Threl turns at the sound of vicious stabs and screams of pain/delight. He whirls, surprised, then says "What? We should have..." he huffs, then decides its not time to die on a hill, both figuratively and literally "Never mind. Let's search the cave to make sure we're safe, and then we can rest up."
With that, the dark elf heads towards the cave, boldly walking in front, confident not in his ability to hold his own on the front lines, but his ability to run away as fast as he can.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Hi, I'm Raccoon_Master, a young genderfluid actor, writer, explorer, and bass vocalist. Pronouns They/Them/Theirs
My Characters:Brorminthe Devout Crusher; Ellorathe Romantic Rookie
Even though Evelyn had just been thinking dark thoughts about ending the gnoll's life, she still grimaces and turns away as Nodjeim performs the deed. Even if the gnoll wanted to die, it still turned her stomach a bit to kill an unarmed creature. She was glad that she fought with spells rather than blade. When her spells killed someone, at least she was far away. She didn't have to smell burning flesh or hear bones break. If she had to be up close to fight she wasn't sure she could even do it.
Threl starts walking toward the cave and Evelyn quickly catches up to the Drow. Her curiosity in Threl has only grown deeper as they seem to change genders so fluidly, man one day, woman the next. Evelyn is dying to know how that works, but she doesn't want to offend her companion. Now isn't the right time to be asking about it anyway, not with their lives on the line. As they enter the cave, the wizard casts the Light on the tip of her staff so that she can see. Unlike the Drow or Olan, her human eyes lack the ability to see in the darkness.
Within the cave itself, it quickly becomes clear that the place has been vacated. The amount of bedding implies that there were many more gnolls than those you just fought tonight and last night, but for whatever reason they are not here. Perhaps they've gone elsewhere ahead, or perhaps the place was just understaffed at the moment.
The room to the left appears to be a sort of supply cache, with a hoard of scrapped-together and salvaged mundane items. Most of it is just hide armor and salvaged spears or axes, but in the hoard everyone can find 1 decent-quality martial weapon worth 25 gp or less. There does not appear to be any metal armor, though a quick investigation reveals some metalworking tools (counting as smith's tools, if anyone wants them) and chips of metal. It seems that whatever metal armor was found was repurposed into the scrap armor worn by the giant gnoll, which is far too large for anyone here to wear. You might be able to sell the scrap metal, but it would likely not fetch a great price and be incredibly heavy. The party also finds enough food that isn't rotting humanoid corpses to sustain them on the road for at least a week.
Various trinkets (exactly value currently unidentified) are also scattered about in this room and in the sleeping quarters, ostensibly the belongings of those devoured by the gnolls:
- Exactly 2000 copper coins and 300 silver coins, because the DM could be more realistic with the count but that would make division annoying and hard. - A deck of tarokka cards. - A stringed instrument, similar to a bandore or Faerunian yarting, in decent shape if extremely out of tune. - A small crate of 5 wine bottles with the labels scratched off. Three are open, and two of those three empty. - A small collection of mostly-intact silverware. - A small vial of bluish ink. - A magical focus (orb) which seems to have been used as some sort of game ball by the gnolls. - A chewed local map with a large X on a spot in the area, but otherwise unmarked. - A ring, trod into the dirt, with what looks to be a green gem of some sort set into it. - A necklace with a very large serrated tooth. - An elegantly carved and lacquered pipe. - An entire portable ram, for some ungodly reason. - A half-drunk vial of a greenish substance, and a gnoll's body picked clean not too far from it.
Finally, the back room. This area has several notable features. The first are the empty, blood-splattered cages, already spied by those who ventured in before. Near those cages is a similarly bloodstained altar, and a small book near the altar. On the other side of the room, around the bend, is a large bed of much higher quality than the ones in the general sleeping quarters, covered in somewhat dirtied furs. Next to it is a locked chest, though the key is nowhere to be found.
Olan:
You recognize from your cool freaking past that while these furs are quite dirty, they are of decently high quality, and if cleaned up could actually fetch a decent price.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Nodjeim is more or less disgusted by this place and is loathe to touch anything inside it if he doesn't need to. He does shove some stuff here and there with his foot in a small bid to poke around but he doesn't really dig into anything too much.
