The Sims Medieval: Bric-a-Brac Day
Hey, guys, and welcome to my latest (long overdue) quest in The Sims Medieval! Now, in case you've forgotten, I put up a poll about what quest to do last time we visited the Kingdom of Hetalia. Well, as you can probably see in the title for this post, the quest Bric-a-Brac Day won out! Now, in hindsight I probably shouldn't have put "A Lost Child" on that poll, because it's really short and definitely would not have made a nice, long post. That definitely wouldn't have been very entertaining, and I'm having a hard time believing someone finds my little Let's Play good enough to read in the first place XD
Instead, I should definitely have put Tournament of Hono(u)r on the poll, because that's a special quest that's going to be very helpful in my quest to get platinum in this ambition. Plus that it's a double-hero quest, which means both fun interactions and reaching platinum level on the quest quicker. In case you've forgotten or I just plain forgot to tell you, this ambition is all about reaching high level in quests, so that's definitely something we want. Basically, expect to see that quest soon.
So for this quest, we will finally be playing as England! And since I haven't created a character for this part, but want to put something in to mark the start, you'll have to do with a picture of his tower.
This day, much like any other in Hetalia, Arthur was going around his usual tasks. Or at least he had been going about his usual tasks hours ago, when it was still day. At the moment, the sun had long since gone down and he would normally have been meditating to recover the energy he had lost during the day. Putting curses on people he didn't like was a tough job, after all. The reason he was not doing so was because word had reached him that kng Romulus was making his royal rounds and would inevitably visit Arthur's establishment for an "inspection", which Arthur was getting increasingly certain was actually an excuse to get free Mystic Grog. Not that Arthur blamed him; there was nothing like some Grog to get so drunk you couldn't remember anything from the past week.
So here he was, enjoying a drink while waiting for the king to get the visit over with so he could get some bloody meditation already. Around midnight, he finally heard that door downstairs opening, followed by those royal boots going up the stairs.
"Your Highness, welcome to my tower! A routine inspection, or can I help you with something?" he asked. He decided to leave the matter of the time out of the conversation. Like it or not, this was the king and the king was the one who paid his work. King Romulus proceeded to hurriedly go through the same scripted speech he always held for these inspections.
"Greetings, Adept Arthur. I am conducting my standard review of Hetalia's holdings, as is my duty. Nothing strange about that. I see your establishment is in order, Arthur; I was simply taking an informal look around and not searching for anything in particular." The short speech over, he quickly reverted to a more casual tone. "So... While I am here, might I see a sample of your amazing talent?"
Arthur resisted the urge to sigh. "Would His Majesty perhaps like a glass of Mystic Grog this fine evening?" Or midnight. Apparantly the king was too much of a muscle brain to see the difference.
So off he went to make the grog, as he had gone through his whole stock of them after a particularly tough day of herb collecting. The kingdom currently had a nasty invasion of Edward's whitefly, and these whiteflies just so happened to have a taste for belladonna, one of the many ingredients Arthur needed for his potions. Considering only the healthiest of herbs were good enough for magical use, he had been forced to spend the whole bloody day looking for untouched plants.
As he was finished, he handed the Grog to King Romulus, praying to the Watcher he'd be finished now so Arthur could get some rest. The king's eyes lit up.
"Excellent crafting, Arthur. You are a boon to Hetalia, despite your chambers needing a spot of cleaning. Here is some coin for your labours." He took out a pouch of money, which Arthur wasn't sure from where. Well, at least that was a bright spot. And Arthur having his greatness as a Wizard recognised was certainly nice too. "I'm off to my next stop... Oh, I have something special in store for the kingdom; keep your eyes and ears open for a royal missive soon."
With those words, King Romulus went off to keep some other poor soul from getting some meditation. Or sleep, in their case.
After finally getting to restore his energy a bit, followed by a nice bowl of seed porrige for breakfast, Arthur decided to follow the king's advice and clean up the place. Mostly because he didn't have anything better to do that early in the morning.
As he opened the door to sweep the dust outside, he heard a small sound. With a flutter of feathers and purpose, the royal carrier pigeon, Guillermo, dropped a sealed letter in front of him. Looking up, Arthur watched as the bird bearing the royal markings flew back to the keep. The message read,
"Adept Arthur, you are invited to the throne room to participate in a special event at the request of Lord Romulus the Great.
Cordially,
Royal Advisor Humangermania"
Well, this was interesting. There were two ways he imagined this could play out. Either the king wanted to reward him for his long service to the kingdom with titles, riches and land, or he was about to lend his services for a banquet or something that involved more thankless work and dealing with idiots. Sadly, the latter seemed far more likely to him. Still, he couldn't exactly ignore a royal summon, could he? So off he went to the throne room.
