Wandering over to my squad, I see they managed to deal with the rest of the ranch without issue. When we had arrived to clear it out I had gone to deal with the ex-mage as we suspected he was some kind of insectoid assassin in training after witnessing him jumping off tall buildings into carts of hay. I was sent to deal with him as we knew he was a risk our main objective; to take control of the ranch.

And that was what we had done.

As I walked over I noticed three cockroaches writhing about whilst they were tied and gagged in roots which had sprouted from the ground, each of their hands embraced by handcuffs made of earth. I carried on ignoring the oddly-erotic scene of cockroaches being fondled as it’s a memory I’d like to never remember. This could only be the work of the minotaur twins Remy and Thane.

Remy had power over roots and her brother Thane, the earth. Both had the same chestnut fur; the only visible difference between them was that Remy had to wear a sarashi to contain her outrageous breast. And by the gods they were strong! But like many of their race they abhorred killing, I’d even known some minotaur to become pacifists! Not what you’d expect from a race of hulking bovine humanoids which could break bones like breathing, but definitely my preference as someone who owned non-metallic elven bone structure. I still had to be careful whenever Remy hugged me to make sure I didn’t get suffocated by her chest crushed into a fine paste which Samantha would probably turn into some sort of baked treat. Actually... where was Sam?

As I looked around to see if I could spot the squad chef, I was suddenly kicked in the shin.

“That’s not fucking funny Yura” a disembodied voice below me vexed below me. Looking down I discovered that the voice actually belonged to a person. Well if you count children as people.

“Hey Cavendish, didn’t see you there” I said sweetly.

Glaring at me all the while the child kicked me once more. “You’ll call me Captain Cavendish whilst we’re on mission” He said in a huff. “What happened with the assassin-roach?”

I glanced back at the three cockroaches still have a healthy session of BDSM with Remy’s root construct, upon confirming they didn’t have their feelers pointing my direction. Then I turned back to Cavendish and pulled out my still pretty gross mace to show him. “Turns out he was some sort of mage, but I got to him before he noticed me and it is safe to say he’s rather dead.”

“Well good job there, mages are such a pain to deal with at times. Things went smoothly for the rest of the squad and the only survivors are those three the twins dealt with… and appear to be having a little ‘session’ with Remy” he grimaced, nodding towards the area the minotaur had their prisoners. I looked, curious to see what had changed since a moment ago and regretted it immediately. Ugh cockroaches. Thankfully I had thrown up earlier because honestly I might have drowned Cavendish if I wasn’t careful.

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“Samantha and Fred have gone to look at those weird blue Behemoths and Crow is sizing the place up for when the rest of the crew arrive tomorrow.” He said pointing towards one of the nearby enclosures where I could make out Sam and Fred’s forms running around and examining the giant blue moths. I didn’t bother searching for Crow because for all I knew he was everywhere. “Anyway I made them promise to be back soon because I want to start setting up the forward base shortly. For now though you guys are gonna get to work”

‘So these are the joys of being a leader’ I thought to myself whilst wanting to groan.

Signalling the twins over we got our orders, I was tasked to go hunting for something for us to eat and scout out some game trails for when the rest moved in. We were all members of a bandit crew large bandit crew called The Wolf’s Maw and the boss would probably want to hold a feast when the rest made it hear. Being the suck up he is, Cavendish probably wanted to impress the boss. Thane got tasked with latrine duty which with his powers was relatively simple but less so when you thought about the hundreds of members in the band. And naturally as a Lieutenant to the boss, Cavendish wasn’t doing anything other than ‘ensuring everything is in order’.

As I walked away I’m sure I heard him mutter to himself “I’m tall for a gnome… right?” Glancing back, I’m pretty sure he just shed a tear. I probably shouldn’t be so mean to the guy huh?  My ears weren’t just good for listening to gossip after all; they allowed me to hunt with ease…well as much ease as chasing a fleeing deer with a mace could be.

*grumble*

Looks like my need to feed would surely win me the day and some sweet venison.

I make a small prayer to the gods that Remy vanquish all the vile forces of evil in her path then head into the forest to hunt making sure to enter at the opposite side of the clearing to the warren of good old Mr. Fluffy; I’m not suicidal.

Remy got the most important job by far, eradicating all evidence of this farms former ‘glory’. The ranch we had taken over had been named by its previous owners no doubt but it was certainly not anything we wanted to be related to. Cockranch. That was the word painted delicately all over their property with an intricate drawing of the blue moths underneath, you could tell there was pride in it and they probably though the name was hilarious as it was a ranch ran solely by a family of the insectoid cockroaches. Even their comedy was gross.

The ranch was located in the one of the few safe passages through The Fangs; a range of mountains spanning hundreds of kilometres and separating the North from the South of the continent of Culcitra. This particular pass was in the Valley of Lavie, named after the Nature Spirit of the forest spanning the majority of the pass.

The pass had a consistent stream of travellers going through between the Kingdom of Stengard south and the Valken Empire to the north.  It was much quieter compared to the Royal Road of Legends; the main passage through The Fangs and always had traffic in the form of merchant fleets, mercenaries, kingdom forces or the occasional civilised tornado.

Now one might think that the leader of The Wolf’s Maw is a clever bandit indeed; settling into an area ripe with goods to plunder, land to eat off, a farm of rare livestock and tolls to extract from folk with no choice but to use this route. But actually the boss had… ulterior motives. But we’ll get to that later.