Chapter 24 – [Task Quest: Slay 10 rats in the Raskal sewers.]

“Figured I’d run into you here. This is the only side quest available on the bulletin board right now,” Felix laughed, his face a bit dirty after recently falling head first into the ground after tripping when lunging for an apple.

Daniel nodded. “Yeah, I noticed too. I think a lot of this is designed to be an extension of the tutorial, teaching us about how quests and stuff work in this world.”

“Yeah, the devs really made us work for those side quest apples huh,” Felix replied with a sheepish look on his face, wiping some dirt off his face. He was always the fool of Daniel’s highschool group. The antithesis of stoic Donovan who always took things too seriously, Felix was more of a joker who liked to dick around while still managing to produce results. “Did you know, mages don’t get their first spell until they visit some mage hall thing in town? How lame is that?”

Daniel raised an eyebrow. So it wasn’t just merchants that had a chamber of commerce quest. He motioned Felix to the side of the path on their way downhill from the Raskal gardens back to the main town.

“What’s up?” Felix said.

“Listen, I gotta fill you in on some information I collected,” Daniel said with a low voice after bringing Felix aside so he could talk to him privately. “So you see, during the tutorial…”

Trusting Felix, Daniel filled him in on all the wild happenings from the tutorial until now, as Felix listened on with an amazed expression, as Daniel also introduced Aerie from his hood to him. Although Aerie was scared at first to meet a stranger, Daniel reassured her that his highschool friend wasn’t out to get her.

“So I’m just making sure, you didn’t unlock any secrets yet, right? Because if you did, you need to hide that stuff before you head to the mage hall, otherwise you’ll trigger the inquisitor event. They got me because Aerie was on my person, so just letting you know before you go to the mage hall that you should hide anything suspicious.”

Felix shook his head. “Nah, I don’t have anything of that sort. Damn, you’ve collected secrets already. I gotta step it up!” As they traveled further downhill and reached the entrance to the heart of the city again, Felix gave Daniel a friendly punch on the shoulder. “There’s the mage hall. Gonna go collect my fireball spell, yo.”

With that, he sprinted off to the right towards the mage hall, a large imposing evil-looking building with a roof that looked somewhat like a shingled wizard’s hat.

“Daniel, your friend just ran away,” Aerie said in her small voice.

“Yeah, he does that a lot.”

Tucking Aerie back into his hood, Daniel made his way into the heart of the city, running into a bulletin board on the side of the street yet again. There was a smaller crowd around it this time, so Daniel headed over and took a look.

[Task Quest: Slay 10 rats in the Raskal sewers.]

[Standard Quest: Explore the marked hill outside of Raskal]

Two new tasks were now available, and Daniel leaned over the crowd of new players and took stubs for both of them. With about three and a half hours left until the king’s visitation ceremony, he decided to do the [Slay 10 rats in the Raskal sewers] task quest first, right after he turned in the apple picking quest to the noble woman.

Daniel ran down the street, ducking in and out of oncoming foot traffic as he made his way back to the noble woman knitting on the same porch. This time, at least twenty players were standing around here. Daniel joined the crowd and instantly received a popup message.

[Would you like to turn in fetch quest: Collect a dozen apples from the Raskal Gardens?]

[Yes.]

[Quest has been turned in.]

“Oh, thank you deary,” the noble woman said with a smile, before repeating the same message to another player.

[You have received a small amount of experience.]

[You have received 17 silver pieces.]

Daniel sighed. The journey to 1,000 silver pieces to pay off his fine was long. But he wasn’t discouraged. Daniel opened up his map and reset his waypoint to the Raskal sewers. The entrance to the sewers was located on a walkway underneath a bridge near the river running through the center of Raskal.

-- changed currency from gold to silver but the story has to be dropped with this reception so doesnt matter anymore :(