[PP-F9] Guardian of Fire (Takao)

[Azide 0]

"Rumor has it that a three-headed dog has been spotted skulking about over at Inferno Cavern," said Azide, running his eyes over the body of text in front of him. He dragged the quest screen down just far enough so that he could peer over the translucent window, and eyed the other player across from him. "Of course, we can assume that it's not just a simple rumor, otherwise I imagine this quest would be somewhat on the duller side of things."

His eyes darted back to the luminous panel, where they lingered on the SP reward. While these quests often awarded various trinkets and curiosities such as a Matriarch's Stinger or an Anneal Blade, these consolation prizes were ultimately never the primary factor in his questing. 

He wiped away a bead of sweat which had rolled down his cheek, and heard the sizzle of another droplet as it made contact with the metallic platform over which Vulcan Village was positioned. A questionable choice of construction material for a settlement suspended over the mouth of a volcano, but he made no claims of being architecturally informed.

A faint hiss from within the folds of his coat signaled that he wasn't the only one here not enjoying the locale. "Let's get a move on, shall we?" he asked, exiting from the virtual interface. "We've got a looong trip ahead of us."

[Takao 0]

Takao glanced around their surroundings with furrowed eyebrows and a deeply set frown. This particular floor rivaled, or perhaps even surpassed the fifth when it came to comparing temperature, undoubtedly due to its precarious and disconcerting position above the mouth of a volcano. His familiar, a dragon-like monster who had originally hailed from a climate not unlike the ninth floor's, seemed to be right at home if one were to judge by the content look on its face. The words that Azide spoke were heard, though they hadn't exactly taken precedence over the silent complaining he did in his head, so he nodded for the majority of the quest's explanation.

"Long trip... yeah..." he huffed out a breath as he spoke, shaking his head slightly. "Couple days if we run into a lot of monsters, or if we're slow about it." His attention shifted away from his surroundings and back to Azide as he dismissed the game's interactive menu. Takao rolled his shoulders, which clearly agitated his perched familiar, and turned in the general direction that the quest would require them to travel in. "Sounds good to me. The less time I have to spend on this floor the better."

[Azide 0]

"Geeze," said Azide, shooting Takao a sidelong glance. "I can't believe it's been two days already." He stretched his arms out as wide as they would go, then clasped his hand around the opposite wrist and straightened them skyward. "Just kidding." Moving his hands to rest behind his head, he looked out ahead at the dusty mountains which loomed in the distance. If either of the two were to glance over his respect shoulder, he would see the iron gateway of Vulcan Village approximately twenty meters behind them, and perhaps even make friendly conversation with the NPC gatekeepers standing under the metal archway.

He sighed, and could have sworn he'd seen soot in his exhalation. The possibility of lung cancer being coded into this game was the last thing he wished to contemplate at the moment. "So, I don't suppose you've tousled with old Cerberus before?" he asked, crossing his fingers that Takao would make decent company on this most tedious trip.

[Takao 0]

Takao snorted out a laugh and shook his head. "You won't be laughin' when it actually takes two days, y'know." he said as his hands dug down into the depths of his trouser pockets. The metal walkways had quickly turned to loose volcanic stone along a path that lead them in the right direction, or at least vaguely so. If it weren't the heat that he disliked most about this floor, it would be how difficult the terrain was to fight on. "I did fight it once on my own a long time ago, but that was before all those weird changes suddenly rolled out. It went alright, had a few close calls though." he admitted, briefly recalling the battle he had with the three-headed monster. "It nearly knocked my sword into the lava."

"Oh, I almost forgot. You might want to hang on to the item it drops. It's pretty rare and a lot of people want to get their hands on it. Might be valuable later on or something." he said. He'd received a few offers for the item, and given the generous numbers he'd been given, he figured the item was quite useful.

