Jeni manages to steel herself against some of the flames, then concentrates on her basic elemental blast to hammer the creature down into the ground.
Zen shrugs off the horrifying howl, and though he's badly injured, it doesn't stop him from attacking. He doesn't have to step away this time so he heals some of his damage and casts glass shield again.
Though Kazumi and their skeleton both miss, Jeni hammers the burning skeleton with more water. Zenobius slices it with his fauchard, then Nadja delivers a critical hit followed by a finishing strike that takes down the final foe!
In the aftermath of the battle, you are able to explore the room. A close examination of the red stone megaliths reveals that they’re covered with thousands upon thousands of tiny glowing Thassilonian runes—the source of the fiery shimmer. Unfortunately, there seems to be little you can do at the moment to learn about this chamber's functions.
As soon as the burning corpse is put out, Jeni douses Zen and Nadja in water, putting out the fire dancing across their clothes and skin.
A blessing of the living sea salves wounds and douses flames. Touch a willing living creature. It regains 1d8 Hit Points and gains resistance 2 to fire for 1 minute. If it has persistent fire damage, it can attempt a flat check to remove it with especially appropriate help. The target is temporarily immune to healing from Ocean’s Balm for 10 minutes.
"Did the goblin ghouls disturb this? Is that why we have demons and whatever these were?" she looks to Zen and Kaz for answers, since she and Nadja are much more action-oriented than book-y.
Kaz shakes his head with only the slightest hesitation. "A working like this? We would have noticed unless... No, must be old. Following after the reports of the Heroes of Sandpoint, going off the language and choice of demons, this would probably be the work of the err, Runelord of Wrath, pre-Earthfall."
There are too many runes to quickly copy them all, but they sketch a few as best they can, then pull back to take in the dimensions and measurements of the megaliths. . "They might have done in some aspects I suppose. Certainly they'd clashed with the brimorak, so it's possible they triggered its calling somehow, but I suspect it had already been on guard."
Nadja grins at the fading reddish glow of her sword. "Flaming skeletons. Glad you had water powers, Jeni," she says. She nods in thanks for the bit of soothing balm she provided as well.
She looks surprised that Kaz doesn't immediately explain the purpose of the megaliths. "So what are these big stones for? Do you want to try to shut them down somehow? Can they be shut down?"
"Not before I better understand them. I suspect they're tremendously dangerous, but only as a matter of potential. Leaving them in their present state means they can be better studied, and should it prove necessary, more safely disabled.
"Workings of such power are rarely safe matters with which to casually meddle."
Once you have gleaned all you can from this chamber, you open the second secret door in the hall. The walls of this room are adorned with unsettling carvings in an eerie-looking alphabet. To the east sits an even more unsettling sight—a five-foot-wide egg or plant bulb carved from dark green stone. Stony tentacles or roots radiate out from the sides of the egg, making it appear to be clinging to the eastern side of the room.
Kazumi recognizes that this room is a shrine to Yamasoth, the qlippoth lord of cursed kingdoms and vile experiments.
Zen doesn’t have any commentary about the stones or the newly found qulippothshrine. He leans heavily on his daughter’s, taking shallow breaths. ”this is taking a lot out of me. We are fortunate that the redeemer queen has blessed our expedition.” He heals himself again with lay on hands, asking for yet another break as soon as possible.
Nadja shrugs in half-hearted agreement with Zen's assessment. "Sure."
She eyes the odd egg-thing warily. "That's not going to, um, hatch, will it?"
Kaz looks wistfully at the Cthonian inscriptions, but grudgingly nods. "Yes. Egg first." Initially they scan the area for any enchantments, then if nothing concerns them, they examine the egg more closely.
"If it's of stone, I would assume it wouldn't hatch were we not in one of Yamasoth's halls."
"Yama-who?" Nadja tests the edge and point of her sword, making sure it wasn't damaged by the fiery skeletons. She glances back at her pack, laying near the entrance to the first hallway, but then returns her attention to the dark green egg.
She keeps the tip of her rapier trained upon the stone as if it might burst open at any minute. "So what then? Smash it? Seal off the chamber?"
Kaz does detect magic in the area. As he approaches the strange egg and gives it a search, they discover that it can be opened by gripping one of the many shallow fissures on the pod and tugging.
Doing so causes the entire thing to open like a flower—or a mouth, considering the sharp tooth-like spikes within. Inside the mass is an ancient skeleton; the egg seems to have doubled as a cruel sort of iron maiden. Resting in plain sight in the middle of the skeleton is the source of the magic aura, a jade serpent wondrous figurine.
