Baldur

It had been a while since Baldur had been to a stables. The wide flat expanse around them, the fields, and the smell of the horses brought back memories of riding lessons from when he was a kid. It had been, outside of SAO, years since he had ridden, even though he had used a horse inside the game a few times, it was a very different experience. But he also knew how important horses were to Lessa. So when he arrived early for their meet-up, it only made sense that he would find her here, already looking like she had spent most of the day on the farm. "Something something cliche can take t

Baldur was trying his best not to toss his team around too much as he wove through the city, avoiding clothes lines, chimneys, and balconies. So far he had been... mostly successful. The airship they were in was a little beat up, definitely needed some new paint, but it still flew at full throttle. He had not let up on it since they left. They were leaving the fighting behind somehow, even though they were flying towards it. The cannon attacks were all hypotenuse and parabolas. No one was firing a canon straight down because it would mean tipping the ship sideways, and they did not have artifi

With the pole in deep waters, Baldur slowly guided the craft towards the small wooden docks that looked up the hill towards the gate of his home, his refuge, his zen. The calm waters rippled around the boat, as red leaves floated about them, almost perfectly reflecting the sky and the canopy of trees around them like a perfect mirror. For a moment, it was as if sky and water and land were one, and just the two of them in it. "Baldur..." The name left her lips softly "Thank you." He looked down at her, no longer sure what their relationship was. Nothing had changed, but everything did

"The self is not something ready-made." A voice came out from the direction of the tournament as a new presence was felt among @Oji, @Nari-Lanreth, and @Xena. "but something in continuous formation through choice of action." Baldur stood tall, given the added benefit of being uphill, his ever present blue and white haori hung about him, sky blue save for the white flames along the hem, and the colors of sunset making up the rest of his kimono even as the sun set over the edge of his island. The tournament had finished, and while he had seen Night and Koga come this way, they appear to hav

Jason watched Snow as she repeated his ritual silently and perfectly. In spite of appearances, Baldur was not a hard line traditionalist. He didn't rigidly adhere to tradition for tradition's sake, but in moments like this, tradition kept him moving forward. It gave him the steps to take when he didn't know what to do. He had created this tradition to help him with his grief. He had avoided the wall for a while, then visited intermittently, sometimes unprepared. The reverence of his pilgrimage performed in this way gave it a weight the others had not. Funerals, and this ceremony, were more for

Scalabis was still waking up when they got there. It wasn't a far trip from the dock on the other end of their journey and into town. Baldur had bought this island specifically for that purpose. The island itself gave them the peace and serenity he was looking for, but the needs of Jacob's Ladder to be approachable meant getting the one closest and safest to town. From there, it was a short walk along a bridge between islands until they were in the main settlement. The clicking of Snow's geta against the wood of the bridge provided an almost calming rhythm. There was always a silence to his wa

Time: Dawn After Floor 26 boss fight Before the Tournament The sun was barely peaking over the low horizon of the 24th floor. Water stretched out ot the edge of the floor here, and with his island rising into the sky like a heron perched on one slender leg, he was one of the first to see the sun. It filtered through the trees, almost feeling lazy due to the wam light. It tinted the colors of the trees, backlit, and warmed the normally cool and refreshing water of the ponds. He could see it from where he was perched, the shoji panels of his room spread fully open to the ponds in front

"Alright team, let's join the fray." Baldur gestured to the lollygaggers around him, seeing as how Hirru had already run forward to deal with the action that was going. They followed behind the others, while Hirru had run ahead and was speaking with some kid and then with Freyd. He would look back to Freyd, Baldur, Shield, and Calrex. "We should hurry! What do you think we should do? I don't know anything about these things." Baldur looked around at what was going on, and started to make the big problem smaller. They were a target here, so the peasantry and combatants ali

Baldur sat and watched as... whatever round 2 had become. While several of those gathered here were having friendly duels, the bookends of the tournament seemed to be fighting a bigger fight. Nari and Night on one side, Lessa and Alkor on the other. The fight between Nari and Night seemed to draw his attention first, there was an anger and ferocity in the fight that almost made Baldur get up to intervene several times, but he stopped himself. They couldn't hurt each other. He shouldn't interfere. This could perhaps be the only way they could work through a catharsis. Should either of them swit

The dead were rising here, it seemed. He saw it coming of course. Winter. Dead body with a sword sticking out. No tracks. There was going to be an ambush of some kind when they got here if this was going to be a combat quest. Then the boy charged forward, Lessa was screaming, Freyd hot on their heals and almost eradicating the monster in a single blow. He didn't have a good feel for Freyd's damage, so he had no idea what was left of the monster based on its remaining health gauge. He would need to go all out on it to prevent it from getting back up. Freyd's familiar landed a stun attack o

Round 2 Bracket Baldur Stats: Rules: (Nothing Different from Previous Thread) Round 2 Observation Thread: https://www.sao-rpg.com/topic/21291-op-f24-valentines-tournament-arc-round-2-observer-thread/ Once the participants had all come over to gather around Baldur having partaken in any snacks or refreshments they had chosen, the Gaijin Samurai informed them of how round 2 would be slightly different. Due to the odd number of players, some drop outs and corrections the tournament needed to make, Baldur was pulling in a pinch hitter to even up the round in the form of

Thread Complete Please continue your shenanigans here:

OOC: With a swish of his quill, Baldur marked out the last results of round one into his book. He flipped through, writing down the names of all the winners in a nice easy list so that he could make his announcement. Suddenly, he noted @Snow was next to him, handing him another cup of tea and he gave her a bewildered, exhausted smile as he raised it to his lips and took a sip. "Thank you, Snow-chan, I don't know what I'd do without you." Slowly, Baldur pushed himself up from the small table and shook his legs out to get the imaginary blood flow moving again. Sitting like that

Baldur winced as they came out of the sewers and back into the bounding light of day. At least they were out... Baldur hated being underground. Dungeons didn't bother him much because they tended to be short and to the point. Instead the underground floors, or this boss fight, seemed to drag on forever. "Keep together everyone." Baldur told the raid in general but it was mostly for his team. "Until we have a better idea of what to expect, be on your guard and watch each other's backs." He felt more tired then he was. There was a certain amount of performance to fatigue in

Round 1 Bracket Baldur Info: Dojo Pictures: Rules: The shoji panel walls of the dojo were flung open wide, letting fresh air and sunlight stream into the room. Just beyond the shoji panel walls, was the engawa which ran all the way around the dojo. It was sprinkled with cushions for people to sit on while they watched the matches taking place inside. Just across the water were other rooms Baldur had opened up for sitting, so that people could sit in separate areas if they wished for more or less privacy. Not everyone enjoyed a crowd. He had the brack

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