Roux had taken a liking to the strange serpentine critters of chaos; the protean. They were encountered in the strange planar realm created by an arch mage (Same where the Kobolds came from), and it had been their power that was used to create the place. They were struggling with this fact as forcing chaos to be unchanging for so long had been driving them slowly crazy.

One of the lesser of these creatures took a chance when the adventurers left, hitching a ride with the gnoll.. winding up partially merged with him. The alchemist now having a friend and familiar. This is when he put a plan into works, if they couldn't leave normally but an outside being was able to be used to hitch a ride.. maybe he could get them all out.

The plan of course worked.. but now comes the more complicated fact of being merged with a whole mess of these creatures.
Some of them felt fine instead of keeping their normal forms, instead take similar of the gnoll himself, multiplying some of his body.
Well.. at least they are free from their prison realm even if it was out and into a gnoll. Being multiple creatures will take some getting used to.

But hey, more heads are better than one, and really will let him explore the nature of monster and man like this!

(In reality it should be far more multi than this, and perhaps I will look more into getting something like that!)

Art  Ma