Loreley

Combat

Loreley turned tail. An action that she heavily cursed herself for, and wondered if she could forgive later. Truly she had to believe that her life was worth more than an honorable death. She wasn't some warrior out for glory, and nobody would remember her if she died in these grassy plains. No, an honorable death was pointless. But the boar seemed to have little interest in honor or lack thereof, as it charged after the woman in her flight. She looked over her shoulder as she ran, dodging rocks and other boars in the plains in her attempt to escape. The angry boar on her heels squealed, and swung his tusks at Loreley, but she managed to stay just ahead of the beast.

Combat

Loreley was feeling drained. As she looked to her Energy total, she realized the cause, and watched as the boar's health hadn't even hit yellow status. Loreley looked to the gashes strewn about her body, and at the steadily decreasing health bar of her own. She stepped forward and the familiar purple glow enveloped her dagger, but the blow itself seemed to dwindle just as much as her confidence. The boar, on the other hand, had no shortage of confidence, as its eyes glowed with an uncontained malice for her transgressions against its innocent snuffling. Her health bar dropped again, with the boar barely fazed by her own blow, and Loreley decided that her pride and confidence weren't worth her life. She growled, and turned to run.

Combat

Everything fell into line as Loreley and the boar danced around one another. Loreley spun and sliced into the creature once again, but not without the cost of the creature's attack and step in time with her own. Back and forth like a metronome they did their dance. Loreley watched as her attacks barely scratched the surface of the creature, and for a moment she began to wonder if perhaps she had bitten off more than she could chew. Had it been too long since she had hunted? It was possible, and perhaps she didn't dance the right dance anymore. Loreley slid her feet through the grass, letting the sound of her traveling movements distract her from her plight. At worst, she could always run, but could she truly live with herself for that?

Combat

As frightening as the idea of potential death was, this was exactly what Loreley wanted. She wanted to feel the rush of adrenaline that came with being a part of a life or death situation. This boar could be her end, or it could be her beginning. Still smiling, Loreley danced into attacking range once more. The boar seemed confused by the woman's fluid movements, as well as by her moving into its own striking range, but Loreley paid little mind. She spun, her dagger glowing that deep purple, as it sliced into the boar's flesh, leaving the same red pixelated gashes that she herself had. Now both of them were scarred by battle, though her fancy footwork didn't come without a cost, as the boar seized the opportunity to slice into the woman's side with a squealing war cry. Loreley grunted as she took a step back, "Not one for dancing, eh? It's okay, I used to be bad at it too."

Combat

For a moment, Loreley considered that she may have been too cocky. All too quickly she remembered that this was a death game. That her life was on the line, as the boar's expression instantly turned from fear, to a primal anger. The rage of the beast could not be quelled, as it charged the woman. She gasped, and made an attempt to parry the tusk that made to gore her with her dagger, but the flimsy starter implement did little to protect her. The tusk struck true, and Loreley found herself reeling with a large red pixelated hole in her stomach. "So, you're not a pushover after all, are you little piggy?" she asked with a smirk.

Combat

Loreley mentally prepared herself. Every monster could be the last in this death game, even simple boars like this. Many players lost their lives to these creatures, and Loreley had to take care not to share their fate. She decided that the risk was worth the reward though, as she twirled the dagger in her hand and looked around for a suitable target. There were plenty, of course, but when choosing these types of things one just has to feel it. She watched as a boar snuffled his way through a tuft of grass, and decided this unlucky creature would meet its maker this night.

Loreley was graceful and swift, her feet barely making sound as she swept through the grass towards her prey. In a flash, she was upon the creature, and before it could even so much as blink in response, Loreley's purple glowing dagger had managed to take two deep stabs into the creature. The creature was shocked, and that fear was exactly what Loreley wanted. It stumbled away, squealing in what had to be agony. Loreley smiled, and readied her dagger once more.

Combat

The moon floated high in the night sky as a light breeze blew across the hilly plains of the First Floor. As usual, Loreley was up in the middle of the night, as were the prey she had come to hunt. It had been quite a while since she had really taken to going hunting, and what a cool, crisp night for her to begin anew. She held her dagger up to the moon, as if she believed to be able to take a stab at it. She watched as the moonlight glinted off of the dull blade. A starter weapon, but still a weapon. As basic as it was, it served its purpose. What was tonight's purpose? To murder boars, of course. Not much else one could do on the First Floor. Perhaps she could have tangoed with the wolves instead, but why do that when these innocent piggies gave just as much in the way of rewards? She chuckled, and shrugged, bringing the dagger back to rest by her side, hanging loosely from her fingers. She could feel the weight of the metal, and the hunger in the blade. It had been too long since she had hunted.

