Azyrah Faynore - Session 4

# Book of Shadows

**Azy session 23 Apr**

Azy sees the imminent threat of more incoming gnolls, pouring out of the hospital, seemingly under the control of the giant Gnoll.  She tells her friends “They are after me.  We’ve been good fighting partners but now I’m going to draw them away.  Get the ears and meet me at that Guitar Center”.  Without waiting for a reply, she jumps (using Cat’s Grace) off the roof of the Taco Bell, and dashes to the housing area away from the commercial area.

She dashes and searches for an open house while the gnolls follow and try to catch up.  She eventually finds a house with an open garage and runs in.  On the workbench to the right is a baseball bat with spikes driven through it, and tools scatterd around as though someone was working on devensive items.  On a corkboard are pictures of a happy family with two kids, a boy and a girl.  They look like a normal, happy group.  Two Teslas are parked in the garage, with a door leading into the house on the far wall.

Azyrah runs into the house, slamming the door behind her, and runs up the stairs.  Gnolls pursue her into the garage and start pounding on the door, growling and slavering and scratching to get in.

Up the stairs she opens a door into a large bathroom, and through the window in the wall she can see more gnolls running towards the house.  The second door opens into a room painted pink with a bright green race car bed that says APPLETREE on the side

The next door is the master bedroom and it smells like death. Azy investigates

Investigation Nat 20

Someone who has been dead a long time is hanging from a rope attached to the ceiling fan. A note lays near the body. Azy reads it.

“My dearest Rebecca I tried my hardest to keep it going. I tried to prepare. Please take Jamie and Jack and go someplace safe, love Dirk”

Azy sighs and puts the note down. She searches the closet to see if this man who prepared for this has left anything behind that she could use. Jewlery box with diamond rings and earrings and jewlery. Huge diamind wedding ring, 2 diamond earrings, sapphire bracelet. Azyrah takes them. Looks around for more.

Charisma saving throw 22 – Casts Armor of Agathys, with diamond shard, on First level, but gets a second level strength due to 22. 10 dmg and 10 temp hp.

Round 1

Azy - Eldritch Blast 24 w lance of lethargy 9 dmg, gnoll slows to very slow speed, missing the left side of it’s face – just an empty space, no bones or anything.  Just a blank space.

Half-face Gnoll – 6 pts piercing damage biting her leg.  Takes 10 dmg from Armor of Agathys, bone digging into it’s neck.

Other gnolls are climbing the stairs.

Rpund 2

Azy – Bone Shot as a melee NAT 1 – she shoves as hard as she can, but aims for the side of the face that isn’t there, Bone Shot misses and burrows into the carpet on the floor, getting stuck in the wood below. She tries to pull Bone Shot out of the wood. Athletics check 17 – rips the bow out of the flooring. Azy turns and runs into Jamie’s bedroom, shutting the door behind her in the pink room with the Appletree green race car bed.

Half-Face Gnoll bites her, Armor of Agathys attacks and kills Half Face.

Other gnolls are at the door growling and snuffling, and she hears “ATTACK” and “GO”.  Gnolls shouldn’t speak but these do.

Azy Athletics check 3 – can’t keep the door closed

Slightly Taller Gnoll in the front stares at her hungrily

Round 3

Azy – Eldritch Blast 12 – doesn’t hit.  In desperation, she runs to the window and looks outside.  She sees, out the right side, no gnolls coming, but a fence they built ages ago, covered with human body parts and feces. It basically screams “death to humans”.

3 Gnolls enter

11, no hit 21 hit, 14 no hit

Azy puts her arm up to block the hit, and takes 3 pts of piercing damage as gnoll 1 bites down on her forearm, not letting go.

Round 4

Azy opens the window to the bedroom to jump out

3 gnolls get attack of opportunity  23,19, 10 doesn’t hit.  8pts of damage – Azy has 9 pts left.

Azy lands gently on the grass of the fenced in backyard thanks to Cat’s Grace.  The gnolls trying to get to the house can’t see her, but the 3 upstairs can.  On the right side is a fence gate, and a back door to the house in the 40x50 backyard.  There’s a swing set and kid’s toys and sand box.  She runs to the gate and peeks out, doesn’t see any gnolls coming.

