NOVEL NEXT An Investigation Quest
We finally made it to the adventurer’s hall despite all the teasing I had to endure. I walked up to one of the numerous kiosks in the building and it logged in with my handprint. I navigated to the quest list to find an available quest to take.
“What kind of quest are you guys looking for?” I asked the group as I had opened the quest filtering.
“I am thinking about something easy today, then tomorrow we can dive into dungeons.” Alex responds while looking over my right shoulder at the screen.
“How about this one then?” Naomi said, pointing to a quest.
Quest: Maidens Request
Quest Type: Normal
Difficulty: C
Location: Willow Fall Village
Mary has requested the assistance of some adventurers to help uncover a doppelganger plot.
Rewards:
50 Gold
5,000 XP
“That looks like it could be fun. Anyone know how far this village is?” I asked the girls surrounding me.
“Give me a moment I’ll find out.” Alex said and then strode over to one of the NPCs in the building.
I scrolled through the list of filtered quests, looking for something that was within my rank that was relaxing. The only other quests that look like they fit the bill were material collection ones. I decided to pick up the investigation quest, hoping that there wouldn’t be much fighting.
Shortly after, Alex returned to the group with information about the village. “I was told that the village is about a three-hour carriage ride from here.”
“Sounds like we need to see if we can rent or find a carriage that will go there then.” I said to the girls “Lets spilt up to speed up our search. If you find something just send a message.”
Everyone agreed and we split up to find a carriage. I opted to check out the trade district, hoping that maybe there was a caravan heading to that village.
I left the adventurers hall and walked through the bustling city. There were players everywhere you looked as they were easy to see by the floating green gem above their heads. It came in three colors Green which was a normal player. Yellow, which meant that the player committed a minor crime and had a small bounty. They could still enter a city and pay off their fine. Finally, there was red. Red meant the player had a large bounty and had committed serious crimes. They were kill on site targets and were barred entry into most major cities where their bounty originated.
Bounties worked in an interesting way as such that if you got one in one kingdom, you could still most likely still visit another without consequence. However, if your bounty got large enough, the issuing country could extend that to neighboring countries if their diplomatic ties were good enough. This was something Yuki had gone into detail over dinner one night.
As I was walking through the city I was suddenly approached by several players.
“You’re the player that enchanted that badass sword, right? Could you enchant mine? I’ll pay you.”
“Hey, I saw her first! Enchant mine! I’ll pay more.”
“Forget enchantments, I will pay you to craft me some of those potions and poisons. I’ll pay fifty thousand gold.” A third player yelled from the crowd.
The sudden swarm of players had flustered me for a moment before I could speak. I ignored everyone shouting and focused myself to calm down. “Sorry, I am not in the business of doing any enchanting or crafting at the moment.” I said, trying to get everyone to leave me alone.
“Listen lady, I will pay you one million gold for you to enchant my sword. You won’t get a better offer; you best take it.” Said some asshole player. Some of the players had left when I said no but there were still a bunch more that wouldn’t leave and kept forcing the issue with more money.
Seeing how the players were not going to leave me alone I opted to break away from them, but they had formed a solid circle around me that made it difficult to break through, at least without blowing them up. With no other options left, I focused on my psionics and flew above the crowds and onto a nearby rooftop. I then hopped over a couple of buildings before landing in an alleyway away from the other players.
I was about to continue my search for a carriage when I received a message from Naomi.
[I found a merchant who is passing through that village. He can give us a lift if we pay him five gold per person. Meet up at the trade quarters exit]
With the destination marked I chose to get there the quick way by flying again. I should do this more often. I find flying to be somewhat relaxing and knowing that I can fly has alleviated any fears of heights. I quickly find the gate that Naomi mentioned and land next to her. I noticed I gathered some looks from other players, most of them were looks of envy. I guess flying isn’t commonplace.
“Hey! So where is the merchant?” I asked Naomi as I landed next to her.
“It’s that guy over there.” Naomi pointed at a large muscular bald man with no shirt as he was lifting large crates in each arm and loading them into a wagon. “His name is Lance, and he will be leaving with a convoy of other merchants, and they will be passing through that village.”
I looked around and saw several armed people, most of them were players, standing near the dozen or so carts that were being loaded up. Shortly after Alex and Yuki showed up.
“Well, I suppose we should go introduce ourselves to the macho merchant.” I said pointing over to Lance, gaining a few giggles from Alex.