Session 18

The following week proved to be a relaxing time, or boring depending on perspective, for the Knot.

Having defeated the defenders of the forest, the Knot continues unmolested with their dark ritual.  Some of the Knot head into town to shop.  While there they are invited by the Baron to attend his upcoming 105th birthday party.  An invitation the Knot is quick to accept.

While in town, they also check up with the seventh knot.  A somewhat tense exchange between the Elise, the head of the seventh Knot & Yvainne happens over how extreme Elise should get when dealing with potential threats.  In particular, if a flood of would-be heroes arrive, how strong of a welcome should they receive.  It turns into Yvainne trying to order Elise to do her job a certain way.  But before the two woman go at it, the normally abrasive & harsh Emmerick chimes in and displays his rarely seen charm & skill with words to diffuse the situation.  A sight that relieved Mardus, but also surprised him.  He never imagined his traitorous co-conspirator & cats-pawn could be so skilled.  A sobering thought about the "puppet" he & Galen wanted to plant on the throne of Talengarde.

Meanwhile back at the Horn, the ritual goes on.  Galen, Quell & Brother Summit are treated to a visitor while the other knot members are off at town.  The extra member of the seventh knot, Aliciette Cardoso, arrives with a status report from Elise & a birthday invitation from the Baron.  Ironically, no different than the information the other Knot members were receiving back in town.  Aliciette does ask to stay for the night.  A request Galen is quick to fulfill.  But after their incident with the shape changing forest creatures, he does insist on magically searching her person.  And he's worried when he finds Aliciette is not wearing her magical Iron Crown.  However, the knot member retrieves it from a bag of holding, along with a silver holy symbol of Asmodeus thus proving her identity.  While socializing with Brother Summit & Galen, one of them does inquire as to why Aliciette doesn't wear her crown or holy symbol & instead keeps them tucked away in an extra-dimensional space.  Aliciette simply responds with a smile.  "It was a gift from someone I don't trust."

At the end of the week, with the Knot reassembled, Galen spends time studying the Iron Crowns, using magical identify spells and he finds there is something... odd about the gifts from Thorn.   They do not simply confer the ability to change your appearance.  They have some other magical effect about them, but what other function(s) they possess are a lost to Galen.

Emmerick, taking to heart this information, opts to not wear the Iron Crown around the Horn for the next few months.  To see if he notices anything different.

The following week is when the Baron throws his birthday party.  All of the Knot members save one prepare to leave for the party.  Galen though, insists on remaining at the Horn, to guard it along side Grumblejack & the minions.  Emmerick & Yvainne both try hard to convince him otherwise  but Galen absolutely refuses to take part the aristocratic feast, despite the possible benefits it would confer to both the Knot as a whole & their evil organization.  His adamant refusal raises some eyebrows amongst the Knot members, but the escaped prisoners have never been overly conversational toward one another.  Especially where their past lives are concerned.  So five members of the Knot depart, leaving one behind to guard the Horn.

The party itself is a fine affair.  Many magnificent & abnormally large sea-food is served in decadent sauces along side some of the finest wines in Talengarde, as well imported Galtan & Sarain wines.  Some in the Knot make note of the abnormal size of the seafood and questioning some wait-staff find out the Baron has been stockpiling large creatures pulled from the lake of Farholde and saving them for this occasion.

Various Knot members socialize with all sorts of people from around town.  Even the elusive acting commander of the Farholde watchwall, Sir Valin Darian, is present.  He even has a brief conversation with Yvainne, unaware the woman before him is a death priestess to the dark god Zon Kuthon.  Quell speaks briefly with the Mayor of Farholde, a rotund & jovial human with mild elvan features.  Mardus spots lady Shalyn Marsten, the powerful merchant in town & speaks with her.  The biggest surprise though is when Aliciette shows up hanging on the arm of the Baron himself.  The Knot member is revealed to be an agent of the Aspis consortium speaking to some merchants in Farholde about setting up a long term deal with her agency.

Brother Summit & others speak with her about this recent revelation & she confirms Cardinal Thorn was fully aware of it.  And that her role has been part ally/part judge.  It seems the Consortium was sizing up Thorn as potential business ally.  Someone to get them into the otherwise locked markets of the Mitrian controlled island nation.

Wrapping up their evening at the Manor, the Knot is reluctant to retire for the evening.  They'd heard odd rumors about the lake around Farholde, add to that the odd almost magically enlarged sea life found around it.  They felt they had to investigate & what better time then at night.

