Emmerick and Wasyli had no interest in bending a knee before the throne of Chiliax and they managed to get most of the remaining shroud members on board.
Quell still found it an unwise move and argued as much, but as it became clear Emmerick had won the majority, Quell relented & went along with the rest of the Shroud.
Galen was upset, but bowed before his new leaders. Though he did request to be extracted. He felt that perhaps he had overstayed his welcome and the Shroud agreed. They removed their agent & brought him back to the safety of Talengarde.
Shortly after moving forward & arranging the transport of their mercenary army they started using powerful divination magic to locate the Princess and the Sons of Balentyne. They found them all, at the capital of Andoran. The arch-rival of Chiliax.
Quell restrained himself from criticizing too hard, as the rest of the Shroud realized they just turned down the help of a major power, as their fellow claimant to the throne was doing that very thing.
Still, the Shroud had picked their course.
Using magic items & knowledge acquired from Galen & Thorn's notes, Wasyli proceeded with attempting to craft a phylactery and move down the path of transforming himself into a Lich like Galen.
With their primary source of arcane magic having only limited availability and a mercenary army still weeks out and there arch-rival in a location that might prove difficult to attack, Brother Summit pushed the Shroud to consider a loose end to follow up. The threat of the otherworldly creatures hunting them.
With a planer breach to the negative energy plane readily available in the Cathedral, the Shroud easily collected a few hounds and brought them to Professor Tiberius Feign. The wizard was surprised at the unexpected guests, but always eager to pursue his planer research, quickly found time for them in his underground laboratory.
The Shroud wanted to find the location of the thing that was sending creatures to them so the Professor gathered his collection of planer forks attuned to the various outer planes and performed a ritual with a special compass to point to the planer fork attuned to the plane the thing was on. The ritual commensed and the chamber was filled the wailing of a hound. Yet the compass didn't seem to settle on a planer fork. Then Brother Summit noticed it. The compass kept tracking the Professor. As he stated that, a look of horror filled the Professor's face, as he reached into his belt pouch & pulled out a planer fork attuned to the prime material plane.
The Professor quickly slit the throat the wailing hound and a dread-filled silence descended on the camber. Then the professor told the Shroud if they were to face the creature, they should do so quickly. And he left the camber, his assistants having to scramble to collect all the valuable planer forks the wizard had ignored in his haste to be rid of the place.
The Shroud thought back to the time they were near the Horn and saw signs of the creatures there.
Could this all have come when they called forth Vitra-Kali...
The Shroud prepared for an adventure, Wasyli was able to drop them off near the horn before returning to his creation.
The Shroud them moved toward the old green dragon's lair, were they'd seen signs of the creatures before. They prepared to fly to the areal entrance at top of the mound and stopped as they cleared the tree tops.
Further to the south, was an ever expanding pool of black liquid and at it's center, the ruins of the Horn. Everywhere the liquid went, fauna and wildlife died. A huge blight has spread out across the land for miles. It even got into the near-by river & travelled up & down stream, chocking out a massive lake near by & the bogland near the coast.
Brother Summit remembered his trip with Wasyli, were they saw a small pool of liquid in the ruins of the horn. What horror has befallen the land.
Steeling themselves, they leave the green dragon lair and head to the source of it all. The Horn.
They arrive and see slowly moving black liquid oozing out from the foundation. With an overabundance of caution, the Shroud advance into the familiar yet distinctly different underground of the Horn.
The mouth of the caves was chocked with rubble from above, hunks of stone & earth filled in most of the cracks between the stalactites & stalagmites, leaving just a small passageway in. Around the side a river of black liquid goo oozes underneath.
The Shroud move on into the interior, having to avoid rubble and black goo.
Within they found a further altered interior from their last visit. Walls broken down, or caverns chocked with rubble. Yet no sign of spiders or hounds. Just more black ooze.
Eventually they found the likely source, it appeared to be coming from the mud room they used to conjure mud elementals. Yet they couldn't reach it as the main passage was a river of black goo and the only walkable surface was a ledge on the far side.
Yvainne shaped from the stone walls a buttressed bridge with a lip to protect from the goo below. As the bridge finished being shaped, screeching wails came from down the passage in the mud room.
As the Shroud advanced via a combination of arial magic & the stone bridge, they found two creatures of ungulating flesh, a massive blob of eyes, mouths & other organs. Oozes of flesh splashing in the black goo.
And they advanced, letting a wail loose as they went.
Mardus and Quell both quickly go mad from the screeching, as Emmerick & Brother Summit push forward, overcoming it. And Yvainne's undead mind ignores the wails as her undead frame likewise ignores the black goo as she wades through it in front of her companions.
Quell in his madness flails at Mardus this in turn brings the focus of the equally confused Mardus to turn on Quell & savage into him.
Realizing the two would rip each other apart in their madness, Yvainne had to return & heal Mardus who then healed Quell and stopped the madness induced cycle of in-fighting.
Still the horrors advanced, one taking particular interest in Brother Summit. And the shroud paused, unsure if they could handle the fight or if they should flee with what shreds of sanity they retained.
But then the Anti-paladin of Hell stood forward and cast fear on one of the abominations. Even it's alien mind reeled in terror and the creature fled from the beacon of hell, deep down into the goo.
The shroud got a second wind & pushed forward, their doubts starting to wain. Then Quell finally made his way to the bridge and finally seeing the horror, he fled again, his mind unable to handle it. Meanwhile, Brother Summit, stuck with one of the horrors on his own was forced to withdrawl for some healing from his companions.
Seeing their second wind vanishing, Emmerick & Yvainne surged forward to fill the void meeting the attacks of the otherworldly creature with blade and fang. And as Brother Summit & Mardus recovered, the four Shroud members even without their rogue or wizard, managed to hack, slash, burn and bite the creature.
Against even the limited might of just part of the Shroud, the creature was ripped into ribbons.
It's mate eventually emerged in a rage as the fear had subsided but weakened and without it's companion, the prepared Shroud destroyed it too.
As quite returned to the caverns, the Shroud looked where the creatures had been. There, beyond where the mud pool had been, in the alcove were the old broken chest used to be, were massive stone tablets & some sort of pool, that appeared to be the source of all the ooze that was invading the plane.
Investigation revealed the tablets to be some sort of otherworldly artifact that was generating the black liquid substance.
The Shroud stood before the artifact, unsure of what comes next.
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