Baldur

Walking back into the stock room, Baldur walked up to the long row of weapons and armors. Every type of weapon he could imagine was there, and every type of armor and accessory as well. He picked up a few swords, one straight, one slashing, and walked them out front to put into the large racks. He then went back and grabbed some of the two handed weapons.

And then.

And then he found the Katanas.

It was hard for him not buy one on the spot, but he knew Tyger would be upset with him if he brought home a strange smith's sword.

But it was a Katana, and it felt good to hold one again. He pushed the blade free with his thumb and then drew it half way out. It slid perfectly, and the hamon was a crisp, beautiful, textbook pattern. Nothing artistic, but beautiful non-the-less.

With a snap he put the sword back in its saya and place it on a rack as well. The Katana was classified as a two-handed sword in this game, but he was curious if it was limited to that, since most styles required both.

Slowly whistling while he worked, Baldur restocked the <<Antidotes>> then the <<Field Rations>> (The game wouldn't let him try a bite), the <<Immolations Potions>> and the <<Teleport Crystals>>. The shop wasn't very big, but it was packed to the brim with materials. Idly, Baldur wondered about how things went missing. After all, when you bought something, it went through the trade window. It wasn't like the merchant bagged up your health potions and told you to keep them refrigerated. Items didn't hang off of you either, unless they were armor and weapons.

"Huh... interesting..." Baldur mused as he placed the last crystal on the shelf, adjusting them to be in a perfectly symmetrical set-up.

Baldur moved back over to the row of Health Potions and picked up several glasses, five was about the most he felt he could carry without risking dropping any. Walking back through the door with his white apron on... well... the loop was around his neck but it wasn't tied behind him yet... He had to walk around the store twice before he figured out where the <<Healing Potions>> went. He stacked them up on the shelf which was already almost empty. They were, it seemed, the most popular item. He had heard that master Alchemists could make healing crystals, which were more suited for combat, but they were just a thing of legend to him at this point.

Baldur went back for the <<Antidotes>> next, since they were right next to the <<Healing Potions.>>

Baldur moved to the next item he had seen. It wasn't really his style, but he would need to know all of these items, and many of them were new to him.

He tapped the <<Immolation Potion>> and <<Appraised>> it.

"Grants rank 1 thrones, Max of 5 charges... Wow, that's really cool." He chuckled. He was learning so much already.

"Wait'll I tell Tyger about some of these. This is turning out to be a great idea!"

He smiled and moved onto the next item, which was a <<Basic Teleport Crystal>> but he knew what those did. Everyone did, but they were too expensive for he and Tyger to afford yet.

Then he saw a pack at the end of a long row of weapons.

He tapped the pack, and saw that it was called a <<Dimensional Backpack>>

"Oh  my god! So that's where you get them from!"

Inventory space was precious in boss fights, but only the richest players had them.

Baldur walked up to the door and tapped on it. It had appeared to be an immovable world object. The kind that couldn't be interacted with, but when he tapped it, a menu came up at allowed him to open it.

The room behind it was a small room with shelves much higher than he could reach. He walked inside and looked at the wide array of items before him.

<<Antidote Potions>>, <<Healing Potions>>, <<Field Rations>>, <<Immolations Potion>>

"Hmm... those look interestiong." He tapped the <<Field Rations>> and found the "Appraise" option, which hadn't been there before. He tapped it, and a window popped up showing him what it did.

"Huh... +2 Max HP for one day. Cannot be used in combat." He tapped his chin. Those would be incredibly useful at the low levels when things were really risky. Heck, they were still probably useful to him now.

"Kon'nichiwa" The older man said.

Baldur bowed and returned the greeting. "I wish to become Merchant so I can not gouge people at the expense of their life."

"Hmmm.... " The <<Master Merchant>> said, "Is that so?"

Slowly he came out from behind the counter and approached Baldur, picking up an apron along the way.

"First, you must become familiar with the wares. Restock my shelves."

A window popped up in front of Baldur asking him if he wished to accept the "Earning A living - Mercantile" Quest. He hit the accept button and the old man smiled and him and nodded, gesturing to the back door.

He had never been to this district before, but then, there were many places he hadn't visited in the Town of Beginnings. Most often he just went between the teleportation gate and Tyger's shop, <<Catfish Forge>> now that they had out-leveled the first floor.

All around him were NPC vendors with the <<Master>> designation. <<Master Smith>> and <<Master Tailor>> seemed to be the most popular. The outdoor forge rang with the sounds of hammer on steel, and the murmur of conversation, both scripted and natural. Right where his map indicated, however, was a basic brick store with the sign "General Store" Printed over the top.

