Welcome to Gaia! ::

I... "when did things change? when did this stop being a game?"

I will live. I will win. N O X | LVL. 1 Trickster [EXP: 0 / 100] | Status : [ NORMAL ] | HP : ████████████████████ 100% [250/250] | Count : 726 | Total : 4686
The blue-haired girl’s words hit a note that made Nox chuckle a bit within. Perhaps it would be good for one to take into consideration their own advice that they were doling out. When she accepted his hand, it gave the raven-haired youth an almost reassuring feeling. Across this virtual network of electronic signals and data, there were two people a great distance apart. Yet here they were, exchanging a friendly gesture, and they felt it. Her hand was there in his hand, and it felt so real. It was soft and light. Airy to the touch, but still existent. There was a slight bit of fascination that held in Nox’s mind about this simple concept. After they released hands, Nox didn’t particularly have anything to say. He kind of simply just stood there… He probably made things awkward. Though, he piqued up when Hotaru finally spoke up. She mentioned someone calling for him. Oh, he was quite aware. Honestly, he knew, and he just didn’t know how to deal with such a thing. Maybe it seemed like he was trying to avoid the girl that was calling after him. This wasn’t necessarily the case, but it wasn’t entirely opposite either. It was a strangely paradoxical situation that Nox just couldn’t completely justify in words. “…maybe you should check that out?” It was something that he thought about. The boy closed his eyes for a bit and pondered it. He already ran away from her. He hoped that the girl didn’t think lesser of him now because of it. This was a cause for concern, slightly. Maybe it would be best to go find her. But at this thought, the counterpoint arrived in his mind. He had run off away from her. Maybe she was mad at him. Heck, Nox could hardly deal with people in general. Dealing with the fury of a girl’s fury was something that made his head hurt just thinking about it. He shook his head lightly, ruffling his black hair under his hood. No. It was probably best to leave her be for now. "I think I’ll find her later. I’ll owe her an apology, and I think I’d better have some time to think of one… ha… heh…” It was still very early into the game’s start. There would be plenty of time to meet up with her later. Next time, he wouldn’t play the foolish boy; he’d make it up to the acquaintance of his. “Um… it was nice meeting you though. I don’t want to hold you up much longer, so I’ll be on my way. Oh! Um…” The boy quickly swiped down his right hand, opening up his menu. He scrolled through, reading the options and finally found what he was searching for. After a few clicks and pings, he sent the girl before him, Hotaru, a friend request. A window would pop up for her, on whether or not she would accept or deny it. It was good to make friends, or so said the entirety of the rest of the world. Maybe they could meet up again at some point. Very quickly, he smiled. “Okay, well… goodbye then, haha.” He waved curtly and began walking off. It was… an odd first impression, no less. And maybe she thought that he was kind of just weird. Oh well. Maybe it wasn’t the best of goodbyes, but it was probably the best that Nox could do… sadly…
He would start making his way out of town. This bustling city of brick and stone had a bright atmosphere, but he needed to begin his trek. He broke off at a quick pace, and then started running. His cloak waved behind him and his hood many times almost slipped off his head. He nearly even toppled some NPC’s accidently on his way out, but once he left the city’s edge and the sounds and BGM of the Town of Beginnings started fading away, Nox broke into a sprint. He didn’t quite know when he’d be back. Actually, it probably should have been smarter to stock up on supplies, but he’d make do. It’d toughen up his adventurer’s spirit anyway, he reasoned. A new, soft background music began playing, befitting the natural expanse of land that opened up before him. Nox was ready to truly begin his explorations in Aincrad.

