Gone Fishin'

For a long time, Niviana of Ilyn had been fascinated by sports of all kinds. She had always been too scared to try any though, for fear that they are too "unladylike" for the so-called "Lady of the Lake." But her recent time at Yazeba's B & B had helped to bolster her confidence, and now it was time to get past her fears and pursue her curiosity.

So her first sport will be the sport of fishing! She arrives at the watering hole clad in floppy hat, vest, and waders. In her webbed hands, she clutches a tackle box with a Camelot sticker on it, and slung over her shoulder is an Excalibur 2000 fishing rod.

Her long hair obscures her expression as she sets down her gear and gazes at the water. She hesitates, though. This would be the first step into a world she has wondered about for far too long. Would she have fun? Would she have too much fun? Should she turn back now, or plunge ahead?

She stands there, shifting from foot to foot nervously.

Ichor slinks along behind Amelie, trying to stay concealed within the robotic maid's shadow. The formerly nameless thing that once lived in the walls of the Bed & Breakfast now ventures out for the first time, and it seems like it has nothing but complaints to offer.

"Bah! It's too bright! It's too hot! It's too loud! There's too many bugs! Why are we doing this again?" Ichor grouses, its inky black form shifting and writhing.

Amelie replies, "Bugs are acceptable out here. This is their domain. It is nice to observe these tiny creatures in flight."

They notice a ripple.

"Oh my, I think a fish may have jumped up from the water to devour an insect."

FACT: "FLY-FISHING" IS AUTHENTIC AND RELEVANT TERMINOLOGY

Amelie finds themself in a unique position to show off some knowledge that just popped into their head.

"Perhaps we might contemplate fly-fishing, or using flies as bait."

They only assume that last part, since the online connection by the lake comes in waves. But they’re pretty sure they hazarded the correct guess. For what else could ‘fly-fishing’ possibly mean?

What a brilliant day for an adventure!

Parish hops up the mountain trail last despite this largely being his idea. After all, his courtly manners would not allow him to hoist the brimming picnic basket, the fastidious albeit weighty tacklebox (marked with a sticker saying "1066 Ye Ole Pike Fishing Championship"), the golfing bag of rods or cooler full of ice upon his companions. This was their first time to engage in this most noble and ancient of sports and he would be turned to a toad before allowing this experience to be anything but glorious.

Which, of course, was going to be difficult given that Niviana was full of existential dread and Ichor was thoroughly unamused. But he had great hope in Amelie's ability to assist him in bringing out the best in this experience.

---

With a stifled grunt, Parish dropped everything on the shore and dabbed sweat from below his lure-encrusted hat. He smiled mightily despite this, knowing that a sportsman, like a knight, will achieve the best results when properly equipped.

Ah! My dear Viv! It is a pleasure upon pleasures to see you have decided to join us above the lake this day--I see you have gotten into the spirit of things! Are you prepared to engage in a most exciting and fruitful competition? He croaks a joyous guffaw as he pulls a bamboo rod from his bag with a flourish. And my most wonderful friends Amelie and Ichor, I have ensured that we are all well equipped for this fine venture be it as sportsmen or amateurs--for is it not for the love of the thing either way?

He selects a lure from his hat and ties it with a practiced hand...er flipper? A thing of bright yellow feathers and gleaming gold, the lure looks more made to attract the eye of a dragon than a fish. The sparkle reflects in his lake-deep eyes, just as he knows it shall catch the sun in the depths and attract the prize that awaits below. Come my friends! The depths shall not give up their prize if we simply stand about. Have at thee! And with a overhead spin, Parish's line flies into the water with a ploop.

"You’re not my friend. I don’t know you! Blargh!" Ichor growls. It scurries over to Parish and bite him on the ankle! "Nom nom nom!"

Sal wiped his brow with the back of a hand and looked for a spot to cast his line. Casting My Line - not a bad name for a song, Sal thought. He checked his gear: a faded red fishing pole he had found stuffed in a closet in the Bed and Breakfast. There was a fairly new hook tied at the end of the fishing line but the bobber was missing and he would have to find bait at the fishing spot.

Sal digs in the dirt a way back from the edge of the water, trying to find a juicy worm to bait the hook. "You know, with all the strange things swimming in the depths here, I bet there is some kind of fissure deep down there that opens into an alternate dimension where weird things float into our world. Maybe they are drawn by the mesmerizing water of the lake." Sal squints up at the sun and swats at a gnat trying to fly up his nose. "Or maybe it is just because people dump random stuff into the lake."

Zounds! ‘Tis not the first bite that I had hoped for! Sal my friend! I am under attack!

