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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BLACKDIRGE" data-source="post: 729261" data-attributes="member: 1953">Sorry for the delay guys. It is another long one in two parts, but I hope you think it was worth the wait.************************************************Hunger Part IGrummok (age 85): Male Gargoyle Rog 4/Asn8; CR 16; Medium Magical Beast; HD 4d10+12d6+90; hp 165; Init +9; Spd 45 ft., fly 75 ft. (perfect); AC 30 (+6 Dex, +4 natural, +7 studded leather armor, +3 ring); Atk +22 melee (1d6+6/19-20 x2, 2 claws), +18 melee (1d6+2, bite), +18 melee (1d6+2 gore) or +21/+16/+11 melee (1d4+8/17-20 x2, +4 keen distance fleshgrinding dagger) or +23/+18/+13 ranged (1d6 plus 1d6 shock +5/ crit x3, +3 shock mighty composite shortbow (Str 14))  ; SA sneak attack +6d6, death attack, poison use; SQ darkvision 60 ft., uncanny dodge (Dex to AC, can’t be flanked, +1 vs. traps), +4 saves vs. poison, DR 15/+1, freeze, evasion; AL NE; SV Fort +16, Ref +18, Will +8; Str 18, Dex 24, Con 22, Int 18, Wis 12, Cha 12.    Skills (119 pts): Bluff +10, Craft (poison making) +10, Disguise +10, Escape Artist +13, Gather Information +10, Hide +30, Intimidate +6, Listen +12, Move Silently +25, Open Lock +13, Search +10, Sense Motive +10, Spot +12, Tumble +15.  Feats: Multiattack, Weapon Finesse (claw, bite, gore), Exotic Weapon Proficiency (garrote), Improved Initiative, Improved Critical (claws), Two Weapon Fighting     Languages: Undercommon, Terran, Drow  Possessions: +4 shadowed studded leather armor, boots of elvenkind, wire garrote, ring of advanced magic fang +2, belt of giant strength +4, +4 keen distance fleshgrinding dagger, +2 dagger, ring of protection +3, head band of intellect +2, gloves of dexterity +6, ring of minor elemental protection (fire), amulet of the zephyr, +3 shock mighty composite shortbow (Str 14), 20 +3 arrows  Assassin Spells Prepared: (3/2/2/2; save DC 14 + spell level): 1st -- change self, angry ache, obscuring mist. 2nd – alter self, darkness. 3rd – invisibility, sadism 4th – improved invisibility, dimension doorFreeze (Ex): Grummok can hold himself so still that he appears to be a statue. An observer must succeed at a Spot check (DC 20) to notice Grummok is really alive.Evasion (Ex): If exposed to any effect that normally allows a character to attempt a Reflex saving throw for half damage, Grummok takes no damage with a successful saving throw.Death Attack: If Grummok studies his victim for 3 rounds and then makes a sneak attack within the next 3 rounds with a melee weapon that successfully deals damage, the sneak attack may also paralyze or kill the target (Grummok's choice). A victim who fails his or her Fortitude saving throw (DC 22) against the kill effect dies. If the saving throw fails against the paralysis, the victim's mind and body become enervated, making him or her completely helpless and unable to act for 1d6+1 rounds.Poison Use: Grummok is trained in the use of poison and never risks accidentally poisoning himself when applying poison to a blade.Hek survived his wounds inflicted by the blackguard Thagmot but did not recover as quickly as Grummok had hoped. The gargoyle noticed that his longtime companion was showing the effects of his age. Now in his fifties, Hek’s body was a brutal testimony to his harsh life, while Grummok’s preternatural physiology and magical nature allowed him to function undeterred despite his eighty plus years. But another ailment inflicts Hek, one that Grummok has tried very hard to understand, a disease of the soul grips the aging human for his heart is infected with the terrible memories of his life and they are slowly consuming him. Since the battle with Thagmot Grummok and Hek have spent much time together, drinking and telling stories at various inns around the city. Grummok has come to terms with his odd dependency on Hek and has learned that the company of another sentient creature offers rewards beyond what you can take at the point of a dagger. Hek has found Grummok to be an eager listener and the human has obliged the gargoyle by sharing the one precious thing he still retains, his early memories of the surface. Grummok is intrigued by the sunlit worlds above and by Hek’s description of his family and the small town of Hommlet where he was born. But Hek’s story as Grummok knows quickly deteriorates into one of despair and pain, and oddly enough this fact has kindled a cold and terrible rage within the gargoyle’s soul. Friendship is a commodity that Grummok has never known and the terrible treatment of the young Hek at the hands of Shebon Mot in the horrid brothel where the young human was imprisoned for three years sparks a murderous hatred in the gargoyle assassin that lately has begun to consume him. Grummok has carefully hidden his anger from Hek but seeks a way to strike out at those that tormented his friend for so long. With Shebon Mot long dead there is only one remaining person in Hek’s history where Grummok can hang is rage, Hunnek Garekon, Madame and owner of the Fairer Flesh brothel. Grummok’s rage finally compelled him to action on the day of Hek’s fifty-seventh birthday and the gargoyle set out to grant a gift of vengeance