The party have just escaped from the two clashing Goristro.
They stop for a second and listen, trying to remember what they know of Goristro behaviour. They know they're territorial, but would they chase? The surviving goristro sounds far away.
The group is off course.
Bhaltair does, though. Warren agrees with backtracking, he doesn't want to get lost in the Labyrinth.
Runmae doesn't want to backtrack.
It's a case of unknown dangers straying off the route, or known danger by backtracking.
They decide to get Warren to go above and scout where they are.
Warren is climbing, and Naze begins to clap encouragingly until Valaari tells him off for making noise.
Warren gets to the top without issue, hooray!
He takes a look around, seeing groups of imps and something larger that's like a humanoid vulture. He also sees the Goristro back where they left, it's doing something but Warren's not sure what.
Warren leaps back into the corridor, using his magic arrogance powers to slow his fall off the side of the labyrinth and fully nullify the falling damage.
Valaari identifies the vulture things as Vrocks, or Wrath Demons. They don't know more than that though, just the name.
They decide not to backtrack based on this information.
They try to stick as close to the previous route as they can, using the Navigator's Star tattoo that Warren has, and cover their tracks.
They stop for 20 minutes to treat their wounds, and Bhaltair uses magic to conjure a healing breeze that cools everyone down and heals them.
Runmae, with her mountainous terrain expertise, tries to get the group back on track. She leads the group into a terrible smell. It's like blood, rot, and exrement all mixed together.
Valaari suggests that Warren should scout it out. They give Warren a cloth with nice smelling herbs to cover his nose. He thanks them.
Warren sneaks ahead and pockets the cloth rather than putting it to his nose. He wants to savour the stink.
Warren observes a pack of gnolls eating something. There is blood everywhere, and the gnolls are covered in gore.
Turns out Warren is afraid of gnolls, and immediately returns to the group and tells them they're gonna die.
Valaari suggests sneaking past the gnolls.
Naze and Zaphkiel aren't very sneaky. They suggest that Naze meld into eidolon, but Naze is embarassed. Zaphkiel loudly declares he will be silent as a mouse.
They begin sneaking around the gnolls, and then Bhaltair actually counts them. There's only five! They can take em!
Valaari gets their boomerang out, and gestures for some of them to get in better positions.
Warren really doesn't want to, but goes around the plateau with Bhaltair to surround the gnolls.
Bhaltair is trying to talk to Warren using sign language. It doesn't go well!
They split up and surround the gnolls.
Bhaltair reveals himself by playing a little tune. This fascinates the gnolls, who go over to investigate.
The gnolls invesigate Bhaltair and something about them frightens the gnolls.
They fight, one of the gnolls is a spellcaster! Oh beans! It also has a magic sickle that really hurts!
One gnoll flees in terror from Bhaltair.
After the fight, they examine the corpse pile. Naze identifies the remains as belonging to the Razor Wind. Poor fucks.
Runmae loots the gnoll cleric and takes their magic sickle and holy symbol.
The rest of them loot the gnolls, and then they decide to move away from here before identifying the sickle or healing, in case there's more gnolls.
They also cover their tracks, and move away for half an hour before they stop.
Runmae leads the group and manages to get them back on their route. They find shelter and take an hour to treat their wounds and take stock.
Bhaltair uses a spell to heal everyone, and then Naze goes and treats wounds. He critically succeeds on Valaari, but rolls 1's and every healing dice.
Valaari, as is tradition, gives the team their feedback for that fight. They comment on Warren's scampering about, interesting strategy.
Bhaltair in particular gets praise, as the gnolls were surprisingly terrified of them.
Whilst Valaari is giving feedback to Naze about getting mauled (again), Bhaltair puts their hand up to ask a question and patiently waits for Valaari to notice.
Bhaltair explains what the gnolls did, how they sniffed him and got scared. They aren't sure why.
Valaari theorises they thought Bhaltair was from the Abyssal Forest, but also it's possible they were just really thrown off by a humanoid they couldn't eat.
Valaari compliments Runmae on her sudden bursts of speed when charging into battle.
Valaari asks Warren what happened, as he seemed shaken. Warren stammers and then says he just doesn't like gnolls, they give him the heeby jeebies. He doesn't like them.
It's not unreasonable to not wanna get mauled, guys! If that makes me a bad person then I guess I'm a bad person!
Valaari didn't say that, Warren.
Valaari asks if there's anything else that gives Warren the creeps?
Bhaltair asks what about gnolls freaks him out, since he's been fine with the flesh eating demons?
Warren says he'll think about, sunshine
Bhaltair specifies that they don't produce sunshine, they consume it.
Warren explains the concept of nicknames, something friends call each other, and Bhaltair is over the moon to have a friend!
Bhaltair asks why Valaari doesn't have a nickname, and Warren looks embarassed. Valaari doesn't get called their nicknames to their face.
The others call them Valaari the Weird.
Bhaltair is confused, they've met Weirds and Valaari doesn't even look like one?
This confuses the others. Everyone is confused.
Naze is putting little plasters on Zaphkiel's wounds, even though Naze took the wounds.
Zaphkiel doesn't like nicknames. Valaari says you sadly don't get to choose. Zaphkiel claims you CAN choose if you threaten violence.
Zaphkiel gets fed up of not being able to understand the conversation, and merges minds with Naze briefly to learn all of his languages. Naze also learns Celestial from this. Woah.