Challenge 1, Part 1: On Moo Mesa!

Tessa

A lot has happened in the past week. They were kidnapped from bed. They were all changed, losing their humanness, but getting something better in exchange. They learned magic and how to fight. They’ve done things she never thought possible.

Most importantly, they’ve started to come together, maybe not as a family yet, but into the beginnings of one. Andromeda is attempting to socialize with Scarlet, which bodes well. Kevin is taking his role of protector seriously, even before the challenge properly begins. Gaia is trying to cheer Tegan up. And Tessa is taking up the rear.

They come into a lobby area. Daphne is hanging out in a pool behind a counter, much like her space upstairs. She greets, “Hi, everybody! Any last minute purchases?”

Andromeda trots up, asking, “Any way I can get the materials and time to ritually cast Find Familiar?”

“5 BP for materials and time in our hyperchronochamber. It’ll get the casting done in 10 minutes, by everyone else’s perspective.”

“Done. Thank you, ma’am.”

Andromeda: -5 BP

As Andromeda walks towards the little room Daphne is pointing to, Tegan, scowling and holding her breasts to cover them up as much as possible, stomps forward.

“Can I have a shirt that will cover these damnable things?”

“Why would you want to cover up those egg sacs? I mean, they could be bigger. And leakier...” After a pause, Daphne adds, “Unless your goal is to make them bigger by refusing to use your magic! Oooh, are you going to try to get as big as Susan?” Daphne starts to drool, which is a little unbecoming of Tessa’s sister-in-law.

Tegan screeches in frustration, “Why are you so perverted?!?!?! And fuck Susan, whoever she is!”

Daphne’s smile turns ****. “I will not let you besmirch the good name and egg sacs of Susan. No shopping for you.”

Tegan glowers at the mermaid, who continues to stare with a customer service smile. Tessa sighs. I suppose a little anger is justified. She went from having no breasts to the largest in the harem, at least when her SP is full.

Gaia is grabbing a handful of the vegan snacks and placing them in her temporary pouch. That has to be unsanitary. Doesn’t she remember she has an inventory?

Kevin is going through some controlled breathing exercises and running through some practice swings. He is taking this seriously. Tessa starts to do the same. Her armor feels good as she swings and pivots through some warmups.

Andromeda soon comes back with a chibi owl on her shoulder. “Everyone, this is Khol. It is deciding whether it wants to stick around or not. Be nice.”

“Hoo!” the bird hoots.

“Shall we get started?” Scarlet asks, leaning on a glaive.

“I suppose so.”

Kevin

Kevin takes point. Tessa, as the next most likely to handle a melee encounter, takes the rearguard. Everyone else is in the middle, with various levels of attentiveness. Okay, Kevin, you gotta deal with the bulk of the tank work. Just keep whatever baddies there are off of them and you’ll be fine. You got this.

Scarlet leans in, “Don’t be so tense. It’ll mess with your reaction time.”

He nods. The sometimes cow-guy takes in his surroundings. Generic dirt path through a generic medieval forest. The sounds of sobbing cuts through the morning forest ambiance. The group approaches a crying female hu-cow at the edge of the tree line. Scarlet leans against a maple and watches what the group does.

Kevin does what he thinks is the right thing to do, gently asking, “Hey, ma’am, are you okay?”

“Nooooooo,” the cow-girl cries, “A bunch of ooooorcs toooook ooooooover oooour ranch! I barely escaped! The oooooorcs are goooooona breed all oooooooof my friends! Their milk will be sooooooour while they are filled with oooooorc eggs!”

Tegan snorts, still trying to cover up her expanded breasts, “Serves the cow-tits right.”

Tessa snaps, “Tegan, stop. You have a name, ma’am?”

“Petmooooonia.”

“Oh, like Petunia, but with a cow sound in the middle,” Gaia unhelpfully points out.

“Where’s the ranch?”

