The Final Conflict

Facing a door in a hallway, we enter a room with a domed ceiling, six standing sarcophagi and a statue in the middle of the room of a stern looking man with a book and a glave. The statue appears Thasselonian and old.  Behnin opens the first sarcophagus and,startled by the skeleton falling out, smashes it apart. Realize that the room appears to be an honorable place where the Thasselonians buried their architects. Some sort of black whispy thing swoops down from above. Touches Arandor and clearly wounds/drains him instantly. 

Learning from knowledge religion, find out the whispy things need magic weapons to damage them, then damage is lessened. Understand that these whispy are the whispy of the architects.

Sayal swings and misses, gives extra surge to Behnin who spews forth violent violence. Sayal ducks free of another attack, but loses another bit of strength. Skrimshaw uses her tiny Kobold self to decimate one of the whispies and damages another one nicely, too.  The anger is becoming overwhelming to all. Arandor hits again with a burst of angry flame and watches its life force seeping out, reaching for him and missing before dying miserably. Skrimshaw kills the last whisp, and then, as a result of the anger, cusses us all out. 

As a group, we search the room, investigating the sarcophagi and statue. Get nothing. Find a secret door leading to a passageway heading downstairs. Hear the sound of sloshing water. We enter the room and see a crumbled room, with tide pools entering the broken walls. On on wall is an elaborate carving/drawing, see a mythical city with a thousand spires and the Kodar mountains. Large coral encrusted, gold, giant-sized helmet - 5 feet across - in the water. The helmet rises up and turns toward us. 

We take shots at it, and it repays us with pincher claw attacks. When we defeat it, we swim for gold (diving for dollars): jade amulet of natural armor (+1), the ancient helm is worth 3000gp (weighing 300 lbs), 3500 silver, 630gp. 

When we get to the bridge, we find many goblins come to assist Nulia. Sayal impersonates Nulia to send them away. 

The town considers the party heroes. The goblins retreat and everyone seems safe(ish). We take over Thistletop and hire some mercenaries to help protect. Arandor lights the big fires each day. Ameiko starts up the glassworks again. We retake the catacombs of wrath, barring the entrances on all ends. The person we hired to clear out the latrine gets killed by a trap, but we find their treasure buried there: 7400 copper, 2490 silver, 89 gold, 3 platinum, 34 gp, medium chain shirt, medium masterwork scimitar, masterwork manacles, holy symbol of Sarenrae (100gp), jade necklace (60gp), blue silk gown with gold trim (150gp).

We raise the baby goblins to be kind and good and smart. We discover the water tunnel escape route, and that the bridge is trapped (no more than one medium body over at a time).

Ameiko finds a chest found among her grandfather's belongings relating to Thorin. And Sayal sees someone who is coming along, clearly related to a shipment Sayal keeps a room at Ameiko's, enabling her to continue her training and keep an eye out for her thugs. Behnin moves forward with Shayliss, and her father is warming to him. He begins to look for political opportunities. Arandor uses the time to investigate more Thasselonian lore and artifacts, while working to train in his magics. 

Magnimar knows of our heroism; word is getting out that Sandpoint is safe because of us. The goblins dissipate. No word on the end result of Tsutso or Brathuzmus.

Thistletop lower levels.

After a good night's sleep, we awake feeling rested and more powerful. We start to inspect the lower level (where we fought Nulia). In one one of the small rooms we see paintings of goblin violence and bad stuff.  One drawing depicts a huge scary monster.

Next we come to a large altar room where a recent human sacrifice was completed. We assume this means that the ritual we were trying to prevent was completed. We continue, through additional rooms, finding torture implements and chambers. Scenes of women giving birth to monsters in what we know to be common in churches to Lamashtu. Kill a couple of goblins. Find some goblin babies in cages (we leave them).

In one distant room with stalactites, we encounter a squidy figure with many eyes. Called a tentamore, it's main deal is constriction. We kill it and continue on to see the rest of the floor, finding not much more than bedrooms of Nulia, Lyrie, and Tsuto.  Some evidence of Birdcrunchers, and one room where someone clearly packed and left in a hurry.

Huge stack of gold coins in a big L-shaped room. Checking for traps and percept for magic. Seems illusory.  Is likely only a carving. Behnin believes there is some sort of beacon-ness to the treasure. Skrimshaw puts coins into slots on either side of the pillar, and it goes down to reveal a hidden door. 

Inside is a door to a new room full of chanting guy/illusion on a throne talking in Thasselonian, which continually repeats the same message. There are two statues in his image in the room. This is not anything to do with Lamashtu, but is a Thasselonian relic. We check other rooms.

One room with three work tables (E9). Covered in exquisitely made surgical tools, which the healer takes. One table has bones of more than one skeleton - seems to be a two-headed man with a smaller body coming out if its back. Find a silver and gold seven pointed star, which Arandor takes.

