Pet Quest

Gwen had been looking into the Bard that keeps showing up in the various rat dungeons. She put out a call for help with the Olympus Alliance and posted a job with the Hunter's Guild as well.

She wasn't sure what kind of pet to get the girl but she needed something that could be a good friend but some kind of monster that would be able to care for itself too.

So here she was having met up in town with most of the people who had intended to help she'd given out friends invites to everyone working on this so they could keep in communication and the like as well as giving out a party invite to the group.

Once they'd formed up the towering woman would grin a bit for a moment.

"First off I want to thank you all for coming and there's something you should know about the Bard people keep running into with the rat dungeons? First off her name is Sozoku Nezumi second off she's not a lander. She's an adventurer and I think she's pretty young too. She doesn't have a guild and has become pretty mistrusting given she's been PKed before and I don't think she knows just what she's been doing. I think she really could use a friend as that's why we're here to try and find and tame a monster who'd be a good pet I was thinking a Lunatic but if other people have ideas? I'm open to them. I'm trying to find her a home with one of the newbie guilds but I need to get some trust with her as she's been Played Killed by outright murder hobos."

Gwen seems to know more but she's not said anything just yet.

    It had been a while, Merek assisted with the Wave, then he went back into the world to train. Then, he came back, and found a job posting in the Hunter's Guild which brought a little interest to him. The man wears the beltcape on the dark attire of his, a longspear worn for adventure with two swords placed into sheaths on the back. "I like the idea."

While Rylen has not experienced the infamous 'rat dungeon' himself, if it comes to monsters or animals, he usually rises to the call for Crescent Moon. He mostly knows Gwen by word of mouth rather than direct meeting, having helped with the initial stages of the new headquarters for their guild.

However, this particular mission has a special appeal since one of the Pooka's primary roles within the guild is to act as a mentor for new players. If there was one in need, then so be it. "She's not the first teenager I've heard of who is lost here without anyone. It's no surprise she's mistrusting if she's been the target of a PKer." The silver-haired Beastmaster leans against the wall of a nearby building, showing his usual relaxed and easy going smile.

"Lunatics are an option. A young peko or grunty if you wanted to lean towards an animal rather than a monster. Anything that is non-aggro and from the newbie areas would probably work well enough." He agrees.

Then, of course, he offers out a hand towards Gwen, "It's nice to finally meet you, though. Rylen Corvus. We've been working together for a while, but never had a chance for a proper introduction."

    Miyako blinks. Takes in the speech from Gwen. Oh /wonderful/. "The last I heard," she starts, "Hifumi said she was doing fine." Admittedly, that was over a week ago. "Why didn't somebody tell me she was still having trouble?" She sighs and shakes her head, muttering something under her breath.

    "Frak," she says, as she gets it out of her system. "Yeah, I'm in. And I want to meet the kid properly."

The idol shows up to the gathering. Still 'officially' in Hamelin, although she's been on the run from them mainly. She's been planting the seeds of dissent within in, and dropping the information to a few people of thrusts. Otherwise... she's been laying low for the most part.


So small outings like those are what she allows herself, following some requests left around. And a quest where they help someone being PKed... sounds just right for her right now. "Hanging together would be nice, telling stories, singing songs, maybe find good food together." She offers up quietly.

You can't go hunting monsters without a hunter.... well okay you can. But that doesn't mean having one or two along won't help in the long run. Besides Shiruba feeling sorry for the girl being alone and scared like that, with no idea what she was doing to the other rats.

She still makes sure she's got a few fully prepared arrows though. Never know what else they might run into out there. "I'd say not to settle on a hard choice until we see what we can find." She looks up, and waves to the newest familiar face. "Hi Rylen!"

    Hifumi comes jogging up with Snapdragon flapping it's flowery way behind him. "Sorry I was late... didn't quite expect so much turn out... brought bentos for those who chose to help." he says. He's always bribing people with food it seems to work well enough. "Hey Gwen." he says holding out a boxed lunch to her. "I was actually hoping to offer her work." he looks to Miyako "She keeps running off to try and make more rat friends and hide." he says "When you asked the last I saw Himawari-san and Gwen were letting her sleep off the draught I slipped her. And Gwen told me she was working with her and coming up with this plan to get her a pet." he nods his head and holds a lunch towards Miyako.

    "I can train pets, beast or monster." he says "So I'm open to sugestions I'm here to help tame them after we catch them... and provide lunch."

Dare had encountered this girl recently himself, and while he hadn't PKed her, he HAD assumed she was part of the dungeon encounter at first and... kind of exploded one of her rats' heads. So he's been feeling a bit guilty about that.

