Duty Session 489: Grunty Drive

Never a job to big or small to be considered a worthwhile quest. Thats what the Hunter's Guild says when selling 'help us move a bunch of gunties' in the request, at least. The mundane aspect does not fail to deliver.

The villages have gathered the grunties they want taken to market in a large open field just outside of town. The area is covered by grunting grunties, cropping grass, wandering aimlessly, and making a mess of things. Young Landers have been given the task of preventing any grunties from wandering off. Once the migration is underway it will be the task of the adventurers to keep the grunties together. There must be 2,000 grunties in this herd and nearly all of them must make it there in order for the adventurers to make a profilt.

Souji, the Scale Samurai (or one of) is pleased as punch to be amongst the livestock. He is seen going over to one of them and scritching behind the ear. "You are going to make a nice crescent burger, aren't you?" he says with the tone that makes the animal happy to become food. The blue haired swordsaint is good with animals, as witnessed by the half dozen cluck clucks that sit at the edge of the herd, trying to herd the larger animals.

Schneider has gone with his Scale compadre to do the quest he'd received. But on finding out what it is, he sighs. "What is this, Montana?" He accepts the quest, though it's well outside his usual skillset, which, it must be said, involved grilling, but not in any sort of calibrated way. On the other hand, the thought of a crescent burger at the end of the drive does sound nice, or even better, a nice, thick steak. "I've done grunty drives before," he explains to Soujiro Seta. "It's a huge pain."

While Jazz has largely confined her operations as of late to Eas, helping the Baroness of the land and what not, that doesn't mean she's not too busy to ignore a call fopr help for a mission like this. In fact, the gothy-looking witch-maid blend Undine has her hat and bangs down over her eyes and barely seems to be paying much attention at first, as if she's deep in thought, but clearly not enough to miss Schneider's comment. There's a slight nod from her. Yep. Huge pain.

Curtana likes to think that finding new experiences you never done before helps someone grow as a person. You can't really improve yourself if you constantly do the exact same thing over and over again, after all. But as he is standing among a herd of nearly 2,000 Grunties, it really puts into perspective just how out of depth the hedge knight might be on this request. "I haven't done a grunty drive before, but they're supposed to be slower than pekos, right? Hopefully we can keep them moving in the right direction."

"Is Montana the place where that range song comes from in the States? You know," Souji begins, asking Schneider, "Oh give me a hooommmee, where the gruntie mobs roam, and clucks and peko birds play?" Adapted for Elder Tales, of course, and sing-sung just enough to hit the jist of it. He scritches behind the ear of his chosen gruntie, which makes the other grunties jealous, but they won't admit it. N-No, YOU are jealous. "Does a big monster appear in the middle of the quest and start trying to eat them while we have to fend it off but no matter what it always snags a couple," Souji game logic asks, making the gruntie worry a little bit, "oh don't you worry," he looks to the animal, "only people that are going to turn you into food is us. Thats right. Whos a delicious walking burger? You're a delicious walking burger." Now, when looking at Souji its easy to compare him to said gruntie. Nice to look at. Not very bright. The sort of person that in a crowd one might say, 'Yep, voted most likely to be isekai'd into a harem trope'. He stops petting his pet food and gives Curtana a solid nod and a warm smile, "I have a bit of skill in Animal Handling for Peko riding. Grunties are more... like cows?" Souji wasn't exactly all farm-bred in Real Life so he takes what he knows about agriculture from the digital sense of things.

The first thing that must be done is that the herd must be roused and convinced to move. Being told they are food is certainly /a/ tactic. The trick then is getting them to move in a particular direction that isn't 'away from the person who wants to eat me'. This is more easily said than done to both Schneider and Jazu's point. A huge pain. Grunties are sometimes uncooperative or contrary. They sometimes wander off when no one is looking. One imagines a larger party of landers would be needed to control and direct a herd of this size over any distance. The group doesn't have that. As Adventurers, they will have to make do.

This is a pretty normal task for an animal handler and farmers. They can do it with a bit of effort. There's always a few grunties that wander away from the herd. They need to be found and brought back to the main group when that happens.

