[PP-F1] New Beginnings (Takao) [COMPLETE]

[Brice 0]

"Come on man... Get a hold of yourself. Everything's going to be fine." Brice walks down one of the bustling streets of Starting Town, trying to convince himself that everything is going to be alright, but to no avail. He's stuck here along with god knows how many people. There is no way out of this, but he knew he just had to try to convince himself otherwise. It's strange. He thinks to himself. So many people are stuck here, but no matter where I look I can always see someone who isn't terrified. He keeps walking down the street, unaware of the figure right in front of him. *crash* Brice falls down and looks up to see a brown-haired boy in front of him. He jumps up and takes a step back. "Shoot, shoot, shoot. I am so, so sorry. I didn't mean to." It is clear that he is scared out of his wits and is trying to avoid fights at all costs.

[Takao 0]

"-no way, dude. You've already eaten like... eight of them." he said, green eyes set upon the red of his shoulder-mounted familiar. The monster made a noise akin to a chirp, which was a bit odd given its wingless draconic-esque appearance, yet Takao shook his head in response. "I shall enable your gluttonous behaviour no longer!" he said, adding an exaggerated lilt and slight accent to his voice, for his own entertainment if nothing else. The monster offered another response, yet before Takao could open his mouth to speak, he felt something heavy bump into him from behind. The brunet stumbled forward a step and whipped his head around to identify the cause. He was greeted by the sight of another player, presumably the one who had bumped into him, apologizing profusely for the accident and evidently terrified of something.

Takao's eyebrows raised and his head tilted ever so slightly to one side. "Don't worry about it, man." he said as he held his hand out as an offer to help him back up onto his feet. "It's no problem. You alright?"

[Brice 0]

Brice flinched a bit at the player extending his hand. Upon realizing the player meant to help, he took his hand and stood up. "Uh... Thanks." Brice says this quietly, unsure of what else to say to the fellow player. He stands there for a few moments of silence. "I'm, uh... I'm Brice. I'm a little new around here." Brice says thi while looking trying to avoid direct eye contact. "Thanks again. I should probably go." He begins to walk away, still attempting to avoid direct eye contact.

[Takao 0]

Takao's expression settled into a more comfortable one after helping the player, who then introduced himself as Brice, up off the ground. "Nice t'meetcha, Brice!" he said, beaming a wide smile at the slightly younger player. "I'm Takao." he introduced himself, and then noticed the apparent avoidance of eye contact. Before long, he spoke again and turned to leave, prompting Takao to scratch the side of his face in confusion. He glanced sidelong at his familiar and narrowed his eyes. "Did you make a face at him or something?" he said in a low tone, which earned an equally confused glance and shrug of the reddish monster's shoulders.

The brunet glanced forward again and moved to catch up to Brice, which was an easy enough task. When he caught up, he walked alongside Brice and matched his pace. "Are you sure you're alright? You seem like you're shaken up over something."

[Brice 0]

Brice froze hearing that the player had come to him. "Am I alright?..." Brice repeated the brunette's question and slowly turns around to him. "Am I alright!?" Feelings of anger and fear rush through Brice, as was portrayed by his body language and his hand movements. "Of course I'm not alright! Look around you! We are stuck in here for god knows how long! Hell, we could even die in here! How the hell are you so calm at a time like this?! We might never see our friends or fmilies ever again!" Tears begin to well up in his eyes. "Some of us might die and no one would care!" Brice falls down onto his knees and is now crying "Some of us might die here with out having made any friends..."

[Takao 0]

Takao recoiled as Brice turned and began yelling. His eyebrows raised in surprise, and his familiar jumped slightly as well. His body language was just about as loud as his voice, yet Takao wasn't totally focused on how he was moving his arms. His green eyes shifted from side to side, glancing over the crowds that passed by and gave them fleeting looks, then turned his attention back to Brice as he fell down to his knees. "H'oh boy... I'm really not equipped for this kind of thing." he thought to himself, sharing a glance with his familiar before turning to look down at Brice. "Well... I mean, you're right, I guess? We might never see them again-" he said, certainly off to a good start already. "But we won't know that 'til we try, right? I mean, if there's a chance we're going to die anyway - and there's no guarantee that we are - then we might as well fight as hard as we can, y'know? I'm calm 'cause I know that even if I do die, I did my best to try and change that." He definitely wasn't any kind of motivational speaker.

[Brice 0]

Brice looks up to the plader in front of him and just sits there, astonished. He had never thought about anything like that before. Realizing that he had just burst into tears in the middle of a crowded street he stands up and wipes away the tears from his eyes. He stands looking down at the ground, feeling ashamed of himself for letting his emotions get the better of him in a situation like that. "I guess... I guess that's one way to think of it." Brice smiles a bit and tries to give a bit of a light-hearted chuckle. "Thanks. I really needed that." Brice realises that Takao is wearing some pretty advanced equipment and comes to the conclusion that h must be a pretty high level player. "Um... If it alright, how long have you been playing?"

