While Quinn was minding his business picking wild mushroom because he didn't have money for a warm meal as usual, he felt an intense stare burning a hole through his back. Shooting his head around, the green haired youth looked around frantically, scanning his surroundings for any signs of thieves who may be after his mushrooms. Scooping up a bundle of them, dirt and all, into his arm, Quinn turned and briskly walked away. He intended on guarding those perfectly edible mushroom as though his life depended on it. Before he get to safety, however, an portly, balding man popped out from behind one of the trees and grabbed onto Quinn's pants bawling into the fabric until it was soaked in sad middle-aged tears. "Whoa, you can't have these, I have to eat too, you know?" he shouted and pulled his leg from the man's unexpectedly strong grip. "Please, ser, I don't know who you are, but if you could save my daughter, I would repay you with my worthless lives. Because of the recent appearances of adventurers in this forest, the population of wolves have been chasing them to our villages. Although adventurers can often get away scotch free, we villagers usually have to deal with the fallout. In fact, my daughter might have been snatched and possibly eaten by one of these wolves, if you could find it in your heart to rescue her, I would do anything I can to repay you." After hearing the man, Quinn scratched the back of his neck, not knowing what to do. If only the goddamn players were more careful when they spawn and don't lead wolves to these villages, there would be no problem, right? Yet now that his kind have done wrong to NPCs, Quinn felt compelled to help out by virtue of being a good-hearted troll. "Alright, I can d--?!!!" Before he could finish his line, the man had disappeared. When Quinn turned his head, he saw the man grabbing onto another person and recited the same request to her. Once he was done, Quinn walked over to @Cassandra Descartes. "So he says... are you up for a quest?"
Picking herbs was good for alchemy, picking shrooms was….possibly too? Cass really did not know. Nothing she could make at this level needed them, but they were also herbs, strictly speaking. Weren’t they? Maybe they would become useful later. Plus, they were free, i.e. unguarded. So, she had decided to pick as many of those as she could. Every now and then, she came across other people who did such things or woodland critters. Nothing really all that out of the ordinary, at least she thought so. That was why she did not even really react when she came across another man doing that kind of stuff, at least not in the beginning. It did strike her as odd though, when she heard a voice that did not seem to belong to him. Hence she perked up. And from her perspective, she could see some man kneeling in front of the other, trying to drag his pants down and speaking with a muffled voice. Uh…….huh. Maybe she should not be around too long, then. Briefly, she considered to just up and leave. However, before she could do so, she started to actually understand some of the words spoken. That created some much-needed context, meaning that she could go back to doing her thing. Not for too long though, as that NPC soon enough paid her a visit as well. She mostly tried to ignore him, at first, but once the other man came over and asked her out in a very PC way, she just did not have a choice anymore. After all, she did not really have anything better to do than risk her life for someone else’s daughter that most likely was dead already. “Uhm, sure! But only if we get paid for bringing back her remains, too, in case she is dead already. I mean yeah, we would not exactly rescue her, but she could be dead already. Not gonna risk my life for nothing,” she explained her situation, caring nothing at all about how saying things like this would hurt an actual human.
"You know, sometimes, you can hold out for some hope. Like maybe the daughter was kidnapped by bandits before the wolves ate her. If we're lucky, we might even be able to find her working in a brothel somewhere. But, yeah I guess it makes more sense to hit up the wolves first and ask them if they had eaten her. I think I saw one of the dens around here," Quinn spoke to the young woman, stewing all of the possibilities in his head. The man however was far too gone, he was accepting any condition they gave him at that point; desperation was never pretty. "Alright, since he agreed to the reward, join my party," Quinn said as he opened his UI. Cassandra can't see it, but the gesture was a dead giveaway. He instructed her on how to initiate a party so they can group up. "My name is Quinn, by the way. I'm not new to the game, but I haven't been no-lifing it, so I'm not super strong or anything. I'm mostly hiding and hitting people from behind, but not like a rogue with two daggers or anything. How about you? Also, let's head to the wolves. I memorized the way there." Quinn was often traveling alone, so being in a party for the first time in a while was definitely a change of pace for him. @Cassandra Descartes
