Session 73 - Jaxii Does a Boromir

23rd June 2023

In-game timeline: Start of session: 1490DR Ches 14. End of session: 1490DR Ches 14

Our "Heroes" wait outside a gnoll lair, contemplating their next steps. After much discussion, Karoshi and Derrick head in, gathering the torches they threw in earlier, and avoiding the ball bearings that were also thrown in earlier. Jaxii, Iwee and Sully wait just outside the cave.

Using his polished shield, Karoshi looks around the corner, but sees only another empty short tunnel before the next corner, so they move to that one, with the barbarian and bard following at a distance.

Doing the same at the next corner, Karoshi sees the tunnel opening up into a larger cavern, and spies some movement in there, but can't really see anything else in his makeshift mirror. The sounds of snarling and chattering are getting louder, though perhaps slightly less frequent as if beasts are trying their best to keep quiet.

The cavern is dark, so Derrick decides he needs to throw a torch into it. His first attempt, trying to throw the torch around a corner without revealing himself, failed abysmally, so he steps out quickly to throw the second torch further in.

And thus shows in great detail the arrows trained upon him, that are released as soon as he steps out. Two arrows hit him immediately, but luckily the large, barbed ballista bolt misses him and embeds itself in the wall behind him. Derrick leaps back, grateful at only being hit by two normal sized arrows, and, while the gnolls are no doubt reloading the ballista, the party discuss their next steps.

Knowing there is a group of two gnolls and two hyenas standing together, Iwee comes up to the corner and leans round to cast Hypnotic Pattern at the group. They fire the ballista again towards her, but miss once more, as Iwee's diminutive size doesn't offer much of a target. She fires off her spell and ducks back, without knowing the result.

Hoping to have got at least a few of them, Karoshi steps up to rush into the cavern. As he turns the corner he is pounced upon by a hyena that was about to turn the corner. It misses with its bite, but Karoshi is now busy fighting the beast. Iwee runs in to help him, getting hit in the process with an arrow fired from within the cave and causing her to drop her concentration on Hypnotic Pattern. The hyena gets a bit on Karoshi but gets Rebuked, Hellishly for his trouble. Another hyena joins the first and gets a bite on Karoshi.

Somewhat rashly, Jaxii rushes in blindly, without knowing what is coming. She gets peppered with arrows, Boromir-like. Luckily she decided to Rage first, so the arrow damage is reduced. She ends her turn with many arrows sticking out from her. Derrick runs in to help and manages to Reduce the large ballista to turn it into a normal crossbow, stopping it from being such a threat.

The battle progresses in this fashion, with a few gnolls and hyenas engaging the party directly, but more are firing on the group from their higher positions on platforms around the cavern, benefitting from being hidden from those that are relying on torches to see in the dark.

Sully is called in from outside to help, but his appearance is delayed when he stumbles on the ball bearings just inside the entrance. When he finally arrives, he provides a great and easy target for the gnolls to fire at, and, after receiving a few arrows in his body, the spiritual steed falls, and disappears.

Derrick asks Pacino to distract the gnolls firing on the group, and the owl does manage to put off a couple of the arrow shots heading for the party, as well as drawing the fire of a couple of shots - which luckily miss him.

Iwee makes good use of her Shatter spell, and hands out her Bardic Inspiration liberally, which helps out a very demoralised Jaxii to take down some gnolls and hyenas. As Jaxii decapitates a particular gnoll she is surprised to hear the isolated head speak to her in draconic.

IN an attempt to raise Jaxii's spirits, Karoshi protects her with a Sactuary spell which magically continues working even though Jaxii carried on attacking whilst still under its protection (because the DM forgot the rule!).

After a poor start, the tide starts to turn in the party's favour as Jaxii and Derrick start to fell the creatures, though Jaxii continues to refuse to believe they will survive this. As the creatures start to fall, they are joined by a boss gnoll, who shouts at his troops and seems to conjure up more gnolls to help in the battle. This demoralises Jaxii even more. She refuses to take her health potion and instead accepts that death is coming for her.

But it doesn’t. Instead, death comes for her opponents as she continues to take her enemies down, and her friends pick off the other gnolls surrounding them. Jaxii starts to get her mojo back as she runs over to take on the boss, striking him hard, twice. Karoshi helps out with two Smite-boosted attacks and the boss very quickly regrets his decision to join the fight and turns to run. Jaxii, now full of high spirits, smashes him in the back as he runs and takes him down. He turns as he falls and he garbles a message to the Dragonborn as he falls, speaking awkwardly in draconic.

Having seen many of their pack-mates fall, and their boss be taken down so quickly, the remaining gnolls panic and run for the exit. The party give no quarter, and fire on their opponents as they escape, with Iwee managing to take one down with a vicious mocking. The others manage to escape, however, and our "Heroes" decide not to pursue.

Instead, they lick their wounds as they wonder if there are any more gnolls, or anything else, still in this lair…