[PP - F1] Slowly progressing. (Adhaerere, Verus) [[EDIT]]

[Adhaerere 0]

 Not much time had passed since the small party had come back to the Town of Beginnings. Their journey back from the village of Horunka had been uneventful, thankfully. They didn't see any monsters around the path. Adhae had been tense the whole time, though. She knew the two small monsters they had fought before were only lucky, due to the fact they hadn't landed a single hit on either of the party members. Now, with higher health, they had the chance to fight something bigger, maybe. It still made her afraid to think about what might have happened if they hadn't been lucky. She gripped her axe tighter and let her feet wander further into the city. 

 This was their first day in the city. They had spent most of it looking around, trying to see if there were any shops that were inexpensive enough to give them a good price on healing potions or armour. Of course, there was nothing. They only had 200 Col apiece, which was an abysmal amount, as Adhae soon discovered. They could hardly buy food, much less a full piece of shiny metal armour. She had seen a nice looking one as they passed through the market square, window shopping. She pointed it out to Verus, very excited, and looked at the price on the piece. That killed her mood, and they moved on. She noted down the name of the shop and swore to herself she would get a lot more Col and come back to get the armour. 

 Now, she had enough of the shopping, and turned to her companion. "Hey, Verus, do you think we're ready to go fight some beasties now? Something a little bigger than what we fought before, sure. Hopefully nothing too big. We can take a few hits more with the health we got for leveling up. And this trip has been pretty pointless." 

(( EDIT: At the conclusion of this thread, we submitted it to a moderator for review, and found out that the SP rate wasn't one per 20 posts, it was one SP per completed thread. Since we misunderstood this, he gave us permission to convert this 1 thread into 3 total, giving us the SP that we had accounted for during the thread. We aren't bots <33 ))

Edited June 12, 2016 by Adhaerere

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Verus nodded to her constant points at various pieces of armor, slightly amused by all the excitement she had. This girl acted as if she were fifteen years younger sometimes and it was pretty fun to watch. Coming back to the town he knew they would be unable to buy anything from their level up money, even if they pooled together and tried to get just one thing. It would be a day or so of farming creatures before the two would even be able to buy something as lowly as some old iron boots. However, this was what the game intended for its players to do; work hard and progress. 

He stopped in front of a bakery and peered inside as soon as Adhae began to spoke. He had hardly eaten anything since beginning the game, as he was trying to ration out his bread supply. It would last him several days but he would have to continue on slightly hungry. "We might as well set up a camp out in the fields." Verus nodded his head and pointed towards the way they just came from. "Let's go back and get you some armor." The boars would be easy pickings now that he had leveled up. His health got doubled and he was finally able to try out one of his sword art skills. This would be fun.

[Adhaerere 0]

"Alright!" She grinned wide, reaching out to tug at his shirt sleeve. "Let's go, once I get enough for that armour I can take all the hits for us. The one I like best had some insane perks. I don't know how long it will take to actually get to 1500 Col, but we're something like a third of the way there." She glanced at Verus, realizing something and feeling a little bit bad about her assumption. "Sorry, I assumed I would be able to use some of your Col." She grinned sheepishly. "Maybe a sixth of the way then." She turned back to the way they had come, and repeated what he had mentioned earlier. "Yeah, let's go find an area to clear. Maybe we'll find out how fast mobs respawn. If we go out a little further than we did last time, we can probably find bigger things. Hopefully not too much bigger." She looked back at him, and then started walking. 

 Her eyes followed the armour she liked as they passed it, but a little while after then they had escaped the city. As they walked, Adhae tried to make conversation. "So, I don't know much about it, but I heard that there are something called sword arts? It fits with the title of the game but it might as well just describe the lack of magic and the main weapon of the players, the sword. Do you know anything about it?" She turned her head to look at him as she spoke, waiting for an answer.

[trenttrent20 0]

He smiled at the tug of his shirt and followed along, keeping up with how fast she talked. Adhae would be a good wall to hide behind and deal damage, or at least he hoped. It would be a good combo; a solid defense and a quick in-and-out damage dealer. Verus would be more than happy to give over his col, be it that he only really cared about his skill points. The armor and items would fall into place later on throughout the game. He did not speak up about her asking for gold, continuing to have a somewhat blank expression that only changed for occasional glances at the surrounding stores. He was not quite ready to open up yet; it would usually take him days or weeks to in other games to his party members. He figured that a somewhat business-style way of acting would be suitable for the first few levels, and then he would get all friendly when the time was right. 

