Baldur

Sign up Thread: Baldur Stats: Ambiance Music: Location Deets: Baldur woke early the morning of the Tournament. People would show up in a chaotic mess he was certain, so he made sure everything was ready the night before. He had helped @Cordelia, his student and Uchi Deshi who had almost become like family to him, a younger sister or a daughter, prepare the food. They had made enough ramen for all of the hungry participants and any observers who wished to watch the fighting as well. All the while, Cordelia had cackled about pairing people up during the Valentines

A flyer is found posted on the message board near by each of the teleport plazas.

"It's good to see you both," The gaijin samurai said as he flashed them both a friendly smile, "I way getting a bit lazy and hermitty laying out on my deck. I'm glad you said something Jomei, otherwise I might have had to change my aesthetic and grow a beard." He laughed at the absurdity of the idea, and also of the possibility of growing a beard. "And thanks for indulging me on this. I've been wanting to try this place out for a while." Baldur turned and gestured to the expanse of the floor, but then pointed. "If you guys look that way..." He squinted a little, and then moved h

The steel blue eyes of the gaijin samurai softened to the calm blue of an ocean at rest. A sad, empathetic smile slowly spread on his face as he watched Hirru and Koga's actions. His heart broke for Hirru. What was the odds that his trauma would come to bear at his first return, but this wasn't his fault. Not unless Kayaba was sitting back somewhere with a sick, sadistic bag of popcorn. "Just put your blade away, Koga. You too, Night. It isn't necessary. Drawing your blades escalates, and is counter productive. Put them away." His voice was soft, pleading. "However this vote goes." B

Baldur whirled on @Koga, and to a lesser extent @NIGHT as the man draw his sword against the raid. He walked right up to the blade, and made Koga's sword tip threaten to stab the gaijin samurai. Fury was in his voice, and rage was in the normally placid blue eyes. The controlled steel blue was gone. "PUT. YOUR. BLADES. DOWN. NOW!" He roared. A normally gentle man turned to wrath. He did not know Night well, but he had been beginning to feel a kinship with Koga, and was considering inviting him to join their guild as well. That kinship made the betrayal hurt more. But then, Baldur kne

"Why am I in the fight, eh?" Baldur gave Freyd a lopsided smile. "Because it's the right thing to do." Baldur rubbed his hands together over the fire, fending off imaginary chill with imaginary heat. "I spent the first" he gestured vaguely, unable to remember the unit of time "several months of the game leveling up by killing boars in a group, to maintain as close to a zero risk factor as I could. I saw how many players died from boars, and I had people to take care of, both here in Aincrad, and outside. I recognized the danger, and that throwing my life away with meaningless risks w

Baldur mostly ignored the others debating one way or another. He heard their arguments, but only passively absorbed them. Instead, he stared at Schrödinger's Box. This prompt was new, the recent surge of humanoid enemies they bantered with was a rising trend, rather than an intermittent distraction. The previous floor had been unprecedented. Something was different. "You know Cal," @Calrex He responded to his kouhai who had said he would leave the decision up to his guild leaders. "There was an old game I played. Knights of the Old Republic. One of the great oldie classics made forever ag

Baldur was sitting at his home, his toes dangling into the water that surrounded one of the many buildings. Koi fish swam about in the several ponds and streams that littered the island. The jingle of a message registered, but Baldur left it alone as he just enjoyed the warmth and peace radiating around him. The sounds of Calex and Cro practicing in the dojo echoed faintly over the water. Occasionally the clink of Shield counting his piles of money from over in the guild hall echoed like wind chimes. A second chime came, and Baldur fully opened his eyes, reaching over to check the messages.

Baldur gave Lessa and Freyd and incredulous smirk, then slowly took Lessa's offered arm with one hand and put the other on his lower back, miming a pained expression, though no such thing existed in sword art online. His acting was right out of some low tier b movie. "I don't know what you're talking about young lass, I don't move as well as I used to. Why, when I was your age, we were still on on the 10th floor! We had to walk up the tower both ways, in the snow AND lava. We didn't even have sword arts, we had to invent them ourselves!" He hobbled slowly forward as they began to follow L

"We had four teams for the 25th floor." Baldur chimed in after losing his thoughts to the dancing flames. He didn't partake of the marshmallows, but he did raise his hands to the fire to warm them from a cold he felt that was no present in the room. Image of the boss fight, of the PK attempts, the fallout and the meetings thereafter. He had lost people he thought were friends, betrayed by those close to his heart. They had managed to patch things up with Hirru, and his explanation made complete sense to Baldur. Had he been in Hirru's shoes, he may have made the same choice. The fallout had bee

The time had come for them to pull out all the stops. Hirru used his new support powers to buff their damage and Baldur saw the icon appear in his HUD. It was his first time with it, and since they had basically full strength, it was their time to press the advantage and do as much damage as possible. He sheathed his sword and took up his power stance, prepared to unleash his most devastating sword art upon the boss, his eyes narrowed and waiting for the right moment. Koga launched out at Gabrandr, a massive critical hit staggering the boss and blighting him, giving Baldur even more of an

The boss struck out, a massive AoE attack striking everyone in parties 3 and 4, before turning his eyes to them. "Be careful, he may try that AoE attack on us!" Baldur quickly glanced at their HP bars. This would have been a good time to use Parry or Counter, but his HP ticked to full as was the rest of his party. This was the time to be risky and press the attack. He leapt back from the boss a short distance, sheathing the <<Ethereal Tether - Zanshin>> the blade that Raidou had gifted him with. Instead, he moved his hand to the other sword at his side. The blade given to him

Baldur Has 1 Tag: He gets Halloween Candy! Baldur has 90 Seeds: He gets: Gungnir's Shard [-70] Demonic Shard x2 [-20] Fluff will come soon!

