Rosary

Val set back to work collecting more eggs and flora.She found a pink pansy and golden thyme. She eyed the little pink flower twirling it between her fingers thinking something about the plant but she lost the thought. Even before coming to fruition her thought took a detour right out of her head, “Oh well,” she said with a shrug and shoved the flower into her inventory. She couldn’t place this ominous feeling but she shuddered and then turned her focus elsewhere. It was entirely too suspicious indeed!

The feeling of dread went completely from the woman as she located an entire clutch of eggs!  They were carefully arranged in a little nest shaped dirt mound. “Oh YES!” Val threw her arms up in the air signalling her victory and then quickly gathered up the little chocolates. As she gathered up the nestful, she happened to overturn a couple more eggs from the soil beneath the egg ple. Were more hidden underground? This might require further investigation.

139100

LD: 7 (4+3LD)     CD:2 (Searching at full energy)

Rosary collects 2 more Easter Eggs

Material: 4

Chocolate Eggs: 11

Rosary gently tucked the little eggs in her inventory and continued with her little celebratory wiggle dance. This was awesome! Not only was she going to collect a ton of material, but she was also going to collect all the damned eggs she could. Supposedly there were rewards that came with finding a particular number of eggs. She didn’t have the deets, but she was sure that she could very easily find the event NPC’s who would gladly give her the skinny on things. 

As it turned out, Valerie’s little wiggle dance had led her to find several more eggs. All her little hoppity-bops jostled her enough for her eyes to catch the light of the brightly colored foiled eggs that lay in wait in the lovely courtyard garden. She found another set of eggs hidden beneath the standing base of a bird bath. It was a good thing that this was a game and not real life. Had it been real life, these treats would definitely have been carried off by birds and the like.

139099

LD: 18 (15+3LD)      CD: 7(searching with full energy)

Rosary finds 2 Material and 5 Easter Eggs
 

Material: 4

Chocolate Eggs: 9

In an adjacent flower bed, something glinted in the sunlight. It only happened for a moment while she was bouncing about, so Val tried hopping around again hoping her vision would catch the light as before. Indeed! There was something shiny! “Treasure!” she shouted gleefully and rushed toward where the shimmer of light had come from. She plopped down in front of the flowerbed she’d run toward and dropped to her knees gingerly rooting about under the foliage. 

And there she found them, not one, but two little eggs. A little purple foil wrapped egg and turquoise foiled egg.

“Well I’ll be damned!” Val picked up the little eggs carefully and rolled them about in her hand. Sure enough, it was a gosh darn Easter Egg! Carefully pulling back a tiny corner of the purple foil, she lifted it to reveal a dark brown interior. 

“Chocolate! You’re a chocolate egg!” Valerie held the little eggs up to the sunlight as she spoke to them as if they could understand what she was explaining.

139098

LD: 9 (6+3 LD)     CD: 3 (Searching with full energy)

Rosary locates 2 Easter Eggs

Material: 2

Chocolate Eggs: 4

Rose wandered about the garden searching through the beds for anything she could scavenge. What were the things she needed to find for him again? “Oh!” she squeaked and opened up her inventory. One of the man’s helpful little elves had given her a list of things to look for and their descriptions. Bed by bed she scanned the flowers and herbs growing in the fertile soil comparing the names of the plants to the ones on her list.

“OH! Found you!” she sand gently plucking up some purple sage. Not too far from the sage grew some arctic mint. She grabbed that up too and shoved it into her inventory.  Val did a little happy dance over having found two material in less than a few minutes. The last time she went searching for materials it took much longer than this. 

As she was unjustifiably celebrating, something caught her attention from the corner of her eye...

139097

LD: 23 (20 +3LD)     CD: 3 (searching with full energy)

Rosary locates 2 material and  2 Easter Eggs

Material: 2

Chocolate Eggs: 2

Was it April already?

Where was the time going? For Rosary time had become a blur, except when Aincrad would have random events signaling certain holiday seasons. Apparently, it was time for Easter. The event they were holding this year promised to be one of great reward, and Rose could not pass up a golden opportunity to continue to make money. 

Rai had told Val about a particular quest that could help her earn a bit of a fortune if she played her cards right. She knew she didn’t have the right tools for the job, but maybe it would prove fruitful enough for her to go find some stupid Easter eggs. She’d found herself in a courtyard where she had been told collecting materials was a rather easy task. There were so many flowers and herbs growing in the area that Rose was surprised more players weren’t aware of the hidden oasis. Granted, it seemed like it was a thing that could only be stumbled upon by chance given that instructions she was given were damn near difficult to follow. Had she made one wrong turn, she’d not have found this place. 

