Well this is a pain…
“Sooo, what does this Narcissician look like?” Miss Nameless wonders out loud.
“White and well White…I’m not sure what it’s supposed to look like”
“White…” Thanks for the late input Thrash
Well we don’t know what it looks like but hopefully there aren’t many different types of white flowers in the area.
Seriously…why did we have to do this?
We trek around the forest for another couple of minutes until a wolf spots and agros onto us.
“Thrash” I say tiredly
He rushes out and kills the wolf in 1 hit. He’s scary strong.
Miss Nameless and I continue walking while Thrash murders the wolf reinforcements as they come.
Seriously…this is such a pain.
“I don’t understand Joat, why are we trying to find white?”
“Well you see, if we have white then we can lighten other dyes and create different tones and gradients of colour”
She looked at me as if I just spoke Chinese or something.
“Basically with white, colours look lighter”
“I got it” She sorts of get it…I hope
Thrash doesn’t even listen to the conversation…he’s too busy massacring wolves.
“but then we have to find some more colours right?”
“Yep. So far we’ve got red and green”
“Green, from where?” …well everywhere…I mean we ARE in a forest you know
“I collected some leaves”
“You can get dyes from that?”
“I hope so…but I’ve got some lilies so that should work too”
“Ok, so what other colours should we get?”
“hmm, going by the colour wheel; we should get yellow and blue”
“Colour wheel?”
“Primary and secondary colours; basically it tells you what happens when you mix colours”
“I think I’ve got it”
Wow, I honestly would have thought that since she’s kind of sheltered and all, she’d do some form of art…guess not, I wonder why.
So we continue our search for the 3 colours, well I say colours but really white is a tint…
Also we should get some black, but I think I can get that from ash, so that’s easy.
But Jenna, you’re quests are such a pain…
I wonder how everyone else is coping
…
…
(PJ’s POV)
“So Krudel…what’s the story with you and the zombie lady?” I raise my eyebrow slightly in curiosity
“Ah, we’re just friends Madam” A smooth answer, with no hesitation at all…to perfection
“Makes sense, but you’ve got to stop with the Madam, it’s too formal”
“Nonsense, a man can never be too formal with a woman” He’s definitely sharp of eye and not one to beat around the bush.
He saw right past the cute loli body I made, but I think that’s for the best…its quite tiring to be so energetic…although I’m usually like that when around Seniour…it’s good for her.
“Ah, you’re starting to sound a little bit like Joat there”
*Twitch*
“Could you please refrain from likening me to that mongrel”
“Ha! Mongrel! Wow, Baila calls him Dumbass but you’ve got quite the harsh nickname for him there…well he did steal the attention of your friend”
"Yes, and I'll give him a lesson on manners when we next meet" He says it with a sharp glint in his eyes
Joat, you seem to make quite a few enemies out of dangerous people.
Krudel…from what I’ve seen when we were working on the benches and out here in the forest, he and the ‘Princess’ are more than just friends.
And he isn’t your average person, with a look and a listen it’s obvious to most.
“So what is our colour scheme Madam?”
“Red, it goes well with pink”
“A good choice Madam, however I would recommend you go with a darker red”
“So, if my mind doesn’t fail me, we need black”
“Yes, ash will do for that”
“Good, that’s me done, now you”
“Me? No need to waste the effort”
“Krudel, we both know that your ‘friend’ won’t be happy if you aren’t properly clothed”
“True, you are very insightful Madam”
“No, I’ve just seen my fair share of people in this life”
I see him grin slightly…I think he’s making an arbitrary guess of my age and I’m guessing he’s not too far off.
“So for you, we need white”
“Hmm…” Ah, seems like he caught on, well I wouldn’t be surprised since he’s got quite the obvious outfit on. “Seeing as though we’re in a forest, the Narcissus flower might bloom around lakes or ponds”
“A pond, I think I know the place”
“Then let us make haste Madam”
He leads the way; killing off a nearby wolf with brutal efficiency…the thing didn’t even get to howl before it died.
Joat really knows how to make dangerous enemies.
…
…
(Baila’s POV)
“We’ve got to find blue, red, white, black, green, yellow, magenta, brown, blue and purple too”
…
..
