Teion

Teion leaned back and nodded again. ”Okay, yeah, if you’re into regular horror that opens up so many options.” Another sip. She made the mistake of setting her glass back down on the bar. No sooner had her fingers left the rim, than the drink refilled itself again. ”I’ve got a soft spot for fae stuff, but I haven’t found much that really gives me anything to do with it.” A frown and a shrug, and then a plain white hand-towel landed in her lap. ”Never thought a rag would come in handy.” She murmured, leaning her head and gathering her hair to one side. She clawed her fingers through a coup

”No kidding.” Teion muttered dryly. It was unclear which piece she was agreeing with exactly, if not all of it. Still, the chipper attitude he followed up with had her exhale sharply through her nose alongside his chuckle. ”Hey, you know where you need to head next?” She picked her head up from where she’d been sinking into her shoulders with a sudden confidence. ”Floor 24. Not a forest in sight, as far as I know. It’s all islands, beaches… It’s even got a vaguely Greek thing going on, with a colosseum and all that.” She waved lazily at the last part, as it wasn’t her main draw. ”Unless the oc

Teion mulled over his very normal answer. She gently turned the glass around in her hand, walking her fingers against its cool surface up until he took a stab at his own age. Then it was like she’d swallowed her own thoughts. He was so much older than her. Not that this place didn’t make her feel like she’d put on a few years, both in pure stress and in forcing her to grow up fast in some aspect or another. Thinking about it, he started to remind her of someone. A friend she hadn’t seen in some time. At first she thought Shield might be dragging her out by her collar if he were here, but

She did as he suggested, directing her sights to the upper corner of her vision, pushing past the actual environment to regard her HUD where the two of their names sat next to green health bars. Now she finally noticed there was something new next to either of them. She squinted a little and focused on the icon until it revealed its secrets to her and she read the effects of the «Lightweight» debuff. An expression washed over her like she’d found what she’d been looking for. ”You’re fucking kidding me.” She whispered out the words under her breath, disbelief mixed with pure amusement. Tei

Reytac was less cautious with the glass posed for him. Or maybe he was just in more of a hurry to get it over with. Teion plucked her drink from the counter and pulled it close to her face. The scent hit her, sharp and inviting all at once. She didn’t have to take a whiff to feel the prickling in her nose. The last time she consumed something carelessly, it led to a less than favorable experience. Then again, nothing about their circumstances was anything like that time. Giving in to curiosity, she brought the rim of the glass to her lips moments before Reytac called out in warning. She d

Teion turned around, stopping short. She nearly ran into the blue floating rectangle that seemed to have been waiting behind her. Brow still furrowed, her eyes ran over the single line of text. ”More or less… Usually we’ll just get a box that lists out the rewards. Sometimes even if there is an NPC handing it to you.” She shook her head lightly, dismissing the ever-weird behavior, and went to dismiss the notification. Her hand hovered lost above it, finger extended but unable to find a place to land. There was no ‘Confirm’, ‘Deny’, no little circular buttons whatsoever. Teion frowned, the

She was still pressed against the side of the wagon, unwilling to turn her back on the side of the road where that haunting little laughter had kept bubbling up from. She heard Reytac’s reply without seeing him move back to the front to hoist up the handle. She was too busy scrunching her nose in mild confusion. ”Name?” She echoed in a mutter. Had they both been hallucinating? Was Cardinal whispering sour nothings to them, separately, just to keep them on edge? Before she’d had a good chance to mull the thought, the wagon lurched behind her and she was thrown off her balance with a grunt jerke

Teion gave a muted chuckle at Reytac’s specific wine barrel example. But then he kept talking, kept explaining. She looked back to him, mildly disturbed, as it quickly became clear that he wasn’t just off-handedly making things up. ”I…see.” She didn’t harp on it, but instead shook her head. ”Wine barrel sounds like it bits the bill, but…” She really didn’t want to leave anything to chance, lest they be forced to trudge all the way back out here with that damned wagon in tow. A quick, careful check through the ship yielded them one more probably useful object to haul back in the form

