Session 46

Thorn begins a long diatribe about how he brought in the Knot & raised them, and this is the thanks he gets when Mardus interrupts him.  "Thorn, you're in my chair"

"You what it?  Then come and take it."

Battle was joined.

Thorn is quick to use timestop and bring in an Ice Devil in the midsts of the Knot.  Along with a host of defensive spell effects.

The barbed devils try to hold as many of the Knot as possible, but are much less successful now that the Knot is buffed up & ready for a fight.

They even use illusions to bring in a horned devil, but this time, the Knot sees right through it and ignore the illusionary construct.

Instead they focused there combined rage on the Ice Devil in amongst them and had destroyed the summoned creature in a matter of seconds.  Under a relentless barrage of attacks.

Wasyli did manage to get off a dimensional anchor to keep Thorn from fleeing, which got a cackle from the Lich Priest.  "You think I'd ever flee!"

Thorn responded by unloaded orbs of negative energy & used channelling to pull negative energy from the very floors and walls, bursting it all over the Ninth Knot, who's well prep'ed death ward spell left them immune to the effects.  Well, aside from Yvainne.  The vampire priestess of death jumped into the sphere of negative energy & basked in the extra health it offered her.

Still, the Priest of Hell had some power not tied to the negative energy plane.  And he showed it by directing an implosion spell on Quell & crumpling the elf into a dead ball.

The Knot stood stunned for a second before they rushed into action.

Emmerick provided a wall to keep off the barbed devils while Mardus & Yvainne rushed to the side of their fallen comrade.  Two breath of lifes and one heal later and their elf rogue was brought back from death and able to carry on the fight.

Meanwhile Brother Summit rushed forward to break the concentration of Thorn only to run into some kind of barrier blocking him.

A quick check from Wasyli deduced it was likely a anti-life shell or some other effect.  Regardless, he blew away the magic with a particularly powerful dispel magic.

And Implosion was directed at Brother Summit but the Monk shrugged it off before rushing in and clobbering the Lich, disrupting his concentration.

Thorn desperately tried to fend off the Monk, only to have him ignore all the powerful magics the Priest could hurl at him while all around Devils were falling.

With the ranks of Devils reduced & Quell back up Emmerick was able to stop playing guardian and be the killer he was, charging forward with Helbrand in hand.  His recently restored elf companion following along behind.

As the Knot swarmed Thorn, Yvainne looked at all the Devils surrounding her & laughed with joy before unleashing a wail of the banshee and destroying most of the remaining Devils in one swift stroke.

Thorn stood his ground, not fleeing but fighting to the death. And that is just what he got when Emmerick, wielding Helbrand and infused with his anti-paladin power as a vorpal weapon, swung the blade around and took clean off the Lich's head.

The future King of Talengarde would be no puppet anymore.

Yvainne quickly pulled out Thorns phylactery.  The vampire grinned as she bit down into the withered pulsing heart.  The wicked iron barbs poking into her mouth as her blood mixed with Thorns.  She feasted on a Lich that night.

As Yvainne dropped the drained, shriveled husk on the ground a rumble could be felt from high above and a voice whispered in the ears of the followers of hell.  "Come my children".

The Knot left the throne room & walked past that curious ornate door before going outside.  There, the sky turned blood red, then it started to rain.  Blood.  As infernal shapes danced in the sky, singing in infernal.  And that same curious voice spoke softly in the ears of the followers of Hell among the Ninth.  Whispering to them all the times the righteous or faithful faltered or failed to act it was the corrupting influence of Hell.  That the Ninth Knot as been secretly helped along the way to reach this moment.  For now, the Devil is thy only Master.

Emmerick, Mardus and Wasyli stood enthralled with the glory of their faith.  Even Quell & Brother Summit felt blessed.

While Yvainne stood in the corner.  The death priest's eyes shining in the dark.  Disliking even the taste of the blood falling.  Finding it too... infernal.

The Knot returned back to the secret throne room, once again passing the curious ornate door.

Back inside the Knot does an exhaustive search of the secret inner sanctum.

Along with finding Tiadora's true name, Thorns personal diaries and a bunch of seals for communicating with other knots, they find the great treasure room of Thorn.

Among the treasures was their former Knot member, Galen's phylactery.  But the greatest treasure is an odd looking ring of great power.  The Knot catalogs it & moves on.  They do note, in the great battle with Thorn, the Lich Priest did not use the ring.  Which gives the Knot pause.

As the Knot nearly finish the rounds searching through the inner sanctum they here a rumble & roar fill the underground complex, followed by a crackle of electricity.

The Knot rushed to the secret entrance of the inner sanctum, Mardus used his Fire Oracle power to see through the torches in the hallway beyond.  And there he saw the ornate door broken on one hinge and a massive undead dragon bursting forth.

The Knot paused.  "Perhaps we should just let it leave" someone says.  Another observes it might kill the traitor general, which brought some mild desire to intervene.  Then someone else pointed out "Oh what about Ben & his wife?"  That statement brought the Knot into action.  They quickly rushed for the door to burst out on the undead dragons.

