Skip Navigation
[B] Test: Tyrant Labyrinth
|
Post by yuuki on Nov 17, 2019 7:55:33 GMT
Hmm, so they decided to go forward it is? The gate slowly swung open with creak. The moment they came in however, it immediately slammed shut. The trees are taller in here, and the labyrinth wall are taller. However, it looked like a huge, circular area instead. It's size is somewhere around half an acre. The trickling water that they heard was apparently a river here... that said river is also accompanied by waterfall. The stream current is a bit too fast. They seem to be able to come out from this area through that said river, but doing so is probably more dangerous than good.
Anyway, it's questionable how safe is the water to drink. With that being said, in this place there are seem more food, such as the Digishroom. From the look of it, there are also fishes on the stream.There are some fallen fruits, one that looked like they're fine to eat. They're not overripe thankfully but what's the challenge is actually?
...Thankfully, that will be made clear when they walked closer to the stream. There is a sign there with Hikaru's writing on it.
Only the one who knows trivia of flora and fauna could pass this first challenge. A KIZNA member must be resourceful. There are many things that you can eat here, yet alone they will taste bad or give you disease instead. You must learn how to prepare foods and neutralize poisons that present on one food with another. Combine several kinds of inedible foods into edible, delicious one... make three kinds of delicious one at it, and eat it. By the way, in case of emergency, toilet is on the northeast of where you first entered. Don't date with it, now.
|
|
|
Post by Bezil on Nov 22, 2019 10:08:41 GMT
Bezil felt his nerves relax at once when Skadi patted his back. He smiled back at her. She was a really nice and empathetic digimon to treat him like this, and he appreciated that.
As Kenny reinforced the determination to move forward, move forward they did. Bezil with a calm gait, not too quickly as to miss anything important, but not too cautiously to waste time either. And just enough that he appreciated his team-mates for today.
The three of them entered the archway, and it closed behind them. Bezil glanced over his shoulder with a wince, realizing that they had crossed a point of no return, but steeled himself to continue onward.
In the new section, it turned out to be a large circular area, with a river running through it. The water was fast flowing and ended with a waterfall - way too dangerous to swim across.
With the main landmark identified, Bezil's yellow eyes quickly took in the other important landmarks of this area. There sure were a lot of digishrooms about. And as he watched the water, there were a lot of fish in that stream too. And lastly, there were bountiful amounts of fruit, so much that several overripe examples had dropped to the ground. Bezil knew better than to eat fruit that had already fallen from the plants they had grown from, but still, he took note of them.
Lastly, there was the message from his papa. Bezil read it carefully. The Gumdramon's face grew a little uneasy at its words, but, supposed that was their lesson for now.
"Guess we have to figure out three different edible recipes from what we've got here." he concluded to Kenny and Skadi. "Do you guys think so too?" he tilted his head, hoping they were in the same ballpark here.
If so, then Bezil's books would hopefully come in handy. "Okay, so... I think a good first move is... collect as many different fruit, fish, mushrooms and any other thing that looks like an ingredient as we can, then see what the books have to say on each." Bezil held up the books he had borrowed from Hikaru. "While some food can be poisonous, the poisons can be neutralized and even turned into nutrition in the right treatment. That sound good to you two?"
Although the prospect of tasting poison was probably a nasty one, Bezil still hoped he could reassure his comrades. "We could at least take a smell of what we put in our mouths first, and trust our tongues. That's what daddo Owen told me how to best identify what's edible." he clarified. Substances with toxic properties could more often than not be identified by taste, and hopefully expelled quick enough.
|
|
|
Post by Kenny O'Hara and Skadi on Nov 23, 2019 2:26:56 GMT
Welp, this was it. No turning back now. While Skadi yelped a little bit, Kenny's heart outright skipped a beat or 2 as the gate loudly slammed shut behind them, forcing them to look at the zone ahead of them, including the fast flowing river and waterfall, full of several kinds of wild fish, and several Digishrooms and fruit scattered everywhere. But what really stuck out like a sore thumb was the sign describing the challenge in question, as the team approached it: craft at least 3 edible dishes out of any inedible meals.
