Slash!  Slash!  Kitau continues to butcher the demon!

"I shall have my revenge on your souls in the afterlife, mortals!"

---

Demon HP: 40-32=8

Dido gets emboldened. "You say I'm foolish for loving a god, but you're the one who gets hurt by their divine power! Who is the fool here?! Go back to the pit you came from and cry to your masters about being defeated by mortals with little effort!"

  "What manner of- I am at a loss for words."  "Tweet, I got it. THEY ARE WEARING HOLY SYMBOLS OF HOLY GODS, YOU DUMBASS."  Superbird manages to be even louder than Terdisas's blast of thunder, which honestly is probably the weakest thunder blast he has ever fired.

  So the Demon's skull is only crushed instead of vaporized.  Whooooo SORCERER.

  "...Am I imagining things, or did that demon's power consist of... punching, and nothing else?"

Mittens puts on her nerd glasses.  "Punching, resisting one element, phasing into the material plane randomly, and ranting a lot.  Nice shot, by the way.  I was honestly expecting this to be a tough fight and was thinking, 'Oh hey!  I could make him resist fire then switch to frost staff because Terdisas doesn't have fire spells!'  In hindsight it probably would have been better to open up with a weak attack turned ice then switch over to fire once he resisted the ice.  Is it just me, or was that fight kinda easy?  I mean, besides my getting clawed at the beginning.  I'm beginning to wonder if the trend of wandering into badguys who happen to be juuust within our power to beat is taking a nice downswing.  Either way, we just obliterated a demon in 10 seconds flat!  That's going in the journal!"

Kitau was scouting ahead during all this chatter and returns.

"More halls and doors."

She turns her attention to the prisoners.

"Where are the captives?"

"Maldrick probably has them in the inner sanctum, hehe."

The gnolls give directions.  West, South, Door on left, Door on right, South, east.

"But it'll be locked, hehe.  You'll need the four magic items to unlock it, hehe.  The book is in the shrine southeast of here, the mask in the trap room west of here, the blade in the blood room southwest from there, and bell is in the room with the creepy pillars southeast of there, hehehee."

During Mittens' dialogue, Callie and Dido nod at the various points. "It must have been a lesser demon... only here because of all the demon-worship going on. Even then... I find it hard to believe we defeated a demon. Be careful not to be too convinced."

Dido says, "Exercising caution is duly noted. But don't forget we have the help of at least 3 gods just between the two of us. A demon doesn't stand a chance before the might of the gods."

Callie says, "True enough. The gods also brought us all together with powerful allies."

Dido looks at Terdisas. "The power of a dragon."

Callie looks at Mittens. "The power of knowledge."

Seeing Kitau return, Callie giggles and says, "And the power of determination."

Callie takes notes on a parchment as the gnolls spew directions. "Let's get going and quick."

  Terdisas could have sworn when it came to Dragons, his noteworthy trait was missing the quest involving one.  Maybe they were thinking of Dragon Sorcery from his tendency to pick up Ice Spells meant for their min/maxing instead.

  Still, it was a nice speech and he wasn't going to smash it with the semantics hammer.  "Tweet, I am totally as awesome as a Dragon, you heard the Paladin."  He will facepalm though.
This message was last updated by the GM at 22:36, Sat 31 Aug 2013.

"Not to mention the power of courage, cuteness, snarkiness, rage, etc.," Mittens adds as she heads in the direction indicated by Callie, which was presumably the nearest 'key' to the locked door, "And yes, lets.  I can't help but wonder what kind of book, blade, mask, and cowbell we'll find and what their significance is outside 'you need these four items to advance to the boss gnoll's lair.'  Like, were they magic items used by the Minotaurs long ago?"

Kitau is sure to take point while the giant dire boar follows Callie obediently.  Around the south bend and to the east, the heros find a door.  Listening at the door, they hear nothing.

Kitau sheathes one of her weapons and carefully opens the door.

When the PCs enter the corridor that connects these
chambers, read:
The corridor, hewn from black rock, connects three different
areas. Ahead, the passage opens into a chamber, while along the
eastern wall, closed doors can be seen. The doors are made of
black wood, and each has an iron knocker carved in the shape of
a minotaur’s snarling face. One is a single door, while the other
is a set of double doors. The flagstones on the floor each have
the symbol of a bull’s horned skull worked into them in blood red
stone.

Kitau steps in quietly.

Dido takes point with Kitau, followed by Callie who is between the two.

  Superbird quietly chirps in regards to the mounted skulls, "I can't tell if they like Minotaurs, or really really hate them, tweet."  Okay, quietly tweets.

  Terdisas does the obvious, quietly follow after his friends.  He stops short of staying right behind Callie not out of cowardice (we swear!), but so Mittens will be in front of him for her usual BBQ opening moves.

One of the tieflings in the far room stealthily slinks to the corner to watch the heroes approach.  He keeps his weapon sheathed and simply watches in silence.

Kitau sneaks carefully to the closest door and listens carefully.  She shrugs her shoulders and continues on toward the other door.

Mits follows along, beginning to wonder if there are any monsters to slay in this area.  Though she does put her finger on her lips in reply to Superbird, conjuring a page with the words, "Sneak, sneak, sneak!" written on it.

Callie pets the boar's snout and says softly, "Wait." before she travels south with her allies. Upon seeing Kitau shrug, Callie moves forward with Dido.