"Hi everyone," he gives out a general greeting as he joins the gathering. "Anything other than a filthy sewer rat would be a good starting point, so a Lunatic sounds as good as anything?"

He perks up at the promise of Hifumi-lunch. "Nice, bonus." Awkward pause. "So, uh... as of a couple days ago she was still up to her old tricks, apparently. Caught her doing the Pied Piper routine in a really nasty part of the underground. We got her back to the surface but she wouldn't really talk to us."

Gwen says "She's on the young end I think from how she was talking. Ah, so that's your name Rylen I saw it on the roster good to know now. I'm Gwen Pendragon."

She says with a grin and she'll shake his hand.

"I'm thinking a Grunty that's cute and can become a non-combat mount later too right? I had one once long ago."

She looks.

"I think she's going to keep trying to befriend the rats in desperation Miyako."

She frowns.

"That is always fun Reika."

Gwen looks to Hifumi for a moment and nods slightly though she does give him a slight look.

"Right, I'm just afraid she's going to go looking for the rats again and get ganked once more."

"Yeah we can thank the guy who ganked her. Still so Grunty or Lunatic I'm leaning Grunty. If we're lucky we can locate a young one. Still a Lunatic would be good but it might not do her as much good long term."

As Gwen takes his hand, Rylen subtly shifts his grip, turning it so he has access to the back of her hand and bows his head, placing a gentlemanly kiss on the back. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, officially." Then, he casts her a charming smile before releasing her hand and stepping back.

"Lady Shiruba!" He grins in her direction, bowing his head briefly. "Always a pleasure." Most of the others are unfamiliar to him, perhaps because he has spent most of his time since the Apocalypse in the Northwest, around the area of the Peko Army territory. The fact that Hifumi is offering out benos gets a raised eyebrow. "I certainly won't decline a good meal, thank you." He inclines his head, then, in turn, to each of the others.

"Do we know who was responsible for ganking her in the first place?" He asks, "If someone is attacking newbies around Alne and the Town of Beginnings, we should at least be on guard."

Reika shakes her head "Desperation sounds right... I can relate to that, right now." She's not in such a great situation herself recently after all. "Loneliness makes you do things to fill that void after all." Not to mention she was one of those that attacked her at least once. but she didn't know the situation she was in.

    Merek nods a bit while he thinks about it, "I will assist in whatever way." The man takes a look along the place in thought, while he walks to the party.

"In fairness," Dare points out, sounding a little self-defensive here, "is it really 'ganking' if she's hanging out in a dungeon summoning monsters and causing general mayhem? I'm not trying to go down the victim-blaming route here but seriously. If you don't want people mistaking you for a miniboss, don't act like one."

He sighs, "Which I realize is not what she was TRYING to do, but I also can't really blame Adventurers for a case of mistaken identity in the heat of a dungeon battle. Let's just... get her some help so this doesn't happen again. I'll be happy to help track down some grunties if that's what we wanna try first."

Shiruba takes a bento from Hifumi, and smirks at Gwen. "See, you're not the only one that can pay me with food now~", she teases her surrogate big sister with a wink. Then tucks the bento away in her inventory for later. "But good to have someone with actual animal training skills along." Her tail swishes a few time as she turns and takes a few steps away from the group. "I can work on tracking something down..."

She crouches down to the ground, looking for the signs of other creatures passing through the area. "... But behind hunting and helping capture I'm not much other help."

    Hifumi hmmms and taps his lips "Well if she comes to work for me I can help protect her from PK." he says "I might not be a combat star around here, but I played ETOffline forever and jumpped on ETO as soon as it released." he smiles

    "A grunty isn't a bad plan, a peco either since both can be mounts. She seems to have a love of the small and furry however so Lunatic is a good plan... unless we can find her something like maybe a wolf or bear cub? Something that we can help her raise and train that can act as a protector if a PK comes again?"

    "First off," Miyako starts, "If we -do- have PKers running around ganking kids, then we need to make sure they /stop/. So as soon as this is over that's what we need to focus on." She doesn't seem to /care/ if the girl is acting odd or not, at this point.

    "I do like that idea," she says, nodding to Hifumi. "Kid needs something to keep the creepers off." She adds a moment later, "I'd go for something like a cat, myself, but, well." She shrugs. "Cats can be assholes, and she needs something a little more gregarious. Maybe a ferret, if ETO has them."

Gwen did not expect the kiss on the back of her hand the towering woman turns red a little bit in surprise at this. It takes her a moment to get her focus back but once she does she replies.

