So there we are. In the room we have Ezmerelda under the table, only just discovered by the half-gnoll half-minotaur Kashtari. We have Splug who had tried to enter the room stealthily and failed, and we have Neil who had strolled in after and tried to talk our way out of this mess. Outside of the room lurk the rest of us.

Splug recites an incantation and assumes a divine aspect. Since we mishear some key words, we believe that the power suffusing him is the “Aspect of Mike”. Thus for a while we will praise this unknown god for his impressive power and afterwards Splug will ruin it all by telling us it was only the “Aspect of Might”, and that Mike remains unmanifested and unknown.

Ezmerelda scowls and unleashes rainbow glitter fury at Kashtari. Her pockets overflow with little candies . She also begins hurling a nonstop telekinetic barrage of serving dishes at Kashtari. They do no damage but they add to the general comedy level in the room, which increases steadily.

One of the huge gnolls rakes his claws at Splug under the table, hits and does an immense amount of damage, bloodying him instantly. Someone sees the deadly nature of the attack and remarks “It could be a real short day.”

Splug however then uses his goblin tactics to counterattack this same gnoll and he scratches him on the knees a bit. Lacking any sense of proportion he capers and taunts the gnoll at this minor success.

Oakley charges into the room, leaving only Klajdu and myself outside. The two of us are caught a bit flat-footed outside the room. Well, Klajdu is. I am standing behind him having just filled a flagon with ale, having had the thought to empty it before there was any action to worry about.

Shazia: Hold on. I must drain my flagon of ale.
Klajdu: {turns around, brow furrowing}
Shazia: Why did you turn around!? You interrupted some very private flagon-draining!

Klajdu and I do finally make it into the room and we begin to chant a made-up battlesong that consists only of a repeated chorus of “Gnolls gnolls gnolls gnolls gnolls” in what I will unreasonably insist was perfect two-part harmony. Things continue to chart a course putting us somewhere between good sketch comedy and disastrous dinner theater.

Singing, I blip about the room and get Gnoll #2 to strike Gnoll #1 in an unlikely flank with Sir Oakley. Splug strikes Kashtari, teleports him sideways but then inexplicably falls unconscious himself. Neil blows a discordant blast on his horn which dominates the recently-teleported Kashtari, and Kashtari swings at Gnoll #2, who has just himself swung at Gnoll #1. Neil’s discordant blasts not surprisingly provide the perfect wacky theme music.

Ezmerelda scoots out from under the table and lets loose an unexpectedly deafening and draconic roar which hits Kashtari. Is nothing in this room what it seems to be?
As if in answer, more plates of food fling themselves at our enemies.
Kashtari confirms the creepy feeling that he’s not what he seems by breathing out a foul purple smoke once in a while. The smoke fills the room and makes it hard to do anything but retch.

Or lie unconscious, because Splug continues to miss out on the show by sleeping peacefully under the table. That is until kashtari kneels next to him and begins to do something magical. It looks bad, like Kashtari is eating Splug’s soul. Brave of him. But it pays off because Kashtari starts to look healthier.
Meanwhile Klajdu gets in the thick of the action and does a devastating Great Cleave. I teleport up on the table, dance a bit, teleport down amidst our foes, attack them and then teleport back onto the table, where I continue to do a bit of a drunken jig. Neil’s discordant blasts continue to really tie the scene together.
The giant minotaur grabs Ezmerelda and as she tries to break free, a plate of beets hurls itself uselessly at the minotaurs face. The minotaur then, less humorously, impales Ez on one of his horns. Gruesome but she survives somehow. I turn towards them and strike the minotaur with the Witchfire curse. He’s still killing Ez, but at least now he’s on fire so… partial credit?

Splug wakes up! And I think he got hit again by something.

Splug: Everyone hurts me in this room!
Ezmerelda: It’s because you’re so annoying.

The gnolls are felled eventually, and Kashtari more or less right then fades away into a vaguely visible mist, which tries to escape the room. We are having none of this and we throw everything we have at the mist, possibly including a plate of radishes. Eventually the mist yields but instead of there appearing the corpse of a giant half-minotaur half-gnoll called Kashtari, there is an equally large green-skinned thing with horns and white hair. It looks a little demonic although hell everything looks demonic to me these days.

There is still the little matter of the giant minotaur trying to kill us. Neil makes peace with the minotaur in an astonishing display of diplomacy, which at least partly involved a large cigar of some kind being extended as a peace offering.

The minotaur is blessed neither with any great intelligence nor any useful knowledge, but he is wise enough to accept the truce and the passed cigar. He tells us what we already know, that Kashtari was holding a precarious balance of power between the minotaurs here and the gnolls, and that the gient gnolls and giant minotaur were basically his lieutenants.
Oakley finally snaps though. Exasperated, he asks the minotaur “What is up with the demon?”, and when the nonchalant reply is “The demon is our ally.”, damn him if Oakley doesn’t just attack. We return to battle and dispatch the minotaur after a few hectic minutes.

Oh and before I forget, after much hemming and hawing we establish afterwards that Kashtari was in fact an Oni, a rare kind of creature that only a few of us have heard of, and that none had seen.