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Khaiden, without speaking, immediately begins walking towards the fray, a little faster than usual. Tasan notices wisps of smoke trailing from the fingertips of his left hand as the half-elf walks away.

Khaiden's eyes completely glaze over, turning a cloudy whitish and silver hue, his left arm raising out in front of him, pointing at the stunned gnoll.

As he stops moving, the half-elf's brow furrows as he grits his teeth in a snarl, his focus entirely on his target. The next instant, a faint deep-pitched humming can be heard.

Within a second, the sound becomes so deep and resonant that the entire area seems to vibrate.

At the pinnacle of this sound, a gout of fire shoots forth from Khaiden's fingertip, streaking toward the stunned gnoll.

Ranged BAB attack, Energy Ray (Fire) (1d20+3=14, 1d6+1=6)

Tasan watches the antics of his cohorts, slowly following the half-elf without much haste or care. After the mage has finished his manipulations, Tasan carefully taps the mage on the shoulder and when he finally gets the bemused comrade's attention, he makes the well-known sign for "pay up".

Khaiden's ray of fire catches the stunned gnoll square in the face. The smell is awful as the hapless gnoll's unwashed flesh burns, and it drops with a thud to lie face down in the grass not far from where its axe fell. Smoke rises from its head.

The remaining gnoll, now heavily outnumbered, begins to look worried.

OOC: Initiatives - Thalidyrr, gnolls, Birile, Khaiden, Tasan.

Thalidyrr grunts after the axe makes contact, and blinks quickly to regain vision after the gnoll he stunned erupts in flames, and falls over dead. Seeing the other unsure, he attempts to take advantage of the situation and launches into another series of attacks towards the gnoll.

Hit Roll1d20+3=22

Damage Roll (1d6+3=9)

Thalidyrr plants his foot in the second gnoll's nose with a crunch of cartilage and a spray of blood.

Staggering backward, the second gnoll begins to flee the field, attempting to interpose his shield between his body and this surprisingly lethal elf.

OOC: Gnoll withdraws, 60' back. Has taken 9 damage.

Birile takes aim at the retreating gnoll and fires another arrow.

OOC
Attack (1d20+5=6)
Damage (1d4+1=4)

((I'm rockin' the natural 1's, baby!))

In his eagerness to fire upon the retreating gnoll, the halfling fumbles his arrow, dropping it.

OOC: A natural 1 is often played as a fumble of some sort. Per the rules, it automatically misses.

Tasan can hardly hold back the tears as he laughs at the futile, fumbling halfling.

"Oh that was priceless. Khaiden, where's my gold!?"

Khaiden quickly strides forward, ignoring the first gnoll as it falls dead.

His hands continue to smolder and his eyes focus on his next target.

Ignoring the barbarian's laughter for the time being, Khaiden catches up to the gnoll, focusing his mind energy on it as he unleashes yet another fiery blast.

Ranged BAB Attack, Energy Ray (fire) 1d20+3=12, 1d6+1=4

A strangled cry erupts from this gnoll as it is engulfed in flames. Its husk falls to the ground, smoldering.

Seemingly almost in answer, a high-pitched squeal comes from within the vegetation from which the gnolls came.

OOC: Two gnolls defeated; 150 XP for each of you. Yes, I'm counting Tasan. You didn't ungroup him :P

Assuming someone will loot the corpses, the gnolls had masterwork axes, leather armor, and heavy steel shields.

As the gnoll falls dead, Khaiden's eyes slowly return to their normal emerald color. In a single action, he collapses to his knees, arching over with his fists to his sides as if in agony, breathing heavily, but slowly.

The smoldering in his hands seems to have stopped.

"Khaiden!" Birile exclaims, trotting over to the mage. "Are you okay?"

A thought crosses the bard's mind and his face pales slightly. He turns to find Thalidyrr and yells, "Thalidyrr! The crystal ball! Where is it??"

Tasan dives his arms beneath the mage's armpits and hoists him quickly to his feet. He looks towards the halfling and quips, "I'll give you two guesses, but you're only gonna need one."

Satisfied that the mage can indeed stand on his own, Tasan frees the mage and wanders off to search the 2nd corpse.

OOC: taking 10 btw.

Khaiden's face is drenched in a cold sweat, as he tries to remain standing.

He opts for bending over, placing his hands on his thighs as if to catch his breath, even though his breathing appears to be normal.

"Wow," he finally mutters after a few seconds.

The half-elf stands back up straight, putting his hands on his lower back and leans back on them, popping his spine.

"He said I had the potential to do that...but I never believed him until now," Khaiden softly says, the color to his face having returned.

"The crystal ball is merely a focus for channeling psionic energy. I suspected as much yesterday, but I wanted to see if it would really work."

He turns and looks around the area and then at the two corpses.

"Unfortunately for them, it did."

Thalidyrr rejoins the group and eye's the mage "Hmm. I would have had the crystal, if someone had given it back in the village." He shrugs. "We should be on our way, and search the corpses." He motions toward his arm, "This will not take care of itself, sadly."

