Shirayuki

Shirayuki looked at her feet, thinking about how unlike Katoka, she didn't really have a person to return to in the real world. She was sure that her mother probably knew about her getting trapped in the game when she saw it on the news. If she didn't, her body in the real world would have starved to death in her apartment by now. After a moment, she looked back up and  eyed the other woman with her fierce irises.

"I am a game designer aspiring to hone my craft. I originally bought this game to get some inspiration for a game of my own. Though, before I even got to start on the project, I was trapped here, obviously." Shirayuki explained, as the group passed into the safe zone of the floor. With this, they could finish the quest and get on with anything else that they needed to do today.

More questions. Questions were easier than idle conversation at least, perhaps she could attempt to make some conversation by asking a question back. How much could it hurt? A lot probably, but she was still going to give it a try.

"I have been alright. I only just started leveling but I don't want to spend my entire time in the game just sitting around the safe zones. If want learn more about it, I need to see every inch, every environment, every challenge. What originally brought you to the game? Not many copies were released so we were all pretty lucky-- or well I guess unlucky, to have gotten locked in." Probably was the most she was going to speak for awhile. Katoka was at least pretty easy to open up to since she was so nice. It's not like she was bullied or anything, she was just really bad with words.

It wasn't that Shirayuki was so heartless that she ignored the girl's condition. That was hardly the issue. She merely wanted to keep their presence in the cave at a minimum. If there was one thing that she didn't want, it was to see the girl die to a swarm of overgrown bats.

Stepping out into the light of the third floor's afternoon, Shirayuki pulled open her map. Her sense of direction wasn't the best after fumbling around the cave, so she needed to make sure they were going the correct direction before heading out. "Town is that way." She pointed to the settlement's direction. "We should get her back home quick. It would be hard to fight of monsters while trying to protect her after all."

Opening up and speaking more than usual was a first for Shirayuki. She didn't like having to confide in others her own thoughts without a good reason.

The child was surely grateful to see that someone had come to her aid. Shirayuki knew better than anyone that the girl was just a bunch of 1s and 0s that was reacting per it's programming. However, since that summation of coding looked so closely in resemblance to a human child, naturally one would get worried. She was glad to see that someone here hadn't lost their touch with reality.

Shirayuki was on the defensive, getting ready for her next attack. Though, she didn't even have to worry about it thanks to her partner. She hadn't really seen Katoka being much stronger than her, but that attack surely showed that she was outclassed in comparison. Heading back over to her and the child, Shirayuki speaks again. "We should get back to town." Her piercing blue pupils stabbed the darkness with a bright contrast. Before they had a moment to say anything to the ferret girl, she walked by, making her way out of the cave.

Shirayuki was pretty good at sneaking around in the dark. If not for her bright blue eyes and snow white hair, she may have been completely impossible to see. After a moment, Katoka was thinking that their best choice of action was to call out for the little girl to find her. As she mentioned, that would probably bring unwelcome attention.

That was the least of their worries and something of a moot point though. The bats that hung above them were ready to drop and gnaw off Katoka's head. The ninja girl jumped on Katoka and pulled her down to her knees. The duo of bats screeched, annoyed that they had missed their prey with a single swoop. "Apologies. Call for the girl. I'll distract them."

Something about the dark made her feel a little more confident. The words came to her much more easily. The spinning shuriken she wielded formed in her hand. "The darkness is my ally. Try me." She taunted the bats. The creatures flew in her direction, only to be completely slashed by the sawblade-like weapon.

The damage in which Shirayuki could out put was less helpful than if dying old man smacked this thing with a cane. While she couldn't really complain that she was still kicking, there was a quiet wish inside that her next attack would hit fierce and be a little more than a single digit number. Unfortunately that was too much to hope for. The ninja slipped through the group of a people once more and gave her spinning shuriken a hefty push of speed.

The light blue light wheeled around like a hyper-speed ferris wheel. Hoping that maybe she could apply enough force to break the mitigation, she launched the weapon from her hand and drove it directly into the trebuchet's foot. A damage indicator popped up, showing a slight sliver of health points being removed from the wooden beast. The girl simply walked to her weapon, deflated, and pulled it free of the splinters.

Smash > Trebuchet - 1 damage
-2 Energy/2 = 1 energy

The Gemini stood silent still, back turned to the ninja. She realized that by now, this was going to turn into a fight. The snow-haired girl reached to her back and picked the giant shuriken off it's holster. Meanwhile, the Gemini slid their hood down to their shoulders, revealing the shocking truth.

They had copied her appearance to without fault. What an ability to have: Mimicry. Releasing the cloak from their neck, it falls to their feet and disappears with a crystal fade. Everything down to her outfit, her hair style and her weapon was exact. It was like looking directly in the mirror.

