Closed Gnoll Invasion

[Shadow]

50th of Fall, 124

South of the desert where forests burned a pack of gnolls fought bitterly under the gray sky. The land was a fiery wasteland, but the gnolls were not here for the fire. They had come for the prey which was hidden in the fire. It was the Luxium Elementals.

These elementals, glowing with the light as if they were imprisoned sparks of light in the fire of Veiðrbrand. Although they had more of temporary forms, they appeared to be lively. They were like ethereal candles among the smoke and ashes.

The Luxium Elementals were in their way, and the gnolls never lived knowing any better than a good hunt. Graalok, the pack's chieftain, was at the head of the pack. His fur was stiff with soot, his face painted with straight lines of red in the style of the warriors.

On his back, he had the skull and crossbones of the enemies he had defeated, burnt to cinders. In his hand he clutched a monstrous clawed weapon. It was a black obsidian battle axe whose blade had been consumed by the flames of the desert.

Behind him his gnolls growled and bellowed their eyes red with the gleam of killers. The Luxium Elementals' light did not blind them or make them pause in their tracks. It only pulled them closer, fangs exposed, hands wielding weapons held up in the air.

Gnolls also fought organically and encircled their foe to weave between the light, carving their attempts with their coarse, cutting edges and points. While the Luxium Elementals were composed of light they were not ineffective beings by any measure.

They could sear with beams of radiant energy. Energy rays mighty enough to pierce the crushing weight of the blackness. When desperate they opened with blinding flashes, in an effort to blind their enemies and give them time to prepare but the gnolls had adapted. With coarse ash hands covering their face their fur was still glowing they pressed on and kept on attacking.

The battle between gnoll and the elemental is the classic light and the dark. With every Luxium that flared and disappeared before the force of a gnoll's attack, the gnolls became more rabid. Garaalok and his pack tore through the elementals.

The last of Luxium's light flared briefly through the ashen haze before it went out, and the gnolls were left alone with the darkness.

Veiðrbrand would remain ablaze, and the gnolls would pursue once more. And in the fires of the Graalok and his pack danced in the chaos that they wrought.

Graalok then led his gnolls through the ashen ground of Veiðrbrand. Following him, the pack remained in a running formation even though they had ragged breaths due to the long trip. They were no longer satisfied with killing Luxium Elementals. Now, their attention was focused on something far more appealing, a goal which offers both riches and prisoners.

Paradise.

Paradise it was named was in direct opposition to the bleak flaming forest that was the rest of the area. An enormous settlement enclosed by walls of metal. At one point, the settlement had been a great place for women to live. It had not stayed that way for long.

It had gone through attacks and a change in management. To the gnolls, this news was a call to come and exploit it.

Graalok had heard the rumors through the few traders and scavengers stupid enough to pass through Veiðrbrand. They told of fires and guards who were either killed or fled, and of a dragon that was strong enough to hold off flesh beasts but that was the extent of its defenses.

Graalok didn't think he would have trouble with a dragon so to him Paradise was left wide open to attack. He cared nothing for the treasure or the riches that Paradise might hold. No, what he wanted was much more basic.

"Women," he said as he faced his pack. "We are taking what we want as it has always been."

The words of Graalok are an assurance of victory, of meat and bone, of what they have been desiring for quite sometime now. They moved forward, sneaking along the wall under the cover of darkness.

Graalok furrowed his eyebrows and looked at the gaps in the walls. While these were still thick, some segments of the metal seemed to be curved, probably after coming into contact with some heat or pressure.

"Now," he said in low menacing voice, "break through the wall and let us go."

The gnolls spread out, every one of them getting ready to enter the settlement. They would attack, moving through the wall faster than one might expect. They did not have any intention of being subtle. Once they crossed the outer line of defense the gnolls would transform into a sea of confusion.

Graalok looked at how the inhabitants of the city would react, howls of despair that would fill the streets when the gnolls crash through metal. He could also smell the sweat that people inside had no clue that they would be attacked shortly.