As he arrived at the throne room, he found the king complaining to his advisor about some villainous man and his evil plot to block the door. Arthur cleared his throat, catching the king's attention.
"You wished to speak to me, Your Majesty?"
The king grinned from ear to ear as he dragged Arthur to a more public section of the throne room.
"Welcome all to this jolly event! I, Lord Romulus the Great, Handsome, Powerful and All-Around Amazing, have decreed today to be a new holiday in Hetalia, an occasion of competition and community, the first ever 'Bric-A-Brac Day'! To celebrate, I have hidden ten royal trinkets in unique locations around the kingdom. The day is done when all are found, and the citizen to find the most of my treasures shall be rewarded."
There was that word! Rewarded! The holiday itself seemed rather childish in Arthur's ears, but he certainly wasn't one to say no to a nice reward!
"For details of your search," King Romulus continued, "you have use of the royal scribe table at any time during the event. Return to my advisor Humangermania when you've discovered an item and to check on the competition. And now... let the hunt began. Joyous Bric-A-Brac!"
With those words, a surprisingly small number of people (well, this so-called holiday was all new after all) all moved either out of the throne room to begin their search right away, or to the scribe table to learn about the details of the hunt. Arthur was in the latter category.
Apparantly, the ten items he had to find was the royal feather pen (the one right next to him had a note attached with the words "Not the royal feather pen. It's not that easy."), the king's key to... something, the liege lens, the crown dagger, the king's journal, the royal tinderbox, the king's mother's old music box, a signet ring, a golden goblet and last but not least, the royal teddy dear.
List of items in his pouch, he decided to go search in the outer limits of the area, such as the forest. He did, after all, know the place like his own spellbook after all the herbs he had gathered there.
As he reached the forest, he noticed a rotund, middle-aged woman shuffling around in the bushes, obviously hunting for something. It didn't take a genius to tell she was another contestant. Still, it wouldn't hurt to make sure.
"You're here for the Bric-A-Brac Day, aren't you?" he asked her.
"Eh, I don't understand this-a "Bric-A-Brac Day thing", the woman replied in a heavy accent. "I was just-a here with my usual delivery of savoury meats, when the royal advisor told me I had to enter this-a hunt. I just-a hope there is some meat to be found, I love-a the meats!"
"Well," Arthur deadpanned. "I've heard there's plenty of meat deeper in the forest. The problem is that it runs around a lot, and it tends to be rather protective of itself."
The woman didn't even bother to reply before running off into the forest. Well... That was one less competitor, Arthur supposed. And really, if she couldn't understand what he was trying to tell her, she deserved looking around in the forest for an hour or two.
Then again, if there was anything hidden in this specific area, that woman had most likely already found it. Perhaps Arthur should search deeper in the forest himself, after all. If nothing else, it was a start.
The forest trip was mixed in the terms of luck. On one hand, he had been attacked by an angry bear that had seen fit to take a bite out of Arthur's shoulder before he had the time to cast any spells. On the other hand, it was a rather shallow bite, the bear had decided to leave him alone after that, and he did find the crown dagger hidden in a tree stump soon after the bear attack.
'That would've been useful earlier, even if it looks more like an overly decorated butter knife,' he thought as he attached the dagger to his belt. So, a painful, possibly infective bite to the shoulder in exchange for a dagger he'd soon have to give up to the king again. Fair trade.
The next destination, Arthur was decided would be the market place in his search for trinkets. After a quick stop in the inn (animal attacks really got your appetite for wine up), he was off.
As he searched his way through the market, he was suddenly startled by someone who looked exactly like him and wore exactly the same clothes he was wearing. The double put a package in his hands and said, "There's no time to explain! Take this and get out of here!" Then he ran off down the street. Really, Arthur should be more surprised than he was feeling at that moment. But there was clearly some kind of magic at work here, and sometimes it was better to act first and investigate later. Not to mention, if he couldn't trust himself, who could he trust?
After a few minutes of running, he was suddenly struggling to stay conscious. He sat down on a bench and passed out. When he awoke several hours later, he was sitting on the same bench... but on the other side of the village! When he examined himself, he discovered that the package was gone and that his toenails were painted. Odd. But there was no time to waste right now. The king had entered him into the contest, he might as well complete it.
(Note: I'm about as confused as you guys right now. Let's just move on with the quest XD)
When he returned to the market, he continued his search for anything that could possibly qualify as one of the items on the list. During this search, he noticed a shady-looking man with black, long hair, matching clothes and a chipped sword. At first glance, one could mistake him for a common thief. But this man was, like Arthur looking through the stalls with the look of someone searching for something specific. Now that Arthur thought about it, he had seen that man in the throne room while the contestants had recieved their instructions. He didn't have to be a genius to know what conclusion to make from that. He stopped his own search for a moment to tap the man on the shoulder. The shady-looking man spun around, hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Arthur did his best to appear non-threatening; after the bear encounter, a sword to the gut was the last thing he needed.