After Koyuki accepted the quest from the store keeper, a picture of the thief was given along with their gratitude. even if it was an NPC they sure seemed to have a mind of their own, and their conversations seemed so natural, it was amazing. Nothing like all the other MMOs he'd played in the past. The thief looked like your typical thief honestly, which was a bit expected, but a little disappointing. It was the first thing about this game that reminded him about the average MMO's. He'd shrug it off though and begin his search. First Ren started by heading towards the more populated areas and hold the poster out. Koyuki would go from person to person, asking politely if they'd seen anyone matching the description. However, after five minutes of bad luck, Koyuki grunted a bit and opened the player menu by sliding his right hand down. He would then proceed to putting the poster back into the inventory when all of the sudden someone bumped into him. Not sure if it was an accident or not, or whether or not it was Koyuki's fault, he turned around to apologize.

When Koyuki looked up and went after the man, lo and behold it was teh man in the poster. Though Koyuki didn't want to give anything away, he smiled warmly. "I'm sorry sir, I accidentally bumped into you back there." However, after his apology, the man just grunted and brushed Koyuki off. Even if this was an NPC quest monster, his disregard for formalities made Koyuki a bit agitated. Placing a hand on the hilt of the dagger sheathed on his back, Koyuki would zig and zag through the crowds of people and make his way closer to the Thief who looked like it might be aware of Koyuki's movements. It was time to act or loose the chance for good.

Once Koyuki made it close enough, he broke free of his concealment of the crowds and made a run for it. Using a near-by fountain, Koyuki used it to get a leg up and would begin hoping from one person's shoulder to the next, making his way through the crowds more easily. Soon the Thief would notice Koyuki however, it was kind of hard to miss someone jumping from person to person. The thief began to draw his dagger, but Koyuki had already drawn his weapon and made a leap towards him. While in mid-air, he caught the Thief before it could completely draw his weapon and Koyuki managed to fall down on top of it and stab it in the neck. Upon landing, Koyuki made sure to do a somersault so that the shock of the landing wasn't too much, or that he stayed still just in case the attack wasn't strong enough to kill the Thief. Once the roll was over, Koyuki quickly got to his feet and turned around, only to see the thief beginning to stand up as well. "Now for the finishing touches." Koyuki said to himself and he begun to charge his only skill. "Sting." Koyuki muttered and dashed forward quickly before the thief could stand up and landed the piercing attack into the Thief's back. After the attack was done the Thief shattered into tiny pieces of data fragments and a pinging sound appeared. "Congradulations!" Was the message. Following the message was another one, stating that Koyuki had been awarded 1 'Important Paper' and that there were 4 more to go. Koyuki couldn't help but sigh. "You mean there's more than just one of them? Alright then, looks like I have some more work to do." Koyuki would say to himself before sheathing his dagger again.

«Party : None»

«Inventory Expanded»

Caligon

HP: 250 / 250 ** Armor: 25/25 ** Word Count (Total):951 ** Level: 1

Caligon (gosh he really needed to get used to calling himself that and quick), watched her amused as she had to think of whether or not she needed help... He thought that you still found all kinds before responding to her. "What? You're playing a Japanese game, I'm assuming on a server run in Japan, and you can't even try to speak Japanese?" He chuckled a bit at that one, changing over to English so that she could understand him. He felt kind of bad making fun of her, but it was still funny to him. He had never played games like this before, and it was his false assumption that the people who played spoke only Japanese. "Well we could always go and look for him now, it's not like-" Caligon was cut off by her yelling at him, catching a few stares from people. So much for trying to stay incognito. Now a ton of people knew what he looked like. But when she had mentioned an event, and parties, it was his turn to be confused. Never being in the gaming realm before, he had never known even the basic things like parties, for instance. Accepting the invites (okay so party up DIDN'T mean being friends), he decided to ask before he looked like a bumbling idiot later on. "Um... I'm kinda new to this whole gaming thing... What exactly does a party do? And what the heck is a party in the first place?" He scratched his head, thinking that if he were to go farther into the gaming world he had better learn the basics from now before he ended up fighting something. Realizing he had yet to introduce herself to him, he held out a hand for her to shake and smiled, the jagged teeth not helping, but he was trying to make it look the least amount of scary as possible. "The name's Caligon. And who might you be, Miss?"

