Thistletop, part 9 (Friday-Monday, Lamashan (X) 12-15, 4707 AR)

The heroes defeated all three adversaries, but at the cost of Urtrigor's life. They took Tsuto, Nualia and their female companion as prisoners.

Bruthien identified the objects on the shelves as various holy texts, scrolls, relics, and objects sacred to the worship of Lamashtu. Nulia's notes and several journals lay on the tables here. Sorting through these notes took several hours, but revealed the whole of Nualia's story.

The primary villain of Sandpoint was a bitter aasimar woman named Nualia. She was a foundling raised by Sandpoint's previous religious leader, a man named Ezakien Tobyn, and her childhood was lonely and sad. Her unearthly beauty made the other children either jealous or shy, and many of them took to playing cruel jokes on her. The adults in town weren't much better - many of the superstitious Varisians viewed Nualia as blessed by Desna, a sort of "reverse deformity". Rumors that her touch or proximity could cure warts and rashes, that locks of her hair brewed into tea could increase fertility, and that her voice could drive out evil spirits led to a succession of awkward and humiliating requests over the years. Poor Nualia felt more like a freak than a young girl by the time she came of age, so when Delek Viskanta, a local Varisian youth, began to court her, she practically fell into his arms in gratitude.

Knowing her father wouldn't approve of a relationship with a Varisian (he wanted her to remain pure so she could join a prestigious convent), they kept the affair secret. The couple met many times in hidden places, a favorite being an abandoned smuggler's tunnel under town that Delek had discovered as a child. Before long, Nualia realized she was pregnant. When she told Delek, he revealed his true colors and, after calling her a slut and a harlot, fled Sandpoint rather than face her father's wrath. Nualia's shock quickly turned to rage, yet she had nowhere to vent her anger. She bottled it up, and when her father discovered her delicate condition, his reaction to her indiscretions only furthered her shame and anger. He forbade her to leave the church, lectured her nightly, and made her pray to Desna for forgiveness. In so doing, he unknowingly nurtured her growing hate.

Seven months pregnant, Nualia flew into a rage. She miscarried her child later that night, a child whose monstrously deformed shape she only glimpsed before blanching midwives stole it away to burn it in secret. As the child had been conceived in the smuggler's tunnels below town, in close proximity to a hidden shrine to Lamashtu (the goddess of monstrous births), the child itself was deformed and horrific. The double shock of losing a child and the realization she had been carrying a fiend in her belly for 7 months was too much. Nualia fell into a coma.

As Nualia slept, she dreamed unhealthy dreams. Fueled by the taint of Lamashtu, Nualia became further obsessed with the cruel demon goddess and the conviction that her wretched life was inflicted on her by those around her. She came to see her angelic heritage as a curse, and the demon-sent nightmares showed her how to expunge this taint from her body and soul, replacing it with chaos and cruelty. When she finally woke, Nualia was someone new, someone who didn't flinch at what Lamashtu asked of her. She jammed her father's door shut as he slept, lit the church on fire, and fled Sandpoint.

The locals assumed Nualia had burned in the fire, a tragedy made all the worse by the death of Father Tobyn as well. Yet Nualia lived. She fled to Magnimar, where she enlisted the aid of a group of Norgorber-worshiping killers known as the Skinsaw Cult. With their aid, she tracked down Delek and murdered him. Yet his death did not fill her need for revenge - it only quickened her need for more of the same, for Sandpoint and its hated citizens still lived.

Seeing a kindred spirit in the tortured woman, the mysterious leader of the Skinsaw Cult gave Nualia a medallion bearing a carving of a seven-pointed star called a "Sihedron medallion". Nualia learned that she had a larger role to play, and that her dreams were a map to her destiny. Taking the advice to heart, Nualia returned to Sandpoint and found herself drawn to the brick wall in the smuggler's tunnels where she and Delek had conceived her deformed child. Nualia bashed down the wall, and in so doing, discovered the Catacombs of Wrath and the quasit Erylium, also a follower of Lamashtu. For many months, Nualia studied under Erylium's tutelage. During this time, Nualia received another vision from Lamashtu - a vision of a monstrous goblin wolf imprisoned in an underground room. In Nualia's dreams, she learned that this creature, a barghest named Malfeshnekor, was also one of Lamashtu's chosen. If she could find him and free him, he would not only help her achieve her vengeance against the town of Sandpoint, but he would be the key in cleansing her body from what she had come to see as her "celestial taint". Nualia wanted to be one of Lamashtu's children now. She wanted to become a monster herself.

The notes also outlined Nualia's plans to send an army of goblins against Sandpoint and burn the town to the ground, not only to offer it all as a burnt offering to Lamashtu in hopes of being made a half-fiend, but also to fuel the runewell in the catacombs below. The notes went on to detail how to cause sinspawn to manifest from the runewell, and claimed that if someone were to overextend the runewell's stores, it would be deactivated. Nualia wasn't sure how to reactivate it, and several times stressed that the runewell shouldn't be used much until after Sandpoint was razed and the deaths of hundreds of angry citizens and goblins have refilled the well.

Once the heroes returned to Sandpoint, they released their prisoners to Sherrif Hemlock in the Garrison. The prisoners stayed for only a few days before an escort from Magnimar arrived to bring them to trial in the big city.

Looking for someone to repair his magic longsword, Thurden heard that Cyrdak Drokkus of the Sandpoint Theater is able to. Brand-new cathedrals and ancient ruins aren't the only incongruities Sandpoint boasts. This massive playhouse, financed entirely by its larger-than-life owner, Cyrdak Drokkus, features one of the most impressive theaters on this side of Varisia - it certainly competes with the playhouses of Magnimar, a fact that Cyrdak takes great pride in, since he was forced to flee that city for mysterious reasons he's eager to hint at but reticent to expound upon (although they certainly involve another Sandpoint local of note - Jasper Korvaski). The Sandpoint Theater often showcases local talent, but it's the three weekend shows that locals generally look forward to. Cyrdak uses his contacts in Magnimar to great extent, ensuring that the most exciting new productions in the big city are available here as well. Although Cyrdak enjoys flirting with all of Sandpoint's young women, his romantic relationship with Jasper is one of the town's worst-kept secrets.

Thurden and the heroes were invited by Cyrdak Drokkus of the Sandpoint Theater to do reenactments of their fights against the goblins (accompanied, of course, by fine illusion-work from Cyrdak as special effects) in exchange for repairing the magic sword. Thurden vehemently denied, and went to have his sword fixed by Madame Mvashti for regular money.