Nell's diary

Rise of the Runelords

This is a diary as written by Nell.
She started writing it as an exercise in learning to read and write.

The latest chapter is called Template:Rise of the Runelords chapter, in which Template:Rise of the Runelords chapter. It is chapter Template:Rise of the Runelords chapter of the Rise of the Runelords story.

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Räddaren i nöden...

a few ancient rooms are looted, but they were not lightly guarded.

File:Amulet of False Life.png

Amulet of False Life with Sihedron rune.

After having defeated Nualia we took a short rest during which we found an amulet with the same seven pointed star on that we had seen on some statues, doors and stuff. There were also among some other things a book of rituals and some sort of diary, written by Nualia. Honeypot was very interested in that ritual stuff and since we felt confident that most dangers was defeated we continued on without her.

We went through the door on the other side of the statue operating the trap. After a short corridor it entered an L-shaped room. To the left there was a staple of huge gold coins. I went up to them and took a closer look. It turned out to be an illusion, and just made of stone, but what a nice view. In the other end there were double doors decorated with skeletons holding a scull between them. Nathaniel called us over as Dorothea opened one door.

Inside there was a room with a domed ceiling and some pillars, but also seven alcoves with a sarcophagus in each and a statue in the middle. This statue was complete and had not been hacked at as most others had been, but was still of the same man with five bumps in his head and the book and glaive. When we looked at the statue the sarcophaguses opened and skeletons stepped out. I threw my dagger and slipped out of the room and hid. A skeleton walked up to the door and took a swing at me with his polearm, butt missed me. Then he shut the door. It surprised me. Velicia opened the door and teleported into the room. I heard her magic at work. I hid outside the door and threw my dagger at a skeleton just inside the door destroying it, but then the biggest skeleton from the only sarcophagus on the opposite wall shouted something Dorothea later translated to "Get up you slothful dreg." which made the skeleton reanimate and stand up. It walked up to the door, attacked me, but missed, and shut the door.

I was shut out again! This was getting ridiculous. I opened the door and somersaulted into the room, trying in vain to avoid an attack from the skeleton, and stabed another one next to Nathaniel. The big skeleton used some old scary magic and scared the others and made them fall back slightly. It was all well in the end anyway as Dorothea destroyed the big skeleton and I struck down the one I had previously destroyed and another one.

When I looked closer it turned out that the skeletons had masks on their faces that were made of gold and quite expensive. There were a lot of text on the walls and Dorothea speak that language. She said it's called draconic, and that the statue was of someone called Karzoug. The text occupied Velicia a lot and when Honeypot heard that there were a lot of cryptic runes on the walls she came running. I thought it was incredibly boring and looked at the sacophaguses instead. They were all painted with a picture of someone holding a polearm. In an alcove behind one of the sarcophagus I found a secret door.

When I mentioned it Dorothea immediately lost interest in the runes, and Nathaniel started down a corridor closely followed by Dorothea and me. It split into two and then there were a few steps down before ending in a room. Nathaniel stepped out into it and Dorothea stopped in the door. I could vaguely see the far wall and it had some painting on it of spires and a mountain looking like a face. Then Nathaniel said there were water and some creatures in the water.

Velicia heard that and came running past us and cast one of her powerful magic spells but complained that the effect was dampened by the water. Then something sprayed acid on Nathaniel, Velicia and Dorothea and they screamed that we should retreat. I ran up to where the corridor split and took position there guarding the other corridor, and that was a lucky move. Soon there came a swarm of disgusting looking termites welling up toward me. I threw my dagger into them killing several, but they continued on. I crouched down and slashed a sweeping blow with my dagger, killing more of the termites and throwing the others back down the stairs. Shouting "There's termites coming up the other corridor too!" I retreated back into the room through the hidden door. I was followed by Velicia, Honeypot, Dorothea and finally Nathaniel who were doing a slow fighting withdrawal. I tried to support him by throwing my dagger at the swarms that followed him, but with mixed results.

File:Kruthiks.png

Kruthiks

Velicia was very hurt by acid and took up position close to the doors and took care of her wounds. She also told us more about the creatures. "They are called Kruthiks and said to live deep down in the ground. At night they burrow up through the floor to attack little children in their beds eating all the flesh off the bones. There are Hatchlings, Adults and Hive Lords. We have met all of them." Then she thought of what she had said and repeated "Burrowing..." looking at the closed double doors we had come through. Nathaniel killed the last of the adult termites and Velicia prepared to cast her magic at the doors just as they were thrown up and a huge termite entered. Probably a hive lord. If that thing ate the flesh off the bones it would probably swallow you whole and spit out the bones.

