The crowd was instantly divided. The most vocal of them crowded around me, yelling endless questions and accusations. I tried to look for what the runner had dropped, but couldn’t find them on the forest floor. Instead, the young man that I’d blocked helped me to my feet.
The other half formed a half-circle around the burnt wooden giant, respectfully asking for a second chance of some kind. They complained about someone from outside interrupting their arrangement.
“I gave every one of you a chance to complete my quest,” the giant said. Its voice was deep and nasal. The tone it took seemed to scold the little humans at its feet. “You accepted my terms.”
“But, he wasn’t part of the deal!” an older man argued. He was short, a feature exaggerated by the size of the giant. He couldn’t have stood more than a few inches over five feet tall. He wore a white tunic that was filthy with muddy smudges. His salt and pepper hair was cut neat, but he was sweating badly. Most of the humans in the orange forest seemed to be just surviving the heat. “Let Hans retry the quest!”
Hans must have been the runner I’d interrupted. I could see why he was chosen to attempt the quest. It seemed every player on Arena had been fitted with an athletic body, but even here he was a standout. Hans was tall and muscular. He’d removed his tunic for the race, but somebody handed him the emerald green garment. He pulled it over his feathery blond hair and caught me examining him. To his credit, he didn’t look as frustrated as the older man sounded.
“Please!” the man begged when the giant didn’t respond.
“The terms of a quest are quite final,” it insisted, taking another step from its seat on the tree stump.
“What are those terms?” I asked. If I didn’t at least try to rectify my mistake, I’d have another mob after my head.
“Stay out of this,” the old man said. “You’re not involved!”
“He is,” Hans said. “He is now.”
I wasn’t yet sure to thank him for taking my side.
The giant acquiesced. “Human, you stand in my domain, the At-Will Forest.” It addressed me like a god might. I tried not to let that irritate me. “Igyllr ordered me to reign over this place.”
It definitely wasn’t a god, I decided. I couldn’t imagine one god serving another, given what little I knew of them. Their defining characteristic was their pride. A subjugated god was senseless. If it wasn’t a human either, then it was a monster.
“To the humans that call this place ‘home,’ I offer a quest for the Watch of Seasons. But, as you are not from the At-Will Forest, you are not eligible to compete.”
I was surprised to learn the prize was just an item. But at the news of my disqualification, the crowd groaned and lamented.
“What’s so special about that?” I asked Hans.
He explained, his face stoic in the face of the monsters news and my question. “According to her, it can control the weather of a certain area. We were hoping it might rain, deliver us some fresh water instead of this heat.”
“There’s no other source of freshwater?” I asked.
“None,” Hans said. “We’ll have to travel and find someplace that has what we need.” Those words were meant for the crowd. They responded with protests and complaints.
“What if I represented someone who was from the forest?” I asked.
The monster paused before leaving again. It looked agitated at the questions, if any expression on its wooden face could be read.
“Every player here has represented themselves,” it said.
“But not every player from the forest is here. I will accept your quest in the name of Xing…” I never learned his full name, but stopped talking. Maybe that was enough.
“One can’t transfer the right of challenge to another. But… I suppose you have already interfered…” The crowd held their breath while they watched its careful deliberation. It turned to sit back on its stump. “Very well. You may represent Li Xing in this quest on a condition. Should you fail, I will summon all of my minions to this forest without delay.”
I turned to Hans. He shrugged. The old man almost choked.
“Wait, the original quest said we’d have a day to leave the forest before you invaded,” he argued. “That’s not in the agreement.”
“Neither is this interloper,” the monster argued. “Now, what will it be?”
“I accept your challenge,” I said. That got a smile from Hans. The others in the crowd started making plans to flee the forest. “What will I have to do?”
The quest was actually rather elegant. Within a certain radius of the monster, four tokens would be revealed once the player started the quest. One player could initiate the quest at a time. At that moment, the tokens would appear around the course, and then the finish line would be revealed too. If a player could retrieve the tokens and return to the finish zone before five minutes had passed, then the quest was completed. My interruption had scattered the tokens, so when Hans tumbled through the finish line, it counted the quest as a failure.
“Originally, the real trick was finding the tokens,” Hans explained. He volunteered to lead me on a short tour of the grounds of the quest. He pointed out brush that might snare me, routes to avoid and which ways to run. “But they’re hidden in the same place every time. Most of our attempts were spent trying to actually search the course.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, when it was just the two of us walking. The rest of the group was deciding whether or not to evacuate the forest. The old man was eager to leave. “Where I come from, I’ve learned to kill those monsters on sight.”
“It seems different, no?” Hans said. “We were all running from its minions after that message appeared this morning.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Hans told the full story, the one I’d only heard from Xing and Felipe’s perspective. The huts were more spread out than the beds from my starting town, so people had more trouble finding one another in the At-Will Forest as they awoke. In their searching, monsters had invaded the forest, spreading small fires and hunting players.
It was only when the large wooden giant appeared that the invasion stopped, and it explained to the players the opportunity of the quest.
“Did any of you manage to kill one?” I asked him.
“Can they be killed?” Hans asked. That was answer enough for me. No wonder the forest was scared. They’d had no success at all against the monsters. I wondered if a similar boss was offering a quest to the players in the town.
Hans pointed out where the tokens would be hidden for my race and recommended a certain path for me to take. I tried not to waste too much time. The day only got warmer, and my hunger and thirst were clawing at my insides. I worried that waiting for much longer might actually keep me from succeeding in the quest.
When we returned, only two people from the crowd remained.
“They all left?” Hans asked.
The old man that was arguing with the monster and a young woman stayed with the giant.
