Pest Control: Part 2

It was near the end of the summer. Albert had learned the German style of magic. The German style of incantation was Alpine Folk music. Using a scroll, Dr. Dostoyevsky summoned a unique stringed instrument that I hadn’t seen before; apparently, it was called a waldzither and it was the national instrument of Germany. German incantation was a strong form of casting for sure, with a difficulty rating of A. Many Germans have attempted to learn it, but most gave up. To an extent, Alpine folk music was seen as a lost art. Fortunately for Albert, he already knew how to play the guitar. It wasn’t exactly a waldzither, but the necessary hand dexterity was there.

This next quest took place before he mastered the instrument. He practiced every night, but it was quite tricky. We were sent on a pest control mission on a tomato farm and Albert wanted to join us to see how a quest would work. After getting him registered to our guild, we set off.

The sprawling tomato farm went on for as far as the eye could see. At the very edge of the horizon, there were only tomato plants. Through magical and mechanical means, this farm was run by around 20 people total. As we approached a garage that somewhat resembled both a barn and an aircraft hangar, a rather burly man approached.

“Why hello there, you must be the new kids we keep hearing about.”

“Kids?”

“Relax, Zhāng, I know plenty of people like this where I live. Yes, we’re here for the pest control quest.”

“The one in section 16?”

“I believe so.”

“Oh, thank goodness! We’ve been having one of the worst mole problems that I’ve ever seen. You wouldn’t believe the size of these things, one’s even bigger than a dad gum elephant!”

“Elephant? Are you originally from earth, too?”

“Nah. Elephants live in Escapia, too.”

“Come to think of it, there’s a lot of crossover in animal life between here and earth. I wonder why…”

“We don’t ask for help here very often, but with moles this big, a gun just isn’t strong enough. With a strong enough rifle, you can take down 30-50 wild boars no problem, but with these big fellers, no dice. Even our strongest guns would just piss ‘em off.”

“Thanks for the warning, we’ll see what we can do about it. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Bobby Radcliffe. And you?”

“I’m Grayson. This is Zhāng and Albert, they’ll be working with me.”

“Nice to meet you. Section 16’s pretty far, do y’all want a ride?”

Riding to section 16 on a combine harvester was a lot of fun, definitely my favorite part of any quest so far. On our way over, Mr. Radcliffe gave us a more exact briefing on what the mole problem was like. They were star-nosed, meaning they didn’t have eyes. Most of them were around the size of pigs or cows, and had thicker skin to match. Apparently their skin was great for treating burns and covering wounds, so they could fetch a decent profit at the guild. When we arrived at section 16, we could already see the massacre. Tomato plants, not typically part of a star-nosed mole’s diet, were only collateral damage of their burrowing. Accompanying the giant moles were grubs of a similar size, which the moles were chasing.

“Okay, we see the moles. Albert, since you can’t use your magic yet, stay back for now and watch. If things get hairy, wave down Bobby and we’ll get out of here. This seems a lot harder than most pest control missions.”

“Alright, let me know if I can help.”

“Zhāng, do you think you can zap them?”

“My magic’s only at rank C, but I’ll try my best.”

“Okay, I’ll see what we can do to slow them down. If we need, we might be able to cover the moles in salt water, and that could make your lightning magic more powerful.”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. The salt could render this here land incapable of growin’ tomatoes.”

“Good point, Mr. Radcliffe.”

“What if you tried to freeze them, Grayson?”

“I don’t think my magic’s strong enough for that… Wait. I have a plan.”

Approaching a grub, I readied my wand.

“Can I get uhhh… closed capsule of botulinum toxin? 1 gram of it.”

“Anything else?”

“Actually, could you make that 3 capsules?”

“Anything else?”

“That’ll be all.”

“Coming right up!”

I now had it in my hand, the most dangerous substance in the world… that some people get injected into their face for some reason. My plan was to shoot the capsules into the grubs and wait for the moles to eat them. I knew this would probably take a while, but it seemed like a safe bet.

“Hey Zhāng, I got some poison here. I’m going to try shooting it into a grub that mole’s eating.”

“How are you going to do that with magic?”

“Watch me!”

“Can I get uhhh carbon-dioxide-powered pellet gun?”

“Nope. We don’t have that.”

“Okay, can I get uhh spring-loaded pellet gun?”

“Sure thing, anything else?”

“That’ll be all.”

“Coming up!”

Poof! A spring-loaded pellet gun appeared in my hand. It was bolt-action and it seemed to have a lot of resistance. I pulled back the spring and dropped a botox pellet in the end of the barrel. Before I shot, I thought about what would happen if the pellet broke upon firing or impact with the grub. If inhaled, a single nanogram can be fatal to humans. If this botox powder were to get on the tomatoes, that could be even worse. What I had in front of me felt almost like an engineering problem. I emptied the barrel without firing.

