Aereth

"Yes I will try and tell you the next time." He said with a chuckle. Most probably he wouldn't, since she would definitely out-argue him. Smooth talking was one of Aereth's virtues, but as soon as it comes to arguing about something with females, he would loose the arguments almost all the time. Better ask for forgiveness than for allowance. 

He shook his head, and started to follow the blue haired scout on the dirt path. "Kinda." he replied as blue ores met his own brown ones. "My information brokers told me about it. They discovered it's location, and it was the Wasp Queen again. Just on steroids and with some minions. I heard rumors about probably four or five minions that must be defeated before you can find the queen, but that's it." Aereth concluded, before checking his map. "We should be close though. I feel like the minions have to be somewhere around this area..."

@Birdie

Stil, it didn't feel right. Working for or with the most dangerous PK guild in the whole game was something that was bothering him more than anything else at the moment. If he was just stronger. If he just was more powerful. Then he could have taken on the leader and be done with it. 

Aereth shook his head at that thought. It really seemed that he still hadn't learnt his lesson. Even if he would have been strong enough to best Sensui, he still would have had to face all of the other attending Lauging Coffin members in addition to protecting Dani. "F*ck. Where's that gal lately?" he asked himself as he thought about the whole matter. "I sure as hell could need someone to talk about that whole sh*t..." he thought while picking up another set of four tier one materials. It seemed like the mobs on floor 21 wouldn't have a good evening and night....

ID: 87654

LD: 11+5

Materials: 28

So our brunette protagonist finally had finished his quest and started to head back out to find some more materials. All the while he was trying to think of a plan on how to handle the whole Laughing Coffin matter. He most definitely would have to start working on his end of the bargain, or he would have to risk his friends lives to find out if the Laughing Coffin was just bluffing. And he wouldn't play with the that kind of fire if he could avoid it easily by slaying the other red guilds heads... To be honest, he had been planning to take care of as much PK guilds as he could before starting his all out war against the Laughing Coffin, so this bargain was more or less a win win for Aereth. If they would hold up their end, Aereth would know that his people would be safe, and he could still work purging the other PK guilds.

Materials: 24

He was again lost in thoughts and on Auto pilot, but thankfully managed to pick up some materials. This time he even found eight materials in the process, and with a satisfied grin he stored them away. He was going to have more than enough crafting materials for tier one equipment at the end of the day, and that was
always a very good thing.  

Shortly after finding the materials, he finally reached the quest NPC and received all of the rewards. His level rose to 44, he got a good amount of Col… Pretty good
day. But looking on the clock told him that there was still time to find some materials, before he would have to find a shelter for the night. And that wasn’t going to be very hard. A big tree with some big branches would do, since it was most definitely more comfortable than walking back to his home floor…

ID: 87633

LD: 17+5

Materials: 20+4 = 24

Tier three. He had heard that tier three gave a major boost to DPS players well, probably to all. The boost in base damage was enormous. His familiar would get stronger, and his overall equipment would get more sturdy. And he would have to use the unique tier upgrade item he had received from one of the many event bosses he fought in the past. And with the recent nerve of the Light Armor in terms of Mitigation, he would outclass many other evasion based DPS players. That armor was more than great. Flame Aura was one of the best enhancements out there, and he was one of the few players that was lucky enough to grab one of that
armours. Only tanks would have more mitigation, but that was no problem. Most players he was fighting, were stealthy DPS anyways, so they didn’t have much extremely high mitigation to begin with. 

ID: 87632

Loot: 19

Materials: 16+4 = 20

After the few minutes of jumping and falling the pair finally reached the foot of the mountain. And as soon as Birdie got down from his back, the bluenette started scolding him for the stupidity of the thing he just did.
Aereth chuckled. “I’m sorry, but if I had told you what I was about to do, you would never have agreed. And besides that, the first time I fell down from up there I ended up with about 20% of my health left, and I was only about level 25 back then.” Aereth said while smiling at Birdie. “I wouldn’t have let you fall. Ever.” The brunette then added with honesty in his tone. If he wouldn’t have been sure that he would get both down safely, he wouldn’t have jumped. “I just wanted tospeed things up a little bit, and here we are. Still at full health, and ready to slay some mobs.”

