Randal

Well, rejection was always an awkward thing and Randal was sure that Ivory just misunderstood his unusual comfort with her for affection, and she probably was not wrong, Randal might have developed a small crush in the few hours than he had known her. Nonetheless, he was nothing if not cool and said,

“Yes, and when you come by next, you will not be alone, we are going to hunt down this familiar and get it done. I do not mind having to scour a few more of these areas. I heard there was somewhere called the Temple of Three, do you happen to know where that is?”

Quickly munching away at his meal and getting up. Randal was ready for a change of pace and began looking around. A small ways away, Randal spotted a few NPCs climbing up the mountain, glancing up, he saw that they were headed towards a small hut, hidden between a few rocks. Probably a lounge of some sort for travellers.

“What do you want to do now? Temple or talk to those NPCs, see if there’s anything you can learn about the familiar.”

Randal finds 1 Mat

Randal was not sure which direction was up at any given moment while within the torrential waterfall. The constant weight of water beating down on his shoulders were concussive and left Randal with a rocking headache, Randal did not manage to find any of the inner peace that the Master was touting but definitely found the brain space to actually compare this to waterboarding, a torture technique used during the war on spies to make them think they are drowning even thought they were not. While there was no cloth draped over his face and no one was shouting at Randal to give up any military secrets, he found it had to calm down. There was still so much to do so what was he doing getting attacked by the inanimate flowing water. This was truly an incredibly dull and painful experience, more so than the day it had taken for him to wear down the boulder they first time around.

Natural LD : 10 (Total damage bonus +4)

The dance was not a fast one, Randal and Ivory took each other in their arms and took small steps in a circular motion, every step tracing a footprint in the snow, the song of the mountains, how many could say that they have heard it, much less danced to it. When the wind finally died down, Randal looked at Ivory. “Not bad right? Won’t you dance with me more often. If we ever find ourself in a similar situation, let’s dance again.” Randal laughed at the idea that just left his mouth. The sun was only not making it’s was past its zenith and was hurtling towards the horizon. Randal pulled out some packed lunches from his inventory. “I made a few extra just in case, would you like one? Inside is a burrata cheese filled crispy katsu with rice and seasoned meat. Just something I was fiddling with earlier” Randal also handed her a ticket for a free meal at his Food shop in Horunka Village.

Randal finds 1 Mat
LD: 13+6 = 19

Day 21 (59 exp) (Accidentally sent 8 materials to banker, will send 1 less next day)

The special ingredient of the day was bananas, Randal had yet to see the yellowy skinned fruit hanging around on any trees recently but he hoped that he could use today to get the flavour profile back on.

Randal used attempted 8 crafts and failed 3 times.
He managed to salvage 1 of the failures, using up 7 materials in total. (13 exp)
He made 5 Meals.

2 T1E2 Meal (16 exp)
2 T2E2 Meal (8 exp)
2 T2E3 Meal (22 exp)

“You are completely right, it is no time to be living with regrets, I should do the things I want.” He took the material from her and placed on his chest as if to treasure it. The warmth of her hand on his leg made Randal feel a little sheepish, it had been awhile since physical contact with someone was not the result of battle and fighting. He jumped to his feet and flashed a grin at Ivory. “Come on, stand up for a moment and dance with me. It’s a beautiful view and there is no reason to waste it on just sitting and moping. My family used to dance at every occasion, on birthdays, weddings, even funerals. Would you grace me with the pleasure?” Randal reached out his hand. The snow crunched under his weight and he twirled for Ivory to see. The wind whistled a song that was unique to the 7^th floor, as every mountain cut and sliced the wind, different streams of air sounded like a ballad of love and loss. Many a time Randal had held back from fully expressing himself, but he felt like she would understand, or if she did not, then she would at least humor him.

Randal finds 1 Mat
LD: 8+6 = 14

Randal had yet to get over his terrible feeling when Ivory suddenly sat down on a rock nearby, she looked at him, beckoning for him to come join her. In that moment, all the noisy competing thoughts in Randal’s mind died down, his ominous feeling and potentially fatal fate changed by her presence. He sat down close to her, maybe closer than they had ever been and just soaked in the peace that she seemed to carry with her. Upon hearing what she asked, Randal simply replied, “The frontlines are a million and one miles away from us right now, but that has always been the goal, its just the fear of dying that gets in the way, the fear that your next mission might be your last and that you will never able to come back from an experience like that. I want to help them too and we can do that together.” Truth be told, Randal was scared. In fact, the thought of death and the pain of loss was debilitating in his mind but he felt the need to contribute probably just as much as Ivory did. “Even if they don’t need us up there, we are going to be indispensable to them, all our effort now is to endeavour to something higher. Just like that bird flying up there.” He said, pointing up into the sky, a bird of some sort was making it rounds across the sky.

