Gnolls are more active during the day, according to the locals, and they've encountered a few already, but the Commander must have healed up and gathered a new group of warriors to help him.
If he's rampaging through the spiders, that's Cain's cue to switch tactics and go after him with something more durable. But first, they should go to town and collect some of these quests. A few more levels would do him a world of good in bringing that thing down.
"If you'll all excuse me, higher-level Gnolls are rampaging through my summons outside the valley. I'm going to have to take care of that in person." Cain informs the farmers, hoping that they'll take it as him being conscientious about their safety.
"Should we gather the warriors? We've faced plenty of Gnolls in our time." Dash says, getting to his feet.
"No need; they're well away from the farms. I had my summons hunting for any more hidden goblins, and they must have stumbled across a Gnoll Commander and his group. Nothing that I can't take care of, in fact, it might be the one that ran away after the attack on the merchants, and I've got a bone to pick with him."
The farmers are happy to let Cain take care of the threat, though they still gather weapons and alert the neighbors, just in case.
Cain runs into the city as fast as he can, the rest of the group following behind him. Cain makes a point of calling fresh spiders outside to maximize their experience before barging into the Administrator's office without knocking.
"My apologies for the haste and rudeness, but I've found a high-level Gnoll Commander, and I could use the experience from the partial quest completion right away. A couple more levels should reduce the damage reduction enough that I can take him down." Cain explains while Damien looks startled.
"That's fine. You found more than fifty Goblins and are close to leveling up?"
"You could say I found more than fifty, yes." Cain laughs, wondering just how many goblins the spiders managed to kill today. It was a lot for sure; they were just so low level that it didn't make much difference to him.
Damien hands him the scroll to touch to complete the quest, and Cain's interface is flooded with notifications.
[Quest Partially Complete]
[Level Up]
[Quest Partially Complete]
[Quest Partially Complete]
[Quest Partially Complete]
[Level Up]
...
The list goes on and on, as the quest description is listed every single time, but when it finishes, Cain feels much better about his odds against the Gnoll hordes.
"Thank you for your understanding. We're off again to go hunt Gnolls. Someone, please pick up Gerald; he's passed out again." Cain calls as he rushes back out towards open ground.
Spiders aren't cutting it today, so Cain decides it is time for old faithful. More Dragons. Once they make it out of sight of most of the city, Cain recalls all his summons and transforms into the Golden Proto Dragon. He calls upon a dozen copies of Kone, having them each call all six possible copies of Su, plus every drake they can Summon.
The sight is sure to panic at least a few farmers, as a horde of Dragons and Drakes fill the fields and sky around Cain when the summons are all active, but he will deal with the fallout later. They're not moving around too much, and this is a pasture, so the damage to the land should be minimal, plus he's got Mythryll here to repair the damage to the plant life if needed.
Cain releases the Seraphim Inquisitors he was merged with, so he can call more copies of Danni, thinking that Ice Dragons are less likely to cause unwanted collateral damage than fire, poison, or corrosion, though, with Su, they have a lot of the last one present.
The sudden appearance of a mighty flight of Dragons over the Long Fang River valley would be the talk of the region for months to come, the mass of wings blotting out the sky as everyone mounts a dragon and they take off to hunt the Gnolls.
Each time a group of them is spotted, a wing of Drakes and their Summoning Dragon dips down to take care of it; calling a second wing if the Gnolls are particularly tough. They've entirely circled the valley once, and Cain is beginning to think that the Commander fled the area when the Dragons showed up, but then a signal fire is lit at one of the outlying farms. They're under attack.
Cain orders the Dragons to spread out over the valley, checking everywhere to ensure no more stealth forces have slipped through their patrols while he heads to the signal fire with a few copies of Danni.
The farmer there, a werewolf berserker, is engaged in bloody close combat with the Gnolls, who are doing their best to get into his house. Cain calls Lamia as his lesser Golems, since he has no Dragon-type Lesser Golem summons that both qualify and are a combat threat. The snake-bodied demons tear into the Gnolls with savage efficiency, taking the hyena-headed and furry monsters by surprise.
For a moment, Cain wonders what separates Gnolls from Felians or similarly furry Beastkin, but has to put the thought aside as the Gnoll Commander has started throwing some form of Bola at him, trying to bring him out of the sky.
