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The fight’s scarcely begun, and already Gale feels like a gnoll’s chew toy.
His robes are partially shredded where the largest gnoll’s flail has gouged stinging grooves into his chest, and his arm has several deep holes in the flesh where it had tried to rip a bite out of him. Luckily he’d had a quick witch bolt at the tip of his tongue to put some distance between them, but with Karlach, Lae’zel, and Wyll off investigating towards Waukeen’s rest, their own little scouting party is severely underpowered for the confrontation they find themselves in.
If only Shadowheart wore less... clanky armour, they might not have been noticed.
Then again, they likely would have been discovered sooner rather than later, and Gale is just being bitter because of the freely bleeding wounds now decorating his unprotected body.
As it stands, the whole clearing full of beasts had snapped to attention at the sound. While Astarion teleported himself away to who-knew-where, Gale had quickly conjured a cloud of daggers between them and their foes, taking out one of them and seriously damaging two more. Unfortunately, this painted a target on his back, and he found himself backing up with clumsy feet as he tried to outmanoeuvre a barrage of vicious attacks all while hurling scorching rays at a fast-approaching enemy.
A crossbow bolt whistles through the air and finds its mark in a young gnoll’s neck to his left, and a flash of white in rocks above shows Astarion fending off his own furry attacker while trying to free up their cleric. The skewered gnoll falls, leaving Shadowheart with still three surrounding her, and another two at the entrance to the cave that look close to a grisly, acid-related death.
With his companions otherwise occupied, he backs up a step and focusses the weave to cast three mirror images of himself, hoping to at least buy himself some time either for someone to help, or for his own spells to finally fell the creature. But his magic is draining almost as fast as his physical energy, and he needs healing.
The pack leader roars deafeningly in his face, stinking breath and flecks of saliva assaulting his senses. Up close, the teeth are huge and sharp and shiny with his own blood, and he finds his feet momentarily rooted to the ground in fear.
His next, frantic Thunderwave falls woefully short of doing any damage, the gnoll immediately shrugging it off as it draws back a large, clawed hand. Gale manages to sidestep the swipe at the last second, and one of his duplicates disappears. But no sooner has he dodged the attack than another one comes, taking advantage of his off-balance stance, only this time it’s aimed at him and not on of his illusions.
Pain, sharp and terrible, explodes from his side as jagged claws ripped two long, unclean gashes from his hip to his ribs, far deeper than the cuts on his chest. For a moment he’s blinded by the sheer agony of it, aware of his shocked cry of pain and only distantly aware of someone else shouting.
Then the gnoll’s howl of glee reverberating within his bones jolts him back to the present, and he has a split second to cast misty step with the last of his energy before the gnoll can land what would have been a killing blow.
From his new elevated vantage point, he catches the moment one of his remaining duplicated selves is impaled by tight claws. The illusion remains long enough for deadly teeth to sink into the fake-Gale's neck, tearing a chunk of stringy gore away from the spine behind it, and then it disappears without light nor sound.
Gale fights the urge to vomit as he fumbles in his pack for a healing potion, knowing he’d come so close to such a grisly end. He’s ducked behind a bush for now, pressing a shaking hand to his side in a futile effort to stem the blood flow, but he knows his cover is weak. Shadowheart is still struggling with the last of her enemies, and he can no longer see Astarion. He’s only known them for two days, it’s not unlikely that the elf has run to save his own skin and is waiting for them to either win or die off on their own.
The gnoll looks around in confusion for a moment, and then sniffs at the air, trying to parse the smell of Gale’s blood from that of the fallen gnolls. Gales hands are slippery with blood and numb from the shock, and as he grasps the neck of a red bottle between trembling fingers, it just as quickly slips from his hand. The glass hits the ground dully, and Gale silently curses, his heart dropping to his stomach.
The gnoll’s head snaps straight to him at the sound and starts lumbering towards him with frightening speed. Gale shoots off three magic missiles, and then three more when they only make the beast stumble. It’s nearly upon him and he’s readying another barrage of missiles, even knowing it won’t be enough.
