Hunters for Hire
Disclaimer: Monster Hunter is copyright Capcom. All the characters in this story are mine, unless otherwise noted.
Edited by: Hoenn Master96 and Thomas A. Hawk
"Bram! I just had the most brilliant idea!"
Bram glanced up from his desk as Sonia burst through the door of his wagon, her eyes shining in glee. She was clutching a small collection of papers in her hand, which she shoved into his. He raised a curious eyebrow, but she motioned towards the papers, looking positively proud of herself, so he uncrumpled the pages and scanned through them.
"A hunt request for a Great Jaggi?"
"Yep!"
"What-"
"Keep reading!"
Bram did, scanning the document until he skimmed across the hunt description: "I need you to collect some stuff for me. Five square feet of Great Jaggi hide, six claws, and about a dozen scales. Thanks in advance! -Sonia G."
"Sonia Gei- You requested this hunt?"
"That's right!" she replied, puffing out her chest.
"...Alright, I'll bite. Why?"
"Well, you know how I'm trying to make a Rathian sword and shield?"
"Sure." She'd been talking about little else the last couple of days.
"Well the stuff we got before isn't quite enough by itself. I need a couple more tailspikes, among other things… But the thing is, Cleyra said that she also needs some Great Jaggi materials to use as a base, and then mold the Rathian sword and shield around them. And I blew away all my Jaggi materials away keeping my armor maintained back before I got my Tetsu armor."
"Aha…" Bram paused, looking down at the request again. "And you can't just go out and kill a Great Jaggi on your own?"
"Well, I could. Wouldn't be that hard… but I want this sword as soon as I can!"
"And borrowing materials from me or one of the others never occurred to you?"
"No, it did, but nobody has any. At least, no hide or scales. Logan and Leon only have Drone stuff, and Tuulikki and Vi sold all theirs years ago to pay for their current equipment."
"I could've sworn I had-"
"You don't. I dug through your stuff yesterday, and you're empty too."
"Ah."
"Anyway, while I was at one of the bars in town the other day, I was looking over all the hunt requests, for both Great Jaggi and Rathian quests, and wishing I could complete both of them at the same time when it hit me: what if I just hired some other hunters to hunt a Great Jaggi for me while I went off to hunt the Rathian? That way I could get all the materials I need in half the time!"
"That may be true, but wouldn't it cost you a lot less to just hunt the Jaggi on your own? You'd get the materials and you'd be paid for your efforts…"
"True, I'd be paid… but I can't really guarantee that I'd carve all the materials I want. You know how stingy the Guild gets with the parts they let the hunter keep after a hunt. This way I can guarantee that I get all the materials I need in one go! Besides, they say time is money, right? Instead of wasting time hunting a Great Jaggi, I can focus my attention on gathering those Rathian materials I need. That way, when I get back from the next Rathian hunt, I'll have all the materials I need to make the sword and then a bit to spare, all in exchange for a few thousand zenny, and I'll save a day's worth of time that it would've taken to hunt it down in the first place. Totally worth it!"
"Huh. Well, if you say so. It's your money. But not many experienced hunters go after Great Jaggis, so any hunters who accept this request will probably be low-rank or even apprentices. If you get an inexperienced group, they might fail the quest and make you lose your money, or if nothing else you'll have to wait for another team to accept it, and that whole 'saving time' scheme of yours will fall through."
"That's the best part!" Sonia giggled, almost vibrating with excitement. "I checked the hunters that accepted the quest. The one who accepted the quest was a low-rank hunter, but two of the hunters accompanying him are high-ranked, and the last one was a G-ranked hunter!"
"What?!"
"I know, right? And they're not even his hunting masters either or anything, just a few people that decided to give a rookie some help! They're going to destroy that Jaggi!"
"But… that's… if a G-rank hunter joined, wouldn't that affect the price or something? Or… or…"
"Nope! It's a flat rate. Price stays the same, no matter what rank the hunters involved are. I just need low-rank Jaggi materials, and the Guild puts out that request on the quest boards. It's not on me if a few experienced hunters step in and accept the quest."
"Huh. Well… alright, I have to admit, I can't think of anything wrong with this plan. I mean, paying extra for other hunters to gather your materials for you seems a little inefficient, but aside from that… I guess the only thing you really have to worry about is if those high and G rankers destroy the Jaggi so badly that they can't gather the materials you want."
"Well, I don't really specify the number of Jaggis they need to kill either, just the materials I need."
Bram nodded in approval. "Well, okay. I suppose you've covered your bases. Which means you probably have a Rathian hunt lined up and ready for us?"
"Yup," the huntress nodded, holding up a second slip of paper with the standard Rathian emblem. "It's gonna be you, me, Leon, and Tuli. Logan and Vi and still a little delirious from that owl powder bomb you made."
"I told them not to mess with it…"
"Yeah, yeah. Why'd you mix Malfestio pollen into a medicine bomb thing-"
"Lifepowder."
"Yeah, that. Why'd you mix that stuff together anyway?"
"I was hoping to make it an anesthetic… Some of the Lost doctors I know used to talk about something called 'laughing gas' that they used for medical procedures, and I wanted to try and emulate it. It… needs work."
"Clearly. If nothing else I hope your next batch makes the afflicted less… giggly. They've just been sitting around laughing about nothing since yesterday. It's kinda creepy."
"It should wear off soon… I'll try and alter the formula later. For now, I should get ready for the hunt."
"Hmm… Hey, you got any spare pollen bombs? Maybe we can weaponize it. Toss it at a monster's face and confuse them by making them inhale Malfestio pollen. Or at least it might set them off-kilter like when Felynes get high on Felvine, or what happens when you eat exciteshrooms."