[Azide 0]

"How can any trip in Aincrad possibly even take two days?" he remarked, more rhetorically than not. Mirroring Takao, he shook his head, albeit without the laugh which had accompanied it. With a frown, he continued, "I remember reading somewhere that the largest floor's diameter is only about ten kilometers- and this one can only be smaller, what with the wedding-cake like design of this castle." It could only be assumed that this had been the work of Kayaba himself, though perhaps somebody had been able to pull the fast one on the madman.

Azide furrowed his brow upon hearing the other player's passing reference to the barrage of hotfixes which had at some point become commonplace. He had a thing or two to say about these willy-nilly updates, but that was neither here nor there. "At least you managed to knock the fellow out when you had the chance." Vaguely, he could recall having set out on this very same path many months ago on the path to face Cerberus itself. Strangely enough, he could not remember what had followed that journey.

His ears perked when Takao made mention of a valuable item. "Is that right?" he asked, turning his head. "More col could never hurt... Actually, I heard they discovered recently that it was possible to build houses on the eleventh floor. I was actually thinking I'd-" 

The attempt at small talk died on his lips as the smell of burning vegetation wafted over to the duo, and sure enough, he could now spot a gang of humanoid figures blocking their path up ahead. With long red hair which flowed like fire (or rather, was fire), ancient looking thick-framed spectacles and an assortment of flaming instruments in hand, he could only conclude that these were the Burning Men he'd read about in one of those hipster magazines.

[Takao 0]

"I know, right?" said Takao as his attention returned forward. "I could run ten kilometers in like... An hour. It's really amazing it took the first clearing group as long as it did to find the boss, I feel like the entirety of the first floor could've been searched in a matter of a few days." he said, shaking his head to dismiss the thoughts afterward. He wasn't in any position to criticize the efforts of the first clearers, given how inactive he was when everything had first gone downhill. "Although I guess if there's meant to be a hundred floors, it probably doesn't shrink very much at the base. Given that there's only ten thousand players or so, it'd probably make the world seem really sparsely populated after like... floor thirty." Another shrug rolled over his shoulders, further agitating his familiar.

Takao nodded as Azide mentioned housing, and hadn't noticed that his voice died out after the strange smell drifted by. "Well, yeah, but you can get col from any old mob usually. You can only get this thing once, y'know? Might as well save it for..." he said, until his voice died down as well. He glanced forward and finally took notice of the figures impeding their progress. Humanoid with strange features that clearly differed from the average player. "What's up with those things?"

[Azide 0]

Takao's musings were certainly agreeable, and he had definitely wondered how it had taken everybody so long to clear the first ten floors. Then again, with the rate at which things had been changing in the past few weeks alone, he could only imagine what sort of shenanigans the first clearers had put up with in their initial efforts. As he hadn't come into activity until around the ninth floor, there was little he could recall of the old system's mechanics. "It probably doesn't help that everybody seems to go into hiding every few months or so. You ever hear of this one guy called Zero?"

But as much as he wanted to discuss the topic of under population among the higher floors (which was admittedly somewhat of a non-issue in practice, from the frequency in which he encountered familiar faces across all floors), it would likely be best to address the immediate issue at hand.

Azide raised a brow as he eyed the strange looking creatures that seemed to be eyeing him back. "No clue," he said, with a shrug. "But from the looks of their grey cursors, I'd say they seem to be NPC's, rather than your standard mobs. Shall we head on over and give them a closer look?" 

[Takao 0]

The name he spoke hadn't sounded familiar in the slightest, but he suspected that it held some amount of relevance to the topic at hand. He couldn't criticize the lack of originality in the name there either, given that his username was simply his real name. He shook his head in response as the discussion was shelved in favour of addressing the set of creatures eyeing them. Takao's stare on the figures lingered as Azide spoke. His curiousity was piqued, but at the same time, they already had a long enough trip ahead of them without detours and stops. "Well, it's already going to take us a day or two to get there..." he said. A shrug rolled across his shoulders a moment after. "But I guess it couldn't hurt to see what's up with 'em." After giving his answer, Takao began his approach. He stopped a few meters away, giving himself plenty of space to react should they suddenly have become hostile. "Uh... Hi!" he said to the apparent NPCs, adding on his usual enthusiasm to the greeting.

