Duty Session 231: Grunty Drive

Grunties, grunties as far as the eye can see!

"I have never seen so many grunties in one place...", Uta exclaims in awe. "Two thousands," a Lander farmer with a ragged brown beard explains.

"March of the Two Thousand Grunties!", Exclaims Uta, excited, staff ready in her hand. "I'm sure one could compose an interesting ballad out of this... maybe Country-Western style?", she wonders, tapping her chin. "Whatever, young lady...", comments the Lander in charge of the herd. "Just make sure they all make it to market, okay?"

The Farmer mounts on a grunty at the head of the herd, and looks behind him. "Are you ready?"

"I've never wanted to see so many grunties in one place." Kita chimes in after Uta, holding one of her gloved hands over her face. "It smells." She mutters, sounding as if she is not exactly pleased at having been assigned to assist as a guard. In fact, she doesn't look anything like a guard, still dressed in full black mage attire.

"Let's just get moving. Maybe the smell will lessen once we're on the road." She weaves a hand through the air, trying to cast some air magic to offer at least some breath of fresh air.

"I don't know how you can be enthusiastic about this." She glances at Uta, and shakes her head.

Yeowang has joined in on the grunty drive to keep her hand in, really. Or, rather, there will be political benefits to those who can deliver this much, let's face it, food, to market, particularly given the threat of the post-floorboss event. There will be damage to the farms, so best to get these cattle to market soonest. "I've never done this before," she admits. Her father owned ranches, but they were the process-on-site type places. Yamato doesn't quite have that level of automation yet.

"I've always wanted a pet!", Uta replies to Kita. "And ever since visiting a farm as a kid, I've always longed to repeat that experience again!" Doing something that twould be against anyone's better judgement, she takes a deep breath in.

And breathes out immediately after, with a wide smile that by all accounts shouldn't be there. "Aaaaaah... this smell... the memories..." Her eyes go beady.

Once the few seconds of wallowing in whatever pleasant remembrance she might have been wallowing in are over, she gets back to being productive by slapping her forehead.

"Oh, right!", she exclaims. "I almost forgot, Gwen gave me an item to activate in case I ever found myself in a grunty drive."

She flicks through her menu, taps an option, shimmers...

When the light subsides, she's decked in a surprisingly authentic cowgirl outfit.

She blinks, and looks down, hand still hovering with a limp index finger hooked in mid-air. "...Uh. I... I guess it's comfortable and appropriate for the task?"

"Neither have I!", exclaims Uta as she climbs on the saddle of a Grunty provided for the task. "But there's always a first time, isn't there?"

Yeowang and the others must first get the grunties together as a herd and moving in the right direction. She's no animal handler, but she's skilled at improvisation, and she'll hustle around to keep the strays in with the herd and try to get them all moving forward. This is tough, but she's getting the hang of things, it seems, chivvying the herd to move as she wants. She has an air of one accustomed to being obeyed.

It might be a pretty normal task for an animal handler to round up beasts to take them to market, but Kita is not an animal handler. The girl looks completely out of her element. A book-nerd who is ankle deep in muck and stinky creatures. "These are not pets. They're barely even food."

Standing in the middle of the group of grunties, Kita tries to get them to move to little avail. "Come on. Shoo. Go. Mush. Hee-yah." She flails her hands at them, not really wanting to touch the grunties in the process.

"Um, this isn't working." She explains.

"...How do you start a grunty?", Uta wonders. "Oh, do you do the spurs thing?", she wonders, and does, indeed, attempt to jab at the Grunty with the spiky items attached to her boots.

That was a mistake.

The grunty lets out an ear-piercing noise, and darts in all directions, but mostly in the middle of the herd, dispersing the grunties even more than they were before. "HELP! HELP!"

It takes more of Yeowang's skill and a LOT of patience from the owner before things are restored to normal.

* * *

The herd has been traveling for some time by now, when the Lander stops the party with a raised hand. "I, Mr.Farmer, sense something strange." He pulls on the reins of his own grunty, who comes to a halt, sniffs the air, and then announces, "Watch out! It's wolves!", pointing in the distance to underline his point.