For a moment, Kenny looked a little lost. He was basically an amateur cook at best, often helping his dad out in the kitchen to help out, whenever it be a chicken schnitzel or whatever, and that was basically pedestrian material that he was familiar with. How were they going to cook anything delectable in an unfamiliar environment, let alone 3, felt beyond him. Skadi on the other hand, looked a little unsure, considering she never really had to cook before, mainly helping out as an assistant.
His trance was broken as Bezil called to both him and Skadi, and they both nodded in agreement with him. Of course they understood what they had to do; their problem was that they had no idea what to do. Thankfully, Bezil did have a good idea in mind, proposing to try and collect as many foodstuffs as possible, then have the books to check it all out, before elaborating about how they could try to smell, and even taste test some of the stuff. For a brief moment, Kenny and Skadi paused, before a smile emerged on their faces.
"Yeah, that does sound like a good idea to be honest, Bezil." Kenny replied, before reaching out to ruffle Bezil's hair affectionately. He followed up with a small sigh before rubbing his neck a little, "To be honest, me and Skadi haven't really cooked much before like this. When we gather up the food, would you at least show us the ropes please?" Of course, that wouldn't mean they'd force Bezil to do all of the work, but Lord knows they needed all the help they could get.
Still, with no signs of dangerous Digimon potentially ready to turn them into easy lunch in sight, splitting up for a bit was pretty safe, all things considered, "So, I guess we should figure out who's gonna go gather what. I'm not exactly good at fishing, but me and Skadi can help collect the Digishrooms, and pick some nearby low hanging berries and fruits, at least. You have any ideas on what you could do?" He questioned Bezil. Hopefully, they would get a good answer before they would set off on their little fetch quest. But their eyes were glancing at everything nearby. Just what could they use to eat anyways?
|
|
|
Post by yuuki on Nov 23, 2019 13:38:34 GMT
As the team would try to look for the foods around, currently here are what they found in this area, in no particular order:
Acoberries: These berries are purple in color when ripe, but green when unripe. While the ripe one can be very nutritious and high in sugar content, unripe acoberries have certain toxin to it that makes the consumer feels great amount of pain. It's normally harvested three times a year.
Ethylus: Fruits of a perennial tree found in Tyrant's Labyrinth. Very sour with sweet aftertaste. Its flesh texture is similar to apple, but the sourness might reminds you of lemon instead, thus is very mysterious. It's known to ripe very quickly, just in matter of hours. Ethylus emits ethylene stronger than any other fruits.
Happyshroom: A mushroom with 1/4 chance to inflict great pain, almost like dying to its consumer. Its effect includes inducing euphoria, promoting blood circulation, promoting good rest if taken at small dose at night. The spore also have similar effect.
Digishroom: Your usual mushroom, tastes delicious, but not quite filling by itself. Sometimes used to neutralize fishy smells on dishes.
Deprezuun: What is even this vegetable? No one know, and it looked like a beet that someone has carved a crying face on its front. Tastes great, but might induce depression. If you're lucky, it could neutralize gastric poisons, but if you're unlucky... you'll probably get depressed for a bit.
Muscle Carrot: The carrots have biceps? Well, that's Digital World for you. It increases effectiveness in training, and gives you a lot of nutrients. However, it's known to have similar effect like caffeine, and at times induces "hero syndrome" where the consumer would be acting more reckless. Make sure to only eat raw if you're training and is ready to train for hours.
Mortmeat: Very smelly meat, almost cheeselike even, except more stinky. The smell might knocks you out to the next day if you're a Digimon with good smelling sense.If you're not, well then you're lucky. However, the taste of this meat is simply *divinely* if you roast it. But the smell? Yeah it's going to knock you further to next week if you roast it or cook it in any way than boiling. If boiled? The taste will be ruined because then the smell will also permeates to the taste.
Zestime: A citrine fruit, useful for tenderizing meat, and mask scent. However, it might overpower the taste of the meat. Need something a bit more neutralizing to it somehow... Is very not suggested to be eaten raw due to very strong acid, might upset your stomach.
Belchaney: Unlike normal honey with sweet taste, this one honey tastes almost mint-y. It have good medicinal properties, but because the mint taste, it might tastes very... funny. Edible, but definitely not by much.
