Fandom Sword Art Online: Aincrad

[Shiyonichi]

"Well, if you call shooting at someone an introduction I can see why."

Ichi deadpanned. Though he was pretty sure that you could do this quest solo. But he really didn't care if he didn't go alone.

"If you want to do this quest together, I'm game."

It was much safer with a team then alone, even if this quest was the hardest in the world having others should bring up their chances of survival and he didn't know about the others, but he liked living.

 

[Lil Shirou]

Skyler brought the menu up with a jester of her wrist and went to the team menu, but before she hit send the invites she had a deal to ask them as neither seem like they were after the weapon drop."I have a deal to make to both of you. I want the wolfbane sword drop if it drops at all. So if one of you get ot i will buy or trade for it. " skyler said with calmness. She was trying not to sound eagered. She wanted this sword but wasn't going to trade everything in her inventory for it.

Spoiler: Tags

Karcen Shiyonichi ChazGhost Blitzkrieg Bob
firestorm

 

[Chak]

Bearach sighed as he neared Horunka, namely because of the recurrence of numerous offers of rewards and gold and items from the group of civvies he'd been bringing into the city. He didn't need anything from them, and the most he needed to watch out for was either the small handful of bandit players that had errantly and sparsely cropped up, ones that targeted the fear of the young to steal their gear and loot, and perhaps a few boars or wolves. Other than that there was precious little to worry about, and they had ultimately encountered nothing to impede their progress.

"I don't need any form of reward, I've told you this already. Just get into the city and make sure you don't leave unless it's with someone you trust that can protect you, that's all."

It was bullshit. That this Kayaba prick was doing this. Perhaps it was his larger frame compared to most of the native Japanese, but even more so the number of minors. Kids ranging anywhere from just under adult age to one of the youngest in his current escort group, six. A six year old had no business being involved in these dealings.

Taking note of the safety settings changing as they entered the city limits, Bearach's helmet dissolved into his inventory as he regarded the children and their motherly, if inept at combat, caretaker, "Right, you should be clear from here. Stay safe ma'am, and my thanks for helping look out for the younger one's who shouldn't have been trapped here."

Not waiting for a response, the man started off along the border of the safe zone as he began scrolling through the quests that were available. There was one for dealing with some wolves, but he'd grown tired of handling the same problem so regularly. There was also the mission to deal with Nepenthes, but it was on level with himself, and honestly he wasn't going to risk himself solo on that mission quite yet. Instead he scrolled to the escort mission. Standard as they come, it was essentially the same as he'd been doing for the younger or weaker players. Reviewing the rewards, though they weren't his priority, Bearach nodded and confirmed his choice for the mission.

Being awarded a map marker, likely one that led to Edmund and the start of the quest, Bearach set forth with intent to begin this quest. Even if he wanted to stick to helping the more at need players, he also knew he would have to grow stronger and one day aid in the escape of the players from Aincrad and back to their true lives.

 

[Shiyonichi]

"Ah, sure why not."

Ichi already had enough money to buy out everything in town, a perk of being a beta tester is that you know were the best grinding spots are. Though he didn't buy anything like a house due to the fact he still needed to pay for fees for his guild and his equipment. Besides he couldn't use the sword anyway. Though he had to argue that the anneal blade was a better weapon, he refrained from telling her that.

 

[ChazGhost]

"Their should be another person come to help here soon, I believe" Edmund said as calmly as went back to look at the goods he was transporting and cart they were in.

"I guess I won't be taking on bad alone atleast" Drake said before giving a sigh. "But I'll have to wait for them to arrive" Drake added before going over to cart and leaned on it as he waited. "So Edmund what your transporting exactly?" Drake asked curious as to what he would be protecting.

"Potions, and some valuable raw minerals." Edmund stated to Drake.

"I see. Well I guess that worth bandits coming after it... But you won't have to worry a few bandit aren't a match for me." Drake bragged slightly.

Chak

 

[Lil Shirou]

Skyler really didn't know what to say anymore. So she sent team invite to the two player. Two windows appear in front of both players. As her inventory menu closes two dire wolves appeared outside the cave where the group is. Not thinking much Skyler acts by pulling out her sword and line up for a lateral thrust into the wolf on the right side of her. Her swird glows blue as the system takes over and she launches towards her target. Hitting it right in the neck area stunning the wolf a second and so it went for an attack on her.

