Acanthus

No teleport crystal. She’d agonized about the decision over a sleepless night, counting fake stars in a fake sky. But the stars dimmed as the sun rose, Acanthus had no more time to worry. She left her fears in the studio with Oz’s handcrafted crystal, weighing down a sheaf of half-completed compositions. If she took it to the fight, the teleport crystal would be a false sense of security. The fight would become chaotic, the plan would begin to fall apart, and Acanthus would have to think of a backup plan. And a plan that involved running would only distract her. The world seemed to move s

Picked up, thank you!

"We're sort of on our own." A stone whizzed by, denting the helmet of a soldier. Levi stood behind them, knees nearly knocking from a mixture of cold, fear, and adrenaline. “Sort of,” Acanthus responded. She considered saying something dismissive of the boy, but the strike was solid. And at least he was trying. Following up on his momentum, she fought through the melee to reach the affected soldier and struck him down quickly. She looked back to finish off the group, and was surprised to find that none were left standing. The three of them had made fairly short work of the enemies. “That actua

10/15 fusions and evals All crafts can be found at this link. Item Fusion: (3) Rare -> 1 Perfect Masterpiece 235873, 235871, 235869 -> 235880 Name: March to the Dawn Profession: Performer Rank: 5 Roll ID: 235866 Roll Result: 10+1/LD:17 Item Type: Support Song Tier: 1 Quality: Perfect (Mast) Enhancement:

Crafting for 10/15/2024 Extended Workshop. (+3 EXP total from Trinket | Tuning Fork + Hard Working) Roll: ID# CD: LD: Quality Count Experience Ambition Mod 1 235868 CD: 9 +1 LD: 17 Rare (Mast) - 8 (+3 Ambition) 2 235867 CD: 12 +1 L

Customer. A real customer. Try to act calm. Acanthus busied herself by cleaning and fidgeting with some of the displays within a calculated earshot of the green-haired man. Just enough to not look like she was hovering, but still close enough that he wouldn’t have to raise his voice to summon her. "Hello there! Do you have any Masterpiece songs? Particularly any Perfect quality Instant Healing songs?" She proudly held up a sample recording. “I have a few in stock right now. This one is titled ‘March to the Dawn,’ and is an instant, perfect quality heal. Should put you or anoth

Item Evals for 10/14 All crafts refer to 10/14 crafts, as found here. Round 1 - Fusions Fusing Rares 235734, 235732, 235730 -> Perfect Masterpiece (235736) 235729, 235728, 235726 -> Perfect Masterpiece (235737) Round 2 - Evaluations Name: March to the Dawn Profession: Performer Rank: 5 Roll ID: 235735 Roll Result: 12+1/LD:11 Item Type: Support Song Tier:

Crafting for 10/14/2024 Extended Workshop. (+3 EXP total from Trinket | Tuning Fork + Hard Working) Roll: ID# CD: LD: Quality Count Experience Ambition Mod 1 235735 CD: 12 +1 LD: 11 Perfect - 11 (+3 Ambition) 2 235734 CD: 6 +1 LD:

Come on. Keep going. All this time and effort you’ve put in the game and you can’t even power through low-level fodder. Her limbs became heavier with each blow. Weak. She plowed through another mob. You want to be on the frontlines? Then prove it. She dove into another pack, knowing full well she didn’t have the strength to finish. If I get hit, then I deserve it. She stepped out of one villagers reach before knocking it over, finishing with a flourishing strike to the head. Many of the other villagers had started to slink back into the bushes. Then, it was quiet. The bushes rustled

After her gathering attempt, she felt a small chill on her fingers. Looking at the gloves, she was dismayed to see they had already frayed slightly. “That’s what I get for purchasing *somewhat* sturdy gloves,” she muttered. To her disbelief, she watched as the vines slowly creeped back into place on the road, crawling like green worms through the cracks of the road. No wonder this place is overgrown. Acanthus hacked through the monsters like vines on the road. They vanished quickly before her eyes, dropping piles of col and materials. She didn’t even look at the materials anymore before p

Acanthus had considered using some songs to increase the monster drop rates. She had planned out a few different songs initially. But after looking at the numbers closely, she realized the songs were actually wasting time. She felt sorry for the people that didn’t do their homework and fought creatures using those songs. Every hit dealt a minimum of four-hundred and sixteen damage, thanks to the Hellstorm buff she had picked up. She knew she could have been trying for criticals to increase that damage, but that just complicated things. The fewer variables she had to work with, the easier

One-hundred and thirty-four damage per hit, assuming a major critical, she calculated. She destroyed a villager in a single hit. Subtract zero mitigation. Another villager disintegrated with a casual strike. That’s one-hundred and thirty-four damage per villager. As long as I start my turn with five-hundred and thirty-six health, I can’t be killed. The third villager went down. five-hundred and thirty-six plus one, she corrected herself. Sloppy. The final villager lumbered towards her, unaware of its fate. She disposed of it almost as an afterthought, collecting the items and materials before

The villager’s teeth sank into her as she prepared her strike. The constant buzz as her health bar dropped was comfortable. The buzz lingered for a moment before fading out. Once she saw her opening into the fray, she struck out in a whirling strike. It didn’t need to be planned or pretty—absolute accuracy took care of the details. She had researched the mobs in questions, confirmed their evasion values, compared them to her accuracy. It was literally impossible for her to miss. In moments, she was accomplishing what would have taken her hours to gather as a forager. Prior to traveling, s