Falgum: Fatty fish that lives in ravine in Tyrant's Labyrinth. Despite looking scrumptious, it's actually a really bad tasting fish. Not just that, its meat are incredibly tough. But because how quickly it grows, it was very popular protein to be put inside army rations.... however, since there was an outcry due to outrageous taste and jaw breaking texture, it has since replaced by other kind of protein.
|
|
|
Post by Bezil on Dec 25, 2019 10:04:42 GMT
Bezil surveyed the information available in the book, taking in what berries, mushroom and fish were available. It turned out that Kenny and Skadi didn't have much experience in this, so the furred Gumdramon thought it would be best to task them with easier things.
"Alright, so, if you two could collect as much mushrooms and berries as you can, that'd be great." he said. "Maybe wash them in the water before we prepare them for eating? But make sure the water's clean first... hmm..." he thought for a moment, then an idea formed in his mind. "Boiling! Water's safe if you boil it, because it kills off any germs that's inside it. Although it shouldn't be a problem with fast flowing water like this, best play it safe...".
That was what he was taught after all - better to play it safe than make assumptions and risks. Remove the risk, and all will be well.
He then presented his next plan. "Okay. While you're doing that, I'll sit on the riverbank and fish. Daddo Owen taught me how to do that, so I should be fine. While I'm doing that, you can put pots of water on my tail hammer here, and I'll heat it up and boil it so that it's safe."
Bezil then prepared his kit up on the riverbank, then turned to look at Kenny and Skadi. "It'll probably take me a while to fish up enough of what we need, so, take your time to look for as many different things as you can. By then the water should be long clean and safe, so you can wash it without cooking it prematurely. I'll boil a bunch of different pots of water so we don't cross-contaminate."
Hopefully this would be a good plan going onward. If Kenny and Skadi didn't object, Bezil would begin fishing, using a long nylon line with a hook, floater, sinker and bait at the end, all attached and looped to the end of a nice long stick he had found on the road.
|
|
|
Post by Kenny O'Hara and Skadi on Dec 26, 2019 9:32:19 GMT
So the good news was there was it looked like there was plenty of food to go around, including the bog-standard Digishrooms, for them to collect. The bad news, however, from what they could get from glancing over at Bezil's book, was that some of them, like the nauseating sounding mortmeat, didn't exactly sound the most appetising. Yet, they were tasked with making with at least 3 delicious dishes with the less-than-appetising delectables.
The duo's brief scan of the area for all of the food they needed to collect was soon interrupted with Bezil outlining his plans to them, with them busy gathering up the goods, Bezil would be taking care of the fishing and the boiling water at the same time. Considering that there seemed to be no threats lurking nearby, thankfully, they could at least afford to split up briefly to take care of their tasks, just as long as everybody still stayed in the same area, close in proximity to one another.
After all, KIZNA rules stated 'Don't do work solo', not 'Don't pull all your eggs in one basket and hope for the best'.
With that, Kenny nodded in agreement, as did Skadi, as he said, "Alright. It might take a while, but we'll try to gather up as much as we can." But first there were some other manners they needed to take care of beforehand before they started their search proper. Quickly, Kenny turned to his partner, "Hey Skadi. Mind grabbing us a pot or two quickly so we can quickly boil them?"
"On it, Kenny!" She cried out, as she grabbed the nearest few pots she could. One by one, she would quickly fill up the pots, holding the opening opposite over the river flow to fill them up as much as she could, some ever overspilling a little bit. Carefully aiming not to spill as much water as she could, she put the first one directly onto the Gumdramon's tail, as asked. The other few she did manage to collect, she would place near Bezil's tail, just not to hold down the dragon too much.
With that settled, the two set off, aiming to gather as much as they could, of pretty much everything they could find, and as much of it as they could (or at least, what they could grab without accidentally poisoning themselves according to the book), hoping to collect at least one of each item they could find, and as much as they could (even holding their breath when getting to the mortmeat).
Once they had enough in their hands, they would put it into a pile close enough to where Bezil fished, before setting out once more to gather a lot more of them. It would take a bit, though, but hopefully, they would at least have enough to cook up those 3 dishes in a matter of moments, especially since their little hunt would allow the water to boil for as long as they could.
