Fred
I glance at the Quest Screen that I've set to be accessible on the right side of my vision, for what feels like the thousandth time.
[Quest: Your Sword is Your Friend!*]
[1: Kill and slice 100 Swamp Snakes lengthwise. 100/100]
[2: Coat Sword with 1 kg of 100 different materials; do 100 Forms until gone. 1/100]
[3: 1000 horizontal and vertical slashes. 892/1000; 720/1000]
[4: Coat tip with 100 grams of 100 different materials, immerse in fluid, then wipe clean. 1/100]
[5: Carve 10 kilometers in 10 different materials. 4.564/100]
[6: Coat grip with slick liquids, perform all 100 Forms without slip. 0/100]
[7: Fully bathe sword in blood of 600 different types of creatures. 21/600]
[8: Commune with your Sword every day during this Quest. It must drink of your blood, and the blood of at least one enemy, during the entire time of the Quest. 7/30, 7/30]
[Failure Meter: 22/100]
[* this Quest has been abbreviated.]
To be completely honest, my first thought when this absolutely ridiculous Quest showed up on my interface was to just quit Dungeon Quest.
I actually did. When I got pushed out of Gogosh's shop, with not only no upgraded sword, but a bogus Quest that requires me to work overtime with no potential upside, I rage-quit the game. I yelled. I worked in my garden. I tried playing another game I used to love but the graphics and gameplay sucked. I eventually vented to Gabe when he called me that same day; He insisted on seeing the Quest and forcefully took over management of part of it. He enlisted Koji and Jade against my wishes to gather materials, and pushed me to post for blood.
I could have done it without his help. Worst case I lose right? Whatever. I do usually enjoy Dungeon Quest though. Having a single side Quest ruin my experience and hundreds of hours of playtime would be more than frustrating, especially since you can't currently reroll characters.
Side quests aren't my thing. At least, not unless there's some really interesting story happening. I like doing what I want, when I want. Direct to main Quest, maybe grind and kill mobs if they're interesting, customize my character with cool gear, sideline into crafting for a moment, indulge in a healthy obsession of homemaking. When I do complete mandatory side quests, I usually try to get them over with as quickly as possible, with as little possible effort as I can. Straight to Main Quest all the way.
This one is bogus.
I... honestly don't know if I'm going to be able to finish this Quest. I'm already working lots of hours at work, and most of my evenings are taken up either with church stuff, taking care of my garden, spending time with people who want my time, or playing here in Dungeon Quest. I don't have more time to spend here.
The biggest issue is getting 600 different types of blood. There aren't 600 types of creatures near Fountain City - just the swamp where the Swamp Snakes and Bomb Frogs are located, has a pretty high variety at 14 enemy types. Even then, killing enough leeches or mosquitoes to get enough blood to coat the sword with a single type? It took me forever. On the upside, it looks like my own blood counts as well. I'm not sure why, but I tried it both the first day and the second day, and the counter ticked up for step 6. Not only that, but my failure meter, which had risen to 25 with all my efforts to save effort, ticked down by one when I used my own blood. Extremely gruesome. I actually threw up the first time I had the thought. Thankfully, "fully bathe" actually means "coat the whole thing with a super thin layer" - not "dunk in enough liquid to take a bath in." Dungeon Quest might be intense, and gruesome with this Quest, but at least it's not extremely gruesome. Or whatever. Blood isn't kid-friendly no matter how much is required.
Gabe forced me to put in a request with the Adventurer's Guild, the Item Drop Guy, and the Alchemist Shop for blood of any type. The Adventurer's Guild was a bit iffy until they say that the Quest was mandatory and someone came and assured them I wasn't evolving into an Elder Vampire and had no Blood skills besides Haemopotent Absorption. That one actually turned a few heads, as Blood skills are extremely uncommon and sorta taboo. That this one was logged as a reward from an Adventure Crystal gave me a thumbs up, but the nice lady at the Guild expressed her "ardent hope" that if I was offered any Blood skills in the future that I quickly turn them down and run away from whatever situation brought them to my status. Whatever. I do what I want. Especially if this game is going to drop me a mandatory Quest where I can't even go grind for loot.
Once the Adventurer's Guild had ok'd the request, Item Drop Guy and the Alchemist Shop were easy. Gabe just showed them the Quest sheet and added them as drop off points. Which means they could get completion and rewards for anything they were able to harvest from animals or materials going their way. Which made me realize that the Item Drop Guy probably has an absolute boatload of Guild merits. Or at least he could have them if he wanted to, with so many different materials running through his shop. Dropping them off at the Guild across the street is probably a viable method of getting rid of items, but there are also probably better markets available that he has access to.
