Aereth

Rewards:

Each player receives 3SP, 950Col

Birdie receives: Quest item

"Good job. I'm gonna finish him off now." Aereth said to his partner, and removed his cloak. He would need the extra freedom of movement for his next stunt. "I'm gonna show you what I've been working on ever since you were gone." With that he walked past Birdie and equipped his material arts and Charge skills. His scouting abilities were still the same from when they last saw each other, but in terms of speed and damage Aereth had changed a lot.
He got into his battle stance, and once again lowered his center of gravity, before starting a mad charge at the Treant King. His left fist was pulled back in preperation to activate the needed sword art as soon as he would find an opening in the defense of the field boss.
The Treant king tired his best to come up with a way of stopping the charge from the brunette material artist, but to no avail. Aereth had closed the distance between them in the blink of an eye, dodged under a swipe of the mob, and delivered a devestating blow directly to the face of his opponent. 
Wood splittered everywhere before the Treant finally burst into little polygons and the congratulation screen popped up in front of both him and Birdie. "Seems like we're done here, right?"

 ID# 87447 results:
 Battle: 5+3,  hit

Aereth - HP: 860/860 - NRG: 36/86 [-17+1]
Sword Art used: All Might [Damage: (14+3)*15-75 = More than enough]

Treant King x2 - HP: 0/150 DEAD

@Birdie

 "Good, I'll be done here in a minute and catch up with you afterwards. Stay safe." After his last sword art and the post motion delay died down, Aereth placed his blade into a backhand position and started to continue his assault. He wouldn't even need to activate his unique enhancements in that encounter. After that he lowered his center of gravity and started dodging attacks of the Treants. They were slow and bulky, so Aereth had no probles avoiding all the hits they were throwing at him. While the brunette danced through the swipes he finally found an opening and immediately started to charge up another Shadow Explosion. The energy consumption was pretty rough, but still manageable. Again the blade scattered the remaining two mobs without any problems.
Aereth sheathed his blade and checked his health and energy stats. "More than enough for the next encounter." he thought and started to follow the path Birdie took to find the last mob. 
As soon as he caught up with the bluette, he asked: "Did you already find something, or is that field boss harder to find than expected?" 

 ID# 87446 results:
 Battle: 10, critical hit

Aereth - HP: 860/860 - NRG: 69/86 [-18+1]
Sword Art used: Shadow Explosion [Damage: (12+2)*9-35 = More than enough]

Treant Soldier x2 - HP: 0/60 DEAD

@Birdie

"I refuse to let them take another person away from me. And if I'm not attempting to stop them, who will?" the brunette said to his blue haried partner with a sad looking smile on his face. Sure he had been working alone until he got captured some weeks ago, but after that he actively started looking for other players that might have the cuourage and determination to make this place at leas a little bit safer. But he found... Nothing... 
Suddenly the voice of the Treant Commander, shortly followed by the sound of Birdie's rapier interruped his thoughts. Now wasn't the time to talk. They needed to get this quest done. "Let's do this." he said and unsheathed his blade, which immediately started to shine in a dark blue color. "I'll take care off the cannon fodder, so if you're confident enough you can start looking for the quest boss. But remember our combat lessons with Itzal. No emotions." With that he sped towards the NPC's that were stupid enough to try and ambus them. Everytime his blade made contact with the bodies of the Treants one of them scattered. "One... Two.. Three... Four..." After Aereth was done with his sword art, only two soldiers remained. Kids play...
ID# 87444
Battle: 6+3 HIT

Aereth - HP: 860/860 - NRG: 69/86 [-18+1]
Sword Art used: Shadow Explosion [Damage: 12*9-35 = 108-35 = 73]

Treant Soldier x4 - HP: 0/60 DEAD

@Birdie sorry no fancy editing, mobile post. xD

Work work work. This was all Aereth did recently. Work for the Laughing Coffin, work in his shop, and work for Domarus this day. Storing away some of the vanity weapons he would use today to scare that apprentice of Domarus, he threw the his black cloak over himself, pulled up the hood and facemask and fetched a teleport crystal. Aereth then used said teleport crystal and vanished in pixels. 

