I glanced at the messages that occasionally popped up on our party chat, having little to do otherwise. We were just walking anyway, and would likely take a while still before we'd get there.

In games, an escort quest was an annoying slow walk of the NPC walking slower or getting stuck on pathfinding bugs, which is why people hated escort missions. Tolley on the other hand seemed annoyed by us not being able to keep up with him.

His head was too round and broad to be intimidating, and his tusks were a lot smaller than Maestro’s, but with 1m90 he was almost as tall as me. He had broad shoulders and there were probably quite some muscles underneath his beginning potbelly. Dressed in a simple farmer’s garb with a hoe he used as both a weapon and a walking cane, he didn’t look threatening or dangerous but seemed like he could be a capable bandit if he ever made the career change.

He was just a lvl10 Farmer though, and he hadn’t noticed Ben pickpocketing his 12 gold at all. Ben waited until they left the village as promised and only took the gold that his class conjured into an NPC’s inventory, but told the others that Tolley didn’t have anything suspicious in his inventory.

Cuddles was running around happily like a dog in the park. This kind of open space was completely new for the young pet, and he loved the sensation of rolling in the grass and biting plants as they waved in the wind. It was good that he got so clingy lately and immediately came when Elise called him from afar, or it would’ve been quite a challenge to keep him along.

I myself saw the march as good practice, and around the end I could let my mind wander without falling or stumbling.

Eventually we got to a farmstead a lot larger than the cottages at the village, and a woman as big and broad as Tolley approached them.

“Martha!” Tolley said. “Look who I found to help us with the burrower problem!”

“That’s great!” His wife said, embracing him in a hug. “I looked myself, but only found one adventurer. And between you and me, she doesn’t seem that capable.”

“Adventurers! Come! Let us welcome you into our home before you slay these pests for us!” She said, turning to us.

Tolley whispered something in her ear, and her gaze hardened and her smile tightened. “Well, we should at least introduce you to another adventurer. But perhaps she can handle it by herself, in which case your help will not be needed here.”

“Fuzzle-pup, we need help. If we don’t, then next winter…” Tolley whispered to her, trying to say it softly enough that we couldn’t overhear him. Orcs were many things, but quiet wasn’t one of them.

His wife silenced him with a glare, and then spat to the side. “Between you, me and the girl, we might be able to do it.”

“There were three other people that came to these adventurers for aid, and when one of them needed sage leaf to treat her sick son, these guys just conjured some up from nowhere!” Tolley tried to convince her. “I know they’re expensive, but they seem very capable. We need capable, and you shouldn’t be fighting with the little one incoming…”

We didn’t say anything while the two of them turned around and walked back to the house in a ‘silent’ and heated discussion, which Tolley seemed to be winning only because his wife let him. We weren’t going to say anything to anger her quite yet, because after dozens of simply named NPCs it was quite apparent that the lvl16 Menace Mom wasn’t yet another push-over villager.

As we walked towards their house, the crawler that Martha recruited showed that she wasn’t one to sit still and wait, and the tiny fairy appeared from the house to approach them.

“She might surprise us; she is an adventurer after all.” Martha whispered to her husband as the fairy approached. “We need that gold ourselves and can barely handle our debts as it is. We cannot just afford the kind of rewards you’re offering. Let me do the talking.”

“Elise?” The fairy said. “Is that you!? Does that mean…?”

“Excuse me, young lady. I was wondering if-” Martha said, only for the fairy to completely ignore her and fly full-tilt towards me.

“Darryl! I finally found you!” The fairy said, crashing into my face and trying to hug it. She was so small, that her arms were still too short to do even that much. “Wow, you’ve got even bigger.”

“I think you’ve just got smaller, Alexa.” I said, looking at the young girl. Well, young. As another testament of this place being fucked-up in the head, the 11-year old had been transformed to look like a 13-year old that matured early and could pass for a 16-year old that some people might even pretend they mistook for a youthful 18-year old. Alexa’s description didn’t give her full racial and class description as they had appeared for my other party members before, instead describing her as a lvl8 Rev-up Pageant Princess Loli Idol.

And if her transformation wasn’t already bad enough, her apparel…

“Alexa, what are you wearing?” I asked.

“Leaves.” She said, blushing heavily as she broke eye-contact pretending to check if any of the crudely weaved and knotted strands of grass had snapped. “That meanie Zartas never said that my clothes wouldn’t shrink along with me, so I started this floor without anything to wear! This was the only thing I could make myself. I’m so glad that I started out all alone, or it would’ve been so embarrassing!”

“I think we have something that can help part of your problem.” Thomas said, taking out the pants, shoes, gloves and rapier of the Quickling Neighbourhood Boss that they defeated before. Unlike the Boggles that the neighbourhood spawned, the boss had been dressed appropriately. “The shirt got destroyed by my Chain Lightning, I’m afraid, but we can probably improvise something for that.”

“Wow, you’re a super-creepy spider!” Alexa said, amazed. “And you’re wearing two pairs of glasses! You’re so silly!”

She landed on Thomas’s hand and held the pants in front of her legs. “These might fit! Thanks a lot, miss!”

“You can keep referring to me as a man, if you want.” Thomas said. “The difference is negligible for this species, anyway.”

“You’re wearing pink flamingo glasses.” Alexa giggled. “I’ll call you ma’am.”

Thomas shrugged and Alexa put on the shoes and gloves before trying out the rapier. “Oh my god! I’m going to be soooo fast with all of these items! Zjfhew! Zoof! Sphew! Slash! Argh! Oh! And Madam Martha, miss? Do you have a room for me to change clothes in?”