[Azide 0]

"Careful there buddy, if you keep working those shoulder so hard, they might fall off or something." Then again, it was also possible that the young man might just end up with a pair of very broad and powerful shoulder blades. Even then, a disproportionately muscular set of shoulders seemed somewhat ungainly in his mind. He could only hope that such a fate was not awaiting his most recent of acquaintances, who seemed to express his emotions through his shoulders as though he were an overcompensating and armless Italian mobster.

He nodded at Takao's words, well aware that time was quite the precious commodity in this quest of theirs. "We'll make it quick," he said, double-checking the location of his dagger as he walked right up to the group of flaming NPC's. When he got there, an older fellow wearing a headband and armed with a burning guitar stepped forward from the bunch and whispered quickly and low, invoking the common trope.

Nodding again, this time to the burning man, he turned back to Takao. "Says they're sort of like hitchhikers, except instead of transportation, they'd like us to escort them to a music festival over at Inferno Cavern. Personally, I had no idea that was a hot spot for entertainment, but go figure." He shrugged in a highly exaggerated manner. "Anyway, I'm good for the favor- it shouldn't even take us any longer than we'd planned if we get back to the road."

[Takao 0]

Takao glanced to his side and raised one of his eyebrows. "Uh... right." he said, letting his gaze linger for a moment longer before he looked back to the four monsters. His arms folded across his chest while Azide strode up to the group and spoke to them, and occupied his gaze by glancing around. With the boss fight just around the corner, spending three days on a quest he'd already done wasn't exactly the best use of his time, but he could certainly think of far less productive things he could and probably would be doing.

"Music... festival?" The mixture of disbelief and confusion in his voice was blatantly apparent. His gaze slowly wandered from Azide to the apparent hitchhikers of sorts, and then back to Azide again. Their appearance was certainly random, and their request even more so, yet the occurrence of unforeseen events were common enough for Takao to overlook. "I mean... yeah, sure. We're headed there anyways, so I guess it couldn't hurt. That's really unexpected, though. I've never heard of anything like that before."

[Azide 0]

"Yep," said Azide matter of factly. He slid his hands in his pockets and began walking. "The man said, I quote, 'Dudes, you ever hear of the Burning Man, dudes? It's like, this totally rad celebration of music taking place in like two days, man,'" he repeated, with a glance over his shoulder. From the way he had spoken and the look on his face, Takao certainly seemed confused at that very moment. "Anyway, let's get moving dude. We're free spirits now!"

And from that moment forward, Azide found himself coasting along with an extra spring his step, and a fire in his soul as their newfound brethren played a few tunes for the ages. After a long march, Azide turned to his party member just as a particularly spirited rendition of My Baby Blue was played to its completion. He stretched his arms out and moved a hand to cover his mouth as he yawned. "We've been walking for a pretty long time now, haven't we? Probably at least a day by now, I imagine. And by the time you answer, that number might very well have rolled over to a second day."

[Takao 0]

"Huh. Well, I uh... yeah, alright. It's not the weirdest thing I've seen... or heard, I guess." he said, letting dismissive another shrug roll across his shoulders without realizing it. He was confused by their presence, maybe, but not surprised. Having had plenty of international friends from all corners of the world offline as well as living in a large tourist city meant he'd been subjected to a plethora of different cultures, so their dated speech wasn't terribly shocking.

Time passed by with the accompaniment of music, and before long they'd made significant progress on their journey to the Inferno Cavern. "Sure does feel like it," Takao said, keeping his attention set on the road ahead of them. "But I've always had a terrible perception of time anyways. A week could've gone by and I bet I wouldn't have noticed. Since we are getting close, we should probably talk a bit about our strategy before we get there." He mimicked Azide's stretching, though his arms went skyward. "Daggers don't have really good AoE, which means I'll probably end up handling the brunt of the work. I'm not really confident in my ability to take Cerberus down in one hit though, so it might be a good idea for you to try and hit it with whatever AoE you actually have, and I'll see if I can finish it off."