to his tormented human friend.The Fairer Flesh brothel has squatted like a fat perverse toad in the Ghetto of Outcasts for as long as anyone can remember. Its current proprietor, a fat and ugly drow woman by the name of Hunnek Garekon runs a brisk business peddling flesh to the perverse lusts of the sprawling drow city. Hunnek’s brothel is well known for offering numerous young and unmarred elves and humans from the surface lands and has become very popular among the more deviant members of Erelhei-Cinlu’s aristocracy. Hunnek herself is rarely seen and business is conducted in the common room of her brothel by one of her two troglodyte employees who also serve as bouncers and bodyguards.Grummok had no desire for a stand-up fight with Madame Hunnek as she was rumored to be priestess of no small power. His plan was to simply enter the Fairer Flesh undetected and murder Madame Hunnek before any alarm could be raised. On the night Grummok set out to perform the assassination the Fairer Flesh was in full swing and full of patrons. Grummok entered the seedy establishment under the cloak of magical invisibility and all his senses were immediately assaulted with a miasma of degradation and hopelessness that clung to the place like a death shroud.Madame Hunnek had made few attempts to mask the squalor and filth of her establishment, which was little more than dank cave carved into a massive stalagmite. The rough stone floor of the common room was haphazardly covered with frayed rugs of the cheapest quality and a number of ill-treated and very stained couches provided the only place for patrons to sit while they chose their pleasure. The room reeked of smoke and perfume all overshadowed by the stench of the two troglodytes that kept the peace and conducted all business transactions for Madame Hunnek. The pleasure slaves were all lined up against the far wall of the common room for all the patrons to view. Their ages and races ran the gamut but regardless of their years or origin each one bared the scars of their ill treatment by the Fairer Flesh’s patrons. Attempts had been made to cover up the bruises and badly healed broken bones but nothing could hide the despair and torment that had left an indelible stain upon the faces of these broken innocents.Grummok watched the patrons of the Fairer Flesh, mostly wealthy merchants and nobility who were enjoying an evening of “slumming”, as they mingled or selected a pleasure slave to take upstairs and be “entertained”. Rage began to burn beneath Grummok’s skin at the casual brutality inflicted upon the helpless courtesans, not because their suffering bothered him for in truth he cared little for anyone beyond himself and now Hek. What kindled the fires of hatred in Grummok was that in each one of the battered pathetic creatures that stared blankly from the line of pleasure slaves he saw Hek’s face. The face of the boy Grummok had left behind, the face of his friend.Grummok marked each of the patrons in the common room for he would find them eventually, alone and in the endless dark of Erelhei-Cinlu they would suffer just as Hek had. But now Grummok had far greater concerns and he ached to sink his claws into the mastermind behind all of the pain that lingered in the common room and gnawed at the gargoyle’s soul. Grummok crept to the simple stone stairway that wound its way up to the second floor; Madame Hunnek’s chambers would likely be there. The second floor was little more than crudely carved tunnel with small open chambers jutting off to the left and right. The chambers did not even have doors and were covered only by a ratty curtain that did nothing to hide the terrible sights and sounds taking place beyond. At the end of the tunnel two large ironbound doors were set into the stone and were guarded by a single troglodyte resting on a barbed spear and looking very bored. Troglodytes were somewhat rare in Erelhei-Cinlu for the barbarous reptilian humanoids typically had no use for civilization or its trappings. Grummok wondered what Madame Hunnek’s connection to the foul scaled creatures could be and why they would show any loyalty to a drow priestess. Invisible and silent Grummok scanned the tunnel noting that he and the troglodyte were alone, the occupants of the various rooms were far too involved to notice or hear anything beyond the pursuit of their own perversion. The guard would have to be dealt with but Grummok would have to drop his invisibility spell to do it, fortunately he had memorized another for just such a situation. Grummok studied the troglodyte, noting his lack of armor but seeing that his thick scales would provide ample protection from most attacks. The gargoyle surmised that the scales would be thinnest at the base of the trog’s neck and a dagger strike there would certainly kill or incapacitate the humanoid. Grummok drew his dagger and crept silently up to the troglodyte warrior, its large lidless eyes were fixed straight ahead and it seemed to have taken no notice of its impending doom. Grummok was a few paces away from the troglodyte when its small nostrils suddenly dilated with a quick intake of breath and its body tensed, the spear it had been holding no longer at rest but held threateningly