Taraks claw doesn't even manage to tear the armor and the gnoll is too distracted to even notice.
Seeing Haleen bleeding, Gnasher moves towards the combat line hoping to help end the battle. "Make way for Gnasher." Stepping through the shield wall, and tumbling past Haleen he stands over the fallen gnoll and snaps at the Gnoll nearest him, but bites the gnolls shield instead.
"Mom you don't need to keep fighting. Get to safety."
Lupe hammers the leader who smiles a big toothy grin .
Tarak is unable to latch on to the rageborn but is now in position to do some real damage.
Gnasher makes his way forward, but is stumbling over the people and bodies in the way and nearly takes a chunk out of the wall instead of the gnoll.
Haleen smiles sweetly at Lupe. "You always were such a protective boy. You make me proud, but I need to do this."
Ongoing effects: Bless
Bold may go.
Urah Pyr (-0 HP)
Casper (-0 HP)
Filliped (-0 HP, sonic scream 1 uses left)
Haleen (-6 HP)
Mercenaries ()
Guards (Katsumi dead, Guard 1 -16)
Gnolls (orange 7 -23, black 5,6 sleeping, leader -36)
Tarak the Lizard (-13 HP)
Gnasher (-25/51 HP)
Lupe (-0 HP, heeds crit damage)
Wolf
Urah creeps nearer.
"Who else is down? Let me get to them and see if we can't preserve their lives tonight."
Urahbot hangs back and fires off a ray of frost at the leader, but it is way to crowded for him to get a bead on him even with the bless and inpire helping out.
Filliped starts up again with putting down gnolls, disheartening the arrogant leader.
Haleen finishes her private battle with the rageborn gnoll, adding another small wound.
The gnolls continue their attacks, but this time looking for a way out they concentrate on the squishy looking Dino Tarak
In spite of the fact that Gnasher is practically dancing on top of the sleeping gnoll, it refuses to wake up. It would rather dream than face reality.
One of the rageborn lands a solid on Tarak and another on Haleen.
Ongoing effects: Bless, Inspre (until Lupe goes again), Satire
Bold may go.
Tarak the Lizard (-27 HP)
Gnasher (-25/51 HP)
Lupe (-0 HP)
Wolf (-0 HP)
Urah Pyr (-0 HP)
Filliped (-0 HP, sonic scream 1 uses left)
Haleen (-20 HP)
Mercenaries ()
Guards (Guard 1 -16)
Gnolls (orange 7 -33, black 5,6 sleeping, leader -36)
Stepping away from the sleeping gnoll, Gnasher moves behind the gnoll he just tried to bite. too close to his Bardiche, he holds the thing at the ready while snapping his jaws attempting to bite the gnoll again.
And another one bites the dust!
Urah slides in towards Haleen, a spell on his lips as he places his hand glowing with positive energy on her.
He nods in thanks at the guard making way for him.
Heavily wounded and overcoming his new shape’s bloodlust, Tarak retreats from danger.
"Urah thanks for helping mom."
Lupe and his new friend keep going after purple.
-----------------------------------------------------
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Gnasher KOs one of the rageborn while Urah makes his way over to the same part of the battlefield and heals Lupe's mom. How sweet! Lupe, engrossed in what is happening to his mom doesn't even come close when he takes a swing, but fortunately NewWolf makes up for it by ripping into their leader and dropping him. Tarak feels his mortality and beats it out of the comabat.
That leaves just one rageborn and the guards finally go offensive along with Haleen!
All three hit and the rageborn drops his weapon and flattens himself against the wall hwnds held high. He yells something in gnoll but none of you know the language (including your resident gnoll).
Combat over!
End of combat damage
Tarak the Lizard (-27 HP)
Gnasher (-25/51 HP)
Haleen (-20 HP)
Seeing the gnoll drop it's weapon and try to surrender, Gnasher lets out a low growl. Holding his baridiche at the ready, not wanting to seem a mad dog, he waits to see what the chief and the others do. "Gnoll say want to join tribe." In a very human-like geture, Gnasher spits and growls again.
"No. What if it changes its mind and wants to eat us?" Urah protests.
Though the gnoll does not understand the words Urah is saying, he understands the sentiment and growls at Urah.
Stupid gnoll, that was not the right responce.' Seeing and hearing the Gnoll growl at his tribe member, Gnasher answers: Bardiche in paw, he begins to rage growing to over ten feet tall, his paws grow into overly large claws, his eyes glow red, his fangs enlarge and he begins to froth at the mouth. As he steps back to make room for the weapon he chops at the growling gnoll.
The gnoll attempts to run and gets cut down ignominiously.
