Yamato

"What do ye mean by seen people that are sick, ye've never seen that in the real world," the blonde man asked, quirking an eyebrow at Avilon as he wrapped an arm momentarily around her slender waist to help her steady herself once more. "People get sick all the time, it's not fun. But, it is life an' ye can hate it all ye like, but it won' make it any less true," the Irishman continued, speaking in a very pragmatic tone and shrugging his shoulders. "If ye want ta do somethin' about that, ye need ta be smarter than I am with the whole science thing. Not that it would take much," he concluded, shrugging his shoulders. "Otherwise, ye accept that what is simply is an' there's nothin' ye can do about it. If ye constantly worry an' fret about things ye can have no effect on ye'll give yerself ulcers, or a heart attack."

For a half second Yamato considered bucking with enough force to dislodge his erstwhile passenger. Just as quickly, he thought better of it. There was a curvaceous and attractive woman latched onto his back with her arms around his neck. There were worse things in the world, both the real one and Sword Art Online. Still, he wasn't about to start braying like a horse or galloping. Instead he simply wrapped each of his hands around Avilon's corresponding ankles before wrapping her legs around his waist. "There's no need to shout, lass," he said in a tone that was considerably quieter and more Irish-tinged than her own. Slowly, he plodded through the town in the direction of the portal plaza and considered his answer. "We need to teleport down to Urbus an' from there we'll knock out a couple of quests on the second floor. Should be dinner time by then."

With the Queen Bee and her minions slain from the Long Live the Queen quest, and the quest having been turned in for the quest rewards, Yamato's quest log beeped at him. He swiped his finger in the air in front of him and scrolled through the final screen for the Long Live the Queen quest before tapping the accept button as it floated in the air in front of him. Moving through his list of active, but incomplete, quests the blonde man's blue eyes read through the list before finally landing on the last quest that he wanted to get accomplished for the day, Let There Be Light. "Only one more left, we have to go rescue an NPC kid that's lost in a cave. An', we have ta kill a few bats. When we're done we take the kid to her mother, an' we're done for the day."

With two of the four quests that he wanted to get done for the day out of the way Yamato pulled up his player menu and quickly consulted the time. It was still pretty early in the afternoon and the final two quests, Long Live the Queen and Let There Be Light, were both on the second floor and in close proximity to one another unlike the first two Secret Medicine of the Forest and Worn Out Welcome which had required a bit of travel between floors. As long as the blonde Irishman and his traveling companion didn't drag their feet too much in completing the first of the two remaining quests it would be easy enough to complete each of those that remained, even if it would make for a bit of a late supper. Moving at a solid pace that was neither too slow nor too fast, Yamato led the way back into Delilah Town on the third floor, passing through the town's gates and into the safe zone.

"All the more reason to fight then," Yamato replied in an almost business-like, and very military, tone. "Ye mus' be the change ye wish to see, lass," the Irishman continued, still leading the pair of them through the Town of Beginnings as they were just reaching the very outskirts of the town's main plaza which housed the Portal Plaza for the first floor. "If ye want to do somethin' worth while, an if ye want ta help them that's trapped here, then ye need ta get strong enough to properly take a place on the Front Lines an' to help clear the floors. The sooner we clear the final floor, the sooner we all get to go home."

"Living is a bit of a strong way o' puttin' it, lass. We're trapped here, we're prisoners here, but is this any way o' livin'," Yamato asked as Avilon extracted her arm from his and he made no effort to loop his arm through hers a second time. Perhaps some of these other quests would offer the pink-haired woman more closure, in part because they weren't going to hang around after the completion of any of the others to watch as the NPC's got themselves into trouble all over again. "Fictional characters make me feel, sometimes. They don't make me cry, in the end it's only a story. You want to think about something tragic, think about something that had a real world impact like the Holocaust." The blonde Irishman shrugged his shoulders. "There's always more ta fight in a game like this, an' some o' the other quests will have better closure, I bet."

Was this woman actually crying because an Non-Player Character was sick? As Avilon rested her head on his shoulder, Yamato shook his head slowly, but wisely didn't immediately blurt out what he was thinking. No, the best way to handle this, as they continued to make their way through the crowded streets in the Town of Beginnings, was to take a more tactful and diplomatic approach. "Ye know that the child's not a real person, right," Yamato asked at last in an Irish accent. "The lad's like a character in fiction, he's not real," the blonde man continued. "I mean, it'd be different if the lad was a real person. But the yellow cursor over his head means that it's jus' an NPC. It's not even really sick, not really. It jus' acts sick for the purpose of the quest story. I doubt its even programmed to be able to play with NPC kids, even if it did get and stay healthy."

