zero_lost04

Zero had been wandering around looking in various blacksmiths stores for a while now.  He had come back down to the first floor to look around because while some there were some blacksmiths of renown on the higher floors, several players had set up shop in the town of beginnings for a myriad of reasons and he had hoped that maybe he could find what he was looking for.  While he had been thinking about getting a weapon commissioned at another shop, ultimately he had settled on getting a much more improved piece of armor crafted instead.  As Zero was wandering about down on this floor he saw a shopr sign that caught his eye.

"The Blazing Typhoon?  That sounds pretty cool, I think I'll check it out."  Zero says to himself as he heads in through the door, not even noticing the big sign that says the store is currently closed for new orders and is available for pick ups only.  The still pretty new player looks around the shop and looks at everything the blacksmith player has made and has available for sale.  While blacksmithing wasn't a profession that he felt like would be one for him to pursue personally, he felt a great deal of respeci and admiration for those that did decide that.

"This shop is really cool, I know I spent all my materials in the last blacksmith  shop but maybe this player will have a two handed straight sword that I can purchase."  Zero says hat to himself, not realizing that his voice carried pretty well in the shop and more people heard him than he had intended or thought would.

@Macradon

Zero was paying very close attention as the female blacksmith began to give him the quick run down of how the process of ordering the item would go about and he made sure to pay extra attention as she showed him how to fill out the form in order to place the custom order.  It seemed like this was a pretty straight forward and streamlined process, It wasn't until she got to the point about the different kinds of enchancements that he got a bit lost.  He paid close attention to what she said, but the only thing in his mind was "whatever helps keep me alive the longest."  After she had told him about the different enhancments, he opens a small menu and reads up on the very basic ones for himself, reading up on the ones for weapons and for armor.  Looking over the enhancements for a moment, Zero comes to a completely different decision than what he had originally thought about

"Actually, I'm sorry to kind of switch gears all of a sudden on you, but would a piece of armor be ok instead.  If at all possible, I'd like for it to have 2 slots of mitatigation and 1 slot of regean.  I just feel like I'm not really equipped for long term survival in this game right now and I just have this suspsicion that armor would be a lot more useful to my survival right this moment." Hoping that that was ok, but wantd to leave a few more of the other things up to the muse of the blacksmith, Zero quickly changes up a few things on the order form before passing it off to the blacksmith.

@Teion

"Yes, I think calling it a custom order is accurate, though I must confess that I don't know much about placing a custom order. The only real information that I know to give is that I would like the best two handed straight sword that you could make with these. If this isn't enough, I do have a little bit of col as well."  Zero responds to the lady blacksmith, bowing his head in respect to her. As he continues his conversation with her, he opens up his trade window and scrolls through a few things before putting in 5 tier 1 materials. He hoped that that would be enough for him to get something really nice made, though beyond that he wasn't really sure because he still wasn't all that familiar with the weapon crafting or enhancements system of this game yet. 

@Teion

Zero had spent a lot of time looking into different blacksmiths, wandering the area of the lower floors to see what he could find. He really liked the name of this blacksmith store, "Forged by the Sun" had a very nice ring to it. There was something about this store that gave him a good feeling.   He didn't have too much Col on him but he had managed to gather a good bit of materials on his last quest, so he was hoping that he would be able to use that to pay for some work. 

"Excuse me, but is the owner of this blacksmith shop in, I was hoping to get a piece of equipment made."  Zero comes in and does his best to be respectful of the blacksmiths time and see if this blacksmith would be interested in working with him to get a new weapon forged. 

@Teion

Quest Summary

1 Tier One Armor with 1 Slot of Mitigation

1 Potion of Safeguard (can only be used in "The Third Lesson Is Just As Free"

800 Col + 450 Col for Loot Monster = 1,250 Col Total

5 Tier 1 Materials

2 SP + 2 Bonus Quest SP = 4 SP Total

Once he decided to stop wasting time, Zero was able to get back into town very quickly.  Even with having been gone for so long, sometimes it felt like he had been gone for days on end for this quest, nothing seemed to have changed in the town as the hustle and bustle of the central market place never seemed to die down.  It was a comforting scene, especially after having been out in the wilds for so long, fighting boar pups and their Mama.  He was just grateful to have made it back to town safely and was looking forward to getting his rewards.  Having been to the blacksmith's shop a few times, it didn't take him too long to get back to the shop.

