With a broad sweep of her flaming sword, Athena dealt the finishing blow to two Undead Warriors standing before her. As the monsters fell to their knees in defeat, they each gave a monstrous cry before falling to the ground and exploding into countless shards of light. The elegant longsword in Athena's grasp wavered slightly as she began feeling the mental fatigue from the fierce battle. Unlike most of the other players in the dungeon group, Athena was one of the only solo players who decided to come along. With nobody to fight alongside her, the mental strain of the battles was multiplied several times. If it had been Natsuki Kawaguchi of the real world, not Athena of ALfheim Online, who stood in her place at that moment, she was certain that she too would have fallen to her knees from the physical exhaustion.

Returning her sword to its sheath by her side, Athena made her way to the front lines, where the other players were gathering to discuss tactics for the dungeon boss just ahead. Glancing at her HP meter in the corner of her sight, she saw that her HP had managed to drop to about 60%. As a solo player, Athena compensated for her lack of strength in numbers by using self-cast buff spells to increase her own strength. One of her favored buffs was [i]Berserk[/i], which greatly increased her attack power to allow her to fight against superior numbers, but it also cost much of her HP after each battle.

Reaching into her potion pouch, Athena searched around its contents to look for a bottle of Healing Potion to recover her HP. To her annoyance, the pouch was emptier than she remembered it to be. All that remained inside the pouch was a bottle containing red liquid and a Mana Potion bottle.

[color=a187be]"Damn it! I forgot to restock on potions before I came here!"[/color] Athena muttered under her breath, as she opened the bottle in her hands and drank the red healing liquid inside. Even with her HP now recovering to its maximum amount, it was uncertain that she would be able to survive the upcoming battle with the dungeon boss.

[i][color=a187be]I can't turn back now, I've gone too far to just turn around and give up.[/color][/i] Athena sighed to herself in defeat. It seemed like she had no choice but to find a group to party up with. Even though she had the Battle Healing skill to passively recover her HP, the healing rate wouldn't be able to help her survive a boss battle without backup. Evaluating her surroundings, it seemed that most of the players gathered around were already forming parties and were starting to discuss battle strategies. Her heart sank as she wandered through the crowd of players. Everyone had their backs turned to her, busy talking amongst themselves.

Just was she was on the verge of giving up finding players to form a party with, Athena suddenly caught sight of a tiny Cait Sith player wandering the crowds.

[color=a187be]"Hey, you - wait!"[/color] Athena called out as she followed the Cait Sith, pushing through the players who were standing in her way, wishing the player who created the Cait Sith character hadn't made it so small and hard to find in a crowd. After much shoving and searching, Athena found herself standing in front of a group of five players: three of the players were Cait Siths, one Pooka, and a Spriggan. If there was a sixth player, it would have meant that this group was a full party as well, but Athena couldn't see a sixth person.

[color=a187be]"Sorry for the intrusion, but if the five of you are creating a party for the boss battle ahead, I don't suppose you have room for a solo player?"[/color] Athena asked, with a slight polite bow of her head.