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He Who Stops And Thinks - A story from the world of HWFWM
Chapter 17: Training With Pigs And Cows

Chapter 17: Training With Pigs And Cows

Current Quests

Justice For Courbefy: Find justice for the victims of the corrupt mayor of Courbefy. Use…

Chosen Of Knowledge: Escort Hugh on his journey to becoming a fully awakened iron…

Healer’s Materials: Gain Healer’s favour by donating alchemy ingredients to the church…

Wine Tour: Vineyard wants you to try the different wines in the Megève area.

Acquire Follower: Dominion wants you to gain another follower.

Chosen Of Hero: Travel north to Lake Auvernier, find the chosen of Hero and recruit…

Contract: Angry Cows: Remove the threat of angry cows from the Gueule herds.

Contract: People-Eater Pigs: Remove the threat of people-eater pigs from the Valon forest.

The party had strategised the night before and now with a large herd of cows before them in the late autumn morning. The plan was harder to pull off, as plans always were. Thankfully, Dave had insisted on using the simplest plan they’d devised: Find the angry cows, shoot at them from as far away as possible and draw them into a double flanking manoeuvre with Hugh on one side and Sam on the other. Sam and her forces lacked mobility in ways that Hugh didn’t so it was up to Dave to draw the charge close to Sam. The plan was otherwise simple and very flexible.

“Well, it says angry cows look just like normal cows except for their more forward facing eyes that have cat-like slitted irises,” said Dave, holding Tome open on a page of Bestiary Of Frankish Byzasian Empire by Joel Guillaume.

“But their behaviour is completely different,” said Hugh.

“Well, yes, their behaviour when stimulated but if we get close enough to stimulate them…”

“Yeah, the plan,” said Hugh with a sigh.

“Should I use Misty?” asked Sam, smiling helpfully.

“Nah.”

“No.”

Both Hugh and Dave shook their heads.

“We’d likely just scatter the herd in the mist,” said Hugh.

Sam nodded in agreement.

“Ahh, fuck it. I’ve got a spare heidel spell. Let’s aggravate them with that,” said Dave.

“Seems a waste of a spell if they kill it,” mumbled Hugh.

“They shouldn’t do. The paper heidels aren’t battle summons but they’re a rank up – almost two with booker spell benefits – and I can summon another. I’ll have it prance around and make the herd nervous until the angry cows charge then run for it.”

“Don’t make too nervous or the herd will panic!” said Sam with her serious smile. “Then they will run in all directions around us and we will be surrounded by cows but not know which ones are angry.”

“Okay, well Sam, you stay with me and let your tree summons do the intercepting. You let me know if you think the cows are too scared,” said Dave. “Alright? let's do it.”

Although they said ‘cows’ these weren’t cows as Dave knew them. They were a scaly-skinned grazing animal. Some distant evolutionary kin of the heidel. Dave dismounted his origami heidel, summoned another and sent his old one over.

“Head over there and just run back and forth in front of the cows and prance around a bit,” said Dave.

The paper heidel robotically walked off and did as instructed.

“Yeah! Right there! Start now!” shouted Dave as it got close enough that some cows started backing away.

“Easy. Easy…” Cautioned Sam as the cows started getting jumpy.

“Yeah not so fast! That’s it. That’s a good speed!” shouted Dave to his heidel.

After a minute of this kind of fooling around, the angry cows were found.

=I see them!= buzzed Tzu, highlighting them in Dave’s vision.

A hundred metres out, Dave couldn’t see much detail but trusted Tzu and used both arms to steady his wand as he took a shot at the oncoming cattle.

=FREEZING HELL RAIN UPON YOU!= screamed Tzu in its distorted voice.

The icicle hit the leading cow at a bad angle and mostly bounced off its skin but the plan worked and they both gave a horse lowing sound of pure rage and charged.

“Run back!” called Dave to his heidel.

The heidel outstripped the two angry cows on its way back to Dave who continued to shoot icicles at them. His second shot hit the lead cow in the head but again the angle was bad and it tumbled out. The third and fourth shots were dead on though and the lead cow stumbled before taking the fourth shot right in the chest. The angry cow behind it tossed its head, shoving its dying companion aside as it closed the last of the distance.

Hugh, who was lying in the grass in rock form, jumped up and ran forward two steps, made a short series of jerking motions, closed his eyes and long-range blasted the angry cow with gravel.

The cow ran through the abrasive blast, losing its left eye and strips of skin down its side. Snorting, it changed direction toward Hugh who shied away and closed his eyes. Thorny branches from Sam’s blightwood walker grasped onto the angry cow’s haunches, momentarily taking away its momentum and Dave took the opportunity to shoot an icicle into its ribs. The angry cow staggered a couple of steps before Hugh opened his eyes and blasted another line of gravel into the monster.

Sam disengaged to deal with the still dying cow that’d been downed first, leaving her blightwood and Dave to finish off the one that Hugh had not quite engaged in melee with.

Dave shook his head with a good natured smile.

“Hugh, you should have told me.”

