The third update has been scheduled for seven tomorrow morning. Come back and read it then.
The empty mountains lay silent beneath a cold, crescent moon.
Chill stars hung across the sky like scattered flecks of light, arrayed like pieces on a game board.
The land lay shrouded in the hazy darkness of night. Pale moonlight wreathed the Orc camp, leaving it bleak and cold.
Deep in the night, Gnolls slipped out of their tents one after another, weapons in hand, and crept toward the Orc encampment. The Orc Commander had secured the camp's perimeter tightly against infiltration, and its internal defenses were no less thorough. Security among the Gnolls and Trolls was somewhat weaker, but here in the Orc section, patrol after patrol made their rounds through the darkness with torches in hand.
The Orc Commander's arrangements were sound, and the patrols did their jobs well enough during the first half of the night. During the second half, however, they grew noticeably lax. Drowsiness showed on their faces. None of these Orcs truly believed an enemy could infiltrate this far. If there were any enemies, the sentries on the perimeter would have spotted them long ago.
In the flickering firelight, slender figures approached the patrols with weapons in hand. Despite the light, the patrols never noticed them. This was not carelessness or a lack of vigilance: these Gnolls were invisible. They were Gnoll Assassins.
These Gnolls were generally small, rarely exceeding six and a half feet in height, making them far smaller than Gnoll Brutes. Their skin was also distinctively dark, unlike the purple fur of Gnoll Watchers.
There was, of course, more than one patrol, and they remained within sight of one another at a distance. In the darkness, they could not see the people ahead, but they