Floofy

"at this point, any armor I can get will help me greatly! I would be much appreciated if you would lead the way, Mister Dominus!" She smiled cheerfully, completely unaware of that fact that she didn't say Domarus' name correctly. All she knew is that she had a lead to some new threads, and she wanted to take the opportunity while it was available. Anything to get better gear. And better yet, if this guy could make light armor for her, she would never need to farm for gear again!! Well, ok, maybe THAT isn't true, but it would sure make life a lot easier on her! "Just tell me what to do and where to go, and we'll get this quest done in no time at all!" Hard to believe she wanted to be an assassin-type, with how cheerful she was acting, but perhaps there was more to this girl than her exterior showed.

Sakoda looked up with a start. Had she even realized there was a person next to him? Looking over, she smiled and laughed at her own blindness. "sorry, I didn't see you there.. uh, yes, Im wanting to be a stealth support. Being able to be behind a squad and healing them or giving buffs, and then suddenly being behind the enemy and taking out unsuspecting targets. Like c'mon, nobody would ever expect a support to be taking out back lines, and especially not mobs!" She smiled, feeling pretty smart. The last sentence made it clear she didn't intend to kill other players though. Not unless she was convinced it was for the better, anyways. "but yea, I can't really get anywhere without getting better gear first. I've been so occupied that I didn't even think about getting better stuff, you know?" She suddenly offered her hand "by the way, Im Sakoda!"

@Domarus

Sakoda hadn't noticed the man next to her, or his companions for that matter. She took a sip of her drink before sighing to herself and muttering, "all these quests are too risky for me.. Did I miss something on my way up here? Maybe there was a basic armor store on Floor 2... Ugh, I've been so focused on Familiars I haven't even bothered to upgrade my own gear. There's got to be a quest that'll get me something though.. At least a better weapon. Maybe I can improve my agility skills to make up for the lack of defense, especially if I'm wanting to become a support-assassin."

Sakoda frowned to herself, knowing that she would still need light armor to get further. She couldn't avoid every attack forever, and with starting gear she would die in an instant. That didn't even include all the exploring she was doing. If she ran into a hidden boss or a trap somewhere, there would be no hope for her. It was settled, she NEEDED better gear... and on that thought, she remembered that she hadn't even bothered with her SP yet..

@Domarus

Sakoda entered the bar, stretching and yawning. She had spent the past few hours searching the floor and collecting data on where to tame rare familiars. She herself had yet to find a familiar for herself, being too occupied with her desires to fill an entire index of familiars and where to tame them. Originally, she planned to call her book "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them", but APPARENTLY that name was taken... For about the twentieth time since finding out, she cursed whoever stole that name from her as she sat down at the bar, next to Domarus, and ordered some milk for herself. Sakoda wanted a break from running around the floor, and was examining a list of quests that she could do. It occurred to her that she didn't have any armor, and actually never obtained any since logging onto the death game. Perhaps she should do a quest that would award some...

@Domarus

She walked up besides Airi, and the NPC's attention came to her. "How may I help you?" it asked again. Like Airi, Sakoda brought the potions from her inventory and presented them to the blacksmith. "Delivery for you!" She exclaimed, feeling cheerful that the quest was over now. The NPC once again accepted the item, as it shimmered and disappeared from the counter. The NPC recited his "Thank you for bringing the items" line and a pop-up appeared for Sakoda. She glanced at the rewards, mostly to make sure there wasn't a bug or something that would cause anything to not appear in the list, and then closed the window. As she was examining the rewards, the NPC had begun speaking again. Sakoda had actually spaced out and only came back to her senses when the next dialogue box appeared, offering the next quest. Chuckling at her own air-head, she declined the quest for now before looking back to Airi and smiling cheerfully.

In all honesty, Sakoda wasn't too hungry, and told Airi as such. "I was just curious to see if you wanted to stop for a quick snack." she told her, smiling cheerfully. They passed by the food stall, continuing on their way. "I've been thinking though.. about my profession. What if I'm unable to keep maybe familiars with me at one time? It would be hard to keep a business going when my stock is limited to like one or two companions. I would have to either constantly be out taming for a client, or I would need to act as an info broker, telling people where they can go to find certain tamable creatures..." She frowned, thinking of all the possibilities that she may need to entertain. "Perhaps theres a way to turn familiars into items, so I can store them until someone is interested in buying one? Or perhaps I can...rrm, no, never mind that wouldn't work..." Sakoda sighed. There clearly were a lot of options on how she could run her profession, but which way would be most effective, not just for her but for her customers as well.

