“So... where is this Tweety Farm?” Charlotte asked as she and Dorothy walked away from the chaos at the guild.

“Um... hold up... I think I saw something on the guild card... Oh, here. You can eat these,” Dorothy said, handing the sack of remaining dusted roses to Charlotte.

Charlotte took the paper sack and looked inside. “Oh,” she said pleasantly with raised eyebrows. She reached inside and took a fried dough puff that had been shaped to look like a rose and dusted with powdered sugar and carefully inspected it as Dorothy fumbled through the guild card functions. Charlotte stuck her tiny pink tongue out and licked a bit of the sugar off. Her eyes grew large and a funny smile crawled across her lips. She placed the toe of one of her forelimbs on Dorothy’s shoulder and closed her eyes as she set the rose into her mouth and chewed slowly.

“Ah! Here it is,” Dorothy announced. Under the Active ReQuests tab, in the corner of the ReQuest info screen, was a small picture of what looked like the sort of compass symbol that you see on maps. When Dorothy touched the symbol a new screen opened up with a map of sorts. The map was incomplete with large chunks of the city missing. It looked as if the map of the city had been covered by dirt and only a few paths like a worm making tunnels had been removed revealing the picture below.

[http://img.wulongti.com/rr/autodot/capital_city-track1.jpg]

Upon closer inspection, Dorothy realized that she was that worm and the revealed parts of the map were all paths that she had taken since she got her guild card. On the right side of the blacked out map, a little green circle blinked away. That seemed to be the starting location for their ReQuest so they just had to head in that direction. The map would fill itself out as they went. In fact, Dorothy could see a small tunnel being dug in the blackness as they walked, though there wasn’t any other indicator of where they were on the map.

“Looks like we need to head east... it’s probably past the East Gate so we need—” Dorothy began and completely lost her train of thought when she saw Charlotte.

Charlotte looked back at her with an innocent expression, though her face and chest were covered in powdered sugar. It was even in her hair. She gave a little cough and a puff of sugar burst from her mouth.

“There um... some mistakes were made...” Charlotte said, blinking away some of the sugar around her eyes.

Dorothy couldn’t contain herself and burst into laughter. After she regained her composure, she helped her friend find a cloth from her saddle bag to clean up with.

“So you liked them, huh?” Dorothy asked.

“Those were cursed... you gave me a cursed item... I need more...” Charlotte replied as she wiped her face and dusted off her chest.

“Maybe I can get some more tomorrow when I deliver to the bakery again.”

“Cursed.” Charlotte repeated and tucked away her cloth.

“ANY way... The farm we want is Tweeds farm and I think it’s out past the East Gate. Do you know anything about Cabbage Trolls?”

“No... Never seen one.”

“Well that makes two of us then... Oh yeah, I meant to ask you: have you ever heard of a psi-boar?”

“Oh yeah...” Charlotte said in a tone that suggested she was very familiar with them. “They use psychic attacks to make you hallucinate to distract you before they attack. Very territorial. I’ve never eaten one though... I hear that the meat makes you see visions...”

“Yeah that sounds like what I ran into yesterday...”

“Oh right, you went back out again. How did that go?”

“Other than running into a psi-boar and just barely escaping with my life, I did manage to find and kill another blast hawk so I can charge my shots with an explosion effect now.”

“That’s pretty neat... It must be great to be able to just upgrade yourself like that whenever you want...”

“I do like that aspect... but I miss my mama’s cooking a lot. And those dusted roses... I could sorta smell them in a way that tells me exactly how much of every ingredient that was used in making them along with what kind of soap the baker used when they washed their hands... But there’s no good or bad or anything... just... ingredients and numbers...”

“Really? Soap?”

“Lavender. Which means it was Joy that made that batch. Ryan just smells like yeast.”

“That’s crazy... You should be a detective...”

“Heh, Detective Dorothy, private investigator! No job too small, no fee too large!”

Charlotte giggled at the joke and handed her guild card over to the guardsman as they passed through the gate. “So what time are you doing the delivery? Maybe I could meet you at the bakery...”

