Mineko Date 1, Part 2: Fish! Fish! Fish! Fish!

Gaia

Tegan and Ootah are still fighting. That’s no good for the harem pack pride thingy. Gaia is pulling them towards Dungeons for Damsels as part of a friendship forgiveness delve. Andromeda and Winter are coming along too.

“Hey, guys! Ready for some dungeon fun? Anyone want anything first?”

Andromeda answers, “Gaia needs to level. How much for a Level 1 spell scroll? I got two from my minor quest and I want to maximize my scribing time tonight.”

Daphne quips, “5 BP. Whatcha want?”

“I’m not sure. Disguise Self or Comprehend Languages seem to be the best options.”

“Want something weird? I got a Bioartifice Probe spell scroll.”

Gaia doesn’t understand what that means, but Andromeda apparently does. She nods and accepts the spell scroll, which is popped into her inventory.

Andromeda: -5 BP

Gaia steps up to the dungeon mermaid. She walks her through Level 5, which is pretty simple for her. Thorn Whip deals a bit more damage, so now the magic spell is better than the regular whip, which makes her a little sad. The temporary lion-girl gets some more HP, SP, and a couple of Level 3 spells. Gaia is looking forward to being able to talk to plants and make them grow better, once she can prepare her new spells.

Gaia: Weekly Task Complete! Reach Level 5 +25 BP

Mona Weekly Task Update: Ensure Everyone Reaches Level 5 (7/10 Complete)

“Oh, and about my gold from last delve?”

“I buried a gold coin for you already?” Daphne replies.

“Oh, very good. Mother Earth should be pleased with more of her gold back into her belly. Oh, and no weird rat-guys this time, right?”

Daphne nods and everyone heads down to get ready. Gaia borrows a whip, which is now more of a fashion accessory than anything. I should figure out a way to get a good whip like Feline Lady!

Andromeda: +2 XP (Full Frontal Nudity for another contestant [Winter])

Gaia: +2 XP (Display bare crotch for another contestant [2 instances])

Tegan: +2 XP (Full Frontal Nudity for another contestant [Ootah])

Tegan: +2 XP (Display bare crotch for another contestant [2 instances])

When they enter the delve proper, they find themselves on a rocky shore. A small pier, burnt to charcoal, is beside them, with a well-trod footpath leading towards the interior. Andromeda has a letter in her hand. She opens it to read aloud:

Adventurers,

Your mission is simple. The mariner’s guild wishes to build a lighthouse on this island, as the waters around it are quite hazardous to ships. There are rumors of a ruined abbey of Umberlee on the site. Investigate the abbey ruins and clear it of any dangers, so that a crew can start the construction project. You may keep whatever you find, plus we will offer you some delicious pie.

Thanks,

Questgiver NPC Not Rendered in the Delve [Tyalangan Note: Daphne, don’t forget to name the NPC, again...]

“Pie? That’s really the quest reward?” Winter quips.

Andromeda shrugs, “Maybe giving us actual gold pieces would break the game economy?”

Winter notes, “Well, a BP is like 10 gold in town, so...”

Gaia turns to the fighting fiancées, asking, “You two going to learn to get along tonight?”

Ootah nods, “A true warrior can suppress their emotions when battle is upon them. I will be focused on the task at hand. Whether a certain fox can do the same remains to be seen.”

Tegan merely growls.

Andromeda asks, “Umberlee? That’s a Blue-Black deity from Leylines. Anything we need to know?”

Winter explains, “The Bitch Queen is an evil goddess of the oceans. One of the ‘Storm Lords.’ Talos’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. Fickle, stuck-up. If Talos is the stereotypical jock, Umberlee is the stereotypical mean girl cheerleader captain.”

“Okay, so cultists to an evil goddess? Anything else we will have to worry about?” Andromeda asks.

“We’ll find out once we start going in.” Ootah states.

“Okay, time for harem togetherness! Let’s gooooooo!!!!” Gaia exclaims, already running down the trail. She hears the others following, asking her to slow down. Alright, let’s help my girlfriend’s fiancées to learn to get along!

Caoimhe

This season is kind of aimless, isn’t it?

If Caoimhe’s goal was to be titillated, this Haunted Castle season is not for her. It is even less for her male form. At least the sometimes drow can appreciate some of the fem domme scenes with the punk rockers, even if she was wishing that it was a Carl and Ken being ordered around by Laura instead of Carla and Kim.

But, that is not the goal. The goal is to glean what information she can from this season. So, this season is much less sinister than the one from this afternoon. The Host, this Shar, is up to something, but it doesn’t seem to be at the expense of the participants. And the transhumanist girl hacked the set? How does that even work? Is that a thing that we could do, or has Tyalangan shored up that vulnerability? Is that a thing we should do? I mean, she got turned into a cat-girl for it and is forced to keep what she found secret...

She pauses the show and turns back to face the others. “You two okay back there? Any thoughts?”

