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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rel" data-source="post: 996425" data-attributes="member: 99">Revenge!The group set out at first light.  They guessed that the Gnolls would have retreated to the northwest, back into the Darkwood.  Rhys and Raven set out that way on foot, Rhys finding himself moving at a crawl to keep pace with the dwarf.  Speaks transformed into an eagle and flew out ahead to scout for the Gnolls.  He would notify the others via his Amulet of Communication if he spotted them. (Any time Speaks Wild Shapes, he has a little ritual: He takes off his Amulet and gives it to Rhys.  Then he Wild Shapes and then Rhys puts the Amulet back on so that it doesn't get subsumed into the new form and become useless.)Speaks made lazy circles to the northwest and after a couple of hours determined that the Gnolls were nowhere in the area.  So, he turned and headed south.  Another few hours passed before he saw a sizable group of Gnolls bivouacked to the southwest of Aquae Sulis.  Speaks turned around and flew north, searching out his companions.  He finally spotted them in the early afternoon, still walking northwest.  He sent to Rhys with the Amulet, "The Gnolls are due south of you.  I'll catch up later."  Then he turned south again and flew back to where the Gnolls were.When he arrived, he found them starting to break camp and resume their exodus.  Speaks flew a couple of miles southwest along the path they seemed to be taking.  Then he landed in a tree and awaited their arrival.  A short while later, as dusk dimmed the light of day, he heard them approaching.  He flew a short distance to assure that he was in their path and alighted on a low, stout tree-branch and transformed back into human form.He waited until the Gnolls were some 200 feet away and then called forth a wide field of Spike Growth across their path.  He waited for a few moments before conjuring an Entangle just behind the leaders among the column of Gnolls.Utter pandemonium broke loose among the Gnolls.  Many of them fled from the entanglement into the swath of Spike Growth and were pierced by the wooden spines, laming or killing many.  Others began to scatter in all directions.Speaks sealed up one flank with another Entangle and then followed up by Summoning an Ally in the form of the Salamander that had worked so well against the Gnolls before.  The Salamander rushed forward to engage the Gnolls.Seeing this flaming effigy approaching from the southwest, the Gnolls, who had been convinced that the attack was coming from behind them, turned and ran away from the Salamander and the wooden spines and back into the direction of the entanglements.  A voice called above the panic to form up around him but many ignored this plea.By this point, Speaks had climbed down the few feet from his tree limb and was rapidly approaching the "battle" in the wake of the Salamander.  Unfortunately, the Salamander had no idea the Spike Growth was present and rushed through it, sustaining some damage and suffering from wounds to its legs that prevented it from moving faster than a crawl.Those Gnolls who could escape along the flank that held no entanglement did so, leaving the others to their fate.  For those who didn't see that option, chaos reigned.  Their high pitched barks and whines were heard over the cries of those impaled on the spiny growth jutting out of the forest floor.  Along the edges of the Entangles there were masses of Gnolls that remained trapped.Into one of these clusters, Speaks summoned a Flaming Sphere.  The barks and whines became howls of pain as those held helpless by the entanglement were burned to death.  In the light provided by the Flaming Sphere, Speaks began to notice that the large majority of those trapped were the females and pups of the Gnoll tribe.  Almost none of them were strong enough to escape the vines and roots that held them and as tightly packed as they were, he was rolling over two and three at a time with the ball of fire.Consumed by rage and remembering the words of Krase who swore that all Gnolls were inherently evil, Speaks called forth another ball of fire in the midst of those caught in the other Entangle.  The spheres rolled among the captured and left a charred path of death in their wakes.This continued for nearly a minute.  Occasionally one of the male Gnolls or perhaps one of the females, driven to extraordinary strength by utter terror would escape the edge of the entangled area, only to flee further into the center of it in an effort to escape the druidic harbinger of fiery death.Finally, mercifully, one and then the other Flaming Spheres winked out.  The woods seemed especially dark to Speaks.  The after images of the flaming Salamander and the balls of fire still burned in his eyes.  But there were also images of the women and children that were burned there.  Images that would remain for a long time.Krase had always contended that the only good Gnoll was a dead Gnoll.  They were irredeemably evil and nothing could change that.  But in the face of the destruction he had wrought against those who were weak and largely defenseless, those words seemed as faint and far away as Krase's lost soul.Speaks cried out to those who fled, "Go back to the North!  Leave these lands and NEVER RETURN!"  Then he shifted form into that of an owl.  As he took flight and rose above the forest canopy, the silence of his wing beats did nothing to shield his ears from the piteous cries of the burned and dying who lay in the darkness below.NEXT: Bad Things Come in Small Packages</blockquote>

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