Shay

Shay sent her message to the tank that had given her a good deal on the food she needed for her familiar. She didn't have a ton of col to offer her, so this was a nice compromise. "A front liner tank is joining us for this quest. Apparently they had never done it before because they have no one to do it with. I hope you're okay with that." Shay mentions to @ChaseR while they accept the quest and she sends the cook a friend request. She was quick to get here too.

"Oi." Yuki called to the duo. Her armor gleamed like a holy light light as she walked towards them. The sunlight was strong. "Nice to see ya both again. I hope my food was good. Seems like not enough people can get a enough of my signature ice cream mochi." She said, as she met up with the two.

"It is rather good." Shay said idly as she checked on her equipment and consumables.

Only one more item for her to get ahold of and she would be ready to get a familiar. If only these stupid things were easier to get a hold of, she would just walk out into the field and grab one. It would be easy, but this quest she had heard could be rather annoying to do. She wasn't willing to waste time on annoyances.

"I just need a spyglass." She said to the masked woman behind the counter, who complied quickly at her request. Within a moment, she had a spyglass ready for Shay and made a trade offer for the col that she had spent to get the item. Shay promptly transferred it and made on her way.

Yet another shop that she needed to visit, an Alchemist. She had never been to this shop either, but at least it was open during normal hours unlike that performers shop. Too bad she could never hit perfect crafts or she would have just made her own Familiar Song item. Maybe if she got out and looked for materials more, that would help.

Observing Cintimani's shelves, she found the item in question and made her way to the counter to pay for it. She didn't really say anything to the owner, but passed her the col for the purchase and moved on.

She had to go everywhere to find another freaking performer other than herself. Sure she could have just made her own, but that would require her actually landing a perfect craft in order to get one, which she was really bad at. She walked into Magnolia, finding the item that she needed with relative ease and taking it over to the performer's place of purchase. The hours of this place were rather weird, but she couldn't really say anything considering how far she lived out of town.

"Evening. This will be all. It was really hard to find another performer in Aincrad. Just so you know. Glad your prices aren't too bad." She mentions putting the col on the counter and heading out.

There was only so much need for these annoying foods. Shay couldn't make these types of consumables so she had to rely on others to provide her with the necessary buffs to help her find her familiar. Well, it was too important to ignore, so she wouldn't.

"I need another of your luck boosting foods, the mochi." She said simply to the paladin. 

"Coming right up!" The tank said reaching into her fridge and pulling out a serving of the foods that she had already prepared to pass to her customer.

"If you'd like, I can take you on a quest as payment." Shay mentioned, and the paladin seemed interested.
 

The extra skill quest? She didn't really have the skill points to allot to that skill just yet, but she could go ahead and get it over with. It was supposed to be a non-combat one anyways, and was basically free experience.

"Sure, let's get it done so I don't have to deal with this hot floor for awhile." She said, looking around for the quest's giver.

It was nice to see that he was willing to take up her offer. Perhaps having another person that she can actually somewhat tolerate being around close to her would help improve her mood and her social skills. "I'll get you a mattress then and we can set it up in the storage closet. It's bigger than it sounds. Might have to move somethings around though to make it fit. Hopefully I'll get enough money soon to purchase a legitimate plot and build a house on. Then I could actually have a bedroom."

"Stop apologizing." Shay says, twirling on her heel back in the direction of Fortazela. They both had a lot to work on, probably Shay more than Chase, but they wouldn't be stopped easily with this duo that they started.

Another awkward silence went by as Shay thought about it. "Hey, it wouldn't cost too much to get you a mattress at my shop. I don't know how comfortable it would be to stay in an inn's bed cause I haven't slept on one in quite some time, but the offer is on the table." She says making her way through town. Unless there was any other quests in this town that they needed to do, she wanted to get out of it. This floor sucked because of the sand. She would rather be laying naked face first in the cold snow of the fourth floor than be on this floor.

In silence, Shay was at her best. Speaking to others was more difficult than she could stand, even if it hurt their feelings when she did talk to them. If her words only cut deep, than it was best not to use them more than often.

Though, perhaps she may have overreacted with the punch. He had only been trying to say that he had a long way to go to reach her expertise with these types of games. Abruptly, she stops, letting Chase bump into her as he moped behind her. Another moment of silence went by before she turned back to him, looking him in the eyes. "I'm sorry for hitting you. It was out of line." She said, thinking more about the things that he had said when they were walking out here.

