August

N/A

 

N/A

 

Col and Item’s Tracker:

 

August waited as the smith went to the backroom, and he heard the sounds of his forge and the pounding of metal on metal. To say he was curious was an understatement, but he eagerly waited by the counter until, a little while later. The sounds stopped. August grew more aware as his interest peaked, and the smith came out with a well crafted saber, curved blade, basket hilt, leather grip, everything he’d asked for.

 

”Merci, it’s far better then expected. The payment was six raw materials with the discount, right?” He said, opening his inventory and taking out the required materials and handing them over before taking his leave.

 

N/A

 

N/A

 

As he continued on, the grass seemed to grow taller the further he ventured, trees more sparse until he had arrived at a meadow along a cliffside. The wind was stronger now with no trees to block it, whistling as the occasional strong gust blew past his ears. The view was something straight out of a fantasy story, large funnel shaped mountains dotted the landscape reaching into the sky and grasping at the clouds.

 

Am I on one of those?

 

He thought as he glanced over the ridge. 

 

Nope. 

 

The steep ridge dropped nearly straight down towards a lakebed, a drop that was almost fifty meters down.

 

Just a regular cliff.

 

He kneeled at the edge for a moment, tossing a golf ball sized rock down the side, and watched as it landed in the water with a satisfying “kerbloop”. He was about to stand back up when he noticed something on the face of the cliff. A small blue mushroom growing out of some exposed tree root. He got on his stomach, his right arm dangling over the edge, and reached. He grabbed the large mushroom and pulled back, crawling away from the edge as he did so, before finally getting to his feet.

 

A minute of walking later, the forest around the young man seemed to taper out into a serene grove. The grass was tall, shrubs were dense, but it was not unmanageable. A gust of wind pushed the greenery around like ripples on a pond, and through the slits of grass he saw a purple flower. Intrigued he approached, kneeled down beside the orchid shaped blossom, and plucked it from the ground. He inspected it, turning it around in his hand, the petals were purple in hue and became a pale white towards the base, it didn’t appear to be damaged either. Léo delicately places the flower in his satchel, before standing to his feet once again.

 

He looked around the meadow again, and felt a joyful feeling overtake him. He was far too hasty and desperate to enjoy this, he couldn’t appreciate the work these developers put in, but now that the excitement faded to a pensive calm, he could admire it. The sounds, the sights, the felt so very real. He could feel the wind against his skin, and couldn't help but smile. For the first time in a long time, he felt that same passion he felt in the parks of his home.

After roughly a eight minute venture, Léo found himself beyond city limits. He left the city to the north, heading west towards the large forest region. Three more minutes and he arrived at his destination, and to his surprise his friends hadn't messaged him yet, but it does give him time to look around for materials before it does happen. The forest is dense, but beautiful. The windy leaves casting dancing shadows over the mossy ground coupled with the smell of fresh rain. As Léo looks around, it occurs to him that he has no idea what he is looking for. He continues to walk for about forty meters, looking for anything that stands out. A sudden ding sound is heard, he opens his menu, and notices a message from Tomás:

"We found Ichiro, still no sign of Dhruv or Akako yet. Where are you?"

After giving it some thought, he responds with:

"I'm northwest of the town, there was more to the quest then I had thought. I'll be back in about 15 minutes."

And with that Léo marches on.

 

Léo waves his friends goodbye as they turn back towards the more densely populated streets in search of the missing three. Not before watching the mayor chase after them shouting "You there, stop please!". It seemed like the crowd was picking up, more and more people seemed to be flooding the streets. "Lotta people, hopefully it won't strain the server." He thought to himself, remembering that his connection to the server was already very poor. He used the map to identify the location of Zach's shop, and was relieved to find that it wasn't very far away, a stone's throw. He bid his time, taking in the sights of the busy streets, the feeling of the sun against his virtual skin, and the sounds of laughter and conversation mixed with the occasional bird call. He became so engrossed with it that he almost walked right past Zach's shop, it was another player with the same quest walking past him, his map open. Léo only saw a glance, but that was all he needed. He swiftly turned around, this time paying attention to the buildings, and saw the building he was looking for, it blended in with the rest of the buildings, nothing particularly remarkable about it aside from the strange smell originating from inside. Léo stepped inside just after another player left the building, and was met with shelves and shelves of colorful potions in various vials and jars. “Oh, hello," comes the distracted greeting from behind the counter. A man with a long, snow-white beard glances up from a bubbling cup of sweet-smelling purple liquid. "Are you here to order something? I’m sorry, but I am currently swamped with orders, and I’m running out of supplies.” Before Léo could interject, light comes into the man's dark eyes, a lightbulb going off to signify a brilliant idea. “Would you gather a few materials for me? Flowers, herbs, rare woods, whatever you can find outside the city walls. I promise I’ll help you fill your order as soon as you return. In fact, I would be willing to show you how to do it yourself.” Léo scoffed, "A fetchquest, within a fetchquest. I should have seen it coming." Léo pondered a moment, as  a new objective for his current quest appeared in his menu. The marker displaying a wide location outside of town. Weighing out the pros and cons of continuing, he decided to go for it. "Alright, I'll get you those materials old man." 

