We were heading back towards the elves, with the Lanthorn we’d recovered from Bodhi, when we came across an ancient keep and a group of knights pleading for our aid. They were Watchknights of Helm, charged by their god with protecting this site. Of course we’re willing to help if we can.
Apparently this great, ancient keep is a prison. Holding a prisoner unknown to the knights, but known to be very dangerous. And the old prison was failing. They needed someone to enter the keep, to pass the “Final Seal” and perform a ritual to renew the magic keeping this place secure. This sounds like something we can handle.
We were briefed on how to enter and what to do. As we entered, Diomedes said to me in a low voice, “you know I’m happy to help, but why aren’t these ‘knights’ doing this?” A question we will try to answer.
The next level down was a puzzle of sorts, we needed to piece together clues to gather four keys. All why by being distracted by a demon who insisted we could only continue by letting him free. As we gathered clues, it seemed this was true.
Next we had a maze of magic portals to navigate. The “Blood War” we’d recently learned of in the Abyss was going on a small scale between the various portals, demons and devils battling each other. We eliminated all we met. In the last portal room of the maze, we encountered a demon or cambion or something, that both paladins agreed was not detecting as evil! That’s an oddity! I approached cautiously, and found he mostly wanted to play a game of cards.
Continuing down, we came across a large open floor dominated by “The Machine of Lum the Mad”. An old mage was trapped in the machine, and had been using it to gate in various beasties and force battles to the death. So we waged a battle of survival against Ilithids, Umber Hulks, Githyanki, Minotaurs, a Dragon, a Demi-Lich… in clearing out the level we figured out escape involved getting into the machine…
The next floor was the final seals. All we had to do was open the seals, get into the room beyond and read the Ritual Scroll. Dang. This was the most epic battling we’ve seen yet. Several tests and a lot of demanding foes. We did prevail, and were nearly overwhelmed by a powerful evil force. No dumb demon in a cage, this was a force of elemental evil. We were all overwhelmed with the single thought, we’d been deceived. At the very least, the Watchknight’s knew what was here.
Apparently we had won the right to come and go from this cage, so we headed back to the knights to see what more we could learn. They were shocked and upset we’d entered and found our way out. And indeed, they knew what was inside. They all packed up and entered to determine what we’d done.
We didn’t have long to wonder what this meant, a visitor appeared.
After a brutal couple of days we decided to head home and rest up. All of us needed some time to recover.
DavesGaming 
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