Eve flicked her status screen open and shut, the hideous blue boxes flashing in and out of vision at a blistering pace.

“Evelia Greene, don’t think I don’t see you!  Any more of that flickering and you’ll give yourself a seizure.  Remember what happened to Mr. Potts.”

Eve rolled her eyes.  “Everything gives Mr. Potts a seizure.”  Still, she heeded her mother’s words, ceasing the mindless blinking as the queue moved ever-so-slightly forward. 

Seizure-inducing or otherwise, now of all times the girl had every right to indulge her nervous tic.  Today would, after all, be the first time in years the unsightly status page would actually change.  Eve could only hope it’d be for the better. 

The woman harrumphed as she checked to make sure Eve’s eyes didn’t continue the telltale blue twinkling, but otherwise didn’t chastise her further. 

Martha Greene looked every bit the spitting image of her daughter.  She had the same prominent cheekbones, the same lightly-freckled pale skin, and the same shoulder-length dead-straight hair which a poet might call ‘chestnut’ but any reasonable human being would call ‘brown.’  Effectively, she looked the same as every other resident of Nowherested. 

Eve brushed a chestnut lock behind her ear as the family ahead of them in line took another step towards their shared destination.  The Questing Stones loomed. 

Nobody quite knew how or why the half-dozen misshapen granite monoliths traveled across the kingdom of Leshk, only that they refused to move while anyone was looking.  A number of cities throughout history had tried to keep the Stones in place by hiring lookouts to monitor them at all times, but such attempts always failed when local adventurers began receiving quests to murder the watchers. 

Eve cared little about such mysteries.  What mattered to her, and indeed all the villagers in the isolated farming community, was that the magical boulders made their way to Nowherested precisely once every nine years, eleven months, twenty-two days, and six hours, give or take twenty minutes.  The Questing Stones were nothing if not punctual.

She’d been a girl of seven when last the Stones had visited, far too young to embrace their power.  Some might’ve thought her unlucky to be forced to wait so long before discovering her life’s quest, but Eve rarely resented the fact.  Mostly she pitied Wesley Rollund, unfortunate enough to reach nineteen and still bear the useless Child class.  Wes more than anyone deserved to celebrate this day.

If she stood on her toes and craned her neck, Eve could just spot Wes’s own chestnut mop towering above the rest of the line.  Though technically still a child, already the boy stood taller than any man in the village.  He’d make a fearsome Warrior should the Stones so choose. 

As the queue inched ever forward, Eve’s thoughts turned to her own quest.  Just like every other youth throughout the kingdom, she’d spent her fair share of lazy afternoons daydreaming about the endless possibilities. 

The likely possibilities, on the other hand, were far more limited.  This was Nowherested, after all.  They didn’t have grand tournaments to win or ferocious beasts to slay.  Eve had long given up on the idea of becoming a legendary hero saving the land from some apocalyptic threat.  As long as she got a better quest than her mother, she’d be happy.

It wasn’t that Martha’s life goal was bad per se.  ‘Knit the comfiest sweater ever known’ was a perfectly acceptable quest, and the Clothes Mender class that came with it practically guaranteed her a stable living, especially after advancing it to Seamstress.  The woman’s failed attempts even left Eve with quite the collection of remarkably comfortable garments. 

She’d never admit it, but Eve found her mother’s quest boring.  The same could be said of practically every quest in Nowherested.  Sometimes the girl caught herself thinking it wasn’t the quests that were unexciting, but the village itself.

More than anything, Evelia Greene yearned to travel.  Most of her dreams involved picking up a Peddler class and touring the kingdom.  How wondrous it would be to see for herself the Cherry Woods, the Great Crossing at Ilvia, or even Pyrindel itself.  She wanted none of that monster-fighting nonsense.  Others could risk their lives in the wilds; roads were plenty good for her. 

Theories on the mechanism behind quest assignment varied.  Some scholars claimed the Stones doled out missions randomly, while others professed the monument had some greater plan. 

The common thinking among the people argued that the mysterious boulders only formalized a person’s true desires, but Eve had a hard time believing knitting sweaters was anyone’s truest desire.  Still, she liked the peasants’ theory, if only because it gave her some hope she’d get a worthwhile quest.

A commotion at the head of the line forced Eve from her reverie.