Petmooooonia points in the general direction they have already been traveling. Andromeda asks her owl friend to fly and check it out while Kevin and Tessa get a layout of the ranch. The barn has a bunch of milking machines, as is expected. It should be empty, as everyone sleeps in the ranch house and they were attacked before morning milking time. The ranch house itself is a two story building. Ground floor has a kitchen and dining room. Second story has the bunk rooms, plus a common room and their breeding stud’s (Steerling Archmoo) office. In a special spot in the kitchen is access to the basement, where Steerling has a big safe stored.

“If I was designing a first quest for a bunch of new players, I’d store the objective in a big obvious safe,” Kevin notes.

“And we need to save the hu-cows from the orcs!” Gaia exclaims.

Petmooooonia looks excited, “Yoooooou’ll really help my friends! That’s great!”

“Of course!”

Andromeda comes out of her trance. “The barn is on the way, but seems badly burned. It would be a decent place to hide while the stealth team gets us a good look inside. No orcs on the outside of the ranch house. Brief glances inside reveal orcs getting... frisky with cow-girls.” Petmooooonia shivers in fear.

“Get a decent count?”

“No. Several upstairs, several downstairs. No windows in the basement level, for obvious reasons.”

“So, Gaia, Andromeda, and I post up in the barn, staying out of sight, while Tegan and Tessa sneak in, get a good headcount, maybe take some isolated ones out, if they can do it sneakily. Sound like a plan?”

Tegan

Tessa, Tegan, and the owl are all at the front door of the ranch house, which has been kicked open. The sounds of orcs fucking and cow-girls mooing fill the air. It’s disgusting, like most things on this show.

Tegan peeks her head in. “Three floors, three of us,” the vicious vixen whispers, “We got this.”

The owl looks at her oddly. Tessa objects, “We should stick together. That was the whole point of me learning stealth with you.”

“But, we should get this done quickly so I can find a shirt that’ll cover these disgusting things.”

Tessa rolls her eyes, then starts to creep upstairs. The bird quietly flaps around the ground floor. That leaves the most important part for the most competent of them: Tegan looks for the basement and their prize. If I can sneak in, get the objective, and get out, I’m sure to get first place and my superiority will be acknowledged!

Tegan is sure the pervy orcs did not hear her opening the basement door. She is also sure that they don’t hear her making the first step onto the creaky staircase. Then, she listens.

“Hey, Boss! Why don’t we hit the vault door REAL hard? That’ll make it open!”

“No, dummy! Security system will destroy the goods inside if we tamper with the door. We gotta crack the code!”

“Can we crack the code with deez nutz?”

“Stop trying to **** a ‘deez nutz’ joke, Shelia. It’s gotta be organic.”

Time to sneak down, kill the orcs, and win. Tegan doesn’t watch where she was going. She stumbles down the stairs, her ridiculous breasts breaking her fall. Ow! Lucky I didn’t break my bow!

“Majumbos! That egg incubator has surprisingly big majumbos!”

Shit! Tegan scrambles up the stairs and fires an arrow. The bowstring smacks into her heaving cow-tits, which messes up her shot and stings like hell. She has a welt on her ginormous boob. The arrow clatters just above the nearest orc.

“Waargh!” the orcs cry. One rushes at her, disgusting giant cock bobbing erect as she runs, while the other two throw javelins. Tegan has the breath knocked out of her as a javelin smacks into her gut while another one grazes her thigh. The javelin blows were delivered so fast that she doesn’t see the third orc climb the stairs. The foul creature smacks her arm with a giant erect dick hard enough to nearly break it. Hurts. It hurts.

The final orc, the bossy one with a throbbing cock, rapidly tosses a couple of javelins. One sinks into Tegan’s thigh deep enough to hit her femur. Then the orc shouts, “We have her, girls! Another egg incubator! Knock her **** so we can start filling her up!”

Tegan feels another couple of javelins turn her into a figurative pincushion and then the world goes dark.

Andromeda

Andromeda pulls out of Khol’s sight after ordering the chibi owl to rest in the dining room rafters. She sighs, “Tegan is down. And the enemies in the basement are gathering the enemies on the ground floor. We got a much more difficult initial fight on our hands.”

Tessa has crept back to the others, huffing. “7 orcs upstairs. 2 are double-teaming the male hu-cow, then 1 on each of the females. Glad that they are simulacra. The ladies looked... bloated.”