(OOC: @Airi

"Thats a good idea! Paralysis does last a really long time, so that would be a good enhancement to keep with you." She viewed the surrounding areas, wondering where they would find this blacksmith at. "I guess you know where to go, right?" Sakoda asked, blushing. She had been here for a while, but she never memorized the layout of the town. In truth, she spent most of her time in her room at the inn, or doing odd-jobs for people so she could afford the room.She never really moved around much outside of finding new places to eat at. Speaking of which... "Hey, you getting hungry?" She herself wasn't very hungry, but she didn't want to be rude to her companion. She knew that if she were hungry, she would want to stop for a bite, but she wouldn't want to interrupt a task for it. If neither of them were hungry, then it wasn't an issue either way.

Sakoda had to think about that question for a bit. Honestly, she was vying to be some sort of assassin/healer hybrid, but she wasn't sure how she would build that. "Well, I'm thinking that I would try to mix attack and support, as an assassin healer?" she shrugged, not sure if she was explaining herself very well. "Like... I want to be able to slip behind the enemy and damage them, but then be back behind my team and healing them and providing buffs." She smiled, trying to act like she knew what she was talking about. In truth, she's never heard of anyone being a hybrid unit like that before, but that wouldn't stop her from trying to pioneer it! After all, it would make her all the more valuable of a teammate if she filled a role that nobody else in the game ever had. Doing quick damage, then being protected by her team before the enemy could retaliate. It was a near perfect combination!

"well, Im wanting to become a beast tamer. I'm fascinated by all the animals in the game, and I want to tame as many as I can! I even want to work on an encyclopedia of sorts on all of the creatures, where to find them, their abilities, and how hard it is to tame them! I'm thinking of naming it.. 'Mythical Beasts and Where to Find Them!' Sounds good right?" She smiled, feeling so clever about the name, although feeling like she heard it somewhere before. Oh well, she would probably think of a better name by the time she starts working anyways! "Im hoping to make connections with info brokers so I can get better details about each floor and what lives there. The game would be completed by the time I explored everything by myself" Sakoda started laughing at the idea of exploring each floor top to bottom by her lonesome.

(OOC @Airi horray for references :P

"Good idea, Airi!" she opened her inventory and put the box in it. "So where does the blacksmith live? Once we deliver the box the quest will be complete, right?" She looked around the town, getting her bearings and trying to remember the location of the blacksmiths on the floor. "You seemed rather interested in those potions. Are you thinking about becoming an alchemist or something?" Sakoda turned and smiled to her companion. Personally, she was hoping to get some kind of creature tamer job or something. A job that would allow her to tame familiars and sell them to players as companions. It would be nice to be able to supply players with friends and company while they were all trapped in here. Maybe she would specialize in certain creatures, like dragons or griffons! She couldn't help but smile at the possibilities, forgetting that Airi couldn't understand what she was thinking about.

(OOC @Airi

Sakoda sighed and nodded, pulling out another berry and trying again. This time, the NPC tried to coach her through the steps. Sakoda, however, ignored him and proceeded to work on her own. This time, the potion came out as a success. Beaming with joy, she handed it in and completed the task, setting herself up for the next one. Zacky hands her the package to be delivered, and she moves over to Airi. "Hey I got it! I'm all set to go and finish this quest!" She looked up to see what Airi was examining and recognized a few potions from her SAO studies. Some of them were new to her though, and were likely implemented recently, before the official release. She wondered what kinds of potions she would use in her time here, and if there were any unique potions that could come in handy. Maybe there was a potion that would increase her chance of taming familiars?

(OOC @Airi

Watching in awe at first Zacky then afterwords Airi, Sakoda could only be nervous about her own attempt at making a potion. She didn't feel very confident in her own abilities, but she reminded herself that it was mostly done by the game. Very little actual skill would have to come from her, just her numbers.. of course, given her luck with the berries, this may still take some time to complete. Following Airi's example, she got a juniper berry,, put it in a mortar and got the pestle, tapping the bowl like Airi did. However, very much NOT like Airi, she completely destroyed the berry, leaving almost nothing to use in the actual potion. A pop-up appeared in front of her, displaying "FAIL" in red letters. Groaning, Sakoda feared this would happen and got ready to try again.. and again... and again... Maybe she should tell Airi to go on ahead?

(OOC @Airi

Sakoda walked up next and presented her quest items to the NPC, whom she had started calling 'Zacky'. She also ignored the next few lines of dialogue, as she sent the items to the NPC. "Glad that's finally over," Sakoda told her new friend. "Did we get any rewards for the task, or will we have to finish the rest of the quest first?" She asked, hoping to at least get some Col to spend the night at an inn or something. If anything, to get herself something to eat. Being on the first few floors meant you didn't have a lot of money a lot of the time, so any chance to have some extra was always nice. As she thought about this, it occurred to her that she hadn't even looked at Airi's stats or anything, although she figured she wasn't much stronger than herself, seeing as she was just starting the quests.

