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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2123672" data-attributes="member: 1210">Landshark!!!What could possibly be more terrifying than this?The huge monster emerges from the ground in a spray of soil and rocks.  Naomi screams in fear and tries to mind thrust it, but in her panic she fails to keep her guard up and it bites her savagely, shaking her from side to side and tossing her down, only to savage her again!  She screams in terrible pain as its broad teeth grind down on her chest, almost crushing her sternum.  It chomps down and she convulses into unconsciousness.Beau backpedals, casting a ray of enfeeblement on the landshark.  Its terrible red eyes glare at him as a tiny portion of its strength drains away.  Then Jawbreaker rushes forward, taking a bite on the arm as he does, and swings his sword at the huge monster.  A scarlet line appears across the creature.Cursing, Beau tries another ray of enfeeblement, but his armor interferes with his movement.  He fails to get it off and curses again.  Who can blame him?  This is the second time recently that his armor has foiled a spell.  He vows then that he’ll remove that damn armor soon.  Taking a deep breath, the budding sorcerer fires yet another ray of enfeeblement at the bullette, and this time it is a little more effectual.  The monster snorts like a bull and bites Jawbreaker, then butts him with its head to get him out of the way.  He staggers back and the bullette rushes towards Beau.  “Oh no!” he squeaks, and he tries to run away, but it bites him on the leg and gives him a massive shake.  The thing spits him to the ground in front of it and bellows, obviously about the administer the finishing touch, when Jawbreaker jams the tip of his sword into it from behind.  It bellows again, but Beau quickly and defensively casts shocking grasp.  As the bullette whirls to once again face the mighty Jawbreaker, Beau reaches out and touches its genitals.  ZZZOT!!!  The bullette bellows again and staggers.  Beau rolls away, and just in time, as Timothy casts a fireball!  The bullette is blasted into instant death.“Whew!  That was close!” exclaims Beau.Our heroes quickly check on Naomi.  She’s still breathing weakly, so they bandage her wounds tightly, staunching the flow of blood from her wounds.  “We need cleric,” remarks Jawbreaker.Next on the list of things to do is eat.  After that, Jawbreaker declares, he will skin the beast.  “Maybe spend couple days here,” he states.***6/16/369 O.L.G., 4 p.m.Certainly, our heroes are enjoying the chance to sit around and rest their feet.  Jawbreaker hums happily as he works on the tough job of skinning the monster.  It’s huge, and its skin is tougher to work with than anything he’s ever experienced.  It is almost more like working wood than skin.  When he looks up, the gnolls are just outside the camp.Jawbreaker freezes, then drops his skinning knife.  He calmly draws out his sword.  They don’t seem hostile- yet.The gnolls look like upright, bipedal hyenas.  In Jawbreaker’s opinion, gnolls are stupid, lazy, mangy, worthless creatures.  But there are a... reasonable number of them here.  Maybe they can avoid a fight.  One of the gnolls says something, but it’s in a tongue nobody understands.  There are a few minutes of confusion as they seek for a common language, and eventually they settle for dwarven, which one or two members of each side can speak.  It develops that the gnolls are very curious about what happened to the landshark.“We kill it,” Jawbreaker guffaws.  Clearly the gnolls are impressed.  However, this is their land (they claim).“Tell you what,” Jawbreaker grunts, “you give us passage and directions out of your land, we give you bullette.”This is a trade where everyone wins.  The gnolls tell our heroes that other folk like them live beyond the mountains to the west, and then beyond the jungles west of the mountains.  Jawbreaker grunts again, this time acknowledging a piece of good news.The next morning our heroes move bright and early towards the mountains.  They set a good pace, and though they stop to eat, they do not stop to eat as many times as usual.  As a result they eat an extra big dinner that night, in the shadow of the mountains.  “Tomorrow we’ll be in the mountains,” Timothy remarks.The sun goes down.  Watches are set.  Sleep draws down over our heroes like sand over a desert city.Next Time: Paralyzed!</blockquote>

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