Debbie found her usual spot for missions like this, perched on the back of the cart.  The smell from the cabbages and cauliflowers surrounding her was not exactly unpleasant, but it was certainly strong.  The cauliflowers were particularly impressive to look at, the majority of them were as large as her head, even the smallest would be a gardiner's dream back in Earth.

Kahlil was sitting up front alongside Daavid, as they slowly left the village.  As they had left the inn, two middle-aged men came in, supporting a youth who had been thrown from a horse.  His arm was in a makeshift sling, and his clothes were dusty from the fall.  Stevo's first victim of the morning.  He'd be busy while they were away, and might end up getting more experience than she would, Deb thought with a frown.  If nothing happened on the trip, she'd likely get 20xp and a silver coin from Gregoor.  It was fair payment for the (lack of) work involved, but she'd become accustomed to better.

Fields and trees slipped past them as they meandered along the narrow cart track. It wasn't a particularly warm day, but the feeling of the sunshine on her face kept Debbie's spirits up.  Kahlil meanwhile has been listening to Daavid's telling of how Stevo patched him up after he was hit in the shoulder by a bandit's arrow on his last trip.  Stevo had made a friend for life in Daavid, thought Debbie.  A healer was the perfect role for Stevo.  He wasn't really cut out to be a fighter.  He could do it, but it was obvious that violence wasn't something that he was particularly comfortable with.  This way, he could make a valuable contribution, both here, and on Earth, without getting involved in too much combat.

Debbie still wasn't entirely sure of Kahlil's speciality.  She knew he was many levels beyond her, and he had plenty of coins. His equipment also looked expensive to her, admittedly inexpert, eye.   His glowing sword was particularly eye catching, and he had deep red leather bracers on his forearms that had intricate black patterns on them that Deb felt were not merely decorative.

The horses slowed finally, and they met the poultry cart they would ride back. After greetings, and a few rude comments passed back and forth between David and the other driver, they were on their way.   Debbie noted that the other cart only had one guard, a man as wide as he was high almost, armed with what appeared to be a form of crossbow.

The smell of cabbage had been replaced by the smell of chicken shit.  It wasn't an improvement.  Luckily the breeze while they were moving kept the stench from becoming overpowering.  The cart bounced along steadily as the sun began to sink towards the horizon.  The afternoon rolled on.

Debbie's wandering attention was snapped back to the here and now as she heard a strange screeching coming from off to the left, her head swund around in time to see Kahlil leap from the cart, whipping his sword through the air whilst in flight, and cleave a giant mantis in half.  Two more of the massive insects appeared from the undergrowth.  Debbie joined the fray, sprinting to try and intercept the closer of the two before they had a chance to double-team Kahlil.  She made it just in time to distract the creature, who slashed at her with a scythe like limb.  Debbie forcefully blocked the blow with her mace, before spinning and driving her weapon down onto the triangular head of the beast.  It screeched, backed off a step, then thrust both of it's "arms" at Debbie, apparently realising she had no way of blocking both at once.  Luckily Debbie had recently put some points into her agility attribute, allowing her to perform a backflip to get out of the way.  She then leapt forward, swinging her mace in a massive overhead arc, again thudding against the armored head of the creature.  This time though, the head split open and the mantis fell, lifeless, to the ground.

Enemy Defeated!  5xp awarded!

Kahlil had made short work of his foe, and nodded his approval to Debbie, before returning to the cart and climbing aboard.  Moments later they were back under way, the clucking of the chickens a soothing rhythm as the adrenalin high wore off.

Before long they were back in Drebun, the sun beginning to set as they walked in to the Inn.  They saw Stevo at a table near the bar, hard at work.  Sitting on the table was a stout, middle aged woman with short grey hair.  Her left arm was bloody, and Stevo appeared to be carefully pulling glass fragments out of a number of cuts. Some sort of household accident probably. 

They left Stevo to his task and took seats at a neighboring table.  Moments later, Gregoor's father appeared, bearing mugs of hot tea and a platter of bread, sliced meat, cheese, and what appeared to be picked onions.  

"Gregoor was called away, but he told me to pay you both a silver coin each, and make sure you had some food inside you before you left."

With that he smiled, nodded, and walked away as Kahlil and Debbie offered their thanks.  Deb saw that she'd also been awarded 25xp, slightly more than she expected, with the 5xp she got for her kill, it was a worthwhile trip. 

Debbie glanced over at Stevo, in time to see him cast his healing spell, the glass shards having been removed from the injured woman's hand and arm.  Kahlil meanwhile was piling slices of cold pork onto a chunk of bread, his mouth practically watering.  Debbie assembled a cheese sandwich of her own, carefully slicing a pickled onion and adding it to the bread and cheese.  Stevo joined them, snagging a pickled onion from the platter as he sat. 

"How was your trip?  Any excitement?" Stevo asked with a mouthful of onion. 

"Dull for ninety percent of the time, but we got attacked by these giant mantis things on the way back.  Kahlil made short work of two of them, while I bashed the other one's head in."  Deb gesticulated with her knife towards Kahlil, who nodded agreement whilst chewing a mouthful of food, before swallowing. 

"I hate those things!" Stevo exclaimed, grimacing. 

"What about you Stevo?  Any interesting patients?" Kahlil asked, reaching for his mug of tea. 

"Nothing too crazy, although there was a man with a horribly infected wound on his ankle.  He'd ignored it, thinking it would heal on it's own.  He'd left it for almost a week to fester before his neighbor convinced him to show it to me. His foot and ankle were huge and very hot to touch.  The skin was red to his knee.  I had to cast two heals on him before the swelling and redness went. He walked out of here unaided, but if he'd left it much longer without a healer the infection would likely have killed him, or cost him his leg."

"Good job Stevo!" Kahlil said, and he and Debbie saluted him with their mugs, Deb giggling as she did so. 

"You can laugh, but I got twenty experience points and a pile of coins sitting here in the bar all day, while you were out babysitting cabbages!" 

They all laughed at that, before Kahlil took a bite out of his second sandwich.