Shield

"It goes," Shield answered, internally sighing with relief now that he was no longer left alone to his thoughts. "I'm still short one material, but overall, this could have taken a lot longer to get to this point. You catch up with the rapscallion?"

As he spoke, he did not make eye contact, almost afraid that whatever episode he had experienced would still be visible behind his eyes, like a movie screen betraying his secrecy. Instead, he focused on looking preoccupied with his search, combing through the thicker clumps of grass and ground cover with his weapon.

The haft of his pole arm thudded against something solid, but for once, it was an actual rock. Shield turned it over with his weapon in hopes of finding something below it, but all he found was dirt.

At this point, I'd be pretty content with Beat's singing over whatever that was. I'm sure it will pass, but still... it might take a little time to shake off entirely.

Shield shook his head hard and stood back up. Kicking off of the ground, he jogged his way to the opposite end of the clearing, hoping the physical activity would jumpstart his brain down a different track.

Jesus, why all of this as soon as I'm by myself? It's not like I've never soloed quests by myself in Crossreign.

He slowed his gait as he came to a fresh stretch of ground. Probing with his spear, he continued to hunt for materials. He had heard it said that grieving was a process, and that each memory needs to be dealt with on its own, but overall it's a slow process of overall recovery.

I guess those were just some memories that I hadn't dealt with before. I wonder how many more of those I'm going to encounter before I finally get out of here. I can't afford to have that happen in the midst of battle...

Beat was still nowhere to be found. While before this had been a pleasant change of pace, after his little ordeal, Shield would have been glad for some company. Even some singing for that matter. He let his spear arm rest by his side, and he made his way over to a nearby tree beyond the edge of the clearing. Slumping against it, he slid down to the ground, contenting himself to search through the grass around the base.

I don't know if this is going to register as a valid portion of the clearing, but I can stand a bit of a breather either way.

His fingers combed through the thick tufts of grass absentmindedly as he tried to avoid more memories. Even this motion was reminiscent of the memories he had of combing through his daughter's hair, helping her get ready for her first day of school.

What is WITH me today?

Quest

Combat Stats

The lofty village scene was breathtaking. As leaves were buffeted by the breezes, countless facets of green speckled Shield's gaze as they caught the little light that filtered down through the foliage. He sat against a fountain, which seemed to have been designed to leech off of the natural processes of the giant trees, pulling water from the great channels that ran up below the bark to bring the vital substance to the upper branches. It gurgled as liquid trickled down through the various bowls until it splashed down into the collection pool at the bottom.

Despite the lush greenery and the tranquility of the canopy, Shield was restless. It had been a couple of days since he and Beat had overheard Ariel accept the quest in the 5th floor tavern. They had pulled her aside after and asked if she would mind a few tag-alongs. It was nearly noon, and as their meeting time drew nearer, Shield found it much more difficult not to let his discomfort show.

It feels so alien to have to accept so much help, but this isn't about what I want. It's about getting Beat and I caught up so we can be of some use on the front lines...

Shield glanced around before checking his inbox to see if either Beat or Ariel had messaged him. They weren't exactly late, but his nerves were getting the better of him.

| 0 New Messages |

"Well, if they didn't try to contact me, I guess they must be on their way, then."

Taking with Beat and Ariel

It had not escaped him the value of a skill without investing SP. Points were a precious commodity at lower levels, so to advance in a skill without investing was nothing to turn one's nose up at. Still, nothing in life is free, and the same is usually true in MMO's. That would likely go double for ones that had real-life ramifications.

"On the second floor?" Shield thought aloud. "That won't come without risk. You can't just waltz up to a new floor and expect to be able to handle the tasks set before you."

He scratched his chin, closing his eyes as he weighed the situation. There were a lot of unknowns in this equation, and not knowing either the payout or the cost was troubling. Still, with such stringent limitations on where points could be spent at low levels, it at least warranted gathering more information before deciding.

