Aeternum

(14306)(BD 2)

Aeternum was terrified. This monster had shown up out of the blue and a player had died earlier, probably because of this beast. He watched two other players attack and decided that he should, too. Pointing his sword at Behemoth, he attempted to put on a determined expression, but failed horribly. He swiftly dashed towards Behemoth, but retreated just as quickly upon seeing just how much health it had.

He wanted to run. Away from this trip. Away from his guild. Away from Aincrad. The only words to leave his mouth were, "We can't win. There is no way."

He looked at the players around him, notably Oikawa. Oikawa had been the first to attack. He had not fled. But Aeternum had. Aeternum sighed. He was too weak to beat this boss, but he had to try. He could not abandon his guild, not now.

H1 Oikawa 41/41

H0 Zeri 11/11

H0 Raeyliff 22/22

H0 Xanatos 24/24

H0 Aeternum 13/13

<Behemoth> 136/150

(14089)

Aeternum roamed through the town until he found an NPC merchant who offered a simple blacksmith's hammer for a rather low price. He quickly bought the hammer and said to Crozeph, "Okay, I saw a nice rock outside the city that will work for my attempt. Let's go." With that, he once again led the way. Upon arriving at the rock, he retrieved the first material from his inventory.

-----

-350 col

-Aeternum gained Blacksmith's Hammer

-----

Aeternum set the material on the rock, which happened to be almost exactly like a table, and did the first thing that came to mind. He hit the material several times, and watched as it began to take the form of a sword. Suddenly, the material/sword bent, becoming completely useless. He grunted and pushed it aside, saying, "I can try again."

-----

Failed attempt, CD 5, LD 6, no salvage.

-----

Aeternum nodded gratefully. He smiled and said, "Hey, if I can make something useful from one of these lumps of stuff, would you want it?" He hoped Crozeph would say yes, and continued, "I will need to buy myself a hammer, but yeah, how about it?" It was the best offer he could make. He thought for several long moments and said with eagerness, "Hey, follow me. Let's see what I can do."

With that, he made his way to the cave entrance. From there, he continued on his way to the Starting City. He looked back to check for Crozeph, and simply smiled. He hoped he could make something for him.

Aeternum followed Oikawa as he announced that it was time to move. When a new player showed up, he had decided to ignore him. Or her. He had not payed them much attention. He had already accepted the party invite, which was a natural thing to do. As he followed Oikawa, he pulled up his messenger.

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To: Azide

Subject: HIM

Azide, I'm a little scared. This trip was supposed to be fun. We will have to talk at a better time. Stay safe.

-----

There. The message was a super condensed version of what he wanted to send. He nervously bit his lip until he could feel it tingling, and realized he had bit through it. Luckily, the game eliminates pain, so now there was only an orange gash on his lip. It would fade, but not for a while.

Aeternum nodded, saying, "You had my guaranteed assistance from the start, it was the female who we didn't know about. But anyways, lead the way." Aeternum had never taken this quest, and so he was unable to be a guide for Piers. He looked around the area and said, "This may sound odd, but do you think that some of these players are too calm. They accept life here and try to make it... normal. It all seems wrong."

He laughed then, and tried to move to another subject in his head. The quest. What would the reward be? How much value would it have? He was eager to find out.

Aeternum x Piers... if he ever comes back. My sweet prince.

Aeternum had started to speak to Calrex when a new arrival appeared. He smirked and said, "Seems I am a people magnet." He turned to the player and said in a mildly friendly tone, "Hey there. How are you on such a mediocre day?" He inwardly shrugged, not caring about his unique wording of his sentence. How many others might show up? Aeternum did not know, but hopefully not too many.

Aeternum returned his focus to Calrex, "So, tell me something. This may seem out of the blue, but how long do you think we will be stuck in this game?" Truthfully, Aeternum had forgotten how long the death game had lasted sofar. Did it matter?

Aeternum looked shocked. He grimaced and said slowly, "We had just gotten back, Azide and I... when somebody showed up and... and... di...die..." He stopped for a short while, continuing, "Then Azide took off to find X." He felt more tears well up as he recalled the player dieing, and looked away. That is when he noticed the message notification.

Upon opening and reading the message, he said with a trembling voice, "We must go and catch up with Azide..."

Aeternum sighed, this trip was turning out to be much different than he had thought it would be.

Aeternum looked away before taking off his eye patch. He looked back at Calrex, saying, "My eyes are different colors, as is obvious if you look at my eyes. I wear the patch over my left eye because it is red, which is an odd eye color." He put the patch back on, feeling slightly proud that he was able to show his eye without feeling made fun of.

