Session 22

The following week exposes a great betrayal.

It starts as a normal week at the Horn of Abaddon.  If ruins of a daemonic alter being taken over by the forces of hell to destroy a powerful Mitrian artifact to unleash a plague upon the lands could ever be called "normal".  Emmerick is away from the rest of the knot, busy training the troops near the barracks & his personal quarters.  Elsewhere on the 1st floor is Galen, off fiddling with his alchemical golum.

The other Knot members are around the Horn doing other various daily activities, with Mardus on guard duty at the Sanctum.

Emmerick hears the sounds of battle coming from the near by blocked first floor entrance.  The anti-paladin of hell rushes to the guard room near by to find a stone door has been shaped in the side of the room.  And through this new (magically created) portal, a group of four adventurers has burst in.  What's odd, with them is One Eye, the dire tiger the knot found.  And the tiger is ripping through guards.  Clearly the magical enchantment on the beast has been removed and it's come for revenge.

Emmerick rushes in to fight along side his men, hollering for the soldiers outside in the training yard to go get help.

Quell is the first to respond & comes rushing in.  He finds Emmerick & his men getting pummelled.  A druid has called down balls of lighting, a sorcerer is blasting minions.  More minions are falling in the jaws of the dire tiger.  And an elven archer is turning Emmerick into a pin cushion.  But what gives Quell pause is the dwarven barbarian.  Rabid and foaming at the mouth, the brute sunders through a minions blade & the axe keeps going through the minion underneath.

Quell hesitates  unsure what to do.  The soldiers are falling all around & Emmerick is now going toe-to-toe with the rabid dwarf.  But without any support, the rogue will be exposed.  So he waits, opting for some ranged support behind a doorway.

Quell's judgement pays off as he sees the dwarf sunder Emmerick's Mace, shattering it to pieces.  And further taking metal chunks off the Knight of Hell's shield.  All the while the withering hail of arrows rains down on him.

Once Emmerick falls, the gnome shouts.  "Emmerick's down, keep it up!"  And horror fills Quell.  They know the names of the Knot members.  Who are these people!

Eventually support comes, first in the form of Galen & the Gollum.  The alchemical monstrosity begins lobbing bombs & slamming into all enemies who get near.  The conjurer pulls a one two punch of arcane might.  First summoning in fiendish constrictor snakes to block the exit back outside and following it up with a stinking cloud.  Leaving the adventurers and Emmerick's bleeding form stuck between summoned hell snakes and a gollum backed up by Quell.

More Knot members arrive  Yvainne & Brother Summit come to aid Quell while Mardus comes from the outside of the Horn with Grumblejack close in tow.

Still, the Cloud lingers and the fight drags on.  Yvainne unable to reach Emmerick.  When all of a sudden, bursting out of the cloud right as Brother Summit is chocking his wan in comes a soldier.  Carrying the bleeding form of Emmerick.  Somehow one of the guards survived the lighting, the dire tiger, the spells, and the arrows & retrieved his leaders fallen form.  Yvainne is quick to revive the anti-paladin.  Who promptly charges back into combat.

Meanwhile on the other end of the cloud, by the new Stone door, the adventurers are trying to break free.  The dire tiger makes quick work of the snakes, all while shrugging off the effects of the cloud.  Eventually he makes it out & nearly eviscerates Mardus who is with Grumblejack and Emmerick's Nightmare, trying to block the exit.  The Oracle of Fire falls.  But it is no matter, the combined might of Grumblejack, the Nightmare & Galen is too great.  The tiger falls.

In the end, the adventuring group is whipped out.  The dwarf is dead, having fallen to Quell's blade & the Gollum's acid.  Though not before further damaging Quell's swords.

The leader, a Gnome Sorcerer dies to Galen's arcane power.  And the Tiger falls to Grumblejack's hammer.  The Elven archer & half-elvan druid, suffering severely from the stinking cloud are taken alive.  Though the archer just barely, as the Golum was quite savage in it's attacks.

The soldier, a tough brute from the slums of Farholde named Roderick, who likely saved Emmerick's life is made the Anti-Paladin's personal squire and attendant.

The Knot is surprised to find a set of potions on all the adventurers that look remarkably similar to those on the earlier adventuring parties. but the Knot is outright shocked to find a set of files on the gnomes corpse outlining the defenses of the Horn, the names of all the knot members, and suggesting attack routes.  Also on the Gnome is a personal journal entry, which states a secret meeting with an old man claiming to be a "prophet" of Mitra who provided all the information.  And was later tracked secretly to reveal himself a younger man speaking with a woman with a white raven on her shoulder saying "It's done, the ninth is finished."

The Seventh Knot, Elise herself, betrayed them...

There is a period of silence as all assembled consider what do do next.

What follows is a long series of discussions.  Mostly focused on how to go after the rogue Knot.  The ninth decide not to bring Thorn in.  Not until it's finished and they know more.

When the inquisition attacked without warning, shortly after Alicette came to "check on them".  The knot decides it's possible she was checking to see if Elise's plot worked & they all died.  So they wait to see if she arrives.  After two days pass and she fails to arrive the Knot figures Alicette likely wasn't part of the plot, but still can't be sure.

They decide to send Mardus to find Alicette & her overgrown ape to lie to her, saying he's all that's left & they need the seventh at the Horn immediately.

Then the ninth wait in ambush.  Like clockwork the seventh arrive in full force.  Hiding, lying in wait, the Ninth buff themselves with arcane and divine magic and then descend upon the seventh like the fury of hell itself.  Brother Summit and Mardus only pause long enough to tell Alicette to stay out of this.  It's an internal "political" matter.

Seeing members of the seventh fall left & right, the Courtesan of the the Aspis Consortium opts to stay out of the fight.  Or more accurately, the slaughter.  For slaughter it is.

Elise falls, without even getting time to act.  Dostan gets one swing in before succumbing to the repeated sap attacks from Quell and subduing blows from Brother Summit.

Trik, in confusion tries buffing himself, while calling for the ninth to stop.  Trak, blinded by glister-dust  attacks with longsword instead of bow & quickly falls as well.  Eventually Trik surrenders as well.

The Knot don't attempt to confiscate Alicette's weapons or torture her for information.  But they do ask some straightforward questions.  At the end of witch, they decide she truly is not involved and had been almost outcast the entire time by Elise.

Speaking with Trik it becomes clearer.  The Cleric of the Trickster God got tricked himself.  He thought it was on Thorns orders that Elise was trying to kill the ninth.  When he finds out he's been duped he's devastated.

In the end, with ample evidence & the seventh all alive and safely imprisoned, the Ninth breaks the seventh's clay seal to contact Cardinal Thorn.

The Knot is a bit surprised when their contacted not by Tiadora, but by the Cardinal himself.  He is irate that the seventh would dare to betray him.  He declares their contract null and void.  And leaves their fate in the hands of the ninth.