by J. T. Wright
The Quest was always available. It paid silver, but you had to be new or desperate to take it. The title, Herbalist’s Request, and the simple description, “Eight hours of chores,” accompanied by three silver and 20 XP reward, lured a lot of new students. It lured them once and only once. Kerry was the only person to ever accept the Quest twice.
The Herbalist who set the Quest kept Striped Beetles, a harmless type of insect Beast, for the sole purpose of using their excrement as fertilizer. It was said there was no better substance for cultivating herbs than the dung of a Striped Beetle, and the six-foot bugs were more than happy to produce plenty of the substance. All they asked for in exchange was bark and grass and a soft sandy place to sleep.
It was an unpleasant job, hauling and spreading the manure, but the reward should have made it worthwhile. It might have, if not for the stench and the fertilizer’s other effect. Besides nourishing plants, the dung could be dried into a fine powder. When thrown at an enemy, the powder restricted Mana, making it impossible for Spells and certain Skills to be utilized. It was most effective when refined with other ingredients by an Alchemist. Unrefined, it took more powder than was easily carried to work.
After eight hours of mucking beetle stalls, Kerry was covered in plenty, making it impossible for him to cast a Self-Clean Charm. He walked the three miles back to town, and the three coins in his belt pouch couldn’t distract him from his own smell. Remembering the smirk of the Herbalist as he tossed the silver while holding his nose and thinking of the similar looks the guards at the gate would give him, Kerry decided he would rather die than take this Quest again.
Head down, caught up in his misery, Kerry never noticed what he ran into until he was already sprawled on the ground. It felt as if he had walked into a wall! Sitting up and blinking, Kerry nearly screamed when he saw what he had strolled into.
A black and white monster, with misshapen legs and a long neck ending in a tiny head, blocked the road. Kerry had left the tools of his trade in his room, unwilling to soil his prized armor. He regretted that now. Kerry had invested heavily in Strength and Constitution, but despite his size, he was not a talented brawler. He had thought he would be safe this close to Bellrise. He never expected a freakish Beast to appear.
“Are you alright?” The Beast spoke! It spoke, and the voice seemed to come from its nether regions. Its head began yapping at Kerry in a displeased manner like a puppy rudely awakened from an afternoon nap. Kerry almost rubbed his eyes, fortunately, remembering what was covering his hands before he did so.
It wasn’t a Beast! It was a man – a man who was wearing a masked cowl and dressed in black and white leather armor. Kerry’s confusion was caused by the fact that the man was doing a handstand with a puppy resting on the soles of his feet. While Kerry watched, the man flexed his knees, and then straightened his legs with a jerk. The puppy’s yapping became a howl as it was propelled skywards with an indignant look on its face.
Trent bent at the waist and set his feet on the ground. Standing, he turned and snatched a falling Dreq out of the air by the scruff of his neck. The Dog growled and snapped at him, clearly unhappy with how Trent had chosen to dislodge him from his spot.
“You should have walked on your own. It was hard enough getting you up there. How did you think I was going to get you down?” Trent asked, setting Dreq on the road. Dreq answered by sneezing and turning his back to Trent.
Ignoring the pouting Dog, Trent addressed Kerry again. “Are you alright? You fell pretty hard. It’s probably because you’re too stiff. You should loosen up.”
“Yeah, right, loosen up.” Kerry shook his head and scrambled to his feet. “I'm fine, though. Clumsy but tough, that’s me. Were you just doing a handstand in the middle of the road?”
The moment the words left his mouth, Kerry wished he could take them back. Adventurers could be touchy sometimes. And this stranger, with his featureless mask and hands resting on the bone hilts of a pair of knives, gave Kerry an uneasy feeling.
“No, of course not, you can’t get anywhere doing handstands,” Trent denied. “I was walking on my hands.”
“Oh, but why…” Another question threatening to spill from Kerry’s lips faded away as Kerry took in Trent’s appearance. Knives, leather armor, cowl, they all screamed Rogue. The stranger had said he was walking on his hands like it was a perfectly normal thing to do. It wasn’t Kerry’s business or place to dispute that. However, if he was a Rogue, then this newcomer had incredible value to an Academy student.