Rubbing her hands together, the woman set out on her task of locating materials as well as Easter Eggs.

Rosary uses 1 Yui's Grace which will give her +1 additional SP to the end of her thread

Rosary Stats

Quest

Easter Event

As Valerie stood there muttering to herself like a downright crazy person, someone approached and asked if she was alright. Rosary startled and spun about to face the speaker coming face to face with someone that had she otherwise given a moment’s thought about, would have run the other way. But she was perplexed enough as it were that she did not take notice of the approaching player’s status. This might prove an unforeseen problem for Valerie. 

Hopefully not. 

“Oh... hello..” she spoke nervously. “Troubled?A bit I suppose. Umm... have you seen those Audrey II plant monsters in that glen over there?” Val pointed off in the direction where the Nepent spawn. “I’ve got to kill them you see, and well... they freak me out! Like a lot, but I need the skill points and I need the practice so I was trying to talk myself into going, but that obviously wasn’t going very well...” While she spouted her little tirade she gestured and sighed several times as she was rather put on by the whole thing.

“Sorry... I’m babbling .... and I’m blocking the road,” she shook her head and took a step out of the way.  

@Seul

It was nothing the girl said.

“It was nothing short of amazing...” Val insisted. Even the other female thought as much. She said something and apologized but the elf would hear none of it. She graciously stated that it was natural to be curious. Galadriel was lovely indeed. The pink haired girl asked to be pointed to the exit, to which Gadriel asked if Val would like to be shown the way out as well. “If you don’t mind, I should be getting back to the others.” Rose wasn’t sure what time of day it was, but it was likely that the children would be clamoring for food and poor Martha would not be able to handle the riot on her own. 

Val waited for the fair one to show the way out to the pair of obviously lower level players. As they left Val took measure of her surroundings. It’d be a while yet before she could make it back here, but next time she did, she was going to take down that damn troll her damn self.

And just like that it was over.

Right before dealing the killing blow the fair princess gave Rose a smile and turned her focus back on the troll. For a moment everything stood still and the silver haired maid faced off with the ugly beast. Rose’s eyes narrowed as she tried to wrap her mind around what was about to happen. There was nothing, just the soft sound of air gently being moved through the cavern.  In but an instant, the girl burst at the damned thing prompting the beast to rush the girl as well. He swung his club down over the silver haired beauty, but she was far too agile for the thing. As his club came crashing down upon the ground with an Earth shattering thud, Galadriel had leapt into the air, barely missing being struck down. Terra split and splattered into the air and the ground shook causing Rose to recoil from the blow.

Overhead the girl readied her Katana and something that Rose didn’t quite understand happened. There were black feathers that seemed to grow out of the girls weapon as it sunk into the monstrous beast’s skull. The further her blade wedged into the troll the quicker the creature crumbled. There was nothing to it after that. 

The girl complained at her weapon causing Valerie to shake her head as she stepped out from behind her place of safety. “That was....” there were no words for how [censored] amazing that was. “You are... amazing!” The woman said as she approached Galadriel. “Really amazing... Thank you.” The beautiful girl had put her life on the line to save her and far that Val was so very grateful.

@Zajcica

OH, to be a fly on the wall...or at least drunk in a bar.

At this very moment, it was exactly how Rosary felt. She sat at the bar in some random pub on a rather ordinary night, longing for entertainment. Sure, there were singers and performers here and there, but tonight she craved something seedier. 

She craved drama. 

Unadulterated drama.

And this place was severely lacking. 

That was until something had caught her attention. Catty-corner was an ever amusing trope, big guy, tiny girl. A gorgeous beefcake was approached by your average loli. She was pink, a whole lot of pink. “Geesh...” Rosary muttered into her drink as she took a swig of the pale ale and continued to watch out of the corner of her eye. The view wasn’t great; it was extremely unlikely she would be caught watching as the pair were barely in line with her peripheral. However, she was in earshot enough to catch the gist of what was going on, especially with the burly man’s deep voice and rich accent. She couldn’t quite place it until he brought up food. Food was a thing she did know. After watching more travel channel shows than the average human being, and binge watching more Anthony Bourdain than should be acceptable, she knew a thing or three about foreign cuisine. Feijoada was something she’d watched Toni stuff into his slender face on one of his many journeys to Portugal. It was likely that he was Porteugese. 