“I got the ReQuest late, so today was a lot later than they wanted. Tomorrow I’ll go straight to the mill to pick up the delivery at 3rd bell.”

“Nevermind!” Charlotte said, looking hard to the side. “I have plans already and I simply can’t break my engagement I’m afraid.”

“I figured you’d be sleeping then.”

“Yes. Those are the plans.”

The girls giggled and joked as they left the city. There was a small collection of buildings belonging to different farmers and merchants as well as a camp sight for those that arrived past the gate closing time. Dorothy also spotted a small package goods shop. Papa always said that you should only shop at these sort of places if you’re desperate. According to him, they just buy the same stuff from the same shops as inside the city and then charge double or triple in their shops. It was a bit of a racket that preyed on convenience.

On either side of the road they walked were fields behind fences. Unlike the wheat fields on Pepperidge Farm, these fields looked to be used for growing other crops like vegetables, some orchards filled with different fruit trees, and even open areas for grazing horses or cattle.

“Why can’t these farm quests be closer to the city...” Charlotte complained.

“Yeah, it takes so long to get to them when walking. I’m tempted to start running to get there quicker.”

“Running? As it is, I’m going to be exhausted by the time we show up for the job! These legs were not made for long distance travel...”

“I feel like I could keep walking forever... the boredom would kill me though... OH! I forgot to tell you, this morning when I met Ryan from the bakery, he picked me up and flew me up to the North Gate. Oh, Ryan is a raven person. I was terrified, but it was still amazing seeing the city from so high up.”

“I don’t think I can talk to you right now. Not only is this hike through endless farmlands not bothering you, but you got to fly like a bird...”

“Oh I’m sorry! It was pretty crazy. Would you ever want to fly?”

“No, I think I’d silk myself...” Charlotte said, looking disgruntled.

Dorothy nodded in sympathy. Not having the ability to soil herself was probably the only thing that prevented such an embarrassment during her trip in the air. Dorothy brought up the map again and she could see the little tunnel digging away and revealing the parts of the map that they traveled through. It was hard to tell exactly where the starting point was since it was still in black territory but it looked like they were headed in the right direction.

[http://img.wulongti.com/rr/autodot/capital_city-track2.jpg]

Using the tunneling of the map to tell where they were, Dorothy veered off of the main road and into one of the fields. They ended up having to climb two fences but found themselves in the backyard of a farmhouse sitting right where the glowing green dot was on the map.

Dorothy and Charlotte could hear bangs and thuds coming from a shed followed by a small explosion and thick black smoke erupting from the windows and doorway. Dorothy ran to the door and tried fanning away the smoke to see inside.

“Are you okay??” she yelled into the room.

“Whaa? Who’s that?” a gruff voice called back, followed by rasping and coughing.

Dorothy pushed into the smoke and fumbled around following the sound of the coughing until she felt a thick and furry body. She grabbed the person as best she could and pulled them out of the shed until they were laying outside in the open air. An old gnoll with thick and matted fur with tufts of white around his muzzle, long salt and pepper hair, and a thick, white, braided beard; coughed the remains of the smoke from his lungs. He rolled over and propped himself up onto his elbows to hack the last of it up.

Heroforge doesn't have a legless option or wheelchair, so I had to fake him sitting on a box...

[http://img.wulongti.com/rr/autodot/Norrak.jpg]

“I... I can’t feel my legs...” the gnoll groaned.

Charlotte drifted her eyes down the length of the gnoll and shrieked when she saw that his legs ended at the knees.

“His legs! Where are his legs!” Charlotte shouted, looking around in a panic.

Dorothy rushed back into the shed and frantically looked around. Most of the smoke had now cleared out and she could see a room filled with various contraptions in various states of completion— all covered in a layer of soot. At a work table, she found a chair that had fallen backward, with wheels on the sides. Her worry over the old man suddenly evaporated and she casually wheeled the chair out of the shed.

“I, um... found your legs,” she said, pushing the chair over to the old man.

