Session 23

The Fate of the Seventh is sealed by the Ninth.

Elise is offered up as a sacrifice.  Her attempt to betray the ninth & take over at the Horn dooms her.  Yvainne pushes for a ritual to the Midnight Lord.  Mardus wants her to burn for her insolence to the Lord of Hell.  Her final fate matters not, her screams fill the Horn of Abaddon.

It's clear to Mardus & others, Trak & Dosten must also meet their ends.  Both possess unwavering loyal to Elise.  Trik however is a salvageable resource.  So the other two knot members are killed and Trik is offered a simple choice.  Join or die.  The cleric of Hell chooses service over death and the fiery fury of his god.

And the Shroud moves a network of spies into the town of Farholde.  As well as ship off more members throughout the major cities of Talengarde.  The eyes and ears of the Ninth Knot extend through the Shining Lord's lands.

Over the following weeks various events happen.

At one point a boggard tribesman asks Emmerick for more food & masterwork weapons to hunt.  The environs around the Horn have gotten dangerous and the Boggards are feeling it.  Emmerick & the other Shroud leaders are unwilling to aid the frog-men that much.  They opt to simply hold a feast & provide some more food.  It placates the Boggards though it riles some of their human followers.

At another point, the spy network of the Shroud manage to intercept & destroy a letter from the local nunnery asking for help from the capitol.  Continuing to hide their dark actions from the Kingdom as a whole.

Then another whisper comes from the Shroud's spies in Farholde.  Whispers of strangers asking pointed questions about the Baron and spying around the safe-house/secret entrance to the Baron's manor house.  Each stranger turns out to be a ghost of a person.  No background, no known residence.  Clearly someone or something is investigating the Noble.

The Ninth, unsure if they should intervene choose to have their spies wait & watch.  And what a show the Agents of the Shroud see when the huge silver dragon attacks and destroys the Baron's manor house, killing the Sorcerer noble.  Only his fire spells seem to phase the beast, as it rips apart the Baron apart and then rips apart the Baron's house, searching through the rubble before flying off in the sunset.

A good dragon striking a suspected villain in town bolsters moral of the town folk.  And leaves a follower of Hell dead.  Some in the Knot are frustrated at the loss of an associate.  Others shrug it off.  The Way of the Wicked is a brutal affair.

As well over a month has passed, the Knot, still needing to acquire the blood of the Victor and unwilling to allow any more time to pass, move into action.

Emmerick, Mardus & Quel revive their old roles of Knight of the Alerien Order, Priest of Mitra & Elven Scout.  Using magic and their natural abilities at subtrafuge, along with Galen's linguistic skill at forgery to mark up the Knight's Journal recovered from the Raiders, they manage to weave quite a tale.

They start with Emmerick & Mardus speaking to Abbess Temperance.  Armed with a tale of how only one with the Blood of the Victor could purge the Horn of Evil they ask for help.  Wielding the journal, with forged notes added (and incriminating pages removed) they managed to convince the Abbess to help.

Seeding the conversation, they get her to suggest speaking to Sir Valin Darian.  And with haste she leads them to Hamorhall Keep.  There they find Sir Valin meeting with a group of Knights of the Alerion Order.  They interrupt a heated debate.  It seems the group of Knights are pressuring Sir Valin to assault the Horn.  The honeyed words of Mardus backed up by the helpful and insistent Abbess push Commander Valin into action.  In the matter of a day, Emmerick & Mardus lead the Blood of the Victor and an entourage of Knights and a warrior-nun straight into an ambush at the Horn.

There are a couple tense moments.  Along the way one of the Knights who squired around the same time as Emmerick did years ago almost recognizes him.  And brings up Emmerick's old mentor, Sir Balen.  Somehow the Knight of Hell contains his rage & maintains the ruse.

Another moment happens when the group encounters a "guard" of skeletons left by an entrance to show some sort of defense.  The fight goes well, but Mardus' lack of positive energy channelling raises an eyebrow from the Warrior Nun.  Mardus brushes it off, knowing the ambush is almost at hand.

Then, in the main temple on the second floor of the Horn, the trap is sprung.  For the duration of the fight, Emmerick avoids Sir Valin Darian knowing his rage might boil over.  And they needed the Blood of the Victor to finish their blasphemous ritual.  Instead, he focuses on this old squire-mate.  The battle is quick and savage.

The full furry of the Knot is unleashed.  A couple of Yvainne's Hell Hounds get hurt by Knights.  But most of the Knot comes away unscathed.  Which can not be said for the Knights.  Most of the Knights and the Nun are all dead.  And Sir Valin is taken down under the iron grip of Brother Summit & the relentless sap of Quell.

Another hurdle is overcome by the Knot.  And they move one more step to freeing a plague on the lands.

With the Victor's Blood in hand, the Knot settles in for what they hope will be another couple uneventful months.  But that hardly lasts a week.  For in a few days, a minion is found dead on the third floor.  Burned from alchemical fire.  Surprisingly close to the Alchemical Gollem's guard post.  Questioning the Gollem, it claims to know nothing, but is not convincing.  Afraid of a possible malfunction, Galen examinees the Gollem but doesn't find anything.  Still worried, he institutes an isolation and orders all human minions off the third floor as a precaution.

While the Knot settles in at the Horn the agents of the Shroud continue to gather information. They find out about a minor Knight, the son of the fallen Watch Commander at Balentyne, Sir Richard Thomason Havelyn.  The Knight was last spotted following a trail of murder and destruction toward Farholde.  The trail of crumbs left by Tiadora all those months ago.  He was investigating the Watch Tower, to see how exactly the fortress fell.  And with him is the twin brother of the fallen Balentye pastor, Brother Donnagin.  What's worse Sir Havelyn had originally investigated a certain prison break at the Kingdom's most infamous prison, Branderscar.

Though the news is worrying, the Knot simply has to wait.

While they wait, and it gets to be a month left, an unwelcome forest visitor arrives.  The massive Chimera bursts into the Horn's third level entrance and begins destroying anything it can find.  Fortunately, Brother Summit was checking on the odd Gollem at the time and between him and the Alchemical construct, along with the fast responding wraiths, they managed to destroy the Chimera before it can do too much damage.

What could have been a bad attack turned out incredibly well.  Or it seemed that way until after the attack a servant was found dead, having been electrocuted to death.  The odd thing, the Chimera was no were near the servant, nor possessing an electrical attack.

So the question remains, what killed the minion....