OOC:

• You find yourself in Paradise for whatever reason
• You are near the center, away from the walls. You hear shouts in the distance.
• You have no reason to believe any other aid is coming
• You can do whatever you want. You do not have to fight the gnolls.

 

[Kage]

​

Kage had heard a lot about Paradise since he'd gotten back. It was such a novel concept – take a dragon willing to breed with faelnir and set him up to reproduce as much as possible. There were already a number of births and the elder aelf had no doubts that this venture would bear fruit, eventually. He saw great value in having scores of grist-enabled soldiers.

He'd decided to take a portal over to check things out. He had heard that it had been attacked but he wasn't too worried about his own safety. All that had seemed to have died down. No, he was here to check out the women. He was surprised with just how many there were. Thousands upon thousands, and they all looked at least moderately attractive. Rumor had it the breeding dragon had the ability to sense fertility as well.

Kage had unashamedly waltzed right into the aelheim sequoia where his intelligence had told him the creme of the crop were held. He was in the middle of surveying his choices when he got wind of a commotion.

"Tsk, what's going on?" he wondered as he turned to the doors. He pushed his way outside and heard the screams. It was night time which was always a tenuos time for faelnir. Their vision was shit and even one animal could cause a ruckus like this. Like sheep, the faelnir ran about without anyone to guide them. Where the hell was their protector?

Fadir's vision was not so limited. He could see clearly in the night, see the life within everyone and the flora around him. He wasn't scared in the slightest. Still, he did think that it was pertinent to at least protect himself in case this was another attack. If he could handle it with minimal effort, he would do so. If things got hairy... well ordinarily he would have simply abandoned this place to its own devices. But supposedly an aelf was officially in charge of this place now, and he figured that helping to protect it would do his people some good.

Judging by the lack of dragons in the sky, he assumed that it was going to be up to him to sort this mess out. He placed his palms together as if he were praying. Then, he started to let saol flow out of his body. He stood in front of the sequoia's doors and constructed a dome that would serve as some modicrum of protection in case his position was attacked. Thise would also serve to keep the inside of the sequoia protected – he cared little about saving the masses, his focus was on keeping the most fertile and useful alive.

As the chaos raged on around him, Fadir held his hands out to touch the dome. The inside of the dome was pitch black, but he didn't need to rely on light anymore. He pressed on the wood, pushing saol into and on the other side he started to form a small squad of soldiers. It was annoying to have to create soldiers from scratch, but he created wooden soldiers, all resembling himself in size. He created many at a time and simultaneously commanded them to march forwards. Anyone stupid enough not to get out of the way would likely get trampled as his soldiers fanned out to find and assess the threat.

Kage would aim to create a 27 soldiers and he would shift his focus between them, seeing through their eyes, looking for the threat. Assuming he found the threats, he would order his soldiers to attack mercilessly. Unlike the Gnolls, Fadir's forces were not exactly experienced in battle. Their skills mirrored his own, and he was, unfortunately, not a great fighter. His soldiers would be armed with nothing but their limbs, sharp as they might be. His strategy was to overwhelm with superior numbers and to get a feel for how competent this attacking force was.

It was a little worrying to have spent so much saol on such a simple and straight forward plan, yet he had to gather intelligence somehow.

687

Note: These treants can't 'see' but they can sense life, kind of like lifesight. I'm assuming this is good enough lol

Expert – Dome
Expert – create 27 novice level treants
Expert – raise 27 novice level treants
(Possible expert to 'tether' the treants? Not sure if that is an additional cast)
Novice – command to march forwards and possibly attack

 

[Shadow]

As the gnolls brought themselves nearer to the enormous sequoia, the cinderfang warlord Graalok noticed that there was peculiar going on. There was something unnatural moving in the darkness in front of them. His nostrils widened to capture the subtle smell of raw wood from trees that were not of the burnt Veiðrbrand. His pack stopped for a moment, their ears perked up at the sound of groaning wood and the steady beat of soldiers' boots. The leader hissed quietly pointing at his gnolls to ready for the fight.