The gnoll threw his head back and laughed, slapping the ground a couple of times. Some more coughing spasms took him and he settled down enough to push himself up to a seated position. Then, with effortless strength, he pulled himself up into his chair and Dorothy noticed how broad and muscled his upper body was. He was stripped to the waist with only some bandages wrapped around his middle and old, patched pants that were tied off below the knees to cover his stumps. One of his eyes was a bright and clear brown, but the other appeared to be blinded by a cataract.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Give me back my concern...” Charlotte said to the gnoll, as she folded her arms and humphed.

“Norrak Tweed, you done having a laugh with those kids and ready to get back to work?” an old gnoll woman said from the farmhouse back door. Her fur had a lot of gray and white mixed in now but was still dark in some places. She wore a simple tunic and apron over her full figure and leaned against the door frame with an amused expression.

[http://img.wulongti.com/rr/autodot/Gina.jpg]

“I’m sorry about his sense of humor girls,” the gnoll woman said sympathetically. “What can we do for you?”

“We’re... from the guild...” Charlotte said.

“We’ve accepted your ReQuest about the cabbage trolls?” Dorothy added.

“Ah! Great!” Norrak said, “I’ll take you down to the plumpkin fields where they’ve been attacking. You ever dealt with cabbage trolls?”

“No sir,” Dorothy answered. “I think I’ve heard of them... but that’s it. I’ve never seen one.”

“Me neither... we never saw them in the deep forest where I grew up...” Charlotte added.

“Alright, follow me,” Norrak directed. “Gina! Where are my field legs at?”

Gina rolled her eyes and pointed to the side of the shed where a contraption that looked like a small carriage crossed with the body of a four legged ant was collapsed on the ground. Norrak muttered something that could have been gratitude, or possibly a curse. It was hard to tell. He wheeled his chair over to the contraption and lowered his body onto it. After strapping his leg stumps into specially fitted grooves, and a belt around his waist, he flicked a number of switches and what looked like the “ant” abdomen lit up with the edge lights typical of a large mana battery.

The ant body came to life and lifted Norrak up onto the mechanical legs. “Here we go,” Norrak grumbled. “Only get an hour or so on each charge so let’s get you to work.” He put his hands onto the control handle and visibly concentrated on something. Then the legs started moving and in a jerky fashion he walked off in the direction of the fields.

Dorothy and Charlotte jogged to catch up with him and returned a wave to Gina as they left the farmhouse.

“Okay, so listen up. These cabbage trolls have been attacking my plumpkins,” Norrak stated.

“Attacking?” Charlotte asked, “They aren’t stealing them or eating them?”

“What? No, these aren’t like the pests you might be used to. Cabbage trolls are a highly territorial and invasive plant species. They see my field as a great spot to expand their territory into and my plumpkins as the native residents to be conquered.”

“Wait... So these things are basically a raiding party attacking what they think is a plumpkin village?” Dorothy summarized.

“That’s the long and short of it,” Norrak agreed. “You can think of this as very aggressive weeding. They’re too quick for me and Gina and I’m not about to go poisoning my fields to get rid of them. I supply a fair amount of produce to the castle after all.”

“Do we just chase off or kill whatever we see in your field?” Charlotte asked.

“That won’t be good enough. You’ll need to find their source root, it’s like a nest, and kill that. Without it, the individual trolls won’t be able to survive. You’ll also need to kill all the little buggers off before one of them gets picked to dig in and become a new source root for the others.”

“This... is starting to sound like a bigger deal than I thought it would be...” Charlotte sighed.

“That’s the field there,” Norrak said, pointing. “Come see me up at the house when you’re done.”

Dorothy and Charlotte glanced at each other to steel themselves and entered the plumpkin field. The field was a mess. Smashed and crushed plumpkins littered the field, their large purple husks torn open and the seeds and flesh strewn about. Something had been very angry that these vegetables were here. A plumpkin is a bit of a cross between a large round gourd with a hard, shell-like, purple skin and a tomato with a soft, fleshy interior and goopy seeds. Mama has a fantastic recipe for plumpkin sauce and pasta that was handed down from her mother, who got it from her mother, who got it from a traveling merchant. Plumpkins were usually a pretty hearty plant and easy to grow since most pests couldn’t get through the thick shell and normally grew up to half a meter high if well cared for.

