[F1-PP] The Legend of the Cave Dweller Awakens! <<TFFLAF>>

[Myth 0]

“Is.. is that daylight? Then am I.. am I free?” Myth emerges from the staircase of the large cavern and stepped out into the grassy plains where the sun gave him a big hello and a hug by blinding his eyes since Myth actually hadn’t seen the sun in quite some time. “About time. I’ve been in there for like forever! Buuut it was probably around a week. Mm I have to makeup a lot to catch up to everybody else’s level so I can challenge the floor boss with them. I wonder what floor 2 looks like then..?”

The red headed boy grinned happily and stretched in the sunlight as he made his way through the plains filled with wild Boar spawns. His destination? Why none other than the Town of Beginnings. He was dying for a meal and he had just enough Col to get himself something to feast on. A good nights sleep would also be helpful since a bed was a liiiittle more comfortable than a rock... on top of a rock. However that was for another time. He figured he would need to pick up another quest and gain a couple levels so he could get ready for the boss fight, with that much time spent in a cave they surely found it by this point. 

“Mm.. strange. People are wearing much nicer armor than when I left.. whatever, I probably missed a limited time event or something.” Myth frowned for a moment as he glanced back and forth between everyone else’s armor and then his basic armor. The boy shrugged looked left and right at the shops while he began to tune out the sound of hundreds of people talking. It was rather hard to think with so much noise. The redhead closed his eyes and put both of his hands above his head. “Before I went out boar slaying.. what was I going to do? Oh right I heard about this easy quest I could do that gave out a moderate amount of experience.. that would be a good start.”

Edited June 3, 2018 by Myth

[Calypso 0]

"Right, yes, I know you don't like the crowds. Please, I can only take so much of your pouting." A woman with seafoam hair frowned as she tilted her head to one side with her words. They were directed to the unmoving creature nestled into the crook of her neck, the ermine hybrid's long body draped across Callie's shoulders as he normally settled himself. He was 'hiding', as per usual whenever the familiar's player decided to enter a heavily-populated area. The Town of Beginnings, naturally, was still one of the busiest floors when it came to population density. Familiar, huge, and plentiful in the amount of shops and accomodations, the only thing keeping players from spending more time on arguably the safest floor was the lack of higher-leveled equipment and materials that could be found in the more recently unlocked areas.

'I'll bet Shield is off digging around in another cave or something.' She mused while holding a thoughtful frown. Her right hand subconsciously moved up to her shoulder to gently scratch at the center of Danesh's head, her first two fingertips brushing against the white fur between the short horns that protruded from his skull. "You know I can't make any money if we don't stop back in town now and again," She tried reasoning with the creature while she strolled, her legs carrying her leisurely through the streets while she only half paid attention to her surroundings. Golden eyes ran over the familiar names of different stores run by NPCs and players alike, and her expression soured as her next words left her in a mutter. "It's about time I work on recoup my losses, don't you think? I can't have Shield babysitting me forever. It's embarrassing enough that I keep asking for his help."

[Myth 0]

“Mm. Maybe I should just ask somebody if there was some sorta event— yo is that legit blue hair?” The girl stood out from the rest of the crowd much more than anybody else did. Not to mention her clothes were a lot.. nicer than other people here. Why not ask her then? If anybody got some good stuff with this LTE then it had to be her, perhaps she would even reveal her secret to him about how to get good quality armor on the first floor? Besides, she at least looked approachable.

“Heyyy! Blue hair!” The redhead grinned before running up to her and waving. His blue eyes were big and sparkling while he continued giving her a toothy grin. “Excuse me miss, I was wondering, how did you get such good loot on floor 1? Is there a certain quest or mob you’ve been farming to get good drops? I understand if you don’t wanna tell me your secrets but it seems to me a lot of other people know about it cause they got some not too shabby armor as well. So would ya mind letting me know? Oh! By the way my name is Myth. You?”

