Strawberry, Boss 2

[battleshipmod]

You gather your haul of scrolls and coins in a wheelbarrow and head for the back door of the Fraise Lounge, because once again you're too filthy to go in the front. Naturally, while you've been outside digging and sweating and coughing, Professor Zzt has been hanging out in the nice cool cafe. He hasn't even sent a golem to bring you water. Rude!

But when you go around the back, you find a giant steaming mud puddle, Runner's bedraggled tendrils writhing across it to no avail, and a very frustrated Stray. "Oh good, you're done," they say, pushing damp green hair off their forehead. "I'm going to need your help with the dinner rush. If Zzt hadn't commandeered you — well, never mind. Done is done."

"What happened?" you ask, carefully skirting the mud puddle. It's full of pink aprons.

Runner's dragon head coalesces, its long neck drooping. "The sanitizing steam melted the golems," it says sadly. "I need to wait for the dirt to dry out again before I can bring them back."

"We did hire a new dishwasher who can handle the heat," Stray says, "but he's... not ideal."

You hear a crash of dishes from inside the cafe. A deep voice calls out, "Sorrr-reeee!"

Stray growls. "That's the problem with octopuses! They're smart but so easily distracted. They need at least three or four kinds of input at once..."

They turn to look at you. You know what that look means. It means another side quest. Are you ever going to get home?

"Could you maybe... read to Dwayne? Or sing?" they ask hopefully. "Or teach him things — he likes to learn. If you can keep him on task with the dishes, I think the servers and I can handle the rest."

"Fine," you say wearily, setting the wheelbarrow well away from the puddle of melted golem. "Will you tell Professor Zzt his scrolls and coins are here?"

Stray doesn't look thrilled at the mention of the annoying sprite, but there's another crash and another "Sorrr-reeee!" and they wince and rub their head. "Sure," they say. "Just stop Dwayne from breaking all my dishes, and I'll do whatever you want."

You follow Stray back into the kitchen, where you find a creature that's unusual even by your standards: an enormous, bright red, bald human head with eight octopus arms. He's sweeping up shards of glass and pottery with two arms while the other six wash dishes, stir pots, adjust the flame on the stove, embroider strawberry leaves on an apron, and play the clarinet he has stuck in his unnervingly human mouth. "Hi!" he toots. Belatedly, he lowers the clarinet. "Sorry about the dishes, Stray."

"It's fine," Stray says, taking the broom away just before it knocks over another bin of dirty things. "Here, I brought you some bards to keep you focused."

"Oh, wonderful!" Dwayne exclaims. "I love bards! Do you know any sea shanties? Those are really good for getting into a work rhythm."

A new status board appears, set up to count the number of stories you tell. You'd better get started.

---

Strawberry Boss 2 progress tracker

Strawberry Collection | Prompt Collection (AO3) | Prompt Collection (Automagic App)

The boss starts with 350,000 hit points. Your Coin count of 48100 grams, plus overkill equivalent to 6600 coins, reduces that to 295,300 hit points. For the rest, members of Team Strawberry post works to their team’s collection.

During boss battles, works score points. Works in a single medium (only fic, or art, or podfic) may claim a maximum of 10,000 points; works scoring more than 10,000 will count as 10,000 points.

Works in multiple mediums may claim a maximum of 10,000 points per medium, with each medium capped at 10,000 points (ex. 2000 points of fic + 14,000 points of art = 2000 + 10,000 = 12,000 points).

In addition to points, there are boss-wide goals for AO3 labels, such as “F/F works” and “M-E rating.” You must collectively achieve these goals to complete the boss. Each work counts once towards a boss goal.

Fic and podfic are worth 1 point per word, using the AO3 wordcount.

Images are worth 500 to 2500 points. List the points earned in the author’s note to make sure the mods score your artwork correctly. Each image (or panel or frame) in a work is scored as follows:

Art has a base value of 500 points for a single character, vehicle, or structure depicted in monochrome lineart with a blank or solid color background.

Additional points may be layered on for complexity:

• 500 points for the second character, vehicle, or structure depicted in monochrome lineart
• 250 points for each additional character, vehicle, or structure after the first two
• 250 points for each character, vehicle, or structure depicted in more than one color
• 250 flat points for shading
• 250 flat points for a detailed background

Full-color art styles that do not use lineart (e.g., painting, pixel art) will be scored equal to the point value of a character with lineart and color, e.g., 750 points for each of the first two characters in full color and 500 points for each character in full color after the first two.

No individual image or panel may score more than 2500 points; any score greater than that will be capped at 2500 points. Unique, separately created images may be combined in a comic or compilation, for which each image will be individually scored (maxing out at 2500 points each) and the scores added.

Tags are irrelevant during boss battles, as long as the work fulfills a request.

During a boss, each team member is capped at 50,000 points, with no cap on the number of works.

Team members (and only members of that team) should post works to their respective team collection.

Good luck!