Randal

Randal heard what both of the ladies behind him had said and instinctively looked up at Larbrook for help but it would appear that either the NPC was making the wisest decision to stay out of it all together or that he was not able to respond to cues outside of those related to the quest.

“Yea, I like the both of you, wouldn’t have invited the two of you if I could not stand you. To me, you’re both like a breath of fresh air,” Randal smiled gently hiding the truth well as he spoke in half-truths, “Ivory, you’re direct and remain optimistic even in bad situations while Hakai, you’re direct in a different way, you do not mince your words and say what you mean, which is better than being a kind of politician and beating around the bush,” Randal said, speaking like a politician.

We should encounter the minotaur soon though, there have been traces of its presence.

4/5

Once Randal saw that Zero had taken his request to heart and was moving to put himself between the hatchlings and the oncoming battle, Randal moved out towards Carsar.

“Rats! In my cave? Time for you to die.” Carsar slammed the ground where Randal had been standing just a few moment before as Randal ran to put himself in opposite Zero with Carsar in the middle. He was running to a place that would make it the hardest for Carsar to spot anything wrong or that there was someone else with Randal in the cave.

Randal planned to meet Zero at the other side, putting them both between Carsar and the hatchlings, but Carsar moved his body to put himself between Randal and the hatchlings,

Seeing as how he was not going to be able to outrun a dragon in his own cave, Randal abruptly jerked his body and changed directions, heading straight for Carsar and delivering several sharp cuts towards the more vulnerable lower body pf the dragon.

“Fuzziel is ALIVE! You will never get her love now!” Randal bellowed causing Carsar to flinch. She was alive, but she was badly injured, I have to help her! Carsar thought to himself. Looking up and preparing to take flight, Randal delivered three sharp cuts to Carsar’s neck.

Combat encounter
Randal Crits BD 10 | [-12 EN] | Shredder 14x(20+2)= 308 DMG - 40 MIT = 268 DMG
After taking 200 DMG+, Carsar takes flight, gains +2 EVA | Less than 100 HP left, lose 3 ACC
Carsar misses BD 1
Carsar Misses BD 1
Carsar Misses BD 6-5-3=-2

Randal Info Updated
HP 480/480 | Energy 52/66 | Damage 18 (+2 SA) | MIT 20 | ACC 3 | EVA 4 + 1 | LD 6 |
Cooldowns: Dance Macabre [3/3] | Shredder [3/2]

Carsar info
HP 82/350 | Damage 65 | MIT 40 | 2 EVA | -3 ACC
Aerial Combat Used

Randal was fast asleep in the stable, Nemo knew this well, there was little that Nemo did not know was happening when it occurred inside the castle, he merely feigned ignorance most of the time because it was of no concern to him until they tried to leave. Nemo peered into the stable to look at the freeloader with his own eyes. Randal had been busy today, trying to uncover the truth about Nemo’s identity. Beyond his interference in Nemo’s job, Nemo quite enjoyed the man’s presence at the moment. Nemo decided that the next day, he would try to get to know Randal a bit better and improve their relationship if Randal continued to stay with him, they might as well do so on better terms.

Closing the stable doors, Nemo too retired to bed inside the castle, and inwardly decided to prepare a room for Randal. There were so many rooms that belonged to so many people and Nemo would remove the name of the player who had not come in the longest time and give it to Randal.

Randal arranged his sleeping bag atop some of the hay that he had found laying around in the corner of the stable and found that it was much comfier than resting his whole body on the ground. Randal was the kind of person that should he see nothing wrong with doing something, and that things would improve his quality of life while taking up only a little energy to arrange, he definitely would want to get it done because that was something that he could not replace while in the game, his comfort.

Randal rested his head on the sleeping back and felt the hay cushion his body, slowly lulling him to sleep. He started at the ceiling for awhile and wished that the nights did not always feel so lonely. It was a far cry from what he was used to beyond the game but was something that he resigned himself to for quite sometime now.

