Syl nods. "So, what do we do now?"
”We get a bite to eat and relax. I don’t know about you but a good fight always helps me work up an appetite”, the hulking orc explains with a smirk that suggests that he’s not just talking about food.
”Tomorrow we’ll go back to deal with the Carrion King and make sure there’s no more captive girls down there. After that, we’ll see. Did you have something in mind?”
"Some food would be nice, yes." Syl's stomach grumbles quietly, and she looks briefly embarrassed. "For tomorrow? Finishing what we started." However, the girl then looks grieved. "After that, I don't know what to do. Before everything happened to me, I was going to enter the clergy. I'm not so sure, anymore. There's too much insistence on turning the other cheek for my taste. And all the strong gods are evil. Bah!"
Skaar cocks an eye brow and smirks exposing his thick tusks. ”The clergy might be a good fit for you. We’ll talk more about that after this Carrion King fool has been taught a lesson.”
”But for now the night is young. How ‘bout we find someone to pick a fight with and have some fun?”
Syl gives you a small smile. "You go have fun. I'm gonna keep my anger stored up for tomorrow.
----------------------------------
The night brings you visions of a growing shadow that gradually covers the entire world. Then all the stars go out. All in all, not the greatest sleep you've ever had. Syl still seems fine when you see her in the morning, though. She remains her usual taciturn self, but the deadness has been excised from her eyes.
Skaar actively works to keep the contents from his dark dreams from coloring the morning as he breaks his fast with Syl.
”You should have been there last night. At one point I had a half dozen sailors trying to drag me down. I slid one across the bar and he hit the wall with a reeeal nice *CRUNCH*”, he laughs heartily.
After he’s eaten his fill, the Unfailing Pillar picks up his few possessions and drops a couple coins on the table to cover the meal. ”Help me keep an eye out while we’re doublin’ back on our tracks. The gnolls mighta left some surprises for us overnight.”
You re-enter the temple complex from the west side and immediately head to the Troglodyte lair. The guards recognize you and let you in. You're able to secure an audience with their leader shortly thereafter. "Greetings, friends. What news?"
The Undying Pillar gives the trog leader a nod of gratitude for the audience.
”We’ve started workin’ our way down into the Carrion King’s domain and it’s gunna be a fight alright. He’s got his whole tribe down there at his defense along with those hyena-beasts”, Skaar explains. ”But that’s not what’s got me worried. We dug out a hidden chamber and found the journal of who, or what, was livin’ in there. I figured somethin’ was going on based on what you told me about your relationship with the gnolls prior to things breakin’ down but this nails it. The Carrion King might be a fool but he’s not behind the war with your people – not really.”
The troglodyte chieftain looks interested but skeptical. "What you say may be true, but I'll need proof. How do you know the Carrion King isn't to blame?"
Skaar offers up the journal. "This should be a good start."
Frowning, the chief takes the journal and flips through it. After a few minutes of study, he returns it to you, looking grim. "This is very disturbing. It seems that we are simply pawns in some larger game. Can you find out more?"
"I'm plannin' on it and I'm lookin' to kick the ass of whoever is behind this shit, but I'm doin' this alone. If it comes down to it, can I count on your tribe to fight?"
The Chief nods grimly. "I cannot risk the safety of my tribe in an all-out offensive, but I can send a squad of warriors with you. They'll help keep the Carrion King's minions off you while you strike at the head."
”It’s a start”, Skaar says before giving a nod to Syl. ”Let’s get back to it. The longer we stand around here jawin’ the longer the Carrion King’s gunna have to dig in down there.”
A half-dozen battle-scarred Troglodyte warriors accompany you and Syl as you return to the Carrion King's lair. It doesn't take long before you're met by a dozen Gnolls who were clearly waiting for you. You're pretty sure the Trogs will be able to handle themselves, though.
With the guards tied up, Skaar gestures for Syl to stick close and charges past the melee.
As you make your way back down to the lower levels, you run into another pair of Gnolls. These ones are much bigger and appear significantly tougher than the others you've encountered thus far.
Skaar cocks an eyebrow at the enormous hyena-men. "The Carrion King must be feedin' his boys well."
He works a charm to add weight to his fists and another that hardens his hide and thickens the dark hair sprinkled across his massive chest.
"Let me get their attention and then you cut 'em down from behind."
As you finish buffing, the two giant Gnolls charge you, roaring in a bestial rage. They have massive claws, and you can see razor teeth in their maws.
The giant gnoll's claws draw bloody lines across Skaar's flesh but do little to bring him down. The Unfailing Pillar had battled dragons and wrestled giants - two gnoll champions did not worry him. The big orcs growls as he steps inside his larger opponent's grasp and works the midsection.
These gnolls are unlike any you've encountered before and almost appear to have been augmented somehow. By all rights, your first two flurries should have downed one, but it just keeps on attacking - despite what should be lethal wounds. Fortunately, you're able to take it down with another pair of attacks. One gnoll remains, although Syl's been able to wound it. You've also been able to turn aside several nasty-looking claw swipes. If any had connected, they'd have left deep wounds.