After a minute, another faint, muffled sound comes from behind the vegetation. It does not sound like the earlier voices.

Thalidyrr helps the mage up, and on hearing the noise, tilts his head and listens for something as he walks over to the general area moving behind the bush to see what is there.

Khaiden warily watches the area as the monk approaches, making sure it is not another ambush...

After finishing looting what little coin was on the husk of gnoll leftovers, Tasan moves back towards the group with a rather cock-eyed smirk on his face.

"We can finally retire from this life of slavery! I found a fortune on that husk over there!"

The muffled noises continue, guiding the monk to a crudely-made camp. A small halfling, tied and gagged, struggles against his bindings. His clothes have been torn, and he does not look to be in the best of health. Near his feet a crude stone dagger has been discarded, and his eyes remain fixed on it as he struggles in vain to move closer to it.

Thalidyrr glances around the site, making sure it appears empty which it does and walks up to the bound halfling, taking the knife and saws through the ropes binding him, untying what he can. "What do we have here?" eyeing the halfling, he yells for the remaining group.

Tasan pokes his head through the brush and takes in the view beyond. His eyes light up and a wide grin passes over his face as he exclaims, "Hey that one looks like ours. That means more meat for us since I doubt he'll stoop to cannibalism."

Rubbing his hands together he stalks closer to the bound halfling and licks his chops.

Noting the poor state of a fellow Halfling--and the greedy look in the eyes of Tasan--Birile hurries over to the Halfling and says, "Oh no you don't, ya big brute. I'll have none of that here!"

Turning to the now unbound Halfling, Birile offers a hand and says, "Well, hello there! My name's Birile Mightymouth. What poor set of circumstances brings you to such a poor fate as this?"

Khaiden wanders over, seeing that there is no imminent danger except to their food supply.

"We traded a dwarf for a furfoot, great," Khaiden says jokingly.

Tasan rolls his eyes and shakes his head while commenting to Khaiden, "Leave it to the Halfling to spoil a good joke. I think the other one nearly shat himself when he saw the look in my eye."

Looking around, the halfling brushes himself off once his bonds are removed. He quickly takes in your weapons and numbers, careful not to make any sudden movements.

"I thank you for your assistance, kind sirs." He makes a slight bow, swaying a bit as he does so. "I am Salil Smoothpebble, at your service. These gnolls ambushed the caravan I was traveling with and made off with one of the women. I followed them hoping to rescue her, but in the end, it looks like I needed rescuing myself."

He looks about the gnoll camp warily. "There will be more of them. We sent a runner to seek the aid of a kindly hermit that lives in the area, thinking he could rescue her with his arts. But he must be far off still, and I see you are well-trained and well-armed. Please, sirs, if it's money you want, we of the caravan can come up with some."

Tasan's face melts into one of skepticism and doubt. He moves forward and stands aggressively in front of the newcomer.

"So! You think us brigands who would cut you to pieces and sell off your meat for whatever scraps it could possibly be worth? We are to be bought because you know of no other means in which to pay your respects? I may be an uncouth son of an unwed whore..."

Tasan pauses to think about this last comment for a moment before continuing, "...but I am not a thief or a slave. I should disembowel you right here for making such assumptions, however, I will leave the heavy thinking to the lunatic that can make fire with his brain." With this last comment he turns to stare at Khaiden a bit before chuckling to himself and moving off draw figures in the dirt with the tip of his bastardsword.

Salil turns pale at Tasan's tirade.

"F-forgive me!" he stammers. "Of course, you would be heroes as well. I merely - that is - I wanted you to see how important this was!"

As Tasan strolls off, the halfling turns to Khaiden, pleading.

Khaiden looks at the halfling, taking in his words.

"Excuse him. His dragon mouth often overloads his seelie ass quite often. He's a great fighter though," motioning to Tasan with a sly grin on his face.

"Tell me this, Salil. How many more gnolls would we be expecting? As you can see, we're without any means of a healer, and potions are limited."

Khaiden gestures around at the other three.

"We had a dwarf....two actually, one an adept healer. But they wandered off in some sort of inebriated haze and we haven't seen them since. Good riddance I suppose."

The half-elf places a finger on his chin, pondering.

"We can assist you, but we must find this hermit first if possible. You see, we too were on our way to meet this Esroh fellow when we happened upon these filth. Is this woman in the same direction as the hermit, or would we be making backward progress in your quest if we made haste to him?"

Khaiden places his hand in his chin, trying to come up with a plan while awaiting Salil's response.

Salil brightens as he hears the half-elf mention Esroh. "Then you can meet him at our camp, or at the gnolls! I am sure he will come! He was a great friend of my father's back in his youth. As for the gnolls, there were perhaps twenty. There are fewer now." He glances at the corpses. "I don't know why they broke off, but the main body shouldn't be hard to track. It's too much to fight, but if we catch them unawares we might be able to make off with the woman before most of them realize it."

