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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 502058" data-attributes="member: 11">Session #34 (part II)“I will be able to heal your arm tomorrow,”(156) Ratchis said to Kazrack, who clutched his limp and useless right arm with his left.  “You rest while we pack up and clean up, but the gnolls will be back.”“Well, then, shouldn’t we hurry away?” Jeremy asked.“The gnolls will take some time to heal their wounds,” Ratchis said.  “I want to skin their beast, their fur is very warm.”Ratchis skinned the hyenadon, while Martin watched, intrigued and the others broke down camp – except for Kazrack.  The dwarf quietly prayed, beseeching his gods for the answer to why fortune had not favored him of late. “It will be an hour before Kazrack is even able to move with any kind of reliability,” Jana said.  “Perhaps there is somewhere else nearby we can move to and hide.”“Or I can do the hiding,” Martin said.Everyone looked at him.   “What I mean, is that I can use an illusion to help shield us. Perhaps a rocky outcropping and a fallen tree will look believable.”“Do it,’ Ratchis said.And so an hour passed, as the party sat beneath the illusory rocks and branches, gathering their wits and strengths.   Martin could do nothing but concentrate on his spell.Ratchis checked on Kazrack one last time, as the others pulled their packs on to their backs and Martin made ready to drop the spell.Kazrack stood and bowed to Ratchis, and then whispered, “I may not be able to speak freely later, so I’ll say this now.” The dwarf paused and looked down and then back up straight into Ratchis’ eyes.  “Uh, I know you are a good person, but you still surprise me from time to time.  I mean, uh…” The dwarf struggled with his words.  “I know some peoples leaves their children to be claimed by the elements, but to my people, ther is nothing more valuable than a child.  If I had known what you were going to do I’d have asked you to not do it, but nevertheless, I am indebted to you.”Ratchis did not reply.The dwarf continued: “Ratchis, in my mind you are like a diamond that is uncut.  You are beautiful, but rough.  If you would allow it I would like to call you D’nar, henceforth.  It is the dwarven word for an uncut diamond.  The diamond also represents the heart to my people, so it is doubly appropriate.  Also, I offer you my services, if you should seek to liberate your child.”Still Ratchis did not reply.“Do you accept my pledge?” the dwarf asked.“I am not going to liberate my child,” Ratchis finally said. “But, I am going to go see him in 12 years hence.  I have known other names, and my people use other names as descriptions, so if you wish to call me that, I will answer to it.  I only did what needed to be done, whether it was right or wrong, I made my choice freely.  Please, let’s forget it, and put our minds on the task at hand.”“Do you give me permission to raise your son in your stead, should you be unable to do this?” Kazrack asked.“I don’t think that would be possible, considering where he is,” Ratchis replied.“Do you give me permission to raise your son in your stead, should you be unable to do this?” Kazrack repeated, stubbornly.  “Twelve years is but a short time to my people, but still many things can change in that period, even that place.”“I don’t think that would be possible, considering where he is,” Ratchis said again, meeting stubbornness with obstinence.“Fine.  I will accept what you can give freely and nothing more.”  The dwarf hefted his pack onto his good shoulder, straining with the weight, and wincing from the pain of his recent wounds.  He made to walk away. .“There is one last thing,” Ratchis said, placing his big and callous hand on the dwarf’s shoulder.  “Ratchis means ‘pale runt’ in the orcish tongue.”“They named you wrong.”“”Orcs grow fast.”“I prefer D’nar,” and soon the party was marching westward by southwestward, led by RatchisAs they marched through snowdrifts, among skeletal scrubby trees and bushes, interspersed with thick firs and pines, it was discovered that Beorth had no idea where the party was going and why.Ratchis and Jana explained as best they could.“… And the druids said that this other-worldly creature can take multiple forms,” the half-orc said.“And when they said multiple forms they seemed to mean that it can not only change its shape, but be more than one thing at a time,’ Jana explained.  “Not that I really understand how that could be.” “I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Jeremy said.Kazrack did not speak at all.In time Ratchis found signs of wild ponies, and followed their spore to a sunken field that was bordered on its eastern and western ends by lop-sided hills, as if long ago a wave had washed away the center of a much larger hill, or even a mountain.  The half-orc ranger led them around from the north, as light snow began to filter down.  They were all exhausted, especially Kazrack, who winced with every step as his arm was jarred by the marching.  In the distance they could see a small group of wild ponies huddled for warmth. Their breath rose like a signal against the backdrop of the gray horizon.“It could be among those ponies,” Ratchis said.“Yes, but we need rest,” Jana said.  “We are in no condition to take this thing one now.” “Maybe we can climb up the western face of the western hill and observe their behavior from there,” Ratchis said.“I think you’d be better off finding us a camping spot,” Jana replied.“I can help to scout for a camping spot,” Beorth offered.Ratchis was taken aback.Jana patted Beorth’s shoulder sympathetically.  “I don’t remember you doing any scouting before, so why don’t you stay behind and we’ll try to catch you up some more on events.”“Will he be okay on his own?” Beorth asked of the half-orc.“He does this all the time,” Jana replied, and nodded to Ratchis.The half-orc jogged away, running atop the drifts as if he did not weigh a thing, his magical boots carrying over and around the foot of the western hill and out of sight.  -----Ratchis returned nearly an hour later, saying he had found a place he had been to before, when the rest of the party had been arrested.  