[SP-F18]Lurk in the Murk<<Feeding Your Enemy>>

[Faerie 0]

The eighteenth floor was by no means Fae's favorite, far from it in all honesty, but even in Sword Art Online you had to make some sort of living. And that was how Fae found herself struggling through the thick mud and plant life that covered floor 18, boots sticking with every single step as she foraged for materials. Fae had always thrived more outside than inside, and that hadn't changed when she got trapped into SAO, but rather she was able to enhance and capitalize on those skills in order to sell her services as a guide and a gatherer of rare materials for the craftsman that don't have the ability to go out for themselves. One of those very same craftsman was paying for Fae to procure some rare fungi that grew only on this floor, she had found all of what they had been looking for already, but there was no reason not to take advantage of the situation and gather materials for her own purposes. 

Fae was beginning to regret that decision as the loud sucking sound of her foot pulling free from the muck around her echoed in the flat expanse of murky water and muck. Fae had been doing this long enough at this point that she could go just about anywhere in Aincrad without encountering monsters, but this floor was one of the hardest, there was nowhere to hide and almost every single one of the monsters liked to hide in the water and jump out at the last second. Floors like these still had the power to make Fae shiver, remembering days long past when less was known about the floors, and dungeons and floor bosses could just be ran into without any warning. 

Fae was taken out of her reminiscing  by smoke curling into the air in the distance, normally she would have ignored something like this, but her curiosity got the better of her as she veered course towards the smoke on the horizon, making sure to place her feet more carefully so that no noise came out while she was moving. The carefulness that she moved with made the journey slow, and it took her nearly an hour before she passed through a copse of sickly gray trees and could see what appeared to be a wagon sitting on one of the few areas of land in the area that was neither murky nor muddy. 'How did they even get the wagon there.' Fae studied the wagon for a few minutes before determining that it was safe to approach and making her way to it.

Spoiler

 

Faerie | HP: 220/220 | EN: 40/40 | DMG: 12 | MIT: 20 | ACC: 1 | LD: 8 (5+3)(10 When hunting for familiar)| PROSP: 2 | QTY: 2 | +2 CD when taming familiar | -5 required posts for familiar searching

Name: Faerie
True Tier: 2
Level: 11
Paragon Level: 0
HP: 220/220
EN: 40/40

Stats:
Damage: 12
Mitigation: 20
Accuracy: 1
Loot Die: 5
PROSP: 2
QTY: 2

Equipped Gear:
Weapon/Armor/Trinket: 
  - Branch of the World Tree [T2 | Perfect | Projectile Weapon | DMG 2 | ACC 1]
Armor/Trinket: 
  - Fairy's Dance [T1 | Perfect | Cloth Armor | LD 3]
Shield/Armor/Trinket: 
  - Fae Coin [T2 | Demonic | Trinket | Quality 2 | Prosperity 2]

Combat Mastery:
  - Combat Mastery: Damage R1

Combat Shift:
  - 

Familiar Skill:
  - 

Custom Skill:
  - 

Skills:
  - Cloth Armor R5
  - Projectile Weaponry R3
  - Searching R2

Extra Skills:

Inactive Extra Skills:

Addons:

Mods:

Inactive Mods:

Battle Ready Inventory:
  - An Mhaighdean Mhara | Familiars Sight x1 (Used)
  - gelato. | TIERLESS DESSERT | LD III x1 (Used)
  - Spyglass x3 (Used x1)
  - Starter Health pots | Heals 50 HP x2
  - The Stars Collide | TIER 1 PERFECT SALVE | PHERMONES x1 (Used)

Housing Buffs:

Guild Hall Buffs:

Scents of the Wild Totem:
 
Loot Dice Breakdown:
  - Gathering:5
  - Looting:5
  - Finding Chests:5
  - Looting Chests:0
  - Finding Dungeons:5
  - Finding Labyrinths:5

Crafting Profession:
 - Cooking[36exp] R2
Gathering Profession:
 - Forager[0exp] R1

Spoiler

Consumed Items:

- An Mhaighdean Mhara | Familiars Sight | +2 LD when searching for Familiar

  - gelato. | TIERLESS DESSERT | LD III | +3 LD

- Spyglass | Search for Familiar/Field Boss/Labyrinths 5 posts earlier

The Stars Collide | TIER 1 PERFECT SALVE | PHERMONES | +2 CD when taming familiar

Spoiler

Word Count: 437

 

 

Edited 40 minutes ago by Faerie

[Faerie 0]

One of the biggest downsides to the 18th floor was the immense difficulty in moving around, most of the water wasn't deep enough for boat travel, and the land was too watery for travel with a wagon, but there one was. Fae carefully approached the wagon, nothing had yet made it seem dangerous to do so, and curiosity had won her over long before she decided to move in. On further inspection, Fae only grew more and more confused, not only was there no perceivable way for the wagon to have made it this far into the swamp, there was also no perceivable way that the wagon could move at all. Even though SAO was a game, every wagon was still pulled by some sort of animal, but there was nothing in sight, no sign of there having been any animal to begin with.

