Lincoln couldn't help but laugh when Geist suggested that Linc was pretending like he knew him, "Umm, I never implied I knew you, just a question." He said smiling. Dar then interrupted the feud with some much needed words, but Geist want done. Lincoln again laughed when Geist called him an idiot, "Well, I will tell you that when you answer my question." Lincoln liked the conflict for some reason. But his enjoyment was soon interrupted by some weird plant enemies.

Linc saw the monster hit Geist, and Linc immediately jumped into action. Unsheathing his sword, he began trying to kill the "animals." Lots of <<Sonic Leap>>s and <<Vertical Arc>>s followed. When Linc saw that Geist weakened one of the enemy's armor, he jumped into the fight and slashed the weakened enemy and killed it. Geist and Lincoln may not like each other, but they make a pretty damn good team.

@Grayscythe@LupusIntus

@Little_Ninja @Eklispe @Thanatos @Animus

Masae exhaled when the two family members, old and young, finally reunited. That was one small problem solved...and many more to go. Seeing Hanako cry made her bite her lip and clench her hands when she realized she didn't have any relatives in here to comfort her, and needless to say, Masae desperately needed company in this hellhole. "...Ie-ie, tomdemonai desu. (No, no, it's nothing.) Getting families should be the duty of every player if possible," she replied to both Hanako and her grandfather, giving a slight bow.

Turning to the younger boy (who still hadn't introduced himself), Masae shook her head, rubbing her arms. "You mean YukiHana and Jax?" she asked back; out of politeness, she rather not call Hanako by her first name until she had learned her surname. "No, we just met each other a few minutes ago. I just came back here to look for a party, but after seeing what was happening...I needed to help."

She exhaled and swiped open her menu. "There was this message by someone named 'Lao'Jax' who wanted us to join him in going to the 1st Floor Dungeon. It sounds rather ambitious, but the player does make a bit of a point. We do need to get out of here, no matter the costs," Masae continued, quickly sending a party request to Hanako's grandfather – "Ojii-san".

Finally, Masae went to asking the two. "Anyway...I am Nagayama Masae (surname first). Sorry to ask, but what are the names of you two, Yuki and Ojii-san?"

Ayame nodded her head, unsure of what to think. If this Umichi person had the same sense of déjà vu, would it be possible that...?

No, that was impossible. There was no way that their memories could've been altered; that was too far out of reach for even the most sophisticated of equipment, as far as she knew. As both Rey and Umichi lifted Lao up, Ayame took a deep breath and grabbed his arms in order to make his torso level with the rest of this body.

"Maybe he wasn't built for endurance?" Ayame suggested as an explanation for Lao's current state as she walked up the stairs to bring the party leader to his room. "Alcohol, maybe?"

Carefully moving her left arm in order to maintain balance, Ayame switched her grip momentarily before carefully opening up the door to Lao's room.

"I think... We should just leave him on the bed..."

@little_ninja@ItsToppyTippers@LokiLeo789@Caits

Dar grimaced as the creature came into view and attacked them, but at the same time was oddly relieved that they had been interrupted in their argument.

As Dar turned his attention to the fight, he realized he had a problem. His weapon was a two hander and he needed one hand to hold his torch. There was no way he could hold the sword effectively in one hand and fight, so in order to keep himself useful, the only thing he could do here was put away the torch and use his teammates' light.

Dar moved close to the region where Linc and Geist were fighting and cut through one of the monsters fighting them. With a few quick and poweful strikes, the beast was dead. It seemed as if they had come out of this fight relatively unscathed, but Dar didn't want to dally any further.

"So...better?" Dar asked the others as he requipped his torch.

@LupusIntus@_Middle_

The night wore on, and Suki eventually headed to bed, the late hour forcing her to go to what passed for sleep here, an odd gray mist that seemed to swirl between colours. It was quite disturbing, but Suki supposed you couldn't really dream in a game, as she supposed that whenever they went to rest in the game, they would just log out.

Perhaps the game couldn't replicate dreams. It wasn't something she wanted to think about now, but maybe when they were back in the real world. When she woke, it was reaching towards 7.30 am. She woke, blinking, and rubbed her eyes, a little surprised that she had woken so late. Normally, she was up a lot earlier, but she supposed she had gone to bed quite late.

she equipped her armor, but not her weapon for the moment, checking the guidebook, she saw that there was some information on some of the quests that they could do, and figured they would be interesting to look at. For now, while she waited for the others to wake, she headed downstairs. The inn keeper seemed a little harried, and she looked around at the room, some other players were there, and it didn't take Suki long to figure out that this was probably why the innkeeper was rushed.

