The Quest

Like most questing adventures, our story starts out in a very normal neighborhood on a very normal day. It was the type of neighborhood where hardly anything exciting ever happens, except for on days exactly like today that is.

As Jaggi rang the doorbell, he couldn't help but to fidget nervously with his armored chainmail. He looked around anxiously while standing on the porch of his friend Ashley's house, listening for the tiniest hint, or even a whisper, of any danger. Going questing these days seemed to invite all sorts of creatures and villains, and today had been no exception.

It was still early in the morning and he had already outrun one of Evil Uncle Alvin's assassins on his own horse. Jaggi had eventually lost the assassin in a Walmart parking lot, shortly after which he had had to defend himself from ravenous forest fairies that had attacked him from out of no where. He hadn't even had breakfast yet!

As his ears studied the air around him, he thought he heard a twig snap. He twisted around in fear, with his hand on his sword hilt, but there was no one there. Jaggi blew out his breath and began to relax, but this was a mistake, for as he relaxed and moved his hand away from his sword hilt, he looked up just in time to see a winged gargoyle swoop down from the trees directly towards his head.

Luckily he was able to duck just in time, as the creature passed right overhead, and as the gargoyle turned around and flew right back at Jaggi, claws outstretched and ready to attack, Jaggi was able to draw his large sword and swung it upwards just in time, resulting in slicing the gargoyle in half. As the gargoyle split in two, its trajectory flung it right into Ashley's front door, resulting in a rather green, squishy and nasty mess.

As the gargoyle was no longer a threat, Jaggi relaxed a bit, blew out a sigh of relief, and started wiping the nasty gargoyle blood off of his sword. Gargoyles could be such a neusance.

He felt a large trickle of blood making its way down his forehead, and as he reached up to wipe off his brow, he looked down at the green ooziness now covering his fingers.

He looked around to see if anyone was watching, and with no one there, he reached out and wiped is green oozy bloody hand on the railing of Ashley's porch. It took a few really good wipes to get his hand somewhat clean, at the expense of Ashley's poor front porch railing that is, which now had a very green and dirty section. As he examined his hand, he shook his head in satisfaction, pleased with his own ingenuity and self grooming techniques.

The sound of the cut in half bloody gargoyle thumping against the door must have woken up the inhabitants inside, along with Jaggi ringing the doorbell that is, because shortly afterwards Jaggi could hear footsteps walking towards the front door.

As the door opened slowly, Hayley peaked out from behind the door with a curious expression on her face. She looked around the front porch at the cut in half gargoyle, the blood everywhere, and Jaggi standing there with a goofy expression on his face.

"Oh Jaggi? What are you doing here so early?!" She said grumpily, wiping sleep out of her eyes and trying to put the pieces together of this curious scene in her porch.

"Oh hey Hayley...umm... is Ashley home?" Jaggi asked nervously.

Hayley ignore his question and instead looked around her porch in disgust. "Jaggi what did you do to my porch? What in the world is this mess?!" She said as she pointed towards the sliced in half green gargoyle.

"Oh yeah" he said nervously. "Looks like you guys had a gargoyle in your trees, it tried to take my head off." He said defensively. "Wasn't my fault, but I'll help clean it up, I promise!"

Hayley got a panicked look on her face and held up her hand.

"No no, you'll only make it worse" she said tiredly. She was not wrong, if Jaggi had tried to clean up that mess, it would not have turned out well and he would have made it worse.

"Jaggi why are you here so early?!" She said as she yawned. "You do know what time it is right?"

Jaggi looked down at his trusty sun dial watch, but it was cloudy outside so it was no good.

"Umm, like 11?" Jaggi guessed.

He really had no idea what time it was, as he was so excited to get started on this quest he couldn't sleep last night.

"Jaggi it is 8:30 in the morning...on a Saturday. You KNOW Ashley's not awake yet, right?! If I wake her up this early on a Saturday she's gonna kill both of us."

Jaggi looked nervous as his courage began to waver. "But she should be expecting me", he blurted. "We were going questing today!"

Hayley gave Jaggi a rather dramatic eye roll. "Are you serious? Again?" She said in an exhausted tone. "Ugh, ok, let me go get her, but it's your funeral." Hayley retreated back inside with a grumpy look on her face, using curse words that made Jaggi blush a little bit.

Once she was out of earshot, Jaggi let out a sigh of relief. He also realized while standing on the door step that he had forgotten to bring his extra battle axe for this quest. He would just have to do without it I guess.

He then began to mentally go over his checklist of supplies to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything else.

"Ok, let's see, let's see" he thought to himself. He had his Medieval men's shawl. His Jewelry pouch. Leather water flask. Evil Uncle Alvin's detailed map with directions on how to find his new castle. That was important, he wouldn't want to get lost on this quest.

His Lucky rats tail. Meat snacks. He, had to have those! Motion sick medicine?...."ugh" he thought, he had forgotten the motion sick pills too!! Riding the horses was going to be brutal. He had at least remembered to bring his padded undershorts this time. Last time was not pretty.

