"Ugh! This pile of rotten flesh is disgusting! How could perfectly good gnolls mutate into this? They're practically chosen by Nurgle now. And the stench! Even burning them is disgusting!"
As dawn approached, outside the halfling factory that had already been thoroughly cleared, the more than forty surviving players built a huge bonfire and dragged over the gnoll corpses to burn them. They even included the Filth Warlord, whom Brother Qu and Captain Mia had killed together. They doused the bodies with plenty of lamp oil, then set them alight with an incendiary grenade.
The flames roared to life.
It didn't sound at all like burning corpses. It was more like setting fire to a pile of dry wood that had been yearning for the flames. As the fire surged, strange gray ash swirled through the air, spreading an even more foul stench and leaving the halflings and human slaves freed from the factory feeling as though they'd stepped into another world.
The players hadn't wanted to go to all this trouble. The town had nearly been flattened by the bombardment anyway, so leaving the corpses here wouldn't have mattered. But after seeing Goji's "Chaos corruption," Brother Qu had realized how dangerous these corrupted creatures were.
He insisted that the players burn the gnoll corpses and not leave them lying on the battlefield, lest there be another large-scale transformation into "Chaosfolk."
The players complained bitterly about the extra work, but they soon cheered up when the rescued slaves led them to the armory the gnolls had prepared for the front lines.
Along with a staggering quantity of explosives, they also found some bizarre firearms.
Brother Qu picked up a strange gun with a bore so wide a child could stick his fist inside. It looked more like a grenade launcher