Yeowang sees the wolves coming, and will try some of the outdoors things the game has seen fit to enable her with. A trap, to hold or deter or damage some of the wolves would be useful, but unfortunately, it's not ready by the time they're overrun, and then it's a frantic scramble just to fend them off, and to try and defeat them before they can eat too many of the grunties.

In the aftermath of bad grunty management, Kita ends up splattered in mud and looking more than a little perturbed for all of her efforts to get the lazy creatures to move. She lurks behind a bit, trying to give herself extra time to avoid any grunty patties that might be left behind as they head out.

She'd almost sunk into one of her books when Uta calls out about the wolves. Lifting her head, she sighs to herself. "All I wanted was a peaceful journey. But no."

She flicks her fingers in the air, making a few gestures that summon up a series of orbs filled with dark flame which circle her hand. From her place along the others, she oh-so-casually flicks them towards the wolves. "Get out of here. These aren't a free meal for you."

"...Let me take care of the final step!"

Uta inhales deeply, and then lets out a loud, powerful 'AROOOO!' which pierces the air and sends shivers down the spines of the wolves, who turn around and flee with their tails between their legs.

Mr.Farmer stares at Uta in surprise. "Where did you learn to do that?" "...Uh... night out at the inn with Shiruba. I think it involved leaving the inn and roaming the city and acting like idiots." She frowns. "At least I /think/ it was Shiruba. When you're drunk, all Wolf Cait sith look alike..."

The downside? All the fire and howling has startled and sent some grunties running off in all directions. "Hey, bring them back!", urges Mr.Farmer. "I'm going to deduct each lost grunty from your pay!"

Yeowang is skilled in tracking, though it seems the number of wolf tracks crossing the trail has her confused, and she follows one set o tracks for a few yards before losing it, and she's got to start searching again. It's frustrating, but she grits her teeth and keeps at it, though she's not doing much good, herself.

Kita eyes the Lander with an expression that could shoot daggers if she had that sort of ability. "I'm already not getting paid enough for this." She mutters.

Then, begrudgingly, the mage tucks her book under her arm and utilizes one of her spells in order to create glowing shields around parts of the herd, prevening more of the beasts from running off in the process. "If you can get them inside, I'll close it off. Maybe they'll calm down again."

She maintains the spell with her magic for a while, hoping the beasts relax once the danger is gone.

The shield is, indeed, effective in helping mantain control over the herd. The grunties are eventually gathered, and camp is set up.
Sitting next to the fireplace, it's the perfect moment to relax and enjoy a meal!

Mr.Farmer walks up to the group. "So, time to split the tasks. Who's cooking? Who's setting up the tents? Who's taking care of entertainment?"

It's going to be a poor night if Yeowang is left to cook, but she's never been camping, either, so leaving her to set up the tents is not a good proposition, either. It takes her some time to set them up, and they hang disconsolately, letting in the night breezes and the smell of grunty. It's not condusive to good rest.

Camping. Kita is not a fan. Nor is she particularly skilled at any of the tasks that regularly go along with camping. She can't set up tents, she can't cook, and well... "I can try to handle the entertainment." She offers.

The problem being, that it has been a long time since her alternate-persona had performed on stage. She hadn't actually done much playing since coming to this strange new world, and it wasn't common for her to play while still in the role of Kita. Kei always had more confidence.

She tries to play something, but it's tones are unfamiliar to the landers, which only makes them confused. The chords don't come out right and in the end, as most people wander off, she just shakes her head, resting her hands on the instrument, sighing to herself. "Yeah. I know. Kei would have been able to do this way better."

Uta walks away from the camp kitchen table into the clearing with a large pot. "Cheer up! I've prepared my favourite meal! This will make everything better!"

The liquid inside the pot sloshes as the vessel is dropped onto the floor. Hands planted firmly on her hips, Uta pulls her mouth in a wide grin. "Soggy crackers! The real thing! Like, actual water, and actual crackers! The only thing you can't mess up by menu-cooking it! Get your bowls out!" She dips her ladle into the pot. "So, who's first?"

The next day dawns bright, and after another short ride, the party reaches the market. "We are finally here. Now, hope that this step goes well," warns Mr.Farmer. "Your honorary will depend on how well the sale goes."