Was this supposed to be some inner-deepness? A realization? A revelation? Whatever it was supposed to mean, Shirayuki wasn't liking it one bit. The Gemini retrieved their weapon from their back, same one as it's opponent, and adopted a competitive stance. It was time to fight.

Silence hovered between the two. Not really because they were too unfamiliar with one another to speak, but because the both of them knew that they had no words for each other. Shirayuki knew how this was going to end. No matter what was in store for her, she knew that she would end up on top. The advantage of game knowledge was on her side.

The hooded figure quietly led the girl out of town towards a set location. While she hadn't spent much time outside of the safe zones, she knew that with her new found levels, braving the outside world would be okay. It's hard to learn about the game if you stay cooped up in the safe zones all the time and didn't level whatsoever.

Finally, the Gemini stopped before her in front of a small pond laden with rocks and flowers. Something felt intriguingly different about the area. Maybe it was her inexperience with the open fields, but there was a feeling of uniqueness in the air.

Within the next ten minutes of walking around, a new objective popped up on the ninja's HUD. 'Speak with the mysterious, hooded stranger.' Looking around, she could see a person leaning against the wall of a building, paying no real attention to anything around them, staring into the ground like they were entranced or something.

Naturally, she would avoid talking with anyone, but the quest in question was the one that she was looking for. Approaching the individual, their gaze wandered over to the short girl. Although the eyes of the hooded figure were hidden beneath his cloak, Shirayuki stared the person down the same way they did to her. A long moment of understanding went by. The two of them knew that words meant nothing to each other. Names not even need be exchanged.

Kicking themselves of the wall and walking ahead, they gesture the girl to follow them.

"Likewise." The ninja said in return. Noticing the girl was looking slightly uncomfortable around her, she tried to talk a little more. Words weren't her strongest suit so she always figured that being quiet was better than saying something wrong.

Looking into the dark little cave, she wondered how a little girl accidentally wandered into here. Surely they would have seen how dark it was and at least thought it wouldn't be a good idea to head in there. Either way, this is where she was, so they would need to head in. "Stay close. We don't want to get split up." Shirayuki whispered almost. Talking was just vocalizing your thoughts. Not hard...right?

Shirayuki took a few steps into the cave, looking back and gesturing at the ronin to follow her in. The sooner that they got through this the better for everyone. If there was a fail state for this quest, she didn't really want to see a dead child.

The saw blade in her hand was ready to chop this wooden beast into pieces. Everyone was charging the siege weapon to put in as much damage to it as possible before the soldiers returned to guard their weapon again. The ninja looked down at her weapon for a moment, thinking about the best course of action: Keeping herself safe or helping fight. Ultimately, it made sense to just charge the thing. A siege weapon could be used without someone to control it.

Dashing through the lines of players, Shirayuki made her own attack. The dull blue of her saw-blade chipped a small piece out of the trebuchet. Her damage was next to nothing, but how could they complain about the extra damage. Though, if only she was a little bit stronger, she could do a little bit more. She mumbled through her mask quietly. "Not good enough..." The rogue took a healthy step back and allowed everyone else to get attacks in.

Seeing as how she struck a slight nerve in the tank who had initially engaged on the fight with that soldier, Shirayuki decided it would be best to split their attention to different targets. She must have abilities and gear that let her fight while defending and splitting the attention of the enemy. When she turned to find a new target, however, someone had cleared the field. Efficient. Hardly any time was wasted dealing with the group of mobs. Now they need to focus the boss: The Trebuchet.

It looked like she was the only person who had yet to act. Being one of the lowest HP pools in the entire group, it was probably best that she only followed up with small damage. If she jumped in without help, she would surely get deleted. Waiting for the entire group to initiate on the boss, she readied her weapon to jump in attack the remaining enemy.

Names, right. She had already mentioned her own name, Katoka, but she had yet to even speak more than a few words. Further proving the point that she was really bad at interacting with people one on one in person.

After a moment of silence, she simply decides to point to her name in the corner of Katoka's User Interface. The name read as 'Shirayuki'. Anyone with a common knowledge of Japanese would probably know it just means 'White Snow'. Names wouldn't really matter for this game, the only thing that people needed to know about them when they first meet is their user names.

Following behind her, Shirayuki took a moment to admire the scenery of the second floor. It wasn't too much different from the first floor but, it had it's own flavor. A lot more trees and forests than just open fields. The monsters were all the same for the most part. First levels were always generic.

Shirayuki simply nodded and let her little ferret get situated back in her place around her neck carefully. This person seemed nice enough, but her words were still few. Social interactions were always difficult for Shiranui. It was why she figured staying quiet was better than anything else. If you didn't say anything, you wouldn't offend anyone, right?

