Session 30 Recap

After defeating the Drow, you found a message on the best-dressed drow that said "Hasten back to me my son, my charms can't protect you from what lies in the western caverns. The information you bring back may give us some indication as to the nature of the beast. Lolth willing, we may be able to turn the beast and use it to crush Horgar's folk. Countess Zeberena"

You then headed deeper nto the caverns and when you reached a fork in the road you took the left fork as the other caves seemed to have more evidence of drow. Eventually you heard the banging of a drum, chanting and howling, and you witnessed a gnoll being sacrificed to Art Killer. You managed to leap, climb and be thrown over the hole art killer followed before proceeding forward. After around 10 minutes of walking, you found a large open cavern, with gnolls screaming and jeering and howling, in a total blood lust. Every gnoll had one green eye and one black eye. There were gnollish huts all around the outside of the cavern and there were five priests sacrificig what seemed to be an endless supply of gnolls to art killer. You stepped into the cavern and fired a fireball at one of the walls. It crashed into a hut sending gnolls plummeting to their death - but the whole cavern went completely silent. The leader of the gnolls turned to you, and said

"As my connection to my lord deepens, I leave my old concerns behind. His hunger is all that matters. It is greater than me; it is greater than us all. It is His mark. He made us. He drives us. He eats what we eat. He kills what we kill. He will come if we eat well. He will come if we kill well. He will come if we eat well. He will come if we kill well. We will kill and He will eat, and we shall be He and He shall be we, never alone, never afraid, never hungry. No longer must we fear the great Ever Hungry - The Dark One has her had he has and given us the power to release her on the giant city"

The gnolls then attacked. The odds were seemingly stacked against you, but you held fast, with Fluff using her Helm of Brilliance for maximum impact, creating several walls of fire and fire balls to clear several gnolls at once. Qelgar played his supporting role well too, using spirit guardians as a second line of defence against the oncoming horde. Flint, ever the cool character, used his exceptional marksmanship to take down the priests that were well out of the range of the rest of the party. Grundull, Shadow and Duala used their ranged and magical capabilities to counter snipe gnollish archers and defeat the nearest priest. Art Killer emerged several times from the cavern walls and shot with lightning speed down into the cavern, but he never focussed on the party - perhaps the priests were too distracted by the onslaught of damage they were receiving, or perhaps the Goddess of Luck was smiling down upon you. However, once the final priest was destroyed, Art Killer dropped from the ceiling directly in front of you. He burrowed into the ground and dug beneath your defenses, before emerging. With several of you within melee ranged, he lashed out viciously, though his otherworldly speed had fallen away he was still a formidable adversary. Qelgar took the worst of the punishment, with Art Killer plunging his poisonous tail stinger deep into Qelgar's chest, knocking him to the ground dying. This was compounded by an ill timed Fireball from Fluff, which Qelgar took the brunt of. It was looking bad for Qelgar, when Duala flew down from the sky and administered a healing potion to her old friend, bringing him back from the brink. Grundull then flew into a frenzy, swinging ferociously with his axe. He hacked away until seeing an opening, he screamed to Flint to take a shot. Ever the professional, Flint steadied his aim. Fire licked at his cloak, gnolls snarled and screamed all around him, but to Flint all was silent. His world was Princess, Queen and Art Killer. He levelled his Beloved at the opening Grundull had opened up, and took the shot bringing the fell beast down. On seeing Art Killer's death you cheered, but the death of Art Killer drove the gnolls into even more of a frenzy and they surged towards you. The fire completely engulfed the chasm, making retreat through the blaze difficult. And that's where we are now.