Randal settled his typically frantic mind in order to sort through the clutter of things that he needed tog et done and finally decided that the first thing on his list has to be the fact that he did not have a place to sleep. He could head into the castle but based on the information that he had gathered since yesterday, the castle itself belonged to Nemo’s master and that would make it not a place for Randal to rest his head. After all, what if by doing so, he activated another fight with Nemo. Randal certainly did not want to risk something like that without any back up if he could avoid it.

In order to look for a place to sleep, Randal need to find somewhere which was quiet and comfortable to lay out his sleeping bag. Randal scoured the area for a good 15 minutes and decided to rest his head outside the castle, along the wall. There was a small stable like area with no horses. It was sheltered and would be a good place to sleep away from the rest of the Garden and its inhabitants.

Randal finds 4 Mats

Picking up his pace in order to catch up to Nemo, Randal ran around the corner to where he last saw Nemo but found that the gardener had disappeared. It would appear that Randal would only be able to answer his questions another time. As such, he looked around at a loss, he wasn’t here to do anything in particular except to gather for materials and had somehow ended up helping another player from Nemo the Garden Dragon? Right now, Randal was feeling tired from the battle and a little proud that he had done much better than before. He wondered if he would see Skylark somewhere outside the Garden.

The battle had taken quite sometime in between running around the garden chasing after Nemo who had been pretty viciously chasing after his target Skylark. The hot afternoon air was transitioning into a cool evening breeze and there was a signs of night coming. Randal decided to leave any further gathering to tomorrow.

A polite bow was presented to Randal as Skylark used the blue crystal to safely leave the Garden. Randal was familiar with the speed at which Skylark was running from this place. Randal himself would not have come back if there was a chance that Nemo would attack him again but he was fortunate of several counts.

First, he was already a lot stronger than he was before when he almost died to Nemo, and, secondly, it was established that he could come back safely and not have to face the wrath of Nemo once again.

Randal decided that the next thing he could do is to catch up to Nemo and see if there was anything that needed to be done, he figured that if Nemo was in a bad mood then his time here would probably go a lot slower as well. Time passed quickly if you’re having fun but if the people around started to sulk or be sullen then it would be painful to have to spend a lot of time around them while they are liked that.

They both stood and watched as from a huge green dragon, the figure reduced in size until all that remained was a man, the same man that Randal had been warming up to earlier and the same man that was upset with what Skylark was doing.

Nemo staggered to his feet, clutching his breath while staring at Randal. Nemo was upset, twice now had he been denied a kill that was rightfully his and twice now was he forced to accept an outcome that he personally disagreed with.

Nemo huffed and puffed and walked away sullenly, but before leaving the area, he tossed a crystal to Skylark. That crystal was proof that the battle was concluded. Skylark feeling his relief wash over him turned to Randal and thanked him profusely for his help. It had seemed that the lesson really was a sticking point to Skylark, he would definitely change his attitude in the future and not act so haughtily in front of others.

Nemo eventually realised that he would not be able to take on the both of them in this manner and decided to come back to the ground to resume fighting. The fact that he gave up was a sign of encouragement for both Randal and Skylark because they were not too badly damaged and had managed to bring Nemo’s health down to half, so all they had to do now was to keep up the good work and continue whitling away at the Dragon’s health.

They continued the back and forth battle, with Randal mainly acting in the role of the damage dealer and Skylark acting in place of the tank, they made an impromptu team and managed to get Nemo’s health down into the read and into the final few hit points. At this point, Randal stopped attacking the Dragon and held Skylark back, Nemo was getting smaller, his dragon form had been defeated and now he was going to transition into his human form.

Their teamwork came together despite their differences and were evidently making a bigger impact than they had imagined, Nemo had his health whittled down to below half health and then he took flight. He flapped his green scaled wings and lifted his humongous body into the air and flew around the duo. Threatening to divebomb the party.

