20: Allies

The party is heading back to Wolpertinger Caves to brief Kuato on what has happened.  Next, they plan to take Dak (aka Yoda) with them to speak with the Githzerai.  If all goes well, a couple quick missions to rescue Evelyn and Conicus will follow.

At Wolpertinger Caves the party updated the resistance council of what they'd done at the observatory, and explained why they now had a zombie that was a former lich.  The party learned that Winnowing Reach was nearly ready to liberate themselves of the gnolls.  They also debated whether the last gate the gnolls had to their world should be destroyed.  The consensus was to destroy it, Xander could always send them to the world the party had traveled to if they felt merciful, once the gnolls were defeated.

Taking Dak (still called Yoda by the party) with them, they headed to the Githzerai Encampment.  It was a large encampment but looked a bit shabby, this was not a fresh fighting force.  When a group of gith approached the party Dúne stepped up and spoke with them in the language he'd learned from Dak and Evy Ashwood.  This immediately put the gith on edge.  It turned out to be the language of the mind flayers.

It took some explaining, and some spellcasting by the gith (Circle of Truth, Protection for Evil and Good) for the party to be trusted.  They spent the rest of their time bartering with the gith, offering to help with the mind flayers and asking in return for help with the gnolls.  A deal was worked out and the Resistance would add their forces to attacking the mind flayers and the Gith would (with some amount of joy) help free Alderheart.

With this concluded the party had roughly two weeks before the mind flayers were expected to arrive.  Snow convinced them to head toward the Unknown where Evelyn was reportedly being held.  Granted, the report came from a gnoll lich who was now following them around as a zombie under Amichai's control, but that was good enough for Snow.

The party teleported to The Avium and spent a few days hiking and searching for the central gate.  When they finally arrived they found a group of twelve or so folk on a small island at the center of the pond.  Gnolls were gathered around jeering at them, telling them to make a choice of who to kill.  The heroes dispatched them quickly.

To their surprise the folk refused to leave the island.  They said at least one of them had had their brain taken over by some creatures the gnolls let through their gate, but they didn't know who.  The gnolls had been making them guess who it was and killing them to see if one of the brain creatures crawled out (they'd made several wrong guesses already).

When Snow asked about Evelyn they said she'd been taken to have one of the brain creatures take her over.  She wouldn't talk to the gnolls about the resistance so they were going to try and bargain with the brain creature once it had control of her.

Inside an old temple Evelyn was chained to the ground, the gate was open, and the gnolls were watching at several of these quadruped brain creatures approached her.  It wasn't an easy fight, taking on the gnolls and these other creatures at the same time.  Ultimately the party persevered and rescued Evelyn.

Evelyn insisted on returning to Alderheart where she'd been rebuilding the resistance.  The party tried to persuade her to head to Wolpertinger Caves, but she insisted, much to Snow's dismay (smitten as he was).  She gave them the location of a food vender in one of the markets where she could be contacted.

Next, the party headed to rescue Conicus who was being held at a gnoll temple built for their god Anubis.  On the way they got a message from Kuato that the Winnowing Reach insurrection had begun and wasn't going well.  The Resistance was calling for additional help.  After a short debate the party backtracked to the teleportation circle at The Avium and traveled to the Spider Ruins teleportation circle, still a day away from Winnowing Reach.  Skipping any kind of rest they pushed on.

When they arrived that night, Winnowing Reach was in ruins.  Most of the city was burned many folk were dead in the streets along with gnolls.  It was difficult to tell who had attained the pyrrhic victory.  With just a moment to react, a dragon strafed the party with a breath weapon of pure magic and Vox Groundfang, the gnoll general, leapt off its back.  

It was a brutal battle with several party members already exhausted from the sprint to Winnowing Reach.  Vox appeared confident, even with Fang the Damned now a zombie under Amichai's control.  But the tide turned against him as the party focused on defeating him.  The dragon continued to pummel the party with attacks, whittling down their health.  Eventually Vox saw he couldn't win and fear overtook him as all the party's fury was unleashed.  Vox dropped to the ground dead and the party turned to face the dragon.

Rather than attacking it backed away in confusion.  The party approached cautiously, ready to fight if it turned on them.  But this was a dragon native to Humblewood and had been under some kind of control of Vox. Now that he was dead it had regained control of itself again.  It thanked the party and agreed to grant them a request, which was to go and visit Queue in Saltar's Port.  Or, outside of Saltar's Port since they thought a dragon landing in the middle of town might cause a bit of a disruption.  Queue had promised the party a favor if they ever sent a dragon his way he could speak with.

Taking a day to recover, the party began the trek back to the Temple of Anubis where they hoped to find Conicus.  Finally arriving several days later, the temple was newly built and already falling apart.  Clearly the gnolls were having trouble completing this gigantic endeavor.  

Outside the immense pyramid the party was attacked by large builders, constructs with folk fused into them, like they seen at the quarry where they'd killed Stitches (in Chapter 12: Friendly Gnolls in Brackenmill?).  Sadly, the folk no longer seemed aware of what they were doing and the party killed them out of mercy.  Except for the one or two that had gnolls in them, those they killed out of spite.

Inside the temple, on the first floor they entered a large sanctuary with a huge statue of Anubis behind an altar.  There were hundreds of gnolls, apparently holy fighters, listening to a priest as he gave a rallying speech to them.  Düne interpreted for the party.  "My brothers, our holy leader brought us here to the promised land and General Groundfang has done nothing to secure it for us.  Oh crap, where are my notes for this speech."

"Ummm, did he really say that?" Düne asked.

"No," the DM said, "I'd written this speech out but it didn't get saved in my notes."  He flipped through all the papers in front of him double checking.

"He says that then?"

"No, he doesn't say that either.  Shut up.  Okay, I remember most of it.  Here we go."

The crowd of gnolls pounded their speers on the ground in agreement.  The cleric continued, "We will march on the central city and take control of the military.  They have squandered the Promised Land.  General Groundfang does not deserve to lead anymore!"

At this point, Amichai had zombie General Groundfang walk up the center isle because of course he'd zombified him after the battle, wanting to reunite the two brothers in zombiehood.  This silenced the speaker and got everyone's attentioin as Zombie Groundfang shambled up to the front.  Seizing the moment, the party attacked.

The swarms of holy spear fighters were a challenge, as well as the three spellcasters.  This was, after all, the strongest fighters and clerics in the priestly caste.  Although a few party members did go down, Amichai was there to heal them and ultimately the heroes prevailed.  Rather than continue their exploration of the temple, they found a safe place to rest and heal up.

The next day they explored the rest of the temple and found a group of humblefolk and birdfolk cleric in a re-education camp at the top of the pyramid.  A few folk had accepted Anubis and were trying to convert the other prisoners.  The party had little use for these traitors.  Conicus was there and had a heartfelt reunion with Amichai, although the session was running a bit late so the sentimentality was short lived.