He smiled and said, "I am surprised you did not notice immediately. A lot of people tend to notice my eyes, at least in real life. Though, it didn't bother me as much then."

Aeternum sighed, saying, "Not well, this game has caused me some... issues." He laughed, trying to lighten his own mood. "It is a pity," he said, "that I had never heard of the stealth skill." He figured he could keep talking to this player for a while, and said, "You seem like the game is treating you well, am I correct in that assumption?"

Aeternum adjusted his eye patch, and realized that he had finally adjusted to wearing it. He had gotten past depth perception, and now he had made a habit of adjusting it regularly. Pleasant, but he may want a new eye patch soon.

Aeternum listened to this player introduce himself, and quickly began to shake his hand saying, "Joyce, and thank you." He stopped shaking the players hand and quickly retrieved his sword and eye patch, putting the patch on and sheathing the sword. He looked around awkwardly and said, "I'm glad it was just you who saw, I could not handle the shame of having other people see me."

Aeternum changed the subject as best he could, "Hey, do you have a stealth skill? Because I was ninety nine percent sure nobody had been nearby." He was curious, and hoped that such a skill existed.

Aeternum stared at the player for an awkward amount of time before saying, "Trouble? No, why would I be having problems?" He sighed, the player must have seen something he had done. Aeternum stood up, "I am fine, I guess, just chilling in this here field." He felt his face heat up, and finally managed to say, "How long were you watching me? Don't tell a soul."

Aeternum realized that his day might just be getting worse. He frowned when an annoying thought entered his head. He even took off his eye patch, and still didn't see this guy. Did he have stealth abilities? If so, Aeternum would have to ask around to learn more about them.

Aeternum stood in the middle of a field, determined to get his mind off of current events. He stretched, yawning at the same time, and mumbled, "Perhaps I could... I dunno, dance?" The very thought made him laugh, but still, why not? He unsheathed his sword and stabbed it into the ground, propping it upright. He then removed his eye patch, which he had almost forgotten he had been wearing, and placed it on the sword. He looked around and, upon assuring himself that there were no other players nearby, started shuffling his feet.

He felt awkward, and knew his movements were far from perfect. He continued with this, throwing in and taking out certain dancing elements, until he got frustrated and sat down. The grass felt nice, which made him feel a little less angry. Aeternum realized that he had only succeeded in making himself more tense, and punched the ground. Today was not the best of days.

(ID 12893)(LD 10)

Aeternum laughed,"Yeah, I have to agree with you. But it is a major thorn in my side, you know." He continued further into the cave, and squinted at an oddly large cluster of odd material against a cave wall. He made his way to the materials and went to pick a lump up. The lump started squirming, and was revealed to be a beetle the size of his fist. Aeternum grunted and tosses it away, saying, "Stupid bug, I need material, not gooey bug guts."

He frowned, why was it so hard to actually obtain what he needed? Oh well, he will get what he needed eventually.

Aeternum glanced up and saw that he had recieved a message. So much for sleeping. He sat up and read the message. This was serious. He sighed, he would have to push aside his emotions and do as Azide had said. He stood up on shaking legs and exited the tent. He made his way to the player Oikawa, who seemed to be in charge, saying, "I'm here, w-what do you need me to do?"

As he stood there, the sight of the dying player played through his mind on repeat. What had killed him? Aeternum felt as if there had been something odd about this players death, but he could not put his finger on it.

Aeternum had gone numb. He could not feel anything, nor hear any noise. He watched as X and Azide took off, and could do nothing but cry. He made his way to the remaining tent and crawled inside, still cursing Aincrad. Eventually, he was reduced to whimpering and sniffling.

Why had he entered this game? It had not seemed so bad at first, but now... now it scared him. He curled into a ball, saying again and again, "I don't want to die."

He remained there, having stopped crying, but still shocked. He shivered, feeling as if an ice cold breeze passed through him.

Perhaps he could just go to sleep. Yes, that would be very good.

Aeternum and Azide had made it back to camp, and a rather shocking thing accrued. Another player, or at least it seemed to be another player, had died. Aeternum froze upon seeing the death, and only managed to let out a few simply words, "He... just... died?"

At that, he felt tears well up in his eyes. Even if he had not known the player, they had just died, and that was enough. Aeternum dropped his wood and turned away, cursing Aincrad with every ounce of his being.

He had known that people would die, but had not expected to feel so shocked at witnessing a death.

(Sorry for not responding. I sorta lost the ability to comprehend this thread, and was unable to think of a good post. Heck, I'm not even sure this was a good post.)