"Well, if it's a free skill that falls outside of the parameters of your level limit, that sounds like it's worth investigating."

His focus redoubled after his unwitting stroll, or rather crash, down memory lane, Shield pressed more firmly with the end of his weapon, using it as more of a rake than a broom. As he did so, he felt more in touch with the ground as he passed the makeshift searching instrument back and forth. As he passed over one patch of ground, he felt a snag, and he stopped.

It took a few more passes, but he found the snag again, almost as if a small piece of something hard was jutting up from the ground. He got down onto his knees and parted the grass. Sure enough, there was yet another red-stained rock, or the very iceberg-like tip of one at least. Standing back up and turning his weapon around, he dug the tip into the earth just an inch away from his target. With a downward wrench, he prized the little nugget out of the ground, which turned over on the dirt with a soft 'flump.'

I don't know how well Beat is faring, but I'm not doing half bad. I wonder if this region spawns better drops at certain times of day. It certainly seems to be generous at the moment.

He reached down and picked up the stone, tossing it up and catching it midair as he straightened back up. With a few rapid taps, it was safely stowed away with the others.

Rocking from foot to foot, Shield fell into a rhythm. Unlike Beat, however, this rhythm didn't connect to an internal oldies radio. As he swayed back and forth, he was no longer holding his spear. His first daughter was an infant in his arms again, and he was slowly rocking her to sleep. His heartbeat slowed inside of his chest to that slow resonant pulse that all parents have found while engaging in that same activity.

All parents... all people across all cultures for that matter... have the same instinct. Put a baby in their arms, and they start to sway... it's almost like it's bred into our DNA moreso than taught...

Then, abruptly, there was a hunk of hot metal and plastic crashing into his jaw, searing and cutting his skin. He was not aware of wandering down into those memories, but as they came crashing down onto him, he stumbled, catching himself by holding onto his spear like a crutch. Steadying himself, he slowly regained his feet, staring down at the ground as he tried to tuck those memories back down where they belong.

In all of that, he had completely forgotten his quest. Shield shook his head and returned to his same searching pattern of sweeping his spear along the ground.

God, I hope they're okay...

With a start, Shield's spear clanged against another bit of stone. Pulling aside the blades of grass, he found yet another chunk of ore awaiting his eyes.

"Well, to answer your question, I just found number thr-"

But before he could even get out the words, Beat was off, chasing after someone else. The resounding silence that began to settle in as the footsteps trailed off in the distance was sheer bliss.

Thank. God.

With a heave of his breath, Shield retrieved and stored the new material. He set about slowly sweeping his spear's butt end along the ground, favoring areas where there was more growth on the ground. That seemed to have paid off the best for him so far, so we was going to stick to what worked.

Let's get as much done as we can before the human jukebox returns...

He took slow, purposeful steps as he worked his way along the edge of the clearing, using his spear almost the same way people used metal detectors on the beach, carefully sensing for something valuable and listening for a sound to indicate success.

Shield's concentration was gone. At this point, he was more or less just making lines in the longer patches of grass with his spear.

This quest is dumb. This quest is definitely, definitely dumb.

As Beat hit shuffle in the playlist of his brain, the spear in Shield's hand continued to butcher the grass in front of him.

Just three more... Just three more materials and I can wander as far away from him as I want... But how am I supposed to concentrate on searching with that racket?

He decided to switch tactics, attempting to distract Beat to keep the constant elevator music in his brain from playing.

"Hey, Beat! Have you ever thought about how our hair and nails are still growing in the real world? Our appearance in game doesn't change because it was all based off of input from our original registration pat-down, but from there, we look less and less like ourselves every day."

...Really?

With the full-on concert raging on behind him, it became much more difficult for Shield to focus on the task at hand, and he found himself having to stop and go back over the same stretches of brush several times because he wasn't really paying attention to what his eyes were doing. With a heavy sigh, he cleared his throat.

"Ahem. Hem! AHEM!"

Beat seemed to be quieting down, but he had a bad feeling that it had nothing to do with his polite attempts to request silence.