"What's wrong now, lass," Yamato asked, gently tugging the pink haired woman along with him in the direction of the Portal Plaza in the Town of Beginnings. Their next stop would take them up to the third floor where they would run into a pair of non-player characters. A blacksmith and the blacksmith's wife. From there they would pick up the Worn Out Welcome quest which would send them off to do who knew what. But, the quest did offer the reward of a choice of armor, either heavy or light depending on the choices made by the players. It was also probable that the experience point prize that came with the quest would be enough to get Yamato another level, so the blonde man was eager to be on his way.

Having completed the Secret Medicine of the Forest quest, Yamato and Avilon had watched as the NPC had made the necessary tonic for her child from the Nepent's Ovule and given it to the NPC Child. The child got better for a few moments and, after about ten minutes, the kid was immediately ill again. "I told ye, lass. It's a computer generated character. It's programmed to be sick so other players can complete the quest. That's why there was no rush," Yamato said in a low tone, shrugging his shoulders and spinning on his heel to exit from the NPC's home. Once they were back out in the street he looped his arm through one of Avilon's. The Irishman was loathe to be in such close proximity with another person, but this was the easiest way of making sure the woman and her ludicrously over-sized shield didn't go wandering off. "Now, we need to head up to the third floor prairies, Delilah Town, and pick up the next quest, Worn Out Welcome."

"Ye're either the most natural player to ever join an MMORPG, or the luckiest, lass," Yamato said, watching as Avilon picked up the quest item that they needed off of the ground just in time to raise her blade and impale the charging Nepent Variant on it. The axe man sheathed his axe and moved to examine the item that Avilon was holding up. Moving to her side, the blonde Irishman reached up with a finger and tapped the item she was holding. Sure enough, it was the Nepent Ovule that they needed. "That's the ticket," he muttered. "Back to town to turn it in, then off on the next quest."

QUEST REWARDS:

+1 Anneal Blade (Both Players) [Uncommon Weapon: +1 DMG]
+400 Col (Avilon)
+2 SP (1 Quest, 1 Thread) [Both Players]

OOC: +1 ENG, out of combat.

ID: 58514
LD: 5 (No Mat)

"No, we're not done yet. We have to kill the Nepent Variant. If it doesn't drop the loot we need we get the honor an' privilege of repeating the entire nepent slaughter again until we find a variant that drops the loot we need," Yamato replied, holding his tomahawk up over one shoulder for a moment as he spoke. "Ye really haven't played many of these types of games, have ye," he asked, arching an eyebrow at his traveling companion. "An' why are ye fallin' asleep in the middle of a fight?"

OOC: We can begin the other three quests whenever you want.

ID: 58510
BD: 6 (4+1+1 Concentration) [Concentration: 5/5]
MD: 8 (Miss)
CD: 4 (To Determine Target, we both have equal hate. 1-6: Mack, 7-12: Avilon) [4<6 No Recovery]

[H: 2] Mack: 14/16 [1/4 ENG] (Hack: 2x1x4=8 DMG, -2 ENG) [2-18=1 DMG, 1x2=2]
[H: 2] Avilon: 20/20
Nepent 1: -1/7 (-8 DMG)
Nepent 2: -6/7 (-8 DMG)
Nepent 3: -12/7 (-14 Thorns)
Nepent 4: -12/7 (-14 Thorns)

As Yamato was stil waiting on his sword skill cool down timer to tick down to zero he watched as Avilon sprang into action and swept her weapon through all three of the remaining nepents. Each of the plant monsters immediately dropped their health bars into the red zone and flashed with a paralysis effect. That was certainly handy. The woman's armor may have made it readily apparent that she had legs for days, and she was clearly new to role playing games like Sword Art Online, but at least she had some obvious natural skill which was always useful.

Then she leaned over against her shield and seemingly fell asleep in the middle of combat.

"I can't even..." Yamato muttered, coming out of his cool down timer and launching into another attack with Hack which dispatched a second nepent. That second attack was substantial enough to cause the two remaining nepents to attack him and, even as their blows landed against his shield they exploded into pixels thanks to the thorn enchantment which left the Irishman standing there by himself with a sleeping woman. There seemed to only be one logical solution, though Yamato was well aware that if someone had fallen asleep while in formation, or even just in a public area of the barracks, that the shaming and pranking would have been without mercy and without end. Quietly, he sidled up behind Avilon.

"Wakey, wakey," he called cheerfully, in a much too loud tone as he poked the woman in the ribs. If that didn't wake her up, then nothing would.

Word had circulated, even down through the low level players, that the Boss Raid Meeting for the sixteenth floor was going to be held at a pub on the eleventh floor in Taft. While Yamato had no intention, whatsoever, of taking part in the raid the blonde Irishman was plenty smart enough to know that this was a potential learning experience that should not be passed up. Having made his way up to the eleventh floor using the teleporter in the Town of Beginnings, Yamato made his way through Taft to the designated pub which had been marked on everyone's map for just this purpose. While the establishment wouldn't be nearly large enough to hold all of the players in Aincrad should they all show up the odds of that happening were slim and none.

