I'm seventeen and I still haven't gotten my first quest.

Embarrassing, right?

All my friends have gotten theirs.

A few are still in the village, but most have ventured out into the wider world, in pursuit of experience, glory and honour (and treasure.)

My childhood best friend, Voron, got his first quest three years ago, left and I haven't seen him since, but I bet he's slayed so many monsters and accumulated so much experience that he's a member of some secret order by now, or he's an apprentice mage, or a wizard, or a gladiator, or maybe he's sailing somewhere—to another world!—as we speak…

As for me, I don't even have a level, or experience or an inventory. I can't equip anything. I only know what it feels like to level up from books. I do read a lot of those. Adventure books, books about lore, mythology, books about spells, weapons—

“Gromi!”

That's my mom. She must be calling me for dinner.

(My name is actually Gromislav. No one other than my mom calls me Gromi anymore. I prefer Grom.)

“Yes, coming,” I tell her.

That's right, I still live with my parents. My mom sews clothes and my dad is a mycoherbalist, which means he knows a lot about herbs and mushrooms and makes potions out of them. It's a decent way of life, I guess. He used to be an adventurer back in his day, even defeated a troll king, but then he fell in a boss battle, didn't revive or restart and settled into a profession in this little village I call home.

My mom was never much into questing. She claims she can't even remember her first quest. I don’t believe her. I think she’s just being nice. She did eventually complete a few of them, then travelled awhile without finishing any of her active quests, met my dad, her quests timed out, they married, she learned to sew, they had me, and that just about brings you to the present day. Sad how my life can be summed up that way: my parents' histories and then me at seventeen, reading books and still waiting for that first quest.

“Gromi!”

“I'm coming. For real this time!”

I go down the stairs to the one fairly large room we have on the first floor of our wooden house. It's a kitchen, an eating room, a guest bedroom (but we don't often have guests), a salon (for entertaining the guests we don't have), all in one.

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There’s a small fireplace, a few of my dad’s favourite cauldrons and pots, the usual kitchen-type stuff, two wardrobes (non-magical), a chest (magical) for archiving the items we don’t use much.

My mom is sitting at the table.

I expect my dad to be there too, but he's not.

“Sit,” my mom says.

I do.

I'm pretty sure I'm in trouble but I have no idea for what. I don't actually do all that much wrong. I'm risk averse, I do what my parents tell me, I keep generally to myself. The reason is simple: I haven't heard of anybody who died before getting their first quest—and I certainly don't want to be that guy.

I politely ask my mom what's up.

“Nothing,” she says, but she says it in a kind of whisper. “Just that tomorrow is your dad's birthday and I haven't had time to get him a gift. That order of wool cloaks is keeping me unnaturally busy. I was wondering if you've perhaps been able to get something, or at least have an idea.”

I haven't because I had completely forgotten about my dad's birthday. That's quite lame of me, I know. In my defence: did I mention I'm absent-minded? Or maybe I am just a little too self-centred, being an only child and all.

“Yes…” I say, “I have thought about it and I have an idea.”

(Lying to my mom. Not proud of that. Am I actually a worse person than I've always imagined myself to be?)

“Great. I'll leave it in your hands.”

“No problem. Good luck with your cloaks,” I say.

I guess that means there's no dinner right now. Not that I can't make it myself. I am seventeen, after all, but—still—maybe it doesn't quite befit a would-be adventurer, but I like my mom's cooking…

But I need to focus.

My lie has provided me with a task-at-hand: finding a gift for my dad. (No, I know what you're thinking, and getting a gift for someone is not a quest. A quest must have some sort of greater importance. All quests derive, of course, from the One Great Quest: Kill the Foozle.)

I decide to head down into our cellar to see if I can find anything there, and also to despair and curse my luck in solitude. I like solitude.

(I also know what you're thinking and, no, there are no rats or random slimes in the cellar. My parents keep a clean house. There is nothing down here for me to overcome or defeat.)

But—what's this?

I don't remember this roll of cloth being here. Naturally, I unroll it, revealing: an old rusted short sword. Or maybe it's a dagger? I don't really know, seeing as how I've never been equipped with a weapon. I do know that it's rusty.

I bring it up and show it to my mom.

Her eyes briefly light up. “Oh, Gromi. That's dad's old adventuring sword. I didn't know we still had it. You should have seen him back then, not hunched over a cauldron but dashing and upright and holding his weapon, ready to take on the world.”

They still love each other, and as much as I want to react to that with Gag! I honestly find it moving and kind of cute. Secretly, I wish I'll be able to find someone to love like that someday.

Some day after my battling and adventuring days!

“What if,” I say, trying to gauge my mom's reaction as I speak, “I took the sword over to that new blacksmith—Eduard, I believe—who set up shop in the village, and ask him to clean it up, polish it, make it shine again?”

“Gromi, that's a wonderful idea,” she says.

It is a good idea.

But, sadly, it's still not a quest.

I give my mom a hug, take the rusted short sword (rolled up in cloth again) and head outside. I'll drop the sword off with the blacksmith and then, I tell myself, perhaps I'll wander some.