(12346)(LD 2)

Aeternum accepted the ore and said, "This'll come in handy, my friend." He continued onwards, laughing as he found a chunk of ore lodged firmly in the wall. He repeated the process of beating the ore, and was not surprised when he failed to acquire the ore. He glared at the wall, and said, "Please, just... I need your cooperation."

He glanced at Crozeph and said, "This may be ever harder than fighting mobs, but it sure is safer." Returning his focus to the cave, he blundered about, still trying to find materials.

(12133)(LD 12, fail)

Aeternum held out the singular chunk of material, which was a dull grey color and barely reflected light. What could he turn it into? He would find out soon enough. He froze in his tracks, seeing a rather large cave entrance off in the distance. He laughed and said, "I remember hearing about mining, so why don't we try that? The more mats the better, right?"

With that, he took off, making his way to the cave. It was dark, but appeared to be quite extensive. He turned and grinned madly before delving into the depths of the stone maw. Mining should be easy right?

As he fumbled through the dark, he found a rather odd feeling hunk of rock. He drew his sword and beat upon the rock, then attempted to pull it from the cave wall. Still nothing. He grunted in exasperation and moved on.

Aeternum looked at Crozeph, saying, "No help? Why, without you, I would have been dead shortly after fighting the first boar." He laughed, "You seem very kind, and I am glad you were willing to help me. I believe this quest is complete, so why don't we head to the city? We both have taken quite a few hits." Aeternum sheathed his sword and started off, saying, "Hey, glad to share a guild with you, man. It's nice. I thought this game was filled with despair, yet our guild shows otherwise."

He continued walking, and swore to himself that he would fight for his guild until his last breath. They were all such nice people, he would fight alongside them until they could leave the game. That was a promise.

Aeternum had lost interest in Ariel's story, and had knelt down to also attempt to make a crown. Try as he might, it seemed impossible. He grunted, "Gotta give it to Keith, he can make a nice crown," he looked at Ariel and continued, "perhaps I should make it up to him. My behavior was a tad... silly."

Silly. A great word to use. He made himself sound like a three year old. Aeternum stood up and stretched, saying to the newest arrival, "Hey, Kiru sure does know a lot of people. Why, she is also a people magnet. Not hard, seeing as she has multi colored hair."

He laughed and started to walk away, saying, "I seem to have run out of time here. I must go, so good day to you all."

(Aeternum has left the thread)

Aeternum opened his menu and navigated this way through it. Finding what he wanted, he sent Syo a request. He turned around and approached the spectator, saying, "I just want to clarify some things, if you are willing to listen." Aeternum gestured towards the general area where the duel had occurred, "That was not my ego earlier, but rather me having fun. Sorry if I came across that way."

He winced as he realized his eye patch was off, and quickly equipped it once more. It was just a habit now, sort of an impulsive thing.

(11964)(BD 9, CD 8)

Aeternum watched his health dip lower once again and this time managed at least slash across his opponents arm. He watched the orange gash faded and said, "Looks like I finally managed to land a hit. Though, it was surprisingly weak, for how hard I had swung my sword." He laughed and attempted to mimmick the guy from the old Mortal Kombat games, "Finish me."

Aeternum flashed a smile to the spectator and said, "A short-lived duel this was." And a short lived duel it had been. He knew he had lost, and as disappointed as he was, he knew that he had to work harder from now on.

Aeternum 7/11 HP

Syo 14/15 HP

(11935)(BD 8-2=6)(CD 11= +1 HP)

Aeternum missed yet again, but he didn't care. He noticed his HP bar move slightly and smirked, battle healing does have its perks. He laughed and said, "Yes, this battle will end soon. You are the only one capable of landing hits, and I am barely regenerating." Aeternum thought for several moments and said, "Hey, why don't I shoot you a friend request so that we can have a rematch later in time? You are a great opponent, and I obviously need to get stronger."

Aeternum waved his sword, not even attempting to fight, "Besides, it seems I underestimated you. That won't happen again."

Aeternum 9/11 HP (Battle healing came into effect)

Syo 15/15 HP

(11913)(BD 1, CD 7)

Aeternum was surprised with the swiftness of Syo's attack, and dropped his sword in shock. He fumbled to pick up his sword, and thrust it towards Syo, wanting to run him through. Aeternum did not want to lose. Though he failed in attacking Syo, he did manage to back away and take a second to relax.

Perhaps this duel would be lost. But at least it would serve as a lesson.

Aeternum 8/11 HP

Syo 15/15 HP