Session 31

The Ninth Knot secured the prison exterior.  After a spirited questioning of the head guard, Yvainne quickly feasted on him.  Eager and hungry, after being deprived her dinner during combat.

The Knot then went through the prison and found row after row of chained, malnourished prisoners.  Never one to turn down an opportunity, the leaders of the Shroud quickly recruit, selecting the choice prisoners.  The remaining prisoners were set free to meet whatever fate was in store for them.

Another oddity was found.  An assassin, branded with a runic F.  Forsaken.  Questioning the stoic prisoner revealed he was one the foreign assassins who failed to kill the King before his unexpected march from the capital.  The Knot offered him his freedom and another chance at taking out the King.  An opportunity the Red Mantis could hardly turn down.

With the prison secure, the Ninth turned their attention to some of Wasyli's unfinished business.  His Aunt.

The Baroness of Veryn and what was left of her ragged house guards were quite surprised to see Wasyli standing before her besieged manor house.  But warm hospitality was offered none the less.  The rest of the Ninth Knot played gracious guests, eyeing Wasyli, to see how he handled the encounter.  His claim that she betrayed him seemed unlikely given her warm welcome, unless she was an incredibly cleaver liar.

During a break, the Knot asked to converse in private.  Wasyli opted to use her Aunt instead of destroying her.  A decision heartily endorsed by the rest of the Knot.

So the Ninth Knot openly conspired with the Baroness.  Rallying a Shroud/Bugbear escort to get her and her handful of guards to safety outside the city so she could flee to the capital as a refugee.  And the Knot would do the "hard" task of sacking her house.  Making sure to take any monogrammed or marked treasure of the Baroness & distribute it well amongst the Bugbear horde.  To further bolster her claim of innocent victim of the savage northern monsters.  And if the Knot found themselves in the capital, well... they'd be sure to look her up.

Having swelled the shroud's numbers, acquired a key ally and investigated the obvious points of interest, the Ninth return to the joy of simple pillaging.

Returning to the docks the Ninth were going hunting for more treasures, when suddenly two angels teleport in amongst them.  A Trumpet archon and a Monavic Diva.  The angels squandering their surprise to have the Archon declare the Ninth to be punished for the death of Ara Mathra.

That lost surprise was something the Ninth was going to make them regret.  The fight was brief and brutal.  Emmerick shared his ability to smite good.  And the Ninth all got in good blows.  Some were blinded by Holy Word.  And a Blasphemy was returned in kind, though the Angel & Archon's natural spell resistance protected them.  Summit fumbled trying to grapple & resorted to flurrying.  And Quell unleash devastating sneak/smite attacks.  Along with Emmerick carving the angels with Hellbrand.  The Angel fell under the onslaught.  And Wasyli, channeling his infernal pact, managed to Feeblemind the Archon.

The Archon did pick up the Angel's maul & tried to destroy Yvainne with the powerful anti-undead weapon.  But the vampire resisted the blow & watched as the Archon was slashed to ribbons in front of her by her allies.

The Ninth stood triumphant again in the face of the forces of Heaven.

Liking their wounds, and Yvainne shaking off her near "death" experience, the Ninth resumed trudging through the city streets looking for any hidden wealth.  They failed to find the bounty they had earlier in the docks.  But they did find plenty of loose trinkets and abandoned trade goods worth some coin.  And as they expanded their search Emmerick stumbled across an oddity.  In the heart of the ruined city, bugbear marauders all around.  The Anti-Paladin spotted a cow, just wandering a city garden, munching on the grass.  How the bovine managed to make it into this location was beyond the Knot's understanding.  But still, there it was.  Fireaxe would get a special meal tonight.

The Knot managed to find many other odds and ends amongst the ruined, burning and abandoned husk of a city.  Though non matched the oddity of the cow.  Or the wealth of the magic items from the Docks.  And so the Knot grew restless.

Then the started hearing rumors from the Horde about attacks on lone bugbears and that survivors were hiding beneath the streets like rats.  Asking more questions, the Knot begins to isolate the district with the most attacks & beings searching the sewers.

Wandering through the bowls of the city, the Knot find a curious site.  A few city watch guards manning a fire at an intersection.  Wasyli cloaks himself in magical invisibility & the shadows and advances.  He finds more guards near by.  They're all guarding an unassuming sewer block.  Reconvening, the Knot decides there must be something hidden in the area.  They rally and unleash a surprise attack on the small resistance forces.

