Assassin

After vaulting her armor into her inventory, the girl teleported from Floor three all the way up to Floor eight. Shadow-lady had told her to meet her there when she was done turning in the quest, so she hurried through the safe zone. This was the highest she had ever gone in floors. The highest she ever went to was floor four where it was all snowy. The snow didn't bother that much. Everyone at the orphanage didn't seem to like it so much. This floor was warm and sunny with lots of trees, very pretty compared to the other floors.

The Assassin excited the safe zone and called out: "Shadow-lady?! I'm here!" The girl looked for the cloak figure, hoping that she wasn't lied to just to get away from her. That would be kind of upsetting, but she wasn't far from the safe zone here so she could always just head back to teleporter if that was the case.

"Are you sure you want to be doing quests with me? I am not really the best person for you to hang around" After spotting the hooded figure, the Assassin bounded towards her with a smile on her face. This was getting fun! "Of course I want to do quests with you! If I didn't want to, I wouldn't be here would I? You yelled at me at first, but then you were nice to me." The Assassin dropped down her menu and looked at her available SP, luckily that last quest had given her just enough to rank up her weapon skill, she clicked on it and then accepted the prompt that asked her if she was sure she wanted to invest her points. "Yay! Now I can do more damage with my dagger!"

"Good morning tank-lady. I woke up in the bed, so I bet you moved me there. You should have just slept there, I bet your back hurts." Assassin looked a bit upset as a she nibbled on the egg she had hanging off her fork. The emerald eyes looked a little guilty.  "I don't want people to pamper me because I'm young... Yeah, I know I'm a kid, but that doesn't mean I can't be nice to others or considerate... I'm sorry if you feel uncomfortable because I took the bed."

The girl folded her knees into her chest and nibbled on the eggs more. She went silent after that, looking out the window, eyes fixed on the ground outside until she was finished with her food. When she was done, she placed the plate back on its platter and plopped herself back on the bed, waiting for Snow to finish with her meal. "I guess you're going to move on now. Since we're done with the quest and all, I mean. Probably not best for me to be following you around with a name like mine. People might think bad things about you. I don't want that..."

@Snow

Assassin pulled up her menu, and scrolled down to her active quests right now, showing Ariel the names of them. Her name and level was presented openly too. At this point, she had stopped caring if people know her name. While she turned the menu over to Ariel to see, she continued to pet Kimba on the head.

"Yep! The both of them think they are mean and they want help trying to win the battle against the other. So you can help either side. I accepted the quests but I don't know which one to do, and I'm not quite sure I could even take it right now. Dagger user's a cut short on the ability to hit too many targets at once and that's a lot of fighting that I can't handle at my level. If you were wanting to do it, could I join you? I wanna get stronger so no meanies can bully me, but I need help."

@Ariel - The Crowned Lion

"Yeah!" The Assassin said happily bouncing into a skip back towards town. "We should do more quests so I can get stronger! If I don't get stronger, bigger meanies could do more damage to me and really hurt. I don't want that to happen cause they're all bullies."

The child made her way back to town with Hidden just behind her. The girl had initially scared her to begin with, but she wasn't all bad so far. They just seemed like they might have gotten off on the wrong foot. She started off like she wanted to kill Assassin but then suddenly she was alright with her. It probably had to do with the crying fit.

"So, you want to do more quests with me? Where should I meet you when you teleport? Or, should I add you as a friend? The guards won't like you a lot since you have that orange colored crystal so you'll have to hurry to the teleporter or they'll bully you." The Assassin talked like they were in a school yard and not a death game. Though even still, she understood what it was down to the core.

Upon heading into the city, Assassin watched the other rogue bound through the streets and through the teleporter. When she made it back to the blacksmith, she had the armor made, but she would probably just sell it to a merchant at some point. This was all for the experience anyway.

The girl looked at the menu pop-up that appeared in front of her. Another friend request? It was hard enough to tell people what her username was when she didn't even get to chose it and it made her look awful. Or was more like the fact that she actually took to it and looked like a shadowy murder? Probably that last part, but how else could she hide from monsters?

