[SP:F1] The Best Way Out is Always Through COMPLETE

[Persephone 0]

Lisa was tired of waiting. That stupid little book in her inventory was useless. The player’s help guide was virtually no use to her at all. She had followed the instructions, and yet could not manage to level.  Combat at level one was too difficult, and though her experience points were climbing, she still had not managed to fill the stupid little bar to move up. She didn’t want to sit in town and socialize; she wanted to be out in the field getting [censored] done. The makers of this game were assholes. If she ever got to the end of it where the credits roll, she would take down the names of everyone who helped make it, and personally crotchpunch each one for making such a stupidly [censored] up game!

As luck would have it, the young woman had inadvertently located a quest called “Earning a Living”. Her level was not high enough to complete it, but the quest line had caught her interest, and so out came stupid little book to explain to her. As it turned out, you could choose one of several professions and take a quest given by different NPC’s to become something. Once you did whatever it was you wanted, you could open up a shop and craft things. However, one would need materials to do so. This gave Lisa an idea. If she were too low a level to fight things off, she would just have to gather things, all the things. It was how the young woman found herself by the side of a small pond rooting around on her hands and knees in the shallows digging into the silt looking for clay. The pond was the perfect setting to find materials of all kinds. Under the wet dirt, clay could be found; berries, flowers, herbs, and grasses grew wildly around the area. She could even use her sword to chop at trees and gather wood. It could possibly break her weapon if she weren’t careful, but it was still an option nonetheless. She crawled through the wet mush, her clothing becoming more waterlogged by the moment, digging a hole on the water’s edge as she began to look for her first material. 

Edited September 17, 2015 by Persephone

[Persephone 0]

31741   LD: 8       NOTHING

Lisa plunged her hands into the soft earth sifting out piles of mud with her hands, plopping it off to the side of her as she began to widen and deepen the hole she was to work for. She knew searching for clay was not going to be an easy task. In the real world, one would often have to dig several feet down before finding any. However, being at the water’s edge would make the job was a bit easier, as it was a location that clay could often be found. Though the stupid little player guide made no mention of it, Lisa was sure she was on the right track. If the makers had done their homework, then this should’ve been a place that the material could be located. 

[Persephone 0]

31742   LD: 14     NOTHING

The hole that Lisa had begun was now half a meter in width and a third in depth. Water from the surface slowly slipped into the hole making her digging a bit more difficult, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t manage. Her clothing was now soaked through and rather heavy. It was much too cumbersome to dig in the wet skirts, peasant blouse and bodice, so she opened up her HUB and clicked on each item, removing them until she was in nothing but her underwear. It was a little unorthodox for her to be next to naked out in public, but her ensemble still covered her like a swimsuit, so she thought nothing of it. Instead, she kept reaching into the hole pulling out handful after handful of mud and water and tossed it aside. There was still no clay, but she was still not very deep into the earth to find any. 

Edited September 16, 2015 by Persephone

[Persephone 0]

31744   LD:20     MATERIAL OBTAINED

The hole grew deeper and deeper until Lisa began to find mud with traces of clay within it. The material was labeled within the mud but it was also marked as poor quality, which meant it could not be extracted or used. Still, it was good to know she was close. Lisa could no longer sit at the edge of the hole and reach into the ground below, so she lay upon her belly and kept digging out handful after handful of mud and small rocks.

As she cleared another handful she spotted something just below the surface of where she worked. She used her hands to push away the surrounding mud and found a thicker substance below that was a different than the mud she’d been collecting. The mud around her was a dark murky taupe, but the stuff below was a soft gray color. “That must be it!” She said as she reached into the hole and began to scoop the mud away from the edges of the substance. Once Lisa cleared enough of it away, she gave the small ball of earth a tug and sure enough, lifted it out of the mud. She back on her legs and she inspected it. Sure enough it was clay!

“YES!” Lisa cheered as she added it to her inventory.

 

+1 CLAY (MATERIAL) FOUND 

[Persephone 0]

31749   LD: 16     MATERIAL OBTAINED

Lisa peered into the hole once more, and as luck would have it, she spotted another gray colored substance below. “More clay!” she cheered as she lay back down in the mud and reached down into the hole. As before, she cleared the mud from the edges and ever so carefully, lifted the ball from the hole. The young woman was able to gather her second piece without failure. “Oh I’m just getting lucky here…” she reminded herself. There was no possible way she could do this a third time without destroying the substance or not finding any at all. She clicked her inventory once more and quickly added the item to it.

 

+1 CLAY (MATERIAL) FOUND

[Persephone 0]

31762   LD:1     CRITICAL FAILURE

No sooner than the thought of something going wrong popped in Lisa’s head, did something go wrong. Water from the pond began to quickly fill her hole up, and the pile of mud that she’d been collecting out of the hole, was quickly being washed back into it. “NOOO!” Lisa gasped as her hard work was all being undone. The young woman’s dark chocolate eyes went as wide as saucers as she quickly tried to bail the mud and water back out again. The churning and flinging of mud and water only seemed to quicken the process and soon her hole had completely caved in.  