The man said something to the little one that she couldn’t make out and several minutes went by before she could catch more. As it went, he continued to be dismissive of the loli, but for whatever reason she kept trying, like, really trying.Val supposed she could understand a little bit, this game could be exceedingly isolating. But the bar was full of merriment elsewhere, and it didn’t much look like mister tall, dark and brooding actually wanted to be bothered, though he didn’t not seem to want the company either. The whole thing was perplexing and it caused Rose to chuckle a bit into her tankard. She cleared her throat and pounded her chest playing it all off as a hiccup or at least as some drunken antics. Although it was near impossible to actually get drunk, it didn’t stop many from playing the part. She slumped over the bar and rested her head in her hands hoping to play it off and overhear more delicious tidbits to enjoy. 

This was almost as fun as those Telenovelas her grandmother entreated Valerie to put on the TV when Val was just a girl.

Was Galadriel’s sword on fire?

Was she also a servant of the secret fire like Gandalf? This was too wild for words! Roary’s eyes widened as the girl’s katana seemed to burst into flame as it stuck into the troll like hot melted butter. He let out a fierce roar and Rose recoiled. Had Valerie needed to make a saving roll against the sound,  she doubted her constitution would hold out against such a monster. Still, the fair girl and her weird birds handled it as if they were shredding through a beginner’s quest. 

“YOU’RE AMAZING!” Rosary blurted out. She quickly cupped her hands to her mouth hoping she hadn’t drawn the girl’s attention away from the beast, nor caught the beat’s attention herself. One blow of that knobby club and rosary was sure to wake up face to face with Saint Peter at the pearly gates where she would be escorted to purgatory alongside her momma.

@Cordelia @Zajcica

The order did not matter. Not in the slightest. After running into the beautiful Eowyn, she realized that the quests could be done in any order, the only thing that mattered was that they got done. All that mattered was all those delicious skill points waiting to be gathered.

This is what Rosary set out to do. 

It was near sunset when Val left the Town of Beginning, and made her way to where the giant fly traps lived. Nepents were akin to that damned Audrey II, except there were little ones too, and they didn’t talk and they could move. It was a very disturbing scene all together. This was perhaps why Rose had forgone completing this quest. She could not handle the thought of the creepy plant monsters. Still, she figured she was leveled enough to make quick work of the damned things before she had a chance to think upon what she was doing. 

Still she found herself frozen at the crossroads of the path that would lead her to the quest she planned to embark upon. “Come on damn it,” she cursed, “It’s not a big [censored] deal... we go in, we get out and we’re done. Stop being a little bitch, Val.” Whenever the woman was distressed, she tended to self deprecate in order for her to get her [censored] together and move. More often than not this terrible coping mechanism worked. 

Today, however.....

Rosary uses 1 Yui's Grace which will give her +1 additional SP 

@Seul

The elvin princess was astonishing. She jest that she would be fine and smiled as only some fairy tale hero would, flashing her pearly whites before going in for the kill. Things seemed on the up and up until the waif was battered about by the beast’s gnarled club. She went flying again. Rose grit her teeth and knit her eyebrows as she kept her eyes on the enemy. The creature’s swing was nothing short of impressive. Just the monster’s forearm alone was bigger than her own head was. She couldn’t fathom the width of its bicep. At any rate, had that blow landed upon the girl in the actual world, the troll would have bashed her rib cage and turned the girl into a jelly sack.

 Thankfully, this was not the real world. 

Instead, the young woman slid across the loose soil and dug her heels into the ground until she came to a full stop. With everything she had, she charged at the thing and landed a series of blows upon it. None of the cuts looked to hit very deep, but it didn’t matter; she was whittling its life away. If the girl was careful, things might actually be okay. 

@Cordelia  @Zajcica

The girl truly was something to behold. She hardly seemed phased by the creature she fought and even seemed to whine at things not going her way. There was no fear nor urgency in her demeanor, only tenacity and gentility. The girl even was so congenial as to inquire after the pair of them. She had no idea where the other one had gone,Rosary’s gaze was too transfixed upon the silver princess. 

“I’m fine...” Val called out, “Just keep your eyes on that thing. Don’t worry about anything else but that.” she encouraged. After all, if the elf failed, they were all good as dead. 

The princess almost seemed to be having fun. This piqued Valerie’s interest in the highest. She wondered what it must be like to take down something of that size and strength. The woman raised up a bit higher over her boulder almost wishing she’d had a tub of popcorn. Had this been a movie, then this battle would definitely end up in the trailers.