@Birdie

Aereth rolled his eyes at the comment but he really couldn't shake off the feeling as if something was off. Her voice sounded... Awkward... "Very funny, Miss ISleepOnTheFloorJustSoTheGoodLookingGuyCanPickMeUpAndPlaceMeOnTheCouch." Aereth countered with a smirk on his own, waiting for her reaction. "But jokes aside. Something in that message sounded awkward, and to be honest, yes my danger sense are tingling. I hope nothing happened to her." Maybe she got blackmailed by some of her ex guild mates? Aereth shook his head and started to form a plan. "Doesn't matter. For now I will bring you back to the safe zone so that you can go home. I will go and see if that girl is OK... I don't want to pull you even deeper into trouble that you've been already. You are free of me for now, my little Sunshine." Aereth said before getting up and reading his battle gear, and checking his weaponry.

"You ready as well?"

@Kooh

"Yeah. Not really. Just let me know if you wanna do that quest at some point. Just to annoy that stupid NPC." Aereth answered with a chuckle on his own. Back when he first took the quest, the NPC put the make up on his face, and left him alone with the rock. Even when it started to rain, that old hag didn't show up to let him in for some rest. And he could have sworn he saw her how she watched him from the window.

"Teleport crystals usually are f*cking expensive, so I just drop by some Alchemists and buy everything they don't need anymore. Safes me a lot of money." Aereth said with another small chuckle as he saw the slight hint of disappointment in the bluenette's face.

"Good... Milady." Aereth answered, smile still intact, and extended his right arm towards Birdie. He of course was referring to the small training session where only she and Itzal worked on her fear of heights, but Aer didn't know that Birdie was thinking about the other session they all had together. As soon as Birdie would take his hand, Aereth took a tight hold of her and swung her on his back piggyback style while activated his <<Charge>> skill. "You better hold onto me tight." He said with a chuckle, and jumped off the platform. This was by far the fastest way down, and with Aereth's high level of balance and speed, he could easily jump from rock to rock until they would reach the bottom. Would something like this work in the real world? Hell no. But did Aereth care? Not the slightest....

@Birdie

But for now he should focus back on the things he was currently doing. With that, he shook his head and turned his attention back to the things he currently was doing. Getting back to the NPC and cash in the reward for his quest. AAAAaand maybe even find some materials on the way back. And just as he finished his train of thoughts, the brunette spotted a set of four perfect materials on the side of the path he was currently walking on. He crouched down and stored every one of the four pieces into his inventory. "Man, I need to get back to crafting soon or otherwise I will run out of Col sooner or later...." he thought as he got back up and continued walking back. It was true. He hadn't been crafting in quite some time, and he needed to refresh his skills. He would need a set of armor soon after all...

ID# 87624 results:
Loot: 17+5

Materials: 12+4 = 16

Of course he could go with the two handed battle ax skill. This would give him access to the strongest area of effect sword art in the whole game, but that option was out of question for him. He already had two weapon skills and adding a third one wouldn't do any good for the brunette. He would need to find another way in archiving his goal. Fist charge, then light armor and after that battle healing. He definitely would work on his mitigation and healing capabilities, but first he needed to finish his charge skill. Rank three was already pretty decent for the first hit, but he also needed the skill mod of rank five. Bullrush was worth it's cost. Being able to stun your opponent with the strongest of your sword arts, or even use the mod on an area of effect sword art was just too good...

ID# 87623 results:
Loot: 3+5

Materials: 12

To be honest, he had made quite a big mistake in his build. He was a pretty decent one on one fighter, with the ability to even getting the edge over slightly higher leveled players than him, due to the help of his unique enhancements. The flame aura on his light armor in combination with his phase weapon made him a force to be reckoned with. But he was struggling really hard when fighting two or more strong players. He could easily be overwhelmed with the right numbers, as the incident with the Laughing Coffin showed. He was having a good fight with one of them, but as soon as the others showed up , he was lost. He couldn't focus on six players, and keep his girl safe as well. Hell, he couldn't win that fight even if he would only have to watch out for himself. He knew that problem, now only the answer was missing...

