Empirical Gnollage:BONUS Installment 77½ [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment077½.png]
Gruntle hadn't re-emerged from under the bed. Al guessed there being no mention of food and the potential for violence being so abstract hadn't been exciting enough to wake him back up.
"I should take care of something before we start running around today," Al said.
"Didn't you just do that?" Wikwocket asked. Al ignored her and continued.
"If anyone's hungry, they could go get us some food while I work."
That did it - Gruntle stretched out from under the bed, and he, Bote, and Wikwocket left to seek breakfast. Al put the quest materials back in the scrollcase and fetched the writing supplies he'd picked up the previous day.
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> To the esteemed Melissa Browne and Notamimic Manor,
>
> It has been less than two weeks since we left Notamimic Manor, but it feels to me as though more has happened since then than in any entire year of my life up to this point. We are currently enjoying the hospitality of Hell's Bathtub and are about to take on a job for them that may possibly provide us with the means to already repay your initial investment. Gruntle's presence here has been surprisingly little problem because apparently everyone thinks he's some minor noble that I've transformed into the shape of a gnoll with my mighty powers of wizardry. Apparently that sort of thing isn't too uncommon among the wealthy customer base here.
>
> Though it has been such a short time, I wanted to initiate correspondence while my thoughts and observations are reasonably fresh in my mind, before we set out on today's quest.
>
> I confess I was quite nervous and uncomfortable having a gnoll accompanying us when we set out, but all of us seem to have mutually settled into this arrangement quickly. My misgivings about how Gruntle would fare among the populace of Silveroak turned out to be unfounded, and I can report that his behavior appears to have been well-conditioned for behaving among a population that is at least somewhat familiar with him. The contest of fisticuffs that he has been taught to use as a form of dominance-testing appears to be a very effective adaptation. I would like to bring up a complaint that you did not warn me that the town knew of him already, it would have saved me a lot of worry. We were able to supply ourselves with most of what we needed in town before setting out for a job in Henhaven. We were unable to procure a pack-animal though, so I can confirm your observations of the responses of most domesticated beasts to the presence of gnolls.
>
> On our way to Henhaven, we were accosted by some bandits. Please convey my appreciation to Grakthor for Gruntle's training, he dispelled my doubts about his readiness in the fight that ensued. He was not only quite effective during the fight, but he showed some unexpected cunning and self-restraint in controlling how the fight started despite the obvious effort of will it required of him. We made it to Henhaven with relatively minor injuries, and successfully dissuaded Gruntle from trying to eat what was left of our assailants.
>
> I'm sure I will have more to report from our job there when I have some time to rest and think about it, but a few matters stand out in my mind as noteworthy. For one, I can confirm and expand upon your observations regarding Gruntle's affinity for the demonic language. As you described in your writing, he clearly can't understand or use the language itself, but he seems to instinctively understand the meaning of both speech and writing in that language. The..."
Al paused, looking at the page and hesitating. Then he sighed and continued:
> "...Demonic Flesh-beast of Henhaven appears to have once been a human caretaker of Wulfcynn Keep while the baron was away, and seems to have entered into some inadvisable arrangement with a demon. Gruntle was able to not only understand the speech of some demonic spirits guarding the place and the demonic-language glyphs one of the now-deceased caretaker's books had written in it, but he was also able to broadly recognize when the writing was a reference to a name, or to magic-working. The book I tested this with, according to Gruntle's interpretation, appears to be a sort of catalog of specific demons with their names and, I believe, descriptions of what would be suitable as offerings to appease them. I think it's noteworthy to mention that Gruntle seemed to recognize one of the individual entries, though when I asked him later about it he insisted he had never had any interaction with it or any specific knowledge of it. He was unable to tell me what the name of this entity actually is though he pointed out where it was written on the page. The illustration appeared to be of some bear-like thing, and Gruntle told me the text indicated it liked violence. Might this be a demon particularly associated with the gnolls somehow? Two other matters I noticed at this time seem noteworthy. For one, I've been quite surprised at just how well Wikwocket and Gruntle seem to work together. I think it's partly just that she thinks adventuring with a gnoll is exciting and novel, but I don't think that's all of it. I think she accepted him as a person even more quickly than I did, and has been hunting, fighting, and even playing with him in ways that seem to mesh well with Gruntle's natural habits. She's even taken to grunting and huffing in normal conversation. Gruntle seems to be very comfortable with this, perhaps her accidental or intentional gnollishness is just reassuring for him. I'm not certain if this means anything but I thought you'd be interested to know. The other matter is that we did, in fact, find a donkey that didn't appear to be especially frightened of Gruntle. Gruntle seemed to take that as a challenge, but I was able to convince him to treat this as an intra-clan dominance matter rather than a prey-animal to be killed. The donkey actually managed to surprise Gruntle with a solid kick, and Gruntle accepted this as a loss. When it came time to name the donkey later, it was actually Gruntle who gave him a name. "Haunch" has been a reliable packbeast ever since, and seems somewhat attentive to Gruntle. I still don't know why he wasn't afraid of Gruntle, but I'm glad for this, because we really needed a pack-animal to help us haul our growing collection of possessions. Our second job was through Turnipseed, and now I understand why nobody wants to go there. The job was outside of Turnipseed itself so we only had to spend one night there. The next morning we found ourselves..."
