Perched high on a steep, rocky incline, the Gnoll encampment resembled a crude but functional wooden fortress.
Built directly against the sheer mountain wall, the camp commanded a severe tactical advantage over the terrain below.
To even reach the barricades, one had to traverse a treacherous, narrow path winding up the cliff face.
At the main gate, built from heavily lashed, unpeeled logs, two filthy Gnoll sentries stood guard, their yellow eyes scanning the valley.
'Good grief, they actually have military discipline,' Ted thought, thoroughly taken aback. 'Since when did a pack of brainless Gnolls start studying the art of war? This world is going crazy.'
Crouched in the brush below, Jerry and Sherry were equally dumbfounded by the imposing wooden palisade. This stronghold was actually more fortified and strategically placed than Decarmond Village itself!
"What should we do? Should we wait until nightfall before trying to sneak in?" Sherry whispered, her rat ears twitching anxiously.
The enemy had chosen a nearly impregnable location. As long as those two sentries weren't completely blind, any conventional approach would be spotted instantly.
Jerry looked at Sherry and flashed a confident grin. "Sherry, don't forget—Ted and I are wizards."
Sherry rolled her eyes, distinctly unimpressed. "What's so great about being a wizard right now? You can't just wave a stick and make a fortress disappear."
"I'll leave the infiltration to you, Ted," Jerry said softly, ignoring his cousin's skepticism. "My Disillusionment Charm isn't quite stable enough for a live combat scenario yet. This isn't exactly sneaking past Argus Filch for a midnight snack."
Jerry's talent for night-wandering at Hogwarts relied mostly on exceptional spatial awareness, memorized patrol routes, and agile footwork—not Harry's infallible Invisibility Cloak. He wasn't about to gamble their lives on a subpar spell.
"Understood. I'll cast it on us shortly," Ted nodded. "But don't rush. Let's have Anzu thoroughly map out the interior first."
High above, Anzu let out a heavy mental sigh. 'I repeat, without me, this entire party would be utterly lost!'
Flapping his dark wings, the raven soared upward, circling the mountain face twice before silently landing on a remote, unguarded section of the wooden palisade. Tilting his head, he began to survey the courtyard.
Meanwhile, Ted reached into his pouch and pulled out an enchanted, rune-carved sphere roughly the size of an egg. He tossed it lightly onto the ground. With a soft pop of displaced air, a small, snow-white mouse materialized in the grass.
The little creature immediately stood on its hind legs, resting its front paws on its hips as it confidently surveyed its surroundings.
"Oh! What a unique little thing," Sherry whispered, her demi-human instincts immediately flaring up. She looked like she wanted to scoop the mouse up and claim it as a pet.
Reacting with the speed of a startled rabbit, the Sprite Mouse vanished in a blur, reappearing safely behind Ted's boot.
Ted pointed toward the winding path leading to the fortress. "Go scout the perimeter and see if there are any blind spots."
The Sprite Mouse darted toward the steep path. Its movements were unnervingly fast; it flickered in and out of the shadows, practically teleporting between patches of cover!
Closing one eye, Ted seamlessly synchronized his psychic link with both Anzu and the Sprite Mouse, projecting their dual perspectives directly into his mind.
Suddenly, the System chimed.
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[System Quest Completed]
[Mysterious Gnolls (Green)]
Reward: 300 experience points, Material Card: [Hogg the Gnoll (Green)].
————
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[System Quest Triggered]
[Gnoll Camp Rebchas (Blue)]
You have discovered the origin of the Gnolls—a heavily fortified encampment occupying a strategic chokepoint! This poses an extreme threat. For the safety of Decarmond Village, you must eradicate it!
Objective: Destroy the Gnoll Camp Rebchas and eliminate as many Gnolls as possible.
Reward: 780 experience points, Random Card x3.
System Note: If a vicious race like the Gnolls is allowed to establish a permanent foothold, no living creature within twenty kilometres will survive!
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'A quest chain?' Ted's eyebrows shot up in surprise.
Shifting his focus to Anzu's aerial view, Ted grimaced. While the exterior of the camp looked organized, the interior was exactly what one would expect from a horde of bloodthirsty beasts.
The courtyard was an absolute nightmare of gore and filth. Gnawed, bloody bones and rotting chunks of unidentified meat were piled haphazardly in the corners, attracting swarms of buzzing flies. Puddles of coagulated blood and excrement coated the uneven dirt floor. The stench alone, even through a mental link, was enough to make Ted's stomach churn. 'Even the worst gutters of medieval Paris couldn't possibly be this vile,' he thought in disgust.
Dozens of Gnolls littered the camp. Some were sleeping in twisted heaps, while others barked and laughed with horrifying, hyena-like cackles.
Near the centre, a brutal fight had broken out. This wasn't a playful scuffle; the two Gnolls were violently hacking at each other with rusted machetes. One managed to tackle the other, sinking its overgrown canine teeth deep into its opponent's shoulder. With a vicious tear, it ripped a massive chunk of raw meat free, swallowing it whole while the surrounding Gnolls howled and cheered in bloodlust.