As the gaijin samurai warmed his hands on the fire, Koga wandered up and sat down. The youth seemed anxious. Not necessarily nervous, but he had a lot of energy without a place to put yet. The waiting was something that took time to get used to. People were either under-prepared and rushing around, or came prepared, and then had to wait for everyone to be... it was unfocused time some found rough. Especially in the early days. But then Freyd addressed them both. "I've heard many good things about you as well. You spoke well at Ariel's meeting. It seems that we share a common perspective

While one scather had gone off, it flooded the first two parties of the vanguard with damage and debuff. It hit harder than he had expected an environmental effect would. If there was ever a chance 3 or 4 of those could go off at the same time, their healing wouldn't keep up and they'd start losing players. But then he saw @Hidden make her move. He hadn't expected it to be anyone else either. She went right for the boss. Well, this would throw them down one path that Baldur saw, and it was likely the more difficult of the paths. He never would have asked or expected a pacifist attempt at

The gaijin samurai wasn't always among the first to show up, but he always tried to be. This time, he and the JL crew came together to make sure everything was organized. While Firm Anima was always a major blessing to the frontlines, having provided a significant amount of the buffs they consumed, Baldur had been pushing his team to always be prepared for several floors now. At the very least, he know that Calrex as well had bought several floors worth of consumables to make sure they were never running around unprepared. Now, seeing two raids in a row come almost completely buffed, brought a

Baldur rushed into the room as the giant doors opened, his silhouette emerging from the the fog and eager to see what new monster they would be fighting this time, his mind a whirl with potential scenarios and strategies. He was prepared, the moment the boss was in side, to unleash his most powerful sword art. Only a heartbeat before he unleashed his attack on the "boss" he slid to a halt. The fallen king? A single health bar? Something is off here. "Caution everyone!" Baldur called out, "I don't think this is the raid boss." He looked about at the devices and a million

Baldur is now Paragon Level 50!

Once everyone was ready, Baldur led the procession of his guild from their place on his floating island to the lair on the 26th floor. It was a juxtaposition of locations if ever there was one. Jacob's Ladder had gathered in the small square between the dojo and the guild hall, gravel, stone, and building surrounded by and interwoven with nature. Here, instead, is was all the parts of civilization no one ever wanted to deal with. It was buried, hidden away, and fetid. It was the sewage of thousands of people put somewhere out of sight and out of mind, until the rat king, and now the Frontline,

Original Application: HERE Rooms Being Upgraded: Fishing Pond -> Ornate Fishing Pond [+15k] Rooms Being Added: Basic Kitchen (Calrex) [+10k] Bedroom (Hirru) [+10k] Living Room (Hirru) [+10k] Basic Kitchen (Hirru) [+10k] Basement (Hirru) [+10k] Rooms Being Reassigned: Fishing Pond from Baldur to Hirru Upgrade Total Cost: 65k (sent to Banker)

Baldur's Home Details: Approval: HERE Breiðablik - The Shoin-zukuri of Baldur Room Slot # Room Type Buff Name Buff Effect Occupant 1 Bedroom Rested -1 EN for 2 uses Baldur 2 NA 3 Dining Room Tasty Turn 2 food into 4 mean feast Baldur 4 Mega Slime Farm Adv Training +10%

Baldur updates the chart then follows up with fluff (4) Six Person Team Comps Role Team #1 Team #2 Team #3 Team #4 Tank Shield Raidou Oscar Morg DPS Baldur Eruda Lessa Hidden DPS Calrex Freyd Ariel Sam DPS Crozeph Freya Night Mac DPS K

In spite of the words passed between Lessa and Freyd, Baldur couldn't place the man until he ripped the brightly colored hat from his head. Somehow the bright, festive colors and jingling bells disrupted Freyd's dark and brooding mystique just enough that Baldur didn't remember him, but then memories of the floor 25 boss floor finally came back to mind. He had been there for that fight, and if he had been there, he could handle anything this floor could throw at them. Suddenly, Lessa's words registered to Baldur. He gasped and clutched imaginary pearls at her agist standards. "Too OL

A thousand vile curses flashed across Baldur's mine when @Hidden walked into the room, and as per usual, bile and chaos came in her wake. He schooled his face immediately, letting out a controlled breath meant to help him find the controlled balance of emotionlessness he sought in battle. His hands, resting comfortably in his lap tightened just barely, his shoulders moved back into better posture just so slightly, but the blue of his eyes, oceanic when @Lessa sat beside him, grew to steel when Hidden entered the room. The image of her attacking @Hirru in the raid replayed in his mind. There wa

Baldur was annoyed that conversation still lingered on the canons, but he was also unsurprised. They were an intriguing discussion point, but they had no actual information to base that conjecture. Were they actually canons? Were they for the players to use, or the boss? Maybe they were the bosses themselves. Maybe they would shoot the ceiling down. None of that was anything they could develop a plan around. They just had to be ready for anything. What Baldur wasn't expecting, was Cal-kun's revelation that <<Achilles>> was no longer functional. The Gaijin Samurai knew of Cal'