* 38 * 7/16/12, 3/4/13

With the feast over and the dwarves having returned to the Ironfist Stronghold, the group now hungered for a new mission on the horizon. They didn't care what it was, but they enjoyed being out and about, each for their different reasons. Bishop liked being outside, Khelgar liked fighting, Qara liked not being bored, and Casavir and Lily liked helping people.

A mission seemingly specifically designed around Casavir and Lily's interests caught their attention the next morning. A woman had sent word that her cat breeding had gone wrong, and now her son was trying to quell their newly-acquired taste for human flesh. It wasn't working. His girlfriend even had to beat them off with pots and pans to keep them from tearing into her flesh.

Lily, Khelgar, Casavir, Bishop, and Qara set off once more to get rid of the problem, though it didn't sound like a very hard or particularly rewarding mission. There was at least a bit of coin in it, though.

The party came upon a clearing with a few small houses. There was a halfling man standing in front of one of the houses, frantically waving them near.

"Yes, yes, please, we need your help! We were able to lure them into the basement with some ferret carcasses and lock them inside, but they're about to break through!"

Lily winced at the mention of ferret carcasses, but nodded and beckoned the party to follow her inside. "Watch out for the doorway," she cautioned.

"Wha? What's wrong with the doorway?" asked Khelgar, who was already inside. When he examined it, however, he saw the problem. It was clearly far too low for the much taller Casavir and Bishop to enter without ducking. They got in without a hitch, both being quite mindful of their surroundings at all times. "Oh," he said lamely.

Qara just rolled her eyes and stepped in. "Like I'd miss something that obvious."

As soon as the party made their way down the hallway, a loud roaring noise was heard.

"That's them," the halfling said, quite literally shivering in his boots. "Please don't underestimate them; they're vicious!"

"Then maybe you should tell your girlfriend to stop breeding them," Qara said. The disgust on her face made her seem like she'd just ingested dirt.

"Thought it was his mom who bred the critters," remarked Bishop.

The halfling suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Yes, well... Please do hurry, I imagine they're tearing everything to pieces down there in their rage!"

"Casavir, can you break down the door?"

"Verily, my lady." The paladin positioned himself in front of the door and, after a quick look over his shoulder to verify everyone was ready, bashed his shoulder armor against it. It cracked where it had been impacted, but stayed shut. He drew back once more and went at it again, and this time, it swung right open, stunning one of the giant cats immediately behind it.

Khelgar rushed in and started swinging his dwarven waraxe at two cats that had lunged at Casavir. Focusing first on dodging Khelgar's blows, the paladin extracted himself from the area of effect and moved deeper into the basement so as to alleviate some of the pressure on the bottle-necked staircase. Moving toward his position was Qara, using Casavir as bait as she cast Orb of Acid on the nearest overgrown kitty.

Lily cast from her position right behind and a bit to the side of Bishop at the top of the stairs. The ranger was putting arrows through whichever beast came closest to them, with Lily as support in case he missed one. If they got too close, Bishop could quickly switch to using his falchion again to draw attention away from Lily, but they seemed to be doing just fine as they were.

The cats were vicious, but were also surrounded on all sides. One managed to claw Casavir's exposed face, but he had retreated fast enough that it was only a shallow wound. Thereafter he returned its hostility with a hammer to the top of its head, crushing in its skull and leaving it immediately lying lifeless and flat on the floor. Qara stepped on top of the furball with malevolent satisfaction and used Isaac's Lesser Missile Storm in order to deal with the next one while also not completely destroying the basement.

Qara was normally in Overkill casting mode, but Lily had suggested she switch to Controlled so they could leave afterward while having done as little damage to the poor man's house as was possible. For that reason, she wasn't having as much fun as she usually was, but being able to decimate large cats - which she hated with a passion - almost made up for it.

Within a minute or so more, they had slaughtered all the remaining beasts. The stench of death became overwhelming in the cramped basement, however, and so they quickly retreated back to the main part of the household to escape it.

The halfling looked at the mess from the safety of the top of the stairs. "Whew. I won't be opening that door again for awhile, at least not until someone comes to clean it up."

"Thankfully, that's not our job," Qara stated dismissively.

"No worries, my dears, I already know a man for the job. Works for cheap because he has his own animals to feed back home."

The party exchanged glances. Hopefully this other man wouldn't go overboard with breeding his beloved pets like this family did.

"Speaking of payment, where is that woman?" Bishop inquired.

"She's over here," explained the halfling, leading them to another room in the house. When they were all for the most part blocking the doorway leading in, he opened it.

Inside, there was a full litter of the same breed of cat that they'd just slaughtered, only these were the tiny versions, the ones that hadn't gotten to thirst yet for human blood. They were just old enough to not need their mother anymore. Mini Maine Coons. Their ears had tips like that of a lynx and their tails were thick and puffy. One of them, the smallest one with light-colored paws, looked over to Lily, cocked its head, and mewed.

A strangled squealing sound came from between Lily's lips, and they all turned to her. "Sorry." She immediately felt embarrassed. Bishop raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, yes, well, hi, Mother!" the halfling said, pointing their attention to the woman standing in the middle of the little demons.

"Why, hello, my darling," the woman returned as the kittens climbed all over her. She was quite attractive for what they suspected was her age.

"What will you do to these little ones?" Lily couldn't help but ask.

The halfling nodded so rapidly they thought his head would roll right off his shoulders. "Right, yes, well... Seeing as what happened, we will unfortunately look into putting them down as soon as tonight."

At this, Lily nodded solemnly, the sparkle having disappeared from her eyes. "I understand." But her mouth contorted into a sad frown.

The woman agreed. "Indeed, my love; we cannot chance that happening again. We don't know who we'd call the next time!"

No one was paying attention to her rambling. Everyone was focused how she had started her sentence.

Did she just call her own son "my love"?

The halfling's cheeks colored themselves bright red. "Right, right, right, right, well, here's your money and the cats are dead and that's that, so thank you!" He raced through his words and showed them all back out through the front door, closing it abruptly behind him.

"Eeeewwwwwwwww!" Qara exclaimed as soon as he was out of hearing range.

"What kind of son dates his own mother?" Khelgar asked, baffled.

"I'm not so sure dating is the only thing they do," Bishop said with a laugh.

Casavir looked unnerved, but kept his silence.

Lily also said nothing. She wasn't focused much on the affairs between the mother and son; she was moreso dejected at the thought of the kittens being put down without even having started their bloodthirsty training. Ever since she had lost her ferret familiar to an orc, Lily hadn't had an animal companion at her side, which made her sympathize with the poor, unknowing kittens. She scolded the family privately for having turned the cats evil.

"Let's get back to the Keep," she demanded, a bit more harshly than she had intended. Bishop noticed but said nothing, choosing only to start walking back toward Crossroad Keep first to coax the others into doing the same.