Session 54 - Another Horse Bites the Dust
Wed 8th Dec 2021 20:00 - 23:30
In-game timeline: Nightal 20 - Nightal 20 DR1489
Our "Heroes" decide to cut a hooked arm off of the strange creature that lies dead on the plains. Why? Nobody really knows.
Devon spots what appears to be a lone gnoll atop a giant hyena in the far distance and guesses that it is the one that ran off early in the last battle. He tasks Nige with keeping an eye on the distant gnoll as the group decides to have a short rest to recover some abilities and health. By the time they have finished resting, the gnoll rider seems to have disappeared.
After their rest, the sun is starting to set on the horizon. They figure that they should be able to get to the distant low hills, where the gnoll seems to have headed for and where the tracks seem to lead, before sunset, so long as they keep a decent pace on their horses.
As they get closer to the hills, they decide to play a little safe and head south, away from the tracks, for about a mile or so, then close on the hills to get some cover and set up a small, cold camp in the shelter of the hills.
Devon and Drogan head north, following the hill-line, in order to scout the area better and maybe get a view on where the gnolls and hyenas are camped out. They spot a small gorge in the distance, with a rocky outcrop. They carefully try to sneak up the hill a little way and creep their way closer to the gorge to see what is there. Devon sends Nige out to scout closer - it is starting to get a little dark. At that point Devon and Drogan spot a little movement coming from the hill above the gorge and suddenly Nige gets hit with an arrow and vanishes back to the plane from whence he came.
Knowing that something is lurking around the gorge area, our two intrepid adventurers decide that Devon should try to head closer to it. His stealthing isn't too bad, but as Devon approaches the area where they saw some movement earlier, he suddenly gets an arrow flying towards him, which luckily misses. As Devon tries to scuttle back towards where Drogan is, another arrow comes flying towards him and again misses. Drogan's prepared shot towards where the arrow came from seems to miss its target too. Devon decides to dash the last bit of distance to Drogan, but gets an arrow in his shoulder for his trouble. As the two meet up again, Drogan takes the next arrow in his side but responds in kind with an arrow of his own.
As the two brave "Heroes" turn to run, they hear a noise behind them like a horn blast of sorts. They continue to run back towards their camp, but that is a mile away, so it will take a little while to get there. As they run away, they hear the sounds of something "galloping" behind them. And then the arrows come. The Dwarf and the Halfling keep running towards the camp, and they begin to get peppered with some arrows. After a few arrows have been fired, some hitting, Devon and Drogan spot a dip in the landscape that would give them a bit of cover, and they run for that, giving them a bit of protection against the continued arrows coming towards them. As they turn to make a stand, Drogan necking his potion of Heroism and raging, the two giant hyenas with their gnoll riders (unfortunately for Drogan) don't close in to engage, but instead they circle round to get a good view of their targets, and start to use their mounts to close the distance, then fire off their bows before running back out, to make it harder to hit them.
The isolated "Heroes" try to make a stand, but the tactics of the gnoll riders are frustrating. Then the gnolls hit a patch of bad luck. Two poor misses made one of the gnolls lose his footing on his mount and fall from the giant hyena. Devon takes the opportunity to go invisible and advance on the fallen gnoll. Realising that he won't reach the gnoll in time, he instead fires on the hyena and brings the giant hyena down. Being a mount down, the gnolls decide not to hang around and, after picking up the downed gnoll, the single giant hyena with its now two riders run off, taking an arrow for their trouble, but managing to get away.
Drogan & Devon run back to their camp, checking to see if they are being followed. When nothing appears, they relate their experiences to the rest of the party, and then the group decide to risk a long rest, with Alwaith on watch while the others settle down.
Unfortunately their rest is interrupted by the cackled howling of hyenas approaching the camp. Alwaith wakes the others and quickly hides. The hyenas descend and attack the first things they see - which turn out to be the two horses. They quickly kill one of them, but the party emerge and rapidly dispatch the hyenas, though not before their second horse takes a beating. The hyenas are defeated, and nothing else immediately appears. Devon conjures up an illusionary mound of snow to give the party cover against anything else approaching, but nothing else shows itself for a while and the illusion fades. Drogan gives one of his healing potions to his horse and sends it away, telling it to return when called, though it is very spooked and Drogan is not sure if the horse will return at all.
Concerned that any further rest may just be interrupted again, the party decide to head to the gnoll camp instead, leaving the tent (and Felix, Lord of All Things and Destroyer of Rodents). The retrace Devon and Drogan's previous footsteps to the gorge without incident, but their attempts at stealth prove not perfect and they are fired upon by a gnoll sentry. As they duck down, Drogan spots the sentry clamber down into the gorge and the group quickly run up to where he was located, which seems to be above a cave entrance. As they plan their offensive, they are concerned to see 4 horrible creatures emerge from the cave, one after another, and turn to clamber up the hillside towards them. Although the creatures managed to avoid the entangled area created by Dwarrow at the cave entrance, the party manage to get some effective shots on them and one by one the creatures, which look very similar to the dead creature they found on the plains, fall to the attacks of the combined might of the party, including Phil, the spectre conjured up by Alwaith. The creatures' hooked arms do manage to score some hits on Dwarrow and Drogan but they are quite quickly taken down by the attacks and abilities of the party.
After the 4 creatures are disposed of, Drogan pulls all of their dead bodies together to form a barricade above the cave entrance, whilst the other three move over to the bridge, lie down and train their ranged weapons on the entrance, waiting for any other creatures to emerge.
And there we leave our "Heroes", slightly battered and bruised but otherwise in ok shape. The entangled area in front of the cave entrance has disappeared and the group are considering taking a short rest. It's now completely dark as the sun has set and, well, this seems like a nice, quet place to lie down for a sleep!