Time to form a party!

John could feel his knees buckle out from under him the second he left Lifthrasir’s office, his back slamming against the wall as he slumped onto it. He supposed that the gravity of what his day had been was finally starting to catch up to him. He realized that he hadn’t gone to sleep yet, meaning that in one day, he had learned magic, killed in self defense, got a blowjob, got to eat a girl out, got arrested, and accepted a quest where he had to find an ancient mystical treasure that has been lost for centuries. Needless to say, it had been a long day.

John did not know how long he had been leaning against that wall. For all he knew, it could’ve been hours. It could’ve been days. It was more than likely only two minutes, but god damn did it feel like hours. Slowly, he pushed himself back up into a standing position and walked down the hallway to go reunite with Talia and her family.

“I love him, I love him, I love him. And where he goes I’ll follow, I’ll follow, I’ll follow…”

The bombastic sound of Whoopi Goldberg and her choir from the movie Sister Act startled John out of his stupor. He knew based on that ringtone it was his mom calling. He quickly slipped his phone out of his back pocket and brought it up to his ear. “Hey Mom.”

“...Um, I’m doing fine, Mom. Me and my friend, we were just, uh, playing some Smash Bros.”

“...My friend? Um… I met her- him-”

“...yeah, she’s a girl, Mom.”

“...Her name is… Talia. She’s a… a foreign exchange student! From… Swe... Fin… Nor… land.”

“...I mean, yeah, she told me where she’s from, I just kinda forgot, Mom.”

“...What’s she like? Um, she’s nice, she’s really nice, uh… she’s a nerd like me, she likes jazz music, she’s a real help to her parents, she’s got these gorgeous eyeeeeessss…”

“...Yeah Mom, she’s really pretty.”

“...No, it’s not like that, she’s just a friend from school-”

“...Yeah, don’t worry, if anything happens I’ll be safe. I won’t make you a grandmother yet.”

“...I’ll be heading home soon, are you - oh, you have another shift tonight? Oh… okay…”

“...Don’t worry, I’ll keep my grades up for my scholarship. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah, I love you too, Mom. Uh, I guess I’ll see you… tomorrow? No, you picked up that double shift tomorrow. I guess I’ll see you… on the weekend.”

John hung up and slipped the phone back into his rear pocket, letting out a sigh. Whether it was from frustration or relief, John couldn’t tell. John supposed it was lucky that his mother had to work so many shifts so she wouldn’t notice that John wasn’t currently even in the same world as her. However, John hated how much his mother had to work, just to support the life they had before his father left. John tried to help out where he could, earning his own money through small jobs around the town and getting to go to Ashcroft through a scholarship. Even so, there was only so much he could do.

Suddenly, John remembered that the quest he accepted happened to have a certain reward - a certain monetary award. He pulled up his character sheet, flipping it over to the alternate side and taking a look at the quest he had accepted earlier.

**Quest
The Four Runes of Righteousness

• Find Odin’s rune
• Find Thor’s rune
• Find Skadi’s rune
• Find Tyr’s rune
• Bonus: Find 2 other godly runes
• Bonus: Find the mysterious Blade of Soul**

Rewards
2,000XP, 1 small bag of rune stones, 15 stat points, $500
Bonus Rewards
1,000XP, 5 stat points, runic ink x10, $250,000

John could feel his smile growing wider. The first reward was definitely enough for him - it’d be enough for several games and an upgrade to his PC - but the second reward was the real ticket. If he could manage to get the bonus quests completed and receive the $250,000, he could send a large portion of it (if not all of it) to his mother. She could use it to pay off rent for years to come. And if John could manage to get any _more _quests like that…

John scratched the back of his neck as he continued walking down the hall, a slight spring in his step as he moved throughout the corridors. Even though she wouldn’t know that her son was a mage, maybe he could help out his mother who had done so much for him.

“I’m starting to think that you have a malicious spirit following you.”

“How so?” John asked Talia as they walked back to her home. After he had left the council building (tree? Tree-building? Building-tree? Treebuilding? Trebuchet?), Talia, Hálfdan and Frida had met up with him, telling him that, while he was in Alfheim, he would be protected through the laws of hospitality as long as he stayed at their place. Granted, this didn't mean he couldn’t stay anywhere else, but as long as he treated their place as a home away from home while in Alfheim, he would not have to worry about surprise attacks made against his well being. Talia’s parents had told her and John to go ahead and head back to their home, as Hálfdan had to call in a couple favors to see about getting John a more stable vote with the council.

John had almost told Frida and Hálfdan about his quest, but had decided at the last minute that it would be better to get Talia’s opinion before her parents’. He figured she might be easier to convince, as well as being of great aid to help convince her parents if she sided with John. Plus, if John had to go on this quest, he would like a few party members. After all, who wants to digress and sidequest if you don’t have a friend?

Talia grinned at him. “Well, you managed to have the good luck of being able to heal me, only to directly have the bad luck of my parents not believing your story. You then managed to have good luck of convincing my parents your story is true, but then had bad luck with the council arresting you. And now you’ve managed to make most of the council not want to execute you, but the look on your face when you came out of The Branch Of Yggdrasil makes me think something else is about to go wrong.” She looked up to the sky. “Should I expect a dragon to pop up out of nowhere at this point? Maybe meteors to start raining from the sky?”

John chuckled at that. “No no, I just… In order to prove that I’m innocent to the council, I’m gonna have to do a bit of a... quest.”

