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AC = 25
HP = 84/84
Weapon Equipped = +2 Dwarven Greataxe
Condition(s) = Prayer
Kikinnin checks his footing on the sand, before he brings his blade around to meet the gnoll. The sand continues to vex the black beard's back leg...
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Juraan shots once more unerringly and the gnoll barks back in pain!
Grabbing the bow, JJ moves forward to the fight, leaving the first gnoll to escape.
Ryan starts trying to address the gnolls, but it is difficult to make them listen while everyone is fighting.
His force weapon is unable to find the gnoll among the dense vegetation.
Marigold casts a spell creating a whip of force that lashes at the gnoll but just finds some vegetation. Thanks to her training she is able to slash a second time less precisely, but this time finds the gnoll opening a wound.
Maxim's gun shots a blast of magic that unerringly finds the blue gnoll bursting its chest with force.
Kikinnin performs a demonstration of why dwarves prefer to fight over solid rock and for two times slides in the sand almost cutting in half his own leg.
The northern gnolls shot at Kikinnin but the multiple arrows bounce at the dwarf's full plate.
The axe gnoll attacks bravely and despite his slide on the sand, Kikinnin stops the axe with his shield opening the gnoll's defenses for his own counter-attack.
Finally the gnoll in the web breaks some strands and tries to move behind the statue, but becomes grappled again by the sticky webs in her advance through the dense vegetation.
Juraan stays where he is casts a spell on the same Gnoll (Dark Green):
« מאַגיש מיסאַל » . .
... and then backs up 5 feet
As the northernmost gnolls keep peppering Kikinnin, Maxim grimaces;
"One o' them thar mangy curs'll get lucky... Best give 'em somethin' else to consider I reckon..."
The gun-mage loads the second barrel of his magic pistol then draws upon his arcane repertoire once again;
"Vliegen!"
As the magic takes hold, the dwur feels his feet lift a little off the ground, and he hovers scant inches from the sandy beach that stymied his steps...
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AC = 25
HP = 84/84
Weapon Equipped = +2 Dwarven Greataxe
Condition(s) = Prayer
Kikinnin rolls his head along his neck, as he feels the light breeze of an arrow whiz by. He's slow to appreciate the number of arrows that have kindly declined to dent him. His attention continues to focus on Purple.
"Alright, your bow against my Axe. We'll trade blow for blow, and find out who's made of sturdier stones."
Moving forward around the edges of the webbing, Ryan takes a swing at the dark green gnoll.
Dark Green Gnoll
While Marigold's conjured whip continues to harry the gnoll in front of it...
...the halfling herself moves a little further into the open and draws out her crossbow, amazingly not rusted over from disuse!
________
Juraan's magic missiles bursts the gnoll within the heavy underbrush.
With a word and some gestures Maxim starts to float over the sand. Sure, air must be better than fake rock.
Kikinnin lands a couple of solid swings on the gnolls main arm, convincing him of the good suggestion to run as his tribal mate.
Ryan moves over the sand with astonishing ease, making apart the underbrush to strike the gnoll firmly. Despite the damage it seems the humanoid is gonna hold stand, but a last wave of divine energy thanks to the prayer deepens the bone crackling landing the unconscious gnoll into the webs.
Meanwhile, the cleric's force weapon strikes twice the just adjacent gnoll.
Marigold's whip once again slashes at the right leg of the northernmost gnoll who roars in rage.
JJ moves out of the underbrush and moves as fast as he can through the sand.
Again a barrage of arrows come in the direction of Kikinnin, and this time two arrows land true, stabbing at his neck and opening a gash at his front.
The axe gnoll seems to doubt for a second, looking back, but finally swings, although once more Kikinnin blocks the axe with his shield.
The gnoll in the webs almost breaks through, but the prayer once more takes effect, the divine intervention leaving the gnoll stuck in place.
Juraan moves up behind JJ and then casts a spell on the surviving gnoll in the web (light green):
« მჟავა სფერო » . .
AC = 25
HP = 73/84
Weapon Equipped = +2 Dwarven Greataxe
Condition(s) = Prayer
Kikinnin watches the bush gnoll duck and weave, and heartens when he connects twice, despite the branches of the jungle interfering.
If Purple falls by the first blow, Kikinnin moves into the brush, too, beginning to inch his way north to the next gnoll.
As he ran, JJ had tossed the gnolls bow onto the beach and drawn his own second sword. With the second gnoll so closeby, he effortlessly slipped through the webs, unloading his pain and anger on the creature.
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As he'd given them a chance to surrender and the gnolls had continued to fight Ryan felt little sympathy as he steps forwards towards the webs as the gnoll in front of him fell and appeared before the gnoll with the blue face paint, spectral hammer following to join him.