Léo recognized the voice, he felt the faint shadow of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth as he turned his head to see a group of two. A young man with a sandy goatee and short slick hair, and a woman who was slightly shorter then him who had her long black hair in a bun, she looked rather tired, and worried. He did not recognize their faces but the voices he made out all too well. "Yeah well, it has been quite the whirlwind. Have either of you seen Akako?" Léo responded, closing his menu as he got to his feet. "I was kind of hoping you knew." Tomás said running his hand through his slicked back hair. "I'm honestly not surprised that Akako is late, it's Dhruv and Ichiro I'm more concerned about. They are probably in game, and as lost as we were." Zoey commented, looking over her shoulder like they would appear nearby at any moment. "Should we go look for them?" Tomás asked, the question was more intended for Léo then the already worried Zoey. "I've been looking for everyone for almost an hour now, and honestly, I've had enough." Léo said with a chuckle, one hand on his neck. "I think I'm going to go do something else, lik-" "You there, stop please!" Léo's words break off as the group turns to see a well dressed man with approaching with long purposeful strides.  "Pardon me, but I am in need of some assistance, and you appear quite capable." Léo glances back to his friends for a moment as the man continues, he begins by adjusting his monocle. "My name is Dorian, and I am the mayor of this town. As part of those mayoral duties, I issued a small loan to a member of the community a few months ago. Well, the time to collect had come around and I-" The man runs a finger through his well groomed mustache. "You see, I've forgotten who it was I loaned the money to. Terribly embarrassing, I know, but I am a very busy man, and I cannot keep track of everything that happens. I'm sure you understand." There is a short silence, but just long enough to be awkward. Tomás opens his mouth to speak but the mayor interjects with a wave of his hand. "Should you be willing to track down the loan recipient for me, and collect the col, I would be eternally grateful. Just, maybe don't let anyone else know I forgot who the loan went to?" A menu appears in front of Léo, asking him whether or not he wants to accept the quest. He looks up at his friends, gesturing to the mayor. "Ok, I'm going to go do this fetchquest, but first lets friend each other so we can keep track of where we are." Zoey sighs, and Tomás shrugs. "Alright sounds good." He says, opening his menu and navigating to the friends list. "Me and Zoey will keep looking for the others, we will let you know if we find them. What's your handle in this?" "Right sorry, the handle I'm using is "August"."  Léo presses the button to accept, and the mayor nearly explodes with enthusiasm. "Excellent, I knew I could count on you! You might start with Zackariah, the alchemist. He's often doing projects for the town, so it may have been him that borrowed the money."

 

A young man with silver hair peeked his head in and was immediately hit with warm air that had the scent of coal and hot steel. He was captivated by the armor and weapons on display in the window along with the discount for lower level players which reminded him, his equipment was quite dated. He entered quietly and looked around, assuming the store was open. The smith wasn't at the counter, so August assumed he was in the back. He looked at all the items on display, but couldn't find a saber of his level to wield, and silently hoped the smith did custom orders. He went to the counter and was about to call out to the smith when he saw the order forms, he took one and started scribbling out a request for a new weapon.

After he is finished, he calls out to get the smith's attention. When the smith comes, August greets him:

"Hello there! It's nice to meet you, I'm August. I saw the items on display, you do amazing work and I was hoping you could do a custom order for me." August says as he holds the form out for the smith to take.

 

 

[OOC: I'm currently in the process of completely rewriting this thread, as I completely redeveloped my character. I am not going to start a new thread or continue posting new posts on this thread until it is all sorted out, that is all.]

Floor 1
<<The First Lesson>>

November 6th, 2022. 

Approximately 8:00 AM Central European Time (3:00 PM JST)

- - Two Hours Before Incident - -

________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Among the strangest practices we as a species seem to do is finding smarter ways to do stupid nonsense, the technology of the nerve gear is no exception." 

