Aereth

Aereth nodded and smiled back at Arc as Lessa joined their little group. Arc introduced her to both him and Birdie. Aereth noticed the curious looks from her and decided to introduce himself to her. "Hi, the names Aereth and I'm a guild mate of Birdie. It's nice to meet you, and it looks like our small group is complete for now."

@Birdie "Haha, anyways thanks for the invitation. I hope that I can help you guys with the quest." He said to the blue haired girl as he shook her hand.

Then he turned to all and spoke. "I've read the quest description from the NPC, but what quality materials are we searching for? The noble and premium ones, I assume?"

Just then Birdie said that she didn't know which fat they should be gathering, because Arc and Birdie struggled against mid difficulty boar. "Yeah, that's a good question, because we need all the materials at the same quality..."

@Arc, @Birdie, @Lessa

At first Aereth thought that he had upset his teacher but as Itzal chuckled, Aereth also joined him chuckling. "Your wish is my command, boss."

After that Itzal continued to play in his guitar for some time until Birdie also entered his shop with a smile, explaining that she was late because of a sale of Lembas Bread. Again Aereth had to chuckle. "Hello Birdie."

Then they all took a seat at the fire place as Itzal gestured. He then said that he had one other apprentice in the past, and how this training was a little bit shaky. This made Aereth curious. "Another apprentice? I wonder if we know him or her." He thought and decided to just ask straight away. "Is your former apprentice still in the guild or has he/she left?" 

Itzal also asked if Aereth and Birdie met each other before today so Aereth answered his friend. "Yes, we actually went out gathering two times. Was great fun. " he said smiling at Birdie.

@Itzal, @Birdie

Aereth was dozing inside the guestroom of Itzal's shop. He offered his friend that he could stay there as long as he wanted, until Aereth was able to get a shop on his own. He thought about how drastically his life in Aincrad changed in the last few days. So many new faces, new friends, comrades as well as a somewhat suspicious redhead he needed to have an eye on. And it all started one day where his first friend and teacher dropped to the ground out of seemingly nowhere. And now he was his second aprentice. Learning from the scout paladin how to be a good scout. It felt so unreal. How could he be so lucky. 

Just then Aereth's thoughts were interrupted by the beautiful voices of Itzal's guitar. "[censored], [censored], [censored]!" He thought as his eyes snapped wide open. "I hope I didn't sleep away at the meeting." He jumped up and bursted out of the door, making his way to Itzal.

As he entered the room where the sound came from, Aereths stance eased and he leaned at the wall listening to Itzal's music. "Hey. I hope I'm not late my friend." he said smiling.

@Itzal, @Birdie

"Thanks. It's really awesome to have a teacher AND a partner who I can ask for tips. For me it's the same. Itzal fetched me up in the starting city and taught me almost everything I know about the game. Funny side fact: My first fight was actually with Jonathan. We met randomly at floor one and he decided to help me slay my first boar." he laughed.

Aereth felt his smile widen at the same rate than hers before, as he got to know why she wanted to become a scouting unit. "Yeah, good scouts are so useful for guilds, shops and even the frontliners. I just hope to catch up to you rather quickly, so that I don't drag your growth down too much." From the last sentence, it seemed that Birdie didn't like fighting very much, for obvious reasons though. Aereth somehow enjoyed fighting the mobs, and leveling his one handed sword skill.

"So he basically told me the usual stuff, and in addition it seems that he wants to teach us some neat parcouring skills. Wich I would totally love to learn. Itzal is so freaking fast. And if you pair that with parcouring... I don't even know what to say. He gets from point A to point B so f***ing fast, it's unbelievable." he stated in awe. "We also talked about getting the Material Arts skill in some time. Itzal needs it for his strongest sword art, and I find the idea of unarmed combat very nice. As you can tell, I aim for an very high speed build, and if I don't have to wear a heavy sword for combat, this means that I can move even faster, without the loss of combat power." he said smiling at her.

