It took some time to get the word out. Kaldalis was, of course, only one man. And even with Balrim and Myrin helping, they couldn’t reach everyone. But Kaldalis told everyone he told to tell their friends, and within the hour the web of information had people approaching him to tell him.

At that point, Kaldalis was sure he’d done all he could.

Noon came and the crew gathered together for lunch. Reno and Ess had tangled with a few new and monstrous foes out in the wilds, and a bit of the awkwardness was cleared out of the air as Balrim and Myrin let them tell the story.

Apparently the four of them had hunted down a giant Quadav - a shelled creature that looked like a gorilla version of the reptilian Talsar - and chased it through the trees when it fled after they’d bloodied it. Reno really tried to drive home how powerful a combatant the creature was with its Water Affinity AoE attacks, while Ess just kept describing its uncanny valley features, from its snout-like version of Balrim’s mouth and nose to its strangely human-looking ears.

Courbois still seemed a bit rattled by the revelation of the true nature of this world, but obviously they couldn’t discuss the matter directly to help her work through it.

Everyone just silently agreed to give her the space she needed.

Of course, everything changed when Balrim suddenly sat up straight as an arrow.

“It’s time,” he said, standing up abruptly.

“What?” Kaldalis asked, though before he got the words out, he noticed it as well.

Quests.

His minimap had lit up like a Christmas tree.

There were quests everywhere.

Not just the usual dozen or so. But many times more. Scores. Maybe even over a hundred.

“Don’t freak out,” Kaldalis said quickly. His voice was breathy as if he’d just run a mile. “Remember the new system. We’re going to be forced to pace ourselves, here.”

“That’s the worst part,” Balrim said, already moving for the cafeteria door, forcing everyone to scramble to clear their lunch plates and catch up. “There’s just so much pretty I don’t even know where to start!”

“We gotta aim high,” Kaldalis said as he followed the lizard man. “As much as we need to make sure stuff gets done to build up the town, everyone is working together on that. Our bigger goal is to prepare for the raid when we get to it.”

“Right,” Reno agreed. “We gotta go for the highest level stuff we can handle. I’ve had a taste of experience gain today and I want more.”

Balrim waved a hand through the air. “As much as I agree with you there,” he said, “we need to get gathering quests, too. We’re going to need to take the time to top up our crafting skills and make sure we have the best possible gear, food, and potions we can accumulate.”

“Alright,” Myrin said, making everyone stop with a wave of her hand, “let’s game the system.”

She pointed at Reno and Ess. “You two pick up all the highest level quests you’re comfortable with. Aim for quests where you kill strong monsters. Don’t worry about where they’re at, we’ll figure out the logistics when we get to it.”

Next, Myrin pointed at Balrim. “You grab crafting and gathering quests. We’ll top off our crafting skills before we head out, and then amass as much loot as we can carry before a second round once we’re back in town.”

Last, she pointed to Kaldalis and Courbois. “You two pick up whatever quests look interesting. Fetch quests, search-and-rescue, whatever. We’ll use those to break up the monotony.”

“Alright genius,” Kaldalis asked. “What’s the plan after we’re all on different quests?”

“We share them between each other, obviously,” Myrin said, crossing her arms over her chest and giving a smug grin. “We can get a big chunk of our daily allotment in and get around the system limits.”

“Well.” Kaldalis grimaced. He absolutely hadn’t thought of that.

And nor had Garyung, he was sure.

“Maybe we should bring this loophole up with Garyung?” he offered, even though he knew no one would agree with him.

“Eventually we absolutely should,” Ess said, her mouth quirked up in a grin, “but we can wait to do it tonight after we check to make sure it works, right?”

“Just don’t spread it around,” Kaldalis grumbled. “I don’t want people doing this trick selfishly. We can’t be crashing the town into crippling debt again. I’m pretty sure Garyung marrying a president’s daughter to get a good loan was a one-time deal.”

“He’s what?” Courbois asked, as if shaken from a dream. “When did he-”

“Not important,” Kaldalis said, dismissing her concern with a gesture. “We can do a deep dive of all the stuff you’ve been apparently kept out of the loop on later. Right now, we have quests to do.”

Courbois nodded, but she didn’t look happy about it.

“Right. Let’s meet at the town gates in… I dunno,” Myrin said, scratching at the corner of her mouth, next to her left tusk. “Fifteen minutes? We’ll group up, share quests, and get cracking.”

They split up at that point, going to seek the quests aligned with their specific goals.

Kaldalis went looking for anything out of the ordinary, trusting that the others would be providing the standard fare. He kept a particular eye out for anything that might correspond to the world boss Balrim and Myrin had been interested in.

Nothing seemed to explicitly mention a world boss, but there was a quest seeking an overdue report from a researcher in the north - though not all the way to the mountain. If there was any quest that was a breadcrumb to a boss lurking up that way, this was the one.