Yeowang awakes bleary-eyed and tired and hungry, but she'll get up and get the grunties moving. The tiny group drives them the rest of the way to market, the less said about the rough night, the better. When we get to market, though, she discovers a few things here -are- like the real world, her real world, and one of them is bargaining and negotiation, and that's something she actually excels at. She can talk circles around the less savvy landers, and she'll trip up the better ones on points of protocol.

Kita takes one look at Uta's offered 'meal' and then decides she'll just sleep on the hard ground, hungry tonight. In the end, she lays back, looking up at the stars, and lets out a sigh. "You know, if you were here, all of this wouldn't have felt nearly as bad." She murmurs to herself. "Miss you, Jurou-ai." Then, she rolls over and goes to sleep.

When morning comes, the girl does manage to wake up and trudge along to their final destination. "Right. Let's get this sale overwith so I can go home."

Then, as if nothing had ever gone wrong, she puts on a beaming smile and heads out, giving glowing words of appraisal to the grunties, drawing in buyers. The sudden shift of her persona might just lead one to wonder just how much of how she interacts day to day, is an act, just like this one.

"They are not /mangy/!", Uta retorts to a complain of the prospective purchaser. "They have been kept exercising to the limits of their capabilities to give their meat the best flavor possible! Look at this, look at /this/!", Uta says, and takes the buyer specifically to the Grunties that have been bitten by wolves. "See? These babies could outrun a pack of wolves! This is /premium/ rump steak, I tell you. And for the same price, they come with an enthralling story to tell /your/ customers. Let me tell you of the epic battle of the Adventurers against those ferocious brutes, and how we rained flame and fear among them, a triumph of sheer Adventurer spunk over Nature..."

The sale goes well, and the adventurers are awarded a bag of money and a complimentary steak meal, on Mr.Farmer! That should make up for the horrific thing we won't deign with the designation of 'meal' from the night before.

"Who is Kei?", Uta asks, all of a sudden, her mind snapping to a conversation from the day before. As Uta's mind is wont to.

Kita is just putting away the bag of coins when Uta asks that question. She looks over, seeming to really consider how much she wanted to tell the Spriggan. Only one person actually knew about Kei and that was Xander...

"Lead guitarist for Prophetic Underground. It's the J-rock band my dad founded five years ago." She explains. "They did some online recordings last year, but I don't think they have mainstream reach yet." She lifts her shoulders in a shrug. "I don't have nearly the confidence in my musical ability as any one member of the band." She shakes her head, a smirk on her lips.

Yeowang hrms as Kita explains about Kei. She's not familiar with J-rock in general, being Korean in RL, and only a recent arrival in Japan, so she's got no clue. She does allow, "Well, it was a rough night for all of us. I think you shouldn't let it deter you, it certainly wasn't the best evening for /any/ of us." Herself included, of course. "And grunties are hardly a substitute for a properly appreciative audience."

She will enjoy Mr. Farmer and the meal, at least, even if it's menu food.

"Nonsense!", exclaims Uta. "I liked your song. The Landers just happen to be a tough crowd. They like /their/ songs, and anything that is not that-" She blinks, and stands there with a piece of meat dangling from chopsticks held in mid-air. "...Hmmmm. I wonder if one can actually teach them new songs..."

She shakes her head. "And, uh, hey, I used to be like you in the past. Believing myself to be a no-good scatterbrain failure, and lacking the slightest amount of confidence and was terrified to even come close the easiest quests. But then I met Xander. He beat me up, mocked me, and sent me to get beaten up by other people, and look at me now! I'm a scatterbrain who occasionally gets something right and launches into endeavours of moderate difficulty with reckless abandon!"

She stuffs the piece of meat into her mouth and washes it down with a drink. "You know? We should try singing together some time or other. Come up with a rock opera or something."

Kita is quiet for a moment, perhaps taking in what both of them have to say. Eventually, she gives a nod to Yeowang. "I know."

As for Uta, well... she shakes her head. "I have plenty enough confidence with some things, others, not so much." She smirks, "I could flirt the pants off of most people if I wanted to, but I don't. Jurou would not be happy with me if I did."

Then, she folds her arms across her chest. "There's... more to it. I'm not sure I want to explain any of it right now. Let's just say that this..." She motions to all of her, "Has always been the problem."

As if that explained anything at all... "Anyways, I'm going to head back. Jurou will be waiting for me." Yep, she just avoids that whole topic.