After introducing himself briefly he outstretched his right hand, palm open, and held it out to her to motion for a hand shake. It would definitely be rather awkward if she didn’t take his hand but hey you win some you lose some.

[Calypso 0]

It seemed as though her attempt at soothing words was only causing the familiar to pout harder, if it were possible. His normally expressionless face was buried firmly against the woman's neck, and so she dropped her hand back to her side with an annoyed scowl. "Fine, you big baby." Callie muttered.

The declaration of her hair color hadn't caught her attention, but the motion of a person's arm waving as he drew closer to her front certainly did. She blinked, as if she wasn't used to either the stranger's straightforward, cheerful attitude, being approached in public, or both. Either way, she plastered a polite smile on her face and heard the boy out. As he spoke, it was quite difficult to keep her expression consistent. Eventually, she gave up, and cerulean brows came together with a hint of concern. "Oh, right. Calypso." She gave her username in return, glancing down at his outstretched hand before she returned the gesture with a light shake. Withdrawing and shifting her weight, she quickly turned her attention back to his initial questions.

"Well, I can hardly say my equipment is impressive..." She started out, cynicism slowly growing inside of her head. She had been tricked and threatened out of her belongings by other players once before, and she would be damned if she'd let it happen again. Even so, the safe zone of the massive city gave her enough peace of mind to continue the conversation. "Actually, I did get most of it from quests here on the first floor. There's a chain that can set you up with the basics." She frowned thoughtfully, trying to come up with some more useful advice for the stranger. "But, I wouldn't say there's much that's still useful down here. I think most people still hang around this city because it's got the most of everything in one place."

[Myth 0]

“Mmm I see I see. So there’s a nice quest chain then, hmm? If it’s so helpful then why not assist me with the quest? I mean if anything by doing this you’ll be helping out everybody since I need new armor so I can be prepared for the boss fight on this floor. Then it’ll be like a domino effect, once we break into floor two I’ll beat the boss there then alllll the way up to floor 100 and then everybody will be freed. So you could consider this the start of it all. What do you say, you in?” The boy smiled at her and stuffed his hands in his pants pockets, shifting weight from one leg to the other. 

“Also do you know a good way to farm materials?” At this point Myth reach for the hilt protruding from behind his should and gripped it with his right hand before drawing out a completely black sword. “I’m looking to upgrade my sword. I mean currently it isn’t that bad but I’m hoping to get an edge quickly and deal some more damage to the enemies on this floor so most of them will be a breeze and I can farm a lot quicker. I need to get armor on the way since this is very low quality..”

[Calypso 0]

A brow cocked with his request for assistance that was promptly followed by a reasoning as to why she should accept. Callie was just about to make a face, and briefly thought about coming up with some excuse as to why she couldn't bother to help him, perhaps even pointing him in a direction that would make him look somewhere else for assistance. But, before she had aired any unhelpful words, she paused. One of several meetings with Shield came to mind without her permission, and she was forced to recall some of his words.

"If you want to call it even between us, just do the same for another player someday."

She had to fight against her internal sigh slipping out past her lips. Still, something Myth was going on about caused her to hesitate with mild confusion. She opened her mouth, just about to ask what he meant by taking on the floor's boss. "...Sure," The single word was all that came out at first, and she turned to lead the way to Zachariah's alchemy shop. Her curiosity burned as strongly as ever, but she held her tongue. 'Maybe he intends to be a frontliner, and wants to join the upcoming fight.' She tried reasoning, wishing to shrug the matter off. 'Wait, no, then what could he possibly benefit from quests down here?'

She shook her head to banish the internal debate for now, and cast Myth a sidelong glance as he spoke about his weapon and the topic of materials. "Oh, well, like I said, you're probably not going to find much worthwhile down here. If it's by combat, you should probably gauge the highest you can comfortably handle if you plan on going solo, but otherwise you might be able to get away with avoiding combat, which will let you go for better or rarer materials on the higher floors." She explained. "And, there's a field boss on the fourth that drops an item used for upgrading equipment, if you'd prefer not to just replace that sword outright."