Randal finds 1 Mat

The disciple that Master Yun Xiang has sent to wait for Melissa at the bank. Yep, that was Randal, you see, there were no permanent disciples at the Dojo and most who had already graduated deigned it too torturous to come back. Unfortunately, Randal did and being sent on errand runs by his master was a part of the process. Anyway, they did not have to move from this spot, after all, Master Yun Xiang had informed him that the next task was here. This was just as new as asking Randal work on his fitness, something that the Master completely skipped over the first time he was here. Must be the update that caused all these changes, Randal greeted Melissa as she came on shore. “Do not worry, at least you are soaked in nice clean water.” As he picked up a towel hanging from his waist and squeezed it, showing her a copious amount of sweat. “We are the ones that are nasty, haha. See here comes Aru.” Randal said, pointing at the party leader who was walking up with the Master.

Wasting no time, the Master sorted them quickly into a row and told them to sit under the waterfall and meditate. Yes, the waterfall that seemed to be pouring from the sky, the water was so rough that Randal thought he might go unconscious from the pain or the burden.

Natural LD : 7 (Total damage bonus +4)

That is definitely true, Randal was pleased to have a companion now and it was a pleasant feeling. “I actually don’t know that many players, I had been cooped up on the lower floors for quite some time. You see this peak over here? I only decided to come over when I heard that there was supposed to be easter egg, but no other player had ever found it before.” At this time, the sun was high in the sky and when the sun reached its highest point, the ground beneath them started to tremble, an ominous feeling washed over Randal, he was starting to be uncertain over his initial task of tackling the field boss. There was no reason to risk his and his new friends’ life. He could only hope that his decision to give up would not be seen as cowardice, but something told him that he could be better prepared for a battle. As a cook, he knew this to be empirically true.

Randal finds 1 Mat

Nemo was again caught by surprise when its plan of tiring out the prey but forcing it to run back and forth backfired, causing it to take damage once again, this time on the underside of his precious belly, dragons were unique in that on their underside was not naked skin unprotected by scales by some fuzzy fur. Fur in which they took great pride in grooming probably cause if Randal was in the right mind to smell it, it smelled good. Regardless, of its smell however, the enraged Nemo stepped slightly off the side of the path and opened the entrance to the castle once again. Allowing for Randal to slip past him once more and enter the relative safety of the castle. The dragon carried on thrashing at the door until the noises stopped and it left. Though the lack of sounds made Randal sure that Nemo was waiting somewhere to pounce on him.

His antics gave him some leeway to plan his next attack, Randal, who recognized a pattern in what the dragon was doing ran towards the castle again, expecting Nemo to stand in his way once more. Once the dragon landed, however, Randal did not turn tail and repeat the same pattern but stepped around the dragon’s side and stabbed into the softer underbelly of the dragon. According to the legends, all dragons had extremely hard scales around their body except on their underside. This rang true as he managed to jab and stab into the Dragon’s body, not gaining much as a result but reducing its health to slight above half. There was barely anytime to do anything else as the dragon hunkered down and almost crushed the comparatively tiny Randal under its weight. Randal saw the minute shift in weight and cut it close when he jumped away and safely landed beside the dragon’s attack.

Fortunately, Randal was playing the fight as safe as he could without running away and giving up all his loot and had been prepared to run away right as his tactic had worked. He attempt to flee back into the castle but the semi-blinded Nemo was not going to let its prey escape again, quickly manovering itself to block the entrace to the castle, Randal was frustrated, without using his brain, he was unlikely to succeed in this battle. He continued to escape from Nemo, gaining a meagre amount of distance from Nemo which was quickly dashed as soon as Nemo recovered its sight and pounced at Randal. Fortunately, a dodge left the pounce missing its mark but leaving Randal in no better position than he was before the dodge. Randal was this close to pulling his hair out as Nemo gave him no time to recollect his wits, leaping above Randal and blocking his path every time he tried to leave the vicinity to gain some time.

Randal climbed into the castle to hide from the dragon and finally caught a moment’s respite as it could not get in through the front door. Randal was trapped and the dragon was raging even more furiously than before. Randal had to do something, after searching around the castle for a while, Randal found a window that was right about above Nemo’s head. Risking it all, Randal leapt from the window and plummet towards Nemo, finally unleashing his Sword Art mid-air and stabbing Nemo’s vitals, although dragon probably contained a different anatomy from the regular human bandits Randal faced, he still managed to aim for the softer organs like the eyes and nose, dealing almost a fifth of damage thanks to his skills and ingenuity. Nemo never expected Randal to come back out so soon and was enraged when he was suddenly blinded for a moment, attacking recklessly in Randal’s general direction.

