The fate of the Deitric Thumpers seemed to have turned for the better last night.

The last couple of months living the life of a destitute vagrant on the road had been hard on the band. On their journey they had hardly increased in levels, bled away all their meagre coins until they were penniless and their terrible equipment had worn down to the point of becoming useless. But at least they had grown closer as friends and bandmates through the hardships.

So when they had been poisoned and passed out from stealing fruits from an orchard, the crew thought that they had just hit another bump in the road and was due for some hard labor as punishment.

So it came as a great surprise to them when they were awoken and administered a laxative, to be told by Jexnog opportunities that awaited them in this sleepy little village in the middle of nowhere.

He had explained as they all shared in the harrowing experience of group-diarrhea, that they were about to have lodging, work, the prospect of training with master-level trainers and a bright future.

So the band then nominated Deitric their leader to receive the only available dose of curative before he later left to head for the headman’s house, as their representative to sign their new work contract.

As he was walking there Deitric did wonder as to why Jexnog had to wait until he taken the purgative and suffered from the subsequent expulsion before giving him the Cure for the brew-fruit poison. Realms if it was him, he would’ve just administered it to himself before heading off to sign the contract and save himself from having to suffer the experience.

But Jexnog was Jexnog… a brave Hebdican but not exactly the brightest of the crew when it came to the little things.

Deitric then signed the work contract in front of the Gnorkling headman and his son at their house.

He wasn’t educated enough to be able to read all of the script, but then again none of his friends were able to read very well either. So in the end he had to resort to just go through the paperwork with the Gnorklings helping to explain the written terms to him after he had already signed it. He probably should’ve done that before he signed it.

After the explanations were over Deitric had to admit to himself that even thou it was slightly confusing and the pay seemed low, the terms offered did seem to be really good for him and his crew. From the contract that was read out loud and explained to him; there was to be free lodging, free food, training given and free equipment upgrades and repairs to be given based on a contribution system. He wasn’t too sure as to how this system “worked” but even to the young halfling boy it sounded too good to be true.

No wonder why the bandmember of the Sundered Blades wanted his band to be so hush-hush about the place when she had talked to Jexnog.

Plus the contract he had signed on their behalf was only for a six-month term, so if they didn’t like it then it wasn’t like they were stuck here forever.

On the following morning the Thumpers were then rudely awoken by an unbelievably bossy Leonid woman. The Leonid then introduced herself, much to their surprise, to be one of the master-level trainers in the village.

The surprised Thumpers were still groggy from being awoken so early, tired from their harsh method of recovering from food-poisoning and still suffering the after-effects of living near starvation for so long. But they had all eagerly gotten up and went on the “light morning run,” at the insistence of the trainer.

The band was ecstatic at first, for it was just so surprising to see the new benefits that came with the contract signing bearing fruit so fast. But as the trainer and her aids started to speed up more and more and the run continuing to stretch longer and longer, it dawned on the Thumpers that their training would be a lot harder than they had first anticipated.

Before today’s light exercise it had never occurred to the band of youths that it might be beneficial to exert themselves in order to train their body.

Normally the idea of running was reserved for the times when they have to beat a hasty retreat. The band had on many previous occasions run away from things on their journey so far; such as when Jex had been caught stealing a sack of stopnips from a village stall which had turned out to be rotten anyways, or the time when they chanced upon the old mangy, starving and three-legged wolf, or the other time that Jess went to relieve herself but did so on a nest of nettle-crickets, or the other time when they chanced upon the bronze-ranked Manlybird bug that was the size of a bucket.

But all in all the Thumpers had assumed that by now they had the whole running thing down, but this notion was proven to be extremely wrong after naught but just five minutes of training with the village guard.

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The Leonid and her two flunkies just seemed to eat up the miles with ease as they ran on and on, with each lithe step seemingly taking up a few man-spans per stride. Whilst the Thumpers that were trailing behind ran doggedly after the trio in a breathless shuffling that were accompanied with stiches, cramps and the loss of their will to live.

Then the hellish exercise seemed to have come to an end for the Thumpers at some ranch where they were to “spar” against an bronze-ranked Elite. With no weapons in single combat.

It was an absolutely absurd notion, but a few hopeful members such as Deitric and Methilda still holding on to the notion that they actually had a chance against this “Chitpulka.”

But those fanciful ideas were quickly and ruthlessly quashed as they witnessed the one-sided walloping that was ditched out by the Elite Chitpulka against the Silver-ranker who had tagged along with them for the morning’s “light running.” The silver-ranker was countered at every opportunity as the Elite was seemingly toying with him, before destroying his collar-bone with horrific kick with the Thumpers watching on in awe and fear.