Hugh, however, looked at the ground, ashamed.

“I… I thought I could do it if it really mattered,” he mumbled.

Dave sighed, shook his head and put his arm on Hugh’s shoulder.

“That’s not how fighting works, mate. It’s not like in the stories. People think there’s something in them that’ll swell up, right? You were looking for that?”

Hugh nodded meekly.

“Yeah, society lied, mate. There’s a bloke back home, fight coach, who puts it like this; you will not rise to the occasion, you will fall to the level of your training.”

“I just felt like I was back in the monastery,” whispered Hugh.

Ahh, shit. Thought Dave. Gonna have to work through trauma as well. Sam was walking over now.

“He’s fine,” Dave said to Sam’s large, inquiring eyes over her hesitant smile. “He just thought he could go from opening books to breaking heads without any steps in between.”

Sam put her hand on his shoulder.

“It’s fine,” said Sam softly.

“Let’s walk and talk,” said Dave, knowing that men tended to express their feelings better while doing something physical. “Upwind because I’m going to loot.”

Sam and Hugh walked out a bit, Dave looted and then they walked back to their heidels.

“I remember you specifically said during the fighting in Megève that you opened some doors in the battle. What form was that in?” asked Dave while they mounted up.

“Ahh, a couple. I kicked one open in earth form - a couple actually - and kind of seeped through a reinforced door in fire form and… and I went through a skylight in airform!”

“Okay, cool!” said Dave, glad Hugh’s mind was back on his successes. “How’d that work out?”

“Well, I had more-or-less opened up the most important door, that was the fire one, you understand. You see, it went to their main escape tunnel which went under the street and into the warehouse next door where they had an emergency portal ritual set up but because I, wait, hold on. It was important that I got through the door because it was super warded and nobody could figure out the array but because I could go through the keyhole, I just opened it from the other side without incident,” said Hugh in a single breath.

Hugh went on to tell Sam and Dave of every detail of his activity in the raid on the Builder cultists and Purity church. Dave mentally kept track of the things that Hugh actively did. In all; three doors kicked in, one dripped through in fire form and two opened via alternative routes in wind form. His contributions to the melee were several enemies pushed over in various forms, one bear hugged while in earth form, one bear hugged while in fire form, a stack of paper thrown in a face while in air form and someone used his fire form to light a stream of flammable oil. Dave stored the flamethrower idea away for later.

All the while, they’d rode the heidels at a sedate pace into the forest searching for any sign of the pigs.

“Well, Hugh, I think I know your problem,” said Dave, going over his notes.

“I’m a God’s damned coward,” said Hugh, reddening.

Sam patted his arm but Dave shrugged.

“Doesn’t matter. Most people who are brave enough to fight aren’t smart enough to learn how to fight before they try. Get themselves beat up. Cowardice would suit them more. I reckon you’ll get stuck in once you know how. I mean, look at all those situations you just said. Like that fire form hug? You said that you were hiding behind a shelf and saw a purity priest beating on an adventurer so you just grabbed them? Why?”

“Well, it was just.. You know. I could and the priest didn’t see me and… I just thought, you know, do it and the adventurer will win! So, I did.”

“That’s brave enough!” said Sam, beaming at Hugh who sputtered in protest.

“Sounds like once you felt safe and had a clear way forward, you did something?”

“Wha - I guess… wouldn’t say it like that -”

Dave shrugged again.

“Sam and I can teach you how to give and take hits on the way to… What’d you say that town was?”

“Essert,” said Sam, carefully navigating the foreign word.

“Yeah, that. You’ll still suck because fighting is hard and you’re new at it but you’ve got magic powers on your side so I reckon you’ll do fine, okay? You up for the challenge?”

“Well, you know - it’s just that - do I really-”

He froze for a second as he got divine instruction.

“Oh,” said Hugh, meekly. “Erm… alright.”

“And we’re going to find these damned pigs and if they get near you I want you to kick them or swing at them with an open handed slap as hard as you can, okay? I don’t care if you close your eyes, just try it. Have faith in your abilities!” said Dave firmly and cracked Hugh over the head with a large stick as thick as his wrist that he’d snatched off the forest floor.

“ARGH! WHAT?!” shouted Hugh.

Dave grinned and showed him the broken stick.

“Does your head actually hurt?” said Dave, still grinning.

Hugh rubbed his skull with an expression of wonder coming over his face.

“Your skin is stronger than steel, Hugh,” Dave winked. “Start having a little faith in yourself.”

Sam grinned and nodded at Hugh.

“You can do it!” said Sam in a bright voice.

Hugh still looked hesitant.

“Alright, Sam, find a fallen tree or a dead tree. This is something we should have done in Megève.”

“What’s the tree for?” asked Hugh.

“Slapping,” said Dave. “You’re going to contribute to a long, cinematic tradition and have a training sequence in a visually interesting location.”

“Oh, Is that a thing?”

“Only in theatre. In real life, the best fight trainers tend not to be on isolated mountains but in perfectly ordinary fight gyms or schools, running their business.”

