[b]Pyotr,
Several hours after GM announcement,
Town of Beginnings[/b]


SAO ale was pretty good, if a tad weak. After a good seven pints, one might have expected to feel a bit drunk but nope, stone cold sober. Lazing by a small stream on the outskirts of the Town of Beginnings, a lone girl over-armed another empty bottle into the water and watched with muted apathy as it exploded into light. It was all she could summon the will to do since Kayaba Akihiko delivered his damning message to the population of Aincrad; grinding for levels now carried with it the risk of death and the majority of the other players had lapsed into a catatonic state. Even worse were the idiots who had gotten all fired up for survival and protecting the weak and all that bullshit. Still, it hardly mattered to Pyotr... With her family away for a week in the real world and having not told anyone that she had bought SAO, she was starting to come to terms with the inevitable. Dehydration was a pretty bad way to go, but she probably wouldn't feel it from within the game, right? ... Right?

Perhaps it was escapism that led her to the digital bottle, but she had found herself spending almost all of her hard-earned Col on booze and was therefore bitterly disappointed to find that alcohol didn't even work properly... Kayaba was bad enough for committing what was essentially mass murder, but the prick could at least have given the condemned [i]some[/i] way to ignore the all-encompassing fear at the back of their minds. And she was afraid, oh God yes... Since the announcement, Pyotr had given every hostile NPC a wide berth, regardless of how weak. Earlier in the day she had watched inexperienced players fall to boars and wolves, at the time laughing at their ineptitude... Now the memory of it made her guts churn...

Suddenly her head jerked up and Pyotr realised just how emo she was being. [i]Fuck, just play some Linkin Park and be done with it.[/i] In a strange way, the knowledge of her own imminent death was kind of liberating. Suddenly societal norms no longer applied; alcohol no longer had an age restriction, she no longer needed to get a job and could punch [i]all the babies she wanted.[/i] Minus the child abuse, SAO was a pretty good place to live your last few days. She stood up and stretched, refreshed by her fatalistic epiphany. [b]'If I'm going down, I'm gonna do it in style.',[/b] she muttered, ignoring for the moment the cringe-worthiness of her own words, Pyotr surveyed the area. Even though she said that, she wasn't about to head off and die in heroic battle alone... The least she could do was drag some poor soul down with her. [i]Ah,[/i] she thought, an unpleasant smile creeping across her face. [i]There's a likely candidate.[/i] The poor soul in question was... well, a rather camp looking... boy? Maybe? His flouncy gait and unusual appearance made him an ideal candidate for a throwaway scapego- [i]valued party member.[/i] As the boy pranced past, Pyotr raised one hand in greeting. [b]'Hey there, Mr? Probably... You look like a reliable... person?'[/b] She couldn't help but phrase that as a question. To her very critical eye, there was nothing reliable about this waif... [b]'Are you in a party or anything?'[/b] Something told Pyotr to keep her greeting brief; he looked like the kind of guy who could talk for both of them, which suited her.