Session 12

The strong will of Brother Summit & Emmerick saved the day.  Or night as it were.  The seductive songs of the harpies who attacked the camp that night was for naught.  The first harpy's song was ignored by the watchmen, who after calling out a shout to their fellow brethren charged the obvious target.  Another Harpie attacked as well, like it's ally, using it's sweet voice to lure it's pray to their doom.  But all it got was a very sleepy and angry set of dark worshipers of Hell & Death.  For Yvainne, Mardus, Quell & Galen quickly jumped into action.  Out matched, the initially brave parrot-winged harpies tried to flee.  One was slain without remorse by the still waking Knot members, but Emmerick's dark presence along with Brother Summit's dour mood & quick grab caused the other "Lady of the Night" to surrender.

She was questioned for what she knew.  She only asked to be allowed to "live" in exchange for her knowledge.  A trade Emmerick seemed willing to make.  She spoke of "horned horses" watching the movements of a "green lizard" around a large earthen spire to the south.  Also of a living tree further south.  Emmerick satisfied, broke the Harpy's wing & freed her.  Only after the creature fled did Emmerick pause to consider what a potentially useful servant the chaotic creature might make.  But he shrugged it off.  After all, rules are rules.

The group was pretty sure what the "horned horses" were.  And their suspicions where confirmed the following morning when they spotted a pair of Unicorns prancing in a clearing off in the distance, watching a  rising spire of tree & rock.  However, the spire did not appear to be the one marked on the map by the Fourth Knot as the Horn of Abaddon, so the group avoided it & it's sentinels of good.  So the Knot was left wondering just what the "green lizard" was, perhaps some unknown dinosaur of legend known to roam the Caer Bryr or something else?

After a otherwise uneventful journey south they found the object of their mission.  A large towering spire of vegetation, otherwise looking very similar to others around it, but the keen eyes of Brother Summit & Quell spotted here & there signs of stairs leading up to black areas, which likely were entrances.

Spending an hour or so reconnoitering around the base of the spire, the Knot decided the lower cavern entrance they found was a good first choice, instead of climbing the visible stair way up.  The failed repelling off the top of Keep at Balentyne Watch Tower still lingering in the minds of Yvainne & Emmerick.  The stalactites & stalagmites giving a picture of a open maw not discouraging them in the slightest, despite Yvainne's unfortunate earlier incident involving toad ingestion.  Clearly that trip from Branderscar Prison all those many months ago was not as trying in the minds of the death priest as the more recent four story fall from the now ruined keep.

Quell led the way, with an invisible Galen following behind, with a very much visible glowing rope.  The thought being, the rope would provide light & also act as a distraction.  The strategy worked, though if that was due to the technique or simply the skilled abilities of Quell it's unclear.  But Quell did spot two figures a little ways in, watching the entrance.  He hid & slowly advanced on them, as they watched the rope begin to dance around as the invisible Galen flicked it about.  One figure dashed off before Quell got there.  The other one, a confused boggard, hardly had time to think as the quick moving Quell attacked.  It's unclear what was going through the frog man's brain as the fast moving Quell jumped out.  But for sure the last thing to go through his brain was the short sword of the Elf.

The other figure having slipped further back into the darkened cavern system, Quell held for the rest of the group to catch up.  They decided to wait & see what response came.  Eventually Quell heard odd croaking sounds & the sound of hushed feet moving about up ahead.  The noises stopped though and never made it back to the Knot, waiting at the entrance.  Clearly there were more frog men & they planned to set up an ambush.

The knot moved up & Galen lead the way.  He was invisible, with the glowing rope.  But he wrapped up the corpse of the one boggard in it & drug it through the next room, where the hushed sounds came from.  He had the rope shake & jiggle the corpse about, waiting for a response.  When he still hadn't gotten a response, he freed the rope from the corpse & had it jiggle about, free, as if it was hunting again.  That got one of the boggards hiding about to come out charging at the rope.

What followed was a combination of ambush, counter-ambush & counter-counter-ambush.  The one boggard who tried to ambush the rope got ambushed himself, as the Knot charged out.  But he had other companions who were holding back who jumped out in turn on the Knot.  A huge bulbous frog-man wielding a massive two-handed sword led his men into the Knot.  The back and forth turned out poorly for the leader of the frog-men.  And though at one point Yvainne did get stuck on a toad tongue & take a savage blow from the toad leader, in the end, the might of Hell would triumph once again.  And all the frogs would fall to Thorn's Ninth Knot.  Quell dealing the death blow to the greatsword wielding Boggard leader.