"We should rest more" Jeni agrees, seeing the big guy still hurting. Of course she is still, the burns radiating pain. "Kaz, can you use magic to pluck that thing out without putting your hand in there?"
Since enough time seems to have passed, she works her healing waters again.
Well, that was much better than what I was expecting!" Nadja exclaims when they find the magical item inside the stone egg.
She still doesn't feel right about lingering in the eerie room. "Where to next? Or did you all want to take a break?"
"In a variety of ways, yes," Kaz replies, drawing the figurine up to their hand. Eyes round with delight he inspects it closely. "Well! A dreadfully inefficient creation, but one that I would love to make use of for a time. If the creator had sprung for a pit viper it would carry some additional utility, but nevertheless..."
The rest of everyone's words sink in and they look back up from their new acquisition quizzically. "Oh are you injured? We should certainly tend to such wounds."
"What does it do, Kaz? Just make a snake?" Her friend sometimes leaves out details. Jeni always attributes it to their brain moving faster than their mouth.
"More specifically it transforms into a snake, which the wielder controls crotalus malgoranus if I'm properly interpreting the markings. It's a more dangerous beast than I can presently safely conjure - if far from the flexibility that I would generally prefer."
Nadja snickers as Kaz criticizes the magical object that can do something they can't. The swashbuckler perches on a protruding piece of bas relief carving while they rest and everyone takes turns getting healed.
She takes a couple swallows from her waterskin, then hops off her perch and does some stretches to keep limber. "We're going to keep going, right? So far it's been pretty lucrative."
Kaz nods. "And illuminating."
Zen wipes away a lot of blood with a rag, touching the places where he was badly burned, when Kaz asks if he was injured, and nods silently.
While the others chat, Zen looks anxious at seeing all the demonic stuff, ”y… you know… this is kind of hard for me.” He takes a drink of water with one hand, and grips the hand of his polearm fiercely.
He mutters scattered phrases in Varisian under his breath, like a mantra - prayer, ”…preserve and protect us… do not allow the corruption to seep into our hearts… “ When he finishes, he looks a little calmer. He points with a gauntleted finger at the treasure, ”just - be careful. I know you’re excited but not every ruin should be explored. There are things that should not be disturbed.”
"Yes, but since this place is filled with disturbing creatures, we serve as a corrective in many ways. Besides, if there's one thing Nocticula proves it's that corruption in one's heart is hardly a permanent affliction."
Jeni nods at Kaz's answer "Leaving them to rest under the city seems worse than leaving them alone, Zen. Especially with ghoul-infected goblins running around them." she does not argue the 'excited' part, since he knows them all too well to believe any counters that direction.
Nadja moves over and gives Zen's shoulder a squeeze. "Hey. We've killed a demon and slew lots of undead so far. That's a win, right? No one's getting corrupted down here. Not with you here to guide us." She smiles brightly at the redeemer.
She draws her rapier, giving her pack a look but leaving it where it is for the moment. Once everyone is rested and feeling better, she moves to the next unexplored door.
The tunnel in the hall leads on underground to the west at for just under 200 feet before coming to a collapse. Unable to proceed further, you double back to the room west of the armory.
A wooden desk sits near a tipped-over chair lying on the ground. Layers of dust cover the desk and several scrolls and ledgers atop it. A large map is displayed on the wall opposite it; while the colors are faded, it’s still mostly legible.
Ths map on the wall shows the region surrounding the area before Earthfall. All of the labels on the map are in Thassilonian. The current coastline is marked roughly on the map as “The Rasp,” and the location where Sandpoint is at is labeled "HF Compound."
It appears somebody was marking locations of potential bases of operation for Runelord Karzoug. Karzoug’s towering sentinel statue that once stood where Thistletop stands is noted, of course, but there are a few other areas on the map that indicate possible hidden bases; the region known today as “the Pit” seems to have been a particularly interesting area, as it’s been circled and a scrawled note says, “Captured spies whisper of a sizable Shalast cohort stationed here, led by someone named Liralarue—must secure authorization from Mistress for a raid.”
The notes and ledgers on the table crumble to dust if touched, but the ancient map can be removed, and is worth 50 gp. An adjacent storeroom is mostly empty, but two things of note can be found here. The first is a key ring with two keys on it: one is a sneaky key talisman, and the other is an iron key that unlocks the doors to the armory. The second item of note is an old and fragile scroll, on which is recorded the latest method for navigating a series of rooms to the north called the Three Steps, along with a list of three names of insubordinate soldiers to whom the author planned to give faulty instructions.