As long as it gets me a few minutes of peace...

Despite being able to focus a little easier, Shield was still not turning up any new pieces of material. He straightened up and stretched his neck from one side to the other, taking a few steps to the side and searching in a new section of tall grass.

Maybe this quest IS dumb...

Shield's eyebrow twitched.

He's singing about what he's doing again. It's not like I didn't have to endure enough of his 'dividing up our loot' song after that last quest... Seriously, I think he's too used to living his life with headphones on...

The parting motions he had been making with the butt of his spear quickly became short, pointed jabs with the tip, glancing very quickly behind the foliage before letting it flick back into place with a snap.

Seriously... does he not think we can hear him?

With his next jab, before he could pull aside the greenery, there came another sharp clink of metal on stone. Sure enough, just behind the undergrowth was another piece of ore, or at least what his mind perceived as ore.

I would say something to Beat about how maybe this quest isn't as dumb as his song suggests, but...

He glanced over at his companion and sighed.

He just looks like he's having so much fun with it. Besides, I don't want to jinx our luck. If his enthusiasm is any indicator, he's having some good luck as well.

Following closely after his companion, Shield trotted contentedly along. The familiar weight of a real piece of defensive equipment had a visible effect on his gait. His feet almost seemed to have a little more pick-me-up. As they arrived on the outskirts of town, he set to work along-side Beat, using his spear to part the brush that dotted the edges of the clearing.

As he pulled one aside, a familiar sight met his eyes. A little piece of stone, stained a deep red in places, like a lump of iron ore. It was odd that all of the materials that he found looked this way, and yet Beat's seemed to be more like the supplies of a tailor, which he knew to be one of Beat's potential professions of choice in the game.

It's all just ones and zeros that our brains interpret, I suppose. I could be that the materials take on whatever form you consider most essential to whatever your line of work is, or a player's archetype of a craft material.

He tapped the stone with the tip of his spear, the tip of which rang out sharply. He bent down to retrieve his spoils, adding it to his inventory.

"Beat!" Shield called out for the third time. "Stop fiddling with your menus! We're burning daylight."

Between shooting up a few levels and the bright, shiny shield that he had strapped to his arm, the player before Beat looked like a completely new person. His shoulders, while no more broad than they had been at the end of their last quest, were back and relaxed, and his head was perched more erectly above his shoulders. Despite having to shout to get Beat's attention, his features could not have been more at ease.

"So what's the plan from here? You're the one who found the quest. You said we'd mainly be searching for materials, right?"

It was an odd thing, just rummaging around until arbitrary items plopped down into existence in front of you, but it beat having to farm for dozens of different types of plants and roots and berries and ores. It was a simple innovation that perhaps broke the immersion of the game, but it saved players from likely days on end of grinding for just the right items.

Gritting his teeth silently in the face of the heat and the massive adversary, Shield fell in behind Rain, and the battle was underway. Blow for blow, Rain seemed to be matching the great lizard well enough, even considering how solid of a hit the boss had struck. After all, that hit had been no joke. He felt the shock wave through the air, and if he could feel it, he could not imagine the impact on its target.

He ran over to their battered ally and hoisted him up under the armpit, giving him a base to lean against if he needed it. He had definitely pulled the aggro with his hit, so Shield and Beat were safe, for the moment at least.  He decided to dust off an old gem from Crossreign.

"That's it, Rain! Keep it together! If you can taste blood, then spit it in their eyes!"

It was a cry that his guild had used time and time again during their hardest fights. After all, when the nucleus of a guild is a tank, to some extent, your lives revolve around taking punishment. Repositioning his foot, Shield felt something against the inside edge of his boot. A glance down revealed a chunk of the wall, dislodged from the exchange of blows a moment ago, and sure enough, it had the same look as the pieces of material he had found in the first room.

You sneaky little devil...

He made a mental note to retrieve it as soon as his hands were free.

