>>5432542You peer over the ledge and see a whole slew of sights you did not expect. Firstly, the small and monkey-like ghouls you’ve seen before are there, but not as you expected to see them. These naked, scrambling creatures—like mammalian maggots, like monkeys bred with rats and half-skinned, who dwell in matted and natty piles of debris… Here, you see them wielding simple stone tools, but also pilfered knives and crudely-crafted spears, and with at least kobold-worthy skill! They have tied nets of woven hair and cloth, knotted and strong, and have thrown them over Honemdyn the Centipede, and with their cruel implements the poke, prod, and stab at it…
And at the back of the cavern, you see something more shocking: another thing, ghoul-like yet… Different. It has a short, but many-jointed tail, a long face, sunken-yet-bulging eyes. It stands taller than the Junior Novice did when you first purchased him, is more muscularly-built, but still… It is unmistakably the same species, with the same dog-like nose, rat-like twitching, kobold-esque silhouette mirrored in mammalian flesh.
You look between at being, towering over the other ghoul-things, barking what you must take for commands. You look to the Junior Novice… Whatever it he is, whatever he once was. They are of the same species, or at least close cousins. But… What ARE they?
“It commands the others,” Hamaraska says. “I think it is the Ghoul Supreme.”
Can it be? You see no evidence of magic here, of necromancy… But it DOES seem to be organizing this attack.
“We must save Honemdyn!”
Well… That’s a matter of opinion. What SHOULD you do?
>Screw the centipede, you’ll buy the elf a new one—burn the whole panoply of deep-dwellers with dragonfire!>Attempt a targeted assassination by bow-and-arrow of the ‘Ghoul Supreme’, if indeed that IS this creature’s identity>Leap down dramatically, and assume <Dragonshape>; scare and scatter the foes, and chop down those who remain with your shoggoth-sword!>Descend with the Junior Novice, and attempt to use your experimental slave-pet to broach negotiations>This is valuable intelligence… But being swarmed by smaller enemies in close quarters does NOT play to your strengths as a towering Dragonborn Hexblade, so you’re leaving ASAP>Write-in 