As Jaggi waited on the doorstep, he looked around the neighborhood a little bit and took in the scene. e street was old Mr. Gunderson who somehow looked exactly like Clint Eastwood. He was out mowing his lawn, just like every other Saturday. Jaggi had actually seen him out working on his grass with a ruler and scissors before, he was so meticulous and crazy about it!

Jaggi gave a nervous wave, but received nothing in return but a cold stare.

He had had a bad experience with him a time or two. One time he had parked his car too close to the old man's curb leaving a smudge on the perfectly white paint, to which Mr Gunderson had retaliated by dumping his grass clippings into the front seat of Jaggi's car while he was inside Ashley's house.

Then there was this other time when Jaggi's faithful horse Shadow-flaxseed-oil had decided Mr Gundersons lawn was the perfect place to relieve his bowels. That did not go well!

Needless to say, Jaggi was secretly terrified of the old man. Mr Gunderson looked over at Jaggi disapprovingly, grimaced and then shook his head.

Truth be told, Jaggi had been on plenty of questing adventures with his good friend Ashley over the years, so he had gotten used to the stares and muffled whispers as they rode by on their horses. But as Ashley was also moderately attractive, Jaggi never really knew what the whispers and stares were actually about. If it was because of how ridiculous they looked, or because of the fact that Ashley had once been a Monster Energy Drink hype girl. Jaggi decided it was probably a combination of both.

But now that questing was getting more and more common, Jaggi didn't feel quite so conspicuous as he waited on the porch fully clad in his chain mail shirt, studded leather belt, and heavy leather boots.

As he was packing this morning, he had decided it was probably overkill to bring his full metal suit, and he hoped he had not been wrong. It had come in quite handy in past adventures, and had definitely saved him from multiple trips to the ER.

It seemed to be that the current trend these days was either questing for hidden treasure, pillaging local villages, or rescuing damsels in distress. Jaggi himself had found a small treasure or two from old maps he had discovered in the local city library. There was also always plenty of money to be made in vanquishing evil creatures or rescuing ransomed nobels.

It did get a bit tricky finding sitters for his kids, or convincing his wonderful wife Amy to let him go galavanting around the land for days or even weeks at a time. He had also burned through so much PTO at work it was honestly a miracle he still had a job.

But such was life when one went questing these days.

As the door opened again, Jaggi was woken from his daydreaming, and out came Ashley onto the porch. "Jaggi, what are you doing here so early?"

He had clearly woken her up. She was in white striped boxer shorts, a wife beater, baby dragon slippers and a hastily thrown on bathrobe that was blowing in the breeze. Her hair was literally everywhere.

"Oh hey, Ashley," Jaggi said nervously, fidgeting with his chainmail again. He knew he was pushing his luck with this last minute quest, especially on a Saturday morning. She could be a bit of a grouch when she didn't get enough beauty rest. "I, umm, I thought we were, ummm, going questing today. I mean, I texted you last night about it and you said you were down for a good quest."

Jaggi showed her his phone and sure enough, she had texted it, nearly word for word. She tried to remember what she had been doing last night.

"Ughhh" she thought, "plucking that chicken was such a bad idea, and the blood, ughh the blood was still everywhere in the back yard. Ugh, how many ales did I have last night?."

She had had a lot. It was all slowly starting to come back to her. "I need to hide my phone when I drink in the future", she thought to herself.

"Oh yeah, I umm, yeah I totally remembered" she lied. "I just thought we were going later today" she said as she eyeballed Jaggi, wondering if he was actually buying this. "Good thing I've been packing like literally all morning, I'm pretty much ready to go. Why don't you just come in and just help me grab my stuff."

Jaggi didn't buy a word of it. But he really needed Ashley's help on this current quest, so he decided to play along.

"Oh nice, nice. I knew you wouldn't forget. But I should probably stay out here", Jaggi said, with a bit of relief in his voice. "Don't want to leave the horses out here unattended, and Patsy get nervous when he's alone".

Jaggi pointed out to the street, and sure enough there was an awkward looking young man in a ridiculous medieval outfit sitting on a small pony, holding the reins of two other horses. He looked very similar to a court jester.

"Patsy?" Ashley asked with a raised eyebrow..

"Yeah, he's my new squire. I didn't think we'd make it very far without a squire this time. Not only does he squire for free, but he's gonna come in dead-handy in a pinch I'm sure". Jaggi leaned closer and whispered, "plus I told his mom I'd let him hang out with me today, he doesn't have a lot of friends."

Ashley blew out her breath and shook her head. "As long as he's better than the last one." She said with a grin, then she turned to go back inside and said, "Ok ok, let me grab my gear quick".

Luckily she still had everything packed from her last quest with her friend Dixon last week. She allowed herself a moment to remember some of the events from that adventure. "Aaaah the pillaging was soooo good last week,' she thought. "And the wenches!! Ahhh". She chuckled to herself.

The pillaging and wenching had indeed been very good last week for Ashley and Dixon. She had felt bad though that they had not invited Jaggi so she didn't complain about the last minute quest on a Saturday.

"Remind me what we're questing today" she said as she turned to walk inside.