out in front of its body. It had smelled him! Grummok realized with a start. The gargoyle noted however that the troglodyte had not actually seen him and was scanning the short tunnel frantically in a vain attempt to locate the presence it had sensed. Grummok gave the trog no chance to home in on him and rushed forward, still invisible, to plunge his dagger into the humanoid's throat. The troglodyte made no sound as Grummok ripped his dagger from its throat in a wide sweeping arc so that the wound was a wide and gaping slash. Black ichor gushed from the trog’s neck and he sank to the rough stone floor to silently bleed to death. Grummok was now visible and had a body to contend with. The gargoyle noticed that the small chamber closest to him was empty so he dragged the limp form of the troglodyte into the cramped confines and drew the curtain. Grummok then mouthed another incantation and disappeared, once again under the concealment of magical invisibility. The huge pool of black troglodyte ichor was removed in a similar fashion; a simple illusion spell masking the damning fluid from view. A possible catastrophe diverted Grummok turned his attention back to the ironbound doors, which likely led to Hunnek’s private chambers. The doors were of course locked and trapped, but the locking mechanism was simple and the trap was nothing more than an amateurish poison needle hidden in the one of the huge iron pullrings used to open the door. Grummok had the door unlocked and untrapped in seconds and slid silently into Hunnek’s inner sanctum. The room was not as Grummok had expected it to be. He had been prepared for an opulently furnished bedroom with all the luxuries a wealthy drow woman like Hunnek could afford. What he found instead was what appeared to be little more than the lair of some beast. The room had once contained furniture but most of it had been reduced to splinters and along with the shredded bedding and linen had been used to create something that could only be described as a nest. The nest was some 10 feet across and dominated most of the room, a huge depression on the center of the mass of refuse indicated the a large creature had recently lain there and the stench of its body still lingered heavily in the air.The leavings of the beast's meals were evident as well; bones and shreds of rotting flesh littered the ground in stinking piles of offal and by the nature of the bones Grummok surmised that courtesans who had lost their profitability ended up here. The stink in the air was nearly intolerable but Grummok was no stranger to carnage and the reek of human and elven flesh was not unpleasant to him. The only other thing of note within the abattoir was a crude altar of black basalt on which rested a most curious carved stone idol. About the size of two clenched fists the idol was an unsubtle rendering of a strange toad like creature that exhibited reptilian features as well as amphibian. There was something all together perverse and unwholesome about the small statue and it was obviously a religious icon of some sort but depicted no deity Grummok had ever heard mention of. The gargoyle was more than a little perplexed. What had Madame Hunnek become involved in and what manner of creature laired in what obviously used to be her chamber. Perhaps the beast had devoured Hunnek herself but it seemed unlikely that troglodytes would have any interest in running a brothel. Something very strange was happening here and Grummok began to wonder what he had stumbled onto. Something unsettling pricked at the edge of Grummok’s thoughts, how would a creature as large as the one that obviously laired here move from place to place. It certainly could not go through the front door for the patrons of the Fairer Flesh would likely not appreciate their debauchery interrupted by a rampaging beast. Grummok concluded that the beast would have to leave via another exit and began searching the walls and floors of the chamber for hidden doors. It did not take him long to find what he was looking for, casually concealed beneath a pile of shredded blood stained clothes was a large trapdoor. Grummok examined the edge of the trapdoor wary for any traps or alarms but found nothing and on further investigation concluded that the opening would be large enough to permit quite a large creature. With no other avenues left to explore Grummok grasped the iron pull ring on the trapdoor and pulled it up from the floor with one mighty heave. The stench that bellowed forth from the dark aperture was unlike anything Grummok had ever experienced and he fell back choking and gagging his eyes watering from the horrendous stink. When the air had cleared a bit and Grummok was able to breathe he crept back to the black hole in the floor and peered down. The trapdoor opened into a vertical tunnel with crude handholds spaced evenly down the length of the tunnel wall in place of a latter. The shaft appeared to descend some thirty feet and then open into a horizontal tunnel running east under the brothel. With no hesitation Grummok slipped into the yawning darkness beyond the trapdoor and began descending down the tunnel wall.</blockquote>

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