Nemo circled the air a few times, swopping low to the ground while extending his claws to sweep the earth, as if to pick up either to the two to lift them up and drop them from a higher elevation, fortunately, Randal and Skylark were able to keep even closer to the ground and avoid all the swiped by rolling back and forth around the meadow. The claws would stir up a gust of wind every time Nemo came down for an attack, Randal and Skylark had to constantly be on the move to mess with Nemo’s aim and avoid damage.

The green dragon was furious at Randal for his constant interference, but Skylark was not giving Nemo space to deal with Randal first. The fight was difficult at first, each trying to accomplish their own reasons but slowly the battle changed.

Randal and Skylark soon began to work together, Randal never had any real or deep grudge or animosity with the man and Skylark soon saw this his initial suspicions that Randal was helping him to dig his grave turned out to wholly incorrect and was merely his unique tactic to get the most out of his encounter with the Dragon which had not initially considered Randal as the main target. Randal managed to maintain Nemo’s hate by exaggerating the things the Skylark had said and done all the while pelting Nemo with damage. The dragon desperately wanted to get rid of Skylark because of the way he acted and the things that he had done while in the Garden of Eden.

Randal finds 4 Mats

Skylark was a professional tank (He worked for a sub-guild under one of the major guilds and was the main tanker there, often supplementing for tanking roles whenever the other person was unavailable) and had shown himself capable of mitigating most of the damage that Nemo did to him, even if it were a decent amount of damage, it looked like the worst that could happen any time soon was to be stunned. Randal got up steadily balanced himself before heading straight towards the green dragon which was pounding relentlessly on Skylark’s shield. Randal jumped into the fray to take advantage of the tunnel visioned dragon and dealt strong attacks and light attacks with such masterful movements that the green dragon was about to change targets to focus on keeping Randal out of the fight. As it was about to turn and face Randal, Skylark let out a loud howl and brought Nemo’s attention back on himself.

Skylark packed up what he had on him and was trying to make a getaway as far as possible from the dragon and Randal before either of them realised that he had escaped. He ran and ran and soon realised that there was no focus on him as Randal was actually fighting the green dragon. Maybe Skylark had misjudged the situation once more.

Skylark inched closer and closer to the fight to find out what was happened and while the dragon constantly tried to get away from Randal, Randal was successfully pinning it down and preventing it from running away. Thinking that he was right, Skylark wanted to help Randal and maybe defeat the green dragon. As such he got closer, all this was good until the dragon laid eyes on Skylark and flapped its wings, pushing Randal away and leaping onto Skylark, looking more upset than ever before. Skylark was not going to be taken by surprise this time and parried the dragons blows one after another, he was not dealing a lot of damage but was tanking a lot of hits. Randal shook the dust out of his hair from the wind blowing him back against the wall and saw that Skylark had come to and was battling the dragon head on.

Randal finds 4 Mats

Speaking of whom, Slylark managed to pull his way from the wreckage of his own body and crater that it caused upon collision with the wall. He was surprised to see Randal helping him and felt thankful to the bottom of his heart. The person that he had been mocking this whole time was actually taking the time to help him instead of leaving him to die. Moreover, it was the same person that he had accused lying too.

The gratification that Skylark felt towards Randal quickly diminished after he heard word after word of what Randal was saying to the green dragon. This guy was not trying to help him, Skylark thought to himself, he was trying to get him killed by enraging the dragon even more and giving him a quick execution for all the things that Skylark had said to him. Skylark at that moment was angered and felt that Randal did not need to go that far to teach him a lesson as to kill him with the help of a dragon.

Day 32 (53 exp)

Randal used attempted 8 crafts and failed 3 times. (24 exp from ATP and CAT)
He managed to salvage 2 of the failures, using up 6 materials in total. (5 exp)
He made 5 Meals.

3 T1E1 Meal (9 exp)
3 T1E2 Meal (15 exp)
0 T1E3 Meal (0 exp)

“There were so many flower in bloom before Skylark trampled over them with his weight.”

