Nosal got up from his stool with a chuckle before he paced across the kitchen to reward the tiny scallywag. As he squatted next to the monster in its bed, he noticed that it was looking smug as can be with an upturned tiny face. This quickly changed as the food bowl was placed in front of him.
Dittat then proceeded to quickly dig into the bowl of gruel and fried Swindrop herbs. He did so with rapid small bites of his weird circular mouth whilst making small chirps of contentment.
“Yeah you eat up you little fighter,” praised Nosal with his musk of joy. Not like it was that tasty anyways, he mused as Dittat supped at the remains of his breakfast in record time.
Dittat then felt around the bowl with his feelers and under it, in off chance case he would find any missed morsels of food. Finding none, he chirped loudly before he settled back into his cushion to sleep.
Did the monster just burp at me? Nosal wondered as he absentminded started to stroke the small green monster.
“Leave him be little nose, and go get changed for work and meet me out back,” spoke Kano as he scooped down to pick up the forgotten food bowl.
“Aye will do,” replied Nosal noncommittally as he got up with a sigh as he turned around and headed back towards the stairs. Meanwhile Kano placed the last food bowl into the dish bucket. He then headed out the back door but stopped in the doorway to slip his bare feet into his worn boots.
As Nosal ascended the stairs, he passed his father whom was heading down in a grey buttoned shirt that barely hid his large girthy stomach and a black pair of shorts.
“See you in two hour or so,” mumbled Lem as he passed by his son.
“Aight see you soon,” replied the boy. Man I hate buttons on my shirts, he thought after the sight of his father’s chosen attire into Pancreedy. It’s not like anyone here cares much if your all buttoned up, the boy reflected as he undressed before getting into his own faded suspenders.
Just a short moment later he was on the back porch and also putting on his boots. Nosal chose to tie up his boot laces, unlike his brother who was idling nearby with a strand of straw in his mouth.
“Alright you finally ready you ass-shoes?” asked a smiling Kano as he bounced off the back wall with a musk for joy.
“It doesn’t work like that, you know it’s better when it was only ass-hat,” replied Nosal with a smile as he lifted himself up and off the porch.
“Yeah-yeah. Ok you grab the seeds from the storage shed and head on over to the Chitpulka coop and I’ll go dig around for the tools, I think there’s some wire with the cutter in the Kaholin stable somewhere,” instructed Kano as he headed to the right and off towards the large stables.
“Why there?” asked Nosal at his brother’s back.
“Father was fixing one of the small heating crystal holders that got a bit banged up after we took them out back out in Charingswin!” shouted Kano over his shoulder in reply.
Hmmm I wonder who it was that was so heavy handed? Nosal wondered with a smirk at the thought of his father’s large hairy hands. The boy then casually walked straight ahead, towards one of the storage sheds that sat directly behind the house in the crispy dawn air.
Once Nosal reached the squat stone building, he walked towards the center of two large doors and unlocked the latch. He opened the door by sliding it outwards to the sound of creaking hinges.
I’m going to have to go ask father for money to buy some rust oil, Nosal mentally filed the issue of the creaking hinges for later as he made his way inside in the gloomy shed. He then navigated his way towards the far left corner where a large sack was resting by some farming tools along with a small wooden bucket that was reinforced by metal bands. Reaching the corner, the boy lifted up the bucket in one hand. With his other free hand, he reached into the sack and felt around the coarse seeds inside for the cup to start filling his bucket. Once his bucket was quickly filled to half-full, he dropped the cup back inside the sack before leaving the storage shed.
Outside Nosal spotted Kano himself was just leaving the stables, with the small spool of wire and the tiny cutter in his hand from across the courtyard.
“When’s the last we added the worms?” shouted Nosal. Please don’t be the worms, please say you did it yesterday, he prayed internally.
“Four days ago and it’s your turn!” shot back his brother with a wicked grin.
“Fruitflys,” cursed Nosal with a musk for anger. He must be using his musk of joy, that smug wanker! ….. again with one of these weird words, maybe I should talk to dad about it, thought the boy with slight confusion as he turned left towards the adjoining storage shed.
Outside this shed, Nosal quickly took a large gulp of fresh air before rushing in. Inside this shed was a slightly more musty smell that hid underneath the heavy perfume of feaces and the unused remains of some forgotten pens. But more importantly, there were some large metallic tubs with large handles in the dark.
Going towards one of the large tubs, Nosal grabbed the handle and lifted up large wire mesh from inside the tubs. What came up was a large writhing mass of small, pale grey worms and chunks of rotten wood. This was the family’s batch of Rottwood-worm bins that they cultivated. The squirming defenseless creatures wouldn’t even be considered even tin ranked and fed on decaying plant matter. The worm’s only virtue was that the Chitpulkas enjoyed feeding on them as part of their diet and that they bred so fast.
