With the sudden influx of refugees fleeing to Sky Peak Village, the need for some things became painfully apparent. More food was one of the top concerns. With so many more mouths to feed, the emergency stockpiles ran dry. They wouldn't last long without more. Another thing that was needed was a real shelter for them all. Tents and wagons were fine for a while, but who knew how long they would be staying? They couldn't live in tents and wagons in the field outside the village forever. It wasn't safe. They weren't even inside the village's gates.

Blue Raspberry and Astrid were trustworthy enough that Count Thadda entrusted them with this mission. It was simple. Escort a caravan that was going to bring in the supplies they desperately needed. More food, and construction materials for building a proper shelter. They'd proven themselves able to escort caravans before. They'd protected a caravan from vicious beasts and fought bandits before. They were the best people for the job, better than a whole squad of your standard guards or soldiers. They were on the job!

Blue sat on the back of the covered wagon at the end of the caravan. This wagon was full of wooden planks and beams. Much less tempting than the barrels of vegetables and sacks of grain in some of the other wagons. Still tasty, but not as tempting. They didn't have to worry about not being able to control themself like the last time they'd been on an escort mission. No sudden wolves were going to disrupt this shipment.

The same could not be said for whatever that was in the distance headed directly for the caravan.

SPOILER: Click to show

Quest Name: Escorting Goods
Participants: Requires exactly two people (you and one other, if the other participant does not qualify, they will not gain the reward)
Location: Anywhere (Can be repeated for a different region)
Post Requirements: 5 post per person, 200 words per post
Reward: +10 Security for selected Region (+10 more if your home region)

Description: Your region needs you to help escort a caravan of supplies and goods into the city. These goods will help the region continue to survive, using these materials to build better infrastructures, feed the region and build its moral. You must guard the caravan and bring it home, defending it from any enemies or wild creatures and keeping the travelers alive. You can be creative with how and if the caravan comes under fire as long as the requirements are completed and the supplies make it to the village.

Escort missions always feel kind of boring to Astrid. It's mostly just walking and looking around and sometimes, if you're lucky, something interesting will happen. However, with as tough as things have been in Sky Peak Village, she and Blue are more than happy to do something simple because if anyone will ensure the safe delivery of important supplies, it's them! 

Luckily, it's a pretty clear day in Dragon's Cradle. And by clear, that simply means that it's not raining and there's no lightning in the immediate area. That could all change in a second with how volatile Dragon's Cradle can be. Trudging along beside quite a large caravan, Astrid makes small talk with some of the wagoneers until one of them points out something moving in the distance. She walks ahead in hopes of getting a closer look, but the closer look is coming toward them! 

It appears that a pack of gigantic, wild boars are heading directly for the caravan. The behavior is strange. They're moving in a beeline. No, that's not just a pack of boars, those boars have riders brandishing weapons! 

"Wolfe, we've got company!" Astrid says, manifesting her war hammer out of nowhere and pulling her battle hammer from a belt loop. "Let's get ahead of 'em!" Then she takes off running ahead of the caravan to meet the boars and riders halfway. 

Finally, there was something to do other than sit there and try not to eat some planks of wood! Not that they wanted to... that badly...

At Astrid's shouting, Blue hopped off the back of the wagon and ran over to see the approaching boar riders waving weapons in the air. Astrid was already charging ahead toward them, and the boars and their riders looked like they had no problem trampling her as they just kept coming closer. Those pigs were huge! One could easily knock a wagon on its side just by charging into it, and it looked like that might have been exactly what they were planning to do. The closest boar lowered its head so its tusks would take the impact, preparing to plow into the front wagon.

Blue wouldn't let them do that. Blue and Astrid together could probably stop at least one each easily, but there were over a dozen of them. The plates on their legs and feet shifted to make as much way as they could for the torrent of blue slime that began flowing out. In front of the first wagon, behind Blue, the slime formed a huge wall, 20 feet long and 10 feet high. That would at least divert the boar riders and give Blue and Astrid some more time to take them down.

---

Wall of Ooze

Apparently, the cloud of dust kicked up by the charging boars and riders obscured a huge portion of the group because Astrid severely underestimated the sheer number of enemies she ran ahead to face. Oh well. The group of boars and raiders splits with the appearance of the wall of ooze, but not without two of them smashing into it.