.
“Big Sis, can you calm down a little bit?” I think she mentioned blue twice
“NO, we’ve only got 3 hours till night and we have to find all of these and then get back and then colour everything”
Big Sis is acting quite twitchy…mostly since we’ve just had to endure a good 10 hours of watching Joat make a cowgirl outfit for a she-zombie.
I’ve got to say, the outfit was pretty good…but I wouldn’t be caught dead in it.
Big Sis on the other hand…
“I wanted it…Why didn’t he make one for meee? I wanted to go Yeehaw”
She completely and utterly fell in love with it…or maybe she liked those sorts of clothes beforehand. Either way, she really wanted it and thus it’s been a painful 10 hours for her.
For me, these 10 hours have also been quite painful…mostly because I felt like I really didn’t have anyone to talk to. I mean I had Big Sis, but our talks weren’t as…I don’t know, exciting(?) as when I talk with Joat.
I don’t know, it’s just a lot more fun when he’s around.
God, being a whole day without him makes me feel pretty lonely.
Argh, annoying. He just had to sit down in the middle and get surrounded by others.
I just want him to be in my party and that’s it, jeez.
Well no use fretting over that, it’s long past happening.
Anyway, back to Big Sis, who is frantically stomping a wolf.
“Big Sis, don’t worry, we’ll go back, colour our clothes and then we can party up once more with Joat”
“Why’d he have to spend all day with that zombie…I. Thought. He. Liked. Me!” she stomps the wolf repeatedly to emphasize her point.
…
..
.
Well Joat…I think we’re going to have to have a talk about seducing minors…
“We’ll steal him back after this, ok?”
“Ok”
She’s calmed down somewhat…guess murdering a wolf cooled her head.
“Now that you’re calm, let’s talk colours; You go black and white, while I go white and blue”
“Ok! That sounds nice, I like black and white, they’re good together right?”
“I hear black makes women look sexier” Can’t remember who told me that…must’ve been one of the rugby boys
“Screw the white, I want full black leather”
…
..
.
Well Joat…you sure know how to get to know dangerous people…
I better try calm her down before we get back…because I don’t like how she’s acting..it makes me feel uncomfortable for some reason.
…
…
(Joat’s POV)
“Where the hell do we find Narcissicus?” I wonder out loud.
It’s been a whole hour and so far all we’ve collected is a couple of berries and leaves.
Jenna was kind enough to give us all the names of the flowers we should collect for the appropriate colour, but that was it…
Time to open up the quest page:
QUEST: Jenna's Leatherworking trainingYou have been asked to gather flowers of certain colours to be used for dyes.
You may choose whichever colours you would like to use for your leather.
Jenna has also told you the names and respective dye colours of flowers in the surrounding regions:
White-Narcissus
Red-Forest Berry
Green-Leaves
Black-Narcotine Berry
Purple-Lavender
Blue-Moondrop flower
Yellow-Fireflower
Orange-Fireflower
Thanks to Jenna, half the job is doneish…because I know that fireflower is used for Alchemy so I was going to try sneak that in as a quest item anyways.
However I don’t know where Fireflower is, nor Narcissus. Also this Narcotine berry, no point, using ash would be way easier…although that might only get grey…hmm maybe the Narcotine berry is necessary.
God, so much work…and all we’re doing is adding some colour to our clothes.
Oh wait…can I also add colours to underwear?
Because if I can…I can make my blue and yellow star pants…although no one would ever see them…but I don’t want to be wearing these horrible grey underwear forever.
Ok, add that onto the grand list of things to do.
“Awo-” A wolf almost interrupts my thought process
“Thanks Thrash”
“Thrash, you’re way stronger than Krudel” Miss Nameless pours on the compliments
“Hehe, thanks” Thrash grins and flexes his large biceps some…guess he likes compliments?
He glances at me; I’m not giving any compliments to you.
Also, this Krudel guy…I’m guessing he’s Sharpy…since I have a feeling Miss Nameless doesn’t know anybody else.
Ah, I’m so going to be dead when we return…I mean Jenna did forcefully separate them but I don’t think he’ll take note of that and just blame me for whisking her away to the forest without him.
