Book 1: Burnt Offerings COMPLETE!

Saturday, June 8, 2013 @ Bud’s

Day 8:

After securing the top level of Thistletop, the party spent the night in the chapel of Lamashtu, dutifully wary of the threat below, though they remained unmolested. Some of the neutral party members had unusual dreams in which a whispering voice beckoned to them. A more thorough investigation of the area revealed a few noteworthy items that were not discovered in the chaos of the previous night’s encounter. A goblin “art gallery” contained a crude drawing of an immense goblin looming inside a cave set into the side of Thistletop. The tentamort lair contained a +1 chain shirt among some desiccated humanoid remains. The war room contained notes suggesting that Sandpoint would be invaded by several goblin tribes and sinspawn from the Catacombs of Wrath, “once the whispering beast is tamed.” A secret door in Lyrie’s research room led to a stairway leading down. The party heard a knock at the door leading up to the goblin stockade, and it was Gogmurt, asking for a progress report, and also giving the party a wand of barkskin (9) and a wand of cure light wounds (15)

Upon opening the first door to the lower level, the party discovered that the entire floor was slightly canted to the west, creating a slight uphill slope when traveling east. The first room contained several statues that were damaged both by the upheaval that caused the floor to tilt, but also by deep scratching and by fire.

In the next hallway, statues wielding glaives flanked the hallway, and shiny square on the otherwise dirty floor raised suspicion. Nymeria inspected it further, and discovered that it was the trigger for a slashing cage trap. The floor was a pressure plate rigged to cause two portcullises to drop, trapping people in between while the statues slashed at them. In addition, the floor would drop into a pit 10′ deep. However, Nymeria was able to disable it, allowing the party to pass safely across.

A northern door was locked, and Mackintosh smelled yeth hounds, but Nymeria was able to pick the lock. The party burst in to find Nualia waiting with two of her beasts in front of a fountain of bubbling blue water. Having learned from the previous encounter with the hounds, Echo had a countersong readied to negate the effect of their supernatural baying. The hounds wasted their first turns failing to frighten the party, while Nualia unleashed her fury with a magical bastard sword wielded in her aasimar hand, and clawing with her red demonic hand. Oz animated a chair which assisted the party and provided valuable flanking on Nualia, who was well armored in a magical breastplate, and also had ample opportunity to cast pre-combat spells on herself. Mackintosh killed one of the yeth hounds,  The other hound bit and tripped Lisanji, and attacked again when she tried to stand, but she slew it with a devastating critical hit. During the battle, Nymeria disarmed Nualia, and she recovered her weapon, but the opportunity for her success was lost. In very bad shape, she was just about to channel negative energy to assault the entire party when Nymeria put her ranseur through her face. Oz’s heroic chair got three coats of “paint” from the blood spraying from the bodies of the defeated foes.

The party recovered from Nualia’s body her mithril breastplate +1, her bastard sword +1, a holy symbol of Lamashtu, and a composite longbow. Under the chair that Oz animated lay a locked chest, which turned out to contain Nualia’s remaining fortune, 7000gp. Lying on several tables were Nualia’s notes and several journals, which would have taken hours to go through. The party decided to take them, but not to go through them yet. Mackintosh drank from the fountain, and Oz suppressed the effect once, but Mackintosh would not be denied. He drank again, and experienced the uneasy sensation of viewing the Varisian countryside from the perspective of the sentinel statue that Thistletop was built into.

A southern door led to an L-shaped room with a double door leading south and what appeared to be a floor-to-ceiling round column made of stacks of gold coins to the east. Magical detection revealed the gold to be an illusion cast on a stone column, and close inspection revealed two coin-sized slots in the walls to the left and right of the column. Oz inserted a single gold coin into the left slot, and then the right slot, and the column sank into the floor, revealing a passage into a room beyond, covered in a thick layer of dust, apparently undisturbed for quite some time. The next room contained three doors to the east, north, and south.

The southern door had no handles, but an elaborate sihedron rune carved into them where the handles would be, its shape covered by hollows and slits. The door was magically sealed with a spell strong enough to stun Oz when he detected magic on it. The smell of burning hair emanated from behind the door.

A voice could be heard from behind the northern door, speaking in what seemed to be Thassilonian, but not loud enough to be distinctly heard. Interestingly, the voice repeated itself in a loop.

Mackintosh burst into the eastern room through an unlocked door, and leapt on to a table covered with surgical implements and other sharp tools, but managed to avoid injuring himself. A thorough search revealed a freakishly mutated skeleton in the corner of the room, which radiated faint transmutation magic. An unusual item lay among the tools, a silver-and-gold seven-pointed star, one surface studded with nodules and blades, the other side featuring a smooth curved handle. The group decided to try it on the magically sealed door.