Everyone looks uncomfortable at that.

“So, we got to take on the boss fight first? And we are down an archer. Great,” Kevin grouses, “Gaia, can you send a Beast in, try to draw the bad guys’ attention while we get in position? Tessa, cast Hold Person on the boss. Andromeda, use whatever nuke spell you have handy?”

Gaia is bouncing, and there is another kangaroo. The new one is green. The non-Gaia kangaroo bounces towards the front door. Andromeda gets in position by a window; if they are preparing an ambush, she wants to provide some cross-fire.

When the green kangaroo bonks an orc in the breasts with its head, Andromeda blasts out a burst of poison through the window with Dragon’s Breath. She got a very good angle, killing the back end of the orc collective. Tessa and Kevin both enter the ranch home, standing on either side of the kangaroo, with the former casting Hold Person at the most impressive looking orc. That orc freezes up, twitching a little.

Gaia bounds in and pulls out her whip. She doesn’t deal much damage, but, when her kangaroo summon smacks the orc with its face, the orc doesn’t get back up. Andromeda risks firing off a Scorching Ray, splitting the blasts between two orc minions and the frozen boss; the minions both fall, but the boss only gets badly burned. Helpfully, she did not set the house on fire. Tessa moves forward and chants out a blast of Thunderwave; the remaining orc minions did not die, but are blasted away.

Each of those orcs approaches a melee combatant and swing with their excessive genitals. In the good news category, Tessa dodges out of the way and Kevin caught the bludgeon with his shield. In the bad news category, the orc attacking the kangaroo did land a blow. The boss shudders, but did not move.

Time for clean up? Kevin drops the foe in front of him easily enough. Gaia actually drops the orc by the kangaroo with a slash of her whip and the summon proceeded to kill the orc by Tessa. Andromeda moves over inside of the house, then holds a Ray of Frost blast if the boss moves. I want to give Tessa a chance to get some XP. Tessa delivers a one-two scimitar combo to the frozen orc and the creature falls. A short fanfare plays in the air.

Notification: XP earned due to challenge actions will be withheld until the final tally.

“Everyone alright?” Andromeda says, letting go of the held cantrip. Khol flaps down, resting on Andromeda’s shoulder. The arcanist android gives the fae bird a head pat.

Everyone confirms that they are alright. Kevin nudges his head towards the basement door. “I suppose we should check out the safe.”

Petmooooonia undersold the safe. It’s like a bank vault. Only, instead of a big wheel to unlock it, there seems to be a computer controlling the door. The computer has an excessively large keyboard. Are those Giant runes?

Andromeda hits the giant rune equivalent to the “Enter” key, and a small screen lights up. A line of symbols is displayed, some of which she recognizes as the Giant runes used for Gnomish. Underneath the line is 4 dashes. Then, the symbols change; runes go to different positions. I only recognize a quarter of the symbols. I need help.

Tessa is reciting... something. It is quite soothing, even if Andromeda cannot follow it. When she’s done, her eyes are glowing and she reads the screen out loud, following the symbols with her hand, “What is being held in here? Attempt (1/3).”

“So, we need to answer the question. 4 letters. And guessing is probably going to be bad,” Kevin notes. “Should be clues somewhere. I recognize the Elvish script. Language checks?”

Tessa answers first, “I naturally recognize the Elvish script and the Giant runes. Other two require me to use this spell.”

“Wait,” Andromeda asks, “You recognize Giant runes? I thought I was the only one in the harem. I could have sent Mona to you to translate that letter.”

Kevin is blushing, “And I am glad you made that mistake. It was embarrassing enough for Mona to get the letter translated.”

“Druid pictographs,” Gaia declares, pointing at a set of keys on the giant keyboard, “I can also recognize Sylvan. Oooh, that means I can be helpful on the thinky puzzle!”

None of them can identify the final set of letters. Andromeda guesses, “Maybe that was something Tegan or Craig would recognize?”

“Can’t do anything about it now. If we run into a clue with it, we’ll need Tessa to read it,” Kevin notes.

And so, the party starts the search for clues.