Duty Session 469: For Whom the Bell Gnolls

Ah the gnolls. It seems that no matter how often the adventurers bring them down, it causes nothing but problems, "Gnolls giving me a bad name." Kaydon mutters to himself. He's near the starting point for the patrol, pacing a little bit. There is a wrapped bag that he has lashed over his back, with his normal blade sheathed on his hip instead of his back. He sent out an invite to a select few in New World, and gave them these coordinates. They should know what the plan is from the starting location.

"All the more reason to make a better reputation for yourself," Shiruba replies without even looking up from her notes. She's made a simple camp near the gnoll infested forest so it makes a convenient staging point when others want to deal with the problem as well. "In the end though, the main point is that the problem is dealt with as a whole." The stack of parchments is stuffed back in her back, and she grabs her bow as she gets up. "I still need more observations..."

Erufu thinks for a moment "Gnolls tend to be demonic related beings in the relm I hail from." Elf's just never going to start maybe it's just her way of coping? At least she's consistant on things right? "We need to deal witih this one way or another, do we not?" She redies her bow and will fall in with the others. "... Shiruba after? You need to ear and clean up."

    Gnolls. Again. THough there's a reason Arashi's been hammering away at this particular dungeon and from the rumors, she doesn't exactly have a lot of time. As such, here she is once again, ready to deal with them violently. She's familiar with the peeps, the dungeon, and she's already prepared when she arrives. "Lets do this."

Kaydon grins at Shiruba and nods, "You're right. Though I'd rather just tear them apart to prove my point."

To the others, he grins and nods, "Right, lets go! Tracks lead this way!" And off he goes, leading the group on the start of the gnoll tracks. The problem is that the tracks lead into deeper and deeper woods, and soon enough the tracks start to get muddled, "Hold up." Kaydon holds up a single fist, and then takes a knee.

"Time to worry about that later Erufu." If there's anything that signals Shiruba is not in her usual mind it's the brushing off of anything food related until later. But we're going gnoll hunting so no time to worry about silly things like eating.

As luck would have it the tracks lead them to some kind of ritual site. "Oh, oh! Haven't come across something like this very often!" Tail wagging in excitement as Shiruba starts picking through the various odds and ends. "Looks like plunder from their 'hunts'. And.. huh..." She picks up a doll between her fingers. "Vudu?.." She inspects it closer, then tosses it away. "Nope, just rags." Huff. "Feels like there should be something elderich here but I can't make heads or tails of anything...."

    Marching up after the others, the site of the altar makes the warhorse give pause and take a long look around. After a few moments, and a shuffling of a few artifacts, Arashi stabs her weapon across a rune. "There, hopefully that'll help a bit. Don't mind the artifacts, the runes under them are more important."

Erufu press up for a moment as she looks at what's ahead she also keneel down trying to suss out where they can go with this. She looks to Shiruba, she said no to food? She brushed it off, yeah she's in a mood all right. She trries to suss out where the Gnolls are but she's still pretty new at this magic thing. So the elf turns up nada.

Kaydon does what he can to assist the group with locating the right answer through those runes, but none of them are really prepped for deciphering magic. Kaydon curses his lack of foresight, since they know the gnolls have been working with demons.

Never the less, while the group is unable to decipher the runes, they do manage to locate a fresh set of tracks and blood. This trail leads them even deeper into the woods, and then peters out again. The group can hear the gnolls nearby. Kaydon frowns a little bit as he looks to the group, "Did anyone hear where that howling came from?" He asks, trying to see if he can pick up the trail again.

Shiruba's wolven ears perk up almost immeadiately at the cackling howls, and the ramshackle remains around the alter are promptly forgotten. "Sure did." She turns her head, ears twitching. The echoing effect makes it more difficult to follow, but she's been through this forest enough times to learn what and where causes that effect. After a few minutes to focus and investigate she points with her bow in one hand. "That way." And takes off in said direction, fortunately even in her state of mind she's retained her usual caution when prowling. Helps that this is part of what she's been working on, learning the best tricks to track the gnolls specifically.

    One rune isn't enough, so the group trudges on. Thankfully the tracks are found, but when the group pauses, due to the familiar laugh of the yeen, Arashi is more interested in the hints left on the land, "It... looks like there's a trail over here.." Arashi glances at the others. "Confirm for me, someone?"

Erufu pauses for a moment her ears twitch a bit, she shifts slighy and nods.

"Aye it's this way."

She's pointing the same way at Shiruba is it seem they are on track at this point.

"We should make haste."

With that the elf is on the move.

Thankfully for Kaydon the group out here has his back, because he'd probably be wandering around the woods like a Butterbar if it wasn't for his friends. Shiruba and Erufu's hearing is spot on, leading them directly towards the trail that Arashi had located. Once they pick up the trail, he takes point again, leading them through until they hear a sound. It's a barking and howling, and it's coming from either side of the group.

Suddenly behind them a large gnoll with a huge bow steps out of the woods behind the group. He immediately directs the pack of hyenas to attack the group, and their barking and yipping turn to growls, as they move into position to strike at the group from both sides in a pincer maneuver.

    Ah, finally, the gnolls show themselves, and in an instant Arashi's sword is in hand and, well, between it and that Dire-Shire form of hers, she certainly is a formidable adversary to stare down. In fact, the first gnoll that charges her doesn't really get a good look until Starshadow is coming down on him. A YELP is heard, then some of the others have their eyes widen. Is it really worth it? Maybe not...

Turns out the laughing howls are both gnolls and hyena hunting dogs.

