After a short rest everyone turned to their leader; Tallis. She referred to the bard in order to locate the direction of the elves city and they began to travel east. Apparently, they decided against the help of the gnolls (seeing their leader's poor performance against the centaur-like creatures) and so they marched past their lair and onward through the grasslands. However weather hampered their travel, as once it started to rain they set up camp. Also, the rain forced (for the first time) into a closed space, except for Holinn that is. Lucky for the group though, as the shifter spotted a figure off in the distance keeping an eye on them. Holinn ran to make Tallis aware, and the two of them went to investigate. They found the zombie hiding behind a tree, completely unresponsive to their presence. Tallis cinched a rope around it's neck and dragged it back to camp (she seems to have a liking for pets). They had to prepare their own food for once...Hopefully they cooked their deer enough.
They woke in the morning to wet grasses though a dry sky. They began to travel east again, eventually leading them back to the edge of the grasslands. After only a short travel they met up with where (presumably) the zombie spy had come from. In fact, his friends seemed to be waiting for him to return. They were hesitant to approach the undead at first, though once they ran to intercept the party their decision was made. The stone warrior drew his blade and slashed across one of the zombies...then disappeared almost into a black void. His figure was encased in pure black, then faded into nothing. Despite the odd occurance, the party fairly easily dispatched the group of undead, though then their controller and his friends made their entrance.
The cat-like creatures appeared from nowhere, striking quickly, and then seemingly melding into the shadows from where they came; a skill that they controlled rather well from our view. Holinn seemed to have difficulty with these creatures quickness, though the necromancer appeared to have a solution: He creatred a wall of dead ogres as a line of defense. Meanwhile, the quick creatures had moved to striking the bard and hobgoblin as well. Then, for some unexplained reason, Holinn began to attack them, too. This only lasted for a short time however, and he soon gained control of himself once again.
After a short time, the true leader of this group appeared, casting amazing magics at the party. His dark purple robe seemed to give him little protection, though the shifter soon learned that being close to this one was a mistake. It appeared that, with a touch of his paw, he sent a searing wave of pain through Holinn, while he constantly emitted a dark aura that struck pain and fear into anyone who was near enough. With the help of darkness from the necromancer, the shadowed cats had their powers nulled. The clocked cat's aura was too much for the hobgoblin and a wave of pain sent her to the ground (luckily for her...or it as I found out, I am a collector of odd contraptions).
At one point, the caster's body went limp and they party made their move. The bard and Holinn began to attack him, while it seemed that he had relocated himself into the body of the Drow, who began slicing into the shifter. Making short work of him, Holinn (as a large beetle-like beast) simply threw himself upon the creature, breaking his link and trapping his soul in the darkness. Unfortunately, his death didn't return the stone warrior's body (or his soul) back to the material plane.
As they attempted to patch themselves up, we agreed that this may be the opportune time for his assistance. A figure stepped from the shadows of a tree, clapping. "It's good to see that you're still the same leader that you have always been."
