Session 23
Date: 10 September 2020
Prev: Session 22
Next: Session 24
The battle continues with Raen killing one of the fangs. Valor unites with Quinn to give her flight, and together they draw the attention of the remaining two gnolls. The flind seizes the opportunity to lay into the unconscious Mino with the flail, killing him. He has an out of body experience, seeing the world frozen and devoid of color, and meets the Kindred, Lamb and Wolf, who are the spirit of death. They offer him a choice: go peacefully with Lamb, or be hunted by Wolf. He takes a swing at the flind, but it passes right through. Mino chooses to run, so Wolf chases him down and the world goes dark.
The rest of the group rallies. Nergil lays down the darkness spell around the gnolls. This allows the rest of the party to reposition despite taking a handful of painful attacks from the flail, which initially paralyze Raen and cause Quill to lash out madly with the Staff of Flowers. While this doesn't really do any damage, it does produce flowers. Corrin remains engaged with the two flesh gnawers to keep them from joining their comrades and deftly avoids most of their attacks.
Meanwhile, the flind barks an order in Abyssal at the remaining fang to begin the process of cursing Mino’s lifeless body, which Corrin understands and passes on to the rest of the group. Raen slips into the darkness to prevent the fang from completing the ritual and grapples it. Pasky and Nergil throw shuriken and eldritch blasts, respectively, providing cover for everyone else.
On another plane, Mino wakes up in a fighting arena, facing a woman with a spear. She eventually introduces herself as Winnehild, goddess of war, and challenges him to a fight. Mino pleads with her to go back, that his friends need his strength, and he offers her his service and devotion. She dismisses his arguments, saying that he needs to prove himself in battle for her to consider taking any action on his behalf, although she also offers to let him stay and fight in her Battlefield Eternale. They wind up engaging, with Winnehild calling more and more of her animal companions to her side as weapons. Mino’s rage builds as they trade blows and he begs to be allowed back to the Material Plane, expressing his frustration that he’s seen only as someone who can hit things really hard.
Winnehild continues her assault, until he finally snaps and pushes his rage beyond his normal limits, knocking her back with a combo of attacks. This appears to placate her, as she points out that just fighting isn’t enough – if Mino wants to put himself in the thick of battle, that’s fine, but he has to recognize that’s a choice he makes. He wasn’t able to hurt her until he committed to the action 100%, making the choice to pursue a specific strategy, implying that there are always other choices he can make. She takes his axe and blesses it, bringing him back to life.
On the battlefield, he coughs and stands up. He sees the flind in front of him and charges, laying into it and leaving it bloodied. The rest of the team is cheered as the tide turns; Raen kills the fang in his arms and moves to back up Corrin while Nergil punishes the wounded flind with an eldritch blast. The flind strikes out with his flail at Mino, doing what would be deadly damage, but the goddess’s protection lingers and he stands back up defiantly. Pasky makes a valiant attempt to back up Mino but is laid out by the flind; Corrin casts healing spirit to revive him. Quill takes the opportunity to grab the flind’s head and unleashes shocking grasp. They watch as the flind fries from the head down, smelling the singed fur and flesh, as it collapses against the wall and slumps to the ground, dead.
Raen and Corrin finish off the weaker of the two gnawers. Mino picks up the flail and lays into the remaining one, dispatching it. He tiredly returns to the flind’s body and gets a couple of strikes in before the flail dissipates from the Material Plane. The team regroups, thrilled that Mino is back – he apologizes, but the team won’t hear it, just happy that he isn’t dead.
The party begin the task of cleaning up, making sure not to leave any dead body outside of the cave for any more scavengers. Quill worries that Quinn and Valor haven’t returned and prepares to spend some time searching, but they stumble back to camp as the party finishes their tasks and are rolling the boulder (from the trap, how long ago that seems) back in front of the cave.
As they decompress, the party asks Quinn if she knew about the gnolls. She says no, and together everyone pieces together what likely happened: the bugbears probably slipped across the eastern border, with the gnolls following for the scraps. The fangs can curse a dead body so that any hyena that eats from it will become a gnoll itself, meaning they gathered more gnolls as they travelled. And with a flind present, they were much more well-organized than just a marauding band. The party is made keenly aware that if they had not stopped the gnolls here, it could have been much worse for other people down the line. Quinn observes that the marcher lords are meant to prevent these kinds of things, but Nergil surmises that the bugbears and gnolls were probably able to slip by while the marcher lords were occupied elsewhere with portal shit.
Raen and Nergil, as the least wounded, take watch throughout the night which passes uneventfully. Mino has a dream that Winnehild's tiger visits and speaks to him. Mino thanks her, and she reiterates that he has lots of choices in combat besides just hitting things really hard, and Mino sheepishly agrees. Upon waking, he informs the party that he fought a god, having held off on telling that tale the night before. Their strength (mostly) restored, the party, plus Quinn and Valor, make their way northwest to Redford. The town is moderately sized, with many of the buildings constructed of a characteristic red brick (Mino: “ohhhhhhh.”). Quinn points out that it’s still Market Day, and the party enters the town.