Souji takes the interesting tactic of being in FRONT of the herd instead of behind it and, literally, herding it. How else does one protect a gruntie without being in front to protecc?! Clearly they will follow his lead. It works pretty well for the cluck clucks that keep following him around. Regular chick magnet, that Souji.

Schneider catces Jazz's nod, and it amuses him. The Exploder Wizard and the Sea Witch don't often find themselves sharing a thought. He nods to Curtana, and says, "Slower than pekos, dumber than rocks, and twice as hard to move, pound for pound. At least a rock won't put up a fight if it doesn't want to move." He nods to Seta about Home on the Range, but says, "Stop playing with your food and let's go."

Let's go being code for 'let's wait for the grunties to get moving'. Nothing Schneider does, in the vein of shouting, pushing, or herding works, and he's stopped short of fireballing them because we don't get paid if the grunties don't survive. So, waiting. They'll move eventually, right?

Curtana nods his head a few times, seeing how this is a fair compairison for both animals. "I used to see those back in the old world, honestly. And you'll likely fair better than me. Only time I ridden an animal was for that recent race, and honestly I was just along for the ride." There might be a few stragglers that have seperated from the herd now, so it looks like they all needed to be gathered up before they could actually start moving.

This leads to Curtana doing his best to help move Grunties back towards the herd. Food seemingly wasn't getting much interest, and scratching behind the ear like Soujiro only leads to the chosen grunty only settling down. This leads to the last-ditch effort, with Curtana trying to shove the grunty forward from behind. The grunty in question is just looking backwards at Curtana and trying to figure out just what he is accomplishing.

The song has Jazz half-heartedly lifting her head and staring at Seta for a long moment. Slowly, one hand reaches up and pinches the bridge of her nose while the other massages a temple.

She is doing this in a very pointed manner to indicate what she thinks of this song.

"Mn. Don't know," she adds, her voice cutting tweely through the sounds of the grunties and their grunty...ing. It's adorable as the rest of her. Painfully so, now that she's interacting more. Her hair waves lazily in the air, never ceasing to seem as if she's underwater. It's a nice little anime effect.

"Oi," she grunts.

It turns out that grunties are NOT like cluck clucks like Souji once thought. He does get them moving forward. Some of the grunties in the front may follow him but after a long path forward but after a longer stride it is found that several splinter off. It keeps Schneider and Curtana busy trying to keep the flanks of this massive herd from wandering off. Jazu tries to call out the ones that are wandering away and sing them into compliance. Too many of them though. Some are lost to the overlands to become food for a monster. Possibly turned into food by an angry Schneider. Look, better OUR food than monster food.

The party can hear the howls off in the distance. The grunties are nervous, but stupid. So very, very stupid. They keep moving regardless. There is a Souji in front, things should ok, right? Just ignore the lost grunties back there that are fresh meals. The alert party can see a fairly substantial pack of wolves a bit later in the journey. They lope closer but are still a fair distance out. There are a lot of them. The wolf pack covers the ground in a furry swarm with hope of adding gruntie to their diet. The party must protect the grunties who have zero, absolutely zero, instinct for self-preservation. Of course thats beneficial in that there is no stampede, but for each grunty lost that is gold the party will not be earning. Wolves are wolves. They can be fought off normally. A savy hunter may be able to lay some traps before they get close enough to thin the numbers.

Souji exclaims, "Not exactly a big boss encounter, but it will do." The samurai continues to walk forward as he draws his katanas out from their setas, looking a lot more serious now that there is a more serious threat in the mix. "I could go for a warm up before the big thing. Won't say no to easy XP, meat, and skins." Rip and Tear until it is done, Souji. Rip and Tear.

Schneider holds off on incinerating the Grunties, if only for the sake of the mission, but it's frustrating that they only move when they want. Or when wolves attack, "Holy crap!" He's abit frustrated now, with the inneffectual herding and now the grunties and he drops rather more mana than usual into his quick-cast magical blast.

"Fiery Power Blast of the Damned!" Schneider shouts, and wolves /explode/, bursting with flames that catch other wolves on fire, and it's a mess, but it's not a good day to be a wolf out hunting grunty.

With her own magic, Jazz is pretty good at driving off wolves.

