“Are we hiding or seeking?” asked Puppy.

“Seeking, obviously.”

“Alright then… What are we looking for?”

“Ingredients for a ritual,” said Arivarea. Puppy just raised his eyebrows and went to take the quest letter from her in order to read it.

“There’s a summoner who wants some ingredients for a summoning.”

“A summoning? Isn’t that majorly difficult?”

“Look at the quest rank,” said Arivarea with a smug face, it was blue.

“Isn’t this the second highest?” asked Puppy incredulously.

“Are you scared?” teased Arivarea, Puppy didn’t even dignify the weak mocking with an answer. “I wouldn’t have thought to do it if it weren’t for you, you know?”

“What about me do you think can complete this quest?” Puppy asked as he scanned the page of things that needed to be collected. “Oh, I see.” he nodded.

“Indeed, the most difficult to gather ingredient is a night sabat. Oh, if only we had someone with the best sense of smell on the planet.” she said smugly.

She approached Puppy and poked his nose which was currently bunged up with cloth to stop the city smells from overwhelming him. He had no idea how his fellow beast-kin could live in the stench filled city.

“I can’t believe you need to block your nose,” she sighed, Puppy just shrugged. “Well, what do you think?” she asked.

“It’s doable,” said Puppy. He’d never doubted his nose before and he wasn’t about to start.

The man behind the guild counter spluttered with disbelief as the two people he had assumed were reasonable and intelligent guild members came back with a blue rank quest.

“Didn’t I just warn you about high ranking quests?” the man asked with a disbelieving tone.

“I’m not sure this quest is dangerous,” smiled Arivarea. “Just difficult for normal people.”

The man looked at the paper and calmed down a little. Indeed, this quest was high blue rank not because of how dangerous it was but how difficult it was to complete.

“This is not a quest you can just swing your sword at and complete, you know?” The man cocked his eyebrow. “Then again… Alright, I’ll let you take it. Only because I’m pretty good at judging people and you two at least seem intelligent enough to know what you’re getting into.”

“Uh… Thanks.” said Arivarea, taking the quest letter back and walking away. Puppy smiled at the man and followed her.

“A bit rude… Neither of us even use swords.” said Arivarea once she was out of earshot.

“He’s probably used to dealing with idiots. The guild does attract the brawn over brains type.” Puppy said.

Arivarea stomped her foot. “Apologise to all guild members right now.”

Puppy laughed subtly. “Sorry, guild members.”

Arivarea laughed a little then continued on her path. After a little walk she stopped. Puppy laughed a little laugh again and spoke up. “Shall we find someone to show us around.”

Arivarea puffed her cheeks a little then turned around and walked back to the guild.

“You’re back already? Did you run into a problem?” he asked, genuinely taken aback by their reappearance.

“We are new to this city, you see. Is there anyone that can show us around?” asked Arivarea with a little hesitance.

“Of course, due to the city’s size and population, our guild does offer guides to join a party. There are a couple of caveats though.”

“Go on.”

“Their training is academic based and not combat therefore can offer little help in battle and if you choose to party with one then you will naturally have to split the reward with them.” he said without pause.

“Of course that’s fine... It seems like these rules are more like common sense.” said Arivarea with creased eyebrows.

“Unfortunately not everyone sees it that way. Then, if you’ll excuse me I will find you an appropriate guide. If you could hand me the quest letter please.”

Arivarea slid the quest letter over the table and the man walked into one of the three doors behind him. He returned a moment later with a tall, green skinned woman.

“This is Hayune.”

“Hello, as you heard, my name is Hayune, I’d love to join your party for the duration of the quest.”

“And we’d love to have you,” said Arivarea with a smile. She held her hand out and Hayune took it with glee. Arivarea turned to Puppy.

“Shall we try this again then?” Puppy just nodded his head.

Hayune showed them the way to the client. She spoke unceasingly, informing the two newcomers about everything they happened to pass.

Arivarea was smiling and nodding her head trying to remember as much as possible but Puppy had the presence of mind to only remember the things that were relevant.

