The Hall is a busy place first thing in the morning, as they soon discover. People are everywhere, picking up quests, bringing in supplies, a bit of everything.

“Hey, I found us the perfect quest!” Mythryll announces, weaving between everyone’s legs to get back to her friends. “There’s a group of Bandits that have been kidnapping girls and selling illegally imported pets.”

“How is that perfect?” Misha asks.

“You see here, they’re importing miniature snow leopards. They’re small, like a bobcat, and totally adorable. Plus we’re three of their prime targets, with only one escort. We won’t even have to find them, just go to the area and they’ll find us to take us to the kittens.”

“Any plan with rescuing kittens is a good plan to me.” Char agrees.

“Guess we’re off then. Mythryll, go register that at the counter if you haven’t already.” Misha suggests and the Elf giggles.

“I can guarantee she did before returning. Let’s get a move on. They’re supposed to be between here and another village. We’ll go there, like we’re merchants, and then return this afternoon, looking through the surrounding area if they missed the first chance.” Cain says, forming a plan.

The plan seems too simple to actually work, but two things are unending. Human Greed and Human Stupidity. These bandits have both in abundance, they even brought along one of the illegally imported cats to help entice in their victims.

“Welcome young ladies, might you be interested in purchasing a pet? They’re beautiful, docile and easily tamed. Perfect for the home.”

“I will need two, a male and a female.” Char answers before he even finishes his sales pitch, making him smile an evil grin.

“Just a short distance this way ladies. The Caravan is resting here in the woods.”

Certain something bad was about to happen to him, Cain brought out all his summons at a distance, where they wouldn’t be seen and ordered them to guard the party. The Golems and insects follow along at a distance, and in a stroke of brilliant luck, these wannabe zookeepers haven’t even set scouts.

Cain knew things were going as expected when he felt the dart hit his neck and the world went blurry before fading entirely.

“Your guard is dead, surrender peacefully ladies and nobody else needs to get hurt. Damaged goods sell for less after all.”

Misha was about to cast cure poison and make a smart remark when the Golems began to rampage. They had attacked the red flagged bandit that fired the dart, but the rest didn’t recognize them as player summons and joined in the battle to protect the camp.

“Secure the girls and get rid of these things! ” someone shouts and the girls find themselves pushed into one of the cages full of cats. Neither Char or Mythryll are particularly upset at this, and Misha relaxed when they threw Cain into the next cage where she could cure and heal him.

The fight is not going well for the bandits. The Wasps are hard to hit and both their mages were maimed by the Greater Golems. Char is cheering on the little gargoyles, much to their captors annoyance.

“They’ll get you once they finish with us you ditz. Help out if you want to live.” The closest one cajoled her, making her laugh.

“I feel quite safe in here with the kittens, thank you.” She mocked, rattling the locked door.

A great cheer goes up as the last of the Greater Golems falls, and the bandits turn on the smaller targets. Cain winks at Misha and summons fresh Greater Golems into the woods and has them attack.

“Stop, let them fight.” Misha whispers to Mythryll who is going to cast a Blizzard to help out. “If they notice it only hurts them we’re in trouble. They don’t know those are summons yet and they’re higher level than us by a bunch.

The Elf giggles and the leader glares at the Healer who he thinks prevented the Elf from helping them.

“You’ll pay for that once these monsters are cleared out missie.” He growls.

“Fight hard or you’ll lose.” She smiles at the angry bandit leader.

“Crap, we’re under attack. Those are player summons!” One of the bandits had finally noticed they’re all orange flagged.

“Send a patrol into the woods, find the warlocks!” the leader has a solid plan, but he’s mistaken the source of the summons, believing the man with these girls was dead. Most would be, but Cain has quite a lot of [HP] for his level.

Scattering his defense made things worse for the camp. Shouts come from everywhere, the Wasps keep darting in and out of the trees, attacking at random and the bandits have no healers left.

Soon the bandit camp is down to just the leader and a few strong henchmen, all heavily injured and facing a fresh set of Golems. They put up a valiant fight, but in the end they died without even knowing who was attacking them, or precisely why.

Cain sits up once he notices the fight has ended. “I guess we should collect our proof of completion, and all these adorable little fluff balls, so we can go home.”

Not just him, but all four of them are covered in inquisitive kittens, looking for new people to play with.

“Hey, did you notice, these aren’t miniature anything, they’re just kittens. They’ll grow up to full sized Snow Leopards.” Mythryll notes, looking at one’s description.

Cain picks one of the adorable creatures up to get a closer look when he’s startled by a notification

[New Form Gained: Summon Lesser Golem Snow Leopard]

‘Char is going to go ballistic.’ He thinks to himself smiling and picking up the kitten.

“Ladies, get a wagon and let’s get these kittens packed up. I’ll drive it and you all can ride in the back with the cats if you like.”

As it turns out, they had no horses, so the greater Golems are pulling the wagon to town.. Maybe the guards will let it slide as an exotic pet? Best not get his hopes up, but they’ve got every single furry creature in the vicinity inside the wagon and they’re headed back to the city gates.