In an unconventional tactic, the party opened the northern door and the southern door simultaneously. The northern room contained a throne standing on a raised dais, with a ghostly figure seated on the throne, issuing the looped message: “…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…”

Inserting the tool into the sihedron-shaped depression in the magically sealed doors caused them to open effortlessly. The room beyond was lit by a 10-foot-long pit of flickering fire that filled the room with a strange humid heat and the smell of burning hair. Mackintosh entered the room and began to prod at the fire pit with some of the tools from the transmutation room, when he was attacked by a large creature who had been invisible until then. This creature was Malfeshnekor, a greater barghest, a powerful, evil, extraplanar creature with strong attacks, damage resistance, and magical abilities usable at will. He lashed out viciously with a bite and two claws, reducing Mackintosh to low health. The party quickly moved to surround Malfeshnekor, Oz in particular moving to protect Mackintosh who had been badly hurt. However, the party was having trouble connecting with its attacks. The barghest wasn’t particularly agile or tough, but he was blinking in and out of view, causing many attacks to miss. Nonmagical attacks were especially ineffective, so Wanga cast magic fang on Tini so that he could assist.

Malfeshnekor fought relentlessly, communicating with the party telepathically, expressing gratitude for their presence, and interest in eating their souls. For thousands of years had he been imprisoned here, insane with rage and hunger. He knocked Nymeria unconscious, and also dealt heavy damage to Lisanji, but they never wavered. Echo was quite busy in her healing duties, bringing both Mackintosh and Nymeria back into the fight. After quite some time of the party whittling away at the barghest, and him dealing significant damage in return, Lisanji dealt him a devastating critical blow. Malfeshnekor whispered into Lisanji’s mind, asserting his paternity: “LISANJI, I AM YOUR FATHER. JOIN ME AND WE CAN RULE GOLARION.” Lisanji refused, but Malfeshnekor attempted to charm her into betraying her companions. She was steadfast, his blink effect wore off, and he was carved to mincemeat shortly thereafter.

A search of the room revealed sixty eternal candles and a silver coffer containing a ring of force shield, which manifests as a seven-pointed star, the sihedron rune.

The double doors from the large L-shaped room opened into a crypt with no apparent exits. A thorough search was interrupted by three shadows rising from their sarcophagi, filling the party with dread. These incorporeal undead were completely immune to nonmagical weapons, so Lisanji and Nymeria shared the bastard sword once belonging to Nualia. Mackintosh hit one hard, and the shadows missed Mackintosh and Echo with their clumsy touch attacks. The third one hit Nymeria, dealing significant strength damage, which Echo channeled to heal some of. Mackintosh dealt a killing blow to one, and the shadows failed to connect on any more attacks while the party beat them down. Lisanji dealt killing blows to the remaining two. Resuming the thorough search, the party discovered a secret door leading west into a damp, underground chamber that seems to have been a treasury at some point.

Nymeria took the lead, and saw a huge golden helmet submerged in a pool of water. The helmet rose, and started to turn, but instead of some sort of aquatic giant, it was a giant hermit crab that had made its home in an ancient Thassilonian artifact. The party benefited from a surprise round, in which Nymeria pierced the crab, and Mackintosh leapt on top of it, trying to ride it. Lisanji put an end to the silliness by ending its life before it even got a chance to act. In addition to the valuable golden helmet, the party found assorted coins and gems in the water, along with an amulet of natural armor +1.

Time was running short on the session, so the party did not get a chance to go through Nualia’s notes and journals. We will cover that next session when we recap Book 1 and review treasure accumulated so far.

TL;DR: The party fully cleared Thistletop, defeating not only Nualia and her minions, but a greater barghest named Malfeshnekor, who had been imprisoned in Thistletop for the thousands of years since the fall of the Thassilonian empire. Sandpoint should now be safe from the threat originating in Thistletop. Book 1 of Rise of the Runelords is complete.

Treasure gained in dungeon level 2 of Thistletop:

sihedron medallion (Oz)
+1 chain shirt (Echo)
+1 bastard sword (Lisanji)
+1 mithril breastplate (Nymeria)
masterwork composite longbow (+4 STR)
gold holy symbol of Lamashtu (worth 500gp)
7000gp
several antique surgical tools (worth 100gp)
60 eternal candles (worth 1500gp)
silver coffer (worth 400g)
Ring of force shield (+2 shield bonus)
Amulet of natural armor +1
piles of mixed coins and gems (worth 1400gp)
A huge golden helmet (worth 7000gp)
wand of barkskin (9)
wand of cure light wounds (15) – some got used

Thistletop is now complete, and Pathfinder Society chronicle sheets have been distributed. The 3 XP, 4 Prestige Points, and 4800 gold may be applied to a character between levels 3 and 5. As a special item, the sihedron medallion may be purchased for use in PFS.