These notes are written in Thassilonian, and they indicate that for safe passage, those traversing the chambers must set garnet beads into the little metal baskets on the door handles, going from least valuable to most valuable, south to north, and culminating in the placement of the 7th, most valuable garnet bead in the upturned palm of the statue of Alaznist in the final chamber. These directions seem to correspond with the garnets you found in the demon's chamber.
"Well, evidence mounts that this is tied to the Runewell of Wrath that the Heroes of Sandpoint uncovered. Also that the Thassilonians should not have been permitted to name people, with apologies to Liralarue for what they endured. As well as the soldiers who were used as test subjects I suppose."
"Anything we should examine before the Three Steps?"
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Nadja spends some time staring at the map and trying to mentally match up the landmarks with the modern maps she'd seen over her life. Eventually she tears herself away and examines the talisman. "You guys don't mind if I take this, right? It could be useful for those tricks I learned from that escape artist troupe that stayed at the theater a few years' back." Nadja tries to look innocent, repeating the same story she uses whenever her skills at lockpicking and trap disabling come up.
Zen shrugs, "I don't mind. I'd like to draw these rooms for Brodert, though." He spends a few minutes drawing what he can, though as always, the drawings are unfinished.
"I wonder why these ruins stayed obscured during the last troubles - you'd think those adventurers would have found this stuff."
"With respect to the Heroes, they hardly performed a proper survey. I suppose, arguably they were more focused on the demons and sinspawn. I would imagine though that there's not a directly accessible connection between the chambers that were part of their impromptu excavation and ours."
A small smile plays over their face as the dust of history tickles their nose. "These catacombs have seen a lot of destruction over many, many years."
The last door in the complex leads to a room, the southern portion of which is lower than the rest of the chamber. Steps lead up to the room itself. A carving of a seven-pointed star, a flame flickering at its center, adorns the walls to the east and west, while to the north, doors stand in a wall of dark red stone—a contrast to the gray stone walls elsewhere in the chamber. Each door’s handle features a tiny little metal basket that looks like it’s meant to hold a small bead-shaped object.
This matches the description of the Three Steps you found in the previous chamber. Luckily, you also have the garnet beads the text mentioned, found in the room that housed the brimorak demon. Following the instructions, you set garnet beads into the little metal baskets on the door handles, going from least valuable to most valuable, south to north, as you pass through a series of three similar chambers.
The final room's northern wall curves in a semicircle. A single red stone statue of an angry woman holding a ranseur stands to the north, her weapon held in one hand pointed toward the southern doors, while her other hand reaches out with a cupped palm, as if expecting a gift. The ranseur itself appears to be a real weapon, and not an integrated part of the statue itself.
This is a statue of Runelord Alaznist. You put the most valuable garnet in the statue's outstretched hand, negating any hazards the statue might have caused. You are able to take the ranseur from the statue: it is a +1 striking ranseur. Like the dagger on the altar, the ranseur's haft has a hollow section. Opening a panel near the ranseur’s base reveals a hollow tube-like interior that contains three scrolls—a scroll of wall of fire, a scroll of weapon storm, and a much longer scroll that contains the formula for a consecrate ritual.
Jeni's eyes glow with excitement as the garnets are set, and all is revealed. She might be an adult now, but these complex locks and odd bits still delight her.
"I'm glad they was sloppy." the young woman admits, since it gives them a chance to be the ones to discover and explore. She spares a glance at Zen "But we will be Careful, Zen, don't worry."
Kaz is quietly delighted with the entire garnet/basket system. "I have to respect the flair, but I do have to express doubts that ascending size of garnet is really the best method of security. At least requiring prayers or riddles effects some measure of ritualized learning into your followers."
They sigh. "What a truly evocative depiction of a dreadful woman. Good taste in emergency magics as well."
Nadja's brow furrows. "There's a need for emergency consecrations?"
She considers the small, secret shrine underneath the theater and wonders if her mother has had it consecrated. "Is that scroll reusable?"
Zen looks at the ranseur, ”I guess this is a good item - I could use it instead of my Fauchard, but we also have the striking runes. Maybe this thing is too corrupted to use…”
He pokes at things quietly, taking in the ruins. When they find the scrolls, he’s taken aback, ”consecrate?” He looks confused, ”Najda, consecration is channeling celestial powers - those of the upper planes. The runelords - at least towards the end of Thassilon - they absolutely would not be able to consecrate. The holy gods would not have allowed a follower of Alaznist to use it this scroll.” He looks confused. ”maybe this predates the fall?” he wonders, speaking of the history in such a way that it isn’t clear to people who don’t know about Thassalon what he’s talking about.
