The Gnolls quickly gain on you as Tariq is too slow for simply running away.
Tariq tries to run as fast as he can, but the pounds of metal covering his body, while useful a minute ago in the middle of the fray, are now a heavy impediment and detrimental to his companions as well.
"Run and leave me with those, they're only four! I can take them!"
Aithaloessa draws on all her officer training as she tries to keep a grip on the situation, which, first things first, seems to call for a certain amount of growled reassurances. Well, insofar as an elf can growl at all convincingly. “Steady on, soldier. No one’s leaving anyone to these scavengers.”
She takes her bow in hand again as the group hurries along as best they can without leaving Tariq behind, doing everything she can to prepare for the likelihood that the gnolls will get too close for comfort. She gauges their pace and their paths, trying to figure out how much time she has before she needs to choose between a spell or an arrow.
As the group of four gnolls come closer, Aithaloessa slows them down with a casting of burning sands. As they are coming at full speed it's too late for them to stop. They howl in pain and are immediately slowed down to almost an halt.
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Antarah tells Tariq "You're not staying behind by yourself, friend. But we shouldn't try to face the whole town at once."
Then Aithaloessa performs magic that slows down the gnolls. Antarah looks intrigued and says "Well, well, who's the magic expert now?" He sees the gnolls slowing down and suggests "What do we say we fire some arrows at them? If they come in small groups, we can wind down their numbers so that they are easy to deal with by myself and Tariq."
As the group of four gnolls come closer, Aithaloessa slows them down with a casting of burning sands. As they are coming at full speed it's too late for them to stop. They howl in pain and are immediately slowed down to almost an halt.
Burn 4d4
Aithaloessa shakes her head modestly, even as her magic spreads a layer of desert sand over the path of the nearest group of gnolls and sets it alight with a pale flame. “It won’t slow them down too long. We can probably get off a shot or two while we keep moving, but if we can't bring most of them down by then we should really run. I can either try the same trick once more or offer you or Tariq a bit of healing, but not both."
Yasmeena wheels and fires her shortbow at one of the slowed gnolls.
Tariq capitalises from the Gnolls having problems and tries to put as much distance as possible between them and him.
The gnolls pass the hot sand. They are really slow doing so, but they make it past it.
“Steeaady,” Aithaloessa coaxes, whipping off an arrow at the approaching gnolls before hurrying after Tariq as quickly as she can, turning to see if she can get off another shot soon to cover the wounded cleric’s retreat.
“Plenty of gnolls to go around, at least,” she says, trying to keep up a stiff upper lip.
Once he reaches Antarah, Tariq stands by his side, forming a barrier to disallow the Gnolls to get to the archers, who should be doing whatever archers do.
Aithaloessa shoots the foremost gnoll.
Yasmeena fires again at an injured gnoll and then moves to keep up with the group.
Yasmeena takes down the first gnoll. The others charge, but can't reach the group yet. In the distance you see the next group coming into view.
Aithaloessa aims at the next nearest gnoll as Yasmeena drops one. She knows every second and every pace counts, and that gives her an idea.
As soon as she gets her (wobbly) arrow off, she steps up to Tariq and offers him her dagger to throw. “Here! You can help us bring them down before they're all over us!”
Tariq follows Antarah and dislocated his actions, trying to offer a united front.
Yasmeena fires again, nimbly keeping pace with the group as she dances.
Aithaloessa misses with her shot, but Yasmeena hits another gnoll. But the shot is not lethal. The gnolls charge the group, the first one running into the waiting Antarah who cuts the gnoll down.
As the gnolls rush Antarah, Aithaloessa draws her sword and circles around to get them off-balance, knowing that they’ll have to be wary of the enlarged magus’ reach.
She gets a lot of momentum behind her swing, but the path she takes to avoid a counterattack as she closes makes the blow too obvious, and easy to parry.
Antarah quickly dispatches the remaining gnolls.
As Antarah looks out for the next gnolls to slaughter, the patrol loses interest in pursuing. They stop and look around if there is someone somewhere to support them. They are like 100 feet away.
While the party discusses their options, Yasmeena fires at the more distant gnolls.
All the action happens too fast for Tariq to react. In a fraction of a second, all the gnolls are dead. He sees some more gnolls in the distance, and some of his comrades fire projectiles at them, but then the beasts disist, and Tariq thinks it's time for a wise retreat. They have achieved much today, and tomorrow promises more to come.
Aithaloessa nods, but she still takes a pot shot as she falls in with the others, just in case the other patrol needs more encouragement not to pursue.
“Right, let’s go. With a bit of luck, they might start thinking twice before poking their heads out of the market centre,” she says as she starts retreating again, optimistically considering whether Gary might serve as another object lesson like the giant boar from the first expedition.
