Once Joantack had navigated his cart through the familiar inner gates of the Kaholin stables, he continued on towards the pile of fertilizer that awaited him. The strong acrid and earthy smell of the pyramid-like pile of huge dung-balls did nothing to deter the Minotaur, for he had long grown used to it. He parked his handcart beside the mound before backtracking into the stables to fetch himself a shovel, for used to or not, he was not going to collect the dung with his bare hands.

Once he started shifting the large balls of Kaholin dung into his cart, Joantack then spotted a parked wheelbarrow some ways of in the field and a suspicious depression in the tall grass beside the parked tool. The kind that suggested a small boy might be laying down in the tall grass and having a midday nap.

The Mino then speared his shovel into the base of the dung-pile before lumbering off into the field towards the parked wheelbarrow. He snorted and huffed to himself as the combined distress of his intermitted hangover-headache and the heat of summer bore down upon him in some horrible mixture of discomfort, but he continued along nevertheless.

“Moooooo!” he bellowed once he was within a few man-spans from the depression and sure enough, the patch of disturbed grass revealed itself to be the hiding spot of the napping Brownwhisker boy as he jostled awake. The little Capyban boy quickly shot up with his arms floundering about in a funny display that amused the Minotaur farmer.

“Kano boy, you having a good time there young calf?” asked Jaontack with a smile and a twinkling gleam of mirth in his eyes that hid away under his shaggy brow. He noted on the huge welter on the boys face, but choose not to comment on it. For his own son came home with many a shiner when he was Kano’s age, Realms he still came back with one nowadays.

“What, ah-huh?” mumbled a sleepy Kano along with his musk of surprise as he scrunched his eyes in a attempt to see better. After having noted that it was the orange-furred Joantack who was greeting him and not his father catching him on a break, the boy breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Hello there mister Joantack, how’re you doing?” Kano asked in reply as he slumped back down into his little recess of fallen weeds and grasses.

“Not too good boy, not too good.. with me and many of the folk havin a drink too many last night, I reckon half the village is down with alcohol poisoning tha-day,” replied Joantack who was resting a hand on his knees before sitting down in the grass beside the boy. The Minotaur then snorted out of his nostrils before gently laying backwards and lying down for a rest himself.

Kano then raised a hand to shield the sun from his eyes as he watched the huge orange farmer from the corner of his vision as the Minotaur laid down a couple of paces beside him. But then seeing that nothing else was happening and that the farmer was content as he were, Kano then dropped his hand before closing his eyes to go back to enjoying the soothing warm glow of the twins that had helped to lull him to sleep just recently.

Nothing happened as the two enjoyed in companiable silence and the serenity of the Kaholin field.

Mentorsparrows cheeped as they flitted about in their aerial acrobatic menuevures as they hunted small little bugs and flies that followed the Kaholins.

The Kaholins bayed out in their weird bellowing chirps in the distance as the languidly fed or ruminated in the pleasant twinshine.

Small little insects that were barely even tin-ranked also chirped in their loud squeaky little voices as they struggled on with their lives, away in the underbrush.

The wind lazily blew past whilst bringing a small cooling breeze to the resting pair.

“Oh and there’s also the issue of Borrowers on my farm,” stated the Minotaur just as Kano was on the precipice of falling into a lazy nap. “And your father suggested I came to talk to you about it, seeing as how you’re a tamer and all.”

Kano was brought up from drifting back to blissful sleep and into confusion as he slowly got up, for he wasn’t so sure he had heard correctly.

“Wait, wait, wait…. Mister Joantack, did you just say that my father recommended Me and Dittat to go an’ get rid of some Burrowers on your farm?” he asked just to make sure.

“Yeap,” replied the Minotaur before snorting out a breath that sent the errant Voidfly that was flitting about annoying above his nose careening high into the sky.

“Ummm, I don’t think I can do it Mister,” confessed Kano as nervous anxiety filled the boy. His palms started to sweat along with the top of his hairy back at the prospect of such a daunting task.

“Moooo, nonsense!” snorted the Minotaur before he too rose up his upper body, that towered over the Capyban boy.

“They ain’t nothing more than a bunch of tin-ranked monsters calf AND if you’re a tamer, then that means you have your Beastie’s strength and your brains, so get to it and come on over to save my vegetables tomorrow, I’ll be paying in silvers as soon as the jobs done,” stated the large farmer in a tone that suggested there was to be back-chat or questioning his decision.

Kano visibly perked up at the mention of silver coins, for he would only get such an enormous denomination if he was lucky when Grandfather was visited.

Ahh grandfather hasn’t visted in a-while…. Wait he said SILVERS, the boy quickly noted before smiling happily at the prospect of possibly making a large increase to his savings. Of which was squirreled away under his mattress with the total sum of four silvers and fifty-three coppers. But then the enthusiasm he felt from his greedy thoughts quickly became dampened at the prospect of the job, for he knew nothing about extermination or being a Pest-Tamer, which was surely what the job would entail.

“I’m sorry mister Joan, but I don’t think I will know how to do the job properly and just mess it up,” he admitted with a musk of sadness and looking down into the grass beside himself.