[Azide 0]

It seemed as if Takao had shared his sentiments on the passage of time, even if neither could put a definite number to the length of their journey thus far. Azide also found difficulty in recalling much of the conversation which had transpired along the way, although it had been a very musical time indeed. "Let's agree to meet slightly below the middle and call it two days, shall we?" If through some strange miracle this turned out to be even somewhat accurate, it would mean that the most tedious leg of their trip was nearly behind them.

As the other man continued, Azide's fingers danced lightly across the edges of his dagger's leather pouch. The fact that he would likely be playing support in the coming confrontation was no surprise- after all, Cerberus did have three autonomous heads, and he was armed with only a single stubby dagger. It was really more of a finger than an arm, but that was beside the point. "Although I'm loathe to admit it, I can see where you're coming from," he answered, with a glance at the curved sword which Takao had kept sheathed on his person. "Don't expect any miracles, but I should at  least be capable of scraping off a solid 14 HP from each of the heads. And I suppose we can more or less apply a similar tactic to any of the Hell Hounds we might come across before then."

[Takao 0]

"Sounds good to me, man." he said in response. He might've been able to judge their distance from the Inferno Cavern is their surroundings had been more memorable, but every mountain and every volcano in the distance looked the same. Though, if he were to be fair to himself, he'd only ever been this far out into the floor's wilderness once, and it hadn't left him with much time to sight-see. He remembered the cavern itself, however, due to the rather unpleasant events that had transpired there.

"It's really just a game of Janken, y'know? Daggers are really good for certain things, and terrible at others. Just like this thing," Takao said as he reached up and over his shoulder to give the blade strung against his back a pat. "-is pretty much good at nothing, but has a few decent scenarios where it's useful. I have a feeling it'll be obsolete in a few floors." he said, his tone almost sounding a bit depressed. He'd picked the blade type due to his pre-existing experience with it, which had proven to be entirely useless with the application of sword arts on top of other weapons being much more streamlined for one purpose or another.

[Azide 0]

The term Janken was markedly an unfamiliar phrase, and he could say with confidence that such a word had never crossed either his eyes or ears. That was to say that he could say it, if he'd really wanted to; as it turned out, he did not. He'd had experience with this Takao fellow's type before- the Japanese people, to be exact. That was no surprise in of and itself, seeing as Sword Art Online was a game of Japanese origin. As with Oikawa in the past, he was happy to chalk the phrase up as another one of those Japanese things that he'd never understood (literally, as he did not understand a lick of the oriental languages).

He nodded, both in acknowledgement of whatever it had been that his party mate had referenced, as well as in agreement with the points the man had raised. "I'll admit that you're right about that, but it doesn't change the fact that I'll be about as effective against Cerberus as a guy with a needle against an army of ants." He listened to the young man as he solemnly expressed his misgivings regarding the one-handed straight sword. "After enough floors, I would think that even us dagger users would begin to struggle in the damage department. Perhaps at some point, we'll have discovered a new tier of equipment- it wouldn't solve the fundamental problems of your chosen weapon-type, but it might very well keep it useful in the meantime."

Azide whistled as he caught sight of a shaft in the distance. As his eyes focused on the gaping passageway, he took note of the way it glow a faint red. In fact, the sight bore a remarkable resemblance to the luminescent rivers of lava which had decorated the volcanic wasteland in which they'd spent their last two days or so. "I think I hear something coming from over there," he said, turning an ear to the opening's general direction.