Hugh furrowed his brow and Sam smiled at him seriously.

“Yes, that would actually make sense, come to think of it,” said Hugh. “Huh! Never thought of it that way.”

“Nobody does!” said Dave lightly.

They found a large, fallen branch soon enough, which would serve the required purpose. Sam figured that they could tie it up horizontal on a large tree trunk so that each end could swing back and forth at Hugh. She mimed the idea in the air showing that herself and Dave could help control the log from next to the tree trunk.

“Good idea,” said Dave, once he understood what she was getting at. He looked at Hugh. “Could you go up?”

Hugh took to air form, walked in a spiral up to the largest, most sturdy branch of a nearby oak, dropped air form and took a rope out of his inventory. Unlike Dave’s inventory, which was accessed by reaching to his waist or hips and was reminiscent of taking an item from a belt or pocket, Hugh’s inventory was opened by turning to his left or right, reaching up and opening it like a shelf. Dave had seen him rifle through it before, too, as though absent-mindedly looking for misplaced items. Hugh tied off the rope and air-walked back down.

Sam and Dave lifted the enormous branch and Hugh tied the rope to it, suspending it in the air.

“Alright, what do I do now?” said Hugh. “Kind of, hit the ends?”

“Yeah!” said Dave. “We’ll hold the middle and sort of control it a bit and you just slap at the end coming towards you as hard as you feel comfortable. You ready?”

Hugh nodded.

Dave gently pushed his end of the hanging stick towards Hugh such that it would impact with the side of his head or shoulder. Hugh raised his arm to ward it off.

“Use the other arm. Swing across your body. You need to slap it back to where it came from, not defend yourself!”

Dave pulled on his side of the branch as Sam gently floated her side in.

“Smack it!” piped up Sam with a characteristic grin.

Hugh compromised with his own internal conflict and pushed it back to Sam.

“Yep! Now this side,” said Dave, taking what improvements he could get and moving his side of the stick towards Hugh.

Hugh, encouraged by Sam and Dave, got into a rhythm of back and forth pushes with the branch, which Sam and Dave slowly sped up. Soon he was in constant motion, reaching across his body one way and then the other.

“Okay, try and smack at it now,” called Dave as he slowed the branch down again. “Like, you’re trying to smack a particularly large fly out of the air. Just do it softly and then go a bit harder every time until you’re hitting as hard as you can without hurting yourself, okay?”

Hugh nodded, projecting an aura of concern that matched his face. He held his breath and closed his eyes at the moment of impact but he did slap the branch. It came back to Sam a bit faster than expected and when the opposite end causally flew quickly to Hugh, he turned his back, curling up away from the oncoming wood. Dave took the opportunity to reach into his inventory, take out a knife and throw it at him.

“Hey!” said Hugh, reproachfully. It had landed flat against the back of his shoulder with a dull thunk.

“Did you feel any pain?” asked Dave.

“That’s not the point!” protested Hugh.

“It is!” sang Sam, laughing.

Dave grinned at the flabbergasted Hugh.

“Next time it comes at you like that, just ram your shoulder into it. I bet you’ll be the one who does more damage,” said Dave.

“Try it!” sang Sam with an encouraging smile.

“How’s your hands? No pain?” asked Dave, checking.

“Wha-? No, none. None,” said Hugh, holding up his hands and giving a whiskery smile.

“Well, back into the rhythm! More slaps and just be ready for that power, hey?” called Dave, already pushing his side of the branch towards Hugh.

With Hugh’s slaps providing more power, Sam and Dave put more effort into receiving than giving on the stick end. They built up a rhythm and Hugh got a determined look about him.

“Do your hands hurt?” asked Dave loudly over the noise of the smacking impacts.

“Oh? No!” said Hugh with a broad smile.

“Hit as hard as you can!” said Dave, pushing back the branch harder.

Nervous, but feeling the moment, Hugh started hitting harder and harder. Sam and Dave struggled as bits of bark and splinters of wood started flying away from Hugh’s hands. Each open-handed blow seemed to be hitting with the power of a mallet. Both Dave and Sam were impressed. The ability wasn’t even levelled yet.

And, Hugh’s technique was defective. Every swing with his arms threatened to over-balance him, his feet moved out of synchronisation with his hands, he held his breath while swinging and he often closed his eyes with the impacts. Still, Dave felt like the blows could knock a man out through a helmet.

“Okay! Whoa! Slow down Hugh, you’ve got the hang of that,” said Dave. “You feeling better?”

“Yes! Oh, yes. It’s... Yes, I don’t know. When I got it, this ability, I felt more but, yes, using it. It’s a whole other thing.”

“Yeah, you need to settle into it”

“Need to grow roots!” announced Sam with a smile.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“You need to train kicks now!” said Sam

“You sure?”

“Yes! Normal kicks. Like kicking a ball. It will be good for the pigs because they are not high.”

“Oh, Well, how shall we do it? It’s a good idea of course! I just… well, you show me.”

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Sam smiled happily at the thanks. Dave helped Sam with the set up she envisioned. They soon had one end of the branch suspended, the other on the ground and Hugh at the end of the arc.

