Yuurei

With their previous enemies destroyed by Shield’s thorny destruction, the two could continue in search of thier quest for the medicine. They would have to clear the field boss like that of the Nepents from before. It was supposed to be much stronger than it's loser league cousins so Yuurei would have to be on guard to ensure her safety. 

Not much longer after the destruction of the previous Nepents, the Variant appeared before the two man party, ready to fight. Yuurei gripped her sword tightly and looked to Shield to see if she was clear to strike. He nodded to her giving the okay. She charged into battle with fire in her soul, only to find herself tripping just as her sword grew with it's emerald light. As she smacked the dirt roughly, her saber found it’s way a few meters away from her prone position. She quickly scattered to her feet and retrieved her sword as quickly as possible realizing she had missed her attack horribly.

“Kusso…” She muttered under her breath.

Shield seemed to be getting aggravated with the stupid, seemingly cross-eyed beings for their in ability to actually land a solid hit on him. It was practically the only way he could cause damage. This showed Yuurei just how dedicated one had to be to their field of battle to survive this game. Shield’s technique worked for him and Yuu was sure that with a whole group of players at his level, they could annihilate almost anything that dared face them.

With some confidence, Yuurei stepped back into the fight, but she would save her energy. She stepped into the fight for a moment and took a diagonal slash to one of the beasts - the one she had just hit with Rage Blow - and quickly backed off again. She refrained from using her sword art to save her energy for the boss, but she couldn't just stand there and watch the mobs’ sad display of inability.

She was just about to make another attack when Shield called out to her to hold her ground. She slid to a stop and the green blade went back to it's normal saber-like appearance. She couldn't understand why she should stop until Shield explained it to her. It made sense to save her energy for the real threat when these mobs were just going to kill themselves. So, with her blade still in hand, the silver-haired girl waited for her ally to kill off the group of mobs. She would be ready for any that for some reason may branch off to take a bite out of her.

It was tough to watch your friends get hurt when you know you could help, even just a little, but the video game physics were different than the real world’s. She knew Shield could take punishment that no normal human could and that allowed her a little bit of comfort, knowing her friend wouldn't be badly hurt.

Yuurei was on the first floor, as usual. She still had much to do before considering going on higher level quests, and even more to do before joining the front lines. If she aspired to complete this game, she would need to buckle down and do more quests to earn more skill points as quickly as possible. No sooner than that thought passed through her head, she heard the voice of a man calling into the crowd without much gusto. He was looking for party members to do a quest, what a stroke of luck. The emerald-dressed girl flagged him down with left hand as she approached.

“You're looking for a team? I'm pretty good with a Saber. Shall I join you?” She asked offering a hand to shake his. “Yuurei is my name, but if that’s too annoying to pronounce, you can call me Yuu, or Ghost. I go by any of those names."

Yuurei nodded and continued on without much to say. There was going to be a little more combat than last time so she needed to be alert and ready for anything this game might throw at her. Soon, they came across their targets. Just like last time, Shield and Norbert jumped in first, catching the attention of the mobs before Yuu started her attack. When ready the silver-haired assailant grabbed her saber and focused her energy into the blade just as she had the last time. The blade glowed gloriously with Emerald light as she charged her enemy, slashing through it's weeded body. The green blade ate at the plants vines viciously without remorse whatever pain in could feel. She watched as her opponent’s HP dropped from her attack then turned around, reading herself from the next attack.

“Get ready Shield! Here they come!” She called out as the monsters approached her party member.

Yuurei nodded to her companion and started to walk towards the safe zone exit. They stepped out into the field and headed towards the small village in question.

“I’m glad to see I’m not annoying you with all these quests. I’m still a bit worried about being too weak; in a regular game, that wouldn’t be much of a problem.” She said as she walked along a dirt trail keeping an eye out for any kind of random materials lying around. “As for the quest, a small village is in need of a medicine that can only be dropped by a boss-tier enemy. I guess that is a perfect job for Team Ghost Shield, right?” Yuurei flashed a genuine smile to both Shield and Norbert the Turtle.

