I. The battle of the burning barn
We found the halfling collapsed in the dirt—small, broken, and leaving behind him a long, dark ribbon of blood that painted the road like a final signature. We approached cautiously, but there was little life left in him, his trembling hand reaching out and clutching at nothing as he rasped, “Save… my family…” while pointing weakly down the trail. Then he was still. We searched him, though not with any real hope, and found nothing of value—no coin, no keepsake—only the sense that whatever story he had carried had already bled out onto the road. So we followed his final request.
The path widened into open grassland, and soon the smell reached us before the sight did—smoke, thick and choking—until the farmstead came into view, already lost to flame. Fields crackled with hungry fire, crops reduced to blackened skeletons, and the farmhouse groaned as it was devoured from within. Amid the chaos, two gnolls worked with crude efficiency, stacking crates beside a waiting wagon as if this were nothing more than a routine harvest.
Ender and I began discussing tactics—but Crow, ever the voice of inconvenient knowledge, interjected, reminding us that gnolls were creatures of chaos and cruelty… but not always. “Knoll Brotherhood,” he murmured, his eyes narrowed. “From Dorakaa, in Luz. Organized. Respectable, in a demonic sort of way.” “Respectable people don’t set toddlers on fire, Crow,” I countered, adjusting my lute. We moved in.
Ender slipped behind a tree with surprising subtlety for a man built like a siege engine, while Crow attempted a similar maneuver along the farmhouse wall—less successfully, as a gnoll’s head snapped toward him. So much for stealth. Crow loosed an arrow that hissed harmlessly into the dirt, and in that same instant Ender burst from cover like a breaking dam. Two more gnolls emerged from the smoke, drawn by the commotion, but I was ready, with a theatrical sweep of my arm, channelled the spiteful whimsy of the Feywild. “Let there be light!” I bellowed. A burst of violet radiance exploded, coating the entire pack in the shimmering, inescapable glow of Faerie Fire, outlining them in an otherworldly glow like actors unwillingly called to center stage.
From the edge of the inferno, something larger emerged—a hulking gnoll, broad and brutal, unmistakably a Pack Lord, dragging a limp woman behind him whose fate we could not yet determine.
Crow moved first, rising smoothly and firing again, this time striking true as the arrow buried itself in a gnoll’s shoulder. The creature yelped and spun just as Crow ducked beneath a retaliatory swipe, while Ender charged that same gnoll and swung his massive mace with bone-shattering intent—only to miss, the weapon slamming into the earth with a thunderous crack that kicked up dirt and ash. From the rear, I leveled my crossbow, but a Gnoll archer found my leg first. A shaft bit deep into my thigh. “Aarrghh.” I staggered, the pain a white-hot poker, but I held my concentration. The Faerie Fire stayed bright. I am, if nothing else, a professional.
Crow, now flanked, abandoned his bow and drew his shortsword as one gnoll lunged teeth-first at his neck. “Disgusting,” he muttered, driving his blade into the other’s gut, twisting free, and slipping aside from snapping jaws with practiced ease.
Ender wrenched his mace from the ground just in time to take a spear to the chest, where it bounced harmlessly off his iron armor with a dull clang. The Pack Lord released the woman, limp and clearly deceased, and raised his voice in a guttural chant, attempting to incite his kin into a frenzied rampage. The magic faltered and twisted; one gnoll began frothing, eyes wild, and with a deranged howl hurled its spear wildly behind it, nearly skewering an ally who dropped to the dirt in panic. Ender did not hesitate—he stepped in and brought his mace down with devastating force, splintering the frenzied Gnoll’s ribcage. A sound like a dry forest breaking accompanied the sickening crunch of ribs collapsing inward as the gnoll folded. I finished the beast with a bolt through the neck. “Punctuation,” I muttered.
Crow flowed through the melee like shadow given purpose, ducking another bite, rolling low, and coming up silently behind his attacker as his blade flashed, cutting clean through the gnoll’s achilles tendon. The creature collapsed with a howl, and Ender followed, blood now streaking his beard and armor, ending it with a single, brutal strike that silenced it forever. The battle ended in a blur of Crow’s rolling strikes and Ender’s bone-shattering blows.
Facing the Pack Lord, I delivered a favorite barb: “I see you’re playing stupid again, beast. And you’re winning!” The creature stared at me with the blank disinterest of a brick wall. “Gah,” I sighed. “Too stupid for subtext.”
Crow answered instead, his arrow striking the pack lord as poison bit deep, and the creature snarled, turned, and fled. We gave chase, firelight casting long, frantic shadows as we pursued him until the poison slowed him and he turned at last, breathing hard. “Let’s… make deal,” he rasped, and we paused, if only to hear him out. A long silence followed as he struggled to invent something resembling a compelling argument. “I… not remember faces. Say… orcs?” he offered. No one moved. “I work for Brittany,” he tried again. “Very powerful.” That, unfortunately for him, sealed his fate. We could not let him report back to the queen of kink, and, as our weapons rose, he panicked and and lunged into the burning farmhouse just as the roof groaned and collapsed in a spectacular fountain of sparks.
