[SP-F10] Striking the Heel

[Tristan Delaney 0]

Tristan sighed as he walked into the area of Floor 10, an area he wasn't a fan of as a whole. It wasn't so much that he was on Floor 10 though that aggravated him. It was that this was in fact the second time he chased some rumour to gain a rumoured skill. Unlike many, he actually found his goal, however the NPC he fought was so powerful, Tristan had kissed the dirt almost immediately and left in shame. It was this incident that changed his outlook on life forever too and how he approached it. Sure, he had learnt from it in a good way, but the sour memories were still very much present with him from around this time last year. He sighed as he took up his vanity spear, as he wanted to ditch all equipment he had except his uniques and the Azure Cloak he had (of which had no effect on his stats). Tristan trudged the dark areas of Floor 10, finding the entrance to Tartarus that was mentioned. He hoped this was worth his time.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

Tristan was on the way to Tartarus, said to be a grand prison located here. Did this mean the NPC was locked inside Tartarus until now? Either way, it was a strange rumour with, with apparently a player having accidentally stumbled across one called Achilles said to be there. Tristan sighed as he walked, hearing that they were even requesting some sort of gentlemanly duel. Right. Either way, Tristan was bored out of his face walking the land and he had nothing to do, his mind not really having much to think on.
Lo and behold, saviour came in the form of an enemy who appeared to look like a bandit of sorts with a sword. He supposed it was good enough practice until he faced Achilles. Besides, was harm was there in some casual practice before the duel?

Tristan 136/136 EN: 34/34
Bandit 40/40, Dmg 30, 0 MIT (no loot)

[Tristan Delaney 0]

(Floor effect gives all rolls acc -1)

Tristan was on the way to Tartarus, said to be a grand prison located here. Did this mean the NPC was locked inside Tartarus until now? Either way, it was a strange rumour with, with apparently a player having accidentally stumbled across one called Achilles said to be there. Tristan sighed as he walked, hearing that they were even requesting some sort of gentlemanly duel. Right. Either way, Tristan was bored out of his face walking the land and he had nothing to do, his mind not really having much to think on.
Lo and behold, saviour came in the form of an enemy who appeared to look like a bandit of sorts with a sword. He supposed it was good enough practice until he faced Achilles. Besides, was harm was there in some casual practice before the duel?

ID 37219
BD: 8-1=7
MD 9 (crit unaffected), Hit. 61-66 damage= 1 damage. 6 Thorns activated.
SA Triple Barrage used, 3x3=9 damage
CD 10 Battle Healing activated for 11 HP

Tristan 136/136 EN: 34/34
Bandit 31/40, Dmg 60

[Tristan Delaney 0]

Tristan stepped in once again with an attack, confident with his last blow that he would manage again. Using Maiming blow, his spear glowed and trust out at the bandit. However the bandit evaded his attack and stepped to the side, to which Tristan lightly cursed. Alright then, maybe he would need to be more careful. The Bandit woud have gone in for their own attack, however Tristan deftly dodged the attack himself, or rather the enemy failed to really hit him at all in the first place rather embarrassingly.

ID 37220
BD: 2 Miss
MD: 1 Miss

Tristan 136/136 EN: 30/34
Bandit 26/40, Dmg 60

[Tristan Delaney 0]

Tristan once again tried to strike the opponent using Focused Strike. He focused his energy into his feet for a forward dash at thebandit. The spear however was poorly aimed and went totally starboard, missing the bandit wildly. Tristan would have been busy cursing himself for his poor aim, were it not for that the enemy went to the offensive and was about to strike him. Tristan raised his shield, which put the enemy alight from damage with Flame Thorns, so all in all he couldn't be too mad at the situation.

ID 37224
BD: 2-1=1 Miss
MD: 7-1=6, Hit. 60-66=1 damage, 6 Thorns activated.