From the darkness there emerged something wooden, human-like in shape, co-ordinated, and with objective. They were treants, created from the sequoia that stood in the center of the settlement as guards. These limbs were covered with barks that reflected the moonlight as if they were sharpened spears. For the gnolls they were the evil that was against the gnolls' desire to do kidnap women. To Graalok, they remained only as more of the people standing between him and his goals.

With loud roar the gnolls then rushed towards their opponents, baring their teeth and yelling menacingly. Graalok was the first to attack and this great creature was moving so fast that he looked like a blur. He was wielding a massive obsidian axe that looked menacing when he moved the weapon. The first treant soldier was split in half. The wooden body shattered into pieces with the force of the single blow from the Vokhai.

The treants began to resist. Their limbs attacked in a life like manner waves huge sticks at the gnolls. The gnolls, however, was agile and intelligent too which helped them to avoid the blows. The smaller, less sturdly built members of the pack were less fortunat. Two gnolls were skewered by thick, sharp, spear-like branches, their bodies suspended on them for a moment before the pack flung them away, dying from their wounds.

One more gnoll had his throat ripped out by a treant's arm and he fell down dead on the ground. But both of those losses did not affect the relentless warfare nature of Graalok and his warband.

Kage had lots of treant soldiers, but Graalok was the whirlwind of death. Each swing of the axe tore off limbs, split the torso and sent splinters flying in every which way. There was no treant that could resist him for a long time. He was so fast that it seemed as if some demon had taken over the Vokhai, as the axe went through the bark as if it were a paper.

His pack noted that their leader was all worked up and went on the rampage attacking the treants and delivering blows at them viciously. They clawed at the wooden enemies, wearing down the wood until it was reduced to mere splinters.

With a roar one treant, more successful than the others, swung a massive arm at Graalok. It struck him right in the chest and he fell back on to the ground with a thump. The gnoll chieftain growled, there was bark in his fangs, but the only thing that he did was laugh.

He then rose up, holding the axe with both of his hands and then swung his weapon with an incredible strenght to split the treant down the middle from its head to its base.

When the fighting ceased, there were no treants left. Graalok, heavily breathing but wanting more blood, egged on his pack. "They were guarding that big tree in the center. That must be where our prize lies."



OOC:

• The gnolls have eliminated the treant army. It took time to do so, so you may take actions during the fight
• The gnolls appear to be tiring but their best members are still going strong
• They will break through the dome if not stopped

 

[Kage]

Kage continued to shift his vision from treant to treant as his soldiers were felled. He was surprised at how strong they were. They didn't seem to be magical, though he had his suspicions about the leader who seemed to break through solid wood with unnatural ease. Still, he got a good idea of how many gnolls there were and their general capabilities. His treants had been expensive, but they had done their jobs well. And now, the elder aelf had time to prepare for a counterattack.

It was clear to him that he was short on time. The last location of the gnolls was dangerously close to his current position and he knew that he would not have time to create more basic treants. He knew one confident strike from that axe might be enough to chop right through his dome and into his chest.

Gritting his teeth, Kage put a hand on the wood in front of him. Instead of creating treants, he took his time to meld with it and pass through the roots of the surrounding flora until he appeared behind the group of gnolls. His form would meld out of a tree, which he animated by latching tethers onto it.

The tree was fifteen feet tall, a perfect size for an Elysian treant. It creaked as heavy wood tended to do as it moved, tearing its roots from the ground and falling down towards where the Vokhai were. Kage's intent was to crush some of them and use the branches of the tree to try strangling or incapacitating as many gnolls as possible.

As quickly as he had raised this treant, he raised yet another. He let his saol flow to a second nearby tree and animated it as well, sending lumbering right towards the leader of the Vokhai. He was strong, but was he going to be able to hack down an entire tree?

