Amara stood in the inn’s kitchen long before the sun came up. She carefully packed a small sack with various scraps of food, a hastily thrown-together packed lunch. She donned her borrowed leather armor and stepped out into the dark town with her modest lunch strapped to her back. Through the sleepy streets, she walked to the adventurer’s headquarters. As she walked she made doubly sure that she brought everything she would need.

“Morning,” Eliza was waiting out in front of the hobble she calls her home base.

“Morning.” Amara rubbed her eyes. “Did you decide what request we’re going to take?”

“Yep, just west of town some farmers are being pestered by a herd of geckin. Our job is to play the exterminator so the crops can grow properly. Are you ready?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be. I can’t believe it’s finally here, a real adventure.”

“Alright let me tell you a bit about geckin. Do you know anything?”

“Geckins are known for being a ferocious pack hunters, traveling in groups of forty or more. While they aren’t particularly strong they are capable of causing some havoc.”

“I guess you know your stuff. Alright, let’s get ready then. Do you still remember everything from your training yesterday?”

“I hope so...”

“Let’s go ahead and do a quick bout then,” Said Eliza taking up a wooden sword and tossing another to Amara.

“I'll do my best."

"We don’t have to take you on this job. So give it your all."

Without warning, Eliza immediately went for a jab at Amara's stomach which is blocked by Amara's reflexes.

"Not bad," Eliza taunted after having her attack received with a fair posture.

The wooden sword swung back and over Eliza's right shoulder. Amara quickly moved her sword to block it. thud. She then did her best to capitalize on the brief moment of time that Eliza was left open. She thrusted her wooden sword with all her might straight at Eliza's stomach. Eliza, caught off guard by the attack, was only barely able to block it in a totally incorrect fashion, leaving her legs in a tangle and her grip weak on her sword.

“You weren’t supposed to attack back,” Eliza whined

Amara heard the clapping of several hands and looked back to see the rest of the adventurers watching the fight.

"You're not so hopeless after all, maybe you can bring in some good money." Ivan cheered.

Jofre laughed with tears in his eyes, "Hahaha, Eliza I know you're a bad swordswoman but come on, she just started training…"

Adria took a step forward and faced Amara. She threw her scabbard off to the side before grabbing the wooden sword from Eliza.

"This time, I will be your opponent," Adria said,

"Go easy on me?" Amara assumed a fighting stance shaking a little bit.

Before anything further was said Adria rushed forward and went in for a swing. Amara had raised her sword to block however Adria’s darted downwards and hits her leg. Before Amara had a chance to process what just happened the sword came up a second time and jabbed her right in the stomach causing her to buckle over in pain.

"You have a long way to go," Adria said quietly, "If you practice diligently you might be able to improve."

Amara climbed back to her feet doing her best to brush off the pain. Lunella was able to take much more of a beating. There’s no way I’m going to let this do me in. She does her best to hide the pain from the previous attack even going as far as to exclaim, "That didn't hurt at all..."

"It better not have, we weren't even fighting for real," Adria said while grabbing her real sword.

Amara felt a sting in her already weakened pride.

---

The party of adventurers left the town and then headed west, the few farmers of the village live near a small pond in that direction. It's a much harder life outside of the fortifications, but monsters don't bother them too much. Every farmer knows that in order to stay safe you have to be strong enough to face whatever comes your way. They are all capable of fighting at least at an amateur level. However, they are people that have better things to do than to group up and slay a bunch of pests. That's where the adventurers usually come in.

That was what geckins were, nothing more than a pest, they didn’t present any danger to the farmers themselves but they did damage a lot of damage to the crops.

Arriving at a small shack at the edge of a sprawling field, Eliza knocked on the door.

"Anyone here?"

"Ahh, just give me a sec," A voice calls out from inside. Soon A man opened the doorway, wearing overalls. "You those adventurers that I requested?"

"Yes, we're here to slay the geckin."

"Good good, we have a lot of them this time around, we spotted a pack of fifty or so stealing the tomatoes. We’ve had to replant a whole field."