[Myth 0]

Myth began to furrow his eyebrows as a concerned microexpression appeared on his face which of course quickly disappeared when she finally responded. What caused the concerned expression was the fact he could tell she was hesitating. He didn’t want to bother her and he wasn’t trying to annoy her either. However after she agreed to go with him he figured his sweet talking ended up working, +5 EXP to Charisma right? 

“Mm did the beta testers reveal a lot about the upper floors? How do you know so much already? I mean I know practically everything that was in the guide though. I had a lot of free time on my hands and ended up reading it so much I could rewrite it word for word.” Myth closed his eyes and sighed as he followed her towards the quest location. He couldn’t help but remember his dreadful time in the unknown cave, or much rather a sort of Labyrinth.

“All I’ve really found on this floor we’re a bunch of boar, I haven’t tried actually challenging a wolf yet though. Figured I should level up a bit more before that since I’ve been playing solo the whole time.” He glanced over towards her in confusion when she mentioned something about the fourth floor and a field boss though. “Are you a beta tester? How do you know such specifics about the fourth floor? That’s like.. forever away still since we haven’t even gotten past the first floor yet. I mean sure if you look at it like floor four out of 100 then that isn’t bad but compared to still being on the first floor? I’m not sure where you’re getting your info. I mean at best you may have some decent info on floor two from a quest or something, perhaps there’s a quest that gives a sort of hint about floor two but definitely not four this early in the game. Who’s your source?”

[Calypso 0]

Forever away? This early in the game? She wasn't sure if this kid was just trying to pull some pointless prank, or if the stress of the death game had just left him delusional. Her brows narrowed again before her response, unsure of what kind of tone to take with the shift in the conversation's mood. "Myself?" She answered, a touch of sarcasm pulling through with her upward inflection. They had just reached their destination on the outskirts of the shopping district when Callie stopped and turned to face Myth, her arms folding themselves over her chest. She was casting the player a more stern gaze, and she shifted her weight to one side before she addressed him. "Look, I'm really not sure what you're going on about. The frontliners took down the twenty-second floor boss a few weeks ago." She explained.

She watched his expression, trying to gauge his reaction. Did he sincerely think they hadn't made any progress in all this time? Or rather, just how long did he think they'd been stuck in here thus far? And, if he wasn't just trying to throw her for a loop, how did he manage to be so terribly mistaken? "If you don't believe me, the teleport gate is that way." Without taking her eyes off of the redhead, she jerked her head to the side in the direction of the settlement's main plaza. "You can get to the main city of every floor up to twenty-three yourself. And, as far as bosses are concerned, I don't think they respawn after they're killed. So, if you managed to find one of the labyrinths, it'll probably still be cleared out."

Edited June 5, 2018 by Calypso

[Myth 0]

Myth gave her a look as if she just told him she was actually a level 100 goddess, to be more specific, he gave her a look of genuine confusion. “Are you crazy.. how.. well. Now that I think about it this may not be as crazy as you make it seem.” Myth looked down at his feet in thought as his right hand instinctively rose up and began rubbing his chin. How long has he been in that cave? A week, a month... a year?

The boy sighed before looking her in the eyes once more. “Let me give you a little history lesson. So when the sky started raining blood and everybody was screaming and panicking about dying in the real world as well, instead of gawking up at the sky like everybody else, as soon as Kayaba disappeared I high tailed it to the plains to go level up and grind some EXP from the boars there. However as you could have guessed something bad happened, that being I stumbled upon some sort of cave system and it sealed me in. Inside was like a maze, every once in a while id find food or some col, small items like that scattered around to keep me going. I’ve been in that cave system ever since day one of the game and only an hour ago did I finally find my way out. I’ve had no contact with anybody outside that cave. I figured I was in there maybe a week a two but I guess it was a little bit longer than I imagined.” Myth scrunched his eyebrows and hit the palm of his hand against his forehead, tilting his head back some as he stared up at the sky. 

