Zajcica

Yuki sighed as Mac mentioned her unskilled combat experience. While most of that was surely just bad luck almost completely, she knew that she was still one of the worst offensive fighters on the face of Aincrad. Probably best she stick with a defensive style.

"So I should just practice fighting mobs until I get stronger? Well, I guess there's no get strong quick schemes even in a video game. I'll have to take someone with me to farm mobs then, not sure I can deal enough damage to things to practice by myself." Her thoughts came out loud. She winced heavily as her health fell into the 20s the poison hadn't worn off yet, but she knew by the tick times that she wouldn't have to waste a potion. 

"The game really does a good job emulating this near death experience, jeez." The paladin groaned as she tried to stand back up.

@Macradon

The girl collected a batch of eggs off to the side before Shield introduced himself, then sat back on her knees next to him watching the lure bob in the water. He mentioned a teleportation crystal, and Yuki got a bit nervous. She hadn't gotten the chance to buy one yet, though it was a good point that now was probably a good time to get one.

"Eh-hem, well, I haven't quite taken the time to collect a teleportation crystal just yet. Though, being a tank, I understand how the aggro-mechanics of SAO work. As long as I keep my distance from mobs and don't accept any dangerous quests, I won't be attacked by anything. I actually live just up a floor and also run my shop up there. While I'm leveling to reach the front lines, I also want to supply them with food."

The little snake slithered out of Shield's sleeve, and it would have freaked her out if they were in the real world, but it thankfully it wasn't as scary as somethings were here in Aincrad. She smiled at Shield and watched lure bob around again.

"I need to invest in the fishing skill. My dad taught me a little about fishing, seems reasonable that I should use that knowledge to my advantage here."

@Shield

LD: 20+3=23
Materials Found: 2
Eggs Found: 6

Total Materials: 6
Total Eggs: 14

Yuki looked down at her dress then adjusted the cute little bunny ears atop her head before responding to Life, she thought he might actually like her outfit, too.. Her pushed past her to grab some of the eggs she had nearly crushed under shoes. Well, at least she hadn't in that case.

"You don't like my outfit? It's Easter so I was getting in the spirit of the holiday. I thought it was kinda cute..." She said with a slight pout in her cheeks. When Life moved out of the way, she noticed a few eggs behind where he was standing just like her. It wasn't as much as he saw but still some for her to take. She scooped them up and into her inventory they went.

"Do you wanna party up and look for some eggs then? I've never liked gathering on my own, but I do like hanging out with you." A smile finally crossed her lips with that sentence. It was big, bright and genuine to one of her best friends.

@Life

Materials: 1
Eggs: 3

Total Materials: 1
Total Eggs: 6

The pink haired girl took a seat in the coarse sand below her. The shock was still containing her of just how easily she could have died here. Why was she always finding herself in deathly situations like this and being saved by others? Was she not meant to be on the front lines after all? Her clumsiness would only get others killed.

Hidden approached her and started as if she was going to give her a good old Mari-talk, but it shifted to praise and she didn't know if she really deserved it. She had yet to effectively kill any field boss without nearly dying or needing help. Yuki's expression didn't really change when Hidden offered her some praise.

"I don't deserve anyone's praise until I accomplish something." The paladin said plainly. "I can't keep using the stupid excuse that I'm inexperienced. I fought dragons, giant snakes countless mobs and now whatever that thing was by leaning on the backs of other players, and I'm still nothing but a burden."

@Hidden

Yuki was easily embarrassed by most things, but it didn't really help that she could be an air-headed klutz as well. The girl picked herself up off the ground and dusted herself off. The man had a much deeper voice than she had expected. His reel countered the silence off the cavern, kind of the same way Hippogriff does with his annoying squawking.

"I-I'm fine," The girl started, "I was about to start looking for eggs and materials, yes. I thought it would be a good idea to do some material gathering on this high of a floor so I can be ready to craft tier three items." Shield's eyes seemed like they were sizing her up. It was easy to tell he was probably wondering what level she was. With a slight bow and a smile, Yuki spoke again.

