Melissa

"A shield would be good for tanking. More equipment to throw mitigation enhancements on to. I suppose an off-tank could work with a two-handed weapon, but I dunno...shields are probably much safer. I'm almost considering it myself, but like I said, I'm not certain on what I want to do yet. Right now, I think I'll just go along with some basic DPS, and if things get a bit too dicey for my tastes, then maybe I'll try to bulk up a little."

Still not having any luck, Melissa shook her head, twintails bouncing slightly. "Still nothing. This is like those quests in MMOs where they ask you to get bear hides, but not every bear drops one. Why is this taking so long?!" She kicked the ground and clicked her tongue once more, before drawing her blade. "Right, how about we break up the monotony with a mob or two? It'll be nice to do something other than try to pick these apparently super-rare flowers. Unless there's something you wanna do first?"

ID# 187935 | LD: 5 | No materials found

"Yep. But let's not worry too much about that for now, yeah? It'll be a while before we ever hit the frontlines, so we should focus on the present. I mean, I guess it's good to plan ahead, but given that gear is level-locked, it's like you can do much about that anyway", Melissa answered, rolling her shoulders as they headed towards another area. They'd removed pain as a thing from the system, but fatigue? That was still there, much to her chagrin.

Frustratingly, something else that 'wasn't there', was the herbs! Where even were they? She knew the designer of SAO was a sadist, given the death game they'd all been trapped in, but this was really something else. "Well, we haven't been attacked yet, so you can't be that bad luck. I'm halfway tempted to fight something just to break up the monotony, though. My sword makes it easy to hit things, and I can probably handle them if it's just one at a time..."

ID# 187930 | LD: 9 | No materials found

"I didn't mean it as a bad thing. Not the 'holier-than-though' kinda righteous, but y'know...yeah, the hero type. Doing what needs to be done, even if it puts yourself in harms way. I'm the logical type, but...admittedly more the selfish kind of logical, if I'm honest. I don't really wanna get hurt, or take too many risks. Putting myself right in the line of fire...that's not something I can do, I think. If I mess up as a DPS, that means it might take longer to kill the enemies, but if I mess up as a tank, then I get myself killed...and possibly everyone else."

Not wanting to have things be dour for too long, Melissa waved a somewhat dismissive hand. "But it's whatever. You've got the enthusiasm and motivation for it, so I'm sure you'll do fine. Just be careful, okay?"

After a while more of searching, the redhead clicked her tongue and folded her arms. "C'est chiant! This is taking forever..."

ID# 187929 | LD: 5 | No materials found

Being able to relax was indeed nice, but Melissa still wasn't letting her guard down. One hand remained on her swords pommel at all times, even while gathering. She almost seemed paranoid about the idea of being attacked, despite otherwise being in a good mood.

"So you're the righteous type, huh? I'm not selfless enough for that, but it's nice to have people like you around. Me, I prefer...stability. But that kinda thing is boring too. I guess this is me taking a risk for once."

Melissa had made her way to a different area a few meters off during their talk, and as luck would have it, there was another herb to be gathered here. They were making progress yet again! Still, there was an annoyingly long amount of time between finding these herbs, and it was a pain to deal with. Why was the drop rate so low? What a pain in the ass...

ID# 187908 | LD: 12 | 1 material gathered (2/5)

That happy laugh that came from Astreya earned a matching giggle from Melissa. It was nice to have that kind of camaraderie again. She'd been decently popular in school, but since being stuck inside SAO, the redhead had been a tad cut off from all that. Without realising, she had gotten quite lonely.

"As am I. Having others to assist on the front lines - or even just gathering information or loot to help - will speed things up, even if it's small. Do you have any idea on what you want your role to be? I'm still in-between myself. Being a tank would give me better survivability, but it would also put me the most in harms way."

As she spoke, Melissa had been searching for more materials, but alas, once more she came away empty handed. "Ugh, let's maybe try somewhere else. Not having any luck here, so maybe it's only one for a specific area..."

ID# 187903 | LD: 8 | No materials earned

Melissa couldn't help but chuckle a little at Astreya's excitement. She'd figured the accent would give it away, but not everybody would be familiar with that, she supposed. "Oh, tu es fan de la langue française? Je suppose que c'est populaire." , she said with a grin. It was only a basic sentence, but she figured that her companion would probably get some giddiness over actually hearing her speak her mother tongue. "Nice has quite a few good tourist attractions. Maybe if we ever make it out of this place, you can come visit or something."

With that said, she continued her search. However, this time it appeared there was nothing to find, and she gave a disappointed sigh. "Damn, nothing. Let's try a different spot I guess. And yeah, same here, I think. I don't really like taking risks, but...I got SAO for a reason, and I've got plenty of experience with video games, so I'm going to give it a go."

ID# 187898 | LD: 6 | No materials gathered

@Astreya

"I live on the outskirts of Nice, in France. It's a pretty place, I have to admit, and there's some cool stuff there, but my little neighbourhood was kinda sleepy", she explained, as they headed off around to the right side. Melissa kept a leary distance from the boars as she did so, one hand always on the handle of her sword.

