Brother, Can You Spare a Quest?

[Blackrook]

I have recently joined the ever-increasing ranks of the unemployed. This little story is inspired by the reality of my situation.

****

The line to see the king was long today, as it had been the day before, and the day before that.

At mid-day, the prime minister came down the line and told everyone to go home. “No more quests today! Come back tomorrow! No more quests today!”

“This is my third day here,” cried an out-of-work cleric. “Certainly some quest needs doing? A stolen artifact perhaps? A kidnapped princess? An ogre terrorizing the kingdom?”

“There will be more quests tomorrow, perhaps,” sniffed the prime minister. “Come back early in the morning and you’ll have a better chance to get one.”

“How early?” asked a down-on-his-luck wizard.

“The king starts court at nine, so I suggest you be here well before then. But I must warn you, sleeping in the courtyard overnight is not permitted.”

“Let’s go,” said the fighter. “Maybe we’ll have better luck at the inn.”

The three of them left the castle together.

“I’m Rutherford the Good,” said the cleric, “recently an acolyte at the Ator Temple. But they had cut-backs and had to let me go. Now I’m looking for work.”

“I’m Wazin the White,” said the wizard, “I just graduated from the magic academy and can’t find a job anywhere.”

“I’m Bron the Strong,” said the fighter, “Usually I have no trouble finding quests in this kingdom, but lately it seems there’s too many adventurers chasing after too few adventures.”

“Perhaps if we present ourselves as an adventuring party, we will have better luck?” said Wazin.

They headed to the inn. Like every business establishment in the kingdom, it had seen better days. It was surrounded on both sides by shuttered down shops. Up and down the street, at least half the shops were closed.

“Three ales barkeep,” shouted Bron, “and be quick about it!”

“Let’s see your coin first,” snarled the barkeep suspiciously. There was a sign over his head “NO CREDIT. DON’T EVEN ASK.”

Bron dug into his purse. He turned red as he pulled out two small copper coins.

“That will buy two ales,” said the barkeep, snatching the copper out of the fighter’s hand.

“Don’t worry,” said Rutherford, “I’m not really thirsty anyway.”

“Look,” said Wazin, drinking the ale handed to him. “There’s a mysterious stranger sitting in the corner.”

“But look,” said Bron, “he’s surrounded by a hostile mob of out-of-work adventurers!”

“Perhaps we should lend him assistance?” said Rutherford.

“Yes, let’s do that,” said Wazin, downing the last of the ale to work up his courage.

The three bold adventurers stepped over to see what the problem was.

“No quests today?” shouted a knavish-looking halfling, a rogue by his appearance.

“I told you, no quests today, and probably no quests tomorrow either!” responded the stranger. He was a nervous looking man. Normally giving out quests wasn’t such dangerous work.

An evil-looking dwarf fingered the blade of his axe, “Perhaps we should take him into the alley and see if he’s got any hidden treasure maps on him.”

The dwarf and the halfling, and two of their human comrades, stepped forward to manhandle the questgiver and drag him out of the inn.

“That will be enough of that,” said Rutherford, pulling out his glowing mace +1. “Disturb this man no longer or you will answer to me and my friends!”

“I will split you in two, sun worshipper!” cried the dwarf, raising his axe to strike the cleric.

“Amicus!” cried Wazin, waving his hands and sprinkling colored dust in the dwarf’s direction.

“Now why don’t you and your friends leave this poor gentleman alone,” asked Wazin, the voice of reasonableness.

The dwarf nodded, “That sounds reasonable to me, friend.” He walked out of the inn, followed by his companions, who were mumbling under their breath that they would return when the spell was broken.

“Thank you for that,” said the nervous quest giver. “I don’t know how to repay you!”

“You can repay us by giving us a quest,” said Bron, plopping down on the chair next to him and leaning over him. Rutherford and Wazin also leaned in, hemming the quest giver in on all sides.

The mysterious stranger looked about nervously. “I assure you I have no more quests! I gave away my last one three hours ago, and it wasn’t even a very good one. If I had a quest, I would have given it to the dwarf and his friends!”

“A side quest perhaps,” asked Wazin, “a minor job? Something we can do while looking for more important things to do?”

 

[Blackrook]

“I do have something,” said the quest giver, pulling his beard nervously, “but you won’t like it.”

“Why not?” asked Bron.

“Because it doesn’t pay,” said the stranger. “There’s no possible profit, none, zip, nada.”

Rutherford, Wazin and Bron looked at each other. Rutherford shrugged.

“We’ll take it any way,” they said simultaneously.

****

The village looked empty. Even the stables and stys were empty. The fields were empty. There was no man, woman, child or beast anywhere to be seen.

“Hullo!” yelled Rutherfood the Good, “Is anyone here?”

“We’re here to save your village!” cried Wazin the White.

“Come out and greet us why don’t you?” shouted Bron the Strong.

An old woman poked her head out of a hovel.

“Go away, there’s nothing to save here.”

Rutherford looked at the others. “How’s that for gratitude?”

The old woman waddled up.

“It’s true we have trouble with bandits, but I don’t know why they bother. We have nothing to steal.”

“Do you not have crops?”

“No we do not. We could not file the proper paperwork in time to get permits to grow crops, so we did not plant this season.”

“Do you not have livestock?”

“No we do not. The king’s officials told us our cattle created noxious gasses that hurt the environment so they made us slaughter them.”

“Where is the meat?”

“The king’s officials said that the meat did not meet royal health code standards so they made us burn it.”

Rutherford looked at the sight of approaching men. “These must be the bandits now.”

“You can stay and face them if you like,” said the old woman. “I warn you, we cannot pay you for it.” She hustled back to hide in her hovel.

A group of six men walked in from the other side of the village.