@Birdie

"The message said possibly food so I guess he didn't bring some." Aereth thought while he was making his way over to Frostbite Lake. Some minutes before, he read a message from his guildmate Jonathan, that he wants to have a good time chilling, dueling and skating. So Aereth decided to get some sandwiches and drinks for the party.

As he reached Frostbite Lake he could already see that Jonathan, Beatbox, and another guy he didn't know were already there. He decided to head over to them, but as he passed a tree he saw a red-headed girl sitting next to it. He didn't know her either, but it looked like she was observing the party. "Hi, the name is Aereth. Don't you want to come over to the party? There are better places to rest than on the ice cold ground, you know." He asked the unknown girl.

@Teayre

As Aereth was almost done with his workout, a familiar voice asking him if he was working his way to the Sentinel title took him back to reality. "Hey Jonathan. I'm doing my best to constantly improve my skills." he said while he turned around with a smile on his face. 

"Yeah, I do this kind of stuff almost every morning." he said to Jonathan while shaking his hand. "Yes sure. Maybe you can introduce me to him. But what exactly is he teaching?" he asked curiously.

After that Jonathan asked him about the Medicine quest, and that he never did it before. "Yes it would be awesome, if you could help me a little bit with this quest. I've heard that you get a neat starter weapon as a reward. Thanks to Beatbox, I won't need it anymore. He gave me this awesome blade." he equipped the Sword of Legion and showed it to Jonathan. "But I thought that I could put it into the guilds treasury in case somebody else can use it." He said while smiling.

@Morgenstern

OOC: Yaaaay. 100th post ^^

After the hug and the greeting, Ivory moved on to greet all the other people that were here. Aereth saw some people he knew, like Lessa, Beatbox and Domarus. But also a whole lot of people he didn't know were here. Almost all of them were gathered in small groups to chat and have fun. Then he noticed an exception.

The girl was walking through the crowds alone, and it looked like nobody recognized her. For some reason it looked like she was looking for something in the area. Sadly Aereth also noticed that he also was standing alone with nobody to talk to, so he decided to go over to the black-haired girl and talk to her.

"Hey, seems like we are the only ones here who don't have anybody to talk to." he said to the girl as he made his way over to her. "By the way. My name is Aereth, and it's nice to meet you." he said while offering his had for a handshake.

@Kasier

"Bait taken..." Aereth thought as Domarus started lo laugh heartly. "Now he thinks that he has got the upper hand. But don't make the mistake to underestimate me." He knew that his new "friend" didn't trust Aereth one bit, but he knew that he was at an advantage if he let Domarus think that he would have the upper hand. 

Domarus told him not to worry and that people get suspicious around him more often than Aereth can imagine. "What a surprise..." he thought while smiling and saying. "I'm glad that you're not mad my friend. After hearing that you are going to join our guild, I didn't want to hide something like this from you, since you would easily find out about my trust issues with you. So I thought it would be better if I told you about it right now, as well as saying sorry." he said while he offered Domarus his hand for a handshake.

Then he unequipped his weapon and told his maid friend to stay behind, so that she wouldn't get hurt. The two comrades entered the clearing and as the Dark Elf turned to Domarus and Aereth, he started to speak some generic NPC crap as an initiation to the fight. Completely ignoring the rambling of the NPC, Domarus punched the elf right into the face and sent him flying backwards. 

He then turned to Aereth and said that he should use some sword arts in order to weaken him, and that he should let Domarus know if he needed some help. "Yeah got it." he said and got into his battle stance.

At the whip of an eye he was gone. While he was running towards the <<Dark Elf>> at his maximum speed, he equipped his new sword, the Sword of Legion. Light engulfed his back and as he pulled it out of it's sheath, and he charged his <<Snake Bite>> sword art. The elf had regained his fighting stance and was about to pull out it's sword as Aereth reached it and let go of his sword art. With the first hit of the combo, he cleanly cut of the arm of the elf that was about to pull it's sword. The second hit was placed on its chest, and with the last hit of the combo, Aereth severed the head from the shoulders of the monster, which made the Dark Elf scatter into thousands of little polygons. A little <<Congatulation>> screen popped up in front of Aereth, which said that the items needed for the quest got transfered into his inventory.