[Takao 0]

Takao's uneasy expression changed back into a smile as Brice snapped out of his minor breakdown, albeit smaller than it had been earlier, and offered his fist out to him for a fist bump. "No worries, dude. I guarantee you everybody has had a moment like that. This isn't something any of us were prepared for, after all." He glanced aside at the crowd. Some of the most snobbish players turned and headed off without a second look, yet plenty of others shared looks of sympathy. The news hit people hard at different times, and eventually it'd lead to a breakdown. He turned back to Brice as he posed the question of his time spent playing and raised one of his eyebrows. "As... long as everybody else, right? I mean, didn't we we all started at the same time?"

[Brice 0]

Brice look very surprised, finding out that Takao had been playing for as long as he had. "Are you serious?!" Brice quickly quiets down, seeing as he had just yelled his response and not wanting to cause another scene. "But how are you that high a level? I haven't even leveled up... once..." Thinking over what he had just said, Brice discovers the reason and a sheepish smile spreads across his face. "I, uh... Guess that's probably because I've never left tarting town..." He looks up to the Takao, being a bit nervous. "You... Wouldn't mind helping me out a bit, would you? I guess since I never went anywhere, I never got to learn anything about the game's mechanics. A player with a high a level as you must know all the basics here, right?"

[Takao 0]

Takao chuckled lightly and nodded his head. He assumed that, much like himself, Brice must've had a skewed perception of time as well. He had so much to do every day to keep him entertained, yet he had no schedule, so he'd already made a habit of killing his time without paying much attention to when or how long it took. "Quests 'n stuff, dude. They can get you a lot of levels quick." he said, nodding knowingly afterward. "I can take you on a few quests to power-level you a bit if you want. I get some experience from it myself, you get the quest rewards and the extra skill points, its win/win." he said, already getting a bit ahead of himself. He cleared his throat and moved back to where the conversation had been headed before. "But if you're entirely new to the systems, maybe I should take you out into the wilderness to kill a boar or two. D'you know about sword arts?"

[Brice 0]

A bright smile spreads across Brices face upon hearing about quests and mob fights. He has had much expperience with these concepts from the different MMO's and RPG's he had played before SAO. "That sound great. Wait a minute. Sword Arts?" Brice thinks for a moment, then gets an idea. He swipes his right hand downwards to open up his main character menu. After tapping around a bit, he gestures for Takao to come closer to him. Brice points at the screen titled "Weapon Skills". "Do you mean these? I only seem to have a few of them, but it looks like there are different levels for it." He looks  back up  to the more experienced player, awaiting some kind of response.

[Takao 0]

Takao leaned closer upon being gestured to do so and glanced over at the menu screen. He read the contents quickly, then nodded his head. Before he offered a vocal response, Takao waved for Brice to follow him, and began to walk off westward in the direction of one of the City of Beginning's many gates. "Yeah, those are sword arts. You unlock more powerful attacks with each rank of your weapon. Since you just have those few, I'm guessing you've only got the first rank of rapiers." His assumption was partly fueled by the names of the sword arts that he'd read, and also influenced by the fact that a rapier-like weapon hung from the player's side. "So, d'you know how to use them?"

[Brice 0]

At first, Brice didn't notice that Takao had signaled for him to follow. Once he sees he hurries up to catch up with his fellow player. Upon hearing the mention of his weapon type he pats the weapon strapped to his left side. "Yep. Though, I just have a plain beginner's rapier. It's not that powerful." After he had been asked about his knowledge on Sword Arts, Brice thinks about it for a minute or so. "We, I don't think I know how exactly Sword Arts are used, but I think I might have heard of something for combat here. I believe it's some kind of system that is a bit of an automatic assist. I've heard of that, but I'm not sure if that's for regular combat or Sword Arts." Brice has a thoughtful look on his face, trying to recolect exactly what he had heard and to figure out what was said.

[Takao 0]

Takao nodded along as he explained his knowledge of sword arts, and confirmed his assumption that he was a rapier user. "It's not that strong now, but it will be later. Rapiers are up there alongside spears when it comes to damage, though rapiers are better suited for single targets." he said, though he half expected it to be self explanatory. You didn't exactly go slashing around with a rapier, after all. "That's the gist of how sword arts work though, yeah. When you activate them with a pre-motion, you'll feel something like a tug. That's the system trying to get control of your avatar to complete the sword art. All you gotta do is just let the system work its magic, and it'll attack faster and stronger than you could ever do on your own." he said, idly rubbing the length of his jaw as he tried to summarize the most important system in the game as best he could. "I'll show you what a pre-motion is when we get out into the fields, unless you already know about 'em."

