On Our Side of the Forest (Short Story Compilation)

The Unexpected Quest

The Unexpected Quest

I didn't have much planned for the April twentieth holiday. Mokii was gonna come over and we played a board game and watched spooky movies or something? I hadn't quite thought it all out, but I did know I found a strange game in a thrift store! Dungeon Quest, a game of adventure and companionship! The box caught my eye on the shelf, I felt drawn to the fun it had in store for us! I had already gotten everything set up on my coffee table when the doorbell rang. Mokii was here!

"What are we going to do today? Sorry, it took so long, the dispensary wait was ridiculous today!" I laughed at her, she pushed her ears to the side and got her stuff set down on the couch!

"Well considering the holiday Moks, every stoner in town is about to head out to get their goods!"

"You're not wrong about that! They're swarming around, young and old! I'm glad I was able to get out at a reasonable time, I had left earlier this morning!" She looked down at the gameboard, "This like a D&D sorta situation?" Her large paws motioned over the whole game board.

"Glad you asked!" She sat down on the couch with a smile, pulling out her weed bag with all her goodies! I always contributed my cool ass bong! She loved smoking out of that thing, "I found it at a thrift store! I can't find much info online about it, and some say the game is cursed, so there's that plus side!"

"Cursed?" She looked up from grinding, "Like what kind of curse are we talking about?"

"Ya see...I dunno! It was like one comment on Reddit so I blew it off! Whatever, right? I assume it operates like Dungeons and Dragons, we gotta fill out those hero cards with our hero, and there are a few premade quests we can follow! The instructions are very vague, so I am learning as we go too!" She hit the bong, settling on some subtitled Japanese horror film for background noise. She loved the ghosts in those films, I always thought it was cheesy! I sat next to her, "So you in?"

"Hell yeah!" She blew her big hit from her nose as she handed the bong to me, "We'll get real high then play this weird-ass game board! It sounds like it would be fun!"

So we got high, and I mean we got extra high! The movie came and went, and we kept smoking. It took us another hot hour to fill out those Hero Cards! We got down onto the floor in front of the coffee table and took our last hits before getting into it.

"Alright, so...Our hero's come around to embark on the noblest of quests!"

"Why are you reading it like that?" She was holding back her laughter when she asked the question.

"Because! You know! Questmaster voice and all that!" She got me to start laughing! "Mokii stop! We gotta be serious! The heroes gotta embark on their quest!"

"Okay okay! Go on! Let's get the embarking onwards!" We calmed down and got serious with the matter.

"The evil Lord of darkness is spreading doom upon the lands of Tameria! It is your journey Heroes to help us stop it! The lands are treacherous, full of dark creatures and scandal. Journey to the..." A crash of thunder shook me from my reading, Mokii jumped too. The storm came all of a sudden, I didn't read of any rain today but I kept on, "Journey to the Mountain of Zothr and stop the Lord of darkness in his tracks. He must be slain by the Sword of Azenthr, made from the bones of his mighty dragon Azenthr," The power surged out.

"Barley?!" Mokii called out, it was darker than I had ever experienced a power outage at my house. I stood up and walked over towards Mokii, her voice seemed so far out!

"Mokii?" I jumped as she came up from behind me.

"It's me! What's going on? This..doesn't seem like your house anymore." I grabbed her paw with my hoof and we walked forward until we saw light at the end of things.