The Adventurer's Guild made the request for 15mL of blood, and is keeping a running tab on which creature blood types are acceptable. I have a tab in my status screen where the running list is kept, and it can be updated by me (when I find blood myself), or someone at the Adventurer's Guild, Item Drop Guy, or the Alchemist Shop when blood is submitted.
Blood is actually not often harvested by adventurers, since most Alchemist recipes require either the blood of specific creatures (unicorns, dragons, phoenixes... the basic menagerie of magical beings) or can use any type of blood at all. Almost no one wants goblin blood. Or orc blood.
The biggest cost of the Quest was actually providing blood identification. Under the current setup, adventurers submit the blood and submit that it's from a monster listed in the codex as still available. Then the blood gets identified to make sure it matches. If it doesn't match, the adventurer gets fined the amount of the identification procedure plus a fee, and the blood is given back - so they're essentially paying extra for an identification. Yet again Gabe made me. It's because of the potential of having an adventurer (or multiple adventurers through the course of the event) submit 600 units of goblin blood pretending it was from different creatures. That would "destroy my ability to do the Quest." The identification itself is expensive, but I can't afford to pay for a ton of blood that won't move me forward in my quest. Since the blood doesn't need to be fresh, I'm picking it up once a week to save time. Later today is the first pickup.
The other Quest pieces I've tested to see how they work. Killing Swamp Snakes was easy, until I realized that I couldn't sever them during killing them, as that would invalidate the kill and slice lengthwise aspect of the Quest. Horizontal slashes are easier than vertical slashes, but they have to be absolutely perfectly horizontal or vertical to count. Slashes that aren't focused on killing something useful to the Quest add to the Failure Meter. Which is scary. Even defending myself from the 101st Swamp Snake added to it. Attacking a monster that I've already used for blood does the same thing, unless I use perfect horizontal or vertical strikes. There are a ton of restrictions on this Quest. At least there's the hidden bonus of using my own blood to lower the Failure Meter. I find myself wondering why Gogosh never mentioned that.
Also.
Gogosh.
I got ushered out of his shop shortly after receiving the Quest, and the door locked behind me. Since then, I haven't been able to get back inside. The dude has been completely MIA and even his neighbors know nothing. Really dude? First you go from blacksmith to "Journeyman Swordsmith," then you turn into secret mandatory Quest giver, then you disappear? Not cool man. Had I known that everything I wanted in a new sword would only add more details to the Quest, I would have stuck with longer, heavier, sharper and that's it. I also would have never visited his shop in the first place. Next time I need a new sword, I'm finding this world's version of online grocery shopping.
If I ever see him again, he's getting a piece of my mind.
The only upside of our interaction was that he didn't take any of my money in exchange for giving me a mandatory Quest that will probably end with me losing my weapon skills. Which meant that I could put up all of my money buying blood and other materials to complete each portion of the Quest. Koji and Jade are on the portions that require different materials.
Not like I couldn't have done it myself.
Grumble.
Getting a kilogram of so many different things, and staying inside the budget of the money I have, would have been fine. Even if I can't go out and kill things to make money. I can just take out a loan or something, or sell my stuff. I look down at my sword in irony. Right now I'm carving in stone. Thankfully the amount of carving needed is the length of the carved lines, not the length of stone itself. I can carve an intricate tree on a panel of stone and get credit for half a kilometer as long as the length of all the lines adds up to that. And as long as the carving is deemed "intricate" enough. Which thankfully is additive. Not intricate enough yet? Add some "flourishes", some little additional lines, some embellishment here and there, and tick, the counter goes up.
I look at the stone I'm "carving." It's a flat side of the city wall. I learned from someone that the city wall is a composite structure, made of different materials. All hardness 1 or greater. Saves me a little bit of time because I can just sit here and carve until it stops giving me progress. Maybe there will even be ten types. I have to do a ton of horizontal and vertical slashes right? So I slash the wall horizontally for a while, then go back and do vertical slashes. If that's not enough, then I add in a wavy slash or something and tick.
The wall regenerates over the course of a few hours or something like that. Thanks to being a magic composite. If I were actively trying to break it down, a city guard would probably be on my case. As it is, I'm no different from a kid throwing a ball against it.
I move back to the side a few steps and toss in some wavy slashes until the counter ticks up.
The carving doesn't look like anything at all. No one said it had to. And my arms are getting really sore from holding this thing all day long again.
