January 23, 2011 - The party battles gnolls as they follow Alek's trail, and encounter an angel.
Huron, Vico, Yggdrasil, The Champ, Snake Eyes
The session starts right off with the gnolls attacking! There is an archer, a ferocious looking hyena-wolf hybrid looking thing (large size), and a large leader-type gnoll swinging a spiked, massive cudgel oozing (!) blood. There are also some other gnolls.
There is a fast-flowing creek diving the beach, with heavy logs spanning the gap as makeshift bridges. The party charges in and starts to fight the gnolls. They notice that the big hound-like one is actually a bestial, savage gnoll of larger size, which is completely feral and wild. The archer backs up to the rear lines but The Champ circles around and cuts him off.
Yggdrasil crosses the log bridge, but when he's on the other side another gnoll bursts out of the river behind him and attacks. This gnoll is wear a strange wax cap marked with three squiggling lines on the front.
The fight is short and bloody. The gnolls don't have great defenses but they DO receive additional benefits from flanking and surrounding their foes. At the end of the fight, one of the gnoll minions tries to flee by running away and jumping into the river. The Champ doesn't want it to get away, so he charges after it and does a diving spinning headbutt right into the poor gnoll's face, in the river, killing it instantly (natural 20). The party also decided that The Champ's headbutts aren't traditional headbutts, but rather he picks is target up and bodily smashes them into his head/horns. So picturing him doing this in mid-air to the river gnoll was particularly funny.
The last remaining gnoll - the cap-wearing one - is actually knocked out and captured by Snake Eyes. They stabilize its wounds and tie it up before waking it to interrogate it. Unfortunately, gnolls speak Abyssal and that's the one language Snake Eyes doesn't speak. However, he knows a martial ritual that will allow crude communication with someone even without a shared language. The only problem is, it can't be used with a hostile target. So the party spends a few minutes alternately befriending/intimidating the gnoll. They take its cap and discover that it is a Cap of Water Breathing, but everyone is reluctant to wear it because it looks really weird.
Someone gets the idea to wash the gnoll because it's dirty. They come to instantly regret this decision, as it reeks like wet dog. They build a small fire and take a short rest to dry it out and continue interacting with it. They reach something of a truce with the gnoll. The show it the silver plate with etchings on it and it seems to visibly recognize some of the landmarks.
Suddenly, their meal is interrupted (they were eating in the ruins of a small building) by intense, brilliant line shining from the beach. The Champ peeks out and sees it coming from behind the headless statue. Everyone warily goes out and from behind the statue steps a beautiful, blue-winged woman with pale white skin and silver hair. Yggdrasil and Snake Eyes immediately feel divine power emanating from her.
She introduces herself as Nirama, and confirms their suspicions that she is an angelic being. She tells them she has come to tell them that their path is true and right, and that they must continue to avert a great evil from awakening.
She points at Snake Eyes and gestures at the replica staff he carries, his reward from the Demonskar Ball. She retells the story of how she once appeared many years ago to give a powerful artifact of goodness, Alakast, to Surabar Spellmason, so that he might defeat the demon fiend Aggannar (she nods at Yggdrasil, who played the part of Aggannar in the Ball). She tells the party that soon Alakast will similarly appear to the Stormhammers to aid them in their battle against a terrible evil that is on the verge of re-awakening. She tells the party to look for Alakast in the "lair of the false sisters."
Vico is noticeably unimpressed that she has only vague advice and warnings to offer and not any concrete help. She thinks and says that she is unable to help and interpose herself in the affairs of mortals directly. She lifts her head as if communing with an unknown presence, and then does tell them that the great evil she spoke of is known as he of a thousand faces, the Frozen Lord, and that he calls himself "The God of Death". She then blesses them all lightly (some temporary hp) and fades away. The sounds of the jungle and wildlife slowly fade back into earshot.
The party continues on, telling the gnoll - who they name Dogmeat - to lead them to the first landmark on the plate, a big hole or cave marked "HOM". They travel through the thick jungle without incident, and stop at the crest of a large hill. Down the other side, about a minute's walk away, is a gaping hole in the side of another large hill. The gnoll looks fearful of the cave and gestures at it.
Huron and the Champ decide to sneak down the hill and investigate the cave. They stealth down and draw near, and are met with a terrible stench of death and rot coming from inside the cave. Huron peeks in and sees a massive shape lying on its back in the cave - an ogre. He doesn't see it moving or breathing, but he's not close enough to be sure. He is able to see many various scars and bloody, dried wounds upon its body, though. Various dead animals and bones litter the floor of the filthy cave. They sneak in, but Huron steps on a bone which snaps loudly. They freeze, but the ogre - who they suspect is a zombie - doesn't react. Eventually they go up closer and find out that it is very dead and not undead after all.
The stench is horrible, but they determine that the ogre was killed by repeated injuries inflicted by a large blade. Under the ogre's body, they find the crumpled remains of a steel shield marked with the symbol of Bahamut, and deduce that it is Alek's. They return to the party and tell them what they discovered, and the gnoll looks relieved. Snake Eyes points at the next landmark - the bridge - and they continue on.
The path eventually leaves the jungle climate and ascends into dry, rocky mountains, covered in jagged, sharp stone protusions and tall canyons. They come across a ramshackle rope bridge spanning a pit 20 feet below them. They look in, and it seems to be a refuse or garbage pit, as there are lots of bones and waste and it smells awful. On the other side of the pit, the rope bridge is tied to two large statues carved to resemble some kind of demon.
They look uneasily at the pit for a bit, then Huron decides to sprint across and see if it will hold. He makes it 75% of the way but before he reaches the other side, a gnoll wearing ragged robes and a headdress steps out from behind one of the statues and severs the rope, sending the bridge and Huron into the pit. He lands nimbly, but hears growling coming from to his sides. The pit actually extends underneath the mountain, into recesses which were not visible from up above. From out of the pit bounds a handful of hyenas and an enormous, frothing-at-the-mouth, savage gnoll.
The gnoll in robes doesn't waste any time bringing the rest of the party into the fight, enveloping them in a swarm of carrion and ravens which peck and push them into the pit. The Champ avoids them and stays above with Dogmeat, who is cowering and looking uncertain. The Champ takes the rope/chain tied to Dogmeat's manacles and pounds it into the wall, then glares at him for good measure, before sliding down the broken bridge into the pit.
The ferocious bestial gnoll starts tearing into the party pretty good, including a nasty "shift its speed and attack anyone it is ever adjacent to during the shift" attack, but the party copes with its frenzied attacks, the nipping of the hyenas, and the gnoll carrion caster quite well. At one point in the fight Dogmeat attempts to free the chain from the wall, but the Champ leaps up and punches it back into the wall and glares at him, and he stops any further attempts.
After slaying the gnoll, they dig around in the pit and find some treasure, including an ivory goat statue covered in arcane runes. They deduce that it is a figurine that allows them to summon a "regal goat" spirit to fight at their side.
Quite exhausted, they decide not to proceed further and head back to the ogre cave to rest. Yggdrasil and Vico stay up on watch (Yggdrasil doesn't sleep, Vico meditates in a state of full awareness). Because the smell inside the cave is so nasty, they set up camp in the clearing just outside the entrance.
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