"If you must know why I really haven't been trying harder to level up, it's because of an old player I used to run with. He left after I had gotten this far with him. I didn't know what to think so I wasted time in my house. Can we just drop the whole thing now, please? We're this far and we're working together. I am...having fun."

"It's mine." The rogue says as she shifts through battlefield with grace and speed. A flash of light in the shape of slashed cover her target in every direction. Red marks soon turn into cuts, and the beast peels apart into about 20 different pieces of shark. Shay's blade grinds back into it's saya and with a click of it being returned to its home, the beast fades away into the Cardinal. Shay stands there with her back turned from her partner momentarily, soaking in the victory, wondering if she should say anything about the conversation they had before the battle began.

After a few seconds, she decided not to make a comment and just started to make her way out of the bowl of sand. She climbs up out of it, assuming that her partner was following her out of the battlefield as well. No words said, she begins to trek back to Fortazela.

Shay | HP: 380/380 | EN: 30/38 | DMG: 8 | EVA: 3 | ACC: 1 | BLD: 12 | REC: 2
ChaseR | HP: 380/380 | EN: 32/38 | DMG: 10 | EVA: 1 | ACC: 3 | REC: 2

Sand Shark | 65/125 -(72) | 50 DMG | [Stun CD: 2/3]

She watched the beast get served up on a silver platter all she had to do was slash it in half. Her blade glowed a vibrant crimson as she readied her sword art. Leaping off the sand, bringing up a wave of a force behind her, she barely misjudges her attack, slashing through the air just below her target. Soon she lands in the sand and the stun on her target wears off.

A light curse escapes her lips in a mumble as she tried to recover from her fall. The shark was focused on Chase now that it was free of his stunned grace. That was fine, he was the tank of the two of them at least. Though somehow she believed that he would hardly have as much ease as she did dodging the attacks. Still, the damage that this boss did to them was insignificant compared to what they could do to it.

Shay | HP: 380/380 | EN: 38/38 -(2)+3 | DMG: 8 | EVA: 3 | ACC: 1 | BLD: 12 | REC: 2
ChaseR | HP: 380/380 | EN: 31/38 | DMG: 10 | EVA: 1 | ACC: 3 | REC: 2

Sand Shark | 65/125 | 50 DMG | (STUN)[CD: 3/3]

"So then stop acting like we aren't equals. I might have the knowledge, but any thing I know I relay to you and it becomes permanent. No matter what you think, as long as we're in the same level range, than we're both just as strong as one another." Shay approached the area where the boss monster was known to encamp itself. A crater of sand cragged with rocks scattered around the arena. The boss wasn't hard, and she was about to slice the fucker in half to vent her disgruntled mood.

"Come on." She says as she hops down into the large bowl of sand and rushed directly towards the shark. It notices her instantly, swimming through the sands quickly and directly towards her. It jumped out at her, much more quickly than she expected. With a side step, she easily dodges it. Quickly, she follows up by slashing at it's side. By then, it had already dug back into the sand. 

Shay | HP: 380/380 | EN: 38/38 | DMG: 8 | EVA: 3 | ACC: 1 | BLD: 12 | REC: 2
ChaseR | 

Sand Shark | 125/125 | 50 DMG

Shay whipped around and decked him in the face. A force field protected his body from damage, but he still felt the concussive impact of her fist. Her breathing got heavy as her nostrils flared. At first, it my have looked like she was pissed about him arguing with her, yet again, but that wasn't the reason she couldn't control herself from doing something as stupid a punching at him.

"Stop degrading yourself." She huffed as she calmed down. "You and are no different to the system. No one is special; no one is gifted.I don't care if my leveling was slowed down because I chose to help someone not fucking die while they learned the game. You're making it really hard not to wail on you. Believe in yourself, the way that I believe in you, you idiot!" Shay whipped back around and continued on her way. At least they were still on the edge of the safe zone when she hit him.

"I was? What of it?" She asked folding her arms over her chest and looking at him with her piercing crimson gaze. "Every quest we have done up to this point has been a quest that either I've already done, or couldn't get the rewards from. I told you from the beginning that doing these quests were to get you closer to my level with out getting me too high so that we could be around the same level."