“That means level one won’t cut it on Floor twenty three so I have a lot of catching up I need to go, and fast at that. I’m hoping to be able to at least reach level.. level thirty by the time those guys on the front line plan to take on the boss on floor twenty five. I want to be up there fighting for everybody else that’s still down here. I have to be part of the effort that gets us out of here, I don’t want somebody doing it for me. That leads me to ask you of a favor. After this quest chain could you take me up on one of the higher floors and help me grind? I’ll get a lot of EXP up there so I can level up quicker. After that we can part ways and I can come back down to the lower floors and easily complete all the quests on those floors. I understand if you’re against it, but I may as well ask.” At this point Myth looked around a bit more and figured this would be the quest location. Now that he knew where it was even if she’s decided she would abandon him he would at least be able to complete these quests since they aren’t chained, they’d likely lead him to the next one.

[Calypso 0]

She listened to his story with as passive an expression as she could manage. Given the disparity between his understanding of the world at this moment and reality, his acceptance and reasoning came as a surprise to her. 'Maybe he's just not as naive as I thought he was.' She inwardly mused, continuing to listen patiently to his plan of action. 'Level thirty by floor twenty-five?' Her head repeated, thoughts beginning to wander as she tried to gauge whether or not the numbers were far-fetched. She was only level ten herself, but then again she had met at least one or two frontliners that were well past level fifty, and they'd both been in the game all this time. She certainly couldn't hold her own lack of enthusiasm to level up against Myth. Here this kid was, filled with determination and ambition and hope, while she was content with living as peaceful a life as she could manage, taking in sights and relishing in the freedom of the virtual world.

As much as she would have liked to bid the boy good luck and farewell, Callie dropped her chin for another moment of consideration. Her eyes flickered to her shoulder, where Danesh had lay still across the back of her neck all this time, simply waiting until they would leave the dreaded safe zone. She pursed her lips, and let out a sigh of defeat. "Alright, fine. I'll help you through these quests, and then we can head up to the higher floors. I remember doing a couple more that gave really good EXP, so we can basically try to boost you through whatever we can handle." After her agreement, her mind naturally shifted to her arrangement with Shield, and how he had been carrying her through some higher-leveled quests himself over the past couple of months. Quickly deciding she was already getting herself plenty involved, she stopped herself before extending his help so quickly. Unfolding a hand, the woman waved Myth along towards the door of the alchemy shop they stood outside. "Go on, let's get these first easy ones started."

Edited June 5, 2018 by Calypso

[Myth 0]

“Now you may be wondering just how can I gain thirty levels in about a month, well you see.” He couldn’t help but grin a devilish smile. “That’s where the fun begins.” He turned from her as she motioned and opened the door before walking inside the shop. As he expected, it was full of potions for sale.

“I really appreciate what you’re doing by the way, because of you everybody can be freed from this game faster. I’ll be up there in no time.” He turned to smile at her once more before stuffing his hands in his pockets and strolling up to the old man who would be giving him the quest. “Hey old man, do you need any help?” Myth figured asking if he needed help would be good enough to trigger the NPC’s quest and indeed it was.

“Ah, welcome young man. I do need some help if you don’t mind, I want to help the out the other people here so if it isn’t too much trouble could you gather a few items for me?”

With that a page opened up in front of him that revealed the quest information. “Five Tier One materials? Alrighty. I’ll take on this quest.” Myth pressed the blue accept button to signal he indeed was going to take on the quest. “Alright! Calypso, you ready to go? You already know what the quest is don’t you?”