Thread Statistics

Loreley's teeth chattered as she shook violently in the cold. Coming to the fourth floor was always a mistake. She never could fathom the idea that people actually enjoyed this floor. She had hoped to find a quest, or something to do, and was met, as usual, by a chill that reached her core. Her teeth made the kind of music that she didn't like. A rattling sound that reverberated through her skull. Yet, she found herself listening to the odd melody it created. It took her mind away from the freezing atmosphere surrounding her. Either that, or she was going to die from frostbite and she had just begun to go numb. She wasn't really aware enough to make an educated decision on the matter.

She may have been okay if she had decided to make her way during the day, but she was a night owl. Ultimately, she decided that it would lead to her undoing, here in this moment. But there had to be someplace open this late at night. As she shuffled through the snow, unsure of where the snow ended and her legs began, and not even certain that her feet were still attached or little more than ice cubes, she heard the breaking of glass and a cursing from a nearby shop with only a fire lit inside. She walked up to it, and tried the door to see if they were open, only to find it locked. For a moment, in her chilly stupor, she had considered knocking, but how impolite would that be at this hour? Even if the occupant was clearly awake. She sighed, watching as the cloud of warm air was engulfed by frost and carried away on the light breeze.

But next door, there was a bar. Now bars were always open, and they had booze. Booze was good for warming the soul. "The F-f-fearsomely S-strong C-c...." her mouth tried to trace the words on the sign hanging above the door, but her teeth chattered too much to really process them out loud. And so she just made her way inside, listening to the door creak as she peered inside, dragging a decent helping of snow in behind her. "H-hello...?" she softly inquired, before slipping the rest of the way inside. She looked around quickly, judging her surroundings. A bar, as expected, and a couch and table. Not much in the way of extravagance. No music played, no games sat waiting for players. It was quaint, but admittedly boring. Loreley sighed, the desire for warmth and drink was stronger than her desire for entertainment. "Is this place open?" she inquired out loud, hoping it would draw out the bartender.

Thread Statistics

Loreley was a bit taken back by the question that Lowenthal suddenly posed to her. His compliments were one thing, and generally expected by him in the moment of him flirting, but asking what she thought of him was something else entirely. Her brow furrowed as she thought about it, and she was thinking surprisingly hard about how to respond to the question. She had ended up furrowing her brow and thinking for long enough while staring at him, that she couldn't help but think that if words didn't come out soon, it'd get really awkward, really fast. And so Loreley brought her eyes to his and said, "I'd be lying if I said I didn't already think you cute, and you're most certainly still interesting."

Loreley finished up her song and was happy to see that Lowe had been enjoying it. She often got lost in the moment when she started singing, and Loreley figured it was just the in game skill taking over for her voice, giving it that lighter, more melodic tone. She wasn't sure though, and there was no way for her to honestly tell given the way these types of things work. Real skills blurred together with in game ones to produce the best effects. Loreley considered Lowe's question as she said, "There are lot of performers in the world. I suppose when you watch enough of them, you learn the skills necessary to at least be able to sing a basic song." She shrugged and put the mic away, her singing and dancing having been made more fluid by the dress. She could see why idols performed in them. They were freeing in a way, as well as cute. She bristled at the thought of someone considering her cute before shaking her head and saying, "Well, the dress worked well. Thanks for making it, and I look forward to performing in it again."

Loreley gave another light bow to Charles as Lowenthal headed into the restaurant. Loreley nodded at Lowe's gesture, and thanked him, but ended up not taking his seat. "Actually Lowe, I'm going to go ahead and start setting up for the show. I'm sure that everything is properly tuned, but it's better to check and triple check, right?" Loreley then made her way to the place where there sat a grand piano and a mic. The mic was situated in such a way that the piano player would also be able to sing as they did so, and that made Loreley happy. And so, she sat down, and wiggled her fingers over the keys, looking them over. Admittedly she hadn't played piano in a very long time, but she hoped that it was just like riding a bike. And so, she started to move her fingers along the keys, testing their tuning and finding that there was no issue with it.