"Are any of you good with metal?" He offhandedly asks to the others in general. "Could something be done with these tools and perhaps the silverware to make silvered weapons?" Nodjeim himself doesn't know much about such things himself, but he does have some vague knowledge about some lycanthropes being vulnerable to silver. Assuming that's not just myth. He kind of clears the area around these items with his foot but doesn't pick them up himself.
He does eye the pipe for a moment... He wonders if there is enough water and scrubbing in the world to wash it clean enough for him to be willing to put it between his lips after these creatures have done gods know what with it... But having no tobacco or hope of obtaining any soon he sees little point in continuing the mental exercise and just lets it be.
Olan can compare the map to one of Evelyn's, locating the X some several miles south of here, though its exact location is difficult to pinpoint - either the location is not one that needs to be specifically pointed out, or a second, more precise map is missing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Evelyn wrinkles her nose as she examines the cave with the others. The smell is quite disgusting. Earlier they'd searched the body of the crowned gnoll, and the wizard had relieved her of her spellbook. She tucked the crown inside her pack as well, figuring it couldn't hurt to hang onto it. The spells inside the tome were quite exciting, but Evelyn didn't have enough gold to transcribe and learn them just yet. None of the spells were from the school of magic she specialized in unfortunately.
Inside the cave, Evelyn discovers the magical orb the gnolls had been using as a ball. She shakes her head and tucks the orb into her pack. It could come in handy as a backup magical focus. She also spies the ring with an emerald stone and picks it up to examine it. It's times like these that she wished she had memorized the spell Detect Magic. Chances were the ring was totally ordinary, but one never knew, especially since these were no ordinary gnolls.
Evelyn shakes her head in response to Nodjeim's question. "That's a good idea though. Silvered weapons work especially well against vampires and lycanthropes," she says, inwardly wondering if she is now susceptible to silver as well.
He was rather surprised that the bard didn’t take the cue to repeat his questions in a more amiable manner, direct all the fear to the warlock and have the given answers framed with more precision. Maybe it was urgency, they were in enemy territory, after all. Maybe Threll didn’t have that much experience with being the good guard during interrogations. Considering he took a feminine form often it was possible he didn’t have any experience with being a guard. Whatever the case the gnoll was killed and there was no reason for him to speak in that regard. Their crew didn’t need any conflict.
“Let’s keep the crow. Without touching it.” Last thing he wanted was to deal with another hyena casting spells. “And catch a breath.”
As they rested, Veldruk thought about what to do next. They would search the cave, clean it, that was the intention since the night before. But then what? Their hunt had nowhere else to go. The closest city, he decided. We show the crow, tell about the treat, get a contract to look for more gnolls. The problem was where to look.
The cave was clean and he was happy for that. As happy as he could be. The drow found a longsword he didn’t need and decided to keep for selling later. And then there was the map.
“This can be their next target or Auntie’s base.” He said to Olan as the rogue compared the charts. “Anyone has any idea of what’s around there?”
Threl walks into the cave and searches about. He takes the following items:
the green potion. If he could repair the mister, he could use whatever this green potion does as weapon, shooting it from the mister.
A glaive (the martial weapon)
the instrument which looks like a Yarting. Now I have two guitars!
“Not particularly” he replies to Veldruk “Is there anything marked on Evelyn’s map that would tell us what the place is?”
After he is done, Threl will head back outside, and head to the dead gnoll archers. He will scavenge the bodies, taking a bow and as many arrows he can find. We’re they wielding short or long bows?
Olan follows Threl's lead and takes a longbow, but keeps hold of his shortbow; there's no telling if these longbows are going to last long. Perhaps when he gets chance to clean it up he'll be better able to judge the quality.
Evelyn takes out her own map and compares it with the map they found in the cave. Now that she is feeling a lot better after a quick rest, she points to the location marked with an X.
"This doesn't look too far away south from here," she says. "Shall we see if we can find Auntie at this location?"
