An Englishman in Castle Aincrad

Floor 4 - Boss - Wythege the Hippocampus

December 19th, 2022 - 20:34pm - Floor 4, Labyrinth Entrance

Having cleared the quest, and failed to remember the blacksmith still waiting at the teleport gate, Jet and Koharu arrived at the labyrinth to find... only two people stood there.

''Umm, did you guys already clear the boss or something?'' - Jet asked, wondering if they'd waited behind, just to call them slow...

''I mean, we could've done in the time we waited...'' - Kirito commented sarcastically, before Asuna elbowed him - ''Oww!''

''Ignore him, for he knows not what he speaks. We've been here about 5 minutes. Did you two find out that you needed a boat from somewhere too?''

''Yeah, and poisons too.''

''All of this does leave us with one big question though... where do we get a boat from?''

''There's a workshop over there, right... and we've still got all of the wood from the third floor... so...''

''We build our own!'' - Jet cried, evidently quite pleased with the idea. The girls both looked on apprehensively, as the boys grinned maniacally at the thought...

(A brief interlude - bought to you by Koharu, Asuna and Kirito with hammers, nails and wooden planks... whilst Jet walks past, on with a load of fabric wrapped around some spars, in tow, having been sowed to him...)

In all honesty, the group had achieved something spectacular. They'd built a complex object in just over 8 hours, and... well, it showed. The group stood outside, in the dark and cold, looking at their creation... we use the word creation, because there was no chance that... thing, was actually a boat. If the narrator had been forced to guess what they'd produced, they'd have suggested it was some form of deformed airplane instead...

''Well, if it looks like a duck...'' - Jet said optimistically...

''Then we've made a duck?'' - Koharu sounded confused.

''No... I'm pretty sure we've made a white elephant.'' - Asuna spoke as the voice of realism.

''Uhh, just one important question... does it actually float?'' - Kirito asked, as he checked over the boat... and put his finger through one of the many, many holes...

''Only one way to find out...'' - Jet and Kirito, the latter mouthing to Asuna to save him, took the helm of the newly christened HMS Crow, a ship that notably tempted fate. Well, we say tempted fate... more like held a middle finger up to it, and told it to perform oral sex on an unspecified object. Unsurprisingly, knowing this, the name had been Jet's choice.

The boat was pushed out to the lake, where it performed admirably... for all of five seconds, before capsizing the instant it left the lake shore, leaving a rather soaked Jet and Kirito to crawl back to land...

''It worked as well as I said it would then...'' - Asuna looked quite amused at the wrecked Crow, and the soaked messes that were Jet and Kirito swimming back to shore. It had been a particularly short swim, given they'd gone around 30cm, setting a new record - the worst boat ever made...

''I believe there's a saying in Latin... Ambitiose sed ineptum.'' - Jet muttered, as he shook the water off him, soaking everyone around him.

''What's that mean?''

''Ambitious, but rubbish.''

''Umm, you know we built the boat, right?'' - Koharu had noticed something they'd all ignored... - ''Well, have you noticed there's four stalls there, not the usual three... one of them is a craftsman.'' - The other three looked over, and collectively facepalmed. At least they still had some wood left, anyway...