II. The Tangles B-Team
We gathered the bodies of the fallen gnolls and dragged them into the blaze, hoping their disappearance might delay further attention, and then, without ceremony, continued toward the Tangles. By the time we reached the tree line, the world had changed, the open sky vanishing behind a dense wall of tangled branches and shadow as the forest stretched endlessly in both directions. Crow knelt to study the ground, noting recent signs of movement, and we followed the edge south until, before Ender and I saw it, the Ranger had smelled the smoke. A thin plume rose in the distance.
Crow went ahead alone, vanishing into the undergrowth, while Ender and I waited, tending the horses. When he returned, he did so silently—as always—appearing as though he had simply decided to exist behind us again. He reported four figures: a self-obsessed tiefling barbarian enamored with his axes, a brooding elven bard, a withdrawn halfling cleric praying to the dirt, and a dwarven paladin who looks exactly like Ender, only with a permanent scowl. “Phlegan!” Ender roared.
We walked into their camp with hands raised, but the tiefling immediately leapt forward with a practiced, preening arrogance that made my skin crawl. With axes spinning as he declared, “I, Zuzu, am the leader—and the prettiest of all,” punctuating the claim by suggestively licking one of his axes before demanding, “What do you want?” At that exact moment, Phlegan saw Ender and rushed forward, embracing him with a loud clang of armor that broke the tension instantly.
We shared food, built a fire, and, as the wine flowed, (a Veluna Burgundy Crow had been hiding, the rascal) we cautiously started to get to know this ragtag band of adventurers. Ender and Phlegan spoke at length, while Crow sat apart sharpening his blades and watching Zuzu with quiet suspicion. Zuzu, meanwhile, performed—strutting, posing, and monologuing until he ran out of audience and continued gossiping unabated to the fire itself.
I turned my attention to the Elf, Gadariel. We engaged in the ancient, sacred combat of bards: a game of ‘Who is the Most Pretentious.’ Gadariel was a formidable opponent, but I am a graduate of the Ulek archives.
“Well..have you performed in Silvermoon?” was met with “Performed? My dear fellow, I was remembered,” and within minutes it was no longer a contest but a dismantling; I wiped the floor with his amateurish flourishes.
The cleric remained apart, praying quietly, relentlessly.
When the moment felt right—and the wine had done its work—I rose and announced grandly that we had come from the Relay with strict instructions to join their mission, whatever it might be. Zuzu puffed himself up like a peacock. ” Certainly not! Our mission is SUPER SECRET and there is no way I am going to reveal that we are going deep into the heart of the Tangles to destroy a bandit camp!” Ender shifted, Crow watched closely, and the others seemed oddly vacant at the mention of the Relay.
III. The Blue-Eyed Blight
By morning, the truth felt obvious: this was a suicide mission, a disposal of assets sent to vanish. Even Ender, though troubled, could not deny it. They weren’t heroes; they were “leftover numbers” from the Accountant’s ledger
We set about attempting to rescue Phlegan from her own doom. I cast a minor illusion of religious chanting to lure her away, but Zuzu’s group was persistent. Ender finally cornered his sister, begging her to flee.
“Sister. You are in the GREATEST DANGER“
“I believe you,” she said, her voice hollow. “But I am going anyway.”
I tried next. “Phlegan, there will be but one ascendant selected from many. We need you to help us ensure the most righteous ascendant is the chosen one.”
“I believe you,” she said, her voice hollow. “But I am going anyway.”
They moved into the forest, and we followed—poorly. Ender moved with all the subtlety of a collapsing cathedral, and despite Crow’s brief attempts to correct him, Gadariel heard us. They turned. “Twiddly deedly dum,” Gad sneered, and the magic that followed struck me like a hammer. I was hit with wave after wave of psychic power. The shame! To be mocked by a D-level actor! The ignominy was almost worse than the headache.
Zuzu attempted to throw an axe, but it caught in a vine behind him and vanished into the undergrowth, and Ender was on him instantly, pinning him to the forest floor. All the while, the cleric furiously chanted faster and louder, desperate, but nothing happened. Crow watched her with deep, unimpressed curiosity. Ender, his hands around Zuzu’s neck and his face inches from the Tiefling’s hissed, “Order Phlegan to come with us!”. Zuzu’s eyes suddenly turned a brilliant, unnatural blue. “She can go,” he gasped, “if we can carry on.”
At that exact moment, Phlegan’s eyes flashed the same terrifying blue. She collapsed, her body hitting the dirt like a felled oak. She was breathing, but her soul seemed miles away, locked in a coma from which no prayer could rouse her. Zuzu and his band of misfits simply reformed and marched deeper into the woods, leaving her—and us—behind without a second glance.
We carried Phlegan from the forest, back to the horses, back to the road, and back to the burning farmstead, her silent form a heavy weight on Ender’s heart. The cart the gnolls had been loading had escaped the fire. With no better option, we took it, loading our unconscious companion into it carefully, and turned south and east once more—toward the nearest town – Riftcrag . Perhaps there we would find answers to Phegan’s mysterious condition.
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