Baldur pushed his way inside, and the NPC behind the counter was an older man with a bit of a hunch and large glasses which almost seemed out of place in SAO. Baldur focused his eyesight on the old man, which brought up the cursor above his head and the name <<Master Merchant>>.

He wandered the streets of the Town of Beginnings. It was HUGE considering it was the largest geographical feature of the first and largest floor. It was as big as the entire district where he and Tyger lived in Tokyo. You could wander for days down here and still find new shops. Almost everywhere he went, people were over charging for health potions to the point where it really began to bother Baldur that people would profiteer off of such a life essential item.

"This is ridiculous."

With a huff, Baldur closed another trade window with nothing purchased.

It had taken him and Tyger a long time before they could finally break down and buy a health potion. A Health Potion! And even then, it had cost them several days worth of farming in order to afford just one potion.

"Can I help you find the weapon shop?" One of the NPC's asked him in their pre-programmed response.

"No. Can you teach me how to be a merchant?" He asked with a smirk. It was obviously a question this NPC couldn't answer.

"The merchant's guild hall is that way." The NPC pointed and a blip appeared on my map.

"Huh..." Baldur murmured, opening his map and looking in the direction the NPC pointed.

"Thank you." He said and bowed to the NPC as he left in that direction.

"You'd think," Baldur said to himself, "That people would find it criminal to sell Health Potions at such high rates when someone might actually die without one."

He rubbed his chin as he browsed the vendor's item list and prices, flicking it with his two fingers. It was a store sponsored by the <<Army>> as they had become known. Their justification was that it helped gear up the <<Army>> so they could clear the game and keep it safe. But they had been doing less clearing, and more "protection" racket lately. He tapped the exit window without buying anything and nodded to the uninterested playing behind the table.

"It seems like Health Potions and Teleport Crystals would be the most bought item in the game. The demand is there, but not the supply..."

He walked down the packed street. He had once been one of these people aimlessly wandering around, unsure of what to do or where to go next, but it had been a long time since that first week. He and Tyger had moved on, but there were still many players who didn't know what to do, and couldn't face death in this game.

Baldur couldn't be one of them sitting here waiting. It seemed worse than death.

Gigitty?

I'm in the middle of purgatory. I feel like it's a right of passage at this point

I like where Nikki starts, however i don't think they should have items. I think their HP should be based on the skill rank. I think each rank the player takes in tamer, they get am ability for their familiar from an approved list (like we do for players). These abilities should be things a player can't do (such as Pina's tiny heal). Either the player sacrifices their post action to command the familiar, or the CD can be used to trigger an ability like we do for player ones

You know this means we get to go an critique yours now! :P

I had a text copy that I made on my phone with the gaps and the 188 post peak threw me off the first time. Thought I had mathed wrong, but boy oh boy, I'm about to have to overcome that hurdle. Just gotta get to Level 10...

What's really scarey is that going from 7-8 is almost exactly as many posts as it takes to get from level 1 to level 7. It's enough to get you from level 8 to level 10. And beyond that, it's about 4 levels anywhere after that.

why the hell is everything else consistent but 7-8

Through a little bit of research into looking at the furthest back these forums go, I would assume that people started to hit level 7 and at the time didn't know how many posts were required to get any higher. The management at that time probably through out some higher numbers in order to slow things down and make them take longer :P the graph then averages out because they probably sat down and really thought about it, but didn't go back and change the existing numbers.

I wasn't here then, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt. I was surprised when I saw this. I knew it was pretty huge, but the graphic just really shows it in a way numbers alone can't :)

I was trying to avoid doing work, so I made this.

No purpose, I just wanted to visually see the progression (and see just what that level 7-8 nightmare looks like)

So without further ado, here is level 1-30

"Aww... it's pretty though." Baldur smiled as he picked up the pendant. As if he heard something, he suddenly dropped into a crouched stance, ready to run.

"What? No giant boulder to chase us out of here? I almost feel disappointed. Where are Nazi's when you need them?"

Putting the necklace into his inventory, he smiled up at her. "Well, since we went the long way in getting here, we now know the easy way out. Hopefully those minotaur haven't respawned."

They wandered through the maze, finding many more dead ends, and quite a few times circling back to where they came from until they had finally made it a full circle around the middle of the maze.

Baldur sat down against one of the trees and stared at the map.

"Hmm.. well, we made every left turn we could for that last bit of the circle. I think we should head here, but it obviously doesn't go over here... so it's either going to be a dead end or take us into the middle."

He stood back up, and with the map open in the center of his vision now and led them to the spot he and pointed at on the map. It was not, in fact, a dead end and led them closer to the middle. There were more dead ends now than truly branching paths since they were closer to the middle and less places to go. Eventually, Baldur's smile got larger and larger.