Tristan 136/136 EN: 29/34
Bandit 20/40, Dmg 60

[Tristan Delaney 0]

Tristan took a moment to catch his breath, feeling rather weirdly exhausted of late. He wasn't sure what it was, but Tristan suspected all the effort recently was tolling on him. Using his shield as a defence from any possible attacks, Tristan took several deep breaths, then calmed himself so that he felt good to fight again. The Bandit themself tried attacking Tristan, but the shield easily deflected what was going to be a missed blow anyway, so Tristan let himself relax somewhat and readied himself for the next attack.

ID 37225
BD: 6-1=5 Miss
MD: 4-1=3 Miss

Tristan 136/136 EN: 28/34
Bandit 20/40, Dmg 60

[Tristan Delaney 0]

Tristan took one final breath, then ran forward with all his might at the bandit. The bandit seemed to have gotten the same idea, as they did the exact same thing. they screamed at each other as they charged much like two jousters, finally ending with a triple blow by Tristan to them while the Bandit struck the shield and hurt itself to death. It ended with the body of the Bandit collapsing into pixels on the floor, though no loot was obtained. Not that he minded.

ID 37224
BD: 10 (crit unaffected)
MD 10 (crit unaffected), Hit. 62-66 damage= 1 damage. 6 Thorns activated. 2 turn burn.
SA Triple Barrage used, (3+2)x3=15 damage
CD 10 Battle Healing activated for 11 HP
Holy Blessing heals for 12 HP.

Tristan 136/136 EN: 26/34
Bandit 0/40, Dmg 60

[Tristan Delaney 0]

(1 out of 3 turns to regen energy)
ID 37255 LD 15, material found.

Tristan decided that for now, he would do some material gathering since he had little else to do while he waited. Tristan looked around the area, trying to see anything that could be possibly gathered. True enough, Tristan managed to find some ore on the ground and bent over to pick up the ore and pocketed it, since it wasn't like he had much better else to do anyway at this time. Tristan could only hope this quest was not a waste and that he'd find Achilles.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

(2 out of 3 turns to regen energy)

Tristan sighed as he trudged his way towards Tartarus, the ground cracking under his feet and darkness making it a general pain to see where he was going. He walked along and couldn't help but feel...really alone. It had been a long time since he went and did something solo, lately he had spent so much of his time partied with othewr people, especially Azure and now it felt odd not having some companion by his side. No one to protect. No one to deal all the damage. No one to support him but himself.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

(3 out of 3 turns to regen energy)

Tristan was now deep in thought, not really paying attention to where he was going. The ground crunched more audibly under his feet, which may have been due to the change of terrain from where he was walking.From where he teleported from the town, the ground was quite hard to the sole. However now it was a bit more difficult to move and there was a lack of illumination as well, so Tristan was wandering aimlessly to where he thought he had to go rather than using a map of sorts to find Tartarus and meet Achilles.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

This was another thing that Tristan found so weird. Now Tristan was rather familiar with greek mythology from his time at school. Achilles was an invincible warrior who led the Greeks into battle against Hector who lead the Trojans. Achilles had armor forged by Achilles, so was incredibly strong. Hector was killed by Achilles and dragged around on display, however he predicted in his last breath that Achilles would fall to an arrow as a weakness.  Which indeed they did, with Achilles being shot by an arrow from Paris, though it is said the arrow was guided so that it would hit Achilles. Thus a great warrior fell. That was at least one version of the Iliad story, there were many other interpretations of the same thing.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

Thus this was what bothered Tristan so greatly. Why were they at a prison, a place called Tartarus nonetheless? In Sword Art Online, Tartarus was an abandoned prison complex of a setting, inside riddled with enemies and probably traps too, certainly not a safe area for anyone to go with its high level enemies. In Greek mythology though, Tartarus was the place of the dead, said to be where those who caused great suffering would go for being punished, such as attempting to pass off as Zeus (only to be smited and then sent to tartarus). However as he was aware, there was no reason at all for the great Achilles to be present outside its entrance. Did he have some sort of role there? Something to do?