In a matter of seconds the guards were destroyed by the fire and steel of hell.  Yvainne wasted no time and started to use divine magic to melt into the stone walls.  Her blind hope turned quite lucky when she opened up a hole into a barracks of some sort.  Wasting no time,  the Knot rained the area with fire.  The stunned Captain of the Guard stood there, the cigar he was champing, burnt to a crisp, fell from his mouth.

In a few seconds the sleeping & resting guards were burnt to death as the Knot rushed in.  The captain, and his priestly friend tried to rally.  But their power, perhaps enough to fend of the stray bugbear patrol was nothing in the face of the Ninth Knot of Hell.

Over two weeks had passed, nothing in the city stood up against Cardinal Thorn's Ninth Knot, not even agents of Heaven.  When would the Cardinal of Hell give the Knot something worthy of their time.

Session 30

The Knot received orders relayed to them via Fire-Axe that they were to stay in Daveryn and help Fire-Axe control the city.  And under no circumstances were they to interfere with the Sons of Balentyne.  Odd orders.

So, the Knot continued "visiting" Daveryn and over the next week.  And they had quite a time of it.

The first order of business was to hunt down the Duke.  Repeated uses of divine magic eventually proved successful.  In short order the Knot had the Duke cornered in his hiding hole in an abandoned merchant building.  Even quaffing an invisibility potion was of no avail to the Duke.

The Ninth spent some time questioning the Duke themselves before turning him over to a gleeful Fire-Axe.

The intel the Duke gave was quite useful.  Troop sizes of the King's army, Their commander, the King, and the second in command some Barcan general. And that the King wears an amulet that lets him return to his private sanctum in the Capital, where his daughter is.  Also, the Duke was trying to reach a wizard of some repute who offered to whisk him to safety if ever the city fell.

The rewards from Fire-Axe were large indeed.  He made Emmerick a general of the horde, granting him 5,000 gp of the Horde's earnings.  Also each Knot member was granted a slave from those captured in the fall.  The Ninth was quick to free any woman so gifted, do deference to their undead priestess.  Also they saw the Duke cooked on a spite and eaten by Fire-Axe and his lieutenants.  Some of the Knot recoiled in disgust.  As they witness the full savagery of these northern brutes.  Monsters they helped enter Talingarde.  Helped under the order of the Cardinal.

The Ninth decide to turn their attention to the wizard.  The Ninth coated themselves in magical protection, and used stealth to reach the top of the wizards tower and used magic to rip a gaping hole into the tower's roof and expose a very startled wizard.

Yvainne, unable to enter uninvited, opted to call out a mighty blasphemy.  The wizard was stunned.  Yvainne, having been blinded by Holy Word after Holy Word in the fight in the Vale was pleased.

In sort order the stunned Wizard was tackled by Summit & subdued.  He did struggle to get a couple spells off, but was unable to under the warm embrace of the Monk.

Questioning the wizard yielded little new information.

Though, searching his quarters did yield a couple rare finds.  One was a codex that seemed to match a book they found in the library of the tombs of the temple of Mitra-Made-Manifest.  The other, some intelligent thunder eagle had captured a black dragon and might kill him soon.  In interesting development to say the least.

The Ninth's wandering of the city found a few other finds.  The Knot, following a rumor, found a pocket of soldiers holding a barricaded street.  It took hardly any effort for the forces of Hell to lay low the soldiery.  Exploring the area beyond the barricade, they found a section of un-looted houses.  One was a trader's house and within was a dead to a manor house in the Capital.  The knot wondered if the owner was still alive.  Yvainne walked through the door into the house, turning and with a smile saying "no".

Operating on some other rumors, the Knot headed to the tower that stored the crown jewels of the duchy of Daveryn.  They ignored the 2 dozen bugbear & ogres waiting outside the tower claiming they "found" the jewels and instead, using magic, flew up to the top level.

Quell carefully crawled in, relying on Mardus to keep the obvious magical trap within from going off.  A couple failed dispel magic checks forced Quell to dodge out of the way of a lightning bolt or two, but eventually his arcane support came through & disabled the trap.  At least long enough for Quell to temporarily turn it off and steal the jewels.

The Bugbear grumbled at the "theft" of their treasure.  Until Emmerick reminded them he was a "General of the Horde" and not to be trifled with.  And the bugbears backed down.

