[Closed] Letters that got lost in the mail

[Starlight]

Bright and early, Starlight got her new quest from the posting board. She visited the address indicated on the post by the lady NPC who had put up the advertisement on the board just as she was clearing up a bucket of water from the second floor, seeing the water pouring down from above Starlight quickly take a step back and looked up. The water splashed on the ground in front of her, but she managed to not get hit by it.

"I'm sorry, I didn't saw you over there, did I get you?" The lady NPC lean forward from her window on the second floor, and asked Starlight once she saw her, in an apologetic voice. The lady NPC had her pink hair pulled into a pony tail, she was not astonishingly pretty, but she has a very nice clean and easy to be around feel around her.

"No, I'm fine, I got out just in time. But anyway! I saw your post on the board! You were saying something about needed help from something in the great plains? I was wondering if I could help in any way, could you please come down here so that I can get the details?" Starlight looks up and tries to control her voice as she was calling out to the NPC, not wanting to shout out, but the NPC was on the second floor, and Starlight was on the ground floor, and it was really hard to get the volume just so that she could be heard, but also not consider rude at the same time.

"Oh! of course! Where are my manners?" The lady NPC hit her head with her left palm "I will be right down with you! Just wait there for a second!" and with that she disappeared from the view of the window. 

"...ok!" Starlight shouted in reply and looked around, it was still early so not many NPCs are out yet, she fidgeted a little, waiting for the lady NPC to get down, wondering what the new quest was all about. 

[Starlight]

"Sorry for the wait! I was just doing some clean up....getting the attic clean out and throwing some old stuff away. By the way, my name is Flora, thank you for answering my post." Flora says.

"Oh, it is no problem, so Flora...how can I help you? What seems to be the problem?" Starlight asked in puzzlement, tilting her head looking at the pink hair NPC, she does not seems to be in any kind of hurry, or agitated, she did not have the usual NPC in trouble looking for hire help look. Maybe it will be one of those boring delivery kind of things again...Starlight thought to herself, having already made up her mind about the situation.

"Well...to be honest...it is a little bit embarrassing..." Flora looked down, hands fidgeting on her light blue dress.

A little bit embarrassing...? So it is not a delivery quest...?

"My husband...he...he disappeared..." Flora says quietly to the ground.

A search and rescue?!!! Starlight's eyes widen, this just got interesting all of the sudden.

"About three years ago!" Flora suddenly added, having just read Starlight' facial expression and coming to the correct guess on what was going on in her mind. "yeah...so...yeah, at first, I thought he got lost or that something must have happened to him, and I was so worried...we have only been married for a year, and it was right after we had a fight, I thought that maybe he had left me, but then...maybe something happened to him and I couldn't not report it you know? So I reported that he went missing, to the Town's guard, and they got this huge searching party out into the fields...and I was so happy and hopeful. It was at the beginning...." Flora's voice got quiet all of the sudden.

So I guess the search party must have came up in blank, thought Starlight.

"Yeah...I mean, as the time went on and nobody find out about anything, the motivation...it was just gone, and barely anyway was looking for him. Even me...I have lost hope too, I thought that...he must have died and disappeared..." Flora looked away into the distant. "But then...about a year ago...I received a mail from him..." 

From the died husband? * cough, I meant, from the missing husband?

"The mail had a single piece of paper in it, it was a map of some kind, there was no letter attached. It was just a map, no explanation. At first I was relief, I thought that he was alive and was trying to tell me that he was alright, but there was no return address. And it was just a map, I have content to go on, so I asked the Town's Guard for help again, and they tried again...."

"I guess...they weren't able to find anything...?"

"Yeah..."

"I am so sorry..."

"Don't be. Anyway, after that, I thought, he must have still be alive, otherwise how was he able to send this to me? But for some reason, he didn't wanted to be found and he was still in hiding. So I say, fine, if you didn't want to see me, then I didn't want to see you either, I was getting ready to move on." Flora sighed then. "I am getting a new job in Tolbana, so I will move there, I was preparing and sorting out all of my stuff so I am throwing away all of his stuff. It is too bad that he didn't come back to pick them up. "

Starlight did not know how to respond to that so she remains silent, and anyway, still not sure how I can help in this kind of situation, since resurrection is also not a thing in this game. Besides, apparently he wasn't dead so he can't be resurrected anyhow, but maybe she wanted me to track him down and tell him to come and pick up his stuff? But I don't have the tracking skill, I need to be level 3 to get another talent though and that is a long wait, this quest will be so cold then.

Flora shakes her head "no no no, you misunderstand, I wasn't trying to get you to find him. It is because of this!" She turns back around and pull out something from her apron, it was a wear out old map made from wool, the drawings are a little like scrabbles, clearly made by someone without the mapping skill, in fact, it was so bad that it looked like a kid draw it. Still...Starlight takes the map from her and pull the map to her own eye level, tilting her head trying to get a good read on the map. "is this what I think it is...?" She asked.

[Starlight]

Is this...can this be the map that she was talking about, from the dead...I mean...missing husband?

"Yes...it is the very map that I was talking about, the only remnant of what used to be..." Flora looked down and sighed deeply. "I found it again yesterday when I was cleaning up, and I...I just could not leave it alone, I thought...that....it might have meant something...like...if he was trying to tell me something with this...but it is probably nothing though. Anyway, silly little me, so I put up the post yesterday." She looked so down right now. 

"The one that I found?" Starlight knew that she was asking questions that did not need to be asked, but at this moment, she would ask anything just to filled the gap of silence, because the mood of the air is really bad and blue right now. Starlight was not that good at social interaction, she was a person of a good heart and willing to help, but she just do not know how to handle this situation right now. 