Movement caught Dorothy’s eye and she drew her sword and transformed her gun arm to track something that had darted between the rows. She tried adding the other vision modes but whatever it was blended right in with the surrounding vegetation. Charlotte held a handful of seeds in each hand, the green magical energy beginning to gather around her.

A plant creature of some kind was pummeling away one of the plumpkins with a heavy rock. The creature, presumably a cabbage troll, was slightly larger than the plumpkin it was smashing. It was humanoid in shape, but with short stumpy, footless legs that looked more like tree trunks and long arms that ended in two clawed fingers and a thumb. Its head resembled that of a rabbit’s with long ears and a small bunny face with large eyes, though five of them. Instead of fur, it was covered in leaves of various sizes. If you squinted then its head did sort of resemble a cabbage with long leafy ears.

Dorothy took aim and released a shot with [Blast] at the troll. The creature didn’t even notice the incoming shot and was hit by the clay round directly in the chest. The force of the blow knocked it back, then the explosion effect kicked in and leaves and chunks of plant matter were sent in all directions within a meter radius.

The sound of the small explosion must have startled the others and Dorothy and Charlotte found themselves surrounded by a dozen or two more trolls as they popped their heads up from among the broad leaves of the plumpkin vines. Charlotte cast her seeds in a wide area around her and thorned vines instantly took root, reaching for and ensnaring trolls. The trolls didn’t seem to care about Charlotte’s thorns and started chewing on the vines with wedge shaped buck teeth.

Dorothy raced from one trapped troll to the next, lopping their heads off with her sword. As fun as it was to make them pop with her explosive rounds, she had a limited amount of ammo. More trolls took off running in different directions, forcing Dorothy and Charlotte to give chase. They ran across the fields, hunting down the creatures using a combination of clay rounds, sword, dagger, and plumpkin vines. The creatures didn’t try to attack Dorothy or Charlotte, though they were still focused on trying to finish off the plumpkins and would only run away if the girls got close.

“Now where’s that source root?” Dorothy asked, looking around for more of the trolls.

Charlotte folded her legs under her and closed her eyes, placing her hands on the ground. The green plant magic energy swirled around her hands and seeped into the dirt. After a moment, Charlotte’s eyes sprung open and she took off at an eight legged run.

“Come on! This way!” she shouted.

Dorothy chased after her, out of the field and through the uncultivated area edging the forest. A few more trolls popped their heads up only to explode from one of Dorothy’s [Blast] rounds. Into the forest, Charlotte led. She was clearly tracking something that Dorothy couldn’t see or sense. She would stop and look around, run for another couple of meters and stop again to touch the ground with her magic then take off running again. As they wound their way through the trees and underbrush, Dorothy would kill any more trolls that they came across.

Finally, at the edge of the river, Charlotte stopped and waited for Dorothy to catch up. When Dorothy arrived, Charlotte just pointed to a twisted knot of plants and vines and leaves forming some sort of living cave right on the river bank.

“That’s the source root,” Charlotte confirmed. “It’s huge... I don’t know how we’re supposed to kill it...”

“As a veggie mage, what do you think would be its biggest weakness?” Dorothy asked, the beginnings of an idea forming.

“Probably... blight... weevils... maybe slugs...” Charlotte said, trying to think of more potential hazards for the huge knot of a plant.

“What about fire?” Dorothy asked.

“I guess? Though if it’s this close to the river then it probably... has a very large water content... and probably won’t burn well...”

“Can you dry it out with your magic?”

“Some... but it’ll keep drawing more in from the river...”

“Crumbs... I have a flare and I was hoping to be all clever and just shoot it with a flare and call it a day,” Dorothy said, dejected.

“You might... be onto something...” Charlotte considered, giving Dorothy hope.

“Oh?”

“Let’s... stuff it with kindling... I can dry as much as I can... and you can light it up...”

“This is a great plan!” Dorothy said, enthusiastically.

