Rise of The Runelords Chapter 19: The Secrets Beneath Sandpoint

Jorgenfist has fallen, and as the shamaness predicted, the fight went out of the assembled giants without Mokmurian present to stoke the fires of war. Cooler heads prevailed among the stone giants, who walked back into the mountains. With no strong hands to keep them in place, the ogres soon joined them. Jorgenfist was abandoned again, the treasure trove of knowledge and books preserved beneath it ripe for the cataloging.

But more issues awaited the Companions to the south... Sandpoint's secret was about to burst wide open!

Those who need to get caught up, the previous installments are here:

- Chapter 1: Blood and Butterflies
- Chapter 2: Murder and Glass
- Chapter 3: The Sin Pit
- Chapter 4: Tussles in The Tangle
- Chapter 5: The Assault on Thistletop
- Chapter 6: Secrets Behind The Curtain
- Chapter 7: Murders At The Mill
- Chapter 8: Halflings and Ghouls
- Chapter 9: Fox in The Hen House
- Chapter 10: Something Rotten in Magnimar
- Chapter 11: The Crumbling Tower
- Chapter 12: Demonbane
- Chapter 13: Trouble at Turtleback Ferry
- Chapter 14: The Taking of Fort Rannick
- Chapter 15: Water Over The Dam
- Chapter 16: Mad Lovers, And Lost Captains
- Chapter 17: The March of The Giants
- Chapter 18: The Taking of Jorgenfist
- Chapter 19: The Secrets Beneath Sandpoint
- Chapter 20: At The Gates of The Runeforge
- Chapter 21: Storming The Halls of Evocation
- Chapter 22: The Bowels of Necromancy's Tomb

- Chapter 23: The End of Runeforge

- Chapter 24: Preparation For The Final Journey 

- Chapter 25: The Hunger in The Mountains 

- Chapter 26: The Gateway to Xin-Shalast

- Chapter 27: The Path of Temptation

- Chapter 28: The Three-Fold Challenge of Xin-Shalast

- Chapter 29: Crossing The Barrier of Greed

- Chapter 30: The Fall of Karzoug

All caught up now? Lovely! Because back in Sandpoint...

What Was Buried Rises Once Again

When the goblin raids were first conducted on the town, Nualia was looking for something beneath Sandpoint. While she'd found some ruins left behind from the time of the Runelords, she had by no means found all of them. A quake in the earth had shifted the ruins, though, breaching a sealed entrance beneath the town. Strange smoke and the sounds of mad barking rose from the darkness the night before the Companions returned, and no sooner had they been spotted returning to Sandpoint than the sheriff immediately asked them to see what was down there.

Was this shit here last time?

Upon entering the opened chamber, the Companions found it filled with conjured smoke and vapor, making it difficult to see very far. But the walls were covered in script, all of it written in mostly forgotten tongues and by a particularly ancient hand. Scholarly writings that gave way to prophecy, which in turn spiraled into madness.

As Zordlan and Mirelinda attempted to make sense of the words, a booming voice echoed through the room. The madman who had been trapped beneath the earth for so long, seemingly alive and well. Even as Thok slid a set of enchanted goggles over his eyes they'd taken from Mokmurian, he saw no figure lurking within the room. Though he did see a colossal creature standing in the chamber beyond. Still enough to be a statue, it was filled with a raw, brute menace that said it was a trap just waiting for the Companions to put a foot wrong.

Before Thok could give a warning, one of them did.

Chikara howled in pain as an invisible blade slashed into her back. A figure in tattered black, with the wide eyes of a lunatic, grinned, and ducked back into the mist, laughing as he ran into the room. Before Thok could warn her not to, the furious half-orc was hot on her assailant's heels, bellowing threats about what she would do when she caught him.

As soon as she entered the chamber, though, the statue began to move.

Into The Pit, And Out of The Ashes

The demon had waited patiently, and as soon as it had a target it descended on Chikara with claws and fangs. A hulking beast with four arms and a maw the size of a cavern, the mad priest cackled as the denizen of the pit roared for blood.

Thok howled, firing arrows as fast as he could draw them. Zordlan ran forward, pulling his rapier and rushing into the fray to distract the beast. Mirelinda's cards began to shuffle in the air as she invoked names of the long-dead in preparation for a potent spell. Even Bostwick rushed forward, fearless as he tried to harry their foes. But Zhakar... Zhakar just stood there. For a moment he was transfixed by the demon, staring at it like a man who sees something he knows is unfamiliar to him, but which he's witnessed in countless dreams.

You see where this is going.

As he stared at the creature, a nimbus of light burned behind his eyes. The skin of his face flaked away, revealing shining, burnished steel. His right arm was rusted red, turning warped and thorny where it gripped his pick. As he stepped toward the thing, twin protrusions sprouted from his back, and a pair of huge wings burst forth. The one was feathered in purest white and silver, but the other was a dark, twisted thing; red and membranous like some infernal creature.

He rose into a charge, grim and silent as he streaked toward the target of his furies. The demon looked up from Chikara, raising an arm to bat Zhakar aside. He swung his pick, and when the weapon slammed into the demon's flesh, it did so with a blinding burst of light and a thunderclap. The raw power of that blow made the beast stumble, silencing the laughter from the madman who'd summoned it.

It was the turning of the tide. Chikara's ax bit deep into the demon's flesh, and Thok's arrows sank into its chest. Zhakar hammered it, driving blows with more than mortal sinew and fury. As the demon fell, its flesh melting into cinders and smoke, Zordlan leaped at the priest with his sword flashing. The two of them exchanged blows, but when the unholy man tried to flee he found Chikara's ax waiting for him, and it silenced his laughter forever.

What Fresh Hell is This?

As Zhakar fell back to earth, his wings pulling back into his body with painful, bone-crunching twists, he dropped to his knees, trying to breathe. The steel was quickly covered as fresh, soft flesh knit back over it, and the painful light left his gaze. Thok threw his cloak over his friend's shoulders, and patted him on the shoulder. The shaman's son knew that those who dealt with potent spirits were wearied afterward, so he said nothing.

The others cataloged the messages, trying to find what the priest had been protecting. Why he'd been down there, and what purpose he'd been about. What they found was that he had been trapped, and preserved with potent magics for centuries. That in his confinement he had written of the Runelords, their time in the world, and where they had gone with the great apocalypse had come to scour the earth. He spoke of a place past the Spine of The World, lost in the snows. Where aspirants might come to study and perfect their craft within the Runeforge.

A place of such potent power that weapons capable of slaying even a Runelord might be found.

Next Time on Table Talk!

Will the companions reach the Runeforge alive? What deadly threats await therein? Who will claim the Runeforged weapon to stand against the wrath of the awakening Karzoug?

Find out on the next installment of Table Talk!

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