Moving on...room has a door with a seven-pointed star keyhole. Arandor uses the recently discovered key to open the door.  Inside is a wide room with a flaming bathtub in the middle. Seems to not be super hot, but lights the room with a humid heat and the smell of burning human hair. Appears to be ever burning. Big star carving in one wall. 

Suddenly, a gargantuan thing blinks into existence. A snarling, canine beast with hands instead of claws. Seems to be shimmery and coming in and out of existence. Attacks AND KILLS Bartland. But not really.

Thistletop again

Sheilalu appears and announces that there are hoardes of goblins forming in the world and heading this way. We are here to look for Nulia, and Sheilalu offers to head back out to hold off the goblins, leaving behind a wand of cure light wounds.

We head downstairs . At the door we hear paper shuffling and then a door closing. We enter what appears to be the main war room. To the East is a doorway leading to a hallway. The the West is a small room with barrels, tools, weapons and a buxom babe. She attacks Bartland and bolts. Bartland follows and shoots and misses. The party follows. When we catch up and pounce her into submission; she says her name is Lyrie Akenja. She says she's been researching this old temple, using the goblins' help to accomplish her goals. She admits to working with Tsutso. Sayal mouths off and Lyrie casts some spell. Benin gets her in a grapple, Sayal hits her with her battle axe. Lyrie cannot complete the spell, but continues to fight. Skrimshaw, standing on top of Lyrie, readies her bow and threatens to kill her. 

Lyrie explains that this is an ancient Thasselonin ruin. Hired by Nulia for her knowledge of arcana. She was a pathfinder but Nulia gave her a job studying the Thasselonians. Nulia is here, on the observation deck. She's angry that Tsutso has been jailed. She offers to help us get to Nulia safely if we let her go.

Room D15, she has a potion of cure light wounds, 5 scrolls, a wand, a dagger, a cloak, a silver comb, small artifacts (hair, fingernail clippings, etc), and a spell book. We take it all. Try to detect the scrolls, one scroll of see invisibility, scroll of sleep, scroll of whispering wind. The wand is of magic missiles.

Agree to let her go if we get safely to Nulia. She points out a trap that would have killed us. We disable it and send her first across. She points out a door behind which is Nulia. She says inside is the observation desk.

Observation deck - 4 burning scrolls, there are bones, taxidermist animals and limbs, a fountain of bubbling blue liquid, marble countertops, and other creepy items. Nulia stands mid room. Big dog afire nearby. 

Bartland storms in and shoots at Nulia, hitting her right away. Benin hits her with his hammer. Arandor shoots the Hound with a magic missile from Lyrie's wand. Sayal and Behnin both wounded, but still standing, feeling angry. Arandor's missiles finally take down the Hound. Behnin passes out in pain. Nulia turns on Skrimshaw. Eventually, we overtake Nulia and she collapses. 

Two Hounds are bounding down the hall, Sayal and Bartland slam the door shut, but not before their howling scares the beejeezus out of Skrimshaw and Arandor. In their panic they are useless. Sayal drinks two potions (one medium and one light) and Behnin heals her back to some health. The dogs continue to batter the door. Sayal, feeling better, cleaves Nulia in half. 

Thistletop continues

Confronted by goblins dogs. Skrimshaw takes the first one out. The remaining three are quickly and quietly despatched. We see the island, which is across 60 feet of rope bridge. There is a wooden fort with 30 foot towers. Kill gull still going on inside fort. In the first room, there are poorly preserved dog and horse heads and a set of harpy wings tacked to the wall with daggers. I take the fancy, pearl handled dagger.

Benin goes up first tower (West). Opens trap door at the top, finds two sleeping goblins in the company of several pickles and half-eaten pickles. He picks up the two goblins to toss them over the side. He succeeds with one, but has to kill the second one before tossing him over. 

Goes into second tower and through the trapdoor. Hears arguing. Brings Bartland up, who hears them arguing about a game.  Sounds like two voices. The dwarves kill the goblins and return to the party. 

Head into the fort's interior. Burst in on a room where goblins appear to be training to fight three longshanks. Arandor knocks a few out with his color spell; Benin takes out the lizard, and a few of the goblins, but more keep coming. 

Odd things happen: Benin's hammer careams out of his hand and hits a goblin, then swings back around to return him. Sayal takes damage and should be passed out, but remained standing, able to fight. Everyone is pretty angry and wounded.

Some of the goblins and dogs run off, but we finally kill the big boss Ripnugget. A quick search of the room (C19) turns up crown worth 20gp, a red potion per goblin (7), chest plate, sword, key ring with keys. Anger begins to dissipate at the end of the battle.

Sayal drank two of the red potions for a medium bit of healing. Benin, Bartland, and Erandor each drink potions for healing. Leaving us with 2 light and one medium potions of healing left.