Miss Nameless doesn’t seem to mind his absence though; she seems pretty lightheaded
actually…
Almost got killed by a wolf in the beginning; since she’s been skipping through the forest and Yeehawing.
Must be the freedom of not having Sharpy (I’m sticking with the name, I prefer it to Krudel) around.
Luckily, she didn’t die or that really would have spelled many many more ends for both me and Thrash.
She’s being a bit strange though, though sort of guessing her background, it’s a rare chance for her:
While Thrash is murdering wolf after wolf, she’s skipping around the forest bending down to pick up a leaf and examine it.
She also hugs a tree…because she felt like it?
I asked her about it earlier, apparently her garden got burnt down so she hasn’t be able to see nice trees for a while…also Sharpy doesn’t let her dirty her clothes…
Right…he’s not going to like what I’m teaching her then.
“Princess, want to continue with practice?”
“Sure”
*Thunk*
“Owie” She rubs her head
“You have to look where you’re going”
I do a perfect roll and keep walking nonchalantly through the forest
She tries to copy me and I see a little dirt get on her back.
Oooh Sharpy is going to hate me even more now.
Well seeing the cuteish cowgirl do rolls might be worth it. Maybe, but the look on his face when she shows him this will be totally worth it.
Anyways, I’ll let her continue rolling while I try to figure out where the hell to find this Narcissu-
…
..
.
Those two are putting me off my thoughts, seriously.
I’m such an idiot!
“Right, let’s go to the pond” I swerve to the right direction
“Pond?” They both exclaim, quite confused
“It’s where the Narcissus flower is”
“Oh” thankfully they don’t ask how I know…that’d be awkward.
I knew that, how did I forget it…must be these two making me mad.
Ok, towards the pond.
…
…
(PJ’s POV)
“Krudel…here we go”
“Madam, you are brilliant”
“Cut the flattery, I’m too old for that”
“A lady is never too old for flattery”
He must have been raised at a gentleman school or something…the rich must have something of the sort.
I reckon he’d be quite a perfect butler; He flatters, he has good colour taste and he’s good at fighting while not making it look brutish like Zzoid, Joat and Co. did.
Although I did enjoy watching Zzoid, so innocently sweet. Krudel on the other hand is a lot more dangerous, in both ways.
The waterless pond is in sight.
And yes there are some white flowers sporting on the side of the pond. Perfect.
I didn’t really notice them when we hung out here…mostly because we were too busy either checking out the pond or doing business with the Kraken.
Though who’d think that I’d be back here so soon…Though I wish the others were here too…
Nevermind that. Time to get to work. It’s been 11 hours, I’m tired, I want to go to sleep and I want to have my cig.
But Seniour really doesn’t like the smell…hmm, guess I can put it off for today…I’ll try at least.
“Madam, is something wrong” he said it like a statement as if he knows that something is wrong, he just wants me to tell him. A very perceptive man indeed.
“No, just hard to stay happy after 11 hours of hard work” Withdrawal symptoms suck.
I hold my left hand which is quivering slightly…
“Yes, it has been a long day…would you like to take a quick break”
A perfect butler; he doesn’t let anything get past him.
“No need, I’m fine…I’ll get past it”
“I’m sure you will” And he gives hope, how nice.
“Now let’s go pick some flowers” I try my best to sound enthusiastic.
Hmm, I’m not that enthusiastic it seems…must be the lack of young people around me.
Anyways, time to pick some flowers.
…
…
(Baila’s POV)
“Big Sis, we found them!”
“Wohoo, now let’s find these Moondrop flowers!” Big Sis is very excited…since I kind of told her that we can get Joat to make her an outfit of her choice…
I think I’m going to have to apologize to him, but it was his own dumbassery that brought this around so I might not need to.
We head over to the pond and as I remember there are still some Narcissus flowers there.
I remember that I made a witty joke to the others when we first went round the lake but I actually did see a couple of Narcissus flowers there...
We pick a couple, about two dozen, before heading off further into the forest.
Time to find some Fireflowers and Moondrop flowers…but where the hell are we supposed to find those?
We’ve got another 2 hours until the monsters go into night variant, so that should be plenty of time.