@Domarus

Taking from guild treasury: (Beatbox told me to pick it up, if somebody is against it, I'll put it back immediately)

Sword of Legion - R1 OHSS - DMG III

The smile on Birdies face made Aereth happy. "Yeah, I'm sure we will have a good time together. And about the rivalry: Bring. It. On." he managed to hold his serious expression for about five seconds before he bursting out in laughter. "Haha. Jokes aside. A little bit of rivalry never hurts, and it also can be a lot of fun. My main object though is not to surpass you. But I think a little bit of rivalry can help us push harder together. And I'm very greatful, that I have a much more experianced partner which I can ask some things I don't know or fully understand right now. I will be working my ass of in order to get stronger and better. For you, me, the guild, every one trapped in this goddamned game." he said to her while he looked her directly in the eyes, then he looked into the skies. "And in order to keep a promise..." 

"I guess Itzal made a good job to show me the benefits of being a scout. The better loot, finding sub dungeons and bosses. And also the option to go all out damage after completing the scout build to become a so to say scout DPS hybrid in order to also participate and being useful in boss fights." Aereth answered Birdies question about his motives to become a scout. "How about you? What were your motives?"

@Birdie

Aereth had to agree fully with her statement about the buddy system inside of Sword Art Online. "Yeah I agree with you completely. Even at Floor one it's so easy to get killed by a simple low leveled monster, it's ridiculous."

Then she talked about her own initiation and how she had to gather materials in the dark and fight a creepy skeleton. "Yeah, I forgot to mention that I also had to find some materials in the initiation process. And skeletons? At night? Freaking creepy if you ask me." He said to his new female friend while laughing wholeheartedly.

As Birdie picked up another bunch of materials she told Aereth that she learned quite a lot from her initiation. "Looks like over there is one more quest item." He said and jumped on a nearby branch of a tree to collect one more <<Noble Wood>>

She then asked if Aereth was also going to be an apprentice of Itzal and he started to smile. "Yes, it looks like I'm going to... You know, he was the first player and friend I met in here, and I've got the feeling that I'm able to learn so much from him. You also have to know, that I want to support the frontliners clearing this goddamned game. This madness has to end.. We all need to get out of here."  he said while looking at the ground. "Itzal told me a little bit about you, and I hope we can become good scouting partners, and more important, good friends." He said while he gave a warm smile to Birdie.

@Birdie

After seeing the maid grin, she answered the she would be sure to do that. "Good to see, at least she's got humor" he thought.

As Aereth dismissed his message from Itzal and eased his stance, he noticed a little bit of relief in Domarus' eyes and thought: "I'll play dumb for now, maybe I can find out what he's up to this way. And I want to keep an eye on him, I just hope he doesn't cause any trouble."

Then Domarus told Aereth that he will be joining the Celestial Ascendants under the DPS Paladin Hikoru. "That's perfect. This way it's easier to keep an eye on him, but I'll talk about the feeling I have about him with the paladins." he thought. "What a coincidence. This is also the guild I'm in right now." He paused and looked at the ground. "To be honest, the message I wrote before wasn't just about me going out questing with you. I also asked if somebody knew anything about you and that I don't really trust you. But they said that you are a good guy. I just wanted to say sorry that I was so suspicious around you. Maybe just my own paranoia." He while lowering his upper body to a bow. "Now let's see if he takes the bait..." 

After his confession Domarus pointed at a special spot and explained that over there the Dark Elf is going to spawn. "Yes, I've talked to the blacksmith before, so I'll get ready for the fight. Ready when you are."

@Domarus

"Perfect, then let's go." he said to his blueharied comrade. Then she explained to him that her friend, named Tobias as Aereth assumed due to Birdies slip while talking, was planning to build a bigger boat, and  that she had her doubts that they'll get all the required materials for a ship that size. He decided to ignore the Birdies little slip and answered: "Yeah you are right, we are scouts after all." he said smiling at her. "At least she is a scout, I have to learn a whole lot until I reach her level."