“I’m still adjusting to my new armor, I hope it helps us in the coming fight.” She said adjusting the breastplate slightly, as if it was a little too tight.

Yuurei’s day was going by smoothly. Why she spent so much time in the Town of Beginnings she wasn’t really sure. Perhaps she still felt too weak for the floors above her. She looked up to the sky, being reminded that the roof of each level was just the floor of next floor - every area but the peak. She had never appreciated life until she was truly in danger of losing it.

She had heard about a quest to that village was in need of medicinal supplies, but in order to get the medicine you have to kill a boss-tier enemy for it. Yuurei was still a bit iffy on combat, so she would have to call up Shield again and ask if he wants to tag along. She pulled up her menu and opened her PM with him.

“Questing on Floor 1 again. Tag along? Doing some fighting again.” She sent to him and hoped he wasn’t getting annoyed with her constant need of help.

Wait, were familiars not just accessory? The two gathered what they might need and headed for the city’s edge where they would exit the safe zone. She hadn’t given any thought to what kind of companion she would want to take with her. What would really even suit her?

“I’m not even sure what kind of companion would suit me as a player. And what are you talking about ‘want it to do’? Is a familiar not just aesthetic?” She asks letting her noob colors fly. A lot of mechanics of the video game confused her immensely and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to adapt quickly enough. “I think I would prefer something not-so-standard. Something related to spirits or ethereal beings.”

Walking past a patch of grass, Yuurei happened to noticed a grouping mass of moss with a tag for a material. She took a moment to reach down and collect it before continuing on.

It took some time, but within the next ten minutes, Yuurei found herself at the teleportation pad on Floor 1. The familiar figure stood facing away from her and easily identifiable turtle strapped to his back. He seemed to have been waiting for some time, which made her feel a bit bad for making him wait. She jogged the short distance between them to speed herself up at least a little bit.

“Shield!” She said waving him down to get his attention. It was hard to miss her at least: White hair, short on height, emerald dress blazen with the white symbol across the skirt. “Hey, good to see you. I know it hasn’t been very long, but this will be fun. I haven’t really filled up my friends-list at all, so you’re the only person I have to call. We won’t be expecting much combat this time. We’re going to get me a familiar.”

Another long day in the Town of Beginnings. Although she had gained some decent levels, Yuurei had found a liking to the first town in the game. It was familiar and full of life every day no matter what was going on. She was enjoying her newly made armor too. It was enhanced to allow her to deal more damage as she hit her enemies. Beyond that, she was a bit bored. There wasn’t much for her to do at the moment.

Walking along the outskirts of the Town of Beginnings, Yuurei encounters a woman dressed in some odd clothing. It was a nice change of pace from the stagnant day-to-day. The woman explains to Yuurei what ‘familiars’ are and how she can obtain one for herself. This was a cool idea. It would be pretty fun to have a companion for lonely trips with other players can’t join her.

Yuurei opened her HUD and pulled up her friends-list. Only one name shown through the opaque menu ‘Shield’.

“Hey, I’m questing for a familiar, wanna tag a long?” She messaged him.

Name: Lautus

Item Type: Heavy Armor
Tier: 1

Quality: Uncommon

Enhancements: Heavy Momentum

Description: A set of heavy interlocking plates of steel of black colour with emerald enlays.

Post Link: 

Yuurei looked over this black stone tablet with names. She couldn’t believe how many names were left on it. So many people have died already? She cupped her hand over her mouth in surprise. It made her feel horrible that so many players had been killed by this trial.

“This is...Just...I can’t believe it.” She was speechless, unable to find the words necessary to describe how she felt. After a moment of reading the names, Shield dragged her to the fifth floor and told her to mark her map in an area. She pulled up her HUD and made a custom waypoint on that area for later.

“Yeah, we should get back to the old man with these materials by now. It’ll be nice to have some new equipment finally.” They went back to the city on floor five and stepped on the teleporter.

“Floor three!” She yelled out and they were instantly taken back to Delilah. With her materials, she entered the blacksmith’s shop and set them out for him. “Here are the materials for my heavy armor sir.”