Spoiler: Tags

Karcen Shiyonichi ChazGhost Blitzkrieg Bob
firestorm

 

[Karcen]

Juwan was in truth trying to get out of this she had expected the others to ditch her for not using the proper weapons like everyone else. Well she had felt the game had limited itself enough already so she picked the oddest thing and that had not her in the ads already. As for the wolves they distracted her enough she didn't actully accept or reject it and instead moved back away from the move and the others so she could use her bow.

 

[Chak]

Bearach stretched his arms somewhat as he came closer to reaching his destination; the map marker leading to Edmund the shopkeeper. To his surprise it seemed like he wasn't the only one taking the quest, though when he thought about it the relative safety of it compared to some others must have been a solid driving force behind the kids decision. Well, maybe not a kid, but he still seemed a little young, and perhaps a little out of place in his looks. But he also seemed to have a decent understanding of things, wearing light armor and off setting the weaknesses by wielding a pike or spear of some sort. Bearach figured it should be a solid pairing if the guy knew how to work around him as he tanked.

As he approached he nodded silently before regarding Edmund, "If this is the extent of our expected company then I would say it's time for us to head out."

Expecting the NPC to respond as per it's standard accords the tall platemail bound man turned towards his new ally and looked at his i.d. name, "Drake, is it? I'm called Raider. What's your general attack strategy, and I can see how we can handle this best."

ChazGhost

 

[Shiyonichi]

Ichi pressed the accept button on the window accepting the party request.

"Switch!"

Ichi activated switch and took the place of skyler following up her attack with a sword skill of his own. Ichi jumped over the wolf sword glowing ready to be unleashed he preformed a spin in the air using it to unleash a powerful slash across the wolf's back. A red slash mark appeared tracing the path the blade took as the wolf froze before shattering into glass like particles.

 

[Lil Shirou]

As the first wolf disappears, the second charges the archer. Not one for hesitating skyler slash at it with another sword skill. She only managed to hit the back end of the beast taking only a small bit of it health. " damn it, don't hesitate with your shot archer and shot." Skyler says as the wolf charges her. She manages to block it with her arm and sword. It such an odd thing being in a video game. In real life she probably be seriously injured if a wolf attacked her but instead in sword art online she just loses a bit of her Hitpoints. It was still scary though because if her hitpoints hit zero she would be died in real life. no restarts, no resurrection, just death. She wasn't going to allow herself to die in game.

Spoiler: Tags

Karcen Shiyonichi ChazGhost Blitzkrieg Bob
firestorm
Chak

 

[ChazGhost]

"It is, I'll get the horse ready to depart now" the merchant said before getting onto his cart and preparing the horse to go.

"Straight to business, I respect that" Drake said nodding to Raider and stopped leaning on the cart right after. "My attack strategy is to attack my enemies at mid range were I can keep my distance from my opponent while still damaging them." Drake explained simply. Drake then looked Raider over. "So what is your strategy in a fight?" Drake asked in return.

A minute or two later the merchant was ready to go and with the adventures he set off out of the city and to his destination.
Chak

 

[Chak]

Walking alongside the merchant NPC as he set forth, Bearach clicked a couple buttons in his menu. In moments his face and head became obscured as his helmet formed, now fully equipped as he turned his head to look at Drake. First and foremost he noted his appraisal was right, the man was going to try to keep a distance. It made things simple, kept the kid out of his way and would give him free reign on the frontline. Holding his longsword loosely, Bearach shrugged.

"I plan on taking point, if that helps at all. I don't plan on letting anyone past me either if I can help it, to be honest. I enjoy my fights."

Letting the silence settle about them as they traveled further for a little ways longer, but the complete silence was bothering him. Appraising Drake again, he tried to get a feel for how the kid was feeling as they set out for the life and death struggle that they would be facing. He'd already seen plenty of kids lose their shit in the past two weeks due to the situation they've found themselves in.

"Hey," he started, "You been holding up well since this all started? I know a lot of us have been struggling with it, but I have to commend you for being brave enough to step up and fight for yourself."

ChazGhost

 

[ChazGhost]

"The point is your Mr.Raider." Drake commented as he walked along side the merchant's cart. "I've been holding up better then most I believe. While all of this was a bit concerning at first I've kept my cool and figure the only way we'd be able to go back to normal is by moving forward." Drake said with a sigh.

