Kal watched Jase summon Gromch. The giant purple toad came up to his waist and gave a mighty croak as he rubbed its head. He told it to run out into the middle of the garden next to the paddock to wait.

"I really hate doing this to him," he complained, but he readily took several steps back from the area. He stood up on the porch while Kal jogged back to his Tank. "It'll be fine. He won't remember." Kals' words did little for his brother's conscience. While Gromch wasn't the smartest of summons, he had won almost every battle Jase had been in and even placed third in the Westmarsh tourney two years running. Kal knew he loved the frog like a pet. Once he was inside the Tank again, looking at the area with his bird's eye view, Kal rotated the main gun on the Tank to face the unsuspecting toad. The main body of the Tank stayed utterly still, providing a stable platform for him to aim off of. His overlay told him it would fire a 120mm shell. "whatever that is." he mumbled. The toad was roughly 100ft away and gazed about, looking for Jase to give it another order.

Kal fired.

The Tank was forced back slightly from the force of the shot. The Tank rocked for a few moments, which was longer than it took for the shell to obliterate Gromch, who was immediately blasted into a thousand motes of mana. The damage to the area was massive. A great big hole had been torn into the grass, and the debris had been strewn everywhere. The railing on the porch had been shattered by a fragment of stone shrapnel that had luckily missed Jase.

"What the fuck!" Kal turned his view to see his mum sprinting up the road with Melbray trotting beside her. She was angrier than Kal had ever seen, and her face was twisted into a beet-red mess. He could pick out the veins in her forehead even from this distance. He considered getting out of the Tank but remembered how nice and thick its armor was and decided to never leave it again. However, life never went to plan, and after an hour, his summons ran out of power, falling apart into blue motes of mana. Then even those vanished into the air. His mum didn't stop hammering on the side of the Tank for over fifty minutes, and she was frothing mad. Kal caught a fleeting glimpse of Jase sprinting for the woods while their mum bore down on Kals prone figure. Can't really blame him.

"Oof." his mother's savage kick took him in the ribs. She grabbed a tight hold of him and slaps rained down on him while he struggled to break her grip without hurting her. All the while, she screamed at him.

"My house, you worthless layabout! Look at my garden. It's got a crater in it!

Melbray!" she didn't elaborate on the horse. It seemed shouting its name was enough. Kal endured the hits and quietly thanked the gods his mother was a tiny woman. She was barely five feet while standing on her tiptoes and ninety pounds soaking wet. Kal wasn't a giant, but he was still a foot taller and almost twice the weight. The slaps still stung, though, and he winced with everyone.

"Your father! Oh, you wait until he gets home; you are done!" she continued, but after five minutes, Kal began to tune out her tirade. He looked over the damage as much as he could. Shit, it wasn't just the porch railing. The glass in the windows was smashed, and plant pots and rose bushes had been shredded. The dirt had flown everywhere, and the stone path had been cracked. He's going to kill me. Kal had no doubt his dad would beat the life out of him if he came home to this. His dad had been at sea for a bit over a week giving Kal at most four days to either run as far away as he could or get the damage fixed. He quickly tallied his saving in his head, but the six silver he'd saved would barely cover the wooden railing, never mind the glass.

"Enough! I can fix it." he pleaded as he tried to organize a plan.

"Fix it? Fix it! I'll fix you, you..."

"Yes! I'll fix it. I'll fill the hole and sweep the dirt off the house. Get you new bushes." he began to explain, but he didn't get far.

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"My windows! Going to fix them, are you? Is whatever that monster you summoned going to make me some new windows?"

"Ugh...Yes! I'm going to get a job. You saw what it can do. There are tons of jobs in Westmarsh that'll hire me." he finally pulled himself away as her fury petered out. She turned coldly at him and pointed down the road toward the town.

"You better get going then. If you're not back here in three days with my windows and a damned carpenter, don't bother coming back." she spun on her heel and stormed into the slightly damaged house.

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"Well, that was a bit harsh, don't you think?" Jase said, popping out from behind an overturned wheelbarrow.

"I Thought you'd be halfway to Westmarsh by now." Kal sighed and took a last look at the damage. Jase put an arm around his shoulder and chuckled.

"I was, but then I remembered it was you who demolished the family home, not me. Doubt I'll risk going inside, though, and it might not be structurally sound. So what's the plan for all this." he asked with a casual wave at the garden.

Kal's mind had been doing double time since he'd first seen his mum coming up the road, and he'd pieced together a rough plan.

"Monster bounties," he said confidently. It was common enough for people new to their Tokens to go out and clear some of the smaller critters that hung around the edges of civilization. Most people only had tiny summoned monsters or lightly enchanted objects to help them. In contrast, he had something far more dangerous. "I'll need to take on something big to get the money for new windows. have you seen anything?" He knew Jase took on some of the more dangerous bounties since Gromch was larger than most of the threats in the area. Its high maneuverability and ability to spit globs of poison made it perfect for skirmishing things to death.

"There's not much. A few goblin nests to the north have a decent bounty on them, and you could probably get some loot if you don't blow it all up first.

They made good time on the road. Kal had used one of his extra mana points to summon another Tank while his previous mana point regenerated. He'd had Jase hop on top of the thing and went just slow enough not to tear up the dirt road, but they still went there faster than any horse would of. He dismissed the Tank when the tips of Westmarshes walls came into view. He conveniently forgot to tell Jase, who suddenly fell seven feet to the ground. Luckily, Gromch was quick enough to throw himself under his master to soften the blow.

"Rude," Jase said, dusting himself off. "Why dismiss it so early? I doubt the guards would attack on sight." Kal knew he was probably right but didn't want to risk being delayed because he caused panic in the town.

"Not worth the drama. It's only five minutes away anyway."

Kal looked around as they walked. All around them was a giant swamp. Closer to the town, the ground turned into more of a marsh where the trees had been cut back year after year. They only met people once they reached the wide open gates of the town. The few guards on duty looked bored as they glanced at the faces in the crowds. The two brothers forced their way through the throngs of people and stalls to get to the job boards in the town center. There were three large wooden boards, each with its own type of job. Kal went straight for the bounty board, ignoring the crafting and gathering boards. He didn't think his Tank would be very good at gathering plants in the swamp.

Near the top of the board were the town's bounties for the goblin nests. There were three of them, and each was worth twenty silvers. Kal figured forty silver would be enough for the glass, and then the rest could go to fixing the porch. Next to the large posters for the goblins were smaller notes offering differing amounts of money for returning items the goblins suspected of stealing. The list of things was huge, and he doubted they could bring back half of it. From what he gathered, the goblins had set up three nests to the north of the town where the ground was more solid, and many farms had been attacked. The goblins had jumped a few merchants, and they had listed their lost items on posters almost as large as the bounties. The boards gave a rough idea for the nests, and Kal didn't think it would take long for him to sweep the area in the Tank.

He was snapped out of his planning when Jase thrust a small pork pie at him. "we'll need our full strength if we're fighting goblins." he said cheerily.

"We?" Kal asked with a full mouth. He hadn't expected Jase to go with him.

"Of course, I'm coming. Do you seriously think I'd let you go fight a bunch of goblins by yourself?" He finished his pie and slapped Kal on the back, making him choke. "Besides, it's tradition. Tim took me out on my first hunt, and now It's my turn to be in charge," he said with an evil grin. "Eat up, little brother. Daylights burning." he quickly strode away into the crowd. Kal briefly considered just joining the army and running away before following after him.