Khaiden grins as the mental math does its work.

"Sounds like a challenge to me. What say the rest of you? We need to meet with Esroh, and we might as well slay the rest of the filth that stands in our way of getting to him."

Without hesitation, Birile says, "Of course I'll assist a brother Halfling in any way I can! Can you lead us to where you believe the gnolls made off with the female, Salil?"

"Oh sirs, I can't thank you enough!" The relief on Salil's face is clear. "I should be able to take you to them. Er . . . do you mean to actually fight them?"

The elf frowns, "Personally I would enjoy finding someone who could tend to this wound."

An uncomfortable silence stretches out following this last statement.

Birile rummages through his backpack and pulls out one of the potions he had taken from the first encounter of the day. Stretching out his hand, he offers the potion to the monk.

"Here, try this. It's some sort of weak conjuration magic, hopefully some sort of small curing formula, but nothing harmful, I'm rather certain."

Birile turns to Salil and asks, "You don't happen to know of any healers or clerics that could help our wounded friend, do you? Our healer was a dorf who decided to run off in search of who knows what--drink, most likely--and we're rather sore off for healing."

Salil vacillates. "Yes," he says slowly. "There is normally a priest of the Black Hound with us. However, he received a calling two weeks past and left to answer it. We have others able to bind your wounds, but if you are looking for magic, your best bet may lie with the hermit himself."

Birile blinks.

"A priest of Urogalan?! I'm sure he's a pleasant fellow, indeed... perhaps you could tell me more about this priest and his calling you speak of while you lead us to the whereabouts of the gnolls and your female friend?"

Thalidyrr says, "I would rather not waste that potion unless it becomes critical. Since both ways meet the same end, we can see about this Hermit and hopefully complete this quest."

Tasan smirks at the monk and states, "I thought you people were so in tune with things that you could heal yourselves. I really have got to stop listening to the freaks that wander around Waterdeep."

The tiny gnoll camp is a squalid mess. The black stone dagger that Tasan took seems to have been the only usable implement.

The halfling nods, dusting himself off again. "On the way? Sure."

Seeing that no further objections are raised, Salil bows to the group. "If you gentlemen are ready, the path I was following leads this way . . . "

The remaining hours are tiring, as the group proceeds in secrecy and silence. Any noise now could alert the gnolls to the pursuit. Finally, as the sun sinks beneath the valley crest, Salil motions you over to an outcropping overlooking some moors. A river winds through them, and along the river a few ill-arrayed campfires can be seen.

"There," he whispers to the group. "That has to be them."

Thalidyrr eyes the camp, trying to discern the location of the people in question, "We should scout, I'll attempt to find our hostage."

Hide (1d20+8=28)
Move Silently (1d20+11=25)

Thalidyrr moves off towards the camp, attempting to move a silently as possible.

Ghosting from shadow to shadow, the elven monk easily closes with the camp. The gnolls have posted no sentries that he can see, and their rough tents seem to have been pitched with no overall layout in mind.

OOC: Going to pause that part there, since others may want to take action.

Khaiden looks around for any sort of flammable material.

'Instead of using brute force to deal with the filth, I say we smoke them out. The cool night air will cause any smoke we create from up here to drift down there and fog the area. If that's not an option, we could just sneak down there and light their tents ablaze all at once. It's up to you, but I know that there's no way we can physically beat them with our numbers if they're aware of our presence. I'm too drained to be of much use right now.'

He pauses to survey the surroundings, then continues.

'If we create a smoke screen, we can use the cover to rescue the hostage, and then deal with the gnolls if the opportunity presents itself. I very much would like it to present itself, but I do also wish to not die fighting a walking dog.'

Salil looks heartened at the prospect of a diversion. "That sounds good! I think we are too few for a frontal assault. But will your friend be OK?"

Meanwhile, in the camp, Thalidyrr peers into a tent and finds it empty. A few wooden boxes lie stacked within.

Thalidyrr sneaks into the tent, and looking towards the crates to see what's inside before he continues his search of the surrounding tents.


Hide (1d20+8=24)

Move Silently (1d20+11=31)

The crates contain a bizarre smorgasboard of preserved body parts. The monk's anatomical training allows him to identify a few wings and organs, but it is not clear what gnolls would be doing with such things. A third crate has been packed with jars of strange fluid. A considerable amount of cotton has been packed in alongside these jars, perhaps to cushion them.

The half-elf shrugs at Salil's question.

'He chose to go down there. I think he'll be fine as long as he keeps quiet and isn't seen.'

Khaiden grins. 'Now then....what do we have to get the fire started?'

The elf eyes the liquid, and carefully sneaks out of the tent and continues to move onto the next area attempting to get an accurate idea of what they're dealing with.

The next tent is empty. Thalidyrr comes across a third tent, but uncharacteristically, two mail-clad guards have been posted outside.