They were getting used to this, they still missed their parents like crazy and talked about it between themselves. There was this air of adventure in what they were doing. They would worry but it would be in the back of their heads. It was time to see what kind of quest were available.

“Miss Hoysver good morning.”

“Oh, my look at you, looking the part of a true party of adventurers. It is so exciting to have so many of your around. You are ready to collect on your quest, let me process this.” She went to her record books and then brought out a lock box. It was dusty and she brought a rag and cleaned it off. She waved her hand over a lock and said some words that they could not make out. It clicked and opened for her, “Here is your reward.” There was a small pouch and the sound of coins inside.

“Thank you, Miss. We want to take a little bit and store the rest; is there somewhere we can do that?”

“Yes, yes, we can keep it for you as well, I should have said that to begin with.” Bobby took some coins out, while they did not know how much they should keep they would keep some just in case. The rest they handed back over, she logged this in her records books and handed them a receipt. “Also you can let the merchants know that they can charge us as well, not all accept this but most of them do.” That was welcome news, they did not want to carry hundreds of coins around to buy what they needed.

Bobby would be their de facto accountant as he was the best with numbers, “About the other available quest you have?”

“We have a lot, let’s look at them.” She started to list the quest that were available, help was needed by a lot of people in town, all sorts of things, deliveries, collecting, and escorting. There was harder quest as well, some involved getting rid of pest and going into a dungeon. While they were all eager to go into the dungeon, they did not see themselves ready for that.

“If you could give us a moment, we want to discuss these requests.” To this the guild manager nodded and they stepped away as another group was waiting. She spoke to them and gave a similar speech to theirs. They would need to really think about the quest, they had competition now with other groups starting their own journeys.

“So, thoughts? No Pepe we are not going into the dungeon yet. And no, we are not going to take the poop quest. I don’t get it, something pulls you into another world, and they can’t get away from the poop quest?” They had seen that he was excited and knew it was coming. He ducked his head disappointed.

“Come on Josh, you know will have to go in eventually, we should at least get rid of some pest, we need the practice as a team.” Pepe gave him a huge smile, unfortunately he was right and they could use the practice, Josh nodded at his friend, “that is what I am talking about!”

They took a few minutes and settled on some of the simpler things, collecting seemed easy enough and deliveries as well, and they would do one escort quest, and just to a peace Pepe they took the rodent extermination quest. They returned to the guild manager and asked to be given the quest they had discussed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The escort quest would be done the following day. They went about doing the delivery, then the gathering quest. One quest was for missing items, another cooking items for an upcoming birthday dinner, the third one was for star metal that had been seen dropping from the sky a week earlier.

The delivery quests were mundane quest. They split up for these quests even though they would only get Solo experience for them it was still faster to just do it alone. This took a short time of the morning. Next would be the fetch quest and they were eager to get out of town just to go explore.

The request for the star metal was a little more difficult than the other fetch quest. This had included going around town talking to people to see if they had seen this star metal fall and where they had seen it. They had hit a wall as most people had not seen it. Finally, after talking to who knows how many people, they had found a couple that had seen where it had fallen. They left town as soon as they found the information, it was late morning now and they had wanted to be out in the field much earlier.

The missing items were easy and before they knew it, they had completed the first requested. The cooking items were rare herbs and other cooking ingredients, and they only had a picture of the items so not as easy to gather.

Erin took charge, “Alright guys while I have not seen these before, I should be able to easily recognize them. Master Ildvesi went over some herbology since Rangers spend time outdoors, they need to be able to identify items they can eat as well as medicinal herbs.” Erin took out his map and it had been updated with circles surrounding the areas where the items could potentially be found. Due to his training the map had more detail than the other four.

He picked the closest circle and started walking in that direction. Soon as he arrived, he started to inspect the area for the first item. He quickly found what he was looking for, this was going to be easier than he thought. On they moved to the next area, Erin quickly finding the items, the others were glad he was able to do it so quick as they probably would have taken much longer. They followed Erin for the rest of the items which were quickly found with his guidance.

“Maria please verify that these are the needed items.” Just to make sure Erin wanted to check with the HelpNode, even though he was pretty sure that the items were the correct ones.

Analyzing items…. Analysis complete.