Alas, the gnoll was not as well integrated into polite civilization as Gnasher. What would have served as an attempt at establishing pecking order in a new tribe was just, well, not well received.
Now your biggest chore involves clean up and lots of water. You guys sure are ingratiating yourselves with the local predators and scavengers.
Bloody and shifted back to human form, Tarak stumbles back to the group as the final gnoll meets its fate.
”What about the sleeping ones? And where’s the priest?” he growls between deep breaths.
Lupe will group up the team and the live soldiers away from the enemies and channel to heal people.
"Hey where is my brother? I'm sure he fought off a hundred gnolls himself. Mom, you will see what a great warrior he is."
Neither the priest nor Casper are anywhere in sight, though the priest is a heavy sleeper and sleeps down in the labs by the catacombs. It is very likely he slept through the whole thing.
Haleen breaks the news to Lupe. "I'm afraid Katsumi died protecting the princess. A couple of lucky shots got through and he went down. Hard."
The guards and Garavel finally allow the door to the princess' chambers to be opened and the lovely, though disheveled and flustered lady Almah finally makes an appearance. A couple of times she looks tempted to bite the heads off the ones that kept her from the battle, but she chokes the sentiment back knowing that she could hardly expect anything else.
"Pile them up and burn them. I'm sure there are some coals left from our last pyre.
"And what exactly happened out here while I was... delayed?"
"I'll heal up whoever I can." Urah Offers.
"I'll also help with cleanup I guess." as he begins the clean up with conjured water....A strange ability for a pyromaniac.
Chopping the stupid gnoll down, Gnasher looks at the two still sleeping. Seeing Urah begin to create water to help clean up the mess, Gnasher sets his giant bardiche down. Watching it shrink back to normal size as he turns to the first sleeping gnoll ringing its neck. Then moving over to the second sleeping gnoll ringing it's neck as well. Realizing that the princess had emerged unharmed and she was directing them to take the bodies to the burn pile. Ganasher releases the rage, though fatigued he is still strong enough to be able to drag the two dead bodies out to the burn pile. Stripping them of anything of value before tossing them on the burning embers.
As he returns to the temple to drag out more bodes, he finds Lupe, telling the chief. "Gnasher put potion in chiefs brother but him dead already." Nodding to the chief, Gnasher continues hauling out the bodies. When he got to the battleground in the pillared entry, he found the three gnolls he killed and pulled their canines to add to the necklace he was making.
Once the tribe was done removing the corpses, while they were tossing the bodies onto the pyre, Gnasher found one wearing a nice chain shirt. Looking at his own still healing chest and his bloody kilt, As he pulls the chain shirt on over his head, explaining. "Gnasher keep light armor for sleeping." Collecting his Bardiche, he returns to his bedroll and goes back to sleep.
Having been healed up, and after thanking Lupe, Tarak assists Gnasher and the rest cleaning up the monestary, much like the large Bloodrager, he manages to find a nice, only a little beat up leather cuirass.
"Aye, my old armor was too heavy and I won't be fighting with no armor again. Should have known, just because I'm on dry land I have no business wearing armor I can't swim in, that's land lubber thinking." he gripes, largely to himself, as we swaps out his armor with a lighter leather option.
Once everything is in order and its his time to hit is bedroll, he falls asleep smiling, thinking of the power and grace he felt in that strange lizard clawed thing's form.
Glad I checked out that menagerie
Gnasher does find something odd. One of the dead gnolls has been stripped of his shoes. Nothing else has been taken though.
Gnasher does find something odd. One of the dead gnolls has been stripped of his shoes. Nothing else has been taken though.
As the gathered the bodies, Gnasher noticed one of the dead gnolls was missing it's shoes. Scratching his head in a very human like fashion he asks. "Why take shoes?"
As they piled the bodies Gnasher made sure to separate anything like weapons or armor that could be resold out from the burn pile, Smiling "Bahram be back buy weapons from princess."
After the work was done, Gnasher tried on a couple of the lesser damaged chain shirts. Finding one that fit, he looked at Urah, tapping the chain shirt. "Gnasher's new pajama's. Picking up one of he shields, he smiled, "And pillow." he then returned to his bedroll and went back to sleep.
Tarak and Gnasher, when you get back to your room you realize that the gold and gems you looted from the Battle Market have been looted by someone in a hurry. None of the gems are left and several pounds of gold are gone too. Scattered across the ground is hundreds of gold that were disturbed by the looter.
Realizing the gems and gold were gone, Gnasher runs out of the room int the main hallway. "We are robbed!" He looks around then growls. "Where is little killer?"
Everyone looks around but he is nowhere in sight.