"Maybe next time. I don't want to risk it with a monster that can create a windpress. The last thing I need is for the Rathian to beat its wings and blow the pollen back into my face…"
"Oof. Okay, good point. Well, I'll go let Leon and Tuli know, and we'll meet by the fire pit in fifteen minutes."
"Alright, see you then."
Later that day…
Bram knocked lightly on the door of Sonia's wagon. A moment later he heard a muffled groan from within, recognizing it as an illegible permission to enter, and turned the handle to allow himself in. They'd returned from their Rathian hunt about an hour ago, and while he'd gotten out of his armor, Sonia had run off to the village's Guild rep to see about the status of the Great Jaggi hunt. However, he found the huntress lying on her mattress, still in her armor save for the facemask which was tossed haplessly into a corner, and she had her head buried into her pillow with her arms hanging limply at her sides. A small cluster of papers were held limply in her right hand.
"Are you alright?" he asked cautiously. "I thought you'd be ecstatic after we beat that Rathian and got all the carves you need, but Vi said you looked like someone had killed your pet poogie."
Sonia let out a sustained groan, which might have been words but were too muffled by her pillow to translate. Instead, the huntress raised her hand full of papers and tossed them unceremoniously, sending them flying against the far wall and fluttering to the floor. Bram sighed, reaching down to pick one up, turning it over to find another copy of the Great Jaggi request Sonia had put in. Before he could look into the rest of the papers though, there was some shuffling as Sonia turned her head.
"They failed…"
Bram blinked incomprehensibly. He heard what Sonia had said, and could conclude what her words meant, but even so, for a moment he just couldn't understand.
"...Come again?"
"The hunters that went out to fight the Great Jaggi… They failed the hunt."
"I… I see," Bram replied blandly, taking a seat at the foot of the bed. "I don't… I mean, how… Just, HOW?"
"I don't know!" Sonia whined, rolling onto her back and pressing her hands against her forehead. "There were two high-rankers and a G-ranker on the team! All they needed to do was take out one single low-rank Great Jaggi and bring me some materials! How the heck did they mess that up? A G-rank hunter should be able to beat a Great Jaggi by sneezing on it!"
"I… I'm not certain," Bram muttered, gathering the papers and reading through them. "Was there… was there a report or something? A debriefing from the Guild?"
"No… at least, they didn't give me a copy. I ran into the low-rank hunter at the Guild hall after the Rathian and cornered him about what went wrong, but he didn't explain a thing! Just turned and ran before I could get two words out of him!"
"Did he look hurt? Did something nasty show up?"
"I don't think so… I mean, he didn't look hurt or anything. He was even checking the board for another hunt to go on!"
"Huh. I suppose he… probably wouldn't be doing that if the other hunters were badly injured. Probably…"
"The other hunters weren't hurt either! I saw them hanging out by the smithy in town, and they looked fine! But the second they saw me they booked it even faster than the rookie had!"
"Um. Well… crap. I can't think of anything." Sonia groaned, rolling back onto her stomach and burying her face back into her pillow. Bram grinned ruefully, patting her on the head. "So much for that scheme, I guess. You know what they say: the best laid plans-" Sonia immediately swatted Bram's arm away from her, making him chuckle. "So what are you going to do? Rescind your hunt request and go hunt a Jaggi herself, or hope the next team that tries pulls through?"
"I already paid, so I might as well wait for the next group to go through and get the stuff I asked for… Just means my time is worth a lot less than I wanted it to be. I could use some of that laughing gas you made right now."
"Sorry, it's for medicinal purposes only. Or at least it will be once I get it to work. I could just tickle you instead…" he said, brushing his fingers against her exposed waist. The huntress squealed, grabbing her pillow and swinging around to swat him across the face and throwing him onto his back. He was laughing, however, as he pushed himself up to defend himself from her assault. The pillow attack continued for another minute or so before Sonia finally ran out of steam and flopped down onto the mattress again. "Feeling better?"
"A bit," Sonia admitted. "Still a bit chuffed at my lack of Jaggi materials, but I think I'm done feeling sorry for myself…"
"Anything I can do to make you feel better? That doesn't involve untested drugs? More tickling?"
"No! No. No, let's just go get dinner and regale Logan and Vi with a story about the hunt… After that, wanna go into the village with me and hunt down one of those hunters that failed the quest and try and interrogate them for what happened?"
"Sounds like a way to spend an evening. Wanna bring Vi along? She can be our muscle, and I know she'll be just as curious to find out what happened as we are."
"Oh, yeah. Sounds like a plan! With any luck it'll be a better story than the Rathian hunt."
"Four hunters, including two high-rankers and a G-ranker, losing to a single low-rank Great Jaggi? I don't even like stories as I want to know how that happened. If they were really so afraid to talk to you as you said, this is going to be hilarious."
Author's Note: Please Review!
Pretty simple chapter, poking fun at some of the game mechanics in 4U and Gen. I never could understand how the teams I sent out could possibly fail at their jobs… especially when I sent out squads of G-rankers to collect herbs or kill Seltas or things like that. I realize it's percentage-based, but still…
So, how many of you are enjoying Breath of the Wild? Honestly, the game has consumed me these last couple weeks, and I feel like I've only done a third of the game at most. Still, it's amazingly fun. But man, this is not a kind time of the year for me. First Horizon: Zero Dawn comes out, then Breath of the Wild, I've got Nier: Automata on order in the mail… I'm set with games for a few months, let's leave it at that.
Playing: LOZ Breath of the Wild, MH4U, Horizon: Zero Dawn
Listening: Breath of the Wild Select Soundtrack
Watching: Planet Earth