[Calypso 0]

'Yeah, I'm in such a hurry to get back to my real body.' The sarcastic thought stopped itself from reaching her lips as Myth slipped through the heavy oaken door. Biting her tongue, she waited for her new questing partner to pick up the quest before they would be on their way. She nodded when he called out to her, and dropped her arms back to her sides in order to lead the way to the nearest gate leading outside of the city. "Yeah, I've done these ones. A lot of the monsters right outside are passive, so they won't even bother you unless you pick a fight first. We just have to look for the materials laying around--herbs, flowers, and such--and bring them back here. They're all really easy MMO tasks to get you warmed up to the VR part of the game." She explained. From the way Myth spoke and acted, she assumed he was familiar with games and didn't bother over-explaining every term.

The pair of players walked through the loose crowds that stood between them and the wilderness, reaching the eastern gate in just a couple minutes' time. Callie had thought about striking up more conversation, first deciding against it and then realizing that she had committed to multiple quests together with the kid. Keeping to herself was only going to last so long. She pursed her lips before finding a topic to break the silence with. "So, you've spent all this time just wandering around some caves by yourself?" She confirmed. Myth hadn't seem all that bothered or traumatized by the topic, so she saw no problem with bringing it up again. "Is...there anyone else that you know joined the game?" She hesitated a moment, unsure of her personal prodding as she tried to fill the silence.

Edited June 5, 2018 by Calypso

[Myth 0]

“Yeah, i can tell this is definitely meant for beginners. I guess there’s no better place to start than here then. So I just gotta go picking dandelions and I get EXP for it? I mean that sounds easy enough I guess.” Myth put both of his hands behind his head and once again followed her. He knew the town of beginnings pretty well since this was the only town he knew and before he knew it they were already exiting the eastern gate.

Myth glanced at her when she began speaking to him, which he found rather unexpected due to her being the quiet type. At least a that’s what he observed so far. “Well, I didn’t really meet anybody before my run in with the cave so I was kinda stuck there for a loooong time. I didn’t have much to do so I’ve read the guide about a few hundred times and if anything I’ve really gotten used to this VR body. I’m not sure if my friends in the real world are even in this game, I was gonna show off to them and brag that I got the game or whatever but I kinda wasn’t able to log out so I could tell them the next day. I hope they’re not here. What about you? I’m surprised you’re still here with me. Figured you’d be finding an excuse to go off with your friends.”

[Calypso 0]

She should have expected for him to turn the question back on her, but Callie still found herself frowning at it. "Well no, I didn't know anyone from the real world that ended up here." She answered first, then smirking slightly at his mention of her abandoning him to see other people. To that, the woman shrugged her shoulders. "I didn't have any plans with anyone today either way." She responded in the most neutral way she could manage. She preferred not to explain that she hardly knew anyone in Aincrad beyond a passing acquaintance, and that her friends list was populated with an impressive two usernames. One of which she wasn't all that eager to see, for some inexplicable reason. Memories and images of the dance on Valentine's Day, and the wedding--or was it a renewal of vows--that occurred thereafter between Shield and his 'partner' Beat filled her head and caused a pang of annoyance in her chest.

Callie shook her head, and was immediately thankful to catch the tiny motion of Danesh's head to distract her. The hybrid familiar had finally pulled his face away from the crook of her neck, blinking beady onyx eyes against the bright sunlight. "Finally done pouting, huh?" She teased the creature, bringing a hand up to scratch the white fur atop his head with the nail of her index finger. His eyes closed as he enjoyed the attention, and when she withdrew Danesh's attention seemed fixed on the stranger in their presence. He stared at the redhead even while Callie poked gently at the side of his small face. "Are you going to say hi, or just sit there being a shy baby?" She criticized him. Her golden eyes picked back up to Myth, "This is Danesh, my familiar. He's, not very expressive. Or lively, most of the time."

