Gardening the thorns

Garden the Gates

Feeling confident from his string of completed missions Crom decided to go a bit harder on these missions turning to the section of the mission board that held the D-ranked missions and requests he studied through the various ones up on the board, they ranged all over the place even seeing some Hunter type missions that he had been avoiding but one stood out as a simple thing for someone like him.

Crom moved closer to the request to jot down the needed information, according to the request all he needed to do was go to the gates of the village and help take care of the flora that grew in the area. There was a warning on making sure to cover up and bring gloves so he went home first and grabbed a pair of leather gloves he kept in case of missions and headed to the gate ready to get started and earn a bit more Ryo. Approaching the gates from inside wasn’t anything special but once you get outside and can see the gates in their entirety with the region’s flora covering the outside ranging from Cacti to Desert flowers. Crom moved to the guards that stood watch to get the needed task and person who would be assigning it, he was pointed to a near by shed that was suppose to house the Groundskeeper that would give him further information on his task. “Hello is anyone here I’m here to help with the flora surrounding the gates?” Crom asked into the emptiness of the building, he felt a stir in the area and a moment later an older man missing a leg appeared, “So this is who they send to help me out, a boy who looks like a limp udon noodle.” The old man barked at Crom obviously upset with the choice of applicant. “Bah, Let us see how well you do before I dismiss you.” The old man said moving outside with a surprising quickness. “As you can see the gates are covered and protected by a range of Flora, I need you to go through this section here and prune any death stems and trim some of the needles on the cacti as they are overgrown.” He said as he pointed out each thing that needed to be done, “also watering the plants is something that has to be done but I know you youngins tend to over do the water or under do it. Listen closely cause I’m only going to say this once.” The old man said as he came closer to Crom. “You turn the hose on you do 4 sweeps with it spraying the whole area and that’s it. By the way a sweep is just down one direction so 1, 2, 3, 4, done.” He said as he swung his arms back and forth mirroring the motion.
 
“Yes sir. I understand. I need to prune any dead stems and trim the needles on the cacti. Then I need to water the plants in this section by doing only four sweeps.” Crom repeated without hesitation ready to complete the task in front of him. The old man was slightly taken back by the crisp response he got, “Good you listened. You should be somewhat fine if you paid that much attention.” The old man said as he began heading back to the shed but he stopped a few steps away, “Oh and by the way sometimes there are rattlesnakes hidden in the garden so be careful of them.” Once he gave his last bit of information the old man hobbled back into his shed.

“Of course there would be a danger element beyond the heat.” Crom said to himself as he grew closer to the garden. The first thing he did was close his eyes and focus on the area around him sensing for any heat sources that were in the garden one of those fancy things he has been able to do since he was a child. His parents told him it had something to do with their heritage and the Yuki Clan but that didn’t matter much anymore. Crom detected that there were two heat sources in the garden three and five feet from him respectively. He went inside the shed and grabbed a long cane that had a pair of pincher claws on the end typically used to pick up trash without bending over. Crom slowly approached the heat sources the signature rattle started to build warning people to stay away but it was to late for the first snake as Crom closed the claws just under the snake’s head having that secured Crom picked up the tail of the rattlesnake and walked it a good distance from the garden letting the snake loose once he had safely found a spot to let it go. The snake quickly darted away from Crom glad to be free once again and wished nothing to do with the Shinobi.

Crom made his way back to the garden to find the other heat source though it would seem that this one had moved. Slowly he approached the heat source only to find out it was simply a desert mouse that wasn’t harmful to the plants here and had been using the cacti as a safety net to keep predators away from it. “Well that explains why the Snake was here.” Crom said as he still captured the rodent to move it to another place. “We can’t have you here, it will just attract more rattlesnakes.” He said as he let the rodent go free. Now it was time to actually garden the garden. Crom took his time checking and pruning any dead stems as needed and making sure to verify that the parts he was pruning actually were dead. Once he was complete on that part he moved onto the cacti trimming the needles bringing them closer to the base but not to short to defeat the purpose of the spikes. Completing this part of the task Crom went to grab the hose needed to water the garden and turned the hose on. He did as instructed and swept the area with 4 passes and turned the water off.

Crom was satisfied with is work and went to find the old man to look over his work. The old man looked closely at every pruned stem and every trimmed needle, he huffed and puffed while he moved and it made Crom unsure if he had successfully completed the required work but when the old man turned to him with a smirk on his face he was reassured he had done it correctly. “Well I’ll be, it seems you young folk can listen to your elder’s from time to time. Good Job Young Man. You have done what was needed.” The old man patted Crom on his shoulder and waved him off for the day. Crom went ahead and heading back to where he needed to go to turn in his mission once more. It was becoming quite the regular routine for him now this many missions in.

Approved