"Ah yes.. Good idea. I sometimes forget about him.. Snagger! Go forth and see what lies beyond!" With a snort the little Imp moves beyond..
"Detect for magics as well!" He does so..
Snagger ventures into the crack. It’s small even to a tiny creature, but that don’t stop the imp.
The passage gets larger and larger as the imp continues, ending up in a sealed room.
A lime encrusted human skeleton leans against the south wall clutching a heavy leather bound book,
besides it, still glittering amongst the muck a huge exquisite emerald.
The Emerald is worth at least 20.000gp, probably more.
Knowing that he’ll not be able to go back in the same way he came with the book and the emerald, the imp simply teleport near the party, and drop the items in the group.
The book is named “The Dirges of Apollyon”. This is perhaps the last surviving copy of it upon this mortal plane. It details the long history of the “Sons of the Pale Horseman” and recounts their efforts to transform this world into a daemon’s playground.
This rarest of tomes is made utterly unique by the last page of text within.
Behold our shame that we, the Sons of the Pale Horseman, failed in our darkest hour to defend our prince the undying and ever malevolent Vetra-Kali Eats-the-Eyes. But I have seen it! I have seen the road to repentenance! 666 prayers. Three per day will break the hated Seal. With each prayer bathe the seal in unholy water and intone the dirge.
At the stroke of midnight each day call forth the Supplication to Darkness. Pray to the darkness so that we shall be forgiven. Upon the first midnight make the first sacrifice -- one of our own blood – so that Vetra-Kali will know we are repentant.
At the first light of each dawn call forth the Cursing of the Light. Answer the spread of the shining lord’s light with our unyielding defiance.
Upon the 111 th Curse make the second sacrifice -- a true believer of Mitra -- so that the cursed god of the invaders will know that we fear him not and that his power to hold our master at bay is ending.
At dusk as darkness returns each day cry forth the Call Across the Void. Recite the name of Ve-tra-Kali so that he may hear us and return. With the final Call offer the third sacrifice -- one of the Victor’s own blood. By the same blood that caged him so shall our master be freed.
Let ye with wisdom understand. Once the final prayer is uttered upon the 222nd dusk, Vetra-Kali will begin his long traverse across the great wheel.
At the stroke of midnight on that day he will emerge into his Sanctum and the Seal shall shatter.
Blessed day! Be ready, my brothers. His eyes have been stolen from him. Return them and the Prince will honor ye with one task for each.
For the Eye of Vigilance ask only for his mercy upon we mortals and plead that he do ye and yours no harm. For his wroth will be great.
For the Eye of Hatred ask for his greatest gift -- the Tears of Achlys so that once more every corner of the world may know his mercy.
For the Eye of Withering ask what ye will for in his gratitude he must answer your charge.
And then behold, the Prince restored. All shall know his blessings of pestilence and despair.
-R.Kappelbrenner
"I've never seen such a big emerald. It must be fake."
After reading the book aloud, Argan closes it with a loud noise and addresses the others. "Well, I must be honest. I thought this would be easier..."
"While i dont think its worthless, its certainly not worth what ud think one of this size is.. It indeed seems we have our work cut out for us.. First thing we need to get to this sealed door.. Can you prepare the stone altering spells tm?" speaking to Seth..
Lil stops and stares at the emerald. "That has to be worth 20000 gold!" She looks at the book the imp dropped off. "The book is named “The Dirges of Apollyon”. This is perhaps the last surviving copy of it upon this mortal plane. It details the long history of the “Sons of the Pale Horseman” and recounts their efforts to transform this world into a daemon’s playground."
Seth contemplates their situation. "I believe we have just found a great gift. This book appears to impart upon us the knowledge required to do our job here. With that known, we need to simply fortify the Horn and set up a schedule to do the rituals, making sure to keep curious eyes away." He gives a nod to Vlad. "Of course."
"Great information Lil. Now, since we found no sign of the supposed entrance, I guess we have to try the other one up in the sky. Unless someone wants to take a bath in the muddy pool...."
"Yes indeed.. We have to clean this place up. The boggards will make a decent workforce and the pile of skeletons should help with Lil here.. We'll need to take care of whatever invisible thing is in that hole though, or make it our ally.."
"We need to make sure this level is fully explored first before continuing on.."
"We can probably sell the emerald to help fund us, but I wonder how are we even supposed to find this daemon's eyes?"
Kharn seems happy that Lil figured out the price of the emerald that Argan considered worthless.
"The emerald is probably one of the eyes you moron! We're not selling them until we finish our job here."
