3 Making Friends, Accepting Quests (2/2)
I began to speedily read through the assortment of tasks the papers recorded. There were all sorts of tasks that were asked of me, and presumably, a few other able-bodied individuals when or if ever such individuals rolled into town looking for work.
Each form that I had gathered and was reading through had a simple format. At the top of the form was the type of quest, generalized into vague categories like ”Hunt” or ”Heal”. And then there was a space wherein the quest-giver gave their name.
After that, a reader could learn the specific details of the quest itself, a deadline for readers to know when the quest-giver was hoping to have the quest completed by, and the reward for successfully completing the quest. The rewards section piqued my curiosity, but only for a second. I was disappointed when I saw that all it was money. Just different amounts of money.
Some of the quests were requests to cull nearby predators. One that really stuck out to me was a request to hunt down five bears.
A number of them were requests for healing. Those ones intrigued me because I knew that I had some, an as of yet unclear amount of influence over the magical school of healing. The bold part of me that liked certainty interpreted that knowledge as saying that I was good at healing.
A good number of quests were really just attempts to find day-laborers. These requests involved coming over and performing a series of repetitive tasks with the final payment being dependent on how the quest-taker performed in those tasks. This was often for work more advanced than just cleaning something over and over, and there were numerous types of quests like this in the pile.
The last type of quest that had a good number of examples within the pile of quest forms were gathering quests. These quests were uncreatively labeled and revolved around retrieving a certain type and number of items. In many cases, these quests were labeled as being given by Isadora herself.
Something I learned when I read those quest forms was the name of the town I was dropped into. It was called ”Comillas”. I learned this because several of Isadora's quest-forms mentioned leaving the place and heading to a nearby forest, or a nearby plain, to search for various ingredients with naturalistic sounding names.
I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts. I allowed myself to think about why I was going on a quest in the first place so that I could more easily pick whichever type of quest I'd end up picking.
After thinking about it for a second I knew that if I were to leave today it ought to be to safely practice my powers, abilities, magic, and class features. To build my familiarity with myself. And preferably to do so in a way that doesn't hurt other creatures, because I instinctually knew that being in pain wasn't something most people liked.
And if that was my goal I ought to pick a quest that leads me out of where I might be seen. Especially since I didn't yet know how my own abilities and powers stacked up to those of other beings. Without that knowledge I had no way of knowing what I could do that would allow me to look normal, and what I could do that would give away my identity as something more than a druid.
Once I had my objectives in mind knowing which ones to pick was easy. I began to separate gathering quests from none gathering quests, placing the non-gathering ones back on the desk where they had been before. It took me a few moments to do that, and when I was done all I had left in my hands were the forms for the gathering quests.
I quickly sifted through those as well and returned all but two of them. The two I had left asked me to go out to the forest, and one of them was a quest given by Isadora, and the other was a quest given by someone named Mateo.
Isadora's quest asked me to retrieve three portions of woke-root, and Mateo's quest asked for five portions of protus plants. I lifted the forms outlining the quests and turned them over so that they were facing Isadora. When she noticed the action she looked up and studied what I was holding. She smiled when she saw that of the forms I had was created by her.
She looked up at me with her big green eyes and radiated an aura of pleasant surprise. When she spoke it was with even more enthusiasm than before.
”Althos! Thank you for your interest in one of my quests. That's such good news for me. You see... I haven't had time to venture into the forest myself for the past few weeks. My father asked me to spend more time here at the inn, which is fine but I can't exactly both in both places at once. Now as for you what you need to know... to get to the forest you exit the inn due north and then walk for six kilometers. When you do you'll have just entered the forest.” She said, happily giving me directions.
I nodded at her in quiet understanding and she mimicked the gesture as if trying it out herself. She giggled just after she did it though, so it kind of undermined the coolness of the action. And then she decided she had one more thing to say.
”When you get back from your quest I'll give you a bit of a walkthrough about quests including how to turn them in. Just consider this... a trial run. You did mention that today was going to be your first day as an adventurer last night, and I haven't forgotten that. But for now, focus on fulfilling your objectives and come back later when you have the woke-roots and the protus plants.” She told me, revealing a bit more of the memories she had been implanted with.
”The forest isn't particularly dangerous, but do be careful. Don't drop your guard, and come back safely. Hopefully, you won't have to go deep into the forest to find what we're asking you to find. If you do that's a worrying sign in and of itself.” As she was speaking she grabbed one of the forms and began to doodle on it.
”But for now just go and search for two plants that look like this. And when you get them, hold them up to the quest form. That way you know for sure you got the right thing!” She said, handing me one of the quest-request forms but one that was marked as ”expired”.
The two drawings she had made were surprisingly skillful given how little time she had worked at it. One of the two plants was a yellow vegetable not unlike a weirdly colored turnip. The other one looked like an apple, but one that was a deep shade of blue.
I examined the form carefully, before folding it and putting it between my neck and my scarf. Then I smiled at her and walked to the door that separated me from the outside world. As soon as I felt the early morning sun's rays on my skin I sighed happily, luxuriating in the glories of the natural world, now that I was outdoors.
I took my first steps into the outside world and immediately began my trek through the small town of Comillas, towards the forest mentioned in the quests I had opted to tackle during my first day of life.