"I'm pretty sure they're just available to use at any point. If you look in the menu..." He pulled up his own with his hand, letting her peek at his information. "..you can see that as a Novice with my Rapier, I can use the skills listed." Only a few of them showed up, and out of them he would only be able to perform one at his current level. He'd have to try it out on one of these beasts in a few minutes or so. "What about you?"

[Adhaerere 0]

 She frowned a little as he didn't respond to the gold thing, assuming she had overstepped. "One sixth then." She looked back ahead, walking quietly as she could, guaranteed she was no small or agile person. She listened as he explained, and followed his example, opening her menu and finding the skills tab. Her mouth formed a little "o" of surprise. "Wow, you're right. I have one skill too, I guess everyone gets one at level two." She looked at the menu for a little longer, feeling like she got a grasp of the idea, and closed it. "Sounds good. That's how we get up our damage, I guess." 

 They made their way out of the city, going further and in a different direction than they had to get to their first village. Adhae didn't start any further conversation from there, feeling like she didn't have anything else interesting to say. She was still nursing the regret of assuming he would give her Col. Being as impatient as she was, however, she began walking faster as they continued on without a sighting of any monsters, fidgeting with her shirt sleeve and glancing around.

Edited June 9, 2016 by Adhaerere

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Verus closed out of his menu and looked about the horizon. The sun seemingly stayed in the sky forever, and it put its beams down on a particular few boar out in the distance. It was a good walk away, but they really needed to start farming. He pointed towards a part of the forest, where a decent amount of boar were gathered. "We'll die there if we head straight in." His tone was almost too upbeat, as if he didn't mean to say it in such jolly tone. It was true though. There were dozens of them just huddled together, grazing the pastures of wild grass. They would have to pick off a pack one by one to ensure easy kills, which should not be too hard. "What's the strategy here shrimp?"(shortpost)

[Adhaerere 0]

 Adhae looked at the pack, and felt afraid. She looked around, and shrugged. "Not sure. Is there anything else in this world other than our weapons that we can use to draw attention of only one of them? I assume they'll all agro if we jump in the middle, yeah. Can we throw rocks..?" She looked around, not seeing anything on the ground. "I don't know, maybe we should just look for more single ones. I really don't want to risk a whole pack chasing us across the world." She shuddered, and poked his shoulder, shrugging off her concern. "Let's just move on, alright?" She looked towards the opposite direction, and headed that way. 

 Not long after, they did end up spotting a single boar. Adhae had only seen boars around here, and she was happy to keep it that way. She assumed any other monster they found would have higher stats, or some other nasty ability. "Let's head after that one. I'll take the first hit again." She swung her axe into both her hands again, adjusting her right one to sit above her left on the shaft. Instead of running at it like she had previously, she walked calmly towards the creature, making sure her eyes never strayed from it and her battle axe was tight in her grip. She remembered her Sword Arts, and decided to try her first one right as the boar came at her.

ID: 61329

BD: 4
MD: 3

 The boar spotted her soon after, and ran at her. It charged just like the other boars had, so Adhae assumed their attack patterns were all the same. Since she was expecting this, she had time to step to the side and avoid the boar, resulting in its miss. However, since she was spending time on this, she didn't have an appropriate reaction time with her sword skill, resulting in a miss on her end as well. She tried preparing her sword skill, feeling the moment when it began charging up. She chopped down in a heavy two handed swing, but her timing was off, and her attack slammed into the ground behind the boar. It sent a shockwave through the ground, which startled Adhae. She felt the power it packed, and was slightly disappointed by the fact that it had missed. But she was excited for the moment where it would hit something.