“I'm Kerry Moss. Are you new in town? Come to join the Academy?” Kerry blurted the words. Trent was excited to talk with someone after so long with only Beasts for company, but his voice turned decidedly cool at the memory of Martin Vane.
“I've been here before.”
At their feet, Dreq’s ears perked up, and he tilted his head to look at Trent. Trent had seemed pleased to meet someone at first, and this new person smelled interesting enough. Why did Trent suddenly seem ready to attack?
Kerry picked up on the change in Trent’s mood as well and took a step back. “No offense! I thought you might need a guide, is all, if you are new. I could show you around to make up for running into you. If you already know your way around…”
Trent’s caution wavered. Martin had a slyness about him that Trent had not picked up on, but Kerry looked more harmless than Dreq. It was also true that he did not know where anything was in Bellrise. He could find the stall that had sold meat skewers again. Other than that, he had no idea where he could buy weapons and potions.
“I could use a guide,” Trent stated uncertainly. “Don’t you need to clean up? They don’t let you walk around town like that, do they?”
Beneath the filth covering his face, Kerry blushed. “I can clean up at the gate. I left my pack there this morning. It will just take a minute to wash up.”
He had brought his pack with him last time only to discover that the dust had found its way into the sealed bag and coated his clean clothes. Kerry suspected the Herbalist had a hand in that. He did not allow those who took his Quest to wash up using his well and delighted in watching Adventurers walk away from his farm covered in filth.
“Do you not know the Self-Clean Charm? You should learn it, it’s amazing.” Trent was always willing to extol the virtues of charms.
“I know! But I…I don’t want to talk about it!” Kerry said gruffly. Having his own state of cleanliness questioned banished any fear he might have of Trent. He kicked at the ground again and muttered under his breath.
“Oh.” Trent gestured down the road. “Town’s that way, right?”
“Yeah.” Kerry set off at once, hunching his shoulders and tucking his hands into his pockets. Walking with another person made it even harder to ignore the smell of Beetle dung. He couldn’t help noticing that when Trent fell in beside him, he kept a good six feet away.
It was still a mile back to Bellrise, and Kerry spent the journey trying to discreetly find out more about his traveling companion. His efforts were wasted, though, as Trent deflected reasonable questions about his Class and past with monosyllabic answers and shrugs. The puppy that trotted at his feet and begged to be picked up was a more expressive companion!
Trent’s refusal to be drawn into conversation only cemented Kerry’s assumptions that he was a Rogue. Not only a Rogue, but an inexperienced one, even if his equipment said otherwise. Though his armor may look expensive, new Rogues always tried to play up the mystery of their Class. Each time Trent dodged one of his questions, Kerry became more determined to befriend him.
Kerry’s party needed a Rogue, one with the Detect Traps Skill. Academy students could enter the local Dungeon for free if their group had a member that could Detect Traps. For one reason or another, the leader of Kerry’s party had managed to alienate all the student Rogues, and the Archer in their group had not managed to learn the essential Skill yet. Trent represented a life without Striped Beetles and farm chores to Kerry, and he wasn’t about to
let the opportunity pass.
The question of how to get closer to Trent plagued Kerry until they reached Bellrise. He momentarily dropped his objective and retrieved his pack from where he had left it, under the smirking eyes of the town Guardsmen. Changing in broad view and wiping himself down with a rag that one of the Guardsman wet for him, Kerry blushed as the smirks became outright laughter.
Ignoring comments about how it was a shame to hide such smooth, white skin, as fair as any girl’s, under so much dung, Kerry cast the Self-Clean Charm once enough of the dried waste had been removed. Clean at last, he shouldered his pack and hurried through the gate.
Inside the wall, his ears still ringing from the Guardsmen’s jokes, Kerry found himself at a loss. He had told Trent he would show him around, but he still didn’t know what had brought Trent to Bellrise.
“Ah, what is it you’re looking for here? Come to delve the Dungeon? I can show you the entrance, and if you’re alone, my friends and I are looking to work with a Rogue with the Detect Traps Skill,” Kerry clumsily made his offer, as he turned to face Trent. “Or, if it’s a general tour you want, I can do that too. Only we'll need to stop by the Guild first.”