Garavel is eager to hear of this days progress. At least one could conclude that, as he comes out of his quarters when he hears of the groups arrival. "Welcome back. You seem to be in a good mood."
"That sounds promising. So we'll be ready by the end of the week to take the Battle Market?"
"That's hard to say, since we don't know how much of them are nesting there." Tariq wishes he could be more optimistic about it, but he doesn't want to grip to false hopes - much less give them away. "Assuming there's a pair of dozens of them, and no more than one or two 'special guests', yeah, we might thin the ranks enough so that a final assault would have a good chance of being successful" he explains, "though don't take that for granted."
"Garavel pats Tariq on his shoulder. No false humility - you'll manage that!" Garavel tells and then retreats to the chamber he and the princess reside in.
The life is going on in the monastery. The goats are aeting the bushes outside, while they are put into the barren garden of the cloister at night. Hadrah and Hadrod are busy keeping all fed.
The mercenaries are guarding the outside, while the guards of Princess Almah guard the entrance to the Princess' chamber.
Father Zastoran makes use of the laboratory and creates potions. the gnoll expert Dashki still busies himself with scraping off the gold filigree of the wooden plates in the shrine to Vardishal.
"We are fairly certain there is a harpy living in the city as well," Yasmeena adds to their report. "Has the man we rescued had any insights or memories that could help us since yesterday?"
She shrugs to Antarah. "That plan seems to be our best bet."
Aithaloessa speaks up from where she’s settled in the back of the group, already giving her pistol the once-over to figure out how she’ll need to adjust the mechanism before she gets around to actually cleaning it properly.
“Oxvard? With the numbers he gave us, after today there should be just a bit closer to a dozen gnolls left, rather than two,” she muses, trying to remember if she and the others have actually brought down any gnolls before today. With the adrenaline high worn off and a day of to-ing and fro-ing to Kelmarane, the past few days are beginning to blur into a single mass of fur and teeth, sometimes bipedal, sometimes not. “And some dogs and gladiators, who we can hope aren’t so desperate for coin as to take us on to win the favour of the mangy varmints, bird-y, dog-gy or goat-y or whatever.”
Her Smokeside upbringing comes out most of all in how she can use a word like varmint without wrinkling her nose or blushing. In the underjerkin of her armour, and with the strange growth that covers her arm whenever she takes her recovered pistol in hand, Aithaloessa looks rather unkempt herself, but despite her audible, visible weariness, she maintains her usual rigid posture.
“We might just want to go building to building tomorrow, make sure the gnolls don’t have any other accidentally helpful neighbours,” she says, unfolding herself stiffly. “I’ll have to think about the most useful spells I can think of. Which reminds me.”
Before turning to see to her overnight preparations, Aithaloessa uses her last spell for the day to offer Antarah a bit of healing.
As Oxvard hears mentioning of him he comes out of the mess hall. "I'm sorry I couldn't provide more information. I've seen some of the city and if you have questions I might remember something you deem useful. But right now to me its just stonehouses and gnolls from all sides."
"I also try to make myself useful here, but without my holy symbol there is not much I can do."
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Antarah opens his eyes wide at Oxvard. He says "You're a holy man? What god do you follow?", he asks warily.
The large man also thinks for a while before asking "We've encountered a large boar-like creature in one of the houses. Have you heard or seen anything that might indicate there are more large creatures there? Beasts tend to make noise, especially when they're hungry."
"I follow the Master of the first Vault." Oxvard replies.
"The guards talked about having to feed the Peryton again. Whatever that is. But it got a goat every day if I understood them right."
Tariq also offers his spell for healing whoever is in need.
Then he mostly retires, apart from having dinner and the like, and goodies to bed soon. His near-death experience is probably enough thrill for today.
“Thank you, Oxvard,” Aithaloessa acknowledges, before adding determinedly, “I’ll open every door in Kelmarane if I have to. If I’ve learned anything from the dwarves of the Hold, it’s that an infestation can creep in without warning if one doesn’t watch out.”
She’s mainly thinking of oozes and molds and the like, rather than gnolls and – metaphorically – criminality, and there were those nasty things in the monastery’s lab, so better to be on the safe side while clearing Kelmarane out. For now, though, she retires to tinker with her pistol, consider her spells for the following day and a few odds and ends she’s working on, and, eventually retire for the night.
Aithaloessa rises early as usual, the unforgiving hour somewhat lightened by the grim satisfaction that the goat-demon will no longer vex further expeditions to Kelmarane. Having cleaned and reloaded the strange magical pistol she’s slowly getting more used to before retiring the night before, the guardswoman spends most of her time until everyone’s ready sketching plans and trying to decide which side of the river is likely to offer the best approach this time. Personally, she’s leaning to the southwest, in the hopes that with a bit of luck she and the others will be able to sort out a bit more of the old trading post than in the past couple of days.