The breath that pushed out her nose tried its best to keep steady, but shook nonetheless while her eyes darted across the deck. They strained against the low light, letting off a dim glow of yellow layered over their normal blue. Cardinal allowed this basic of mercys, her Night Vision sparing her all but the darkest reaches of shadow. Yet they found nothing. Where one abomination crept, she anticipated hundreds to swarm out at any moment, to overrun them. Perhaps that would explain the empty ship. Her eyes landed on a worn pair of boots, stopped at first, then walking towards her. She fol

The frown on her face deepened a bit. He talked through the feeling, and his words about taking the wrong steps rang truer in her ears than she would have liked. She was quiet for a few moments longer, but as the hint of uncertainty hung in the air with his sentiment, she offered a small, audible agreement. ”No, I get it. I’ve been kind of getting that, too.” With little to do besides wait the last couple of minutes before the ship made it to the docks, Teion heaved a short sigh. ”Y’know, we don’t have to stay.” She pointed out. ”Not to stomp on all the fun we’re having,” The corner of he

It was miserable, trudging through the empty, uneven streets. The only thing she had to be thankful for was that the cart they lugged was empty and therefore relatively light between the two of them, but she knew that wouldn’t be true on the way back. What was she doing out here? They’d nearly reached the docks when the thought occurred to her. Was the quest reward worth it? What even was the reward? She couldn’t remember seeing one listed–or many details at all, now that she thought about it. Her frown set deep, and she let out a tired sigh when they’d finally crept up on the edge of the

The man was hard to read. Not that Teion had a knack for reading people, but still. She watched his response without attempting to hide the cautious, almost suspicious feeling that was creeping up on her. She’d kept her survival instincts sharp for some time now, or so she’d tell herself, and for a time held people an arm-and-a-half’s length away due to some of the more dangerous company she chose to keep. But nowadays she was a bit more laid-back. Keeping the gates closed to every stranger that passed them by was tiresome. shatter– –into nothingness Teion’s head whipped to her

She listened to his explanation with mild indifference. A frontline-hopeful. She could hardly rebuff his aspirations, given how proudly Ryo stood among those ranks. Teion could only acknowledge her own decision to stay away from it. ”Hmm.” She gave a short hum in response, followed by a blunt comment, ”It’s certainly not boring up there.” His shift in tone caused her to look back at the man–at least after she was done tackling that stubborn glass–when he introduced himself. ”Oh.” She echoed, realizing that they’d briefly missed that step of exchanging names. ”I’m Teion. Mostly just a blac

His initial response was the opposite of what she was thinking–that she had expected to see someone else around, somewhere, on this floor, but that it was strange that it had taken this long. His admission of a teleportation mishap caused her to cock an eyebrow and take another brief look over him. Her eyes paused at the hammer in his hands. Best she could tell, it looked incredibly basic. She thought about prying over his level, asking why he wouldn’t just head back down to a lower floor. Instead, she just frowned and turned her gaze back to the building. He’d said exactly what she was thinki

This floor stunk of salty mildew. For a good twenty minutes, Teion’s nose had been wrinkled over the smell assaulting her nostrils, but after that she must have acclimated. That, or the rain sputtering down on her was keeping her sufficiently distracted. ”What an absolute ghost town.” She murmured, nearly scoffing. Not an NPC, player, monster, or so much as a rat in sight. Teion was left to wonder if this floor was so vile that all of the frontliners abandoned it to continue rotting just as soon as the boss fell. She wouldn’t have blamed them. Standing outside what may have once been

Shop Post: [Quest Post] Transaction Date: N/A Cost of Transaction: N/A Crafter's Profession: Tailor Crafter's Rank: 0 Item Name: Hunter Scarf Item Tier: 1 Item Type: Clothing Item Rarity: Rare Item Enhancements: Loot Die II Craft/Appraisal/Obtainment IDs & Rolls: 251295 Item Description: A fiery red scarf with swirls of orange.

