Your First Quest

Your new character Alice leaves the dark alley and a moment later she is out on a much bigger street. While you try to faithfully play your character at first, a moment later you forget about it as you stare at your environment in awe. Most of the houses seem to be shops; there are weapons, armor, clothes, food and a lot of small miscellaneous stores. They are all two stories high, the bottom with wares on display and the top apparently residential rooms for the shop owners. While this looks like a busy prestigious city center the place is remarkably quiet. The stores are all dark, but some of the second floors have lights on. You marvel at the details, even seeing people walk around in the rooms via the shadows they cast, and it's not just an animation loop either. It feels real, but it also seems like people are not very active during the night here. Then you hear faint voices in the distance and wander in that direction. Soon you find the night life area of this place, some taverns with music playing inside, a lot of infrequent laughter and signs advertising women's services in suggestive pictograms. You'll definitely have to check those out. Despite being a girl yourself you still like girls and wouldn't mind having one explore your new body with you. You're much less in the mood for horny men being pigs towards you, even though that would probably be better for your coin pouch.

"Hey you! What are you doing out? Night has fallen!" You spin around and duck instinctively. There is what seems to be a guard looking at you, his appearance that of a knight in full plate armor. He it pointing a pike at you and starts walking in your direction. You quickly try to decide what to do. You could wait and have the guard yell at you for being out, explain to him that you're from out of town and get an introduction to the world. You're pretty sure that's what you're supposed to do at least, but you also don't like to get railroaded. Your mischievous nature breaks through and you decide to skip the tutorial. You turn and run down the street, unlike in your last life feeling quick on your feet, able to run much faster for much longer before running out of breath. "HEY! STOP!" you hear him yelling behind you along with the loud clanking of iron boots on cobble stone, but it soon becomes faint and you slow down.

You seem to have left the nightlife area; the small densely packed houses replaced by larger houses; stables and what look like barracks. You see guards in the distance and stick to the walls, hiding as best as you can in this open area. Unlike the previous guards these also wear a helmet that seems to reduce their peripheral vision enough that they don't spot you right away. I just spawned and am already running from the law you think to yourself, your heart beating a little faster at the thought of getting caught. You check out the building in front of you more thoroughly now. It is made of massive stone and four stories high. The small windows, a steel door in the center and the two heavily armored guards make this look more like a fortress than a building. I wonder what they have in there that's worth guarding. Just as you think that you get another popup.

Quest: Droan Fortress Treasury
This heavily guarded treasury houses riches not meant for the common folk.
If you were to steal from it you would make a name for yourself in addition to the money.
Success: Enter the treasury, steal something and leave
Reward: +1 level of infamy, 10000 experience
Optional: Do not alert the guards
Failure: Leave empty-handed
Note: You are below the minimum recommended level for this quest.
ACCEPT/REFUSE?

You didn't expect that. It's as if the game read your mind. It also warned you that you would likely fail, but you don't particularly mind. You're curious now and want to give it a shot. You can always log out if it gets too intense. Having made up your mind you accept the quest. You half expected a quest marker to appear telling you where to go, but nothing happens besides the popup disappearing. You're a bit at a loss for how to go about this. You're pretty sure there is no way you can break down a huge iron door. You're not even sure you could take out a guard. Scaling the building seems out of the question as well; the bottom floor is smooth stone without windows and you lack a roped hook. Maybe I can find one? You have no idea where to look. Buying one from one of the shops seems reasonable, but that would mean delaying the quest until tomorrow and you don't feel like waiting.

You pace around trying to think of something, only to get interrupted as a guard gets dangerously close to you. You're not sure what their vision range is, but it felt a lot better to hide around a corner than to trust not to get caught again. You have a feeling that being caught here after skipping the first guard would not go as smoothly anymore. Sighing you turn to the stables, sneaking around despite apparently nobody guarding the horses. You climb into a window and drop onto hay only to get startled by a loud neighing of a horse that must have been equally startled by you. "Shh!" you tell it and then look around. There is an oil lamp in the center giving out a faint burned smell and light. You're sort of trapped in here, but the stable doors are easy to unlock provided you have hands, even from the inside. There is some water intended for the horse, but you don't feel quite thirsty enough for that yet. All in all it seems safe to stay the night here, but you're not feeling tired. You want to do the quest. You remember that you do have a skill that in theory is suitable to help here even though you thought it never would come into play, especially not so soon. "Well, here goes nothing. Be a good horse and tell me if someone comes, yes?" The horse meanwhile seems to have gone back to sleep, apparently neither caring about having to share the place with an Elf nor feeling like doing what she wants.

