20 minutes later and I'm relaxing once more, watching as the Ice King is attempting to flirt with Ranni.
"Hey, I'm ice, you're ice, wanna hang?" He tries wrapping his arm around her shoulder but is warded off by Blaidd. I wonder where he'll sit now, oh no, oh no he's coming to me.
"Man I don't know how you run this place, beauties are everywhere!" He sits across from me.
[Simon Petrikov - Ice King
A millennia old scientist enthralled by the tales of ice that the maddening crown atop him grants. The former caretaker of Marceline and now the ruler of the Ice Kingdom.
Currently 'totally cheesed off' and moderately enthralled.]
"Well I just like making a comfy space for everyone, it's why all the chairs feel like memory foam bean bags. So I'm just focused on that." Though now I'm quite focused on the crown, after all status nullification can prevent the frenzied flame from maddening me.
"Well if you ask me you don't look like you're up for any more time with the ladies. Past your prime, unlike me." He raised his eyebrows twice and pointed at his chest.
"I would love to listen to your dating advice but I have a question." I pick up my glass and sip it. "That crown, can I see it for a second?"
"What crown?"
"The one on your head…"
"Huh? Oh this thing, sure but make sure to give it back!"
"Of course no problem, give me a moment." I take the crown to the kitchen, pull out the ice gem and replace it with a sapphire. Let's bring Simon back.
I pocket the gem and give Simon his crown back, though he forgot he gave it to me and insisted it was probably mine. How on earth did he manage to keep this for 1000 years? Nevertheless, though the ice king's powers are good, they're not that good, Evergreen does not scale to Malenia.
In my years working here I've come to learn a lot more about just how powerful the Demigods of Elden Ring are, after all Radahn controlled the stars until his death. Most beings there can destroy a city by simply running through it, which in turn helped me realise how I compare to it all.
(I will be using the 10C - 0 scaling now. Much more dynamic than levels and stats.)
Radahn being able to halt the stars would put him at a planetary level, Malenia plunged half a county into a permanent state of rot and Rykard is naturally a God devouring serpent. And I am able to beat most of them currently, naturally, Malenia gladly hands my ass back to me during training.
Because of how isolated I am, I thought that Malenia was just quite strong and isn't you know, capable of tearing apart a continent. I only found out during the past few years when I read through the Leyndell Library, some Rot cultist books and some of Nokron's texts.
But it seems that this 'Adventure Time' world is just full of beings on the level of outer gods. It's a bit demoralising, but as long as my customers are safe I'm happy, if these odd beings want to relax here then the more the merrier.
Speaking of which.
I lay down in a now secluded back room just reading some books, specifically I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream and Hellraiser. They're considered fictional, but I suppose later down the line I may have some clientele others will have read or watched before in a work of fiction. It's bound to happen, chances are there's a world where I'm a book or series out there to watch.
How would AM react to me? I'm not human, I've no connection to the word that made him and that applies to all my customers. Would he still hate? Or would he become something else entirely?
This is why I can't read fiction, I get too absorbed in the what ifs that I forget entirely to actually read it. But it's too advantageous to intentionally miss an opportunity to inform myself of a world's dynamic beforehand.
The day passed, the I only found out when my clones came into the room and all but fell asleep on the seats.
"Don't disperse just yet, let's just relax for this night, no random training… we could try and start a band. Piano and bass is covered, we could try and learn some others."
"Hold on, you just said to relax, does this not count as training?" Clone #1 said.
"Well we aren't swinging a sword around or doing random magic again, so I'd say it's not training." I respond. I got a sign of agreement from each of them and we got the training room ready, clone #3 left to go buy a drum kit and an electric guitar from The Boys' universe.
I have no idea where he'll get it at this time but I suppose he can go to the other side of the world and back, or just rob a store at night and leave money.
20 minutes later and he came back with a few random instruments wrapped around him, I recognised the drunk kit and electric guitar but I didn't know that other thing he had.
"I found bagpipes, I have no idea what they'll sound like but they look cool." Fair enough, we technically paid for it so it's fine.
Clone #3 took the bagpipes to a separate room, signalling for us all to practice our instruments of choice. I took the piano, recently I took to copying music sheets from the internet, something called 'Piano Concerto No. 3' by Sergei Rachmaninoff is the only thing that has given me a level of difficulty. Fascinating piece to practice though.
Daylight shone through the fake bay window once more, cueing me to stop on my new piece. I realised once I reached lv20 that the only way to improve is to involve my far beyond human abilities, my speed and endurance can easily be used to develop my own piece.
[Piano lv22] [Bass lv20] [Drums lv9] [Electric guitar lv13] [Bagpipes lv9]
From my clone's experience, due to our previous ability with the bass learning the electric guitar was easier, thus the heightened level.