3 gnolls jump out the window.  2xd6 – they all take 5pts of falling damage, but don’t care.  And rush to attack.

Azy puts her fist in front of her with her bow, keeping the gnoll at bay, and unable to bite her.

Round 5

Azy runs out the gate, and shuts it behind her.  All around she sees houses and trees and Death To Humans Wall, no obvious place to take cover.  Azy takes a right, heading NW back in the direction of Guitar Center using dash, and zigzagging.

Skills challenge, first of the SooN campaign! She has to roll something she’s proficient in and get to three successes before three fails; and can’t use the same skill twice.  If she fails, the gnolls will find her.  Chomp chomp.

Survival roll – 17, success!  Azy finds a few trees to dodge behind to obscure the view of the gnolls.  Some lost sight of her, but not all.  She’s still surrounded by neighborhood, but is getting towards the edge of it, heading towards an Ace Hardware.

Intimidation check – 23, success!  Azy runs and looses a stream of Eldritch energy, a terrifying crackling beam that strikes a gnoll and starts melting it’s chest.  The other gnolls see that and are properly intimidated.  Ooooh, aaaaah.

She’s near a museum, a church, she can see the edge of a police station, she passed a golf course.

Investigation check – 11, fail.  She runs up to the police station looking for a place to hide, and all of the doors are locked, even the ones that should be open.  A last stand happened in this city, and the police seem to have barricaded the doors long ago.

Gnolls catch up – 21 hits, 5pts of piercing damage in the small of her back from a spear as she’s looking into the police station, at least 4-5 inches into her skin.

Round 6

Azy – still in skills check.

Animal Handling 16, success! Azy gives a hyena a ration and asks it to fight for her. The hyena doesn’t seem to want to fight for her, but the food does distract the hyenas and they all start snarling and fighting for the ration. This gives her enough time to run around the corner of the police station and lose the gnolls and hyenas pursuing her.

End Combat

“You let her get away!  She get away!  Where she go?  Ugnhhhh” screams one Gnoll in perfect common, most unsually.

Azy makes her way back to Guitar Center. Crawling through the tunnel, something is blocking it. She bangs on the barricade and says, "It's me, Azyrah!"

The barricade is removed and looming above her in all it’s glory is one small, green, flaccid goblin peen.  The goblin pulls her into the Guitar Center, delighted to see her. Azy is happy to see Quele and Girthor made it back. She gives them a hug.

Quele offers her a diamond shard, but Azy says to keep it for now, she just wants to rest. Richard is so excited that she came back, “You came back, no one ever comes back!”  He leads her to a practice room with a bed in it and small treats of chocolate and snacks laid out for her.  “Don’t eat them all at once, you can get a tummy ache, I did before.”  He shuts the door and through the soundproof walls she hears vague thumps as Girthor and Quele bed down in their own practice rooms.

Examining her bow, Azy sees that there’s no real damage, and drifts off to sleep, but doesn’t quite get a long rest.

--

Waking up, the lightbulb over the bed goes black, like ink has been poured into it, and lights go out all over the Center.  A creepy spindly ghostly dark hand oozes out towards her. She heas a feminine voice “The gate is open. Yeenoghu is coming, and you’re too weak to stop him! Hold your head up high. Look at the things beneath you. Shove them away." The pitch black receeds, and in her lap is a small box.  It’s black, pitch black, not even a color, but the sheer absence of any light.

Charisma 23 – she tries to pick up the box, and the shadows recede and reveal a book.  She touches it some more, and as she brushes it, more of the shadows brush away.  When she brushes upwards the book turns into that absence of light, as she brushes down, the cover is revealed.  It looks viney and twisted, like an ancient tree root, with an alabaster face of a woman staring out at her, and words in a language she can’t read.  This Book of Shadows is hers, and she only has to think of it and move her arm down to get the book.  If she thinks of it and moves her arm up it will disappear.

Goes back to sleep, gets a long rest this time.  When she gets up, she spends some time flipping through the book.  Although she can’t read the words, some of the spells become known to her, as though they’re translating themselves for her as she looks at them.