After the small celebration Koyuki gave himself was over, the pain receptors finally kicked in and he winced a bit, raising his right hand to clutch the area of his ribs where he was kicked. "Jeez, they really went all out with the five senses... I'll be surprised if I don't have a bruise there when I log out.." Koyuki chuckled lightly to himself before sheathing his dagger and making his way through the rest of the alley. Koyuki subconsciously rubbed his ribs gently as he walked, not even noticing his hand was gently massaging the area, when suddenly a can was kicked, sending off an echo that quickly reached Koyuki's ears. Gut instinct told him to keep moving, but Koyuki's curiosity got the best of him and he looked back. To his shock, it was another of the Thieves. The Thief was at the far end of the alley, so Koyuki made a run for it, starting to run before he looked forward, which was his mistake. As soon as Koyuki turned his head to look in front of him, Koyuki's eyes widened in horror as another Thief was standing there at the ready, swinging an arm bar directly at Koyuki's chest.

In his frightened state Koyuki wasn't able to evade the attack, and was hit with an arm-bar flat across his chest, knocking him backwards and causing him to flip once, landing on his back. Struggling to get up, Koyuki would witness the Thieves make their way towards him. The wind was still knocked out of him a bit, causing him to struggle unsheathing the dagger. Backing up slowly, seeing as the other thieve from behind was still a ways off, this would keep him out of the range of the second Theive's dagger's range, while stalling to catch his breath. Shortly, time was up. Koyuki's chest surged with pain, but he tried everything he could to focus himself on defense. Once he was able to breath properly, or close enough, Koyuki charged the Thief in front of him, holding the dagger with two hands and ready to attack, the Theif was a step in head of him and saw the attack coming. Koyuki's mind flashed in what seemed like an instant over the menu he'd gone over and remembered seeing a skill called 'Delay' and figured he'd try it out. "Delay!" Suddenly with those words, the Thief seemed to stop for the briefest of moments. This was all the time Koyuki needed. Koyuki would preform a base-ball slide in between the Thief's legs and counter attack with a stab and slash into the Theif's thigh, just like he attacked the previous one.

Once Koyuki had finished the slide, he spun himself around and used his legs to get back up, his breathing becoming hard from the damage to his ribs and chest. The two Theives were charging in now at the exit to the alley where Koyuki had now been and Koyuki gripped the dagger tightly in his one hand. Closing his eyes and listening to their footsteps, Koyuki would try his best to slow his breathing to increase his focus. Koyuki would visualize his dagger glowing and preparing for the skill, this was the first time he'd ever truly paid attention to the process, last time it just happened. Koyuki's body dashed forward from the activation of the skill, but just before the attack connected the Thief brought it's blade down and stabbed Koyuki in the shoulder, but after that Koyuki's dagger dug deep into the Thief's stomach and a white light shown. It had been a critical hit. The Theif burst into the same data fragments as the last two, along with it's dagger, but before Koyuki had time to react, the other Theif from behind ran up and drop kicked Ren's chest, sending him flying backwards and out of the alley.

After a few backwards somersaults, Koyuki lands on his knees clutching his chest with his free hand and his dagger with the other. Now he was out in the open and facing the second to last Thief. Struggling to get up, Koyuki ran into a crowd of people to hide himself, though he doubted it'd be very effective. Once Koyuki was in the crowd, he lowered his head and would zig zag until he was deep into the crowd and not easily seen. Koyuki would pop up once or twice to get the Thief back into his vision, and stealthily make his way towards the monster, Dagger clutched in his hand. Keeping himself low, Koyuki made a final dash once the Thief's gaze was away from him and managed to sneak around into his blind spot and get behind him. As a last ditch effort, Koyuki would rely on his speed and agility alone, and weave between anyone who was in between Koyuki and the Thief, and as fast as he could, Koyuki delivered quick but precise stabs, three of them, two into his back and one was brought up around the Thief's neck and slit it's throat. The Thief then followed suit with the other 3 of it's brethren and burst into data. The same old congratulations messages took place, letting Koyuki know that he'd received 2 more 'Important Papers' and that there was only one to go. Letting out a long and sharp sigh, Koyuki made his way over to a bench and sat down, wincing at the pain in his shoulder, chest, and ribs. Koyuki also took notice to his HP bar, and how he was almost at a third of his HP left, those attacks sure did their job, but for now, Koyuki would rest for a few moments before heading to to find the last of the five Thieves.