“Stop joking around!” a gruff voice commanded.  “What did you really get?”

Eve peeked her head to see Wes staring wide-eyed at his stout father.

“I’m not joking!  It really says ‘Slay the Blightmaw Dragon.’”

“Not in fucking Nowherested it doesn’t,” the blacksmith spat.  “I suppose it gave you some noble warrior class like all the other suicidal fools who go chasing dragons?”

Wes paled.  “Um… no, actually.”  He raised a musclebound arm, turning his palm to the sky.  A weak ball of fire appeared in his hand, its flickering glow all but invisible in the late afternoon sun.  Though it licked the man’s fingers, his skin remained unscathed.  “I’m a Flame Initiate.”

Eve gaped.  Martha stared.  All about them villagers looked on in awe.

Mr. Rollund sputtered.  “A bloody magician?  Gods below.  Next you’ll be telling me little Sally is gonna be a berserker.”  He jerked his thumb at the eleven-year-old girl next in line for the Questing Stones.

A bead of sweat ran down Wes’s brow.  “C’mon, Da.  Can’t we talk about this back at the smithy?”

“Are you kidding?”  A portly fellow stepped from the crowd of onlookers, his chef’s apron still tied around his waist.  “We should be celebrating!  Nowherested has its very own hero!  Come along, everyone; first round is on me!”

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As the gathering broke apart to follow the man, it didn’t escape Eve’s notice that the very man calling for celebration also happened to own the local tavern.  The villagers, at large, didn’t care. 

While the majority of the spectators moved to start the evening’s festivities early, Wes himself didn’t follow.  Eve gave the new initiate a look of sympathy as his father dragged him back to the smithy to discuss the day’s revelations and what they might mean for the future.  She pitied them both. 

Whether or not Wes survived his quest, Mr. Rollund had already lost his son to the spirit of adventure.  Meanwhile the mage now found himself thrust into harm’s way, whether he liked it or not.  The Questing Stones would not be denied.

For her part, Eve relaxed at the crowd’s departure.  Fewer onlookers meant less attention as she received her own class and quest.  However confident she may have been that her results would be uninteresting, the last thing she wanted was to become the gossip mill’s new target.  With any luck, Wes would occupy them for the foreseeable future. 

The line continued its agonizing crawl forward as each family stopped to congratulate their newly minted Baker’s Assistant or Farmhand.  “Why can’t they celebrate after getting out of everyone’s way?”

“Have patience Evelia,” her mother replied.  “They’re just as excited as you are.”

Maybe if you didn’t spend an hour coordinating your outfit this morning we would’ve been done by now.  Eve kept the thought to herself; speaking it aloud would only earn her another argument.  As it was, their late arrival had left them near the back of the queue, forced to watch as villager after villager learned the true path their lives would walk.  Eve bristled.

The hours dragged on as the young woman grew inexorably closer to her destiny.  By the time Evelia Green stood unimpeded before the upright granite slabs, the summer sun had nearly reached the end of its daily journey.  The sky painted itself in a symphony of oranges and pinks, the clouds themselves reveling in the majesty of its color. 

Eve ignored the sunset.  Pretty as it was, her attention hung elsewhere. 

The Questing Stones were six in total, arranged this night in an uneven circle.  They didn’t glow with arcane sigils or sing a chorus to the heavens.  They were rocks.  Really big rocks standing vertically in a cluster, but still rocks.  Eve’s heart pounded as she stepped towards the center. 

This was it.  Seventeen years growing up in the village of Nowherested, seventeen years of household chores and modeling Martha’s sweaters and countless daydreams all led up to this very moment.  Eve held her breath.

Unbidden, her status screen popped up along with a second box in the same familiar garish blue.

Life Quest assigned: Head to the next town over and pick up a loaf of bread.

What?

Stomach lurching, Eve panned her eyes over to her status screen.

Evelia Greene

Level 1 Messenger Girl

Seriously, not even ‘Messenger Woman?’  Just ‘Messenger’ would’ve been better!  She swore, her mounting frustration at the pointless quest overflowing into the class that came with it.  She exhaled.  Belittling name aside, the class wasn’t all bad.  It wasn’t Peddler, but messengers traveled too, right? 

Eve banished the message and status page.  She could read the class description later; others still awaited their turn with the Stones.  Swallowing down her disappointment, confusion, and excitement, the Messenger Girl turned to leave the Questing Stones behind, stepping away from their frigid stillness and into the rest of her life.