"Welcome back.  I hope everything went well for you and you didn't run into too much trouble out there."  Lyle spoke his greeting to Zero and acknowledged his return.  He stopped for a moment and wondered to himself how many other players while out on this quest had been attack by a mother boar "protecting her pups" and if it was something that happened frequently or if he was one of but a few to have experienced something like.  Shrugging his shoulders, Zero moves over to Lyle and begins the process of completing the quest.

"Wonderful!  You managed to find all the materials that I needed in order to complete my special order.  Thank you so much for gathering those items for me, they will be a big help in my crafting.  As a thank you, I've got a nice weapon that you can have or a nice piece of armor that you are welcome too.  I know they aren't much, but they are of a decent quality and will definitely serve you better than anything that you started with.  Also, if you are interested, I have another favor to ask of you."  Zero listened to Lyle's completion dialogue and wasn't surprised when the quest reward choice came up and gave him the option of selecting either a new weapon or a new piece of armor.  Considering how useful weapons were in this game and that he really wanted to upgrade his blade more than anything, he decided to settle on taking the new peice of armor instead and try to barter for a new, better weapon.  Once the reward menu closed, a new quest popped up, asking him if he wanted to accept it.  This one was appearantly called "The Third Lesson Is Just As Free", indicating that it was the next part in the Beginner Quest line.

This was begining to feel like an absolute waste of his time, all the time that he had spent looking around the area, he hadn't been able to even find a tiny sign of anything that he could farm for materials.  He had finally just decided that he had either picked up everything that was around and nothing had respawned or other players had picked the area clean of materials and there wasn't any need for him to remain in the area.   Either way, Zero had decided that he needed to give up on his search for right now and head back into town and complete the quest and get his reward.  There would be plenty of time for him to find materials on other quests and he didn't have to find everything that he needed to barter with right now.  Taking a deep breath and exhaling, he knew that he could take pride in what he had managed to do today and there was nothing wrong with that.  With a smile on his face, Zero heads back towards the town.

As he follows his path back, Zero notices something just off the path that just makes him laugh heartily.  It seemed like the moment he decided that he didn't need to keep looking for materials, the game decided to allow him to find one.  Back in the day when he played a game called Monster Hunter, it was joked that the game had a "Desire Sensor" and when you were looking for something you would almost never be able to find it but when you didn't need it, you would find a ton of them.  This situation somewhat reminded him of that which is what caused him to laugh.  Gathering the material, Zero was now truly happy with the days work and decided to waste no more time and get back to town.

Roll ID - 82262

Loot Dice - 16 (Success, 1 Tier 1 Material Found, 5 Total)

So far his decision to forgo returning to the town of beginings and continuing to search for materials was proving to have been a fool's errand.  While he hadn't been attacked by anything, Zero also hadn't had any luck with finding any kind of materials at all.  He thought that it might have something to do with being so close to town, with it being relatively safe to search around here, it was possible that the items had been scavenged already and they simply hadn't respawned yet.  It was also possible that he simply wasn't looking in the right place, from what he could remember reading, this floor was the largest in the game, so there was a lot of space where items could spawn out in the wilderness.  Taking that into consideration, it was even entirely possible that all the items had actually spawned nearer other locations and there wasn't anything at all to find in this area right not.  Feeling a bit dejected by that thought, he decides that he would search for just a little bit longer and if he is still unable to find anything, then he will go on back to Lyle Tealeaf and finish the quest up rather than continue to waste his time looking for something that might not even be in the area.

Roll ID 82257

Loot Dice - 9 (Failure)

Zero just couldn't shake the feeling that he needed to find some more items.  From what he could tell, Materials were a very high demand currancy, especially for players trying to raise their profession ranks up.  In a lot of ways, it actually seemed like having materials might even be better to have than Col when it came down to getting items from players such as Blacksmiths and Artisians.  The materials were something that was necessary for them to Rank up and run their businesses but dying while in the process of trying to find materials wouldn't do you any good.  So his mind kept coming back to the idea that the more items he could find while he was out and heading back into the town of beginnings, the better his chances of improving his equipment would be.  He decided to put off his return to the town for just a bit longer, as long as he kept his wits about him and was aware of his surroundings, he should be relatively safe in the area and he should be able to find some more materials.  Plus, he was close enough to the town that if another mob did try to attack him and he felt like discertion was the better part of valor during the fight, he should be able to get back to the town without too much trouble.