ID# 87622 results:
Loot: 6+5

Materials: 12

About thirty minutes later:
Aereth sighed after slaying yet another mob. He wasn't getting much out of them because of his high level. "Maybe I need to transfer my hunting grounds to somewhere else on a higher floor..." Aereth mused, as he sheathed his blade. At least he could still find some more materials. But first he would walk back to the quest NPC and hand in the quest, in order to get his rewards. It wasn't much Col and item wise, but the experience wields were pretty decent. He would soon be able to get another rank in his Charge skill, and this was yet another step closer towards his goal in maxing out his damage. Currently he was pretty satisfied with the damage output of his build. But he would need to alter his build quite a bit in the coming weeks. Front line level was a must...

 ID# 87621 results:
Loot: 3+5

Materials: 12

Aereth chuckled. "You're right. Actually, this is the place where you can get the material arts skill, see that hut down there?" Aereth asked and pointed down a little bit. "This is the place where the quest NPC lives... That old hag...." he added in a low voice, and then turned his head to face Birdie again. "Unfortunately that's not how it works. I'm no Alchemist, but I think when creating teleport crystals the Alchemists can choose where the place where the teleport crystal drops them off. And usually I don't know where they drop me. But sometimes I'm lucky and I am able to get some teleport crystals that drop you at the same location." the brunette said, trying to tell her the little bit of information he had on that matter.

After that he walked over to the edge of the platform they were currently standing and looked down, the very steep terrain. There was one small serpentine path that led down the platform, but  "Now the problem is just how to get down." A grin creeping over the face of the brunette as he said this sentence. "You remember the training on floor eleven with Itzal?"

@Birdie

"Kinda. It seems that this is the fate of every orange player who doesn't want to travel from floor to floor by foot." he said with a sly smile. Aereth nodded and sat down on the very same spot he waited the first time Birdie made her way into the camp. "No stress. I'll be right here." 

some minutes later

Aereth opened one of his eyes as he heard that somebody was aproaching him. Thankfully it was just his blue haired partner. "No worries. I know these situations. Unfortunately you can't skip the unimportant stuff." He hated talking to NPC's but that was nothing to discuss now. "More or less. I know a handful Alcheminsts that sell their leftover teleport crystals to me for a good price. They usually just drop you near vacant locations of the destined floor. So no fear in them dropping you off the edge of the floor." Aereth added with a chuckle, and activated his own crystal. "See you down there." With that he vanished into light and was gone.

Some moments later he re-emerged on the top of the very same mountain he had gained his material arts skill. "Well.... Still better than walking down from the fifth floor... I guess?" he said to himself, and waited for Birdie to join him.

@Birdie

Aereth chuckled as he heard the familiar voice of a certain blonde tank. "Seems like it really doesn't go unnoticed how I'm filling, or better how I'm crossing out names on the Monument of Life recently." With that he got up and extended a hand to Jonathan. "Somebody has to put some spokes in the wheels of the PKing guilds. It's good to see you again, Jonathan. I hope you are doing fine?" he asked as they would shake hands.

"And yes, I know that the Tagas quest isn't going to be a childs play, but like you I am prepared as well. I've changed quite a bit on my build since the last time you saw me." Aereth said with a smile. Grandmastering Material Arts and getting a few ranks of Charge weren't the only things he did in the last couple of months. "So you ready to head out?" He asked one last time while sending Jonathan a party invitation.

@Morgenstern mobile post, so sorry for crappy formatting and typos. 

"Yeah, I know that I need to be careful around these guys. Back when I lost Alice, we got ambushed by two LC members. I wasn't careful and strong enough, and Alice had to pay the price for that. I don't think that I can ever forgive myself for what happened. But I know what I will fight every PKer in Aincrad until this nightmare ends. One way or the other..." Aereth said and gave back a weak smile to the bluenette. Even though he knew that he couldn't have done anything about it, because many other people have told him so, and even after the weeks he spent in imprisonment, where he had been thinking about it and sworn to cope with it, it still preyed on him with every day.

Thankful that Birdie changed the subject again, he chuckled and fetched two teleport crystals from his inventory. "These two things should drop us somewhere on the second floor. I don't know where, but at least both of them will drop us on the same spot, so we don't have to look for each other. So I'll just wait until you handed the quest in, and we can go down afterwards?"

