03.1 Female Gnomes?

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Carlton Blacks Mercenaries
Company members:-
Krachtig (Vervalsing Voorwerp de Meesten Krachtig) – Gnome Illusionist/Thief
Taran – Half Elf Fighter/Priest of Mannanan Mac Lir, cousin to Carinne and Galvish
Carinne Rhianne Talynnart – Half Elf Ranger/Mage, Cousin to Taran and Galvish
Galvish – Half Elf Fighter/Thief, Cousin to Taran and Carinne
Barrigan Stonebeak – Dwarf Fighter/Priest, Company Engineer.
Lanneus Tuard – Paladin of Manannan Mac Lir

Female Gnomes!

We leave the ogres behind and press on further into the caverns, we manage to find some tracks and just about distinguish some demi human footprints from the ogres.  We follow these into what appears to be a side passage.  A stream runs down the length of the passageway, Krachtig turns invisible and scouts ahead.  After a short while a group of scrags (freshwater trolls) leap out of the water and attack – obviously the gnome was not looking carefully.  We defeat these creatures relatively easily and burn their corpses.  Moving on we then have a bunch of cave lizards descend on us, the “scout” having wandered past unnoticed. Again this is a relatively straightforward combat and we emerge intact.
Further ahead Krachtig hears cries from what sounds like a female gnome, he rushes back to tell us then runs back to help, we come running into the cavern and see a manticore has cornered what appears to be a female gnome, the party are a little amazed as we thought that lady gnomes were a thing of myth.  With Carinne firing her bow several times and the creature also being hit with missiles from Krachtig and Barrigan and Lanneus hacking at it the creature goes down but not before showering our gnome with its tail spikes.
The little chicky gnome is grateful for our timely intervention and say that she is an acolyte from the temple of Garl Glittergold and had been surviving in these caverns for the last week or so.  Krachtig, trying to impress this lady offers her the use of his magic axe to help defend herself while she accompanies us, Taran offers her his company issue mace and axe but she is more than happy with Krachtigs mighty weapon.
As we explore deeper into the cavern a Gorgimera swoops into attack us, it has the heads of a lion, red dragon and gorgon – a fearsome beast. We manage to avoid being turned to stone and it lands in front of Taran who hacks a couple of lumps out of it for its pains.  Just as we are about to swarm the beast the female “gnome” reveals her true form – a medusa and all of a sudden a bunch of snakes attack us.  We are in the thick of it here, the dragon part of the creature then breathes fire on us and we find that these serpents have potent venom.  We do manage to take the gorgimera down with some fast bladework from Taran which causes the medusa to curse in gnomish, apparently this is all a set up as it was supposed to be with the manticore, who was one of her allies.
We start to turn the tide against the snakes and begin to close in on the medusa who has been casting spells at us, she uses a dimension door to escape the combat and the Dwarf jumps through with her before it closes.  A minute later we hear combat somewhere in the darkness of this big cavern which sounds like a Medusa having her foot cut off and a dwarf falling over after being damaged by a fire shield – it goes something like:-
HACK
“Ahh my foot”
WHOOSH
“Buggar”
THUMP
Carinne runs over to where she thinks this noise came from and binds the dwarfs wounds, whilst Galvish was convinced the noise was from another direction and heads off that way.  She also notices a trail of blood leading away from the prone dwarf.  We regroup and heal up and decide to chase after her, the tracks leading to a huge (manticore/gorgimera sized) cave mouth 60’ off the floor.
We fly and climb up and advance into the cave, we are soon confronted with more large poisonous snakes, then boalisks enter the combat.  The medusa shouts out that we should leave her lair or we will all die, sure enough our paladin and Barrigan are turned to stone.  We manage to defeat the last of the serpents and the medusa calls out that she has stone to flesh scrolls that she will tear up if we advance any further – not having and means to restore our comrades we agree to stop bothering her in return for these scrolls and the return of the gnomes magic axe.  With a few more questions we learn of a secret door by the waterfall but she does not know where it might lead to.
We exit the cave and restore life back to our comrades, then we locate a safe place to rest and heal up and relearn spells.  We continue our journey to the waterfall and upon approach are attacked by more scrags who leap out of the water, we put these beasts down and burn them and barrigan, Lanneus and Taran dive into the water to explore their lair.  Once down there they encounter some female scrags and the leader who puts up a good fight.  We drag their corpses out to the shore so they can be burned and loot the treasure we find there.
Moving onto exploration of the waterfall leads to the location of a secret door with gnomish script on it.  It appears to be a puzzle which Krachtig scratches his head over for a while but when shared with the wise Taran gives an answer fairly soon.  The door opens and inside is a small treasure stash which is quickly looted.  Finding no other passages we backtrack through the cavern and head off in a new direction, eventually ending in a large cavern with pillars stretching up into the darkness.  Advancing quietly down one side of the columns we are pounced upon by wights, several of us are saved from their cold clutches by the stoneskins and we win through with no loss to our side.  Moving up to the massive doors at the end we encounter some heavily armed and armored trolls who hurl their mighty spears at us as we close into hand to hand combat, Barrigan, Taran and Galvish show their fighting prowess and triumph, just then the huge doors fall on us squishing the paladin and Barrigan, with the others narrowly stepping out of the way.  Once the dust settles we look into the opening beyond and see a gnome cast a spell at us, Galvish, Lanneus and Barrigan rush at him after a quick bit of curing and are dismayed to get hit by a lightning bolt, knocking one of them down.  Barrigan decides that something isn’t right and rushes further into the room as curing is applied to our fallen colleagues.  Barrigans instincts are correct and with Krachtig and Carinne casting spells to locate the invisible spellcaster, tracks him down.
Galvish is back on his feet and with Carinne using her bow they hack at the enemy gnome.  Bariggan and Galvish score some mighty hits but drop to the ground as a fire shield returns the damage to them.  Taran runs over to finds the dwarf all burnt crispy and lifeless but Galvish was saved from total annihilation by the frostbrands fire resistance properties and still breathes.
We discover some gnomes who were held captive by the evil one.  These are the priests and helpers at the temple and there are even some females amongst them, although Krachtig is more leery of lending them his magic chopper this time.