"My name is Yuki, aspiring front line tank and nearly grandmaster cook. I am currently level 16, yoroshikune!" The griffin flying with her squawked in offense being forgot. "Oh, right! This is my new partner Hippogriff. He's happy to meet you too."

@Shield

LD: 16+3=19
Materials Found: 2
Eggs Found: 5

Total Materials: 4
Total Eggs: 8

Yuki walked though the dirty caverns of floor twenty-one inspecting her hud as she usually does, not paying attention to most of her surroundings. Hippogriff floated around her since it was finally getting used to it's wings after hatching just recently. It squawked as it flew around her, she had learned how to drown it out at this point. This was definitely the floor for Tier three materials where she could take on the Nature's Treasure quest. No reason to wait until she was tier three to collect the materials. She could use them in trades likely too.

Drowned out in doings, she didn't hear the incessant squawking of Hippogriff until she was on the ground. She had tripped on some fishing equipment laid out by another person who currently was fishing. She scrambled up to sit up and fix it the best she could.

"Ah! S-Sumimasen! G-Gomen, Gomen! I didn't mean to I wasn't looking where I was going! I didn't mean to ruin your fishing." Much to his surprise, Yuki seemed  to quickly replace the equipment for him without any help. She must be familiar with fishing. Hippogriff landed and relaxed on the girls head.

@Shield

Materials Found: 2
Eggs Found: 3

Total Materials: 2
Total Eggs: 3

As Macradon talked she realized that he sounded almost like Mari would say at this point if she jumped out of no where and saved her. That made sense, after all, they were good friends. She'd probably be more pissed than him though, so in a way she was glad that it was him and not her. She winced as she took the poison damage.

"Y-You saw my fight? I... think that was my worst fight on Aincrad yet..." The Paladin admitted. Tears still welled in her eyes, but she had stopped crying. She replied sheepishly. "The armor you made me kept me alive for that long. I guess that's two things to thank you for. I-I was trying to get stronger, so I wouldn't have to rely on someone stronger than me to baby sit my ass... I want to be someone strong... But I only keep ending up in situations like this. I'll only be a burden to the front lines like this..." Yuki's under-spirited at this point. It seemed like she was considering whether she should give up her want to join the front line.

@Macradon

Yuki found herself on floor eleven to take on the nature's treasure quest here. She needed to collect materials for for her next tier since she was starting to close in on it. Floor eleven had a similar quest to floor one, where you collect materials in greater heaps than regular gathering. She could do that and search for eggs at the same time. 

When she approached the outside of the safe zone, she noticed a familiar face. It was the woman who had been knocked out clean during the even to help the Aincrad Training Post. After all of that went down, Yuki ended up joining ATP. Now would probably be a good time to introduce herself to the guild leader.

"O-Oi. She said as she approached the girl, a little sheepishly. She had no idea how she was, since she didn't have time to speak to her. "You're the leader of Aincrad Trading Post right? My name is Yuki. After I helped in fending off the field bosses, I joined ATP. Yoroshikune!"

@Zandra

Yuki smiled to the new player. She didn't introduce herself to Yuki, but Cord did say her name was Arabelle. She bowed slightly to Cordelia's friend and spoke up herself.

"Konnichiwa, Arabelle-san. Ore wa Yuki, yoroshikune!" She spoke in her native tongue, even if it would just be translated into whatever language she preferred. "Would you like to join us for egg hunting since you're already out here? It would be more fun to collect them in a group."

A batch of bright eggs caught her eye, all different colors. she scooped them all up and put them in her inventory with the rest. She walked back over to the group and opened her menu, sending Arabelle a party invite, and a friend request, same with Cord, now that she realized she hadn't sent her one either.

"I know we have a lot of time to collect the eggs, but I don't want to waste any time. I'll collect as many as possible and get my rewards, then I can take it easy.