He re-appeared somewhere in the middle of the deserts of floor five. God how he hated the heat and the sun, but at least the teleport crystal dropped him near the location where Domarus wanted him to be. Finally arriving at the oasis, there was a rundown city with an destroyed church nearby. Perfect to wait and watch what was happening around the oasis. he immediately made his way up to the highest point of the destroyed church and waited for the pair of Domarus and his apprentice to arrive.

@Floofy, @Domarus

Finally he saw a familiar set of armor in company with two females coming out of the city. "Wait. What?" he thought when he spotted the mob of blue hair of his former scouting partner. "Birdie?" he gave out surprised and pulled back his hood and face mask. "I mean you are a scout, so why am I wondering that you found that announcement." He said with a chuckle, before he greeted Dom with a nod and faced Ariel. He knew her. Last Christmas event. She killed Hikoru's mentor and Beatbox warned him from this person.

"The infamous frontliner Ariel. To be honest I wasn't expecting you to be the writer of this offer. Either way, the name's Aereth and I hope you have another spot free in your party, because I could also need some of that experience." he said with a grin on his face, looking directly into the eyes of the deadly blonde.

@Ariel - The Crowned Lion, @Birdie

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry I don't take offense if somebody points there weapon at me anymore. If I would, then almost all of Aincrad would be on my, 'No Friends' list." he chuckled and opened his menu to send over a party invitation. The small message box, popped up in front of @Dazia and in the meantime Aereth started to type a message to his companion.

Quote

To: @Domarus

Subject: Hunt

Text: Hey there. I found somebody that could hep us with our little hunt we planned for today. It's a low level player that wants to do some nightly mob grinding. We could use her as some kind of bait, to lure that little pest out this time. Either way, meet me at the coordinates I sent you.

With that he pressed the send button and turned back to face Dazia. "I just sent my buddy a message to tell him where we are going to meet up for that grinding session." Aereth said and and gestured Dazia to follow him into the forest.

Aereth laughed. He laughed heartily for the first time in forever. Nobody had asked him this question up until now. Not even his few friends. "Haha. And I was thinking now comes something more serious. But here you go, asking where the crystals drop me. Hehe. But its a good question. Most of the standard teleport crystals drop me randomly anywhere on the floor, but the more expensive ones I have drop me exactly at the shops of my friends that have set their privacy settings so that orange players are allowed to enter their shops. So at least sometimes I know where they drop me off." The brunette said, still slightly chuckling. "If you want we can continue. Let's just get out of this place and get some training and rest." Aereth wanted to get some more training done, and Husky also wanted some rest, so the earlier they got back to the safe zone, the earlier both of them would get what they want. Sleep and experience.

@Husky

"Laughing Coffin always gets what they want..." He thought, but didn't dare to say. "Hey, don't worry about me. I've been through worse..." A lie. "Weed does not pass. And I'll think about a way to screw them without risking the lives of my precious people." Aereth then noticed how the knuckles of the blue haired scout turned white from clenching them. Seeing this made the smile on his face vanish. She shouldn't be this worried about him. Everything was going to be fine. Eventually... He shook his head and softly grabbed the trembling fists of his former guild mate and partner. "Hey hey. It will be fine. You don't need to worry this much about me. Believe me, I'm not loosing myself." His eyes were almost empty as he said this. He was attempting to, but with every punch he received from life, he felt the control over his sanity slip away bit by bit. "I still have people I care about, and as long as I can protect them, I will strive to protect them at all costs." As soon as her hands would un-tense, Aereth would let go and focus back on finding those damned quest NPC's

@Birdie Sorry for that late response, but I was out of country for 5 days and had a busy weekend which endend with starting my new job yesterday. xD But now I'm back again. And sorry for Aereth being wired. xD

Aereth chuckled once more when the female jumped up and rose her weapon against him. Before he answered the question of Dazia, another yawn escaped the brunette. "Nah. You're fine for now. I already called it a day, so no fear." He said with a sly grin on his face.

