Within an hour of arriving in Laurenstown, Jeff, TRITHAL's assistant master, stops by the house with the couple's mail in-hand. Danika meets him at the front door.
Jeff (to Danika): "Welcome back, you guys! How was your trip?"
Danika (takes mail from Jeff): "Ok, I suppose. Come on in!"
Jeff enters the front door into the living room and notices THRAX and Anri.
Jeff: "Hey Thrax! Hey Anri! Nice to see you two again! Where's everyone else?"
THRAX: "That's a long story... The rest of the chicks split a few months ago and Axem bailed on us in Dale Gorge."
Jeff: "Oh well... At least we have you guys here to help with the harvest!"
THRAX and Anri (in unison, a'la "Drawn Together"): "... Help with the wha??"
Danika: "Yeah! Didn't we tell you? We're starting the harvest tomorrow! We'll need all the help we can get!"
THRAX: "I remember you mentioning something about a harvest back at David's house, but I don't remember agreeing to help with it."
Danika: "Well you might as well help with it, since that's what everyone in town is gonna be doing for the next 6 days."
THRAX: "I don't see why I have to help. I don't even live here! Besides, I've done enough work the last few months. I need a vacation!"
TRITHAL: "Tell me, Thrax... How much money have you made working these past few months?"
THRAX: "Oh, maybe 800 GP why?"
TRITHAL: "The Laurenstown co-op treasury has raised enough from last year's harvest to pay everyone who participates this year somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 GP per day. We expect this to take six days with everyone helping, so that translates to 600 GP for a week's work. How does that sound?
THRAX: "Mmmm, well, yeah that's pretty good... But my question is how hard do I have to work? I mean, yeah, that’s better money than I've made in a while but, I'm lazy. This is supposed to be my vacation damnit!"
TRITHAL takes THRAX to a window looking out from the back of the house into a valley to the west, where the sun is setting. In the valley are several fields full of various crops, etc.
TRITHAL: "You see all that out there? We're gonna clear every last one of those fields over the course of the next six days."
THRAX: "....DAMN! That's a lot!"
TRITHAL: "There's gonna be around 2000 able-bodied people working to harvest those fields. The co-op foremen are really good at organizing labor. They will assign everyone a specific task based on their abilities. All you have to do is complete your assigned task. It's as simple as that."
Anri: "But, what about me? I'm just a frail, young chick! I can't do any hard work! I'm not built for it!"
Danika: "Don't worry. There's gonna be something for everyone to do... even you. Just be glad this isn't planting season. That's a lot more work!"
TRITHAL: "Think of it as 'constructive therapy' for the mind, body and spirit... or some kind of Zen bullshit like that. The satisfaction of taking on a task and seeing it through to the end can be very spiritually fulfilling... if not just physically beneficial."
Jeff (noticing time on clock on wall): "Well I should go home and get some rest. We start at dawn tomorrow! See you all there!"
TRITHAL: "Yeah, you too! Good Night, Jeff!"
After Jeff exits the house, THRAX thinks for a minute, and then says, "Okay... well, I guess I'll do it... Sooo, just how early is this thing starting?
Danika: "We're supposed to report to the co-op foreman somewhere around 6:00"
Anri: "Six o'clock... in the morning?"
THRAX: "Damn! That's the time I usually go to bed! I don't know if I can do that!"
Danika: "Oh, give it a day or two. You'll get used to it!"
TRITHAL: "Don't worry! It won't kill you..."
The idle discussion continued as Danika and TRITHAL prepared a sensible dinner. After dinner, everyone settled in for the night. TRITHAL showed THRAX and Anri to one of the guest rooms, and found them some old work clothes that they could borrow for the week.
The group went to bed rather earlier than most people usually do... at 8:00 or thereabouts. TRITHAL and Danika managed to fall asleep rather quickly... whereas THRAX and Anri, who aren't used to going to bed so early, stayed up and stared at the ceiling... or whatever it is they do when they're bored in the dark in bed.
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Early the next morning before the sun rose, TRITHAL knocked on the guest room door and told THRAX and Danika to wake up. The pair of them only managed to get 2 or 3 hours of sleep, and therefore had a difficult time getting out of bed... until they smelled the mouth-watering eggs and sausage cooking in the kitchen. After everyone had breakfast, THRAX and Anri got into their borrowed work clothes, and the 4 of them made their way to the valley.
Everyone who was to participate in the harvest gathered outside the co-op office. Shortly after 6:00, the 5 co-op foremen greeted everybody and assigned each person an area to work. TRITHAL was given a thresher and was assigned to one of the wheat fields. Danika was assigned to the packaging team. Among her duties was to go to the corn-shucking area to collect the shucked corn for packaging. Ironically enough, Anri was assigned to the corn shucking team, and THRAX was assigned to the corn harvesting team.
I won't bore you with all the details of what happened during the six days of the harvest, but I will mention that THRAX and Anri did more work during this time than TRITHAL has ever seen them do... and the constant contact between Anri and Danika helped the two to patch up their differences and become friends again. This will prove to be important later on in the story... but I'm getting ahead of myself...
Evil Ray: "Yeah, Bob! Don't be spoiling shit!"
Smilin' Bob: "Whatever!"
Anyway, every able-bodied resident of Laurenstown did an equal amount of work bringing in the year's harvest. As expected, the work went on for 6 days in a row. THRAX and Anri complained somewhat, but did the work nonetheless. At the end of the six days, all the fields had been cleared, and the harvested crops stored in the town co-op warehouse. In spite of all the previous complaining, THRAX and Anri seemed as proud of the work they had done as everyone else who helped with the harvest... not to mention they were as sore as everyone else was!
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On the 7th day, the villagers who participated in the harvest lined up at the co-op office and collected their pay for their work. Everyone received 600 GP for their six days of work. This made THRAX and Anri feel better about all the backbreaking work they were swindled into doing. THRAX makes the observation that AXEM missed out on it by bailing out back in Laurenstown.
After everyone received their pay, the town's annual Harvest Festival was kicked off. This kinda resembled the United Prefectures Day festival the party attended last year. The Village of Laurenstown is notorious throughout the Valleys of Morgura as the town that throws the biggest parties. All around the town square was music and such. The mid-autumn air was a little cooler than normal this year, so there wasn't as much open celebration. Nevertheless, the occasion did justice to all the hard work the village put into this year's harvest.
The festival carried on into the night, and into the next day. When all the celebrating was done... and the town square was cleaned up... everyone went to their homes to begin making their preparations for what was forecasted to be a long, cold winter.
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