"You're here for that holiday, aren't you?" he asked. The dark man scoffed.
"Honestly, I couldn't care less about this new holiday nonsense. I signed up for this hunt in hopes of finding some sweet loot that I can pawn off in the village," he more growled than said. You actually signed up for this thing? Then why on earth did the king apparantly just assume Arthur would join? "So don't get in my way, 'cause when there is money involved, I am all business."
Well, Arthur had decided he'd gone through enough trouble to last him for a while, no use looking up more right now. So he decided to just ignore the rather immoral man and go back to his own search. After a while, lo and behold, he found the liege lens (also known as the thing the king wore when he wanted to look smart) in the dove sailsman's stall! And he didn't even have to pay for it this time! Maybe the Watcher had decided to be a bit more merciful on him after the bear incident. ...No, it had to be a coincidence.
Still, two items hardly sounded like a lead to Arthur's ears. He wanted to look for at least one more before checking on the scores with the Royal Advisor. Now what good hiding places hadn't he looked at? The Judgement Zone? He didn't want to become pit beast dinner. The inn? Running into that peacock calling himself a bard was even worse. The docks?
Actually, that was an option. Arthur did enjoy a trip out to sea from time to time, so he was quite familiar with that area. And there was plenty of hiding space on the single ship the kingdom owned. More than one ship for the kingdom had been strictly forbidden "forever and ever, no take-backs" by King Gaius I after he became convinced the turbot were out to get him.
On his way to the beach, though, a young boy ran up to him.
"Hey, mister, ye're another of those adults doing this hunts, aren't you?" the boy asked excitedly.
"Y-yes, I am," Arthur said, going down on one knee to look the boy in the eyes.
"Well, I just wanted to tell ye that ye might as well go back home now and save yerself the trouble. A day for finding hidden stuffs, it's like it was made for me! You can call me 'Kniknak, the King of Bric-A-Brac!' Now outta my way, I got some stuffs to find..."
With those words, the boy bounded off, presumably in search of more royal items. England smiled. So that boy thought he would win, would he? Well, now that a child was involved, this whole thing suddenly felt a whole lot more interesting.
"I don't think so, 'Your Highness'! You'll be dethroned, I'll see to that!" he shouted after the boy before chuckling to himself and continuing his journey to the docks.
He decided to look inside the ship first, and his luck was actually continuing. After about an hour or so of searching, he came across the old queen's music box in a corner, hidden behind a couple of barrels. So, three items out of ten found. That wasn't too bad, especially not considering the number of competitors. He figured he should probably head back towards the castle to see what his rivals had found.
When he had done so, the Royal Advisor nodded and wrote down Arthur's exploits on a list.
"Excellent, mister Kirkland. You have found three treasures. You lead Shady Boniface, who only found the royal tinderbox in the forest clearing. I'm not sure what this 'Margherita the Royal Meat Vendor' is doing, but she just keeps returning with dubious meat. Kniknak, though, has been busy. He has three items as well: the king's key from the town square, the golden goblet from the cave and the signet ring from the pond."
Well, Arthur didn't expect anything else, honestly. That boy seemed to be the only one who took this holiday seriously. Well, aside from Arthur himself of course, but he was mostly doing this because he wanted that reward the king promised.
So for the next step, he decided he might as well take a look at that list of locations for the hunt.
So, there was the forest, which he doubted had any more than two items in it. The town square, the docks, the cave, the village, and the pond had all been explored already. There was a beach on the list too, but that probably counted as part of the docks. The three locations that had yet to be explored were the Pit of Judgement, the holy oak and the throne room itself.
Now there was an idea. Most less religiously minded people in Hetalia didn't even know the kingdom had a holy oak, so that would be a nice, obscure hiding place. Arthur wasn't very religiously minded himself, but that oak was one of the few places where the rare herb Angelweed could be found, so he had visited it a few times for collection purposes. If he was lucky, none of the other contestants even knew where to find this oak.
New plan in his mind, off he went towards the sacred oak.
When he arrived at the oak, the sun was going down and Arthur was growing hungry. He really hoped this hunt wouldn't last much longer, because he wanted to go home and have some seed porrige (he needed to do something with all the stray seeds he got from the herbs he collected, and at least it tasted better than gruel), maybe a few glasses of ale. But that was for later.