The young woman sat there, waterlogged, and covered in a layer of muddy silt. Muddy water even dripped from the fringe of her dark tendrils. She was a mess.  Lisa slammed her fist against the soft ground. Her fist plopped right into the ground spurting up mud and water that streaked across her face. She used the back of her arm to try and wipe the mud from her face, but she only managed to smudge herself up even more.

“Well … damn…” she sighed. 

[Persephone 0]

31763   LD: 12     NOTHING

Lisa sat right where she was still sulking over the cave in of her hole. She drew a spiral in the mud as she huffed about having to dig out her hole again, and then slammed her fist back down into the mud causing it to splatter again.

 “What are you doing…” she said sighing to herself realizing that sulking was stupid.

She was behind, so very behind all the other players who were working hard to get the hell out of the game, and she had to catch up, somehow. “Get a hold of yourself!” she said giving her cheek a sound slap. This was a thing Lisa often did in the real world when she needed to get her [censored] together. Normally her face would throb and sting from the hard smack she’d give herself, but in SAO she’d found, there was no pain. It was both a scary and exhilarating thing to not feel pain. On the one hand, it was nice not to hurt, but pain meant that she was still alive. Without the sensation of pain, how did she knew that she was still truly here, and not just a part of someone else’s dream of her.  There was just know way to know and she felt a little bit like Schrödinger’s cat. Was she dead or alive? Or both? Deciding that she was still alive, and not a part of another’s dream, she began to dig. 

Edited September 16, 2015 by Persephone

[Persephone 0]

31769   LD: 6     NOTHING

So far, there was nothing to be found. This was probably because she had not gotten very far in her digging. Instead of trying again right where she was, she backed up a meter, out of the shallows and a bit higher up on the bank of the pond. Here the mud was less runny, but the consistency made it harder to dig out. This was fine however, as this meant there was less chance of cave in.  She piled the mud beside her as she pulled out scoop after scoop of the soggy terrain. Lisa scoot back again as she used both hands in unison as she scooted the dirt out and widened the circle in which she dug. She would try and widen her search area to see if she would fare better this round of gathering clay.

[Persephone 0]

31773   LD:15     MATERIAL OBTAINED

PAY DIRT!

Lisa clapped her muddy hands together as her search turned out to be fruitful once more and she found more clay waiting for her only a handful of centimeters from the surface.  Even with her setback, the young woman’s luck was holding strong. She reached in and carefully dug the clay out before lifting it up into her hands. She played with the malleable gray earth squishing it between her fingers and then rolling it back into a ball. “Very cool…” she said to herself rather excited about the prospect of becoming an artisan and making things from the materials she had found.

 

+1 CLAY (MATERIAL) FOUND

[Persephone 0]

31779   LD: 19      MATERIAL OBTAINED

Lisa was a very, very lucky girl. She didn’t have to know much about game mechanics to know that for whatever reason, the system was allowing her to do well enough to find quite a bit of clay, as another piece appeared inside the hole she had dug out. The young woman eagerly pushed away the mud and picked out the small embedded rocks and gently lifted the clay from the opening.  “YESSS!!!” she cheered as she held the clay up over her head in celebration and quickly added it to her inventory. 

 

+1 CLAY (MATERIAL) FOUND

[Persephone 0]

31852   LD: 14     NOTHING

Once more she peered down into her ditch, and wouldn’t you know it, more clay was waiting for her! She reached down and carefully scooped the mud and pebbles away from the soft gray mound of earth as she prepared to remove it from the ground. Once she was sure it was freed, she reached for it and slowly began to lift it up. However, when she tried to hoist it up, the clay rolled from her fingers and hit the bottom of the hole, and was swallowed by the slurry below as water started to bubble up from underground and the mud and water mixture grew thicker.

“Damn it!” she cursed as she tried to fish it out, but she lost sight of the clay under the murky water that now contaminated her workspace. 

[Persephone 0]

31854   LD: 20      MATERIAL OBTAINED

Lisa had to get that piece of clay she lost. She just had to. It was imperative she had enough materials to begin crafting and making clay charms was perfect for her. One of her many hobbies in the real world was making small charms from fimo clay, particularly Kawaii things. She was good at a number of artistic endeavors, but clay work and jewelry making were among her favorites.

Laying herself back down at the edge of the hole, Lisa squirmed forward and hung over so that she was partially within the space she’d dig out. She reached down with both hands and began to feel around in the muck and mire trying to feel for the lump of clay she had lost to the depths below. She felt her finger tips hit something and she eagerly grasped for it with both hands pulling it up and sat back to inspect the item, wiping away the traces of mud with her fingers. Sure enough she had collected the clay that she’d lost! She squealed like a piggy as she put it in her inventory happily.

