The Elves called out to the Knot & asked them their business. The Knot, all disguised as Elves of the Caer Bryr, attempted a ruse. Quell, a native speaker of elvin did most of the talking, claiming they were simply fleeing from the human lands. The elves didn't seem to be buying their story, but seemed unsure how to respond. At one point it seemed they could leave, but only if they left the area around the Horn. Knowing they would likely be followed to insure they left the region, Quell pushed harder. Asking if they could stay. And eventually Brother Summit, who was not fluent in Elven was asked a question, at which point the lie was fully exposed and the elves, with wings like Butterfly's attacked, along with a winged half-woman half-serpent hiding in the canopy & what appeared to be a living tree or Treant.
With some well placed fireballs from Mardus along with Galen using the last charge off the stolen wand of Fireballs from the dead Magistrate of Balentyne Tower, most of the winged Elves fell. The serpent attempted to rally her troops but it was a lost cause. Fire proved too damaging to the tree folk.
The Treant trampled over the knot members, inflicting heavy damage. At first the members attempted to flee from under root, but seeing that as a futile attempt, changed tactics & tried to inflict as much damage as possible to the tree. The winged serpent-woman flew down to heal her ally and got him partly restored. But then Galen summoned a number of fire elementals who eventually set the tree ablaze.
Seeing his doom at hand, the treant told the winged serpent-woman to flee. Galen attempted to stop her flight with air elementals, but she simply flew past them, taking minor damage before casting invisibility on herself & disappearing, heading toward the dense canopy-top of the jungle forest. Meanwhile, the burning treant & last remaining winged elf put up a valiant fight against the knot, but were swiftly destroyed under fire, blade & arrow.
Dusting themselves off & healing from all the damage, they arrived at the friendly & safe confines of their Boggard camp in the caverns deep below the Horn.
After resting with their Boggard kin, they climbed the exterior of the Horn & waited for an hour for the arrival of the green dragon. After a brief & arguably friendly conversation with their green scaled neighbor which involved the Knot paying the remaining coin owed the dragon, the Knot resumed it's ascent of the Horn.
The knot resumed it's room by room search of the second floor. This time with all members present & armed with Silver weapons in addition to their other gear. Ready for another surprise attack by the Daemon that was lose in the Horn. What they found at first was no Daemon but something much different. They found the remains of a camp, likely of the fourth knot. Bed mats lay out, provisions long since rotten were still laying out. Clearly the other Knot came to an unpleasant end... yet they found no bodies.
Continuing on, the Knot stumbled onto an unexpected foe. While searching some rooms that apparently belonged to a high priest of the Sons of the Pale Horseman, they found the bed chamber of the high priest so badly damaged that a hole in the wall was present, exposing the room to the greenery of the Caer Bryr, which even at this elevation was quite thick and had spilled into the interior of the room. Including two very unhappy plant-like oozes, who quickly went after the new apparent meal. And a quick battle ensued.
The oozes, dripping acid, began the damage the knot members who engaged. And Energy Resistance spells were needed to protect gear, including the valuable silver weapons. At one point during the fight, Mardus unleashed a fireball to clear out some of the undergrowth around the room. The scene from the forest floor must have been quite odd, when bursting out from the side of the Spire was a gout of flame.
There was also an incident of friendly fire (or two). At one point Yvainne was unable to exclude Galen from her blood mist negative energy burst. Unwilling to let that slight go, the Conjurer in service to Hell made sure that in addition to hitting both oozes with a magic missile, his extra missile "missed" and hit Yvainne. A friendly reminder to the Death Priestess, and one that the sadomasochist Priestess seemed to... like. Along the way, the undead boggard warrior was able to prove it's worth, causing some good damage to the Oozes.
In the end, after the Energy Resistance got up, the oozes became less of a threat & the Knot was able to take them down without suffering too much damage.
Among the various other ruined rooms they found, they did find one interesting piece of information, and one interesting piece of rubble. The information they found was that apparently there were not one but two Greater Ceustodaemons summoned by the Sons. And yet so far, they have only encountered one. And that wasn't even on this trip. Where could they both be?
The interesting piece of rubble was a statue. But not any statue, this was a badly damaged & "decapitated" statue that appeared to be of fine detail & who's belt pouch radiated strong magic. Acting on a hunch, Galen & others wondered if perhaps the statue wasn't originally a statue after all. But instead a creature who was frozen by magic. After finding the incredibly detailed head of the statue mixed in with other rubble & reconstructing it into it's full form, the group used a Stone Salve. And their guess rang true, as standing before them was a former cultists & member of the Sons of the Pale Horseman. Stuck as stone for near to one hundred years, he seemed quite confused.