The gnoll thrashes, once, twice, and goes still, a wicken grin still playing across its lips.
What next?
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
"Well, I guess that's over. Do we search the den, or are we going to find somewhere safe to figure out what we're doing next?"
Nyli Bemblade - Gnome Arcane Trickster
Portia Thornleaf - Halfling Rogue
(Are y'all heading over to search the cave?)
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
OOC: I guess we are.
Threl turns at the sound of vicious stabs and screams of pain/delight. He whirls, surprised, then says "What? We should have..." he huffs, then decides its not time to die on a hill, both figuratively and literally "Never mind. Let's search the cave to make sure we're safe, and then we can rest up."
With that, the dark elf heads towards the cave, boldly walking in front, confident not in his ability to hold his own on the front lines, but his ability to run away as fast as he can.
Hi, I'm Raccoon_Master, a young genderfluid actor, writer, explorer, and bass vocalist. Pronouns They/Them/Theirs
My Characters: Brormin the Devout Crusher; Ellora the Romantic Rookie
Check out my EXTENDED SIGNATUR (hasn't been updated in forever, fyi) and don’t forget to join the Anything but the OGL 2.0 Thread!
"I don't make sense to you, and I don't make sense to myself. Maybe the only one I make sense to is God" ~ Me, trying to sound smart
((That works for me!))
Even though Evelyn had just been thinking dark thoughts about ending the gnoll's life, she still grimaces and turns away as Nodjeim performs the deed. Even if the gnoll wanted to die, it still turned her stomach a bit to kill an unarmed creature. She was glad that she fought with spells rather than blade. When her spells killed someone, at least she was far away. She didn't have to smell burning flesh or hear bones break. If she had to be up close to fight she wasn't sure she could even do it.
Threl starts walking toward the cave and Evelyn quickly catches up to the Drow. Her curiosity in Threl has only grown deeper as they seem to change genders so fluidly, man one day, woman the next. Evelyn is dying to know how that works, but she doesn't want to offend her companion. Now isn't the right time to be asking about it anyway, not with their lives on the line. As they enter the cave, the wizard casts the Light on the tip of her staff so that she can see. Unlike the Drow or Olan, her human eyes lack the ability to see in the darkness.
Extended Signature
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf (Phandelver and Below) ♦ Vesta Trevelyan (Vecna: Eve of Ruin) ♦ Ada Kendrick (Curse of Strahd) ♦ Gareth Blackwood (Dragon of Icespire Peak) ♦ Karys Velthune (Out of the Abyss) ♦ Surina Xarith (Simple, Heroic Adventure)
DM: Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus
"Errrr.......
Before we all go rummaging about in dark places, are we leaving a lookout?
If nobody else volunteers, then I'll do it."
Nyli Bemblade - Gnome Arcane Trickster
Portia Thornleaf - Halfling Rogue
First of all, on the body of the gnoll, the party finds the following items:
- Her iron-thorned crown, if they choose to take it.
- And her spellbook, with the following spells: tasha's hideous laughter, shield, crown of madness, tasha's mind whip, animate dead, and summon lesser demons. Evelyn is free to transcribe them, as long as she has the funds and time.
Within the cave itself, it quickly becomes clear that the place has been vacated. The amount of bedding implies that there were many more gnolls than those you just fought tonight and last night, but for whatever reason they are not here. Perhaps they've gone elsewhere ahead, or perhaps the place was just understaffed at the moment.
The room to the left appears to be a sort of supply cache, with a hoard of scrapped-together and salvaged mundane items. Most of it is just hide armor and salvaged spears or axes, but in the hoard everyone can find 1 decent-quality martial weapon worth 25 gp or less. There does not appear to be any metal armor, though a quick investigation reveals some metalworking tools (counting as smith's tools, if anyone wants them) and chips of metal. It seems that whatever metal armor was found was repurposed into the scrap armor worn by the giant gnoll, which is far too large for anyone here to wear. You might be able to sell the scrap metal, but it would likely not fetch a great price and be incredibly heavy. The party also finds enough food that isn't rotting humanoid corpses to sustain them on the road for at least a week.
