As soon as they were spotted a crowd began to gather. One confident villager walked up waving his hand over his head to get there attention, despite being less than twenty meters away. 'We can see you' Krim caught sight of his own tentacles and swore under his breath, 'forgot all about this.' He shook his head at the weirdo and nudged Bargus “Bet you a gold this'll be about the tentacles.”

Bargus just laughed and shook his head clearly not interested in loosing money. The big man approaching them was finally satisfied he had their whole attention and dropped his arms.

“You can't bring those in here.” he stated as if he owned the world.

'Seems mighty imperious for a farmer.' Krim thought and put on a confused look. Jerking one of the bird holding tentacles forward he held the dead monster up for inspection. “Its just a bird, what's wrong with it?” he asked playing dumb.

“You know damn well what I'm talkin about. Those, things.” the farmer said jabbing a finger at the tentacle. “Ain't right. We got kids here, they don't need to be seeing that.” the farmer was getting red in the face now but whether from anger or embarrassment at being so close to the dripping tentacles Krim didn't know. Deciding that he'd had enough fun at the man's outrage he drew all his tentacles in.

“Better?” he asked as he reached down to pick up two of the birds letting the others take one each.

“Hardly. Their still there, just all inside you now. Your not coming in the village.”

Krim was the one getting red in the face now and it was definitely from anger. He was about to ask the guy just who he thought he was but Fredd jumped in to calm things down 'Ever the mediator' Krim thought taking a deep calming breath.

“There's no need for this. We're here from the adventurers guild in Krief, we have some deliveries in town and then there's a new farm to get set up.”

“No, we don't want his help here. Don't need any help a fleshy cultist can give us.”

Krim suppressed a desire to simply wrap the man up in tentacles until his whole body was numb. Seeing that Fredd was getting nowhere however, he decided he was done with this guy and pushed past him. The farmer spluttered and shouted but they just kept walking.

“If they attacks us I'll slime them but I think their all talk.” he said not looking back. The crowd that had gathered to watch scattered before them,

"Is it me or do they look realy frightened?" Fredd asked.

"Not us," Krim replied. "It's me and my slimy appendages."

They headed to the largest house they could see which should be the village elders'. The Elder turned out to be a man in his early forties who was currently speaking to a frantic young woman that kept shooting glances at Krim. “Alright you three, please come into my office.” He led the way while waving off the girl to see him later. His office was an austere room with a simple desk and only three chairs total forcing Bargus to stand, not that he minded.

“I'm Pat Fain, elected Elder of Opton. Quite a commotion you've caused.” he said and took a seat on the other side of the table. “Any particular reason you're terrifying the village?” He sounded incredibly weary for his age but Krim was still thought it was odd the man was the village Elder. 'Who elects an Elder? their just supposed to be the oldest people around.'

Fredd and Bargus looked to Krim who was getting really tired of all this. “I'm not terrifying anyone. I use the boon I was given just like everyone else. They freaked out for no reason.”

"No reason? About six years ago now, some crazy bastard ran through here. Went house to house slashing people with his claws.” He paused once again seeing the horrible events.

“ He praised Selaphos all the while, screaming his name. The psyco killed a a dozen people. We're not the only village to have trouble with them either, so no you're not just like everyone else. At best your a reminder of what's happened, at worst...” he let the sentence fall off and spread his arms wide. “I get that you're here for the job we posted. Please do it then leave.”

Krim sat forward to argue more but Bargus slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Forget it, we're here to do the job not make friends with the locals.”

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Fredd handed Pat the letters from the other two jobs with the elder assuring him they would get to the right people and had him sign the original job posting to confirm the job was done.

“You want to talk about it?” Bargus asked as Krim picked up and slammed a small hairy Vesk off the ground. The tiny beady eyed creatures had infested the field but posed no threat to anything except the soon to be planted crops.

“I should of known better than walking in with them out.” he said bitterly. That was the heart of his anger, It wasn't at the villagers. 'I knew how they'd react and then I made it worse on purpose with that idiot!' The more he thought about what happened the more annoyed with himself he became.