@Cordelia @Zajcica

Valerie didn’t need the equipment. She already had a gorgeous set up thanks to Raidou Gueverra and his revolucionarios. What she needed was to level up and Rai said the fastest way for her to do so was to take quests... all of them. He told her if she played her cards right, she could earn near about 200 skill points which would damn near land her at about level 50. LEVEL 50! If she got there she could definitely make it to the front in no time. Though there were the kids to worry about, she figured she could do better by them by first, getting them a better place to live, and then by getting them back home to their parents sooner than later. 

But first, to quests!

Rosary had been pointed in the direction of a quest that required another blacksmith. It was later in the day when she finally decided to get to it, but things always felt busier at night. She walked along the cobblestone path staring up at the stars. Even with the light of the torches lining the street doing its best to diminish the light from above, the stars were ever so bright and twinkling. “Amazing...” Rose mused. Even though this place was little more than a death trap, she couldn’t help but admire the efforts of the creative team to make everything about the game truly astonishing. 

She finally made her way to the shop and as she was about to enter, she found a familiar face. “We meet again..” Valerie cracked a bright smile.  

@Morningstar You're up! ^_^

Galadriel looked puzzled. It was no wonder with Rosary tumbling out of the dark from nowhere claiming to have heard terrible things that go bump in the night, or in this case, make horrible wailing sounds. The elvish princess told her she wasn't safe and to stay close. Rose knew this was a bad idea! But why would the girl want her to stay close? The woman mused that it might not be a bad idea given the terrain and situation.. 

A moment later a pink little thing arrived. Somehow the pink haired girl looked familiar but she did not know why. Rose meant to solve this scooby doo mystery, but there was no time as Galadriel leapt in front of Rosary and grabbed her katana. Galadriel ordered then not to charge in and fight and Valerie had every intention of not fighting whatever was coming. Instead, she backed away and hid behind a small formation of boulders, keeping an eye on the battle.

From the dark something charged with heavily thudding feet. It was moving fast and by the sound of it, the beast was massive. It roared as it appeared and swung its club at the fair one. Its club was met by her sword and she managed to stave off the attack, but the creature's swing was so powerful that the girl was flicked away like a fly. That did not detour the girl and she came right back and attacked, hitting the creature in the back. Rose wanted to help but she knew that would only put all of them in danger and she was nowhere near as strong as the elf. It was better for her to stay back and wait for what would come.

Raidou greeted Rosary warmly and thanked her for her assistance. Rosary was flattered. Apparently he’d intended the woman to assist with training the chibis of his island of misfit toys in teamwork. “I hope I’m up to the task...” She said, as she was a little concerned about the matter. She’d yet to work with a team in this game, but as a mother she knew a thing or three about getting children to work together. Rose only hoped she was capable of such a thing; she truly wanted Firm Anima to succeed. 

With the party together Raidou approached the Blacksmith Lyle. She handed over the package she was meant to deliver, and Mr. Tealeaf filled them in on the details of the quest. They were apparently going hunting for something and gathering some teeth. “Morbid, but alright...” Rosary shook her head. Whatever the game wanted, that’s what they were going to do. The quest prompt popped up and Rose hit the accept button proceeded to follow Raidou out of town.

With two quests under her belt and climbing several levels rather quickly, Val was ready for more quests. All the quests. As many as she could stand to do. Never in her life had this much fun. The thrill was addictive and the pay was well worth it considering how many mouths there were waiting to be fed on Floor One. She reminded herself that this was for the children and their survival, but also she couldn’t help but love questing, just a little. 

Today she wanted to try another floor, number two. She’d heard about some big ass bee that hung out there and she always wanted to take down a Queen bee. Val knew a couple of them in High School that deserved the smackdown. She couldn’t go back in time to redo any of that, but she could certainly take down the one causing trouble outside of Urbus. 

Rosary teleported to the second floor and found herself just outside the gates of the main settlement there. Urbus. Upon arrival she saw a young man standing there gazing at the mountains with a rather uncertain look on his face. His expression concerned her just a little. Call it her mothering instincts, but she had to make sure the kid was alright. “You doing alright?” Val asked as she approached the blond gentleman carefully. He looked deep enough in thought that she might startle him if she move too quickly.

@Lessa @Morningstar

Val was here to acquire things. Lots of things. Things she would need to do her questing. Things her writer deemed necessary in order to continue to keep kicking someone’s behind in leveling because she was going to get to the battlefield first! ((That’s right Morgan, catch up! *raspberries*)) Rosary’s writer was unsure of the fact of this particular type of post also requiring meeting the minimum word count, so she was just going to continue to type things until she padded her document enough to appease upper management. So far so good, near one hundred words!

