A message appeared before the group's eyes, but then quickly fizzled out before anyone could read it. The loud sound of walking could be heard coming from all directions. a light clapping began as a man in a suit and tophat. He had a fine groomed handlebar moustache and a circular pair of glasses. The man spoke in a cheery, upbeat voice. "Welcome travelers! I am very pleased to inform thee of finding the snake pit gate. The rarest of exits to the tower, only found by pure luck my friends!" The man snapped his fingers which cleaned up the trio. "Follow me now as we talk."
The trio had to go on a light jog in order to keep up with the dapper man, which reminded Blue of an anime he watched. "So where are we going, mister? The next floor?"
The man chuckled. "The floors are naught but meager tests of how strong a group is. You few are an undefined group, the first to pass the snake pit gate. In reality, only the worst players make it far up since the higher up you go, the easier the gate is to find. Some are just terrible at problem solving, but sometimes, that's not enough." The man's pace would pick up a small bit yet he still seemed to be walking. "I'm sure you could have beaten the beast, but you would have been depleted of health and sent right back to the safe zone. Lady luck however smiled upon you."
The dark void slowly grew to pure white as the man stopped at a wooden door, the trio being far too worn out to talk. The man would open the door, and outside they could see a lush green field with a small town in the short distance. which without a word of question, the three went in.
They sat outside under a tree, out of breath and saved by Lady luck. The light outside was blinding compared to the dark caverns. Now zero caves were to be seen. Too bad the tree wasn't an apple tree.
"this game is fuckin confusing me." Blacksmith let out a sigh, the entire thing was a fuckshow of confusing and misleading paths, even all the info they got was wrong. The tower wasn't real and they thought that it was.
"you bet it is, but it is fairly fun, yeah? You must admit the snake was cool." Gunter slightly flexed as he spoke about the snake. "although that cut the snake gave you isn't very cool."
Blacksmith touched where she got cut just to realize it was still bleeding. "Yeah maybe we should do something about that. Though I feel fairly fine, it only stings a little bit. got any rags?"
Gunter pulled a small torn bit of cloth out of the backpack and handed it over to Blacksmith. "Thanks man."
Blue stood up from where he was resting to get the attention of Gunter and Blacksmith. "Shouldn't we head into the town? That seems like the first step. and we could get some more gear."
"That would be a good idea BUUUUTTTTTT I'm really tired." Rather than sitting against the tree, Blacksmith now laid down in the grass, it looked extremely comfortable. "It's nice right here, finally breathing fresh air. Feels like a start to a Temples and Taverns campaign."
"Both of you are right, it would be a good idea, and in every Temples and Taverns session, something bad happens in the first ten minutes." Gunter kept his eyes on the village, his eyesight was fairly good. Blue sat down next to Gunter.
After about twenty minutes of resting, the sound of someone yelling could be heard, which made Gunter jump. Paying close attention, Gunter was able to spot a man running from about ten gnolls, it looked hilarious. "I told you guys something would happen."
"Why don't we go help them!" Blue stood up, holding up his ant staff. Blacksmith got up from her nap after hearing the yelling, and was already ready to head over to kick some serious ass.
"If you two are cool, I'm cool. We can handle this." Gunter, leading the group as the tank, took the first steps toward the town, but all of it came to a sprint as they saw smoke begin to rise up in a chaotic and ominous way.
Before entering the town, gunter realized how much smoke there was, which with how this game played out, could be dangerous. "Just to be safe, we should wear masks using our rags, it would be bad if anyone got poisoned by the fire."
All three agreed to the masks since smoke was a genuine danger, and after they were on, they pushed into the town, most people seemed to have evacuated, but they could hear some fighting up ahead. There were definitely more than ten enemies. Of course there was more than one angle that the gnolls could have come from, and from the tree, only three entry points could be seen, so more than just ten was extremely possible.
When the group got to where they heard the fighting, they saw two people, A blue tiefling girl and a half orc man, they both appeared to be pinned by three gnolls.
As a gnoll lunged in to kill the tiefling girl, Gunter bull rushed his way in, slamming his fist onto the gnoll's face. The moment felt like slow motion, the sound of the beast's skull cracking could be heard, and it fell limp and dead on the ground. The two other gnolls snarled at Gunter, the one further back fired an arrow at gunter which he was prepared to take the hit, but it was stopped mid air. Blue used his magic to stop the arrow and turn it around, flinging it into the gnoll who shot the arrow. Before the third one could even react, it's chest was pierced from behind by Blacksmith with her snake gut sword.
