Zandra

Zandra sat on a chair, stunned to hear Irish music here, in SAO. ''I realy like irish music. Its, so... how shall I explain it... kind of relaxing. I could acyually listen to it several hours in a row'' I was gonna give you some Col like they to to those that perform on the street. But I have a better idea.'' she cleared on of the tables, placed a small ironplate, about 6'' diameter. On it she placed a iron tripod with a pot on. Under the pot she lit a candle. She poured some water in it. While she waited for it to boil up she took a red flower from one of Jomei's vases on the table next to the one she was working on. With a mortar she turned the flower into powder. She was 100% consentrated on what she did while she was working, while music probably was Jomei's passion, this was hers. Her hands almost danced across the table forth and back. The powder into the pot. When all powder was in the pot she took a deep breath.''There, now we just have to wait 30minutes. Could you play another song while we wait?'' she walked to one of the couches and half-laid there. Looking at Jomei with a red and exhausted but still happy face. She havent threwed togheter a brew this fast before. She just hoped she didnt screw this one up.

Zandra walked beside Jomei, she felt the excitment of beeing on an adventure, and there was a huge reward if they succeded with this quest. She started to be a little nervous, She threw a glimpse at Jomei to see how he felt. She couldnt tell anything of his face-expresion. She thougth she was maybe gonna feel better if she said something. ''So, this is the thoughtest mob Ive met so far. I havent met a single nemy yet with health above 15. Im actually afraid to die, so have been avoiding them. How about you, havent you fought any real battle?'' When she had ended the sentence they herd something and there saw a creature of some kind. It was still far away so they couldnt tell if it was the queen, a player or something else.

Zandra walked into the shop. There was so much to look at. All the different instruments, the funritures and he even has a stage. She ran up to the stage and rotated once. Then she smiled at him. ''Its amazing. To have an own stage. But I guess you need that as a performer. Myself I need only a workbench.'' she giggled and rotated once again. ''Cant you perform something?'' she jumped down from the stage and walked towards him.''I havent seen or herd you before. I guess your awesome. Come on, show me.'' she smiled at him. Hopefully he wasnt too tired. But he could at least sing a song, well, just wait and see.

''Thank you.'' she said and followed him to the warp gate.''Actually, I beeing kind of sponsoured by the alchemist that teached me. He gives me better tools and such as Im beeing better and better. Tomorrow I gonna move to floor three, to a bigger cart. With more fancy tools as well. Not like the ones he has, but better then my current ones. Myself I made my first crystal today that Ive put out for sale. Also a few potions, what do you sell in your shop?''she realised the man walking beside her actually looked interested. She started to like SAO more and more. All people she meet are actually kind to her. Not like in the real world, where she have been alone for so long. Always when she thinks about her past she like, shut out her surrondings and getting a troubled face. She suddenly herd the Jomei was talking. She made a small shake with her head and turned it towards him.''Sorry, I spaced out for a moment, what did you say?'' she asked and smiled at him.

Zandra sat down, after just a few seconds she saw Jomei coming out from between the houses. He walked up to her.''Finaly youre here, Ive been waiting for hooouurs.'' she said while looking sanctimonious. She tried to hide it but she couldnt stop a little snigger. ''Well, jokes aside,'' she equiped her dagger, she tried to hide so he didnt saw it was the basic dagger with no enchantments and not well balanced. ''Im ready.'' she looked at him. ''Nope, not nervous at all. We cant die since you have to protect me and I you.''

After another twenty minutes of walking she arrived to another spot looking the same as the one before, also with three nodes. But the nodes didnt looked exactly like the one on the other place. She bent down and touched it. It wasnt realy soft, but in some way it didnt felt as hard as the previous nodes.''These ones feel better.''she first hit the first one carefully. But when she saw it worked she started to work harder, After a couple of minutes she had a fine piece of crystal. She continued with the other ones. Both turned out like the first one.''Wow, this was realy something else. Such high quiality.''

