Book 1: Burnt Offerings

Saturday, May 4, 2013 @ Bud’s

Day 5, continued:

Beyond the prison room lay a torture room and an ancient study, with cells containing skeletons of deformed humanoids, possibly the result of experimentation and research. Amidst the rubble in the study was a scroll of flaming sphere (CL 5th)

Beyond this lay a large room with numerous frameworks of wood and metal on the floor. On the other side of the room was a three-armed goblin wielding a red glowing longsword, a handaxe, and a dagger. Mackintosh charged the creature, but fell crashing into a pit containing a zombie. The others learned from his error, and stepped around the covered pits. Nymeria tried to help Mackintosh out of the pit with a rope, while he fought with the zombie in the pit, and the others jockeyed for position to attack the goblin, who was screaming incoherently about serving “the Queen” They exchanged a few blows, and the goblin vomited vile acidic blood on to some party members. Echo channeled positive energy to harm the zombies in the covered pits, Oz guarded the room exit, and Nymeria helped by shooting some of them in the face. The goblin was no match for the party, and he went down without much fuss. His weapons turned out to be a +1 longsword, a masterwork cold iron hand axe, and a masterwork cold iron dagger.

The party reinforced the pit covers and continued exploring. They found a spiral staircase leading down, but it had been collapsed, rendering it impassable. They also found a strange spherical room, crackling with lightning and enchanted with levitation magic. The room contained several curious items floating about: a scroll of burning hands (CL 3rd), a wand of shocking grasp (38 charges), and a bestiary of monsters written in Abyssal. Mackintosh ran into the room and floated headlong into the opposite wall, but other than some static electricity making his fur stand on end, nothing else happened.

Exploring another section of the catacombs east of the statue of Runelord Alaznist, the party encountered a pair of floating, disembodied demon skulls with tentacles known as vargouilles. Both of them shrieked loudly upon the party entering the room, but everyone was able to resist the paralytic effect that would have enabled their secondary ability of turning a helpless opponent into a vargouille. Having avoided the chief danger of the vargouille, the party was able to kill them easily. Beyond the vargouilles lay another collapsed stairway, this one leading up.

Exploring the last remaining tunnel, the party found an altar filled with filthy water. Wanga purified the water, but it immediately began to become impure again. Mackintosh, ever the bold and brave cat, scooped some of the water into his waterskin. Upon touching the water, he felt the familiar feeling of rage well up within him, but it subsided. He noted the effect with glee, and looked to take advantage of the effect if the opportunity presented itself.

The opportunity would present itself very soon, because on the other side of the door in the cathedral, a quasit was busy using her blood to create more sinspawn using some strange translucent orange water. Mackintosh drank the water he had collected and went into a rage as he expected. What he did not expect was that the rage would cause him to lose control and attack his companions. The quasit took advantage of this by casting hold person on Nymeria, but the party protected her from a coup de grace by moving her aside and interceding on her behalf. Lisanji and Hildabrandt engaged the sinspawn in melee while Echo inspired courage and Wanga grappled with the enraged feline. The quasit disappeared again, but continued creating sinspawn. While fighting the sinspawn, Lisanji stepped into a pool of water, and went into a rage similar to Mackintosh. However, Hildabrandt managed to disarm her, which reduced her threat considerably. Hildabrandt was badly injured, and made toward a side room, which was safe, but which contained nothing of interest. The quasit began screaming obscenities in Infernal, stopped trying to create sinspawn, went invisible again, and flew toward the door. However, she did not count on Mackintosh smelling her as she passed by, and taking a swipe at her. Oz managed to block her path out the door, and get her into a grapple and finally a pin, which she could not escape from. She attempted in vain to put Oz to sleep, but he was immune to her hex. Eventually, she succumbed to death by a thousand cuts, despite her fast healing and damage resistance. She possessed a handy haversack, a +1 cold iron returning dagger, and a +1 silver ghost touch dagger.

The party determined that the quasit was motivated to escape rather than deplete the resource that was allowing her to create sinspawn by bleeding into the water. The party discussed their findings with several of Sandpoint’s citizens. The Sheriff concluded that there must be a connection between the catacombs and the “recent unpleasantness” and would like to put an end to it. Father Zantus had no special insight into the catacombs, but recommended asking Brodert Quink, who identified the magical water as coming from a minor runewell, which is a magical artifact that feeds on sin. The locations of the runewells had been lost since Earthfall, the event which ended the Thassilonian empire 10,000 years ago. This particular runewell, once belonging to Runelord Alaznist, is powered by the death of nearby beings that are affiliated with the sin of wrath, and there has been a lot of that around Sandpoint lately. This runewell’s power can be used to create sinspawn, but this requires a few drops of blood, and also depletes some of the runewell’s power. As the party explained to Ameiko, they do not know how to permanently destroy the runewell, if that is even possible, but they did secure the area by blocking the passage with stones borrowed from the collapsed stairs.

TL;DR
The party cleared the Catacombs of Wrath, walled up the active runewell, and escaped with an assortment of items. A collapsed spiral staircase leading down may warrant further investigation, but it set off the party’s Threat-O-Meter with a reading of HIGH.

+1 longsword
+1 cold iron returning dagger
+1 silver ghost touch dagger
masterwork ranseur worth 1000g
masterwork cold iron handaxe
masterwork cold iron dagger
Scroll of flaming sphere (CL 5th)
scroll of burning hands (CL 3rd)
a wand of shocking grasp (38 charges)
handy haversack
bestiary of monsters written in Abyssal (It is written up as a 100g treasure, but I am going to make it give +1 to identify monsters)

Again, I forget who took what, or whether it was all decided.

Everyone gained enough experience to reach level 3.