He also picked up a handful of other quests while looking for familiar faces to help.

Sivima the blacksmith wanted him to retrieve some Lataxinan scrap metal from nearby ruins, in order to study what techniques they employed with the local materials.

The brown-scaled Talsar chemist who had made the anti-Infernal Horde censers needed materials for her work as well - certain local herbs were needed to maintain the stockpile of incense in case of attack.

Yestry the painter wanted a selection of samples of local plants to grind for pigments, requesting particular colors to meet with the needs of recent commissions. Kaldalis tried to ignore the indigo pigment on the list, and especially the way Yestry closely examined Kaldalis’s face as he made the request.

While picking up that quest near the town hall, Sardol approached Kaldalis personally to offer him a quest to investigate a particular Lataxinan ruin to try and figure out their dietary needs. Ostensibly it was a research team request, but Sardol was quite good at making clear the subtext: if the Lataxinans were coming back, Cotanaku would need to learn how to coexist with them.

With that baseline of interesting objectives, Kaldalis looked to top off with quests in the same areas. Someone wanted some of the Irritators pushed back from the north, asking for three of them to be killed. And in the area where Yestry’s pigments would come from, there was a pack of Snappers that needed to be thinned out before it descended on Cotanaku’s budding farmlands.

He couldn’t find anything else in the region of the two Lataxinan ruins they would be investigating, but he felt like it was safe to assume that the ruins would provide their own excitement.

There were complications though, as Kaldalis approached the front gate of the town. He couldn’t find his friends, because the area was absolutely swarmed.

Far too many adventurers were here now. The place had turned into a zoo.

Apparently putting the word out about the quest system meant that everyone on the archipelago knew that a flurry of quests was coming. And it had drawn every one of them here, eagerly snapping up opportunities for experience and cash like a mob of seagulls on a dropped bag of french fries.

Searching through the crowd for his friends, Kaldalis found something unexpected. There was a small wooden stall set up to the left of the gate. It appeared to be mostly ignored, but there was a quest there, and Kaldalis made his way over to see what it was about.

“What do you have for me?” Kaldalis asked in his best cavalier tone as he leaned against the stall.

“We’re taking some proactive steps,” the Suyon woman across from him at the stall said. “Garyung took a big risk getting the dungeon re-opened for everyone, and he wanted to be sure it goes smoothly.”

“Oh,” Kaldalis said, feeling a stab of worry. Looking down at the countertop of the stall, he recognized a schedule layout. He winced at the memory of the way the dungeon in Baimer had been operated. “You’re scheduling the dungeon runs?”

“A little bit,” she said, turning the schedule around so that he could look at it. “We’re only scheduling runs during peak hours, and leaving things wide open in the middle of the day and through the night. And we’re not going to close it up in those windows. We just want to make sure folks can get a chance to secure a slot.”

“That doesn’t sound that bad,” Kaldalis said, leaning down and looking at the availability. “Maybe I should secure a spot.”

“Get ‘em while they’re available,” the woman said with a rueful smirk. She gestured at the entirely vacant area around the stall. “They’re going fast.”

“It’s just the quest rush,” Kaldalis said, trying to reassure her. “Once this first rush is over, I’m sure people will come and check it out.”

“I have a quest, too, if you want to schedule a slot,” she said quickly.

“Sure,” Kaldalis said with a shrug. He did some quick math in his head and pointed at the 8 am slot in two days. “This is the perfect time for me.”

The woman eagerly flipped the schedule back around and filled in his name and blocked out the time slot.

Kaldalis was assuming that he could pop his Dedication ring on time this afternoon, and again tomorrow, but if he did, it would be ready to pop right before going into the dungeon, giving him a huge chunk of experience points.

“Thanks so much,” she said as she noted down his appointment. “And let me just offer you the quest real quick…”

The text popped up along with his other quests on the left side of his screen. It was noteworthy that she was offering the quest even though he had filled up from what the other questgivers were allowed to give him.

Gorgon-Slayer

Seek and fight the Horned Musk Dragon in the Sunken Ruins (0/1)

“Alright,” Kaldalis said, nodding. “Thank you. So what is this? Where can I find this dragon?”

“You know how the Sunken Ruins has multiple options for the second boss?” she said, offering Kaldalis a conspiratorial smile. “According to Garyung, it’s the one that has been fought the least. So we’re encouraging some more exploration down there.”

“Smart,” Kaldalis said. “So do I come back here, or do I just go right in?”

“Just go right in,” she said with a smile. “There’ll be someone stationed who will stop people from going in and taking your slot.”

Kaldalis nodded his thanks and turned to resume hunting for his friends in the massive group of adventurers milling about preparing to head into the jungle.

With no small satisfaction, too, because once he signed up for a block, he saw a couple of others approaching the stall to ask the smiling Suyon woman about the quest she offered, now that they’d seen Kaldalis grab it.