"Just your typical 'Damsel in Distress' scenario. Amy got kidnapped by her evil uncle Alvin again yesterday and left a ransom note and a map to his new castle. He’s asking for 12 freaking rubies for payment this time!!! I tell you what, questing is getting expensive with inflation these days."

Ashley's face bunched up like she had just smelled sour grapes. "Are you serious?! He just kidnapped her last month for like 8 rubies??" Ashley growled.

"I know, right?!?! It's ridiculous." He said in a frustrated tone.

"Ok, just give me a couple minutes to get my stuff and change and I'll be right out" Ashley said as she walked back inside.

Jaggi turned around and leaned against the railing while he waited. He looked over at his squire Patsy who currently had his finger up his nose at least one knuckle deep, rooting around for who knows what. Jaggi shuddered, "There's something wrong with that boy" he thought.

Jaggi had hired a squire or two in the past to help out on his many conquests and exploits, but as the pay was very poor and the job description bordered on the obscene, it was very difficult to find a good squire these days. Jaggi hoped that Patsy would at least be better than the last squire, who had unfortunately ended up getting eaten alive by a fully grown dragon. He had had to fill out a mountain of paperwork with the squires guild explaining what had happened with that fiasco.

In hind sight, it had probably been a bad idea for Jaggi to use the squire as bait in order to lure the dragon into a trap he had constructed. Jaggi was sure his trap would work. But unfortunately as the dragon had ended up being twice as large as the trap Jaggi had constructed, his unfortunate squire had met a rather nasty and gruesome end.

"What was that squires name again?" Jaggi thought to himself. "Reginald? Or Roland or something?" He couldn't quite remember.

Then there was that other squire he had hired forever ago, who had unfortunately had a run in with a rather nasty tempered witch, and had gotten himself turned into a newt. Fortunately the squire had gotten better, but the potion Jaggi had had to purchase in order to transform his squire back into a squire was not covered by his insurance, and had ended up costing Jaggi an arm and a leg. Upon being transformed into his old self, the squire had left their quest abruptly and gone straight back to his job delivering pizzas.

After a few more moments of awkward silent waiting on the porch, Ashley finally emerged in her questing gear. "Ok lets do this" she said as she walked out on to the porch, hefting her ruck sack over her shoulder and carrying her overly large broadsword. "Hayley, we'll be back in a few days, gotta go rescue Amy again" she yelled back into the house. Jaggi thought he heard Hayley say something snarky in return but couldn't make out quite what, and as Ashley turned back around she had the look of a child who knew they were in trouble for something.

"Eeeek. Remind me to bring back something super nice for Hayley this time" Ashley said. "I'm totally in the dog house right now".

As Ashley and Jaggi walked off the porch and headed to the horses, Ashley asked "You got everything we need this time, right? Last time we were missing like half the items we were requested to provide and it took us like 3 extra days to track everything down. Remember how hard it was to find blackroot this time of year? Oh and don't even get me started on the Possum spleen, that was just the worst. I am NOT digging out a spleen ever again, my left hand still stinks!!"

For their last quest, they had decided to try their hand at answering a body guard want ad they had seen on Facebook marketplace, and had ended up escorting a warlock across a hazardous forest while they helped him gather ingredients for some sort of evil potion he was concocting. They had both thought it best to not ask too many questions on that particular quest, and had both agreed that was their last time answering an ad.

"Yes, yes, I've got everything this time," he said assuredly at first, but continued on hesitantly, "I mean. Probably. Like, we should still stop at the old crones hut on the edge of town to find out if we're missing anything. I went on a quest once without consulting her first and it was an absolute train wreck!"

"Yeah, probably a good idea. She is just so creepy though!" She said as she shivered. "And I swear last time she tried to grab my butt!" She said as she shuddered.

"Well, we all have to make necessary sacrifices unfortunately. But to make up for it, I brought a little extra coinage if you'd like to stop at the tavern for a spot of ale. My treat. Who knows, there may even be salty wenches there." Jaggi said temptingly. He knew exactly how to get Ashley excited to head out on a quest, especially if there was the possibility of tavern trips with wenches.

"Yes, lets go" Ashley said excitedly.

As they began to mount the horses, Jaggi noticed Patsy typing something on the Gabb child watch on his wrist. Patsy eyeballed them warily and finally gained enough courage to speak up for the first time. "Ummm. Guys. My mom wants to know when we think we'll be done by" he said annoyingly and in a bit of a nasally voice. "There's a new episode of Battle Star Galactica coming out tonight too that I don't want to miss".

Ashley looked around at Patsy disapprovingly and said in a haughty voice, "There's really no way of knowing with these things Patsy, it could be a day, it could be a week. One never really knows what will come up when one is questing like this".

Patsy looked worried as he awkwardly mounted his pony. As they all rode off down the street to begin their quest, all of the neighbors were either staring at them, pulling their cell phones out to take a picture, or waiving them goodbye and wishing them luck. Old Mr. Gunderson gave them the bird, and turned away and started moving his lawn again.

It was going to be a good quest.