[Brice 0]

Brice raises his hand up to show that it was okay. "Nah, I'll be fine." Brice looks up in frotn of him to see the huge gate leading out of the city and towards the fields. "Wow. It's beautiful. It's almost enough to make you forget about the situation we're in right now." Out of the corner of his eye, he sees something on Takao's shoulder. It seemed like some kind of monster, but something was different about it. "Hey. I'm surprised I hadn't noticed it before, but what is that thing standing on you?" Brice point to the red imp-like creature standing on the brunette's shoulder. "I don't think I've seen anything like that in the town, let alone anybody with something that looks like that."

[Takao 0]

Takao nodded and turned his attention frontward as they passed through the western gates. Beyond them laid a large expanse of grassy fields, and in the distance one could see both tall mountains as well as the faint lines of a forest. "You should see some of the other floors. The clearing team's unlocked up to the eleventh floor, and the geography varies so much with each one. The fourth floor is a wintry forest, and the fifth is a vast desert." he said, briefly explaining how quickly the floors could vary from one another. The attention shifted to his familiar, and as he spoke, Takao idly rubbed the monster's head. "This is Otoko, he's my familiar. I picked him up on the fifth floor after taking the quest -- I think it's called something like "Feeding the Enemy. He's a bit of an odd-ball." In the distance, a single boar spawned through a colourful light. It hadn't noticed either of them quite yet due to how far away they stood. "Why don't you try engaging that one? I'll be nearby to help you out if things go wrong."

[Brice 0]

Brice imagines what some of the othe floors may look like and how strong the clearing team must be. "Wow. That's amazing. They must be really strong if that's the case." He listens very closely to what Takao had to say about the creature of his. "That's really cool. I'll have to look into that. They seem like they could be pretty useful in battle." Out of the corner of his eye, Brice notices the sequence of bright, colorful lights. The lights fade and in its place stands a large blace boar with bright red eyes. "Hmm. I suppose it doesn't seem like defeating that would be very hard.  But I guess you never know what might happen. It wouldn't be very good to be killed by something like that." Brice begins to slowly step forward while unsheathing his weapon. As he gets closeer, the boar becomes aware of his presence. Brice suddenly lunges forward and thrusts his weapon at the monster. The resulting strike is stronger than expected and causes the boar to fall to the ground and shatter into hundreds of digital shards.

ID: 31506

BD: 10

MD: 3

Brice

HP: 4/4

Energy: 0/1

Boar: 0/4

<Victory>

LD: 10

-Found One Crafting Material

A small holographic panel appears in fron of Brice to inform him of the won battle. A bright smile spreads across Brices face and he begins to celebrate, shouting and jumping around in the field. He runs up to Takao, still being folowed by the holographic notice. "Did you see that!? That was awesome! I had no idea I could fight like that!" He notices the panel and examine it. "Hmm. What exactly does this stuff mean?"

Edited September 14, 2015 by Brice

[Takao 0]

"They can be," Takao said as the conversation shifted to be centered on his familiar. "But it's rare. Some of the familiars you can tame can actually provide buffs, like Otoko here. He gives me a passive accuracy buff, so my attacks hit a lot more often." he explained, then took a brief moment to reflect on exact how hard it had been to get the little guy. "But... yeah, like I said. Rare. Monsters are hard enough to tame as it is, and finding a special one that buffs you is even more unlikely. Doesn't mean you can't get lucky though."

He stepped aside as Brice engaged the boar, but stayed close enough to intervene if it became necessary. His right hand twitched ever so slightly, ready to reach for his sword at a moment's notice, but the moment never came. Instead, Brice managed to slay the boar in a single strike, either with unforeseen skill or sheer luck. The monster was reduced to colourful translucent shards of data that dissipated with the wind, and a menu had appeared in front of the victor. Takao stretched his closed fist out to Brice for a fist bump as a smile grew on his face. "Nice work, dude! Fights aren't always going to be that easy though, so you gotta be prepared. Oh, and that's the results menu. It lists how much experience you got, how much col, and any items you picked up from scoring the last hit on the monster."

[Brice 0]

Brice completes the fist bumb and listens closely to what Takao had to say about the menu. "Hmm." He looks over the results menu to see what items he had obtained. "It looks like I only got some crafting materials. Meh. It's okay, but it could still be better." He sheathes his rapier, knowing that the battle had been ended. "So what now? Should we head out to see if we can find any more weak monsters to fight? Or do you think it would be a better idea to head back to town?"

[Takao 0]

"Crafting materials can be more valuable than col sometimes." Takao said as his arms folded across his chest. "It's the primary currency for trading with crafters since there isn't much of a use for col right now. They give you equipment or items, and you give them crafting materials so that they can continue their craft." he said, glancing aside to check for potential respawns that would act as a good quarry for Brice to fight after he inquired about their next course of action. "Well," he said. "I'll leave that up to you. I don't mind hanging around for a bit if you wanna fight a few more. This is one of the slowest ways to level up, though. The fast way is with quests."