LD: 20+6=26 CD: 5
Materials Found: 2
Eggs Found: 5

Total Materials: 4
Total Eggs: 14

The girl fell to the ground, coughing heavily and still afflicted with the poison. As she fell into the sand/dirt, she made some pained sound like 'Kah-!" and laid there. Did Mari or Life actually come to save her? Or maybe it was Hidden, swooping to steal the kill credit again. She looked up to her savior and winced. Shock took over that expression pretty quickly though. 

"K-Kajiya-san? H-How did you know I was here? I mean... " She said sitting up, look completely beat up at this point. Yuki welled up with tears and threw herself on to Mac crying. "A-Arigatou! Arigatou Gozaimasu! If not for you would have died! Thank you!" She cried for a second before she realized what she was doing and let go of him. An awkward silence passed.

"Um... Thanks. I'm still afflicted with poison, but it will wear off before I reach zero." She wiped the tears off her face. "I don't really do your armor justice...do I?" She said sheepishly taking a seat back on the ground to rest and wait for the poison to wear off.

@Macradon

Help up against the wall, Yuki didn't really have anywhere to run at this point. She was stuck. When the beast came close to her, she waved her spear around effortlessly at it. Her only hope was that she could scare it off, but she knew that's not how it worked. The Amphis simply moved around her attacks and swung it's massive body into her chest, slamming her into the cliff side and pinning her against it. A groaned and pain 'Kyaa!" escaped her mouth when she was smashed.

"I-Itatata-..." The serpent seemed finished with the pinkette at this point. It was ready to finish her off for good. The words Mari told her were ringing true in her head now if she thought about thing before rushing into them like an idiot, she wouldn't be in this situation. Well, now she was probably going to die for her inability to listen to her. A tear dropped down her face and she could barely get out her last words.

"I'm sorry I didn't listen Mari..."

Yuki: HP 86/330 -46+20 EN 14/30 -4 Status: Poisoned: 4 turns left
Serpens: HP 103/175 -18 thorns

BD: 1-1 Miss; MD: 5+1

Yuki turned to meet Cordelia's eyes. She smiled as she saw the Familiar face and waved.

"Oi! Yeah, I'm out collecting eggs for the event. I'm shooting to get one of those bunny stamps and the dungeon map so I need as many as possible! Weird that just finished collecting materials with each other just a day or two ago, and already we're out her again looking for more." She laughed happily and invited her friend to her party. "I was just thinking that I could use someone to talk to while looking for some. Wanna join me? I've already found nine for myself."

The girl gave her another smile. She felt proud to already have acquired so many of the eggs. Then she started wondering if they respawned at all. Twenty-two days was a long time, it would make sense that they did respawn, or else they wouldn't have enough for the thousands of players.

LD: 2+6=8 CD: 10
Materials Found: 0
Eggs Found: 6

Total Materials: 2
Total Eggs: 9

Familiar Eval

Name: Aki
Type: Hippogriff
Link: [Here]
Description: Aki is about the size of a Labrador puppy. He has every aspect of a Hippogriff(Basically a Griffin with horse hindlegs.)

The pinkette tried her best to calm down. She would get her next attack in and kill the stupid thing already. It hissed in her face angrily lunging it's slithering body at the paladin, biting straight past her defenses. It's teeth jabbed into numerous parts of her body, injecting the venom into her once again. At this rate, Yuki would really die! When it was done with it venom attack, it launched Yuki into the nearby cliff face, below where Macradon secretly observed. The dampened pain still shocked through her back momentarily.

It was time to run.

The only problem was, if she attempted to run, she could leave herself open to an easy attack. It approached her as she sat on the ground, only her weapon in hand.

"S-Stay away! I-I'll kill you!" She nervously tried to threaten the field boss. Her lies were more bark than bite, however. She swung the weapon in front of her as the snake approached, it was easy for it to dodge since Yuki didn't really take time to aim it. "M-Mari! L-Life! D-Dasukette!!" She was starting to break down now, scared to know that her life was approaching its end if she wasn't gifted a miracle.