“User Erin, analysis indicated that the items are the requested items. Good job in identifying them, I will add this to the knowledge base.” Maria was pleased about this and proud of her users.

Finally, they made their way to the area that the Star Metal had been seen they searched and searched, finally after taking way too long they found it, it had fallen in a location that was covered by bushes that they had passed earlier, there was a rather large hole where it had landed how they missed that they were not sure. Erin felt a little dumb, since he was feeling good about the earlier success, he had missed obvious signs like the broken branches that he totally missed.

Manuel and Pepe went and dug around the area until they uncovered the item. The piece was large with a light glow to it, the crystalline structure looked like a bunch of little cubes stuck together. They brought it out seeing it was heavy, it took the two of them to get it out, the weight meant that two would need to carry it back to town.

Next on the list was the rodent extermination request. They made their way to the location indicated on their map; they had not visited this location which was to the east of town. They had to switch between the friends to carry the star metal as they would tire after walking a little while. Since they had no idea about the size of the item they had not accounted for the size or the weight. Another thing to worry about, maybe they should invest in mounts?

They saw the problem right away when they got to the indicated location, some of the trees and everything around had been eaten by the rodents. Trees had fallen because the things would eat through their trunks then proceed to eat any fruit, smaller branches and the leaves leaving a long bare pole. One of the rodents came out from behind some bushes and started to maw at a tree near it. The teeth were square like that of a beaver, and it was munching away at the tree trunk.

Josh looked at the thing, it was about the size of a large dog, the only animal that he could compare it to was a capybara a large rat thing he had seen once at the zoo. Instead of a stubby tail it had a long one with what looked like a pincer at the end. It did not really have any hair instead the skin was this muddled green color; you could see the things muscles and it looked strong. Another joined it and before long the tree was down, once it was on the ground, they began to eat everything around it, another smaller one joined in.

No other creatures turned up, so it was likely that these were the ones they needed to get rid of. Josh had no clue if this was going to be easy or not, but it was time to get rid of the things it was getting late, and they needed to return to town.

“Manuel you ready to do your thing?” Josh took his wand out and the others followed suit. They arrayed themselves around Manuel ready to start the fight.

“Yup sure thing.” He took out his sword and shield, pointing the sword at the creatures he yelled, “[Wall]!” This got the attention of the creatures, they looked up in the direction of the group but did not run towards them, “[Taunt]!” The skill did the trick though, the creatures snorted at the ground and pawed at it before starting their charge.

Manuel had placed his shield low and set his feet to receive the impact, the things hit, with the running start it made the hit stronger. He felt the impact his teeth chattering a little, but he stood his ground. He smacked at them swinging his sword, a shallow cut opened on the one that had come out second. It yelped but did not back off, it kept on hitting and trying to bite at Manuel.

While Manuel had the things attention, Pepe on his right side moved in cut right with one dagger followed by a vertical slash with the other, the smaller creature got hit by the first but jumped back from the second attack. While the creature saw the big warrior with the shield as the main target, he started to dodge the attacks by the smaller attacker as well.

Erin moved to the right of Pepe to get a better line of sight on the creature as well, aiming his bow he fired. It hit the smaller creature on the shoulder.

Pepe’s went in again as the creature turned to the new attacker, his left hand came up and then down to dispatching the creature, Pepe attempted to remove his dagger saw that it was stuck and let go. Before his arm was out of reach the tail of the creature came forward and sliced at his arm. Pepe jumped back with a yelp, the creature falling to the ground jerking before it stopped moving.

Pepe has received damage 26/30 HP

Additional Affects: Poison

“Bobby, I been poisoned!” Pepe started to panic as the wound was painful and he could feel the poison moving, looking down at the wound he saw angry red blackish skin, and black lines starting to go up his arm slowly. A few seconds passed and he saw that his HP had gone down. 'Crud, crud am I gonna die?! I’m too young and handsome to die! I was gonna ask Michelle out, now I never will!' His inner voice yelling at him.

Bobby heard his friend, he had to look at the whole fight, since he did not currently have any offensive spell at his disposal he would be looking between his friends. He had not seen what had happened to Pepe, but as soon as his friend had yelled about the poison, he was ready. He pointed with his staff and cast his spell, “[Cleanse]!” He felt a tug at his mana, then the spell hit his friend, he knew that he would be fine, so he continued to look at his other friends. He would warn them if anything escaped their notice and back them up as much as possible.