Tessa speaks up first, “Asking your great-niece to keep their relationship secret from her twin and older sister seems cruel.”

“Shar seems like the type that will let Tracy blab when the time is right. I am sure there is a reason. But, hacking the set...”

Jenny turns ashen. “Hacking the set is a bad idea. I remember...” Her voice gives out and she shrivels. Tessa wraps her up in a side hug.

“My sister has been pretty straightforward with us. Definitely compared with most of the Hosts I had to watch with Mona yesterday. Ruby and Al, [REDACTED], Delilah, they all seem to revel in hiding things and tormenting the contestants.”

“...like Binky did...”

Tessa hugs Jenny a little tighter. Caoimhe barely makes out the former teacher whisper, "Are you going to be okay?”

Jenny nods. Seeing that, Tessa inquires, “Why would you be wanting to hack into the system, Caoimhe?”

These two are more responsible than Gaia. It’s probably safe? “I’m starting to think about the wish at the end. I’m just wanting to make sure we use it wisely. Maybe something in the ‘set code’ could help us figure it out.”

Jenny asks a one-word question, “We?”

Caoimhe nods, “We. Whoever nominally wins the wish should use it to help all of us. It will require us to coordinate, then trust whoever actually wins to follow through. I don’t want to bring up the topic to the group until everyone is fully on board with the harem thing though.”

“You want to use the wish unselfishly?”

Jenny’s incredulous tone of voice as she asks that question cuts deep. Caoimhe answers as best she can, “We are all going to be together for the rest of our lives, Jenny. No point in screwing each other over.”

“I hate to ask, Jenny, and feel free to say no, but how did your season’s wish go?”

“The only bigger monster than Bob in the harem won the wish. She wished that Bob’s wealth was proportional to how sexually satisfied he was with the harem and each harem member’s access to the wealth was proportional to their satisfaction with Bob. I was immune because I was eliminated. Most of the so-called winners were destitute. Despite how much money they brought into the company, they had to beg for scraps, because Bob was a shit lover.”

Tessa is slowly rubbing the distressed dryad’s back. She adds, “That Jack season also had a terrible wish at the end. I’m not sure if watching current seasons is going to help.”

“I’m watching these seasons first so Mona can have some summaries for this wedding she has to attend. The big project is for later, once we get close enough to the end to talk with everyone about it. Still, I think that sharing my ultimate goal with you two would help.”

“Still, don’t hack the show. It only leads to misery.”

“Noted. I’m not even sure how to start, to be honest. You two okay to continue?”

They nod. Caoimhe jots down some notes, then resumes playing the season. They still have a ways to go before they are caught up with this one.

Mona

The lesson started with how to fillet a whole fish. Both Skye and Mineko handle the weird thin filleting knife well enough. Mona’s attempt is... messy. It looks like the fish was hacked apart with a hedge trimmer. Mona looks disappointed.

“Don’t worry, Mona,” the lilac skinned chef declares, “I can always turn those into fish sticks for the harem kids. Nyadia’s kids love fish sticks!”

Great. I made such a mess of it that my fillets are only worth chopping up for inferior chicken nuggets...

“Fish... sticks?” Mineko asks.

Skye talks, demonstrating how to portion the fillets into even pieces the whole while, “I’ll make you some for lunch tomorrow, Mineko. You’ll like them. And Mona, stop pouting. This is a skill like any other. It takes practice. You play your video games perfectly the first time you tried?”

“No,” Mona answers. That is a cold comfort.

Next comes the pin bone removal. Again, Mineko looks like she does a really good job. Mona can hardly tell that Mineko did anything, if it wasn’t for the pile of curved fish bones by the nekomata’s cutting board. Mona feels... less confident about her work. She thinks she found them all. A series of pretty deep gashes line the fish from where she pulled them out.

With the fish fillets sectioned (and the excess bits reserved for fish sticks later), it’s now time to prep vegetables. Mineko trims her bunch of asparagus perfectly. Mona whacks off the woody sections with a meat cleaver to Skye’s chagrin. Asparagus goes on a grill to start cooking. They have to watch and turn them regularly.

The first thing Mona feels good about her performance is “bruising” a lemon to get it prepared for juicing; the actual juicing process is a bit of a mess, but she gets (barely) enough.

While Mona gets her filet started (skin side down), Skye is fetching things for them: egg yolks, butter (some cold, some warm and melted), salt, pepper. The drow has to hustle between the girls, as Mineko has never made this hollandaise sauce stuff before. Whisk the egg yolks, cook them on extremely low heat, adding the lemon juice and a little bit of cold butter. Keep stirring, watching the heat, making sure that the sauce doesn’t break (How do you break sauce?).

Ah! Gotta flip the fish, turn the asparagus, and pull the sauce off!

Surviving that panic, Mona goes back to sauce making. More butter into the sauce, first the rest of the cold pats, then the melted butter. Keep stirring!!! Finally a little salt and white pepper to season.