…was the exact thought that passed through Léo's mind as he watched in dumbfounded awe as a skinny balding man wearing nothing but a bucket upon his head and colorful hosen chased a chicken down the street all while yelling at the poor bird. The bird ran his way, clucking in a frenzied panic, and ran right underneath Léo's legs. He quickly stepped aside to allow the strange man to continue his strange verbal assault on the flightless bird. Léo felt a grin pulling at the corners of his mouth has he watched the peculiar display, before turning his attention to his map.

 

He and his only friends had planned this for months now, since Akako was a beta tester, he had a bit of a layout of the map and told everyone to meet down in a very particular district around a very particular fountain. Unsurprisingly, this made for some difficulty to find, as the streets weren't even named. Eventually though, using landmarks, asking around, and a bit of common sense, he was able to find the fountain. 

 

So far he was enjoying the experience, it was everything he had imagined and more. There were some complications, sure, but that's to be expected. Ever since he logged in, he could see a little icon of a chain under tension with the label "high ping" just barely within his field of view. He sighed as he sat down on the rim of the beautiful limestone fountain and opened the menu, and began disabling most of the HUD. The annoying green crystals made him feel like he was playing Sims as a sim, and the health and energy bars out of the corners of his vision were distracting more then anything. Just as he was finishing up, a voice called out to him. 

 

"Make a wrong turn?"

 

 

August's Journal:

In the game, Léo has longish silver blonde hair with short bangs and a short pony tail accompanied with amber eyes and a fair complexion. He is of average build and not particularly remarkable. The image listed is the closest thing I could find and I can't draw good so this is what you get, no he doesn't have pointy ears.

Profile

Username: August

Name: Léo-Céline Bassett (pronounced Lay-oh Say-leen Bass-set)

Age: 19 (at start) --> 21 (currently)

Approximate Height: 1.8 m (Roughly 5' 11")

Approximate Weight: 67.8 kg (149 lbs)

Place of Origin: Lyon, France

Sexuality: Bi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Character Traits/Personality

Personality Type: Fun-loving and Carefree

Moral Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Detailed Personality Description: 

 

 

Adventurous and curious since his youth, where some of his fondest memories are mapping and exploring the grove near his home and traveling the streets of London. These experiences shaped him into a young man who loves the serene beauty of the world and who equally loves exploring it. Chances are likely you’ll run into him outside of the safety of towns and cities, camping out in secluded but safe areas without a care in the world. He has plans to explore the floors himself, but he can also be found reading books about various floors along with the known dungeons, flora, and fauna held within.

"...look at that view, say what you will about this world, fake or real, it doesn't make it any less serene."

 

Easygoing and Relaxed, words that perfectly describe Léo’s overall demeanor. He is polite and tactful, is good at reading people, and is almost always in a mood for some conversation. He is also pretty understanding, which definitely helps make him easy to talk to about pretty much anything. 

"...that's what I love about places like these, the sky could be raining fire, but in here, you'll always find plenty of laughter."

 

Confident and Calm. Some men wiser than most say confidence is worth more than money, couple that with a relatively level head in stressful situations and the result is a very annoying pickup artist. That being said, Léo has incredible self confidence and isn’t afraid to be himself or speak his mind around others but with the tact to not accidentally trigger a fight. In combat, self confidence fills a minor role and clear mind takes the scene. Léo isn't a brave individual, but he isn't exactly a coward either, he will fight when the advantage is on his side or if he is truly desperate. 

"...I know, I know. I'm amazing."

 

Crafty, evasive, deceptive, and sometimes cheap to achieve his own ends. In a social setting, it may take the form of a bribe or some very subtle persuasion. Combat is an entirely different beast, as Léo will fight with cheap gimmicks and dirty tricks; whether that be in the form of a well placed kick to the crotch or throwing some sand in the opponent's face to get an advantage.

"...a-ha! Eat pocket sand!"

 

Idealism doesn't pay, Léo has a very objective worldview, life is a big equation of action and consequence, and he sees idealism as foolish. This is likely because of his disagreement in worldviews with his father. His father sentenced the son of a influential and rich business man to death for the murder of two women, and it was clear the young man didn't care about what he had done. This infuriated the young man's father and who made Léo's family pay dearly. A fire broke out in their home, it even conveniently tied up Léo's mother and father, imagine that. He believes they'd still be alive to this day had is father put aside his ideals and dealt with the matter more discretely.

"...No matter how much you try to accomplish something… In the end, stupid people will destroy all you've achieved, with no more than a snap of their fingers."

 

Impatient and Irresponsible derived from his lifestyle of constant and immediate self gratification. He hates waiting and is bored easily while doing so, which can cause him to lose interest in the task at hand if he isn’t actively doing something to preoccupy him. By itself, impatience isn’t so bad, however, he is also very irresponsible. He lives in the present moment, is completely oblivious to the consequences of his actions, and sees responsibility as a burden.