Shield was listening as he continued to rummage. As eager as he was to start crafting, however, the game seemed to have other ideas in mind as his searches continued to come up fruitless. As he glanced up, Rain seemed to be transfixed on his weapon, for only a moment perhaps, but even so, Shield felt the need to say something.

"We don't have to go in, you know," he reassured.

His face was stern and his features were set, but his words were not harsh. The look on Rain's face was troubling.

"Come on. People don't just stare absentmindedly at their weapon before a fight like that unless there's something on their mind. We've gotten lots of Col, and we even have a handful of materials to bring home. If we call it here, it's not going to be a loss by any stretch of the imagination."

Shield was all for getting the loot and experience, but if the guy who singlehandedly dealt every point of damage in their dungeon crawl thus far was having a moment, that seemed like a problem.

"It's not worth our lives. If you're not sure, I say we err on the side of caution. We're not doing anyone any favors if we're running in haphazardly and getting ourselves killed."

Shield watched Beat empty the contents of the bag on the ground.

"Guess we're both having bad luck, huh?"

He took a step to the side towards a promising pile of debris, but once again, as he began to push the pieces aside, they produced nothing that looked like anything other than cracked and broken pieces of masonry. He shrugged and let his back rest against the wall once again.

"What can we expect to find in there, Rain? Obviously neither of us have been through a boss battle here before. Sure, it may not be a high level floor boss or anything, but it's still miles out of our league for our current level."

Only just now did the thought occur to him, but he had not addressed the thought of whether a boss would be able to hit with AOE. If so, Hate was no longer the only concern. Still, he suspected that Rain would already be aware of any such danger. He nudged the pile of rubble again with his foot, not even really looking at it.

Shield nodded and followed after Rain, keeping his eyes out behind them as Rain led the way.

"Thanks for keeping an eye out, even if I was kinda in the way. I hadn't originally planned on joining in."

That much was the honest truth. It made far more sense to keep looking for materials rather than hopping into a battle he couldn't handle. Still, he knew that he had to act.

It's not that I thought it would help... and it wasn't even just on a whim. Back there... I hesitated. I saw an opening, and instead of just saying yes or just saying no, I thought about it, and then just... froze. I was legitimately afraid, and I let it stall me. I can't let that become a habit. If I'm going to be on the front lines, I have to relearn how to act like a front-liner, even if death is actually on the line now.

 As they came to pause outside of the large, ornately carved stone doors, Shield let his back rest against the nearby wall.

"Take your time, Rain. I don't know what boss battles are normally like here, but if they're a bigger deal than what we've seen, there's no shame in letting yourself recover."

Through the haze of battle, Shield heard someone call out to him. Responding to the warning, he ducked and rolled back away from the fray just in time for another powerful AOE to land. Red particles filled the air and the sounds of angry lizards died away. Health bars vanished and only the players remained.

"Yeah. Thanks for the heads up," Shield said, straightening up to his full height. "I figured you had it, but... I kinda had to."

He shrugged and lowered his gaze, shoving aside the little bits of fallen ceiling that cluttered the ground.

Well, this hallways isn't proving much more useful than the last room. Oh well.

He returned his eyes to Rain.

"That was impressive. They were clearly of a higher difficulty class, but you seemed to handle them just about as easily as before. Those were some solid hits you got in. Wish I could say the same."

Shield's eyes narrowed as Rain engaged with the threat. His attack flashed brightly, and even though the enemies were of a higher caliber, their health still dropped dramatically.

Crit!

Shield hesitated for a moment. Rain had accumulated the maximum amount of hate possible from a single attack. No matter what, he would remain the focus. Nothing Shield or Beat could do would draw their aggro. Leaning forward on his right foot, Shield took off, rushing up alongside the more experienced player.

"Can't let you have all of the fun!" he called, swinging with his spear.