For now, he searched the branches and a hole in the oak, but to no avail. However, when he started going through the bushes near the tree, he found the king's journal in one of them. For the fun of it, and because no-one would ever know, he decided to look at the latest entry. At least a bit of it.
'Dear Journal,
It's great to rule over a kingdom!!! But tragedy has struck... Sir Teddy Bear has disappeared!'
...
It was nice to see the king did have a legitimate reason to create a completely new holiday. Surely this was the best way to go about solving an issue such as this. Well, it didn't matter. As long as Arthur got his reward, he might as well have been collecting sacrifices for a ritual to destroy the kingdom for all he cared.
Journal in hand, he decided that it was too late to search for any more items, especially since they had most likely been collected by the time he got the journal. He returned to the castle, hopeful that the odd meat woman had somehow dropped her obsession for long enough to collect some trinkets. If she hadn't, his best-case scenario was sharing the win with that boy, Kniknak. Although truthfully, he didn't mind if that's what happened. It'd probably make the boy happy, and Arthur liked seeing children happy.
Judging by the crowd that had collected when he returned to the throne room, he was the last one there. When the Royal Advisor noticed Arthur was there, he turned to adress the crowd.
"Well done, and thanks to all the competitors. Your efforts have made the first annual 'Bric-A-Brac Day' a grand success! In an amazing turn of events, it seems we have a tie with four royal trinkets apiece. So, Adept Arthur and Kniknak, if you would please join me in the reception hall?" Turning briskly towards the hall he added, "The rest of you may go. Joyous Bric-a-Brac!"
The two followed the Royal Advisor into the reception hall.
"What did you want to speak to us about?" Arthur asked.
"You are both skilled searchers, so you have been chosen for one final tast," the Royal Advisor said. "Only nine of the trinkets were recovered - the tenth and most important is your goal. Please do not share this, but Lord Romulus the Great lost his stuffed bear and is devastated about it. The sole purpose of creating Bric-a-Brac Day was to recover... Sir Teddylot. The only possible place that remains is the throne room. Time is running out. Find the bear and win the day!"
Kniknak ran off at once while Arthur allowed himself some time to sigh. He knew it. This whole mess was because the king couldn't keep track of his bloody toys. However, that still didn't change the fact that there was a reward at stake. Now that he was so close, Arthur might as well follow this to the end. He returned to the throne room, right behind Kniknak.
Now, if he was the king's teddy bear, where would he be? Normally, Arthur would answer "the king's bed", but the Royal Advisor had specified it was in the throne room. That meant Arthur, quite frankly, had no idea. Since the king wasn't present at the moment, he decided to have a seat on the throne and think it through. He'd been walking around looking for things all day after all, he needed a rest.
Arthur had to say, he liked the feeling of the throne. Maybe he should consider making a kingdom of his own some time. After all, King Romulus had just sailed to an empty bit of land and claimed it as his own. Arthur could do that too. Maybe he should...
Hold on. What was that he just felt among the pillows on the throne? It couldn't possibly be...
But it was. After all efforts, it turned out that the teddy bear was wedged between the throne's pillows! Well, it didn't matter. What was found was found. Arthur could finally end this thing and get to the part he liked. The part where he was praised and rewarded for doing such a good job.
"Royal Advisor!" he called, getting off the throne. "I think I found what you're looking for."
The Royal Advisor gave Arthur what he most likely counted as a smile. "Thank Watcher," he said. "Maybe now I can convince His Highness to do something actually of consequence for the kingdom at large... You are truly the Best Seeker in the Land."
There was an awkward silence before Arthur asked "Is that all?"
"What?"
"Is a pat on the back and a pretty title everything I'm getting for everything I went through? I got attacked by a bloody bear!"
"I'm not patting you on the back, Adept. The title is the reward, and that's everything you're getting," the Royal Advisor icily answered before turning his back, leaving Arthur to stare in disbelief and anger. He was brought out of his stupor by Kniknak tugging on his sleeve.
"If you don't want your title, can I have it?" the boy asked. Arthur sighed for the last time that night.
"You can have it. I need some Mystic Grog..." he half-said, half-groaned before going off to his tower to fulfill this new promise to himself.
~~~~
A few days later, King Romulus found his beloved teddy bear missing once again. But this time, the disappearance was accompanied with an anonymous letter telling him to bring §1 800 in precious stones to the town square at midnight, and to go alone. On the scene, the king met a dastardly masked man holding the poor, innocent bear hostage. After the transaction, Romulus could swear he saw the villain teleport away.