It seems at least one trap of the Cardinal would still annoy the Knot.

Session 45

The Knot decide to send Quell forward to sneak near the guard house full of grave-knights and try to reach the guest rooms where the necromancer Ben was rumored to be staying.

Quell got close to the guest rooms only to be spotted by one of the undead guards.

The elf cursed under this breath before beating a path back toward the prison with guards chasing after.

Emmerick, Brother Summit, Mardus & Yvainne readied for the coming onslaught while Wasyli rushed off to double back & use a wall of force to block the guards from alerting the rest of the compound.

As Wasyli was off blocking off the rear guards, the front guards encountered the forward might of the Ninth and they were brought low as blade and magic flared as the first few grave-knights fell.  In a move that Yvainne had mixed fillings about after, she enchanted Quell's blade with the destruction effect, causing one of the blows from the elf to permanently destroy one of the grave-knights.

Then the rest of the grave-knights, unable to breach the wall of force turned & slammed into the line of the Ninth.  The undead warriors managed to cause some damage to the front line.  Mardus found himself surrounded unable to fall back.  Then Brother Summit rushed forward shooting "Protect the High Priest!" and with fist and boot broke through the knights and scattering them so Mardus could retreat to relative safety.

By the time Wasyli managed to return, he found over half the guards destroyed and a wounded Mardus recovering.  The sorcerer didn't even bother casting his powerful spells, instead using minor spells to pick off a few more guards as Quell, Emmerick & Summit ground the remaining knights into the ground, claiming the guard house for the Ninth.

Wasting no time, the Ninth rush to the guest rooms looking for Ben and they find the necromancer poking his head out of a room trying to figure out what the commotion was.  With a nightcap on and a small candle in hand, the powerful wizard didn't cut a particularly striking figure.

The Knot quickly explained the disturbance as simply a change in management and nothing he should worry about.  The initial conversation goes well, as Ben seems quite indifferent to their coup attempt against their former master.

Then Yvainne asked about if his wife is around, and about the location of Vincent.  And Ben explains, with mild hesitation that yes, his wife is in his room with him and that no, Vincent is not around.  Further queries have Ben push back that it's late & that he'd like to get back to his room.

Yvainne again mentions his wife & he gives an angry look, much to Yvainne's surprise.

He again mentions his desire to retire for the rest of the night and that he could be found in the morning in his lab and he has no more time for questions.

Quell starts to push for more questions now and some curt words are traded between the rogue & wizard before Mardus jumps in and defuses the situation.  After a couple more brief questions, the Ninth let Ben return to his chamber as they resume their coup attempt.

With their intel, the Ninth prepare their next move.  Quell goes for another scouting mission, this time aided by invisibility from Wasyli and silence from Yvainne.  They find another gap in their intel, some new door on a hallway that has the heraldry of Thorn, including two grave-knights in livery.

The Knot set up an elaborate ambush, using a combination of silence, wall of force and a healthy dose of brute strength to strike.  They assault the guards on the odd ornate door and other guards down the hall guarding the presumed personal chambers of the head of the Second Knot.

They're nearly perfect with Quell & Mardus savaging the two grave-knights in heraldry, but Emmerick & Brother Summit prove unable to contain there two guards before they alert their commander.

Marcel Wolfram, Lord of the Second Knot and Anti-paladin of Hell steps forward and engages with Emmerick.  The two anti-paladins savage each other as all around grave-knights are reduced to hucks of armor.

Then Yvainne, wielding powerful enchantments, forces Wolfram to temporarily treat the Ninth as his friends.  Eager to see if they could salvage the Second they question it's Lord to see if anything could be done.  After a few questions it becomes clear, Wolfram's loyalty to Thorn is unwavering and unquestioning.  It would be exceedingly difficult to salvage this servant of hell.

So they decide to not bother.  Mardus tries to trick the Lord of the Second Knot into taking some Fire Seeds as "gifts" but as it turns out Thorn's anti-paladin knows more about spells than the Ninth's does, as Mardus' trick doesn't work and Wolfram, free of the spell lashes out.  But it doesn't matter.  Emmerick staggers from a blow from his rival, and Mardus detonates the Holly Bombs, engulfing the Lord of the Second Knot in the fires of Hell.  As the fire leaves, it is clear the new High Priest of Asmodeus has sent the top lieutenant of his rival back to Hell.

The Knot finds the secret door the dead fur-trapper mentioned and they ignore the other rooms around.  Their target is Thorn.

Quell spots a difficult to stop trap on the secret door but is able to disarm it and the Knot moves into the secret inner sanctum of the former High Priest.

The Knot find a few side rooms but they remember the words of the fur trapper & move up to the door at the end of the hall.  There the Ninth huddle and prepare for the fight they've been waiting for for over a year.  Emmerick eagerly gripping his mace.

The Knot cloak themselves in as much protective magic as they can muster and they burst into the secret throne room of Cardinal Thorn.

There they find their target.  The Lich Priest of Asmodeus, along with a half-dozen barbed devils.

The battle for the Knot of Thorns commences.