"Do you want to keep going on these other tasks too, or should we call it a night?" She asked Airi, on top of the question about an early reward. If they kept going, it would mean finishing the quests sooner, but they would also get tired from being up later. If they called it quits for the day, they would be well rested, but would probably be spending the next day on the quest. Honestly, Sakoda was ok with either choice, which is why she left it up to Airi to decide.

Sakoda nodded in agreement. They we're done with the 'hardest' part of the quest now. Once they had turned in the berries, they only had a few minor things left to do before they would be able to begin acting as productive SAO players! This caused her to think about what she would do for a job. Would she work her way to the frontlines, or would she hang back? She could try work as a blacksmith, or maybe even a chef. It didn't do much good for her to worry about it now though, so she stopped thinking about it. Everything would work out once they got to that point. "We'll heal out of combat, right?" She didn't want to go through more fights with a fourth of her health missing. It would certainly be an issue, but then again maybe they healed upon a level up? Either way, she should probably figure out how it worked.

(OOC: @Airi ah ok ty <3 )

Sakoda nodded and pulled out her Starter Spear, charging at the boar and then leaping into the air, swinging her spear so it pointed downwards, aimed right at the boars back. She suddenly screamed in fury, getting into the mood for combat, as her Spear drove deep into the Boars  spine. Before the boar exploded into pixels, it reared back and kicked Sakoda in the stomach, knocking her away and leaving her spear stuck in the dirt. Looking up at Airi and grinning, she pulled her spear out of the ground and offered her hand "Hey, are you alright? You look like you took a lot of damage from that last hit. Oh, speaking of last hits, do you want whatever the Boar dropped? You did the most damage to it after all. It isn't right that I take your hard earned items, even if it is just Boar meat," Sakoda told her, before laughing.

(OOC: @Airi would you check and make sure I got everything right?)

Sakoda dug around in the potential final bush, begging to pull out one last good berry. As she pulled her hand out slowly, her eyes brightened up. As luck would have it, she had grabbed a berry that had just barely become good. "YES!!" She shouted, jumping up in excitement as she added the last berry to the collection. Going to her quest tab, she only continued to smile as she saw the task had a check next to it, like Airi's did. Running over to nearby, as to not distract her or get the boars attention, even though she probably did that with her shouting earlier, she waved to Airi to signal that she had finished the task. She was now one-hundred percent free to help Airi, should she request it. Once this Boar was out of the way, they could finally continue their quest and actually made decent progress. Now that she thought about it, the hardest part was actually done now.

(OOC: @Airi

Sakoda crouched down next to the next bush and dug in, feeling hopeful. Surely her luck was beginning to turn around now! Sure enough, pulling her hands from the bush revealed another healthy berry. "One to go!" She shouted in excitement. She wasted no time in looking for the next berry. One more, and this boring quest would be over... Well, the first part of it anyways. She didn't look up to check on Airi this time, both from trusting she was ok and from the excitement of almost being finished with the collection. As she knelt by the bush, she gulped nervously. This could be the last gather she needed before they moved on, or it could be another flop. With the luck they had earlier, chances are it would result in a dud. Maybe even another weird event occurring like last time. At this point, she wouldn't be surprised if she pulled a Boar out of the bush. SAO certainly wasn't your ordinary MMO. Who knows how many death traps there were, even on a beginners quest?

(OOC: @Airi)

Fighting the urge to run over to help Airi, Sakoda continued to dig through bushes. Pulling her hands out, she grinned as she finally had found a good berry. Only two more to go to finish her gathering. Hopefully, she would get the last two before Airi took any serious injury. She was about to call over to her partner and tell her she got another berry, but quickly decided against it. She didn't want to distract Airi from her fight, and potentially get her hurt. Instead, she got up and moved to the next bush. If Airi saw her, she could assume that Sakoda had acquired another berry. Kneeling down at the next bush,she glanced up to make sure Airi was still ok. From the looks of things, neither her nor the mob had hit each other yet. Half of that observation was good, at least. The other half... maybe not so much.

(OOC: @Airi

"BE CAREFUL PLEASE!" She shouted at Airi. Part of her wanted to go help, but she needed to keep looking for berries. They would be here all day if she just gave up and started killing boars. She turned her attention back to the bush in front of her and started digging around for the blasted berries that seemed to avoid her. She grabbed onto...something.. and pulled it out, but it wasn't a berry. Just a strange round creature that she'd never seen before. Before she could get a look at it, it rolled away, never to be seen again. She looked up at Airi, wondering if she saw anything, but she was very much occupied with a boar still. Deciding to keep that little event to herself, for fear of being told she was crazy, she got back to digging around for more berries. Or round creatures. Whatever came first.