~~~~
And that is Bric-A-Brac Day! I hope you enjoyed the quest and that I didn't screw up England's characterisation! For today's poll, it's back to basics as we pick another Hetalia character to enter the kingdom's service. After that, we just might return to the war between Tredony and Aarbyville. Remember that? Yeah, it's still a thing. I say "might" because I literally do not know. The quest list is refreshed every time you make a new hero or complete a quest, and since we're going neutral and leaning ever-so-slightly to the Noble side, I want a quest that favours the Pirates. So please do remember to vote for what hero you want!
Instead, I should definitely have put Tournament of Hono(u)r on the poll, because that's a special quest that's going to be very helpful in my quest to get platinum in this ambition. Plus that it's a double-hero quest, which means both fun interactions and reaching platinum level on the quest quicker. In case you've forgotten or I just plain forgot to tell you, this ambition is all about reaching high level in quests, so that's definitely something we want. Basically, expect to see that quest soon.
So for this quest, we will finally be playing as England! And since I haven't created a character for this part, but want to put something in to mark the start, you'll have to do with a picture of his tower.
This day, much like any other in Hetalia, Arthur was going around his usual tasks. Or at least he had been going about his usual tasks hours ago, when it was still day. At the moment, the sun had long since gone down and he would normally have been meditating to recover the energy he had lost during the day. Putting curses on people he didn't like was a tough job, after all. The reason he was not doing so was because word had reached him that kng Romulus was making his royal rounds and would inevitably visit Arthur's establishment for an "inspection", which Arthur was getting increasingly certain was actually an excuse to get free Mystic Grog. Not that Arthur blamed him; there was nothing like some Grog to get so drunk you couldn't remember anything from the past week.
So here he was, enjoying a drink while waiting for the king to get the visit over with so he could get some bloody meditation already. Around midnight, he finally heard that door downstairs opening, followed by those royal boots going up the stairs.
"Your Highness, welcome to my tower! A routine inspection, or can I help you with something?" he asked. He decided to leave the matter of the time out of the conversation. Like it or not, this was the king and the king was the one who paid his work. King Romulus proceeded to hurriedly go through the same scripted speech he always held for these inspections.
"Greetings, Adept Arthur. I am conducting my standard review of Hetalia's holdings, as is my duty. Nothing strange about that. I see your establishment is in order, Arthur; I was simply taking an informal look around and not searching for anything in particular." The short speech over, he quickly reverted to a more casual tone. "So... While I am here, might I see a sample of your amazing talent?"
Arthur resisted the urge to sigh. "Would His Majesty perhaps like a glass of Mystic Grog this fine evening?" Or midnight. Apparantly the king was too much of a muscle brain to see the difference.
So off he went to make the grog, as he had gone through his whole stock of them after a particularly tough day of herb collecting. The kingdom currently had a nasty invasion of Edward's whitefly, and these whiteflies just so happened to have a taste for belladonna, one of the many ingredients Arthur needed for his potions. Considering only the healthiest of herbs were good enough for magical use, he had been forced to spend the whole bloody day looking for untouched plants.
As he was finished, he handed the Grog to King Romulus, praying to the Watcher he'd be finished now so Arthur could get some rest. The king's eyes lit up.
"Excellent crafting, Arthur. You are a boon to Hetalia, despite your chambers needing a spot of cleaning. Here is some coin for your labours." He took out a pouch of money, which Arthur wasn't sure from where. Well, at least that was a bright spot. And Arthur having his greatness as a Wizard recognised was certainly nice too. "I'm off to my next stop... Oh, I have something special in store for the kingdom; keep your eyes and ears open for a royal missive soon."
With those words, King Romulus went off to keep some other poor soul from getting some meditation. Or sleep, in their case.
After finally getting to restore his energy a bit, followed by a nice bowl of seed porrige for breakfast, Arthur decided to follow the king's advice and clean up the place. Mostly because he didn't have anything better to do that early in the morning.
As he opened the door to sweep the dust outside, he heard a small sound. With a flutter of feathers and purpose, the royal carrier pigeon, Guillermo, dropped a sealed letter in front of him. Looking up, Arthur watched as the bird bearing the royal markings flew back to the keep. The message read,
"Adept Arthur, you are invited to the throne room to participate in a special event at the request of Lord Romulus the Great.
Cordially,
Royal Advisor Humangermania"
Well, this was interesting. There were two ways he imagined this could play out. Either the king wanted to reward him for his long service to the kingdom with titles, riches and land, or he was about to lend his services for a banquet or something that involved more thankless work and dealing with idiots. Sadly, the latter seemed far more likely to him. Still, he couldn't exactly ignore a royal summon, could he? So off he went to the throne room.
As he arrived at the throne room, he found the king complaining to his advisor about some villainous man and his evil plot to block the door. Arthur cleared his throat, catching the king's attention.
"You wished to speak to me, Your Majesty?"
The king grinned from ear to ear as he dragged Arthur to a more public section of the throne room.