Skaar is initially surprised at how well the gnolls endure his blows. They seemed to have the fortitude of giants… but how?
Not one to lose himself to thought in the heat of battle, the Unfailing Pillar focuses on putting down his other large opponent.
Already wounded, the other gnoll falls quickly to your blows.
Skaar huffs in a hunkers down to examine the fallen giant gnolls.
"You see anything like them before girl? If the Carrion King was breedin' his tribe to giants you think we'd would've heard about it. Anyway, we should try askin' the trogs on the way out later. I'll search this one. See if the other's got anything on him besides those stinkin' furs."
Neither body has anything of value on it - or anything at all, really. Syl thinks for a minute before responding. "All I know is that he wanted super warriors. The women he was abducting had to have had something to do with it, but I never figured out how. There can't be too many of them, though - at least I hope not."
Skaar pauses for a moment to pity the poor women that’d given birth to the giant gnolls. With their divine powers, gods of all shapes and sizes to were known to couple as they wanted without any real consequences. For mortals such a child birth must have been crippling if not fatal.
The hulking orc finds himself nodding in agreement with Syl’s assessment. ”Let’s keep movin’. At the very least we’ve got to be close if the we’re runnin’ into the Carrion King’s best.”
I9
The walls of this long vault are lined with wide alcoves. In several are stored numerous crates, barrels, and containers. At the western end, three alcoves contain workbenches and tables strewn with complex alchemical equipment, while a fourth contains a crude cot, several ratty blankets, and a chest. At the far west end of the room is an immense mound of bones and empty carapaces from enormous insects and spiders.
I10
An arch opens into a geometric maze of hand-carved passages. Ancient writing covers the extent of the tunnels from floor to ceiling as far as the eye can see.
I6
An extended hall stretches between various chambers and arches. In the center of the hall a hollow diamond-shaped column decorated with elaborate tile mosaics frames a spiral staircase. Strewn about the dusty floor lie a dozen or so humanoid bones, cracked and gnawed with teeth marks.
I9
Skaar eyes the chest warily and the pile of bones even more so. He nods to Syl.
"Girl, you mind checkin' that chest out. I'll keep an eye out."
I10
I6
I9
The chest is unlocked and contains a collection of anatomy scrolls with detailed diagrams of a quartered brain, the inside of an eye, a bisected heart, and a bisected kidney, all labeled in Qadiran . There's also twenty crystal vials containing various astringents and antiseptics . Finally, there are twelve potion vials that are probably magical.
I10
The writing is in Qadiran, although reading the hallways with any time and accuracy would require extensive time and study.
I6
The stairs lead upward to the previous level .
After giving Syl a nod of thanks, Skaar takes a moment to briefly taste the potions in hopes of identifying their properties. His senses were still dulled by his long deific slumber but he recalled a bit about how liquid magic tasted.
While you can definitely taste the magic in the potions, it's too complex to easily identify the specific properties.
----------------------------------------------
I11-13
All three of the rooms to the left and filled with nests of tattered blankets, straw, and furs. Judging by the smell, these are where the Carrion King's warriors spend their time.
I5
This room is garishly decorated with weathered bits of junk, faded threadbare tapestries, and broken mosaics - all once rich and lavish items that time has robbed of beauty and value. Now dark stains smear the walls, and waste and excrement litter the corners. A pile of rubble and broken furniture seals an archway in the southern wall. Along the northern wall, a fountain carved with intricate geometric patterns trickles a hint of brown, dirty water.
Lounging about the chamber and smoking from exotically-shaped hookahs are five female gnolls in various states of undress. Their minds are clearly addled by whatever drugs, but they still growl belligerently at you when you look in.
Unidentified or not, Skaar isn't willing to waste such valuable consumables. He has Syl help him gather the potions for transport.
***
"Let's spread out and search. We're lookin' for anything from who or what's behind drivin' a wedge between the trogs and these gnolls."
***
It wasn't the finest one he'd visited but the Unfailing Pillar recognized a haren when he saw it. As much as he wanted to shed his loincloth and join them, he knew he was deep in hostile territory. Skaar greets the female gnolls with a slight nod.
"Ladies, I'm not here to hurt you. I'm just lookin' for information on your king. I need to know who's whisperin' in his ear. Who's urgin' him to make war on the trogs that used to be your neighbors."
The least drugged-up harem girl gestures vaguely to the east. "Dunno. Don' care. Ask him yerself."
Skaar scowls at the lack of useful information but at least the she-gnolls weren’t so foolish as to waste their lives trying to stop him.
”I think I’ll do just that”, the Unfailing Pillar growls. ”And maybe when I’m done I’ll come back here and join you”, he adds with a rough laugh and a wink.