Acanthus was no longer here for answers. She was a program, carefully tuned according to Cardinal’s parameters. Damage potion. Tasteless protein buff. Loot die, prosperity consumables… done. She had already choked down the requisite food. And NIGHT’s additions to her armory rendered her a perfect cog, designed to crush monsters and spit out money and materials. What kind of materials, it didn’t matter. She had stopped searching for purpose or meaning. Acanthus was on floor 13 for its resources. More specifically, she had seen a listing in the broker’s database for a sword made entirely of

She had seen funerals more cheerful than Angel’s Point. The sky was perpetually choked with heavy gray clouds that seemed to never deliver their rain. The men and women of the town wore plain hemp and austere haircuts. They rarely smiled as she passed by, preferring to keep to themselves. Not that I can blame them. It has to be a depressing existence, trapped to a single village, depending on the work of angels to subsist. The angels were a single point of light in the dour palette of floor 13. Bright creatures of sword and wrath, even the shortest stood heads taller than any of the

Oh thank Kayaba. Acanthus dug through her inventory as she walked, looking for the rope and pitons. The game would probably assist her in freehanding it, but she liked the feeling of extra security, whether it actually made a difference or not. She’d been able to shake most of her strange little “real life” rituals, but something about heights made her act irrationally. She planned to stamp that out as soon as she could. “I’ll take the left hand. That leaves the right hand, chest, and head. Your call on what to take next.” Looping the rope around some crags on the mountainous feet, s

Acanthus slides into her usual seat at the sour rumor (three stools from the left end of the bar—just the right distance from the bartender and the fireplace). Rather than ordering a beer, she flags down the person manning the shop, whether its Oz or someone else. “I need a fairly large order today,” she explains. “I’d like a small cask of the absinthe and whiskey.” She did her best to avoid the names; the cutesy alliterations made her feel like she was ordering something a tourist might order at an overpriced chain restaurant. “In fact, if you wouldn’t mind preparing a full cask of the w

Acanthus sat in the low tide of the beach, throwing crumbs to the seagulls that grew more daring with each throw. You could tell SAO’s design team hadn’t been to the beach very often. Here, the birds were cute and shy, hopping to and fro, and gently squawking to tease morsels from the softer players. Real seagulls were downright villainous. Acanthus remembered a family vacation upon which her entire meal had been spirited away by a seagull so grizzled she wondered if it had been a veteran of some long-forgotten bird war. Her meal had not been the first it feasted on, and Acanthus doubted it wo

Skill(s) Being Dropped: None Mod(s)/Addon(s)/Shift(s) Being Dropped: Weapon Addon: Focus, Surprise Attack: Trickster, Vengeful Riposte SP Incurred Towards Limit: 50/50 SP Refunded: 16 Cost: 16,000 col

THREAD SUMMARY Acanthus | [Word Count: 3820/10 = 382] * [True Tier: 6] * [Group Factor: 1] = 2292 EXP + 3000 (Quest) = 5292 EXP Col: 400 (page) + 793 (Laurel Wreath) + 7392 (loot) = 8,585 col (2) Materials Items Rare Weapon | 235241a Uncommon Consumable | 235241b Temporal Distortion

The faint glow of the quest acceptance box was burned into air where it had been. She wondered how much time had passed since she fell through. Some part of Acanthus considered yelling out for Edict. But another part of her wondered what the point was. He seemed so completely averse to being saved. The moment she had asked him about his final words, he’d taken off. Acanthus kicked herself. She *knew* what the idiot had said, and she had picked the wrong time to confirm it. It’s obvious that he would have preferred death to an honest conversation about his feelings, and she should have rec

“We’ve spent the last two hours digging stone out with our bare hands.” Had it really been two hours? The darkness made it hard for her to keep track. “And now you’re just walling up again?” “Got it in one. Sorry to bother you, Haru. It won’t happen again.” She slammed into the wall, pushing with all her might. “Edict, you stupid boy.” The wall was starting to loosen; she pushed even harder. The sounds coming from behind the wall indicated that Edict was still shoring up his defenses. “Let’s talk later. Thanks for being a good friend, Haru.” With a final shove, she pushed the stones

“Safe?!” The anger she’d felt on floor three was coming up again. “Edict, I’m in the bottom of a fucking well. I’ve fought minotaurs, run from giant winged feet, and escaped compiling some kind of ‘metadata’ report. Also, possibly turning into rice and getting eaten. And that was all just today.” She angrily tore a stone from its place. “Nothing about this damn game is safe. Stop trying to pretend that you’re the only thing standing between the people around you and total oblivion. Because with or without us, the game will move on.” Silence settled back in as the two worked. It sounded li

“Ecclesiates.” Now it was Acanthus’ turn to be lost. “I just realized that you might not get the reference.” Acanthus combed her memory for the word. “...Christian scripture?” Edict gave an affirmative grunt. “I just realized I don’t know where or how you grew up, so it might have just sounded like weirdly dramatic language.” “You would be right. I didn’t realize you were—” “I’m not. Or I guess it’s complicated.” The sound of stones tumbling was louder; they had made some progress. “I was raised that way. So really I know just enough to be dangerous.” “I see.” “I

She sat at the bottom of the cistern for a while before speaking. “Have you tried therapy?” “No. Have you?” She gave a dry laugh. Maybe it was the real Edict. “This feels like the part where I offer you some incredible, life-changing advice about walls, or boulders, or mazes, or whatever allegories this stupid game has cooked up this time around. I don’t have it.” The silence persisted. “All I have are my hands. And all I can do with my hands is dig—so that’s what I’m going to do. All this talk of pushing boulders is silly.” She started digging into the grout again. “If you help