Hopefully Bezil would fish up as many as he could by the time they were done.
|
|
|
Post by Bezil on Jan 12, 2020 11:29:41 GMT
In the time it took Kenny and Skadi to gather up the pots, water and mushrooms, Bezil had managed to catch a decent amount of fish from the river. At the very least, enough Falgum to meet the required ingredient list, even though the book stated it would be incredibly unpleasant to eat, despite how rich in protein they were.
"Alrighty, so, we have our ingredients, we have safe cooking water, and we have our instructions." Bezil said to Kenny and Skadi once they had gathered all they could. "Our aim here is to create three different delicious recipes from these horrible ingredients..." indeed, some of them made the furred Gumdramon feel queasy when he smelled them. Still, this was their task, and he was determined to complete it.
With the ingredients presented in front of them, Bezil invited Kenny and Skadi to read the reference book in front of them, trying to find a combination of foods that would taste nice.
"Hmm... the only link that comes to mind for me is combining Digishrooms with Falgum..." he admitted. "But it needs a third ingredient to make it tasty, otherwise the fish and the mushrooms would just cancel each other out and taste bland... I think... maybe combine them with ripe Acoberries?" he suggested. But if Kenny and Skadi had a better suggestion, he'd be more willing to go with that.
|
|
|
Post by Kenny O'Hara and Skadi on Jan 25, 2020 5:30:28 GMT
It took a while, but eventually Kenny and Skadi had managed to gather a whole boatload of non-fish ingredients. And thankfully, with Bezil's own fishing skills taking care of the rest, as indicated by the separate pile of Falgum on the floor, they had pretty much everything they needed for their first challenge.
It did help that they had a total of 6 hands on board.
Now with the hunting out of the way, it was time to start cooking. As Bezil spoke, the dynamic duo scanned through the reference book, taking occasional glances to both the normal pile and the Falgum pile. So what to do here? Bezil did mention combining the Digishrooms and the Falgum, for one, and both of them essentially cancelled one another out. What would be that magic 'third ingredient' they would need for the first dish.
Suddenly, a lightbulb lit up inside Kenny's head. The Zestime! "Wait, Bezil," He cried out, "maybe we could use the Zestime to help tenderise the Falgum. Maybe cook it a bit first, before we use it? The DigiShroom could give it a bit of flavour, too. Sound good?"
Not a moment too soon, Skadi quickly raised her hand, "Hey, after this, we should use it on the Mortmeat as well for our second dish? It can get rid of the nasty smell, too!" She cried out to the two boys as she waved her hand around.
"Oh yeah, I was just about to bring that up, too. Good thinking, girl." Kenny chuckled lightly as he tussled Skadi's hair affectionately, making the Valaismon giggle once more. Smiling, the young tamer clapped his hands together, before walking over to the ingredient piles, "So, should we get started, Bezil?"
Had he agreed, the group would start preparing, as Skadi started to grab a few sticks, plenty for Bezil to start off a small campfire to start cooking, and a twig per person for those to help cook the meal as well. Perhaps Bezil could use his tail as a bit of a DIY pan as well to help cook the fish and the shrooms? Probably not the most hygienic, but they were practically collecting food from the floor, any thoughts of hygiene was tossed out the nearest window a good long time ago.
|
|
|
Post by yuuki on Jan 27, 2020 13:55:12 GMT
The party unfortunately has yet find any ripe Acoberries... it's as stated before, seem to be off season, but there seem to be a way to deal with this... But how is the question.
Skadi and Kenny's suggestion of Falgum added with Zestime does indeed makes the fish texture much softer than before. Not only that, the Digishroom does indeed brings more of its flavor... yet, sadly, they seem to miss a component as the moment they tasted it, the sourness was a bit too overpowering. They might won't get worst case stomachache, but it'll still burn... should they add something else to neutralize this acidity?
|
|
|
Post by Bezil on Feb 23, 2020 10:45:50 GMT
Bezil thought hard on what three ingredients should be used here. By themselves, each ingredient was unremarkable, some even quite horrible. But he went over the field guide of what ingredients could be used for what. Kenny suggested Falgum and Zestime first, which sounded logical, given how Zestime could neutralize bad flavours. "Hmm... the Digishrooms can counteract fishy flavours too, though?" he pointed out. "I think maybe the Zestime might be better used for the Mortmeat, maybe?"
