Faerie

Much like the rest of the decrepit building the front doors were completely falling apart, the wood was off colored and half of the double doors was standing askew. Fae strode to the door expecting it to be easy to open, but when she pushed on it the doors didn't budge in the slightest. The door hanging off its hinges was holding the other one closed tight so the door couldn't swing in. With no real other alternatives Fae kept heaving against the door, hoping that her meager strength would be enough to force it open, but she wasn't prepared for when she succeeded, the doors suddenly swinging o

The areas of floor in the sunken city that weren't completely submerged acted as a pathway leading to the church which only seemed to add to the sense of foreboding. "Zazu? you promise you aren't leading me into some sort of trap? there isn't anyone in there waiting to eat the souls of unwary trespassers?" Talking to her new friend helped relieve some of the mounting anxiety, especially when the large little dragonfly came and landed on her shoulder buzzing his wings before calming down. There was a wrought iron fence surrounding the church one of the doors of the gate was completely mi

Fae didn't need to wonder where Zazu was taking her anymore, with the insects trajectory it was pretty obvious that they were heading to the only building that was completely outside of the water. She stared in awe, not knowing how she had never seen something so monumental, she'd have to come back here in order to explore the place fully, there was no way she was going to leave something of this scale rotting and crumbling in the middle of the swamp. For now Fae contended herself with following her new friend, uncaring at the moment at the time passing , this was too big to abandon just becau

Fae kept jogging after her insectile friend, continually checking the sun as it drew nearer the horizon line, if they didn't make it soon she wouldn't be able to get back to town before nightfall. She followed Zazu all the way to the edge of a deep forest, one that she had never really explored, the mangroves roots and branches tangling to make it near impossible to squeeze through. She had expected Zazu to either turn and skirt the edge of the forest or to dive straight in without any regard for Fae's inability to follow, but to her surprise he zipped in circles on the edge of the trees seemi

Fae wasn't sure how long she jogged through the swamp with Zazu, but it had been early when she had set out and now the sun was high in the sky, so a decent amount of time had definitely passed both in the course of her search for materials, and for her run. "Is it much farther Zazu? I promised Angel I'd be back in town before it got dark, and at this rate I'm going to run out of time." she glanced back up at the sun estimating how much time she had left, and when she looked back Zazu was spinning above a decrepit shack on stilts. "What have you got there bud?" Fae gingerly picked her wa

Zazu sped off again as Fae pocketed the materials that the little guy had pointed her towards and, for a second, she was worried that he hadn't understood or listened to her but his pace wasn't as extreme as before. She still had to move quickly, and Zazu cared very little about what was convenient terrain for her, only leading them apart from the obviously large and in the way rocks, but the pace was merely hard instead of near impossible. When Zazu changed directions she no longer had to skid to a stop, but could instead simply pivot and move in the new direction. Not for the first tim

Fae quickly sat up scooping all of the muck off her face and flicking it back into the mud. "Zazu! I swear to god, if you don't slow down, I'm going to leave you in this god forsaken swamp." the bug stopped where he was hovering over a bush and fluttered his wings harder, making the buzzing sound even louder. He hovered in the air right above a bush with some flowering plants on them zipping from side to side. Standing Fae brushed the rest of the muck that she could off of herself and made her way to the bush. The small gleam that materials gave off was coming off one of the flowers and

Fae had been getting lucky so far, despite how quickly she was splashing through water and rustling through brushes they hadn't encountered any monsters. Fae was beginning to think that it was because of Zazu, more than once he'd stopped suddenly and zoom in a new trajectory, making Fae slide, or splash, to stop before she could continue chasing him, making her have to run even faster to make up for the distance that he had pulled ahead while she scrambled not to lose her footing. Zazu again stopped and Fae did her best to stop knowing that he would soon be flying in a completely knew di

Following Zazu was harder than Fae had been expecting. He definitely knew how to sit still and hover, she had seen him do it periodically, but he clearly didn't like it, instead he buzzed around at full speed in straight quick lines darting from one angle to another, and while he was large, his size wasn't big enough at distance too make it easy to follow his darting. All of this combined to make Fae dash faster through the mud and muck than she normally would have, her boots sticking on multiple occasions almost causing her to trip face first into the grime. "Zazu, please. Just slow dow

Zazu sat comfortably on Fae's shoulder as she got off the floor, brushing the muck off as best she could. This had been the last stop she was hoping to make before she headed back home, though she now had a new companion her plans hadn't really changed much. Fae started walking back towards the wagon, she figured she should at least stop there first to thank the lady for the food. She hadn't really ever thought of wanting a pet. But already the small amount of companionship was nice. Fae reached her hand up to her shoulder, and in quick flurry of buzzing Zazu jumped onto her palm letting

In this moment the words the odd wagon woman had spoken came back to her. She had said to give the feed to a creature she wanted to be her friend and that it would do just that. "Oh, what the hell." the creature didn't seem to startle at Fae's sudden words, or her reaching into the satchel at her hip and holding some of the feed out in her hand as an offering to the creature. "I've got plenty more where that came from. Come on, I'm not going to hurt you." Fae spoke with what she hoped was a calm and reassuring voice, she didn't know why she suddenly wanted to befriend this creature, all she kn

Fae nearly jumped out of her skin as a small shape flew out of the bush and rushed at her, it was so fast that she couldn't even tell what creature it was. Startled she fell back and landed in the dirt, the bag that the wierd lady in the wagon had given her catching on the branch of a bush and tearing spilling some of the soft kibble like food all over the ground. The creature seemed to stop in the air as the bag broke open, giving Fae a full sight of it for the very first time. It was a dragonfly, though a lot smaller than the monstrous ones that hunted these lands, only as long as her forear