Martha already gave up hope of convincing Alexa to do this by herself when she saw our exchange, and now just wearily nodded. “Yes, I suppose you’ll fit in one of the cabinets with enough room to change clothes. I’ll make you something to cover your chest, child.”

Martha waved for us to follow her, and we hesitantly entered the house slash probable Boss Arena. No battle music began playing as Martha offered us all a seat and seemed conflicted to offer us something to drink, and my shoulders untensed.

We eventually decided to break the tension by ‘buying’ some drinks for a gold each, Thomas and I abstained while Martha poured Cola from a hand-made clay jug into some clay glasses. Unlike the bar, she didn’t conjure up outlandish beverages out of the aether so there wasn’t anything for me to drink. Ben shuddered when he took a sip of his brew, and just whispered “Pepsi…”

Thomas R. Haanen is now party leader!

Alexa V. Gemenetzis has joined the party!

Frederic K. Geruet is now party leader!

“You weren’t in our party?” I asked.

“Of course not!” Alexa’s muffled voice came from one of the cabinets. “I snuck along with you guys in secret, remember? Of course I couldn’t be part of the big party that you guys formed just before the fight. And we never added me afterwards. But I wasn’t going to fight the Borough Boss while still in that party of lamo’s, they’d only leech my experience!”

“Which explains why she’s so much closer to us than anyone else. Without the party, she’s not bound to appear in the location of the Zartas group with Corey and the others and the AI could plop her down wherever.” Elise said. “Question is: Why did it decide to put her so close to us?”

“Maybe it likes me? I am quite popular.” Alexa grinned.

“Oh? Yes, perhaps that’s it.” Elise indulged her, taking a sip of her cola as well.

“Hey Darryl, take a guess how many followers I have!” Alexa said, swaggering out of the cabinet showing off her new pants.

They were a perfect fit, probably more by AI meddling than coincidence, as the Quickling had been a bit bigger than her.

I looked at my own numbers, nearing a hundred thousand views and with about three thousand followers. My favourites were still at zero, but Volos already told us that those were limited for the viewers and I had more charismatic party members to favour instead. “I don’t know, five thousand?”

“A little more…” Alexa mischievously said.

“Twenty thousand?” I tried.

“Twenty-five. Million. Followers.” Alexa triumphantly said.

Elise spat out her drink and coughed when some of it went down the wrong hole, and Martha glared at her but grabbed a rag to mop up the spill without saying anything.

“Holy shit, that’s a lot!” Ben said. “I’m still at three million! Elise, how many did you have?”

“Well, you know. I’ve got *bubble bubble*.” Elise took another sip. “Which I think is a very respectable amount, even if Alexa has a few more.”

“I’m more popular than you?! But you’re so pretty!” Alexa said, before pumping her fist in the air. “Yes! I’m so lucky. I got a lot of followers when I chose this class, even though my feed was blacked out for most of it!”

“Why would it have been blacked out?” I asked, and I would’ve frowned if I still had eyebrows.

“Because I was naked for most of it, of course!” Alexa said. “Everyone knows that they black out your feed when there’s no-no moments, like when you sit on the toilet! They even send in the Rage Elementals if you didn’t do it properly, last floor!”

I shuddered at the implications of her newfound fandom, but just like all the others I didn’t say anything and just let the uncomfortable silence reign. It was probably for the best if she didn’t know.

“Here you go, dear. It’s not much, but it’s better than wearing a leaf.” Martha said, giving Alexa a knitted shirt she took off a doll. “My daughter no longer plays with this one anyway.”

“It’s itchy…” Alexa complained, but took it and went back into the cabinet anyway.

“So, about these burrowers.” Elise said, turning to Martha as she sat down with us. Tolley tried to speak up, but both women ignored him.

“Large, blue-ish insects.” Martha said. “They burrow up from underground and ruin our fields. After a few hours, smaller ones come up and start taking our crops. They leave almost nothing behind but roots and ruined soil. We could deal with them, if it weren’t for the acid spit.”

Everyone but Alexa exchanged looks, and Elise eventually spoke up. “Creatures like these?”

Martha looked at the dead Krutnik she took out of her inventory. “Those are the small ones, yes.”

“Of course they are.” Ben said. “I’m starting to think that we shouldn’t complain so much about fighting plague-like acid-spitting bugs, the AI seems to react to it.”

“I don’t remember their exact description any more, but I recall it describing that Krutnik will burrow up in the hundreds, if not thousands, at a certain point.” I said.

“Thousands?” Tolley said, his face turning mint green.

“I read it as well. I don’t think you two have to worry too much about it, Krutnik will burrow up in an urban area if at all possible.” Thomas said. “What’s the nearest central hub?”

“Over there, about 30 kilometres.” Alexa said. “I have a pathfinder skill that allows me to find the largest possible audience.”

“They’re going to appear in West Creek Town?” Tolley said, relaxing a bit. “Well, maybe they’ll manage to take out my landlord before the guards solve this problem.”

“Unless they come out at night, and if these people are correct about thousands then they may slaughter half the town before the guards deign to wake up.” Martha said, throwing her husband a nasty glare for his tasteless joke. “Not to mention, the horde’s location matters little to us if their scouts ravage our fields. We already lost two acres, we can’t afford to lose more.”

“Right, let’s do this.” Ben said. “We’ve got experience dealing with these pests. Show us the way there, we’ll deal with these Krutnik no problem.”