Roll ID - 82256

Loot Dice - 12 (Failure)

The quest had been long, difficult and slightly tedious.  Still, there was a sense of pride that Zero could feel welling up inside of himself.  Not only had he managed to defeat the boar pups and gather the materials, he was able to collect several materials that he could probably use to barter for some better equipment and he had managed to kill a mob much more powerful than anything he had run into thus far and had gotten a lot of Col for it, especially for a beginning player.  Overall, he was quite pleased with the days work.  He decided to take his time and look just a bit more to see if he could find anything else to gather up, the more items that he had to barter with, the more likely he would be able to get a hold of something nice that would add to his survivability.

Zero didn't really find anything of note on his way back in.  It was possible that he had picked through a lot of those items already and they simply hadn't respawned yet.  Truthfully though, he wasn't really looking but so hard, he knew that there would be time to find more materials at another time, he was just looking just in case he happened to find something while he was on his way back to Lyle Tealeaf's blacksmith shop in town. 

Roll ID - 82253

Loot Dice - 8 (Failure - 4 Tier Materials found total)

Zero was visibly and markedly suprised at the sudden change in the Mama Boar's attack pattern.  It should have been expected though, circling around behind the mob would have likely triggered its A.I. to attack in a different way so that he could get the strike in as quickly as it could.  As Zero takes the full brunt of the attack in the chest, it knocks the wind out of him and sends him tumbling to the ground on his back.  He quickly does a kip up manuever, getting back to his feet as quickly as he could.  He see's the Mama Boar begining to turn so that she can face him and attack again and he sees his opportuinty.

Lowering his body, Zero rushes forward into the Mama Boar's turn, his intention was to attack into her turn, giving the Mama Boar essentially no where to go and it would make her unable to avoid his strike.  The strategy appeared to pay off, as he activates his straight sword art once more, he brings the blade into the Mama Boar and pulls it through.  The red lattice scar left behind by the attack only lasts for a moment before the Mama Boar explodes into multiple shimmering triangles of its particle effects, having been slain by the repeated attacks.  Taking a moment to breath, Zero reflects on the battle screen and is slightly taken aback by the amount of Col that he was receiving for having beaten the Mama Boar.  He was definitely pleased with himself, but he didn't want to run the risk of running into another mob that was about the same level, that fight might not result in him being quite so lucky.

Roll ID 82193

Battle Dice - 10+1=11 (Critical Hit)

Straight skill activated - 4+2=6x2 = 12 Damage

Mama Boar meets Loot Requirements

Roll ID 82194

Loot Dice - 16

Craft Dice - 3

5x Extra Col = 30 x 3 = 90 x 5 = 450 Col.

Zero 51/60 HP | 4 Damage | 4/6 Energy

Mama Boar - 6/30 HP | 9 Damage

Zero listened to a lot that as going on, taking in everything.  From what he could gather, there was a high council, a DPS team, a Tank team, an infromation team, a Scout team, an Advisor team and a bodyguard team.  He nodded his head when he heard Atzo mention setting up the guild like a business and that was definitely evident by the different departments.  His earlier thought continued to manifest itself, this guild was set up to continue no matter what happened to an individual leader.  Plus with the why they were set up and training, the guild would definitely be a powerful force once they managed to train up a contingent of players, the frontlines would be a vastly different landscape once the whole guild was on the move there.

Zero was just about to move back to Atzo and ask to join the guild when he stopped in his tracks at something Eatos said.  Make players feel safe?  It was a noble goal, and one that he too wanted to strive for, but he had almost forgotten why he joined this game in the first place.  He wanted to see what he was capable of, how for the strength of his own two hands and the tactics in his head could take him.  He looks at his hands as he balls them up into a first, before sighting a bit.  He then lifts his head up with a smile at Atzo and steps forward, opening up a menu and scrolling through.  After a few moments, a friend request pops up in front of Atzo.

