Realizing that you are on dangerous ground, the group attempts to retrace it's steps so they can leave the place of death. Daegwyn is able to track the hoof prints of your horses coming in, and so you are able to depart.
As you travel through the mist, now thick even between the impaled bodies and seeming to grow thicker, the group finds itself back where the three human heads rest on their pikes. Several of you at one point or another feel eyes boring into the back of your heads, but turning you can see nothing. You get the feeling that you are not out of danger just yet.
Looking around her as they ride, Rhune shivers, the mist giving her the willies. Keeping a tight hold on her sword she continues to ride forward.
"What is it with this mist?" Forte asks the others, remember the strange gray mist his mace produced when killing the ghouls a few moments before.
As you ride beyond the spiked heads, suddenly the silence is shattered by a deafening boom erupt out of nowhere immediately between Forte and Ullar. Both look about dumbly for a moment as the rest of you search for the cause of the sound. However the thick mist conceals it's source. Both men's horses are similarly dumbfounded by the powerful noise.
Forte looks around--his eyes not really focusing on anything--a somewhat vacant expression on his face, as he reacts to the shell shock.
Ullar just presses his hands on his ears. "AUauauauauauauauauau....this hurts." He opens his mouth and stretches his jaws, to get the pressure off his ears.
Arkady draws both his blades and peers into the mist.
Wincing and grabbing her hears with her hands Rhune shakes her head trying to clear the ringing. When she has done so she looks around quickly to see what could have caused the noise.
You hear some howling noises coming from the mist, back toward the staked out area, and it's source is revealed to be three tall slender, dog-headed humanoids. Their appearance is rather surprising, and you find yourselves unable to quickly react to all the stimulus at once. Added to that a commanding sound erupts from the back of them, and abruptly Caboto, Antonia, and Pietro all find themselves unable to move. It is a most disturbing sensation.
"The tube," gasps Forte, slowly regaining his senses.
"Ullar has it." Rhune shouts toward him.
Ullar, however, doesn't hear a thing and is completely disoriented. He closes his eyes and shakes his head wildly from one side to another, the pain in his ears and head almost unbearable.
As the group rushes forward to defend Ullar and Forte from the onrushing attackers, they see that all three have paused for a moment and hurled spears! Behind them the voice erupts again, though it is in no language you know of. Sounds more like a dog barking than a person speaking.
Giovanni Caboto flinches and turns to seek the sound from behind, only to find himself unable to move in mid-turn. His heart beat surges and he feels a prickly wave throughout his body. How many are behind us? Caboto uses his ears, and the movements of his horse to learn anything at all. I'm caught in a spell like that cast in our last battle, he realizes, panicked. Thankfully my legs are frozen or I'd fall off this damn horse. Curse divine magic. It comes more quickly and more easily to the faithful than lore and researched magic does to us. He waits.
Seeing the others frozen in place, Rhune shouts, "WAIT!!!!!! We come in peace!" not knowing whether or not the gnolls understand her or not, she moves her horse up to join the others, wincing again as she puts pressure on her injured ankle.
His voices give reign to a hideous bloodcurdling shriek as Arkady spurs his horse to charge the mysterious voice. "CMERTA MAGIKA!!!!!" he screeches as he rushes towards the voice.
Frozen on his horse Caboto could not help feel some relief as the wild Russian rode towards the voice behind him that he could not turn to see.
Forte lifts his mace up, but it appears to be moving in slow motion, and he struggles with its massive weight.
Finally Ullar awakes from the shell shock. Although his ears still hurt as hell, the warrior is able to regain his senses, at least a little. He dismounts from Zephyr and staggers forward, trying to unsheathe his, well Forte's, greatsword from his back.
"Ullar! get the tube out. It may be our only chance here." Rhune utters as she rides up next the huge warrior.
Rhees brings his mount under control in time to see Ullar stagger forward.
Ullar just nods and starts fumbling for his pack.