I'm so close to being over this. I want to go out and fight monsters, but I'd end up adding to the Failure Meter of the Quest. Which would eventually mess up my plans for Dungeon Quest altogether. It's just a few more days.
I add a couple more swirling flourishes to my wall "carving" until all the horizontal and vertical slash marks are integrated. I do have to admit that my ability to handle my sword has gotten slightly better after all this stuff. Not a lot. It's only been a few days, and this is no course on swordsmanship. But since I never have taken an actual course on swordsmanship, and I'm just hacking stuff with my blade (not that it ever actually mattered and I'd be fine even if it did), I do feel more connected with my blade.
Whatever.
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Koji
Carmen and I travel the market stalls. Our objective is 1100 grams of 100 different materials, each "sticky" enough to be able to at least lightly coat a sword without falling off. 100 grams to coat the tip, soak in liquid, then wipe off. 1 kilogram to coat the sword before going through sword forms until it falls off. Which means that things that are actually sticky are a no-go. They would never fall off. So stuff that is mildly sticky, but not so much that it won't come off. Or stuff that sticks when wet, but dries quickly and loses its stickiness. Or something like that.
All at a budget of 10 gold. We shouldn't need that much, since 10 gold is 1000 silver or 100,000 copper - and 1000 copper or 10 silver for a kilogram is way more than most things cost. But we have to find 100 different materials, which means that when we run out of cheap stuff, more expensive stuff will be the only thing left. And they have to be "different" enough that the Quest Fred is working on sees them as different. So this soft sticky soil and that soft sticky soil might not show up as different items, even if one was imported from south of the city and the other came from the mountain.
We find different types of soil, and vegetables (Jade's suggestion was fruit. Her eyes lit up as she suggested it. Of course they did. And mashed fruit is sticky, but I feel like it's too sticky, which is why we went with vegetables. Mash them up, coat the sword, and they should slide right off. Right? Jade doesn't have to always be right.), and different types of fabric. The Quest doesn't say that the sword has to be perfectly coated. Just that it has to have a kilogram of stuff wrapped around it just long enough to not fall off. Fabric can be wrapped. And it should come off easily. Unfortunately, there are only a handful (compared to the 100 different types we need) of different types of fabric, even in the marketplace, and there is no way that metalcloth is an option even with gold involved.
Carmen gets the idea of using rocks, or metals, or wood. I object since metal doesn't really form well and it's going to be really difficult to mold. Like I said, metalcloth isn't going to be an option. But rocks should work. Just stab the sword into it, right? Hopefully that works. Same with wood. If we're lucky, different types of wood will count as different materials. I can ask Fred to test that out; if they do, then it'll be easier to find materials.
We get some foods as well - bread should be easy, and we get bread made from multiple different grains. Wheat, corn, rice...
This is harder than I thought it would be. Finding stuff that will stick for a little bit, but not stick through sword swings, is difficult. Gabe has the full text of the Quest. I send him a message asking for any ideas he has.
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Fred
The Adventurer's Guild has the first shipment of blood bottles for me. Item Drop Guy and the Alchemist shop both dropped off here. Which means it's time for me to pay up.
Well, in a matter of speech. I actually had to front all the money for the Quest at the beginning. 10 gold, set aside as payment for 500 little bottles of blood at 2 silver apiece. The guild or any of the shops sells the tiny bottles for 1 copper, and the adventurer comes back with a tablespoon of blood and makes absolute bank.
If I were more discerning, I could have set prices for each kind of blood, depending on rarity and how difficult it is to find and extract. Mosquito blood, for example, should be worth more than goblin blood. But that would take more time. And more effort. Gabe told me that some types of blood are probably worth more than 2 silver, and some are probably worth less. Whatever. If I fail, I fail. It'll be fine. I'm sure that there's a way to get back my weapon skills even if I do fail. I mean, Dungeon Quest is supposed to be a game that everyone can enjoy playing. Even Gabe with his Pacifist passion. It's not gonna brick my character just because I failed some bogus mandatory sidequest.
There are a total of 189 types of blood that have been turned in. That's actually more than I expected. They didn't keep track of how many people tried to turn in blood that had already been turned in, but I'm guessing there was probably at least some. Including people who collected blood and someone else turned it in just before they did and they didn't bother to check the book. Because who has time for that?
I know I wouldn't. If I had to, I'd collect blood, but unless it was for a mandatory sidequest or could make me a lot of money, and was super super easy, I don't think I'd do anything like that.