On a hunch the Knot checked out the Docks and were blown away by what they found.  Warehouses full of goods, wild warhorses trotting around.  And magic items sitting in suit cases on the docks.  And two damaged ships that could easily be retrofitted into at least one working ocean going vessel.  The spoils were quite large.  The Horde somehow completely overlooked the docks.

In fact Mardus got so excited as they left the docks for the night, that a couple near by bugbear perked up & started snooping into the docks.  Likely the spoils would start going down once the Horde realized their oversight.

Still instead of returning to the Docks, the Knot followed a new lead.  Something about a prison compound repelling attacks.

The Knot rushed with magical and extraordinary skills over the walls of the Prison.

Guards rushed to mount a defense.  Fumbling to stop the death that had befallen them.  But they put up a paltry resistance.  In fact, the greatest frustration for a Knot member was when Yvainne, growing hungry from her last feeding, tried to feast on a guard, only to have her kill blown to bits by a stray fireball.  Even the Warden, a stout warrior, who charged out half-way through the fight fell before the blades of Hell like a ship battered against jagged uncaring rocks.

Standing over their fallen enemies, the Ninth marveled at their powers.  The Duke was dead, as was the high wizard.  Pockets of resistance were crumbling, riches were being seized.  Was there nothing in the ruins of Daveryn to challenge their combined might?

Session 29

The Ninth Knot managed to have a relatively restrained visit in Ghastenhall.

Mardus and Brother Summit went to meet with Professor Tiberius Feign.  With the Professor's help, they managed to transport the bound hound into the Professor's private laboratory, deep in the bowls of the University.  There, in what basically amounted to a dungeon, the Professor heard the resent otherworldly encounter the Knot suffered.  With a tact omission of the fact that it was preceded by the wanton slaughter of a major religious figure.

The Professor examined Brother Summit & then Mardus, noting the corruption of Brother Summit.  The warping of the world around his form.  And that Mardus also had a minor taint about him.  Mardus & Summit gloss over the fact that Emmerick and others had a more direct exposure during the fight and when Professor Feign offers to examine anyone else, Mardus brushes the offer aside, simply asking how he could check himself.  The Professor gives a long complex narrative of how the magic warps around the effects.  Mardus tries to follow along & nod in understanding.  All the while worried about the fellow knot members.

Still, with the talking done, the Professor moves to action.  He offers two options now that they have a live hound.  The first is to attack, crafting a planer fork, a tactical strike could be made against these otherworldly horrors.  The other option is defense.  By warping Brother Summit's essence with that of the beast, the monk could hide from the hideous beasts.  Yet part of him would become... otherworldly.

Summit & Mardus choose.

The experiment was an unpleasant experience, grunts of pain from the Monk minguled with unearthly wails and moans of agony from the Hound as the Professor gleefully arced arcane energy between his two subjects, using cruel looking instruments that would be better suited for a macabre torture chamber than a scientific experiment.  Yvainne would have loved it.

In the end the experiment was declared successful by the Professor.  He insisted Summit's aura was reduced and well masked.  A good defense against the beasts.  He would attempt to revive the dying hound & continue his trials.  But that likely they'd need to provide a fresh specimen should they wish a planer fork constructed.

While arcane experiments take place in the bowls of the University, another meeting takes place underneath the bustling city.  Yvainne, with Quell as an escort, presents the Vampire Lord of Ghastenhall, Prince Gaius Vestromo, with the vampire's family heirloom.  Quite literally, his cup runith over, as it sloshes with the heart and blood of the fallen angel, Ara Mathra.  Quickly taking the cup, the vampire askes Yvainne what boon she wants for such a great gift.  He greedily drinks the blood as Yvainne answers with one word.  "Immortality."  Vestromo looks up, his face covered in blood.  Through the red he shows a wicked grin, fangs glistening with angel blood.  "Of course."

The next few weeks pass by.  In the dead of winter, the plague spreads.  And the Ninth Knot waits.

They do manage a show trial in Sanctum, where they charge the religious leaders still left alive with committing crimes against religious freedom.  And they spare some as an act of "mercy" and burn the rest.  And do a fair amount of desecration of the Cathidral of Mitra-Made-Manifest in the process.

Yvainne is reborn a free vampire while the rest of the knot rests and does mundane activities around Ghastenhall and the Vale.  With the shroud working a very lucrative Cure Disease racket in Farholde with their merchant ally, lady Marsten.  The plague starts to rip through the major cities of Talengarde.  It gets so bad Prince Gaius worries for "his city" and employs his vampire minions to "clean up" the town.

