[SP-F2] Solitude <<Breaking the Unbreakable>>

[Teion 0]

The last time Teion found herself on the second floor she was hunting a baby dragon. Now, the violet-haired blacksmith ran a hand through her hair, letting out a steady breath as she made her way through Urbus towards the gate leading outside to the forest. 'This will be good. A good way to blow off some steam. I need this.' The reassuring thoughts swirled around in her head. Teion had heard about the boulder-breaking quest hidden in the mountain peaks; she'd even traveled around those mountains once or twice, several months ago. A vague memory came to mind as she recalled taking an escort job for a couple of younger players to get them safely through the forest to the quest giver. What a long time ago that was, when she had to keep her guard up against monsters on even the second floor. Now, the only thing she had to be careful for were other players with ill intentions. The wolves and bears she would find outside the city here were friendly by comparison.

[Teion 0]

Teion tilted her neck side-to-side as she crossed over the edge of the safe zone to leave Urbus. She would have enjoyed the feeling of her bones popping in response to her stretching, if only that were possible with this virtual body. There were little nuances here and there that served as a reminder that this world she was forced to live in wasn't real, and it always got her thinking too much. "It would be easier to actually live here forever." The blacksmith mumbled to herself. Even if the game was cleared and the remaining players were released, what would she be going back to? She was likely hospitalized in some way, suffering from muscle atrophy for every day that went by while she was essentially braindead. Teion let out a sigh heavy enough to disturb a flock of nearby birds. The sound of wings rustling against leaves caused the woman to give a glance around, but her attention quickly shifted back forward.

[Teion 0]

There her mind went, running off on its own at a pace she could never hope to keep up with. Still, her goal was another half hour walk at the least, and that realization caused another puff of air to escape through her nose as she ran a hand through her violet hair once again. She'd certainly go crazy by the time she got to the quest, at this rate.

Teion had essentially turned her brain off for the rest of the walk, forcing herself to focus only on her surroundings, as dull as they seemed. She didn't need her thoughts getting the better of her, not today at least. If she didn't keep her subconscious in check, who knows where it would lead her. The blacksmith had reached the mountainous areas past the edge of the forest, quickly spotting the faded trail that would surely lead to the quest-giver's hut.

[Teion 0]

Her heavy boots carried her through the hike, and the woman gave a small tilt of her head as the landscape leveled out to reveal a small clearing with a single building hidden among the mountains. A rather modest-looking hut stood before her, but Teion didn't hesitate for a moment as she approached and pushed open the wooden door.

To her surprise, the inside of the small building appeared much tidier than she had expected. A humble dojo stood before her, in the center of which sat a single NPC. An old man didn't so much as flinch as the door swung shut behind Teion. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be meditating or something of the sort. The blacksmith gave another tilt of her head; already she felt out of place. "Err... Hello?"The woman called out with a couple of hesitant steps toward the center of the room.

[Teion 0]

The old monk didn't stir from his meditation until Teion was almost directly in front of him, at which point he opened one eye to quckly scan the axe-wielder before quickly returning to his calm expression. Teion frowned at his dismissiveness, shifting her weight impatiently. "Is this the location for the martial arts quest?" The woman questioned, resisting the urge to cross her arms over her chest. The old man gave Teion a disinterested look before letting out an audible breath and uncrossing his legs. He stood just a bit taller than her, looking the blacksmith over again with a disapproving look.

"You want to learn martial arts, do you?" His voice was a bit raspy, but he felt more intimidating than frail as he stared her down. Teion tried to resist the urge to fidget with nervousness, finding her fingers intertwining and lightly squeezing each other in front of her torso.

[Teion 0]

"Yes." She answered him plainly, forcing her hands to rest at her sides. The man let out a small grumbling noise at her response, but gave a nod of his head shortly after. "Mm, very well." He closed the gap between them with a single movement as his hand slipped into a pocket. His motions after that seemed even faster, causing Teion to flinch as his arm moved closer to her. Her eyes flickered open as she had squeezed them shut, but in front of her she saw her own reflection. The man stood behind the hand mirror he held up, and once Teion realized that she looked back to the mirror. She leaned forward slightly as the woman inspected the think black markings on her face that she didn't believe were there before. Her fingers traced the drawn-on "whiskers" on her cheeks as her eyebrows furrowed slightly in confusion.

[Teion 0]

"What?" Just as she let out a whisper, the mirror was pulled away from her and was replaced by the monk's face once again. His expression was that of slight amusement, but he offered her no explanation. "Your opponent waits in the training ground outside." He pointed towards a sliding door on the other side of the room. "No weapons are allowed. If you are victorious, you'll learn the skill you wish to know. But if you fail," A light chuckle escaped the man. "maybe you should grow a tail to match."

