Robo's attention shifts from finding the dreamstone to worrying about skull-smash. His warnings are mostly ignored.
yeah i couldn't think of a better title than that. sorry.
The party was rather… strange, for Robo. From what he had seen of Ayla so far, he knew it was pointless to try and talk her out of holding it. So here he was, sitting in front of a platter of prehistoric foods, with Lucca next to him and Crono near Ayla. After pondering aloud if this was really the best use of he and his friends’ time, he scanned the contents of the food before him. It was simply some salad and meat. The meat was perhaps too well done, in his opinion, but he wasn’t exactly an expert on cooking meat. He also wasn’t the one hosting the party.
Once Robo had scanned the food, which didn’t take very long at all, he looked around from his spot atop the special guest ledge. The Ioka village people were enjoying themselves immensely, and Lucca had started eating some of the meat. She had seemed hesitant before, but now she was digging into it. He looked over at Ayla, who was talking to Crono currently. The loud music of the party drowned out most of the conversation, but he could make out bits and pieces. It didn’t seem to be a conversation of any importance.
‘Maybe this won’t be so bad,’ Robo reasoned with himself. ‘Maybe this won’t impair our quest to get the dreamsto-’
Robo’s thoughts were cut short when he noticed two men walk past him and fill large bowls with some sort of liquid. He figured the liquid they were getting was some sort of festive drink reserved for parties like this one, but it still piqued his interest nonetheless.
One of the men placed a bowl down in front of them, then said, “If you want more, get more in biggest cup! Behind you.” He then went to get another bowl to fill up.
Robo simply stared at the bowl of liquid before Lucca slid it closer to her and took a sip from it. She paused, then began drinking it in proper. She had downed it all within just a few seconds. A lot of the liquid had ended up on her face rather than in her mouth.
“That was… surprisingly good,” Lucca commented to no one in particular.
Robo tapped her shoulder to get her attention, and she looked up at him. “What’s up, Robo?”
“Lucca, maybe you should… be cautious? With the drink, I mean. We don’t know what’s in it.”
Lucca gave Robo a light punch on the arm, and told him, “Relax, Robo. It’s just a drink! It’s not like I’m going to get drunk or anything. I’m gonna go get some more of it, okay?”
As Lucca stood up, bowl in hands, another man walked up to Robo with a bowl of the liquid. “You want special drink?”
Before Robo could even reply, the man put the bowl down in front of him and said, “Here! Have drink.”
Robo sighed internally. ‘I suppose he doesn’t know I don’t have a mouth.’
He stared at the drink for a few long seconds. He wasn’t quite sure if it was it was any of the torches affecting his sensors, but he swore he could only barely see his reflection in the liquid. Although… now he was curious. Robo dipped a finger in the liquid and ran a scan on the contents of it. The scan took an unusually long time; a whole 1.3 seconds.
‘Oh.’
‘Oh dear.’
He looked over at Lucca. Was this her second fill? It had to be. And from the look on her face, it looked like she was about to go onto her third. She let out a hiccup. This wasn’t a good sign.
Lucca held the bowl out and offered to Robo, “Robo, you wanna try some?”
“Lucca… I do not have a mouth. I thought you already knew this.”
“Oh.” She gulped down the remaining liquid in one gulp.
‘I think it is too late to warn Lucca.’ Robo looked around the party again. The Ioka village people were drinking some of the liquid too, and Crono was dancing with them. ‘...But I could still warn Crono!’
Robo quickly came across a dilemma in his plan to warn Crono about the drink. If he wanted to stop him now, he would have to get up and go down to Crono. Not only could the Ioka village people think that he wanted to join the in dancing, which he didn’t, Lucca would be left unattended with the party liquid. Robo cast a glance over to her. What was this bowl, her third or her fourth? He hadn’t been paying close enough attention - and given the fact that her face was starting to flush, that wasn’t good. So he decided to sit and wait for Crono to tire from the dancing and come over to him and Lucca, and warn him then. Crono… took a while to tire out.
Robo may as well have died from anxiousness when Crono finally walked back up onto the ledge. And he may as well have died twice when he saw that he went to talk to Ayla first. More information was always good, but this was a pressing matter! He didn’t want Crono to end up like Lucca was now!
The loud music drowned out most of the conversation, but he heard Ayla mention the drink - it was called skull-smash. He didn’t like the sound of that. He also heard Ayla mention someone named Azala. From the tone of her voice, Robo figured that she didn’t like him very much. He would have to remember that for tomorrow.
Relief washed over Robo when he saw Crono made his way over to him and Lucca. Robo had been keeping an eye on Lucca - he counted Lucca’s bowl of skull-smash count to be about four or five. Her body wasn’t taking it well.
“Hey, Robo,” Crono greeted as he edged past a hiccuping Lucca. “Oh man, my legs are gonna be sore tomorrow. That was a lot of dancing.” He was silent for a moment as looked down at Lucca for a moment, then at the bowl in front of Robo. He knelt down beside it and pointed at it.
“Is this…?”
“This fluid contains immeasurable impurities!” Robo warned. “Please, please do not drink it! Making sure Lucca is okay is worrisome enough!”
Lucca suddenly stood up and put an arm around Crono’s shoulders. “Crono!” She hiccuped, then giggled. “Crono, you gotta try shum of thish!”
Crono was silent.
‘Oh no.’
“...No thanks,” Crono replied.
‘Oh thank goodness.’
“What, my cup’sh not good enough for you? C’mon, drink up!”
Crono was silent again before he hesitantly said, “...I guess.”
‘OH NO.’
Crono and Lucca sat down, and Lucca filled a bowl with skull-smash. Crono took a sniff of it and recoiled.
“Ugh, it smells awful! Are you sure this is a good idea, Lucca?” he asked.
“What’sh that? You a man, or a moushe? Drink it in one gulp!” Lucca challenged.
Crono hesitantly picked up the bowl and downed all the skull-smash in one gulp. He did it. The madman actually did it. Lucca laughed at his feat, then burped. Crono then got up and walked over to Ayla, looking a bit disgusted.
‘At least Crono only had one bowl. It could have gone a lot worse.’
Crono and Ayla were talking about the dreamstone now, most likely. Robo almost beeped with surprise when Ayla held out a large chunk of the stone. He couldn’t make out the rest of the conversation over the music, but at one point Crono was nodding. Then he heard Ayla shout, “get more skull-smash”, and Robo almost fell onto his back with shock. Ayla was getting really excited about this. Robo definitely wasn’t. Crono didn’t look like he was so excited about it, either. Before Robo knew it, Ayla and Crono were seated at the face of the ledge, with two men ready to pour skull-smash into their bowls.
As Robo watched from atop the ledge, he thought, ‘It got worse.’
Crono won, for better or worse, and Ayla gave the dreamstone to him. That was the silver lining. The dark cloud was that, one, Ayla had declared one more round of skull-smash to honour Crono, and two, Robo now had watch over Lucca and Crono, both of whom had far too much skull-smash, and make sure they didn’t do anything too reckless before they fell asleep. That task proved to be much tougher than Robo had anticipated. And a lot more tiring, too. He ran out of steam just after Crono and Lucca passed out.