Master Of None

Gil was the only one that had slept through the night, Walker had tried to take first watch but was threatened by Remey to sleep first. As much as he tried to resist the second his head hit the pillow he was out cold. Later he was woken up by Midnight who had been raking watch and he realized he would have the last watch of the night. Having the time to watch the sun rise while he walked idly around their camp Walker began to see more and more of the damage he had caused. 

The crater that had been made from his attacks had devastated the grass that had previously grown here. The earth that had been cooked from defending the party from the flames was almost like sand now. He had not intended this kind of damage at all, even worse were the small drifts of ash that the wind had played with through the night. He knew that these were the bodies of the horned rabbits they had wanted to defeat. The horde of rabbits was definitely a plight on the plains but in his actions he had destroyed a spot in the plains as well, was it really better than what the rabbits would have done as they grew?

Walker was staring at the crater and the sandy soil all around, he sarcastically thought it was like a messed up beach just instead of water there was ash everywhere. However this sarcastic thought may have held merit. 

Walker raised a hand and ,manipulated a gust of air to blow away a large portion of the ash around. He looked about seeing a lot of the snow that had melted from the flames and been frozen again by the chilling winds. The ice looked rather beautiful in the rising oranges of the sun, however Walker needed it to melt again. Using his elemental manipulation he channeled mana in to the ice causing it to turn back in to water and flow toward the crater he had created. 

The small streams of water moved in to the crater easily filling it up and showing off the bits of green grass that had survived the flames due to heavier snow coverage than other spots. The sandy solid and the small pond that had just been a crater reflected in the sun. This was a view perfect for a painting, now the damage had not been undone but through his efforts Walker had hope that as the grass grew back the animals and monsters in the plains could stop her to drink. There was even a chance that some traveling merchants would make this a regular stop on the way between the two kingdoms. That was all he could hope for.

”Well I would say that looks much better.” Gil’s voice surprised him from behind. He had been the next wake up and found that Walker was staring sadly at the damage. But when Walker had gained a bit more sternness to his face and used his elemental manipulation Gil knew things were about to change. 

He had seen the wind blowing the ashes away and scattering them in to the plains, this was often something those in the fields would do with ash from their fireplace to add some nutrients to their soil, however he wasn’t sure of Walker knew this or was just cleaning up a but. The sight of the water then trickling in to the crater put a smile on his face knowing that even though the spells had harmed the area it may end up better for it in the long term. ”Looks pretty great to me, sorry about the whole sleeping all night thing. I guess those wind elemental arrows take more mana out of me than I thought. I’m pretty sure Remey is going to try and beat me up pretty hard for it.” Laughing a bit he gave Walker a bump on the arm as a greeting.

”Well she did hit me twice, but not as hard as i think she will hit you.” Walker’s sideways smile made Gil wrinkle his forehead in worry. ” We may have bitten off more than we could chew with this one. We were too reckless, we may have been better off risking a retreat. It was a miracle we didn’t alert them as we got near in the first place.”

Seeing him shake his head Gil wanted to hit Walker himself. ”Was it reckless? Yes, but we made the choice together and we did the best we could. At the very least we choose how we would fight instead of running away and potentially being beaten while literally laying down on the ground.” Gil was adamant in his words, he believed that even though things looked bad now they were better off making their own chives and sticking to them. ”You know those horned rabbits would have eaten much more of the plains before someone got to them, do you think the adventurer’s guild would have just left them be? We found them early but there are sure to be more groups like this out here. Hopefully we just made a difference.” This was much stronger insight from Gil than he was used to and it sounded very viable.

What if there were more hordes of the horned rabbits that were destroying the grasses before they could even start to grow? What if they were left to breed more in the warming weather? The adventurers guild would be forced to action to send large groups of adventures to get rid of them or trim the population. How many travelers or merchants would die or be harmed before the guild learned of what was happening. All these questions were flooding Walker’s mind and only went to make him realize how dangerous large groups of monsters suddenly expanding could be. 

Unknown to all of them Clara had seen the notifications of all the horned rabbits being defeated and looked back in to the records for past instances of such things.She had come up with documents from fifteen years ago about an early spring which had given the horned rabbits the chances to breed more and grow faster. This had led to hordes of horned rabbits leaving the plains and devastating crops for all surrounding kingdoms. These reasons in particular caused her to push off to the Guild master immediately. 

Three sharp knocks rang on the guild master’s office door before Clara burst in with the documents she had found, Ibis was far from surprised since he was getting used to Clara being the only one with such a habit. Out of all the managers in the guild Clara was the only one with the courage enough to burst in to his office and start throwing some of the most outrageous sounding things at him, he loved it. ”Master Ibis we may have a horned rabbit outbreak on our hands!” Ibis dropped his quill to the desk, his eyes locked on to Clara. 

”What do you mean we might have a horned rabbit outbreak again? Do you know how bad that was fifteen years ago? Even I was out in the plains trying to cull the numbers from those pests.” Ibis remembered the weeks he spent roaming around constantly harassed by horned rabbits at every turn. 

”The omnipotent party defeated seventy four of them all at once just a few hours ago. I went through the archived documents and found that an outbreak had occurred before. With the warming weather and the number that they defeated I believe it is safe to say are facing a similar occurrence. What would you like to do?” Clara’s entrance had made the air thick with tension, Ibis was not going to struggle with this decision in the least.

”I have faced this before and I know how bad the kingdom hurt for years after this. I never wish to see those in the lower tier deprived of food over such a matter as not being prepared to defend the farms. The people were failed last time, but this time we will rise to the challenge. I am about to issue a guild wide extermination quest, get every first floor employee awake and ready, it will be a long few days.” Ibis had relayed his orders and within the next second almost every guild employee was being woken. The dissection employees were on the list as well rushing to clear the basement to make way for a massive amount of horned rabbits to show themselves. 

’ Guild wide extermination quest- emergency quest

The guild has gathered information from the plains that the horned rabbit population is facing an outbreak. Every adventurer is required to register and begin patrolling the areas around the farmlands. Silver tier and above will be allowed to move out in to the plains to hunt larger groups of horned rabbits. Each defeated horned rabbit will be registered and rewarded with three gold. Parties that go above and beyond will be considered for a tier advancement test. Protect our kingdom’s livelihood and prosperity!

requirement :

Exterminate Horned rabbits

Reward:

3G each horned rabbit defeated.’