Various trinkets (exactly value currently unidentified) are also scattered about in this room and in the sleeping quarters, ostensibly the belongings of those devoured by the gnolls:
- Exactly 2000 copper coins and 300 silver coins, because the DM could be more realistic with the count but that would make division annoying and hard.
- A deck of tarokka cards.
- A stringed instrument, similar to a bandore or Faerunian yarting, in decent shape if extremely out of tune.
- A small crate of 5 wine bottles with the labels scratched off. Three are open, and two of those three empty.
- A small collection of mostly-intact silverware.
- A small vial of bluish ink.
- A magical focus (orb) which seems to have been used as some sort of game ball by the gnolls.
- A chewed local map with a large X on a spot in the area, but otherwise unmarked.
- A ring, trod into the dirt, with what looks to be a green gem of some sort set into it.
- A necklace with a very large serrated tooth.
- An elegantly carved and lacquered pipe.
- An entire portable ram, for some ungodly reason.
- A half-drunk vial of a greenish substance, and a gnoll's body picked clean not too far from it.
Finally, the back room. This area has several notable features. The first are the empty, blood-splattered cages, already spied by those who ventured in before. Near those cages is a similarly bloodstained altar, and a small book near the altar. On the other side of the room, around the bend, is a large bed of much higher quality than the ones in the general sleeping quarters, covered in somewhat dirtied furs. Next to it is a locked chest, though the key is nowhere to be found.
Olan:
You recognize from your cool freaking past that while these furs are quite dirty, they are of decently high quality, and if cleaned up could actually fetch a decent price.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Olan rummages through the cave and finds a scimitar which still has a good edge to it, with only a couple of small nicks which will easily polish out.
He also finds a small bottle of ink, and a map. The map appears to be the local area with an X marked on it. He tries to figure out where the X is.
Investigation 15 History 11
As he carries on searching he stops and focuses on some of the furs, running them through his hands.
"Hey folks, these furs aren't cheap. If we can clean them we may get a decent price. This is snow hare, this one is otter, there's even ocelot!
I guess it's true that where there's muck there's brass."
Nyli Bemblade - Gnome Arcane Trickster
Portia Thornleaf - Halfling Rogue
Nodjeim is more or less disgusted by this place and is loathe to touch anything inside it if he doesn't need to. He does shove some stuff here and there with his foot in a small bid to poke around but he doesn't really dig into anything too much.
"Are any of you good with metal?" He offhandedly asks to the others in general. "Could something be done with these tools and perhaps the silverware to make silvered weapons?" Nodjeim himself doesn't know much about such things himself, but he does have some vague knowledge about some lycanthropes being vulnerable to silver. Assuming that's not just myth. He kind of clears the area around these items with his foot but doesn't pick them up himself.
He does eye the pipe for a moment... He wonders if there is enough water and scrubbing in the world to wash it clean enough for him to be willing to put it between his lips after these creatures have done gods know what with it... But having no tobacco or hope of obtaining any soon he sees little point in continuing the mental exercise and just lets it be.
Olan can compare the map to one of Evelyn's, locating the X some several miles south of here, though its exact location is difficult to pinpoint - either the location is not one that needs to be specifically pointed out, or a second, more precise map is missing.
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Evelyn wrinkles her nose as she examines the cave with the others. The smell is quite disgusting. Earlier they'd searched the body of the crowned gnoll, and the wizard had relieved her of her spellbook. She tucked the crown inside her pack as well, figuring it couldn't hurt to hang onto it. The spells inside the tome were quite exciting, but Evelyn didn't have enough gold to transcribe and learn them just yet. None of the spells were from the school of magic she specialized in unfortunately.
Inside the cave, Evelyn discovers the magical orb the gnolls had been using as a ball. She shakes her head and tucks the orb into her pack. It could come in handy as a backup magical focus. She also spies the ring with an emerald stone and picks it up to examine it. It's times like these that she wished she had memorized the spell Detect Magic. Chances were the ring was totally ordinary, but one never knew, especially since these were no ordinary gnolls.