Slightly damaged and blown back in the corridor by Velicias magic it returned and sprayed us all in acid. Twice. It burned on my skin and especially my lungs. I felt blood running down my stomach. Looking around Honeypot fell to the ground, Velicia was bleeding heavily and even Dorothea looked seriously hurt, coughing and bleeding profusely, but she teleported to the rear of the big bug and struck it with her terrible magic. Velicia teleported to the other side of it and retreated down the hall. She whispered faintly using message that she was badly wounded, coughing blood and almost fainting. Feeling very weak from blood loss, with a tear in my eyes thinking of Velicia and Honeypot almost dying I cartwheeled up to it, using my momentum to drive my dagger through it's hard carapace, wounding it. I tried to follow up with a nice move that would leave the foe wide open, but it didn't fall for it. It was probably to stupid to even understand my feint, and I was too weak and too teared up to follow it through properly. Nathaniel poured a healing potion into Honeypot and charged the big foe, hitting it hard. Honeypot ran up to the big monster, flipped over it and continued on to Velicia holding out a healing potion, probably saving her life. Being trapped between my and Nathaniel's strikes from one side and Dorothea's and Velicias' magic from the other side the big termite bug was finally killed, but it was close.

Honeypot and Velicia was still being burnt by the acid when the beast died and Nathaniel helped them get rid of it.

Begärets dunkla mål... The dark goal of greed

the heroes at last find the demon and some information about the old runelords

We all retreated out into the L-shaped room and took a rest. As we took care of our wounds Nathaniel and Dorothea started talking of the large treasure that was in the room where the monsters came from. Peeking down the tunnel the large termite had dug I could see silver and gold glitter in the water. It was really soothing sitting there looking at the precious metals and stones glittering in the water, listening to Honeypot singing. I felt a lot better and checked the illusionary gold coins in the other end. Doroythea pointed out that there were slots next to it. We pointed them out to the others, but before opening any new passages we made sure that the treasure was taken care of. The room sloped down into water, but it was clear and the floor was covered by mostly silver coins, but there were also gold and precious stones. An enormous giant sized golden helmet dominated the treasure and a little suspicious after the illusion I checked it carefully and concluded that it was actually a working, practical helmet of brass and only covered in a thin layer of gold, but it was still valuable. I just barely reached the bottom at the deepest end and dove down into it picking up valuables. I noted that Nathaniel took of his jacket and breastplate while picking up the treasure and his shirt clung nicely to his chest. Then I realized that my top did cling too. Anyway we got the treasure out and went back to the illusionary stack of huge coins.

It was pretty obvious that you should insert gold coins into the slots to get it to open. Dorothea suggested we should try the old coin on a string trick and I agreed. We knit a coin to a string each, but Velicia said that we couldn't use any trick, but should just put the coins in and started doing that. We put our coins in to and it worked as the staple lowered into the floor. When we pulled out our strings they were empty of the coins but the knots and loops were still intact. Some kind of magic had made the coins disappear.

We entered a new room that was T-shaped. In it was three double doors. The ones to the right didn't have any handles. They also seamed to be magical. We went straight ahead. It was some kind of ritual room inside with three operating tables, surgical instruments and a seven-pointed trowel with spikes and knobs on. There were also human remains. I didn't like the room at all and left. Looking at the strange doors I went back in and brought the trowel and held it up to the doors. It looked like it would fit.

Then we looked through the other ordinary double doors and that was some kind of throne room where an old illusion of some old king talked to us in that strange language again. Dorothea told us that it was an old message mentioning a name, Alaznist. Velicia told us she had heard that name before and that it was some kind of runelord, that lived forever and ever ago. She, as it was a female name and still not called a runelady, was connected to "wrath" in some way. There were also "sloth" and this place was apparently "greed" and there were some four more. Otherwise there were nothing of interest in the room.

Velicia told us that the last pair of doors had some magic that could hold an extremely powerful creatures trapped. Then we realized that the demon, Malfeshnekor, was probably just behind these doors and by free it meant open the doors and let it go not free it from the depths of hell. I don't know if even she knew it.

Dorothea thought that we should take a peek, but I reminded the others that Nualia thought that she could use the demon to destroy all of Sandpoint and that it would probably be very powerful. We agreed to think about it and Dorothea, Velicia and Honeypot who knows about that magic stuff would think about if it would work.

That left me to doing fun stuff instead. I went back to the treasure room and sorted all the coins and gems. It was 1273 gold coins all with an old stamping and 40000 silver coins. I'm not exactly sure about that sum. It was to many coins to count twice and then you cant be certain of the result anyways. It turned out to be a total of 80 gems, of different kinds.

Nathaniel said that the others were finished researching. I felt very refreshed after counting the treasure. When I asked if it was safe to open the door Velicia started assuring me that the magical barrier would not be broken by opening the doors, when Dorothea immediately answered yes, without any hesitation or explanation. I got a feeling she didn't really know if the demon would still be held within the room by the magic. While I hesitated at the answer she opened the door.

It was a room lit by many candles and a big burning pit in the middle of the room. There were still shadows in the corners of the room. I hid as well as I could so the demon wouldn't see me. The other went up to the protective magic, and when the demon realized that we wouldn't just walk in to the room it showed itself. I peeked around the corner and saw a very big demonic creature with four arms and two had huge claws instead of hands. I moved back as far as I could without leaving the room and held my dagger at the ready. Dorothea liked this and taunted the demon that apparently banged against the magic, but failing to penetrate it continued to throw whatever there was to throw at us. Several of the things later turned out to be quite valuable.

I suggested that we should put a seven pointed star on a map with a point on Sandpoint and one on Thistletop and see where the other points would be, but somehow it didn't work. I don't understand it.

Bringing the helmet and Nualias body to Sandpoint.