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With Zackariah's request out of the way, Cleo finally explained why she was there - Dorian's folly, the loan - and the older man only chuckled in response. He informed her that the loan wasn't his but to try another associate of the mayor's, a blacksmith called Lyle. A pop-up appeared to announce to the player that they'd completed the first quest and that another began - <<The Second Lesson>> - Find the Blacksmith. As her business was concluded and with no reason to stay, she bid the gentle Alchemist farewell. "It was lovely meeting you," she said, offering a hand that

Cleo started by carefully lowering the material gently into the beaker. Next, she poured a vial of strange, glittery orange liquid into it, about halfway until the material was fully submerged. Applying heat, she waited until the beaker began to bubble, taking care not to let the liquid become too energetic. In went a tiny jar of viscious red liquid, rapidly shifting the brew's color into a shade of crimson, darkening with each passing second as the bubbling began to cease. Eventually, and with steady hands, she gripped the mouth of the potion bottle with a pair of prongs, taking care not to l

"First, the ingredients." Zackariah inspected the pile of materials on his worktable with great intent, as if searching for the very best one to conduct his demonstration. "Well, such a fine collection! You've brought me some tip-top materials! Why don't we go with this one." Truthfully, Cleo couldn't tell any difference between them at all. To her, they looked like generic things, each identical down to the very last imperfection and presumably serving the same purpose. Still, not wanting to offend the man, or perhaps to humor herself a little bit, she played along. "A fine choice

In awe of her luck, Cleo spotted yet another peculiar-looking plant; An herb reminiscent of rosemary with a crescent, purple leaf at its top. Immediately, a notification chimed out to alert her that the quest status had changed, now displaying the simple objective: Return to Zackariah's Shop. She huffed triumphantly. "Well, that wasn't half bad!" It'd been a fruitful trip outside of the city walls and proof that, perhaps, there was less to fear on the outside than initially thought, yet she felt it was quite the right time to head on back into the city. A short time later and Cleo

Another gorgeous flower led to Cleo's fourth material and left just one outstanding before she could return to Zackariah's. Whether blind luck or a natural knack for foraging, the task had been a lot easier than Cleo initially anticipated - then again, as a first-floor quest, it was one of the easiest in the game and the first one that had led her outside the safety of the city. Maybe it wasn't so bad out here? A quick scan of the environment revealed no threats, none of the make-believe monsters which she'd made up in her mind, lying in wait for a taste of Cleo. The odd boar was roaming the r

Further reminiscing, Cleo started to wonder what life would have been like if she hadn't put on the NerveGear, a gift from Dad. Perhaps, instead of diving into a fantasy world immediately, if she had waited until the following day and heard of the game's true purpose before entering it, she would have been given the thumbs up from her psychiatrist, and her mental state declared stable. University would have been an option again. Friends, a return to socializing, and the life she longed for, long before SAO. Nothing good would come of hoping for the past to change, a realization that the d

Cleo's thoughts began to drift, once weary now eyes floating towards the marshmallow clouds. When the game started and 10,000 people became trapped in a madman's fantasy, she wondered how her parents initially reacted. Did they want to pull the NerveGear off before anything broke on the News? Assuming that anything did come up on the News, she supposed. In local time, it was already late into the night, and her parents were out of town for a conference in the morning. Most likely, they had already left before learning anything about it. The only one that might have been inside was Sven, her li

A fork in the road lay ahead. On one side, far along, boars had taken to patrolling the path in hopes of charging an unwitting lone player. With a resolute "Nope," Cleo chose the other way and trekked merrily around the city's outside walls. She had still been fidgeting - more accurately, picking her fingers - a habit picked up when the game first started to attempt to cope with the stress. In the real world, her hands would have begun to bleed long ago, but no such wound would ever come of it in Sword Art Online. That was good and bad; It would never cause her pain, but there was nothing to e

The focus of Cleo's search as she approached the city walls was anything that might catch one's eye or seem out of place. Flowers, herbs, rare woods, and more. Her strides shortened as the safe zone border drew closer, becoming shorter still before eventually coming to a stop. Fidgeting restlessly, Cleo felt a familiar trepidation which made her stop at that exact spot at the gate, every single time. The nagging feeling that something would go wrong, that only terrible things could be found on the outside, would plague her thoughts, causing her to second guess any journey into the unknown.

Walking through the door to the Alchemist's store felt like passing through a wardrobe into Narnia, if Narnia was a dusty old room filled to the rim with trinkets and apparatus which towed the line between science and fiction. The bustle of the marketplace outside faded away, replaced by gentle bubbling from elixirs being brewed across the room. Behind the counter was a man that one could only assume to be Zackariah, who had taken a second from his clearly busy schedule to greet Cleo in kindness. "Morning," started Cleo as she traveled across the shop floor, examining various shelves lined wit

Cleo stood, the heel of a boot hooked upon the lowest panel of the fencing behind her, one hand dug into a pocket, and the other sprawled across a gate. Eyes high into the sky and away with the fairies, not a thought was passing through the player's white-haired head, and a look of aloof contentedness was sprawled across her face. That was until a flustered man, the well-fashioned NPC named Dorian, had approached in haste and with certain desperation about him. It had taken a second to earn any notice from the player. In a daze and without thinking, only wanting to help somebody in need, she t

{Them} Username Them Real Name Clementine Belenski Age 19 Gender Uncertain (AFAB)