@Macradon

Yuki: HP 152/330 -46+20+2 EN 18/30 -4 Status: Poisoned: 5 turns left
Serpens: HP 121/175 -18 thorns

BD: 4-1 Miss; MD: 10+1

Yuki rolled out of the way of the serpents next attack, thankfully. She was already taking too much damage as it was, however, it was sort of a blighted blessing. If it didn't hit her, thorns would not proc and she wouldn't deal her most reliable damage to it. She had to land an attack on it and make bleed happen or else start running from the battle. She could always come back and kill it later. There was also the option of calling up Life or Mari, but she needed to do these things for herself at some point and she could easily beat this thing if she could only hit it.

The golden lance Lux glowed with it's beautiful pink shimmer once again. With another rush she attempted to pierce the ugly snake's scales. Unfortunately, a rock catches her foot just as she makes the attack. Sending her to the ground and wasting her energy. She quickly rolled out of the way of another bit attack and readied herself for the next round.

Yuki: HP 216/330 -20 EN 22/30 -4 Status: Poisoned: 2 turns left
Serpens: HP 139/175 -18 thorns

BD: 1-1 Miss; MD: 4+1

Finally at the bottom of the hill, Yuki rested for a moment. That was a pretty short quest all together, but the climb took up most of the time, going up and down. The reward was absolutely worth the time though. She had spent a lot of time away from boss related quests, however. She needed to get back into those quests and continue to level up as much as possible. She was slowly getting closer to Tier 2 level, then she wouldn't be entirely useless to Life. Then after that she would have to work her way up to Tier 3 level, then she could take quests with Mari, instead of letting Mari walk her through every quest she came across.

Speaking of the orange haired player, was that her standing around with a guy just ahead? She started walking over to the duo.

"Yo!~ Mari-chan." The tiny Japanese girl flashed her a smile. "I haven't seen you in awhile, glad to see you're alright!"

Halfway down the mountain now, Yuki continued to think about what she could do to bring in customers. Maybe she could charge less for front line players or something. It was like Macradon with his smithy, but his was for new players, not experienced players. Though thinking about it, those players already had access to most of the col in the game, so maybe it wouldn't be the best idea. She could also offer discounts to players of a low level, but the reason Macradon's worked was because it was on floor one in the town of beginnings, where every low level player was. Her shop sat high on the 22nd floor. Nobody of a low level would have the balls to come that high up for a bit of food, well, maybe she would have if it was her to be fair. No, she'd need to work on better selling points that just discounts.

Yuki walked down the mountain path glowing with pride. She had bested the best known cook on Aincrad and got her boon for it. Her own crafts would be better from now on. Hopefully soon she could max out her cooking stats and make perfect food for everyone in Aincrad. That was her goal after all. 

That made her wonder if there were any more craft boosting quests that she could take to improve her ability to cook even further. The better the cook she was, the more likely people would get food from her, after all. She knew there was a rapid insurge of cooks in Aincrad lately, and hoped that wouldn't stop people from visiting her shop simply for the Japanese style gimmick that she had going on. Even if it did, she could always make food for both Mari and Life. that would satisfy her at least.

Yuki took the ember and placed it into her inventory for safe keeping. It was warm and pretty to look at to the say the least. The paladin bowed to the goddess and began to thank her.

"Thank you for the blessing Miss. I will make use of it every time I cook from now on. That I can promise you. Hopefully one day I can match your expertise of cooking and food, but I doubt that will be possible. Hestia led the girl out of her kitchen and back to the summit of Olympus. They were heading towards the gates.

"Continue your cooking journey as long as you reside on Aincrad, young one. You'll only continue to get better the more you fail, remember that." Yuki nodded with a smile and walked out the gates to Mt. Olympus. And, now it was time for the climb down the mountain. Going down should be faster than going up, thankfully.

Hestia seemed pretty impressed and returned the smile that Yuki gave her. The goddess pulled an item out of nowhere, it looked like a rock or coal or something similar.

"It seems that another has bested me in my own craft. And they call me the Goddess of the Hearth." A slight laugh escaped her breath as she spoke. "That being said, I deal is a deal. You bested me in my challenge and I promised you something for your trouble. Take this ember. If you place in your crafting area, I assure you that you find better crafts from that point on. It wont be consumed if you use it, so don't worry about that." Hestia explained as she reached out to pass on the ember. Yuki was sure that she had given out tons of these by now. She probably had an infinite amount of them, so she could just hand them out as she pleased.