>
> This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Al stared at the page and found he really didn't want to describe the embarrassingly snuggled state they all unexpectedly found themselves in when they woke up. He scratched out the last few words and skipped ahead.
> "...found ourselves made our way out of Turnipseed to a nearby tomb to lay a tribute upon the grave of an old elven hero on behalf of the village. This ended up being a much more eventful job than I'd hoped, but it ended well. I'm sure there are plenty of useful observations to be had from a detailed discussion of events but there's only one that I feel I should mention in this letter. During an attack by a giant insect-monster of some sort, Gruntle..."
The moments of Gruntle's nearly-fatal injury and their efforts to end the fight and save him replayed themselves in Al's mind. After a while, he realized he was sitting there with his teeth clenched and lips in a snarl, gripping his writing implement as if he was trying to crush it. He took a slow, deep breath and forced the strange anger back down.
> "...suffered what would have been a mortal wound. I want to assure you he is fine now, and in fact I don't perceive any substantial change in his personality or signs of emotional distress. However, if it were not for Bote being able to call upon divine healing magic so quickly, it is likely we'd be making a very unhappy trip back to Notamimic Manor already. Oh, yes, in case Bob had not already discovered something similar, it appears Bote is in fact permitted to call upon divine miraculous healing for Gruntle, despite him being a gnoll. I wanted to mention this in particular not so much as an observation about Gruntle directly, but about myself."
Is this dumb, or weird? Al wondered. Is this a useful observation? He forced himself to continue his introspection. Awkward or not, Al assumed that factors affecting how a gnoll might successfully associate with non-gnolls was one of the most important questions being tested here.
> "While to me it seemed that Bote was concerned, and Wikwocket was distraught - both emotional reactions I would expect - I felt angry. It was like someone had brazenly stolen something valuable from me, and in that moment I just felt an urge to destroy what had taken it from me and get it back. I think this is probably just a matter of how facing adversity with someone tends to strengthen the social bonds between them, and this last week or so has been the most concentrated adversity I've ever had to handle in my life so far. Perhaps that'll be useful if there's ever a reason to try to integrate another gnoll into a humanish group. It still feels very strange that I've gotten so comfortable traveling with a gnoll so quickly, but I think writing it down like this is helping me understand, somewhat."
...and now I'm rambling like an idiot, he thought to himself, and reached to scratch out what he'd just written.
"Hey, Al!" Wikwocket called out from the doorway, "We brought food! If you hurry, there might be some that Gruntle and I haven't eaten yet!"
The scent of bacon and sausage wafted through the air.
"Okay, I'm almost done," Al answered, and rushed to finish the letter.
> "After our job here in Hell's Bathtub, I expect we'll be headed to Southwall, where I'm told there's some sort of disused library that may have a particular reference that I'm looking for. I'm not certain how we're going to get Gruntle in there with us, as I expect they won't be so welcoming. We'll be sure to leave if it looks like there's going to be too much of an angry mob problem. If the job here is as lucrative as it sounds like it may be, we may take the road back to Silveroak from there and come visit Notamimic Manor to repay your initial investment and the additional 15% beyond that which we owe you so far. We'll be able to discuss observations more then."
>
> yours in service,
>
> Al. Arcanisen
"There," Al said, putting down the pen. Then, "Oh, wait." He picked the pen back up and scribbled.
> Postscript: I seem to have acquired a sword. Would Grakthor be willing to give me some pointers on using it properly?"
Wasn't there something else I wanted to ask about? Oh. Right.
> "Also, he keeps sleeping under my bed. Is that normal?"
Al put the pen down again and got up to liberate some breakfast from from the gnome and gnoll.