She turned back to Lowenthal, a glimmer in her eye, "Well, how about I play us a song? Perhaps people will come in if I start playing wonderful music~"

Loreley pulled the mic from the stand and held it in her hand as Lowenthal responded to her. She raised an eyebrow at his comment to her flirting and gave him a sly smile, "Oh? That's a possibility. You're free to think as you wish, of course." She did a bit of a walk around the stage, gauging what she would want to do, seeing as Lowenthal had given her the pick. And she just couldn't find herself being decisive. She never was very good at this in front of only one person. In front of a crowd? Yeah, she could perform all day, but when it was only one person their opinions were a bit more vocal and sometimes harder to impress. Finally, she picked up her tambourine and decided to just wing it, beginning with a song that she had met with success for a few nights, Under a Violet Moon.

Loreley pretty much figured that at least if nothing else, she couldn't get worse than she had done the night before, and so when she got on stage she looked ahead and made her best attempt. It certainly wasn't much better, but it was an improvement, as she went back to the basics of a song she already knew performed fairly well and brought in at least a small crowd. She tried another new song to end off the night, and while it wasn't the greatest, she still felt like she had learned from it, and so she was satisfied with the results of the night.

8th Performance Details

Loreley put her hands on her hips and stared at Lowenthal expectantly as she waited for his response. It was, as expected, incredibly sweet. She giggled lightly and rolled her eyes at him, before walking over to her stage, saying, "I suppose it was a silly thing to ask someone with bias how I look in a dress they made." She turned and gave Lowenthal a wink after saying this and then finished her walk up to her microphone. She hadn't considered what kind of song Lowenthal might actually want to hear, and admittedly Loreley hadn't made many songs yet, though she had sang one song that had won over her crowd only a few nights ago. She wondered idly if she would be able to sing it again, and supposed if it came up she would try. But first, the thought she'd give Lowenthal first pick as she asked, "Any requests?"

Loreley knew it would be difficult to top the performance of the night before, but that didn't stop her from trying. What she didn't expect, however, was for her to go from an amazing performer back to being almost no better than a complete amateur once again. She tried her best, that was for certain, but her best didn't keep the crowd interested, especially after the previous night's performance. By the end of it she had ended up with only a few stragglers, some people she recognized that consistently made it to all her shows. She frowned and sighed. Can't be great every night, I suppose. But practice makes perfect.

7th Performance Details

Loreley walked out into the fields with her hands in her pockets, hardly noticing that only a couple of the recruits had followed. Not even Lumiel had come along yet. Loreley shrugged, as really it made little difference on the first floor. Well, to her at least. The mobs here could probably sneeze on one of the other lowbies and make them explode into pixel dust, but that was neither here nor there. As she reached the town gates she looked out, surveying the area for good, juicy looking boars and began to plan out their next moves. She wondered if the kiddies would be able to perform in combat or if they were just trying to look tough in front of her and Lumiel. She supposed whenever they all showed up, she'd find out.

Loreley headed back into the dressing room, and did a few swipes of her menu, switching to the nice black dress that Lowenthal had made. But that wasn't all. No, Loreley had planned this out to become her new ensemble, both on and off stage. She grabbed a feathery looking purple bow, and fastened it to her hair and fixed it up in the mirror with a smile. And then she equipped a nice pair of black leggings to go with her dress and some thigh high black boots. Loreley's left arm had a sleeve while her right arm was bare, and she pulled on a pair of nice black gloves. Finally, she put on a nice purple cloth collar that had a thin scarf-like cloth flowing from it, that waved behind her as she walked and moved. She did a twirl, looking herself over in the mirror, before realizing that she had probably kept poor Lowe waiting bored for quite a while.

Upon this realization, she quickly made her way out and looked to Lowe, who appeared to be bored out of his mind, saying, "Sorry about that! I didn't think I'd get so lost in dressing up!" She did a spin for him once she was sure he was paying attention and cocked her head at him, "So? How do I look?"

Loreley hadn't initially heard the knock and Lowe enter, as she had been off trying to organize a drum set and was rather buried in it. When she had finally emerged from dealing with the instrument that would probably never get used, she looked to find that Lowenthal had already shown up, and had her dress in his hands. She walked over, as he mentioned that it was free of charge, ignoring the question of how long she had been there. It was her stage and she had invited him, how long did he think she had been there? She picked up the dress, and held it up in front of her to look it over. The craftsmanship of it was very elegant and as Lowenthal continued to talk, his words couldn't help but bring a flush to her cheeks. She continued to hold the dress up between them to hide the fact that his comments, somehow, continued to have that effect on her, before the blush faded and she lowered the dress.