It wasn't long before Fae saw the tree in the distance, and she picked up her pace closing the last meters quickly before she saw the bushes and, in turn, the bright yellow flowers that were growing there. A smile spread on Fae's lips 'Finally, I was beginning to think that i was doing this for absolutley no reason at all.' Fae thought to herself as she moved to the flowers and picked one before putting it into her bag. It wasn't much, but anything was better than leaving completely empty handed, even if it was only a single flower. Fae quickly spun around, instantly on alert as a buzzi

The place that Fae was looking for wasn't exactly easy to spot, the swamp was all fairly identical, without all that many landmarks to be used for navigation. She was looking for a larger than normal mangrove tree surrounded by a tangle of bushes, sometimes there flowers would bloom and they were perfect for alchemy which made them useful to gather. It was far away from any of her other searching spots however, which meant more often than not she'd end up over shooting the tree and seeing the crumbling ruins that housed a camp of some form of trolls. Fae hadn't ever fully scouted that out, the

Buzzing was all Fae could hear as she crouched low in the dead grass and bushes that covered the dryer sections of the swamp. It wasn't uncommon for giant dragonflies or even nastier insects to patrol just about everywhere in the swamp, so Fae had gotten used to having to spend long periods of time pushing her face into the muck to wait for the flying Vermin to pass her by and allow her to continue her movements. No matter how careful one was, and Fae most definitely was, there was no way to completely avoid monsters on any floor. But with luck and skill they could avoid the monsters notice fo

So far Fae's hunt was going remarkably poorly, hunting for materials was always something that relies heavily on luck, but normally her luck swayed in her favor not against it. She had picked up an official job title for foraging, something that she had assumed would help her gather materials faster, which it probably would in the end, but so far it had honestly seemed to make her less likely to actually find anything to pick up. Shaking her head she made her way to another one of her regular spots where materials wefe more common, itbwas almostbthe exact opposite of the small mound of

Stepping back into the mud that made up that vast majority of the eighteenth floor was regrettable, and Fae grimaced at both the sound and feel of the muck under her boots. There were a few more areas that she could still go to with relative safety, and she figures she might as well check them all before she returned home, materials were always good to have on hand and the ones in the higher floors were almost always better. Fae didn't have the skills for stealth like some players would have, but she knew how to be stealthy without aid of the system. Sticking to the mostly dry portions o

Fae was glad for the darkness that the winding tunnel to the main cavern provided. She had always blushed easily, especially from compliments and even more especially when they came from attractive women, and her pale skin made it nearly impossible to hide. She smiled at her new friend's reaction, it was practically the same one she had when Kas had shown it to her for the first time. "I know right. It's places like this that made me fall in love with exploring this tower, there are so many places to love and to see." The pair went there seperate ways in the cavern, not so far that they couldn

Fae chuckled and waited for Adelyte to finish her fondue before accompanying her out of the shop and further out of the gates. It was a misconception that the only safe place on the floor of beginnings was the city, but in truth the safe zone extends out into the planes a fair distance before it starts to get dangerous, and its even further before you can really run into anything of danger. This wasn't true on every floor, so caution was still the norm, but it meant the trek would be even longer before they'd find somewhere actually worth searching for materials. Leading other players t

Fae was, with no better terms, usually a bumbling idiot when it came to talking to strangers. She spent too much time talking and running in circles around the points she was trying to make. Being able to witness Adelyte practically carry out a conversation was almost like looking into a mirror, and it was refreshing. She smiled as her companion twirled in the cloak, the long cloth on the back expanding to look like wings in flight for the barest moment. "It suits you. You look whimsical. And keep it as long as you need, i have skills to help with gathering, the cloak might have been a bit of

Skill(s) Being Dropped: Combat Mastery EVA R1 SP Incurred Towards Limit: 0 (It was free) SP Refunded: 0 (It was still free) Cost: 0 (It was free?) I feel like I've made this joke before

The small hill that Fae was on could barely even be called that, it was more a mound of mud and muk that had built up in the area, a thick copse of trees having taken root the whole thing could be walked through in just a few minutes, though itbwas almost always easier to just walk around as the tangle of roots on the mangrove like trees made traversal tricky. Those very same roots also made an ideal place for mushrooms to grow and for other plants to hide. Fae took her time pursing through the roots until she was confident that there wasn't anything hidden in its depths. This was disapp

The constant flow of words coming out of Fae's new companion's mouth made it almost impossible to respond to everything she said so she just contented herself with chuckling at the painfully specific and accurate situation that the woman painted looking down and smiling. The woman had claimed to be an incredibly powerful player, but now that she had a chance to look her over a bit closer it was clear to Fae that this player was still using her starting gear, which was a little surprising what with all the high level players willing to practically throw good gear at fresh players. After all you

Gathering on the higher floors was always risky, no matter how skilled someone was and how they had memorized the floor's monsters and landscape, there would always be the chance of running into something that one couldn't handle. And for Fae the creatures she could actually handle on the eighteenth floor were none. She wasn't necessarily a slouch in combat, she was a good shot with her bow and she could avoid most dangers pretty well, but there was only so far that skill could take you when you didn’t have the stats to back it up, and she most definitely did not have stats that could put her

Skill(s) Being Dropped: Combat Mastery DMG R1 SP Incurred Towards Limit: 0 (It was free) SP Refunded: 0 (It was still free) Cost: 0 (It was free?)