At the crack of dawn I woke the gang up, we had a quick breakfast. It is going to be a busy day. The market place although open was relatively deserted. It makes sense though as it is very early.

The rising sun signaled the start of a life or death struggle. The haggle wars! I'm not going to pay a single coin more than I have to. I can't to be honest I'm broke. Odalcet and Eve have their money but I can't borrow any of it if I am to maintain my reputation.

Okay what do I need? Food? no I'll forage on the spot. Some oils for the mace that is going to run me 1 caes. Assorted vegetables 2 caes gone. My heart cries at every purchase.

The worst part was the bedroll. After pleading, begging for mercy and gods know what else I formed a crack in the heart of the woman who sold leather wares, she agreed to accept an IOU for one caes, my dignity took a hit but I can sleep with an acceptable degree of comfort. Poverty my old friend we meet again, huh you brought your friend debt how nice of you; after all misery loves company.

after having my soul crushed by my circumstances once again I went back to the inn to wait for Odalcet and eve to come back.

Once reunited, sometime before noon, we headed to the gate where a young guard with light hair stood. He seemed rather inexperienced and was glancing at his surroundings. When he saw us with a bright smile he came over. Wait is he really a he? his(?) features were rather fair and his face had a soft and warm feeling to it.

Shaking the weird thoughts from my head I extend my hand to salute him.

"Hello, my name is Prudan. Are you a part of the subjugation force?"

He/she from now on refered to as guard grabbed my hand with a relatively light grip. Guard's hands are really soft.

With a flustered face guard says.

"Ah, yes... I'm Fir. I will be guiding and keeping score on this subjugation. It seems everyone is here we should go soon."

So guard's name is Fir, well lets introduce the gang.

"Right, these two behind me are Eve and Odalcet."

The two of them raise a hand and wave when I mention them. I will tell some vital advise to guard so that there are no tragedies in our future, I lean in to whisper.

"If you value your life stay away from Odalcet, else Eve will have your head."

Fir looks at me with fearful eyes, I guess I should clear Eve's name.

"She's a good person and reliable too just don't get between her and Odalcet."

Fir nods, looks like the situation was understood. I mean I would hate to have a murder in my hands, especially so if I could have prevented it.

With the introductions and warnings out-of-the-way we made our way to the plains north of the city. Vast rolling hills filled with crops and farmers fill our vision. These farms are the life blood of the city, although the city can hold for a couple of months in a siege it wouldn't be pretty.

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 After two hours of walking we reached the northernmost farmhouse, along the way Fir explained how this job would be carried out. There's around 150 people taking part in this subjugation. We are divided in groups of 10 people and assigned an area to clean. The areas are around 1 acre per group. If we clean our area too quickly we can join the subjugation on the areas next to us. With this system groups can also help each other. Our group is currently on the western flank of the subjugation force, being the newest and smallest one. There are seven other people staying at this farmhouse with us, they are from a guild called "Legendary Dawn".

Apparently Legendary dawn has 40 people participating in this, and according to Fir they are renowned in the city although their services are a bit expensive. They all had decent equipment, four of them had a spear and a shield while the rest looked like magicians. Although they were well equipped with armor and everything they seemed inexperienced, at most having gone thru some training.

"Lucky us, now that they've grouped us with them we will surely return with the most zombie kills."

And of course they completely underestimated us, they didn't even mean to insult us. Because we have a whole acre for the ten of us I will ignore them. The guard that was in charge of our area was Fir. apparently they aren't expecting too much action in this sector so they left Fir in charge.

We are currently staying at the barn of the farmhouse, the farmers let us stay because they know we are here to kill all the zombies, besides most of the people here are from the city so they are hardly strangers.

At first light Fir woke everyone up and we decided how we should face the upcoming task. To put it simply it went like this.

"We will advance while killing the zombies anyone disagrees?"

""No.""

That was all the strategy involved. To be fair we are cleaning up not facing an organized army. We have to bring the ears of all the zombies we kill so that Fir can tally them up. And so we set off the legendary (pfff) guys would take the east while we would advance on the west.

"Prudan, to kill a zombie we must damage the head right?"

"Yes, a useful tactic is getting their legs first so that you can smash their head in when they are on the ground."

Our first encounter wasn't anything a bard would sing about, we encountered around 7 zombies shambling across a field. Eve and Odalcet were unsettled at the decaying bodies but recomposed themselves after I called their names. With a mix of Ice bolts and a bit of hand to hand combat we dispatched them fairly easy. After that they started to get their technique down and we got relatively good at killing the walking corpses. By the time we decided to return to the barn we had collected 50 ears. The fact that while being in the outermost region of the subjugation and we still managed to get this many didn't escape me.

When we returned to the barn we were greeted by a Fir having a rather concerned face. The legendary guys were all huddled together apparently one got injured, should have trained more bragged less.

"Fir, what happened?"

"The number of undead is higher than we thought, the center encountered a legion. They are requesting support and also now you will be paid regardless of zombies killed. Every participant that survives this subjugation will be paid 600 caes."

mmm... where could all these undead come from, doesn't matter right now though we need to secure this flank. Looks like this will turn into a meat grinding job. Fir continued talking about the new orders.

"Right now the horde is some distance away. The plan is to have the flanks push harder while the center holds to envelop and then destroy the undead horde."

"So we will start pushing towards the east while regrouping with the groups that are in the way?"

 "Yes, that is the idea. We should also try to cover as much ground as we can so that no zombies slip thru."

"Okay, from now on we will stay together, with spears and mages we have a reach advantage over them, we are also faster."

Everyone nods, the earlier relaxed mood is gone we all know we are in for a rough ride.

The next morning we started sweeping eastwards.