Just before Teion could protest, the man returned to his meditation, leaving the woman to let out a frustrated huff of breath. She walked over to the door he had pointed out, letting herself out and sliding the door closed behind her. The training area outside was both spacious and quite nicely designed.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80333
  • BD: 5 + 2 = 7 - Success!
    • Boulder: 49/50 HP

The woman took a few slow steps forward while her eyes eventually fell upon the massive boulder sitting dead center in the sparring area. "You're kidding." She muttered flatly, approaching the object with a sour expression. 'No weapons...' She mentally groaned as her fingers reached out to graze the hard surface of the boulder. She curled her hand into a fist, pulling her arm back a couple of inches before meeting the rock again with her knuckles. The woman winced slightly at the tingling feeling in her hand and gave a glance to the side at the green health bar hovering beside the boulder. Her strike had issued a single point of damage, just barely awarding her a sliver of empty space. "So what, I just punch a rock until its health bar drops and I get a skill?" Teion muttered the words to herself, bringing her hand back and giving it a light shake.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80334
  • BD: 6 + 2 = 8 - Success!
    • Boulder: 48/50 HP

This quest was certainly going to try her patience. Teion let out a sigh and made the familiar movement to crack her knuckles. Her fingers wouldn't actually make any popping sounds, leaving her unsatisfied once again. As the woman brought her hand back again for another strike, all she could think about is how she would have preferred to take her axe to the boulder. She wondered if bringing the massive steel blade down on the object would cause it to split cleanly in two. 'If only this quest could be so easy.' She gave a small, short mental sigh as the boulder's health bar ticked down another single point. "Is this what Emerath had to do?" She wondered aloud as her mind quickly began to wander. If she recalled correctly, along with support skills the red-head had picked up Martial Arts as his weapon skill.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80337
  • BD: 7 + 2 = 9 - Success!
    • Boulder: 47/50 HP

After only a handful of strikes against the boulder, Teion had already decided that she couldn't see herself using Martial Arts by itself. She would have to see if the skill awarded her any kind of bonuses to her axe, but that hunk of metal felt like the only way she could properly fight after all this time. She didn't know what it was that cause her to pick a two-handed battle axe, of all weapons. It must have fit with Teion's design at the time--that is, the character named Teion that Thea had brainstormed before she first logged into Sword Art Online. After all this time, Thea was beginning to think they were one and the same now. She couldn't decide if her first months in Aincrad were easy or not. Once the widespread panic had died down, Thea quickly gave up on the idea of living in Teion's persona.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80338
  • BD: 10 - Critical Success!
    • Boulder: 44/50 HP

It was so drastically different from her own, and despite her love for the character she didn't think she could keep up that kind of personality indefinitely. What was it that caused her to dye her hair back to her now iconic purple color, then? Maybe she still wanted to try and have fun with it while having some sort of connection to the character she had wanted to play so much in Sword Art Online. There wasn't much she could do about her stature--Teion was supposed to be more athletic and a bit taller--but perhaps at the time she had just started growing attached to her violet hair. The woman certainly couldn't imagine changing it now, just as she couldn't imagine the thought of not being a blacksmith. It wasn't something she had planned out, but it felt so comfortable now. Despite the trials and tribulations, her forge was still her safe space; a place where she could go to lose herself in her work and serve as a creative medium.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80339
  • BD: 10 - Critical Success!
    • Boulder: 41/50 HP

Why had she stopped working in her forge as much lately, anyway? 'That's a stupid question.' Teion scolded herself for the thought. It had taken quite some time since she completed The Gemini quest, but she was finally starting to feel a bit more at ease, day by day. She was breaking herself of the seclusion and taking more and more time away from her shop as she spent her time looking for quests to complete. She wasn't entirely sure why, but she also felt like she shouldn't question it. She would always have some sort of guard up; that wasn't going to change. But the more time she put between herself and the painful memories, the better. Seeing new faces in her shop likely helped as well. She rarely saw familiar players since she reopened her business, so it quickly started to feel more like a "fresh start" of sorts.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80340
  • BD: 5 + 2 = 7 - Success!
    • Boulder: 40/50 HP

As the boulder's health bar drained at a painfully slow rate, Teion drew in a deep breath, taking a step back to clear her head. Although it was mostly harmless at the moment, she found herself reflecting yet again. It seemed that she did little else besides dwell on the past, but what else was she to do? 'I can't seem to keep myself busy enough not to.' She didn't allow herself much of a break before getting back to work. Perhaps she just needed something else to focus on, but there wasn't much she wasn't already putting time in to serve as a better distraction. The woman already pulled herself away from the fifth floor to complete more quests and look for jobs she could take to increase her level. She'd remained stagnant for quite some time, so the levels she had been gaining lately had her feeling unsure.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80341
  • BD: 3 + 2 = 5 - Fail!
    • Boulder: 40/50 HP

She didn't have much of a plan as far as her skills were concerned, so once she finished maxing out her weapon skill she wasn't sure what she would be investing points into. Besides increasing her level, there wasn't much else for her to do in Aincrad that didn't feel like a waste of time. She was beginning to keep an ear out for events, bosses, or anything else of the sort, but those were few and far between. Her memory brought her back to the dance that had been staged for Valentine's Day, and Teion found herself freezing up slightly at the thought. The woman quickly found herself recalling that day much more clearly than she had expected--the dress she found two days prior, the time she spent convincing herself that she looked fine despite how uncomfortable she felt, the blonde swordsman that had asked her for a dance.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80342
  • BD: 7 + 2 = 9 - Success!
    • Boulder: 39/50 HP

Teion blinked as her movements became autonomous. Her mind was too busy thinking back on the Dance of Crossed Paths and the night that followed to direct her at the moment. She was lucky that her body had already gone through the motions of striking the boulder dozens of times that it hardly took any brainpower at this point. So, as she continued to slowly chip away at her target's health pool, her mind wandered once more.