“I drew the short straw,” the old man said. “Literally. I’m supposed to run after them if he ends up winning. Its stupid for all of us to wait around in case he doesn’t.”
“I’ll stay with him,” Hans volunteered. “Go on, I’ll come get you when he wins.” The old man grumbled something rude, but didn’t argue. He jogged off towards the way I’d arrived. Hans then addressed the woman, “You should go with them too.”
“Don’t get all chivalrous on me,” she said. “You said we’re a team.”
I tried to quickly figure the relationship between them. She was pretty too, lithe and smooth-skinned. Her hair was an artistic fade and her eyes were deeply dark. She tried to look resolute, but a bouncing knee betrayed more than a little anxiety.
“When you’re ready,” the giant said. “I’ll start the race.”
“Actually, I wondered if I could start from somewhere else,” I suggested. I wondered if the race could begin somewhere near where one of the tokens would appear. It would make the quest substantially easier.
The giant swung a great wooden finger and a red, vertical ring appeared near its throne. I recognized it as the same as the finish line.
“No. The race begins and ends here. When you cross through the ring, you’ll have five minutes to collect the tokens of the four seasons and return them here.”
It was worth a shot I thought.
“Relax,” Hans told me. “It’s easy now that you know where the tokens would be. I would’ve finished with a minute to spare. Remember the course and you’ll be fine.”
I tried hard to believe him. The last time I ran a race was the sixth grade. My coach insisted that somebody from the grade would have to volunteer to run the mile. There wasn’t one person that stepped forward. From that crowd, he picked me out. I still remember that excruciating experience. I’d been lapped by two of the other kids my age. I wouldn’t let history repeat itself.
I started running through the red ring. Translucent red text appeared in my periphery. I kept running along the path Hans charted.
New Quest Added - Retrieve the Season Tokens!
4:59
The timer would be helpful. The notification about the quest disappeared but my clock didn’t. In a few seconds I snatched up the heavy token. It was a wooden hexagon, as large as my chest and at least ten pounds. A large design of a snowflake decorated the prize. I started walking, opened my menu and dropped the item into my inventory. With the weight gone, I kept running. That was the trick that Hans hadn’t used, that no one in their group had probably tried.
But, a new wrinkle interrupted on my way towards the Spring token. From behind a tree, a new monster appeared. It skittered across the forest floor on six wooden legs, unsteadily balancing a hollow tree trunk bearing an orange flame in its central cavity. It moved like a candle on legs, quickly approaching to cut off my path. I swerved around the tree, avoiding an explosive puff of flame.
Hans whirled about to argue with the giant. “That wasn’t part of the game!”
It was unbothered. “If you’re allowed an interloper, then so am I!”
I found my bearings again, reaching the knotted, orange-leafed tree to extract the Spring token. It was decorated with a pink flower in bloom. The wooden candle monster found me again. It unleashed another cloud of flames. I took cover behind the tree, letting the heat pass on either side of me.
It was fast, but its attack was so powerful that the flame seemed to stop its progress. As long as I wasn’t directly in its path when it stopped to strike, I’d be fine.
When the flames disappeared, I resumed the race.
3:11
The Summer token was hidden high in the arms of a neighboring tree. Hans had marked it with a stone and I scrambled against the trunks of the indistinguishable trees for that one clear “X.”
I circled a few trees before finally finding it again. A rope ladder from one of the huts had been hung from the branch to let players climb up and grab the token in their attempts. The fire monster wouldn’t let me have it so easily. It pinned me against the side of the tree, my hands already climbing up the ladder. I jumped off and ran to the other side of the tree to take cover.
The monster had learnt its lesson and chased me to the other side. I stepped away from the tree, abandoning the safety of my cover. Running from something had reminded me too much of that race as a kid. It reminded me of avoiding those problems I’d avoided in Austin.
I turned about-face once the monster had just crossed the tree to my side of the trunk. It reared back on its hind legs to deliver another blast of fire, but I’d prepared my skill first.
“Minor Hill!”
I aimed the skill at the ground just before the monster. The rising earth combined with the topheavy monster pushed its weight further and further back against the tree. The hill rose and and rose, squeezing the monster between the thick tree and the earth under my command.
I only relaxed when I heard a series of successive crunches. The bug had been obliterated. The giant at the start of the course groaned. Hans gave an enthusiastic cheer. I looked back through the forest to find him pumping his arms. I returned the gesture.
2:32
With more than half the time remaining, I carefully ran my race, retrieving both the Summer and Autumn tokens from their little hiding spots. I summoned the items back into my arms before stepping through the finish line.
Quest Completed - Retrieve the Season Tokens!
The timer in my periphery faded away. Hans’ friend happily volunteered to find the rest of the group.
“Why?” I said. The question gave both of them pause. “We don’t owe them anything. You stuck around. Hans told me everything I needed to know and I actually completed the quest. You could just let them walk away from the prize.”
The suggestion surprised them both. It clearly wasn’t an option they’d considered. Perhaps that just meant they were more good-natured than I was. In the excitement of victory, I didn’t really care.
“You can decide how you’ll divide the spoils amongst yourselves,” the giant said. It lowered its hand to our feet, and in its large wooden palm was a brass pocket watch and a crystal chain. “But, here is the prize, the Watch of Seasons. Take it.”
Hans urged me to do so and I didn’t protest. I pulled the device from its hand, feeling its weight. The watch was beautifully made. Even if it was some kind of item from the gods, I couldn’t deny its artistry. In exchange, the giant monster took the four season tokens, swallowing the heavy prizes down its fiery maw.
“Enjoy your victory, players,” it said. “Beware my next quest will be much more lethal.”