Week 5 Story: The Quest

Nobody seemed to notice or care as the knight in shining silver armor with his sword out sprinted through the city as fast as he could. Past the city market, over the bridge, through the interior gate, and through the castle's doors he went not pausing to make idle chit-chat with the few that decided to strike up a conversation with him. Inside the castle, the knight hopped up a long flight of stairs past the guards who seemed unfazed by his drawn weapon and straight to the king who was in a conversation with his steward. In an instant the king stopped mid-sentence to his steward and turned to the knight issuing praise.

In a deep bellowing voice, "I must th...", he was cut off by the knight's quick gesture, "You have trul...", the king continued before being cut off again, "Take this spel...", "There is so...", "Talk to the Wizard, he will be able to help you find the chalice, do you accept?" ... The king waited patiently for a response from the knight. The knight gestured again, "Good! I knew I can cou...", but the knight was already too far away to hear the rest.

At the bottom of the stairs, the knight paused and opened his pack. Inside were eight different pieces of armor that he had been meaning to sell, another sword, fifty-two health potions, and the thick spell book that the king had just given him as a reward. He then looked at his journal that was filled with notifications about unfinished quests and decided that he should finish the one titled "The Chalice". The knight closed his eyes and after a brief moment of recalling an irrelevant fact about the realm he was in, he appeared in front of the Wizard's workshop. Weapon still drawn, the knight sprinted past the acolytes and into the antechamber where the Wizard was mid-spell.

Stopping the spell in an instant, the Wizard began to talk in a slow, gritty voice, "Ah, I sa...", "A chali...", "I don't kno...", "Ah, but there is a....", "Go and fetch my assis...", "You can find him in the ruins on the other side of the realm, do you accept?", the knight gestured and sprinted away from the Wizard as he began another sentence.

Closing his eyes again, the knight appeared in front of the ruins and began slashing any monster in sight before he found the dead Wizard's assistant's body. Unceremoniously, the knight looted the assistant's body only to find a memo that he had given the Scrying Glass that the Wizard needed to find the chalice to a merchant who operated out of the capitol city. Beginning to feel frustrated, the knight closed his eyes again and appeared back in the city in which he ran through not even five minutes ago.

Sprinting through the city again, he found the merchant and initiated a conversation with him by gesturing. The merchant responded in a snooty manner, "And wha...", "The Scrying Glass? I woul....", "Go and tell that customer thief that there can only be one traveling merchant in this city, only then will I give you the Scrying Glass."

The knight, opened his map and traced along the major routes until he found that the other traveling merchant was between the two most southern cities, he knew that the only way to get to him was to close his eyes and appear in the southern most city, but even then it would be ten minutes of solid sprinting through the forest before he could reach the merchant. Feeling defeated, the knight put away his map and readied his weapon before turing on his quest giver and killing him in one quick slash. Screams erupted from the crowd in the busy city center and guards in yellow uniforms began converging on the knight's position. The knight looted the Scrying Glass from the dead merchant's body and turned to defend himself from the onslaught of city guards. Like hungry lions pouncing on a sickly bison, the knight stood no chance and was soon struck down before big red letters appeared above him stating. "GAME OVER."

A character from the RPG Skyrim

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Author's Note: This story is based of The Sad Tale of the Mouse's Tail. It's a Persian story about a mouse who got its tail cut off and had to run continuous errands for different people so that she could have it sown back on. This story reminded me of the quests in video games that have no real purpose and end up making the character become an errand boy. I got frustrated for the mouse in the story and it is a similar feeling I get whenever I play a game and there is a quest similar to what the mouse was put through. I took advantage of common RPG mechanics where the player is left to his/her devices and can do socially unacceptable things without being reprimanded for it, to an extent of course... Murder is still murder.

Bibliography: The Sad Tale of the Mouse's Tail. Persian Tales. Trans. D.L.R. Lorimer and E.O. Lorimer