Upon finishing collecting all of the knoll ears we decided to re-strategise our plan of attack. From the inside of the walls there where 2 means of entry into the rest of the outpost which was built into the cliff face. The important thing to note about this fact is that also means that there are also only 2 means of escape in the event of a failure, After all we would be facing a Gnoll king as well as 4 chieftains and 2 shamans. Possibly multiple of them at the same time as well, i suspect this because the lay out of the outpost which katia had received from the guild master showed that there was not a lot of space on the inside of the outpost. It consisted of 3 rooms which where connected by a long curving hallway and a small passage. The main entrance to the outpost connected straight to the main hall which is likely where the Gnoll king as well as at least 1 of shamans and 1 of the chieftains would be situated. The rest would likely be spread out among the remaining 2 rooms, ans something tells me that there will be a chieftain missing. I suspect this due to the fact that the amount of Gnolls on guard duty was only 12 out of a force of over 120, what has likely happened is that the chieftain responsible for guard duty took some 20 odd Gnolls on a hunting trip, but that is just speculation. I actually hope that this isnt the case because if they were to come back in the middle of our battle we would be caught in a pincer manoeuvre, which is never ever a good idea.
The plan that we had strategised was that Katia (being a rouge) would take the smaller entrance that was on top of the walls and clear out the 2 smaller rooms and the long passageway, she would be unlikely to meet any resistance that she could handle, the only thing I suspect that would slow her down would be a Gnoll shaman with its high magic abilities. Then when she has finished clearing those rooms out she will come into the main hall from the back and help me finish off whatever I hadn't killed. A simple but effective plan, which completely rely's on my ability to stay alive until help arrives (luckily im quite hard to kill though).
"Katia, I need 10 minutes to prepare before we start" I explained to Katia as we finished our strategy, "I need to check my mana pool and have a dink... I've got a feeling i'll be needing both of them."
Upon hearing this katia almost cracked a smile with what im guessing is a hint of pity masked behind it. "Fine just don't take to long, it would be a disaster if they all came out here to catch us with our dicks hanging out".
"Yeah Yeah, i'll only be 10 minutes" I replied as I fished into my bag to find one of the two bottles of whisky i'd brought with me. The others where left safely back at the hunting lodge in case of an emergency. After gulping down half of the bottle and cracking a large grin at the delicious taste, I leaned up against one of the castle walls and shut my eyes entering a meditative state. I cleared my head of thoughts and began observing my mana pool, once again my mind was filled with the vision of a large pulsating ball of mana threads. The textures that it took on where that of ice and lightning due to the fact they where my most recently used spells. One thing that I observed was that the mana threads seemed to be under a bit of stress, which was something I will need to be wary of. The reason why is that your mana pool is connected directly to your soul (or at least an arch-mage friend of mine told me) which means that damage done to your mana pool is also done to your soul.... and that shit is a bitch to heal.
Anyhow my meditation had told me all that I needed to know, which only left one thing on my agenda. To infuse all my hidden daggers with cursed mana to give the stronger enemies a nice little surprise. I removed all of my hidden weapons; one tucked into my boot, another my belt, the 3rd a little inconspicuous pocket I had on my right sleeve, and the last one tucked into my lever Armour on my chest. All of them where infused with one my special little spells that I created myself, the gist of the spell is that the curse cause flesh to decay at an increased rate when exposed to oxygen. So basically I stab someone with one of these and they get weaker and more hurt a whole lot faster. I know what you might be thinking, isnt that the territory off the rot affinity or even the poison affinity? Which yes it is.... But its also wonderful what can be achieved with a bit of effort and a lot of need.
Having finished my preparations, I tucked all of my daggers and knifes back into their correct little hiding places, and then finished of the last of my whisky. Feeling in a much more relaxed state i strode up to katia who was patiently waiting lost in her thoughts. "finished all the prep work so im ready when you are".
Upon hearing this she snapped out of what ever thought process she was having and looked up at me before replying "well lets get started then, oh yeah... be careful Vaughn". I couldn't help but crack a smile at what seemed like a glint of actual concern, I'm not sure im used to that haha. Anyhow upon saying that she stood up from her seat and began to make her way to the wall as I strode forth to the main entrance.
Just a quick tid-bit before we get to the cool part I feel like I should take a moment to state what Katia's magic affinities are and explain what they do. Her first affinity is the poison affinity, this affinity would do exactly as guessed.... she can infuse gasses or liquids with different poison effects which is a neat little party trick to have. Her second affinity is of course fire as you already knew, this is pretty self explanatory as well, she can combust gasses or solids to produce flames. Her third affinity is a fucking good one (especially for a rogue such as her), it's called the shadow affinity and is a special variant of the illusion affinity which lets her fuck with light. the important thing to note about the shadow affinity is that it is not like regular light magic which can be used to create highly concentrated beams of light that melt through shit or healing spells. No, shadow magic allows for the user to decrease the light in areas of there choosing, and then if that shadow gets dark enough she can give it physical form manipulating it to attack her foes. I'm going to tell you this now, as a magician Katia is fucking strong, her mana pool is not as large as mine ( it's still fucking impressive though), but she knows exactly how to use it and her affinities suit her fighting style well.
But enough with boring explanations and exposition, lets go stab the shit out of some Gnolls. In the time it took me to explain that I had already reached the main entrance and katia had disappeared to do her part. I've got a fair idea of whats waiting for me on the other side of those doors.... so theres not a chance im walking straight in. I open the door stepping behind, and as if the sole purpose was to confirm my suspicions, about 20 fucking arrows and a barrage of fire light magic spells hit the spot in which I would have been standing.
"well im glad I had the presence of to not be on the receiving end of that ", I murmur to myself with a slight chuckle. Before any of the Gnolls had the chance to prepare a second barrage I stepped into the room preparing a little magic show of my own. Just as I stepped forward into the main hallway I envisaged a cold wind filled with tiny little icicles no more than a millimetre or 2 in length, literally thousands of the things pointing in all directions. Then injecting the vision with a decent sized chunk of my mana it became a reality, shredding many of the lower class Gnolls standing at the front of the hall and causing a decent amount of damage to the rest. unfortunately for me the more powerful Gnolls which where positioned in the back didn't receive anything more than the equivalent of a few paper cuts. They honestly didn't even seem to be bothered by it much to my annoyance.
Upon taking a look at the contents of the room I began to take a closer look at my opposition, before my little magic show there would have been about 35 regular Gnolls, a few Gnoll barbarians (which are fairly un-consequential), 1 Gnoll chieftain, a Gnoll shaman, and of course the Gnoll king. Afterwards 1 off the barbarians had gone down and 13 regular Gnolls. Im going to tell you now, this is a numbers game that I am on the piss poor side of, meaning I'd better put on a good show.