//------------------------------// // Episode 9 - First Steps Towards The End // Story: EQG: Sword Art Online - Ruby Palace // by Mindrop //------------------------------// Episode 9 - First Steps Towards The End Eighteenth day in the Month of Cypress (November 18) in the Year of the Hawk Floor 1 - Tolbana  Outside the Town of Beginnings, there was only one major settlement on Floor One: Tolbana. It was about 200 meters from one side to the other, and featured a wall around the outside that resembled a castle wall, except it lacked a castle or citadel. It was here that the quest for Natora's spear from the beta was obtained. As soon as they arrived, Natora had rushed off to start it. Tolbana had a lot of stone architecture. There were many large windmills around the outside of the city, all made from the same white stone that the city walls were made of. The walls were needed to keep the goblins and hobgoblins out. Tolbana had a variety of NPC guardsmen walking about. The city was also the first location, outside the Town of Beginnings, with multiple inns and restaurants. It was a pretty town, with a few town squares and fountains all around, as well as a stone amphitheater.  They were some of the first to make it to the city, if not the first. Over the week on their way here, they had made it to Level 10. The monsters on Floor One capped at Level 8, which had stalled their growth.  The town would make an excellent base of operations. Bladescape was with Doombunny, looking for quests. Knightstar and Diemond were together, leaving Malus to wrangle Konpeito and Thunderborne. As planned, Natora had rushed off, but it left Thunderborne without her usual partner.  Bladescape entered an NPC house. It was two stories. The bottom floor was open and included the living space and kitchen. A hearth with a pot suspended over it provided both warmth and a solid cooking method.  A woman was doing repair work on a torn shirt. She looked up from it upon their arrival. "What can I help you with?" She asked. "We are looking for odd jobs and things to do to earn money," Bladescape explained.  "I'm sorry, I don't have anything you can do," she replied. "As it is, we are very poor and I wash laundry to help us make it day to day. If you need a modest place to stay, the upstairs is unused. My husband and I use the downstairs bedroom and we have no children. I could rent it out to you for cheap. Cheaper than the inns that is." "Can we see them?" Bladescape asked.  "Of course," She said, standing up.  Upstairs there were four rooms. They were sparsely furnished, but each had a bed and one also had a plain table with four chairs. "How long can we rent it?" Bladescape asked. "I can go as long as two weeks at a time," She replied.  The NPC gave her price. They had spent more on a single night for a single room in the smaller villages than they would per night here. Bladescape accepted the offer and the two of them departed to rally with the others.  Natora was waiting for them at the main square, which predominantly featured the largest fountain in the town. She was the only one there at the moment and sitting on the edge of a fountain. “Where is Doom?” Natora asked.  Bladescape looked around her. Doombunny had been right there. She wasn’t Konpeito or prone to wandering off. She usually stuck close to her partner.  "I'm right here," Doombunny said. Doombunny appeared sitting beside Natora. Natora screamed and slipped backwards, into the fountain. Bladescape rushed over and helped Doombunny fish her out. "Sorry about that, I didn't mean to frighten you," Doombunny sweetly said. "Your words are so sweet," Natora said, spitting water out. "But they don't help anything. I know you didn't mean it, but I hate your Hide Skill." "I didn't mean to switch it on," Doombunny added. "I'm truly sorry. I thought you saw me. I had skipped ahead of Blade and was sitting beside you when you asked." "How do you not know if it is on?" Natora asked. “It’s an active skill, not passive.” "You have it wrong," Bladescape said. "Natora, back home, Fluttershy is the quiet type. I know you saw some of that when we hung out. On the foreign exchange program, she has been extremely outgoing, but she is someone who can, at times, blend in, especially in a crowd. I would not be surprised if the Hide Skill just activates for her when she naturally feels invisible." Doombunny just shrugged as Natora looked her over. "Fine," Natora grumbled. "Your name is so sinister, yet your personality is so sweet. Well, when I say it like that, your name is perfect. You are learning to fight — the Doom — but you are the sweet Bunny the rest of the time. Anyway, did you guys have any luck?" "I got us lodging," Bladescape said. "Paid for two weeks and it's cheaper than the inns. It's the second floor of an NPC house. Four rooms, four beds, and one table with four chairs." "That is a good find," Natora replied.  "Did you start your quest?" Bladescape asked. "Yep," Natora nodded. "I would love to go after it ASAP, but we need to see what else was found and something might be more urgent. In a town like this, there is a lot of potential; from retrievals, to kill quests, and everything in between." "What other kinds of quests are there?" Doombunny asked Natora. “I really don’t know much about games and have been learning on the go.”  Natora nodded with a sweet smile. "Well, for retrieval or gathering quests, they require a single, or multiple, item to be brought back. I'd break them down into gather quests, which requires you to actually work to get the items, whereas a retrieval quest could be as simple as going to get a specific item, in a specific location, from a specific NPC. The Anneal Blade was a hybrid gather/kill quest. We only had to gather one item, but it was a monster drop, so we had to kill at least one. "Kill quests, sometimes called slayer quests, either require you to rack up a certain number of kills, clear out a location, or kill a specific thing. If it is a lone creature, you can expect them to be a flag mob.  “Help quests, like the baking one Konpeito did, or helping Farmer Brown, they usually require you to work in one place for one NPC. Sure, we had to do a little retrieval, but none of what we did meant we left the city. "Then you have delivery quests. You are asked either by the sender or receiver to pick up a package and deliver it for them. Sometimes it can send you to dangerous places, more often than not, they are just long and boring treks." As Natora continued her in depth explanation, Bladescape sat down beside her. It was clear the answer was not going to end soon, Doombunny needed to know these basics, so she might as well sit and listen instead of standing. Some of what Natora was saying was way further than Bladescape had ever thought about quests. "An escort quest requires you to escort an individual. It almost always involves combat, because otherwise they wouldn't need an escort. There are a variety of reasons for an escort quest, but they all depend on the quest's storyline. I’m not sure how an escort quest would fit into SAO. I don’t expect many of them with the dynamics of the game. They are usually found in more stable RPGs where everything is controlled easier. "Finally, there are the hybrid quests that combine two or more types. You might be required to kill a monster but need something special to kill it that a smith makes, who then sends you to gather materials for the weapons, and once it is made, you go kill it.  “There are a variety of ways the quests can be worked. Some are short and easy, others are long and complicated, then there are the short but complicated, and finally, the long but simple.  “With the way Aincrad is set up, there will no doubt be quests that span multiple floors. Some might even be multiple floors and multiple quests stacking up into a much larger quest, like chapters in a book. And in SAO, there are quests that anyone can do and then there are one-shot quests that can only be done once. Those one-shots are highly prized because they often have greater rewards and the pride knowing that only you got to do it. Or at least, more valuable rewards because only one of the items can be obtained. Gamers have big egos. "Then you have pseudo quests, like guessing games, puzzles, and other things that are more tasks and short things, without any real story. Possibly gambling too." Doombunny had a follow up question. "You said flag mob, what does that mean?"  "Right," Natora chuckled. "You are one of the players without real game experience. It's not a problem or a bad thing, I just forget that some of you lack knowledge and experience even with RPGs. That is what is so cool, or was, about SAO. It got non-gamers excited about a game. Our non-gamers have been learning quickly and doing well too, so I forget half of you have knowledge gaps. "Anyway, SAO has four boss types. Flag, Dungeon, Field, and Floor. The first floor, thankfully, lacks field bosses. They block off certain parts of the map and have to be beaten to gain access to that area. The flag mobs basically are a normal creature on steroids. Sometimes they respawn, other times they do not. That depends on the creature