"So consecrate only works for good gods, then. Okay. Then yeah, that's a puzzle why ol' Alaznist had this stashed away for an emergency."
She thinks a moment, then smirks. "Maybe in case she needed to do a deathbed conversion?"
Having explored all of the chambers down here, you head back up to the surface, climbing back out of Nualia's grave and reporting back to Abstalar Zantus. The priest is grateful that you were able to clear out all the dangers lurking below the cathedral. He accepts the bundle of Nualia's bones reverently as brings them to a secure chamber within the cathedral.
"It will still be a few days until Audrahni arrives to perform the ritual. Take some time for yourselves. I will summon you when it is time for the ritual."
"What? Oh, no Zen, that's not right at all. Consecration as a broader concept is entirely neutral, save that it relies heavily on a god, or even gods with certain variation. In fact, worshipers of gods with expansive moralities can even channel a variety of different energies in the performance of this ritual. See?"
They point to a few sections of the formulae that make up the ritual instructions. "I'm quite certain rites such as this would have been used in preparing several of the chambers we saw - certainly the brimorak's lair, though the cost and power to have those last to the present day would have been prohibitive." They're silent for a moment as they think through what would have been required to lock in consecration over that length of time and abandonment.
"I referred to the consumables when I spoke of emergency magics in any case. The scroll that describes consecrations is instructional in nature."
"Okay, neat," Nadja says, filing that away for something to bring up to her mother later.
As they gather the treasures they've found within the ruins, Nadja discreetly shoulders her pack and wordlessly accepts Zantus's thanks for retrieving Nualia's bones.
Zen’s heavy brow furrows, ”you know better than me. I just remember stories - from what Brodert told me, evil temples were desecrated. But it’s probably the same effect regardless of the name, right?” He leans heavily on his weapon ”just don’t think it’s right - you know - evil temples. Zantus should go down and um … consecrate it back. Or we should knock the place down. It’s too close to the town and everyone’s been through enough.”
"Well at present I don't believe it's actively consecrated to any deity, but simply demolishing these tunnels would be both a desecration of knowledge, and a shortsighted attempt at solving a problem that we know to be longstanding. Haphazardly sealing off places like this and hoping nothing else is burrowing beneath the world is exactly what allows things like this to be built in the first place. There's more to learn first."
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Nadja pauses before she leaves, curious about the terminology being used. "So, if an evil shrine is already desecrated just by being evil, what happens when you knock everything over and piss all over the images? You're not actually consecrating it by doing that, right? Even if you're good?"
Jeni looks back and forth between her friends, an odd kind of awed fondness warming her as she did so. "You all are so weird." she smiles.
Zen sighs, "fine, I won't do anything. But I am going to talk to Hemlock, Brodert, and Father Zantus though. If they say it's too dangerous, I think it should uh... get 'consecrated' to a good deity? The unholy energies can corrupt people in town if they leak up to the surface. Sandpoint has a long history of this, right?"
He frowns, but adds "maybe we could have someone send a missive to New Thassilon? Um... I have some contacts." He blushes, "you know from my church? They could investigate it?"
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Nadja giggles at having made Jeni amused. She throws the long pack that she brought but never opened over her shoulder and takes off, running back to the theater.
She enters through the back, noting that by the time of day her mother would be instructing some of the children of Sandpoint in her dance classes. She slips past the back of the stage, catching a glance from her mother, before entering the small apartment beneath the stage. Nadja strips off her stained and singed clothing and rinses her body off quickly. Then after making sure no one has followed her, she slips into the hidden trapdoor beneath their home where their secret training room and shrine to Achaekek has been built. Nadja removes the serrated blades from her pack and slides them into the cache where their other Red Mantis raiment is stowed.
She closes it up, resets the trap, and climbs out of the room to finish cleaning off and to start the repair work of her armor.
"So how did they respond?"
Nadja looks up at her mother, looming like a spectre of death over her. She didn't start, but neither had she heard her approach either. She never manages to hear her mother sneak up on her. "There was no need. The rapier was enough."
Nadja looks back at her adventuring gear, now mostly cleaned and repaired. "I even found another magic one. Plus, a striking rune." She doesn't sound happy about the finds.
"A striking rune is a powerful enchantment," Astrid says.
"Yeah, but they're all going to expect it to go onto one of my rapiers! And then it's going to be better than the sabres, and there'll be no reason for me to use anything but the rapier!" She rises to her feet, looking her mother in the face. "I'm Tith'kali, right? Favored of Achaekek, conceived during his most holy ritual?"
