Their bones are sickly yellow, as if death stills tries to claim these creatures as his own. The few patches of fur on their hunched backs are losing their brown colour. Their hyena-like skulls rattle on their bodies, their muzzles wide open and their eye sockets filled with black smoke. Few strands of muscle fibers hang off their skeletal body, while most of their flesh was eaten by their hungry brethren. The long sticks they hold as weapons are spiked with sharp pieces of metal. They are creatures born out of the will of a mad, evil being and four of them are closing in on them.
(17 versus AC) (12 versus AC) (Spell save DC 13 versus dexterity 1) (24 versus AC)
“Take down the closest ones!” Oslando gives the command as he walks up to the monsters. He says it without fear. With his long black sword in his right hand and the wintery sword in his left hand, he observes the nearing enemies.
The blast of Lyssa’s gun sets one of the witherlings’ shoulder aflame. Her new bullets are effective.
“Awesome!” Oslando can hear her cheerful exclamation as Bruq’s arrow flies past him. It enters the decomposing chest of another reanimated gnoll.
“Keep going”, the half-elf shouts. “With his minions gone, he won’t stand a chance against us!” Before he can get to the two nearest foes, Dargothoth and Mero intervene. The sorcerer hurls a bolt of orange flames towards the left witherling and takes him down. His corpse slowly burns to ash by Lyssa’s and his own fiery attacks.
Dargothoth creates a bright white light above the fiend and shines down on him. He banishes the evil magic keeping him alive and the skeletal creature falls apart.
(Spell save DC 13 versus constitution 19, 7, 10 and 19)
Oslando looks past the two remaining skeletal creatures and sees how the gnoll shaman is coming their way. His white fur is speckled with black spots and red drops of blood. Boney jewelry hangs from his ears and around his neck. A torn red cloak waves as the wind crawls underneath it and he holds a wooden staff with a gnoll skull upon it in his hand. With his other hand he makes a fist and pushes it forwards, pointing at the killers of his minions. He roars, his hand trembling, and spreads his fingers.
A loud and deafening noise explodes between them, breaking off branches as the sound wave thunders from its point of origin. Lyssa presses her hands against her ears - Mero does the same without actual ears to cover - but Bruq and Dargothoth aren’t fast enough. The screeching sound echoes in their heads and they all cry out in agony. Although the ringing is only audible for a short amount of time, it does take its toll on them. The siren and the puppet seem reasonably fine, but Oslando, luckily out of range for this attack, sees blood dripping out of Bruq’s nose and Dargothoth’s ears.
(7 versus AC) (19 versus AC) (natural 20 versus AC)
“Change of plan”, he shouts as he readies himself to attack. “I’ll take out the remaining two. You kill the shaman before he can do that again. Heal up if you need to and then continue fighting.”
It feels right for him to strategize. The two witherlings jump towards him to attack, but he easily evades one of them and catches the other right on his blades. The fiend bites deeply into the half-elf's arm. He shreds the foul creature in two, but the skull is sticks to him even in death. He quickly shakes the almost fleshless head off. It makes a blunt sound as it hits the ground.
(21 versus AC) (Spell save DC 15 versus wisdom 9)
While the others participate in combat, Dargothoth follows up the half-elf’s advice to heal. With a faint blue glow around his claws he lays his hands on his head and a lot of the thudding pain ebbs away. The nauseating vertigo calms down and he can focus his vision again. He sees how Mero creates three glowing orbs at his fingertips, growing in size as a swirling purple restlessness inside them intensifies. Right before firing them, a gust of air swirls around him. Dried leaves dance around him and he rises up, about ten feet. Now that he has a clear line of sight, he hurls one of his magical missiles to the witherling near Oslando and the other two towards the shaman. The target seaking projectiles soar through the air and hit the white gnoll in the chest. The monster clenches his jaw.
“Lolth’s silky arse hair”, the dragonborn swears as Mero comes down again, “how did you do that?”
The wind calms down and the sorcerer’s mask shows signs of confusion. “I don’t really know. I just wanted to hit the shaman, but I couldn’t see him well enough and then I just started flying.”
He sounds just as surprised as he looks. While they have this inconveniently timed conversation, Bruq fires another arrow and hits the white gnoll in the groin. Blood drips down his leg, but his somewhat limping gait doesn’t slow him down.
Because Lyssa dropped the blunderbuss to cover her ears, she decides to her magic to fight his. Her lips move rapidly. No one can hear her clearly, but that’s probably for the better. Only the shaman can hear her whispers from all around him.
“From one of the trees on the green hill behind
your body will be hanging, fingers broken, eyes blind.
I’ll feed you your fur and make clothes of your skin,
burn your insides so you can breathe them all in.
I’ll cut off your legs and your toes, turn your frown upside down,
rip out your throat so in your own blood you can drown.
Then bring you back from the dead, fully unwilling,
all so I can enjoy the second time killing.”
Her words ring loudly in his head. It hurts. It feels like the words claw at the inside of his skull. He runs away from her and escapes the reach of her haunting song. He realizes what’s happening and presses his spare hand against his forehead. A light blue glow, just like the one that surrounded their cleric’s claws a few seconds ago, heals the shaman. He observes his enemies with a hungry glare. He roars and smiles.
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