Suki waited patiently for her food, leaning back in her chair, and flipping through the guide book. she studied what professions they could undertake, and decided that she might undertake alchemical, it seemed like an interesting job, and it could very we help her with col, selling to other players.

Tsukiya

Tsukiya was eating her breakfast in the first inn she had found. She had managed to catch a few hours of sleep outside last night on a bench after buying new equipment, but somehow she felt she could have used that time better. She stifled a sudden yawn and silently admonished herself.

You'll be no help to anybody if you're not rested, She thought, shaking her head, [/i]She thought, Tonight you're going to get some proper sleep.

As she finished eating, she opened up her menu and took a tally of her inventory. It was almost empty of monster drops, since the last thing she had done was visit the market, but she was fully stocked on healing items and crystals.

Maybe I'll donate the rest of the Col. I think there's some kind of charity for struggling players.

-----The Next Day-----
Fujiwara yawned, lazily opening up his menu and furtively glancing at the clock near the top. 6 AM. Well, this was usually when he ended up waking up anyhow, so the time didn't really influence his as badly as it would have otherwise. Having spent the last hour of last night committing certain motions to muscle memory, Fujiwara equipped all of his gear in a matter of second before lazily crawling out of bed.

"Geez... What I wouldn't do for a cup of coffee or tea or something right about now..." he complained to himself before looking at the minimap. So their leader was already at the gates? Fitting. Pulling up the PM notifications window, Fujiwara quickly sent Minako a quick note before walking out of his room and out of the inn to go grab something to eat.

His note read as follows:
"Tired. Hunting for breakfast. Will bring food. ETA 15 mins."

@KoL@Asuna Yuuki@Aerandir


Right after she, Rey and Umichi had left Lao on his bed, Ayame exited the leader's room and promptly headed down to the first floor to eat. The dinner was relatively lively; most of it was spent talking with Rey about... Well, whatever she could talk about with her companion in the half-drunk state Rey was in. The night ended fairly uneventfully, with Ayame heading to her room to sleep at roughly 11 at night to prepare for the next day.

When she awoke, Ayame was surprised to find that the party she had been in the day before had since been disbanded. That confused her, to say the least. Quickly bringing up Rey's information on her friends list, Ayame typed up and sent a message before changing into her outfit for the day.

"Sorry to bother you. Did something happen to Lao? The party's gone, and I'm not sure if it's normal for them to disband overnight like that..."

@ItsToppyTippers@little_ninja@Caits

Minako was starting to grow tired of waiting for her party members, so she started to wander around the town's entrance square looking for a place to sit. She found out that the best spots where already claimed, so Minako decided to simply lay herself at the grassy fields outside of the town, but still within the safe area.

The story breeze was singing a sweet lullaby, rocking her back into sleeping, and she almost wished there'd be snow for her to make an snow angel.

Just when she was about to fall on sleep for good, a ringing sound, indicating that she had new mail snapped her back to the virtual reality.

After reading Fujiwara's mail, Minako decided that it would be a bother to reply just to him, so she summoned her interface and sent a message for all of her party members.

[ I'm waiting outside of the gates... the day's so good and clear, take your time, but don't be late, ok?]

---

@PKMNB0Y@Asuna Yuuki@Aerandir

"Go on Rivaille, it's about time for the servers to activate." The doctor smiled. "Now I promised your brother I wouldn't let you miss the grande opening. Go on now." He smiled again.

The visor snapped down over his head, and Rivaille's eye were wide with excitement. "Link start!" He felt a surge in his head, as the game loaded, and he was taken to the avatar menu. He didn't care much for this, picking his own scanned appearance, using his surname 'Tatsumi' as his username. He appeared in the centre of the town of beginnings. He stood tall, making a spin. He could breath, and the air felt good. It was the first time he had been on his feet 'outside' for a month or so.

The news that the log out button had been removed, trapping them inside this death game, did bring great shock to him. However, he was probably one of the few that stood there in the courtyard laughing. What did he have to lose? At least if he died here, he would die being like everyone else again.

------------------

He didn't want to die though. He knew what was necessary to survive in this world. Especially with the help of the guide book in his inventory. Tatsumi had carried out some early grinding, to put him ahead of a lot of players straight from the off. It did suddenly hit him though. What was the point of this? They would never win this game, so why try? Why not just live here until his body in the real world failed? He could live a healthy few years here. He laughed to himself, making his way into a nearby inn angry with himself for daring to allow such thoughts to enter his head. He had to get back, if not for himself, to at least say goodbye to his family before he passed on. "Fuck it! I don't give a shit!" He stormed in. "Get me some meed." He paid the inn keeper, and began drinking. He turned around on his stool. "... Can I offer any of you lovely players a drink?" He bowed his head, in a sarcastic manner.

