Trail Maid Rancher: The Untamed Hoops

Job Offer

Day 612

Helen and Sandra went about their day as usual. It was the usual routine; breakfast, feed the Trail Maids, walk around an area of Azalam (splash the now slightly more aggressive Void-a-belles if needed), picnic lunch, return home, feed the Trail Maids, hobbies (dress designing for Sandra and fiction reading for Helen), skirt-merge and cuddle with just them, then skirt-merge and cuddle with a few Trail Maids, take a night-time stroll, chat with Ranchers, then snooze on the hyper-sleep couch for an hour before the next day starts again. It was just as Helen and Sandra were feeding the Trail Maids on this day. Helen put some Tubi Tubis into the auto-feeder of the Rad Crystals' Trail. "Good Morning!" she greeted.

"Ah, Good Morning, Helen!" returned Hannah. "How's tricks?"

"It's all good for now," replied Helen. "Although, I think Sandra's getting a little..."

"AAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!"

"...buggy. Excuse me." Helen dashed off to see Sandra pouting at the entrance of the Overgrowth. "Sandra, sweetie? What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?!" asked Sandra. "What's wrong, she asks me?! What's wrong is that I'm bored! Everything about Azalam that was previously undiscovered is already being talked about! The Manors, the Locks, the Dunes, the Jungle, the Patches, the Canyon, every Rancher and their sister knows about it!" She then grumbled to herself in agitated Spanish.

"Come on, Sandra, that can't be true!"

"Oh yeah? You name me one secret that you haven't discovered yet! Huh?! Can you?!"

"Of course! There's the...okay, well, what about...okay, there's..." Helen deflated.

"See?!"

"Okay, I'm SURE there's something we haven't discovered yet." Sandra then growled to herself.

"And to top it all off, I keep getting something from some idiota named Meniz!" Helen then goggled.

"I never had any adventures with her!" she realized out loud.

"...You haven't? Weren't all the Ranchers involved with Shizuko's scandal?"

"No! She never spoke to us during that incident! Sandra, I think she's offering an adventure to us!"

"Hold on, let me pull up the hyper-mail." Sandra used her gloves to project a holographic interface and opened her hyper-mail. She found the most recent message and opened it.

"Hola, Helen and Sandra!" read the message.

"Helen, you made quite the name for yourself, but what about tu novia? She might be getting jealous of your fame. If so, I have a solution for her. Let me just cut to the chase: Sandra, I'd like to offer you and Helen a job doing a little side work para mí. I've got a whole mess of land surrounding my southeastern property on the Massive Frill Range. You know that place on most maps of the continent label as '6'? They're a place called the Untamed Hoops, a land of primitive Feral Trail Maids, and dangerous as el infierno, but it's home to a delicious, rare fruit that I love.

"If you and Helen are up for a challenge, come on down to my Getaway on the Hoops and learn more. I've included the teleport code in this message, it'll take you right to it.

"Hasta luego!

"Maya Meniz."

"Oh my word, I've never been there before!" gasped Helen. She then looked at Sandra. "My sweet, this is something you should be leading!"

"Me?!" yelped Sandra. "Bu-but I don't know anything about the Untamed Hoops!"

"Neither do I, and this is a chance for you to make a name for yourself! Maya's right, I AM overshadowing you and I don't want to do that. So, whatever discoveries you make, they're yours!" Sandra considered her actions, then grinned.

"Let's give the rest of our Trail Maids their breakfast before we head on over there!" she decided.

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After their Trail Maids were fed, Sandra typed the teleport code into the teleporter. Once it was accepted, she and Helen stepped onto it, and they arrived in a small group of islands surrounded by rocky cliffs. There was a small house by the teleporter with a tree inside a dome on the roof. There was a wide-open area with four plots, a trio of raised areas with two of the smaller ones having a plot on each of them, and the larger area with a smaller house with the same rooftop decoration as the main house. There was also a lower area with only a tree overlooking the cliff. Finally, there was a teleporter on another rocky platform that was connected by a bridge. Helen whistled in amazement. "Nice digs," she mused.

"¡Es hermoso aquí!" (It's beautiful here!) breathed Sandra. The main house's door then opened and Maya Meniz stepped out, waving to the two girls.

"¡Hola!" she called. "Thanks for coming down to my Getaway and hearing me out on my offer."

"It's our pleasure, Ms. Meniz," replied Sandra.

"We're excited to help you," supplied Helen.

"I'm excited to have you girls here," chuckled Maya. "So, let's get right down to business! I built this place years ago as a little vacation spot for myself. Later on I realized that it neighbors a cluster of islands filled with primitive Saber Trail Maids! I called these islands the Untamed Hoops after that, and after exploring them they revealed their true secret, the rare Targa fruit!

"Targa? What's a Targa?" asked Sandra, taking charge as Helen suggested.

"Why it's only the most delectable, irresistible fruit in the known universe! Well, MOST people say it tastes like rotten cheese but they're wrong! Anyway, I soon became obsessed with Targas, but I found myself quickly becoming too overwhelmed and too slow to deal with the risk alone. You see, the Hoops are home to hordes of Feral Trail Maids, the descendants of the ancient Saber Trail Maids that once hunted these lands. Collecting Targas is dangerous, and that's where you come in! I'll happily reward you for collecting those sweet, sweet Targas with me. Once we've collected them, we just deposit them into this custom range exchange here and we're in business! Help me collect 75 Targas and I'll reward you with my secret miracle mix for your gardens! I'll also reward you with a block of my special spicy tofu for every 3 Targas. I've activated the teleporter to the Hoops here at the Getaway and it's now ours to explore as we see fit. You girls are in charge of when we go in to collect Targas. Just know that the warp network there is a little buggy."

"...Buggy?"

"We won't always arrive at the same place, and we'll have to find a working teleporter to make our way back. It's buggy, I know. Just be prepared!"

"So, that's it?"

"That's it. We head into the Hoops and get those Targa fruits! Just be careful; there're lots of Feral Saber Trail Maids roaming every inch of those islands." Maya then snapped her fingers as she remembered something. "Oh, and one more thing! Saber Trail Maids have an odd habit of bundling up Targas into mudballs that harden up like stone. The only way to break them open is with something I designed called a Targacracker! You'll find them scattered across the Hoops; can't miss them! Just shoot a mudball into them and collect those sweet... delicious- mi boca está regando apenas pensando en ellos! (my mouth is watering just thinking about them!) ¡Vámonos!"

"Wow, those Targas must be REALLY good!" mused Sandra. The three Ranchers then went to the teleporter across the bridge and vanished, ready to begin their quest.