"Welcome all to this jolly event! I, Lord Romulus the Great, Handsome, Powerful and All-Around Amazing, have decreed today to be a new holiday in Hetalia, an occasion of competition and community, the first ever 'Bric-A-Brac Day'! To celebrate, I have hidden ten royal trinkets in unique locations around the kingdom. The day is done when all are found, and the citizen to find the most of my treasures shall be rewarded."
There was that word! Rewarded! The holiday itself seemed rather childish in Arthur's ears, but he certainly wasn't one to say no to a nice reward!
"For details of your search," King Romulus continued, "you have use of the royal scribe table at any time during the event. Return to my advisor Humangermania when you've discovered an item and to check on the competition. And now... let the hunt began. Joyous Bric-A-Brac!"
With those words, a surprisingly small number of people (well, this so-called holiday was all new after all) all moved either out of the throne room to begin their search right away, or to the scribe table to learn about the details of the hunt. Arthur was in the latter category.
Apparantly, the ten items he had to find was the royal feather pen (the one right next to him had a note attached with the words "Not the royal feather pen. It's not that easy."), the king's key to... something, the liege lens, the crown dagger, the king's journal, the royal tinderbox, the king's mother's old music box, a signet ring, a golden goblet and last but not least, the royal teddy dear.
List of items in his pouch, he decided to go search in the outer limits of the area, such as the forest. He did, after all, know the place like his own spellbook after all the herbs he had gathered there.
As he reached the forest, he noticed a rotund, middle-aged woman shuffling around in the bushes, obviously hunting for something. It didn't take a genius to tell she was another contestant. Still, it wouldn't hurt to make sure.
"You're here for the Bric-A-Brac Day, aren't you?" he asked her.
"Eh, I don't understand this-a "Bric-A-Brac Day thing", the woman replied in a heavy accent. "I was just-a here with my usual delivery of savoury meats, when the royal advisor told me I had to enter this-a hunt. I just-a hope there is some meat to be found, I love-a the meats!"
"Well," Arthur deadpanned. "I've heard there's plenty of meat deeper in the forest. The problem is that it runs around a lot, and it tends to be rather protective of itself."
The woman didn't even bother to reply before running off into the forest. Well... That was one less competitor, Arthur supposed. And really, if she couldn't understand what he was trying to tell her, she deserved looking around in the forest for an hour or two.
Then again, if there was anything hidden in this specific area, that woman had most likely already found it. Perhaps Arthur should search deeper in the forest himself, after all. If nothing else, it was a start.
The forest trip was mixed in the terms of luck. On one hand, he had been attacked by an angry bear that had seen fit to take a bite out of Arthur's shoulder before he had the time to cast any spells. On the other hand, it was a rather shallow bite, the bear had decided to leave him alone after that, and he did find the crown dagger hidden in a tree stump soon after the bear attack.
'That would've been useful earlier, even if it looks more like an overly decorated butter knife,' he thought as he attached the dagger to his belt. So, a painful, possibly infective bite to the shoulder in exchange for a dagger he'd soon have to give up to the king again. Fair trade.
The next destination, Arthur was decided would be the market place in his search for trinkets. After a quick stop in the inn (animal attacks really got your appetite for wine up), he was off.
As he searched his way through the market, he was suddenly startled by someone who looked exactly like him and wore exactly the same clothes he was wearing. The double put a package in his hands and said, "There's no time to explain! Take this and get out of here!" Then he ran off down the street. Really, Arthur should be more surprised than he was feeling at that moment. But there was clearly some kind of magic at work here, and sometimes it was better to act first and investigate later. Not to mention, if he couldn't trust himself, who could he trust?
After a few minutes of running, he was suddenly struggling to stay conscious. He sat down on a bench and passed out. When he awoke several hours later, he was sitting on the same bench... but on the other side of the village! When he examined himself, he discovered that the package was gone and that his toenails were painted. Odd. But there was no time to waste right now. The king had entered him into the contest, he might as well complete it.
Click to view(Note: I'm about as confused as you guys right now. Let's just move on with the quest XD)
When he returned to the market, he continued his search for anything that could possibly qualify as one of the items on the list. During this search, he noticed a shady-looking man with black, long hair, matching clothes and a chipped sword. At first glance, one could mistake him for a common thief. But this man was, like Arthur looking through the stalls with the look of someone searching for something specific. Now that Arthur thought about it, he had seen that man in the throne room while the contestants had recieved their instructions. He didn't have to be a genius to know what conclusion to make from that. He stopped his own search for a moment to tap the man on the shoulder. The shady-looking man spun around, hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Arthur did his best to appear non-threatening; after the bear encounter, a sword to the gut was the last thing he needed.