Walking through the square of Urbus, the two spent the next ten minutes or so in silence looking around for this mother who had apparently lost her child. It wasn't until they passed through a small neighborhood in the outskirts of town that they found a group of people. A few children and an adult woman. The moment the woman noticed Shirayuki and Katoka, she rushed over to them waving them down.

"E-Excuse me!" She called, her voice was panicked. "You two look like you know how to fight. I will pay you if you can help me. My daughter was out playing with some of her friends here and she got lost playing hiding and seek with them! I can't head out of town without the help of some guards but they all tell me they're too busy to help. Please, my daughter could be in danger. I don't know what I'd do without her..."

"Stay clam." Shirayuki basically whispered, staring into the windows of her soul. Her expression seemed unmoved, but her words were sincere. The mother was worried but took a few deep breaths. "They weren't that far out. There are few caves etched into the hills around town, that would be a good place to start looking. If you do find her, her name is Azalea. She is nine years old, tell her that her mother sent you guys to help her."

Shirayuki looked over to Katoka, waiting for her answer.

Everyone went ahead of her. She had yet to experience any thrill of combat in this game since it began. Looking down at the massive weapon in her hand, something clicked in her. This all felt natural: Every motion, ever experience. The system was guiding her movements. That sort of ingenuity, how did they program something like that? This wasn't her area of expertise, making a virtual reality video game was much different than any regular game.

Reaching her free hand down to the blade and giving a good spin on the ring, she watched the blade rotate until it stopped. Looking back up to the groups of people that had already started the battle, the snow-haired girl's eye seemed to light with fire. With all her strength, she spun the blades of her shuriken and ran into battle, slicing her first target clean in half. It was already weakened from the efforts of others. With one gone, she decided to follow up on other's to see if she could finish off the last weakened enemy. She zoomed past and Andromeda and Asmura, cleaving the helicopter blade-like weapon through the Phalanx soldier's chest. His HP dropped dangerously low. One would think Shirayuki's glare would have been enough to finish him off.

A proposition? She had come merely to inspect the floor and see how much they could differentiate from how they designed the first floor. The second floor really looked a lot like the sixth. Had to be all the trees. The other girl offered a chance to join her for a quest. It couldn't be that difficult since it was on a low level floor.

Quietly, the girl nodded in confirmation. The silence always seemed awkward, but she was never really sure how to speak to someone if there wasn't a screen between them. Hopefully she wouldn't feel offended if she didn't say anything.

Gemini roused from her comfortable spot on Shirayuki's shoulders. What looked like a fluffy white scarf was actually a snow white ferret. It inspected the other woman quietly before being interrupted by a quick little pet from her owner. It chirped quietly and returned to it's safe position, hiding itself as her attire.

Urbus was a larger city than Shirayuki had imagined. Though to be fair, the second floor wasn't much smaller than the first was. There wasn't much reason to shrink the size of the settlements just because the floor got a tiny bit smaller.

The character models with their yellow indicators didn't pay her too much mind. All of them were programmed to see the real players pretty equally. They might react to her if she had an orange cursor, but everyone else was around green. Those green players were giving her some odd looks though. Dressing like an assassin might not be the best way to make people like you, but she wasn't trying to make friends or anything.

Her attention was drawn on the crowds so much that she barreled directly into another player. Tripping over the other person's leg, she fell to the ground. Her eyes traveled up the girls legs up to her eyes and she stared for a moment. Green Cursor, real player.

"Gomen." She basically whispered to Katoka, raising to her feet again.

Only meaning to attend the festival for the few extra benefits that it provides, she finds herself falling through the earth and into the floor below the one where the event was being held. This was bad. She was way to low of a level to be outside the safe zone on this high of a floor. Luckily, there was a bunch of other players who had gotten swept up in the hole. As long as there were other people around, she would be fine.

When she landed softly on the ground again she took not of her surroundings. She was probably the lowest leveled player here, so her contribution might go missed. No matter what comes at her, she'll be okay enough to help fight back. From the looks of everyone else, it seemed like they would be working without a tank, that meant the groups would have to focus all their damage per second at one thing at a time and move on to the next target most likely. However it goes down, she'll follow the rest of the group.

An easy one. She knew that a lot of people went this route before they started doing the Beginner's Quests. If you didn't do it as soon as possible, it would only become harder down the line. Best to knock it out of the way while she was still lower in levels.

Walking around torch-lit streets of Krycim, the silence was deafening. All business had concluded for the night and the only people walking around were guards, a few NPCs and a single player shrouded in black. She wasn't sure how this quest was supposed to trigger. As far as she knew, she would just have to walk around the streets until she was approached by a robed figure or something sinister of the same caliber.