 Damage Dealt / Received (Boar and Adhaerere)

        Boar: Health: 4/4 (-0) = 4/4

        Adhaerere: Health 8/8 (-0) = 8/8

Edited June 10, 2016 by Adhaerere

[trenttrent20 0]

He quickly shook his head to Adhae's rock idea having a slight suspicion that that would not work. "A whole pack chasing us would lead to our deaths, or me pushing you down so I could get away." Verus smiled while he opened up his menu, scrolling through a couple of pages about himself. After he found what he was looking for, he closed it out and drew his rapier, nodding to her request of moving to a different location and followed close behind her. It would be several levels before the two of us could even fathom about thinking of taking on and winning a multiple enemy battle. The two were extremely weak and would be for a while. 

She had found a lone boar standing in a field after a short walk. The two had seen each other and Adhae was the first to strike, missing the boar as it quickly sidestepped the halfassed attack. The boar then tried to go in to retaliate, missing its initial attack as well. He was going to have to do everything himself. With a slight raise of his sword, he charge at the boar, attacking in a certain V pattern. It was the Sword Art skill he was looking for earlier, it supposedly did far more damage then he could with a basic attack. Alas, he has fell into the same pattern as the two predecessors that attacked each other; he missed. He overshot his attack and struck just above the boar, doing all the damage to the air. "Great."
 

 ID# 61331 results:

 Battle: 4

Verus : 8/8

Boar : 4/4

[Adhaerere 0]

 Adhae snorted, feeling more confident now that they were a higher level. "Wow Verus, you're such a noob. Missing your first sword skill. Haha." She smirked and then had to prepare herself again, because the boar was wheeling itself back towards her. She didn't have the Energy for another attempt at a sword skill, she knew. She had looked over her abilities and everything that concerned the Sword Arts before they had engaged with this creature. Now, all she could do was try to swing regularly at it. 

ID: 61332

BD: 1
MD: 8 

 This time, she saw it coming towards her, and panicked. 'Oh god, oh god. What did I even get myself into with this. I'm not ready to die.' Those thoughts froze her as the boar barreled into her, landing a good hit smack in the chest. It knocked her backwards onto her buttocks and the boar ran over her, not wasting time in backing up and going around. All Adhae could do was groan, and try to figure out where exactly this pain was coming from. The answer: Everywhere. But she wasn't dead.

Damage Dealt / Received (Boar and Adhaerere)

        Boar: Health: 4/4 (-0) = 4/4

        Adhaerere: Health 8/8 (-3) = 5/8

Edited June 10, 2016 by Adhaerere

[trenttrent20 0]

He watched as the boar targeted Adhae, running right through her as it finished its attack. Things were not going well. Verus ran past her, confronting the boar. He held out his sword in a line towards the animal, preparing for his next attack. With a quick step, he lunged forward, attempting to strike a piercing blow to the mob. Verus watched as his attack was simply sidestepped, the animal snorting at me in almost a mocking tone. His party was losing a two on one attack against a single, low level enemy. 

ID#61334

Battle: 5

Verus: 8/8

Boar: 4/4

Quickly Verus took a few steps back, standing slightly over Adhae to block her from the boar. "Get up and run." His tone was alarmingly soft for the situation, with a slight tremble in his voice. There was no point in taking chances; they would try and run to fight another time. Losing to a simple boar this early would be a humiliating death, and there was no point in sticking around. The two would try to head back to the town, rest up, and try again. 

[Adhaerere 0]

 Still regaining her breath, Adhae was quick to follow his orders. She saw him standing above her, and was touched by the act of bravery. She should be doing the protecting, not him, but they had fared worse during this encounter than either of them had expected. It was somewhat due to them figuring out their sword skills, which shouldn't be so much of a problem next time they faced a beast such as this. Hopefully. They sure could practice on nothing while they were just walking. 

 Now, it was time for Adhae to get busy running away. She forced her arms underneath her, lifting up her torso with a grunt of exertion. Her pain was wearing off, and she realized her health wasn't all that low. Only about.. half. Okay, maybe sort of low. She felt a spur of motivation to get out of here right that moment, and pushed herself onto her feet. "You better follow me, idiot!" She prepared to run.

However, behind her, the boar wasn't finished. Its artificial intelligence didn't give it any sort of facial expressions or movements, but if Adhae had looked back, she would have sworn it looked angry. The beast charged at Verus then, seeing the target so easily in front of it.

