Fetch Quest

Find the Iron Sword

"Retrieve sword from cave," Lang said as he wrote, "Expect wild animals and small reward upon completion." After finishing the small note, he slipped the pencil back into his pocket and shut the leather bound journal.

"Why do you keep asking people what they need help with?" a raven-haired woman asked in exasperation, "You literally have two other journals full of requests just like that. You're never going to complete them."

"Of course I will Azazel," Lang smiled, "It's just other urgent matters keep piling up whenever I travel to somewhere new. I always figure I can go do these errands after I finish defending the castle or something, but then the lord of said castle sends me somewhere else with an important message."

"That's because you're the hero of Goltav!" Azazel said in exasperation, "You're supposed to do big stuff like that! Go save the world from the demons, the necromancers, the swarm, and the cult of Faraday!"

"You forgot the wyverns. They're trying to take over the world too."

"You're just proving my point!" the woman yelled at the man, "There are literally five different factions that threaten life as we know it! Fetching 'insert item here' from 'insert place here' for some random peasant isn't going to help anyone!"

"I dunno," Lang shrugged, "It's nice to do a fetch quest every once in a while; better than escort missions anyways."

"Leave it to the guards! It's their job!"

"Ah, but they're occupied with the demons," Lang rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "Alright. I have decided to drop everything and go do this poor man's quest. We will find his sword and bring it back to him."

"What?!" Azazel grabbed the man by the lapels and shook him, "What about the fort we're bringing intel to! They could be killed by the hordes of skeletons advancing on their position! The ones they don't know about because we haven't told them yet!"

"They'll be fine," Lang replied, gently removing the woman's hands from his front, "I have a good feeling that we'll get there just in the nick of time even with this little detour."

"You're so irresponsible!"

"You can go home if you don't like it."

"Maybe I should!"

"No one's making you stay here."

Azazel blushed and looked away, "Fine, let's go find this stupid sword." Lang gave her a winning smile, "I knew you couldn't resist me." She promptly kicked him in the shin.

"Ow! That was uncalled for!"

"So where did you say that cave was?" Azazel asked, taking the map of the county from Lang's satchel. The man leaned over her shoulder and pointed to an area outside of the village they were currently in, "Should be around there. Near a large fallen log."

"I'll follow your lead," the woman sighed.

The two left the small town and walked into the woods beyond. The trees became denser and taller. Rays of sunlight dappled the leaves on the ground and created a rather pretty scene. The air was clear and smelled far fresher than that of the farms and dirty streets. Birds sang high above and a brook gurgled behind a thicket of bushes.

"Do you suppose there's any black-footed deer around here?" Lang wondered aloud, "I think there was a guy in Paslan who wanted like, ten of their pelts."

"First of all, black-footed deer live in the North," Azazel grumbled, "Second, even if we were to find any, how are we going to carry ten of their hides?"

"You have a pocket dimension, right?" Lang asked with an expression of complete innocence.

"I'm not putting a deer carcass in there!"