Dimensional Hop 12/16 - 4 left today
Despite being stuck in the web, the gnoll is able to avoid Juraan's sphere of acid.
Kikinnin's first swing cuts at the height of the gnoll's neck, the dog-like humanoid faints due to the lost blood and falls unconscious among the jungle vegetation. The dwarf wades through the sand as good as he can afterwards.
JJ moves through the sand drawing his other sword and stabbing the first on the grappled gnoll, opening a deep wound in her right leg.
Ryan disappears from his position and suddenly appears in front of Kikinnin, he swings his mace but just hits one palm tree! His spiritual weapon as well swings in the air without effect.
The gnoll with Ryan and Kikinnin starts to bark alarmed "እነሱ ይሄን አደገኛ ሁኔታ ያጋጥማቸዋል, መልሰን እንገምታለን, እነሱ ከሄዱ በኋላ አገራችን እንደገና እንመለሳለን! ተመለሰ!" he then retreats, although not very fast, through the undergrowth. His companion follows up after him, leaving Marigold's whip back.
"They are dangerous this ones! We have to retreat! We will retake our territory after they have left! Retreat! Retreat!"
Finally the gnoll in the web breaks some strands and successfully moves through the webs, almost leaving them back.
JJ hurries after the green one.
"If you want to run away, best throw down your weapons first." he repeats his offer of before, while punctuating its power with a quick thrust from his sword.
Juraan moves his acidic flaming sphere on the gnoll escaping the web (light green):
And then moves a little further into the Jungle, avoiding the web area.
Marigold loads her crossbow and takes aim at Orange Gnoll, firing a shot...
...as her whip continues to menace it as well.
But when the remaining gnolls then turn to flee, Marigold reloads her crossbow and takes one last shot at her target, her whip following suit.
Ryan doesn't bother to chase the fleeing gnoll however the spiritual mace does taking a final swing for good measure.
While Ryan gathers the companions up to dispense some healing. "Come on everyone, gather up."
As the gnolls flee, Maxim lets them go, bellowing a parting shot;
"That's right! Run ye mangy varmints!"
then flies over to where Ryan stands taking the healing offered with thanks;
"Much ablidged Taskerhill. Them flea-bitten scum sure peppered us good!"
JJ and Marigold ascertain to hit the gnolls. They are almost to faint, but they do manage to run away in fear leaving behind the menaces of the Watchers.
With the combat finished, Ryan raises his symbols and heals most of the group's wounds.
Examining the surroundings you notice the area has seen a battle between different gnoll tribes in the last days. Some corpses of gnolls with other marks than the ones that ran away are found in the environments.
JJ collects up any disarded weapons.
"$#! Dogs. That hurt!" he sighs as he meets up with the others near the statue.
"It's a Glabrezu!" he says in astonishment. "Not nice at all. Why would anyone make a statue of one?"
His eyes cover the ground on the beach, and seek out a discarded and rotting corpse.
"Gnolls fighting gnolls. Interesting. I wonder if it was just territory...or something else. Recent too."
"Well, Gnolls are inherently nasty, JJ.
"So, it's not surprising some gnolls would admire demons like that.
"Gnolls fighting gnolls means they won't all be fighting us."
Juraan will search the dead gnolls for any gear, magic or otherwise
« דיטעקט מאַגיש » . .
With a bit of time, the group recovers the bows and armors of the fallen gnolls. Not surprisingly they have no money.
4x masterwork composite longbows (Str +3)
3x masterwork studded leather armors
3x masterwork battleaxes
The Sun marks its zenith of the day while the group has a succinct lunch. There are two trails that depart into the jungle from this beach. One to the northeast and another to the northwest.
"Wh-whoever made it p-probably worshiped one," Marigold remarks, grimacing in disgust. "Isn't th-that usually how it g-goes?"
Then she looks around, still feeling rather nervous. "T-two paths...wh-which should we t-try?"
"Northwest.." says JJ. He looks around, trying to work out if the gnolls also headed this way or if there are recent gnoll tracks in the area. Perhaps more than anything else he is looking for is an armored footprint that might have belonged to Alek..
"Well, at least these gnolls had a some decent kit. Could come in handy."
Following the trail, the group gets into the jungle. The noise of baboons, birds and all kind of insects is vivid and fully surrounds you. As you get far from the river, the sense of hotness becomes strong, and most of you start sweating profusely.
Three hours later the trail passes by the large entrance to a cavern. There is no trace of the gnolls, and the trail continues to the northwest.
It's early evening.