Suspecting the blast may have affected his hearing, Rhees rushes to face Ullar. Rhees speaks slowly, loudly and emphatically (so that if he is deaf he might read his lips), "ULLAR! THESE ARE THE GNOLLS WE ARE LOOKING FOR. SHOW THEM THE TUBE, SO THEY KNOW WE COME IN PEACE!" Rhees turns to face the gnolls, throws down his spear assertively and addresses them - as well as the fog behind them - in his best "holy" voice, "Hold your attack! We come as allies! We bear an artifact given to us by one of your gnollish brethren. He hoped we might work together to defeat the Jerbohan Bishop of Florence!" Rhees then turns to help Ullar find the blue scroll.
As Rhees speaks, the three thrown spears come flashing toward you. For his arrogance in speaking, Rhees is a target, Arkady for his charge toward them, and Daegwyn for having the unfortunate luck of being point man. Arkady and Rhees are missed by some distance, but Daegwyn is much closer, having led the party on their tracking to escape. He attempts to dodge out of the way, but the shaft hits him in the right foot. It does not stay planted there, fortunately, but it is a debilitating blow. The three spear-casters rush toward him, Forte, and Arkady, drawing large axes as they come.
Daegwyn curses his luck as the gnolls approach. First an arrow through one thigh, then a spear in the other. He only hopes that he can hold is own as the attack is mounted.
Antonia watches in silence wishing she could tell the group what she has realized. Her pupils dilate in fear as she thinks of the lack of knowledge and she wonders what Shadow will do without her guidance.
Hearing the boom, Daegwyn turns from his position at the front to see what has happened. He sees the dog-faces, then notices his companions that are not moving. Realizing the importance of our first meeting with the gnolls, Daegwyn moves beside Shadow. With Antonia out of action, he hopes that Shadow will respond to him instead of attacking the apparent threat. As he nears Shadow, he produces a low pitched growl as he has heard Antonia do on several occasions. He shows Shadow that he is not going to attack, for the moment, and that he expects Shadow to do the same.
Shadow's ears turn toward Daegwyn curiously, but he seems to get the gist, laying low while all the ruckus goes on around him.
Pietro feels himself getting slower, unable to move. He immediately recognizes the spell for what it is, having been subject to it before. "Look ...," is all that rolls over his lips. Unable to move, he rolls his eyes to see who was casting the spell. As he sees the creatures, which surely must be gnolls, he tries to speak with all his willpower. It does not help however, deep down he knows his efforts are futile until the spell ends.
Tolik begins to ready a spell, but holds back, not wanting to ruin their chances with the gnolls. He stands, not wanting to endanger his allies by not acting, but also not wanting to ruin the chances with the gnolls, and in his indecision, decides to wait a moment to see how the situation develops. He cowers at the back, trying to look insignificant, waiting to see if his aid is going to be needed.
Forte has regained his senses enough to fight his attacker, Arkady rushes headlong into his, and Daegwyn, though unable to retreat, is fully able to defend himself as well. However, it seems the affectations of the prior attacks keep them all a bit unsteady, as never has there been three so inept strikes all at once. It almost shames them to be warriors!
Ullar and Rhees scramble to extract the blue tube from Ullar's pouch, but have one hell of a time doing so. Ullar seems slow to react and Rhees does not know for certain where it is. Meanwhile, all three gnolls have taken vicious strokes at their enfeebled opponents. Only Arkady's chain mail keeps the smashing blow of the long-handled axe from crushing his chest. As it is, he rebounds from the force of the blow as if struck by a hammer.
Cursing and gibbering, Arkady spits bloody foam at his opponent before redoubling his strikes.
Forte and Daegwyn are not so lucky. Forte only narrowly moves his head in time to avoid being cut into like a jack-o-lantern. As it is, blood splashes from his chest as the axe drives the links of the armor into his body.
"Dammit!" Forte curses as the blood splashes about. He swings his mace, desperately hoping to get some revenge against the axe-wielding dog head which has hurt him.
As the hyenaman swings about his axe, Forte smashes into him first, sending him crashing onto the ground nearby. He does not rise.
"Yes!" Forte exclaims excitedly. He turns to see how the others are faring.
