Below Sandpoint

“Below Sandpoint”
Rise of the Runelords episode
Episode no.	Episode 81
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Honeypot Nathaniel Nell Velicia
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "The Library" "The End of Xalista"
Rise of the Runelords chapter list

In this chapter returning to Sandpoint the heroes find more thassalonian structures.

Below Sandpoint

Late afternoon we reached Sandpoint. I've always thought of myself as a visitor to Sandpoint but now it felt like coming home. I got my old room at the Rusty Dragon and had a big dinner there, letting Kaven rest. I realized how good he had become as I first was a little disappointed with the dinner, but then understood that it was the same as before. I was getting used to his improved cooking. The following day Nathaniel joined me for a late breakfast at the Rusty Dragon. He had been out riding as he does in the mornings. As usual he called me a sleepyhead, and I told him I was up late. He asked what I do all night as I don't drink and don't like music that much. I told him there's much more to having fun than just drinking and singing, and told him some of the things I had heard yesterday, talking to people. After eating we walked around town looking at the repairs from the giant attack and returned the sign we had taken back. Everyone thanked us again as we passed. We also visited Das Korvut. Even if he wasn't as bad tempered as usual he was still not as pleasant as he was when we rescued him. His dogs was at least a little more friendly to Nathaniel.

We celebrated saving Sandpoint from the giants for a few days, but we knew we had a job to do. A clear 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 caved in stairs. 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 should dig a hole straight down from above. He said it wasn't a hole but a shaft, but it was a hole anyway. He counted paces and we returned up. Pacing around in Sandpont he concluded we would have to dig up the square outside the garrison.

After a steady lunch we ordered support beams, pickaxes, shovels, wheelbarrows and buckets for dirt. It would take a few days for it to arrive. We still started hiring workers for the dig just to make sure they would be here when the stuff arrived. It took a whole day just to hire people enough but still no one of them were miners. While we waited for our equipment I suggested we should make a trip to Foxglove manor. I checked on the house and it was holding together, but still needed lots of work. We returned before the equipment arrived.

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 still 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 dressed quickly and ran outside, 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 Shadowmist. We saw that the garrison had a gaping hole as a wall had collapsed and fallen into our dig. Luckily there were no prisoners otherwise they would have easily escaped. 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 get the others. He took out his new dwarven stone and talked to Velicia who had the other. She 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, but I couldn't see any damage to it. Nathaniel took some of the supports laying nearby and put in his magical haversack. I hurried to get some food and then we were ready.

The scribbler.

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 room. 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. He called himself the scribbler, but it turned out it was Xalista himself. He had written everything all over the walls. He didn't like me writing there, damaging his work, in his opinion. 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 that 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 back to hide. Xalista attacked Velicia with two vicious looking blades and retreated back into the fog and disappeared. Nathaniel drew the dogs together and hit them with sweeping blows with his sword. Velicia used her strange sword magic on them while I ran past them making them attack each other and most of them fell 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 shoe's 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 tried to get away, but were killed by Nathaniel and Honeypot.

After the hard fighting we caught our breath and looked around. There wasn't much to be looted, but Honeypot found a poem among the scribblings on the walls. I didn't like it.