They finally arrived at a derelict brick house that despite the bright and sunny day, was shrouded in an eerie darkness. Hayune stepped towards the door and knocked cautiously.

After a minute a spindly young man came to the door and peered his head out.

“Hello, sir. We’re here to complete the quest you left at the guild.” Hayune said with a forced smile, trying to ignore the fact that he was topless and smelled like death.

“So you have the stuff?” he said opening the door a little wider.

“Not yet, Sir.”

“Then why are you here?”

“We are here to collect the containers and various tools we need to collect the materials. As mentioned in the quest letter,” Hayune said with a professional tone that Puppy and Arivarea marvelled at.

“Oh, shit. Fine, I’ll get it.”

“Thank you.” she smiled, but the young man was already gone. They heard rummaging before he came back out again with a wooden box with straps that clicked around a little as he handed it over to Hayune. All three looked away as his wiry body exposed itself.

“Well, that was quite a character.” said Arivarea, walking alongside Hayune.

“He is a quite well known slob in the area. Unfortunately he is also quite talented in magic.”

“Ah the eccentric genius type.” Arivarea nodded.

“Well, we’d be fine if he was just eccentric. He’s just gross.” Hayune said with disgust.

Puppy was walking behind them and could only shake his head at how the poor man was being spoken about behind his back.

“So, what’s the first thing?” asked Hayune, looking at Arivarea who was holding the quest letter.

“Well, first we send Puppy off to work.” Hayune grimaced a little.

“Oh no, don’t worry. That’s his name.” said Arivarea realising that Hayune had thought that she was insulting him. Puppy nodded and held his hand out.

“It’s true,” he said.

Hayune smiled and took his hand. “What a surprisingly cute name for…” she paused with a charming blush.

“Puppy, you know what to do?” said Arivarea, appreciating the flustered Hayune. She had to commed Puppy’s talents in making maidens' knees weak.

“Of course.”

“Then Hayune, shall we?”

“I… I guess.” Poor Hayune was a little confused about the supposed plan but figured they at least had one.

Puppy made his way out of the city, his goal was the night sabat. He was getting quite tired of the bunged up nose so he was thankful for the opportunity to leave the city, if temporarily.

The sun was high in the sky and the poor dog was out in the grassland with his face in the dirt searching for traces of sabat.

The night sabat beetle was famous for its ability to hide. Hence Puppy was alone on his mission, having unnecessary clamour whilst looking for the paranoid beetle would only hinder his ability to catch one.

The reason the night sabat would be much easier to find for him was the distinct smell of it’s excrement. Not something Puppy was terribly pleased about but handy for completing the mission.

Puppy’s adventure had started on the outskirts of the farmland but night sabat were fond of shade and a particular brand of plant that grew in grassland. His mini adventure was stopped quite short, however.

A large blue tusked animal revealed its crouching form in an athletic jump towards Puppy’s face. Puppy launched backward and readied his spear. The animal took no time to coil back and launch itself again. Puppy calmly raised his spear and plunged it into the creature's neck. He pushed his foot into the creature and ripped his spear free. There was no way he hadn’t picked up on the multiple creatures surrounding him.

Now that one of the pack was taken down the rest no longer underestimated him. They attacked him simultaneously, Puppy sidestepped powerfully and slammed one of the creatures to the floor with the bladed end thunking into its skull, then quickly using the blunt end to smash another in the mouth.

The two that Puppy dodged sprang towards him again. This time Puppy charged, leaving one to overshoot its pounce, he thrusted his spear into the other’s mouth getting scratched by the front claws in the process.

He turned to face down the last two, one was snarling the other feeling sorry for itself with blood trickling out of its mouth.

Puppy decided it might be time to test a certain magic he’d been practicing. He channeled his spatial magic and slowly a Puppy clone appeared next to him, replicating his spear stance. Puppy wiped some sweat off his brow, it was his first time using this in a practical sense.

