Quests are not handed to you by a board or a pop-up. Somebody in the world wants something doing, and you have to go and talk to them.
Find somebody who is asking
Walk up to a person on the map and right click them, or hold your thumb on them if you are on a phone. If they have something to ask of you it will be in the menu that opens. If they do not, nothing opens, which is its own answer.
The first one is Rennick the woodcutter, north-west of Aeven's gate, standing by his stack. He has crows in it.
Take it, then follow it
Once you accept, the current step sits quietly in the top corner of the screen: what you are doing, and how far through it you are. One step at a time, so you are never reading a list.
A line of markers points across the ground toward wherever the step wants you to go. If you would rather find things yourself, turn the trail off in the settings and the words in the journal will still tell you where to look.
Press J for the journal: everything you have taken on, what is left of each one, what it paid, and everything you have already finished.
Crows on the Roost, start to finish
- Ask a guard about the crows. Warden Aleth and Guildmaster Sevrin both stand on Aeven's main street, a few tiles either side of where you arrived. Right click either one.
- Thin the roost out. The crows keep to the open ground west of the street. Three of them will do.
- Go back and tell Rennick. He is where you left him, by the stack.
He pays in experience and in coin, and the coin matters: it is the first money most characters ever see, and there are things in town worth saving it for.
If you change your mind
Abandon a quest from the journal and go and do something else. Coming back to it later costs you nothing.
Next: your first dungeon, which is the same idea with a door in it and worse things behind that.