@Birdie mobile post, so sorry for crappy formatting and typos. xD

Floor thirteen. Location: North of the safe zone of the main settlement. Today, Aereth would be tackling the hardest quest in the whole game. Of course he wouldn't do it alone, no, he had asked the best tank he knew, and most probably one of the best tanks in whole Aincrad to help him with this one. The brunette had been doing intense research on a special item he wanted to grab ever since he first saw it from Zandra and Ariel.

A special damage boosting banner. The sh*tton of experience and the Col rewards were just a bonus to him. And additionally he would finally be able to catch up with his old friend Jonathan. Aereth hadn't seen the blonde tank for some months now, and ever since he had parted ways with the Celestials a bunch of stuff happened to the killer of killers... His increase in strength and special equipment were just the tip of the iceberg...

@Morgenstern

That crystal by far the most precious thing in Aereth's possession. The last remnant of the person he had lost. He carefully took it back, and stored it away. Very rarely the brunette was actually looking at the picture stored inside of the item, but still the item was more precious than anything else he owned. He had been trying to move on ever since his capture, but still had his weak moments from time to time.

"Hey, hey. There's nothing to be sorry of. Like I said before, I've been wanting to tell you much earlier. And you also don't need to worry about me doing something too risky. I need to at least hit tier three before I can do anything to them... It's funny... I've even been trying to avoid the LC because I knew how strong and dangerous they are..." He said in a warm voice while putting a hand on his partners shoulder, and his facade of confidence and determination back up.  Aereth had been preparing to take on the Laughing Coffin ever since he started to grind for his first experience points.

@Birdie

It has been quite some time since Aereth had been crafting some things. But with Winik showing up recently, he knew that it was time to get back to the crafting table and get some work done. That boy was relying on him after all. 

And it really only took him one attempt to create the item he had desired. Unfortunately, Aereth would only be able to craft the crafting attempt item, because of recent updates he wasn't able to craft CD items anymore. That was somehow sh*t but in the end you were forced to live by the rules the Cardinal system worked out. 

He then quickly messaged his customer and told him to pick up his item. It wasn't everything he needed, but at least this one would also help him with his crafts. Aereth put the chibi plush in the pickup cardboard and placed himself on the couch to take a nap.

Quote

LINK to craft
Name: (Artist's freedom)
Profession: Tailor
Rank: 7
ID: 87705
Roll: 11+1
Item Type: Plush
Tier: T1
Quality: Perfect
Enhancements: +1 Crafting Attempt
Description: A plushie designed to look like a chibi version of the chef himself, a reminder to strive for what you want to do and not what everyone tells you to do.
Payment Method: COL

 

@Winik

-1 T1 Material

Aereth nodded. It was a much more mature answer than he had expected. "That's a good answer. An answer that helps to keeps you alive. Surviving is top priority, everything else comes afterwards. The path pretty much doesn't matter." he said in an amused tone. "Most low levels want to play hero at the front lines, which mostly results in them getting killed, or it breaks them because they don't manage to do it." he then added, while still walking towards the marked spot. "A little bit further and this is the area where that little berserker is raging. We'll wait for Dom here." he thought and began to slow down. Again the rustling in the bushes besides them was clearly audible. "I hope it is ok if we just wait for my friend to arrive, before we continue. The mobs are getting more dangerous with every step deeper into the woods." 

@Domarus

Aereth also didn't notice how Leyna left the building, but the sound of her voice out of the crystal managed to finally wake him up. It took some moments to for his brain to start working properly, but as soon as it got going, he started to focus on the voice message from the crystal. It sounded suspicious to him. Somehow forced. He frowned, and looked over to Kooh. "Hey there. Good morning sunshine. Could you replay that m..." it was then when he finally noticed a very important detail. "Your cursor. It's back to green." he said in a happy tone. To be honest, he was expecting that the cursor would go away in the next couple of days, but he hadn't thought that it would go away after just two days. He was happy that Kooh now was able to travel safely again. But on the other hand he was also somehow sad. Even though they went through so much trouble in that short time, he quite enjoyed the company of the sassy blonde.