JJ skips along quite happily in the heat, seemingly unconcerned with it.
After a while he realizes that his companions are perhaps not quite so well off in the jungle as he is. "I think I'm getting the hang of this. Tomorrow I might be able to extend my protections to one of you as well."
Juraan grumbles about the hot jungle weather.
But he's also thankful he's not wearing armour here.
:
:
:
In the growing heat, Maxim toils, despite the fine nature of his mithril chain.
By the time the group arrives at the cavern entrance, the gun-mage has cooled a little, but remains cantankerous as he looks at the inviting shade of the cave's maw;
"Hell's Teeth... this godforsaken place's hotter than a Malachite furnace! This holy-warrior best be worth the darned effort!"
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Kikinnin looks down on the fallen gnoll, wondering whether or not to save one of them for further questioning. When it appears the group will move on and into the jungle, he shakes his head, and drops his axe to speed the gnoll's death, and the death of any others remaining on the ground, unconscious.
With the longbows procured, the black beard takes a look at the weapons, and decides to take one of them, given the frustration at the beach. "With Zenith's Gloves, I'm able enough to pull on these, I think."
Kikinnin looks over the quality of the gnolls' items, overall. "They've got decent items, eh, Juraan? Jungle creatures like these, how easy would these be to come by? They must do trade somewhere along the river..."
The jungle tries to take its toll in heating his armor, and cooking the dwarf contained therein.
Wiping his brow, he presses on, encouraged by the coming night for the decrease in heat that's sure to come. "Give it time, Bror. The sweat you're generating will help grease your nethers, and avoid your saddle rash."
"Let's check this cave out. At the very least, it may be a good place to spend the night. I don't fancy facing a hoard of baboons."
Memories of them descending on the escaped assassin still haunt the young mans dreams from time to time.
He peers into the darkness of the cave, looking around for signs of occupation.
Though Marigold initially falters in the heat she manages to rally and for most of the day's march along the trail she doesn't suffer too terribly. But all the same, she's a bit relieved to see both the cavern and the sun beginning to set over the treetops.
"S-seems like a st-stop worth looking at," she remarks. "M-maybe for a sh-shelter if nothing else?"
Going into the cave the group finds it cool, a good change with respect the outside temperature. The place is comfortable enough, but it smells terribly bad, like if this had been the lair of a beast.
Ryan says a prayer of thanks before the group moves further into the jungle, working a slow waltz with the various vines and thorns that attempt to trip him or snag his arms as he moves.
Spotting the cave, he joins JJ in investigating the entrance for a place to hole up.
However outside of the additional light he made little headway in assisting the swordsman.
"Ew..." Marigold remarks as they begin to explore the cavern entrance a bit, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "I c-can tell by the s-smell alone this used to b-be an ogre cave!"
"How do you know what Ogre's smell like Marigold?" laughs JJ.
"I think this is the cave marked on that plate" he exclaims after a while.
The youth sniffs the air a bit. "It is rank. I remember Alek discussing Ogres, and this is kind of like what he said they smelt like. I think you may be on to something. I hope it is long gone! Must be if there are gnolls around."
He throws down his bag and unrolls a blanket. "Hey... a stick... no... not a stick. What do you make of this? It has the key of Abdar on it... could this have been Alek's?"
Kikinnin gives the cave a smell, and finds it less than hospitable. "I suggest we move on. Smells like beast, and we'll likely run into it if we linger."
"I agree with JJ; this looks like the cave marked on the map we found.
"It smells to shit in here, so this [u]must[/u] be an Ogre lair!
"Funny someone would hold on to a spent wand of Cure Light Wands.
"It might serve some other use with that golden key on the wand's butt.
"Does this golden key symbol mean anything to any of you?"
« דיטעקט מאַגיש » . .
Juraan scans the cave, and wand, for any signs of magic.
"The golden key is the symbol of Abdar. I'm guessing Uncle Alek was here. He must have been wounded. Pretty badly if he was resorting to using a wand. And he just left it behind after it was spent."
He searches the cave. "But no body... that is good."
"Well, d-do we just f-find a place out in the open to m-make camp then?" Marigold asks, genuinely curious rather than argumentative. "If that s-seems like it would b-be wiser then I'm okay with d-doing that..."
The cave is as large as Cauldron's City Hall Square.
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Maxim gruffly laughs at Kikinnin's response, then JJ's comments provide him with the perfect retort;
"Iffen we do come across baboons lad, just send my bror up first... They'll take his red face an' hairy countenance for the arse of a mighty alpha o' their kind and scamper back to the wilds!"