Yuurei’s heart practically skipped four consecutive beats all at once. People killed each other? The thought of just being assaulted or assassinated by someone else terrified her to her core. Sure, she may have been debating suicide, but to be killed without a way to reasonably defend herself at this level? That was worse than her depression.

“I can't believe other players would resort to actually killing each other when, in this situation, we should be working together! That’s horrible!” Yuurei expressed her disgust loudly. “We can't expect to beat this trial divided. This game is my second chance...If it's meant to be I will live but I'll be damned if I lay down and die. No one has a reason to take others’ lives, it's not our right or choice. You can be sure my blade will never take someone for vengeance. We'll survive this game and go home.”

She listened again, still having trouble finding anything else than this mushroom. The thought that she could use a mushroom to make weapons seemed extremely odd. Why not just put specific tags for types of ingredients?

“That’s...really weird.” She says simply. He continues to explain the professions, fairly simple in their own rights. Everything made sense for a world like this. Alchemy seemed like a reasonable profession for herself, but Artisan seemed interesting as well. She would need more time to think about it before she made the choice.

“I’m debating on Alchemist or Artisan then.” She says looking down at the ground for more materials, still nothing. “They seem like some interesting jobs that I could enjoy doing, but I’ll still need some time to decide before I set it in stone.”

Being unable to find anything else, she stretches out her neck and back and speaks up again. “Should we start heading back now? I’m having no luck in finding anything.”

The emerald-clad girl searched for more near the area, but couldn’t seem to find anything around the area. She continued her search as she listened and spoke to Shield.

“Ah, yeah. It would help if I knew exactly what kinds of professions were available, though. For now, I’ll just collect whatever I can get my hands on, and if I don’t find a use for my items, I can always sell them or give them to others who may want or need them.” She explained. If they got her some money, Col is what they called their currency here in Aincrad, then she would get whatever she could out of it. It never hurts to be loaded with money and, not only that, Yuurei loved the thought of sitting on a large pile of money. She had so little of it in the real world, so seeing it so easy to get here made seem a bit greedy.

Yuurei stopped and look back as Shield began to explain more to her about the game. She walked over to him and watched him take the moss into his inventory. She didn’t know players could take up professions within the game. It made sense, but she hadn’t got that far in the trusty little manual she had.

“I see,” she says looking around them to see if she can spot any kind of materials around her that she could acquire herself. “It shouldn’t be that hard, and I guess it doesn’t hurt to look around for them. Let me give it a try.”

She walked around for a moment, looking close to trees for any other apothecary materials like her teammate had found. It didn’t take long before she stumbled upon an odd looking mushroom next to a shady tree. She bent down low and tapped it lightly with her finger and adding it to her inventory. “Here we go, I found some.”

The elf fell to the ground as its HP bar hit 0 and poofed in miscellaneous data. The prompt that showed their rewards popped open. This was more exciting that Yuurei had originally thought. Shield held up his fist to give her a fist bump, she graciously accepted his gesture in kind.

“I didn’t know video games could be so fun. Even if my first one is a life or death trial.” She says closing the window that showed her spoils. She sheathed her saber and took a deep breath. “I guess we should head back to the blacksmith to get my cuirass made with these materials. I’m not sure if you have to come with me for that, but you’re welcome to tag along otherwise.” She says happily. And starts heading back towards Delilah, where she could finally get rid of this ragged vanity armor. She looked back to see if Shield would accompany her.

My father-roleplay-site has a higher caliber word threshold. There, word count is king, not post count.

Hello! Guten Tag! Konnichiwa! Bonjour! Hola! Salve! Ciao!

Nice to meet everyone here. Although my screen name is usually akin to something phantasmic, such as 'Phantom', I am actually called Dawnika Shae Snow. Unique name right? I was born in Indiana, America and lived there for the first 18 years of my life in the same tiny little town that no one knows. Recently I have moved to Kentucky with my older sister, though. Besides all that jibber-jabber, I am a transgender female and have been for well over a year now, so I prefer female pronouns. I'm a big gamer and love art, but writing is probably my biggest passion. I've written about 150k words just in 2017! I'm pretty proud of all that prose writing and I have gotten so much better since I started. There's not much to say about me, so I'll end this introduction here.