When Dazia then mentioned how she wanted to get out again for some mob grinding, Aereth couldn't help but shake his head mentally. That girl was way to starry-eyed for her own good. Even though it was true that mobs got more aggressive during the nighttime, the thing she should more worry about were the real animals in this game. The actual players. Add a loose end of Aereths past encounter with the Black Adder guild to the mix and there you go. The perfect drama of a young female killed in the forests of Aimcrad. If everything would haben gone according to his schedule, he would still have had a couple of hours worth of napping, before he would have met up with Domarus to go on the hunt for that one loose end. Aincrad was a cruel and unforgiving place and even the slightest mistake would result in death or sometimes even worse things...

"The name's Aereth. And if you still want to go out at this time you really should keep one or two strong players around to keep you safe." He then let himself drop to the floor and walked over to her, completely unfazed by the weapon pointed at him. "Actually I was waiting for a friend of mine to also join me on a late evening hunt. So if you like you can join us?" Aereth asked in a calm and inviting tone. 

@Dazia

The phase enhancement on Aereth's blade did its magic and cut the mitigation of the stupid monkey king in half, which Aereth immediately took advantage of, with another fury of fists raining down on the field buss until it burst into tiny little polygons with the congratulations screen popping up in front of him. This really wasn't a hard battle, but what was he thinking. This was a low level quest and he was almost at a point where he could start working towards the front lines. Shrugging he made his way back to the outside of the city to claim he rewards for killing the big monkey.

After a few shared words, and some pressed buttons Aereth was done with the quest and had received the massive reward for it. Chuckling, he walked back into the woods and started to hack away some of the weaker mobs to grind for some experience.

ID# 87020 results:
Battle: 4+3
Damage: 14*4 = 56 DMG

Calcs:
Aereth: 860HP | 64 EN | <<All Might>> used
Monkey King: 0 HP 

After receiving all the necessary information for the quest, Aereth immediately headed away from the village and went looking for the huge ass monkey king. Oh god, how he hated interacting with some stupid NPC's. Even though he most probably would have enjoyed talking to them if this wasn't just some stupid death game, it greatly annoyed him now. And the more they sounded and acted like actual human beings, the more he felt disgusted by them.

Some quick minutes later he finally found himself at the entrance of the area where the Monkey king was located. And not even one step in, the stupid field boss made his appearance from over the trees and started too attack the flaming brunette. At the last second Aereth was able to avoid the incoming attack by leaping forward. Immediately drawing his sword, Aereth accidentally gripped the Dimensional shift and started unleashing a fury of swipes and fists towards the field boss.

ID# 87019 results:

 Battle: 9, Critical Hit: Phase activated!
Damage: 14(Base) + 3(Charge) + 1(Critical Hit) = 18 -> 18*15 - 50/2 = 245 DMG

 MOB: 2-3, Miss

Calcs:
Aereth: 860HP | 70 EN | <<All Might>> used
Monkey King: 5 HP 

Again, materials got stored away into his inventory, and he nearly missed another set of four materials hidden beneath the first stet he found. Shrugging and wondering as to how stupid a game developer must have been to program an Ai that hid two sets of four perfect materials just on the same spot, he stored them away and continued his walk to the village where the quest would start.

Some minutes of walking later he finally arrived at his destination, and immediately talked to the quest giving NPC, not wanting to stay too long in the near area of the village due to his shady appearance and orange cursor floating over his head. He sighed heavily. "Honestly. I don't even care about these stupid looks people give to me. By now almost ever f*cking living soul in Aincrad knows who I am, so why do they even bother trying to act like I was just another PKer..."

