notice anything in particular that will help.
"Hmm. Strange depiction on that door. I wonder what this place was. I'm sure that Nualia didn't sculpt those doors." After spending a few minutes studying the doors Druamin turns to the strange carving at the east end of the hall.
"Spiky. I wonder why. It's like someone could scratch themselves on these spikes."
Reynard closely scrutinizes the area.
As you all search the area, it is clear that this stonework is ancient, and not the work of Nualia.
Reynard makes a few sounds of interest, and as you turn to see what the fuss is, you see him poking his fingers in a few hidden slots on either side of the hall, near the "pile of coins". It looks like each is about the size of a standard gold coin.
Faywen tilts her head in curiosity at the hidden slots. "How strange. I wonder if any coin will do."
"It's worth a shot. Shall we?" Reynard asks, gesturing to the gold they'd found on Nualia.
"It might be a trap. Let me try first, if its a trap I will take the pain just pull me out of whatever happens."
Trox is grimly determined to do the coins and keep the others back. If certain coins fit he will do that if not the lowest denomination it is.
Any coins will likely fit, but the simple gold coins she carries seem most appropriate. There are two slots. Once the second one is dropped, you hear a loud, grinding noise. A secret passage is revealed, opening to a room with 3 doors.
The dust on the floor indicates that it hasn't been opened in quite some time. It is probably that Nualia and her crew did not know it existed.
"Honestly, I expected the ancient, forbidding doorway to be somewhat harder to open," Faywen says, blinking. "It goes without saying, but be careful. It may have been more to keep something in than to keep us out."
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Druamin watches Trox insert a coin and then the door open. "That's nice. I agree Faywen. Would have thought it would be more involved. I wonder why Nualia and her group never figure this out."
He pats Erond on the shoulder as he walks by and into the secret room. "Well, my friend. There's only one way to find out what those other defenses are. Right?"
Faywen smiles, showing unusually sharp teeth. "Very true, Druamin. Let's go find out."