The party return to Sandpoint without incident, where they are given a heroes’ welcome by Mayor Deverin and Father Zantus, as well as the rowdy crowd at the Rusty Dragon. Even Shalelu consents to join the in the evening’s revelries, and Ameiko knows how to throw a truly outstanding celebration, while also giving respect and honor to the recently departed druid Ausk (despite an awkward moment when Father Zantus, a bit drunk, describes Ausk as a guy who just couldn’t seem to keep his guts on the inside.) Only Sheriff Hemlock seems reserved, and excuses himself early after making assurances that Nualia is safely guarded under lock and key.

While Nualia remains impossible to interview (varying between near catatonic silence and fits of mad screaming) her extensive notes recovered from her Thistletop lair piece together a tragic story, as follows.

Nualia was a foundling raised by Sandpoint’s previous religious leader, 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 (goddess of dreams and luck). 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. Nualia felt more like a freak than anything else when she finally 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. They met for many secret trysts, often in the abandoned smuggler’s tunnel under the glassworks. Before long, Nualia realized that 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 turned to rage with no outlet, and her father’s reaction to her condition only exacerbated her feelings. He forbade her to leave the church, lectured her nightly, and made her pray to Desna for forgiveness.

Nualia’s rage continued to grow, amplified by the presence of the catacombs and sinspawn below Sandpoint. Seven months pregnant, she miscarried a monstrously deformed shape, only a glimpse of which put Nualia into a coma. As she slept she experienced dark dreams, fueled by the wrath from below and the dark goddess Lamashtu. Nualia gained a conviction that her wretched life was inflicted on her by those around her. She came to see her angelic heritage (for indeed her unearthly beauty was due to being an aasimar, a half-angel) as a curse, and the demon-sent nightmares showed her how to expunge this taint from her body and soul.

When she awoke, Nualia was someone new, someone who didn’t flinch at the personal connection to Lamashtu that had been forged. 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.

Nualia fled to Magnimar, where the record becomes fragmented and disjointed. She tracked down Delek and murdered him, possibly with the help of others? The god of secrets, Norgorber, is mentioned but scratched out. It was in Magnimar that she received the seven-pointed star medallion from an unknown benefactor. Newly confident, Nualia returned to Sandpoint and found herself drawn to the brick wall in the Smuggler’s tunnels where she and Delek had conceived the deformed child. Nualia bashed down the wall and discovered the catacombs beyond, as well as the quasit Erylium.

For many months, Nualia studied under Erylium’s tutelage. During this time, Nualia received another vision from Lamashtu – an image of a monstrous goblin wolf imprisoned in an underground room. Nualia learned in her dreams that this creature was named Malfeshnekor, and was also one of Lamashtu’s chosen. If she could find him and free him, he would help her to continue her vengeance on Sandpoint, and would be the key to cleansing her body fully of her “celestial taint.” Nualia wanted to become one of Lamashtu’s children now… a monster in form as well as soul.

The notes finish with a few interesting details. Nualia was planning to send a large army of goblins to Sandpoint to burn the place down once and for all, as a burnt offering to her dark goddess. She hoped to become a half-fiend, and had learned from Erylium how to manifest sinspawn from the “minor runewell” down in what she refers to as the “Catacombs of Wrath.” However, the runewell has only so much arcane fuel, and once expended neither she nor Erylium knew how to replenish it.