“He said that whoever takes care of this garden may be blind and stupid, blind for his flower looked like crap and stupid for he could not keep a simple garden well-kept and tidy.”

Randal continued to taunt the dragon in any way that he could think of from putting words that Skylark had never said into his mouth to making up stories about how he really destroyed all of Nemo’s handwork in the short time span that he was here.

This really got on Nemo’s nerves and ensured that Randal would be able to escape from the claws and jaws of the dragon without losing his life in the process. He had to recall peppering some salt onto the dragon’s wounds every time he took a swing at the dragon in order to force the hate back onto Skylark.

Randal finds 3 Mat

“I believe I’m not the same person I was when I lost to you the first time, do not underestimate me.” Randal shouted back. He truly was a changed man, wielding his claws on both hands. He had upgraded his equipment and revamped his way of thinking to increase the way he could use his weapons.

“You are a fool; I’ll take your life as the price of your foolishness. Face my true wrath.” Randal was hit by a torrential outcry from Nemo, however, unlike the last time when he had to retreat and run as far as he could, he was not the main target of Nemo and would not actually incur the full wrath of Nemo as all he had to do was keep the aggro on Skylark and himself would be free from being at the brunt and mercy of the dragon.

“Skylark mentioned that he killed over 100 monsters from your garden earlier today.”'

Randal finds 2 Mats

Randal decided that it was no longer a choice in that he had to do all that he could to save Skylark because despite his pompous and arrogant attitude, he was just foolish and not malicious in any way. He did not attempt to attack Randal when he decided that Randal was presumably weaker than him. He did not deserve to die just because he was insufferable. Although this might just be the lesson that he needed to learn to become a better person though.

Randal jumped from the tree that he was hiding in and ran as fast as he could to help Skylark.  His presence surprised and annoyed Nemo in his dragon form.

“If you chose to interfere, then you shall learn the lesson that you were saved from the other day. Fight me!” Nemo swiped at Randal who managed to jump back far enough to avoid the attack and the assault of attacks that followed soon after.

“You dare to leave my Garden as and when you please? You will pay for your insolence and lack of respect towards the garden and myself.” Nemo bellowed at Skylark furiously. The young men though a little weak in the knees was still a regular player of the tower Aincrad and managed to break past the bloodthirst that was emitted by the dragon. He pulled out his one-handed mace and wielded it in his left hand while holding a tower shield in the right. The guy was left-handed. He managed to get a good hit into Nemo’s face before the dragon wiped at him and left him hurtling towards a few bushes, creating a moment’s pause in the fight.

Randal was thinking in hyper-drive, all his brain functions were actually running to save the man from dying here. Contrary to the attitude he was showing the man earlier, there was no reason to let another play die in the death game, Randal needed to intervene, and he had been training since his last defeat from Nemo, if he were to intervene again, he could probably work together with Skylark to defeat Nemo.

Randal finds 4 Mats

“Erm, I am going to excuse myself…” Randal said quickly and jumped over the fencing of the railing that surrounded the shelter and watched as Nemo began to undergo his transformation.

Splintering wood flew up from the site of Nemo’s transformation, his growing body lifting and breaking apart the shelter that they were just enjoying tea at not too long ago. Randal watched as the colour drained from Skylark’s face. First of all, he definitely did not expect that the dragon Randal was hyping up about what actually real, and he definitely did not take Randal’s words in mind and had indiscriminately killed a lot of monsters in the Garden and cause a lot of pain to the inhabitants within the garden. This caused any potential mercy that Nemo would have otherwise shown the now blubbering fool was gone in a flash. Skylark ran around just like Randal did the first time that he tried leaving the garden, but Skylark did not have as much evasion as Randal did, of course he also took less damage because of his heavy armour.