She sighed thinking about what she had been doing for weeks. After Titan had left her, she was feeling awful. She didn't have feelings for him or anything but he was a really nice guy who was pushing her out of her shell. When he vanished, that shell came back and was denser than ever. She didn't want to see anyone's stupid face at that point. "Look. We are the same level now. That was the intent of doing all those quests. What I was doing for the last years and weeks since I started leveling isn't fucking important anymore. I'm trying my best and my best is barely fucking good enough." The girl turned and started to make her way out of Fortaleza.

Shay cleared her throat. She had no idea that Chase was the same level as her now. How depressing that she couldn't even stay ahead of him. Well, to be fair, he had more skill potential than she did thanks to getting extra experience from the starter lessons, like she told him he would.

"I'm, uh. Level nineteen as well. You are now as experienced as me." She said half jokingly. Even if they were on the same level, their knowledge of the game was still centered around the girl. "It's not that important, I just wanted to be sure that you would be fine to fight this boss. Since there's only one of him and not four like the last one, it should be even easier. I'm much better when it comes to dealing direct damage than I am at dealing area of effect. Don't sweat yourself if you miss an attack or two. I'm fast and that boss will have to do good if he want's to catch me out of position."

"We're going to floor 5. It's a desert so get ready to sweat." Shay said, summoning a long black cloak to her hand and wrapping the cloth around her. There was  no risk of being sun burnt, obviously, but it still didn't feel nice to be pelted by sand. The cloak would provide minimal protect against the harsh floor, so as long as there was no heavy sand storms right now, they would be fine.

"I hate the heat." She mentioned as she began walking towards the floor's teleporter, bringing the hood back to her shoulders and looking over at her duo partner. He seemed to be doing alright for the most part. He was leveling up fast. She was actually starting to get a little bit envious. "What level are you now?" She asked, genuinely curious. She could guess that he was just a level or two shorter of her for now.

"The best that we can do is try not to take too much damage. I think there are a few ways to increase how much health points you regenerate over time, but you have to either buy a skill, get a piece of equipment with a specific buff, or to buy something else that is pretty expensive in order to get that kind of benefit. As of right now, combat ends pretty quickly for the two of us. It makes it really easy. As long as we keep mowing down enemies when they come at us, we'll be completely alright. We both have a pretty high HP pool for now."

Looking at her menu, she had written down quite a few easy quests for the two to do now that they had finally finished off these quests before level 15. In fact, it was all done pretty fast. Like, in a matter of 24 hours fast.  "We can go to either the fifth floor and fight a shark that swims in the sand, or we can go up a few floors and fight a dark elf that either of us could kill without even using a sword art. You pick."

Day 15

EXP Total: 263+31=294
Result: +31XP (13, +6+12), -3 Tier 1 Materials, Uncommon Salve (2)

"Do what you need to do Chase. If I cared so much about this world that I wanted to live here for the rest of my life, I would be cutting down just about any player that wanted to clear the game. We will get out of this game and I will find the new thing to move on to in life. That's just how it works." She explained as they passed through the barrier into town. A short talk with the merchant and the two of them were rewarded with their experience and skill points.

"Well, that was all the quests we needed to do before you hit level 16, and you should have just obtained that level from it. Glad that I got to help someone do them all since I didn't get the experience for them." Shay took a moment to think. She hadn't much planned to do now that they had finished these up. The best they could do now was to wreck havoc on smaller bosses until they hit the second tier, and then do harder stuff. "Well, we only just started for today, but now that those quests are done, I don't mind taking it slower. Anything you had in mind that you wanted to do?"

Shay was rather quiet on her way back to the town, which was just in view, but Chase's question obviously got her thinking. The idea of the world was a really nice one, and she was sure that if it wasn't a death game, she might actually have answered that question without hesitation. The world was beautifully made and had it's own deceptive captivation. Comparing it to the real world didn't seem like a fair comparison though. They weren't really the same kinds of places, even if they seem so.

"I guess. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, but compared to what I have waiting on the other side, I'd say I prefer it here. Is that a bad thing? I don't think that I want to die here, of course, but I still am having more fun living here than I ever was living in the real world. What about you?"

"Don't say dumb stuff like that." Shay said crossing her arms after returning her weapon to her hammer space. She started to lead the way back to their objective. They would need to speak to the old man again to tell him that the problem has been dealt with completely. "You just saw me miss tons of attacks. Your enemies aren't going to stand there and let you murder them. Be ready for what you can, but don't always expect perfection. It may have been easy now, and it may only get harder from here on out, but that's why we have each other. Also, it isn't as if we're going to stay this weak forever. Maybe one day you never will miss."

