After carefully weighing the risks I chose goblin subjection.
“The goblin quest huh. Well I can’t say it's a bad choice, but are you sure you’ll be able to go up against goblins?” asked Alex. She looked the part ready to fight with her leather armor, bow, and belt of knives. If she was with me I was confident that I could handle goblins.
“What do you mean? Aren't you going to help me?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how well I would do by myself, but with Alex’s help I should be fine.
“Why would I help you? My job is to teach you how to do the quest not do it for you. Are you sure you can handle this?” responded Alex.
“I’ll find some way to complete the quest. So what should I do first?” I asked eager to start. I’m a little scared, but this should turn out well.
“Well first we have to go to the goblin’s cave. I’ll explain every thing else on the way. Do you need anything from town or can we leave now?” said Alex.
“I’m supposed to pick up an instrument at noon. Can we wait until then to leave?” I asked.
“Do you need this instrument to fight?” asked Alex a bit annoyed.
“Well no, but I don’t want to keep Smith waiting for me.” I said.
“Well then let's get a move on. All you have to do is finish the quest before noon. Should be easy for someone with a special ability, right,” said Alex as she started walking away.
Alex didn’t talk to me until we were outside the city gate and out of earshot of anyone else.
“Here is your day pass. So long as you have that and enter the city before sundown you can get in the city for free.” said Alex while handing me a scrap of paper. The paper didn’t have much writing on it and didn’t look very official, but I trusted that it was the real thing.
“Now then about the quest. Goblin subjection is one of the most common quests you will find. Goblins breed like crazy so it’s important to keep their numbers under control. This quest is to kill 25. Make sure to kill exactly 25 even if you have to let some escape, or escape yourself. However if it's a life threatening situation then you can kill extra goblins. On that note make sure to report any Goblins you kill outside a mission to nearby towns if there are any.” explained Alex.
“Why do we have to be so careful about the number that we kill?” I asked.
“Goblins are part of the ecosystem. If you kill too many of them then the rest of the ecosystem will crumble. A single goblin won't change the ecosystem much, but the adventuring guild still wants their numbers to be kept in check.” said Alex.
“Ok I get it do what the adventuring guild says,” I responded.
“Now then let's talk about how you’ll be killing the Goblins. What spells... music... what can you do?” asked Alex not sure how to address my ability.
“I have four songs right now each of them last for about 15 seconds. Spite deals soul damage and weakens, Restraint increases defense and slows, Hunger makes people hungry, and I don’t know what Moderation does,” I explained.
“Use the last one on me now. Let's see what it does,” said Alex.
I started paying the Song of Moderation on Alex to see what would happen. The entire time she was examining herself, and looking confused. After it was over I looked at her waiting for a verdict.
“I felt no change,” she said. I know my song must do something, but I shouldn’t use it until I can figure it out what it does.
“As for a battle strategy. Your only real option will be to alternate between Spite and Moderation while running away from the Goblins. Does it matter how many people you use it on?” said Alex.
“It gets weaker the more targets I have,” I said.
“You'll have to start with just one goblin then and see how many you take on at once. When we get closer to their nest I’ll bring one over for you to kill,” said Alex.
“Ok, and thanks for all your help,” I said. Maybe Alex was a good person all along.
“Don’t get the wrong idea! I’m only helping you so much so I can get back to my own work asap,” said Alex. Maybe I’m not as good a judge of character as I thought.
We came to a small clearing, and Alex told me to wait there as she left. A few minutes later I saw her running back followed by a goblin.
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“I hope you’re ready,” she said while quickly jumping into a tree. The goblin that was chasing her looked confused for a second before turning his eyes on me. Goblins are slightly intelligent beings so I didn’t know whether or not it would attack me to take my money. Regardless I wanted to fight it so I started playing Song of Spite on my flute, and start running away from the goblin. The goblin cringed at my song and covered its ears, but not for long before it clicked that I was causing its pain. Then it ran towards me with its wooden club. Such a cruel thing. It even appears that he ripped a branch off a still living tree. It's such a horrible thing to do especially when there are sticks lying around from dead trees. I won't mind ending this poor creature's life at all. As the goblin starts to gain on me Spite ends, and I immediately start playing Song of Restraint. The goblin slows down a little. It's not much, but it's enough to get me out of the goblins grasp. I repeat the steps of Spite and Restraint until the goblin starts to run away from me. Then I start chasing it, but it's headed towards its nest. I had been running away from the nest, but not in the exact opposite direction. It was getting close to the first clearing before it fell over.
I was surprised by the sudden fall, but I remained cautious of the goblin while continuing to play the Song of Spite. I came up to the still goblin while still playing through my songs. I was planning to kick the goblin to see if it was still alive, but it was still breathing so I didn’t have to. I went through two more rotations of Spite this time replacing Restraint with Hunger. When I was done with the second Song of Spite Alex jumped down from a tree.
“You might as well stop playing. It doesn’t look like that song can finish off your foes,” said Alex, “Here you can use this knife to finish him off.” The knife Alex handed me was pretty small, and looked like a spare knife. I held the knife to the goblin’s throat, but I couldn’t bring myself to slit it. I just couldn’t kill the goblin in cold blood. “It wouldn’t hesitate to kill you if it were still conscious. I’m going to get another goblin. If you haven’t killed it by the time I’m back you’ll be in trouble,” said Alex as she walked away; a bit slower than last time.
I knelt there alone with the goblin. “I’m sorry,” I said while slitting the goblin’s throat. If I was a human I would have cried, but it takes a lot more than that to make a Treant cry. Not because we have a good control of our emotions or anything. It's just that it's harder to make sap flow than it is tears. I took the dead body and put it in a nearby divot. Before adding several seeds I had collected to the body. Some people would only place one seed to grow a plant, but I knew that it's best to plant multiple seeds in the same place. Since the chances are that most of them won't sprout. I put some dirt over the body and cast a bit of nature magic to help decompose the body and grow the plant before Alex came running at me. This time with two goblins.
“I hope you can handle this,” she said while disappearing into a tree again.
(Author’s note: I changed the songs to 15 seconds long since, my god, 1 minute in battle is so long.)
Check out the outlines for the other two quests
Capture cat
Spoiler :
young noble’s daughter asking
pick up instrument
plays song of hunger while walking down the street with fish
Cats come and they eventually find their cat
asked to join nobles for an event
Flower quest
Spoiler :
They find the flower
Odis is tempted by Alex to just take the whole thing
New song Song of Want
Picks up instrument on the same day