Chapter 398: Rude Awakening

Setting up camp in the open might have been a mistake, Cain realized a few hours later, when they were attacked for the third time. The first two were just Epic Quality rodents, some sort of badger that didn't exist on the central continent. But this time there is a Mythic Quality griffin circling the camp, looking for an opening.

It is very obvious that the creatures here are mostly nocturnal, and that the madness is worse in the dark. They heard a few creatures during the daylight hours, but they weren't nearly this aggressive. Cain is tempted to just hit the annoying creature with a fireball, but lighting up the sky with a Mythic spell seems like a particularly bad idea. The tentacles are surrounded in shadows, and much better suited to the night, but the accursed griffin won't get close enough for the tentacles to hit it.

That could be categorized as a good way to defend a camp while he sleeps, but the creature is a loud one, and he is concerned that it might draw even more predators to them. It isn't the only loud creature of the night though, his hearing is picking up dozens of chittering, squawking, and howling creatures within the woods.

"You know what, I'm tired of waiting," Cain mutters, launching a Mythic Quality fireball into the air, setting the griffin's golden feathered wings on fire and forcing it to the ground where the tentacles wrap it up tight and crush the life from the half-lion monster.

"Much better. The noise was getting to me." Vala agrees as the monster dies and the area goes quiet.

It feels like the other monsters in the area are trying to understand what just happened, with the unexpected death of one of the area's top predators. Once they do, the fighting begins. With a mythic beast dead, an area is open for the other Ancient and Mythic beasts to claim as their own hunting territory. This is a process that happens multiple times a year, with new advancements wanting more territory, and the older or injured ones being picked off to make way for their replacements.

Cain and his companions aren't going to hang around for the whole process though, they are going to pack up their camp at first light and head for a village marked on the map as being mostly full of demons and relatively friendly.

As the sun starts to come up the noise in the forest begins to die down to an ominous silence and Cain leads the group out. Laura takes to the air to try to find any tasty-looking creatures that might be in the vicinity, with the added benefit of being able to find them a trail through the woods that seems to lead towards the village that they are headed for. It is a winding route, but it should meet up with the road that leads to the temple somewhere outside the awakened zone, just as described.

[Turn left 30 degrees and transform into an ancient. I think your aura will make this easier.] Laura declares, and Cain complies, altering their course to meet up with the dragon, now in her majestic draconic form. She is only a few minutes away, and Cain's aura herds the leopards directly to where she has transformed back into dragon form and is waiting for them.

The creatures were much faster than Laura anticipated, and with the thick foliage, she couldn't chase them in dragon form and didn't want to freeze them with her breath. Despite being an Ice Element dragon, she isn't a fan of meat popsicles.

Her razor-sharp claws manage to snag two of the pack on their way by, one for now and one for later she declares while she quickly skins them and rinses the hides in a nearby puddle.

"Keep the fur. It's pretty, and it is likely worth something," she announces, giving her very best pleading look to convince Vala to make a fire to cook her catch.

They might have a destination, but they aren't in a huge hurry, so Vala makes a small fire to cook a sample so the dragon can tell if the big cats are as good as she thought they looked. They certainly smell that good, which is unexpected. Predators are usually stringy and gamey, but these smell sweet and the roasted meat crumbles in her claws. Cain steals a bite, finding that it tastes much like pineapple pork, and decides that they need to hunt even more of the leopards at some point, as well as taking the time to check any other beasts they fight.

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If all awakened creatures taste entirely different than their unawakened counterparts, who knows what might actually be a really tasty delicacy?

The majority of the meat is stored in Cain's inventory, and the group heads back to the trail and onwards to the demon village. The same way that the madness snuck up on them when they entered the awakened area, it fades away as they approach the farms of the village, doing their best to look nonthreatening. 

With a couple of demons in the group, at least they're not too strange-looking for the area, and the farmers only seem a bit startled to see visitors.

"Greetings, we were headed for the city that should be almost straight south of here. Might you be able to tell us how the road that way is?" Cain asks the first demon that is close enough to comfortably chat with.

"The road itself is good, but you will want to wait and leave at first light. The crazed are pretty bad along the road. They're Bandits that have been out in the madness for too long and have started to mutate and lose their minds. They are bad news for any sort of traveler, even adventurers like yourselves. If you've got something for the soup pot, I've got a nice barn with a soft straw pile you can have for the evening." the farmer suggests.

It's still pretty early in the day to be stopping, but fighting crazy bandits all night doesn't sound like a lot of fun either. "Sure, we caught a purple leopard earlier and have some meat for the soup."

The farmer looks confused and Cain realizes that he doesn't know the proper local name for the creatures, so the man has no idea what he's talking about.

"Large feline monster with purple fur, white circular marking, about 3 meters tall and eight meters long?" Cain asks, hoping that the description makes sense to the farmer.

"Oh, you must have some skill if you actually managed to catch one. They are unnaturally fast, even the dragons have a hard time hunting them." The farmer confirms, looking at the group with a bit more appreciation for their skills.

"It's all in the technique. Like flushing out feral hogs, have most of the group spread out and chase them towards where your hunters are waiting and you can get some as they pass by." Vala explains.

"You trapped them between you? That's a bit too crazy for my blood. We set out traps along the more traveled beast routes, but something like that will just tear them apart and remove the trap from their legs." The farmer says, shaking his head at what he thinks is the bravery of the oblivious.

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