"It was in the Sewers maybe the person didn't bother to inspect her and presumed she was a lander."

She frowns at this. "We'll worry about it later I have some more information on her PKer but it can wait till we get this critter sorted out."

She looks to Reika for a moment.

"Yes it does, get into bad relationships of all sorts just to not be alone. We're social creatures as much as we wanted to hide in our rooms at one point."

She nods to Dareshetani.

"If we can confirm the identity we might want to have a talk with them on it."

She notes she doesn't seem to be implying violence to Dareshentani.

"I'll just have to up what I'm paying you with Shiruba. Great American BBQ."

She notes with a grin.

She thinks for a moment.

"A job in a root town might be a good idea but we'll need to establish trust first before we can do that. Given if someone messes with her in a root town? The royal guard will crush them."

She pauses

"She doesn't look like a kid, mind you."

Gwen thinks about it.

"Let's go for a cat, there's old homestead where before the Apocalypse I'd seen stray cats about."

Gwen would flare out her wings a bit and start off in the direction of the homestead ruins.

It would take less than half an hour to get there and there seemed to be nothing about. If people paid attention there was a meow that could be heard.

There is a ruined farmhouse and barn there are signs of cats here but the question is can they find one and get it to come with them?

Reika nods to Miyako "Yes, there are PKers around..." Like Hamelin. She's been working to put a stop to it after all. "I might need your assistance with such a case soon...." She nods to the ideas "A strong pet would surely help her!"

A cat is nice too, but not quite the fierce protector usually. She follows along to the barn house where the meows are heard. She goes heart-eyes just at the sound "I love kitties~"

    "I think we will manage," Merek offers, with a nod, while he makes a way to the barnhouse along with the party. The man looks to the people, "Alright, what's the plan, tamers? I will assist in any way," he says, smiling a bit, while he nods a bit to Gwen. "I just want to say, I'm glad people like you are doing this for folk."

Shiruba is only a little bit canine, and therefor not biased against cats. "Anything that's not a rat is good." She just rolls her eyes at Gwen's retort. But first, onward to find critters! Thankfully it's not too long of a hike and they don't run into any other trouble. Yet...

She pauses at the edge of the homestead once the group reachs it, ears flaring erect at the faint sounds of mewling. "You might be in luck." The wolfgirl goes into prowling mode, trying to hone in on the cat sounds.

    Hifumi nods his head and follows after Gwen, making sure everyone gets a bento along the way. His little flower dragon flapflapflaps it's way along behind him, leaving a trail of flowery incense scented smoke from it's snout.

    "If you think it'll actually work, I'm down with going for a cat," Miyako agrees, sliding the bento Hifumi hands her into inventory and following along after Gwen. "Just so long as the kid likes it. If she doesn't, I'm going back out again... and I don't give a damn if nobody goes with, I'm still going."

"I'm not sure murdering landers is any better under most circumstances. They don't respawn." Rylen doesn't seem to draw any attention to Gwen's flushing cheeks and instead focuses on the task at hand. Better not to try and jump to conclusions on the PKer without better information.

"Getting them set up in a root town would probably help. It would at least protect them from the possibility of being PKed." He hrms to himself, thoughtfully, "There are still those who could take advantage, though. It's the first time I ever really considered if child labor laws should be a thing in Yamato." Not something he's ever had reason to look into, and if the girl doesn't look like a child, it could be problematic, regardless.

As they head towards the farmhouse, he seems to keep his eyes and ears out for any sign of animal passage. The meow catches his attention, and he looks towards Shiruba, "Can you hear where it's coming from? Otherwise, we might be able to track it, looking for pawprints. Cats tend to leave tracks on everything."

"The nice thing about a cat," Dare comments, as what looks like a huge war party of Adventurers approaches the barn, "is that they usually aren't completely wild, just feral. When I was a kid I used to 'tame' the really skittish barn cats on my grandpa's farm every summer. That just took a lot of patience. You crouch and meow at a cat long enough, it'll eventually come up just to see what the hell you're up to." Of course, that's assuming these are just feral domestic cats, and not some kind of horrifying dire-fantasy version. Also when he was a kid he didn't look like a giant predator either.

"Uh, maybe we should check with the farm owners first, make sure they're ok with us taking one of their working cats?"

Dare takes a couple steps toward the farmhouse, adding, "They may even have a litter of kittens she could pick from, save a lot of trouble up front." He holds himself up short of actually approaching the front door though. "Maybe someone other than a werefang should be the one to knock?"