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By the time Eve arrived at The Sower’s Mug, the festivities were in full swing.  Proud parents toasted their young Whittlers and Weed-pullers with full tankards and heaping plates of roast pig and summer vegetables.  A teen poured drinks for the rowdy patrons, already practicing his new Barkeep class. 

Of course, a majority of the recently classed villagers were too young to partake in the alcoholic portion of the revel, but that didn’t stop them from feasting on delicious food and far too many sweets. 

Eve’s mind still raced as she joined her mother at a corner table, anxiously awaiting an opportunity to read further about her new class or try and gleam more information about her strange quest. It couldn’t be that simple, could it?

Martha had other ideas.  “Stop worrying,” she said, reaching for two glasses of mulled wine.  “It’ll all work out in the end.  At least you don’t have something impossible.”  She gestured across the tavern at Wes and his newly-acquired gaggle of fans.  “He’s either going to die fighting a dragon or spend his life miserably wishing he’d tried.”

From what Eve could tell, the ‘miserably’ part had already started.  Despite the magical class and fawning attention, Wes sat slumped in the corner, nursing his fifth mug of ale.  Eve imagined some portion of his foul mood could be attributed to the fact his father hadn’t joined him for the festivities. 

She shook her head, returning to the topic at hand.  “I have the opposite problem.  I can get to Fidsworth and back in a day.  What then?”

Martha shrugged.  “You get to be done.  Most people don’t get that.  We try and we try and however close we get to completing our quest, we’re never quite there.”  She placed a comforting hand on Eve’s shoulder.  “Maybe this is a good thing.  Pop over to Fidsworth, grab the bread, and move on with your life.  Just because they give you a quest doesn’t mean the Stones get to define your life.”

Eve pointed at the boy pouring drinks.  “They defined his life.”  She swung her hand around at another villager, “And his.  And hers.  And his.  And for some gods-damned reason they decided mine wasn’t worth defining.”

Martha pulled her daughter into a hug.  A second passed as they embraced.  And another.  All around them toasts and cheers and laughter rang through the air as the two women sat in silence. 

When at last she spoke, Martha’s voice was nought more than a whisper in Eve’s ear.  “They didn’t define my life.  I’ll never give up on it, but my quest stopped being the most important thing a long time ago.  Seventeen years ago to be precise.”

A slight grin crossed Eve’s face as she pulled out of the hug.  “Thanks, Ma.  I just… what does this mean?”

“You’ve always said you wanted to explore; maybe the Questing Stones knew.  What’s the point of exploring if someone’s already told you where to go?  Maybe you don’t need an epic quest to do something worthwhile.”

Eve opened her mouth to speak, but the opening chords of “The Hero Sojourns” drowned her out.  Before she knew it, the entire tavern fell into a cacophony of well-rehearsed music and drunken singing along.  The village’s Musicians—they didn’t have a full-fledged Bard—had arrived.

Eve allowed the conversation to die down in the face of the crescendoing revelry.  She took a sip of her wine, determined to enjoy the evening as well as she could.  Martha did the same. 

In all it took three glasses of the spiced alcohol for the Seamstress to fully commit to contributing her own voice to the collection that filled the noisy tavern. 

For her part, Eve spent the evening fighting off the urge to check her status page.  Desperate as she may have been to learn as much as she could, she needed this night.  She’d waited seventeen years to learn her quest, and shitty or otherwise she was determined to celebrate it. 

It wasn’t until a rather intoxicated Carpenter keeled over and vomited across her nice leather boots that Eve found a reason to excuse herself from the merrymaking.  That was enough.  After a pleading look earned a nod from her mother, Eve pushed herself to her feet and made for the exit. 

She made it less than halfway home before curiosity won over.

Eve paused her trek, leaning against the back wall of the tanner’s house as she reopened her quest log.  Whether from the booze, the stench of the mess on her boots, or the information she found within, her stomach churned.

Quest: Head to the next town over and pick up a loaf of bread.

Description: Head to the next town over and pick up a loaf of bread.

Difficulty: Legendary

Unwilling or unable to contain her reaction, Evelia Greene allowed her thoughts to bubble up and manifest themselves into words.

“What the fuck?”