[Takao 0]

"It's likely that it'll just grow further the strongest that people get, but I guess that it doesn't matter that much in the end." he said, and fell silent shortly thereafter. There would eventually come a time where progression was likely to come to a halt with the current limitations set in place, though given the system's pension for arbitrarily changing how things work he hadn't any doubts that it would be remedied before it became too much of an issue. Yet even as he grew stronger along with everybody, the gap would continue to grow. Thankfully he didn't need to worry about that just yet, but the time would eventually come. His attention fell onto the passageway that appeared to be glowing and his head tilted slightly to one side. Takao's hand twitched and rose over his shoulder to grasp the handle of his sword. He pulled it free of the scabbard and held it out to the side before glancing sidelong to Azide. "I think that might be our place."

[Azide 0]

"I wouldn't lose any sleep over it, Takao. If anything, we can always just talk to Tristan about it," said Azide, as he considered the current damage formulas. It was true that under the current system, a weapon with lower overall damage output would indeed begin to lag further behind should their base damage increase through hypothetical advanced equipment tiers or otherwise. But seeing as his Sword Arts menu itself had been reorganized and reformatted just the other day, it was unlikely that the current mechanics would go unchanged. 

In anticipation of the young man's confusion, Azide glanced at Takao while simultaneously pulling free his dagger from its place at the side of his hip. "By that, I'm referring to Tristan Delaney, the winner of that one dueling competition. As the strongest man in Aincrad, perhaps he could offer some insight on the issue should things remain unchecked." With that, he turned back to the horizon.

Before long, he and the burning men had dropped into depths of what was almost certainly Inferno Cavern. Shortly after he'd touched down on the cave floor, he noticed that the sweltering heat had razored off a small portion of his health bar, and was reminded of the similar phenomena which had taken place in the desert. Around the same time, he could hear the faint sound of music coming from somewhere in the distance; as he turned his head, he was not surprised to see that the burning men were scampering off in that direction. Azide nodded as the leader turned his head and mouthed a quick thank you.

The precious moment quickly came to an end as several creatures came bursting out of rivers of magma which flowed like molten syrup in several channels that seemed to stretch well out of his field of view. "Takao, a little help please," he called, as four Hell Hounds made an attempt to box him in. 

In the meantime, he decided he might as well soften them up with a technique he had yet to attempt. Azide tightened his grip on the dagger before swinging the blade circular, creating small tempests of air. Despite being so hot that these airy wisps had shimmered as he'd produced them, they had more or less functioned as intended. With each of the creatures flinching for just the briefest moment, he darted right on by as each of the beasts snapped at him desperately, but to no avail.

ID#33562
BD: 3 (+3 ACC) = 6 (Hit)
MD: 2 (Miss)
CD: 5 (-1 HP)

Round Accel (2x1)(7) = 14 DMG

Azide: 109/110 HP | 21/25 NRG
Takao: 117/117 HP | 28/28 NRG

Hell Hound 1: 16/30 
Hell Hound 2: 16/30
Hell Hound 3: 16/30
Hell Hound 4: 16/30

[Takao 0]

"Oh yeah, I know about that guy. He really doesn't let anybody forget that he's the strongest player, does he?" he said, chuckling lightly at the memory of how often he'd heard the man praise himself in great detail. "I doubt he knows anything about one handed swords though - ...actually, I'm not sure how much he knows about any weapon. I always hear people talking about how he doesn't have to move at all, his equipment just damages anybody that tries to damage him." He shook the thoughts from his head and refocused on the task at hand. His worries about the effectiveness of his weapon could wait, given that it was still plenty useful in the current moment.

Takao dropped down alongside Azide and their burning companions. The heat was quite uncomfortable and downright miserable, but otherwise dampened by a skill he'd picked up ages ago which spared his health gauge from dropping a point or two. He wasn't afforded much time to bask in his own misery before a group of beasts leapt from the rivers of magma and set their sights on the pair. Azide engaged them first and dealt a small amount of damage, which allowed for Takao to prepare a sword art of his own. "On it!" He said as his blade began to glow pale blue. By the system's guidance, his sword was lead through elaborate pre-pathed movements that damaged the four hounds one by one. Their health gauges dropped simultaneously, and the four erupted into the shimmering fragments of data that was typically used to display the destruction of something.