Geist

As the last of the plant monsters was finished off, Geist sheathed the his blade with a dark look on his face that revealed he had far more to say to Linc but was actively choosing to hold his tongue; the monsters had been a good reminder that a few extra bodies were still useful until they made it to town. His look didn't change when a tiny congratulatory window appeared saying he had reached level 3 and displayed his small health bonus and extra skill points which he immediately distributed into agility without much thought. With that business finished he followed behind Dar as the trio walked onward towards Horunka in awkward silence.

There were no further disturbances that evening and before long they found themselves walking down the lantern-lit streets of the small lakeside village. Geist stopped before a small inn, merry music pouring from the open door, and glanced back at the others with neutral look. "Thanks for the assistance... I'm staying here for the night." He didn't wait for a response, they all looked a bit too exhausted to worry about pleasantries, and Geist left the other two to get a single room. The rent drained the last of his Col. but he still had few boar and wolf pelts he could sell in the morning if he could find a shop. When his back finally pushed closed the door of room he let out a long sigh and slid down to the ground. A faint light was streaming in through the window, illuminating the simple furniture and bare walls, but Geist hardly saw anything as his brain tried to process what exactly was happening to him. He'd fought against the panic and confusion that had come earlier when the full realization of their predicament was revealed but now that he sat alone in the darkness of his small room the feelings came trickling back.

Geist had no idea how long he sat there on the floor but the next morning he awoke in the bed to the sound of bird calls fluttering about outside his window.

He got dressed quickly and slid out of the room, completely ignoring the hearty 'Good morning!' of the innkeeper and moving straight out into the street. His dark eyes scanned the area as he walked slowly along the small storefronts, looking for a place he might find a new blade.

Leaving the guy who had fallen asleep in his allocated bed, Umichi said goodbye to Ayame and headed out. He checked the time ... and looked at the map. I should be able to make it back on time. He thought, preparing his equipment and skills. He swapped out <<Acrobatics>> with <<Blade Throwing>> and left town. He headed to Horunka village, so he could complete the quest. He wanted to get that weapon as soon as possible.

If it was reality, the walk would of taken an hour both ways, however, with the fighting and everything, it would take much longer. Running out of Geniku, Umichi was able to cover a good distance before encountering a couple of <<Frenzied Boars>>. He side stepped one of their charges and slashed at them without a sword skill. The damage it took dealt about 30% of it's health. Although I am a fair amount above their level, I still need a sword skill huh ... Then again, I have the beginner sword for now. He continued to cut the boars before moving on. This pattern continued with the boars and wolves and occasional Little Nepent.

While this happened, he could not help notice, the night was getting worse. The number of monsters were increasing, and there were even some that came only just came out at night. One of them were the <<Killer Wasp>>. From the information he gathered, they were annoying as the first flying-type monster of the game. They were not good for experience gain or col, and were hard to fight against. The only reason players fought against the wasp were for two reasons. The wasp's stinger could be collected for throwing blades, and they had a chance to drop wings as an accessory. It was rare but had low stats for even a beginning item, it was more of a visual appeal.

Having to fight a number of them at once, Umichi was unsure whether he should run or not, however could not run. He had just saved a couple of players from the Wasps, and had got himself caught up as more showed up. Luckily, he had accumulated lots of knowledge about the game. Picking up a rock, he activated <<Single Shot>> and threw it at a <<Killer Wasp's>> wings. This caused it to be stunned and fall down, this was their weakness. Cutting through with a <<Vertical>>, Umichi saw it's health drop. But it was not enough to kill in one strike. They were tough, Damn it, they are so hard, yet give so little EXP. Throwing another rock, he cut through the same Wasp, killing it. There were three more left, but that left the group room to escape the circle. Eventually he helped them kill off the wasps. He checked the time. It had been more than two and a half hours since he left. A notification came up. Wait a second. This amount, no, it shouldn't be this high. Unless .... I see, one of the changes made to the game. He noticed that he had gained approximately the same experience as if he had gotten the kills solo in the beta version. It seemed that they increased the exp they gave.