A complete search of the place, reveal some interesting facts.
The boggard village:
One of the boggards has a secret stash that contains 22 gp, a small garnet worth 50 gp and a clamor box (see the Advanced Player’s Guide) in a small leather sack. He has hidden these treasures under the usual assortment of tattered skins and scattered animal bones that adorn every boggard hut.
C11 – Strange Fish
This is another wet cavern with a pool of water at its rear. These pool however has a faint glow to it and is surprisingly clear. This pool contains weird pale blue blind cave fish with delicate thread-like spines on their forefins.
These fish are death-angel cave tetras. Their spines are a powerful paralytic poison that the fish use to stun their preferred prey – the tiny white shrimp that share their cave pools and feed on the luminous algae. Harvesting the venom is not too difficult if you know the poison is in the spines and use a net.
This pool and its nearby side chambers that disappear under the rock actually support a breeding population. The fish could be all harvested for twenty doses of the poison immediately or this pool could be harvested sustainably for four doses of poison a month.
Death-Angel Spine Venom
Type poison, injury; Save Fortitude DC 15
Frequency 1/round for 2 rounds
Initial Effect 1d3 Con damage; Secondary Effect unconsciousness for 1d3 hours; Cure 1 save
Cost: 150 gp/dose.
C5 – Empty Cavern
This non-descript cavern is empty and mostly dry. It would make a terrible lair since it is natural crossroads. The floor is solid rock so building a pit trap here is impossible without magic.
Of course, the most important feature here is almost impossible to spot (DC 30 Perception skill check). There is an exquisitely crafted secret door in the southeastern wall that leads to a hidden spiral stair case.
"Well done minions. Let's harvest that poison on a sustainable way later. After we rest and be watchful for the shaman's anger we can climb to the second level." After resting, since they took a whole day searching the caves, the careful group makes their way to the secret door, and after investigating it slowly for traps and magic they open it to go to the upper floor, with Vlad making the honor of being the first ^_^
"Your arrogance will be your undoing Argan.. I agree though, to the upper levels!"
Vald will lead the way, taking his time.
Lil looks at Argan in confusion. "I thought the smart people were supposed to be in charge?" She asks innocently, looking around.
Argan laughs at Vlad for his pitiful comment, and cannot avoid making fun of the fake innocence of the gnome. "You're right. And I am in charge. Everyone wins." Then he moves move along after Vlad and up the stairs. "
"Can we get serious here please?" He asks before removing the slight smile from his face..
Kharn shakes his head as Argan once again preaches his dominance of the group.
I swear one of these days someone is going to stick a knife in that rogue.
Kharn then follows near Lilpenny so that he can keep her out of any danger.
And up you go, climbing the spiral stair that doesn’t seem to end. The stairs continue for more 200fts and there was no secret to find inside it.
The narrow spiral staircase that runs from the hidden chamber in the lower caverns terminates here into a landing. This room is empty and bare. There are two badly deteriorated skeletons inside broken worthless suits of what was once masterwork full-plate. The ruined armored in covered in symbols similar to those that adorn the Horn itself. These are all that remains of the guards who stood in the way of the Victor as he fought his way towards the sanctum.
"You un's must be tired, with those short legs." the ogre says, after you finally reach the end of the spiral.
Vlad pulls his sword and opens the door, before moving in..
And Vlad opens the door…
…behind it, a rounded chamber which has a high domed ceiling and everywhere is adorned with grisly bas relief depictions of the nightmare realm of Abaddon. A curved half-wall blocks direct access to the rest of the room…
…We have guests.
Guests indeed.
Such our last one?
Which last one?
The one fleeing from him…
Ah… such a nice meal
Nice meal indeed.
Indeed it is.
Should we greet them?
Should we indeed?
You hear the voices, only there's no voice. It's all in your head.
"If you are to greet us perhaps you should show yourselves then?" He says as he enters the room and makes way for the others to enter.. "DO you serve the Prince of Darkness as we do?"
Lil looks around in surprise, then casts detect magic, sweeping the room from left to right.
Seth frowns. Not good. He casts detect magic as well, starting from right to left.
Argan would have searched the skeletons, just in case there's something under the full plate.
Argan moves after the Vlad, casting a spell at him just in case. "We need Vladzord power now."
Kharn just shrugs at the sound of voices.
"Well normally the polite thing to do is to introduce yourself, so I'll introduce myself. My name is Kharn nice to meet you voices."
Kharn doesn't seem as disturbed with this type of magic, but some small part of him still recoils away.