As the gnoll brings the axe to bear on Daegwyn he raises his staff to deflect the blow. Unfortunately he also shifts his weight slightly onto his injured foot. While the pain does not cause him to fall, he does instinctively release one of his hands from his staff to help regain his balance. This proves to be his demise. He can only look on as the axe is easily able to push past his staff now held in only one hand. Daegwyn doubles over as the axe connects with his stomach, the force of the blow knocking him backwards and into unconsciousness.
Seeing Daegwyn fall, Forte rushes over to finish off Daegwyn's attacker.
Keeping her horse between Ullar and the gnolls, "Ullar hurry." Rhune utters.
"It's here somewhere.." shouts Ullar, as he can't hear himself. "It's here somewhere.. wait, here it is, I GOT IT!"
Unable to dismount because of her foot, Rhune stays mounted. Drawing her sword, she nudges her horse up trying to get it between the others. "Please, we come in peace." she shouts hoping the somehow the gnolls will understand her.
None of the dog-men acknowledge her pleas even slightly.
Suddenly all of you hear a great wailing and screaming, the same tone that you heard coming from the fog. Coming up behind the dog-men is a smaller version of them, wailing all the while. It swings about it's head a strangely shaped spiked club, which seems to be made out of or shaped like a small humanoid skull, almost certainly a goblin. With it's other hand it shakes something which makes a disturbing dull rattle.
Frozen, Caboto can do nothing. He recognizes the goblin skull on the smaller dog-man's club, having seen such skulls in the dwarven mine. He hopes that Rhees' call will be well answered by the gnolls and watches the shaman looking gnoll as long as he is within Caboto's frozen sight.
Tolik rushes forward, his indecision broken. He sprints toward the front of the battle, trying to avoid getting unnecessary attention as he hurries to tend Daegwyn's wounds.
Seeing Forte and Arkady engaged with the remaining two larger gnolls and the smaller strange-looking one rushing at Rhees and Ullar, Tolik is able to raise Daegwyn back up to consciousness again. His wounds are not as severe as they looked at first. In fact, only some very bad bruising of the abdomen shows where he was hurt, though internally he feels quite some pain. He is able to rise and walk about if necessary.
Tolik, nods his head seeing Daegwyn come to consciousness. "Stay still, the wound will not kill you, but it won't do you any good to get back into the fight." He makes eye contact for a brief moment, then looks around trying to judge what to do next.
Daegwyn quickly looks to see what the situation is, not knowing how long he was unconscious. He uses his staff to stand, then waits to see what is to come.
Arkady steers and spurs his horse to get past the foot dogs to the leader. ~Kill the head and the body falls!!!!~ Cackling and screeching in gibberish and Russian, the Mad Slav strikes out with the sylmar blade.
The gnoll does not seem particularly interested in moving aside, though, blocking Arkady's charge with his long-handled axe. But the Slav does not appear to want to stop, smashing through the dog-man's defenses and cutting into his leg, felling him. He howls as he falls to the ground, with Arkady then trying to ride past.
Arkady laughs madly and charges the Shaman. He leans close to his horse's neck and coils his body to get the most of the strike.
Meanwhile Forte engages the third, taking a minor cut to his stomach, which he ignores, responding with another crushing blow from the mace, which crumples the thing's chest like a piece of used paper. It falls into a smashed ball on the ground.
"You're two for two, life stealer!" Forte says to his mace as he makes sure
Arkady's attacker is not rising up to strike again.
While the two warriors are so engaged, the smaller gnoll stops coming forward, seeing her companions dispatched. It continues to wail and shake both the spiked skull and the strange rattle. Looking closely, the thing is garbed rather strangely, in odd leather. But wait, it's not leather at all, but flesh! Green, brown, pink skins sewn together, the hides of other humanoids, certainly. It's own skin is colored a deathly white, apparently by some kind of ash or powder. And the rattle, upon closer investigation, is a skull, as well. An elven skull!
Tolik looks at the skull, hatred in his eyes as the realization of the dress and ornamentation of the shaman. Realizing they need help from these, he does not follow his immediate impulse to attack, instead biting his lip and looking away.
"ULLAR THE BLUE TUBE!!! NOW!" Rhune shouts once more as she swings her sword at a gnoll though in defensive move.