“Your father said that you’re to bring your brother along and that he was sure his boys would be able to get the job done, and last time I checked, Lem ain’t no fool or no liar Mooo! So just go speak to him about it because the job’s already yours, he’a told me to work it out with you over how much’s the pay gonna be,” replied the farmer before standing up and walking over to the boy. Joantack as then able to loom and cast a shade down onto Kano, even with the twins being so high in the sky due to his impressive frame.

“Ho-how much, I mean how many silvers are we talking here Mister Joantack?” asked Kano nervously as his inquisitive side got the better of him.

“Ten,” replied the farmer before a twinkle came into his eyes under his shaggy brow, as he observed the boy carefully to see how he would react to the offer.

A moment of silence came to be between the two people in the field as the boy tried to process the large sum.

“TE-TE-TEN!YES I’LL DO IT MISTER!” Kano shouted in excitement as he quickly squirted his musk of joy.

The Minotaur was taken aback for a moment, before his shoulders started to rumble as a snorting laugh bellowed out from the Minotaur.

“Pfft! What the Realms you calf! Hur-hur-HAH! You’re not supposed to take the first offer you get! Here lets try that again, but this time you can try and do it the proper way alright?” suggested the Farmer before sitting once more on the grass beside the young Capyban boy.

…..

The Deitric’s Thumpers were an up and coming rookie five-person strong adventuring band. Formed by some young restless humanoid teenagers living in the city, who had classed as fighters but finding no work, they followed the same path as many in their shoes did and joined the adventurer’s guild.

First they quickly climbed out of the ruthless tin-ranks, where the first higher Tin-ranked monster subjugation quests would normally serve as the gatekeeper to aspiring teams. With the results of such a foray normally badly wounding inexperienced adventurers or deterring would-be bands from breaking into bronze ranked and settling for subclassing as some production classes after they had quit the adventuring life.

But not the Deitric Thumpers, for they defeated their mutant sewer Crevetkor and progressed into Bronze-tier adventuring team. With the epic fight in sewers below the city’s pork-canning factory ending up with a ripped crotch-hem of Dietric the halfling SwordBrawn’s best trousers and a broken pinky-toe to their young Orcish tank, whose name was Melekor but identified as Methilda.

Then the band went on to coast from success to success in bronze tier quests that came readily with the promotion; for with greater pay came better discounts of supplies from the adventurers guild, higher rates for monster parts and preferential treatment when it came quests of the same ranking.

But then misfortune befell the crew after they had set out from Paulflint many months ago. For all five members had started to stagnate in their early thirties in their class levels and grown overconfident.

So they set out to try a quest of a whole tier above them. For lower tiered adventurers from bronze and above could pay a hefty deposit to attempt a quest that was a rank higher than what was stated on their card. This was for the higher rewards that came with such a quest. But teams took on such a dangerous task mainly because doing so would give a multiplier to their gained contributions from completing such a quest, which would help them make progress towards their next rank and speeding up their next promotion. So that was how the Deitric Thumpers had set out on a lower Steel-ranked quest that was posted to the guild on the behest of a distraught pig-farmer, to hunt a vampiric goat in the countryside.

It ended up in disastrous failure.

With the foul creature that was haunting the Many-legged pork farm turning the hunt around. Ambushing the band in the middle of the night as they slept in the barn once they had reached their destination after a whole two days of trekking.

The Vampiric goat first pounced upon the poor hapless porter that the band had recently hired. Instantly killing the toad-like Bufonidian boy, who was too young to even be classed, before dragging his body into the dark to feast. The band was then left in a helpless state that was ill-prepared to fight off the creature when it had returned, as they were left in their underwear and pajamas with their fighting equipment being the backpack that the porter had on him.

What followed was a pyrrhic victory that had wrecked the barn and the young adventurers. Deitric the young handsome Halfling SwordBrawn had ended up horribly scarred across his face and losing a testicle as he fought using a shovel. Whilst Methilda the ShieldBulwark suffered many horrific wounds all over hir body and losing a ear. The young Hebdican Pugilist Jexnog, had was thrown against a wall so hard that he ended up with a hernia that required Methilda to push his intestines back in. With the goblin twins Jex the rogue and Jam the Scout also ending up with broken legs and arms respectively.

The paltry rewards of the badly cleared quest nearly all went towards healing and some new cloths for the aspiring crew after they had recovered enough to hobble back into the city. It didn’t help that they had to stay and sleep off their wounds where they had defeated the goat, before having to help repair the barn. Knowing full well that the same farmer would then report their terrible clearing of the quest to the guild and thus they would be rated poorly and paid accordingly.

Plus the corpse of the Bufonidain porter-boy and their gear and never been recovered, leaving them penniless and equipment-less.

So the Deitric Thumpers had to hang their head in shame in their return before suffering a huge demerit to their Adventuring contributions points for the scuffed-up quest. With their spirits at an all-time low, they then had to take on a slew of the most low-paying and menial jobs such as clearing out trash-slimes in people’s basements or cleaning the city guard’s latrine for a few coppers to save up for new equipment.