Yvainne, so impressed with the toad leaders abilities, decided she could still have further use for him.  She desecrated the very room in the name of Zon Kuthon and raised the boggard leader back from the dead as her own personal Zombie slave.

Quell resumed his searching, though, this time he had Galen visible, just further back with the light.  Quell found a lot of odd things through his searching.  He found the outskirts of what appeared to be a Boggard village, a massive pool of bubbling mud, a number of empty cavern rooms, a couple with ponds full of cave fish.  Some cave fish even being an odd poisonous bread.  He found a clear pool of water, which for some reason Galen was quite interested in.  After poking around, the wizard stuck his hand in it & got burned, as apparently the pool was not water but acid.  Quell also found odd crystal formations, an odd ice chamber that appeared to be trapped in some way, and on the back side of the frog-man village what appeared to be a breeding pool full of boggard tadpoles, a couple fungus farms, and what appeared to be a holding cell for prisoners.

But by far, the greatest find was in a cave covered in glowing blue moss.  It was not Quell who found it, but rather Brother Summit who noticed the small crevice in the wall.  Shining lights down there, they saw it extend a way before turning & continuing on.  With no easy way to get back there & with Galen unable to see the end to dimension step, they considered their next step.  Galen conjured earth elementals and commanded them to explore the other side & report what they saw.  They claimed to see bones and other random loose glittering objects.  Tasked next with returning the objects, they came back with bits of bone, broken glass and a massive, beautiful emerald stone.  It took another summoning to finally get the last item of note down the long, narrow crevice, a warn, damaged leather knapsack.  And in it, a holy book to the long dead cult, "The sons of the Pale Horseman"

Examining the bones, they were identified as human remains.  But looking over the book gave the greatest insight, for at the end, written by a priest in the service of Vetra-Kali.  He detailed the fall of the temple & the creation of the Mitrian artifact that now seals his master in.  But further, he detailed a way he thought the seal could be broken.  A ritual taking 222 days, full of prayers to the pale horseman, including sacrificing the blood of a cultist, a Mitrian follower & last, one of the blood of the Victor himself.  The great king who created the seal.

The Knot took some time to pause and digest the information.  Two hundred twenty two days.  Then they descended into squabbling over what to do next.  Some spoke of contacting Thorn immediately.  Quell in particular did not wish to spend over half a year in a ruinous fortress in the middle of a hostile rain forest.  Galen was already considering where or how to get the first sacrifice.  Wondering if a descendant of a Son might live in Farholde.  In the end, they decided to finish their exploring, they still knew little of what was around, or what they might face in the ruins.

The Knot eventually found a sturdy looking hut in a cavern slightly removed from the Boggard village.  It was in that odd Temple to a strange Boggard god that they found an odd and very unexpected ally.  A strange boggard shaman who seemed just fine with them having the zombified remains of his former chieftain in tow.  He explained he had seen visions of the ones who would restore the great spire to it's former glory.  A glory he insisted was to that of his odd Boggard god.

He brought the Knot before the Boggard tribe & explained they have taken over and would begin to lead the tribe going over.  There was a long stunned silence from the Boggards around.  But he further explained that Quell had killed their former chieftain and that he was now entitled to the spoils.  Quell was presented with his new tent, and his 2 Boggard concubines.  Quell showed little interest in the frog-women, but he did search through the tent & seize everything of value, including a Helm of Comprehend Languages and Read Magic.

Having explored the lower caverns and finding an unexpectedly nice base of operations, the Knot decided to explore the obvious stairs leading up on the outside of the tower.  The main stairs turned out to be relatively easy to traverse.  Though at the top, Quell did spot another set of stairs going up to another entrance that looked much more risky to climb.  From their vantage point above the tree line, they could see out on the Caer Bryr, a peaceful view over a decidedly not peaceful forest.

The knot next began to explore the first level of the ruined fortress.  They found many empty rooms, in varying states of ruin.  They first found a ruined alchemical lab that contained in it a severely damaged gollum of some kind and a manual on how to repair & use it.  The rare tome Galen was quick to grab, to study later.  They also found the remains of a trophy wall.  All the trophies appeared to be missing, but Quell did find two things of note.  One was a ring under a plaque naming someone from Ghastenhall.  Galen was quick to grab it and even though it didn't seem valuable, he wished to hold onto it.  Further, Galen found a plaque which read "Edger Nigma" or "E. Nigma" an odd sight, wondering if it was something special.  Quell examined it and confirmed it was fake & behind it was some kind of hidden safe.  Though he could not seem to crack it open.  What treasure lay beyond would have to wait... (until at least the next session!)