Silver Insanity

Current status:

One gnoll priestess, mostly incapacitated, desperately trying to keep her own shadow from biting her head off.

One gnoll warrior, trapped and immobilized by twisting strands of shadow, staring at you with a look of pure terror.

Thirteen burnt or burning corpses (six human, three gnoll, four hyena), none of them moving anymore.

Three ordinary brown canvas tents.

One enchanted small green tent, collapsed.

Lots of trees.

Aurora isn't the most adept with ropes, but she has nimble fingers and a spool of rope that so far has lived up to the claim of "endless" the merchant who had sold it to her had claimed. The robe bindings are cursory, the shadow ones should last a while longer especially if the gnoll remains too scared to attempt to break loose, as Aurora wants to get back to the camp before the cleric's shadow kills her. Not that that would bother her much, but most of her targets tended to end up dead before she could consider questioning them and she figures she might as well see if she could take advantage of it. Perhaps someone in one of the nearby towns would pay well for what information the cleric might have to offer. Who knows? Aurora might even let her live, at least long enough to turn over to the nearest town.

Making no visibly threatening moves to the prisoner (not out of kindness, but a prisoner that walks is generally less trouble than one dragged), Aurora firmly grips the loose end of the rope binding the gnoll's arms together and to its torso and heads back towards the cleric. If the gnoll walks along behind, fine, if not he doesn't look too heavy to drag. Upon reaching the clearing Aurora sees the cleric is still there. Abruptly the she-gnoll's shadow becomes merely a shadow again, as Aurora firmly ties the warrior's "leash" to a thick overhead tree branch. The black-haired bounty hunter stands in front of the cleric, one hand cupping a ball of crackling fire, and asks, "Do you understand me?" For good measure, she repeats it in Draconic.

"Yes, m'lady," the preistess replies, in common - not draconic.

The warrior whimpers a little.

"If your companion doesn't understand common, let him know that if I do end up having to kill him I will do my best to make it quick and clean." Aurora rolls the ball of fire around and through her fingers, giving the impression it has somehow come to live as a burning snake. "I'll be honest, part of me wants to return the favor of that destruction spell you tried to kill me with but my curiosity has gotten the better of me. I've passed through this area before but not recently and when last I passed by here I saw neither hide nor hair of your kind nor zombie hyenas. Are you just a random group of creatures that found a soft target or is there something more here?"

The priestess mutters something in gnollish*, before continuing in common.

"Soft targets? Worthless targets - the villages here aren't worth the time it would take to raid them. If you're just here after the bandits..." She gestures at the six humans, "They're dead already. We were after a different target entirely, and had merely stopped to pick up some shock troops on our way."

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* Roughly translated from gnollish: "Hold still. [Do] not aggravate [her]."

"What target? If there's a squabble pending that's more than just a bandit camp against a few towns I'd much rather not be caught in the crossfire." Either those towns have (or had?) guards that aren't even worth calling a bad joke or else the she-gnoll isn't telling the truth. Or both. Aurora doesn't much care either way, if a town chooses to leave itself defenseless it certainly has the right to be stupid.

"I don't know the name of the city, merely the path to it. East of here, and south. And I have it on good authority that it will soon be completely defenseless."

"Defenseless? Rivers tend to bring trade and trade brings people who don't like to let others take their goods, whether through competition or banditry. I imagine you could do a number on one of them, you've got several unpleasant surprises up your sleeves besides the one I've seen already I expect, but I would be impressed if you could take one on as easily as you seem to be implying you could. Who gave you this information? Perhaps you were just a sacrificial distraction and if things have gone sour this early..." Aurora's voice trails off as she pointedly glances at the corpses scattered around the clearing.

The priestess laughs. "Surl herself set me this task; if She says the city will be defenseless, then so it shall be."

"Well I suppose that's a fair enough reason, especially for a cleric. I've no desire to get involved in the affairs of gods, they've little for me and I for them..." Aurora seems to come to a decision. "I'll give each of you a choice. I've no desire to haul prisoners around for miles, they're generally more trouble than they're worth. However, I know I'd not want to be taken prisoner. Definitely far more annoying being one than having one. If your companion does not wish to be held prisoner I will grant him a quick death. The same choice is yours as well, though with one difference. Him, the worst he could do would be to bite me, which would irritate me but probably not more. You may not be able to cast without speaking or moving but I don't want to take the chance nor would I trust you if you said whether you did or not. I will cast one spell on you and if you resist I will kill you. I will not deliberately kill you if you do not resist. A dead prisoner after all is not worth much."