“So Big Sis, Moondrop or Fireflower first?”
“Hmm…Moondrop first!”
Guess we’re off to find the Moondrop.
I wonder where the others are and how they’re doing
…
…
(Joat’s POV)
“Wohoo! Finally made it”
“Wow, what happened here” Miss Nameless looks around at the large clump of stumps
“A battle” Thrash comments pretty confidently. He’s correct with this…but I just wish he’d be correct about my gender.
Anyways, I take them through the stump forest and exit to the waterless pond.
After they finish their oohs and aahs, I go on the hunt for Narcissus flowers.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Wohoo! I’ve got some.
However it looks like quite a few have been picked…so the other groups maybe?
Luckily there are quite a few Narcissus flowers left, so I unhesitatingly pick about 50 of them…
white is a necessary tint for the true potential of colours to be shown.
Once all those are collected, I have a look at what else we need
“Ok, so we’ve got Fireflowers and Moondrops to collect. Which ones do you guys want to look for first”
“Fireflowers!” Miss Nameless pipes up…She’s really excited and borderline child right now…I hope she’s not another minor because then I definitely am going to rightfully be killed by Sharpy.
She’s slowly deteriorating into a child…probably because I’ve been teaching her to roll and climb and play around; probably things she hasn’t done before.
I also taught her my ‘burpee’ which she loved even though she was completely dead after about 20 minutes of it.
Guess we’re off to find Fireflowers…since Thrash has no say in this party, and since we’ve only got an hour and a half left…might as well collect the quest items for Nathan…I’m sneaky like that.
…
…
(PJ’s POV)
“So any idea where these Narcotine berries are?” I ask the knowledgeable Krudel.
A perfect butler, I must keep on repeating that because he continues to show his perfection in pretty much anything he does.
“Sadly no, however if we find a monster that is sleeping in a non-natural sleeping spot then the berry must be close-by”
“Because it’s a narcotic?”
“Exactly, Madam, you are indeed knowledgeable”
“Nah, I’ve just dabbled with this and that in my younger days”
“I see” He immediately gets it…seriously, I need one of these in my house. Maybe I should ask this supposedly extremely rich girl to lend this guy out to me.
I mean he could wash, cook, clean and flatter me all at the same time.
I actually don’t know if he can do three of those four things, but seeing as how he acts all perfect…I reckon he knows how to do them extremely well.
Back to the Narcotine berry.
As we were walking back, I had a thought about the ash; it’s grey, not black…so it wouldn’t fit perfectly with what I have in mind.
So we decided to look for the berry, but with an hour and a half remaining till night without a clue as to where they are…is not a great situation.
At least the wolves aren’t a problem.
He just kills each one of them without a hitch...and I don’t even have to lift a finger.
Such a gentleman, though I feel it’s a bit too much at times; I do want to rip a wolf in half for my own fun you know…
Anyways, time to find a sleeping beast.
…
…
(Baila’s POV)
Right, well we found what we needed…but not what we were looking for.
The pond is directly north from the village and then we went west, curving a little towards the village, because we felt it was a good direction.
The scenery hasn’t changed much…it’s still the same old forest.
However we’ve just found what we needed:
In front of the two of us is a small five petal flower with orange rims and a deep yellow colour for the rest.
Fireflower…great! I actually need a couple of those for Nathan’s quest, 20 I think.
However there’s one small problem with collecting these flowers.
“Hiss”
Apparently snakes like them.
Most of the flowers have small reddish snakes wrapped around their stems, sleeping away.
I’m guessing they feel some sort of colourful connection between themselves and the flowers…
Sort of feels that way.
So plucking these things in their sight would be a bad idea.
“Identify”
NAME:Forest Viper (Fire Variant) [lvl6] (Aggressive)Health:50/50Attack:12-15A viper with reddish skin colour due to eating Fireflowers from birth. Although they are carnivores they eat the flowers, to protect their beauty
Ha! With that attack they can’t do anything! Thanks to my new set of leather armor, I’ve got a defense of 20!
Full of confidence, I walk up to a snake, who is sleeping round a flower, and pick the flower.
‘HISS”
-9
Ow! That almost killed me!? It bit my boots, but I didn’t think it’d do that much damage!