Talia made a noise of disgust. “Norse quests are never fun. Somehow they always manage to have ****, maiming, or killing in them, sometimes with a splash of dismemberment.”

“...How descriptive. Thankfully, mine doesn’t seem to have any of the above.”

“Just wait, John.” Talia gave him a grim look. “Quests may look simple sometimes, but they usually end with the **** of somebody.” She took a deep breath before putting on a slightly cheery smile. “So, what’s the quest? I hope it’s nothing too ****.”

John shrugged, trying to figure out how to word this. “Ohhhh, nothing much… Just finding a couple runes… a sword… the lost treasure of Beowulf…”

Talia groaned and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Your quest is to somehow find, before the council’s next meeting, the lost treasure of Beowulf.” Talia sighed again before putting her hands together. “John, do you want to know what the key word in this is?”

“I’d like to think it’s ‘treasure '. Perhaps ‘Beowulf.’ Those seem like some pretty key words.”

“No no, John. Those are nice words. But the key word of the day is ‘lost.’ The lost treasure of Beowulf. People even before I was born have been looking for that treasure, and no one’s found it! And you have to do so in, what… a week?”

“Well… I have some good news about that.”

“Is it that you have a time extension on this? Because if you had maybe a few months, a wheelbarrow, and a Holocaust cloak, you might have a chance.”

“No, Wesley, I don’t have extra time. But I do have a map.”

“Oh, good. A mysterious map to the lost treasure of Beowulf,” Talia said sarcastically. “It’s not like they sell these for a dime a dozen at most tourist traps.”

“At least it’s a starting point.”

“And you plan to do this quest alone?”

“...Are you volunteering?”

Talia stayed silent for a moment or two before slowly saying, “Yes, but on one condition.”

John grinned. While this wasn’t his original plan for convincing Talia to come with him, this at least seemed to have gone pretty well. “And what condition is that, my dear?”

“Well, it’s actually two conditions. Firstly, we watch The Princess Bride together. Turns out like none of the elves actually have watched that movie. So, for someone to finally get that reference - it pleases me on a deep level.” She gave him a smile and a bit of a wink. Whether it was suggestive of something or not, John could not tell. “But on a more serious note, the main request is for you to help me with something. Here, let’s go talk in my room.”

John looked away from Talia and saw that, while they were talking, they had managed to walk all the way back to her place without him even noticing. In his head, he attributed this to the conversation and trying to think of a way to convince her to help him. It wasn’t because he spent half the trip admiring how pretty she was, and it definitely wasn’t because he was lovestruck by how adamant she was at supporting him before the trial.

She opened up the door, and together they walked up into her room - a place in which, just a few hours before, John had gotten his first blowjob and had performed oral for the first time in his life. ‘Hopefully not the last.’

John sat down on the bed and turned to face her as she paced nervously in the room. “So… your request?”

Talia took a deep breath. “Well… I’m guessing that you’ve figured out my whole hunting story was a bit misleading.” John nodded vigorously. “The truth is that I’m training - well, that is to say I learned - I want to be a swordsman, but I’m not allowed.”

“You’re… not allowed? I thought your parents would’ve been supportive about that. They don’t seem the judgemental type.”

“They aren’t. They said they would support me 100% in whatever I choose to do. Hell, when my brother came out of the closet they supported him fully. No, it’s more the rest of society that’s the problem. I’m the daughter of a powerful elemental mage. I’m expected to be a mage just like her, if not better. On top of that, with my dad being the way he is-”

“You mean being a blacksmith?”

“I mean being a half-elf. With him being that, I have even more to prove. So if I just up and decided that I don’t wanna be a mage, that I’d rather practice the blade - something that females rarely do - I’d be ostracized for it.”

John groaned. “Wonderful. Sexism rears its ugly head once again.”

Talia chuckled. “Yeah, elves aren’t much for change. But that leads right into my request.” She sat up on the bed next to John and took his hands in hers. “You told me that you were able to learn runic magic by simply trying it. Do you think that could translate to other skills?”

John gave a slow nod. “It would make sense if it could. I mean, I haven’t really tried it yet, but I don’t see a reason why it wouldn’t.”

“Then if that’s the case, John, I would like to see if you could learn swordsmanship - and if you can learn it, if you would teach it to me.”

“Sure.”

“Now, I know it’s a bit of a request - after all, your powers are video game based, so-”

“Talia, I said yes.”

“Y-you did?”

“Yeah. I’ll try out using a sword. I’ll see if I can learn swordsmanship. And then I’ll teach you.”

A wide smile broke out on Talia’s face as she quickly pulled John into a bear hug. “Ohthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou-”

John laughed and hugged her back. Part of his brain wanted to note how cute her excitement was, and the other part wanted to note how he could feel her breasts pressing into his chest. Talia pulled her head back, not letting go of John. “You know, since you are helping me with this, I could promise as an incentive some… rewards.”

John raised an eyebrow. “What… kind of rewards are we talkin’ about?”

“Well… it could be simple things, such as a game of magic, some video games, what we did earlier today… Or…” she gave a naughty grin, “...a good swordsman has to have a lot of stamina. We could work on increasing yours.”

“...Oh. I, um… hmm. Yes. Indeed. Okay.”

Talia giggled. “And who knows? If your stamina gets good enough, we might add a second or third person to our little party.”