There’s no magic to be found in the place, nothing that indicates someone is hiding using any illusion spell.
Vlad strides confidently of his battle prowess and Argan moves and start to cast a spell , to make Vlad bigger and stronger.
Conveniently, Kharn talked with the creatures, introducing himself and asking their name.
From behind the curved walls two beasts that resemble a gigantic humanoid bear with the talons of an eagle and curling ram horns sprouting from its head, in their neck, an iron amulet with the abyssal writings Vexor, Hexor.
Vexor.
Hexor.
It’s a pleasure to meet you sir.
I’m sorry, sir, but I’m afraid I need to disembowel you now.
The voices says as the furred beasts walk closer and opening their mouths, a cone of lightthing shoots in the entire room, hitting Vlad, Argan, Seth and Lil.
Reflex 19 for half damage.
Reflex 19 for half damage.
Round 2-
Ordered Initiative-
Players
Enemies
Active Effects-
Map-
Notes-
Action-
Party
Lil jumps and screams, then weaves a spell and hides.
Seth looks a the creatues and the abyssal writing on their necklaces. "Wait, wait!" He grimaces at the damage done to him. "You are, outsiders, yes? Please, talk to us for a moment before disemboweling us!"
They are Greater Ceustodaemons, and as the name implies, Daemons.
Your roll as good enough. Pick 5 traits or defenses or special abilities from their sheet, and you know those.
Lil pales. "We're a little out of our depth here. These are Greater Ceustodaemons. You need good or silver weapons to harm them, they are resistant to every element but cold, they can dimension door at will, can use that breath weapon every few seconds, and...are easily drawn to service on the material plane to serve as guardians...WAIT! STOP FIGHTING!"
Argan mythically uses the not-so-fast Vlad as cover, taking no damage at all from the breaths. He finishes the spell, enlarging Vlad so he could serve as a better shield, and moves slowly towards one of the creatures. Although he draw both Sabres, he opens his arms showing how displeased he is with the sudden (and harmless) attacks of the creatures. "Common Hexor, Vexor, we're here to rescue the Daemon Prince from his eternal prison! If you disembowel us, you will be acting against your master! We even got one of his eyes back!"
Vlad brings his shield up in an attempt to avoid some fo the lightning..
But is to late as he eats both of the breath weapons.. Vlad withdraws form the room and lets Kharn up front..
"We are allies you fuking idiots!" he says as he retreats..
He uses a swift action to heal..
You should have said sooner sir.
That could have prevented your current circumstances.
Fortunately, what is in the past can’t hurt you anymore.
Even if you are still hurting from the past.
How do you plan to break the seal?
Would you mind telling us sir?
You hear, as the daemons drop their fighting stance and greet you as if nothing as ever happened.
"Well, no harm done" - says the unscathed rogue beside one of the large creature. Argan analyzes the situation and is still watchful, since it could be a trick to gain time to recharge their weapons.
"We have a ritual ready for that occasion," - Argan makes it unclear if they already have the ritual by heart or if it's written somewhere - "but first we must get to the seal. It will take a long time for us to achieve that goal and, in case some funny guys try to stop us, we would like to count with your help so as not to be disrupted during the ritual. Is that possible, partners?"
You should have said sooner sir.
That could have prevented your current circumstances.Fortunately, what is in the past can’t hurt you anymore.
Even if you are still hurting from the past.How do you plan to break the seal?
Would you mind telling us sir?You hear, as the daemons drop their fighting stance and greet you as if nothing as ever happened.
Seth's eyes light up. These are possible allies. "Yes, we have indeed discovered such a means to break the seal. But it will take some time, about seven months, and I'm sure we will attract some attention in that time. You two are clearly very powerful beings, would you be interested in helping us to this goal?"
Should we help?
Should we indeed?
They are weak.
Dumb, weak, disorganized, arrogant.
Weaker than most weak humans.
Weaker breed?
Weaker breed indeed.
Indeed it is.
But he speaks the truth.
The truth indeed.
Even if they are weak.
It is they or wait another eighty years…
Such is our life.
Such is indeed.
Then, some seconds passes, as they just stare at each other before continuing.
What help would you require, sir?
We are bound to this place, sir.
This place we cannot leave, sir.
This place alone.
Seth takes the insults with a grain of salt; demons are normally superior beings after all. Still he feels the needle in the back of his mind. "Perhaps a tour to start, and any information you could tell us about this place?"
Not much more.
Not much more indeed
There is a smelly tribe in the caverns.