Randal finds 3 Mats

Before they both realised, they had spent all afternoon chatting and the sun was about to go down low. A voice chimed up between the two of them. It was Skylark, he was going to leave them and had come to see if what Randal had said was true, if there was going to be a big bad dragon that would punish him for all that he had done. Skylark, came to the shelter in a mess, he was not the same clean person he was when he arrived, his armour looking dishevelled like have gone through difficult battles and traces of blood could be said to remain on his face. “I’m leaving now anything that you are going to do about that?” He said mockingly to Nemo and Randal. He had probably done so in such a tone only because Randal had told him that Nemo could turn into a dragon of some kind.

Randal finds 4 Mats

Randal listened to every word that was spoken by Nemo like it was diamonds and gold, he knew that the secrets surrounding the Garden were numerous and he was excited to get to the bottom of at least one secret today. For him to do so, he needed to listen attentively to all that Nemo had to say because they were all precious hints about the true nature of the Garden and what it truly represents. According to what he had heard from Nemo himself, there was someone who in charge of Nemo, someone who was stronger than Nemo, just like the guy who saved Randal. As explained as well, this estate was someone’s house, they owned the land and Nemo was merely the protector of it. This meant that there was someone else that he needed to find and discover, maybe there was a way to access the memory inside the castle. From there Randal, continued to listen to Nemo but at the same time tried to steer the conversation, but all this came to a head.

“The man who defeated me decided to make me the guardian of this land, that meant forcing me to slave away protecting the land from all sorts of invaders that tried to harm the land. The man used to come over quite often but for a period of time, there was no one, not a single soul graced the place with their presence, at the time, there was only the castle back there that was built by a dwarf.” The miserable plight of the situation that Nemo had to undergo seeped out from his words in a palpable anguish from the memory.

“Up to a point, I was in so much emotional pain from being alone, and the solidarity was driving me crazy, even if dragons are considered isolationists, it was too lonely here, there wasn’t even any villages to burn and pillage as traditional humans seem to believe that dragons did.” “I decided that I did not want to live like that any longer and used my powers as a dragon to shapeshift into another form. A form that was more suitable for the type of life that Nemo was expected to live and eventually the magic settle on this form that you are looking at right now. I was still alone though, so I started to find other ways or attracting people into the Garden, I spread rumours about a treasure horde nearby, who does not love a treasure horde.” Nemo said excitedly, showing off his body and explaining his rationale for certain decisions that he had made while within the garden. “From there, I had people to come in and pay attention to me, they were always so excited by the promise of treasure. Soon, Nemo began growing precious herbs and plants, from the kills that Nemo made over the years, he scattered the equipment inside the ground and inside hidden compartments all over the estate.”

Randal was put to work for quite a long period of time, the first few minutes repeated until it became a collection of hours. Eventually, when they were finally done with the whole backyard, Nemo deigned to ask Randal to partake in some tea, leading him to a shelter in the middle of the Garden. There they had a view over the surrounding area inside the garden and was able to monitor the general ongoings of the things happening inside the castle. From here, Nemo told Randal about his history and about his background.

“I used to think that I was the strongest being, for a while that must have been true, most of the creature that I came across were much weaker than me, after awhile it got boring to be so strong. Maybe you are aware of this but us dragons actually are submissive towards those that show they are stronger than us.”  Nemo said longingly, as if a small part of him missed being dominated and shown up by another. Describing the way that he became the keeper of the Garden of Eden, an extremely strong entity had defeated Nemo and forced him to guard his home for as long as he lived.

Randal around to where Nemo was and took the next hour just observing him. Nemo did not actively avoid Randal and struck up some conversations from time to time, making small talk. Randal felt like Nemo would not be trying to create small talk with him if there was chance of being betrayed but that was what happened in the first place, which left Randal quite conflicted. One thing was for sure though, the other player was doing much more killing in the Garden then Randal had been doing and every time his sword slashed down at an enemy, Nemo would get more and more agitated.

Before Nemo was too angry, Randal asked Nemo to tell him about the history of the house. Taking some time to contemplate, Nemo asked that Randal helped him pick out some weeds while he thought about how to explain the complete history of the area.

Randal finds 3 Mats