After a few weeks, they managed to save up enough to buy shoddy and rusty iron weapons to use and thread-bare cloth-armours to replace their hardened leather gear. The armour was probably only good enough to prevent twinburn if they stood out in the twins at best.

So the crew then decided to make a tour of the countryside. To try hunting their own Tin or Bronze-ranked monsters. This was in a bid to avoid paying the Adventuring guild a cut of their earnings if they had taken a hunt-quest through their channels, to try an accumulate some savings and improve their gear at a faster rate back to the same levels before the goat-disaster.

And thus was how the Deitric Thumpers ended up dragging their feet along a dusty path into the village of Pancreedy. Their cloth armour was worn and torn in patches whilst absolutely caked in mud.

Jexnog with all four of his eyes half-closed and looking at his feet as he dragged along one worn shoe in front of the other and with the mangey pelts of some lowly Tin-ranked creature on his shoulders. Beside the slouching lanky Hebdican was Methilda, who carried hir broken wooden shield in a slack grip and stared of into the distance with a cracked tusk. The goblin twins followed dejectedly in the Orc’s shadow whilst looking down at their own feet, with a huge dead Spline slung over Jex’s right shoulder and his twin sister’s left shoulder behind him. This Spline was undoubtedly going to be another one of the band’s sorry dinners later on that evening.

Bringing up the rear was the none other than Deitric himself. With a small scraggly growth on his face to go with his pinkish scar that marred his once handsome and boyish face. His blue eyes were hollow, his jaw slack, cheeks gaunt and his once wavy golden hair now matted into horrible and stinky dirty-yellow dreadlocks.

They stopped by the river for a quick drink before continuing on into the village.

The band trudged on past a huge mansion/villa in the midday heat that sent shimmering waves floating in their vision. They didn’t even spare a glance at such a marvellous complex, for they knew that the owner would be so powerful they would never need to stoop down to associate with a failure of a band such as theirs.

Then they spied an Orchard that was lined with trees, of which had thier branches weighed down by plump and heavy, crimson-coloured and ripe looking fruits. Obviously being city kids none of the band were able to identify the foreign fruits, but they all knew that they were hungry.

In ones and twos, their stomachs rumbled as they hastened towards the treasure trove before them. For it had been a long time on the road and since any of them had enjoyed any sweet tasting fruits or even a full meal at that.

With thoughts of getting caught thieving long gone, as hunger overtook them which made the goblins twins and the Hebdican cast down their meagre spoils before jogging towards the orchard. The orchish he/she also threw down hir shield as she started to jog towards the trees.

The first to reach the trees was obviously Methilda with hir having the longest legs, whom quickly grabbed unto the fruits greedily from the nearest branches and quickly shoving them into hir mouth. Succulent juices quickly filled up the young orc’s mouth that drove hir into a joyous frenzy as he/she grabbed more fruits to satiated her hunger.

The rest of the crew quickly followed suit before quickly falling into the same state as the Orc as they dined on their illegally poached fruits.

They ate and ate, barely remembering to spit out the pips as they enjoyed such a wonderful feast. Red juices and pulp running down their faces in ecstasy.

Then as one, the Deitric Thumpbers passed out onto the grass and shade of the trees where they stood. The carnage of the half-eaten fruits strewn about them.

A long while passed before Dorain slowly came by. The elf was wearing nothing but some clean white linen trousers and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up as he went through the Orchard collecting fruits. He then threw these fruits over his shoulder to a huge and black male ogre who was walking behind him in a nothing but a pair of shorts and a brown cotton tank-top. In the ogre’s hand he carrying a huge basket laden with fruits.

As they got closer and closer, soon enough the Elfish scout was able to detect the prone forms on the ground before rushing over to inspect.

But nearing the prone band, Dorain flinched back in disgust.

“Eurgh what in the Realms! There’s dead people on this Orchard! I knew that this village is too good to be true!” he exclaimed before backtracking to clear away from the foul-smelling unwashed bodies of the unconscious band.

The Ogre lumbered along before depositing his basket on the ground as he approached in lumbering steps to inspect the unconscious people.

“Nah their not dead Darian but it looks like the Dietrict Dumpers or whatever you call them from a few months ago… if they were homeless,” stated the Ogre before walking back to pick up his basket. The Ogre then walked back down the row of trees, towards the plant that they were working on before their interruption.

“Wait Dunnock! How can we just leave them there like that?” asked a flabbergasted Dorian with a hand held up to pinch his nose.

“Well, they are in the shade, so they shouldn’t be catching some twin-stroke any time soon and seeing as how they ate these raw Delock Brew-fruits… I’d guess that they would be out for a-while. Plus we’ve got quite the quota to fill today if we want that lesson,” stated the Ogre in his coarse voice as he began to pick fruits with one hand. He was holding onto the huge basket by placing it against his hip and holding it in place with his other hand.

Dorian was about to protest but he saw no good comeback to his friend’s remark, so he left the Deitrick Thumpers as they were and went back to work.