ID:18598

LD:16+1=17 Success +1 Material

ID:18599

LD:20+1=21 Success +1 Material

ID:18600

LD:16+1=17 Success +1 Material

Total:

3 Materials

Trigger: 0/5

To her disapointment it looked like there wasnt a single thing as far as you could see. The open plains stretched for miles in every direction. Then spotted a forest in the horizon.''Well, I have all day.''she said and started to walk. When she had walked for twenty minutes she passed a little planchet without grass. When she looked at it, it was covered by stone and there was three nodes. The nodes was made of some kind of clear crystal. It wasnt as clear as the clear crystal on floor one. But it was more appealing in some mysterious way. She just had to take it home and experiment with it. She equipped her pickaxe and started mining. She raised her pickaxe above her head and let it fell. She jumped back when the pickaxe almost hhitted her after bouncing on the crystal. She investigated the area she had hitted it on. But there wasnt even a scratch on the hard surface. When she looked at her pickaxe, it have take a hard hit and the top three inches was bent in a 45 degree angle. She carefully tried to break the other ones too, bbut no effect at all. So she unequipped the pickaxe and contiued towards the forest.

ID:18595

LD:6+1=7 Fail

ID:18596

LD:6+1=7 Fail

ID:18597

LD:13+1=14 Fail

The houses here has an old country village style. Zandra kind of felt a little like home, because just outside her home in the forest was a ruin that looked like when it wasnt a ruin, it would look like these houses. But she didnt wanted to waste any time so she skipped on exploring this city, she had been more and more the one that wanted to explore outside in the un-safe zone then behind the border to safety.

She was tired of thoses endless fields of shifting colors. Like with floor one she would probably only return there with company. Either doing a quest if there is some there, or a romantical visit. She smiled when she thougth about the possibility the fall in love within a game. SAO was realy amazing.

She went to the warp gate and headed to floor 3. When she exited the gate she took a few moments to look around on the houses surrounding the plaza.

Today, Zandra was gonna head out for another day of material gathering. She waked up early in the morning. The evening before she had decided to head to floor 3. She was tired of roaming floor one alone, probably only gonna return there in company with someone else, and yesterday she spent her whole day picking flowers.

Thread complete.

+400 Col (1 completed page)

+1 SP

Before she knew it, she was back on the plaza. The plaza where she spawned the first day, the plaza where they got the message that this was a death game. The plaza where she totaly lost it and ran away slaughtering four boars. This time she didnt ran away. She just stood still for a few seconds. Then she slowly walked to the center. When she reached the tower in the middle she started to walk up the stairs. When she was on the top floor she climbed out of the window and up to the roof. She stood there, both her feets steady on the floor. She raised her right hand and pointed where the cloaked figure had appeared.

''I will complete this game, and then Im gonna search you up and kill you! You hear that Kayaba? I will kill you!''

She thougth she was gonna be sleepy by now, but halfway home she stopped and realised she wasnt sleepy at all. She was actually more awake then usual. She knew this was a good time to try to craft another crystal, now when she felt she could conentrate on it. But she didnt wanted to so she skipped it. Maybe later she thougth when letting her legs decided the diretion.

Taking this quest with Jomei

Name: Great HP Recovery

Your Profession: Alchemist

Your Rank: 2

ID: 18586

Roll: 11

Item Type: Crystal

Quality: Rare

Enhancements: HP Recovery +10HP

Description: A bloodred-coloured crystal about 4x6x10cm

Today Zandra had decided to make her first crystal. So today she didnt picked up any of her brewing tools. She only took the hammer and the nail. She placed three medium sized clear crystals and placed three of her red flowers beside them. Since they made good health potions they maybe gonna make good health-crystals as well. She took the first and started working on the first crystal with her hammer and nail. When she was half way she accidentaly slipped at hitted it in wrong angle. The crystal flew two meters and shattered on the floor.''Ahw maan. Not a good start.'' she took a second and started working on that one. This time she was careful not hitting it in a to low angle. But this time she did it from the other way aand the crystal cracked in two pieces.''Away with that one too. Now this one will be perfect, like you say, third try is the best try.''she carefully chopped off piece by piece. When she was done she took the flowers and pressed them on it. Slowly the crystal first turned pink, the red and darker and darker. When it was same colour as the best potion she made she removed the flowers and looked at it.''This ones not perfect, but almost.'' She placed the crystal beside the potions she had for sale. 

ID:18586

CD:11 Rare item +5EXP -1 Material

ID:18587

CD:4 Bad item +1EXP -1 Material

LD:18+1=19 Material salvaged +1 Material

ID:18588

CD:6 Bad item +1EXP -1 Material

LD:12+1=13 Fail

Name: Great HP Recovery

Your Profession: Alchemist

Your Rank: 2

ID: 18586

Roll: 11

Item Type: Crystal

Quality: Rare

Enhancements: HP Recovery +10HP

Description: A bloodred-coloured crystal about 4x6x10cm

Zandra was happy when she got the answer. Togheter the little bug, well not that little, wasnt gonna be any trouble for them. She got realy excited, she would also get four skill points from it. She closed her little. with emphasizing on little, shop. She pulled the cart to the shadow-corner she always places it. Then she adjusted her clothes to look good. Pushed back her hair to make a ponytail.''Time to go.''she left the marketplace and headed to the warp-gate. She warped up to second floor. She looked around but couldnt see Jomei. Thou she saw a bench, she walked to it and waited.

