17th Therendor, 999 YK
- They wake up, and Valaari doesn't mention the dream. They continue their patrol.
- After a few hours, they hear what sounds like voices ahead. The voices are in Infernal, which only Naze speaks.
- Naze and Warren sneak ahead and see what's up. They see a group of 4 little guys, an Imp and 3 Dretches. Those guys are having a conversation, which is included below.
- Warren's player wants to adopt the dretches.
- They return to the rest of the group and inform them of the threat. Naze identifies the little guys as demons, and Valaari knows how to fight them and shares that information.
- Zaphkiel is READY
- Valaari also is very explicit to Runmae and Bhaltair that these are demons, and they will be killing them.
- They plan how to attack the dretches. They're going to try and ambush them, stealthily. Zaphkiel is opposed to this, this sounds dishonourable!
- Naze explains that the demons already have the advantage, so the stealth just makes it fairer!
- They sneak up on the demons, and engage!
- Bhaltair opens up with a flashbang, which affects almost all of the demons.
- Yum, the imp, flies to safety and takes cover as the party shoot at him. He screams in confusion and fear.
- The dretches are lazy and fight as such, lazily swiping at the party.
- Valaari pursues Yum and kills him, brutally. Naze is uncomfortable.
- Gong, one of the dretches, gets lucky and catches Warren's carotid artery, causing him to start bleeding to death.
- Warren kills Gong, who grabs his arms and lets out a dramatic "I will remember this."
- Gus goes absolutely ham on Runmae, bringing her close to death too.
- Despite missing a chunk out of his flank, Naze tries to staunch Warren's bleeding.
- They take out Gus, leaving only Earl, who they all surround.
- Runmae, with the strength of thousands, brings her hammer down on Earl's head and instantly kills him. RIP in peace Earl.
- Naze immediately tries to stop Warren's bleeding, which takes several rounds because it's a nasty wound. Warren is saved!
- Gong finally dies. Wtf?
- Valaari goes to recover her boomerang from the dead imp, and finds the imp's corpse is gone. The imp was wearing some nice bracers, which are also left behind.
- Naze begins to tend to their wounds, everyone is somewhat injured.
- Bhaltair asks Valaari if they need to look around, do demons just wander The Labyrinth?
- Valaari asks if Bhaltair can sense a portal. They can't.
- Naze fucks up the wound treatment on Valaari, injuring them further. He's very sorry!
- Valaari praises the party for working well together and taking the demons down. They also criticize Runmae's armour not being good enough. Valaari also tells Warren to be more careful, and not to get major arteries severed in future. He should know better.
- Warren takes umbrage at this whilst half his blood is soaking into the dirt.
- "Next time I just won't get stabbed then!" "Yeah! Please do that!"
- Bhaltair is visible disappointed that they didn't get feedback from Valaari.
- Valaari wants to find shelter and rest to heal up. They remember there's a Maruk outpost nearby, about an hour away.
- Warren grumbles about the legendary Valaari who can just not get hit by little guys with pointy fingers. Naze goes wide eyed.
- They continue on to the outpost.
- As they go, they begin to hear distant baying of hounds, which frightens them. Valaari identifies the sound as belonging to Yeth Hounds, fiendish dog-like beasts that bark like this when hunting. Their barks are supernaturally terrifying, and they can fly. They quicken their pace.
- They hustle for 10 minutes, shaving 20 minutes off the journey, arriving at the outpost after 40 minutes.
- They make their way in, seeing six bunks they can use to rest and a store room full of crates. There's a logbook, which the patrols use to note significant things they've encountered.
- They decide to leave the looted weapons they took from the Razor Wind. Valaari leaves a longspear, and Runmae leaves a spear, which gives the group 6 silver of "credit" to spend at Maruk Dar. They take a healing potion from the outpost, and give it to Runmae.
- Bhaltair mentions to Warren that they have a compass, should they leave it here?
- Naze gets to treating everyone's wounds, again. He manages to avoid actively wounding Valaari this time, but doesn't heal them for much. He does wound Warren, though.
- They're gonna need to stay for another few hours to further treat wounds.
- Bhaltair asks Valaari for a chore or something to do while they wait.
- Naze is so nervous, he keeps failing to treat wounds. This is character building for Naze.
- While waiting, Bhaltair asks if they can go look for plants nearby. Valaari thinks this is risky, but Bhaltair is bored. Valaari says no. Bhaltair says...okay.
- Valaari continues the patrol, despite some of them still being injured. Naze feels the weight of disappointment in Valaari's silence.
- Valaari tells Bhaltair that they can search for plants while they walk, they'll use the slower pace to keep a look out for threats. (Scouting exploration action)
- Bhaltair takes cuttings from the small bushes he can fine, to take back to Maruk Dar and try to grow something.
- When it gets dark, they find a cave to shelter in for the night. Naze identifies the bracers that Valaari looted from the imp, a pair of imp-sized bracers of missile deflection.
Overheard Conversation (in Infernal)
Yum (Imp): "We can take em! It's a small group of Ghaash'kala, probably newbies! If we take em out we'd probably get promoted!"
Gong (Dretch): "I dunno, Yum. I'm not really feeling it today, I kinda wanna just have a quiet one today, I'm tired"
Yum: "You feel tired every day, Gong! You're sloth demons! Tired is what you do!"
Earl (Dretch): "Yeah, I'm feeling pretty tired today too"
Yum: "Shut up, Earl, here is an opportunity to be more than you are! We kill these interlopers and you could be something else! Something that doesn't need 20 hours of sleep a day to function! Where's your ambition!? Your drive to do evil!?"
Gong: "Oh, I'm plenty evil, Yum. The problem is, I'm fucking small! I'm bad to the bone but I ain't got the capabilities to back up my maliciousness! Look at us, Yum! You're about the size of a small cat and I'm not much bigger. Have you seen the size of these lads? You could stack all of us on top of each other and we'd still be shorter than a fucking orc!"
Yum: "Oh, umm. Wow. I'm not sure what to say."
Gong: "So, yeah, we might get lucky if we pick a fight, Yum. There's always a chance we catch a vital artery or something with our claws, but there's a much greater risk that we just die."
Gus (Dretch): "What's an artery?"