Orc Cave
Frustrated at the brambles that continue to cling, the fiend stops for a moment to tear them away – and then Zenithral’s last desperate shot finds its mark. The creature appears truly wounded as it is forced to put more distance between itself and this enemy full of light. The brambles dig deeper (Malebranche takes 8 damage) – and then Zenithral hits the snow, hard.
As Zenithral pulls his face from the snow he finds he has lost track of the malebranche in the darkness of night. Still, it is most likely heading toward the strange tower, and it cannot be faring well with its injuries.
It's still within range of his longbow, but it is far out of his darkvision range, and also out of regular earshot. Straining his senses with a good perception check is possible, however.
Also, Zen has Inspiration for rolling on the fumble chart!
Rolls
malebranche athletics check - (1d20+10)
(4) + 10 = 14
brambles dmg - (2d6)
(62) = 8
malebranche athletics check - (1d20+10)
(10) + 10 = 20
For his own part, Hjollsted seems much better than he did earlier. The old man’s eyes are bright and alert, and he has plenty of color in his cheeks. His shrug is followed by a chuckle. "I told you. Tempus won’t let this one die." He winces then. "But apparently the God of Battle is content to let me feel the pain of broken ribs." He looks over Reothadh. "But you look to be as healthy as ever, for your plunge in the lake. Better, perhaps!"
The shaman thanks Saki and with her help moves to inspect the prisoners. "Tribe of the Wolf. Always the fools, but I never thought they would stoop to this. They aren’t in their right minds."
Alalla sees the elf clench his fists as he whispers in Elvish. "Get up, boy!"
After a moment Arannis turns to Alalla. "My spell has ended, but the fiend must be weak. We shall see if Zenithral is able to finish it off."
She summons her glaive to her hand and leans on it heavily. "I think Zenithral has things in hand. His wife and siblings are inside after all."
He moves to enter the cave, but then pauses. "I do not agree with all of my grandson's choices, but I trust him to be his own man. He sees something in this group of yours. You're powerful enough, all of you. But against enemies such as these, power is not enough." He gestures to the night sky. "Even when Zenithral kills that monster, it will not truly be dead. It will reform somewhere in the Nine Hells and make its report. How do you fight someone smarter than you?"
"You're telling me," she replies bluntly. "I'm not very clever. Belhifet had horrible plans for me, and the best solution I could come up with to spare the north that tragedy was to kill myself. He still spun that to his advantage.
I'm also not very hopeful. I don't really see a successful outcome here. But I have become a lot of things I never thought I would be, and most of them I actively avoided at one point in time. The chieftess of an orc tribe hundreds strong. A paladin in the service of a god. An elf's wife. Perhaps I'll add devil vanquisher to the list before the end."
She shrugs. "Or perhaps not. But what's the alternative? I'll not lay down or run away while there's something I can do. Even if it's small."
She looks back out into the night and grips the holy symbol at her belt. Her skin shines briefly as she draws on Torm's power to heal some of her wounds. She also takes a moment to search for nearby fiends, wrinkling her nose at her own smell that is immediately apparent.
"For now I'll take comfort that it's not just Zenithral that sees something, but his patron, and mine. I've seen hands manipulating things. Maybe we'll just be the first line of soldiers on the battlefield- maybe we were always meant to be- but Ilmater and Torm will continue this fight if we fall."
Lay on hands for 15hp used. Divine sense also used.
Rolls
Perception - (1d20+3)
(18) + 3 = 21
Longbow 1 (Dis) - (1d20+11, 1d20+11)
1d20+11 : (8) + 11 = 19
1d20+11 : (10) + 11 = 21
Longbow 2 (Dis) - (1d20+11, 1d20+11)
1d20+11 : (14) + 11 = 25
1d20+11 : (9) + 11 = 20
Longbow 3 (Dis) - (1d20+11, 1d20+11)
1d20+11 : (3) + 11 = 14
1d20+11 : (14) + 11 = 25
Damage - (2d8+23)
(65) + 23 = 34
"Have you always known that arrow trick and I just never bothered to learn it?" Zenithral asks Arannis. "If so, I would love to learn that one from you now."
Zenithral surveys the group, taking a head-count noting the wounded and gets to work with the staff of healing where needed. "Is everyone alright?" He addresses everyone in general, but looks at Halla.
"You were not ready for it when I saw you last, Zenithral. You obviously are now. I will teach you tomorrow. For now I must think, and I would prefer to do so alone."
He leaves without waiting for an answer.
Halla coils the canoloth’s tongue with a grimace on her face, then shoves it back into the bag of holding as best she can. "I hate this thing." Nobody is sure if she speaks of the creature itself or its absurdly tongue. "How will we keep it contained? ‘Tis difficult to monitor within the bag, but there ‘tis also hidden from divination magic. We do not want Ilmadia to spy it out after all the trouble of bringing it here."
Alalla eases herself to a sit and begins removing her armour so she can assess her wounds. Her holy healing didn't do as much as she would have liked, just about all of her aches. She sets her head against the cave wall, oblivious to a face near covered in blood, and breathes the pain away.
"The meeting is tomorrow. That's not too long to keep the thing tied up. It is tied up, right? Should we remove it's tongue while it's asleep? I have a little bit of power left to heal the stub so it won't be more than uncomfortable when it wakes up."
HP: 11/154
"I'd argue that anything we do to the canoloth is only very temporary. We wouldn't put it through much pain, and it will reform unharmed wherever it came from. It's not quite the same as doing it to someone of a mortal race. But..." Alalla sighs as she looks at the children. "You're right. I feel justified, and normally I'd do what I felt was necessary and let you condemn me to them if you had to. But I'm supposed to be a better example as a paladin, aren't I?"
She gestures to the canoloth. "You handle the reasoning with it. Just... remember that it helped Whitcomb keep the twins from you for ransom."
Rolls
Mystery roll - (1d20+7)
(15) + 7 = 22
Mystery roll - (1d20+7)
(4) + 7 = 11
"It seems they were tracking Hjollsted," she gestures to the old man being tended to by Saki. "As far as I can tell, anyway. He's an old friend of Reòthadh's, and knows something about the tower.
She gestures for him to come sit. "That's a shame about Zenithral's light, though I'm glad you could make use of it. Did you see Arannis as you came through? He went out to scout." Or pout.
"I passed Arannis, yes. He knows not to go too far. Sometimes elves just like a little solitude."
He settles down next to Alalla. "The tower is well-defended. A score of frost giants. An assortment of greater tanar’ri. Not to mention the barbarian army. I think I saw their leader, a brute in full plate - uncommon for one of the tribes to be armored so." He sighs and shakes his head. "The tower stands where the Temple of Tempus once was. It’s hard to say if anything of the original structure remains, or if it was all destroyed. I tried to scout out the town for any survivors, but the place is crawling with enemies. If they’re not in the tower itself... or dead... they might be held in one of the larger buildings. Perhaps Pomab’s old shop?"
She sighs with irritation at Erevain's report. "So many. At this point, I think we best pray that the meeting with Ilmadia goes well. Beyond that, we may need to focus on the army before the villagers. Breaking them out of somewhere and then running them into a score of frost giants will do little good. Still, I'll feel better when I know what happened to them."
The elf’s shoulders sag slightly at the thought of the villagers. "They had no defense against these foes." He pursers his lips. "But Everard... He would be a valuable prisoner. If we can find him, I am sure that he will have found out something about our enemies here."