"Yes...well, I know it was stupid, but, could you maybe, go to the place marked with X and circle on the map and check it out for me? Why would he send me this? With those locations circled? Maybe there was something there for me to see? But you see, for someone like me, look at me I don't even know how to hold a sword, let alone to fight a wolf, it is impossible for me to went into the great plains, let alone the black forest myself, so I have asked for an adventure's help, perhaps you can go there on my behalf?"

OKKK...so it is just a...check it out...? Retrieval? Scouting mission? I can do that! I can definitely do that! There is basically no skilled involved, I just needed to be there! I go to places like, all the time, usually with a team, but also often alone. But I can definitely do that, just go there and quickly have a look around and came back with what I found. Starlight look down at the map that she held in her hand, she looked at the locations. From the map ,it will be impossible to tell how much enemy encounter that she can expected to meet, but none of the locations looked particularly bad. They were not right in the dead center of the black forest, or near any famous monster re-spawn spot, some of them are pretty far away from the main road, but still, from the birds eye view map, the spots were located away from the rivers and even the forest ones are located off the side of the really bad zones, I can expect the enemy encounters to be, not that bad. If a civilian NPC draw this, I can see why all of the locations are slight off from the dangerous area, because they didn't want to get into trouble in the wild either.

If there is nothing there, which is likely....if there is no treasure, and therefore, no guarding monsters, I can do this myself and very fast too. I just need to be careful and that is all. 

Nodding to herself, Starlight quickly checked her gear and her inventory, she has three potions in her inventory and none of her gears have been badly damaged in anyway, she is not tired right now nor is she hungry or sleepy, she is in prime condition to go. She looked up to the sun, it is still morning, if she goes right now, she could made it back today and turn in the quest in one go. Okay then, I am ready to go. 

"Alright Flora, leave it to me, I will be glad to take on this mission. I will go there and check back on you once I return, I estimate that I will be back either today at nightfall or tomorrow morning. Is that okay with you?" Starlight asked to confirm. 

"Oh! Thank you very much! No, that is perfectly fine by me, I am in no particular hurry, I already paid my rent up until the end of this month, and I don't need to move soon. But there is just one more thing..." Flora looked slight worried. "I work as a flower girl, so I don't have much col stocked, so I am afraid that I can only repay you with what items that I have, I hope that is ok with you?"

...hm...??...well

"And food too!" Flora quickly added. "Please!"

....Starlight quickly and silently considered her option, going out of the wall will still be dangerous for her, and she may need to use her potions, and she was fully intended to avoid any kind of confrontation too. So likely, she will spend an entire day on the road and possibly with no monster kills, and she will not get any true items as reward, flavor items and food is the best that she could hope for. But...

Starlight closed her eyes for a moment. She does want to bring closure to her, she can sort of see how that waiting around not knowing if someone was dead or alive could be eating away at one's soul, especially if one were trying to move on. With the constant doubt of what if...what if I have done that? With the past constantly having a hand from the past and grabbing and interfering with the future, constantly having to think back about it. That would be so...nightmare-ish, I should help out because that is the right thing to do, I should not help out because it is stupid, but if not me, then who else would take this on? It will be a waste of someone's time, when you could be exp grinding the boars...I can see how, not a lot of players would want to take this...

....

Flora waited patiently, she seems to be breathing more quietly now, eyes wide like a deer, looking at her in anticipation for her answer. 

Starlight look at the NPC for a moment, still quietly debating in her own head, and after a moment she finally sighed in defeat. "Alright, I will go and check back on you once I get back, but you better have something good in reward, ok? Try your best."

"Yeah~!! Oh Thank you, thank you so much! I won't forget it, I have some cake in the oven you can have some!" Flora says happily now that someone was taking her quest, she was clapping lightly.

"No, it is alright, I am racing against the sunlight and time, and I really need to go now if I want to make it back today. But thank you for the offer. I will be taking my leave now." Starlight says politely with a nodded, and without anything else, she turns towards the gate, fully intend to take advantage of full visual range of the day time. 

"Ok! Good luck, please come back safely and if you met him, then...just, please come back ok!" Flora shouted at her retreating back.

"Alright, I will! See you later then!" Starlight shouted back over her shoulder and with that, she pick up her pace and run towards the gate of the Town. 

[Starlight]

With one last look goodbye, Starlight goes off onto her journey across the great plains, she looks back to her map before realize something incredibly off...slowing down to a stop, Starlight makes sure that there are no monsters in her immediate surrounding before walking towards a nearby tree, and using the tree as a very bad hiding spot to hide herself. She careful examine the map once again, now getting a better look since she is no longer under the watchful eyes of Flora.

This thing...this thing has some kind of weird markings onto it? Along the lines, and some of the drawings doesn't seem to be quite connected and all matched up...?

Starlight stopped on her track and tried to examine the map more carefully, slowly, she folded the map in the middle from the sideways and the two side of the map combined into a brand new map...and it outlined what appears to be the second floor...

This map has two parts?!  Is it too late to go back to this quest now? She looks back to the Town of Beginning and thought to herself, that yes, it is probably too late because going back to her words now, she would have to be such a jerk, not after raising up her hopes like that, she cannot just crash it back down again.

But now, there is no way that she can fulfill her promise to return by tonight at night fall, instead, this might stretched into multiple day journey and she will have to count herself lucky if she were to be able to return back by next week! In fact, she quickly checks for supplies for food, if she wanted to visit every single location, she might have to camp out somewhere and hopes that it will all be ok. She does not have the preservation skill nor is she currently carrying any meat...great, that is just great, that is wonderful. Thinking sarcastically to herself, she shakes her head and left out a loud sigh.