“The Dungeon?” Trent relented and bent down to pick up Dreq, who had reared up to place his front paws on Trent’s knee. The town’s streets were busy, and the Dog, exhausted from his walk, was in no condition to keep up any longer. Tucking the pup in the crook of his arm, Trent mulled over Kerry’s words.
Martin had said he wanted to challenge the local Dungeon as well. It put Trent’s guard up to hear a similar statement from Kerry. He would have left right then if not for the words, “strength in numbers," which held him in place. The truth was Trent was uncertain what he wanted to do next, and the thought of another Trial was appealing.
“Your friends,” Trent said at last. “They’re like you?”
“Well, not exactly. I'm the junior member of the party. The others are all close to Level 10,” Kerry cleared his throat, embarrassed. “I'm a Warrior but I'm stuck at Level 4.”
“We do know what we’re doing!” He hurriedly added, “Jace has Basic Longsword at Level 7! He's the best Warrior at the Academy, and we’re got a Mage who is really top notch! You won’t find a better team to work with in Bellrise!”
Kerry’s bragging sales pitch settled any qualms Trent might have had about the situation, though not in the way Kerry intended. Levels 4 through 9? Basic Longsword at Level 7? And they were the best Bellrise had to offer? If that were true, Trent had nothing to be afraid of, except the possibility that the stiff, broad-shouldered Kerry and his friends would hold him back.
“We can talk about it, I guess. I do have the Detect Trap Skill.” Trent didn’t clear up Kerry’s misconception over his Class. Best to keep a few things secret in case things turned sour. “You need to go to the Guild?”
“Yeah, got to update my Token and report a completed Quest!” Kerry practically shook with excitement at Trent’s halfhearted agreement to his offer. “Then we can get a meal at the Lucky Pig. The others should be there by now.”
Trent made a noncommittal noise at the mention of a meal. He just followed Kerry, who led the way with a spring in his step, pointing out things of interest as they went.
“Most people buy at the market, but the general goods store there is the best place in town to sell if you have drops the Guild doesn’t want.”
“I've heard that it’s the cleanest inn in town. I don’t know if that’s true. I sleep at the Academy dorms myself. You sure you don’t want to enroll? The instructors are really good, and students get all kinds of discounts!”
“That Blacksmith has the most expensive equipment. Way more than I can afford, and to be honest, I don’t think he’s very good, but he’s the only person that buys Common Ranked Skill Stones. I don’t know why. He's got barrels of them, never turns them down. Only pays twenty-five coppers, though.”
“That’s the Lucky Pig. It’s more expensive than the Guild, and the food isn’t as good. Some Academy students go there to, uh, unwind.”
“And this is the Guildhall.” Kerry stopped in front of a nondescript two-story stone building with a sign bearing the crossed sword and pick of the Adventurers Guild. “You are a member, right? Wood Ranked?”
It was one of the questions Trent had avoided before, and Kerry crossed his fingers, hoping he would finally have an answer this time. It was a serious concern. Kerry’s promises of free entry into the Dungeon would go out the window if it turned out Trent was Copper Ranked or better.
“Yes, I joined a few weeks ago.” Trent stepped to the door and went inside. He missed seeing the way Kerry’s shoulders sagged with relief and then sagged further as Trent’s answer sunk in.
A few weeks ago? That meant Trent was greener than Kerry was. It wasn’t a problem as long as he had Detect Traps, but considering his armor and weapons, Kerry had expected Trent to be more impressive. No wonder he had not wanted to divulge his Class or Skills. He was probably embarrassed.
Trent would have laughed had he been privy to Kerry’s thoughts. As it was, he had forgotten the young Warrior existed. Trent stood in the Guild’s lobby, examining the Questing Pillar while holding a Copper Token in his hand. It was the Token left behind by Martin.
He had wanted to get a closer look at a Questing Pillar since he first encountered one, but the rush to leave Al’drossford behind him had prevented that. Seeing the Pillar in Bellrise, Trent had hurried up to it, only to realize he didn’t know how it worked.
