Day Four Addendum: The Quest for For (Four) Fish

Before bed, I fired up Conan one more time, and took on an additional quest. I went back to where I'd found the tailor and blacksmith who'd given me the dead-simple quests. There was a fisherman, and he was starving to death. He'd been chased away from his fishing gear and catch by pirates. His quest?

Bring him four fish, so he could eat.

I had food on me. Specically, bananas, dead rats, and a piece of carrot cake(?!). The game did not provide the option of giving him food, or money to buy food. He didn't ask me to retrieve his fishing rod, or his nets. He wanted me to go to a basket of fish he'd abandoned days ago, and bring back four of them.

I agreed to this rather short-sighted request, and ambled over to the lighthouse. There, I was horribly slaughtered by the band of 10th level Pirates who were guarding the fish. Maybe they had another reason for being there, but they were also attacking me for approaching the fish.


I came back and tried to sneak up on the basket of fish, using an Apocalypse Now-style approach, and sneaking up under the docks. I crouched low and hugged shadows, and came in sight of the fish... and got shot dead by a dozen arrows. At that point, I decided the fisherman could just jolly well starve to death.

Also, consider the moral implications. He wanted me to go and kill six or seven men, in order that he could have breakfast. I suspect the fisherman was actually evil. I should go back and preach at him. Seriously, though, if that scenario arose in a tabletop RPG, players would walk away from the game