"Uh, you aren't afraid of having the name 'Assassin' on your friends list? There could be people who see and think you're friends with someone bad." Assassin asked. It felt weird to send and accept friend requests, but nevertheless, she pushed accept on it. Scrolling down to her own, just to ensure that it was accepted, she smiled. "You're only the second person who has sent me a friend request so far. Tank-lady sent me one too. I wonder if she did it so she could keep tabs on because I'm younger. I'm just fine on my own though. I know how to take care of myself."

@Xin

The child shook her head loose of the branches and dizziness while trying to regain her senses. The lion cub growled lowly as they came apart until its owner came in between them.

"Are you okay, you two rolled downwards quite a distance." Her voice was kind of deep but soft, unlike Assassin's higher pitched voice.

"I'm fine lady, thanks! I was just running around, I didn't mean to jump into the kitty." The Assassin said, petting the cub with her free hand. "What are you doing wandering around in this forest all alone? It could be dangerous around here. I heard there were these big tree guys that fight with the pointy eared guys. You could get caught up in their mess." She pointed out, getting up off the ground and dusting off her ragged cloak. The Assassin walked over to the lion again and started to pet its head more. "You have a really nice lion, his name is Kimba? Hi, Kimba!"

Bounding through the trees and forest, Assassin made her way through. Doing nothing in particular other than practicing with her speed, she found fun to just run around without much a of a care in the world. Leveling and grinding was so much of a hassle and it would be utterly boring to do that all the time. Tank-lady had left and everyone else was busy. Being a dagger user sure did make you extremely fast, but actually doing damage in the early stages was difficult without someones help. The quests coming up could be kind of difficult without a little more experience to unlock her next sword arts anyways.

A bush basically exploded next to Ariel and Kimba when the Assassin jumped though it. "Ah!" The girl screamed as she plowed directly into the lion cub. The both of them went rolling a few feet before they slid to stop. "Oh! S-Sorry kitty!"

@Ariel - The Crowned Lion

She took the package that she was supposed to carry herself in her hands and moved it into her inventory. Once that was done, she held the door open for Xin. The Assassin gave her friend a smile and walked with her towards the blacksmith's quarters. "I know that there's a chain of quests that go with this one. Do you wanna join me for the next one so no more meanies bug me while I am trying to do it? Since you are doing this quest, that means you haven't done it either, so you could get it as well. I heard it's easy experience early on and that you can't pick up this experience if you go past a certain level."

The little girl opened up her menu and scrolled to the next quest. She inspected the details. "Hmm, combat is required as well. Maybe it's a good idea to go as a team then. If we're together nothing can hurt us!"

"Ok!" The Assassin cheerily agreed, leading the way back to town. "These quests are super easy when you have someone helping you! I got it done super fast when people stopped stealing my materials." It didn't take long for the group to make their way back to town. Zachariah's shop was pretty close to the safe zone barrier anyway. When they entered, the old man welcomed them back, preparing the potion making. Assassin decided to go first, stepping ahead of Xin and needing a chair just to reach everything.

It took some time of explaining from the NPC to the girl, but sooner or later, she had made a usable potion. It wasn't the worst she could have done, but it wasn't the best either. Very middle of the line. "Hey look, I did it!" The child said happily holding up the potion to the lady she had made friends with. "Ok, your turn, lady!"

Crafted Rare HP Potion.

Though lulled mostly into deep sleep, Assassin still awoke slightly when she was lifted up from the floor and into the bed. Half asleep and completely unable to react to being moved, she just allowed the shift to happen. Snuggling up in the covers was nice considering she didn't spend a whole lot of time actually sleeping in the game. It wasn't totally necessary so she had stopped even trying to do it. As Snow walked back over to the chair Assassin listened to her foot steps until they stopped. A creak of wooden chair and some shifting told her that the tank was likely sleeping uncomfortably in a chair. Normally, she would soak in getting the luxurious benefit of the bed, but was she actually feeling bad for Snow? She might not wake up sore or stiff or anything like that, but in a way it just felt like she was being the bully this time. Her thoughts began to fade until finally, a deep drowsiness took over.