“Can I get uhhh spear?”

“Sure thing, anything else?”

“That’ll be all.”

I dropped the pellet gun and a spear appeared in my hands. It looked kind of like an Olympic javelin. Although quite nervous, I started to approach one of the pig-sized moles that was busy eating a grub. Although it couldn’t really see me, if it could smell me, it could have lashed out and killed me in a split-second. Fortunately, its nose-feeler tendrils were all over the grub, allowing me to get a quick jab in. The skin moved, but didn’t fully pierce. I dropped the spear and ran as Zhāng and Albert were yelling at me.

“Run, Grayson! Don’t look back!”

I did. This gigantic mole thing was behind me. It had to be hundreds of pounds. Then, for once that day, I had an idea that didn’t suck.

“Can I get uhhh performance boost for my friend Albert?”

“Sure thing, anything else?”

“That’ll be all.”

“Coming right up!”

As I was running with this thing on my tail, I yelled at Albert to pick up his ‘guitar or whatever’ and try to cast some spells. I would’ve apologized later, but he picked up the waldzither and started to play pretty darn well. Well enough to cast A-rank magic, but not perfectly.

“Zap his ass, Albert! Zap him!”

Albert began playing an Alpine folk tune and shot a lightning bolt out of the sound hole that was much stronger than anything either Zhāng or I could cast. With a direct hit, the mole was fried where it stood, and was instantly down for the count.

“That was some trick, Albert! What the hell were you doing, Grayson?”

“I was going to poison it, but I needed to get close so I wouldn’t risk poisoning your crops.”

“Well I’ll be. You certainly made for some good bait at least.”

“How did- how did I do that?”

“I cast a spell to enhance your performance. I guess you were just able to lock in and do it.”

“That’s crazy! Should we try it again?”

“Sure, I have plenty of spells left. There are only a few more moles-”

They smelled it. The star-nosed moles smelled the fried mole and started charging us. Panicked, we all jumped into the combine harvester and started riding away. The moles started chasing the combine harvester, and they were gaining on us. The giant mole in the back that was roughly the size of an elephant was particularly frightful.

“Albert, I have an idea, but I don’t think you’re going to like it!”

“What’s that?”

“Get on the roof. You’re about to cast some magic!”

“Oh geez.”

There we were, in a combine harvester being chased by gigantic moles. Zhāng was casting spells to slow them down a little bit and I was ordering spells like fast food items to help my friend, who was on top of the harvester, shoot lightning bolts at the moles by playing his weird German lute. What the hell.

Successfully zapping the other two small ones first, Albert moved on to the two cow-sized moles. He tried shocking one, but there wasn’t enough power in his lightning strikes. Instead, he shot an exploding fireball at the one on the left, completely destroying its head. He had little time to celebrate because they were gaining on us and we were getting close to the building in the center. Albert readied his lute and destroyed the second cow-sized mole.

“Guys, I don’t think I’m strong enough to take out the biggest one.”

“I got you, I’ll boost your spell power!”

“Thanks, Zhāng, I’m getting a little light-headed up here.”

I helped Albert play his waldzither, Zhāng boosted his spell power, and Albert cast the final blow: the biggest damn fireball I’ve ever seen. Packed within this miniature sun was a swirling shitstorm of explosive power, the likes of which I had never seen before. When we saw the thing die, we screamed with excitement.

“We did it! Thank god!”

“Yeah, teamwor-”

Alfred fell off the back of the combine harvester, landing in a blob of roasted mole meat. He had used up all of his mana and passed out. Thankfully, Zhāng did a much better job of healing him than I could have with rank F incantations. When he came to, we all celebrated, but then…

“Okay, now what? How do we get the moles back to the guild?”

“If you give me a cut, I’ll give you a ride.”

Bobby Radcliffe pointed at his combine harvester with his thumb.

“I bet the moles’ll get you about 55 silver alone. I’ll give you a lift for 4.”

“We’d each get 17 silver… I’m down, what do you guys think?”

“Hell yes.”

And so we rode the combine harvester back to town with a giant cart of dead moles. We sold them to the guild and got much more than we expected, a whole gold coin. That was even before the reward for the quest. To split it, we asked for the total in silver, and we gave Bobby 10 to thank him.

“Aww shoot, you didn’t have to give me this much silver!”

“They just gave us a lot more than we expected, and you helped us out a lot. Thanks!”

“Next time I get into a pickle, I’ll know who to call.”

As he drove his combine harvester into the sunset, we all waved as a group. After a night of tavern chicanery, we made enough money to coast through the school year while only working weekends. This was pretty much exactly what we wanted.