Lightning wreaths Astrid's body, crackling off every inch of her and traveling into her war hammer. "I'm goin' left!" she calls to Blue, pulling her goggles over her eyes. Lightning arcs of Astrid and forms the duplicate Bstrid, and the two rush to the left side of the wall to cut off the raiders. Bstrid dashes past the bulk of the group, then both Astrids clap their hands together, each of them casting a spell that creates a massive blinding flash. With two points of origin, the spell catches a good number of boars and raiders. Howls and squeals of pain rise into the air with only a few lucky raiders avoiding the light. Then Astrid starts weaving between the blinded enemies and grazing as many as she can with her hands, sending painful and paralyzing jolts of electricity through their bodies. 

---

Wombo comboing Storm Lord to apply Extended Charge
Replicant
Blinding Clasp

Blue nodded and ran to the opposite side of the line of wagons from Astrid. While she let out a bright flash of light, Blue was protected behind one of the wagons from the blinding that had affected a good portion of their enemies.

The boar riders made wide arcs away from the wagons, gaining some distance before turning back toward the them again to try to charge into the sides. With the boars in front stuck in the wall of ooze, and more boars on either side, the wagons had nowhere to run. The horses reared up in fright, but couldn't go anywhere. The drivers just tried to keep them under control and hoped their escort could handle this mess.

Now seemed like as good a time as any for Blue to try out a new technique they'd been practicing. They'd been inspired by the mishap with the candy corn potion in the underground city, but this time they were going to be in control and not some rampaging monster. As they ran between the incoming boars and the wagons, the ooze began to grow. The armor expanded to accommodate the new size of its occupant, the metal plates spreading farther apart as the ooze inside grew. Their arms and legs grew thicker and their torso inflated. Soon, the knight was 12 feet tall and 6 feet wide. Between the armor plates was just blue, smooth ooze.

"What the f-" One of the boar riders started shouting in surprise, but was cut off as Blue Giantberry gripped the tusks of the boar and swung it around , throwing it into at another one. Both creatures were sent tumbling, smashing into yet another of the boars that had been running toward the wagons.

---

Red Rogue's Coat
Bull's Strength

Maybe running between all of these raiders on ten foot tall boars wasn't the best idea. A couple of the ones that Astrid hasn't quite gotten to touch and paralyze pull out bows and fire at her. One arrow manages to hit her armor, and she looks at the raider responsible with a childish pout that says one word: revenge. She flings her war hammer at the guy, who looked pleased with himself. This is cut short by the impact of the hammer sending him flying out of his saddle, falling unconscious to the ground. 

Some of the raiders scream upon the sight of Blue Giantberry picking up their comrades and throwing them to the side. None of them came prepared to fight a giant, electric knight. Astrid looks over with a triumphant grin then turns that on the raiders she's surrounded by, narrowly ducking away from the spiked ball of a flail coming at her head. 

"Oh, come on, yer tryna hurt a little girl?" she says innocently. 

"You hit Greg!" 

"Aye, well Greg shot me!"

An unparalyzed boar charges her, and deciding she has no better way to dodge, Astrid shrinks down to the side of a mug and lands on the boar's snout. Most of the raiders don't see where she's gone, only that she disappeared. The boar's charge is cut short as electricity courses through its body, paralyzing it. 

---

Red Rogue's Coat (1/topic)
Storm Lord

The boars are understandably a bit more wary of charging toward the wagons now that there's an armored ooze giant in the way. The three that Blue had already hit were lying on the ground, two of them paralyzed from the electric shocks they'd received. Not waiting to give the boars or their riders a chance to reconsider their actions, Blue charged forward, their footsteps shaking the ground. From the base of the back, a long tendril grew out like a tail.

The boars squealed in rage and charged forward at the incoming ooze. These boars apparently didn't get frightened easily, but their riders did. The men atop the boars shouted and pulled the reigns, trying to steer away, but the boars stopped listening. They had no choice but to try and attack, pulling their bows and arrows out and firing. Two more tendrils grew out from Blue's shoulders and whipped two of the arrows out of the air while one missed, sailing over their shoulder harmlessly.

Boar and Ooze clashed, Blue grabbing the tusks again, but this time using the boar's momentum to help pull it into the air and slam it back down behind them in a colossal suplex. The rider on its back screamed as they were squashed beneath a ton of pork being flipped.

Another boar kept coming, charging at Blue while they were bent over backward, but their tail lashed out and smacked the boar on the side of the head, shocking it and sending it teetering to the side as its legs locked up beneath it and it fell on its side, sending the rider tumbling across the ground.

Blue felt triumphant, but then a jolt of pain like they were being stretched to breaking overcame them. They couldn't maintain being this size for very long and that time limit was already up. They shrank back down to their normal size, the plates of their armor reconnecting one after the other.

On their side of the line of wagons, only one Boar and rider remained unharmed and they eyed the now normal sized knight angrily.

---

Dancing Chain
Bull's Strength
Prehensile Tail
Static Stature

Tiny Astrid will be harder to hit. Time to do some real damage. Leaping off the snout of the boar, Astrid spreads her wings and flies through the air like a pint-sized mosquito. With so many of the boars charged with lightning, she decides it's better to take advantage of that while it lasts.

She pumps lightning magic into her battle hammer then zips back and forth between the crowd of confused boars and raiders, slapping them each with the hammers that both send jolts of electricity into anything she hits with each of them. The group looks like a concentration of electrical energy, buzzing wildly with arcs of lightning jumping in every direction. Astrid is tiny, hard to hit, has afterimages from her armor, and she keeps using magic to dash quickly from boar to boar. It's exhausting but exhilarating to throw all of these raiders into so much chaos in such a short time. This will teach them to mess with their caravan!

And with many of them trapped or paralyzed, she has one final plan for victory. Tiny Astrid rushes to the ground and grabs a stone she can carry with both hands then flies up above the raiders, ready to make a devious move and send a message. 

---

Charged object - battle hammer 
Bat Wings [post 1/3]
Bullet Dash (multiple uses, she gon' be sleepy)
Double hammer slap = Extended Charge + paralysis 

The final boar rider on Blue's side looked angrily at the strange knight that had turned into a giant and defeated their comrades. The boar also looked just as angry. With a battle cry, they charge forward, straight for Blue Raspberry.

Blue braced themself, ready for the incoming boarpedo headed their way. Just before the boar rammed into them with its tusks, Blue leapt to the side, smacking the ground with their tail to give them an extra push away. The boar ran straight through where'd they'd just been and directly into the upside-down boar behind them that they'd suplexed. A squeal of surprise sounded as the boars crashed together and the rider was sent flying through the air.

This rider was surprisingly agile. They managed to roll into their fall and come out mostly unscathed. They got back tot heir feet and looked even more angrily at Blue Raspberry. He pulled a spear from his back and pointed it at Blue before charging at them with another battle cry. They were agile, but they weren't very smart.

Blue smacked the spear to the side easily and the man spasmed as he received an electric shock through the metal haft. Well, that was a little anticlimactic. They looked to Astrid's side to see how her battle was going.

---

Prehensile Tail
Crackling Structure

Just as Astrid reaches the peak of her flight path, the effect of the rogue's coat wears off, and suddenly she's back to normal size, casting a shadow over the jolted raiders below. One of them manages to point up, and she looks down at them with a devious smirk, tossing the rock she brought with her up and down in her hand. 

"Sorry ta tell ya, but ya messed with the wrong caravan," she says confidently. Lightning sparks in her eyes, and the rock in her hand becomes charged with electricity, glowing a faint blue. "Enjoy yer nap!" Astrid calls down, dropping the sparking rock into the middle of the paralyzed raiders. They watch it with nervous anticipation.

When it hits the ground, she activates the pent-up energy inside, and it explodes in a violent fit of lightning and thunder, throwing boars and their riders in every which direction. All the ones that were already charged and hadn't gotten a second hit of her electricity take even more damage from the explosion. Those who were paralyzed couldn't get out of the way. It's overall a very bad time for the raiders. 

Astrid looks over at Blue Raspberry and gives a confident thumbs up as the raiders below her try to collect themselves. "I don't think these guys wanna keep fightin' us," she says, watching what few raiders who can move try to get the hell away from the electromancers. 

---

Bat Wings [post 2/3]
Thunder Bomb

"No, probably not. _{I think that one might be dead...}" Blue agreed, looking over to the upside down boar whose rider was flattened underneath. That guy probably, almost definitely, couldn't have survived that. Woops. Well, they were trying to raid their caravan, so they had it coming.

The wagon drivers looked relieved. With all of the giant boars taken care of, the ones stuck in the wall of ooze were easy to deal with, the horses calmed down and were no longer in danger of losing control. They could continue their journey as soon as the boars on the road and the wall were gone. Blue walked up to it and stuck their hand in, slurping all of the blue goo back into themself quickly. Together, Astrid and Blue were able to drag the giant boars off the road to make way for the wagons. Things proceeded nice and smoothly.

But now there was one very important matter that they had to discuss.

"Can I eat them?" Blue whispered to Astrid, leaning down close to whisper in her ear. They looked directly at the knocked out boars scattered around. They loved pork, and they loved excessively large meals, and this was just both of those combined! If the ooze could drool, they could have rode boats back to Sky Peak instead of wagons.

They looked at Astrid with their hands folded in front of them and puppy dog eyes that she definitely couldn't see within their helmet, but could definitely feel.

With many of the raiders fleeing and dragging their injured along with them, Astrid looks satisfied. Except when Blue mentions that one guy is dead. "Wait, just one?" she asks, both surprised and concerned. As much as she had a good time beating up the raiders, she didn't actually intend to kill anyone. What if they're not actually dead? Maybe they can save them! 

Her eyes dart around until she sees the legs of the guy crushed under the weight of the suplexed boar, and she rushes over to him to check on him. It takes some effort, but she manages to roll the boar off of him enough to pull him out from underneath. There's blood coming from his ears and nose, and he's clearly suffered from a crushed ribcage amongst other injuries. But he's breathing if faintly. 

Astrid fishes the little pendant of icy, magical water out from under her shirt and presses her thumbs into it until a bit of the glowing blue water trickles out and falls into the man's mouth. In a series of uncomfortable-sounding cracks and pops, the magic of the water heals every one of the man's wounds. He takes a much deeper breath, and Astrid sits back on her knees. 

His eyes open and blink slowly, and he looks at the two fearsome fighters who nearly killed him. "You... You saved me?" he asks. 

"Aye," Astrid says tiredly. "Didn't mean fer anyone ta die. But quit raidin' folks! Yer just askin' fer trouble. Dummy." She gives the back of his head a light smack when he sits up. 

"Ow, damn!" he winces, rubbing his head. "I-I... thanks. You're both... terrifying."

"Sure are. Don't go messin' with Astrid Stormstone or Wolfe ever again, ya hear me???"

"L-Loud and clear!" 

"Good. Get the heck outta here," she says, getting to her feet. 

The man stands quickly and looks at his boar that is definitely not breathing. "Aw, but... Porky..." 

"Sorry bout yer pet... but it was tryna kill us." Astrid looks around at the mostly unconscious or dead boars and points to one that's breathing. "There's another ya can ride."

The man looks at the boar and goes over and pushes on it, trying to wake it. When it does, it snorts angrily, and he manages to calm it down. "You're The Baconator! Oh, you're a great hog! Come on, Baconator! You're coming with me!" The raider rapidly climbs up into the saddle. "Thanks for not killing me!" Then he snaps the reins and rushes off to catch up to the fleeing group. 

With things starting to move along again, Blue asks their very important question, and Astrid looks up at them then around at the carnage. "Aye, I s'pose whatever's dead would just be left fer the buzzards anyway. Just be stealthy." With that, she goes and draws the attention of the wagoneers, who seem pretty confused about the fact that she saved a raider, but they don't ask questions. Astrid gets them moving, saying that Blue will take up the rear, then climbs into a wagon to take a break. 

"The stealthiest!" Blue replied and gave a thumbs up to Astrid. They waited until the wagon drivers got the horses moving and the caravan continued down the road. The knight stayed behind, eagerly awaiting for the wagons to be far enough away that they could start going about their business without any eyes on them. When they were finally distant enough, Blue got to work.

Their form shifted and morphed, growing blue fur and a happily swishing tail until they had changed into the largest wolf they could manage. The boars were big, but that wouldn't stop the insatiably hungry ooze from devouring them all. The size of the meal just made them even more excited as they went from corpse to corpse consuming them. Of the dozen boars that had attack, eight of them had died and been left behind as the riders fled with the four that were still alive. None of the riders were left dead thanks to Astrid's intervention with the one that Blue had accidentally squashed. They were all lucky the pair wasn't trying very hard to kill them.

When they finished slurping up the tail of the last boar, Blue Wolfberry had a satisfied smile. The wolf looked completely unchanged, as if they hadn't just eaten several times their own body weight in pork. They shifted back into a knight, and then almost immediately shifted again into the form of a blue hawk. They had to go catch up to the caravan now that their meal was finished!

They didn't think they'd be tempted at all by the food on the caravan anymore after that meal. At least not for a little while.

---

Shapeshifter Plate