"You're here for that holiday, aren't you?" he asked. The dark man scoffed.
"Honestly, I couldn't care less about this new holiday nonsense. I signed up for this hunt in hopes of finding some sweet loot that I can pawn off in the village," he more growled than said. You actually signed up for this thing? Then why on earth did the king apparantly just assume Arthur would join? "So don't get in my way, 'cause when there is money involved, I am all business."
Well, Arthur had decided he'd gone through enough trouble to last him for a while, no use looking up more right now. So he decided to just ignore the rather immoral man and go back to his own search. After a while, lo and behold, he found the liege lens (also known as the thing the king wore when he wanted to look smart) in the dove sailsman's stall! And he didn't even have to pay for it this time! Maybe the Watcher had decided to be a bit more merciful on him after the bear incident. ...No, it had to be a coincidence.
Still, two items hardly sounded like a lead to Arthur's ears. He wanted to look for at least one more before checking on the scores with the Royal Advisor. Now what good hiding places hadn't he looked at? The Judgement Zone? He didn't want to become pit beast dinner. The inn? Running into that peacock calling himself a bard was even worse. The docks?
Actually, that was an option. Arthur did enjoy a trip out to sea from time to time, so he was quite familiar with that area. And there was plenty of hiding space on the single ship the kingdom owned. More than one ship for the kingdom had been strictly forbidden "forever and ever, no take-backs" by King Gaius I after he became convinced the turbot were out to get him.
On his way to the beach, though, a young boy ran up to him.
"Hey, mister, ye're another of those adults doing this hunts, aren't you?" the boy asked excitedly.
"Y-yes, I am," Arthur said, going down on one knee to look the boy in the eyes.
"Well, I just wanted to tell ye that ye might as well go back home now and save yerself the trouble. A day for finding hidden stuffs, it's like it was made for me! You can call me 'Kniknak, the King of Bric-A-Brac!' Now outta my way, I got some stuffs to find..."
With those words, the boy bounded off, presumably in search of more royal items. England smiled. So that boy thought he would win, would he? Well, now that a child was involved, this whole thing suddenly felt a whole lot more interesting.
"I don't think so, 'Your Highness'! You'll be dethroned, I'll see to that!" he shouted after the boy before chuckling to himself and continuing his journey to the docks.
He decided to look inside the ship first, and his luck was actually continuing. After about an hour or so of searching, he came across the old queen's music box in a corner, hidden behind a couple of barrels. So, three items out of ten found. That wasn't too bad, especially not considering the number of competitors. He figured he should probably head back towards the castle to see what his rivals had found.
When he had done so, the Royal Advisor nodded and wrote down Arthur's exploits on a list.
"Excellent, mister Kirkland. You have found three treasures. You lead Shady Boniface, who only found the royal tinderbox in the forest clearing. I'm not sure what this 'Margherita the Royal Meat Vendor' is doing, but she just keeps returning with dubious meat. Kniknak, though, has been busy. He has three items as well: the king's key from the town square, the golden goblet from the cave and the signet ring from the pond."
Well, Arthur didn't expect anything else, honestly. That boy seemed to be the only one who took this holiday seriously. Well, aside from Arthur himself of course, but he was mostly doing this because he wanted that reward the king promised.
So for the next step, he decided he might as well take a look at that list of locations for the hunt.
So, there was the forest, which he doubted had any more than two items in it. The town square, the docks, the cave, the village, and the pond had all been explored already. There was a beach on the list too, but that probably counted as part of the docks. The three locations that had yet to be explored were the Pit of Judgement, the holy oak and the throne room itself.
Now there was an idea. Most less religiously minded people in Hetalia didn't even know the kingdom had a holy oak, so that would be a nice, obscure hiding place. Arthur wasn't very religiously minded himself, but that oak was one of the few places where the rare herb Angelweed could be found, so he had visited it a few times for collection purposes. If he was lucky, none of the other contestants even knew where to find this oak.
New plan in his mind, off he went towards the sacred oak.
When he arrived at the oak, the sun was going down and Arthur was growing hungry. He really hoped this hunt wouldn't last much longer, because he wanted to go home and have some seed porrige (he needed to do something with all the stray seeds he got from the herbs he collected, and at least it tasted better than gruel), maybe a few glasses of ale. But that was for later.
For now, he searched the branches and a hole in the oak, but to no avail. However, when he started going through the bushes near the tree, he found the king's journal in one of them. For the fun of it, and because no-one would ever know, he decided to look at the latest entry. At least a bit of it.
'Dear Journal,
It's great to rule over a kingdom!!! But tragedy has struck... Sir Teddy Bear has disappeared!'
...