"Your guild is truly intersting Atzo and I have to say, that there is no Guild that I would rather join than The Emerald Harbinger.  Unfortunately, I can't join today.  I hope that you will accept my friend request and I hope that there will be a place for me in the guild when I am ready, but htere are some things that I feel that I need to do on my own before I can commit to a Guild.  I hope that you understand."  Zero smiles as he sends the friend request.  This guild was truly interesting and in this world he defiitely felt like it was a guild that would stand the test of time and one that he would eventually want to be a part of, but today wasn't the day that he could join.

The closest thing that the A.I. for the Mama Boar was programmed for at this moment was rage.  The player was moving around, dodging her attacks and hitting back with everything that he could muster.  This was not what the Mama Boar wanted, she wanted to strike the player down and protect her pups.  The A.I. began running htrough its attack options and settled on kicking out with both of its hind legs directly behind it.  The attack was sucessful, nailing hte player right in the chest and causing him to go stumbling backwards.  While the blow appeared to hit his iron breastplate, because it was nothing more than a peice of vanity equipment, the damage that the player took was the full amount, the starter piece of equipment offering him no actual defense or protection from the attack.  The Mama boar digs into the ground and tries to quickly leap into the air and spin around so that she could face the player head on and attack him again.

Roll ID - 82123

Mob Dice - 7 (Hit)

Zero- 51/60 HP | 4 Damage | 3/6 Energy

Mama Boar - 6/30 HP | 9 Damage

Zero's attention was fully focused on the creature before him, the only attention that he was paying to his surrounding was so that he could be sure of his footing.  Everything seemed to slow around him as he locks eyes with the Mama Boar, his brain focused on a single idea, defeating this boar.  He had heard the stories from the other players, it was far more likely for him to die fighting a boar than largly any other monster outside, the number of players that had been taken out by a single boar was staggering when compared to the numbers defeated by other monsters, at least from the word on the street.  He knew this and so he gave this mob the attention that it deserved, he didn't want to just survive this fight like he had last time, he wanted to excel in this fight and improve himself significantly.

With all of his focus on the monster, he noticed the tell-tale sign of her incoming attack that she shared with every other boar type creature he had run into thus far.  As she lowered her head to strike, Zero began to shift his weight and spin and move, bringing himself around to the side of the Mama Boar and allowing her tusks to miss him by the thinnest of margins.  Dropping down to one knee to bring himself closer to her level, Zero activates his Straight skill again and slashes into the creature's side, flicking his wrists and pulling the blade through with all his strength.  He didn't notice the critical hit signal again, he was too focused on the target before him.  Rising up slightly, Zero moves towards the back of the Mama Boar, hoping to get into a good flanking position in order to avoid a counterattack and then hit the creature once more.

Roll ID - 82122

Battle Dice - 10 + 1 = 11 (Critical Hit)

Straight skill Actviated - 4+2 = 6 x 2 = 12 Damage

Zero - 60/60 HP | 4 Damage | 3/6 Energy

Mama Boar - 6/30 HP | 9 Damage

The Mama Boar only barely reacte as the player dealt a pretty massive blow to her side.  The A.I. was programmed to essentially only ok and do nothing else.  The large boar turns to face the player and lets out a monserous, thrundering squeal right in the face of the player as she lowers her head and turns it to the side.  Quickly bringing her head up and twisting to get extra torque behind the attack, the the boar lashes out with her tusks and once again tries to impale the player with one swift, powerful blow.  The player had focused all of his attention on her and when she began the animation for her attack, he began to spin and step, rotating to the same side that her head and gone down to so that when she lashed out with her tusks, the attacks missed him completely.  The Mama Boar lets out another angry, furious squeal at the player, stomping and digging her hooves into the ground as she proided to lash out once again.