Pushing open the door, the blonde man peered around the semi-crowded establishment before making his way over to the bar and ordering one of the comically large tankards of good stout beer. Taking a hesitant sip the Irishman grunted. The taste was, at least, a reasonable approximation of Guinness from his own home country. Even though it clearly wasn't the world famous stout beer. With his hands wrapped around the mug the Irishman slipped through the crowd and settled himself into one of the seats at the very back of the gathering, slipping in opposite of woman (Opal) whose armor left very little to the imagination. About the only thing she didn't have hanging out was the kitchen sink.

Oh well, to each their own. No doubt she got plenty of free stuff from the male players, not that she'd be getting a thing from him. Quietly, the axe man sipped at the beer in his hands and waited for the meeting to start. Since he expected to say very little there was no point in him taking up a valuable seat closer to the front of the gathering.

OOC: We have to fight 4 Nepents.

ID: 58505
BD: 7 (6+1)
MD: 4 (Miss)

[H: 1] Mack: 16/16 [2/4 ENG] (Hack: 2x1x4=8 DMG, -2 ENG)
[H: 0] Avilon: 20/20
Nepent 1: -1/7 (-8 DMG)
Nepent 2: 7/7
Nepent 3: 7/7
Nepent 4: 7/7

"They should be spawnin' any time now," Yamato said in answer to Avilon's question about when the Nepents were going to arrive. Almost as if the nasty little plant creatures had been summoned by either the woman's question or the Irishman's answer, a quartet of Nepents suddenly appeared about twenty yards distant in the tall grass of the fields just outside of the forest. "There they are," he continued, drawing the Heart of the Forest from where he kept the weapon sheathed at his right hip, and readying his shield. "They should be easy enough to kill. Observe," the blonde man said, not a hint of any desire to show off for the woman in his tone, just simple assurance at the fact that they would not be difficult to dispatch.

Advancing on the flowery nepents Yamato drew his axe back until he felt one of his beginning sword skills, Hack, click into place. As the tomahawk began to glow a soft blue the blonde man suddenly sprang forward and raised the wickedly sharp weapon over his head. It descended once upon the Nepent's head before being drawn back lightning fast and whipped laterally across the fighter's body to slam into the Nepent a second time and reduce the creature to free floating pixels. "See? Just like that."

Marching through the town of Amazon, Yamato made his way back in the direction of the town's portal plaza. It was easy enough to retrace his footsteps from a few moments previous. After all, it wasn't as if he hadn't been paying attention to what was going on or where he was going. Of course, even if he had been distracted during his earlier walk through the town, which the Gemini NPC had certainly tried very hard to do given the NPC's seemingly unending stream of banal chit chat, each of the towns came mapped for free so the players could easily find what they were looking for when they wanted to find it. Finding the portal plaza, the blonde man ascended the steps and moved into the Portal itself. "Teleport: Town of Beginnings."

Thread Rewards:

+4 SP (3 Quest, 1 Thread)
+400 Col (Thread)
+ Concentration (Quest)

Passing through the heavy wooden gates that barred, or held open, the entrance to the town of Amazon depending on the time of day within Aincrad Yamato once again moved from an area of danger to one of safety. All the towns in Aincrad, regardless of the floor represented safe zones. Within any safe zone it was impossible for a player to come to any kind of harm, unless they were to enter into a duel with another player which was, quite literally, the only way to come to any kind of real and lasting harm within any of the safe zones. Silently, the blonde Irishman passed through the gates and into the town, heading in the direction of the portal plaza.

Yamato trudged back the short distance through the jungle in the direction he had originally come from. It wasn't that difficult to find his path, given that he hadn't allowed the non-player character that was in charge of running the quest to drag him off so deep into the jungle that he could no longer see the gates of the town of Amazon. Steadily, with each foot fall, the Irishman came closer and close to the heavy wooden gates that separated the safe zone of the town from the wilderness of the floor. Since it didn't seem that any of the mobs on the floor were closing in on him the blonde man felt no particular need to rush.

Finishing up with the Quest rewards menu, Yamato exited from the various screens and drew his tomahawk once again. The weapon couldn't exactly be called trusted, yet, but it was still a solid weapon and its silver blade would serve him well enough for the time being. Holding his shield in the ready position, the Irishman considered his various options for moving forward for a split second. It didn't exactly take a Rhodes Scholar to see that the wisest course of action would be to retreat to the town of Amazon and use the teleporter to head down to one of the lower floors of the tower. Simply put, the monsters he would be likely to encounter on the sixth floor were simply too powerful for him to attempt to tackle at this stage of the game.