Koyuki would lean back on the bench and sigh as he looked up to the sky. He was also looking at his half empty health bar. Those last four fights took quite a bit out of him, and the pain was still there too, but now that he was resting Koyuki began to feel a bit better. That is, until he heard screaming. Koyuki stood up on the bench to see over everyone's head and looked around to find the source of the scream. Then, he found it, not too far off in the distance was a fairly tall man with goggles and a scarf, and he was shoving people out of his way and headed in Koyuki's direction. 'Crap... The last one found me before I could rest up a bit...' Koyuki thought to himself and looked around a bit, for something to hide with, but he found nothing in the immediate area, as the crowds of people weren't as thick as a few moments ago. Koyuki proceeded to jump off of the bench and begin to run, which only sparked the Thief perusing him to break out into a sprint as well - the chase was on.

Koyuki knew not to look back this time around. Even though he knew there was only one, Koyuki knew he had to pay attention to where he was going and plan everything out carefully, for one mistake could cause him to fall and lose his ground on the Thief. As Koyuki ran through the small crowds and streets, his footwork could be seen only as impressive. At sudden appearances of obstacles, Koyuki was able to change direction in a full sprint on a dime to avoid damage. If there was no way around a crowd around a stall or vendor, Koyuki took things into his own hands and jumped into the stall, gripping onto the low beams that held the carpeted roof in place and use them to swing through the stall gracefully, flying through the stall just in time to avoid slamming into the NPC vendors and land on the other side, using the inertia from the jump to gain a bit more speed. Soon Koyuki was closing in on a smaller passage way from one district of the town to another, and it was a bottle necked area. This was where Koyuki would lose the Thief. Koyuki gained enough speed and jumped forward onto a wall, stepping on the wall while running above everyone for a few steps before jumping off of the wall, doing a flip in the air and preforming another few steps on the wall before exiting out the other side. Once there Koyuki made an obvious turn of the corner, which luckily took him out of the Thief's line of sight for a few moments. Koyuki began to scan the area and managed to find a rather large cart of feeding hay, and would jump in, unsheathing his dagger in the process. "Hide!" Koyuki would whisper in a panicked tone and he would stay still, allowing the skill to do what it does best, keep Koyuki hidden.

Moments later, Koyuki could see through the straw and hay that the Thief had followed him, and stopped, dumbfound that it's prey had suddenly disappeared. Koyuki would witness as the thief drew it's dagger and began to cautiously walk in the direction it had thought Koyuki had gone in. Each step the thief took made Koyuki's heart beat harder and harder, which caused Koyuki to struggle to hold his breath, not wanting the sound of his heavy breathing to give him away. 'So close... so close!' Koyuki thought to himself each step the Thief took. The thief was almost within striking distance, and Koyuki would count the steps once the thief was close enough. Soon, the Thief was two feet away, and Koyuki decided now was the time to strike. Breaknig the hide skill, Koyuki pounced half way out of the cart and grabbed the thief by the hair and pulled him close. With the hand his dagger was in, Koyuki would spin the blade so that the blade was facing downward in his hand, then he'd reach around and pound his fist into the Thief's chest twice while holding hit in a head lock. Once Koyuki finished the assault, he'd pull the Thief into the cart of hay and add one more stab into the Theif's chest, shattering the monster into data fragments.