Then the it was Leonid’s flunky’s turn to step into the ring.

At first it did seem that the boy seemed to have a better plan, as the reverse-centaur tried to change the terrain to his favor and limit the avenues of attack from the demonic Elite. But he too was defeated, but he did fair a little better than the Silver-ranker as he was able to power through his own set broken bones that was administered by the Elite. The fight then soon ended with the flunky being thrown out of the ring like some cotton-weeds in the wind.

Now it was Methilda’s turn to step into the arena as pandemonium erupted amongst the band. Deitric didn’t want her to go and just wanted his friends to forfeit the training whilst Jexnog was telling her to defend her face as best as she could and tuck into a ball. Meanwhile the twins didn’t have much to add except for their concerns that she was going to die.

But Methilda was anything but a coward. Hir life growing up had been nearly as far as possible from the idea of a cakewalk as it could be. She grew up poor with only hir mum whilst being confused as to who she was. Only a few years ago it occurred to hir that she was just a girl that was stuck inside the body of a boy, an orc boy to be precise.

But when you consider that orcish society would always be predominantly a Patriarchy no matter if the group of orcs were tribal or integrated into other cultural groups in a city, any Orcs like Methilda would always be ostracized or treated badly.

Methilda was always angered by her asinine mistreatment. The growth of a person or the power they could obtain was unbiased and based purely on effort, skill, luck and money. So why did she have to be treated differently because of how she identified hirself, especially in a supposedly free and open-minded place as the Union?

Thankfully instead of becoming bitter and depressed, Methilda adopted a thorny attitude and a fire in hir spine that was fueled by a whole lifetime of mistreatment, jeering and being judged.

But she would be lying if she were to say that she wasn’t scared as she walked through the small wooden fence towards the frightening demon Elite that awaited her.

You are the shield Methilda, your never going to win in the first place…. if anything you should at least tire it out for the rest of your band! She thought to hirself with grim resolve. Whilst behind hir, hir friends behind her continued to watch her seemingly take brave and steady steps into the ruined circle.

Then when she reached the center, she raised her fists and waited as she fought to control the fear that was threatening to well up inside of hir.

In reply to her resolute determination the monster only cocked it’s small head to the side before whipping out it’s demonic tongue and creating a horrid slurping sound. As if it was some creature from a foreign realm and not some innocent Chitpulka.

Then nothing.

The creature simply looked at her without even deigning to approach her like it had in the previous fights.

Wait a sec?... Does it think I am not worthy? Thought Methilda as rage started to slowly mix with and then overcome the fear. Does it think I am NOT WORTH IT’S TIME?! She added to hirself as hir veins started to pop.

For the young Mathilda had been looked down upon, she had been discriminated many a time but she still was able to power through all those times. But she had never, ever been dissed by a Chitpulka before in her life and if there was something she HATED the most, it was being ignored.

“WHARRGGGH!” Methilda shouted in anger, as she simultaneous activated hir taunt skill which manifested as a red corona of power which pulsed away and squarely hit the Elite.

…

Dornmit who was a bystander on the sidelines, noted how the other orc’s taunt seemed to have less color to it than his but still traveled faster and further.

But before he was able to note how long the skill lasted, Chopeck had already rushed in and delivered a flurry of blows and incapacitated the other defender.

He was extremely surprised as to how Methilda had displayed such an ferocious demeaner but then ultimately lost to Chopeck in nothing but a few hits.

Realms even I lasted longer than that… even if I was using a shield, he thought grimly as Methilda slowly crumpled to the ground with two fractured shins. Must’ve been a difference in levels or else I’ve just been trained better… he added to himself without a hint of boasting as he speculated.

The Elite that had quickly shaken off the effects of the taunt skill, then looked up at his master Gazelle before retreating back to its starting position. It was as if the monster had started to get the hang of this whole sparring concept, but to Dornmit it just looked like it knew that she was the real threat here.

“Oii you!” shouted his master as she then pointed at the tiny goblin male.

Dornmit then tried to remember if the goblin’s name was Jas or Jox? But whatever his name was, he still stood slack-jawed as was the rest of his band after watching the swift defeat of their orc friend. Which Dornmit also surmised was undoubtedly their tank considering the use of the taunt skill.

“You’re in next!” she then added.

Dornmit was sure that the green little Goblin actually turned white in fear. But he sighed to himself, for he was sure that his turn to get beaten up was soon approaching with every defeat.