Nemo’s final form was magnificent and horrifying at the same time, Randal realised he was sorely unprepared for this battle as soon as Nemo yelled a terrifying roar and swiped at Randal. All the ferocious swings rang too close to home as Randal dodged away and rolled away in a hurried bid to avoid dying. Randal sidestepped and tried to go close to Nemo, his new form was that of a dragon and his large body had difficulty dealing with enemies that were too close to him. However, Randal could barely damage Nemo with regular hits, his punches and kicks seemingly bouncing of the hide. It was difficult to dodge all the oncoming attacks, so he ran off and took cover. Some small level of fatigue setting in. Randal took off away from the dragon and began lurking around the corners, but Nemo was no fool and quickly caught and begun chasing its prey.

Now it was about time for Randal to call it a day and went to say goodbye to Nemo, he had been the one to show Randal this lovely place and was very amicable all the time when Randal was going around, so he held a lot of gratitude for the young man. However, what actually ended up happening was Nemo went freaking berserk, he pushes Randal to some weak effect and begins to crouch down, shaking vigorously as he grows larger and larger, his skin peeling back to reveal green scales, his head elongating and morphing into something much sharper. Wings burst from his back in a cry. All the animals and wildlife begin to flee from the cancel, disappearing in moments. Randal saw that Nemo’s name and health bar changed and grew exponentially larger. Something in his mind clicked about the different pieces of information that he had. This was the dungeon and Nemo was the NPC, there was barely anything else located at the edge of the floor and all the treasure he found warranted calling this place a special dungeon.

Before Randal ever got close enough to the water to grab a seat and have some lunch, he had to circumnavigate around the flower because of what Nemo said, some of these flowers were actually Snapdragon and although they were small in size, their ferocious teeth could actually tear through the armour that normal adventurers wear, much less the flimsy piece of cloth that Randal called armour. This made him a little scared because they acted dangerously, pretending to be a cute little flower before snapping at those that disturb its rest. It acted like a baby that would be an absolute nightmare to deal with. Unfortunately, for the Snapdragon, they resided near the water and dragonflies buzzing around would never let it sleep in peace. Unfortunately for the dragonflies, the Snapdragon would not let them live in peace. That is to say that they would pay the price of life and be killed for its insolence.

Randal finds 4 Mat

The mossy wolf soon left the area to do its own thing. Randal watched as the strong creature walked away. On its mossy body must have been a variety of pollen that had the fortune of being picked up by the Mossy Wolf even though it was on accident. They were certainly doing an amazing job for the environment, and this eliminated the need for bees which was a relief because even though mossy wolves were scarier individually, there were still individuals, having to deal with an entire hive of bees just to acquire some flowers was a task better left to those who were not fearful and trained to be beekeepers. Here Randal was trained to fight if he needed to but definitely would lose out to a swarm of bees compared to a Mossy wolf. Randal picked Pebbles up and showed him the view of the world from a different perspective and his slime-like familiar rolled back and forth to see all around itself.

Randal finds  3 Mats
LD: 12 + 6 = 18

Randal was taking a break from all of the gathering, harvesting and picking that he had done when he spotted a mossy wolf tussling with a huge tree branch. When left alone, these creatures were so similar to normal animals in the wild that they were almost mistakable for wile dogs instead of wolves. The dark green that covered their fur was easily identified to be moss but the creature itself used the moss to its advantage to camouflage itself against the green backdrop, easily concealing its presence in order to make the most of an opportunity in front of prey. There was only a few who could spot a mossy wolf when it was fully camouflaged, and they would all be wise enough to avoid confrontation with such a beast. Randal had the pleasure watching a mossy wolf while it was comfortable with its guard down which was interesting to see.

Randal gets 3 Mat
LD: 14+6 = 20

Randal thought about all the different things that he could make with the materials that were to be found all over the place. The various snacks that he made would be greatly enhanced by these random vegetables he found in the ground here, he was sure. There is a high chance that the quality of these herbs would fetch a high price in the cook’s market as well, so that was literally no reason why Randal would avoid picking them up. He considered their various uses, more so than just as an add-on to another snack that he had previously made, but instead as a centrepiece of its own. This was a marvellous idea, after all, there were not many edible flower bouquets in the entire Aincrad and maybe lovers would buy them to give to one another as food and as a gift of appreciation. Randal giggled to himself at the thought. Although it was a good idea, he also knew that he was not the best judge of his own ideas, he usually inflated their value thinking they were gone but they end up a little overrated

Randal finds 4 Mats
LD: 12+6=18 // CD: 10

Every time there was an incident or run-in with some of the more common monsters that were found around the garden, Randal would run away and leave them be, leaving that area to be tended by them. Although they all seemed quite menacing at first, they truly did not wreak havoc in the garden but lived in tandem with it. They rested peacefully among the flowers resting and eating other insects that seek to desecrate the valuable flowers. The flower nymphs would slice up oncoming enemies with their venomous claws and cause a state of paralysis in them. In this way, they would be saved up for the next time they go hungry. Kind of like making a snack and taking it to go at a drive thru. That was just what the flower nymphs did. Each of the other two mobs that were commonly found in the area contributed in their own way. The Snapdragon less so than the Mossy Wolf but in their own ways.