Yamato rolled his eyes, if only mentally, as Avilon's confusion. She just wasn't getting it, still giving the mobs two of them to target instead of just him was definitely a more winning strategy than soloing this by himself. "Walk an' talk," he declared, stepping up next to Avilon and giving the woman a gentle prod in the small of the back with his right hand to get her moving before withdrawing his hand. "If ye're tired then ye will make mental mistakes. That can hurt ye in battle," the Irishman began. "The fight should be easy, but if ye make mistakes it can be harder," he continued, leading the pair of them out of one of the Town of Beginnings' many gates and into the surrounding fields. "So, yes, ye hack 'em with yer sword an' block 'em with yer shield," he continued, his accent growing a bit thicker.

Scrolling through the quest rewards screen Yamato examined the various rewards that came from the Gemini quest. It looked like he had gained the skill Concentration which was fine since, of the two skills that had been available that was the one he had wanted in the first place. The twelve turn cool down on the other skill meant that, to Yamato's way of looking at things, it was only really useful once per combat round whereas it would be possible to use Concentration more than once during combat, depending on the length of the battle. That made it the more valuable of the skills, in the blonde Irishman's opinion. There was also a good amount of experience that had come with the quest completion, which was always welcome.

OOC: Woo! I got to make an Archer reference. Anyway, I'm thinking we travel to the forest for the next round or two of posting and then start killing quest monsters. Thoughts?

'Phrasing,' was the main thought running through the blonde man's head as the curvy woman looked down at herself and made a comment about "the most gorgeous things." Obviously, she was referring to her gear and equipment. But, it would have been easy enough to think that she was referring to something else entirely. Provided you had a dirty enough mind. "We go into the forest, kill nepents, retrieve the medicine ingredients, turn in the quest, an' get rewarded," the Irishman answered her question in a thick Irish brogue. "There's no need to run though, it will simply dull the mind and make you tired when it's time to engage in combat."

Sure enough, the quest log had updated to inform him that he had successfully defeated Gemini in battle. As if that hadn't already been clear. The more puzzling thing was why his own landed blow on the NPC hadn't resulted in his own death from the thorns enchantment that surely had to have been on the shield that the NPC was carrying. In the end, Yamato shrugged his shoulders and decided not to think about it. The most logical explanation was that since the NPC had hit him first in the course of combat that the Gemini had already technically been dead by the time he had hit it with his axe. Either that, or it was always possible that Gemini's gear had only been cosmetic. But that didn't seem very likely.

"My grandmother is a real person, this quest NPC is just a computer program. It's not real. Harvesting the necessary ingredients for heal them is just a simple story line mechanic. Since it's not a real person it literally cannot die," Yamato replied, crossing his arms over his chest and explaining the way the quest worked to Avilon. She seemed to be rather new when it came to immersive role playing games like Sword Art Online. In a flash, she was off again in the right direction before stopping and trotting back to where the blonde man was still standing. On the one hand, Yamato almost felt as if he needed a leash for the woman. Then she changed her gear for her armor, shield, and sword and he promptly decided that putting her on a leash in that kind of outfit would not be a positive thing, not even slightly. "Ah, that's much better. We shouldn't have any problems at all now."

OOC: Out of Combat, +1 HP, now at full health.

"That was anti-climactic," Yamato muttered to himself, looking around with a calm ice blue gaze as he scanned the area. He was reasonably certain that Gemini wouldn't be making another appearance, but it was always prudent to be wary. Just in case. After all, the system hadn't yet done anything to alert him that the quest was completed. As he was standing there, shield still at the ready and weapon in hand there was a soft chime, the sound of the quest log updating. Sheathing the Heart of the Forest, for the moment, the blonde man swiped his finger in the air in front of him and scrolled through his menu screens to find the quest log to see what information the update had for him.

OOC: And... Gemini is super dead.

ID: 58358
BD: 7 (6+1)
MD: 7
LD: 17 (+Concentration Skill)
Yamato: 3/4 (2-14=1)
Gemini: -14/4 (-14 Thorns, -4 DMG)

"Indeed, boy-o," Gemini replied, his own blue eyes narrowing as he faced down with Yamato. It was slightly disconcerting, to be faced with yourself in a battle. But, there was nothing to be done for it now. As the last few seconds of the battle timer ticked down Gemini sprang into motion. The NPC landed in front of Yamato and delivered a blow to the blonde man's shield. Simultaneously, the Irishman whipped his tomahawk through the air and slammed it into the side of Gemini's head. The NPC exploded in a shower of blue pixels and left Yamato standing there, not far from the gates that led into Amazon.