The judge's confused face examined the ball of deep-fried pancake batter. It seemed like she had no idea what it could be and if she really even wanted to eat it.

"What exactly is this?" She asked Yuki pointing to the ball of batter. Yuki's nervously smiled.

"I-It's a favorite dessert of mine that doesn't really have a special name. It's deep-fried ice cream." She admitted, both Hestia and the judge lady looked confused, then somewhat impressed. The judge broke open the batter and took a nice bite of the ice cream underneath. Even though she seemed skeptical at first, her expression seemed to change rather quickly.

"That's actually pretty good! I wasn't expecting it to taste this good. I have to give the challenger this round. While Hestia's meals were better in their own ways, I think your creativity really beat her out." Yuki smiled when she heard that and looked over to Hestia with her big grin.

She had already made the dessert before. It was one of her and her sister's personal favorites and her family would get it often. Nothing too special to be honest, but who really cared about that? Deep-fried Ice Cream. The concept was so backwards but simple at the same time. You took deep-fried pancake batter and molded it around a scoop of ice cream of your choosing of flavor. She was sure that would impress the judge.

She collected the necessary ingredients and started mixing them together, deep-frying the pancake batter to make a shell around the ice cream. She peaked up to see what Hestia was making herself, but she had no idea what it was. Of course, her knowledge of Greek foods was pretty minimal. Once they were both finished, they slid their desserts over to the judge one last time. She seemed impressed with Hestia's, but then looked at Yuki's with confusion. It was then she realized that she may have just lost this duel.

A moment of silence fell over the room again as the judge tried the candies from both the contestants. Yuki was still feeling nervous, even after winning the first round over Hestia's amazing smelling meal. If she won this candy round, she would take Hestia's flame for her own crafts. That's what she needed right now. Making her meals was great, but she never seemed to get perfect type meals, just rares. Maybe Hestia's flame would help her see more great crafts.

The judge finally spoke up after awhile of back and forth tasting, "I enjoyed both of the candies for sure, but this round will go to lady Hestia. The challenger's candies were a bit too strong in taste which diluted the flavor a bit. That's means we'll have to move on to round 3, desserts."

Yuki was getting more nervous. This was the tiebreaker round. Did she dare to go with a simple Japanese dessert? That would probably be her best bet.

Round two of their bout of food would be Candy. That was kind of weird to think that she had to just make candies, but nevertheless she would give it her all. She already knew the best thing to make. Her favorite candy was Konpeito, small sugar clumps hardened and packaged. Most of her friends didn't really enjoy konpeito because was just way too sweet, but that's one of the reasons Yuki loved it.

The paladin grabbed lumps of sugar and started to press them together into small clumps. It didn't take long to do this round, since there wasn't any stove or oven required to make candies, or at least the ones they were making. When she was done, she slid the bowl of sugar clumps over to the taste tester and smiled, "This one is called Konpeito. Again, please enjoy."

Yuki watched the judge taste both of their foods followed by another short silence. The anticipation was killing her.

When she presented her Gyudon meal, Hestia too presented her meal. She called it 'saganaki'. It was some kind of cheesy pasta noodle mix and cooked together. The dish seemed so simple, but it smelled absolutely amazing. The unnerving feeling started to settle in Yuki's stomach. No matter what she thought of, Hestia could easily make something five times as better as her.

The judge who participated in this event to rate both their meals sat quietly as she ate. First Yuki's Gyudon, then Hestia's Saganaki. A moment of pause filled the air before she finally spoke up again. 

"Although lady Hestia's food was well made, I will have to give this round the challenger miss Yuki. I've never tasted anything quite like this 'Gyudon' before and it certainly left me wanting more." Hestia seemed surprised as much as Yuki was.

"Looks like I'm the one who will have to step it up then." The Goddess offered Yuki a smile which the paladin returned.