I quickly retreat letting Big Sis stomp on it twice to kill it.
Hmm, that was odd…why did it do so much damage?
Big Sis shrugs when I look at her…guess she doesn’t know either…
Well, I guess we should just be careful when dealing with these guys.
…
…
(Joat’s POV)
Well we’re definitely in the wrong place
*Snore*
And I definitely don’t want to wake that guy up…
I motion for the others to back away…slowly.
*Snap*
Ah…I just had to step on a twig
The snoring stops and the black panther stands up with a yawn and an angry look in its eye.
We had kept going north from the pond, because the further away from the village the higher level, the different flora right?
But seems like we just ended up in a place where there is a sleeping panther.
NAME:Forest Panther [lvl8] Health:80/80Attack:16-20 A cat-like creature that lives in the forest
Right, no useful description, no telling its defense and no attack patterns…god I hate having lower leveled Monster Identification.
However due to its damage, we thankfully shouldn’t have any problem whatsoever.
Thrash goes in front.
The panther leaps from its half-relaxed position and collides with Thrash, sending him to the ground.
Oh god, his health!
Kick!
The panther is kicked off of Thrash before it can dig its teeth in.
-42
Whoo, that was half its health in 1 hit…sweet!
God I love my brutality bonus. Seeing as though I’ve done 5 less than I should have, its defense is 5?
No time to dawdle around.
I rush past Thrash while Miss Nameless helps him back up.
“Yowl!”
The panther gets back up and swipes a claw towards me.
-9
…
..
.
What happened with my 20 defense?
I kick the panther, killing it, before it can kill me.
Well that was a bit dangerous!
Thrash gets back up and dusts his fur a bit.
“Ok, so apparently they do a lot of damage, even with the armor”
Miss Nameless looks surprised but Thrash isn't; he did just get a taste of it too
“Maybe it depends where you hit?” Miss Nameless concludes after she deliberates for a short while.
“Hmm, what’s everyone’s attacks?”
“1”
“81”
…
..
.
Damn! He’s got almost double my attack! Also that is a huge difference in strength...Jesus
“Ok, Princess, give a small punch to each of us in different areas”
“Ok!” She comes over and gives me a punch on the arm…no damage.
She punches my boots, my chest piece and then my helmet. No damage either one.
Then she punches my exposed leg
-1
Hmm
Then she punches my face
-2
Hmm…that HURT!
“Ok ok you can stop now”
“Oops, sorry, got a little carried away there”
"..."
“So I’m guessing that if the attack doesn’t hit the armor then the defense is annulled” I continue, completely ignoring the situation that happened barely seconds ago
“Gaps in the armor?” Miss Nameless queries
“Pretty much. However I don’t think the rule ends there”
“Oh so what is the next bit?”
“I’ll test my theory when I get a certain skill, so for now…let’s kill a couple of these guys”
“Ok!” They both shout in unison.
Time to kill panthers…and is that a berry I see?
…
…
(PJ’s POV)
The forest is very thick and dark over here, very strange. Guess we had entered a new area?
Hmm, that sounding like it boded well for us when we entered, but now…it doesn’t seem like the right area
“Lizard, on your 2”
Krudel is keenly perceptive, even in this dim light. Perfect to the core I must say.
“So, there must be a flower over there?”
“Most likely”
For the past hour and a bit, we’ve been walking through this place and although little natural sunlight came; there were quite a few small glowing blue flowers to light the forest up.
Apparently we found the Moondrop flowers…however once we picked them 2 things happened: They lost their glow and the lizards living here attack us.
I don’t have Monster Identification, since monsters don’t really last that long against me.
However Krudel does and he gratefully showed me all the information he could: Level 7, 70 hp and 14-17 attack.
Overall it shouldn’t have done any damage.
However we had found out that apparently armor only protects you when it is directly hit.
Also we found out that it depends where you hit on the armor, it determines how much defense there is; so on the chest you’ll get 10 defense while on boots you’ll only get 4.
That makes sense in a way.
I pick the flower and immediately, the yellow eyes that were hanging in the tree, Jump down towards me.
Krudel grabs it in midair and pummels it with his free hand, deftly keeping all harm away from me.