Gwen does seem surprised the farmstead was a ruin before this became their new world? Now it's back together, could it be a progression of events? It seems like that could be the case. Gwen will sigh and go to knock on the door. A young lander couple seems surprised to see an Adventures at the door and the pair have names if inspected. Lucy and Ricky, if anyone bothers to pay attention.

"An Adventurer here? What can we do for you?"

Ricky asks curiously about why are there so many of them there.

"We're looking for a cat...for someone."

Meanwhile Rylen, Merk and Miyako have luck tracking do some cats which seem to be hanging out at the barn or near it.

Shiryuba meanwhile does get some luck however the cat hisses leaps in the air tries to bound off their head and runoff from her.

After all she smells like a dog as far as the cat is. The concerned. Primal wild dog at that! It scoots into the barn and heads what looks like for the rafters.

Meanwhile Gwen is looking the young couple over. 5R
"This may sound odd we're looking to get a cat for someone might there be a litter of kittens?"

"Might be but it be one of the barn cats and they tend to hide when they do you'll have to seek em out and if you are we'd be willing to part with one for some gold."

While everyone else is either going to ask the landowner Landers for permission or check out the barn Shiruba prowls off in another direction. Where she finds a cat that had been sunbathing itself as cats tend to do when not terrorizing mice.

"Hey guys I found o--whah!" As soon as she turns her head to call the group the cat screeches and jumps, and Shiruba gets a faceful of dirt as it bounds off her head, and cat scats for the bard.

Shiru grunts, and spits out some dirt. "--nevermind."

    Merek smiles a bit and listens to people while he nods a bit to Gwen as well as that lander.

Dare hangs back and lets Gwen do the talking, since she isn't a scary looking were-beast. Just a scary looking tall lady. ;) His sharp ears pick up the farmers' response though, and feeling much better about the whole 'searching through someone else's barn to kidnap a cat' thing now, he goes to join the hunt.

He thinks back to when he was a kid, squatting on the barn floor for sometimes an hour at a time, patiently making meowing noises and holding out a hand to a feral until it got curious enough to come investigate him, whereupon he could seduce it with pettings. Hopefully it won't take that long this time... although at least this body doesn't have arthritis in both knees either.

This body also has much better low light vision, to say nothing about sense of smell or hearing. Detecting traces of 'cat' is simple enoough, but... he steps into the barn and simply waits for a moment, listening intently for the telltale mewling noises of kittens, which are 1000% easier to tame.

    Miyako squats by the barn wall, her wings flickering slightly, as she holds out a piece of smoked fish to one of the cats. "Here you go, little one, have a treat..." She smiles and reaches down to stroke the cat's head briefly, before it snatches the fish and runs off to enjoy the treat.

    No point in just /kittennapping/, after all.

    Hifumi having learned landers like hand made food as much as Adventurers and likely cook instead of using menus when not selling stuff... he does offer the couple some Bentos. "Here for your consideration." he offers "I run the new Isekai Ryoken in Dun Loireag." he smiles "Please have a sample and enjoy." he says brightly.

Rylen crouches, fingers touching the ground as he spots the passage of cats recently, in and out of the barn. "Looks like the barn will be our best place to look, assuming the Landers are okay with us scoping out the place." He is just about to stand up and head in that direction when a cat bounds off of Shiruba's head.

"You alright?" He asks, seeing her spitting out dirt.

He looks over to Miyako's way of dealing with the cats, nodding. "She seems to have the right of it. We'd be best luring them out with food, perhaps finding out which of them seems the most friendly and able to be socialized to people." He swipes a hand, going through his own inventory, eventually pulling out a few pieces of meat which seem to be from some kind of wild bird. Apparently, he does his own hunting, otherwise he is just a weirdo who carries around raw meat.

"The only thing hurt is my pride," Shiruba replies to Rylen as she sits up. "But if they're going to react to me like that I should probably keep my distance." So she's going to just sit here and enjoy the snack provided by Hifumi.

Reika disappeared a while back... chasing kittens with a happy 'eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee' sound.

She came back empty handed, and looking dejected "Aww, they all ran away and hid. Apparently cats don't like me."

Ricky looks at Hifumi and nods "Thank you kindly sir we'll have to have these later."

Notes and he sem to be in a good way. Lucy meanwhile gets wide-eyed.

"You are a long way from home then."

Dareshetani meanwhile seems to have better luck on things. He heads into the barn sits down and low and behold after enough time passes some of the kittens will start to check the strange man out, while another will head towards Miyako so there is progress being made here it shouldn't take too long to work this out as the kittens seem to be about at the age they could be taken from their mother. The question would be which one?