''Do you have a shop?''Zandra asked surprisingly looking at Jomei.''I didnt knew that.'' Then she looked on the ground, scratching a piece of the street with her left foots toes.''Myself I only have a cart, and its on floor one.''she blushed a little, it was embarrasing to let him know she slept on the street. She was after all level 12, and now she should at least sleep on an inn.''Only if its okay for you, could I visit you tonight? I can sleep on the floor, it would just be nice to sleep inside and not under clear sky tonight.''she raised her head and looked at Jomei. Hopefully he was gonna answer yes, but she didnt dare to hope the best.

"A pleassure to meet you too Jomei."he said to Jomei with a nod."So, a request you say?"he turned his head back to Zandra."What kind of request?"Zandra waited a few seconds before she opened her mouth."A player I knew died today and I planned to hold a memorial to him. It gonna take place tomorrow at the lake. So I wonder if I could borrow some chairs and a table? In return I let you come and drink for free."it didnt was a sacrifise since it was free for anyone."Sure. There isnt anyone using them anyway. You mention drink. Is there gonna be sake?"he waited for Zandra to answer while looking at her seriously."Sorry no, only strawberryjuice."she saw him be dissapointed. Then she turned to Jomei"Maybe you herd but its okay that we borrow a table and some chairs. What do you say about meeting here at ten in the morning? Then I can bring my cart to easier move the table."

Completed:

+1SP (completed topic)

+470 Col

      -400 one completed page

      -70 Loot

+11 Materials

When Zandra walked into the city she headed for the teleport back to the first floor. It was there she had her cart where she had all her ingredients. When she got down it was much brighter and louder down on floor 1. The marketplace was still open. She took a quick look if there was anything interesting. But nothing she was gonna get now at least. When she got to the corner she pulled out her cart from the shadows for one of the last times, thou that she didnt knew at the moment. When everything was in their right places she pulled it back. She saw an empty bench outside a tavern where she sat down. She took a deep breath.''Phew... Another day in Aincrad, and Im still alive.''

Finally, after a half an hour of scary walking she got back to the safety inside the town. First she didnt recognized where she was. Then she remebered she wasnt on floor 1 anymore. And this wasnt town of beginning. This was the first time she entered Urbus from the outside. She had visited it sometime, but it was only because there was a rumor that a tavern here served extraordinary tasteful pies. Thou it was a disapointment. Yes the pie was good, but not as good as the rumors sounded it to be.

As usual, Zandra was strolling the town of beginnning, even because she was bored of it for a long time now. Maybe she needed enviroment change. She opened the quide-book to do a quest. So she had something to do. When she browsed the pages she accidentaly saw the secret medicine of the forest quest.''Nope, never again'' she said and continued. Then she found one, it was on floor two, so it would probably be an easy match, but when she looked closer she saw that the enemy had 30HP and dealt almost as much damage as she did. This would be an even fight. But from her previous experiences she didnt wanted to risk anything. She sent a message to one of her friends she felt she could trust and was about her level.

Hi Jomei, Im gonna try to kill the wasp-queen on floor two.
I wonder if you wanna tag along?
-Zandra

''Yes it is, I met a girl named Marisa when I was here the first time. Hopefully I can introduce you to her.'' when they entered the cafè it, as usual when she or Marisa wasnt there, it was empty. Not even Marisa was here. Except the tall white haired, yellow eyed man behind the bar.She walked straigth to him.''Hi Kourin.''Zandra said to the man with a smile. She looked over her shoulder at Jomei and whispered''Hes actual name is Rinnosuke.''Zandra turned back her head towards the manager.''This man here is Jomei, I come to you with a little request.''she said.

Zandra walked the path between the endless fields of flowers. There realy was flowers as far as you could see. She had both been having a good time picking flowers of all different colors. She also got to engage a monster she had never even seen before. It was realy getting dark now, she could hear weird sounds both far away but also close. It sounded like something big was walking just a dozen meters beside her. Thou she could only she like half that far. This must be unusual to be this dark.