As soon as the spell landed Pepe felt relief from the poison, his health had gone lower, but he no longer got the warning about poison.

You are no longer poisoned. Duh.

HP: 21/30 MP:0 AP:25/30

He was not sure why he had been panicking with his friends here, but he was alright now. He had lost his dagger and he would not be able to recover it until this was over.

Pepe saw another arrow flying from Erin, then a fireball from Josh. The center Capybara looking thing go down, the other large one was left, he needed to go back in, his arm felt better, he could still feel the affects from the poison and the cut even though the poison had stopped with Bobby's help.

Josh saw Pepe yelp and his call for Bobby and their Healers immediate response. He needed to do his part, he was not going to just stand here and see these creatures hurt his friends. He had been getting into a better position he saw an opening, “[Fireball]!” Saw the spell rushing towards the creature and land, saw Erin’s arrow hit right before his spell. The creature was down and now it was time to take out the final one.

Manuel was relieved that the others had done their parts, he kept the creatures on him as was his job, smacking his shield with his sword and just pestering the creatures to keep them under control. ‘Alright you ugly dog rat thing you’re going down.’ His sword hand coming forward, felt the sword penetrate flesh, he put pressure with both hands felt it stop momentarily then something gave way and the sword stopped at the hilt. Saw his cousin coming in to support him, good primo, he could always count on him, and his friends, they were the best. My friends, my family he thought, their family and one always protect family.

Manuel saw the creature eyes lose focus then it was still, his sword on the left of the creature between shoulder and neck. Saw Pepe’s knife on the side of the creature’s gut. The creature dropped and it was over. The fight was over!

Congratulation's Quest Complete!!!

You have defeated Rodents x3.

Currency acquired: 5S 15C

Ding* LV UP!

LV increase to LV2

By leveling up to LV2 you have gained 2 STAT Points

Title Acquired – [The Exterminator]

[The Exterminator] – You are sent from the future to… wait wrong Exterminator, that is Exterminator II.

They congratulated each other on the level up. During the fight everyone had kept their cool, they were a good team, had always been a good team. They giggled at the silly title they had received, not sure if the titles would do them any good. With all their quest complete they started to walk back to town.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The trip back was quite slower than they thought it would thanks to the start metal they were carrying. They made it just in time before the gates were closing, they could see the sun going down and only a short time remaining before sunset. The guards looking at them as they moved slowly to the gate.

“Cutting it close boys.”

Guard Rotgert looked at the item they were carrying, “Can I see that?” His voice still funny, they handed the item over, he picked it up as if it weighted nothing, “good size Star Metal, this should fetch some good coin. My hammer is made from Star Metal, very resilient stuff.” He handed the item back to the boys and waved them through.

They made their way to the Guild Hall. The delivery quest got them some potions, some sweets, and a heartfelt note from one of the quest givers. The fetch quest got them invited to the party, the Star Metal reward would be given to them after weighing the metal. She handed them receipts for the money that was the reward for some quest.

Bobby looked at the total and he was surprised that they had made that much, it looked like they would have no issues paying for their room and board. While they were not rich being an adventurer paid well.

Afterwards tired from the long day, they cleaned up and it was time to rest the next day was going to be an early start. They looked at their stats to see what they would spend it on it was important to do it when there was down time before falling asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They met a large adult; you would think he could handle himself being so large. He was wrapped up in a lot of clothes and behind him he pulled a large cart with items. His skin had a grayish tinge and very rough looking.

“Thank you for taking my request, my name is Tebesa Krolir.” They all stepped back a little, “Is everything alright?” The voice was not that of a man, it was very female, they had mistaken her for a he, as they did not know how to recognize one gender from the other.

“No ma’am, Miss Tebesa. We are ready when you are.” What else could they say, oops we thought you were a guy?

“Good, good, then let us start. We have a long walk and the sooner we start the better.”

A merchant with gray skin, a healer in his robes and staff, the wizard wearing similar clothes a wand at his belt. The thief in his leather armor with twin daggers, and the Ranger also in leathers with his bow and arrows and a small knife at his waist. The warrior with the heavier armor his short sword at his hip and his shield at his back. Manuel in the front, two of the boys on either side of the merchant and two behind. The adventure began all that had gone before merely the appetizer before the main course.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The route they would take would be southeast, very small roads and game trails would be taken most of the way. It was a two-day trip to their destination the Village of Avadur, a small village rich in agricultural. The fruit in season was just being picked in the village and Tebesa was eager to get there before her competitors beat her to the best fruit or before it spoiled.