The cultivation of the worms was Kano’s idea after the boy kept complaining about having dig about in the nearby copse of trees all the time. His father agreed that the idea was sound and immediately commissioned the tubs to be made by Lok-Tars one evening as they drank. The initial prototypes did not include the wire baskets but eventually they included the wire baskets which made the made the handling of the worms a great deal easier.
“Stinky worms,” Cursed Nosal as he tried to tip them into the bucket of seeds from the wire basket. The boy inadvertently breathed in a gulp of the rank air inside the shed as he cursed the worms and paid dearly as the rancid smell hit his olfactory senses.
“Eurgghhhprreefluurgh!” shouted Nosal as he released his musk of surprise as he dropped some of the wriggling worms on the floor. He quickly dropped the wire basket back inside and reached down to wrestle back some of the wriggling worms into his bucket. Many of worms wriggled quickly wriggled away in the darkness and out of sight so Nosal quickly gave up on his futile task before he suffocated from breath he was holding. The boy then quickly rushed out of the shed, not wanting to spend another moment in the stinky and rancid air of the shed.
Reaching the clean and fresh air out in the courtyard he dropped the bucket down before taking in large fresh gulps of air.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Hahah You really should stop being a baby,” joked his brother from the back porch as he looked on with glee at his struggling younger brother.
“Shut it you,” whined Nosal as he picked up the bucket once more before joining up with his brother. And I just showered! Goddamn divines! cursed the boy as he grumbled under his breath.
“Hahahaha, you idiot!” laughed Kano with a musk of joy with the piece of straw falling out his mouth.
The two brothers bickered back and forth as they passed under the Poplar tree that sat beside the storage shed, and out a small gate into the vegetable fields that sat to the right of the house. As the brothers trudged through the soft loamy soil with fat leaves brushing the wet morning dew onto their hairy legs the banther between them slowly died down.
“You think you’re going to find out what class you got?” Kano asked candidly as he sought to fill the silence, but he was not able to hide the curiosity and nervous apprehension in his voice from his brother.
“I really hope so, and when I do, I’m going to start leveling like there is no tomorrow! And I ‘m going to become stronger than Kingkong!” answered Nosal defiantly but he quickly felt embarrassed and confused by his own weird declaration.
The brothers continued walking on towards the large fenced compound that served as the Sowigan chill cellar beside the river along with the coop for the Chitpulkas.
“What’s a Kingkong?” Kano asked as he looked off towards the right. He was looking over at the large Ashwould tree that was slightly crowning out of the woods that housed Da’Nittan’s Den.
“A big monkey I think,” answered Nosal whilst slightly unsure with a musk of fear. Whats going on?
“Brother you have been speaking some really weird things lately, since you woke up from your calling…. should I ask father to get Xerneg?” asked Kano with worry, turning back to look at Nosal.
“No its fine, It’s just probably random thoughts that probably comes with having this great class I’ve got hiding away,” joked Nosal with a smile and a musk of Joy as he swung his feed bucket about.
“If you say so,” was all Kano said before silence reigned between them again.
The two brothers continued walking up towards a small gate that sat in the middle of the wire fencing and unlocked it, before entering the compound. To the right was the large wooden Chitpulka Coop that was constantly emanating weird slurping and hissing noises.
The two then directly turned right form the gate towards the door of the long and squat coop. Behind the see-through wire mesh door, was the origin of the slurping noises. Because crowding up against the other side of the door was a mass of little pincushions with small snouted faces looking up with beady eyes and tongues flicking back and forth.
“Blargghhhhh!BOOOOOO!” shouted the two brothers as they did every single day, to scare away the Chitpulkas blocking the door that swung inwards. The little herd of female Chitpulkas started to slurp in a lower tone and backing off, after the small scare they received as usual. The females retreated with a few kicks at agitated neighbors along with fights breaking out as the nervous Combs were prone to.
“Oiii! Cut it out!” shouted Kano at the offending Chitpulkas as he opened the door. They paid him no heed and slurped incessantly as they rushed out to swarm around Nosal’s knee. The small Capyban boy lifted the bucket they were after up as he headed away from the coop and towards the middle of the courtyard.
A particularly large and plump Comb kicked Nosal with its sharp claws right in the shin and caused the boy to stumble and spill most of the feed from the bucket.
“Owww Bigbotha!” he shouted at the Comb as a feeding frenzy ensued with the Combs paying the boy no heed.
“Hahahahah! Looks like Nosal the mighty Unsung class holder still gets defeated big Bigbotha!” jeered his brother from inside the coop with his musk of joy as before heading deeper inside the building after having seen the hilarious show.