All the blood goes into my inventory, and then I walk outside to the fountain in the center of the city. I tried to figure out a way to do step 4 and 7 at the same time, but 100 grams is a lot of blood. And it doesn't stick to the tip of the sword unless something else is added, and at that point it's too much work.
I pull out the sword and the first vial of blood. No idea what it is. Don't care. I pull out a couple tiny pieces of leather - essentially rags - and pour the blood along the blade, then wipe it all over. Half the bottle goes on the blade, half on the grip. I keep the Quest progress screen open, and as soon as it ticks up, the sword goes into the fountain along with the leather. A quick wipe with a larger piece of leather that works as my drying cloth, and it starts again. I wouldn't bother drying the sword, but if it's wet the blood tends to run off and takes longer to apply. And it could drip off. It's too much of a bother to find the blood again, especially since I have no idea what these different types of blood even are.
Pour, wipe, dunk, wipe... rinse, lather, repeat.
Dungeon Quest sucks. This better give me some epic hidden superpower at the end. If it doesn't I'm writing a complaint letter to the devs. Or really quitting for good this time.
[ding]
I pull up status. Looks like Gabe sent me a message.
"Can you do the 100 Forms under water?"
What?
"What?"
"Can you do the 100 Forms under water? Your Quest requires you to coat the blade, then do the 100 Forms until all the stuff has fallen off. Finding stuff that will stick to the blade, but fall off easily, is tough. If you can do the 100 Forms under water, then we can give you stuff that is water soluble and sticky, and it'll easily come off."
"I have no idea."
"Where are you right now?"
"The Fountain Square."
"Uh... come to the pools on the mountain?"
"Gabe. That's far. I don't have time for this."
"Bestfren. It's worth testing. I'll have Koji meet you there, and we'll work to help you with your Quest. If this works, it'll save you a lot of time, and a lot of effort. You might even be able to even finish the 100 Forms part today."
I groan.
Why me? Couldn't Gogosh choose some other unlucky slob to gift with his special secret mandatory Quest? I spent a moment looking up stuff on the forum, and no one has ever even heard of something like this. Even mentioning it on the forum made it blow up on me with people wanting more information and how to find Gogosh. Why couldn't they be the ones to find him first?
I finish dunking and drying the sword, and send back a message to Gabe.
"Yeah. This had better be worth it."
"I'll meet you there as soon as possible! I'm grabbing materials from Koji. Jade, Gladys, and Kai are all brainstorming a list of materials to get if this plan works. If it does, we'll have them buy stuff and have Koji meet us at the top of the mountain!"
"Whatever. I'm about done with this Quest."
"Like, actually done?"
"Like quitting Dungeon Quest done, Gabe."
"Fred. Bestfren. You can do this. We have your back. We'll make this work. I can't do the sword swinging part, but I can support you in the background. I promise. It's gonna be awesome. Secret hidden mandatory Quest given by an elusive Quest giver? This screams out something special. I mean, sometimes all you get is something useless. But I have a feeling that this will be worth it. And you lose your favorite skill if you fail."
Yeah. One of Gabe's first questions about the Quest was whether someone else could upgrade the sword. Answer: people can do all the prep work, but the actual actions in the Quest have to be done by me. Someone else even touching the sword made the Failure Meter begin rising by 1 each second, and the thought of unequipping the sword hit me with a "friendly" status indicator.
[NOTICE! Removing your Sword will cause your Quest to fail! :)]
Really? A smiley face? As if this game didn't know it was taking me for a total ride.
Maybe I should just quit.
The sword is back on my back, as I jog through the streets, heading for the mountain just outside of town. At least the pool area up on the mountain is quiet. I don't want to be around people at all right now.
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Koji
Confirmation and success! I read Gabe's message that doing "the 100 Forms" under water was a success.
Which is good.
Very good.
Cool fact: no one knows what the 100 Forms actually are. A quick question to the city guard and other warrior-like people has only met with confusion, and the shop that assigned the Quest has been completely closed since the Quest was given. Fred was able to figure out the first 4 sword forms - left to right, up to down, left to right (yes, again), down to up - only after Gabe made him fight all of his fights after coating the grip of his sword with blood. See the number tick up? Do it again and hopefully figure out the next step. The first four were simple, but we have no idea what the next ones are. So having materials that are very water soluble, and will stick out of water, but come off within 4 sword swings, are the only current way to actually complete that portion of the Quest.
I quickly go through the market, buying 1100 grams of everything on the list. Fruits. Vegetables. Breads. Plants.
Fruits end up being the primary one.
Jade is gonna laugh so hard.