Unfortunately, her magic leaves the air smelling suspiciously of wet dog afterwards. This is probably not surprising. She is, after all, a 'Sea-Witch'. Blasts of water are one of her primary tools. But, yes ... wet dog. Potently wet dog.

Her nose wrinkles and this simply heightens the adorable quotient even more.

Those who know Curtana knows that he prefers getting up close and personal with whoever he has to fight. It should be obvious, with his plate mail and longsword at his side. No need to lay traps when you know you can take the battle to the enemy. Several wolves have already shattered from his melee assault when they near the grunties, but he is absolutely not going to let any wolves get past him if he can help it.

The first pack of wolves that breach the line into melee are met with a blur of steel from Souji's katanas. It is a flowing dance of cutting straight a path /into/ the horde. The carnage of pixelated death separates the pack into two, disorganizing them quickly akin to a Samurai Warriors game by an actual Samurai Warrior. The side to the left of Souji is blasted by explosive blasts from Schneider, making it D-Day for the wolves. The side to the right is similarly assaulted by Jazu. Whatever wolves decide 'forward' is the right option are quickly met with a 'no, it isnt' by Curtana's shield and sword. They are trapped with options of: going to a katana blender, being blown up, being Jazu'd, or being bashed and stabbed. Total annihilation. Brutality.

The party has driven off the wolves. A few of the grunties got spooked and wandered off during the fight. It was not that they were afraid or anything. No, they probably just wandered because they are dumb as bricks. The initial inclination may be to write them off, but each grunty brought to market is a bit more cash. Plus the ever delicious possibility of gruntie burgers are at the end of this trail. So the party is obligated to gather as many of the strays as they can before proceeding forward. Recapturing the grunties and returning them to a herd is pretty straightforward. It is not unlike capturing a monster. A tracker may be able to find grunties that have wandered further off than the ones still in eyesight.

"Look, its all going to be /alright/," Souji says covered in the bloody pixels of wolves all over him. He reaches out to pet one of the wandering burgers-on-legs and aims to draw in a flock of cow-harem with his natural charm. "We are going to get you all safely to market. Where you can be safely processed into delicious food. Not wolf food. /People/ food." Yes, be reassured your quality of food will be higher with the Samurai. They give Souji one of those beady, soulless gazes common to cattle. "Alright, lets moooove out," he turns with a warm smile on his face and kind eyes. The day is young, march on young Samurai.

With the excitement of the wolf attack coming to an end, Curtana sheathes his longsword and lets out a happy sigh. "I'm glad that went well eno-...really?" Despite everyone rising to the occasion and giving an expert defense to the grunty herd, some of the pig-cow creatures had still managed to run off. Perhaps it was fear...or maybe there was just some really tasty food nearby. The pooka certainly didn't know enough to say if that is true or not.

Curtana's attempt at gathering up lost grunties are just as successful as his last attempt, which is to say not at all. He even materalized some rope and had looped it around a grunty to try to pull it back, but the creature was stubbornly standing it's ground. It didn't want to go anywhere were the knight wanted to take it, it seems.

D-Day was a bit more contested than this, Schneider vs wolves is not a contest, it's a slaughter, and if he were a hunter, he'd be getting all sorts of meat and pelt drops from this. As it is, he only gets a couple drops, and not very high quality. Aaaaaand, -that- got the grunties moving, all right. Moving everywhere and who knows where, getting lost and running off. It's better than losing them to getting eaten, but damn. He sighs, searches for insight. As Scale Librarian, he's privvy to many secrets, perhaps one of them is how to return grunties to the fold?

It turns out it's not, but he can, with great and slow effort, track the grunties that have wandered off. Once he's tracked them, he will bait them back to the herd by laying a trail of grunty chow before them.

"Oh, great ocean depths! Grant me your finest hunter that I might find our erstwhile quarries!" Jazz waves her hands in the air to complete her summon. Emerging from a swirl of water is a fish that is ... also a cat. And very much like the cat, it being a Palace Lands Cat-Fish, it promptly decides to sun itself instead.

"...you WORTHLESS bugger. I told you to go look for grunties!"

Also like a cat, the part-fish-cat-hybrid completely ignores its summoner.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!"