The wagon was a simple one, made of a soft green wood fully enclosed like a small house on wheels. Herbs and other trinkets hung from all different places on the wagon, and a woman sat outside next to a large fire watching as Fae approached. The woman just stared as she approached, keeping her eyes fixed on Fae until she spoke "What are you doing out here?" her voice broke through the silence like a crash, sounding far too loud for the dim swamp. The woman jumped, almost as if startled by the sounds, even though she had been watching Fae approach the whole time. "Oh, I'm just a friend of the animals. I have some feed that tends to make even the most hostile creature friendly." The woman spoke as if she wasn't fully there, with a dreamy quality that made her seem unreal. That coupled with how she seemingly just appeared out of nowhere in the middle of a dangerous swamp was quickly making the whole experience surreal. "Friend of the animals? Like the swamp monsters?" the swamp wasn't full of much in the way of small creatures, mostly just insects and fish, and most of those were far larger than anything that people would normally befriend. The only things that really survived in this harsh environment were the larger monsters that could eat instead of be eaten. "I am a friend of any and all creatures in this tower. Here, why don't you take this. Give it to any monster you would want to treat you as a friend and they will." The woman held out a small brown bag loosely, offering it to Fae and letting her hand fall back as soon as Fae grabbed it. "Now off with you, I have preparations to make, and I can't have you just standing around my camp." the woman left no room for argument, so Fae made her way from the small wagon, reeling at the whole experience 'What even just happened, I think I have whiplash from that' 

Fae eyed the small bag of what appeared to be some sort of kibble one last time before pocketing it and making her way into the swamp. Maybe it would come in handy, but for now she had a reason for being in these god forsaken swamp, and she intended on finishing so that she could leave as soon as possible.

Spoiler

Word Count: 547

 

Edited March 1 by Faerie

[Faerie 0]

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 on par with the giant insect and other horrid monsters prowling in the swamps.

The danger would make the trip all that much more lucrative though, as they got to the higher and higher floors it got harder and harder for craftsman who were not themselves high level players to even acquire the materials that they needed to supply the frontlines. Thus a career in gathering and exploration had been created for those people who either couldn't or wouldn't join the frontlines but still wanted to be able to help in a more active role. Fae couldn't yet help explore the newest floors to hunt for the boss rooms and the Labyrinths that would lead to another floor, so she contended herself on memorizing everything about the floors she could manage to scrape by in so that she could supply crafters with materials and in turn allow them to supply the frontliners with much needed gear.

A self satisfied smile passed over Fae's lips at her own musings, she was playing her part even if it was small, and their was a sense of accomplishment there that couldn't be taken away. It was soon replaced by a grimace as her leg sunk to the calf in a section of floor that was more mud than it was dirt. Pulling her leg out Fae finally saw the area that she was looking for. It was a much dryer section of the swamp, the same dead and gray trees densely covering the mound of ground that rose above the swamps water. At first glance there was no obvious glint of materials, but that was to be expected, if she wanted to find something she was going to have to get her hands dirty, most likely quite literally.

Spoiler

Gathering:

ID243357: LD: 5 | Failed! 0 Mats (+3 EXP)

Forager EXP: [3-49 EXP] Rank 1 - Novice Forager: Successfully forage for materials on a LD 14+

 

Spoiler

Word Count: 404

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Faerie

[Faerie 0]

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 disappointing as the island was one of the very few places that Fae truly didn't have to worry about any monsters, the lack of water made it a less than ideal area for most of the ambush predators that stalked other places of the swamp, and the labrynthine trees and roots were almost too tight for even a human to traverse let alone a giant insect. Fae sighed as she stepped out of the other side of the island from where she had started, the lack of items meant she'd have to go somewhere more dangerous, somewhere that had the chance of her actually running into a monster

Spoiler

Gathering:

ID254121: LD: 3 | Failed! 0 Mats (+3 EXP)

Forager EXP: [6-49 EXP] Rank 1 - Novice Forager: Successfully forage for materials on a LD 14+

 

Spoiler

Word Count: 220

 

Edited 41 minutes ago by Faerie