“Kick it!” commanded Sam

“Hard as you dare,” said Dave.

Hugh kicked it. Lightly. Almost daintily.

“Sorry! Just checking,” said Hugh before screwing up his face and properly booting the oversized stick. There was a crunch and a bit of bark flew off as the stick changed direction back to Sam.

“Okay, you two keep doing that. Hugh? I’m going to hit you with sticks and throw rocks at you. Lightly but,” Dave added quickly, seeing Hugh’s concerned eyes. “Until you gain confidence in your abilities and you think I can go harder. You just need to gain confidence in your defence.”

Hugh sent a glance to Sam who nodded with an encouraging smile. And, so he kicked. Dave picked up a stick and on the next kick, in full view of Hugh so as not to alarm him, Dave carefully broke the stick over Hugh’s shoulder.

Hugh continued kicking the suspended branch, kicking with increasing determination as Sam and Dave cheered him on. Dave continued his relatively gentle assault with another branch and some rocks. With each strike glancing harmlessly off his skin, Hugh gained more and more confidence that he didn’t need to keep shying away. Hugh began blocking the incoming strikes with raised arms and kicking the incoming branch with abandon, slowly causing bits of wood to break off or cave in.

Under a barrage of encouragement from Sam, Dave and possibly a goddess, Hugh pushed past his doubts. Minutes later, Hugh was once again wiping for sweat that wasn’t there on his brow.

“That was… That was good!” said Hugh, surprising himself with his admission.

“Yep, that’ll do it. A good session making wood chips,” said Dave, going over the wreckage.

“You ready for pig now?” said Sam with a grin.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Hugh self-consciously, beard twitching, “But Goddess, why not try, hey? Faith… Faith is the key.”

“That’s the spirit!” said Dave and clapped him on the shoulder

Sam just smiled encouragingly.

With training over, the team continued on to search for the people-eater pigs. Dave’s quest system was more vague and simply highlighted the whole forest with a ‘search for clues’ vibe. Hugh’s was more exact, but not by much, giving him a ‘this kind of direction’ vibe that was so wide it could have two people walking at a right angle away from each other and still be well within what Hugh’s ability said was ‘right’.

So, Sam took over and looked at Dave’s map in Tome.

“Big animals will stay near water. If we follow this biggest river,” Sam pointed to a stream which was still the biggest in this forest, “maybe we find pig feet and pig nose holes in the mud?”

Dave and Hugh just gestured at Sam helplessly.

“Yeah, sounds legit.”

“Absolutely, Sam. You’re a big help.”

She smiled and reached up to pat them on the head.

“City boys,” she said with a fond smile.

The team mounted up and travelled down the river on their origami heidels. Dave had Tzu out who would spot enemies before anybody else and also, had been given an idea of what to look for. The steam varied between ankle and wait depth so the party elected to ride the origami heidels straight down the stream to save time. Within the hour, they’d found the signs they were looking for. Upturned earth next to the bank and lots of pig tracks.

“Do you see the… shine, as well? For the quests?” said Hugh, gesturing at the hoof prints in the mud.

“Yep.” Dave nodded. “Quest objects shine to me too. Like a glow effect. Sorry, like an illusion… like it’s putting coloured glass over the object.”

“Really? Mine just shine like there’s something within. Glow effect, you said? I think you explained this before? Yes, you said in your reality there’s flat planes that show lights? For entertainment, I remember! I imagine this shine would be a lot like that. Oh! And over here, more of the questshine, look Dave, Sam, look! They go away.”

Hugh was giddy with enthusiasm for following the active trail of his quest ability.

“Questshine,” said Dave, trying the word in his mouth. “Yeah, that works.”

“Questshine,” mouthed Hugh with satisfaction. Not tripping over his words this time and savouring it. The word suited the phenomena well.

“It sounds nice,” opined Sam with her usual smile. “Sounds like is pretty thing on the world for you to follow.”

“And that is how we shall think of it,” said Dave, smiling back a little. “Hugh, please follow the questshine.”

Hugh did. It was a winding path that led through some thick and hard-to-follow parts of the forest. Each of them took a spirit coin for sustenance as they went for over an hour following glowing footprints on the ground until Tzu suddenly detected them.

=Behind= warned the lantern in its distorted techno voice.

Sam was trailing, and swiftly turned and found a wide bellied, hairy pig trying to subtly follow the path behind.

“Hugh, come forward,” called Sam in a low voice. “When it charge, kick the head as hard as you can, ka?”

Dave gestured Hugh past him and to do as Sam said. Hugh was sweating into the cold autumn air with a determined set to his shoulders as he followed Sam’s instructions.

“Wait for it to charge…” said Sam, just behind Hugh with a hand on the small of his back. She’s gotten her billhook out of her pack and was holding it with her other hand which was already covered with swarming beetles. Dave had also drawn both of his wands.

“GGRIIIIINFF!” came a pig’s scream from behind Dave who turned around in a snap with both wands raised.