Frogs, of the foulest kind.
There is a pair of goo in the second floor.
Sleeping goos.
Wakey wakey when there is anyone closer.
There is a ghost in this floor.
A crazy ghost of a crazy follower.
Craziest of the lot.
What was it is name?
What was its name indeed?
The mass of condensed living energy in the sanctum.
Living there indeed.
They stare at each other for some more time, before saying again.
We know nothing sir.
We know nothing indeed.
We are bound to this place.
And this place alone, sir.
Argan felt really angry when they mentioned how weak the group was. For a second he thought about drawing his sabres again and teaching them a lesson, but he breathed deeply and thought better about it. It would be smarter to leave this two at their guard duties. Such were the duties of stupid followers. "Well done. A goo, a ghost and energy. I don't suppose we will have a good time by trying to talk our way up, so let's just get on with this. By the way, do you know what happened to a group that came here four weeks ago?"
After the answer he turns to the group. "Do you guys have any magical weapon to fight this ghost? Cause I don't."
Seth almost immediately puts a hand on Argan at the mention of them being weak, squeezing his shoulder. "Yes, thank you for the information. Let's hope us lowly mortals can fulfill our duties."
Still smoking Vlad returns from the hall with a look of displeasure on his face.. "Help or not they'll pay for that one day.."
Not paying any attention to the insults he speaks.. "Do you think these other parties can be coerced into helping us as well? Or is a fight guaranteed?"
The daemons look at each other for some seconds before the voices in your head says again.
We know not of what you are talking about sir.
Nothing we know indeed.
He means the elf.
The elf indeed he means.
You ate him.
You ate him.
Did you found it a good meal?
Not enough meat.
Not enough indeed.
Indeed not enough.
The other, he took it.
He took them indeed.
Do we know something?
Do we know indeed?
Hexor and Vexor stares at each other, and then, the voices once again.
We know nothing of any group Sir.
We know nothing Indeed.
Eighty years since I last saw someone else, sir.
Eighty years indeed.
Now understanding that knowing nothing is enough to help their group, Argan makes another question, hoping that in their dialog to seek the answers the dumb monsters would reveal more information without realizing it. "I know the elf's companion was taken by someone. Do you know who was it?"
After they had answered, either revealing something or not, the rogue will make a last question, so they could move on to the next room and finish their job. "Did you know there is an invisible monster in a secret trap on the underground of the horn?"
Then satisfied (or not), the rogue motions the party to move along, dead-meat-shield going first.
We know nothing about it sir.
We know nothing indeed sir.
The daemons answer Argan questions.
Deciding it isn’t worth expending more time with the guardians, the party continues to climb the spiral.
The steps continue for some more hundred feet’s until you reach what appears to be some sort of temple.
This level is the very top of the Horn of Abaddon. It is accessibly only two ways – you come up the 240’ long spiral stair case cut through the Horn’s heart or you fly in through the balcony.
This large domed chamber is baroquely decorated and everywhere adorned with jagged daemonic iconography and visions of spreading pestilence and mortal suffering. It is a grand chamber: eighty feet across at its widest, ninety feet long and rising at its apex to a dome fifty feet high. Low partition walls section off two ritual preparation chambers. And dominating the chamber is the statue of Vetra-Kali himself carved from hard green alabaster. He holds three knives and three bowls and leers eyeless over the altar before him. He presents a figure of brutal alien malice.
The green stone of the altar is stained black in many places, doubtless from the countless victims who met their end upon its block. There is a reservoir at the base of the statue.
Completely out of place is the heavy silver chains that bind the altar and connect to a heavy argent seal pressed with the holy sunburst of blessed Mitra -- the Silver Seal.
Circling the dome in perpetual motion is a huge creature of living energy.
"Un' Grumblejack is thirsty." is all the ogre has the chance to say, the group is attacked by the creature.
This creature looks like a dark storm cloud, with sparks suggesting eyes and long sweeping arms charged with bolts of lightning.
Round 1-
Ordered Initiative-
Active Effects-
Map-
Notes-
Action-
The mass of living energy flies near with incredible speed. It strikes at Vlad from 15ft away. The metal in his armor, seem to draw the creature attacks.
It's a elemental.
You know it's immune electricity and it's elemental traits
It has damage reduction from any kind of weapon or attack, and anyone wearing a metal armor or carrying a metal weapon, makes easier to be hit from the elemental.
Anyone weaing a metal armor or carrying a metal weapon is more vulnerable against bull rush, disarm, overrun, and trip attacks from the elemental.