ID# 87018 results:
Loot: 18+5

Materials: 8+4 = 12

Greedily storing away the four materials, he afterwards opened up his menu and map to check all the quest data he had received: Terrified village, big monkey, kill kill kill. He looked once more into the direction the field boss should have been and quickly made his way towards that general direction. Today he didn't care about his appearance so he already wore his flaming battle armor with his phase sword on his back. Though it was still a little bit useless as it was right now, he still carried it it around as some kind of memento of his friend Beatbox. Oh yeah, did I forget to tell you. Beatbox was dead. Killed by the guy that wields the Dual Blades. Good stuff. His frontlining to-be guild leader killed even before the guild was started. Awesome. 
Either way, Aereth would still carry on with his own little war against LC. But not before spotting another set of mats on the ground.

ID# 87013 results:
Loot: 13+5

Materials: 4+4 = 8

But he also wasn't here just to whine about things that happened to him over the last couple of weeks. He needed experience, and that fast. If he wanted to take on Laughing Coffin in the future, he needed to step up his game again. His own training was also cut shorter than before due to Daniella. He was training that hottie personally so that he would have some back up on the more dangerous  and reckless things he was about to do in the future. And that schedule for Dani, messed with his own training schedule. But not today. Today it was only him some materials, and a big haired monkey. Initially Aereth wanted to do that quest with Jonathan, but due to both not finding much time recently he decided to rock through it alone for now. And just some steps away he found his first set of materials.

ID# 87012 results:
Loot: 20+5

Materials: 4

Quote

<<Monkey King>>

This quest takes place on Floor 8
This quest is repeatable
This quest courtesy of Tristan Delaney

This RP will not count in the benchmark

Below Florenthia Village is a monster who is the exact reason the village is suspended by the branches, fearing that the Monkey King will come again and eat them. The giant monkey is terrifying in appearance, with glowing red eyes and a large muscular upper body, with strength to match their appearance.

Requirements:

-At least two [2] Pages (21 or more posts)
-Maximum Party Size of 3
-The Monkey King must be defeated
-Repeat completions will only yield <<Monkey Agility>>

Monkey King Information:

<<Monkey King>> is a respawning Field Boss and has the following statistics:
HP: 250

MIT: 50

Damage per Attack: 240
On MD rolls of 9 or 10, the Monkey King will Pick up a tree or large rock and throw it at the party, hitting and stunning them all for 120 damage.

Rewards:

1. <<Monkey Agility>> A strange potion which boosts the users evasion by 1. Lasts for one thread. Takes a post action to apply.

2. 3 Skill Points

 

(updated for the September update)

Floor eight. Sunny day, with some clouds in the sky. Once again Aereth found himself working to clear out his quest log, as well as letting off some steam on every mob that was stupid enough to cross his way. He was still trying to process everything that happened to him recently. Getting captured for some weeks surly set him back quite a bit from his usual way of training and working. And the most recent encounter with the Laughing Coffin also did nothing good to his mental stability. Currently being level 43 he also needed to think of getting himself an upgrade to his armor soon because tier three wasn't that far away anymore. "F*ck that sh*t. Why the hell am I struggling so hard while others just play this stupid game for fun." he gave out when he emerged from the shiny light of a teleport crystal.

Soloing that thing.

Aereth flinched slightly as Birdie told him to shut up, and started to study the expressions of his blue haired partner. Many different emotions he had never seen on the face of his usually happy person. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you everything I saw since my first PK. It really changed me a lot, as you can see... Aincrad is a cruel place..." he paused a few moments thinking about what he saw when he got imprisoned, before shaking his head. "Maybe it's better if I don't tell you. I'm by no means brave or something like a hero. More the opposite. Yeah it's only been a couple of months since we started our training... And now I'm hunting down PKers for a living tripping from one f*cked up mess into the other."