In the morning, Assassin was awake before Snow. The child laid in bed momentarily while she tried to bring her senses about her again. The emerald set of eyes glanced over to her companion, who was still sleeping peacefully, or as peacefully as one could like that. Kaya lifted herself up and stretched her tiny frame out, trying to shake off the morning stiffness, and climbed out of the bed as quietly as possible. The hum of her menu scared her when she opened it, afraid she'd wake up Snow. Luckily it seemed like it hadn't and she put on a modern locking set of clothes. A white sweater and a sort pink skirt, that way she wouldn't look like such an poor child when she headed down stairs. Before heading down, she grabbed her weapon and locked it to her back, underneath her shirt, being careful to not wake Snow. 

Collecting breakfast and paying for it was simple. It didn't take long for her order to get through since the morning wasn't that busy for this town and the morning shifters seemed to be much nicer with her than the man from last night. Collecting the bread and eggs, she carried it upstairs and into the room. Quietly she set the tray on the table and took a seat, trying to eat quietly while she waited for her companion to wake up.

@Snow

"Mmm, maybe. I'm pretty sure she'll be happy to see me, but I don't know about the rest of the people there. Who knows how long we'll be here though. A hundred is lot of floors, just think of building with a hundred floors. Climbing up that would take you a super long time. Especially if you had to locate the stairs to the next floor and fight crazy dogs on every set of stairs, once you actually find them." The girl explained while picking up her last material a bit far away from Xin. Who still seemed to be finding it difficult to call her something that sticks. Assassin thought on it on her way back over to her new friend. "How about you just call me Kaya. It means Pure in Japanese."

With all her quest conditions met out here, she would be able to return to the man in the store and get the quest finished. However, she was starting to like Xin's kindness, so let's stay with her for awhile. "I'm done looking around, so I'll wait for you and make sure no meanies bully you now!"

@Xin

All Materials Found

"You might not be able to feel pain, but I thinks its damaging your pride for sure." The girl chuckled wiping a tear from her eye. She brandished her blade in it's underhanded grip again, readying to jump on the enemy with the speed of cheetah. She bounded through the cave floor and in front of the automatonic spider, raising her dagger to strike once more, but without the distraction of the other girl, she was slammed by one of the spiders appendages and knocked into a wall all the same as Kazookie. A sharp pain short down her back momentarily before she felt like she could move again.

"Ow... Oh- It's gone already." She mentioned standing back up from her crouched position. "Hey, crazy. I don't think it's gonna listen to you. If we don't do something it's going to kill us both. We might have to run, it doesn't look like you're equipped well enough to fight this thing. Do you even have a sword art yet?"

Finally able to settle down on her laughter, the Assassin pulled her dagger back out. The metallic spider had no intention of getting another prison shank from a child, so it started to climb the wall with her on it. Once it was the top, it only seemed to spin faster and faster. Like a parent obliging a child on a ride for it to go as fast as possible, and too fast was never fast enough.

Assassin lost it. She fell to her rear end again and dropped her weapon next to her, doing nothing but laughing as hard as she could. It would probably be reasonable to help anyone in this predicament at this point, but she was laughing way to hard to do anything other than lay on the floor and bust a gut.

"Stop! Stop! My stomach is starting to hurt, I can't take it. Ahahahaha!" She pleaded like someone was tickling her to death.

@Kazookie

Down to only two boars again, she braced herself for the next round of attacks. More squealing brought even more boars. She was getting dangerously close to having killed a dozen of them at this point with her little 'touch me and you die' thing. Back up to four boars now they all leapt on her at the same time, three of them collided into her, all exploding on contact and disappearing forever. Then there was only one little piggy!

With her dagger in hand, she attempted to make another attack on the remaining boar, making sure that her health bar was still doing alright. Thankfully, she was still capable of fighting with half of her health bar nearly gone. She would fight a few more then get out of here. It was nice to be able to gain money for this, even if it was going to be a minuscule amount of col in the long run.

