In retrospect, Raguna probably shouldn't have used Erik's super-special-awesome growth formula on his strawberries right away, as they were already ready to grow by the next day. Whoops. At least they'll fit nicely in the shipping bin along with the two patches of turnips.
Mist sends her thanks for the turnip via hedgehog-mail. She seems a bit confused about sending letters for such a simple task, which is a departure from the norm.
Raguna decides that he's going to try something different today...do all of his dungeon-running before taking care of the crops. Before that, he decides to pray at the church for good luck. Erik is there, who sells him some old dog-and-pony story about crops turning into monsters and trashing your fields if you try to harvest them past their grow-by date. He ignore it and tests out a different tidbit that turns out to be true: Lara really likes the taste of strawberries.
A return visit to the Green Ruins gives Raguna an opportunity to do some turnip-planting. The caves do see a little light every now and then (at least on the first level, since it's close to the entrance), so it wouldn't be totally implausible to expect things to grow down there.
Raguna then works his way around the first floor of the dungeon and to a different set of stairs than the ones he saw closer to the entrance. He laughs off the acorn attacks being hurled at him by the squirrels, but gets zapped by paralyzing spores from a roving plant. Luckily, there's a treasure chest nearby that contains an antidote that cures him of just that. (As the esteemed scholar Vitale
would say, "Serendipity, baby!" 1) He heads down to B2 and unlocks the door from the other side so that he doesn't have to do as much backtracking the next time he goes down. By the time he does this, however, it's almost 4 PM, so he has to exit and visit the bath house (oh, and there's also that little insignificant thing called "farming" he does later).
At the bath house, he gives Melody an orange herb, and she's most surprised that he remembered her birthday. Nobody had even told him about it... 2
During her distribution run, Rosetta reveals that she, too, loves the taste of strawberries. She starts to take a few for herself, but changes her mind.
Just before going to bed, Raguna puts his culinary skills to the test by concocting some high-level foodstuffs (berry jam, hot chocolate, etc.) so that he won't go hungry for his next dungeon run.
The next day brings about the first rain Raguna's seen since his arrival. The good news is that he doesn't have to water the plants, and can go straight to the dungeon.
He heads downstairs to B2 using the shortcut he found when he first discovered the ruins. He doesn't get very far in, as he's attacked by a pair of mushrooms who spray him with spores that slow him down and give him a nasty cloud of...something. I check the status screen, and it indicates that this mystery ailment Raguna has acquired is "Exhaustion", which doubles RP consumption unless cured with Cold Medicine. Raguna takes a set of cold pills he packed just for this journey and...nothing happens. His health is dangerously low at this point, so he exists and lumbers toward the infirmary in hopes of getting some TLC from Lara, only to find that his exhaustion and paralysis have both worn off in just under an hour.
The rest of the day is uneventful, since the weather has forced everyone inside, and the rain has done Raguna's job of watering the lawn for him.
Hooray! We've completed two slightly profitable weeks here on Kaldia Farm, so let's take a look at how our young hero has grown since then, hm?
| Level | 10 |
| Weapons | 22 |
| Farming | 18 |
| Lumber | 11 |
| Hammer | 13 |
| Cooking | 12 |
| Forging | 6 |
It seems Raguna has gotten quite skilled with both sword and plow in just two weeks. It helps that you still get practical experience just for swinging the damn things around.
As for his luck with the ladies? His love level with Mist is at one, and the same with Selphy is approaching 1. Not quite the lady-killer yet, but give him some time.