After that they reached the first spot with a waterfall, but obviously there were no Treants around so the just started walking to the next nearest spot. "Yeah, Sensui told me what he wanted. He wanted me to take out the heads of a few rivaling PK guilds. They seem to have trouble re-establishing dominance ever since they went dormant. Rumors say that they got close to eradicated by just one single player. They threatened to kill everybody I knew and throw me into a hole where I really wouldn't come out again if I laid hand on their members or didn't finish the task." he then let out a bitter chuckle. "You know what the irony with that whole mess is? Way back in the day, even before we met, I lost a very precious person to the Laughing Coffin, and now I'm piratically working for them...." he then turned around and locked eyes with Birdie, since he somewhat had taken the lead since they came to that waterfall. "For now I need to follow their orders, but believe me. I'm gonna rip them apart. Maybe not now, and maybe not in the near future, but one day I will. And I will do so with a big bang." A grin crept over his face while saying these things. He was actually looking forward to that big showdown. Maybe it would be his end, but he didn't care. Was he slowly turning crazy? Perhaps, but who knows what he had been through would fully understand why. However, the grin then started to vanish again and he gave out in a much more serious and caring manner. "Just promise me to take extra care from now on. I almost thought that you had been lost once. You need to survive this mess."

@Birdie

"You ever heard about guilds called Black Adder, and...." he paused since she moste definitely would know the second name he was about to say. "Laughing Coffin?" He then would wait for a potential shock to settle down again, before continuing. "I'd love to tell you that I am just joking. But unfortunately that is not the case... You see, it all started like this..." he said and took a deep breath before starting to recall all the events that had led to his current situation. "Some months back, I more or less witnessed that two guys tried to lure out two girls in order to... Yeah, lets just say, they had nothing good in mind. When they then started to attack them I stepped in and killed them both. That's the story about my cursor change. Turned out that they are a part of that Black Adder guild, so I started investigating and systematically routing them. Long story short, after some time the found me, and captured me. After that I spent a couple of weeks in a shabby cell, before two comrades rescued me..." he sighed and paused again for some moments, just long enough to spot another four materials.

"Well after I got out of there again, sh*t really started hitting the fan... Seems like the Laughing Coffin had me on their radar for quite some time. Their leader even wanted to personally speak to me..."

@Birdie

ID# 87000 results:
Loot: 10+5

Materials: 4+4 = 8

Aereth chuckled lightly at Leyna. "What if I told you that I met that girl just some days ago? Remember when I told you that I also lost the woman I loved a long time ago? Back then I was too weak to do anything against it. I was just there and had to watch her getting killed. And when I saw her getting harassed by those two idiots, it just felt the same all over again. Only that this time I had the strength to kick their faces in." A bitter smile came to his face as he explained his past to Leyna. "Back then I swore to never let that happen to anyone again if I'm able to prevent it somehow." he paused for a few moments, before continuing. "Do I care about her? For sure. But can heartless monsters even feel anymore? And if you don't know what I'm meaning with that, just make your way down to the Monument of Life and look for my name. Then you'll understand. And if not, just know that Tallas and Kreeyin were not the last a**holes that I will take care of." 

After that Leyna asked what he was going to do from now on. He sighed once more. "That's a good question. After resting, we'll probably just start heading down the floors again. Blondie over there received a temporary orange cursor for burying her fist into Jay's face, so until she gets her green back I'll stick with her to help her down to her home floor. And hopefully until we reach that floor her cursor should be back to green."

@Kooh

Health points dropped to under 50% after the last attack of the Wasp Queen, but Dani seemed unfazed by that fact. She furiously continued her assault on the insect until it was dead for good. She then came over to him, telling him that it was time to go. "Impressive. I really didn't expect you to make such big steps in just such a short amount of time. And don't worry about me. I'll meet up with somebody way later tonight, so I'm still free for pretty much anything." He said with a wink. He would be fine with either some more training for Dani, senseless mob grinding for himself to clear his thoughts, or... Yeah, you can imagine what.

"Again sorry for not paying much attention to the first half of your battle. As the one training you I should be more attentive to what you are doing while fighting mobs on your own." he said while rubbing the back of his head with his left arm. "I really want you to get much much stronger, so you can hold your ground in case some f*ckers like the ones from before show up again. Usually they don't f*ck around much, unless it seems they need something from you."