However, she gratefully notes that Forte has felled the last one, though the first one he struck seems to be moving, and the one that Arkady stabbed is lying down, howling pitifully. The third is certainly dead.
Forte walks over to the first gnoll he felled, talking to his mace as he does so. "Good work, Life Stealer. Now, you wanna tell me what you were doing with that mist?" The warrior keeps his eyes on the injured gnoll, and plants his foot firmly, but not harshly, on the prone creature's chest. "Not so fast, Rin Tin Ugly." He moves the mace into a threatening position, but does not strike the creature.
The creature looks up with reddish eyes and a fierce snarl. Forte is sure the thing would bite his head off if it was able to rise. It does little more than roll about, though.
Tolik moves up behind Forte, carefully staying out of what he considers the gnolls reach. This means he doesn't come within three feet of any of the fallen creatures, including the one that is not moving.
Whispering to Forte, he says, "Let me take a look at where you were hit. I doubt there is much I can do while you wear your armor, but lets have a look, shall we?"
"Thanks," Forte replies, keeping his eye on the gnoll. He follows any instructions the winged elf gives him, but always keeps his eyes on the prone gnoll.
Casting an occasional nervous glance towards the gnolls but avoiding the shaman, he checks Forte's wound and patches the man up as best he can under the circumstances.
His injuries are fairly minimal, and Tolik is able to put some field bandages on fairly quickly, which gives Forte back full mobility as he watches the fallen dog-man.
Ullar can think of nothing than presenting the tube right in front of him. "WE BELIEVE THIS IS YOURS!" he shouts at the top of his lungs, hoping that he might here is own words. He frowns, realizing that that is not what he intended to say but the buzzing sound in his ears nearly drives him crazy.
"Rhees, take it, my ears hurt!" Closing his eyes and pressing his jaws together, Ullar fights the pain, which has made him still quite disoriented. After a few seconds, Ullar focuses a little, trying to defend Rhees, while he can present the tube in any other way.
Still without a weapon in hand, Rhees tightens his grip on the new shield. He still holds it at his side, he is ready to bring it up to defend himself if he needs to. Counting on Ullar to meet any opposition, he strides purposefully towards the gnollish shaman. Holding the tube before him so as much of it as possible is visible, he addresses the rattle-wielder directly this time, "Hold your forces, wise one. I bear the unmaking of our common enemy!"
The smaller, and apparently older, gnoll (judging by it's balding fur) begins shrieking and wailing again, shaking the skull and it's club. Suddenly Rhees feels weak, clumsy, as if he has been robbed of his physical abilities. Some strange spell of the shaman's has afflicted him, he is certain, as he struggles to stay upon his horse and hold the tube.
But then it seems to calm itself, looking at the faces full of hatred on Forte and Arkady, then again at Rhees weakly holding the blue tube, with Ullar hard by still shaking off the effects of the sonic attack.
It grunts, and you can tell from the pitch that it must be female! "Is Sacred! Cannot have, huuuuummaaan." Ullar recognizes the peculiar intonation of the word, the same as the gnoll at the Forum had. It continues, "Give back, and others free, you live. Not, you die!" As if on cue, you hear the howls of what must be at least a dozen more of the dog-men, approaching from the north.
Forte shouts over to Ullar and Rhees. "Uh, no deals. I'd hate to get engaged to that...thing!" he shouts, gesturing to the withered female gnoll.
Howling madly, Arkady answers the challenge. "Call Back Call Back or I'll cleave you and bathe in your offal Dog Woman!!!" Waiting to see what happens, he rides in circles around her, The voices barely restrained from the attack.
Ullar positions himself between the lady shaman and the more violently behaving men of the group. He glances a quick look at them, but it's unclear which emotions are reflecting in it.
She looks up at the mad Slav, but clearly does not understand the words he is saying. In any case, the expression on her fanged face does not change from the threats.
At the same time, the spell on Pietro, Caboto, and Antonia wears off, or the shaman took it off, you cannot tell from the strange method of spell-casting she uses, like nothing any of you has seen before.
When Caboto can move again: Volition returns and Caboto responds to the goings-on about him.