His attack collided harmlessly with the powerful creature. The tip rested against his target, not causing it the least bit of worry. Suddenly, he felt like he was facing the boulder again. He pushed off of the creature, leaping back and circling around to the other side of it to look for an opening. The hairs of the back of his neck stood on end being in the midst of such strong enemies, but without any Hate on him, there was no real danger.

Still, he kept his eyes wide open.

Shield followed the gaze of their companion, glancing back at him in hopes of an explanation.

"Do you see something?"

As much as it bothered him to continue to have to do so, he took a few steps behind where Rain was standing to avoid being the brunt of any sudden encounters.

We have yet to encounter any wandering monsters. Still, until I'm comfortable with the ebb and flow of this new world, I'll leave the front-lining to those who can handle it.

Safe in the shadow of the more advanced player, Shield kicked about at the rubble on the ground, frowning as his efforts produced as little results as his previous searches in this room.

We definitely need to find a new room... This one almost seems like it's been picked over before. Either that, or the algorithm just screwed us over on the drops this time around. Maybe the next room would produce better results.

It's definitely the room.

Shield turned over what felt like the hundredth stone in this room, still not managing to find anything useful. To say that he was not too proud to accept help was entirely accurate, but if they were going to take the time to go spelunking in the dark, they might as well add as much to their wealth as possible.

"Generosity is always appreciated," Shield added, answering the question that had been posed while he was too distracted to notice. "We already have a new skill and a handful of money waiting for us thanks to your contributions, so if you don't consider that a debt to you, we'll at least have to pay it forward when we're more experienced.

Shield tossed the stone that he had just overturned, landing it by Beat's foot.

"Isn't that right?" he shouted over to his comrade, holding in a laugh.

"That would have been a hell of a find. Materials in general were a pain to acquire at low levels, and even with a carry, finding items of any sort was a struggle."

The room refused to yield him any new resources as he continued to rummage through debris.

I guess I got lucky in that first room. I can't seem to find anything in this one to save my life.

At the thought of the words 'save my life,' Shield grimaced a little. That phrase was a little too on the nose given the state of the world now. he straightened up and stretched, pulling his arm across his chest while the corresponding shoulder rolled back to increase the tension on the joint.  He repeated the motions with his other arm before setting himself back to the task of searching.

"You need to acquire perfect items in order to craft, correct?" he called out to his allies.

He seemed to remember reading something about that, how a crafting hammer would be necessary to begin any sort of smithing. He had a feeling Beat was going to want to start crafting himself some items as well, if nothing else, just to satisfy his need to min/max his builds.

Shield kicked at a pile of loose stones, but to no avail. Still no materials in sight, he looked up just in time to see one more fatal blow land on each of the enemies. He crowed out to Rain.

"Excellent work! I feel so useless back here, but as long as we're getting to our goal, I can't complain."

The threat now gone, he stepped forward into the room to admire the aftermath, particles still dwindling around the ragtag party. He gave Rain a solid clap on the shoulder before setting about searching the room.

"I can't image it would be much further. This is a low level dungeon, so we're hardly getting ourselves into a full-on labyrinth."

He turned stones over with his foot until he found the flagstone floor of the dungeon below. Still no luck. Still, he kept up his search. It was a little embarrassing having chosen such an obvious name for himself and yet not even having his namesake to show for himself as a player. Even if he had to go through a pile of materials to produce anything usable, he was going to get a proper shield.

Shield ducked low, staying back by the entrance as the battle raged into full swing. His eyes darted around for anything out of the ordinary, but in the chaos of the ensuing battle, he did not spot anything noteworthy.

"Keep it up, Rain! Show us newbies how it's done!"

His first hit had been impressive, as always. The health bars of each reptilian adversary was cut in half immediately, each having felt the same devastating hit. To his left, he saw Beat continuing to rummage in the pack he had found.

As lackadaisical as that seems, that's probably exactly what he should be doing. There's no way we could do anything except put ourselves at risk in there.

Hanging back at the edge of the fray, Shield continued searching for extra materials to add to his stock.

I may be able to start smithing myself some gear sooner than I had planned...