Roll ID - 82120

Mob Dice - 5 (Miss)

Zero - 60/60 HP | 4 Damage | 4/6 Energy

Mama Boar 18/30 HP | 9 Damage

Instinct took over far more than anything else as the Mama Boar attempted to run him over and gore him with her tusks as he quickly tried to step to the aside in order to avoid being flattened by the boar.   Zero was quite shocked by this turn of events, and even more so by the fact that this did not look like the same kind of boar that attacked in him the first quest, thie one looked much stronger and faster than the Boar that he fought before.  When he focused on the boar and read its name, "Mama Boar" , he had an inkling of what was going on.  There was a moment before him right now.  He could run and he would probably be able to make it back to the safe zone and out of harms way.  He had done a lot of fighting today and he didn't have to risk his life taking on one more fight.  The other option was obvious, the Mama Boar wanted to kill him and he could fight it to the death.

"Never give up, never back down.  I joined this game to see what I was made of and I'm not running away now!"  Zero shouts, vocally making the decision to the question that he had asked himself in his head.  He pulls his two handed straight sword off of his back and charges the Mama Boar as she is turning around.  Zero activates his Sword Art skill "Straight" and snaps the blade into the boss with all the strenght that he could muster, cutting deep into the boar as she turned around.  She didn't explode into particle effects, but Zero didn't care or notice, he didn't even notice the icon for the cirtical hit pop up when his attack landed.  He had tunnel vision right now, he was going to fight this Mama Boar with everything he had and was going to block everything else out and focus solely on what was before him.

Roll ID - 82117

Battle Dice - 10+1=11 (Critical Hit)

Straight skill activated - 4+2 = 6 x 2 = 12 Damage

Zero - 60/60 HP | 4 Damage | 6/6 Energy

Mama Boar - 18/30 HP | 9 damage

This A.I. was rarely used, but it was also unusual for a player to be hunting boar pups for quite this long.  The Mama Boar mob spawned and immediately went into action.  It was programmed to hunt down the player that had attack her pups and take that player out. Even in a virtual world, when programmed correctly there was nothing quite as dangerous as a mother animal protecting her young.  The player had made the mistake of not immediately getting out of the area as well, instead of retrreating, he was just standing around, like he was taunting the Mama Boar.  There was no need for it begin its attack animations, it had already done so as he charged through the plains after the player.  Once the player was in sight, the Mama Boar lowered her head and charged, attempting to ram the player and gore him with her large tusks.  The player's reaction speed was slow, it was clearly unprepared for something like this but the loud, thundering hooves had given him just enough notice that he could dive ouf of the way of the attack, just barely avoiding damage.  The recklessly charging boar attempted to slow her forward momentum so that she could turn around and attack the player again.

Roll ID - 82116

Mob Dice - 2 (Miss)

Zero - 60/60 HP | 4 Damage | 6/6 Energy

Mama Boar - 30/30 HP | 9 Damage

There wasn't any rush any more, Zero could take his time getting back to the Town and retrieve his reward for completing the second beginner quest.  He could take his time, look through the wilderness outside of time for some more materials on his pace back to town and just take it easy.  With any luck, he could even find one more material and that would make this little quest highly successful, he would have completed the quest, gotten a good chunk of experience, gotten a new piece of equipment and enough materials to barter for another upgrade.  All in all, it was a highly sucessful day and he felt like, while it was longer than he expected that he could feel proud of himself for what he had managed to get done by himself today.

Searching for materials on his way back to the town was proving to be a bit lackluster.  He couldn't really find anything and Zero was starting to get a little anxious to get back to the safe zone area of the town.  He just had this feeling like something wasn't quite right and he decided that he just needed to get out of the area.  His heart started to sink down in his chest as he heard a loud, thunderous noise behind him as several large hooves beat against the ground repeatedly.  He turns his head to look behind him only to see a massive boar charging right at him.

Roll ID - 82114

Loot Dice - 10 (Failure)

Zero - 60/60 HP | 4 Damage | 5/6 Energy

Mama Boar - 30/30 HP | 9 Damage

The combat had definitely not been going Zero's way so far in combat.  While he could definitely kill these boar pups off pretty easily, be it RNG or just plain old fashioned bad luck, it seemed like it was taking him a lot more effort than anticpated in order to take down these boar pups.  The knew that he really needs to focus down on his combat and figure out how to make sure that he could deal damage more consistently afterwise things were going to be much harder once he started taking on mobs that weren't as relatively harmless as these boar pups.