The two searched the surrounding area for fallen branches and sticks and started piling them up inside of the source root cave. Inside, Dorothy could see more trolls in the process of forming from the walls. Little, half formed, plant-rabbit-monkey monsters just waiting to crawl out and spread the root’s territory. When Dorothy and Charlotte had the cave filled up with branches and dried leaves they stepped back and Charlotte used her plant magic to try and reverse the flow of water through the roots to dry the source out as much as possible. It didn’t want to listen to her magic and fought against her but she was able to hold back the flow of water and nutrients for a bit. With sweat dripping from her brow, she turned to Dorothy and nodded for her to send in her flare.

Dorothy switched out her ammo for the flare and took aim into the opening of the source root and fired using [Blast]. The flare round sailed directly into the hole, and through the tangle of branches, striking against the inside of the source root. The small explosive effect sent blazing hot embers throughout the plant and quickly ignited all the tinder that had been placed inside. In a matter of moments the leaves and dry branches were ablaze and thick, white smoke plumed out of the plant.

Charlotte backed away from the heat and smoke pouring out but Dorothy found that she wasn’t particularly bothered by either. She started grabbing larger branches that they had prepared and shoved them into what was becoming a roaring bonfire. It would probably take hours for this entire thing to burn up as well as digging out the root ball to make sure it didn’t grow back.

“Hey,” Dorothy called out to her friend. “I’ll watch the fire, if you want to go back to the farmhouse and tell Farmer Tweed our progress. We also need to collect the troll heads for a pay bonus.”

“Hmm... okay...” Charlotte nodded and scuttled off, back through the woods.

Dorothy regarded the fire again and added another thick branch. Thankfully, nothing wanted to grow near this thing so there wasn’t any danger of the fire spreading, though the smoke could probably be seen from the city. Dorothy looked out on the river, she didn’t know her geography really well, but it should be the same river that feeds into the city. The river was wide enough to allow merchant ships to travel along it and bring imported goods from the coast. At this point in the river, it looked to be pretty far to the other side. Just how far was it?

Little numbers and arrows were always showing up in Dorothy’s HUD but it had gotten easy to ignore them after a while. This time she paid attention to a little symbol that looked like a bunch of vertical lines packed close together. When she focused on it, the symbol moved around to where she would look and jumped onto different things in her vision. She looked down at her boots and the symbol jumped onto her toe. The thought came to her head that somehow she was locking the symbol to that point. When she looked up again, the symbol came with her but now there was a thin glowing line leading back to her toe.

She looked across the river and thought again about locking the symbol to a place on the opposite side. This time, the symbol went away and was replaced with “838m”.

“Well that’s handy,” Dorothy said aloud.

“What’s handy?” came the gruff voice of Norrak from behind her.

Dorothy turned around to see him making his way through the forest underbrush in his contraption legs with Charlotte leading the way.

“Oh, nothing,” Dorothy said, embarrassed to be caught talking to herself. “I just learned that I have a function that can measure distances...”

“That IS pretty handy,” Norrak agreed. “I’ll have to get you to come help out when it’s time to redo the field plots.”

“Sure... I guess just let the guild know...”

“So this is the source root, eh? Looks like you girls got all the cabbage trolls too, nice work. I can take care of digging up the root ball, you don’t need to worry about that. Come on back to the house and we can square up.”

“What about the fire?” Dorothy asked.

“Eh, I’ve got an imp that helps me out in the fields. He wouldn’t be able to take care of the trolls, but he can watch a fire. He likes eating the coals anyway.”

Norrak whistled and a small imp came crashing through the trees after a couple of minutes. It growled and snarled and yipped, and Norrak growled and snarled and yipped back at it. The two seemed to be having a conversation composed of guttural sounds that Dorothy couldn’t decipher. At last, Norrak nodded and the imp scampered off to the bonfire and carefully crawled inside of the plant-based furnace. It seemed to be perfectly content at the heart of the flames and would occasionally pull a chunk of roasted, half-formed, plant-rabbit-monkey from the walls and chomp away on it. Dorothy wondered if she should have collected those heads before lighting the pyre for their bonus but it was too late now.