Surprised, Hugh tried to turn around as well but Sam restrained him, seeing that with a snort, the first pig had also charged.

“Kick!” shouted Sam, shaking and squeezing Hugh’s arm while also, flinging her swarming familiar behind her and past Dave.

Dave had snapped around but Tzu had beaten him to it and was already shooting a beam of disruptive force into the pigs head. Dave had time to shoot a single shot from each wand before Sam’s familiar saved him by flying over its eyes causing the charging pig to knock Dave sideways onto the ground instead of over into the pigs path. Even being a higher rank than the pig, it would have been a nasty position to be in.

At the same time as Dave was falling, Hugh had scrunched up his eyes, prayed to Knowledge and kicked the pig for all he was worth and then got absolutely bowled over by the pig’s momentum. While Hugh did an involuntary, backwards somersault, the pig staggered, completely dazed, and Sam speared it through the ribs, into its heart. It stayed standing but Sam maintained a forwards pressure on her polearm so that the dying pig couldn’t come near her. Although it tried.

Dave was still dealing with his pig. It was blind from the beetles and limping on a foreleg from a perfect icicle wound but it was still ready to fight. It seemed that porcine creatures of all kinds in all realities had a hardy toughness and reluctance to die quickly. Dave stowed the wand of mage bolt and took out an arming sword to impale the pig should it charge again.

“Hugh!” called Dave. “Over here, kick this one!”

Hugh was getting off the dirt but looked hesitant. In a state of fright he scrambled up, ran over and kicked at the pig but missed. The pig twisted and Hugh fell over. The pig was on him in an instant munching down on his arm.

“Aieeeee! Argh! No! Argh!” shouted Hugh as he panic-slapped the people-eater pig. The eye on the side of its head that he slapped popped out.

Dave ran his sword through the pigs neck while it was momentarily still on top of Hugh, trying to find the other half of its vision. It staggered, bleeding all over Hugh and releasing his arm, trying to understand this new threat as it died.

Hugh, still panicked, sat up and gave the pig a mighty heave that unexpectedly sent the pig flying into a nearby tree trunk. The pig made an impossible to reproduce noise of a grunt-squeal forced out of suddenly compressed lungs before Hugh raised both of his hands, palm up, and shot beams of transcendent energy into the pig. Dave noticed in his HUD that the last of the pig’s life and a good chunk of Hugh’s mana disappeared.

“Oh, shit,” said Dave weakly. “It’s gone?”

Hugh looked confused but turned to his left, opened a shelf to another dimension and pulled out a pork leg wrapped in butcher’s paper.

“Ah, no. I had read about this,” said Hugh, shifting immediately into scholar mode despite the dirt all over him. “Yes, when something dies from transcendent damage it’s automatically looted. That’s jolly, isn’t it?”

“Hell yeah!” said Dave, back on board with transcendent damage after this information. “Have to make sure it’s you who’s killing monsters who are going anywhere inconvenient.”

“Is good idea! Free money from Dave is the best,” said Sam, smiling as usual.

“Well,” said Hugh, trying to dust himself off. Dave waved a hand to start Grand Mage’s Gravitas on him. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up. I rather made a mess of everything don’t you think? Fell over more than I helped.” Hugh hung his head, looking at the ground. Tears were started to well in his eyes.

Dave tilted his head in half agreement.

“You fell over but you helped,” said Dave. “You didn’t mean to but you kept that pig on you instead of me. Its bite did nothing to you but would have caused a minor wound to me. Then you bashed the side of its head in until its eye came out, threw it against a tree and then started blasting it with your most powerful ability.”

Dave shrugged again and grinned at Hugh.

“You flailed around a lot, wasted a lot of movement and it was a bit of a waste of mana at the end there but it was pretty epic. What’d he achieve on your side, Sam?”

“Was easy!” said Sam loudly and happily. “He kicked the pig so hard that it saw stars and so, I stab it!”

“Oh! Goddess, did I?” said Hugh, blinking and lost in the context of the situation.

“Hugh,” said Dave, putting his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “To stun a pig, most people bring a small sledge hammer. You did it with your foot. I don’t care that you fell over afterwards because that can be fixed. You know how?”

“No,” said Hugh, still feeling unsure.

“You stand back up, mate,” said Dave, grinning cheekily. “Like what everyone does when they fall over.”

Sam covered her mouth with her hands and giggled. Hugh shook his head and gave his whiskery smile.

“Well, I suppose. Sounds like I need to commit myself to my beliefs and spend a lot of time getting up over the next few months,” said Hugh with mock resignation.

“Good man!” said Dave, patting him on the back. “It’ll strengthen your leg muscles. They’re important for adventuring, I’m sure. Now, let us leave this forest.”

Sam, still covering her mouth, led them back the way they’d come. Dave hung back a little and looted the remaining dead pig and quickly backed off away from the rainbow smoke that was spreading out amongst the trees.

The team left the forest. They knew there were more pigs to hunt but didn’t have any questshine to follow and so decided to go to where they wouldn’t be ambushed to regroup. They exited the forest in the mid afternoon to the sight of several dogs sprinting towards them while barking.

