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The first daily quest was the same as their first quest: delivering a crate to Yelsin across town. Simple enough, and they managed to beg sandwiches for their reward instead of stew so they’d have something for lunch.
The second daily quest took place in a sewer outlet that emptied into a canal. Four brown slimes hung about outside the grate covering the sewer exit: one large slime about one meter high and two across, and three smaller versions about the size of a soccer ball.
Jane drew her knife and sounded confident as she moved in. “This should be easy enough, right? Slimes?” Noticing that he wasn’t following her, she stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “You coming?”
“Um, no, I’ll sit this one out. You go ahead.”
“You’re scared of slimes? Come on, Quill, this should be easy, no matter what your stats.”
“Sure. Whatever. Ladies first.”
She shook her head in mild disappointment and turned back to the slimes — then paused. She looked back once more, eyes narrowed. “Seriously, why aren’t you helping?”
He could have let her keep going alone…but he wasn’t that cruel. He relented. “If ice slimes are light blue, water slimes dark blue, and fire slimes orange, then what do you suspect brown slimes are?”
She glanced back at the monsters. “Wood?”
“When they’re sitting outside a sewer pipe?”
“You mean — ew! Poo slimes!” She covered her mouth with her arm and hastily backed up. Then she shoved him forward. “Gentlemen first.”
He whirled and pushed her in front instead. “No, no. I don’t want to be sexist. Equality, fairness, all that. You have a hard-fought right to fight your own battles. I won’t oppress you by stealing opportunities—“
“Quill!”
He chuckled.
She moaned. “Seriously, let’s skip this one.”
“We get a reward for completing all the dailies, though.”
Quill raised his hands in front of himself like he was holding a book. “[Journal].” A book appeared in his hands. The page in front of him read:
DAILY QUESTS
1/3 Completed
Reward for completing all daily quests:
1 silver
1 gear token
He continued, “It may not sound like much, but that silver would feed anyone for a day if they were careful.”
“What do you think gear tokens are?” Jane pulled one out of her pocket from the previous day.
“I can guess, but we’ll find out later, I’m sure.”
“Let’s just skip the poo slimes. We have money for food today.”
He eyed the brown slimes. They weren’t close enough to aggro them so they were safely too far to smell them. He didn’t relish the idea of getting himself and his partner covered in excrement for a paltry reward. Except… He sighed and turned the pages in the journal.
WEEKLY QUESTS
1/7 Completed
Reward for completing all weekly quests:
1 gold
10 gear tokens
MONTHLY QUESTS
1/30 Completed
Reward for completing all daily quests:
1 weapon skill point
Suprise costume
15 chicken legs
10 gold
10 gear tokens
Jane blinked at the last page. “15 chicken legs. Who…ugh.”
“Yeah. But that weapon skill point is probably really useful.”
Jane pouted and whined but reluctantly gave in. “Fine. Whatever. I hate you.”
“Hey! I didn’t design the poo quest.”
“I’m blaming you anyway.”
“That just…not fair at all.”
The slimes were just as foul-smelling as one might think. Like putting your head down an outhouse toilet. Luckily, the elemental beings moved slowly and simply. The two companions lured the three smaller ones out first and stabbed them to death, getting mildly splattered as they did so. The big one put up much more of a fight, and they had no choice but to get up close and dirty. Jane got pressed up against a wall once and Quill run over. And when it perished, it did so in a wet, brown explosion.
Quill stood on the side of the canal, dripping feces and trying not to vomit. At the sound of voices, he looked up.
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A small crowd of other players stood a short ways down the canal, watching. They, too, probably had this quest for their dailies. The crowd took one look at him and Jane and shook their collective heads.
“Nope.”
“Skipping that one.”
“Hard pass.”
“Not worth the reward.”
“Hey, if we see those two walking around town—“
“You mean, if we smell them.”
“That too. We should give them nicknames in honour of their bravery this day.”
“The Poo Killers.”
“The Toilet Twosome.”
“Smelly McSmellsBad and his partner, Lady Brownstain.”
As the other players strolled off, backslapping and joking and coming up with even more insulting nicknames, Jane glared at Quill. “I hate you.”
He carefully wiped his mouth off so he wouldn’t get anything inside when he spoke. “Bite me.”
“I will. Later.”
“Hmph.” He reached over and casually pushed her backwards.
Jane’s eyes flew open wide as she fell backwards. She cried out in surprise. Then her body fell into the canal. A brown cloud spread out from her body.
Quill dove in after her. When he surfaced, he found her treading water and scrubbing herself, trying to get all the brown blobs and slime off her body.
She glared at him, not so playfully this time.
He got his face clean before talking, thankful the canal was moving and carrying the excrement away. “Ok, it was the most disgusting quest in history. I’m sorry. Next time, we come better prepared with spears or bows or fire bombs or something.”
She grumbled back, “We’d better.”
The third quest of the morning was a child’s game. Eight glowing lights appeared in the street, some hanging over the cobblestones, others on top of a canopy above a market stall or under a parked cart. They had to run and touch every ball of light before a timer ran out.
Jane didn’t have the stamina for it. Despite being able to move faster than Quill, she couldn’t sprint the entire way in the short time needed.
Quill, moving slower but more steadily, touched the final light just as the timer ran out and flopped to the ground, panting and out of breath.
A small chest appeared in the street. When Jane opened it, copper coins burst out in all directions, many of them getting lost between cracks in the cobblestone road or bouncing away who knows where.
“Seriously? Who designed this?” Jane kicked the chest in frustration, making it tumble down the street a few meters before it vanished. But she set about collecting the coins.