- -

» ID : [[ 33620 ]]
» BD : [[ HIT (6 + 3(ACC)) ]]

« Takao »
[[ 117/117 HP ]]
[[ 24/28 Energy ]] «Rage Spike» used. (-4 Energy)

« Hellhound 1 »
[[ 0/30 HP ]] [[ 10(DMG) * (1*2) = -20HP ]]
« Hellhound 2 »
[[ 0/30 HP ]] [[ 10(DMG) * (1*2) = -20HP ]]
« Hellhound 3 »
[[ 0/30 HP ]] [[ 10(DMG) * (1*2) = -20HP ]]
« Hellhound 4 »
[[ 0/30 HP ]] [[ 10(DMG) * (1*2) = -20HP ]]

[Azide 0]

Azide gave a shake of his head as Takao elaborated on the character and merits of this Tristan Delaney fellow. "The guy just stands there?" he nearly spat. Just the very idea of watching a duel where one of the participants simply sat around doing nothing sounded absolutely disgusting. Dueling was supposed to be an intimate thing, with both players contributing equally to the act until the explosive conclusion. But one person just standing there and taking it? There was no way that could be satisfying to either party. "He sounds like an absolute tool, if you ask me." 

Soon after his own Sword Art had been executed to completion, Takao had raced in and finished up with an Art of his own. He noticed the quickly fading blue which had surrounded the swordsman's blade; it was certainly a nice change of pace compared to the more standard red. Perhaps he would ask if the variation was of the young man's own doing- green seemed a fitting alternative, if he could manage it.

The sound of barking snapped him out of his daze, and he turned to see another pair of hounds charging straight at them from behind. Once again, he raised his dagger, letting the red glow surround the blade. Again, he unleashed another Round Accel, grinning as the two mad beasts were knocked over momentarily.

Then, of course, they mauled him like a sucker. As he clawed his way to safety, he found himself no longer wearing a grin.

» ID : [[ 33624 ]]
» BD : [[ 4 + (3 ACC) = 7 (Hit) ]]

» MD : [[ 9 (Crit +1) ]]

» CD : [[ 4 (-1 HP) ]]

« Azide »
[[ 50/110 HP (-59)]] [[ 27(DMG) + 1 (DMG) + 27 (DMG) + 1 (DMG) + 1 (Environmental DMG) = -59 ]] 
[[ 18/25 Energy ]] Round Accel. (-4 Energy)

« Hellhound 5 »
[[ 16/30 HP ]] [[ 7(DMG) * (2*1) = -14 ]]
« Hellhound 6 »
[[ 16/30 HP ]] [[ 7(DMG) * (2*1) = -14 ]]

Edited October 1, 2015 by Azide

[Takao 0]

"Well, that's just what I heard." Takao said as he recovered from the rigidness of his sword art's post-motion. "It's a good strategy if you're only focused on winning, but otherwise... yeah, not very entertaining to watch or participate against." He stood and fixed his posture, then set about watching for more monsters. He was expecting a few more to spawn before Cerberus showed its face... or faces, rather.He was alerted to the presence of more monsters after hearing their barking, and as he whipped around, he saw Azide engaging them. He managed to land a hit before the two canids leapt on him. The brunet immediately assumed the same pose he had before as a requirement for the usage of his sword art, and unleashed its energy-consuming fury onto the monsters. The blade tore through them and diminished the numbers that acted as their health, which resulted in their change from monster to data fragments. "You alright?"

- -

» ID : [[ 33633 ]]
» BD : [[ HIT (7 + 3(ACC)) ]]

« Takao »
[[ 117/117 HP ]]
[[ 21/28 Energy ]] «Rage Spike» used. (-4 Energy)

« Hellhound 5 »
[[ 0/30 HP ]] [[ 10(DMG) * (1*2) = -20HP ]]
« Hellhound 6 »
[[ 0/30 HP ]] [[ 10(DMG) * (1*2) = -20HP ]]