Then it seemed like Birdie spotted something beside a nearby tree and told Aereth to look over there as she started to run to the spot she mentioned before. "That's awesome, you have good eyes." he stated with a smile. As he finished his sentence he spotted something black and shiny behind the tree. He picked it up and stored it into his inventory. "Didn't find any wood but, a little ore for crafting, I assume."

As the two of them got back on the way, Birdie asked Aereth about his initiation. "Itzal did the initiation with me. He asked me several questions and then he let me fight a boar on my own." he paused a little bit. "It was a hard fight since I told Itzal not to interfere, unless my life was in real danger. I landed a few good hits at the boar, and was almost able to defeat it, I had it down in the low red health," he paused another time and he frowned a little bit. "Then it landed several hard hits and almost killed me if Itzal didn't step to save me... But I'm very thankful that he didn't interfere before. On this day I was somehow able to know where my limits were." On this day he got to know how weak he really was. Doing his best to replace his frown with a smile he asked his comrade. "How was your initiation and who did it with you?"

@Birdie

After he kicked the boar away, the it growled deeply and charged again with increasing power at Aereth. Unable to dodge, Aereth was hit head on with the full force of it's attack. He flew through the air, carried by the momentum of the attack and crashed against a nearby tree. While Aereth was still flying, the only thing he was able to see was a purple flash and he heard the scattering of the many polygons. Then his vision went black for some seconds as he hit the tree head on.

As he regained his sight he saw a grinning Itzal and heard how he praised him for his fight and that his initiation was now complete. Aereth returned the smile and said. "Maximilian... You can call me Max. And it's an honor for me to be a part of your guild. I'll work hard and I'm looking forward to learn many things from your guildmates, and especially from you my friend." 

Today was a special day for Aereth. He got initiated in his guild as the second apprentice of Itzal, scout paladin of Celestial Ascendants and told his first and dearest friend his real name. He was happy about the outcome of this awesome day. And he was looking forward to many other awesome days.

@Itzal

Aereths breathing for a little bit heavy. Nobody could deny him that he was in good shape. But the fighting at his maximum speed in combination wit the adrenaline of his first solo fight took a toll on him. "I won't lose now. I got so far in this fight all alone and I won't back down now." Again noticing that the boar was not paying the amount of attention needed for a fight, Aereth again started to run at his virtual enemy while charging his <<Vertical>> sword art. This time he reached the boar before it was able to do anything and as he reached it he spun around and released his sword art. Many minor and one major cuts shined in bright red on the face of the seemingly perplexed boar. Aereth finished jos attack with a kick and again made some distance, prepared for the next incoming attack.

@Itzal

After Aereth finished his attack the boar's eyes suddenly turned red, and with a roar it began storming at Aereth. It ran a zig zag patter and hit Aereth dead on reducing his health to under 50 percent. Aereth was thorwn back by the momentum, but managed not to fall over, just to get his feet tackled away by the boar. With a loud thud Aereth hit the ground as the boar made some distance between it and Aereth.

Aereth slowly got back on his feet and tightened the grip of his sword. "Please don't interfere until my health drops to the red." he stated to Itzal in a very serious tone. He didn't want to let this boar put shame on him in front of his teacher. And even if this was a loosing battle, he wanted to show Itzal that he had at least fighting spirit and staying power. 

Once again Aereth sped at the boar. This time he pushed to his absolute limits. Also the boar started to run at him, again, in a zig zag patter. "Same trick doesn't work two times my friend." he thought and pushed even harder to gain a little bit more speed. As the two enemies met Aereth made an elegant side step to avoid the attack of the boar. At the same time he released the <<Vertical>> sword art he charged beforehand and landed another clean hit on the boar.

@Itzal

Domarus explained to Aereth how the battle will be done. He will land punches on him in order to get the hate going, and Aereth will attack it seriously. "Sounds like a plan to me." he answered his companion. 

