Jerome sprinted to get between Krystyna and the gnoll.

It must have done some sort of Charm spell. Why would she be laughing with a gnoll?

When she saw Jerome she dropped into a defensive crouch. Right, he was in a gnoll’s body too, and one that was much scarier than the puny unmuscled gnoll that was sitting nearby.

“It’s me,” he said.

“Jerome?”

“Yeah.”

She breathed a sigh of relief.

“Is that one part of the tribe?” the gnoll asked, pointing at Jerome.

“Yes, that one is very much part of the tribe. He’ll look different in a little bit, but that’s okay.”

“We should grow our tribe,” said the gnoll. “It feels too small.”

“Could you explain real quick what the fuck is happening?” Why was a gnoll in the middle of their campsite but not dead or being interrogated?

“You forgot a crystal,” said Krystyna.

“Way to avoid the question. Besides, didn’t you hand the crystals to me on the way out?”

“That’s the answer. You forgot a crystal. And now we have Ted.”

“Ted?” That was not a gnoll’s name. Not enough hard k’s and harsh a’s. At least she got the ’T’ part right.

“I call him Teddy.”

That wasn’t any better.

“So the crystal transforms into a gnoll and then you… adopt it? Have you considered that they’ve been trying to kill us?”

“And I’ve been trying to make peace with the gnolls. This is the first one that hasn’t tried to kill me, so… progress.”

“Look at your level difference! What happens when that difference closes?”

“I couldn’t kill a tribe member,” said Teddy. “I only kill other tribes.”

“Did you teach him that?” He was gone for less than a day and already his girlfriend was adopting a child (or at least the closest thing to it for gnolls) and teaching it sectarian violence. Free speechers were nuts! If it weren’t for the boobs and kindness and intelligence and badassery there was no way he’d have anything to do with this girl.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“He came like that. He didn’t know who his tribe was, but he knew that he wanted to protect any gnoll that was part of it.”

“And kill any gnoll that’s not part of it,” the gnoll added with a satisfied smile.

“Wait,” said Jerome, “it doesn’t remember what it was before?”

“Not a thing,” said Krystyna.

Jerome went through the clues in his head.

A crystal sat for several days and then turned into a level 1 gnoll with no memories, with no idea of who its tribe was but sure that it wanted to protect those inside and kill those outside.

When King Katani was buying up crystals for exorbitant prices it was, essentially, paying for new citizens of its city. Ones that, if taught properly, would be completely loyal. Kill them with its soldiers or buy them with its army, eventually every gnoll would be under the king’s control.

That was almost worse than a superweapon. With a superweapon there was usually an exhaust port or something you could shoot and make it go away. With a completely loyal army, they’d have to kill every single one of them.

Worse, if the king ever figured out how to do the same trick with humans — which it was clearly trying to do — it would have every human it captured wiped and re-educated under Katani law. Or it would cut up every single one of them while trying, since as far as Jerome knew humans didn’t have crystal souls.

Quest Completed (Mystery of the Crystals)

+2000 EXP

“I need to sit down,” he said, and they made room for him on the log.

“Hard trip?” asked Krystyna, putting her arm around him… and then pulling it back. He understood; gnolls weren’t exactly made for sexual attractiveness or softness of any kind.

“I saw an old friend.”

“You made friends?”

“Well, a gnoll I killed last time. It was back. It remembered me. I killed it again.”

Krystyna took in the information. “So they’ve figured out how to bring gnolls back with memories intact?”

“And levels too, unless they’ve got some crazy training facilities.”

“There’s a ceremony,” Teddy said. “The quicker you perform it after death, the more memories and levels you retain. Having the body intact helps preserve the shape of the soul too.”

“How do you know all that?”

The gnoll shrugged. “Same way I know how to talk.”

“And how’s that?”

“He could talk the second he popped up,” said Krystyna. “There’s some serious weirdness with how stuff works here.”

No kidding. “By the way, they don’t have sex organs. Which fits in with what we’re seeing here.”

“So that means… unless they have a way to produce more crystals, there’s a constant amount of gnolls throughout time.”

He hadn’t thought about that. “So if the city takes a crystal from a tribe, that means that the tribe’s population is permanently reduced. No wonder they’re mad!”

“A shrinking tribe is bad,” said the gnoll. “Our tribe is too small. It should be twelve twelves.”

Quest Updated (Gnollture)

+600 EXP

That gave Jerome an idea. He needed cannon fodder to distract the mages and this was his chance.

“I agree,” he said to the gnoll. “Let’s grow our tribe.”