1012

Expert x2 – raised 2 Elysian treants
Journeyman - plantmelded
Journeyman - commanded to act as described
Expert – Dome
Expert – create 27 novice level treants
Expert – raise 27 novice level treants
Novice – command to march forwards and possibly attack

[/QUOTE]

 

[Shadow]

Graalok's eyes opened wide in anger and disbelief, when the first tree in front of him started moving. The branches moved as if it finally got up from long slumber and the great tree trunk twisted as it landed on his warband. Some of the gnolls were able to give out a pained yelp before they were squished flat like insects by the massive creature. A chilling roar came out of Graalok's mouth as he watched and his grip tightened on the haft of his axe.

"Elves!" he blasphemed, and his tone was one of pure hatred. "Only the damned elves could command the forest itself!"

He felt cold as another tree he saw contracted and twisted as though alive and its branches reached out towards him. He had fear in his stomach but was reluctant to let his enemy know that he was feeling doubtful. These were not ordinary trees that he was sure of. He had battled through dozens of treants tonight but these had a purpose that was beyond conventional combat. They were dangerous and Graalok could feel that he was completely surrounded. He realised that he had to move fast.

This was the first time during that night Graalok used his own magic. All his life he had used force, now his pack was gone and trees were gradually approaching, he suddenly had no means to do it. Grasping his axe in his massive right hand and he grunted one gnollish word of power. The metal of his axe shone and with a pass he brought it across, dispelling the force of the wind ensorcelleed in the blade on the animated trees.

The wind howled at the nearest treant taking bites at its bark and chipping off layers of it's trunk. The great tree stumbled, and its actions slowed as pieces of its bark broke off, but the tree did not collapse. Graalok frowned menacingly as he continued to strike with wind and create a sharp swiping arc that only narrowly sliced grooves into the trunk of the tree. Still, it kept coming.

He swung at the treants repeatedly and each time the air around him grew distorted and turbulent as it struck the trees with force that tore through the bark and into the wood. The trees stopped, as the damage affected them, but they were not brought to a complete standstill. The leader swore as he muttered under his breath. These were not dolls. They were too tough to be conquered in a short span of time.

Graalok's anger rose as the treants continued forward and he swung one more time, causing a powerful wind that cut into the treant's trunk. The bark was stripped off in huge layers but the tree remained a large and dominant structure. The gnoll growled and looked at the dome where he assumed the master mind was.

"Come out and fight me like warriors!" Graalok roared loud and his voice was heard echoing in the night. "Stop using your damned magical powers, come out and fight you cowards!"

But even as he bellowed the challenge. Graalok's mind raced. He could fight treants, yes. He had done so many times this night. Yet these new ones were stronger and did not succumb to much fatigue as the preceding ones. If he decided to fight them all, he stood a chance of losing more than just his pride. He had a chance of dying. His warband was little more than a shambles and the treants had brought down several of the gnolls with lethal accuracy.

"Fight me, elves!" Graalok shouted once for the final time before hoisting the axe up and carving out a hole in the dome where he saw many women cowering inside the sequoia.

OOC:

• Graalok looks drained but he has his eyes on the prize
• Your treants are not utterly destroyed but cannot move much right now

2066 words

 

[Kage]

Kage watched in amazement as the Gnoll tore apart his large treants with wind itself. It was impressive that it was even possible – even hurricanes and tornadoes tended to rip trees from the ground instead of snapping them in half. Yet it had been accomplished. This gnoll, whoever he was, was so headstrong and determined that he'd surprised Kage.

In a way, Fadir had accomplished what he'd wanted to. The gnolls were basically eliminated, save for their leader... and the leader didn't look like he was in great shape either. Kage didn't expect him to have much metaphor left for casting wind magic. Actually, using divination he would be able to figure out what other metaphors he had at his disposal.