[Myth 0]

Quote

 

ID: 101539

Results:

Battle: 6

Craft: 4

Loot: 17

 

“Mm I guess we’re on a similar boat then. Well, we can probably do this quest chain today then pick up on the higher floors tomorrow morning. As long as you carry me for a bit I should catch up pretty quickly.” Once leaving the Eastern gate Myth looked around the area for a suitable place to start gathering materials. He needed flowers or something right?

His blue hues looked back at Calypso when she began speaking again, though confused for a split second on what she was talking about he quickly realized she was speaking to somebody else. “Mm I see. You already have a familiar— well I guess you have been to the upper floors so it shouldn’t be that uncommon. Still, I hope this flower picking gives me a decent amount of EXP from the quest. We only need 5 right? Liiiike.. the flower there?”

Myth strolled over towards a plant that he spotted and bent down to pick it up. He got a notification that he obtained an item but ignored it as he showed his companion. “Is it this one? I mean flowers can be used for alchemy which makes potions..” Myth shrugged and strutted back over to Calypso. 

[Calypso 0]

"Floor seven, yeah." She replied with the level of the floating castle where she had found the creature. "Each one has its own distinct environment, more or less. At least, each one I've been to so far. An Elf city, a snowy floor, mountain ranges, and caves filled with crystals." She recounted, a soft smile subconsciously making its way across her lips as she recalled some of the more wondrous sights she'd come across during her time in Aincrad.

Her eyes landed on the single flower that Myth had plucked from the ground, looking to her for confirmation. She nodded accordingly, "Right. The material itself should say it's a quest objective. And the quest will update, so you can always pull up the details if you get lost or stuck on an objective. For a death game, they still hold your hand a lot with stuff like this." Atop her shoulders, Danesh planted his small paws and pushed himself up. His long body arched in the middle, and his eyes squeezed shut while short legs stretched after the time he spent curled up and hiding away from the bustle of the city.

[Myth 0]

Quote

 

ID# 101541 results:

 Battle: 4

 Craft: 9

 Loot: 19

 MOB: 3

 

”Floor Seven hmm? What’s it like there? Are the mobs pretty strong there?” Myth walked away from the girl as he once again spotted another one of the flower he found earlier. As he picked it up he was correct, it was the same flower and thus he only needed three more flowers to complete the first part of the quest.

”So.. tell me about yourself. What have you been up to all this time? What’s your favorite activity to do in SAO? Personally I want to get into fishing. It just looks like something calming and I can really think about things, know what I mean?” The boy didn’t bother looking back at her as he spoke, he figured he’d just be slowing them down so why not just continue searching for these flowers. There were plenty of different flowers but finding a specific one was like finding a needle in a haystack, except there were a lot more needles mixed in as well.

 

@Calypso

Edited June 5, 2018 by Myth

[Calypso 0]

"I haven't done much combat there," She admitted with a shrug of her shoulders, focusing instead on the other half of his question for a minute. "But there are mountain ranges all over the place. The main city is called Nimbus, and it's practically carved out of the side of a tall cliff. There are a bunch of open plains, it's almost like a huge valley. Danesh loves taking naps in the trees on top of the hills there." She smiled warmly, recalling her first encounter with the creature in exactly such a scenario.

She picked up a hand to scratch the center of her familiar's head with the tip of her index finger once more, taking slow and leisurely steps through the grass while Myth set to work on gathering the materials he needed to satisfy the quest's first objective. She was surprised to hear him shift the topic of conversation to herself on a personal note, curious as to how she'd chosen to spend her time and offering a bit of himself in return. It didn't take her long at all to come up with an answer. "I love to explore. Even though it's just VR, I've never seen a lot of places like this," She pulled her arms out to her sides, motioning at the rolling fields they were surrounded by. "This place might be a death trap, but it's the prettiest death trap I've ever seen, so," She trailed off as her shoulders fell. She already knew her level of appreciation for the world they were stuck in, not to mention her lack of enthusiasm when it came to clearing the game, was not the most popular of opinions.

@Myth