He looked at the ingredients gathered so far, then shrugged. "Eh, a taste-test can't hurt. I've caught plenty of Falgum. Let's try it out." he suggested, then tried Zestime and Falgum, then spat it out immediately. "Yeuch! Still too sour!"
They needed something to get rid of the fish flavour. "Alright, so, I think digishrooms are definitely needed here... Wait, let me do something that'll help us plan better." he then paused to visualize this by writing down each ingredient on a piece of paper, tore them up, then arranged the ten of them on the ground, sitting down on the grass. He put the "Digishroom", "Zestime" and "Falgum" pieces together, leaving behind the other seven.
Next, he more hesitantly combined the Happyshroom with the Deprezuun. "They should cancel each other out, maybe? Both with the happy/sad thing and the neutralizing gastric poisons?" he suggested. That left five.
Bezil pondered over them for a bit, his golden eyes narrowing at the mention of 'Ethylene'. He remembered Owen mentioning that word a few times, he knuckled his forehead as he tried to remember, then in a snap it came to him.
"Ethylene! It ripens fruit!" he exclaimed, excitedly grabbing the Ethylus and Acoberries papers and putting them as the third recipe.
So then, Bezil presented the three proposed recipes to Kenny and Skadi.
- Happyshroom and Deprezuun. - Digishrooms, Zestime and Falgum. - Ethylus and Acoberries.
"So that just leaves Muscle Carrots, Belchaney and Mortmeat." Bezil concluded. "If these three are right, where do you think they should go?" he asked his companions. "Oh, and we've got plenty of ingredients collected, I don't think we only have to use one for each." he added, rubbing his chin, wondering if they could double up on an ingredient or two for a successful recipe.
|
|
|
Post by Kenny O'Hara and Skadi on Feb 28, 2020 4:55:58 GMT
A bit of experimentation was key for this leg of the test; and thankfully for everyone involved so far, consequences were, at the very least, minimal. Unfortunately, as Kenny and Skadi bit into the Falgum mixture, the disgusting, highly bitter, taste of the fish that overpowered even the Digishrooms had also forced them to spit it out as soon as humanly possible.
"Jesus Christ, they weren't kidding when they said this fish tastes like shit." Kenny muttered to no one in particular as he cleared his tongue with his hand, "Is that how they ward off predators or something?" Skadi herself was trying to spit all the bitter taste onto the floor. Needless to say, something was missing from the recipe that didn't make them want to gag like crazy.
Just as they were getting the last of the ungodly bitter taste out of their mouth, they turned to see Bezil writing down and tearing up paper, all the scraps listing all the ingredients, including the Falgum combo from earlier, a Happyshroom/Deprezuun combo, and finally, an Ethylus/Acoberry combo, leaving only 3 leftover ingredients to match them up together. Quickly, they could see where Bezil was going with this.
Kenny instinctively scratched his chin as he looked at the ingredients, all the while listening to Bezil's explanation, while Skadi glanced upon it; for the emotional vegetable combo, they did seem to cancel each other out, especially with the potential poison lurking within the Happyshroom, while the Ethylene leaking out of the Ethylus could help to ripen the Acoberries in quick succession.
So what of the Muscle Carrots, Belchaney and Mortmeat? Something started to click inside Kenny's brain, "Wait, guys, I think we might be onto something..." He moved the Muscle Carrot piece onto the Happyshroom/Deprezuun combo, "We could make these into a salad, if all these could possibly cancel each other out. And maybe..." This time, he added the Belchaney scrap into the Falgum combo, "We could use the Belchaney in the Zestrime to make it a little less overpowering. Hell, while we're at it..."
In a matter of moments, Kenny had placed the Mortmeat piece over the Falgum piece, "We could probably use this combo to neutralise the Mortmeat smell and the possibly overpowering taste of the Zestime. And..." He finally reached for the Ethylus/Acoberries scraps and put them with the salad combo, "Once we ripened the Acoberries, we could add those to the salad too to give it a bit more kick. Does that sound good to you, guys?"