Evelyn shakes her head in response to Nodjeim's question. "That's a good idea though. Silvered weapons work especially well against vampires and lycanthropes," she says, inwardly wondering if she is now susceptible to silver as well.
Extended Signature
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf (Phandelver and Below) ♦ Vesta Trevelyan (Vecna: Eve of Ruin) ♦ Ada Kendrick (Curse of Strahd) ♦ Gareth Blackwood (Dragon of Icespire Peak) ♦ Karys Velthune (Out of the Abyss) ♦ Surina Xarith (Simple, Heroic Adventure)
DM: Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus
He was rather surprised that the bard didn’t take the cue to repeat his questions in a more amiable manner, direct all the fear to the warlock and have the given answers framed with more precision. Maybe it was urgency, they were in enemy territory, after all. Maybe Threll didn’t have that much experience with being the good guard during interrogations. Considering he took a feminine form often it was possible he didn’t have any experience with being a guard. Whatever the case the gnoll was killed and there was no reason for him to speak in that regard. Their crew didn’t need any conflict.
“Let’s keep the crow. Without touching it.” Last thing he wanted was to deal with another hyena casting spells. “And catch a breath.”
As they rested, Veldruk thought about what to do next. They would search the cave, clean it, that was the intention since the night before. But then what? Their hunt had nowhere else to go. The closest city, he decided. We show the crow, tell about the treat, get a contract to look for more gnolls. The problem was where to look.
The cave was clean and he was happy for that. As happy as he could be. The drow found a longsword he didn’t need and decided to keep for selling later. And then there was the map.
“This can be their next target or Auntie’s base.” He said to Olan as the rogue compared the charts. “Anyone has any idea of what’s around there?”
Threl walks into the cave and searches about. He takes the following items:
“Not particularly” he replies to Veldruk “Is there anything marked on Evelyn’s map that would tell us what the place is?”
After he is done, Threl will head back outside, and head to the dead gnoll archers. He will scavenge the bodies, taking a bow and as many arrows he can find. We’re they wielding short or long bows?
Hi, I'm Raccoon_Master, a young genderfluid actor, writer, explorer, and bass vocalist. Pronouns They/Them/Theirs
My Characters: Brormin the Devout Crusher; Ellora the Romantic Rookie
Check out my EXTENDED SIGNATUR (hasn't been updated in forever, fyi) and don’t forget to join the Anything but the OGL 2.0 Thread!
"I don't make sense to you, and I don't make sense to myself. Maybe the only one I make sense to is God" ~ Me, trying to sound smart
(Longbows)
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Olan follows Threl's lead and takes a longbow, but keeps hold of his shortbow; there's no telling if these longbows are going to last long. Perhaps when he gets chance to clean it up he'll be better able to judge the quality.
Nyli Bemblade - Gnome Arcane Trickster
Portia Thornleaf - Halfling Rogue
(Do we get the benefits of a short rest?)
Extended Signature
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf (Phandelver and Below) ♦ Vesta Trevelyan (Vecna: Eve of Ruin) ♦ Ada Kendrick (Curse of Strahd) ♦ Gareth Blackwood (Dragon of Icespire Peak) ♦ Karys Velthune (Out of the Abyss) ♦ Surina Xarith (Simple, Heroic Adventure)
DM: Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus
(yes)
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
(Short rest taken, hit dice used to get back up to full HP)
After you all manage to take a short rest, where are you headed next? Are you trying to track anything, or perhaps follow that map?
"Ignorance is bliss, and you look absolutely miserable."
Evelyn takes out her own map and compares it with the map they found in the cave. Now that she is feeling a lot better after a quick rest, she points to the location marked with an X.
"This doesn't look too far away south from here," she says. "Shall we see if we can find Auntie at this location?"
Extended Signature
Characters: Bryony Alderleaf (Phandelver and Below) ♦ Vesta Trevelyan (Vecna: Eve of Ruin) ♦ Ada Kendrick (Curse of Strahd) ♦ Gareth Blackwood (Dragon of Icespire Peak) ♦ Karys Velthune (Out of the Abyss) ♦ Surina Xarith (Simple, Heroic Adventure)
DM: Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus