Chapter 19: Chapter 19

"Alright, well, I'm a Rancher now, finally," Roxy said, after everyone had taken a long, rejuvenating soak in the oversized bath- filled not with water, but Level 13 stamina potion and health regeneration potion diluted down to Level 7- and dried off. "I remember one of my mentors was trying to get me into it, way back before... all this... so I'll message her and ask for some advice."

She started typing on her laptop, humming quietly, and then, hit enter and began to wait.

"We may be waiting a while," Roxy said candidly. "Because, well, she is a Rancher, so..." Her phone began to ring. "Oh, okay, she's gonna call me instead."

"Some people don't like texting," Akane said with a shrug.

Roxy pulled out her phone and answered it, and a projection of her mentor's face appeared in midair.

"Roxy!" the sapient cowgirl said. "What took you so long? I gave you that starter kit last year, when you turned 24!"

"Starter kit?" Roxy asked. "Sorry, Clara, I... don't remember what you're talking about. I got a Slotless Rancher Class Unlock out of one of my Dungeons, is all. Did I tell you I'm a Dungeon Master now? Started grinding for the Class Slot Unlock a little over two months ago, now."

"Wow, you really don't remember what I gave you for your birthday," Clara said. "Well, in that little black-and-white cow-print box I gave you, there's everything you need to get started as a Rancher, except for space to put those cowgirls I put in the box. That includes a book that I wrote, for you, telling you everything you needed to know to get a good ranch up and running."

"Huh, that's... really generous, Clara," Roxy said. "I'm sorry I've thanked you for it so poorly."

"Eh, doesn't matter," Clara said, waving dismissively. "What matters is that you're a Rancher now, and I finally have a new friend to talk to about it!"

"Lemme get it out real quick," Roxy said, levitating her phone into the air to free both her hands, so she could withdraw the gift box from her inventory, humming quietly as she untied the ribbon around it and took off the lid. "Alright, there's that book you mentioned. There's sixteen monster traps, each containing a beta exemplar cowgirl. And..." Roxy stared.

"Aaaaand? Go on."

"...And there's a Class Slot Unlock along with a Rancher Class Unlock," Roxy said quietly. "I got up in the middle of the night to ferry myself and two noobs to a Level 6 Growth Dungeon so we could delve for three hours a night and teleport back, for a month, to get one of these. And yet... I just, had it. Right here. In my inventory. For more than a year."

"Well, it's there now," Clara said.

"True, but..." Roxy tapped her chin carefully, then shrugged. "You know what? Setting out to work with new people towards that goal is how I met the best friends I've ever had. As a woman of science, I think it's worth seeing if this pattern holds true with other stuff."

"So..."

"So, I am going to read the book you wrote for me, because I'm not an idiot," Roxy said. "You're very good at what you do. But, I'm not going to stop there. I'm going to make a quest out of this, going around and talking to even more Ranchers, get all kinds of different perspectives. Trade stories. Cut deals. Make friends. And generally have something to keep me occupied while I wait for Dungeon Master to level up."

"Well, you certainly seem to have a plan in place," Clara said. "Tell you what, though- it's been a year since I wrote that book and gave you some spare cowgirls. Swing by sometime tomorrow, and I'll catch you up on the state of the art."

"Ooooh, that does sound nice," I said. "Although... okay, so, I've got three Familiars-"

"You hit Level 15 at your age?" Clara asked.

"I got a very lucky drop in a very weird dungeon," Roxy said. "Anyway. I've got three Familiars and two friends, and the friends are currently engaged in a Guild training contract, raising up a party of four low-levels. Do you mind if I delay that visit so that I can, also, bring my friends along?"

"Well, hell, I don't see why not," Clara said. "Call me when y'all are done. I've trained up a few replacements for teaching delve tactics, so I don't have much going on."

"Wait, you're the one who taught Roxy how to delve like that?" Nicky asked.

"Hrm? Roxy, turn me around, so I can- ahh, thank you. Anyhow, child, no, I didn't teach her to delve like that. I taught her better, and she got sloppy the moment I stopped being able to make her do it properly. Since she's apparently a big-shot Dungeon Master these days, I might be convinced to take you under my wing there, on the condition she builds me a Training Dungeon to teach you in."

"I'm pretty willing to barter," Roxy said. "You're on your own for powering it, but..."

"I've got a few friends who can handle that for me," Clara said. "It don't bother me none."

"Great. Well, I'll give you a call once we're all done with that, and we'll pay a visit. Good talking to you again, Clara."

"Good talking to you too, Roxy."

---

"Welcome aboard, kids," Clara said, welcoming the group of three humans and three monstergirls into her townhouse two blocks away from Roxy's place. "I'm Clara Ironborn, it's nice to meet you."

Nicky and Akane turned to face Roxy, who blinked.

"Oh, so it's my fault that you two don't read my Grindr posts?" Roxy asked. "I told you two, out loud, in person, in plain speech, that I had been mentored by people who had, in turn, been mentored by Ariel Ironborn herself. Well, introducing Clara Ironborn, Ariel Ironborn's little half-sister, and, depending on who you ask, arguably the reason Ariel Ironborn got the mentorship idea in her head in the first place."

"Ariel and I don't think that's where she got it from," Clara said. "Ariel's real firm that it doesn't matter where it came from, and I am pretty sure she had a crush on my first party's Druid. Aaaaaand, it is a matter of public record that the first time she carried a low-level team through a delve was with my party, including our Druid."

"You see why I like this woman so much," Roxy said. "Very large personality."

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"Very small everything else," Clara admitted.

Indeed, Clara Ironborn was surprisingly petite for a cowgirl, standing at about five feet tall, and being, really, not particularly curvy. Her skin was primarily pale white, with cow-like splotches of black here and there- one of which was on her left eye and her nose. And her horns were tiny and cute.

"Anyhow," Clara said, turning and leading everyone around a corner and into a hallway. "I'm a beta myself, so sometimes I'm worried about being biased, but luckily, I'm right and everyone agrees with me. See, generally, the consensus is that the best sex of monstergirl on a ranch is betas, especially beta exemplars. Any two unrelated betas are a valid breeding pair, and beta exemplars make just as much milk and cum as an alpha and an omega. Very nice to have, very convenient, makes everything a breeze. Those sixteen cowgirls I gave you for your birthday? All beta exemplars, and all of 'em with the Lactation 2 and Cum Production 2 Traits. See, I'd just managed, a month or two before that, to get my hands on a cowgirl with Lactation 2 and a minotaur with Cum Production 2, from some old-timers, and I started breeding those real carefully, until, a month later I had enough unrelated beta exemplar cowgirls with both those traits at that level. From there, I could make as many of those as I needed, so making another starter generation I could give away was a breeze. One of the people I gave 'em to even ended up using them within a month! Imagine that."

"I'm sorry I disrespected your hard work in the field of combining big, milky titties with fat, juicy cocks," Roxy said.

"Eh, no skin off my nose," Clara said with a shrug. "I've advanced the state of my art since then. Wanna see how big and milky and fat and juicy I've gotten 'em?"

Without waiting for an answer, Clara threw open the door to her indoor ranch, which was, in all honesty, a very sophisticated operation. Sure, it was a big room full of hundreds of naked mooing cowgirls with tits the size of their heads and cocks the size of their forearms, but with few exceptions, every one of those cowgirls was in a milking machine, with transparent cups and hoses attached to their nipples and cocks, along with a transparent dildo with a transparent hose stuffed in each pussy. Clearly, Clara wanted the ability to inseminate her cattle without having to get up from her operator's desk.

One of the exceptions approached- a cowgirl just as endowed as the others, built not unlike an overall larger version of Volex or Lucy, but this time, wearing actual clothing, in the form of a loose mechanic's cover-all jumpsuit, with a white undershirt beneath it.

"Hey, Suzy," Clara said. "Tell our guests what the state of my art is."

"A few weeks ago," Suzy said, wiping her hands on a rag. "We finished the conversion of all our active milker stock to Lactation 3 and Cum Production 3."

"Whoa. Can you... gimme some context on that?" Roxy asked.

"Most of us aren't Ranchers, after all," Volex said.

"Of course," Suzy said, nodding and disappearing the rag into her inventory. "So... with Lactation 1, a cowgirl can fill a five gallon bucket with milk every day. With Lactation 2, a cowgirl can fill a twenty gallon tub with milk every day. With Lactation 3, which we just upgraded everyone to, a cowgirl can fill a sixty gallon barrel with milk every day."

"Fuck a duck," Nicky muttered.

"No wonder milk's gotten cheaper lately," Roxy said.

"Yeah, no kidding," Clara said. "I've been kinda chasing down rumors about a Quality trait, lately. Not sure if it's real, or if it's just a legend, but... well, I'd be pretty interested in getting such a monstergirl from you if you manage to get one."

"I'm sure we can work out a perfectly reasonable trade agreement," Roxy said, nodding. "Anyway, it's been a week, so I did read your book from cover to cover, but I have not started a ranch yet. Wanted a chance to touch base with you, figure out what's what, ask for some clarification... Speaking of which, how did you manage to get the Trait level to go up?"

"I managed to bargain my way into an enchanted cauldron that could do specific kinds of potions for me," Clara said. "Had to get that from a Ranger who went Alchemist as her side gig, then unlocked Mystic Artificer. Then, I had to find someone way out in the boonies who started as a Rancher and then took Alchemist when their delver sister sent home that Class Unlock, so I could get the alchemical formulas for the potions I wanted. Now, I'm a Mystic Artificer myself; that's why my house is so big. But here, it means I can modify an enchantment's parameters. I can't make my own enchanted alchemy cauldrons, but I sure can take someone else's and make it do a different recipe."

"And potions are how you get the Trait level to go up?" Roxy asked.

"Eyup. You have to distill a lot of milk and cum together to make a Trait potion- and all that milk and cum needs to be from monstergirls with the Trait the potion gives, at the level the potion gives it. And then, you need a whole barrel of that Trait potion just to distill that into one dose of the next level up," Clara said. "So, Roxanne Updyke, sweet child of mine. Do you understand why I was so insistent about getting you, the Level 8 Wizard who'd taken Alchemist and would soon be getting Mystic Artificer, to add Rancher to your mix as well?"

"Oh, sure, but why didn't you just take Alchemist yourself?" Roxy asked. "That way you could've done a more efficient process on your own."

"...Fuck, don't remind me," Clara said.

"You even had a Class Slot Unlock you could've used yourself, and instead gave to me," Roxy added.

"Look," Clara said. "I won that thing in a poker game when I was drunk, two nights before your birthday. The rest of your gift was all pretty low-cost for me, and drunk me, stumbling home, thought to herself, 'well, Roxy'll probably use the fact her class slots are full as an excuse to not become a Rancher,' and put it in the box with everything else. Then I forgot I'd done that the next day, put the ribbon back on, and then the day after that I gave it to you. So when, a week later, Ariel asked me how Alchemist was treating me, I asked her what the fuck she was talking about, she said she'd bet a Class Slot Unlock on a terrible hand so that I'd get it and I could use it, and then I instantly remembered everything that happened that night, and Ariel laughed at me and also herself. She was laughing her ass off when you submitted that contract to the Guild, too, said I apparently wasn't the only one who forgot I did that."

"And you never asked for it back?" Nicky asked.

"Fuck no," Clara said. "A gift's a gift."

"That's a good point, Clara," Roxy said, pulling a cylindrical gift box out of her inventory and passing it to the cowgirl. "Happy early and or belated birthday."

"...What're you up to?" Clara asked, eyeing the package suspiciously as she turned it in her hands.

"Giving you a gift, since clearly we're friends who give each other gifts," Roxy said. "Open it up."

Clara popped the lid off, and found herself looking into a Bag of Holding. Inside was a big stash of herbs, some Alchemist Growth gear, an Alchemist Class Unlock- all of it miscellaneous crap that Akane and Nicky had gotten from the Level 6 Growth Dungeon and hadn't gotten around to auctioning off yet- a print-out of Roxy's drafted Beginner's Guide To Alchemy, and, the piece de resistance...

"You asshole," Clara said, marveling at the Class Slot Unlock that Roxy had put inside the Alchemist Starter Kit.

"And if you won't take that as a gift, I'm willing to make it a trade. Gimme potions."

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