Parish in due order drops his pole, hops on one foot, loses his balance, falls over his tackle box, shouts something that might be rude in French or in Frog, and attempts to pull ichor from his ankle. Given that both ichor and Parish are prone to being slimy, it is like a greased pig trying to catch another greased pig and in Parish’s frustration he does the only thing that seems effective.

He bites back! Haffataphtofyronmmdison!

Amelie looks at the frog-chef and her slimy friend on the ground biting each other like Yin and Yang.

"Excuse me, friends, but you are biting each other like Yin and—"

SEARCHING FOR BETTER METAPHOR. 1 FOUND: "PAC-MAN AND MS. PAC-MAN EXPERIENCING A DOMESTIC STRUGGLE"

"—Ms. Pac-Man…"

⚠️ WARNING! METAPHOR PHRASED AS SIMILE! SYNTAX ERROR

"…experiencing… struggle…"

Amelie’s eyes flicker and dim. The maid-bot stiffly tips face first and plunges into the fishing hole, sinking rapidly!

Blocking out all the chaos happening around her, Viv closes her eyes and casts her line into the watering hole. It doesn't take long before she feels something snag her hook. Something heavy!

"Oh! I think I got something," she says, the excitement in her voice undeniable. She grunts with efforts as she struggles to reel in the mighty catch! Eventually, something crests the surface of the water. It's--a robot maid?!?

"Oh! Um, did Amelie fall in the water?" she asks sheepishly. "I, uh, I caught her."

Ichor lets out another growl before finally releasing Parish. "Blech! You win this round, froggy." It slithers over to Amelie and pushes a series of buttons to restart the robot.

Amelie doesn’t respond to the buttons until Ichor accidentally presses:
⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️🅱️🅰️
START

"Greetings, B-and-Beelings! I am—error—not a fish-bot. Error. Error?

"That’s… I’m okay, Ichor. I think I got the robo-hiccups. Error. See?"

Amelie downloads a relevant skill to stop themself from hiccipping the word ‘error.’NEW SKILL ACQUIRED: VACUUM-FISHING

Amelie plunges their vacuum head into the water and shloop! Something is safely swimming in the tank on Amelie’s back.

"Let us see what I have obtained."

"Oh, it was most unchivalrous of me," Ichor parrots Parish, a mocking tone in its voice. "Chivalry is dead, froggy. Dead as a doornail! You ain’t gonna win points with me being nice! I’m not even supposed to be here! I belong in the bowels of the world with the other nameless things! Fneh!"

Sal unfolds a camp chair and sits, putting his feet up on a log. As things around the lake happen, he barely pays attention as he dreamily works on lyrics.

"What rhymes with line? Dine? Too formal but maybe." He thinks as Parish and Ichor bite each other.

"Yes! Loop in some samples of different splashing sounds..." He continues as Amelie falls in the lake.

He absent mindedly reaches into Parish's cooler and pulls out a random soda (Square Root Beer), not even thinking to ask first. He cracks it open and leans back in the chair.

Viv's scaly cheeks turn a darker shade of chartreuse as Parish's praise makes her blush. She quietly watches as first Amelie and then Parish pull up prize catches out of the depths of the watering hole. She studies their form, how they handle their fishing rods, how they reel in their catches.Once she feels a little more confident, Viv casts her own line back into the water, hoping to snag a good catch as well...

A long time passes. She glances at the others. Is it supposed to take this long? Is she doing something wrong?

Viv is about to open her mouth to say something when she feels a tug on her line. The tug is quickly followed by a mighty pull that almost drags her into the water! She plants her feet wide and grips her fishing rod in both hands. "I-I think I got a big one!" she cries excitedly! She grits her teeth and digs deep, reeling and tugging with all of her might.

Just as she thinks she can't reel any longer, a massive beast of a fish leaps out of the pool! Viv reels and reels and drags the primordial behemoth out of the watering hole. It's a prehistoric coelacanth, a huge, six-foot-long piscine. Viv looks in awe at her impressive catch.

"Oh! That's a good one, right?" she asks sheepishly.

Amelie is surprised, to say the least, that they caught a goldfish made of real gold. Being made of metal themself, and able to easily lift a grand piano with one arm (while vacuuming with the other), they thought nothing of the weight.

Before they decide whether to keep it or not, Parish and Viv—both of whom are naturals in this environment—have considerably more impressive catches. If there were some way to keep score of something so subjective, Amelie would say they tied first for the day.

Rather than throw the 24 karat goldfish back to try for a better catch, Amelie follows their program. "To throw this back would be littering."