It was a large cleft rock outcropping, shaped like a crab claw on its side, and its open end screened by tall pines.  The stones at the back point of the “claw” created a natural staircase, while a stubborn tree’s roots had cracked the thinner end, and created a climbable divot.  It had been here that Ratchis had run into the stranger who had seemingly killed a bunch of gnolls single-handedly. (157)As the rest of the party made camp, Kazrack began a long dwarven prayer, saying it very softly as he removed his armor.  He then tied his arm in a sling, and hefting his prayer stone on one shoulder, walked to the inner corner of the cleft in the stone.  There he dropped the stone, prostrated himself before it, began to scrape the dirt off the incline, down on to himself and the prayer stone.Jana noted what the dwarf was doing and hurried over, passing Martin who was looking around and scratching his chin, “I wonder if this thing could turn into a tree?” he mused.  Jana paid no attention him, but laid ah and on Kazrack’s shoulder.  “Kazrack, you shouldn’t over exert yourself.  Your arm is useless!”“Thank you, Jana,” the dwarf replied without looking at her.  “I will be fine.”“No, you are, as we say in Westron, a nut!” Jana declared.Martin noticed Jana’s flustering and walked over, and then noticed Kazrack’s poison and actions.“Kazrack, what are you doing?” the watch-mage asked.“I must do this,” was Kazrack’s only reply.Martin paused, “Very well,” he said and walked away.“Can anyone help you with this?” Jana offered.“Thank you, but no,” Kazrack said.  He still had not looked up.Jana walked off surrendering with a sigh.Once the tents were set up Ratchis finished cleaning the hyenadon hide, while Martin put a sketch of the beast into his journals, which had doubled as his notebooks at the Academy of Wizardry.  Jeremy spent some time showing Beorth the finer points on using one of the recovered long bows, and then while the paladin practiced the energetic Neergaardian, began to scale to he stone and scurry back and forth to practice climbing.“Don’t use up too many arrows!” he called down playfully to the paladin.  The top of the stone was no more than fifteen feet above the ground level.Suddenly Martin cocked his head, in the tiniest moment of silence amid the chatter and bustle of his companions he thought he heard something above them upon the rock.“Did anyone else hear that?” Martin asked.  “It sounded like crunching snow.”Everyone stopped, except for Kazrack who remained prostrate upon his prayer stone.Ratchis signaled for everyone to remain quiet, and then sprang up the incline to check it out.   “Thomas?” Martin called to his familiar, who was wrapped in a ball in the watch-mage’s hood.  “Do you smell anything?  Gnolls?  Or something, wrong?  The thing we are hunting may smell wrong.”“All I smell is Ratchis,” Thomas chittered.Ratchis soon returned.  “Must have been the wind knocking snow from a branch,” the half-orc reasoned.Kazrack’s chanting began again, and he removed the stone and ceramic beads he wore in certain locks of his beard.   Everyone else returned to their previous activity.  Martin used his mending spell on Ratchis’ chain shirt to repair a link (158).There was a sudden sound of many booted feet hurrying on the snow above them.“Gnolls again?” Martin sighed, and looked up as gnolls appeared above them on the broader side of the cleft.Ratchis had already pulled his bow, but he let off a hurried shot that fell short, striking the stone walls.  The gnolls fired in kind.  One gnolls appeared directly above Kazrack and fired an arrow down on the dwarf, who leapt backward as it clipped his shoulder.   “We might be able to hide!” Jeremy cried and ran for the cover of the trees at the entrance to the “claw”.  However, as soon as he got under them he spotted a handful of more gnolls coming from that direction.  “Scratch that idea!  They are down here, too!” Martin cried out as he leapt away from one arrow only to feel the slash of another whizzing past him.  Beorth fired an arrow, but his recent practice failed him and his arrow also fell short of its mark.  The hyenas barked their laughing language. Kazrack ran past the mage towards the tents, crying “the trees are our best chance of cover!”  Martin turned with the armorless dwarf and chanted, “distortus!” and touching Kazrack made his image blur.  The mage followed to gain cover behind the tents.Jana mumbled her arcane words, pointing at one of the archer gnolls, but the spell did not seem to work.A gnoll tried to run past Jeremy, who turned and used his momentum to bury his sword in the thing’s back.  However, Jeremy did not feel the all-too-familiar and often satisfying thud of the long sword blade cutting deep into flesh and meeting bone.  No, instead he felt as if his sword had entered a very thick pudding, or drying mortar, and then he could not believe what his eyes revealed to him.   Instead of gouts of blood and crumbling gore, that he had grown accustomed to seeing, the gnolls flesh seemed to grow amorphous, and instead of veins and organs, the inside of the creature seemed made of brownish-red pudding-like material (at least pudding was the best analogy he could make in his mind – for he had never seen anything like this).  Jeremy yanked his sword back in shock, as the two halves sprouted tendrils that connected and then pulled the two halves back together, melding back into one piece.  The gnoll’s head, which was at an odd twisted angle, looked back at Jeremy with filmed over eyes that dripped milky mucus as the flesh turned and curled.“By the gods!  It’s not gnolls!  It’s not gnolls!” Jeremy began to scream as he pulled his short sword from his belt and twirled it in his left hand, swinging both blades down on the horrific thing.  ------------------------------------------Notes(156) The “useless” critical result can be counter both by the Cure Moderate Wounds spell (or greater) and by being tended to by someone with the healing skill for 2d4 days minus 1 day per point over DC 15 on healing check (minimum 1 day).(157) See Interlude II – between sessions # 27 and #28.(158) The mending spell will repair one point of armor damage per casting.</blockquote>

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