The three apprentices continued to speak to one another of sad tales and their skills at the hunt. Each of them is trying to figure out the best way to turn every hunt into a sad tragedy to be told to the others. It was a great experience for the three of them. Though eventually such things come to an end.

  Soon enough a signal was given, and words were heard that were never spoken. They reached all three, and they knew what they must do to proceed in this hunt for the hidden blue tear of the lord. So it was that Weeping Grassinia, Gravest Ends, and Tearful Wiss wished each other a truly tragic hunt and left the hidden lodge in search of the quarry.

  The trial hunt set out for all the apprentices to do was a simple one. Near each of the hunting lodges was elusive prey. The first to hunt the prey down would go to the next stage of the sad hunts that were under the hidden blue tear of the lord. So that was what found the three apprentices searching the tall grass that surrounded the hidden lodges for any signs of their quarry.

  At first there was nothing. No sign that gave away the elusive query; there were no signs of their query even existing, much less if it was nearby. The. The laughing started; it was a loud sound that seemed to echo around them. This sign caused them all to redouble their efforts. They double back at themselves, forming ever-expanding search patterns for the source of the laughter, and it comes to nothing.

  This seemed to amuse their query even further as his laughter redoubled with even more volume. This disturbed them all, as such signs of happiness were foreign and rare to all of them. The two most prominent species in the lands of necrotic smog under King Maxwell were the zombies and undead grass elementals. Neither of which was known for being happy. In fact the undead grass elementals could only feel happiness if it was mixed with rage or sadness.

  So this pure happy laughter echoing around them with ever stronger volume was actually frightening to the apprentices on this hunt, making them far more jumpy than was usual for them. Then, to add to its mocking, it began appearing before them. It was a tall creature made up mostly of magic grass with what seemed to be a long piece of necrotic grass to act as its spine.

  The magic grass of the grass pixies formed what looked like clothes. Though they were of a style they had never seen on the grass pixies. It would always appear before them, moving its feet in strange patterns that made no sense to them. It's echoing booming laughter hitting them in the face as if it were an assault on their very being. They would, of course, jump for them all three that had met in the hunting lodges and the other not met by the three.

  But every time they would go straight through. So no matter how loud the laugh and how solid the sounds of their feet were as they hit the ground in that strange movement of theirs, they weren't truly there. This added a strange feeling to the hunt. As beings of sadness, they should have felt great at this hunt, for their miserable attempts to get their prey would have only been a great and natural thing to them. This is making this hunt better than the ones taken before.

  Sadly for the sad undead grass elementals that were in this hunt. The laughter of this creature was strangely infectious, disturbing them even greater as it felt like they were supposed to laugh with their query. But this was not something they did and went against who they were. Undead sad grass elementals do not laugh; the closest they could come to was sobbing acid tears mixed with what little positivity was possible for them.

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  Weeping Grassinia was the first of them to notice something. The creature seemed to only appear as they moved. It thought on this for a long moment. If it was, then was it perhaps to distract them, to have its happiness disorient them, causing them not to notice when they were getting closer to its lair? The thought was an interesting one, and so Weeping Grassinia decided to test it.

  She moved in the same direction as she had before the false query had appeared and caused her to deviate. As she went through the tall magical grass towards her original path, the false query appeared. She ignored it, but as she moved further along her path, more of them appeared. At first one, then two, and then three. Eventually it reached a point where there were six of them surrounding her and laughing while doing the strange walk that took them nowhere.

  The intense happiness that boomed in her hearing from all six of the false queries nearly drowned her. As it was clear her kind was not meant to hear such pure happiness, especially at such loud volumes. She was able to endure and so eventually found herself in a small clearing, the six false queries disappearing as she walked into it.

  Though there was a new one laughing and doing the strange loud stepping on a bundle of grey shiny grass. For a moment she studied this new one, keeping completely still as she watched this new one. But as she comes to see the shadows moving and hear not just the echoing booming laughter but other smaller sounds coming from this one, such as its feet hurting the grass bundle, she knew it had found its quarry.

  So ever so slowly it closed in, its body held close to the ground, hoping that it would limit the sounds coming from its ever-dripping acid venom by doing so. Luckily the creature was too caught up in its strange happy moments to bother with being aware of its immediate surroundings. So it was that the pincers that made up Weeping Grassinia's mouth went around the creature's neck and cut, decapitating the strange jolly creature in a single lightning-fast movement.

  For a moment, Weeping Grassinia did not move, merely talking in the silence as her prey's head rolled around on the ground, talking in the blessed silence now that the echoing laughter was gone. Then in a sudden burst of movement, she grabbed the head, taking it as a trophy, and rushed towards the hidden hunting lodge, as she must know what foul things created such a creature.

  She made quick time and was at the sad wall placing her trophy long before the others rushed in to see the tale of such a terrifying creature. The sad wail duly provided this creature's tale, much to the apprentices' sad excitement as well as trepidation, as the creature caused many emotions within them even after its death.

  The apprentice hunters all lingered on the tale of the creature on this last harvest. They found it disturbing to know a race of naturally joyful creatures had a chance to be born on the lands of the necrotic smog so long as there was a successful harvest to be had from the grass pixie farmers. This was not a good tiding for the future.

  For a moment there were even thoughts among the apprentices of sabotaging the harvest of the grass pixies to make sure this could not happen. Then the fact the trial had been passed and they were keeping the hidden blue tear waiting with their plotting occurred to them. They quickly abandoned the idea for the moment, and the winner left to go to where the next great sad hunt would begin.