'Did I make the right decision?' Teion's thoughts quickly led to a small sigh escaping her lips. Her memory of that night was surprisingly vivid, something that was out of the ordinary from the past few months. New and returning faces came to her forge. Days bled together. Events and other bosses came and went, but Teion never found herself able to recall much more than a vague, fuzzy memory after about a week's time.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80595
  • BD: 3 + 2 = 5 - Fail!
    • Boulder: 39/50 HP

But every so often, something happened that Teion couldn't push from out of her mind if she tried. More often than not they were experiences she wasn't fond of, so thinking back to the Valentine's Day event left the woman with butterflies in her stomach.

She wasn't sure what had rattled her nerves more--the dance, or the events that followed that night. After taking her leave from the castle once Freylise had been defeated, Teion had traveled back to the safe haven of her shop. She had found herself more distracted than usual that night, which was what led her back out of her shop after sundown. As night fell, she found herself climbing to the highest floors that she could access without an explanation why. She wasn't sure if it was just coincidence that she spotted the blonde swordsman that she had shared a dance with earlier that day.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80596
  • BD: 5 + 2 = 7 - Success!
    • Boulder: 38/50 HP

On the twentieth floor, far above her own level range, she decided to follow the man outside of the safe zone only to watch his recklessness first-hand.

She felt less reminiscent and more distracted as a pink tinge crawled across her cheeks. Teion was only grateful that she had come here alone. Taking a moment away from her quest objective, the blacksmith absent-mindedly massaged her wrist with her opposite hand. She would never have predicted Beatbox's words that night, and Teion was almost as surprised by her answer. Dwelling on it, however, only brought the butterflies back to her stomach. The woman gave a slight shake of her head and swiped a hand through the air to pull up her menus, scrolling through until her finger hovered above the Friend List option. She didn't hesitate nearly as long as she normally did, pressing down to open up the list of names that her cobalt eyes briefly scanned.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80597
  • BD: 9 - Critical Success!
    • Boulder: 36/50 HP

Among the short list, his displayed at the top as it appeared to be sorted alphabetically. The text floating before her only served as a confirmation that the man was still alive. The only other option she had available to her was to send him a message, but the thought of doing so led her to close the interface completely. She took in a deep breath, holding it a few moments before exhaling in an attempt to settle her nerves as she focused her gaze upon the massive boulder before her. It still held a generous amount of HP that she had to get rid of, so she couldn't afford many breaks if she wanted to complete this quest before sundown.

'What would I even say, anyway?' Teion allowed herself to wonder as she went back to throwing punches at the solid object. It wasn't long before she began to feel the tightness in her chest, the nervousness in her stomach.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80598
  • BD: 2 + 2 = 4 - Fail!
    • Boulder: 36/50 HP

The blacksmith threw another fist against the boulder, freezing in place once her hand made contact with the rock. Her knuckles began to tingle, and she pulled her arm back while giving her hand a light shake to try and dismiss the uncomfortable feeling. "Ugh!" She groaned, turning her body to lean back against the slab of stone. Her back slid against the surface until she was sitting down on the dirt-covered ground, staring at the black fabric covering her legs. She was practically wearing a pout on her expression as she crossed her arms and rested her forearms on her knees. "Come on, Thea. You're not a high school girl anymore." She mumbled out. It's not like that night was the first time she'd been asked out on a date before, so what had her all flustered? She let out a long, steady breath through her nose.

[Teion 0]

• ID#: 80848
  • BD: 5 + 2 = 7 - Success!
    • Boulder: 35/50 HP

"This is a good thing. I just...need to move on." The woman rested her chin against her arms. She felt as though she had been dwelling in the past for months, holing herself up in her shop and avoiding venturing away from the fifth floor. In just the past few weeks, however, she had found herself taking on more quests, increasing her level, and traveling to the higher floors. Perhaps it was finally time to put the red-headed twins behind her. 'If they're going to keep to themselves for so long, then there's nothing else that needs to be said!' She thought with a defiant expression. Her grip around her arms tightened for a moment as her chest puffed up with air. As quickly as that thought had entered her head, her eyebrows then furrowed and tilted with a look of guilt. "Argh, but I've been avoiding them, too..." She grumbled as if scolding herself.