“You must be the bandits we’ve heard so much about!” cried Wazin.

“No,” said a man in armor, looking startled. “You must be the bandits.”

“No, we are here to save the village from the bandits,” said Bron.

“No,” said the other man, “we are here to save the village from the bandits.”

“No, we are,” said Rutherford.

“No, we are,” said the man.

There was a long awkward silence.

The other man said, “Well there are six of us, and only three of you, so I think we’re better equipped to deal with these bandits. You had best be off.”

Bron put his hand on the hilt of his sword, “I think not.”

The old woman came running out of her hovel.

“Let there be no bloodshed over who gets to save us,” she said. “I assure you, we have nothing worth saving. We have no food, no livestock, no wealth of any kind. I doubt the bandits will even bother us again. And if they did, we could not repay you for saving us. You would leave here as broke as you obviously are now.”

 

[Blackrook]

My bitterness is writing this story.

 

[Blackrook]

The man smiled. “She has a point, let there be peace between us. Besides, I have an idea. If we succeed, we all shall be rich as kings.”

****

The man introduced himself as Sir Glanus.

“There are nine of us here. Together, we should be able to complete this quest, though there is a drawback.”

“What is that?” asked Bron.

“Most of us will probably die.”

“But the survivors will be rich?” asked Rutherford.

“Yes,” said Sir Glanus, “rich as the king himself.”

“Let’s do it,” said Wazin.

They walked three days, into the mountains, and to a cave.

“The dragon lives here,” said Sir Glanus. “He is very old, and very rich. He has built up his wealth over 200 years.”

They entered the cave and found the dragon. He was sitting on a big pile of papers.

“You can kill me if you like,” said the dragon, whose name was Sam. “All you will get are these I.O.U.’s.”

“Where is your vast wealth and treasure, built up over 200 years of hard work and enterprise?” asked Sir Glanus.

“I have lent it all to the king. All I have now are these pieces of paper.”

“Can you get the king to repay you?” asked Wazin.

“I doubt it,” said Sam. “The king said the bad economy was caused by the anger of the Sea Goddess, so he took all the treasure of the kingdom, including what I lent him, and dumped it into the deepest part of the sea. The king said the economy would improve after he made this sacrifice, but it didn’t.”

“So if you have no wealth, who does?” asked Bron.

“The king’s friends have wealth. He paid them to build giant mirrors to collect sunlight.”

 

[Shane Enochs]

Are you wanting this critiqued or are you just writing?

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I am sure he does want a critique. He's been active enough on the critiques forum in the past, he knows what it's here for.

So go for it, if you want to.

 

[The Judge]

Blackrook, on my screen your font was far to small to be legible. In case others were having the same problem I've edited all three extracts and enlarged the font.

Sorry to hear of your situation.

 

[Peter Graham]

For my money, there is in inherent problem with this piece, which is that you are potentially limiting your audience (I realise you might not be writing for one per se, but this is the Critiques forum, after all).

I get the RPG references, but many people won't. The folk who don't get the references ("what is a mace +1?", "aren't clerics scribes rather than priests?", "aren't quests undertaken by clanking knights?", "why are they happening to meet a patron in a pub", "aren't halflings nicked from Tolkien?") will be bewildered. They may realise that the piece is stuffed with in-jokes which they just don't understand, but they are unlikely to be engaged unless the piece also stands alone, irrespective of the references. Unfortunately, I don't think it does - the pace is OK and the narrative style is bright enough, but the comedy is well-trodden, to say the least. Also, your annoyance at your personal situation risks making the comedy too bitter to be comfortably funny - although this is not an issue in the extracts you have posted to date.

Those of us who do get the RPG references may well also have seen this sort of thing many times before. As a lad, I noticed that US RPG magazines seemd to be rather more serious than their British counterparts, but this type of parody was very common in White Dwarf or Imagine and I'd be surprised if similar features didn't crop up in equivalent US publications.

Regards,

Peter

 

[Boneman]

I smilingly like it. It has a good edge of humour, whilst looking at the hard edge of life. If you hadn't told us of your problems, I'd still have liked it, and I'm sorry to hear you've joined the ranks of the unemployed. If you could keep this up, (making sure you blamed the government/King? for everything) I'm sure it will touch a chord for most readers!

ps: I've never indulged in rpg, so a couple of those references mentioned by Peter did go by me.

 

[Bowler1]

“I’m Bron the Strong,” said the fighter, “Usually I have no trouble finding quests in this kingdom, but lately it seems there’s too many adventurers chasing after too few adventures.”
I’m not 100% but on the dialogue that is broken I think full stops are needed. Certainly on the line above, it would not be a capital U without a full stop. So I think, as follows - “I’m Bron the Strong,” said the fighter. “Usually - however my record on such things is not great so don’t take it as correct until another bright member comes along.


“That will be enough of that,” said Rutherford, pulling out his glowing mace +1. “Disturb this man no longer or you will answer to me and my friends!” A little stilted this line, it stands out because all the rest have been great up to now.

“Now why don’t you and your friends leave this poor gentleman alone,” asked Wazin, - missed the ? - the voice of reasonableness.

Clever dialogue and very entertaining. It is all dialogue with no background descriptions or internal thoughts from the characters which could add depth, not that I cared as it reads very well. Not a lot else I can say really. Redundancy is not the end of life as we know it and it has happened to me a few years ago. Be sensible and take what comes along to pay the bills, you can always jump ship at a later point. In my case after a year or so when it was clear I intended to move jobs my employers increased my salary to keep me, which was nice so I’m back to where I was. So don’t write off work just because it pays less than you had, and good luck as it’s tough out there.

I just noticed, there’s more! The potential for a magazine article or something along those lines seems probable to me. There was the odd reference for me that I missed, but I kept on rolling along, quite happy.