ID: 61337

MD: 8

It landed the charge, knocking into Verus in a similar way that it had with Adhae. It did the same amount of damage, too. 

Damage Dealt / Received (Boar and Verus)

        Boar: Health: 4/4 (-0) = 4/4

        Verus: Health 8/8 (-3) = 5/8

[trenttrent20 0]

The boar struck Verus in the stomach and he slightly slunched over on top of it, being pushed backwards by the force of the boar. He slid backwards a few feet, boots dragging in the ground. The pain was bearable, but just. He used his free hand to hold his stomach while he pointed his other sword at the beast, slowly beginning to back away towards where Adhae was. Maybe he could keep it at bay for a second while they started there escape by acting like he was going in again. He would need to study the creatures to learn their patterns and such, but he considered this encounter a semi-faliure. They got to experience a botched fight and learned how it felt to be attacked and hit. It was not pleasant. 

"Time to leave miss paladin." He started backing up, still holding his sword at the ready. We'd need to train more or something. Our luck with our first two encounters was somewhat rare, and they were not ready for this fight. 

[Adhaerere 0]

ID: 61337

CD: 8

Adhae was up and running, managing not to trip over her own feet as she bolted away. She didn't look back to see if Verus was behind her until she was somewhat out of breath and far enough away from the beast to feel safe. She bent over and set her hands on her knees, waiting for him. "Come on!" She shouted, before she realized what had happened. 

 The boar had tried to attack again, which had held Verus up. However, even from this distance, she could see it miss. It veered off to the side, far away from Verus at that point. Adhae breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that he would be fine to escape. Then they could break and try again later, maybe. Heal up at least.

ID: 61337

MD: 2

[trenttrent20 0]

ID# 61336 results:  Craft: 12

Verus had managed to catch up with Adhae's resting spot, being a little bit lighter on his feet. The boar had tried to follow up on attack but couldn't catch him in time. He was slightly out of breath, but for the most part, the two were safe. It was a weird feeling running from something that was so easily killable. If he wasn't inside the game, things would have been slightly different. "That...blew..." He spoke between each large breath he was taking. His left hand was positioned on his hip, holding his sword at his side and slightly bent backwards, almost looking up towards the sky. "Time to regen the health right? Or are you done."

[Adhaerere 0]

 Adhae laughed. It wasn't her regular, happy laugh. It was strained and seemed to need a lot of effort to force out. "Yeah. Definitely." She huffed, and looked back at the boar before she stood up straight, having regained her breath. She responded to his later question after she checked her health bar. "Oh, I think I'm healed. Welp." She frowned. "I really wanted to use my skills. That Whirlwind attack was pretty badass, but it didn't hit. It woulda killed it!" She actually had no idea, but was just replying on her intuition. "Oh well. Are we going to try again once you're healed up? I think that's all we can do. There's no other way to level up but try to fight things. And I think our failure was only karma for getting lucky on our first two encounters." She smiled, trying to lighten the mood. "It would definitely work better if we hit with those skills. I think my energy has regenerated enough to do it again, and I'll assume yours is too. But it's up to you, honestly. We can definitely look for a less beefy one." She pressed her lips together, trying her absolute hardest to keep a straight face. She had made a bad joke. 

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His breathing pattern calmed down to a point where he was back to a normal state. He ran free hand's fingers through his hair and turned slightly away from her, looking back to the boar they had just run from. "We missed everything we had." Like a child, he kicked up some dirt in a little second of mixed feelings. She was trying to calm the situation down but he was just mildly upset with his performance. He quickly spun on his heels, looking back at her and pointing out his sword hand. "Let's go get some revenge on that thing." He wore a small grin and squinched his eyes for a moment, trying to get out of the suns glare. "We aren't leaving until we kill that one right there....beef and all." This time he would land his skills, this time he would do better. He felt it. 

With a sword pointed out, he made the motion of his Sword Skill without activating it. It was a slight V in the air, a quick flick of the wrist would achieve it. There was damage potential behind it; much more then a basic attack. "Show me the motions of your move again."