It scratches his arm a bit, but he has a decent amount of health, so it’s no problem.
Hmm, he’s like a perfect version of Zzoid…maybe I should introduce him to Krudel and have him get professional tutelage in gentlemanship?
Though he's already doing quite good with the knight play…
Anyways, I thank Krudel as he disposes of the green komodo dragonish look-alike lizard.
So even with the weird armor system, we’re not in any trouble at all.
And since we can’t find any Narcotine berries, we’ll collect some Moondrop flowers before we go.
Who knows, we might be able to trade with others.
…
…
(Baila’s POV)
“I’m on fire with the Fireflowers. Yeah yeah yeah
These little vipers ain’t got nothing on us. Yeah yeah yeah
So we’re just going to kill them all. Yeah yeah yeah
And then we’ll pick all these fireflowers. Yeah yeah YEAH!”
…
..
.
“I…think we should get back to picking flowers” I look away awkwardly
“Yes…” I feel the heat coming from her face
I don’t know why she started this horrible country song…maybe it’s the fact that we were talking about what outfit we’d like Joat to make us:
Big Sis really wants to be a cowgirl…but she’s close to tone deaf…
Forgetting the slight pain in my ears, we continue to pick a couple more fireflowers.
The vipers pose no threats as we both stomp and kick them to death pretty quickly.
We quickly collect another 3, rounding us off at 44 fireflowers.
Great, should be enough!
“Ok, so do we head north?” I ask Big Sis
“We can do, not like we know where we’re going” She grins and heads off. She’s got a point there
The system does have a map feature…but it only shows what you’ve explored…in very little detail.
So it’s really only useful for backtracking.
Let’s hope we find the Moondrop flowers of maybe even those Narcotine flowers…since Big Sis wants her clothes to be all black…
I’m a little bit worried about that…but let’s get to the problem once it arises.
Ok, time to find some more flowers!
…
…
(Joat’s POV)
“YO-“
*Crunch*
The sickening crunch of the panther’s jaw, implies it demise.
Having Thrash in the party is awesome…If only he’d stop flexing his muscles to try impress me.
I got it, I got it. Your muscles are impressive, but I’m not verbally acknowledging that buddy.
“Mmm, what happened?”
Oh, she’s awake
“Nothing, you just ate a narcotic”
“Oh…sorry”
She got a bit excited with the berries that look deceptively like blackberries...apparently she loves them.
“Don’t worry, you looked tired, so I let you sleep for a bit while I picked a couple of berries”
“Why is the ground so warm and it bounces slightly?”
She hasn’t opened her eyes yet…good?
I let her down from my arms, to which she opens her eyes and fully takes the information in.
“Keep picking berries Joat” Her face slightly reddens at having been princess carried, possibly
quite ironic…
“Ok Princess”
“By the way, how many have you picked” She asks as I’m bending down to pick another
“Around 83? We should stop at about 100”
“Why so many?”
“Because it’ll make it easier to darken things also, this way we don’t have to have much of the colours to make a full spectrum of tones”
She looks as if I’m speaking Chinese again. I don’t blame her; it’s not the simplest concept to wrap your head around.
I’ll teach it to her slowly, until then…
“Since you were sleeping so long, how about I teach you some fun lines to say while you wear those clothes”
“Sure! I want to say things like Yeehaw again, it was very interesting”
Jeez, has this girl never had any fun?
“Ok, repeat after me-”
[window] Warning! It has become night and you are not in a safe zone, so beware!
…
..
.
“Shit”
“Shit? What does that mean?”
Whoops, shouldn’t be teaching her those words…also how does she…nevermind, I didn’t expect she’d know those words anyway.
“Something you say when something bad happens”
“Ah, I get it. So because it just turned night…I should say shit?”
*Twitch*
“Yes, but don’t use it too often please”
“GRRR”
“SHIT”
…
..
.
Sharpy is sooo going to hunt me down to the ends of the earth…
----------------------------------------
Hello hello everyone, decently jumpy chapter buut hope you enjoyed it.
Also, thank you for the quite funny comments in the past chapter, you know who you are. It made my day, so thank you!
-True NORRRRRD!