Shaking his head, Aereth sorted out his thoughts again, and finished wording his last request. "Could you replay that message for me? Somehow that didn't sound right in my ears..."

@Kooh

"Great, then let's go." Aereth agreed, and both of them started to head towards the elf camp once more. Finally Aereth understood. He hand't told Birdie yet about his first encounter with the Laughing Coffin. He intended to tell her before he would have left the Celestials, but unfortunately she went MIA before that could happen. The brunette stopped, and turned around to look his female friend into the eyes. Blue met brown, and both of them radiated a mixture of feelings. He could see, how Birdies were filled with guilt and shame for asking the question, but also with a hint of curiosity about the person Aereth was talking about earlier, while his own were looking pretty much empty of any emotion, covered by his facade. But if somebody would look close enough, he or she would definitely see at least some of the endless regret, sadness, hatred and many other negative feelings he had locked away inside of him, to keep them from emerging. He did his best to keep up the facade of the strong and confident man with the unshakable determination of making Aincrad a safer place, but his eyes sometimes betrayed him. And this was one of this moments.

"You are no insensitive bitch. I wanted to tell you some time back about that but unfortunately never had the chance." With that he opened up his inventory, and fetched the very same picture crystal he showed Itzal when he told him the truth. He silently handed the crystal over to Birdie and said. "I didn't join SAO alone, you know..."

@Birdie

OOC: The crystal shows a picture of a very happy looking Aereth and with a girl with long brunette hair in combination with bangs, Aereth's arm is rested over girl's shoulders and their heads touching slightly. Both of them are wearing standard starter cloth armor and were sitting on the grassy ground just outside the north gate of the town of beginnings.

Aereth chuckled. "Yes. I picked the material arts skill up back in the days where I needed it to get my strongest OHSS sword art. But in the end I was very disappointed by the poor damage output of that thing, so I switched to material arts." Aereth answered, and continued as soon as Birdie mentioned how that quest didn't take nearly as long as she expected. "I'm free for today, so if you want we could go down to the second floor and do that new wasp queen quest if you'd like. It should be much more challenging than this one."

Aereth noticed how she seemed to be lost in thoughts for some moments before she asked of he wanted to do another quest. "Do you have something on your mind?" he asked, and waited for an answer. It really seemed that something was bothering her. Sure telling somebody that the Laughing Coffin was after you was a shocker, but somehow Aereth had a feeling that it wasn't only this that caused this high amount of un-comfort in Birdie's behavior.

@Birdie

The walk was pretty quiet, because it seemed like Dazia was kinda lost in thoughts, but Aereth didn't mind for now. There was some minor rustling in the bushes around them, but most definitely it was just some underleveled mobs that were too afraid to attack an level 43 player.

At least she had sheathed her weapon again. But after some time questions crossed Aereths mind. "I hope you don't mind if I ask, but what type of player do you want to become? Hmm. That doesn't sound the way I'd like to say it.... Let me try again. What goal do you have inside of this game. Joining the front lines at some point, bring some justice to this rotten place or do you intend to become some sort of super villain? I'm curious." Aereth said, without turning around. "And have you ever thought about joining a guild, so that you don't have to walk around with shady orange players like me at this time?" He was quite direct with his messages, but still kept a calm and polite tone while continuing to walk towards the marked spot on his map. 

@Dazia

The brunette listened closely to everything Leyna said, and he could understand her reasoning. It was the same reasoning which he used at the end of the day to
justify his doing, but still something didn’t feel right about it. He felt no guilt, no regret when he took lives. On the other hand, he also didn’t feel joy or any kind of satisfaction. There was simply nothing. As if he was a machine. He shook his head. “Yeah, maybe you are right…” he didn’t want to think any more of it, since it only resulted in sleepless nights if he spent too much time about thinking who he was and what he was doing in this world. “So, thank you for your words. And I really hope that you can live in peace from now on.” He said as he took one of the spare blankets and sat down on the floor, with his back resting against a wall of the small house. “Thanks, that wall spot seems appealing to me.” He said with a chuckle, before he closed his eyes to slowly drift into a, more or less, peaceful sleep. It has been a long day after all…

@Kooh