A Quest for Knowledge

Chamomile had just finished her latest bout of essays, which only meant one thing: It was time to boot up WanderQuest. She tended to overcompensate the day after she’d completed a bunch of assignments, so Chamomile settled in for the long haul as she logged in. The game finally loaded and she breathed easy for the first time in weeks as the streets of Caspia materialized in front of her.

The first two hours were spent catching up on everything she’d missed. Now that people knew who Chamomile was in real life, there weren’t many conspiracies about her absences, but players still missed her and immediately swarmed her when they realized she was back. It was nice, albeit a little overwhelming, to have such a grand welcome reception.

After the crowd had calmed down reasonably, Chamomile decided to wander to see what she could do. There were no quests left uncompleted when she’d gone on hiatus two weeks ago, so Chamomile didn’t have anything to immediately occupy her attention.

Chamomile had learned months ago that the best place to find good quests was in the NPC populated areas. Sure she could find something posted on one of the message boards scattered throughout town, but when it was just her and the NPCs they were practically throwing their quests at her.

Weaving through the far less crowded alleyways, Chamomile finally reached a side street crawling with NPCs. As she began strolling down the road, NPCs started shouting phrases at her, all of them vying for her attention. She listened to snippets of each piece of dialogue; she was looking for anything monster fighting related, so it was easy to sort out anything that didn’t include that. Chamomile kept walking until she spotted an elderly man sitting away from everyone else. Her interest was piqued—it was always the quiet NPCs that seemed to have the most interesting quests—so she ignored the others and strode over to him.

Once she was only a few feet away, the old man looked up to her and asked, “Will you help me, adventurer?”

A few different dialogue options appeared on her screen, so Chamomile chose the one that prompted him to continue talking.

“There have been rumors of a hidden location. The Well of Knowledge. It is said that whoever drinks the water from the well will receive knowledge never before known. I want to drink the water before I die, but I fear I’m in no condition to travel there myself. Can you help me?”

Chamomile thought it over. She’d never heard of a “Well of Knowledge” which meant this must be a pretty rare quest. But after her WanderQuest hiatus she wanted to fight, not fetch some magic water. Finally she decided to accept the quest; she could always complete it later once she’d blown off some steam.

She hit the accept quest button and watched as it was added to her quest log. A map and waterskin appeared in her inventory. “I greatly appreciate it,” the elderly man said. “Here is a map of the well and a waterskin to fill. But be careful! I hear fearsome guardians protect the well.”

Fearsome guardians? Now that’s what Chamomile was looking for!

Deciding to start the quest immediately now that she knew of the monsters waiting for her, Chamomile opened up the map she was given and began plotting her journey. It looked like the well was in Sarina. Chamomile groaned at that; Sarina was hours away and she didn’t want to waste the precious gaming time she finally had.

A quick glance at the clock told her that it was almost eleven in the morning. There was a little known shortcut Chamomile knew that would shave off hours of travel time, but she needed to get going immediately.

First Chamomile ran to the edge of town. Instead of heading through the surrounding forest like most players did, she skirted around the woods until she was at the very end of the river. Most ferry rides took several hours, but that was because they made frequent stops along the river. This ferry ran directly to the mouth of the river with no stops which allowed it to make the entire journey in an hour. The only problem was it only took a minute for the ferry to appear and disembark, so players needed to be ready to go the second it arrived.

Chamomile waited at the bank of the river until exactly 12:03 PM when the boat materialized and a woman stepped onto the sand. Not wasting any time, Chamomile ran to the boat and paid the fee before finding a seat. Within a minute, the ferry departed.

The hour passed slowly, so Chamomile decided to make a quick lunch to use her time wisely. She boiled the water for some ramen and finished eating just as the ferry docked at the other side of the river.

As soon as she was on land again, Chamomile started sprinting towards Sarina. After consulting the map again, she realized the well was a little bit north of the town, so she decided to bypass it entirely. Eventually she ended up at the beach.

The high sun reflected against the hot sand and the map wasn’t very detailed, so Chamomile had a difficult time finding the well. There were no visible wells on the beach although she supposed that was to be suspected; if no player had ever mentioned the Well of Knowledge before then it probably wasn’t out in the open. But where else could someone put a well? It wasn’t like there were that many hiding spots on a beach.

Chamomile checked the map every few minutes, hoping to find a clue she’d missed all the other times. Unfortunately, none appeared. After confirming that the well was definitely on the beach and not simply nearby, Chamomile decided she had no choice but to comb the sand.

“There better be a good fight later,” she grumbled as she directed her avatar up and down every inch of the beach. Finally after a grueling fifteen minutes of searching, Chamomile spotted something strange. Hidden in one of the dunes was an ornate door carved out of matching sandstone. She prayed that it wasn’t locked and, with one good push, the door swung open.

Immediately, twenty pairs of eyes landed on her. They shone eerily with reflected sunlight which could only mean they were monsters.

“Perfect,” Chamomile said with a smile as she drew her axe.