Still, the Knot grows anxious waiting around so they started to check in on the scion of house Havelyn.  Using the Shroud, the Ninth tracked down the newly appointed Lord and his band, the Sons of Balentyne, where last seen around the capital but they disappeared.  Pulling their free shroud members from Farholde, they re-double their efforts around the capital to track down their nemesis.

Searching, they find out the Sons were researching some old Mitrian artifacts.  Using the resources in the Cathedral, they determine the artifact in question is a standard of Saint Thomas.  Some sort of magical banner of military origin.

The Knot started to get worried.  They found a likely location for the banner, a small town shrine in the low country.  The rushed a Shroud cell there, only to find the Sons had already entered a crypt.  The shroud members waited and the Ninth considered an attack, but with Yvainne still learning her new powers, they were reluctant to act.  So they waited.

The Sons never left the crypt by mundane means, instead they teleported out with the banner in hand.

Lord Havelyn himself pleaded to the King and presented him with the Mitrian artifact.  The King anxious to act embraced the paladin and ordered the armies of Talengarde march over the objection of his tacticians and generals.  And before the King had even left the city, the Sons proved their worth as they foiled a last minute assassination attempt against the King.  One of the few victories against the Knot of Thorns...

The Ninth Knot rushed to get their troops out of the Vale before the army arrived.  And thanks to their foresight, they managed to get all their troops out well before the Kings army arrived.

The Knot members themselves rushed to leave Ghastenhall and meet up with Trik and their army.  On their last night in Ghastenhall, Emmerick visited with the waitress, Eve.  A friend of Quell's who the anti-paladin had grown affectionate toward over the past few months.

It was that night when a couple assassins attacked Eve, but a few yards from Emmerick.  It was the quick action of Quell, who had been hiding that thwarted the attack.  Quell showed no mercy, killing the assassins.

Resorting to speak with dead on the corpses they find out the assassins were sent by Cardinal Thorn to teach Emmerick a lesson about following orders.  It seems the Ninth Knot's decision to spare the citizens of Sanctum struck a nerve.

Quell and Emmerick quitely hid Eve with Quell's contacts in the Ghastenhall underworld and the Ninth rushed from Ghastenhall to meet up with Trik & their army in time to arrive at Westkirk Castle, the winter camp site of Fire-Axe.  Only to find the Bugbear army gone.

Rushing they arrive in time to see Dyvern burning.  It seems the First Knot is as good as the Ninth in breaching in impenetrable fortress.

The Ninth rush through the streets of the city, the vast majority of the sacking already concluded.  They meet up with Fire-Axe and in his private war-room in the Town Hall, they discuss the war effort.

There in the privacy of the war-room Fire-Axe breaks down & reveals part of Cardinal Thorn's great plot.  He is to defeat the Kings army and then fall before an unknown army lead by an Asmodean.  Yet he fears for the King & his army.  The full might of Talengarde marches on him and he doesn't see how to win.  He asks for the Ninth's advice.  Emmerick agrees with the tactical situation.  They think Fire-Axe should up-root & attempt a skirmish action against the slowly advancing army of the King.  But Fire-Axe is reluctant.  He has his orders and he's to follow them.  Even if he doesn't understand them.  Still, the doubt is there and the Ninth exploits it, reminding him that there are others who could help him...

With the sacked town at their feet, Yvainne decides what the Ninth should do next.  A quick scrying shows her the position of her old "friend", the Cardinal Archibald Hawthorn.  The vampire death priestess leads the Knot to the grand Cathedral.  Rushing in she leads Quell to a hidden chamber, a quick check of the lock and Quell picks it with ease.  Opening the chamber the cowering Cardinal looks up at Yvainne in confusion, his old burn wounds glistening in the candle light.  "But, you... you went to Branderscar for your crimes...  How?"  Yvianne gives a grin, her fangs glistening in the light.  "I'm back".  Her divine magic flares, filling the chamber with darkness as she descends into it.

The rest of the Ninth wait above.  Mardus cataloging the ornate gold fixtures of the Church he'll need to collect & melt down.  All the while screams followed by feasting is heard from below.

Yvainne climbs out of the crypt, her chin, neck and corset covered in blood.

Mardus pulls out a handkerchief saying "You got a little something on you."  Yvainne shrugs it off.  "I'm fine, I like it this way."  Giving a wicked fanged grin.