Quill, still winded, heaved himself off the ground and joined her. Every copper, every experience point, every effort counted. If they were going to win this game and survive, they couldn’t waste anything.
After collecting their quest rewards from the Adventurers Guild, they decided to head out of town again. With the dailies done, Jane seemed to return to her usual, more upbeat self.
Quill, his curiosity piqued, pointed down a new road, a crowd of people going in and out catching his interest. “We haven’t gone that way yet, have we?”
“Shall we explore?”
His excitement rose; he loved discovering new things in games. “Never know what we might learn.”
They detoured down the new road, joining a small stream of other players and NPCs.
This street happened to feature several shops. The first they came across was a weapon shop. The sign had a sword and spear above the words The Pointy End First.
Quill saw the line of mechanical devices on either side of the door, facing the street. He slapped one cheek and groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Jane, curious, walked over to inspect. “Slot machines? Vending machines?”
Quill sidled up next to her. “Gacha machines. You put a coin and turn the dial or, in this case, pull the lever. Out comes a ball with something in it. You don’t know what’s inside until you open it; it’s a gamble. Usually, they’re filled with toys and stickers and stuff.”
“Hmm. I wonder what’s in these.”
Each device stood about two meters tall and a meter wide. The top two-thirds was a glass case filled with half-white, half-red balls1. The bottom half had a coin slot and lever and an opening where the softball-sized ball would emerge once paid for.
A player a few machines down angrily slapped the gacha device he was using. The player, dressed in a nice, complete set of gear, at first glance, looked to be one of the wealthier players. What really gave it away was the bag of gold coins next to him. Kneeling in front of the gacha machine, he pumped a coin into the slot and pulled the lever, his motions frantic, like an addict. When the ball emerged, he scooped it up and tore it open with a vicious twist.
A cloud of white smoke appeared.
“White again. Dammit!” The player scowled and tossed the two halves of the ball aside and wiping the cloud away in annoyance. The ball halves fell on a large pile of discarded halves. As the player reached for another gold coin, the cloud of smoke slowly coalesced into…a dull axe with a chipped blade. It hovered a long moment, then fell and clanked on the cobbles next to a bunch of other junk: cheese, meat, patches of cloth, planks of lumber, bottles of various liquids, low-level weapons of all kinds.
A second and much smaller pile held a handful of weapons that looked finer. When Quill concentrated, they glowed green and blue, indicating higher quality, perhaps magical.
The player pulled another ball, and another white cloud appeared. He snarled and tossed the pull away like before. “Dumbass thing. There should be a guaranteed pull! This is stupid! All it’s giving me is fucking garbage.” He reached for another gold coin.
Jane’s mouth fell open. She closed it with a snap and whispered to him, “There’s a small fortune just lying on the street.”
“But nothing worth the gold he’s throwing away.”
The player, overhearing, threw them a glare. “Piss off.” He pulled again. More white smoke. Another gold down the drain. “If I don’t see sparkles and a yellow item soon, I’m gonna snap.” He reached for another coin.
Quill empathized. He didn’t want to stay and watch, though quite a number of others were pausing in the street to do just that. What the appeal was of watching someone else blow huge sums of money and get stuff was, he didn’t know.
“Oh!” Jane exclaimed, digging in her pocket and pulling out a gear token. “I guess that’s what these are for.” She put it into a machine and pulled the lever. A red-and-white ball dropped into her hands. “Come on, legendary magic staff!” She gave the ball a sharp twist.
A white cloud appeared.
Her expression fell. “Aw…” The cloud slowly formed into a baguette.
Quill pulled out his own tokens. He had two. Dropping them into the machine next to Jane’s, he retrieved two balls. The first was white, a badly carved club that he discarded. The second was red.
Jane burst with excitement, “Whoa!”
People in the street stopped to watch and murmured.
The guy feeding gold into the machines paused and looked up in angry disbelief. “No way! An epic?”
The red cloud shimmered and slowly turned into…an expensive-looking bottle of wine.
Quill frowned and chuckled at the same time. “What the—“
The bottle dropped out of the air.
He lunged to catch it and missed.
The bottle smashed onto the cobbles, precious burgundy liquid spreading in a pool.
The gambler cruelly laughed. “Epic fail, dumbass!”
People watching groaned and moved on.
Quill stared at the mess, feeling stupid as the broken item faded into nothing. “That…probably would have been worth a bunch of money.”
Jane consoled him, patting him on the back. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” She put her second token in a got another ball. Blue smoke. “A knife. Better than the one I have. Nice!” She plucked the knife out of the air before it could fall, then raised a hand for a high five.
He smiled because he knew she was forcing the cheer but appreciated the effort. He high-fived Jane and then nodded his head toward the shop door. “Wanna look inside? Haven’t been in any of the shops yet.”
“True. Yeah, let’s.”
He held the door open for her, and the pair entered the weapon shop.
Male
36
QUILL KRAU
Class NONE, Level 2
STR
1
STATUS
DEX
3
Currently worried about upsetting Jane because he really likes her.
HEA
7
SKILLS
INT
2
WIS
17
ITEMS
STA
14
CHA
11
Official Adventurers Guide
Female
26
JANE EULA
Class NONE, Level 4
STR
6
STATUS
DEX
11
Currently slightly annoyed and defensive but also thoughtful.
HEA
19
SKILLS
INT
18
WIS
18
ITEMS
STA
2
Gilded Armour of the Nature Goddess (unique); knife
CHA
5