The chaos was suddenly interrupted by a massive, heavily scarred Gnoll flanked by two hulking bodyguards.
At the sight of this Level 9 Gnoll Leader, the two fighting beasts immediately cowered. Bleeding heavily, they curled into submission, whimpering pitifully as the leader snarled at them.
'So there is a hierarchy,' Ted noted. 'Someone has to keep them in line, or they'd just butcher each other into extinction.'
However, from the fractured memories Ted had extracted earlier, he knew this hulking warlord wasn't the true brains behind the operation. There was a higher, far more dangerous authority residing in this camp: a Gnoll Priest.
It was the Priest's intellect that had orchestrated the construction of this fortified outpost in less than ten days. Left to their own devices, these mentally stunted, ultra-violent creatures would have just lit a bonfire, thrown up a few flimsy tents, and called it a day.
For a wizard, hordes of mundane beasts—no matter how physically strong—were manageable. But a spellcaster? That was a terrifying wild card. Ted had no idea what kind of dark, otherworldly magic this Priest possessed, making it the absolute priority target. 'I need to locate it and assassinate it before the battle even begins,' Ted decided coldly.
Down below, the Sprite Mouse navigated the sickening labyrinth of the camp, scurrying toward the very rear of the stronghold where the mountain wall met the earth. There, carved into the stone, was a dark cave entrance.
Unlike the rest of the camp, the perimeter around the cave was eerily clean. The common Gnolls clearly avoided this area out of sheer terror.
Standing guard at the cave mouth were two towering Gnoll Marauders. Ted quickly ran an appraisal, identifying them as Level 7 and Level 8 elites.
The Sprite Mouse stood on its hind legs behind a splintered log, poking its head out cautiously. Squeak...
These Marauders were far more disciplined than the grunts in the courtyard. Their yellow eyes constantly swept the perimeter, and their wet, black noses twitched, scenting the air for intruders. The Sprite Mouse was entirely grounded; the Gnolls' predatory sense of smell was far too sharp for it to sneak past unnoticed.
It was time for Anzu to earn his keep.
With a wingspan measuring nearly a metre and a half, the raven silently dropped from the palisade. Swooping low with a sudden, deafening shriek, Anzu practically skimmed the heads of the two Marauders, his razor-sharp talons raking across their scalps!
The Gnolls roared in fury. Blinded by sudden rage, they brandished their heavy machetes and charged blindly after the offending bird, pursuing Anzu far out into the courtyard.
In that brief window, the Sprite Mouse blinked forward, crossing the threshold and vanishing into the cave.
Activating the mouse's innate darkvision, Ted found himself staring into a surprisingly well-lit, immaculate tunnel. Torches flickered in iron sconces along the walls. There were no rotting bones, no scattered hides, and absolutely no excrement. Aside from the stale, heavy air, it was as pristine as a Hogwarts corridor.
As the mouse crept about seven or eight metres deep, the cavern widened into a massive chamber. The smooth stone walls were covered in primitive, yet deeply unsettling murals painted with crushed ore and dried blood.
The artwork possessed a raw, penetrating wildness that evoked a primal sense of dread. The murals depicted scenes of visceral slaughter: packs of Gnolls disemboweling various prey, prioritizing humanoid sacrifices on bloody altars.
At the centre of the mural towered their deity—a grotesque, towering figure ten times the size of a normal Gnoll. It possessed a canine head, but its muscular body was heavily mutated, covered in jagged bone spurs, thick reptilian scales, and sporting four massive arms, each gripping a bizarre, blood-soaked weapon of torture.
The sheer eldritch horror radiating from the depiction struck the Sprite Mouse with paralyzing fear. It froze, its tiny heart hammering wildly.
Ted immediately flooded the familiar's mind with soothing telepathic waves, overriding its primal terror and urging it forward.
Deep within the stone hall sat the Priest.
He was a stooped, withered Gnoll with a severely crooked spine. Dressed in a filthy robe stitched together from human and animal skin, the fur around his greying muzzle was patchy and thin. His yellowed fangs were heavily worn, and his body was covered in faded, liver-spotted flesh where his fur had fallen out entirely.
The Priest was kneeling before a grotesque altar, his body trembling slightly as he emitted low, rhythmic, hound-like whimpers, completely absorbed in a dark trance.
Less than a metre in front of him sat the altar itself. Built upon a slab of dark stone, it was piled high with cracked skulls, noxious herbs, and flayed skins. Several stone bowls overflowed with coagulated blood, resting beside a rusted, jagged sacrificial knife.
Looming over the macabre display was an idol of the four-armed deity. Forged from blackened wood and real bone, it was bound together with dried animal tendons. Chips of obsidian served as its soulless eyes, and its maw was inlaid with sharp, unidentified teeth.
The Lord of Savagery watched in silence as his servant prayed in the dark.
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Word count: 1713
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