It was nice to see the king did have a legitimate reason to create a completely new holiday. Surely this was the best way to go about solving an issue such as this. Well, it didn't matter. As long as Arthur got his reward, he might as well have been collecting sacrifices for a ritual to destroy the kingdom for all he cared.
Journal in hand, he decided that it was too late to search for any more items, especially since they had most likely been collected by the time he got the journal. He returned to the castle, hopeful that the odd meat woman had somehow dropped her obsession for long enough to collect some trinkets. If she hadn't, his best-case scenario was sharing the win with that boy, Kniknak. Although truthfully, he didn't mind if that's what happened. It'd probably make the boy happy, and Arthur liked seeing children happy.
Judging by the crowd that had collected when he returned to the throne room, he was the last one there. When the Royal Advisor noticed Arthur was there, he turned to adress the crowd.
"Well done, and thanks to all the competitors. Your efforts have made the first annual 'Bric-A-Brac Day' a grand success! In an amazing turn of events, it seems we have a tie with four royal trinkets apiece. So, Adept Arthur and Kniknak, if you would please join me in the reception hall?" Turning briskly towards the hall he added, "The rest of you may go. Joyous Bric-a-Brac!"
The two followed the Royal Advisor into the reception hall.
"What did you want to speak to us about?" Arthur asked.
"You are both skilled searchers, so you have been chosen for one final tast," the Royal Advisor said. "Only nine of the trinkets were recovered - the tenth and most important is your goal. Please do not share this, but Lord Romulus the Great lost his stuffed bear and is devastated about it. The sole purpose of creating Bric-a-Brac Day was to recover... Sir Teddylot. The only possible place that remains is the throne room. Time is running out. Find the bear and win the day!"
Kniknak ran off at once while Arthur allowed himself some time to sigh. He knew it. This whole mess was because the king couldn't keep track of his bloody toys. However, that still didn't change the fact that there was a reward at stake. Now that he was so close, Arthur might as well follow this to the end. He returned to the throne room, right behind Kniknak.
Now, if he was the king's teddy bear, where would he be? Normally, Arthur would answer "the king's bed", but the Royal Advisor had specified it was in the throne room. That meant Arthur, quite frankly, had no idea. Since the king wasn't present at the moment, he decided to have a seat on the throne and think it through. He'd been walking around looking for things all day after all, he needed a rest.
Arthur had to say, he liked the feeling of the throne. Maybe he should consider making a kingdom of his own some time. After all, King Romulus had just sailed to an empty bit of land and claimed it as his own. Arthur could do that too. Maybe he should...
Hold on. What was that he just felt among the pillows on the throne? It couldn't possibly be...
But it was. After all efforts, it turned out that the teddy bear was wedged between the throne's pillows! Well, it didn't matter. What was found was found. Arthur could finally end this thing and get to the part he liked. The part where he was praised and rewarded for doing such a good job.
"Royal Advisor!" he called, getting off the throne. "I think I found what you're looking for."
The Royal Advisor gave Arthur what he most likely counted as a smile. "Thank Watcher," he said. "Maybe now I can convince His Highness to do something actually of consequence for the kingdom at large... You are truly the Best Seeker in the Land."
There was an awkward silence before Arthur asked "Is that all?"
"What?"
"Is a pat on the back and a pretty title everything I'm getting for everything I went through? I got attacked by a bloody bear!"
"I'm not patting you on the back, Adept. The title is the reward, and that's everything you're getting," the Royal Advisor icily answered before turning his back, leaving Arthur to stare in disbelief and anger. He was brought out of his stupor by Kniknak tugging on his sleeve.
"If you don't want your title, can I have it?" the boy asked. Arthur sighed for the last time that night.
"You can have it. I need some Mystic Grog..." he half-said, half-groaned before going off to his tower to fulfill this new promise to himself.
~~~~
A few days later, King Romulus found his beloved teddy bear missing once again. But this time, the disappearance was accompanied with an anonymous letter telling him to bring §1 800 in precious stones to the town square at midnight, and to go alone. On the scene, the king met a dastardly masked man holding the poor, innocent bear hostage. After the transaction, Romulus could swear he saw the villain teleport away.
~~~~
And that is Bric-A-Brac Day! I hope you enjoyed the quest and that I didn't screw up England's characterisation! For today's poll, it's back to basics as we pick another Hetalia character to enter the kingdom's service. After that, we just might return to the war between Tredony and Aarbyville. Remember that? Yeah, it's still a thing. I say "might" because I literally do not know. The quest list is refreshed every time you make a new hero or complete a quest, and since we're going neutral and leaning ever-so-slightly to the Noble side, I want a quest that favours the Pirates. So please do remember to vote for what hero you want!