However so, she didn't really know what to expect with this quest. She knew it was easier the lower the level you were, but that was about it.

Shirayuki debated her options for a moment, surmising that there was no reason that she shouldn't. Perhaps the magpies would be generous to her. The snow-haired girl nodded to the bird-keeper and headed on into the tent where the birds awaited. They fluttered around without a care in the world, much like she had up until this point. There were so many things that she needed to do now that she working her way through the ranks of the game.

Stepping up the tree the birds rested on, she was quite as a fox. Most birds would get scared of the woman, flying a way the instant she got close. They didn't seem to like her too much. Regardless, one would fly by at some point and place a bottle of something in her hand. Though she didn't get a chance to see which one had done it, it was still nice to have gotten something.

Her appearance in the cage seemed to be agitating the birds more than the keeper had accounted for. They fluttered around everywhere. The door was closed, as the black haired girl subbing in tonight was determined not to lose another bird to on-goers. Gramps would kill her if too many got loose. "All done in there? I can open the door when you're ready, just try not to let any of them out."

Shirayuki clicked the window on the item that she had received from the birds. Even though she had cause them to go wild, her eyes widened when she looked at the item description. 'Unique Item'. Was her luck already turning around for the best?

"It begins here." She whispered, transferring her item to her inventory and heading to the gate.

CD Accumulation: 7+6+10 = 23
Acquired: Cold Shoulder - Unique Salve | Freeze I

Now that everything was completely finished off, Shirayuki reviewed the writing she had made to make sure that they were all correct. With everything done, she would get up from her seat on the bench and hang the wishes up on of the bamboo trees where everyone else had already hung all their their's. It was a marvel, honestly, to see all of these wishes hanging. Thinking about just how many people were here to wish tonight was overwhelming. There were trees as far as the eye could see where one could spot a wish hanging from. Tonight, everyone's wishes could come true and they could all relax for once.

Making her way through the carnival of booths filled with mini-games and foods, she ended up finding a new booth. The sign out front was written simply: Taming of the Magpies. Her train of thought was interrupted by a voice. "Hey, wanna be my last customer for the night? I think I'm about to wrap it up for tonight."

[Hangs Tanzaku]

Once she acquired everything necessary to write down her wishes, Shirayuki took a moment to find a bench and start writing them down. This spot would be a nice place to watch over the fireworks while she did her writing.

These were the sort of things that those who were too afraid to break their barriers missed if they didn't do something about it. Every low leveled player in the Town of Beginnings was missing out on such a beautiful event. Though she despised Kayaba for forcing her into this situation, at least his ruthlessness seemed to have bounds by allowing the players to enjoy their time in this prison.

Thoughts could be distracting, she needed to write down these wishes before everything ended. Adjusting her seat to use the bench as a platform to write on, she focused in on those, trying not to let the beautiful display distract her too much as she wrote.

What would you wish for the rest of your stay in Aincrad?

What would you wish for the better of people around you?

What would you wish for someone you care about?

What would you wish for someone you would like to know better?

What would you wish for yourself?

Up on the twenty-second floor again. She had only been up here to investigate the floors and what they were like, but this time, she was here for the event. It was going to end soon, but she should easily be able to do some of the event stuff before it all ended and gain some extra experience to get a head start for the Beginner's Quests. Weaving through the crowd of people admiring the fireworks, she would soon find herself at the tent where people would write down their wishes. Although she didn't have very many wishes of her own, it would still be fun to write them down on a paper. A good way to start her adventure.

Picking up the papers on the table of the booth, she grabbed a pen got took a moment to read all the prompts that were given if you weren't sure how to start. It couldn't be too difficult to come up with some wishes.

[Receives Tanzaku]

The loud sounds of the first floor were deafening but they were home to many of the lower leveled players who had yet to dare to set foot out of the safe zone. Though today, there would be one whom would break their fears of death to pieces and join the community of players that want to bring this world to an end: The Front Lines. They were pretty close to unlocking the twenty-fifth floor if she had heard the correct information. Apparently they had conducted a meeting some time ago to ready themselves for the raid. If she could level up quickly enough, maybe she could reach their ranks and help. Though the possibility of that was extremely slim.

Nevertheless, today would be the day the Shirayuki would start her journey to power level to the front. Spending so long learning about the game from a distance has been helpful, but if she really wanted to learn more, she could have to get stronger and explore places she couldn't in her current condition. That's how she found herself outside the shop of an NPC who goes by the name of Zachariah. He would be the one to lead her on the right direction to gaining levels.

<<Relationships>>
Good Impression | Unmoved | Bad Impression | Very Bad Impression

Nothing yet