Had Bezil agreed to the idea, they would quickly set off to prepare the recipes proposed, all the while Kenny and Skadi checking to see if they were preparing the food properly, including avoiding boiling the Mortmeat to avoid the rancid taste, and using the Ethylus to ripen the Acoberries before they could be properly put into the salad to avoid the possible stomachache. And, of course for obvious reasons, they would often check on the meat they were cooking to avoid cooking it raw.
|
|
|
Post by yuuki on Apr 6, 2020 5:13:26 GMT
Well well, guess what? Looks like the Acoberries and Ethylus was INDEED the answer. The green fruits quickly changed color into purple, which means now it's ripe. Their puzzle solving ability was rewarded with a sweet taste of the berry. Meanwhile, while Falgum was neutralized by Zestime and Digishroom, looks like it's still missing one component. It's still very sour! Perhaps something minty might be the answer.
And Kenny did it right! He managed to neutralize the taste of the lemon to tasty level, and now they have in their hand a delicious fish. It tastes similar to high quality salmon, almost hard to believe that it came from such a disgusting fish! Now, with Mortmeat comboing with already nice Falgum... ...the taste become ruined. Now the overpowering smell is back . They really can't just like that combine a random raw ingredient with a completely perfect one, even if it sounded good in theory, it seems.
|
|
|
Post by Kenny O'Hara and Skadi on Apr 12, 2020 7:31:47 GMT
With the 2 dishes all made, it was time to see what fruits, literal or metaphorical, of what their efforts would bring. The first one with the acoberries worked like a charm. For a sugar-loving sheep like Skadi, she practically lapped it up, juice and all. For Kenny, it might be a little too sweet for his liking, but that fell more under personal taste. The Falgum, though... after taking one bite of the mortmeat combo, both quickly spat it back out from the overpowering smell.
The young man simply blinked for a moment, before quietly sliding the mortmeat scrap paper away from the Falgum meal ingredient list with an awkward chuckle, "Yeah... sorry about that, Bezil." Was Kenny overthinking everything again? From what just happened, all signs just pointed to yes. Regardless, with 2 of the 3 required recipes knocked out, they just needed one more to do.
But what?
Both would ponder what to do, with Kenny's eyes focused on the Mortmeat scrap for most of the time, before slowly hovering over to the Zestime scrap in the Falgum pile. Then, something clicked inside his mind, and he snapped his fingers, "Wait, I have an idea."
With no moment to spare, he took to moving the Zestrime and Mortmeat scrap papers together, along with the Digishroom and Belchaney scraps, "Hikaru never said anything about using more than one ingredient now, didn't he?" He exclaimed to the rest of the group, "We could use the juices from the Zestrime and the Belchaney honey again to help kill the smell and neutralise the flavour, and put some Digishrooms on the side to make the last delicious meal we need to pass this area. Sound good to you guys?"
Skadi simply gave a nod to her tamer with a grin, "Yeah, that could work. You like that idea, Bezil?" She beamed to the fluffy dragon. Had he given the go-ahead, they'd try and knock out the last dish together, working together to cook this last dish and pass the first true challenge as part of their required training. It was a good skill to have, reading between the lines wherever possible.
|
|
|
Post by Bezil on Apr 30, 2020 11:30:40 GMT
Bezil did agree to the recipes as Kenny proposed. Knowing that it was a great risk, but a risk they had to take, and, thankfully, he trusted that his papa wouldn't have them poisoned to the point it did permanent damage if they got it wrong, he helped Kenny and Skadi prepare the three recipes as described.
The first, the Acoberries combined with Ethylus was delicious. The second, the Falgum combined with the Zestime and Digishroom tasted... nearly okay, but a bit of mint could be good to counteract it.
The last recipe was frankly, horrible. Bezil spat it out at once before swallowing, knowing it would be a bad idea to swallow it. Yeah, that wasn't going to fly.
The Gumdramon listened to Kenny's suggestion on how to improve it, then he agreed. "Yeah, let's try that out." he said, thinking it was logical. He remembered the phrase "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down" from watching a digital world remade film when he was in his younger years, and thought that'd be good to try out.
|
|
|