[Adhaerere 0]

 She laughed as he spoke about the beef, unable to contain it from before. Then she shrugged, watching in fascination as he waved his sword around in the air in a way that looked like it would hurt. "Uh. I don't think there's anything specific, actually. I just swing, and it lands hard enough to deal extra damage with the shockwave it releases." Then, coming to a decision, she shrugged. She stepped back from him, giving herself room. She gripped the battleaxe in both hands, having retrieved it from her inventory, and held it to her right side, the head of the axe hovering in the air a little bit above her shoulder. She had realized it was a lot easier to hold the bulky thing than it looked, especially with the two handed grip the weapon required. She swung the axe in a motion that was somewhat similar to the one she had used before, when she tried to attack that boar. But she hadn't activated the actual Sword Art. This time, it felt more natural. "It's just... A regular swing. I guess. Plus the skill." 

[trenttrent20 0]

He nodded to her as she mocked her skill shot, watching the power behind her swing. He doubted he would ever have that sort of power behind a swing, but then again he was not supposed to be able to. He was a quick in and out guy, and he liked it that way. "So, how do we want to do this this time? I can always take the lead if you want to..." His voice trailed off as he watched the boar slowly walking our way. It was like the AI was asking for a rematch, and he desperately wanted it. "I'm down for any approach, I'm just wanting my next skill point." He grinned and looked at her, waiting for a response while he stretched out his arms in a circular motion. 

[Adhaerere 0]

 "Oh, I don't care. At the moment I don't have anything that could give me the advantage when taking the first attack, and neither do you. So I don't care." She smiled and followed his line of sight, turning to watch the boar too. "I don't think it will be either of us initiating the fight. This little one's decided to do it himself." She grinned at Verus, and then started walking towards the boar. "I might as well get in the habit of smacking it first!" Still having the battleaxe in both of her hands, she walked towards it, slowly advancing just like she had before. This time, she was more prepared as to what to do with her sword art. As the boar charged her, horns down as ever, she prepared her skill. 

ID: 61341

BD: 8
MD: 7

 As Adhae attacked with the skill, her battleaxe glowed red, and suddenly she felt like she knew exactly where the skill would hit, and exactly how to make it hit. As the boar charged, she stared it down, a determined glare in her eyes, and swept the axe sideways. She felt like screaming 'Whirlwind, go!!!' would be an accurate activation shout for the skill, like they do in the animes. But she decided against it as her senses took over and made sure the axe connected. The satisfying thunk of the blade in its side made Adhae grin maniacally, and then the shockwave afterwards blew it to the side. She set down her axe shaft in the ground slightly stunned herself by it working, and wasn't prepared for the boar quickly recovering and coming at her again. She fell on her ass again, but this time it didn't knock her flat on her back. 

Used Skill "Whirlwind" - 2x1 - (2 Energy)

Damage Dealt / Received (Boar and Adhaerere)

        Boar: Health: 4/4 (-3 [1 MIT]) = 1/4

        Adhaerere: Health 8/8 (-3) = 5/8

Edited June 11, 2016 by Adhaerere

[trenttrent20 0]

Verus watched as Adhae had taken the lead once again, and took note of her first skill. Her axe turned bright red and was struck as if she were chopping down a tree. It cut right into the boar, enough to know that it was a pretty decent chunk of its health. In turn, Adhae took a ramming to the body, but that was to be expected. This boar was somewhat stronger then the two they had faced before, as if it had some slight armor or something. Verus probably stood there for an over-extended amount of time, watching the battle take place before even thinking about jumping in. He quickly moved his sword to his side and started up a slight jog at the creature, getting ready to try and use a skill shot.

ID# 61344 results:

 Battle: 9

 Loot: 18

 MOB: 3

Verus: 8/8

Boar: -3/4

"Rip Rivine!" He yelled as vast his Sword Art. His rapier turned a bright purple as he slashed a V into the boars side, watching as it shattered into thousands of pieces. The two had landed both of their skills, effectively deleting the boar from the game. After he had completed his attack he stood just slightly above Adhae, holding out a hand. As Adhae was gripping onto his hand to be pulled up, a slight popup appeared in front of him, showing that he had acquired some loot as well as leveled up. He pulled his hand away to check the stats, swiping it back and forth to check "Hell yes."