A search of the main floor turns up many grody rooms with lots of filth. Ripnugget's room held one holy symbol from Lamashtu. In the west side courtyard, we kill four goblin dogs, find a room full of caged rabbits, and a room that has some large snuffling animal thing boarded in. Skrimshaw and Sayal attempt to disable the door lock while Benin and Bartland go into then north hall to further investigate.

Arandor, who stayed behind in the lobby with doggie, is overset by the goblins who were outside playing kill gull. He uses Color Spray again to disable most of his goblin attackers. Then flames them for further damage. In the end, he takes them all down and finishes them off with coups de grace. 

Benin finds stairs heading downstairs at the north end of the main floor.

Skrimshaw gets the door open to discover a heavy war horse, hog tied and neglected. Poor health and hungry. Sayal uses her animal handling skills to calm and feed the war horse. Sayal takes the horse, Shadow Mist, as part of the party.  

Remaining room is a store room, including grain which we take for Shadow Mist.

Thistletop

Takes all stinking day to get through the Nettlewoods. When we arrive near the edge, we tie up the horses and begin looking around. Find a nettle door leading through a four-foot high tunnel of tangled, thorny vines. Stooping only a problem for Sayal, as the rest of the party is too short for most carnival rides. Tunnel to the left gives good high level view from the cliff top.  Tunnel to the right takes us to another cliff edge from which we can see the island and bridge off to the east.

There are reed and leaf nests lining the walls of the tunnel at the juncture before the cliff face.  Turns out to be ten goblins. We despatch all ten goblins in a nice long skirmish.

Notice that these are Birdcrunchers - far from their regular home area. Notice that the goblins over at the island are playing a super fun game of "kill gull".

Another day, another catacomb

Organize to go back to the glassworks and explore further. All healed and better, but it still residual rages.

In catacombs, go straight(ish) back to the altar and come upon two goblins. Kill the first and the second calls to Brathuzmus. The second gets away, and gets into the scary rage room, where some voice is saying "don't let them get in here". The bugbear is in the main altar room with at least four goblins. As everyone runs into the room, the also see Tsuto. After a prolonged battle, we kill the goblins, and take Tsutso and Brathuzmus prisoner. We transfer Brathuzmus to Shaelulu's "care", and chain Tsutso in prison. Ameiko doesn't come to his defense, not unsurprisingly.

We have acquired some goods from the searching of the rooms, see Skrimshaw's journal (and note the tiara). There are two bottles of blue (I mean red) potion.

In the catacombs

Head to upstairs level, as we find no more doors that are accessible. Come to a circular room with a fountain in the middle and sculls lining the walls. Attacked by Vargoyle with paralyzingly shriek, poisonous bite and a kiss that turns its victim into one of its kind. An evil extra planar creature. Got lucky on the death as it didn't try to kiss anyone. Water of the fountain is all about cleansing before entering the shrine. 

Skrimshaw listens at the door, hears nothing. Stairs head to another door above. More spiral stairs heading up into darkness. Rock blocks the way above.

Go back to the next open hallway (back past goddess statue). Down the long hallway and come to a shrine with an alter. Searching the room reveals not much. Head to double doors which open into a huge underground cathedral. Stone doors to either side. Strange spiky runes. More skulls surround the pool. Pulpit has a triangle of orangey liquid that bubbles like lava. Flitting, flying, evil skank shouts  at us to leave her home and no longer defile her sanctuary. Slits her wrists and dribbles blood into the triangle pool. The fluid appears to diminish in power, making her appear somewhat disappointed. 

Determine the skank to be a quasit. We all pull our cold iron weapons. Quasit disappears into thin air. We all move about the room, and a creature man comes up from the bubbling orange triangle of fluid. Large battle ensues including a goblin dog and a a second creature man. At one point the skanky quasit disappears into the bubbling water releasing an angry shockwave, leaving the party stunned for six full seconds. 

Something causes the various adventurers to attack each other, doing more damage than any of the beasts. In the end, only the dwarves and the dog are still standing in the room. Glonier, Hulk, Sayal are all tied up and unconscious. Skrimshaw has run off and Arandor is hiding in the hallway. Skrimshaw will likely not trust any of us again. 

Bartland heals the unconscious members of the party so that they can get back to the Rusty Dragon.

The dwarves and Sayal begin to understand that we were all attacking each other due to some unseen force and not through any rational reasoning. We discuss the extreme anger that coursed through us. 

Skrimshaw leaves the glassworks and ends up back talking to Ameiko. She gives her a pretty grim version of the tale, thinking the rest are still fighting. The rest of the party shows up and clears up some of the confusion with Skrimshaw. We tell the guards to keep out, and keep others out.

Skrimshaw is leaving to see her parents. The rest of the party retires to the Rusty Dragon to heal.