The other players thanked him before going on their way. Checking the map, Umichi was close to Horunka. Reaching the village, he was able to hand in the Little Nepent's Ovule, completing the quest, <<Secret Medicine of the Forest>>. YES! he thought in excitement. One of the best first floor swords were going to be in his hands. Receiving it, he looked at the stats, in awe. The stats were even higher than before, but he noticed something. He lacked the <<Strength>> to wield it. He currently had 8 <<Strength>> and needed 10. Another change in the game. The exp he gained from the quest was still just as high, indicating the quest was likely to have still been hard to achieve. Checking his exp bar, he realized, he wasn't far from a level. The quest had given him a majority of his exp bar.

Umichi checked the time. It was late. Well, it was still around the time he normally fell asleep. Considering the time he needed to sleep, it would be best to teleport back and sleep to wake up at the usual 8:00 am. Using a teleport crystal, he teleported back to Geniku. Before heading to the inn though, he repaired his armor and restocked his crystals and potions. He only needed to use one potion himself, but he found having extras was nice, and he could supply them to others who needed it. He was left with just over 1.3k col when he went to sleep.

---

Waking up, with a giant yawn, Umichi slowly got out of bed. Getting up, he noticed something. The health bars were gone. He noticed a notification.

"Sorry guys, but it seems there is a lot of negative connotation with beta testers. Even friends of beta testers are being criticized. I don't want you guys to be in harms way, so I am leaving ahead of you for now. Hopefully we will meet again.

What the hell man. He just up and left. Could of talked it out with us. *sigh* Umichi thought getting out of bed. Re-equipping his armor and his beginning sword, he headed downstairs. The time was 8:30 am, it seemed he overslept a little. The innkeeper greeted him still in a harry. Umichi noticed that Suki was there. "Hey" he called out to her, taking a seat. "Did you see Ritaka's message? That was really sudden, don't you think?" he asked her.

Umichi was about to call the innkeeper, before deciding not to. The NPC was rushing still, to get food to tables and dealing with customers. But the rush seemed like it would be over soon. "Well, guess I can get breakfast later." He turned towards Suki, "Hey, do you still want to party together? We don't know what quest Ritaka was planning for us to do, but we can go ahead and look for some quests to level up." Umichi dropped his menu, and clicked to create a party before sending Suki a party request. "Have you seen Aikoto? he asked her.

@Caits @Savo

---

"Watashi wa Yukizawa Hanawaauakou (I am Yukizawa Hanako)" YukiHana replied to Nagayama-san, yawning midway of saying her name. Her eyes were feeling heavy. Although, it might have been considered early to some people, the young YukiHana went to sleep pretty early. "Ojiiiiiiiii-sawawn, where are we going to sleep?" she yawned again turning to her grandfather.

@Stale Pizza @Eklispe @Thanatos @Animus

Suki was just about to leave the common room, due to some loud mouth player seeming to be acting drunk even though she was sure that you couldn't get drunk in the game, when the PM appeared from Ritako. She read it, and sighed softly. She probably would have done the same thing, but she couldn't help but think that that was a bad start to this whole surviving thing.

She sighed heavily, looking at the table, but looked up as Umichi joined her. She gave him a smile, hoping to appear cheerful, but let it die as he mentioned the message from Ritaka. "I did" she said softly, "I guess there's nothing we can do about it. But there's more quests in the guide book, and I think there has to be more, triggered by certain requirements or something" She said, seemingly shocked at the question about still partying together

"Why wouldn't I want to?" She said, with some shock, accepting the party request, "There's still safety in numbers, right?" She smiled again, "I saw Aikoto last night, and sent him to bed. He's probably still asleep. He seemed troubled last night. I hoped my words helped him" she looked up the stairs, but didn't see Aikoto, so she looked back to Umichi.

She suddenly realised that all social norms had pretty much been...striped away here. They could create their own society, and with a shocking leap, she wondered if that was the end game here. Trapping them here, seeing what they did as humans? It seemed too far fetched, and yet...possible. She shook her head, pushing those thoughts to the back of her head.

She smiled, suddenly shy at her own thoughts. "um. There's a nice bakery just down the road. We could probably get some sweet buns or something, instead of waiting for breakfast here"

She looked around the inn, seeing the unrurly player. As she watched him, she realised he was probably just trying to cope, and didn't appear to have any one with him. "Hang on" she said suddenly, rising and acting on impulse she went over to the guy. "Excuse me? Would you like to join us? We just lost a member, and you seem to need team mates"

A day after the chaos, 7.30 a.m.