As they enter the cave, the gun-mage sniffs and scowls in equal measure;
:
"Ogre or not I couldn't say, but I'll defer to those more accustomed to the dirt and muck o' the wilds... Give me a log fire, strong rum an' fine cigar any day..."
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Marigold snort-laughs at Maxim's remark and then quickly turns away and attempts to busy herself with a slightly more in-depth look about the huge cavern they'd found.
"Th-this p-place is p-pretty big...but I guess it'd need to b-be for an ogre," she remarks. "If it j-just dead-ends and there's no other c-clues to be f-found then we could p-probably press on a little further b-before nightfall."
________
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"Well, if we need to cool down, and this place serves that purpose, I may have to eat my words, and just sit down and hope the beast doesn't return. If we can find coolness downtrail, where the likelihood of crossing paths with the beast is lessened significantly, then I'd rather do that."
Kikinnin ambles closer to Maxim.
"My face that red, is it? It's been a long day..."
The black beard will relent to those who understand the circumstance better than he. He watches JJ, and waits for some pronouncement.
"This cave is big enough for us to camp.
"Mind you, if we do camp here, we need to do something about this stench!
"I just want to check to see if there might be any hidden passages in here."
Juraan then searches the cave walls for things like hidden passages, cells, chambers, or hiding places:
"Well.. this cave was marked as "home" on the plate. And that was written in ...what.. giantish? This place is big enough for a whole tribe of giants. But luckily they must be gone if it were ogres who used it."
He looks around, trying to work out how recently there were ogres in here.
"If the back of the cave is secure then a guard against one front would make more sense than a camp in the midst of the jungle where any quarter could hold the next attack, not to mention the cave protects our fire from prying eyes in those directions." Ryan says reasonably as he point at the back and side walls.
JJ finds out the cave has not been inhabited for at least a couple of months. Meanwhile Juraan inspects the walls finding no secret entrance, nor any tunnel. The cave is basically a dead-end.
Setting strategical guard at the doors, the group plans for an early night rest, to profit the coolest early hours of the day to move through the jungle.
The Watchers gather up the food brought for the trip and start preparing to go sleep when you hear a sudden flutter of large wings, and the wildlife sounds coming from the entrance falls suddenly silent.
You all gather up your weapons and are getting ready for the fight, when a beautiful woman emerges from the cave entrance and stands at the edge of your encampment. She has perfectly white skin and stem, sparkling eyes of silver. A pair of feathered wings spread out behind the woman's back and she raises a flaming sword, which emits myriad flickering beams of light.
This angelic creature is the same one depicted in the frescoes of the Hall of Carvings. You feel she activates an aura and she then casts a spell and starts looking at you without saying a word. As she looks at you, you feel your very soul is being scrutinized.
She cast detect evil.
This is a movanic deva, a neutral good angel. Movanic devas serve as infantry in the celestial armies, though they spend most of their time patrolling the Positive, Negative, and Material Planes. On the Positive Plane, they watch over wandering good souls, which sometimes puts them into conflict with the jyoti. On the Negative Plane, they battle undead, the sceaduinar, and the other strange things that hunt in the hungry void. Their rare visits to the Material Plane are usually to help powerful mortals when a great menace threatens to plunge an entire realm into evil.
JJ stammers for a moment stunned by the woman.
"Ahhh... hello... are you.." he loses track of his thoughts for a moment.
Get with it JJ. I know you don't meet angels every day. Well, never really, but how about making a good impression?
"That is did you know my grandfather...Criton... ?"
Oh yes. Subtle, that will impress her
He fumbles about for the picture that Alex found in his tomb.
"I... umm, I'm JJ, and these are my friends. Please don't hurt us. We're looking for uncle Alek"
Figuring Celestial is probably the appropriate language, Juraan also addresses the newcomer
« ಹಲೋ! ನಾವು ಯಾವುದೇ ಹಾನಿ ಎಂದರ್ಥ. »
« ನಾಪತ್ತೆಯಾದ ನನ್ನ ಸ್ನೇಹಿತನ ಚಿಕ್ಕಪ್ಪ, ಅಲೆಕ್ನನ್ನು ನಾವು ಹುಡುಕುತ್ತಿದ್ದೇವೆ. »
« ನಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಯಾದ ಕೌಲ್ಡ್ರನ್ನಲ್ಲಿ ದುಷ್ಟ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞರ ವಿರುದ್ಧ ನಮಗೆ ಸಹಾಯ ಮಾಡಲು ಅಲೆಕ್ ಅಗತ್ಯವಿದೆ. »
"We are looking for my friend's uncle, Alek, who has gone missing."
"Alek is needed to help us against evil schemers in Cauldron, our home."