After a relatively brief explanation & introduction, the former Son, Halthus the Flayer, offered to help the Knot in restoring his god, Vetra-Kali, to glory. Yvainne & Mardus are both quick to point out how Halthus could be "vital" to their plans. Leaving out the part where they need to ripe the still beating heart out of a member of the Sons or a descendant to start the ritual to free Vetra-Kali. And how Halthus would fit that role quite nice.
Continuing on exploring the second floor of the Horn, the group stumbles upon relatively fresh blood splatter, maybe 1-2 months old, that lead along a hallway full of Murals. Galen wants to stop and read them, but given their scale & expanded detail, they are by-passed by the Conjurer. Eventually the trail ends with the decomposing corpse of an Elf who has been dead for over a month. Armed with powerful magical items, the Knot infers this was likely either the leader or a senior member of the 4th Knot. Further, they verify, despite the extreme decomposition, that death was disembowelment. The same threat leveled at Brother Summit by the Greater Ceustodaemon. Some members of the Knot eye check their silver weapons to make sure they're close at hand.
Still, having seen no sign of the Greater Ceustodaemon and no way further up the Horn, the Knot seemed stuck. They did spot an opening a full 90 feet above the 2nd floor entrance. But with no visible latter or stairs leading to it, they'd be forced to climb the angled ascent. And with now possibly two Greater Ceustodaemon's around, they felt that was unsafe, except for perhaps Brother Summit. They also found on the second floor the the bottom chute of what was likely a trap on the level above. But consisting of smooth stone walls & having no idea where the trap would open up, it felt no better than the exterior ascent option, possibly even worse.
They spoke with Halthus about the Horn & he stated there was some place in the lower caverns that the high priests would go to in order to get to the inner sanctum of the Horn. He thought that was above the 3rd floor somewhere, but he was unsure of the details.
Liking the relatively safe confines of the Boggard caverns over an angled 90 ft ascent along the exterior of the Horn, 200-300 ft above the forest floor or a climb up a smooth walled shaft coming out a trap door at an unknown location, they opted for that choice. After spending a day doing an exhaustive re-search of the lower caverns, Quell eventually found a cleverly hidden secret door that got overlooked the first time through the cave system. Behind it, raising up to unknown heights was a flight of plain stone steps.
The group rested for the night & began climbing up the stairs in the morning. It took them a long time, as they went up well over 200 ft, straight through the Horn. But eventually they arrived at a landing that contained the long dead remains of two knights of the Sons of the Pale Horsemen. Laying where they fell at their posts, still in the now rusted armor engraved with the runes & unholy symbol of the Pale Horseman. With only one door leaving the landing area, the Knot opens it, ready for what lays beyond. Or at least that is their hope, but that hope quickly gets crushed.
Beyond, guarding a stairwell leading up, are not one, but two Greater Ceustodaemons. One speaks up & says to the other, "Ah brother, those friends I mentioned from earlier have finally arrived. It is time to kill them I'm afraid." The other responds, "Agreed".
The battle that ensues is quick and brutal. The two Greater Ceustodaemons, knowing the Knot was coming, opens up by joint breathing lightning all over the Knot members. As the melee members rush one of the Daemons, the other follows up the next round with another lightning breath, bringing down Galen and utterly destroying Yvainne's Zombie pet. Fortunately, quick healing brought the Conjurer back into the fight. But the undead frog-man was toast.
While ranged magic shot back & forth between the Cuestodaemon who was not engaged in melee & the spell casters of the group, a rough melee was going on with the other Cuestodaemon. Emmerick, Brother Summit & Quell, backed up by Mardus, brought the fight to the Daemon guardian of the Horn.
Armed with Silver weapons, they started off dealing powerful damage. In particular, Quell savaged the daemon with a powerful sneak attack. However, drawing the ire of creature ultimately proved fatal. The Greater Ceustodaemon responded to the Elf's attack. He hit once with one claw, then landed a critical blow with the other claw, nearly ripping the Elf apart. Then, with Quell barely standing, he bit into his side & shook him. When he was done, the elf lay dead on the floor. The first casualty of the Ninth Knot's war against Talengarde.
Seeing their ally fall, the other Knot members around renewed their melee attacks on the brute. Brother Summit landed blow after blow in quick succession. Even Mardus engaged at one point, nearly landing a critical blow with his large elven curved blade. In the end, the Daemon fell under a torrent of blows, so close together, it became hard to say who landed the killing strike, as fist, mace & blade all landed.
With one down, the 5 remaining knot members all converged on the last remaining Daemon. The servant of Vetra-Kali never attempted to flee. Even with his "brother" fallen & with it clear he was going to die. He fought to the death, attempting to inflict as much damage as possible on the remaining Knot members as possible. In the end, the servants of Hell triumphed over those of the Pale Horseman. With a valley of magic missiles from Galen finishing the last brute off.
However, the victory came at a great cost. The Knot members looked down on their fallen member and up at the stairway that extended into the heart of the Horn of Abaddon, unsure how to proceed...
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