By now they were outside the city on the road to next town. Drake made sure to look around them to keep an eye out for the bandits. "The bandit shouldn't be to much to worry about, they aren't that strong from the quest description" Drake commented to relax the mood and stop the silence for a small while. "but it seems they are not near us for now" Drake added.

Little did the pair known that down the road they would fine the bandits and the trap they laid...
Chak

 

[VeiledPariah]

I have to get stronger, I have to!
Haru thought as she dodged the wolfs strike before driving her spear into its maw. She sighed before turning to face another pack that had just spawned as they bared their teeth at her and growled menacingly.
Haru was exhausted but she needed to keep this up as she looked to her tag.
Steadying her spear behind her back she readied herself as the wolves came toward her, the woman's eyes steadied as she met them halfway thrusting forward striking one and then swiping the spear head sideways arcing it using a wide swing sword skill. This connected with the others before she turned impaling the spear into the final wolf ahead of her as the enemies shattered into pixelated shards.
A menu popped up granting her exp and some pelts and teeth as items.
Reis sheathed her spear into its holster on her back and made her way to town.

She needed rest and a meal, the local tavern would be the best place for both.

 

[Karcen]

Juwan ignored the girl who apparently didn't know how the bows here played, the longer you held your shot the more damage you did, thus she could not rush she had to be careful. So she waited taking aim and biding her time letting her shot charge just as she would have if she had been doing this solo hiding and waiting for the right time for her to hit the wolf. the others could likely deal with them they were just wolves and well they weren't even the mobs inside the instance for the quest. Still she waited and was careful then when the time was just right and she had the bets shot and best charge she let the arrow lose. The arrow quickly flew into the wolf and the damage came i rapidly taking a huge chunk, if not out right killing the mob.

 

[VeiledPariah]

Finally reaching the tavern Haru sighed leaning back against the booth. She had returned to town and peddled her pelts and such at merchants which turned over a decent profit. Using this money she refitted herself with health crystal and a teleportation crystal. That left just enough for food and drink without digging into what she earned the day before.
Haru smiled politely at the npc waitress who took her order and returned with a flagon of honey mead and some chicken breast.
The young woman gladly took part in the meal saying a small prayer before starting.
Finishing the plate she sipped the sweet tasting mead as she watched a bard entertain the customers of the tavern.

 

[Lil Shirou]

Skyler saw the archer release the arrow and hit the wolf on the side where it hit the wolf heart. Atleast where it would be if it been a real wolf. The wolf then shatter like glass. The girl had deliver a death blow with her arrow. A screen pops up in front of skyler saying she leveled up. Skyler did confirm thst she wasnt playing with atleast one noob. " So are you going to accept the invite archer girl?" Skyler didn't care either way. She was only interest in getting the sword.

A info broker she did business with gave her a tip about the sword stats and how to augment them in her favor using a blacksmith. She wanted to add +2 speed, +1 strenght and +1durability. Which according to the info broker she had most of the items for a blacksmith to use. Of course she have to pay the black Smith to.

Karcen Shiyonichi

 

[Karcen]

" f fine fine " Juwan said mostly because she didn't really have the spine to stand up to those she saw as pushy and this girl was pushy. Really she didn't like being in parties because with strangers there was pressure and risk and well Juwan was bad under both , she would rather just hide. Still to her it didn't seem to her that there wasn't much of a choice as well leaving would just result in more yelling, thus she clicked the pop up at last and joined the group. Still she wasn't sure of the two with her as already pkers were starting up and well these people could be those and Juwan really couldn't tell the difference, the tutorial had been less than helpful.

 

[Shiyonichi]

"Well I'm going in."

Ichi turned on his search skill and pulled out the map data from his subordinate. He wasn't overly cautious as usual as he already knew about what kind of enemy he was facing and knew that they weren't a big treat to him. Ichi stopped for a moment as he realized he forgot to inform the other two.

"Oh yeah, I should be informing you two, the wolves will try and coordinate an attack and flank you though if you keep and eye out you shouldn't have too much problems. Just watch out for the boss, he's pretty fact and packs a punch. Oh and anything smelly or high pitched noises will give you advantage against these guys."