"...fight for the moment, and the moment only; it's the only thing we know for sure."

 

Foreigner in strange lands, connecting to SAO's Southeast Asia server from France as it was the only server operational at the time of login, he does not speak Japanese and his English is a bit rusty, so towards the beginning of the game he was completely isolated from everyone around him by a language barrier. This also means he experiences what gamers colloquially refer to as "high ping". The audio of his voice can compress and stutter in conversation, guaranteed strikes are thwarted by blades phasing through targets without registering as a hit, short delays before he can move his own body, the list goes on. It is all very uncanny to watch, even more so to experience. Nausea is a common result.

"...wait a m-m-m-m-moment, I think my conec-conec-conec-conec-connection is stuttering."

Background and Past History

Born on August 21st, 1996 in the city of Lyon. Léo-Céline Bassett was a miracle child, the first and only child of a wealthy married couple who were recently considering adoption to start a family. His mother was a prominent figure within a financial firm whereas his father was a judge with a reputation for justice at no expense. He grew up with people of all kinds visiting his home to see his parents, and as a result he became very sociable. Unfortunately, that was about all this "miracle child" could pick up, he did poorly at school and even with a tutor would not pay any attention, finding most of the content learned boring and dull. This earned him the disappointment and resentment of his father.

One day they went on a vacation to London when he was about eight, which likely sparked Léo's strange sense of wanderlust. Unfortunately the reason for this sudden vacation was that his household received death threats, he did not understand why at the time, but his father's ideals had put his own family in harms way when he sent an obviously guilty son of a very influential figure to prison on the charges of murder. This figure had ties to the Milieu, the French mob. On September 14th 2004, his home was broken into by "burglars" who trashed the place and killed everyone inside, except for the then nine year old Léo, who had decided to sneak out during the night and visit the nearby grove the city had kept preserved.

His entire life changed that day, and he fell into a depression because of the events. His aunt took him in as a guardian, during which he came to the conclusion that the reason his parents was killed was not because of the men his father had pissed off, but rather his father himself. His uncompromising values had put his own family in danger, and died because of him. This was a turning point in Léo's life as he began to see life as simple actions and consequences.

Slowly but surely he worked his way through primary and secondary school, he had rebuilt his confidence and was turning a new page. It was around this time he had gotten an interest in RPG games strictly for the whole discovery aspect. He found a small community online which he became a part of regularly, and he spent more and more time with that group. The group was around twenty strong but he quite enjoyed their company when playing, something he felt his other friends would simply not be interested in.

Two of the members of this online clan were Akako and Ichiro, two Japanese college students who had told Léo about the development of some kind of wonder technology. Léo was sold by the idea of being able to physically explore a world never before seen, something he could not do while stuck working a job that only offered minimal vacation time. He pre-ordered a headset, and ended up being pretty ecstatic by the time November 6th rolled around.

Léo and the few other members of the clan that managed to get a headset logged in, those members being Tomás, Ichiro, Zoey, Akako, and Dhruv. It was fun for the first few hours, the group meandered about, stabbed some stuff, did a few quests, and Dhruv fought Akako to the death for "honor", it was a great evening. That is until the group was teleported to the central plaza, and the shocking realization that they were trapped and wouldn't come back if they were killed dawned on them. Even Dhruv died in a duel before the announcement, he still didn't come back. Akako, the one that fought and killed him in the duel blamed himself for the death and ended his own life a week later. The rest of the group fell apart quickly after that.

Despite the rocky start, Léo is enjoying being trapped in the new world and is making the most of it.

Skills and Stats
Stats:
Level - 1
HP - 20
Energy - 2

Skills:
[Profession: N/A]
Total Skill Points - 5 | Used Skill Points - 4

Light Armor - Rank I

Inventory
[Support Package Chosen]

Col - 2000

Starters Leather Armor [Vantity]

Basic Duelist’s Saber [Perfect] (Accuracy x3)

T1 Materials (x19)

Starter Healing Potions (x3)

Quest Log

Relationships
Friendly:

 Nope

Neutral:

Nothing

Hostile:

Zero

Other:

Tomás De León (Friend) (NPC) / Split Apart after the death of Akako

Ichiro Yukimura (Friend) (NPC) / Split Apart after the death of Akako

Deceased:

Zoey Tremblay (Friend) (NPC) / Killed by Monsters

Akako Koizumi (Friend) (NPC) / Killed in an act of suicide

Dhruv Mahajan (Friend) (NPC) / Killed in a duel against Akako Koizumi