Plating is a mess. Asparagus first, a little too charred in places. Then the fish, skin side down. Finally, a drizzle of the sauce. Mona sighs, more than a little exhausted.

When she looks at Mineko’s plates (She made two of them?), it’s not even close. “Wow, Mineko! That looks so pretty! Mine looks...”

A wooden spoon lightly bops Mona’s nose. Skye declares, “Mona, you did a good job. Don’t cut yourself short. I would eat your cooking over the work of a noticeable portion of my lady love’s companions.”

“Really? I did better than some of the staff here?”

Skye nods. “Really. For example, if I asked Daphne to make that, she’d pretty much would just shrug, say ‘I’m not doing that,’ and proceed to eat the fish off of the cutting board.”

Mona thinks back to the mermaids. Specifically how Harmony acted during the shark frenzy; the girl was more enthusiastic about tearing into live fish than Mona was as a shark. That makes sense.

“I got the dishes, kids. Sit down and enjoy!”

Winter

The ruins are easy enough to find. A brief investigation lets Winter conclude that the abbey was burned to the ground. The few stones that remain are black with scorch marks. The few bits of wood and paper are charcoal. Roof tiles are scattered around it. Tufts of tough sea grasses are already growing in places. There seems to be a few footprint paths in the remaining flooring, which Winter uses to find a stairwell leading to a basement. The rogue sneaks down the stairs. He sees a couple of cultist weirdos polishing a metal statue of that C2 Host. The statue consists of a beach ball sized metal ball with a glowing yellow “eye” and two floating hands; one hand has a big sword and the other a big hammer. It takes a bit, but he creeps back up.

“Two cultists, plus a statue of that weird C2 Host, wielding weapons?”

Tegan sounds like she is smiling, “So, we get to practice killing a Host?”

“Technically, C2 is a droid, so I’m not sure if ‘killing’ is the correct term, but, sure.”

“Excellent.”

Winter and Tegan creep back down. Tegan takes a position just out of the way of the stairwell and silently draws a bow. Winter creeps up to the gnarlier cultist. He signals 3-2-1, then strikes. The rapier punches through the cultist’s heart; an arrow embeds itself deep into the other cultist’s eye.

Winter examines the room after signaling Tegan to wait before shooting the currently inert statue. A bunch of doors: 2 on the left side wall, 2 on the right side wall, 4 along the wall that the stairwell enters, 2 on either side. That is a lot of doors to check. Winter starts on one end of the doors and move his way through. The doors are obviously thin enough that, if they made the normal amount of combat noise, any occupants inside could hear it; that means Winter might be able to discern which rooms might be occupied. Left side wall rooms are silent. Right side rooms are silent too. He can hear conversations in a couple of the 4 rooms along the stairwell wall. There is our next target.

He signals for Tegan to post up to watch those two doors in particular, then heads upstairs. “At least 4 more down there in 2 rooms. I didn’t visually check the contents of them. Statue hasn’t moved yet.”

Andromeda stumbles as she heads down the stairs and Winter grabs her before she slams into the statue. Ootah posts up by one door, Winter on the other. Gaia and Andromeda hold spells. Tegan draws her bow, preparing to nail whichever target she sees first.

Winter signals 3-2-1, then both doors are opened. Andromeda fires off a Scorching Ray and Tegan looses an arrow through Ootah’s door. Gaia casts probably Summon Beast, dropping a probable lion into Winter’s room. Regardless, the noise broke the sneak phase of combat. Gotta finish maximizing our advantage!

Winter rushes into the room of the door he opened. As predicted, the lion is in front of a cultist. There is also a guard in heavy armor. Winter thrusts into the guard, his blade slips straight in the gap of his helmet and drops him in a single blow. A couple of arrows pincushion the cultist and he’s dead. The lion bounds out of the room; Gaia must have commanded it back to where the fight is happening. Winter hears more combat and door noises. There must have been quiet folk in other rooms...

Winter moves back to the door and takes in what he can see as he moves. The statue, heavily damaged, is engaging Ootah. There is a foe at an open door in a potential flanking position on the squishy ranged members. That is where he needs to go. The unarmored target drops simply enough; Winter does not even really need to aim.

Andromeda fires off an acid orb at the statue and it melts. Tegan cheers “Death to the kidnappers!” as she moves to take shots on the other side of the stairwell. Gaia moves herself and her lion to handle the other side of the stairwell, too. A body hits the floor, which indicates that the beast dropped someone.

A man in sleeping clothes and holding a longsword opens the door, sees the chaos, and bolts. Winter picks him off as he moves. Then, Ootah handles the rest, shouting, “That’s the last one. Anyone hurt?”

“Just lion friend!” Gaia shouts. The others assent to being fine.

“Search the area and check for an exit. We didn’t get the fanfare. There’s bound to be more.”