“I completely forgot about them while we were on the road.” Fredd chimed in while encouraging the weeds in the field to die.

“So did I until the village idiot started waving at me. Sorry I ruined things for us here.” Krim said. He felt bad that he'd messed up their first job before they could even start it.

“Nah, don't worry about it. Just keep them on the inside at the next village, until we need to strangle something of coarse.” Bargus said laughing.

Krim stepped back to let him blast a burrow with heat causing a stream on Vesk to pour out of another hole twenty meters away. “This is going to suck.” Bargus muttered.

It was well past dark by the time they had cleared the marked out field, got the elder to sign off on the job complete and Fredd was even able to sell the four chorans, saving them from dragging them home.

Krim was happy to be heading back but none of them were happy travelling at night. The forest on either side of the road was filled with the cries of monsters, the moon shone brightly on the clear road so they went without a torch to try and avoid notice.

There was a loud growl above them and only Krims raised tentacles saved them from being mauled. “Told you we wouldn't make it without being attacked.” Fredd said

Krim grunted and wrapped the creature up. It took all his restraints not to scream when its claws sank into the meaty tentacles that quickly ruined its hunt. Bargus couldn't attack without hurting him and it was too high off the ground for Fredd to help. Krim slammed it to the ground head first in what was quickly becoming his signature move and kept slamming until it stopped clawing at him. He quickly withdrew the damaged tentacles and grew new ones. 'Kinda feels like cheating' he thought and chucked the unknown monster into the forest.

“Hey! What are you doing we could of sold that.” Bargus stopped and cried.

Krim and Fredd just kept walking though forcing him to catch up. “It would of attracted worse stuff. I'm going to grow more of these out in case anything sneaks up again.” Krim had tentacles in every direction nowjust waiting for something to touch them.

Horrific screams followed them along the road, It was a high shrill scream filled terror. It imitated a girls fearful screech but everyone who lived near this forest knew it wasn't a real person.

Krim went over what he knew about them to keep his mind focused. He knew they were bipedal and that they were tall gangly things with hooked blades for hands. 'And they never shut up' he plugged his ears with his fingers as a nother cry assaulted them.

Their cries echoed through the woods making it hard to tell how many there were but Krim was confident it was just one of them. “Can we just go kill that thing? Its so much worse than I thought.” Bargus moaned through clenched teeth. They'd all heard Screamers at night but the distance and wooden wall around the town deadened the sound.

Another ear splitting shriek vibrated through his whole body. “Fuck it!” He turned to his left and blasted a searing stream of superheated air into the darkness. Unsurprisingly starting a small forest fire and increasing the screams from the now on fire Screamer.

“At least we can see it now.” Fredd said a little dazed from the sudden light.

They could see the monster lurching around crashing into smouldering trees. Its gait was uneven due to having one horribly misshapen leg that was a stiletto of bone from the knee down.

Fredd reached out with his boon focusing on the burning branch above it, His face twisted in effort and they could see a large purple vein pulsing on his forhead.

Suddenly the branch reached down and clubbed the Scramer over the head knocking it out. Fredd stumbled only to be caught by a handful of tentacles.

“Nice one, try not to burst a vessel though.” Krim joked and set him back on his unsteady feet. The small fire quickly died out since the grass and trees were still damp with the cool night air and there was far more smoke than fire.

“I don't want to see another damn monster until we're back at the guild.” Bargus stated to the stunned disbelief of the others.

“Why the hell would you say that!” Fredd shouted.

Bargus just waved him off and yawned “There's not much worse out here than them and the Choran.”

“You need to shut up, right now. Is this some kind of reverse jinx were you actually want monsters to attack us?”

Fredd punched Bargus in the arm when he tried to speak. “Not another word until we're back.”

Krim just smiled and kept quiet watch on the forest. 'He's not wrong, there's nothing too dangerous out here.'