Her expression had softened considerably by the time she made it back to Richard’s shop. Daydreams of Ryo patiently teaching her how to cook paired with visions of the look on his face when he’d eat something delicious that she made for him left her with a soft, far-away smile and a faint pink dust on her cheeks. The chiming of the shop’s bell pulled her right back to reality. She was greeted with that same jovial enthusiasm, and since the game registered the quest as in progress for her, Richard’s dialogue shifted from his usual greeting. He had set her up in front of a sewing table

A look of unappeasable disgust pulled sharply down on the corners of her mouth. ”AOE abilities are too expensive…” She quietly complained to herself, retiring her axe behind her with a soft 'click of the item settling into place at her back. Despite being built for it, despite the discounted energy costs that her invested skills allowed her, it seemed she couldn’t even farm the most basic of monsters for loot without chewing through half of her resources with a big pull. At least without extra, external buffs. She didn’t like pestering Ryo to cook for her if it was solely for food buffs. It wa

The boars let out pained squeals, fell backwards, and some exploded into pixels just as soon as they crashed into the ground. Her wrist turned, she grasped with her other hand to balance the weight, then swung back the opposite direction. Again. And again. They funneled into her weapon while it spun and slashed straight ahead, the weakest of Aincrad’s monsters presenting themselves to the slaughter for the sake of crafting progression. Their numbers thinned and the cacophony of snorts and high-pitched squeaks gradually diminished. Teion hoped she’d grabbed enough of them to get all she needed

She nearly had to clamber over each boar to demand its attention. The things were aggressive by nature, but her level disparity meant that she had to get awfully close to them to trigger their attacks. She only winced a little when the boars chasing after her rammed themselves into her legs. If they weren’t so big, she’d liken them to street cats demanding attention. It wasn’t until she’d rounded up over half a dozen of the creatures that Teion finally stopped and turned to face her opponents. The boars squealed out of sync and scrambled over themselves, combining their efforts to begin w

Gathering was tedious. There was a reason she was always so desperate to find steady sources for materials. It didn’t matter how many times they’d let her take the gathering professions, she would craft every item in the game twice before she’d spend hours on end wandering the countryside picking leaves and breaking open rocks. Teion’s face was fixed into a permanent scowl as she trudged past the main gates and into the open fields. Her eyes wandered and her mind mulled over each prospective path she could take, then started weeding out each one by how long it would take to complete. With a si

Teion was nervous, but she could not explain why she was nervous, and perhaps that was the most frustrating thing of all. The woman with the long purple hair had already spent a few minutes loitering outside of a prominent shop in the Town of Beginnings, not yet daring to go inside but not so bold as to park herself right in front of the door. Once again, she eyed the bright tailoring shop from a bench she now sat on as if she were weighing her options. A short time had passed since she first got the notification. ’Multiple professions…’ She mulled the concept over in her head for th

Pay attention. Be present. Be nice. All things Teion felt the compulsion to remind herself of, all at once. She cracked a half-forced smile that warmed a little the longer she watched Theo in the throes of his success at having felled his first boar. Before long, he was tackling another. She carried her axe at her side and walked closer towards Theo, not wanting to let them get too far out of sight. As she passed Ryo along the way, she gently nudged his arm and pointed out a lone little boar on his other side. "Last one, right?" She had tried to count each of their kills as they went, but

Teion kept largely to herself while the gaggle of players seemingly converged on the redhead. Keeping to herself was her default setting, after all. It was Boreas’ pointed greeting that first got a word out of her, to which she exhaled a single chuckle through her nose, flashed a crooked smile, and nodded. ”Yeah, I remember you.” She rarely forgot the face of a customer. It was Kindling’s following commentary that wiped the smile off her face and drew a sharp glance back in his direction. What was this guy’s problem? She could only guess the sudden influx of company was cramping his style.

To say the bubbly brunette with the twin-tails nearly bounding her way into the smithy with that huge smile on her face caught Teion off guard was an understatement. The blacksmith blinked, staring at Kairi from the other side of her anvil as she produced a simple weapon along with a hefty pouch of col and set them both on the counter. She cocked a brow, set her tools down, and took stock of the girl’s request. ”Wait, are you–” Teion practically bit her tongue to stop her from questioning the ridiculous amount of col she had just been presented with. She knew Aincrad’s economy was in sham