The tiefling appeared to be a cleric of some kind and the half orc maybe a swordsman? The man was coughing on the ground and had wounds all over him, an arrow in his arm too. The smoke here wasn't doing him any good as well. Blacksmith approached the two, pulling her mask down to speak. "Miss, do you think you can carry him out of the town? We can handle the beasts for now."
The tiefling girl nodded, hoisting the half orc's arm over her shoulder as she would try and help him walk out, Gunter followed close behind to ensure a safe exit, and quickly returned to the group to see both Blue and Blacksmith looting the gnolls. "Do you have to loot now or can we deal with this later?"
Blacksmith looked up from looting to Gunter as she shamelessly picked out a pouch of coin and a few small marble looking objects, and a pouch off the gnoll's belt to put on her belt. "Yes and no. These might be useful for battle!" She would quickly put the items she found inside the belt pouch.
The bowman of the gnolls must have also been the medic as Blue pulled out a satchel that had some herbs and bandages. "I think these will be especially useful post battle."
Gunter sighed and began running to the center of town where he heard the most amount of fighting. When the trio got to the center, they saw a group of eight gnolls that had killed a group of five people, and only the sixth member, who was a goblin holding a large shield. The trio took cover behind a building to devise a plan.
"Blue, can you use magic to distract them with some rocks while we run around and flank them?" Blue nodded and he prepared his staff, beginning to glow a light blue color. "And then Gunter you rush in and try and get at least two…" Blacksmith would glance around the corner again, seeing a larger gnoll who appeared to be the leader. "I can try and take the leader down to decrease the morale and then have the goblin assist you as the tank as blue throws projectiles, i will be the spear and stab in the gaps of your defences."
The trio quickly sprung into action. At that moment, blue would attempt to destroy the building the gnolls were next to, not only to distract them but deal some damage as well. The building came crumbling down, narrowly missing the goblin and smashing one of the gnolls trying to attack it, but it directed all of their attention towards blue, which was good and bad. good for the plan but bad for Blue.
Before any of the gnolls could attack blue, the sound of grotesque cracking of bones rang out through the center, and from behind a building came a humanoid bear, like a middle ground between the two, though leaning more on the bear side. It wore the same leg armor Gunter had and still had the same gauntlets, completely mauling two of the gnolls. Blacksmith came quickly behind and used Bear Gunter as a platform to get out ahead and take down some more of the grunts.
Using the opportunity, the goblin took a smaller sized warhammer and smashed the last grunt's head in, leaving only the larger and more superior leader. The leader had a massive battle axe and was far larger, the same size as Bear Gunter, which was huge. Being the closest to the leader, Blacksmith was in the way of his axe, which wasn't good, and she was in a poor position, only narrowly scrambling away.
Gunter closed his distance with the gnoll leader, being faster, and punching it in the stomach, though the leader barely recoiled, headbutting Gunter, sending him to the ground and back into normal Gunter. "THIS BITCH IS FUCKIN TOUGH!"
Blue had begun lifting and casting rubble and stones at the leader, but the attack might as well had been pocket sand. Like a raging bull, the gnoll charged at blue, who used everything in his power to hinder its movement, to no avail. "shit shiit thit SHIT SHIIITT!" Blue ran with all his might away from it, also trying to draw it away from the group, but then the ground shook, setting the footing of the leader off balance.
The goblin was slamming their warhammer on the ground, creating a shockwave to stop the gnoll, which it did, but created a bigger problem. The gnoll leader was PISSED. Blue got back behind the group in order to be able to support from the back, though their formation quickly got disassembled before they could do anything.
All of them thought 'how can we even defeat this thing…' Everyone was hurt and out of breath. the only thing that could probably pierce his tough exterior would be something sharp, but the only person with a blade was the most injured, having been caught by the shockwave and the bull rush.
"We all know I gotta try it, but the result won't be pretty." Blacksmith stood up tall with her hammer and sword in hand. The group watched her as she approached the beast beginning at a walk which quickly evolved into a full sprint despite being heavily weakened. She quickly thrust her sword forward at the same time the gnoll swung his axe at her.
the sword was planted about halfway into the gnoll's chest and the axe appeared to have cut her in half seeing as it had passed through her chest. But she still moved, lifting the hammer far above her head and lunging forward, setting the surprised gnoll off balance. As the gnoll fell to the ground she slammed the sword deeper into its chest, killing it, and at the same time making a loud sound that could be heard throughout the entire town. It was as if abell had rang that the battle was won.