“Everyone stay still. Don’t move, they’re herding dogs” said Dave. He’d highlighted the dogs in his HUD and read the label. “My guess is that the herders will be along soon.”

Dave was right. The barking of the dogs attracted a mixed group on heidels who soon arrived, riding up leisurely and calling the dogs off.

“Adventurers?” shouted one at the front still some distance out.

Dave and Sam looked at Hugh who remembered he was the only person with a badge.

“Oh, ah, yes!” called Hugh in return, fumbling in the pocket of his habit for the badge and holding it up like a trophy as the groups came together.

“Drovers?” asked Dave, knowing the answer because of his HUD.

“Yep, so the adventurers finally came, hey?” said the same voice. It was a middle aged man who looked the part of a drover. Sensible clothes, sensible hat, sensible everything and a face like an aged rock.

“We are but tools of an organisation,” said Dave.

“Tools for sure, eh? You get the angry cows?”

“We’ve taken down two cows and two pigs. Having a bit of trouble finding the rest to be honest,” confessed Dave.

The drovers laughed leaving Dave and team feeling somewhat out of the loop.

“Terribly sorry, but may I enquire about your laughter just now?” asked Hugh timidly.

“Ahh, sorry neighbour,” said an older woman with a craggy face. “Just that a bunch of lost adventurers is pretty typical.”

Dave put it together.

“Ah! I see. Normal rank land, right? You get all the hopeless cases here? Like us, hey?” said Dave, giving a cheeky grin.

“Ahh, you must be alright, then,” said the sensible-everything man with a grin of his own. He rode forward and held out his hand which Dave shook. “I’m Ueli, that’s Amy and… That’s the rest. Ey! You lot! We’re not stopping for a rest, get back on your heidels and introduce yourself to our lost adventurers!”

The drovers did. Names flew by; Franc, Mical, Freddy, Urs, Kathy, Chris, Andrew and Cori. Dave spent a moment very much enjoying that his HUD automatically updated the names over their heads.

“Lost, eh?” said Franc, an old bloke. He had a massive moustache that he clearly waxed into shape so that it curved away from his face. Or, he had been cursed by a witch.

“Afraid so,” said Hugh with sincerity. “We’re looking for the angry cows and people-eater pigs. I don’t suppose…” Hugh left the words hanging and gestured at the drovers.

“I can help out,” piped up the fresh faced one called Chris. “Shooter’s a good sniffer.”

“Ahh…” deliberated Ueli but made up his mind when Amy nodded at him. “Yeah, alright. Don’t do anything dangerous. And, that goes for you adventurers too! Don’t let him fight anything.”

Chris rolled his eyes.

“We’ll take care of him,” said Dave who manifested Tome. “Summoning ritual, Professor. Answer my call.”

Chris’s eyes went wide and even the cynical, old-time drovers watched as a flailing mass of paper appendages printed itself into reality from every angle at once.

“Scrambler?” ordered Dave. “Stay with Chris here and protect him from harm. Even from harm he may do himself but mostly from monsters, okay?”

The origami golem wiggled its limbs in some kind of way but that Dave felt through the weak summoning bond was an affirmative.

“How long you reckon this’ll take?” Dave asked Chris.

“An hour each way,” the young man shrugged.

“Actually, better question, where and when are we going to meet up with the rest of these fine folk?” said Dave, indicating the droving party.

“Late afternoon, the field next to the brown hill,” said Ueli. “Chris knows where it is. Alright, the rest of us better get riding. See you later, adventurer.” And the droving party started trotting away.

“Right, lad,” said Dave. “You’re in command of our location and we do the fighting. Lead on.”

“Umm, well, the thing is - “ said the boy hesitantly.

Hugh came to the rescue with an encouraging nod.

“Chris, is it? Yes. What’s this thing?” Hugh smiled down at the young man with a friendly face full of beard atop a friar’s habit.

“Oh! Just that it’d be easier if we had something to give Shooter a bit of scent, Friar Sir.”

“Call me Hugh, Chris. The Lady does not mind and neither will I. After all,” Hugh winked at the boy. “It is her business to know everything.”

“Oh!” Chris chuckled. “I suppose she would, Hugh.”

“How about this?” asked Dave, picking a roll of cowhide out of his inventory.

“Oh, perfect, sir!” said Chris and eagerly held the hide down for the dog, Shooter, to sniff. “Shooter, hunt!”

And the dog shot off, sniffing around.

“Oh, that’s why she’s called ‘Shooter’, hey?”

“That’s right, sir!”

“Just Dave will do fine.”

“Yes, sir! I mean, Dave. Ummm…” Chris’s eyes drifted to Sam.

“I don’t talk!” said Sam with her cheekiest grin.

Dave and Hugh snorted with laughter and Chris looked shocked, then embarrassed and then laughed too.

“Helloooo! I’m Sam, nice to meet youuuu,” sang Sam in her friendliest tone shaking Chris’s hand.