 

 

+1 CLAY (MATERIAL) FOUND

Edited September 17, 2015 by Persephone

[Persephone 0]

31865    LD: 3     NOTHING

The young woman was covered in mud head to toe. She felt cold and slimy and decided she’d had enough clay hunting for one afternoon. Lisa stood and walked down the bank and wadded into the water until she was waist deep before plunging herself under. She licked off and swam under the water until she reached the opposite bank and it got too shallow for her to swim any further. She stood flinging her long brown hair out of her face sending water droplets flying everywhere. Her whites were now dingy, but she had no soap to try and wash it out. She supposed it was just how her undergarments were going to be until she could get them cleaned properly.

Lisa walked back up the embankment as she squeezed out her hair. Her now see through garments clung to every bit of her leaving nothing to the imagination. If anyone were to approach her, they would get a free show. 

[Persephone 0]

31878   LD: 1     CRITICAL FAILURE

Lisa strolled back to the other side, back to where she began and laid herself back in the grass staring up at the sky. The wind blew gently around her rustling the grass as the shone down upon her face. “This all looks too real,” she said with a sigh. She could feel the suns warmth radiating upon her skin, but her skin did not goose skin on her as the cool breeze came in contact with it. The game makers had done well in recreating some things, but it seemed there were other, finer details that they simply could not master. She folded her arms and propped the back of her head up on them as she closed her eyes and enjoyed being where she was. It didn’t take her long before she fell sound asleep. 

[Persephone 0]

31880   LD: 3     NOTHING

Lisa startled awake sometime later. “[censored],”  she cursed realizing what she had done.

The pretty brunette scanned the area around her and saw that she was still alone. “Oh that could have been bad!” She said to herself as she knocked her fist against the side of her head. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” she scolded herself for being so careless.  The sun had changed position in the sky, but not by much which meant an hour or two at the most had passed. There were still enough hours in the day to go foraging.

She stood and found her clothes were dry so she opened up her HUD once more and dressed herself. Once that was complete, she got back to work looking for things to collect. 

[Persephone 0]

31889   LD: 20     MATERIAL OBTAINED

 As Lisa began to search through the grass she spotted some very pretty Azure blue flowers. “I wonder if these are something,” She said as she knelt down and grasped at one of them. Sure enough, she was able to collect it. From its labeling, it was an ‘Azure Cornflower’.  “Pretty,” Lisa said as she twirled the flower between her fingers admiring the rich blue shade. “I’ll bet these are used to makes inks and things…” She mused. Maybe she could find that cutie Lowenthal again and he could explain all the uses for the stuff she’d already found.

 

+1 AZURE CORNFLOWER (MATERIAL) FOUND

[Persephone 0]

31890   LD: 3     NOTHING

It seemed that there were no more blue flowers in the bunch that could be harvested. Every time the young woman plucked one up, it shattered into pixels and disappeared. She tried different methods of collecting them, even using her blade to gently cut the base, but every time the same thing would happen.  “GRRRRR….” She growled as the tenth flower she tried crumbled away to nothing. After the thirteenth attempt, the young woman decided that maybe it was time to try to look for something else.

[Persephone 0]

31891   LD: 17     MATERIAL OBTAINED

Just as she was about to walk away, another Azure Cornflower popped in the cluster she had been plucking them from. “DAMN YOU…” Lisa cursed at the thing as she hastily grabbed it up. She’d meant to smash it all up before it pixilated, but this one did not break. “Oh you’ve got to be freaking kidding me!” she laughed. She hadn’t even carefully pulled the thing, she just ripped it up, and it was practically perfect.  T was then she figured it wasn’t the method of collection, but rather, it just came down to sheer dumb luck.

“Well then…” she said with a satisfied grin as she tucked the bloom into her inventory.

 

+1 AZURE CORNFLOWER (MATERIAL) FOUND

[Persephone 0]

31892   LD: 16     MATERIAL FOUND

Once more the young woman went to move from the spot she was, but another flower popped up right where the others had been.  “Huh,” she said wondering if she’d get doubly lucky in one go. She didn’t see the harm in trying since the system had its own change algorithm which would determine if she were successful or not. She swiped at the flower and pulled at it, taking only a short portion of the stem with it. Sure enough, the flower came off and did not shatter on her as they had before.  She giggled as shoved it into her inventory and then clapped her hands together. Gathering materials had been a terribly easy task thus far.

 

+1 AZURE CORNFLOWER (MATERIAL) FOUND

[Persephone 0]

31893     LD: 13     NOTHING

Lisa skipped through the flowers looking about her as she went along. There were lots of pretty blooms, but after having found the blue ones, she was only interested in those. She knew several would probably be needed to make something in game. Very rarely did a game use a one to one ratio for everything. She spotted one several meters from her and she bounced toward the flower swiping it up as soon as she reached it. Upon closer inspection it seemed that the thing in her hand was not a cornflower, but a small blue daisy.  

“Awe,” she pouted. It was still rather pretty, so it would’ve been a shame to waste it so she tucked the flower into her hair and then moved on.