"I was saving up some money from a part-time job to move into my college's dorm when the next year rolled around and they opened up spaces, but spent some of it on SAO, and...well, I guess I escaped some of the monotony at least. Kinda wish it was less deadly though."

With a shrug, she started looking around again...and this time, managed to find something. She raised it up with a grin, before placing it into her inventory. "There we go. Four more to go, and we can be done with it. Hopefully this keeps delivering."

ID# 187888 | LD: 19 | 1 Material gathered (1/5)

@Astreya

A newbie, but further along than her. Normally Melissa would be annoyed at the idea of being left behind, but it was kind of her own fault for not having actually made any attempt at progression in the past while of people being stuck inside this game. But that changed today! "Yeah, that's the worst luck. Hopefully my gathering luck isn't as bad, because I don't want to be stuck here all day. I've been playing them for a few years, to get some kinda excitement. It's kinda boring where I live."

For now at least, it seemed that Melissa's luck certainly wasn't looking too good, because after a couple minutes, she came away empty-handed. "Damn, nothing. I hope this doesn't keep up...", she muttered, rubbing her head. Were they really gonna spend ages looking for these? She sure hoped not, she had other things to do, and grinding out materials for a tutorial quest wasn't exactly her definition of fun.

ID# 187882 | LD: 3 | No materials found

@Astreya

Well, this girl was definitely the cheerful type. Melissa was a tad more subdued, but it wasn't like the energy bothered her. It was a good balance really, someone to carry the conversation when it lulled or things were a bit too quiet. With a nod of her head and a small, calm smile, she shook Astreya's hand. It wasn't exactly a limp-wristed shake. "Melissa, nice to meet you too. And I hope so. I do like MMOs, but the grinding can get to you a little bit, and throwing it in your face early on can make it hard to get into a game. And I guess if it can take a while, we'd better not waste any time, huh?"

With that said, she turned on her heel, and after making sure that Astreya was behind, headed through the gate out into the plains beyond. It was her first time she'd ever left, and she had to admit, it was a little scary to take a step out into something that could - and would certainly try to - kill her. But she had a companion for dealing with that, and she looked tough, so hopefully there wouldn't be any issues!

@Astreya

The sound of someone talking to her caught Melissa a little by surprise, and she almost jumped at it, before quickly turning, twintails whipping a little as she did so. It was a very...dynamic hairstyle. Fortunately it wouldn't actually interfere with fighting, probably, and in a virtual world like this, she didn't even have to worry about taking care of such incredibly long hair.

"Huh? I'm not lost. Just trying to see if I can find someone to help out with these tutorial quests...which I guess qualifies as something you can help with", she mused, before shrugging. "I uh...don't really want to get ambushed by boars while trying to do material gathering, so I was hoping to find someone who could watch my back. Don't suppose you could help out with that?"

This girl seemed kinda nice, coming up to offer help...maybe having her along wouldn't be so bad. She was pretty, too. Plus, talking to her would help things be a little less monotonous. Yeah, Melissa liked the idea of having her come along.

@Astreya

"Huh, never been in one of these before...all this gear looks pretty nice..."

Melissa muttered to herself as she entered the shop, looking around curiously. So much cool stuff...and a lot she couldn't use yet. Damned be those level restrictions. Ah well, she could still get some good equipment! Something to start off, and proect her from low-level enemies so she didn't need to worry so much about them. Maybe some basic light armour to start off with? That'd probably be a good balance between allowing her to take some hits, while also allowing her to get some evasion boosts in there. At least, she hoped so. Or maybe heavy armour would be better? Man, trying to decide on that was hard. In the end, she finally made up her mind and decided to go for some basic leather for now. Not seeing anybody about for the moment, she took one of the forms to fill out, before taking a seat.

The System had updated. Things had changed, and when things changed...that was usually time for a good start. That was Melissa's logic as to why today was finally the day that she was going to stop moping around in the Town of Beginnings and finally set out to actually do stuff, just what she'd brought this game for! She looked over the gear she had, a simply vanity set of plain, leather armour and a significantly fancier sword, with intricate, silver inlays. It was light and easy to swing, which made it signficiantly easier for the beginner adventurer to actually hit things with it. That'd come in handy for...not dying.

It was as Melissa was wandering around, attempting to find a quest, that she found herself approached by an NPC. The mayor, apparently. He'd asked her to help track down a loan he'd given, and had totally forgotten who he'd actually given it to. It seemed like a rather air-headed thing to do, given his status as mayor and dignified appearance...but it was a quest, and that meant good things! She'd been directed towards an alchemist named Zackariah, who before she could even ask her about the loan, had charged her with gathering some materials. Part of the quest, she imagined.

Now, she stood at the gates, slightly trembling...it didn't seem to involve actually doing some fighting, but she wasn't quite familiar with the aggro radius on various enemies, and she didn't want to risk gathering their attention while trying to find the materials. So, the red-haired young lady looked around, attempting to find someone who had a sort of friendly aura, that she could trust to watch her back while out gathering.

Stats:

@Astreya