They were about four hours into their trip, they had been walking for a long time with only one quick rest period, “It would be best to rest for a little and eat. We will need energy for the afternoon walk.”

They nodded to this, it was a warm day their weapons and armor and small packs with provisions weighing them down. Each put their pack down and sat taking out some travel rations they had purchased for this trip. The food was leathery, and the taste akin to beef jerky but less tasty more like carboard. They chewed it and drank some water; they were hungry and thirsty. They had little choice but to eat what they had brought.

There was a commotion of rustling bushes, and all got up ready to face whatever it was that was coming. An animal that looked like a small deer emerged from the bushes, with a flat face, antlers a long tail and red fur. It stopped when it saw the group not knowing what to do. They stood there just waiting, the creature continued slowly then started to run back into the forest disappearing from sight.

The group looked at each other and shrugged. What were they expecting that they be attacked by monsters? How silly was that?

“Well, that was interesting. I have some biscuits and jam if you want some.” They all nodded at this; anything would be better than what they had just ate. She handed each a biscuit full of jam, the biscuit was soft and the jam sweet and tasted of strawberries or whatever this worlds equivalent was.

Soon they were up and walking again, it felt as if the rest had not been long enough, but they had a way to go before they were stopping for the night. They heard small animals in the trees, birds, and other animal sounds during their walk. A wind had picked up during the march to everyone’s relief it helped with the hot weather. After many hours of walking, they finally made it to a small valley, there was a stream nearby according to the merchant, so they settled for the evening.

After taking care of setting up camp they sat, there was a small fire going with a pot for boiling water. To the pot the merchant added some items she had taken from her cart, Erin could smell herbs some vegetables, and meat. His mouth watering at the thought of a decent meal. It was so strange to feel like you had not eaten anything decent when you had a great meal the previous night.

After waiting for the meal to finish it was finally done and they were all eager to try it Miss Tebesa to their relief also had bowls and spoons. They had failed to bring basic camping equipment. If they were going to be out here for longer than a day, they had to know what to bring with them. But it was not as if they had done this before, the last time they had camped they had ended up here in this other place.

“This is a secret recipe that has been passed down from my fathers’ side. It is not easy to get all the ingredients since the spices come from the lands of my people. I hope that you enjoy it.” She served each one a bowl and she ate out of the pot.

The food was rich and aromatic with a hint of mint much different to what Mr. Rowans wife cooked at the inn. The stew tasted wonderfully the vegetables melted on your tongue and the meat even though a bit gamy was soft and the compliment of the spices was to die for. The boys dug into their food and ate it with a small piece of bread also thanks to the trader. They were so glad they had taken this request, if she had any future request, they were sure going to take them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DungeonNode1337 and DungeonNode1 were ready to present their masterpiece, they had worked for days on this, it would be the best one out of them all! The Big Boss was going to be here any minute and they could not contain themselves, they had been picked from the others to oversee the Dungeon. This had made all the other Nodes extremely jealous, but they were facing the dynamic duo 1337 and 1 they had no chance.

“Sir, this way, as I was saying they worked hard on this, they are the most…” He saw his fellow nodes and what were they wearing on their heads, well one would assume they had heads, but like Regi they were spherical nodes. 1337 had on what looked like a red hat with his numbers on the hat, and 1 had a green hat with his number on it, “one second sir let me go talk to them see if they are ready.” The big boss stopped and waited.

“DungeonNodes please explain to me what it is that you have on your head?!” He was not sure what to think, hats they had hats on, a node did not wear hats.

“Well sir they are hats.” 1 light flashing in acknowledgement to his fellow node.

“I know what a hat is, but why do you have them on?” He looked back not that you could tell that he looked back as he did not have any actual eyes, his boss was ready for the tour. “Never mind I will deal with you two idiots later.”

1337 and 1 looked at each other not really sure what the problem was with the hats, but they were ready, oh were they ready. This was the ultimate culmination of their genius, and the Big Boss was going to be super impressed.