Continuing the exploration, the party were attacked by a group of Gnolls.
The Gnolls used a mix of melee and archery to good effect, making it quite a mobile battle.
The battle started with the party in different rooms. Some fought while others continued to search. At least until more Gnolls tried to ambush the searchers.
After the battle, the party kept exploring. They found lots of empty rooms and offices, and the main library, guarded by a flameskull and some skeletons. The flameskull was talkative.
It explained that its mission was to kill anyone who entered the main library. It didn't know why it was summoned to do this, just that someone summoned it to do this. It didn't know how long it had been there. When asked about the skeletons, it said they were the remains of the first group that tried to enter the library. It killed them and then animated them to aid it.
The party found four slaves of the Gnolls, a Human man named Taln, a Human woman named Elel, a Half-elf female named Britha and a Human male named Anfleth. All were beaten and starving and frightened. They had been slaves of the Gnolls for weeks, perhaps months. Zeiden gave them some clothes, Grim gave them food and water, Levo gave them scorn and hatred and threatened to attack them.
The party have explored all the above-ground rooms and the cellar under the kitchen. They haven't really spent any time on detailed searches, apart from a couple of small libraries and the cellar.
Gnolls and wolves
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