Thats the touch that was missing. Souji just needed to get down to the level of his fans and talk to them. Why are grunties his fans? Unknown. They follow him, though! Everything is alright! Ignore the fact that Curtana and Schneider are in the background trying to wrangle grunties like Elder Tale Cowboys with about as much success as it sounds. A lasso here. Baiting there. Speaking of baiting, the catfishing that Jazu did surprisingly gets results after a while of sun bathing. The group reclaims the vast majority of the wandering food.

The party realizes that is too much distance to cover in one day. Grunties like these are not fast. Along with being incredibly stupid they are equally slow. Their big, meat containing bodies need considerable rest. So the party must set up camp. They will need to get some food and rest for themselves and maybe a song or two to lighten everyone's spirits and keep them positive. POSITIVE, JAZU. Cooking here is, of course, critical. Looking at all those potential burgers is enough to get any carnivore hungry. Construction is also needed to build a restful camp and arrangements for the grunties. A song or two will help settle everyone's mind, keep them focused, give them nightmares, ugly cry, and allow them a good night's sleep. Missing any one of these things will make the next day rough.

Souji does what any attractive man does at a campfire with an audience. He gets out a stringed instrument. Reprising an earlier conversation with Schneider he strums a very simple cord and 'sings'. "Oooooh give me a home, where the dumb grunties roam / Where the clucks and the fast pekos play / Where seldom is heard, a discouragin' word / And the skies are not cloudy all day." The samurai gives a point over to Curt to join him in on the chorus. "Home, home on the range. / Where the clucks and the fast pekos playyyy" Yes. This is happening. No, Soujiro is not trained in bardric talents. Like Jazu he just looks/sounds pretty and thats enough to make up for any lack of musical talent, right?

Schneider is the one who finds himself stuck with cooking chores. Well. There's enough wolf-meat drops for four, which given the size of the attack is small, but hey, it's pretty fresh. But just heating it up seems so plain. But when you've got a secret weapon. From the depths of his cloak, he pulls out the Cooking Timer. Cooking is wildly sensitive in ETO if you don't have the skill, and food goes from raw to burnt in the blink of an eye. But with the timer, he's got a chance of catching that window of opportunity, and he uses it skillfully, pulling the wolf-steaks off the heat at just the right moment.

Curtana sets himself down next to the campfire, almost positive that if pain was a real sensation here, his body would be aching. He'll be more than happy to leap into a hoard of undead than help herd grunties again. These creatures have been giving him all sorts of trouble. "I think i'll stick to pekos in the future."

Curt is no musician by any right of the words. Sure, he managed to play a lyre decently enough the last time he was part of a wagon train, but that was honestly pure luck than any actual skill. But he believes he can improvise music if needed. Laying down his shield in his lap, Curtana starts to slap a rythum on the kite shield, making it into an improvised drum. "How often at night, when the skies are bright / With the lights from the shimmering stars / Have I stood here amazed, and asked as I lay / If their glory pass that of ours?" The Pooka knight is certainly no improv songwriter, so he's sticking to the more original version of the song. It's a close call though, as he's certain he's replacing several of the words outright. But...has long as the song helps puts others at ease, that is what counts, right?

Constructing camp isn't hard for Jazz, apparently.

"Darkest ocean depths," she mutters, "Visit upon me your dark strength of your greatest beasts so that I might put up this tent."

She's building a camp site by invoking the darkest powers of the ocean.

No big.

Good food. Good shelter. Good song. It is the recipe for a restful night at camp. Campfire tales are shared. Bad karaoke performed. Some wolf steaks grilled up to perfection. A dark ocean constructed tent. The usual fixins of an outing. It is almost as if morning did not /need/ to come. It does, though.

The next day dawns bright and the grunties got a good night's sleep along with the party. Driving the grunties to the market town is straightforward. A fenced-in stockyard is available for the grunties to be herded into. The head Lander comes out to haggle with the party over the amount of money he's willing to pay for so many grunties. After all, they're so skinny. A few were bitten by wolves. There's mileage and demurrage, of course, and so many other details. A shrewd negotiator will of course cut to the chase to win the best price, and someone with Mercantile knowledge will understand the vagaries of the trade system. Someone skilled at Appraisal would be able to counter the buyer's appraisal of the grunties.

