[IC] Side Quest - Sword Art Online

[BlackPanther]

@LucasSkylight@Tracyarmav
Ikanus-Reaper
day 17-night

Ikanus watches as the group fights, his hand tightening on his scythe until he cannot handle it anymore. With almost eerie silence he runs and leaps onto one of the bears slicing it twice. The bear does not die, but it's health is lowered immensely. Anubis runs to Edgar and gives him a minor heal before running to the other group members. Ikanus leaps again onto another bear and does a similar thing, lowering its health as well. He then leaps down and works on lowering the health on some of the dogs before running to the side, readying himself for healing.

As the fight ends, Ikanus goes from person to person giving them bandages and making sure they are okay. After passing out some food he looks at each individual. "I apologize for the spontaneity, but I figure the best way to level is by mass grinding" He gives a small shrug before counting. "That was a bit rough, but Id say we did alright." He focuses on edgar. "Do you feel you need to level more?" Ikanus has a rather serious tone, as it is edgar's choice if he wished to continue this type of training to level up more.

[Lightbox]

BlazingAiko: Level 13 | Day 17 | Afternoon

Aiko looks at the fox girl with worried expression as she drags her to the back room, she worries what might happen until the girl suddenly springs out a lot of strange sounding questions.

"Look I uh I really don't have no idea what you're talking about miss. I just need some daggers, some good ones would be helpful. They're for throwing so ideally pretty light, maybe good at getting through armour."

She then hears the voice of the man and looks over to him with eyes almost screaming 'help me'.

"Uh h-hey. You wanna talk to the fox girl here... this is her shop I think." she said to man, subtly hoping he might distract the fox woman enough for her to escape from the grasp and hopefully have a normal conversation instead.

[KabenSaal]

Nenatalev: Level 14 | Day 17 | Afternoon

Nenatalev nodded quickly and emphatically as she asked for armour-piercing daggers. She didn't give a level, so Nena would just make the highest she could, and the girl would be happy with them. But, before she could get to her forge, someone else arrived, and introduced himself with titles. Nena couldn't not match them, so she puffed her chest out and grinned broadly.
"Hello Bulwar, I am Nenatalev, Queen of the Gorge, Mistress of the Minion Seeds, and Fox-Smith Extrodiare! Please, find a seat if I have put any out and wait for a moment while I make throwy things for this girl who came before you. If I have not put out a seat, please, sit on the floor and ponder why I have not put seats out" she exclaimed, before turning back to her forge, letting the girl go as she grabbed her gear and stuffed it into the forge, pumping the billows until the mateirals became an ingot. Then, extracting the glowing ingot with callipers, she placed it on the anvil, grabbed a hammer, and began to play.

The minigames were fun, as a Blacksmith, but nobody could see her play them, so it looked like quite the simple thing, forging. But it was not!

[Tracyarmav]

[quote=@Tracyarmav]
Day 17, Evening.
Edgar_Walther
@BlackPanther@DestinyStar@LucasSkylight

Edgar was panting from the exertion, but he'd enjoyed the chaos of the fight. He nodded gratefully to Reaper as he tended to Edgar's minor wounds, and then the others. He checked his progress, it had helped, but it wasn't enough to make the next level and he needed at least one more level to meet the raid's minimum. He considered the question carefully, but this seemed to be the best way to get to the required power requirement for the raid. This would have to do, for better or for worse, he did worry that they might burn through to many of their finite supplies while doing this leveling, but he'd deal with that bridge when he got to it.

"I'm good, let's continue. I'm ready when y'all are."

[Zelosse]

Bulwar
Level 13 / day 17 / Afternoon

Bulwar took a step further into the shop, carefully positioning himself between the smith and the uncomfortable looking customer. A small gesture behind his back was the signal for Aiko to jet if she so wished but the big man found himself more than a little intrigued by the craftsmanship of the Fox. Despite the ore not being as refined she had produced an exceptionally good quality throwing dagger. Initial appraisal already had him curious as to her process. Blacksmithing was more than just pound a hammer on ore and poof an item. Minigames were thrown in for the process and quality was determined by score, accuracy, number of challenges, and difficulty. Even he didn't try for multiple high-difficulty games despite the practice but Nena had likely nailed it from the start.

Problem was the poor girl was oh so clearly bat shit insane.

"Fantastic work. Haven't seen anyone bring out that kind of skill yet."

Bulwar pulled up his inventory and pulled out a similar throwing dagger, the game automatically comparing stats on both. The one in his hand had higher base damage than Nenas, owing to the heavy ore he had refined into the weapon at the start, and had a higher durability as an added bonus. The difference was down the middle with the opposite dagger, featuring a very high pierce and critical hit stat. Whatever she had done it had given the blade perfect roll stats.

"Mmm. Not bad, it's true, but it's still a bit sloppy. But I suppose that is to be expected of someone wearing a maids outfit."