----------------------------------------

It turned out, Chris had a pretty good idea about which herd the angry cows were with and Shooter confirmed it with her hyperactive sniffing and barking. After an hour and a bit, they’d found three more angry cows. Shooter bailed them up and the team sent Hugh in to deal with them.

He had a little more confidence this time and, if Dave guessed right, the confidence added to his ‘meta-weight’, the magical attribute related to the power attribute of a ranked person or monster that stopped them moving from forces applied by a lower rank and, inversely, helped them move lower ranks with their own momentum.

Hugh slapped the first angry cow right in the head, staggering it sideways before the two others charged him. Dave and Sam were there, each armed and throwing themselves into the fray. Dave ended up underneath a cow, holding one of its front legs. He got his own feet under him and got into a weird, turning dance with the beast while he waited for Hugh to get to it. Sam had whacked her cow on the head with the flat of her billhook and shot in like a wrestler to get around the cow’s neck and lift it off the ground, leaving only the cow’s back feet to push against her which she was easily holding.

“How do you control your metaweight like that?” called Dave frantically to Sam as he kept one step ahead of his cow.

“You must think heavy!” shouted Sam.

Hugh had squared up with his cow again and as it charged for the second time, he slapped it down into the ground. The momentum of the cow carried it on and it knocked Hugh off his feet as it rolled towards him. Hugh scrambled to his feet, ran over to the downed beast and kicked it as hard as he could. It mooed angrily and got to its feet unsteadily, staggering but Hugh hesitated to land the killing blow.

Dave drew his wand and shot an ice bolt through the cow’s ribs. Hugh finished off the other two cows with a similar display of… skill and reluctance. The party remounted and found the people-eater pigs. Again with a little local knowledge, apparently there were a few spots that these monsters like to rest and wallow in so Chris took them to check those places first and before they knew it, Shooter was barking up a storm and Hugh stumbled forward to throw himself into the fray and across the ground. Dave’s cantrip skill went up a level from using Grand Mage’s Gravitas on Hugh which was nice.

The party was riding to Brown Hill at a leisurely pace, having finished early and Hugh was remarking to Chris that this was a humble lesson under the eyes of the Goddess that all adventurers should ‘mine from the seam of local knowledge’ more often. Chris couldn’t have looked more proud as he led them into the drover’s camp.

Dave immediately cast Comfortable Country Cabin and explained its use to the whole party. It’d be shoulder to shoulder inside but they’d all sleep at a comfortable temperature. He then did his usual of cleaning everything in sight and got to studying.

“I don’t suppose we could be of any more help while we’re here?” inquired Hugh. “I can do sanctified healing if it counts?”

It did count. Farming was a hard life and they’d acquired minor hurts, like stubbed toes, but one of them had a cracked rib from falling off a heidel the previous day which Hugh patched right up. While he was at it, Dave used cantrips to slip him a note to make friends and ask for their real opinions about adventurers and the adventure society. Dave continued his studies and Sam received great agrarian envy showing off her all-eating slime familiar.

The sun went down, a fire was lit and Hugh got to chatting with the old folks over a simple dinner of sausages and tuber-type vegetables that Dave couldn’t identify.

“Ahh, lazy glory seekers for the most part,” said Ueli, when Hugh asked about most adventurers. “Well, o’ course we’d all die in the monster surge without them and you can’t help but think some of ‘em are alright but here we are, trying to farm some beef for people to eat. Put a little dignity on the plate, so to speak. Nothing ranked, just a bit of meat for folks to fatten up their kids, you know? And they take a month to send anybody out.”

“We weren’t sent. Picked it up the usual way,” confessed Dave flatly.

The old drover gestured at Dave to Hugh.

“See what I mean? No offence, young Dave.”

“None taken, sir. It’s a reasonable accusation,” said Dave.

Hugh continued to gab with the old timers for a while longer but Dave’s attention drifted to Sam who was the attempted target of a young Drover’s flirtations. Sam, however, was trying to use a wide smile as a shield which only gave the young fellow the wrong idea.

Dave had a quiet word with one of the women in the droving team who gave a little nod and walked over to the young man as Dave moved off.

“Freddy! Come here, I need your opinion,” she said, drawing the unwanted suitor away.

Sam gave Dave a grateful smile as he sat down beside her.

“You know, smiling at people is a terrible strategy for making them go away?” asked Dave with a smirk.

Sam managed to shrink and shrug her shoulders at the same time while smiling even wider. Dave took a thoughtful sip of tea from the cup he was holding in response.

“You don’t want to upset anyone, do you?” said Dave.

“Noooooo,” sang Sam quietly while clasping her hands together.

“In the future, use me or Hugh to get them off you. Just nod along with whatever they say and find an excuse to introduce the poor fellow to me or Hugh,” said Dave and smiled kindly at Sam. “We’ll distract them with questions and you can get away.”

“Alright!” laughed Sam quietly.

Dave presented a hand which Sam high-fived.

“Thoughts on Hugh?” asked Dave, miming some punches and nodding towards their swarthy, bushy-bearded friend who was listening intently to the stories that the drovers were telling him.