(OOC: @Airi

She nodded, listening to Airi explain the other tasks as she rummaged around in another bush, hoping to pull out three more good berries. Instead, she got bitten by some kind of bug, and jumped back in shock and annoyance. "That was rude.." she muttered to herself. "Are there any bushes that have, like, a one-hundred percent chance of giving good berries..?" She smiled, knowing it wasn't likely, but couldn't help but suggest the idea. If such a plant did it exist, players would be all over it. 

Sakoda stretched herself, hoping these next bushes would be the last ones, but doubting it very much. Chances are, she's going to be looking through another ten bushes by the time she gets the berries she needs. She even began to think about telling Airi to go on ahead of her, as to not hold her back. The last thing she wanted was to be a burden.

(OOC @Airi

"oh, uh, right, sorry. Guess I wasn't paying attention." she laughed, although apparently it was true that she had started to think that every berry she grabbed was just a bad one. Maybe she was more of an airhead than she thought... "Hopefully this won't take too much longer, right?" She looked around to see any nearby boars, but it didn't look like any had taken interest in them. Once satisfied with the state of their surroundings, she returned to digging through the bushes. She didn't want to toss more good berries and embarrass herself further. Pulling a berry out, she sighed with relief that she had pulled a berry that had just become ready, and that this time she actually noticed it was good. She added it to her quest items, feeling confident that she wouldn't screw up again. If she did, Airi would have her back! Someone needed to.

(OOC: @Airi my bad, I kept thinking it was 15 for some reason lol)

"I would hope not. They are beginner quests though..." she frowned as she approached another bush and began digging through it, thinking maybe her luck would turn if she gave it one more shot. she groaned as the berry she pulled out was barely short of being desirable. "Stupid NPC and their stupid quest requirements..." She looked around, to make sure no Boars were coming close to them again. The last thing she wanted was to die because a boar sneaked up on them. "are you getting any luck, Airi?" Sakoda asked, tossing the barely bad berry away. It occurred to her that maybe she was tossing good berries away, and that she was just starting to get into the groove of having such bad luck. She shrugged it off, thinking that would be silly! She was more observant than that, right? Yeah, of course she was! After all, she would know when she got a good pull. Sakoda was sure she wasn't that much of an airhead.

She blushed brightly as she dug around for some more berries. She was starting to get annoyed at her failures, pulling out another handful of no good berries. "err.. well.. to be fair, I wasn't planning on being stuck in here. I chose "Floofy" because I wanted a fun and silly name while playing this. When everything happened, I came up with Sakoda to be taken more seriously. If I was wondering around being called "Floofy", people wouldn't think I took this whole thing serious. I tried to find an in game item that would let me change my name, but I haven't found anything."

She stood up and stretched, "Hey, why dont you try and get the last few berries you need? Im not having any luck at all" She didn't mention that she felt like Airi might get hurt fighting more Boars as time passed. The less combat they did, the less likely the would be to get killed.

(OOC: @Airi oh sorry, didn't know what else to include XD)

"Nice work taking care of that Boar, Airi!" she smiled before getting back to gathering from the bush. Pulling out some more berries, her smile became a frown. "ugh, no good again.." Her luck had started to look like Airi's. Should this continue, there would be no way the quest would finish in a timely manner. Maybe there was something she was missing, like the more Boars she killed the higher chances of gathering a berry would occur... Ok, that was a dumb theory. She just didn't want to spend the next few days poking around in bushes trying to find five stupid berries. She wanted to start moving through the floors, looking for familiars and rare items!! Sakoda sighed to herself, remind her that everyone needed to start somewhere, and here you started by gathering berries. How else would you learn the gathering mechanics, anyways? At least they had enemies here to break apart some of the monotony.

Sakoda had just accepted the request and looked up to see the boar. Nodding, she knelt down next to the bush and started to rummage around in it. grabbing a berry, she pulled her hand back and examined what she acquired. Frowning in disappointment, she tossed aside the spoiled berry and sighed. "rotten to the core.." Just like she feared, RNG wasn't in her favor like it was for Airi. "Maybe it was a fluke though," she told herself. After all, it was the first try she had! She couldn't just assume that the rest of her luck would be the same. Even so, it was only a matter of time before she started getting the good stuff. Statistically, it was impossible for her to always fail. She would complete this quest, no matter how long it took! Even though she did have a companion waiting on her, if things got bad enough, she could always tell Airi to go on ahead of her.