Not wanting to risk taking an longer, as the boar pup was turning around, Zero settled his footing after slightly widening his stance.  Bringing his blade around to his side, he activates the Sword Art Skill "Straight", flicking his wrists and bringing the large blade around as quickly as he could, snapping the sword into the boar pup and then pulling it through.  The boar pup looks on in shock and pain before exploding into the standard shimmering particle effects.  Zero could barely contain his elation when the battle results popped up and he had gotten another Boar Pup Tusk drop and his quest updated, indicating that he had done everything that he needed to do and could return to town.

Roll ID - 82110

Battle Dice - 8+1=9 (Hit)

Straight Activated - 4x2 = 8 Damage

Roll ID - 82112

Loot Dice - 11 (Success)

Zero - 57/60 HP | 4 Damage | 4/6 Energy

Boar Pup - 0/5 HP | 3 Damage

3/3 Boar Pup Tusks Found

The simple A.I. programmed into the boar pup was having it do what it always did when it wasn't being attacked, act like a real boar.  The boar pup was rooting around in the ground, attempting to dig up some kind of digital mushroom, if something like that even exisited in the game didn't really matter to its programming.  The boar pup was just doing what it had been programmed to do.  It turned to stick its snoot into another spot on the ground when a large blade hit the ground beside it.  The A.I.'s response to this attack was for the boar pup to squeal in surprise and buck out with its two hind legs in an attack, attempting to hit the player that had just attacked it with its hoofs.  However, without turning to see the player, it almost guaranteed that the attack was going to miss its target, never even coming close to hitting hte player.  The boar pup then beings to quickly turn around in order to face the player so that it could charge and attempt to gore its target with its tiny tusk.

Roll ID - 82109

Mob Dice - 2 (Miss)

Zero - 57-60 HP | 4 Damage | 5/6 Energy

Boar Pup 5/5 HP | 3 Damage
 

The quest had been going on for a while now, Zero was starting to notice that this was taking a signifacntly longer amount of time to complete than the first quest did.  Granted, he was stopping to rest and search for materials in between beating boar pups and he was fighting a lot more mobs this time around than during the last quest.  Still, it wasn't like he was in any rush, the frontlines would still be there and sooner or later he would be able to get there and be of use in clearing the game so they could all log out, until then he needed to sharpen his skills and focus on growing as a player and not dying.  There was a limited number of players in the game and without more logging in to refresh the ranks, the odds of clearing the would diminish significantly the longer the game went on and the numbers cotinuied to dwindle.  His logic was then that even slow progress to eventually be able to join the assualt teams and bolster their ranks was better then the pool of potential players shrinking.

He shook his head vigorously and put those knds of thoughts out of his mind, he didn't have time to think about things like that and needed to keep his head grounded in the here and now.  His objective was to complete this quest, he needed to focus solely on that for as long as he could.  It didn't take him long to find another Boar Pup, their spawn rate was pretty high in this area so it didn't take too much searching to find one.  Rather than trying to be fancy like the last time, Zero instead decided to just draw his blade and strike.  It was merely bad luck that just as his attack was about to land, that the boar pup just happened to move out of the way and avoid the attack entirely.

Roll ID - 82093

Battle Dice - 1+1= 2 (Critical Miss)

Zero - 57/60 HP | 4 Damage | 6/6 Energy

Boar Pup - 5/5 HP | 3 Damage

It was the smartest thing that he could do right now; recover and rest so that the next fight wouldn't put him in jeopardy.  Letting his HP recover some and getting his energy back up would help him in case he was attacked by more than one mob at once or if he accidentally found a much stronger one than these relatively harmless boar pups.  Zero wasn't blind to one thing however, if these monsters were the relatively harmless ones that they sent after brand new players, then the mobs at higher levels would be truly dangerous.  When coupled with the potential that this was a death game, then taking things slow, developing his skills and growing his level was definitely the smartest move that he could make right now.  Being capable of surviving at higher floors on his own, he would need to grow his level and gather materials so that he could upgrade his equipment.  These were the basics of any MMO but in here, they were the rules of survival. While his family had taught him how to survive in the real world, the rules here were slightly different, he had to make sure that he understood the rules and were able to manipulate the odds of survival into his favor as quickly as he could.

