Kuru
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Long ago, a gnoll by the name of Kuru was born. Kuru was always cruel. At the age of three weeks, she led her sister into the woods, killed her, and ate her. This was the beginning of Kuru’s history of greed and terror. By the time she turned one, she was formidable in both melee combat and magick. But she was greedy. She had heard tell of dwarves, far to the eastern mountains. Kuru knew dwarves meant treasure. And treasure meant power. The lord of these dwarves held a magick crown. This crown, Kuru sought.
Kuru gathered three of her clan’s fiercest warriors. She armed one with a bow, one with a spear, and one with a club. She took a sharp knife, and her staff, and set out into the eastern mountains. After several days, they arrived at the dwarf stronghold. Outside stood several dwarven sentries, armed and armored. Kuru ordered her bowman to silently dispatch the sentries. *THOOK THOOK*, the arrows pierced the holes in their visors, and the guards were dead. The gnolls approached the stronghold, but as they did so, a dwarfish trap suddenly sprang, and mangled the bowman’s leg. The bowman whined and pleaded, but Kuru had no patience for the weak, and ordered her other gnolls to crush the bowman’s head with a rock, and strip them of meat. They added it to the dwarfish meat, and continued onward into the stronghold.
Inside, a small entourage of dwarves poured forth with axes and hammers. Kuru ordered her spearman to stab the warriors. The spearman jabbed her spear into the chests of the first two dwarven warriors, landing the spear skillfully in their armor gaps, and killing them instantly. This gave the other dwarves pause, and the spearman capitalized on the moment by stabbing them quickly, before they could reach the gnolls. They stripped them of meat and continued further into the mountainous hall.
They arrived in a stone courtyard, where a dwarven champion stood, a throwing axe in his hands. He threw his axe at the invading gnolls, and they jumped from its deadly reach as the axe spun. The champion spoke a command word, and the axe recalled to his grasp. Kuru started to bark orders to her warriors to attack, but the champion threw his axe again, this time at Kuru, and his aim was true. Kuru pushed her spearman in the way at the last moment, and the axe struck the spearman a killing blow. As the champion spoke his command word, he was met with the remaining gnoll’s club, and was struck down. Kuru and her companion stripped their meat silently, and continued on.
At last, the two gnolls arrived in the dwarven lord’s chambers. They saw the dwarf lord sitting upon an ornate throne of polished metal, his bodyguards at each side, and the crystal crown upon his head. The royal guards charged the gnolls with their poleaxes, but Kuru tapped her staff on the floor twice, and the dwarven guards crumpled dead with her dark magicks. She approached the dwarven lord, and he grimaced as she pulled her knife from her belt. The dwarven lord threw a mighty gauntleted fist at the gnoll, but the force was pulled from his punch, as Kuru had already plunged the knife into his belly. He coughed blood, and spoke a death curse onto Kuru. “May you choke upon the spoils of this victory.” As the words left him, his body went lifeless.
Kuru seized the crystal crown, but her companion grew angry. They lost two great warriors, and Kuru is the only one with anything to show for it. “I come all this way, and no treasure for me?”
“No matter, the crown is mine!” Kuru said, and stabbed her companion in the heart. She fell dead, the shock of Kuru’s betrayal in her dying eyes.
Kuru stood alone, in the dwarf lord’s hall, surrounded by death. She began to strip the meat from the bones of the dwarf king and her own warrior, the crystal crown upon her head. She had grown very hungry, and began to feast on the dwarf lord’s flesh. As she ate, a bone stuck in her throat, and Kuru began to choke. She looked around, wild eyed and panicked, but with none of her warriors to help her, she choked to death in the dwarf lord’s hall, her cruelty undone by her disloyalty to the pack.