Koyuki's breath was extremely heavy as he struggled to get out of the hay cart. The adrenaline had now vanished and the effects of the running, jumping, and the wounds from the previous fight hit Koyuki like a brick, and once his feet touched the ground, Koyuki's legs gave out on him and he fell down onto his back side, leaning against a wheel of the cart. A similar announcement appeared, but it was abit different from before. "CONGRATULATIONS!" It would read. "You've collected all five Important Papers! Head on over to the Local Market NPC and turn in the quest for your rewards!" Was what the message said this time. Koyuki would groan, not feeling in any condition to move at the moment, so he would rest for a few moments again.

After what seemed like a half hour, Koyuki felt he was ready to get up and moving again. Though his entire body was sore, Koyuki stood up, albeit with the assistance of using the cart to pull himself up, and made his way back over to the NPC that had given him the quest. Not even noticing, Koyuki was limping the entire time. It wasn't a horrible limp, but the limp was there and his physical features looked completely worn and beat, but it also radiated an accomplished feeling about his person. Koyuki's face held an awkward smile the entire time, and when he finally arrived at the NPC, he would activate the quest's conversation. Once the conversation was over, Koyuki selected the 'Complete Quest' option from the shop menu and a new banner appeared above Koyuki. "Quest Complete!" is all the banner said. Koyuki's awkward smile turned into a confident and warm smile. The first step in his adventure had finally come to a close, but now the next step was to find a potion shop of some way to restore his HP and injuries.

Upon seeing the addition of another member to their party, the aforementioned “Miss Azra” as Tremont appeared to be referring to her as, that brought the total up to three, Kaaz made a happy noise somewhere in between a grunt and a whimper that just arose from the back of his throat. The party he was in appeared to be growing quickly, maybe it would even max out all its member quite soon? That would certainly be an exciting time, would it not? Roaming through the lands of Aincrad, fending off enemy players and monsters, forging great armor, plundering the dungeons and floors in that famed tower yonder, and best of all setting up a great fish market. They would set sail and plunder across the world; greatness was waiting for this fell party! Maybe introductions were in order.

”Oh hello nice Miss Azra lady. I am Ultimate Kaaz, Kaaz for short really since I do not know if Ultimate is a real title sanctioned by the game but if it is I hope to achieve it. I suppose it would be a late-game title then, which means it would do us good to hurry through. This here Berserker Axe Warrior Tremont is my fellow ally and Norse brother-in-arms. Berserker Axe Warrior Tremont uses a large axe as a weapon while I here use a spear, as you can see. As I can see, you seem to have chosen, from the starting gear, to utilize a rapier-“ If there was any time Kaaz became rather conscious of when he began to ramble, it was around strangers and even more inexplicably he calculated that the self-consciousness arose statistically more often around strangers of the other gender perceived to be within acceptable mating ranges set by his DNA, genes, his brain, and human society at large. Ultimately both certain and uncertain of where he was going to go with his current train of thought being spoken out loud (yes, he would lecture about the brittle nature of the rapier and the overall superiority of the spear in a combat situation but after that he would need something else to talk about wouldn’t he?).

So instead, his dueling partner, Tremont, provided a great distraction and a way out that grabbed a considerably larger amount of Kaaz’s attention. Though Tremont had called Kaaz a friend, indeed almost appeared to emphasize it when talking to the nice Miss Azra lady, those words meant little to Kaaz. What was the measure of friendship anyways? Did friendship start at the meeting? Was there a certain set period of time required before the interactions between two people evolved into showings of friendship? Was it the instead the quality of the interaction that determined friendship? Was a declaration of friendship, what appeared to be the option Tremont had taken, mandatory for one to have formed? What even constituted the obligations of being friends? It was something much more difficult to pin down than, say, marriage or civil unions. At least marriages and civil unions had strictly laid out rights and responsibilities required of the people entering such a contract. It did not appear that the government cared to set in mind an equally, if not more, comprehensive list of rights and responsibilities granted to friends. In fact, the designation appeared to be meritless and useless in most contexts.