Uncharacteristically enraged, Tarak growls and fumes, arcs of electricity flashing up and down his arms and out of his eyes, Gnasher notices his hair all stands on end if he gets too close to the Druid.
”No good, double crossing scallywag. I’ll have him hung from the yard arm and skinned, I’ll …” and lapses into an near incomprehensible litany of curses and blasphemy for a full minute.
Then, calling himself, he takes a deep breath and looks to the sky. ”Well, what’s done is done. Let’s get some rest and get to planning the assault on the church now that all these gnoll are out of the way.”
It has been a long night, hasn't it?
Lupe heads over to his brother and kneels over the body fighting back tears. "Hey voice, you kept me alive and brought me back to Mom, is this what I had to pay? Katsumi you had your beliefs about sacrificing yourself to protect your family. Is this what you would have wanted. I will be coming back for you."
"Gnasher, what's happening? Am I needed?"
Lupe mounts back up and comes rushing to Mom's side.
Urah sighs as they discover their losses but he was tired and he needed sleep...
Gnasher indicating his new armor didn't interest him since he didn't the feel of armor clashing against his skin nevertheless he gives their resident killer a nod of acknowledgement.
and thus Urah finds his cosy cot and in a blink of any eye falls asleep.
Tuning towards Lupe, Gnasher shakes his head. "No chief noot needed. Gnasher believe Casper has stolen gold and jewels. Gnoll shoes missing. Gnasher think little thief use them too hide his tracks." He lets out another growl and heads back to his bunk.
Nodding to Urah, Gnasher mumbles to himself as he lays down. "Gnasher hope little thief stumble into hungry gnolls."
Lupe's eyes fall further down and his face sours more knowing that he need that money to help Mom. "Ok thanks for the update Gnasher. I'm going to run a quick perimeter then empty a barrel of water and refill it to make sure it was not poisoned."
Lupe will also take 15min to fill his extra spell slots and cast gentle repose on his brother's body.
Tarak grumbles and curses. Lupe heads off and circles the monastery, finding lots of tracks heading out towards teh battle market and some animal tracks elsewhere. It takes a little time, but he also replaces the water with fresh water, knowing that Casper might want to live up to his nickname, Little Killer. Gnasher guesses and hopes and Urah slumbers. The rest of the night, though busy with cleanup, passes uneventfully, except for a rather irritated Lady Almah who soon finds out that Dashki was most likely behind the assault. Everyone knows why except her and nobody has the heart to try to explain the concept of stalker to her.
Rising early in the morning, Gnasher finds some of the boar meat remaining. Not too put off by the rotting meat he eats his fill and is ready to head to the temple. Scratching his head he ask Lupe, "Chief, how tribe open door this time"
In the morning Lady Almah calls you all to her 'office'.
"You have proved yourselves very capable. I believe you are ready to confront the malevolent being that is trapped in the church. Once you have completed this task, we can move into Kelmarane and the conquest will be complete. Take this key..."
she hands you the magical key
...and be careful. Remember that the thing messes with your head."
The next morning, Gnasher accepts the key and hands it to Lupe, as a sign of respect. "Chief should carry Key." Turning back to the Almah, Gnasher nods. "Clear Church, clear Kelmarne," He smiles a toothy smile. "Then hunt more gnoll's."
Once the tribe is ready to travel Gnasher leads the pack back to the temple, once inside and in front of the door, he looks at Lupe, "Chief do honor, or want Gnasher to unlock?"
"Just unlock it but let us know when you do so." Urah is quick to find a safe place just in case the door implodes or something.
Nodding Gnasher waits for everyone to get in position, either with him at the door or at the top of the stairs around the corner with Urah. Giving a nervuos laugh he puts the key in the lock and turns it.
Placing the interdict key on the metal plate, Gnasher matches the ridges of the interdict key with the glowing series of irregular etched lines on the plate. Slowly, the red glow fades to nothing and the key fuses to the plate, no longer able to be removed. Checking the door, it no longer appears to be sealed.
Opening the door, cold stale smelling air confronts Gnasher's senses as he steps through. In the dim light coming from behind him, you see another set to stairs heading further down. These stairs continue down into pitch blackness. The light coming through the doorway is not enough to see the bottom of the stairs.
Gnasher's eye's widen as the key ridges match the ridges in the peculiar lock. Seeing the red glow fade, he tries to remove the key but to no avail. So, their path decided Gnasher pushes the door open.
Smelling the stale air from the pit, he turns and looks at the others. "smells like tomb." Picking up his bardiche from where it was leaning against the threshold, he nods towards the stairs. "Gnasher go first, tribe follow." With the bardiche ready to strike, Gnasher begins to descend the stairs, keeping a keen eye out as he goes.
Who needs light and where do you get it from?