Suddenly, there’s a familiar whizz from behind the gnoll, and a barbed arrow erupts from its throat in a spray of hot blood that coats Gale, mingling with his own blood. The corpse thuds to the ground inches next to Gale where he’s still kneeling in the dust, kicking up a thin cloud of dirt and coarse animal hair that sticks to his clothing. From behind a nearby boulder Astarion emerges, tucking his crossbow back onto his back and dusting off his knees.
“I saved you, Gale!” He calls, always happy to have someone owe him something.
Gale rolls his eyes, leaning into the rock next to him as a wave of dizziness and relief washes over him.
“Haven’t saved me yet,” He replies, patting the ground blindly for the dropped healing potion. The sounds of fighting have stopped, and he sees Shadowheart trying to quickly wrap up conversation with the two men at the entrance to the cave. He hopes she’s got enough energy left to heal him – the potions only do so much, and they’re prone to leaving scars.
Cool glass presses into his palm, and he glances back to see Astarion watching him strangely intently, but doesn’t think too much on it. He downs the potion as fast as he can, grimacing at the sludgy way it coats his throat, but grateful all the same. Within seconds he feels it begin to work, knitting his skin back together from the inside out, but only enough to keep his guts from falling out. The wounds are still exposed and fleshy, fresh blood still seeping from them even if the flow is lighter. He swaps the potion bottle for a waterskin to wash the taste away and replenish his lost fluids.
“By the Gods, Gale!” Shadowheart’s voice calls as she finally makes her way over. “I saw you go down, but I didn’t realise you’d been turned into dog food.”
She sounds unbothered, but her hands are already forming the movements to cast a healing spell on all three of them. It’s not a gentle, soothing spell by any means – more of an icy cold that numbs the wounds while they close, but it’s a relief all the same. He sighs as his flesh gradually closes up, and the trembling in his limbs abates. He stops bracing against the pain, and the tension in his shoulders finally lessens.
“Ugh. You reek of blood,” Astarion says, sniffing at the state of his torn, soaked robes. Gale sighs unhappily in agreement, plucking the ruined fabric between his fingers even as it clings to his slowly healing body.
“Yes, well.” He grimaces, and accepts the hand the elf offers him. “Next time, I'll just say no thankyou! to the thing trying to gore me to death, I suppose? Perhaps if we’d just stuck together as I suggested this morning-”
He’s cut off by a surprisingly childish groan from Shadowheart as she finishes her spell.
“Yes, yes, Gale, you’re so smart, we should always listen to you. You know, you could stand to be a little more humble – after all, you wouldn’t have made it out of that fight on you own.” She puts one hand on her hip, flicks some gore off her mace with a disgusted look. “And where exactly would you be without me to bring you from the brink off death?”
“Well of course, thank you for that, both of you, but if I might point out we wouldn’t have been in such a position-”
But she’s already gone, walking off in the direction of the rest of their party, still chattering with faint jabs at him that he’s half sure she’s making from relief. He makes to follow, when he realises Astarion has a cool grip on his forearm, and is staring at the gaps in his clothing. He frowns slightly in confusion, uncertain whether to feel flattered or slightly violated, or whether he’s misjudges the look on his face altogether.
“Alright there, Astarion?” He asks, pointedly trying to pull his arm away.
His voice seems to snap the elf out of whatever thoughts he was caught up in, and he quickly drops his arm, straightening up and arranging his face into something more... vaguely pleasant, as if some of them hadn’t just been torn half to shreds.
“Let’s go, shall we?” Astarion says primly, and steps around Gale to avoid brushing past him. “You’ll want to get cleaned up before you attract anything else unfriendly and get us all in trouble.”
And then he’s catching up with Shadowheart, leaving Gale to gather his staff and satchel with a groan that should have only come from someone Elminster’s age. He trails not too far behind them with a bone deep tiredness that he knows he’ll have to sleep off by the next day. His entire right arm is still saturated with tacky blood, both his and the gnoll’s, but there’s a paler imprint where Astarion had helped him up. Something about the whole interaction had him on edge, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why. He searches through his memory before it has time to fade.
The expression on Astarion’s face, perhaps? The look in his eyes as he’d stared intently at his chest – it wasn’t particularly lustful, but something along the same vein.
He thinks of the hunger in the gnoll’s eyes and suppresses a shiver.