Azy opens the door of the practice room and hears insanely loud thumps and strums.  A jam sesh is in full swing.   “Are you tired, did you get any sleep”, Azy asks them.  They did get sleep, but she slept for so long – 19 hours - that they decided to jam.  Richard and WiFi and Girthor and Quelle are all having a ball with the music, while Goblin swings in the air above them on his electrical ‘vines’, still naked, happily gibbering.  Azy keeps an eye on him, not wanting another encounter with his Little Green Man. Richard said they should let her rest, and they’ve been jamming hard for about 4 hours. Girthor quietly says to her “We are ready to go when you are, you are the one we follow."  Although she’s concerned, Azy doesn’t want to leave right this moment, and settles down to watch for a while.  Constitution 21 – Azy will have a small ringing in her ears for a few hours from listening to the crazy loud jam session.

“Let’s go get the car and leave here in the morning”, she suggests. Girthor seems concerned that they will just leave the town overrun with gnolls.  Azy knows they need more help, they can’t clear the town themselves. She mentions that she couldn't believe the gnolls were acting so strange and were after her. Insight 15 – Girthor tries to flirt, but it comes off badly.  “People have been after you your entire life, haven’t they?” he asks gently.  Azy looks at him funny and shakes it off, not understanding he’s trying to show he cares.  She wants to call in Sari and Vic to help out.  At the mention of Vic, Girthor’s lip curls in distaste, ever so slightly.

Azy calls Sari.  A middle aged man picks up, not what she was expecting.  “Sari left about 4 days ago, she said she had a vision and she needed to come help you, is she not there yet?  Where are you?”  Azy tells him they’re near St. Louis, and dad seems very worried, she should have been there by now.  He’s not a fan of Azyrah, Sari didn’t start having these visions until she met Azy.  “Azyrah, you find my daughter and you bring her back to me!”  Azy says that’s what she’s going to do, and the older man tells her he doesn’t care what she’s planning, he cares what she DOES and she had BETTER find his daughter.

Girthor suggests that Quele and Azy head to Chicago, and he goes back along their route to find Sari.  “Are you sure? But what about Vic? Should we call him and ask him for help too?” Azy asks. Girthor bites his tongue, not wanting to say what he’s about to say.  He doesn’t want to leave her alone with that Vic fellow, but he’s trained to find people so he has to be the one to go.

She calls Vic, who answers the phone and starts talking about a super hot nurse, mmm yum.  He claims that Girthor texted him about 6 hours ago, saying she needed “True Love’s Kiss” to wake her up. Azy side-eyes him, but Girthor looks perfectly innocent. She asks Vic if he can please hurry and get to her, she needs help badly, and Sari is missing, and can Vic get out of the hospital to get to her?

She has been gone for 5 days, Vic is already out of the hospital and can get to her no problem.  Maybe his dad can teleport Vic to her, but it will cost some.  He sets the phone down, but Azy can hear him begging his dad, his common bravado stripped bare, “Dad I love her, I don’t know what would happen if I lost her, please Dad, please.”  Azy hears in the room and over the phone at the same time “You didn’t say you were in a Guitar Center.”  A high pitched gibbering noise is heard approaching and then smack – a green goblin peen smacks into Vic’s head.  “WHAT THE FUCK!”, Vic yells and grabs his sword. He notices nobody is moving and looks at Azy, “These are your friends?  Ugh”.

Girthor heads out to look for Sari, even though it’s about 3 am, and mumbles “Can I please kill that guy” before hugging Azy and giving Richard and Wifi a high five.  Goblin just licks Girthor’s hand, the weird little dude.  A few hours later, Quele and Vic and Azy leave the store to go get the car from the auto shop. The sun is rising, it’s beautiful. Vic takes her hand and interlaces his fingers with hers and says “Oh, it’s never going to get old is it” in a romantic tone. Quele comes and puts her hand on top of theirs, ruining the moment, and says “Yeah, we’re a great team, yeah!”  From the side facing Azy, Quele winks, knowing exactly what she’s doing. Azy is grateful that Quele understands her predicament.

As the sun rises, Azy swears she can see a giant gnoll head rise up from the ground, blotting out part of the sun.  That can’t be real, can it…?

**Session 5**

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