The downside was that the gnoll was now right in front of the entrance which now had a gaping hole in it. Kage threw his arms out to either side and manipulated the saol in the dome he created, reinforcing it and growing it to try capturing the gnoll in it. He would extend it even into the sequoia, if necessary. If successful, he would try filling the interior of the dome with sharp wooden spikes. His intent would be to skewer the gnoll to death, though there was always the chance that the gnoll had some other power he hadn't revealed yet. Or maybe his defenses were good enough to withstand such an attack. Kage had definitely held back for the sake of saving on saol.

In the meantime, Kage walked up to the felled elysian treants and used his saol to repair them. He didn't want to spend the time to give them a full makeover, but he would regrow some of their roots and give them a fresh coat of aetumetal bark to work with. He extended the aetumetal to their branches so that they would be even more deadly than they'd been before.

Kage didn't have any intention of talking to the Gnoll. He was the type to sit in the back, so even being on the battlefield was a little out of his comfort zone. Ordinarily he would have a green knight take care of this sort of thing, but his new treant army was still very much a work in progress. So, when his repairs were done he would plantmeld a little further back and appear on a branch on a tree in the distance. Vokhai were disgusting, in his opinion. The fact that they could talk was an insult to nature itself.

For now, he would sit back and wait to see if his plan had worked or not before giving further orders to his treants. He was getting low on saol and annoyed that he had gotten this drained from such a simple fight. This was what he got for not bringing some treants with him on his journey, but alas it wasn't time to stoke his anger.

1499

Expert – tried to skewer BBEG
Journeyman – plantmelded
Journeyman x2 – repaired the treants with aetumetal
Expert x2 – raised 2 Elysian treants
Journeyman - plantmelded
Journeyman - commanded to act as described
Expert – Dome
Expert – create 27 novice level treants
Expert – raise 27 novice level treants
Novice – command to march forwards and possibly attack

 

[Shadow]

The gnoll leader fell forward slamming on the ground, pinned with the wooden spikes Kage conjured. From a great warrior who had seen many battles, a gruesome body now lay twisted and trembling as much as every struggling for air. The fire that had been burning in his eyes was gone and in its place was a look of understanding. He was going to die. However, he did not surrender entirely even today.

A low moan escaped his lips as he struggled to breathe and stayed alive on the spikes. The strength was slowly ebbing out of him but his spirit did not want to die just yet. If he was left alone he would writh for several minutes maybe even ten more before his body would give in to the injuries. All became silent apart from the low, painful groaning of the gnoll leader.

From where he was, Kage could gather that the gnoll's seconds were numbered. But as Kage looked at the still scene, a thought might have occurred to him. This gnoll was a powerful one. Maybe there was something else to him besides muscles and anger that came from within.

He is a perfect candidate for something else. It was never a simple task to turn a soul into a pseudo wisp, but for a gnoll like this one who fought so hard and had so much strenght, the transformation was a potential use of his power. Of course, there were other options. Torture could be used to get valuable information about the gnoll's tribe or their plans. Or, Kage could just stand there and wait until the creature slowly went into a coma, choke on his own tongue to die in the dead of the night.

The scene was completely different in the sequoia. The women, thinking that the fight was done, were already rejoicing.

They muttered to each other. "He saved us! He is our elven savior, is he not?"

"He must be!"

Most of them were already scrambling to get ready, wanting to do what they could to show their appreciation. The moment if or when Kage entered the one sequoia, it would be impossible not to get looks of adoration. The women would fawn around him and offer themselves to him in appreciation.

Had Kage decided to engage himself in that world of adoration, he could have any of the women he desired. They would fawn over him, all wanting to attract his attention, all willing to give him anything he wanted.

But outside, the gnoll leader was still alive and his moaning was getting weaker but no less pained. It was time for Kage to make his decisions.

OOC:

• You have bested the great Graalok!
• He may be turned into a Master level pseudo-wisp. I assume you would not use him as a death knight but if you want to spend exp then I can write up his abilities
• Kage can choose his pick of women from the sequoia

2513 words

 

[Kage]

The sounds coming from within the wooden dome were ominous. At first, Kage wasn't sure whether he should trust them or not. The gnoll could have just been pretending to lure him into a sense of security. To make sure, Kage had one of his treants smash open the dome and take out his body.