“He needs training! Needs a master,” said Sam

“Yeah, that’s me and you, I think.”

“No, Dave. We are not fighting masters!”

“Ugh,” said Dave, uncomfortably scratching the back of his head. “I think I might be. In this plane. Anyway, I don’t think we don’t need to be national champions for Hugh to have something to learn from us.”

Sam nodded.

“He fights… shy,” said Sam, looking for a better word in her second language but finding none.

“Yeah, I know what you mean. He’s got no dog in him.”

Sam blinked and smiled.

“You know? Angry dog with hackles up? Just snarls and gets stuck in, shaking and ripping?”

“Oh, yes! Hugh has no dog!” Sam giggled.

“I was thinking I might teach him some basic grappling techniques. Not much good against monsters but perfect against people and it might help him get used to rough contact.”

Sam nodded with her serious smile.

“He hits really hard when he does!”

“Yeah, he slaps like he’s made of iron, doesn’t he? That skin too.”

“Yes, I am very jealous of him! He always looks so comfortable, ka?”

Dave rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. Unarmoured comfort, the affordability, no movement restrictions, no gaps in the armour,” Dave sighed and shook his head with envy. “Yeah, if we can just make him actually fight he’ll be pretty dangerous.”

Sam giggled. They both looked at Hugh in his friar’s habit chatting with the old timers about the proper care of heidels. Hugh appeared to have an eclectic knowledge of the subject and asked polite questions along the way. Despite the main thrust of his life being knowledge of astral magic, any subject would fascinate him and he seemed genuinely chuffed to hear anybody out.

“Dave! Dave?” called Hugh, sensing Dave’s attention. “Could you look it up? Parsa heidels are faster than Byzasi heidels, yes or no?”

Dave started using Epistemology immediately. After a few moments he frowned and used Stop And Think.

“You alright?” asked Hugh at the delay.

“Fine! Just needs multiple books,” Dave called back, manifested Tome and made a couple of notes.

“You see Dave’s just the most useful fellow around if you need to know something. Any moment he’ll have it,” said Hugh to the onlookers with assurance.

“Ahh, yes!” called Dave, eyebrows still furrowed in his characteristic way. “They seem to be favoured by most breeders for the two and four lap chariot race in Evouia but begin to fall out of favour for sturdier breeds for the longer races. Something about weak legs?”

“Ahh, like I said, Hugh,” opined Franc, patting his massive moustache. “You want something with a bit of distance in ‘em for droving.”

“True but he’s right, you could mix in a bit of Evouia blood and breed a bit of the best of both,” said Amy, nodding her craggy face in the firelight.

“Ahh, they won’t mix,” complained Franc. “You can’t get thin and sturdy legs. What’re gonna do? Breed steel into them too?”

“Perhaps, simply, longer legs that are just as sturdy? Byzasi, worker breed sturdiness with Evouia leg length?” suggested Hugh.

“Ohh, could work, could work,” said Franc speculatively.

“Not gonna find out, are we?” said Amy. “You’d need noble-like money to bring in breeding stock and all they’re caring about is useless shit like those games your friend Dave knows so much about.”

“Nah, Amy,” said Michal, his long, wavy, grey hair reflecting the firelight. He gestured at Dave. “Remember, Hugh said Dave there doesn’t really know it, he just looks it up. He’s not actually a chariot guy.”

Dave gestured gratefully at the man and allowed that gratitude to be sensed by those around him, just to be sure. The wavy-haired man raised his drink to Dave in acknowledgement.

“I wonder,” said Dave speculatively, his eyes going from the drink in the man’s hand to unfocused.

“What you wonder?” said Sam with a knowing grin.

“Ahh, water? Liquid? Travelling? Umm,” said Dave and hastily rearranged his thoughts into something sensible. “I mean, could we travel to our destination by boat?”

Sam looked confused and smiled it up at him.

“Well, it’s just, the origami heidels are fast but since we’re off road, we lose a lot of time picking our way around and I’d really like to study a bit. A boat over a river would be easier, we could all fit in it and nobody would suspect that the three people who rode out of Megève on heidels would be found travelling on the river.”

“Maybe, if there’s rivers around?” said Sam hesitantly. “You can make boat?”

Dave shrugged.

“I can make dense paper in a boat-shape and dry it out with my cantrip once it soaks through. I reckon that might be a boat for a few hours at least?”

“Umm, Hugh and his new friends will tell us!” said Sam, suddenly beaming her happy smile. “Hugh! Are there any rivers to take boats to Mattenhof?”

Hugh put the question to his fellow conversationalists and there was a chorus of gravelly voiced suggestions that surmised that really they’d want to head to Lake Leman but the Arve was too far east and the Rhone was too far west so they didn’t have any good options. As the verdict became clear, Sam patted Dave apologetically on the back.

“No study for you,” she sang. “Have to look at nature.”

Sam smiled cheekily up at him. Dave gave a resigned smile back.

“There’s worse things, I suppose.”