Goodbye! Tschüs! Sayounara! Au revior! Adios! Vale! Ciao!

The saber-user watched her ally draw the enemies attention to great effect. It was amazing what a good insult could do to induct a person’s rage, though, this is just a game and everything is run by stats. The insult was simply an ability used draw the attention of the enemy, as Shield had just explained to her moments before. The system was well made and Yuurei respected the time put into making video games like this.

The silver-topped girl got so lost in her thoughts, thinking about the system, she almost forgot that she could get in on the fighting, and she was going to do just that. She drew her saber from it’s holster and took it in her dominant hand - which unlike most was her left hand. Her heart raced. This was her first combat and she had only drawn her sword to practice some form and discipline of the blade. The blade lit dark-emerald as she focused her energy. With the Dark Elf’s back to her, she easily sliced him through a divot in his armor with a well-aimed horizontal slash. She turned back to the elf and watched his health drop to half, her HUD showed the damage as she caused it, along with a ‘critical’ stamp. She grinned, pretty damn proud of herself.

“Yes! That was awesome!” She yelled out to herself in glee.

The silver-haired newbie paid close attention to everything Shield was saying as he explained it. Analyzing all the terms and ‘builds’ as he explained them. This made her think of exactly what she would want to do. Would she want to take damage for everyone, or deal the damage for them?

“That’s a lot of information to take in at once but I think I've got it. DPS, Tank, Support, Scout. I haven't given much thought about how I want to build myself, but I will perhaps focus on dealing damage and doubling as a decent tank.” She explained to her new ally. She looked down at her saber and frowned at how poorly she would serve that role.

“Well, I'm going to be uh…” She had to think of the word again. “Grinding? Grinding experience and pushing through levels from now on. Hopefully I'll see you on the higher floors soon."

She pulled up her own HUD feeling proud that she was able to do it in one try now, and looked for the function to invite players to her party. When she does find it, she sends him the request so that they monitor each other’s stats - She got all of that from that manual and felt really happy she could get it all done correctly.

Yuurei scratched her head confusedly. He was using a lot of ‘gamer terms’ she was unaware of. “This...is going to sound bad, but I don't know what a ‘DPS’ is. You see I've...never touched a single video game before Sword Art Online.” She explained as the walked out of Delilah. The rain finally quit which was a good sign. “I'm sort of what you guys call...what is it?” She knows the word but can't think of it at this point in time.

Yuurei’s silent pondering was interrupted by a male’s voice calling to her. She had been waiting for a reply for perhaps an hour now and was pleased to finally have a response. The mans name matched his username and he certainly looked like the description entailed. The turtle on his back gave it away rather quickly.

“Yuurei, yes. It's nice to meet you Shield. I'm a bit new and this will be my first combat experience so it's good to have someone who can help me out. I plan to join the frontlines once I become stronger.” She held her small hand out to shake his. Yuurei was a bit on the shorter side, so she had to actually angle her head up to get a good look at his face. “We'll be taking on a Dark Elf for the materials to get my requested armor. If I could collect them otherwise, I wouldn't have asked you to come for such a menial task.”

Yuurei found herself in Delilah after learning of a smith who does his work for free. Seeing this as a grand opportunity, she came as quickly as possibly to Floor 3, not expecting such a warm climate. Her clothes were ready for the heat but she wants prepared for the light drizzle that was falling on her, messing her hair up. The smith had promised her a nice piece of heavy armor if she collected the materials. Unfortunately she couldn't handle an enemy of that caliber with her current gear and experience. So she left a post on the message boards looking for a partner that can help her take it down.

She stood outside the blacksmith’s shop under the awning to stay dry from the sprinkling rain, exactly where she said for someone to meet her. A description of her appearance was left in that post so they would know what she looked like. It was hard to miss a girl with silver-coloured hair wearing a green dress.

I am undertaking this quest with the aid of @Shield. Looking for a heavy breastplate of black with red accents as the reward.