Jerome walked through the city killing everything that fought.
The hiding shopkeepers and craftsmen he left alone. Any gnoll that had blood on it he made swear an oath of loyalty to himself and Krystyna, and another oath to not hurt humans unless attacked first or commanded to by himself or Krystyna. If they complied, he told them to start reviving other gnolls and make them swear the same oaths when they were revived. If they refused, he killed them. They would respawn as something more tractable.
After about an hour of this he decided the city was basically theirs, and any belligerent gnolls would be outnumbered. It was safe to retrieve the humans.
The humans were huddled by the edge of the woods, scared to go farther. If there were any actual criminals in this bunch they were the petty type, not audacious killers or daring conspirators.
“The city is safe,” he said. “Follow me.”
When he deposited them with Teddy, Krystyna, and the king, he charged them all with coming up with a plan for the two species to live together.
Quest Completed (Save the Gnoll’s Prisoners) (10/19)
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+19,473 EXP
That would be good for a level or three when he transformed back into his own form.
Once his team was busy on the cohabitation plan he went back out and continued cleaning up the city. At this point there was little remaining open violence. Would every gnoll be completely loyal? Maybe not, but they could root that out with time. If they taught the humans combat and made them go out in groups then they should be mostly safe while the rest of the resistance was broken. For now he just took out the worst offenders.
Most of the gnolls he killed were ones he’d trained in the past week. He built them up, he let them get out of hand, and now he was putting them back down again. One week and already his civilization was falling apart.
He killed a looter, although it did no good; the store it had been trying to loot had already been ransacked.
What was the ideal state? Jerome wasn’t sure, but he knew that it was one with security and order. One where people didn’t kill each other or loot stores. He was sure that Krystyna would find lots of flaws with it, but as far as he was concerned they could go back to King Katani’s regime, just with the humans as citizens instead of experimental subjects.
Would you like to accept the quest “Internal Peace”?
Conditions: Go a week without any violence or theft between gnolls and humans
Rewards: 15,000 EXP
He accepted the quest.