@Daniella

"That's right. Can't be going around writing messages all the time when we just can talk to each other." Aereth joked and also activated his searching skill as they walked towards the first marked location on Birdie's map. Brown eyes flicked for a short moment, before Aereth found a perfect set of four shiny ores that he immediately stored away into his inventory.

Aereth only nodded at Birdie, when she mentioned that it really has been too long. "You wouldn't even believe how much changed since we last saw each other. But I think you already saw me with my orange cursor, right?" he cautiously asked, and slightly shook his head when she asked if he was still training with Itzal. "Currently I'm rocking more or less solo. When I was ready to become Sentinel, around level 35, I decided to leave the Celestials. And after that my build focus changed heavily. Who am I kidding. Pretty much EVERYTHING changed since back then." he sighed and started to rub the back of his head with his left arm, while putting on a 'happy go lucky smile'. "Currently I'd say that I'm a pretty heavy hitting single target DPS, and two more or less big PKing guilds want to see me dead." 

ID# 86998 results:
Loot: 18+5

Materials: 4

@Birdie

Aereth did what he always did after working to keep up his end of the bargain with the Laughing Coffin. Napping in the trees of floor one. It didn't pay off to get back up all the way to his home on floor four. Pretty much all of the players on the list Sensui handed over to him resided on the first few floors. How was it possible for him to attract sh*t like a magnet the way he did.

His eyes slowly opened at the sound of someone walking by. A yawn escaped him while he watched a black haired beauty pass by him. Brown ores followed the female as she walked towards the town of beginnings, but then decided to rest on the just some paces away from his tree. Obviously she hadn't noticed him. 

"Don't you know that it starts getting quite dangerous outside of the safe zones at the start of the evening. Shady players, lingering in the shadows might try to take advantage of single girls." Aereth said with a chuckle.

He still wore his armor, although without his face mask and hood. 

@Dazia

Aereth chuckled. He didn't know how Itzal or better, Felix was back in the real world, so he had no idea if what he just told him was actually true. But who cares. "Hey, you're a great guy, that obviously found a great girl. So don't be so surprised about that, my friend." After Aereth said he would even consider turning green for the wedding, Itzal replied with a warning. "I know. I'm not even sure if that quest can turn orange cursors from actual murder back to green... But lets not further talk about such grim topics. Man you're getting married..." he said, once more with joy in his voice. He was really happy for his friend. 

Aereth nodded at Itzal, when he mentioned that he should keep his eyes open for some chests. His eyes flickered for a moment and he began searching for the special item. He himself never had found a chest in the past, but maybe that would change today. After some minutes of searching Aereth found a small side cave with a chest at the end. "Hey Itzal. I found something." after waiting until his friend would have walked over to him, he asked. "You think that there are some traps?"

@Itzal

ID# 86964 results:
Loot: 17+5, Chest found.

Materials: 24

Aereth chuckled at the reaction of his blonde comrade. He also was tired as f*ck, but his mind was still a little bit in unrest from today's events. He had killed once again. But that alone wasn't the problem. He still felt nothing while killing yet another person. No joy, no sadness, nothing. Sure, he had been pissed at the man for what he was doing, but the moment where he removed the last pixels of Kreeyin's health bar he felt nothing. How crazy was he really? Was he already broken beyond repair? 

Looking over to the now sleeping Kooh, he shook his head and smiled. No. He had done the right thing. Kooh AND Leyna would never had been able to live in peace again. Of the four players that knew about Kooh, two were dead, and the other two were on their way to start a new life. 

The hushed voice of Leyna brought him back to reality, and caused another small but quiet chuckle to emerge from Aereth's mouth. "Does it look that way?" he gave back in an also hushed voice, before quietly getting up to his feet and walking over to Kooh. Gently picking up the sleeping blonde bridal style, he carried her over to a couch, and just as gently as he picked her up, set her down on it.

After that he turned around to face Leyna and gestured to the next room with an asking expression on his face. He wasn't about to sleep for quite some more time, and if Leyna would like to talk some more, they could do so in another room, not to wake up Kooh. If not she could always tell him that she was tired. They were in her house after all...

@Kooh