  Superbird shall not be silenced!... Except when he feels like it, which he does, totally.

  Terdisas follows after the heroic horde, and nods to Callie as he stops behind Mittens.  He's also somewhat impressed at how quiet a giant pig is being.

When Callie lets go of the chain, the pig gets the idea and stays put.  Meanwhile, Kitau listening at the door shrugs and begins to head further down, but stops in her tracks and draws her second weapon when the Tiefling watching the group reveals himself by putting a finger to his mouth and shushing.

"There's a gnoll in one of the rooms you passed," he whispers, "He... she... it could come out any minute and will likely attack you on sight.  It would be best if we talk out in the hall."

He motions for the group to back up.

Callie and Dido both are the kind to give anyone a chance. Callie especially. She nods to the tiefling and nudges her head in a "follow me" motion before backing out where the adventurers came from.

  On the one hand, Terdisas is used to anything and everything trying to deceive and kill them.  On the other hand, free advice from a race that is perfectly capable of not being evil assholes.

  Not for the first time, he wishes he was as good at seeing through deception as he was causing it... Even if he can't remember the last time he used deception.

  Is that forgetfullness or willful ignorance?

Fast forwarding a bit, Kitau is sure to keep a very cautious eye on the Tiefling and his companion when she emerges, but since Callie and Dido didn't give a command to attack she stays her blades for the time being.  Mits grins, conjures a small fireball in her hand, and winks at the Tieflings, and she follows out to the hall.  Eventually the whole group is out in the hall and the Tieflings close the door behind them.

"Adventurers I presume?" he asks, "Here to rout out the gnolls?  What's with the giant boar?  Oh wait.  Sorry.  Introductions.  My name is Damakos.  This is my partner, Nemeia."

Mittens answers cheerfully, "Me am Mittens!  This is Callie, Dido, Kitau, Superbird, and Terdisas alphabetically."

Callie adds, "And Steeltooth. The dire boar is Ulthand Deepgem's pet. The gnolls took Steeltooth, so we were asked to fetch him while we're here weeding out the evil. We're kind of in a hurry since the gnolls we captured earlier were bragging about people being sacrificed to Yenogu."

Dido asks, "Why aren't you attacking us?"

  "What does it say about our lives when after so many times questioning the reckless abandon of our attackers, those deciding not to are even more surprising?"  There are three times as many of us (counting the boar), why aren't they trying to kill us in a hopeless battle?

  "I suppose you have your own reasons for delving into this unpleasant place."

"The last pair of tieflings we encountered were hired to assassinate us with a giant animated bronze minotaur statue," Mittens says, "But as you can see, we aren't the kind to hold your race against you.  Only that you happen to be casually within the lair of a demon-worshiping cult of human sacrificing gnolls."

Kitau tightens her grip on her weapons and glares at the Tieflings.  Damakos blink-blinks in some surprise.

"Woah.  You guys are the real deal, aren't you?  Paladin, Cleric... the whole classical hero team!  Sorry to slow you down in your crusade to rescue people.  We're adventurers too, but the more mundane 'out for riches' type.  The reason we were here was to try and bamboozle the gnolls out of some of their minotaur relics then turn around and sell them for a sweet profit.  I got a bad feeling from these freaks over and above their being gnolls, but I honestly didn't know they were a demon cult or I wouldn't have risked becoming a sacrifice myself.

"Tell ya what.  You're clearly super powerful if you fought your way to this point.  So I'm willing to risk throwing in my lot with you to help rescue whomever it is you came to rescue on the condition that you won't call down a divine curse upon us for running for our lives if it looks like you're about to get wiped out, and if we get a fair share of the loot.  Or, if you'd rather, we'll just pack up and leave."

---

Insight check DC ?:  He's being honest.

Callie steps forward. "Yes. We *are* the real deal. And now you have a deal." she offers her hand to shake on it. "Damakos. Nemeia. You just don't know how relieving it is to finally stumble on someone who doesn't want to die trying to kill us." the bright smile on her face says it all.

Dido adds, "Just stay behind us and we'll protect you. Try to stay out of sight of the enemy while you're at it."

Callie nods. "All help you give is appreciated. I'm sure any and all information you give will help a lot. And whenever you wanna call it quits, let us know and we'll give you a quick escort to the door so you can make it out safely."

Dido fills the tieflings in on what the gnoll prisoners said.

Callie nods. "So were you two after those artifacts in particular? Because once we're done with them, chances are we won't need 'em for anything else..."

  Superbird comments "Do they count as honest mercenaries when they were tricking someone else?, tweet."   "Close enough for my tastes at the very least in these circumstances.  So long as you help at all, you'll get your share.  I'd assume you have enough sense to realize attacking our enemies at all so they fall faster is safer than simply watching."

  Hide the melee only NPCs behind the party the whole time!... wait.

"You're quite right we're powerful!" Mittens brags, "Examples include defeating a white dragon, death cult, azer slaver ring, and just recently destroying a 10' tall demon in 10 seconds flat.  So don't get any ideas of turning on us.  Kitau is liable to carve you into one inch cubes before Callie can say, 'Wait!  I'm sure there's a good reason they...'"

The tieflings nod and head back into the next room with an obligatory "shh" to indicate the group should be stealthy.  Damakos sneaks to the gnoll's room door and opens it for the heroes!

---

Surprise round!