"We'll get rid of them so your crops can grow. Is there anything else you can tell me about this particular herd?"

"'Sides their love of tomatoes?" The farmer sighs, "I guess they seem to always come from the north maybe you can track 'em down there."

"Thank you for that information. We're going to take a look around now if that's okay."

The farmer gave the group a nod of approval and they set off to the north.

"So how are we going to do this?" Amara asked

"Simple, we find em and kill em," Jofre responds

"Geckin are scared of fire, we should use that to our advantage. Maybe we can burn them."

"We could, but we don't even know where they are. Gotta find 'em first, then we just gotta kill 'em. Fire isn’t a good idea here either."

"In a pack, they could do serious damage, we need to have a strategy. Fire should be effective. If we light a bunch of fires around them they’ll be trapped inside—"

Eliza chimed in, "Listen, Amara, I know you're well-studied, but we have a lot of actual experience. A fire just isn’t a good idea in this case, it’s a bit dry around here and our goal is to save the crops. Even if we did encounter the geckin in an area where it is safe to do so, there’s no way we could light all of them at the same time without magic.”

Amara looks like she’s about to give a rebuttal before she stops and lowers her head. “You’re right, I didn’t think it through at all. I guess . . . I’m not as smart as I thought I was.”

“Don’t sell yourself too short, once you get some experience you’ll be able to make use of all that knowledge in your noggin. But, admitting you’re wrong shows growth and I’m proud of you for it,” Eliza said kindly, “Anyway our play here is simple, we'll separate them by shooting off a few arrows from an unseen location. Some will panic and scatter and you guys will try to get the runners. I’ll shoot any that make it too far away with an arrow. After that, we can move in and get the rest."

“And then we get the reward money.” Ivan’s glasses flashed as a scheming grin appears on his face.

---

A group of lizard-like creatures mulled around the entrance to a cave. They were about a meter tall, and they seemed to have bigger heads than bodies. They moved around on all fours but every now and then they would pop up onto two legs to look around. One might liken them to a group of rats. Huge, lizard rats, but rats nonetheless.

The adventurers gazed down at the cave entrance from the tree line. There were about ten geckin out front. Eliza signaled the party to spread out and be ready to kill any of the geckins that could try to run. The group formed a semicircle covering the possible escape routes for the lizards. Once they got into position, Eliza readied an arrow with a distinct red tip.

Eliza let the arrow loose into the middle of the lizards — followed by a loud noise emanating from the arrow. Without a second to waste, Eliza readied her bow and began sniping the few lizards that didn’t move. The remaining geckins scattered running frantically in every direction.

Amara was standing guard at a tree line. A geckin was charging straight for her, and she took a step back her sword shaking wildly. I have to kill it, otherwise, it will get away. I’m an adventurer now, I can do this. She closed her eyes as she swung her sword down and in a single attack the gecking falls to the ground dead. She heard the thud of the body on the ground and her eyes jolted open. I . . . I did it?!

Another geckin ran towards her and she slashed it. “Yes! look at me, I'm an adventurer now!” A big goofy grin appeared on her face as she scanned the battlefield for another geckin to strike. No other lizards came and it seemed that the other party members were finished as well. She regrouped at the cave with the other adventurers.

"Amara, what can you tell me about geckin packs?" Eliza asked, "What kind of habitat do they live in?"

"Why are you asking? caves of course."

"This seems to be a fairly large cave, and there are definitely more geckin inside," Eliza stated, "The farmer said that there are at least fifty of these lizards in the field. I think the queen’s inside."

"A queen?"

"Yeah a geckin queen, did I finally find something you don’t know about? Almost every species of monster has a hierarchy, you saw the orc lord. Geckin are the same way, though a little different in how they come into existence. In a geckin colony, one individual will grow much larger and become a queen that leads the pack, and births the babies. Every pack needs one or they’ll die."

"Perhaps this behavior is exhibited in demons too? Such as the demon lord of long ago."

"Possibly? I’m a little skeptical though since it only happened once."