"Well then, let me try it on. I'll be back in just a moment. Wait here. I have some recordings on the table if you want to listen to any of my other shows." And with that, she nodded to Lowenthal and headed into the back room to change.

Loreley made her way to the Butcher, with Lowenthal at her side. She was wearing a lovely black dress that had been tailored by the man specifically for the event, and had an arm around his as they walked. She looked over at him, sporting a black suit and bowtie, he looked his part for the event as well. Lumiel had given her the coordinates to the place where she was to perform, but honestly if not for the sign that said "The Butcher" on it, she would've thought she had the wrong location. She looked at Lowenthal, a bit concerned that she wasn't actually going to be performing in all that fancy of an establishment, despite what Lumiel had told her. But any fears were quickly dispelled as she entered into the restaurant.

Inside, the establishment was amazing, and there was a very dapper man at the front waiting to greet them. She walked past the person who appeared to be the first patron for the night, smiling at Charles, and giving a light bow to the man. "Hello there, my name is Loreley. I'm the performer for the evening, and this is Lowenthal," she indicated the man in the black suit as she said this, "my plus one."

Loreley was spending quite a bit of time at her stage lately, singing nightly, and it was really starting to get a bit of a mess. And so, she had decided to take a night off from performances and simply clean up shop a bit. Sweeping, picking up litter from the crazy crowds, organizing the other instruments that nobody ever actually played. She hoped that someday she might actually be able to have a band in AIncrad, but for now, she was okay with letting the instruments collect dust for now. Perhaps one night soon she'll pick one up and try it out to see if it produced any good results.

As she cleaned, she saw her message notification pop up, and cocked her head as it came from Lowenthal. "Hm?" she pondered aloud as she read over that he had finished her requested dress and was ready to give it to her. Oh, but going all the way to the Eleventh Floor and picking it up just didn't sound like as much fun as it could be. So, Loreley sent him a message back, 'Hello Lowe, thanks for the good news! If you want, go ahead and stop by my stage on the First Floor and we can see how it looks on me. Perhaps with a performance in it? I will be performing all night in it, so we'll have to make sure it holds up!' She nodded and sent the message off, hoping that he'd be okay with the idea.

Loreley made her way to the stage once more, determined to put on as good, if not better, of a show as she had the night before. She had actually managed to build up a bit of a crowd from the previous night, and many people gave her a bit of a cheer as she took the stage. Loreley couldn't help but smile as she planned out her performance in her head and set up her recording crystals for the night to record her songs. She stood in front of the microphone, and before she knew it, she was singing and dancing one of the most beautiful songs she had done in Aincrad so far. It was a somber, but sweet melody, with a fluid dance to accompany and it had the crowd positively swaying with adoration. To round out the night, she went with one from the night before, and it was a good toe tapper that got everyone up after the slower song, and she ended the night with a huge round of applause and a raucous crowd.

6th Performance Details

Loreley had thanked Satonaka for the food, and given her a light wave back as they made their way out of the restaurant. As they walked along, Loreley answered his question with, "No, my 'shop', if you can call it that, is just a little stage. I didn't make a fancy place that doubles as a home like most crafters it seems. I'm happy with staying in inns." As they reached the Teleport Gate, Loreley stepped up onto it, not really lingering next to Lowenthal. It wasn't that she had wanted to get away from him. No, it was that she wanted to get closer to him, that scared Loreley. She looked the man over, as he admitted that he wished to see her again. "I had fun," she responded with, her face a mask, her not wishing to betray any further emotion than she already had to Lowenthal. "Message me sometime. If anything of interest comes up, I'll message you. Who knows? I might have need of your skills as a tailor. I'm sure we'll meet again soon."

And without giving him any further chance to respond, Loreley shouted, "Town of Beginnings!" and was engulfed in a blue sphere that whisked her away to the First Floor. As she arrived, she let out the breath that she didn't even realize that she had been holding, as she looked to the sky. Up to the floor where she knew Lowenthal was still standing at. Such a strange place, this new world. I wonder what'll happen next? Loreley asked herself, as she made her way to the nearest inn for some rest.