Below Sandpoint

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Rise of the Runelords episode
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Episode no.	Episode 79
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Honeypot Nathaniel Nell Velicia
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In this chapter Template:Rise of the Runelords chapter.

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As Nathaniel and I were talking to the people we had liberated, telling them of our heroic adventures, Velicia came to us and asked Nathaniel to fight a harpy for her. Apparently she had tried to talk to them but they had challenged her to a duel. Nathaniel fought the harpy and soon won. Then it told us about their master living in the last tower. It was an insane mummy teaching unarmed fighting styles. Velicia and Honeypot was very impressed wanted to talk to it, but was dissuaded by the harpies. I wonder what's happening to them. They want to serve evil mummies and ride evil shadow wyverns.

Nathaniel and I returned to trying to arrange for all the people to return home. The giants offered us to use their giant mammoth.

Late afternoon we reached Sandpoint. I've always thought of me as a visitor to Sandpoint but now it felt like coming home. I got my old room at the rusty dragon and had a good dinner there, letting Kaven rest. The following days we celebrated saving Sandpoint from the giants and bringing back what had been taken.

The next day we went to the glassworks and down to the old rooms we had searched a year ago. It looked just as we had left it. We looked at the stairs that had caved in. They were far within the complex and the stones and dirt would have to be carried a long way through the corridors. Nathaniel suggested that we dig a hole straight down from above. He counted paces and returned up. He concluded we would have to dig up the square outside the garrison.

After a steady lunch we started hiring workers for the dig. It took the rest of the day just to hire people enough for the work and then no one of them were miners. The next day we started early. Nathaniel told everyone what to do as he worked hard digging himself. I didn't put as much effort into it as he did and I felt more tired than he looked after a whole day of work. That night I went to bed early and slept hard, but early the next morning I was woken by a rumble as the earth shook. There was an earthquake. I ran outside and towards our dig. I was afraid that our hole had collapsed and all work had been for naught. I got there almost at the same time as Nathaniel riding Shadowmane. We saw that the garrison had a gaping hole as a wall had collapsed and fell into our dig. Luckily there were no dangerous prisoners. Carefully we climbed down to look at the damage to our work. Some of the parts we had searched though a year ago had been blocked, but the stairs we were trying to dig out had been freed. We returned up and Nathaniel said that it was time to explore the new parts. I suggested we should contact the others. He took out his new dwarven stone and talked to Velicia who had the other. Her and Honeypot soon stepped through the portal in the cellar of Brodert Quink and joined us. His house was now dangerously close to the crater-like hole. Nathaniel took some of the supports laying nearby and put in his magical haversack.

Together Nathaniel, Honeypot, Velicia and I climbed all the way down to the now cleared stairs. We continued down to a round room at the bottom. There were no obvious exits, but I easily spotted a strange part of the wall. It was an illusion hiding a door. Inside we found a strange magical fog drifting through the rooms. At first I though it was dust from the earthquake but it didn't settle down and wasn't as sandy. We went through a short tunnel littered with rubble into a room where the little we could see of the walls were covered by runes and scribble cut into the walls or drawn over in paint and what I guessed to be blood. To make sure we wouldn't get lost in the fog I took out my chalk and as I started to draw on the wall an angry voice yelled out. I slipped in to another short corridor and hid as the others started talking to someone hiding in the fog. It turned out it was Xalista himself, and it was him who had written everything on the walls. He did not like me writing on the wall. He started to ask questions of the world outside and I told them to tell him of Sandpoint which had been built on top of his dungeon in the last eighty years. We asked him about what Runeforge was and he told us it was some kind of training place. We also learned that he liked Lamashtu. He wanted to know bigger so I suggested Magnimar, but he still wanted bigger. We told of Perrenland and he said that it was a weak land, but I objected and said that Perrenland was stronger than anything. Then Nathaniel told me that the Great Kingdoms was much stronger. Xalista asked where it is and Nathaniel told him that it is about a months travel to the south on a strong horse. At last was amazed at the size of the lands. We started to ask several more questions and we took turns, but then I asked: "Where is the key to Runeforge?"
"FOOL! The writings are the key! You will have must die!"
While we were talking I had returned out into the room and awful black scaly doglike creatures had moved around in the fog. It looked like a fight was starting but Velicia tried to scare him to keep talking, but he hardly noticed and the fight started. I threw my dagger into a dog and retreated bak to hide. Xalista attacked Velicia with two vicious looking blades and retreated back into the fog and disappeared. Nathaniel draw the dogs together and hit them with sweeping blows with his sword. Velicia user her strange swordmagic on them and I ran past them making them attack each others and some of them fall on their heads. I continued out into a corridor with open double doors and hid. I suspected that Xalista had hid in there but I didn't find out where until he attacked. He hit me hard with both his blades. I made a flashy riposte and Velicia used some magic to hit him hard too. He was dazed from the damage and failed to get away as he did last time. Velicia ran up to me and hit him with her sword magic. I sidestepped and threw daggers making him stumble out to Nathaniel. I thought he could keep him locked in combat, but he turned out to be slippery. Two of the dog-creatures charged Velicia and me pulling me to the floor with its vicious bite. Velicia teleported out into the room and got the dogs to follow her. My shoes magic helped me stand up and I somersaulted out into the room throwing my dagger at a dog, but missed it, I continued on up to Xalista and stabbed him deep in his back. He was hurt so much that he teleported out of the room. I threw the dagger several times very quickly killing one dog and hurting two others so bad that they try to get away but are killed by Nathaniel and Honeypot.

After the hard fighting we caught our breath and looked around. There wasn't much to be looteb, but I wrote "Pelor kicks Lamashtu's ass" between the other scribble on the wall.