When I stepped out of the room I opened my eyes in and through the door that led in and out of the room, I walked into a lobby. It was a tiny one though.
The lobby in front of me was split into two parts. One of those parts was a small, shared space furnished with two small sofas and a table between them. This part of the lobby was unoccupied.
The other part of the lobby was right in front of one of the walls that defined the lobby and consisted of a desk, countless papers messily spread around the top of that desk, and a small woman sitting in a chair behind it. She was reading one of the many pieces of paper that decorated her desk.
If someone walked past the desk and the woman sitting behind it they'd reach a door with little windows. Sunlight was coming in through that door. Early morning sunlight, so early it looked as if the sun itself wasn't quite awake yet. Like the sun still needed to drink its own coffee cup.
Once I was through the door I turned and closed it, causing a sudden noise to fill the otherwise silent lobby. This caused the woman who was behind the desk to turn and look at me. She smiled warmly at me, and I returned the gesture, right as she began to beckon me over. She motioned with her hands that I ought to go over to her right away.
I took the few steps necessary to arrive in front of her and right as I did she began to speak to me. "Good morning Althos! You're up bright and early today. How did you sleep?" She asked, knowing my name and repeating it with the familiarity of a friend. Which was odd, because at least at the moment I didn't know hers.
Before I responded I took a moment to examine her. She was a short woman, even sitting down, which meant that she was small standing up as well.
She had soft green eyes, brown hair, a warm smile, and delicate-looking hands. She was dressed in the clothing of a professional woman, long black pants made of some material I couldn't identify at a glance, and a dark buttoned-up shirt. Her hands were on the desk, holding a piece of paper still so that she could read it.
"I slept well, thank you for asking." I said, as I smiled at her, and tried to mimic her warm and familiar tone. I must have done a decent job of hiding my confusion because the woman didn't question my words or my sincerity. Thankfully I didn't have to persist in my ignorance for long.
[That woman's named is Isadora. She's the receptionist at this inn, which is named the Silver Xana. A Xana is a minor type of nature spirit.] The system informed me, educating me a bit as to where I was almost as soon as I replied to Isadora's initial comments.
Isadora turned her face back to her papers before next speaking to me. She opened her mouth to speak even as she began to scan the contents of the page in front of her.
"Are you planning on looking for a quest today? I know you just got here last night so you may want to explore the town instead, but if you are looking for work there are absolutely quests suited for a druid that we'd be thrilled to see fulfilled." She said, suggesting that I accept something called a "quest".
I considered her question for a moment while also half expecting the system to provide me with some juicy knowledge that would help what she just said make sense. I could tell by the context that she was asking me if I planned to go out and earn some money, but there were certain words that made little to no sense to me. But I did like the idea of going out and earning some money.
Right as I was about to respond affirmatively to the question, I was interrupted by my old friend: the system.
[If you just asked us a question using your thoughts we'd provide you with the illuminating context you need. We were not the ones who put the knowledge you came into being possessing in your mind. All we did was select this as the place you'd awake in, and modify the memories of the people here to include you.] The entity revealed.
That revelation made me curious about two things. The first thing I was curious about was the identity of whoever or whatever put the knowledge I have in my mind there in the first place, and of course, the why and how of putting it there.
The second thing I was curious about was one that probably had a more direct answer: what could the system do? And equally as important: what couldn't the system do?
If the system could answer these questions, it opted not too.
[Quests are tasks you undertake for someone else. All sorts of things can grant quests, domains, subdomains, us, you, and also people, can grant quests and stipulate rewards for the completion of said quests. Successfully completing quests grants you rewards as stipulated by the quest giver.] The system said, continuing its earlier statement without regard for my interruption.
Armed with what knowledge the system had opted to arm me with I now felt more secure in the decision I was making. It was unchanged.
"Yes, I am Isadora. I am ready and excited to get to work!" I said energetically, eager to go out into the world and learn more things. She grinned even as she continued to read the paper in front of her.
"That's awesome news! Ours is a small town, we are a frontier community after all. And as such we are lacking in magic users, but we're a kind people. I hope in time you can experience our kindness yourself. Your excitement will take you far in that regard, provided you can keep it up." She told me. And she wasn't done yet.
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"Why don't you sort through some of these papers here? These are our own, local quest-requests. That way you can select the most recent and the most local quests. Starting off your time here by completing these quests is sure to grab you a few new friends!" She said, as she idly gestured towards the desk. I chuckled and grabbed a few of the papers on the desk.
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 was 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.