Her mother nods solemnly. "You are."
Nadja straightens with pride, holding her head up. "Then I shouldn't be afraid to use the blades."
"I'm not saying you are. But if you decide to wear them openly, people will talk. If you use them properly, people will know or at least guess correctly. Will your friends understand, once they know?"
She looks down at her feet. "I don't know. Kaz might. Jeni, too. Zen won't." She is silent for a moment, thinking on that. "I guess I'll use the rapier a little while longer."
Astrid gives her daughter a reassuring smile. "You are not insulting Achaekek by using one blade over another. What does it matter to him how the target is slain, only that it is?"
Nadja smiles back. "Thank you, Mother." She perks up. "Oh! I should tell you, we fought and killed a demon! And flaming skeletons! And..." She launches into an excited retelling of their adventure beneath Nualia's grave.
Nadja is at her usual spot at Cracktooth's Tavern splurging on a plate of drunkfish vittles and a goblet of Director's Choice blackberry wine.
Kaz seems to relax, and nods to Zen's ideas. "I object to needlessly destructive measures, not prophylactic ones, viz pointing out which runes Nadj needed to scratch out in the Abraxan chamber, regardless."
***
Kazumi rubs at his eyes wearily and throws back an Understudy, stomach rumbling as they look forlornly at Nadja's plate. "I can't stay long or I'll lose my bench back at the library. Shorthand scribbled onto wax is all well and good, but it's hardly fit for any sort of properly written report..."
Nadja slides her plate toward Kazumi, offering them the unfinished vittles. "Sure. Good that you stopped by to finish what I couldn't eat." She folds her arms and rests them on the table, laying her head on its side. "You realize no one's going to care if you don't finish your report in one day,"
She sprawls languidly at the table while Kaz eats the rest of her meal. "Do you think Zen's right that people could get corrupted by the stuff we found today? And if so, what do we do about it, if they start worshipping 'evil gods? Do we have to kill them? Or run them out of town?"
Kaz assents quickly and begins tucking in, hunger adding an out-of-place edge to their etiquette. "I'll lose the table though if I don't get someone back there... Astyanax? Mold please." Their familiar scrabbles up into their hands and they begin grooming and stretching it out again.
Considering Nadja's question, Kaz shakes their head.
"No, I don't think so. Most people who are corrupted by this sort of thing are corrupted in the seeking of it rather than the finding. Nualia was looking for some sort of satisfying alternative to being idolized for perfection that she could possibly uphold. The Skinsaw Man apparently didn't start his butchery until after he'd been tortured and murdered and shaped into a weapon only suitable for those murders. Even the runewells themselves served more as a repository of the Thassilonian so-called 'sin magic,' than as a source of true corruption.
"I'm certain you could make arguments about certain of my relatives and whether they might have been influenced by untoward energies, but despite the horror of some of their crimes, they seem to me to land squarely within the explicable."
Freshly scrubbed in a crisp blue gi with her dark brown hair tightly braided behind her, Jeni enters the tavern and waits near the bar for the innkeeper to ignore her completely for several minutes while other occupants whisper and frown at her.
The whitening of the knuckles of her clasped hands behind her is the only indication of the treatment making her angry (or hurt), but she smiles when she sees Kaz and Nadja, but also shakes her head slightly when one of them gets up to help out. The indication is no, sit, please, I can... but they ignore her stubbornness and help her get her lunch ordered.
As she eats her light fair (breads, salads, cheeses, and water) with a slight flush of her cheeks at needing to be saved, she listens to Kaz's retelling of their plans to leave "You could stay." the aasimar says into her plate, keeping her hazel eyes off her friends "This all feels like a beginning." she thinks for a moment, using her knife and fork to cut up a small tomato, but raising to her lips "Like defeating the gremlins back in the manor but not following that sorcerer back to his hideyhole. Or beating that crusty necromancer but then not exploring the temple." Jeni shrugs trying to look like it doesn't matter that her friend is about to leave Again "... Who knows what will come next."
Nadja scoots over to give Jeni room at the table, but she remains sprawled half-laying on her side. "But we did all those things," she replies, not fully grasping Jeni's analogy. "And we explored every nook and cranny of that place today."
She lolls her head back and forth. "I mean, sure. I hope we find something else that's fun and dangerous to do. Like... going to check out the Pit for signs of that old spy, but it's been thousands of years. The chances of us finding anything are, like, um... Kaz, what's a huge number? Or a small one. You know what I mean."
"I am sure there is Something left to explore." Jeni emphasized while she sent a light kick under the table toward Nadja, then tilted her head toward Kaz.