Back to the matter at hand though, Tremont had arrayed himself into a combat position. It seemed that he did not reciprocate the same ten paces back that Kaaz himself had elected to take. It was not based on anything solid except for certain scenes in westerns and documentaries about the life of Alexander Hamilton. As it did not have any set regulation or relevant historical obligation, Kaaz was willing to overlook Tremont’s blatant refusal to follow dueling etiquette. Or rather, maybe it was Kaaz in the wrong here for moving away ten paces when the duel could have started at the small distance apart they were in before? It was all very confusing and Kaaz wished he could have observed the nuances of various other duels before engaging in this one against Berserker Axe Warrior Tremont. The careful posturing and positioning and sizing up that was purported to take place. Not that Kaaz was any good at reading into posturing, positioning, and body language as it was. Rather, despite his impressive and intimidating strong man build, he was still slouched over, and not even as predatorily as some hunters will do to reduce their profile in the wilderness. Seeing his opponent take an odd defensive stance with his axe across his body.

”You are generous, Berserker Axe Warrior Tremont to offer me the first move in our duel. I must profess an inexperience with duels and indeed I was hoping you would take the initiative to allow me to judge your movements and our respective abilities. Verily, mayhaps you may take the first move as I will still continue to study you before I make a concrete decision to see where I should best attack for optimal effect. Quite so, your armor appears lacking and I too must mentally prepare myself for bloodying another creature that exists in this universe, regardless that this is a VRMMORPG. For since you do not wear a shirt of mail as most other player-controlled denizens of this world do, I am most hesitant in sending this sharp implement of war into your chest area or solar plexus.” Kaaz responded to Tremont’s offering up the first move. As the field had deployed around them that sought to prevent outside intervention, Kaaz moved two heavy, tentative steps forward, eyes looking at Tremont then the ground then Tremont’s weapon then Tremont’s feet and generally darting about trying to take in all sorts of information.

While it certainly was not as intimidating as a straight-up stare down, Kaaz himself would have been unaffected by such shows of bravado and displays of alpha male dominance. Instead he opted to run some calculations. While he had managed to max out his Equip Load and taken no agility while buffing up his defense immensely, creating an absolute war tortoise to weather a storm of blows, Tremont’s equipment meant that his equip load would be quite small. A lower equip load meant faster speed as it was, meaning even if Tremont had no Agility too he would’ve been faster than Kaaz. That detail was fine with Kaaz since he had the longer-ranged weapon. However, despite the fact that Tremont was a rotund man and portly man, Kaaz kept in mind that Tremont was indeed a Berserker Axe Warrior. Powerful Strength, no doubt, to deal crushing blows to opponents and perhaps a fierce speed to constantly stay engaged to any other being, whether friend or foe. Truly a terrifying opponent for a first-time duel for a first-time player.

With that in mind, Kaaz took one more step then stopped advancing and started slowly circling Tremont. With his spear, wielded with two hands too, Kaaz had managed to get Tremont into jabbing range without being forced to extend his arms of the spear in their entirety. Yes, as a single spearman engaging in a duel without the combined forces of regiments or raiding parties at his back, Kaaz would do well to simply whittle away at Tremont’s health points. With his long range advantage over Tremont, he was outside of the Battle Axe’s attack range while giving himself extra thrusting distance if Tremont tried to back step. As his eyes flitted quickly about his opponent, he judged by the weird defensive stance of the axe that Tremont might indeed let Kaaz take the first attack. Whether or not that would work in his favor would have to wait and see.