Assassin: 12/20 | 0/2 | DMG: 2 MIT: 9 | BLD: 12/2[9-10] | Thorns: 10

Boar 1: 0/10 | 3 DMG | ACC: 3
Boar 6: 0/10 | 3 DMG | ACC: 3
Boar 7: 0/10 | 3 DMG | ACC: 3
Boar 8: 10/10 | 3 DMG | ACC: 3

Assassin was ready to finish off this last boar, taking her dagger in an underhanded grip and attempting to slash the boar in half. It continues to elude her, stopming out of the way of her attack and head butting her directly in the stomach. This time, the boar doesn't exploded like the first ones did? Why not? She picked herself out of the grass while the remaining boar squealed out to it's friends. Three of them came running out of the tall grass, whining with anger and charging at her like wild animals. Well, that is what they were.

Two of them connected with her, hitting her directly in the stomach and knocking her back to the ground. An "Oof-" escaped her lips as the boars hit her. Still they exploded to her dominance - Whatever the hell it was that the potion was doing to her. She just knew it would make the quest easy to do.

ID#150539 Redacted - Boar number 7 doesn't exist

Assassin: 15/20 | 2/2 | DMG: 2 MIT: 9 | BLD: 12/2[9-10] | Thorns: 10

Boar 1: 10/10 | 3 DMG | ACC: 3
Boar 4: 0/10 | 3 DMG | ACC: 3
Boar 5: 0/10 | 3 DMG | ACC: 3
Boar 6: 10/10 | 3 DMG | ACC: 3

ID#150542 - T1 Rare Trinket

The Assassin jumped on another material, taking it before another player was able to [censored] it up from her. She growled at him silently and scared him off. He hurried off when they saw that she was serious. When she looked back to Xin there was a smile on her face. "I don't like bullies and meanies." The girl mentions as she walked back over to her new friend.

"So, who was calling you a brat? And how did you find yourself in this situation, little one?" She thought on it. "Well, the older kids at the orphanage pick on me a lot because I'm one of the younger ones there. There is this one boy that is seventeen. He picks on me a lot so I stole his game thingie and put it on. I have no idea how to get out, until that big dude said we couldn't leave. I missthe caretaker lady. Her name is long, and I can never remember it correctly Kobayashi I think?"

@Assassin

Materials found: 4

Assassin hesitantly accepted the party invite and her name displayed below Xin's on her HUD.

Assassin: [  80/80  ]

"The name that is attached to the account was already decided when I loaded up into the game, I wasn't allowed to change it at that point. No one really calls me anything other than kid, or child, or brat. I have a name, but I'm not sure if I should share it with anyone. The caretaker wouldn't like it much if I did, I bet." The girl quietly picks up another material loose on the side. It was apparent that walking with someone else was keeping the bullies away. "Thank you again for  helping me. The meanies around me kept stealing all the stuff I needed, but since you came, they leave me alone. I can actually do this quest so I can get the other ones done. It was hard learning all this stuff. I've never played a game before."

Materials found: 3

The Assassin moved the material to her inventory happily and smiled at the lady. She was one of the nicest that she had met in the game so far. Tank-lady was nice to her, but not in a way enough to call her 'sweetie'. How weird it was to be called something like that. Not even the caretaker at the orphanage had called her something nice like that.

"Thank you, nice-lady!" The girl said. She took a moment looking for more materials. Spotting one close by, she snagged them up as quickly as possible. "Yay! More! You make things much luckier for me! Do you have anyone you're partying with? I can join you so you don't get lonely!" The girl offered with a smile. Her emerald irises reflecting the hue of the light that did make it through the trees. It would be a lot easier to keep bullies away if she was with another person.

@Xin

Materials found: 2

Someone actually listened to her?

The little girl calmed down when someone actually came over and tried to console her. She sniffed up the coming water works and looked the blond in the eyes. Her prominent scars show cased a gallery of suffering from years past. What was even worse was knowing that scars couldn't be created within the game, so she had gotten these marks from the real world, and they wouldn't go away even in virtual reality.

The woman began to walk away almost as soon as she got here, she saw her step on one of the materials, and another one just ahead of her. She got up quickly and grabbed the second one just ahead of the woman as she was reaching for it. She put on her puppy dog face and pleaded. "I've been out here for awhile and people keep stealing the materials from me. Can I have this one?" She asked, hoping she would let her take it.

@Xin

Materials found: 1

"Hey! That's mine!" A child's voice rang out to the other players around them. She was dressed in what looked like rags and had scars littering her face. It seems as though that another player had stolen her materials that she was searching for while she reached down to grab it. The man looked down on her and said. "Sorry kid, first come, first serve. Besides, it's locked to me now since it's a quest item."