Getting back to the story, Valerie looked around before she headed to the pretty little ginger who ran the place. “Hello,” she said with a smile. “I was told you could help me out with the following list of items. She took a small piece of parchment from her pocket along with a sack of Col. “This should be enough to cover it.” Val stated.

Rosary has sent 3,050 Col. Thank you!

QUEST COMPLETE

ROSARY EARNS THE FOLLOWING:

• 1000 Col (400 for the thread +600 Quest Bonus)
• Extra Skill: <<Concentration>>
• 6 SP (3 from the quest, 1 for completeing the page, 1 from quarantine bonus, 1 from yui's grace)

It had begun to rain as she finally found her way back to Krycim, the main city on this floor. The water was warm and somehow felt cleansing. It washed over her taking with it those thoughts and feels that had been plaguing her since finishing the Gemini. She could not be preoccupied with such things. Not if she meant to survive. There was no point in thinking of home and feeling guilty about not being there. She was liable to end up a tower jumper if she fell into that kind of despair. No, now was the time to be grateful. Grateful to be alive, grateful to have survived Gemini, grateful for the rain, grateful for every moment she would have in this world.

Valerie turned her palms up and her face to the sky and closed her eyes standing there the warm rain with a serene smile across her lips.

She was okay.

Everything from here out was going to be okay.

She had faith.

“Focus,” Valerie told herself. Her mind had been all over the place when she should’ve been observing her surroundings. She was still lost somewhere in the jungle, not safe back in town. Out here lost in thought she was the perfect mark for mobs or player killers to take her out before she even noticed. That would not do. Not when those kids back in town depended on her, and her own children were back home waiting for her. Nope, she was going to make her way out of here and back to town and find a pub she could drown her sorrows in. Not that the alcohol did anything which was a shame. She needed something to numb the pain. Still, the act of getting drunk would have to be good enough. Perhaps she could find someone to comfort her a few hours before heading back home. It’d been awhile she she’d had that kind of attention.

Was it just all on a whim? Maybe. Maybe she was looking for a familiar item, something that reminded her of home and what was waiting back there in the real world for her. Maybe it wasn’t a devotional to God as much as it was a devotional of home. Shannon would be 18 soon and Teresa near would be 12. She had missed so many years with them and not a day went by that she did not feel guilt for leaving them behind. Not that she had meant to. She was trapped as the rest of them had been that day. She was glad that it had been her and not her daughter. Would Shannon have managed to survive such a place? It was not a thought she wanted to face knowing in her heart that the foolish girl would somehow get herself killed. No, it was better that she was here and not her daughter.

“That’s just silly,” Rose shook her head and said aloud. Of course her Rosary had not been in her hand the last two years. At some point it’d been removed, even if to just clean her hand. She unwound the thing and put it back around her neck and tucked it under her top. It was too lovely a piece to go unnoticed by poachers and she did not want to lose it. Not that they’d know what the damn thing was for anyway. To them it’d look like some sort of weird religious necklace. Even she’d been wearing it in such a way although it was no proper usage of it. Most found it a downright sin to wear it as she was. Still others found that if worn as a reminder to be devotional and pray the rosary then it was okay. Is that why she’d had the damned thing made? Was she looking for God again?

Val’s eyes glazed over and her mind went somewhere, but for all intents and purposes, it was blank. She did that every so often; go somewhere and not know where. She just knew that something in her mind would stop, her exe file would crash and she be lost somewhere until something would grab her attention.

“Mom… you alright?” Teresa came over and put her small hand on Valerie’s back.

“Huh? Oh I’m fine baby… Mommy is fine.” She pet the child’s dirty blonde hair. “I’m fine… Come on. Help mommy get the nervegear going so mommy can check stuff out before that big thing later so Shannon doesn’t miss it.” She held on to the Rosary and went to set up to log in to her very first dive.  

***

Rosary blinked realizing her mind had wandered off again as she’d been starting down at her rosary. She wondered if the damn thing was still in her hand wherever she was.

Val carfully took the rosary off the wall and wrapped it around her hand as she’d done many times before. Gently, she rubbed the first Our Father bead between her fingers instinctively. This was a thing she has done, many, many times before.

 It was true what her daughter had said Val had lost her faith in God. Lost her faith wasn’t exactly the right terms. More like she and God, if they ever met, they were going to fight. Well rather, Valerie was going to start a fight. And if she got smote, well then good; it was the very least God could do for her after all the [censored] he had put her through. Her children knew little about it other than their mother despite having been raised as a Catholic. And for them, this was an acceptable answer as they preferred to skip mass stating that it was entirely too long.