The adventurers and farmer headed back to the farmhouse and not a single troll head was to be seen. Charlotte must have gathered them all already and found a way to store them in her bags. When they got to the house, Gina opened the door to them and beckoned them to enter. Inside, she’d set the table for lunch and was clearly excited to have visitors.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “you girls have been working hard for Norrak so I wanted to give you a little reward of my own. I’ve made plumpkin pie with winter sausage.”

“That sounds... delicious...” Charlotte remarked as she wasted no time finding a spot at the table.

“That does... sound tasty...” Dorothy began, “but I can’t eat food with this automata body, I’m afraid... Would you mind if I brought some home to share with my parents?”

“Aww... such a good girl, isn’t she Norrak? Of course dear. I’ll wrap some up for you.”

“You don’t eat anything at all?” Norrak asked.

“Just mana... and I guess you could say I sorta consume mana crystals,” Dorothy offered.

“Hmm,” Norrak thought, rolling his wheelchair up to the table. “Hey Gina, you still got those old mana crystals laying around?”

“Oh! I do! Half a mo,” she said, perking up and bustling out of the dining area to a back room. She returned holding an old jewelry box and opened it up, sifting through the contents. “I have these four here, dear,” she said, handing them over to Dorothy. “They aren’t worth much, I’m afraid. I just kept them because I thought they looked pretty.”

“Oh, you don’t need to! Really,” Dorothy protested.

“Nonsense,” Norrak grumbled. “We have a strict policy of not letting people go unfed on this farm. I don’t care if you’re an Automata or rock gnome. If we can offer something, we’ll offer it.”

“You’re very kind... thank you,” Dorothy said, touched.

Charlotte was well into her portion of the meal, with no signs of slowing down. Norrak had started eating as well, but Gina looked at Dorothy expectantly.

“So what do you do with the crystals, dear?” Gina asked.

“I um... I break them? And then I can analyze them and collect a part of whatever spell is inside of it? Something like that... I think... I’ve only done this once before.”

“That’s very interesting dear. Why don’t you try it out? I’m very curious to see what you find. It’s almost like one of those prize-inside games, isn’t it?”

“I never thought of it that way, but it totally is! Okay, let’s see what we find...”

Dorothy picked a yellow marble with white and gray flecks on it. Her HUD didn’t recognize any of them by type without the [Inspect] plugin, maybe that would have been good to pick up after all. She cracked and analyzed it like before and saw the message about a new snippet being found and added to her library. When she checked, it looked like she had found another “Loop Statement”. Maybe those were just a common drop for snippets.

“What’s a Loop Statement,” Gina asked.

“I’m not really sure... I haven’t used one yet. All of these snippets are kind of like building bricks that you can use to build new spells that you enchant your gear with.”

“How very clever. Isn’t that right, Norrak?”

“Hmm? Yes, very handy,” Norrak said between mouthfuls.

Dorothy picked up the next crystal. It was a pale pink with dark blue swirls wrapping around it. She cracked it between her fingers and analyzed it to find a snippet labeled “Variable(small) Attribute”.

“I have no idea what that even means,” Dorothy said dismissively as she picked up the next one. The orb was a faint blue with tiny white starbursts and ribbons of darker blue flowing around it.

“Oh... I know that one...” Charlotte said. “That’s an ice crystal...”

“Hmmm... maybe I’ll hold on to that one without breaking it then... just in case I can use it...” Dorothy said, pocketing the marble.

The last crystal was green with purple blobs on it. Dorothy was worried that it might be a poison crystal, it had that sort of vibe to it. Opting to go for the snippet instead of saving the crystal, she broke and analyzed it to find “Charge Element”.

“That sounds useful... No clue what it means but it sounds impressive,” Norrak stated.

The rest of the table laughed as they finished up eating.

“Thank you so much for the crystals,” Dorothy said as she and Charlotte exited the farmhouse. “And the food for my parents!”

“Think nothing of it dear,” Gina said warmly.

“If you need anything... just let the guild know...” Charlotte said, waving.

Norrak gave half a wave as he wheeled back to his shed, but Gina continued to wave with a large smile on her face.

“Come back and visit, any time!” she called.