[Tristan Delaney 0]

One possible theory he had was that Achilles was stopping anyone from entering or exiting the place like a gatekeeper of sorts. After all, the original finder of the NPC was attacked on the spot and forced to leave, which meant that whoever went there was unconditionally threatened. After all, there was no way he was punished to be in Tartarus, but maybe he continued his role as someone who served the gods all the way to the dead, which was to stop anyone unwarranted entering or exiting Tartarus. However there was still one detail that was bothering him about this entire ordeal.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

Well actually two things bothered him. The first was that Achilles seemed quite happy to attack anyone in sight, striking players without question. Yet somehow, this warrior banished to hell was seeking a fight between gentleman. How exactly did one warm up to a gentlemanly discussion a warrior who attacked first and questioned later? He did take some tea just in case the man liked it, mostly because wine wasn't that available to buy in SAO and it wasn't exactly a good idea to get drunk before they fought either by any means. One just needed to watch television back in the real world to see that.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

The second thing that bothered him so much was that clearly with this fight, they would give away their equipment in some way. Was it the Achilles NPC's intention to give away equipment for some reason, maybe passing on the legacy? Tristan felt like he was looking into the lore of this way too much. For all he knew, the developers just looked at mythology and slapped it in with some sort of coherence without checking the mythology. It wouldn't have been the first time that had happened and as a whole, SAO did draw a lot of its content from pop culture references. Mostly because it gave players a sense of security as they would be able to feel more familiar in a strange world.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

And it was back to security that Tristan remembered his original train of thought, that he was alone again. See initially when he first was in SAO, he was near always alone. Sure, he did some boss fighting Claim or Alkor sometimes or one time trained together with Lessa. He even did a ton of gathering for materials or just general racing through the quests, mostly because he had nothing better to do and wanted to become as strong as possible. So what better way was there when there were barely any active players about during those months?

[Tristan Delaney 0]

However now there was compared to then a far grander proportion of players going for the frontlines, clearing the floors and helping out. Now Azure Brigade was the leading force, like is said it used to be in a time gone by. But what was this tall fool doing? Being alone again. He was once again being selfish like he was back in October when he had chased for the Dual Spears with no luck at all. Well to an extent, he found the NPC but the NPC had kicked them to the ground with a single kick, telling them they were worthless and that to never come back again. His will crushed, Tristan had to go on a journey to discover himself from the emotional damage he received.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

With that, it was when Tristan blasted through so many quests, two of them himself. It was quite an experience for sure to fight yourself, as he was never sure what to do in such an instance before. But now he had the confidence to take on any foe, throwing himself into the most dangerous of foes or taking on the most arduous of tasks. But was it enough? Could he do all there was for the game to throw at him? Was he strong enough to protect them? Thus once again, the selfishness from last year to become stronger became a thing again, going for a rumour of the invincible warrior. After all, he had to become stronger for not him, but for the people he protects.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

Remembering an item he had not used yet, Tristan used an Overhealth item Teayre had given him to become stronger. It was a rather...strange item as a miniature statue of himself in chibi form, with a spear and Twinfire reflector and azure brigade cloak, standing at ready to block an attack and strike. He smiled at it and used the item, making Tristan shimmer lightly and then obtain an extra 20 HP to his health, just for that extra edge he may require. For all he knows, he's gonna need it a lot.

[Tristan Delaney 0]

Tristan lastly ate on an item that he also never used in the last boss fight as the entrance of Tartarus came into view. Seeing it made him hungry, so he ate it and gained 9 damage mitigation for some time which would wear off later. The thing is, he wasn't really quite sure what to expect out of this fight. He hoped at least as a gentleman that they could drink some tea together though before their fight. Tristan had the spear holstered on his back and removed the two cups of tea from his inventory, one in each hand to have them have a cup of tea for manners. He was willing to sacrifice a rare item not having an effect for this.