and the designer's choice. It also depends on if they are part of a quest. "Dungeon Bosses are the final thing that you have to beat when you clear a dungeon. The first floor lacks dungeons as well. Typically they are well defined and you know when you are going in. You usually want to finish it in one go and they vary in length, size and complexity. The first time through always has the most enemies and that means the best XP and drop rates. The big bad guy at the end needs to be beaten to fully clear it and victory comes with some great rewards being dropped. Some dungeon bosses will respawn, allowing that dungeon to be fully cleared again, others won't. How much of the creatures in a dungeon respawn also varies.  "Floor bosses are the thing between us and the floor above. They are going to be the toughest thing on the floor, and they are deep in a labyrinth that is like a dungeon, but worse. The boss labyrinths are in the pillars that surround a floor and support the structure above. Since they are in a pillar, they have their own internal floors that you climb up and clear. "The first Floor labyrinth is in the nearest one to Tolbana, I don't know where the other ones are and changes may have been made. The best beta testers I heard about barely got to the sixth floor. "Unlike in the beta, from what I understand, is that once a floor boss is beaten, it's dead. In the beta, I had to go and beat the boss to unlock the floor for just me or anyone in the party. That means, we logically need to figure out a way to band together and get that done." The last bit was directed at Bladescape. Natora had shifted her gaze to her. Natora continued. "I don't know how to do that, because if I know one thing about gamers, especially MMORPG gamers, it's that we are competitive. As much as we love rallying to an amazing leader and being in a great guild, what that means for each player will be different. We are probably not going to get much bigger than the eight of us. That's cool. I love working in small, close guilds who have a lot of energy and fun dynamics. You guys are varied and fun to be around. However, none of you would want to fall under a single leader, even if it meant getting free. You, we, still want to be Wondercolts, and there will be plenty of other players who want smaller guilds with their own personalities. There will be big guilds, but keeping them functioning and operating smoothly will take finesse and skill. Until we can figure out how to create guilds, which is supposedly quest oriented, we are too loose of a group. And even after, getting the guilds to agree on anything for this game, that won't be easy. "The colors are a great idea to bind us together for now. Diemond is coming along well with sewing and soon she either will have colored fabric to work with, or will be able to dye her own. That is one thing I don't look forward to, collecting materials to create dyes. SAO's complexity will mean that there will be a wide variety that can be mixed successfully, or unsuccessfully, to create dyes. Finding some of them won't be easy." "Thanks," Bladescape said. "I'll keep that in mind. You're right, we will be fragmented. We will need a way to come together for the clearing part and have fun the rest of the time. It will be fun to help Diemond get what she needs and see what she creates. For now, I wonder where the others are?" "Hopefully dragging up more quests," Natora chuckled. "I'd rather have too much to do than not enough." The others were not much longer. Several more quests had been found, all by Konpeito who had basically dragged Malus around the city as she skipped through it and poked her head into everything.  "Sorry we were not more helpful," Diemond said. "I sidetracked us with a shop. It had a wide variety of fabrics and supplies for crafting. But! They had a nice navy blue, and I bought plenty of material to work with." "That's okay," Bladescape said. "We need those colors. I know that what you make us will be fabulous. I think our next move should be Natora's spear quest." They all agreed. BLADESCAPE: Level 10 — One-Handed Sword — Searching — Weapon Defense NATORA: Level 10 —  One-Handed Spear — Purchase Negotiations — Sales Negotiations KNIGHTSTAR: Level 10 — One-Handed Sword — Shield — Light Metal Armor MALUS: Level 10 — One-Handed War Hammer — Shield — Light Metal Armor  THUNDERBORNE: Level 10 — One-Handed Sword — Sprint — Acrobatics  KONPEITO: Level 10 — One-Handed Axe — Cooking — Weapon Defense   DIEMOND: Level 10 — Mace — Shield — Sewing  DOOMBUNNY: Level 10 — One-Handed Dagger — Hide — Fighting Spirit