Cain sends a fiery breath down towards the Gnoll Commander, careful to keep it away from the house and where the Lamia are helping the farmer fight. The Gnoll has almost entirely avoided the attack and the molten ground it created when a flash of white scales hits it from the side, dropping it back into the lava before Laura seals the surface with her ice breath.
Cain is about to comment on how anticlimactic that fight was when the Commander bursts through the solid rock, fur burning, armor melted, and gasping for breath. Neither Cain nor Laura will give him time to recover, though. While Laura claws at the wounded Gnoll, Cain melts the ground around it again, letting it sink into the magma before it can get its balance to dodge.
This pool isn't nearly as deep, coming only to the monsters knees. Still, the continual burning damage is significant. The Commander is also slowed by the thick molten rock, causing it to take several hits from Laura before Cain drives his claws into the creature's back, shredding the Commander's armor and digging deep into the flesh.
With the extra levels, the damage reduction isn't as severe, and Might Of Many is fully stacked from the ongoing fights. The unfortunate beast never stood a real chance.
Cain's claws have him dangling in the air while Laura attacks. Then, when he's almost recovered enough to counterattack, Cain gives him a full dose of Dragon Fire before dropping him in the fresh lava and having Laura seal the surface.
This time the monster is too injured to make it to the surface, its battered body unable to swim through the molten rock. The mighty Gnoll dies the most ignoble death of any that day, drowned in a pool of magma.
[Level Up]
Cain smiles at his interface notifications, he's almost to his goal already, and they still haven't turned in the final quests.
After a few more minutes of fighting, the others have gathered around him, and Cain dismisses all the Supporters after giving each copy of Kone a Warm Hug and a pat on the head. They might be Summoned clones of her, but they deserve to know they did a good job.
That leaves just the usual crew, plus the Lamia, who seem popular with werewolf children. Cain shifts back into a human form, the mighty Proto Dragon takes up too much space, plus it's deafeningly loud, and the body is entirely incapable of an indoor voice.
Though they do seem particularly fond of Lamia, werewolf children don't seem to be afraid of anything. Cain even saw them trying to escape their mother to join the fight. The sight of Dragons fighting Gnolls teen times their childish size in the yard wasn't enough to dissuade them from entering the fray.
Evangeline is helping Vala clean Gnoll blood from her wings and armor, since the Seraphim doesn't get dirty. In s fight like this that's a particularly helpful racial passive to have. Nemu is playing with the children again, while Laura is holding up fence boards for Nila to nail back in place and Mythryll is using narrow magic on the yard, attempting to repair a bit of the damage that the fight has caused to the farm.
There is a glowing holy light flashing in the house as the wounded locals are healed, so the Darklight Host waits where they are in the yard while Laura takes the time to freeze all the lava Cain created during the battle into a smooth sheet.
"Sorry about the yard. It was the best way to get rid of that pesky Commander. I can Summon an earth mage and turn it back to topsoil if you need." Cain tells the farmer, looking over the destruction.
"That's alright, My Lord. My oldest son is an Earth Mage, and the wife should have him up and mobile again in just a few minutes. You lot arrived just in time, the Gnolls didn't get a chance to mangle the bodies, and my wife is an Arch Cleric with the ability to resurrect. She's also the City's finest midwife, should you find yourself in need." He's rambling a little, but Cain isn't going to stop him. He's doing better than James, after all.
The young King has lost consciousness multiple times tonight, both from the levels and the high speed acrobatic flying in combat and vomited at the smell of scorched Gnoll. The last one is understandable, he's not used to the sharp Beastkin sense of smell, and lava burnt Gnoll smells terrible.
"If everyone's alive and well, we should call it a night. I do believe that Damien arranged a hotel room for us somewhere inside the city."
The group waves goodbye to the farmers, who are now all up and active again, and Mythryll takes a few seconds to grow fresh flowers and herbs in the planter boxes by the door of the house that were damaged during the fighting. She can see that the locals are used to losses and damage from the frequent attacks, especially with nobody to defend them, so she wants to do what she can to at least make their lives a little easier.
The residents of Long Fang Valley that they've come across all seem to be good people, helping their neighbors and working together to not just stay alive but to thrive. Cain decides that they simply couldn't have found a better place to settle on this side of the continent, a more friendly bunch more deserving of help are unlikely to be found anywhere they've been.