After Aereth stated that Keres also would be invited, she shook her head and rejected the offer politely. Turning to her Aereth said. "That's fine. You can also tag along with us without drinking alcohol. Maybe we will need somebody to guide us home." he laughed. "But jokes aside, I don't want to push you to something you don't want to do." He said smiling at her. "At least she doesn't seem to be that suspicious..."

Suddenly a notification popped up in Aereth's heads up display. It was a message from Itzal. It said that he was a pretty nice guy and that he helped him and Mina in the past. Altough Keres seemed to be a little strange which he didn't minded, since everybody had their own quirks. After reading the message he quickly dismissed it.

Then Domarus asked Aereth what kind of guild he was part of, and that he ran into a player who was allowing him to join his guild. He wasn't initiated yet but he was also hoping that being in a guild will make leveling much easier. "I'm the apprentice of Itzal, the Scout Paladin of the Celestial Ascendants. And I can totally agree with you. You are able to do so much more, if a good working guild is having your back."

At the second question to Keres she answered that she wouldn't want to do something like that. Just serving others was fine for her. "Looks like my friend Itzal was right about her..."

Turning back to Domarus Aereth said: "And what guild will you be joining after your initiation?"

@Domarus

The day just started, and Aereth woke up slowly. Pulling himself up he, went straight for the shower. He loved showering. Even though ingame showering didn't feel as good as back in the real world he still enjoyed very much. As he finished his morning shower he equipped his gear and headed out for the center of floor one. There he picked up some sandwiches for the day and headed for his training spot. As he was walking, he wrote his new friend Jonathan a message:

He pushed the send button and started to run to the northern gate. Some players and even NPC's gave him strange looks, because he was running at full speed so early in the morning, but he didn't care much what others thought of him.

As he reached the entrance of the forest at the northern gate he started his workout, in hope that Jonathan would join him for his quest today.

@Morgenstern

Taking this quest under assistance of @Morgenstern

Domarus talke to Aereth about the quest he was wanting to complete. He said that the Dark Elf was very easy to defeat as he tried it the first time, and that he could choose between assistance with the fight and killing it himself. "So he's willing to help me out, huh..." Then Aereth decided to speak again: "Really? Thanks for the offer, I'll gladly take it. And for the boss: Yes I'd like to have your assistance with the fight, but it would be awesome if I also would be able to get a few hits on it, so that I can gain more combat experience. And the drink is mandatory. The invitation was also meant for your female company." Aereth added a grin to the last sentence. "Maybe I can get some information out of him when go out for a drink. No I've got a better idea. I'll ask my guildmates if they know him." With a hearty pat on Aereth's back, the two men and the woman headed for the town gate to get the quest done. "I'm just going to write my friends that I'll be going out questing with you." He said with a smile as he opened his friend list and added two persons to the message he wrote so quickly that Domarus had no chance to read it.

Then Domarus asked him about the build Aereth wants to go for and that he is working on a high DPS build, so Aereth answered: "Right now I'm going for a scout build. Easier materials, finding sub dungeons and boss rooms. After I finished my scout build, I'll be doing the same as you. Going all out damage, so that I can also help fighting the boss when we found it." Then he turned to Keres. "And what build are you going for? Since I don't see any combat equipment."

After a few minutes of walking he thought: "This Domarus guy is definitely hiding his something from me."

@Domarus

Just as every day Aereth finished his first daily workout session. The only difference today however was, that he hadn't bought anything to eat just yet so he decided to get back into the city and get something. 

After some minutes he was back in the Town of Beginnings and headed for his favourite sandwich shop. He loved sandwiches. They were fast to make and could be eaten easily without fork, spoon or knife. As he finished his meal he noticed a notification from Ivory Lotus. "So a kind of get together huh..." Usually Aereth decided to avoid this kind of meetings. But this time he decided to go and see what's going on there.

As he reached the meeting point he saw many people gathered around a certain young women, most definitely the women who sent the invitation, so he decided to get over to her and introduce himself to her. "Hi, you must be Ivory Lotus, I assume. My name's Aereth. Thank you for the invitation and it' nice to meet you." He said with a smile.