Of course he doubted these guys were pkers, because doing so in an instance dungeon was too risky and there are better places to ambush and kill like the roads to the instance dungeon for example. Though the thought of pkers killed his mood a bit. Currently they couldn't deal with them. The closest thing to anything resembling a government was a few rising guilds trying to keep order, but they couldn't cover all of the game area and were rather disorganized and they were bits of power plays between them. The addition of private investigations into pkers and the capturing of them, not to mention the thought of where to put them afterwards have caused the Silent Knights to be spread out and away from the attempt at finding the boss room. Which made it a total mess when he was starting to get complaints about both tasks not being finished quickly.

Ichi tried not to think about it and start on his stress relief.

 

[Lil Shirou]

Skyler entered the cave only following a few yards behind ichi. Giving him space in case they were attacked. Normally she scout a quest first letting other lead from behind her. Skyler says to herself but loud enough that the other could hear "85%". She was thinking if her durability of her gear and weapon. It wasn't a huge deal but she didn't want anything to break during a quest.

After traveling around through the cave a bit and defeating a few wolves they reach another dead end in the cave. Although it was valuable map data that she could sell. It was annoying her that they kept hitting dead ends with little reward for it. " We should stop for a bit. You know eat something and do a map check. I have food for all of us." Skyler said hoping that they stop atleast for the map check. The area was relatively safe from dire wolf attack and as far as she knew no one was following them.

Shiyonichi Karcen

 

[Karcen]

Juwan was mostly quiet keeping a distance between her and the others at the rear of the group. She was ready to attack if need be and more importantly ready to retreat should the option be required. Juwan was not normally so cowardly but she thought they dungeons got harder if more people were in them, or was that some others game? Still it was overall fairly quiet no extra players no tricky instant death traps, just a simple dungeon crawl.

" Sure i guess things are quiet" Juwan said in response to the offer to stop and eat.

 

[VeiledPariah]

Haru finished her drink and ordered one more enjoying the taste of the beverage. She paid the NPC and then continued listening to music but other patrons in the tavern were speaking of PKers consistently.
"What if they come into town?!"
"Idiot they cant come in the town if they are marked red, if we stay here we are safe"
"But we cant stay here forever..."
The in game couples argument drowned from Haru's ears as she looked to her own marker hovering over her. The green crystalline prism rotating slowly as it seemed to resonate every half turn.
So player killers...even though we can actually die here?
The girl thought to herself as the lively sounds of the pub surrounded her.

 

[Shiyonichi]

Ichi took out a piece of town bought bread and the custard that he always used. He was so glad that he had information like this, the fetch quest was so worth doing. Being a nice guy he offered the others the quest gained custard. Though he decided to stop screwing around.

Ichi being the only one with a full map decided to speak up.

"You do realize we could have gotten to the boss if we took a left at the entrance right?"

Ichi said with a wry grin as he was clearly trolling his party. Again he usually wasn't this careless, but it wasn't really that dangerous of a dungeon, so he decided to fool around a bit, besides it's fun to check out the extra areas!

 

[Lil Shirou]

Skyler just kinda ignore ichi attempts at humor. She was just following him. " So watch you are saying is we should let you go into a mob on your own right." Skyler attempts with to humor him with a joke of her own. It just sounded really stupid to her as she said it.

Skyler actauly had a few different things in her inventory that could work with the bread in a sense. She didn't have cooking skills to cook, but she love buying others creations. Which very limited to only a few things, because of cooking skills and items limited to what appears on the 1st floor." well I have something like green tea. It purple though. " skyler says out loud to everyone. It seem like nothing was the same as it was in real life. Two purple bottles appear in her hands as her inventory menu closes. " I would drink them soon the durability is in the last 25% range. I also have some kind of dried and salted meat." She waited on answer to whether she should it out or not.

Karcen Shiyonichi

 

[VeiledPariah]

Finishing her drink Haru paid the tab and headed out of the tavern. More and more crowds were forming as talk of pkers continued. She let the words pass over as she reached the quest board. Her finger tip indented her lip as her arms crossed.
Haru perused the board until a quest stuck out. She took the job as her log updated an npc came to her asking for her to search for the thief responsible for recent thefts.
Haru nodded before taking off her light leather thigh high boots clacking softly against the towns brick walkways. Her eyes filled with motivation and despite being trapped in his death game now she was as free as she had ever been.