Gus halted them all as they approached the last group of gnolls before they started the trek to Waukeens' Rest, planned for the next day. Belle was in a mood where she thought she might like to see, in real life, from the safe vantage point of as far away as possible, what the other's looked like in a fight. She spied an elevated, craggy outcropping & sat down in a little, hard to spot area that gave her a great view of the area below. Gus cautioned her to keep quiet & not draw attention to herself. She nodded on her way over.
The outcropping was just out of range to be effective for any of the others to use (not that the magic users in the group would come anywhere near her when fighting, her ability noshed away all their magic supply so that they were useless in a fight).
She watched as her dad swept wide of the gnolls & kept clear of the others, readying his bow as he went. This was freakin' awesome! The others spread out, crouching & skirting the edges of the aimlessly wandering gnolls. She could just see the entrance to the cave from where she sat, & wondered if they would end up freeing the trapped Zentarim or let the gnolls feed. Either or, in her opinion. Secretly, not so deep down, she was hoping one of the others would go tadpole to tadpole with the gnoll leader & command the bitch to eat herself. That would be so, so gross, yet oddly satisfying to see.
At a signal from Gus (how weird to see everyone just obey his commands like that; not like her, god no, she remembered telling him he was a horrible parent at one stage when he tried telling her what to do when she'd been sixteen), they launched their attack; arrows & spells flew through the air, whistling or making odd, compaction sounds as they landed; someone had launched a thunder bolt arrow, & the explosion was fantastic!
Before she knew it, she was on her feet. Fists clenched, she was bouncing on her toes, hurling abuse at the gnolls in between hollering encouragement at the fighters. It was like watching your favourite footy team live at the stadium.
She looked down in surprise at her feet as a gnoll suddenly sprang up, snarling & stinking to the high heavens. Her jaw dropped as an arrow blossomed between its eyes & it toppled backward & off the crag. She looked up to see Astarion, bow raised, who'd just saved her life. Her face broke out in a grin, & she gave him the thumbs up on both hands.
"My hero!" she yelled & was surprised to see him flourish a bow in her direction before going back in for more murdery fun. She chuckled, suddenly feeling a hundred percent better than yesterday. Then she saw Brian, in brainlock with the gnoll leader, both trembling & snarling, vying for dominance.
'Make it eat itself' she projected (well, thought she did; if anyone had looked at her then they might have thought her constipated). But something must have got through, because, next minute, it started tearing into its own arm.
"Oh, ewwww, so disgusting" she breathed, watching avidly as it literally consumed its own limbs, hands, feet & what it could reach of its legs. All that was left was a writhing torso, snarling up at the white dragon born as he reached down & casually ripped it's throat out, stuffing the throat back into the jaw of the beast. "So fucking cool." She kinda wished she coulda' had that ability when dealing with some rotten clients at times back home.
She trotted over to them as they looted the corpses or cleaned off their weapons.
"What'd you think?" Gus asked her as she approached.
"You couldn't hear what I thought?" she'd been yelling loud enough.
"I could. And I thought I'd warned you to keep quiet & not draw attention to yourself."
"All good. Only one got near me. Astarion killed it. Dead. One shot. Right here." She pointed between her eyes. Out the corner of her eye she saw him hold his head higher & preen a bit. Nice. Hopefully that meant they could go back to shit-stirring each other. Gus, on the other hand, gave Astarion a look from under his bushy brows. She couldn't quite interpret it. It wasn't one she was familiar with. Her dad ended up nodding to him, once, before turning to deal with the cowardly Zentarim who were only now emerging from the cave.
She, however, was full of energy from having witnessed them fighting. It made her want to buckle down & practice harder to get to a stage where she could at least stab something. She took out her own sword, unused as yet, looking at it critically as the sun twinkled off it. Looked to the carcass of a nearby gnoll. Had never stabbed a humanoid creature before, & they were already dead, sooooo….
"Why are you stabbing it? It's dead, dear." Astarion asked her in his 'you're really, really weird & I'm just gonna point it out to everyone' tone.
"Get the feel of it" she replied, pulling out the sword & stabbing the beast again, in a different spot. "I'm great at filleting fish or chopping up a chook, but a majority of Earthlings don't go round like you lot getting all stabby with other humans." She paused, sawing the sword back & forth, making the corpse issue forth some funky sounding squishes. "Actually, depends on where you are. Certainly not from where I'm from."
"You live in a city of over five million people, & you don't stab each other?" Shadowheart had been listening in.
"Well, there's murders, but they're always investigated. Generally, though, no."
"Did you just say five million…" Astarion had turned to Shadowheart, who nodded.
"One city" she said, holding up a single finger. "One."
Belle ignored them, really getting into the stabby stabby now. She hit something that belched out an enormous stink.
"Ok that's enough of that" Astarion grabbed her & hauled her away from the deflating corpse.