The Knot members quickly convince a fisherman to take them on a midnight excursion out to Wrecker Island, in the middle of the harbor of Farholde.  Paying a few silver to ensure the silence of the dockside angler.

Arriving, the Knot beings to search over the island, not really sure what the'd expect to find.  But through luck or skill or divine (or rather profane) providence, Quell spots a suspicious looking rock pattern.  At first he thinks it's a secret door, but in actuality, it's an odd cave in of rubble hiding the tops of some old ruins.  Before digging further, Mardus goes of & converses with the fisherman waiting on the shore while Yvainne rolls in some obscuring mist to hide their excavation.

With Emmerick & Brother Summit to help, Quell finds a small stone passage with red rusted iron rings extending down into darkness.  The sound of banging or clanking can faintly be heard below.  The orc & elf quickly decent down, leaving their human allies above ground.  With Quell's limited vision, he doesn't see much in the filtered moonlight from above.  But Brother Summit's darkvision cuts through & he sees a passageway extending off into the distance before opening up into a room beyond.  The odd noises seem to be coming from there.

Brother Summit slips into the darkness, leaving Quell behind and stumbles upon an odd sight.  He sees a well appointed audience hall, with fur carpet and clean cut stone along with a group of what look to be a squad of soldiers decked out in odd looking livery being lead by a sergeant   The group appear stuck at a door, trying to break it down yet having no luck.

The Monk slips away unseen back to his waiting Rogue ally & reports his findings.  It's only when the elf asks if the group had a light that a sinking realization sets in with the Monk.  There was no light source.  How could a half dozen humans carry on in the dark like that.  Looking back down the hallway, hairs on the back of Quell's neck stand up.  They must be ghosts or other undead.

Unwilling to give up for the night & return later with Galen, the Knot pushes ahead.  The remaining members slip below in the fog, Mardus leaving the fisherman alone on the shore with only the moonlight, an odd fog & his thoughts to keep him company.

Some in the knot, hearing the description of the odd livery remember the house Vandermir that looked similar, with their origins being that of the old royal line of house Barca.  Emmerick transforms his appearance to display the heraldry of house Barca & the Knot walks into the dark chamber, his allies following behind him.

Members of the knot were greeted with different scenes.  For some in the knot, they saw the same as Brother Summit.  Others were unaffected by the illusion & saw the horror before them.  The room beyond was in tattered ruins.  There was no "door" at the end, but rather the rotten remains of a door & a shimmering energy field blocking passage.  And banging against that magical barrier were no men, but rather shambling undead.  Their leader, a frightening, armor clad warrior directing it's undead minions around the room.  With Yvainne blinded by the illusion, those who saw the undead leader failed to realize the threat before them.  The graveknight like creature turned & demanded to know who was interrupting his men.

Emmerick attempted to bluff the creature.  Acting like a commanding officer here to get a status report.  At first it worked, but the undead leader began questioning the presence of other non-uniformed people in Emmerick's presence.  But it was finally the combination of a slip of the tongue on Emmerick's part, along with the presence of Yvainne, a woman, that got the undead warrior to shout out "Men, it's a trick!  That forest witch is up to something.  The woman is likely one of her agents.  Get them!"  And combat was joined.

Initially the fight went in the Knot's favor.  A fireball or two by Mardus & most of the undead minions were destroyed.  However the leader possessed some sort of magical spell resistance that Mardus was unable to overcome, so it was left unscathed & able to ruthlessly assault the knot, screaming all the way about avenging the "deaths of my men!"

Hacking with an acid soaked blade, the undead "sergeant" caused great harm to the Knot. Nearly taking down Emmerick & Brother Summit.  Mardus was forced to frantically heal his allies.  Yvainne started heading for the exit, wishing to flee & seal up the stone portal behind them.  But unwilling to abandon her fellow Knot members she remained to magically aid her allies.  Quell & others saying they thought they would handle it.  At that point the undead knight stepped back and spewed forth acid over the Knot members.  Yvainne, near the exit was spared, but she continued to stay, magically supporting her allies.  An opportunity to flee was opened up, but still the Knot members remained in combat.  Then the graveknight turned on the death priestess who was but five to ten feet away.  Screaming that "all the druids would die!" he stepped forward and with two hacks of his massive greatsword brought down the priestess and "freed" her from her mortal coil, to be embraced by the unloving, cold touch of Zon Kuthon.

The remaining Knot members piled on the undead brute & through a combination of all four knot members, they managed to eventually destroy the undead knight.

Unsure of what to do & faced with another death of a member the knot stood in silence in the darkened room.