"This is definitely it." They turned one final corner and the large open clearing of the maze's center opened up before them.

Baldur finally stopped and stared down at the map where it hovered in the right side of his peripheral vision.

"Well, if that's true, that we've gotta come up on that turn soon, cause we've almost gone in a complete circle around this place."

He tapped his chin in thought as he studied the map.

"Considering we've gone about three quarters of the way around, then the entrance was either left at the first intersection, or we'll hit it going this way."

He always enjoyed mazes. They used to go and do a corn maze every once in a while back home in America. In fact, there was one so large that people had to call for emergency services in order to get out once they had given up.

"You know, we probably should have bought recall crystals before coming here."

The spider tease really hit the mark, but in the face of her rage, he could only smile. He knew what if they faced any spiders, it would be up to him to tank the fight.

As they wandered through the maze, they found several dead ends and had to start over again. After one of these such dead ends, Baldur noticed that Tyger was walking in step with him. Slowly he started to vary his steps. Taking a slightly longer one here, a shorter one there. A skip here, a shuffle there. He knew she hated it, but he couldn't help but smile as she kicked up dirt keeping her pace locked with his.

He let out a slight, quiet laugh.

"So are we just supposed to be looking, or finding the center of this place, or what?"

Baldur kept his eyes peeled for anything that Tyger missed. Typically he figured that his being a man would prevent him from being able to help find anything - what with genetics and all - but he had honed his skills in the the trial by fire of looking for Tyger's glasses when she fell asleep on the couch and couldn't remember where she put them.

The thought made him smile.

"Hey babe" He whispered to her. He was a jerk to her sometimes, but he just couldn't help prodding the tiger.

"There aren't any giant spiders in this forest, right?"

Baldur walked up to the entrance and peered in, then turned back to smile at Tyger.

"Tanks first." He smiled and made an over-the-top gesture beckoning her forward into the maze.

"I feel like I should have brought a torch or something, but I haven't seen any for sale anywhere..."

He shrugged as if it were nothing, but as a precaution he drew his sword.

Baldur offered her a genuine smile of his own. Strange that just a second ago she had her sword at his throat.

"I'm pretty bad with names too, so I will apologize now if I forget your name and just call you Blonde-sempai, hmm.... or pink-sama?" Baldur tapped his chin for a moment in thought, but then just laughed and left the subject behind as she explained to them about quests.

"That sounds great! We really appreciate your help."

Baldur swiped down with two fingers and brought up his own menu, and invited Lessa to their party.

As the Minotaur reeled back from Tyger's blow, Baldur wasted no time in executing the beast. The cyan light trail from his sword cleaved the mob in two, causing an explosion of polygons to fill the air. Baldur stood there for a moment, breathing in a controlled manner before slowly sliding his sword back into the scabbard. He slid his hand down the handle and with an exhalation of breath, let go of it. Immediately he blinked, and then smiled at Tyger, his old face returned and the battle left behind.

"Well done pretty lady, that crit was awesome!" He smiled proudly at her, leaving unsaid how she had saved him.

"Now we have to find some hoya around here, right?"

[iD: 7723 BD: 5(+2ACC=7) LD: 14]

Tyger - 

Baldur-  Hits Minotaur #2 for 7 DMG

Minotaur 2 - drops 115 Col & 1 Mat

Tyger- 22/22

Baldur- 18/22

Minotaur 2 - 0/23

Baldur groaned and shook his head, forgetting for a second what was going on around him, when suddenly Tyger made a huge racket. There was an explosive energy about her as she used her new <<Howl>> ability to peel the mob off of him. His eyes quickly flickered to the corner of his UI showing his HP had dropped, but he was still in the blue. That was one hell of a hit he took, but once again her armor saved his life.

"I really owe her for this one."

As the Minotaur turned to engage Tyger, Baldur pushed himself off from the tree and sprinted faster than he had since he used to play sports, clearing the ground between them in the blink of an eye. He was razor focused. As he got closer to the minotaur, Baldur half spun so that he was facing the mob's back and did a sideways skip to build up momentum and then struck the back of the Minotaur's legs using the full torsion of his body and a concussion BOOM resounded as he crit the minotaur's leg, causing its own attack to veer off to the side and miss Tyger.

This time he didn't celebrate. He didn't hoot or holler. His eyes were serious. His look could kill.

[iD: 7721 BD: 10 MD: 7]

Tyger - Howls

Baldur- Hyper Crits Minotaur for 9 DMG

Minotaur 2 - Misses

Tyger- 22/22

Baldur- 18/22

Minotaur 2 - 14/23