Randal finds 4 Mat
LD: 10 + 6 = 16 // CD: 9

Randal took Nemo’s words and advice to heart and at this moment there were no other players around the area. Taking Nemo’s request to heart not to attack the monsters if any should appear, Randal got permission from Nemo to tend to his garden. Even the weeds that grew close to the most valuable herbs were medicinal and consumable in their own right. This meant that he could pocket and use many of them in his crafting and was being of assistance to Nemo by taking them out of the ground and preventing them from sucking the nutrients away from the other plants that needed them more. By doing Nemo this service, Randal might be trusted to go into his other gardens. Eventually Randal would realise that there was never anything that would stop him from venturing all over the castle and its grounds and there was certainly a lot to see.

There were some other creatures in the vicinity that were worth nothing to Randal. There were two rare monsters that sometimes come by and cause chaos in the garden, they always appeared when Nemo was somewhere else and wreck the garden and lake. It was a Knight of Gaia which Nemo described to be a large silvery creature with extremely sharp blades for hands. The other was something called a Gilded Hand, this monster was rare not in that it randomly appears but often when trying to open one of the many treasure chests that were located with the grounds, they had been possessed by some kind of spirit that brought the object to life, they retain the spirit of treasure, unwilling to be tamed by anyone and will attempt to flee in moments of danger. This made them extremely notorious amongst other players that had come to meet Nemo.

Randal finds 4 Mats
LD 14 + 6 = 20 // CD = 10

There was a great stone wall that encapsulated the entire area and Randal was there sitting walking right into centre of the compound. There was almost any imaginable kind of facility in the area. Nemo claimed that he tended to all the plants that grew, animals that roamed and fish that swam elegantly in the waters. Randal was no fisherman but looking at the sheer number of fishes that lurked beneath the waters was a good indication that he was likely to catch something anyway. Nemo warned though, first he warned Randal of all the monsters that had learned to lurk in the shrubs, he warned of the Orchid Nymph which had paralysis dripping from her many legs, of the Snapdragons that remained still near the waters to lure unsuspecting prey nearby. There were mossy wolves that sometimes strolled in from the eastern entrance which was loosely guarded due to a lack of manpower among others. Nemo warned Randal not to provoke the beasts as they had never attacked him before and would like to maintain the peaceful atmosphere.

This was a very big deal to Randal; he really did not mind if there was a place at the edge of the floor to rest because he doubted that he would ever come back here if not for the dungeon that was somewhere in the vicinity. Anyway, it was not in Randal’s personality to focus on something else when he was at task for something. As such he out his mind at work and began asking Nemo for details to the quest that he had taken from him. Turns out that it was very simple, Randal need only come into Nemo’s garden and help him gather some materials. This was great for Randal too because he had recently completed the Gatherer profession quest line which meant that he could not earn exp for his gathering attempts.

Soon the two’s journey would come to an end, as a magnificent scene revealed itself to Randal, this place looked like a castle, an enormous palace. The outside looked so regal and well-taken care of, what about the inside?

Overall, Randal thought that Nemo as an NPC, if he were a real person, was very much like an older individual who had been left along by his children to live in a home and to tend to his own garden everyday in order to maintain some semblance of sanity. Even the things he said or the way he acted made him feel wise beyond his years. After all, he only looked to be slightly more than 20 or so, why does it sound like he had lived for an extremely long time and only recently became invested in the lifestyle of gather or fishing. He spoke of the abundance of herbs that he grew at his garden, each one a treasure in it’s own right and how if Randal could assist him by contributing some manpower to the de-weeding and maintenance of the farm, he would be free to relax at the area if he ever needed to.

The way to Nemo’s garden was not perilous by any means, in fact it was almost like walking through a budding vineyard with so many pots and plants all over the place farmed and planted with different techniques which gave the journey a very refreshing feeling. Nemo continued to regale Randal with his own stories, though not more interesting the story of how a floor labyrinth was cleared, Nemo’s advice was full of useful survival information, like what kind of plants can be eaten and which were poisonous, or even how to identify a good spot to plant seed. There was even advice on finding the right spot to fish. Nemo attribute his talkative nature to the solitary lifestyle that he led, when all you have for friends were creatures that could not conversate with you, you do tend to go a little crazy for the sound of another’s voice.