Tremont’s torso, while unarmored and indeed a fleshy, juicy, succulent target, his thrusting spear should not have too many problems at all in dealing with the light leggings the man wore. Alternatively he could also aim for his head. To spice things up, Kaaz could throw in some light jabs and feints to encourage Tremont to keep on a passive defensive or force him to dedicate a movement while he would then thrust at another area, striking a powerful blow. If Tremont tried to close in too quickly all of a sudden, Kaaz would shorten his grip on the spear try to maneuver it into position between him and Tremont; failing that he could swing around the butt for a strong blow. Wow, it almost looked like Tremont might be in trouble. Kaaz knew that the Berserker Axe Warrior likely wouldn’t follow his plans so easily but his weapon advantage was really, really good right now. Not to mention with his armor and defense, Tremont would need to work hard and get direct hits to have a hope of damaging Kaaz. And while Kaaz himself was slow, he had no intention of standing still and simply eating an axe to the face. Now he wished he had hand-picked the ability Parry instead of deciding he would Howl, yet there was no helping it. He would still make use of his abilities. Still steadily circling Tremont and pulling back for a cursory poke at Tremont’s right arm to test his defenses, Kaaz unleashed a hellish scream ripped from the vocal cords of a mountain lion that had fallen off a large cliff, began hitting multiple rock outcroppings on the way down, broke all its leg bones, was in pain, and was slightly miffed about its ill fortune.

”AGHARHEISFHJKKKZKDMCTJDSLEASITEESSSMARAWRGHMAFFINS.” Kaaz bellowed monotonously, his very first skill used. He was most impressed with sections of his scream where the vowels themselves disappeared for a few syllables. As such though, while it had been sudden and hopefully unexpected, it would ultimately have sounded quite similar to a child undergoing puberty with more breaks in his voice than the San Andrea Fault Line. This was because the level of Howl was still only one and thus not very good. If they were out hunting, his Howl would have intimidated a grand total of no monsters while annoying the living mucus off the blue slugs.

Right as he finished releasing his underwhelming yet annoyingly pitched Howl, Kaaz suddenly noticed something that distracted him from his spear thrust. Instead, he stared at an apparent corner of his field of sight and wondered what to do before remembering the owner’s manuals and concept guides he had read. Swiping with his right hand, he brought up an event announcement. An event that was going on right now! It reminded him of a few things. Looking up at his opponent and then his other party member, Kaaz let out a seemingly disinterested, ”Oh, Berserker Axe Warrior Tremont and nice Miss Azra lady, Happy Holidays as I do not know what you two are prone to celebrating this time of year and do not fully know which religion, culture, or custom you abide by. It appears we have an Event starting very soon. How fortunate yet unfortunate for us, isn’t it? Shall we call this a tie then endeavor to continue this duel at another time, Berserker Axe Warrior Tremont? Perhaps by then our skills, abilities, and band of Vikings shall have increased.” Shifting his spear to his left arm, Kaaz began to attempt to navigate from the Event pop up issued, which he endeavored to memorize so he could call it up any time despite his convenient user interface that would’ve let him pull up the notice and the Quest Logs at will, and then navigated his way to sending Tremont a tie request to achieve a mutual agreement to cease hostilities, elsewise the field might not disappear.

”Let us head off then to the nearest teleportation gate in town where we shall be transported to the Event area alongside others. This too is a good opportunity to get more party members and acquaintances in this game.” With that delivered rapid-fire and barely even waiting to see if Tremont accepted the proposed tie in the duel, one could argue Kaaz simply knew Tremont well enough to know that the rewards of the Event were much more enticing than a reward-less duel but they would be kidding themselves, pulled up a map with a few more swipes, and headed off towards the Teleportation Gate in town. Certainly it helped that since he was not the only one to have received said message, he could follow some of the other people who were moving in the same direction. Even if Tremont did not accept Kaaz’s offer of a tie, Kaaz would’ve forfeited upon exiting the field. Although he suspected he might not realize right away, Kaaz would likely throw quite the angry tantrum if he realize that he had a 100% loss record and moan about the unfairness of having that exposed to every player who would have wanted to look. Through and through, Kaaz would prefer that the number crunching in Sword Art Online to work favorably for him at the end of the day.

[Exit to Herald of the New Year Event]