Inside the messy coop that smelt of the earthy Chitpulkas and hay, Kano made his way towards the back where a large segregated pen was. Inside this pen was the large male Mood, that stood slightly higher than Kano’s knee and it was currently angrily making slurping noises as it pranced about in its private enclosure. His female Combs were out of sight and it made this Mood called Chopeck, afraid that some other unseen and imaginary Mood was going to come along to steal his harem away from him.
“Alright alright, you can go and join your girls, I’ve got work to do anyways,” spoke Kano gently with a hint of fear at the rowdy animal. He quickly unlatched the door before jumping off to the side to let the Mood through. Seeing freedom, Chopeck quickly bolted out of his pen but halfway out of the building he stopped in its tracks and turned around. With an evil gleam in its tiny beady eyes he ran back before giving a vicious kick to the confused Kano before once again running out of the coop.
Nosal heard some shouting inside the coop before seeing Chopeck rushing out of the building towards the herd and immediately starting to inspect his Combs that were busy feeding.
Ha that would teach brother to laugh at me! thought Nosal vindictively as he emptied the rest of the feed bucket around the courtyard but he did so whilst making sure to make sure to have some safe distance from the Rowdy Chopek. He knew from experience that a kick from a Comb would smart and a Mood could even cut you. But Chopek must be the Prime of his kind, with his kicks being comparable to getting a full blown punch from a young Orc like from Dornmit-Tars. This was the reason why their father regularly had to cow the Mood with his class skills and shave off its talons or else it could seriously hurt his children. Which if Chopeck ever did, then it would be the day which it would probably end up on Sarkingtan-Tar’s butcher table. But so far, the large Mood has displayed a high level of cunning and evil intelligence and only harassed the Brownwhisker boys whenever the Patriarch was not around.
Chopeck fastidious checked his Combs before he himself muscled his way into the biggest piles of feed and lapped up his share. The crazy slurping sounds from before started to subside as the Chitpulkas had their fill. Then they started to disperse out all over the large dirt covered courtyard as they mingled with each other. Some of them groomed each other’s faces with their long thin snouts, but here and there a few play fights broke out as the Combs kicked at each other with angry hisses. It was a common scene for the Monsters were highly social and had a complicated hierarchy amongst the females of the same flock. The undisputed position of the top female Comb here easily belonged to Bigbotha due to her large size.
Nosal watched the Chitpulkas roaming about but he soon got bored and headed into the coop to see if he could help his brother. Inside, he saw his brother hunched over twiddling with some wires at a small hole in the wiring of Chopeck’s Pen.
“He gat ya?” Nosal teased with a smirk and his musk of joy.
“Aye right he did, and in the same spot from Felk too,” whined his brother as he turned around to rubbed his left shin where his bruised sat, covered in fur.
“Ouch that sucks, you need a hand?” Nosal asked as he winced at the thought of getting hit by Chopeck in the same spot a few days from each other.
“Nah its ok, it’s only a small hole, so maybe you can go grab any eggs you find and take it to the house instead?” replied his brother as he turned back to mending the hole.
“Aight, do you need my help with the Sowigans?” Nosal asked before grabbing a small basket beside the coop door before beginning his hunt for the Chitpulka eggs.
“Actually yes, I forgot to prepare some vegetables for them.. so can you go grab a few heads of Stopnips in the bronze garden and then wash whilst I clean out the cellar?” Kano asked as he paused in his task once more to turn round to his brother.
“Yeah sure, big ones yeah?” Nosal questioned as he rummaged about in the hay nests that the Combs used and was rewarded with four large fist sized eggs. That’s forty coppers today, calculated the boy absentmindedly.
“Nah it’s got to have a good shape and be very clean, you gotta wash it twice, and take the feed bucket with you on your way back so we don’t get told off by father for leaving it here again,” Kano replied after a short pause as he was back to concentrating on looping some the metal wire into the frayed hole.
“Will do,” said Nosal as he left the Coop with the egg basket in hand before he retrieved the feed bucket from where it was left in the middle of the busy courtyard. He then proceeded towards the gate leading out of the courtyard before dropping down the bucket and the egg basket as the small boy struggled to unlatched the large gate.
This was the moment that Chopeck choose to sneak up on the boy before performing a vicious jumping kick, right in the boy’s rear. The large mood then quickly retreated as the boy stumbled to the ground whilst making weird choking slurping sounds.
“Fuck!” shouted Nosal angrily in pain along with a musk of anger.
“Did the fruitfly just laugh at me?!” He realized angrily as he quickly got back up on his feet. He then whipped around as he dusted himself to find the perpetrator across the courtyard looking back at him with a casual look of indifference.
I’m going to get that Mood back when I start leveling, thought the boy as he made his way pass the gate with the bucket and basket in hand along with a smarting rear.