"That's not fair!! I saw it first and you took it from me." The girl whined like she was a bout to start crying. She could get anything she wanted if she just played the act. "No matter what I try to do, I can't give it to you. Go back to the Town and cry, this is no place for children." The man walked off with her materials and left her sitting there fake crying. No one else seemed to want to bother with her at this point.

@Xin

No materials found

Mine

The Assassin watched the girl cling to the robot as if it was a pug puppy that wanted to lick her. That spider thingie definitely did not want to lick her. That was for sure. Rather, it decided to take her on a merry-go-round spin of fun. Only, if the merry-go-round itself had a jet engine taped to each one of the bars. Assassin laughed.

"What are you even doing? Hahaha! That thing is going to kill you if you act like a total dummy!" Assassin curled over on her back, laughing at the display of the other child being swung around viciously. She could only imagine how off balance the girl is going to be when she gets off that merry-go-round. "It will kill you if you don't do something! Do you even have a weapon to defend yourself?"

The spider, with no sense of where it even was at this moment, brought it's foot down over the girl. She rolled out of the way quickly sitting off to the side. "Whoa! That was close"

"HYAH!" The sound of steel clashing against steel boomed from behind the giant automaton spider. A low growl of anger came from where the sound originated as well. "Die you big meany!!!" The white haired rogue jumped on top of the spider and jammed her red crimson dagger into the spider's head. It barely did any damage at all. That was when she noticed the blonde laying on the ground next to the metallic beast.

"Oh, hey there. You look funny sitting on the floor in the middle of a fight. Stand up and help me kill this thing already." The Assassin took her dagger in two hands and jammed it into the spider once more. Sparks flew everywhere, but the damage was absolutely minimal for an enemy on this floor. The spider had gotten tired of being stabbed through. It shook the child loose from it's head. She fell onto the other girl with crash. "Oof-"

@Kazookie

The Assassin chowed down her meal while Snow talked about a ton of things at once. Just because she doesn't have the need to eat, doesn't mean they have to forget how good food was. After all, when you've grown up in an orphanage and the meals come a bit thin since they're made for 20+ children, you don't complain when its so easy to obtained in a video game. 

"Okay, so... like was that fake crying? Because it looked like real crying. And to be honest, I wouldn't have gone that fare if I knew it was real crying." Assassin's eyes perked up at that. She thought about it for a moment. "Hm. I think that is was a little of both. The guy did upset me, but I didn't think you would strip down like that. Oh well though, they'll forget about it."

"Did you say you were going to sleep on the floor? Are you insane? No! You get the bed. God." The smiled at her. "I appreciated it tank-lady, but I've slept on the floor before.I come from a house full of children and sometimes when we have new kids in our house, we have to let them take the beds. I don't want you to wake up all sore cause I took the bed."

Finishing her meal, the Assassin stood up, and walked her way to the carpeted rug and took a seat on the floor. The shirt she was wearing covered her entire body down to the ground from her sitting position. She laid on her stomach and closed her eyes.

"Good night tank-lady." With that, the girl quietly fell asleep in no time.

@Snow

The Assassin jangled the keys, trying to find out how to put it in. It was taking a moment. The panting sounds of Snow coming down the hall, got her attention, though.

"Never let me do something like that again."

"What do you mean? You got us a free room and food! That was great!" Finally, the girl was able to open the door. She jiggled the handle and opened it up, only one bed and a table. Wow, how luxurious. "He only gave us one bed.. Ugh, I guess I'll have to sleep on the floor."

The girl took a seat at the table, opened her menu and removed the armor that she was wearing and it was replaced with nothing but an over-sized shirt that enveloped her entire body. It was basically a dress for the little girl. Snow noticed that the daggers she had were still equipped to her person. The Assassin placed all three of them on the table and smiled at her ally. "Best to keep my weapons handy in case anyone tries to sneak up on us."

Getting up off the chair, the child sits down on the carpeted rug and lays back carefully. Then the door knocked, it was their food. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot we got free food. I guess we should eat before we lay down."

@Snow