@Ivory Lotus

After Aereth helped Birdie down, she told him how some idiots at the streets have been loud tonight which made Aereth frown. He hated it when people were ruthless. Especially at night. Sleep was important even here inside of sword art online. "Some people are just jerks." But as Birdies expression got brighter again he had to smile at her. To the question if there was anything new with Aereth he shook his head and answered: "Nothing out of the ordinary. Just my breakfast an morning workout. And my night was quiet, fortunately." 

She then equipped some of the things in her inventory as well as her rapier. "I have to work even harder if I ever want to catch up with her and the rest of the guild. "Continue gathering materials for the event quest, I assume? Or do you want to do anything else?"

@Birdie

Seeing how the boar got extremely frustrated, he charged once again at Aereth but decided to circle him this time. "If he ups his speed more I have no chance to avoid the hit." just as he finished his thought the boar increased his speed further. "Sh*t!" he thought as the boar hit him and decreased his hitpoints by a whole quater. "Sh*t just go real..." He rolled back with the momentum and readied himself. "This can't be real. This f***ing boar seems to be in lost in thoughts... creepy... They act way to real. Not a single AI I know can do something like this... But thanks for the opportunity!" He dashed again with full speed at the boar and readied his <<Vertical>> sword art once again. Just now the boar noticed what Aereth wanted to do. It tried to intercept him but he was to slow. Aereth pushed to his limit and jumped with a somersault over the boar. Right when he was over the boar he released his sword art and landed a clean crit. The boar stumbled and Aereth made some distance between him and the boar again.

@Itzal

Also to Aereth this was no special day. He woke up early in the guest room of Itzal's shop and quickly got out in order to get his breakfast. After he bought and ate a sandwich, yet again, he went out of <<Starting City>> to get his daily workout in. He loved to to workout in the early morning. It was so quiet, and the rising sun was the best background in Aereth's mind. After a good hour, he decided to go back to Itzal's shop to take a shower.

Just as he finished his shower, a message from his to be partner Birdie popped up in front of him. He read it carefully, and opened is virtual keyboard to answer her.

He pushed the send button and opened his inventory. He put on his gear and headed for the door. 

Some minutes later he reached the meeting point at the edge of the forest at the North exit. It didn't take him long to spot his blue haired comrade sitting on a fence, so he rushed to her. As he finally reached her he said: "Hi Birdie. Nice to see you made it. How's your night and morning been?" offering his hand in order to help her down the fence.

@Birdie

As Aereth landed in front of the redhead, he seemed to stumble a little in surprise and started to grin while Aereth spoke. "Nobody stumbles back in surprise and then grins like a cheshire cat seconds later. This had to be faked. Also I clearly noticed that he was watching me as I prepared this little stunt. Another fact is, that he has to be a higher level player according to his gear, so he shouldn't be surprised by my low level speed... But if he wants to play, I'm in for it." he thought while never loosing eye contact with him.

Then he introduced himself as Domarus and held his hand out for a handshake. While Aereth shook his hand he answered: "The name is Aereth, also a pleasure to meet you. Ah, I just thought so, because you smiled at me while I sat on that bench." He smiled back him.

Just after that he tried to ask if he could help him with something, but got interrupted by his maid touching his hand. He turned to her and Aereth wasn't able to see what the two of them were doing. After a moment or two, he turned to Aereth again and, the brown haired maid came into view and Domarus introduced her to to Aereth, shortly followed by offering his help to Aereth with a big bright smile. "Hello Keres. Nice to meet you." he said, again looking deep into Domarus' eyes. "His smile is telling a different story than his eyes... I can't afford to let my guard down until I'm able to do a little bit of straight talking with him." he thought. "Actually, I want to take the quest <<Worn out Welcome>> in order to get some better gear, but I heard people talk about fighting a little bit, and as you can see, I'm a little bit too underleveled for it. But I have to tell you one thing before. I can't give you much in return, all I can give you is a favour in return. And we could get something to drink afterwards. My treat of course."

@Domarus