Turns out Shiruba was able to tell that by the different pitches in the calls, and she's ready for it. By the time the beast charge she's got a cluster of arrows ready in hand. All that training she did before with her archery skills? It shows, as she fires arrows off so fast it could be mistaking for some manner of auto-fire gimmick. And yet with such accuracy that by the time she finishes several of the hyenas are dead, and the huntmaster is reeling from getting one in the eye, blinding him to the advance of the two Were Fangs.

The hunt goes on and the elf is keeping pace with her frind she'll look at the beast ahead of them and she narrows he eyes and draws her bow. She'll just start firing. Move, fire, move fire is how Elf is going. It seems she has some issues at firing while on the move but well it could be a lot worse, right?

When a hunter is going to ambush some prey, it pays to not try to ambush a better hunter. As soon as the hyenas leap from the bush they are cut down in droves, Shiruba's arrows striking true and Arashi's blade carving through the one closest to her and Erufu's arrows strike through on the other side of the path. Before he knows it the huntmaster is undefended, and he catches an arrow in his eye as he's aiming his bow, his shot flying off harmlessly as he howls out. Kaydon crosses the distance between himself and the huntmaster, the gnoll were fang starting to hammer his fist into the huntmaster's face as he knocks him to the ground, hitting him over and over until he bursts into pixels.

The group is able to pick through and find some clues from the huntmaster's orders, which lead them towards a camp. Before the group however, the Death-pledged Gnoll General appears. It's not Haggar or his demon haunted counterpart, but it's still going to be a serious fight, as he starts throwing fireballs at the party. Better work quick before he burns the entire forest down around them.

    Right. Potions. Sure. You know what the problem with vials of stuff is? They are less effective when they are diluted! It's why Arash tears off, walking and sliding along manifested platforms of water, dotting them all across the field to lower the effectiveness of the Gnoll's attacks. Eventually, she makes a hard turn and surges toward the creature, sword low, to cut him down near his calves.

"Ooooh!" Shiruba practically squeals with delight. "I haven't seen this kind of gnoll very often! New datum for analysis."

The excitement doesn't keep her from firing her bow at the Deathpledged Gnoll. Though instead of an arrow her 'shot' unleashes a powerful burst of wind via the longbow's elemental enchantments, blasting some of the potions right back at the crazed gnoll throwing them around. "No. No burning down the woods. Bad gnoll!"

Well she'd never seen something like this before. She'll not play around as she draws back her bow, there's muttered chanting with it. The weapon has a pale purple glow about it and finally the black arrow is let fly.

The party smashes up the Death-pledged. His fireballs are dulled by Arashi's magical water walking, rendering his attacks weakened immediately and opening him up for attacks from her. Shiruba's shot immediately sends multiple bottles flying right back at the gnoll, smashing them open on top of him and affecting him with all of the debuffs he was trying to put on the group! Erufu's arrow strikes true, the black arrow sailing straight for the gnoll and striking him squarely in the throat. He falls over and lets out a gurgling howl as he dies.

The death of the gnoll general is enough to get the attention of Rroarn. The demonic gnoll roaring at the group and charging in with claws flashing and trying to strike them with attacks that can destroy armor. The party will need to strike fast and hard to put him down.

And at the end of the trek the group once again comes face to face with a demon posessed Gnoll. Shiruma scowls. "Every time there's been less and less of the non infernal Gnolls. Justs proves why the source of this problem needs to be found...." Electricity cracks in the air as she draws back on Thundersnow Howl's bowstring, charging one of her armor piercing arrows and firing it. The penetrating tip digs deep into his corrupted flesh. getting the lighting to discharge deep enough into his body that it helps bypass the resistance to magic.

    One dead potion maker later, Arashi marches forward, a little eager to see what the boss of the dungeon run is. Rroarn again? "Why don't you -STAY DEAD-?" she barks before just charging forward. The arrow from Shiruba gets the creature to lean down just enough for Arashi to be able to -SKULL STAB- it, hop over, YANK, and pull on the creature as she sort of lands against it's back. "GET IT!" Why does this seem familiar..?

Attacks pile in on the demonic gnoll. The group was very clearly prepared, judging by the way their strikes just keep dropping. Shiruba's arrow penetrates through the armor and sends a massive bolt of lightning arcing through the gnoll as he roars out in pain. This opens it up for Arashi to leap on top of Rroarn, and ram her blade into his skull, a huge chunk vanishing off of his health bar from that strike, her removing of the blade and jumping off opening him up for the blast from Erufu's Nightstalkers Bow.

Kaydon has been playing it kind of coy as the group deals damage, but he has finally removed the cloth covered item from his back. He opens it up and reaches inside, gripping something, and pulling it out. His stance shifts as he drops the weapon onto his right shoulder, the mechanical movements on the weapon letting out a loud KLUNK as they lock into place.

He launches forward as the gnoll moves back forward, throwing a slash in a downward angle, but the moment his blade makes contact with the gnoll, he pulls the trigger and the charged mana battery in the chamber fires, an explosion rocking the demonic gnoll backwards.

Kaydon follows up with an upward strike as he closes the gap made between himself and Rroarn, this second strike having another explosion that forces the charged fire magic into another explosion, blasting straight through the gnoll, who falls over and bursts into pixels.

Kaydon turns around to face the rest of the group, and drops the blade back onto his shoulder, "I'd say that's a successful field test. Sorry we couldn't find Haggar, Arashi."

    At least Arashi seems indifferent. "Well that's why I just murder the heck out of this one whenever he shows up. No big deal.."