Before he could find someone to explain the Pillar to him, the Token, picked up in the Moonlit Forest as a curiosity, started to jump and jiggle in his pouch. It had startled him enough that he took it out. Holding it, the Token felt warm and seemed to pull towards the Questing Pillar.
“What’s the matter? Thinking about taking up a Quest?” Kerry came up behind Trent and peered over his shoulder. “We usually pick up any Dungeon related tasks before entering, but there’s no harm in doing it now.”
“Does this look like it’s glowing to you?” Trent held up the Token for Kerry to see.
“I thought you were Wood Ranked! Why does your Token have a hole in it?” Looking closer, Kerry realized there was a faint sheen to the copper plate and, unlike Trent, recognized what that meant. “You found a Quest item! Holy crap, of all the luck, where did you get that?”
“It’s just something I picked up,” Trent said uncomfortably. He wasn’t ashamed of killing Martin, but he surmised that announcing you killed another Adventurer was frowned on by the Guild. “It feels warm too, what does that mean?”
“It’s letting you know you've completed a Quest!” Kerry slapped Trent’s shoulder and immediately stepped back. The familiar action caused Trent’s head to snap in his direction, and the puppy in his arms began to growl.
“Sorry, I got too excited. Never seen a Quest item light up before.” Kerry held up his hands apologetically. “Are you going to complete the Quest?”
“How do I do that?” Trent turned back towards the Pillar, glancing between it and the Token in his hand.
“You really are new, huh?” Kerry scratched at the back of his head. How could someone look so competent but be so ignorant? “Just touch the Pillar, and all the tasks you are eligible for will be displayed. Then it’s a lot like manipulating a Status, though you have to touch the screen that appears to make it work.”
Putting Dreq down, Trent stretched his hand towards the Pillar. The screen that appeared at his touch reminded him more of a traveling merchant’s inventory than his Status, but it was easy to understand how it worked.
The screen had several lists on it. The first was titled Local Tasks; below that came Area Quests, Trial Quests, and World Quests. Looking over Trent’s shoulder Kerry whistled at the number of jobs that came up. He reevaluated how new Trent was. To be eligible for this many Quests, Trent had to be playing around, pretending he did not understand how the Pillar worked.
“You can accept W
orld Quests?” Kerry whispered loudly in astonishment. Checking for and accepting Quests from this Pillar every day for six months, he had never seen that title come up before. He had heard about them, of course. World Quests were often discussed in lessons, but they generally didn’t become available until you reached Iron Rank, and all the instructors said to stay away from them unless you liked the idea of traveling for years through unpopulated areas.
Reading the lists on the screen, Trent was underwhelmed. The rewards for the Quests that a Wood Ranked Adventurer could take were unimpressive. Herbalist’s Request was the highest paying job he could find, and it did not interest him in the slightest. Depending on the 5 to 10 XP awarded for completing the assignments, it would take Trent years to reach his next Level.
And there was nothing about Martin’s Token on the screen! Following a hunch, Trent touched the shimmering Token to the Pillar and almost dropped it when a loud chime sounded, and the text on the screen was replaced with a single Quest description and a detailed drawing of a man's face.
Quest, Missing Baby Brother. My dear younger brother has wandered off. He was born with the name Martin Vane, though he’s a mischievous lad and prone to changing it. You needn’t detain him, simply touch his Token to the Pillar so I can know he is well. Reward: 3 Gold, payable at any Guildhall, 2000 XP. Quest completed.
“That’s sad,” Kerry muttered after stepping forward to read the screen. “They must have really loved their brother.”
“Why is it sad?” Trent studied the drawing of Martin, and his hand clenched around the Token which had lost its sheen.
“The hole in the Token means the owner is dead,” Kerry said, shaking his head. “And to put up a reward like that, one you can claim anywhere, not only does it have to be large, but you have to pay ten times the amount to the Guild to ensure it gets where it’s claimed. And that 2000 XP? It comes from the Quest Giver, and there’s no telling how much it will cost you. They might have lost a Level posting this.”