Gwen meanwhile is amused at Shiruba's fate but she has been helped already. Rylen's idea seems to on the right path lure them out to see which one might be best to adapt to people.

"Well maybe you helped tire them out?", Shiruba tries to comfort Reika. Then contently noms her way through the yakisobapan and potato. Good real food was worth the humiliation by cat for.

    Merek begins attempting to make a little bit of food, which manages to do little besides spray water in jets all along the party while he's trying to put it into a bowl.

Dare smiles softly as some of the more curious kittens come over to investigate. Unfortunately, while his class came with plenty of hunting and tracking skills attached, he doesn't actually have Handle Animal. So he thinks to improvise. He takes a bit of raw meat from his inventory (he's a hunter, of course he has raw meat) and considers. He hasn't got any Fire skills, but he does have Air. And that makes him think of air frying. He tries to make the meat a little bit more enticing by applying a little bit of electrically-charged energy to it.

He fails. Hard. The smell that results from the charred meat makes his own nose wrinkle as his head jerks backward in a reflexive recoil. "Ugh, you don't want that, kitties," he remarks, and tosses it outside. He'll let the professionals handle the actual taming - he sticks to making his little mewling noises to keep the cats hanging about.

Reika nods to Shiruba, plopping down "Ohhh food, is that for everyone?" She smiles, reaching for one of the bento, one that was for her hopefully. She hmms as she looks at the potatoes, picking at them "I'm glad we moved away from the toothpaste food." She looks over to the others "How was your luck with the cats? And what about Nezumi?"

Rylen takes the patient approach, crouching and tossing out a few of those pieces of meat, taking his time to watch for the cats. He makes a soft, clicking sound in the back of his throat, trying to lure them, but perhaps there is just too much noise and traffic around. "Skittish lot. Though that's to be expected with barn cats. If we can, one that's under 4 months is deal. Otherwise they don't tend to socialize well."

    Miyako remains in her squat as she watches the kittens gambol about, and smiles lightly. "They're so cuuuute...." she murmurs, reaching to fish out some more smoked fish. "Here kitkitkit," she coos at them. "Come on, have a treat..." She keeps it up until one approaches her, nosing at the fish, and she holds out her hand with the treat in her palm... and the kitten jumps up onto her hand to grab the treat! She grins, waiting a moment for it to get accustomed to its perch, before reaching out to pet it gently with her other hand. "Awww, that's right, you beautiful little hunter, you."

    Hifumi smiles widely at the couple "Well, I can't let a girl down when she's been having a hard time, and hopefuly this kitten will help turn things around for her." he says with a little shrug.
    The chef runs his fingers through his hair as his small flower dragon lands on his shoulder. "So we really apreciate you letting us take one of them for her." he says with a warm smile.

    "Let me go help out." he says fishing out some eel from his inventory to help with kitties.

The cats are skittish as are barn cats are wont to be but one? One cat seems interested in what Miyako has to offer and the good news is the cat seems pretty young, old enough to take from its mom but not too old he can not be trained in the ways of pet cat. It seems a suitable candidate has been found thanks to Miyako. Meanwhile, Gwen will foot the bill giving Ricky and Lucy a small bag of gold for the cat.

"I think we may have found out cat!"

The farmers seem happy with this. The eel also helps get this little cat out to hang out and soon it's climbing over the Adventurers having a grand old time!

Shiruba looks up from eating the carrots in the bento meal. "That's purrfect." About time someone made up for the lack of cat puns in the endeavour.

Reika gets to play with the kitten a bit as she eats~ "So cute~ Nezumi is going to love it~" If not she's going to keep it.

As a suitable non-sewer-rat pet appears to have been acquired now, Dare smiles (and tickles the kitten's cheeks whenever it romps past him), and asides to Gwen, "Hey, can you... let her know I'm sorry for scaring her the other night? I thought she was just part of the dungeon NPC cast. I feel really bad about it."

    Miyako has no care for gold or farmers, right now. She leaves it to Gwen to placate them. She has /kitten/ to play with. And oh what fun it is. She grins and makes cutesy meowing sounds as it climbs up the front of her armor to wander around her neck and shoulders. "Awwwww....."

    Merek looks to that nice little bit of kitty, then he smiles, "I will get my own kitty eventually," he mentions, looking about, while nodding a little bit.

A warm smile spreads onto Rylen's face as the kitten makes themselves known to the group. "Well, hopefully this little one can help." He pushes himself up to his feet, leaving the remainder of the food behind for the other cats in the barn. He claps his hands off on his trousers, then glances over at Merek, "Shouldn't be too hard. I can keep an eye out if you're looking."