Kage verified for himself through deadsight that the gnoll's life was rapidly leaving his body. "What a mess," he thought as the treant brought the body to him. He wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do to the gnoll. It seemed he had three options – either sunder him for his metaphor, turn him into a pseudo wisp, or heal him enough to torture some information out of him. The latter seemed rather pointless, as this appeared to be a lone warband who got a little too reckless.

"To sunder or turn into a pseudo wisp," he mused. He was hurting for both resources. He didn't have a green knight and not even one of his treants had a pseudo wisp inside of them. Alas, he would have preferred to sunder but he doubted his ability to do so to a creature with so much metaphor. So, he commanded his treant to crush the body to death while he trapped the pseudo wisp into a small glowing orb.

He worked silently as the women assumedly watched him. It took a lot of focus and he was already far more drained than he wanted to be. He couldn't even bring himself to make a proper treant, though he did put in a minimal amount of effort to thread plant life through the gnoll's body and coat him with a layer of bark. It was little more than a regular treant in its current state, but he would upgrade its size when he got around to restoring more of his reserves.

The gnoll-like treant stood motionless on the ground, awaiting orders while Kage went inside to assess the damage. He didn't think that the sequoia had been breached, and he appeared to be right. Inside there were so many women in a concentration of beauty he had rarely seen before. It was like stepping into a brothel, except everyone looked pristine and ripe for breeding.

He pointed a handful of them out to follow him. He'd asked for a portal to be made towards the end of the night so that he might return home. By his estimate it ought to be opening around the gate fairly soon. With his prizes in tow, Kage made his way out towards the gate and away from the chaos that Paradise seemed to so often welcome upon itself by being located out in the firelands.

1954

I'm not 100% sure but I believe that if a pseudo wisp used purely as a regenerative battery / means of casting with deadsight does NOT have to be dominated by malediction. I'm not puppeting the pseudo wisp, I'm puppeting the body it's housed in. If this is wrong let me know!


Total reserves:
4x master
Total spent: 3.6x master

Master – raised a master level pseudo wisp
Journeyman – threaded the gnoll's body with plant life and embedded the pseudo wisp inside it for now
Expert – tried to skewer BBEG
Journeyman – plantmelded
Journeyman x2 – repaired the treants with aetumetal
Expert x2 – raised 2 Elysian treants
Journeyman - plantmelded
Journeyman - commanded to act as described
Expert – Dome
Expert – create 27 novice level treants
Expert – raise 27 novice level treants
Novice – command to march forwards and possibly attack

 

[Kage]

Thread Title: Gnoll Invasion

Thread Summary: A small warband of gnolls Paradise and Kage has to fight them with some treants

Expected Rewards:
Shadow: 25 dungeoneering xp
Abraia: 25 xp
Kage: 20 xp, 2 Elysian treants, 1 regular treant that houses 1 master level pseudo wisp. [405/500 Award SP for Kage], 5 women​

Note:
Note: I'm not 100% sure but I believe that if a pseudo wisp used purely as a regenerative battery / means of casting with deadsight does NOT have to be dominated by malediction. I'm not puppeting the pseudo wisp, I'm puppeting the body it's housed in. If this is wrong let me know!

Thread Link: https://antarok.net/threads/gnoll-invasion.400/#post-2130
​

 

[Vicissitude]

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❀ Rewards ❀

Requested rewards granted!

❀ Comments ❀

Correct, that is how soul stars/pseudo-wisps work generically (i.e. when not used to create Draugr or other types of sentient creations).

Also, Paradise would have its own set of Ælven guards under Hespæride's control + Cælum would still be living there. Since he's an NPC, he'd have been pilot-able by either of you in this case as Paradise is still technically his Grove and protecting it would be a natural inclination of his. It is a bit odd to have written this as if Paradise would be unprotected, but I'll let it slide under the pretense that its guardians were distracted by another threat.

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