The first Quest was simple.
I went to Chelsea Market during lunch, bought a handful of blueberries, a tillandsia, an apple popsicle, and three pounds of 90/10 ground beef. I left the goods in the windowsill of a brownstone on West 9th Street and then headed to Central Park, where the Requester had taped a plain, white envelope under a random bench. Inside was a wooden token, the size of a half dollar, with the number one intricately carved in the middle. I quickly hid it in one of my desk drawers, then proceeded to get absolutely no work done for the rest of the day.
The second Quest was slightly more taxing. I waited the required three days before checking the Quest Board again. There didn’t seem to be any enforcement mechanism of the waiting time, but not wanting to upset anyone, I did as instructed. When I logged onto the Quest Board, the screen flooded with fresh Quests waiting to be undertaken. I soon found myself perched over the Hudson River, trying to fish out five small stones without falling in the disgusting brown water. My footing was sure, so I didn’t have to explain to my co-workers why I smelled like rotten garbage. The stones I placed in a brown leather pouch, which I left next to a fire hydrant in Chinatown. This time, I had to fetch my reward out of an unlocked mailbox up in the Bronx. I secreted away the token in the bottom of an old pair of shoes so that my nosy roommate wouldn’t find it and began the countdown again.
The third Quest was another straightforward one. The headline was misleading-a promise to visit a quirky, forgotten shop-but when the full instructions arrived in my inbox, I sulked. A quick trip into Grand Central was all it took to find the cheap plastic bracelet, which I deposited in a garbage can on Track 18. This time, the token was close by, stuck between the pages of an issue of Nintendo Power.
The fourth Quest was nostalgic. I again gathered up another weird menagerie of items and went back to the brownstone on West 9th Street. The items from the first Quest were gone, save for the popsicle stick, and I hoped that whoever had fetched them had gotten there before the popsicle had turned into a pile of mush. Or maybe they wanted the mush. Who knows. Another envelope awaited me when I returned to the same Central Park bench. Later, I pulled out the first token and set it aside the new one. The craftsmanship was undeniable. Maybe at some point, I would get to meet their creator.
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The fifth Quest was the most challenging by far. The instructions were multi-tiered and required precise timing. First, I had to board the last car of a downtown 6 train at 51st Street at 9:47 AM. I then had to exit the train at 33rd Street and re-enter the third car of that same train. Needless to say, I drew a multitude of stares when I burst through the closing doors of the third car. Second, I needed to exit the train at 14th Street and board a crosstown bus going west, standing in the middle of the bus without holding a handrail. Third, I had to exit the bus at 7th Avenue through the front door and take the first available taxi all the way down to Battery Park. These steps needed to be completed in no more than 47 minutes door-to-door. I arrived at Battery Park with minutes to spare, only to realize that the original instructions had stopped after this step. Dejected, I almost left to go home, but a small, intricately painted arrow on a sign caught the corner of my eye. I walked in the direction of the arrow, only to find another arrow on a second sign. That arrow led to several more (I lost count after the 11th one), as I zigzagged across the park. The final arrow pointed me to a set of stairs leading down underground. At the bottom was an imposing wooden door sporting a large iron knocker. I hesitated slightly before banging the knocker three times. Nothing happened. I waited. Still nothing. After several minutes of contemplating the exact number of knocks needed, a small portion of the door slid aside to reveal a pair of piercing, golden eyes.
“You’re late.” The voice was raspy and deep-toned.
“I’m sorry?”
“Tokens, please.”
The Quest made no mention of bringing my tokens with me, but on a hunch, I had collected them from their various hiding places. I drew them out and a small, sooty hand reached through the slot and grabbed them from me. Before I could say anything, the slot closed suddenly with a thud. I stared at the door. Was this all some kind of stupid trick by a crazy person with too much time on their hands? Before my anger could get the best of me, the slot opened again and the hand reached out to give me something small and round. Another token I realized. But it was iron, not wood. The same number one was in the middle, etched elegantly into the metal. I grabbed the token greedily and without another word, the man’s hand withdrew back into the door and the slot closed again. Tucking the token away into my jacket, I danced happily up the stairs and into the mid-morning sun.
When I logged onto the Quest Board again three days later, a new section had appeared. “Epic Quests,” it said. “Requires 185 gold tokens.”