To that end, Zero went back to searching for materials.  He had seen that most players that were blacksmiths asked for a payment of either more Col than he had available to him for a while, or Materials.  The more he could gather while on this relatively safe quest the better his bargaining position would be for new equipment.  Taking his time and searching out every thing that he could, he managed to find one more item.  Even though his HP hadn't fully recovered, he considered that this was as good a time as any to return to the hunt and hopefully finish this quest up once and for all.

Roll ID - 82072

Loot Dice - 16 (Success, 1 Tier 1 Mat Found (4 total))

Zero 57/60HP | 4 Damage | 6/6 Energy

Another hit, all of a sudden the boar pups were seemingly able to hit him at will.  It wasn't much damage at a time, but if it continued like this, he could definitely be in trouble, especially if another boar pup spawns in behind him like before.  It was true that each individual hit of the boar pup did very little damage and for the most part he could take them out in a single blow of things went well, but if they got in five or six hits before he could take one down and another spawned in before he could heal up, the battle could definitely swing in a bad direction.

Having taken the time to solidify his footing and ready himself, when the boar pup jumped back in order to charge once its next attack was ready, Zero saw his opening and decided to take it.  Two steps forward closed the distance between himself and the boar pup at which point he begins to pivot on one foot to build up some speed and momentum for his attack.  Whipping the blade around as quickly as he could muster, he strikes the boar pup with a powerful solid blow.  The critical wording pops up once again, though the damage he saw dealt wasn't as high as the last two times, it was still enough to slay the Boar Pup in a single blow.  As the battle results screen pops up again, Zero notices that on the battle results screen, there was no item drop and this causes him to sigh heavily.  Well, at least on the plus side, he was getting a lot of combat experience in this quest.

Roll ID - 82070

Battle Dice - 9 +1 =10 (Critical Hit)

Roll ID for Quest Loot - 82071

Loot Dice - 1 (Failure)

Zero 54/60 HP | 4 Damage | 5/6 Energy

Boar Pup 0/5 Hp | 3 Damage

The boar pup doesn't even react when the player swung its sword at him.  There wasn't really much programming for that any way so it didn't really have too, but considering with high wide a margin the player's attack missed there wasn't even a reason for the programming to register it.  Once the blade had passed harmleslly over the head of the boar pup, it snorted one more time before throwing it's head up and thrusting its tusk into the player's side as he turned during the follow through of his attack.  Once again, it was an easy hit for the boar pup to make, it took almost no effort on it's part in order to hit the player, his side was wide open and easily accessible to even the Boar Pup's small tusks, it struck into the player with ease and did all the damage that the Boar Pup could possibly do.  Its programming at set it up to charge a few times during a fight and the charge routine had just come up.  It jumps back a few paces away from the player to get some distance so it could charge once its cooldown timer had expired.

Roll Id - 82023

Mob Dice - 9 (Hit)

Zero 54/60 HP | 4 Damage | 5/6 Energy

Boar Pup 5/5 Hp | 3 Damage

Zero felt the tusk of the boar pup hit him right in the side as he was trying to steady himself on his feet after his miserable attempt at attacking.  His he was quite annoyed with himself, he shouldn't have tried to do something so silly as attempting to sneak up on the boar and attack.  He had picked a heavy blade as his starting weapon and had decided to focus on doing consistently high amounts of damage as opposed to burst damage.  He should have just followed his normal strategy and rushed in and attacked, he would have had better footing and would have likely done a better job of attacking.

Becuase he wasn't stable when he was hit, his footing still wasn't solid, so when Zero swung out with this two handed straight sword it wasn't a very accurate strike.  Even with his accuracy improved thanks to the gentlemen's cuff links, the attack had no chance of ever hitting the boar pup.  Hopping up slightly, Zero pushes his feet hard into the ground, planting himself solidly into the ground and getting a good footing so that hopefully his next attack would be much better.

Roll ID - 82022

Battle Dice - 1+1 = 2 (Critical Miss)

Zero 57/60 HP | 4 Damage | 5/6 Energy

Boar Pup 5/5 HP | 3 Damage