Shay was still bad as ever with her words, but she knew that he would understand what she was trying to say. He was pushing himself a little too hard again.

Day 14

EXP Total: 230+33=263
Result: +33XP (15, +6+12), -3 Tier 1 Materials, Uncommon Salve (1), Rare Salve (1)

Shay took a deep breath, looking nearly unphased by how fast paced the battle was for her dodging and striking at the wolf that had remained. She had a little more time to develop her combat skills than Chase did, so this was practically nothing for her. She met his sharp gaze with crimson irises. 

"This was nothing so far." She said, not so much in a cocky way, but more as a way of saying that she was just fine. Still, her communication skills lacked to the point where what she was saying came off much differently than what she meant. "That went much more smoothly than I assumed it would, in all honesty. Critical attacks can really change the pace of a fight for the better. Or even for the worse if you're on the receiving end. Glad fortune favored our side rather than their's." Shay grabbed her sheath from the ground and returned her blade to its rightful place.

The wolf snarled over the boy, ready to bite down on his head while he was vulnerable, but was forced to move as a red slash of sharp blade landed where it once was. Shay looked down at him, making sure he was alright. Once that was confirmed she got back into battle to give him enough time to get to his feet. Her blade came up short almost every single time she slashed at the beast. You would think that it was the actually boss, but she nearly split that one into two pieces the moment she saw it.

Chase was still getting used to the game, so letting him take an attack wouldn't be a bad thing. However, she wasn't going to sit there and let maul on him either. The damage was hardly anything to him compared to what he could do to it. She continued to to give the thing a run for its money while dodging every single attack that it made at her with grace and ease.

Shay | HP: 360/360 | EN: 26/36 -(2) | DMG: 9 | EVA: 3 | ACC: 1 | BLD: 12 | REC: 2 | Antidote: 1
ChaseR | HP: 273/300 | EN: 14/30 | DMG: 10 | EVA: 1 | ACC: 3 | REC: 2 | Antidote: 1

Wolf 1: 0/40 (-40) | 25 DMG
Wolf 2: 40/40 | 25 DMG
Wolf 3: 0/40 (-40) | 25 DMG
Venom Snapper: 0/150 (-50) | DMG: 35 (9-10: 50) | EVA: 1

"Just a group of mobs. When we begin, we're going to focus damage on to the one that looks different from the others. It has a special tactic if the other wolves die before it, so we should bypass that by just murdering that one out right." It wasn't that far of a walk from town, considering it was a quest made for lower level players. The group found the wolves and Shay removed her blade from the sheath it sat snug inside.

Shay was fast. Her sheath fell to the ground, Chase probably saw it, but when he looked back up to her position, she was gone. The black blur of hair and crimson eyes met face to face with the helpless being that was about to get cut completely in half. "Shi-ne." She said as she slashed forward. Her blade barely missed as it hopped back, but the moment its paws left the ground, she was on top of it. Her blade slashed through it's stomach, nearly leaving it in two pieces. She moved back and looked to Chase. "Now! Hit them all!"

Shay | HP: 360/360 | EN: 28/36 -(8) | DMG: 9 | EVA: 3 | ACC: 1 | BLD: 12 | REC: 2 | Antidote: 1
ChaseR | 

Wolf 1: 40/40 | 25 DMG
Wolf 2: 40/40 | 25 DMG
Wolf 3: 40/40 | 25 DMG
Venom Snapper: 50/150 -((11*8)+12) | DMG: 35(9-10: 50) | EVA: 1

Shay walked into the inn of the floor, taking note of what Chase had to say, but she didn't seem to comment on it. They could easily kill this boss with a single strike - if everything went as planned. If not, they might be in a little bit of danger, just nothing mortal. This was the whole reason that she brought the crystals with her. And the whole reason they were stopping to see this NPC merchant.

After a short conversation with him, he passes Shay and ChaseR a free vial of antidote. Shay herself opens the glass containing the green liquid and downs it right then and there. Once she is finished, Chase can see by her health bar that a status buff had been put next to her name. "Drinking some potions will apply and effect on you. The one that this one gives will negate a status effect coming at you. This group of enemies has an attack that might inflict poison, so I suggest you drink it just in case."