The gnolls snarl at you in distaste as you pass by but make no move to stop you. In the next room, you find a large assortment of weapons, including a chipped iron greataxe, a blood-red leather whip, bladed leather gauntlets, and multiple battleaxes and throwing cleavers. Along the north wall, huge semi-circular columns, twenty feet across, intrude into the room, creating wide alcoves, while in the middle of the room rests a pile of mildewed bearskins.
While looking around, Skaar touches the new wand they'd procured in town to the nasty scratch given to him by the giant gnolls earlier.
"This must've been their armory... or maybe an arena. Grab any of the weapons if they're in decent shape."
Almost all of the weapons are either of common make or so chipped and battered that they're almost unusable. The sole exception is the leather whip, which is of unusually-fine quality. It's clearly old and well-used but shows no signs of the ravages of time.
Interested enough to study it more later, Skaar wraps up the whip and packs it away.
The door to the east leads to an immense chamber. Dominating the area is a gargantuan but shallow pit filled with broken and rotting corpses crawling with larvae and maggots. The bodies in the pit are mostly the remains of goats, cattle, and other animals and turn the pit into a roughly bowl-shaped depression, ten feet deep in the middle and nearly even with the floor along the edge. A twenty-foot-wide gap in the pit wall to the east opens into a carcass-lined tunnel.
To the south, the ledge widens into a balcony overlooking the pit, while to the north the room curves inward around a concave ledge that supports a gigantic framework of bone and sinew in the shape of a nine-legged spider with a gaping maw. Much of its surface is stretched with the dried skins of dozens of different creatures. Extending from the spider's maw is a stone walkway that connects to the top of a twenty-foot-wide pillar rising from the center of the pit. Atop this pillar sits a tremendous and gory throne made of shattered bodies, stitched together with rope and lengths of bent metal to form a throne of bones and maggot-writhing carrion.
Lounging atop the throne is the largest Gnoll you've ever seen - bigger even than the bodyguards you defeated earlier. He's holding an immense axe but appears utterly unconcerned with your presence. As a half-dozen unaugmented gnolls approach from the south, he gives you a welcoming smile. "Greetings, intruders. I've been waiting your arrival. Now come. Divest yourselves of your armament and supplicate yourselves in the pit. Your offering will please the Rough Beast."
Skaar growls as he takes in the area. The whole scene reeked of madness and dark worship.
He pauses to consider the Carrion King himself. He was possibly the mightiest gnoll Skaar had ever met, and the source of his strength remained a mystery, but the Unfailing Pillar would worry about that later. First he had to put an end to the path the Carrion King had put his people on. It was the only way the gnolls and their neighbors could ever hope to truly grow strong.
"Carrion King we're not here to be serve you or be sacrified. We're here to keep you from makin' a terrible mistake. All this bloodshed and sacrifice and the war that you've been wagin' against the trogs - it was servin' someone else's plans. They wanted you isolated from your old allies because it made your exposed and weak. They're leadin' you and your people into Rovagug's grasp and to ruin."
The Carrion King laughs at your words. "Foolish mortal, this war only strengthens the Rough Beast. Deaths here give him strength, and he repays this sacrifice with great boons. The lizards do not truly worship him - otherwise they would welcome all that has been done. Now, prostate yourselves in the carrion pit. If you survive, you may join me, as your strength will be a great asset during what must come next." His smile fades, and his teeth bare as he rises from the throne. "Refuse me, and I will tear out your heart and eat it while you watch."
Skaar growls in frustration as the Carrion King proves to be stubborn... or mad.
"I don't know if you're in too deep now or you're just a fool but this has got to stop. I was hopin' it wouldn't come to this but your people deserve a chance to be more than the monsters you're makin' 'em in to. Just like my people, you could be so much more. I'm gunna put an end to all of this even if that means I've gotta kick your sorry ass to do it."
The big orc nods to his companion and whispers. "This one's mine. Just make sure his cronies don't try to stab me in the back."
"I'm not scared of you or your f~%@in' god, Carrion King. I challenge you before your subjects for leadership of the tribe. Will you accept or are you worried your 'great boons' aren't enough?"
The Carrion King gives you a feral grin as he crosses the carrion pit in a mighty leap. "I accept your challenge."
As he paces toward you, you notice two things: he's slightly faster than the other gnolls you've encountered thus far, and his axe is starting to glow with an unholy light.
The Unfailing Pillar channels his divinity granting supernatural agility to his brawny limbs and then surges forward. As the big orc lumbers forward, a shadowy image trails after him.
You barely complete your spell as the Carrion King charges you, eyes blazing in rage and axe raised. He brings it down at you in a powerful swing.
How swing is so powerful, in fact, that he completely overshoots his aim. The massive gnoll recovers quickly, though.
Skaar shifts his stance and his focus from the giant gnoll towering over him to the deadly axe in his hands. With a roar he lunges forward and smashes his fist into its haft.