Heart of Oak

War Plan Ghousse

The blue raton set down her musket on the table. "We have a limited window of opportunity before all of clan Iadosh comes crashing down on our heads." Roderick stepped up to the table. "What do you propose?"

"We need to get into the tower in the city itself. The Iadosh clan chief resides there. We kill him, and Iadosh will scatter to the winds. Gnolls will recognize that they are outmatched." Firish explained.

One of the dwarven miners stepped up. "We need to move fast, they keep the children in several prison cells across the city proper and in some of the offshoot tunnels. They'll start killing them if we aren't fast enough."

Firish nodded. "Rally some miners and scavenge for weapons. We'll need squads of six men and scatter ourselves everywhere so the gnolls can't make a coordinated attack."

The dwarf grunted in agreement and then took off running, calling out to some of his mining companions.

Roderick smiled, "Looks like we're getting to do a lot more than just freeing a few hostages."

"Don't count your ducks yet," the raton warned. "I need your group to head into the tower with me and kill that clan chief."

Dmahdi roared a deafening battle cry from behind Roderick, holding her halberd overhead. "Let's kill that fucker!"

"I'll finish organizing the dwarves, then I'll meet you up there." Firish said, grabbing her musket.

The city was alive with the sounds of war, gnolls and dwarves alike running up and down the streets, clashing claws and steel. The uprising made it easy for the warband to get to the tower's doorstep. Standing guard at the entrance were two large gnolls in scrap metal armor carrying a two-headed ax. Roderick peeked out from behind a pile of discarded wooden crates. Flanking from the sides would not do much, but slow them down. He looked back over his shoulder, "Dmahdi, you and me are going to draw their attention. Once we have it, Finnegan and Roshka get through that door and find a way up. Sedel, I need you to cast protectives on us and play utility mage."

Sedel set her staff against the exterior wall of the multi-story house, pulled out her spell book, and began quietly chanting the arcane words written within its pages.

Dmahdi tightened her grip on the halberd and readied herself to sprint. The halberd had a very pointy spear tip on it, jutting out an extra six inches from the top of the ax head. She lowered it down and pointed the tip forward. She felt Sedel's magic wash over her and with a kick-off from her right foot, charged forward at the otherwise alert gnolls. From the dark alleyway, the armored orc came sprinting, screaming her guttural war cry. She closed the distance quickly and lunged forward, plunging the spear tip into the abdomen of the gnoll to the left of the door.

A leather-clad human followed right behind her, shield first, and threw himself at the other gnoll, knocking it into the stone tower. "On me you bastard." He took a swing with his ax and lodged the blade into the handle of the gnoll's ax.

Sedel continued to read from her spell book, holding out her hand as it spat out globs of colored mana aimed at her companions.

Finnegan ran forward and cracked his new nine-pronged metal-tipped whip at the gnoll fighting Dmahdi, gouging its thigh with deep lacerations.

The same gnoll flailed its ax, forcing Dmahdi to step back and pull the halberd out. It growled menacingly and swung a second time, connecting with the ax head of the orc's halberd, driving it onto the floor. A claw from its free hand followed up and scraped the black steel armor the orc wore, but drew no blood.

The other gnoll threw his ax aside, taking Roderick's with it. It lunged at him, tackling him to the ground. With its wolf-like maw full of sharpened fangs, both natural and carved, it bit into the human's shoulder, digging through the toughened leather. It thrashed its head around, ripping chunks out of the leather armor and exposing the shoulder. A second bite dug into the flesh, connecting teeth to the shoulder bone, and yanked hard.