You sit cross-legged like you remember from monks you probably saw on TV and close your eyes trying to concentrate. Concentrate on the important things, ignore the unimportant things. In your mind you're standing in front of the treasury building again, the big iron door closed, guards at the ready. Maybe the guards will be relieved at some point and open the door? That would mean there are four guards in the way though. You notice the smell of the small lamp again. Maybe it's your heightened senses or your nature affinity that takes offense to it, but you do wonder how such a small lamp can smell so bad, drowning out even the smell of the horses tenfold. Maybe you could blow a hole into the wall with some dynamite ... that you don't have. You wrinkle your nose. This place wasn't so great to rest in after all. Maybe meditating will become easier once you snuff out the light ....

Your eyes open and feel enlightened. That's it! You open the door of the stable and go through the rows of horses, opening each one. Some of the horses look up at you, but they seem tired and not in the mood to get up investigate what you're up to. They would soon change their mind. You take the lamp that no longer smelled as bad and look at it closely. There is a little tank at the bottom holding the oil, a wick to suck it up and a weak flame on top of it covered by glass to protect against wind. You carry the lamp to a corner, remove the glass and flip it on its side, placing it next to one of the hay bales. With the oil leaking out much quicker than it's supposed to through the wick, the flame quickly becomes bigger and soon starts climbing the hay. The horses around you are getting increasingly nervous and start neighing. Domesticated or not, their instincts tell the horses that fire is a danger they need to flee from. You wait a little bit longer and then open the big front door, giving the horses an escape route. You don't think they can actually escape the city, but escaping the fire and causing some chaos is all you need them to do. You look back at the hay and it's now engulfed in flames, while the nearby wooden beam is starting to catch on fire as well.

"Time to go" you hear your girly voice say only to yourself, but some of the horses get up and look at you. You wonder if that is just a coincidence, but don't have time to dwell on it. You quickly run outside, ducking and sliding around corners until you find a spot where you can see the treasury as well as the stables in some distance. You wonder if maybe the fire just burned out, but then you hear the horses darting out of the stables, their iron-clad hooves resounding in the night. Then you see the guards shift in front of the treasury door, looking at the stables and seeing flames licking up over the roof. "FIRE!" you hear one of them scream and then he hammers against the door with his iron gauntlet. A moment later you hear the ringing of alarm bells as more and more rooms in the treasury light up and guards scramble around, trying to organize themselves. Most of them must have been asleep. You smile at the chaos you caused and almost want to call it a successful day, but a quest update interrupts you.

Optional: Do not alert the guards Objective failed

Oh come on! you inwardly complain. You can see how you very much alerted the guards, on purpose, but they were alerted to a fire, not to you. It totally shouldn't count. Though re-reading the description you have to admit it's fairly unambiguous. Turning your attention back to the building you see another guard step out, one without a helmet and without a pike. Instead he has a sword and a red cape over his armor. He is followed by dozens of guards assembling in front of the building. They are fairly far away, but he screams loud enough that you have no trouble hearing. "Group Heidegger! Surround the stables! Do not let other buildings catch fire! Group Asmus! Grab any buckets you can find and bring water from the cistern! Group Koffka! Go catch your horses." You expected a "Yes Sir!", but none came. Instead the guards just spread out, splitting off towards the stables as well as other directions. Other guards start barking orders as well and you begin to feel uncomfortable about how much trouble you would be in if you ever got caught.

You bite your lips, trying to calm yourself down and finding the courage to do what must be done. The guards won't be busy with this little fire and some horses forever, you have to act now. You put your cloak over your head and sneak towards the big iron door that is now standing open. The two guards on the side are still there and they each have a torch as well as a pike. There is no way you'd be able to sneak past unnoticed. You could shoot them with your bow, but that is under your cape and you're not sure how much damage wooden arrows would do against steel armor. You'd probably just alert them to your presence. But since you've apparently already alerted the guards it technically doesn't matter anymore if they notice you. You walk towards them, silent on your cloth-wrapped feet, difficult to see in the dark due to your dark gray cloak. You walk casually but quickly as if you have business, wondering how far you'd get before they stop you. To your surprise you manage to get to a few meters before one of the guards turns his head, apparently not used to actually having to guard this place. "Halt! Who goes there-" he starts, but in that moment you dash forward. Before they are able to put their pikes to use you're already past them through the door, seeing a long corridor in front of you with a series of doors to either side. You have no idea where you're going and didn't exactly plan this part out, but you have to keep running in order to not get caught.

After turning some corners you end up at a T-section. Poking your head around the corner to the right you see another big door with another two guards. Shit. You pull your head back quickly and peak around the other corner. More double guards in front of a closed heavy door. This is not looking good. There is another big door on the side behind you, unguarded. Lacking other options you take the unguarded door. To your surprise it actually opens, but once through you see why. Instead of a treasure room you find stairs going up and down. You don't know where to go, but you need to make a decision quickly.