The creatures were taken aback by the sudden introduction of another Puppy. The Puppy’s attacked before the creatures could run. He thrust his spear forward and impaled the two confused creatures before they could move. Puppy quickly dispelled his magic so as not to collapse from exhaustion.

“Well, that went better than expected.”

He wrenched the tusks free from the creatures and stuffed them in his bag, hoping that they might be some sort of valuable.

He carved and wrapped some meat as well, his beastkin constitution meant he could eat it raw with no issues.

He continued his search for the stinky beetle.

Arivarea and Hayune were sitting with their feet dangling into the water, they watched ships float by as they either left or entered the busy city port.

“Is this going to take a long time?” muttered Arivarea, who was swinging her legs restlessly. Hayune giggled sweetly at her impatience.

They both had fishing rods dangling into the water. Arivarea, with her full rogue outfit on and daggers at her hips looked out of place.

Hayune meanwhile was humming softly as she played with the grass with her off hand.

“It will take as long as it takes,” she laughed.

As if the animal responded to Arivarea’s complaint, the tip of her rod dipped down quickly. She jumped up and wrenched the rod upwards, lodging the hook into the fish’s mouth.

She slowly pulled the line in, Hayune watched with anticipation. Out of the water came a silver and purple fish gulping air.

“I got it!” she exclaimed. Hayune grabbed the fish and pulled the hook out, then smacked it over the head to end it’s life quickly and as painlessly as possible.

“Well, that’s another material, we only need a couple more don’t we?”

Arivarea took out the quest letter. “Now that we’ve got the agi fish, we only need two more things. Some rasput powder and... Manyan tusk?”

“Manyan’s are ferocious creatures that hunt in packs, I’m afraid we will have to wait for tomorrow before we are able to collect that material, as for the rasput powder. We have to talk to quite a special someone to obtain that.”

“Special someone?”

“A big time merchant that sells almost anything you can think of.”

“Well, let’s go then.” Arivarea said, standing up and brushing down. She was just glad to get moving after being perched on her butt for half an hour.

They arrived at a rather fancy market that had more glass than Arivarea had seen throughout the entire city. They were lights on despite it being midday and the shops and stalls were crammed full with people.

Hayune found the stall she was looking for and began her inquiry on the rasput powder. Arivarea used the opportunity to look around and marvel and the many things on offer. Her gaze lingered on a particular building. It was nestled in at the end of the street. She narrowed her eyes as her gaze settled on a regal looking ygar beastkin.

“That’s Madame Hart, she’s no good.” whispered Hayune, seemingly finished with the rasput powder purchase.

“I’ve heard…”

“You’ve heard?”

“We have a farmer friend who’s not a fan.”

“Farmer friend?”

“Yeah, her name’s Roh Ten.”

“Oh, she’s rather famous around here, she’s not a farmer though.”

“Her father is.”

“Well yes, I suppose he is. But Roh Ten works at the guild. She helps out a lot.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.” shrugged Arivarea.

She watched the Ygar woman walk into the back room.

“Do you know much about her?” asked Arivarea.

“Well, of course. I know everything there is to know about this city.”

“Then you know about that Egra farm.”

Hayune nodded her head slowly. “I know about what happened, yes.”

Arivarea hummed and turned towards Hayune. “Are we finished then?”

“Well, I have the powder. If your partner has managed to find the beetle then all that’s left is the manyan tusk. Which we can handle tomorrow.”

“Oh, he’s found it alright. I have no doubt.”

“Then let’s head to the guild and meet him.” she said with a little more excitement than Arivarea was expecting.

“You like my Puppy too? Ah, he’s just too charming.” she said quietly, lamenting his devilish good looks.

They eventually went back to the guild where they found Puppy leaning against the wall, he was mid yawn. His long sharp canines on full view. When he noticed the two women he waved a little.

“Welcome back.” he said.

“How’d it go?” Asked Arivarea who gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

“Pretty successful, I got the beetle at least.”

“Of course you did,” said Arivarea with a cocky smile on her face.

“And whatever these are,” he took out the tusks.

Hayune and Arivarea looked at each other in disbelief.