People skills, enter in Souji, "I hear you, you want the best bang for your buck on these bucks and beauties." A hand goes around the Lander as he does the Buzz Lightyear meme. Grunties. Grunties everywhere. "But you know what I see when I look at this herd of delicious walking meat? Burgers. Steaks. Tell me you don't want to just sink your teeth into these wonderful mobile food carts right now." The Lander looks at Souji. Is this haggling or? "We are Adventurers. On good authority we know the going rate of these premium grunt-chops," he says, passing a folded piece of paper to the Lander. "Im sure you'll find its an offer you can't refuse." The Lander sweatdrops. Is this a threat?!

Schneider wakes up refreshed. He must have been more tired than he thought he was to sleep in that tent. But he does wake up, which is always a good thing. And he will ride with the party and the grunties to the town where the grunties are received by someone else. Anyone else. "And good riddance!"

On the other hand, getting shortchanged for their hard work and effort annoys him, and he contests the demurrage charges vigorously.

"Look, we were here within the specified time. Demurrage is a late fee, and we weren't late. The grunties were /kind of/ slow, particularly to start, but we got here on the day we were supposed to." At the end of the day, maybe... but on the right day. "Also, the percent with wolf bites is low. You can't dock us ten percent when barely one in a hundred have bites," he complains, countering the buyer point-by-point.

Good food, good beds and good(?) songs help to make what would have been a rough night on the plains into an enjoyable one. And all things aside, things have been going better than could reasonably be expected for this outing. They're even almost to the stockyards for the grunties!

Curtana isn't a stranger when it comes to dealing with merchants. For all the weapon and armor upkeep as well as all the potions he brews, he knows how much something is actually supposed to be worth. "Don't you even try to say that 'they are underfed' or 'these grunties are weak'. I can tell you for a fact they're quite wellfed, and i'll love to see three of your men pull a grunty where it doesn't want to go. And that's not even going into the fact there's a meat shortage in this region! You can easily buy at the contracted price and still make record profits!" After all they went through to get over two thousand of these creatures safely here, there is no way they are going to get short-changed!

No, that is not a threat. It is a good number! Souji's warming up the Lander establishes trust as they start talking. Schneider systematically debunks each one of the Lander's claims to be more reasily accepted and reduce the footing for haggling the price down. Curtana comes in with the final sell on the price, neatly tying up the value of the pack, the bulk cost, agreed upon rates against fees and allowances, and finally they settle on a tidy sum.

With a successful Grunty drive well behind them now, the party takes a moment to reflect what they've just gone through. No doubt there will be a monetary reward for this. And of course there will be meat in everyone's cookpots.

Souji takes his share of the appropriated profits between the Hunter's Guild cut and the profits and loss. Running the numbers really isn't his thing normally unless it is game number crunching. This is more a side quest sort of thing so he isn't sweating the details. "That was fun," Souji remarks across the two day journey. "We got to destroy wolves, scritch future steaks, and go camping," he says, ever positive about it, "man I love this place. Going to look for something more challenging to do today, everyone. I'll catch you for a bite later." Always time to get in more training, more food, and... is that ANOTHER set of cluck clucks following him now? And some Lander women following the cluck clucks? Just who is Souji and why do people keep /following/ him around?!

Jazuhanzu let's other people negotiate. This is probably for the best, given her urgent need to be somewhere that isn't here as soon as possible. Don't let the sage of sads negotiate.

It'd cause a depression.

Schneider sits down with a grunt when the grunties are sold. "That was an exhausting two days," he says. "I think I need to get back my real life endurance, it wasn't -that- hard." He didn't even use a ton of magic. It was more mentally gruelling. "That one's harder than advertised," he comments. "But glad for gold. I can buy more steaks."

Having fun while doing work is all good and all, but Curtana is sure that everyone involved would likely to get properly paid. Thankfully, he's able to come through, and he sits down alongside the others as they look out on what they accomplished. "I felt like we did pretty well. Well, when it came with everything besides handling the grunties. I am mostly useless in that regard." He raises a hand as Soujiro takes his departure and he stands up. "As for me...I think it's finally time I try one of those burgers. I never have, honestly."