He fake scoffed, feigning superiority as his own throwing dagger shimmered before shattering altogether, in its place was a solid bar of heavy steel. The original material used for its creation. In a forge there was not just the option of creation but salvage. The business strategy had always been to sell the poor quality items, give out the medium, and keep the greatest quality for himself. The tactic had its flaws but Delcastle had always been the clever one.

"I dare say that it would be a close call but anything I created would likely outshine yours."

[Lightbox]

BlazingAiko: Level 13 | Day 17 | Afternoon

Even with the signal given Aiko decided to hold her ground, she'd come in here looking for daggers. Even if it meant getting into a fight to escape she was not going to leave without at least seeing what they could do. She held a posture that certainly looked like she might be gearing up for a fight but the idea of appearing normal was somewhat lost on her right now. Aiko was focused and ready to dodge whatever the crazy blacksmith might do next. She listened quietly to this new hulking smith boast about his own skill, she didn't see this necessarily ending well. But then again not everyone is going to react badly to friendly... or not so friendly competition.

'Jeeze... I'm half tempted to just grab and run..' she thought to herself, letting out a soft sigh.

[KabenSaal]

Nenatalev: Level 13 | Day 17 | Afternoon

Nenatalev walked up to Aiko and offered a trade, as that was the last part of giving people the babies that had grown up into nice, strong, children of sharpiness. However, there was also big guy running his mouth about things and stuff. But she couldn't really hear him over the loud 'I'm a massive dweep' that seemed to be constantly repeating itself in her ears. The end result was her staring confused at the big person, and then smiling.
"I made these sharpys to be really pow-pow. So not super damage. Use them on guys with really tough hides. Don't rely on them for super killiness" she told Aiko, then smiled again at Bulwar. "And I shall make you a pretty dress when I am done! I don't know if I can make dresses or not, never tried. But you, I will try for. Because you will look cute in a dress and all girls deserve to go to the ball at night. And you can't go to the ball at night without a dress"

[Haeo]

@Zelosse

Tailpin
Lvl 11/Day 17/Evening
[HP]100%//////////[]

Tailpin wasn't one to miss details. But, a leader who recovers quickly is often better than one that never struggles. The archer's smile was genuine. Delcastle just kept impressing him more, a little at a time. This man hadn't lost his head or lost focus, even when the number of worries kept rising.

"Discovery function." Tailpin muttered as he accepted the items and called up his skill list with a few swift movements of his fingers. He raised his voice to a proper level for conversation as he returned his menu screens to the void and took a place walking beside Delcastle. "Toxic coat will be handy on this raid. This other... will be very situational. Elemental damage is very, very hard to find on this floor, or so I hear. Though, I do have some minimal skill in fletching so experimenting can be done cheaply. We'll need to start keeping an eye out for components that could have an elemental attribute after Refining. Those could become absolutely critical in the long run."

Tailpin made no reply to being called a genius. If anything, he just seemed to get a little more stiff in his manner. It wasn't anything in particular that he could recall, he just never could manage to receive a compliment. Still, he did accept that he had accomplished something of benefit to the guild and all the players in SAO. So, stiff as he seemed, he still had a small smile as the two exited the town and proceeded toward the gorge.

============================

Smarter'n'me
Lvl 15/Day 17/Evening
[HP]100%//////////[]

Smart couldn't help but smile as his old friend made a classic scene out of waking up. The man was practically a germophobe, not that he'd ever admit it willingly. But, the smile didn't last that long. There were serious matters to discuss.

Smart began with a meticulous report of what he had learned, continued with the message he sent to Scarlet, and finished with the possible costs and benefits involved in the various options before them. In short, he was dry and lawyerlike and monotone all at once. He didn't even toss in a single insult. When that part was done, he finally relaxed a little and started talking more normally again.

"So, it looks like we can do one of four things. First, the totally impossible one because we'd kill ourselves before ever doing this. We could walk away from both the raid and Scarlet and leave everybody to fend for themselves." He let out an abrupt snort of derision before continuing. "More possibly, but still not ideal, we split up. Grandpa goes with Scarlet to make sure that nothing goes terminally wrong and I head into the raid dungeon to make sure that she gets what she needs, no matter how stupid her party leader is that day. The other options are, of course, us going together to either the raid or the lifeguard job."
With those options laid out, Smart finally expressed what he was hoping for. "Of course, if Scarlet shares the information I sent her with her party, there' s a possibility that they might head to the gorge and try to join up with the raid. If that happened then it wouldn't matter if we split up or not since we'd end up in the same place."

Just then a ping informed him that he had a message. A swipe of a boney finger and a quick skim later and Smart stood up.

"That was from Delcastle. The call is out for anyone interested to meet at the gorge. Decision time, Dom. What's your word on this?"