The sun peeked into the window of Scythe's rented room, lighting up his hair like a fiery halo. The sunlight bathed his skin as he lay on his side. Scythe tried to close his eyes, what had happened yesterday was something he did not wanted to deal with today. Thoughts was biting at his brain, forbidding Scythe to go back to sleep again. Scythe let out a big yawn while trying to find his phone to check if there were any messages he might had missed. After a quick moment, he finally realized that he was in a virtual world now which is a world where phone did not exist.

Scythe puts on his armor and places his small blade into the scabbard on the waistband. Scythe decided that today he will try to find out more useful information about this virtual world he was trapped in. Scythe left his room and the room key in his inventory automatically disappeared as it means the time for the use of the room was up. The atmosphere in the inn was no different from yesterday night as the dining area was still filled with NPCs and players. Scythe found an empty table and pulled out a chair to sit on it, after that he did a sweeping motion using his finger to bring out the user interface so he could check on the skills available to learn.

Weapon & armor forging, gathering, tracking, negotiations, lockpicking etc... There were tons of skills listed inside the box in the user interface, some of them were even appeared as questions mark("?????"). This world was more complicated than what Scythe had in his mind. While he was reading the list, he sometimes heard other players from the other table talking to each other, which let Scythe to have a chance to gain some good information about this world. "I heard that a lot of beta testers were being contempt by the other players because most of the beta testers do not share information with the other.", after a short while he heard another conversation coming from the opposite table. "Hey, you should complete the quest <<Secret Medicine of the Forest>> as it will gives you a good stat weapon!".

Scythe could just sit here and gathers all the infomation he needed to know more about Aincrad. But to fight only on paper was not enough as action speaks louder than words. Scythe went straight to the Field of Crossroads, hoping that he would be able to level up a few times so he could complete the quest easily.

@Stale Pizza @Eklispe @Animus @Little_ninja

"...Ie-ie, tomdemonai desu. (No, no, it's nothing.) Getting families should be the duty of every player if possible," said the girl who was with Hanako, and she gave a slight bow.

A small alert appeared in front of Ojiisan, saying ...

Aero invites you to join their party.

o x

"Who is this Aero person?," Ojiisan thought aloud. After Ojiisan found out who it was, he would accept it.

"Anyway...I am Nagayama Masae. Sorry to ask, but what are the names of you two, Yuki and Ojii-san?" said Masae.

"My name is Akita Mashai," replied Ojiisan.

"Watashi wa Yukizawa Hanawaauakou (I am Yukizawa Hanako)" said his granddaughter, yawning while introducing herself. "Ojiiiiiiiii-sawawn, where are we going to sleep?" she yawned again turning to Ojiisan.

Ojiisan picked up Hanako and said, "There is a inn near here where we can sleep." Ojiisan picked up some knowledge on quite a few things about this game while searching for Hanako. Ojiisan started walking in the direction of the inn. "Come on." said Ojiisan to the three kids.

Tatsumi raised an eyebrow when another player replied to him. "Now that... Is one hell of a question. To join a loyal group of companions, or to sit here all day and drink myself under the table. The latter is unfortunately impossible with the game system, so I see only one option. I would be..." He equipped his silver smith blade, spinning it into the air and catching it. "...delighted to join you." He jumped up. "Tatsumi, and you are?" He also waited for a party request.

Once the group had reached Horunka, Geist had decided to abruptly leave the party. He had a feeling that the man either hadn't really enjoyed the company of others or maybe he just didn't like this group in particular. Given his and Linc's spat back in the forest, either situation wouldn't surprise him.

Either way, once Geist had left, Dar scratched his head and gave a sigh before turning to Linc.

"Well here we are. I'm going to go ahead and turn in too. I hope everything goes well for you. Be safe." Dar said before he disbanded the party and went to the Inn.

He had enough cash left to get a room for the night, but tomorrow he would need to do some questing and other activities to try and get more money. He also needed to work on replacing his armor, the light stuff wasn't going to cut it.

-------------

When day broke, Dar ventured down into the lobby and looked around. It seemed like Geist had already left for the day, not that he was surprised. He had a feeling that any hope of forming a more permanent party wasn't going to include that man.

It was also at this moment that Dar realized how surreal this whole thing was. The NPCs that were running this Inn greeted him like a real person and had some sort of interface that allowed realistic responses to questions and game related info. You might think you were talking to a person at first, but after a few lines in it would become apparent that you were only speaking to a program.

"Huh, technology is amazing." Dar wondered aloud. A cleaning maid nearby cocked her head at the statement before Dar shook his hands and stumbled away. He would prefer to be around real people now.

Suki smiled, pleased with herself. She was glad now that she had asked the man, and she said "I'm Suki. That's Umichi" she said, heading back to Umichi, "we have a third player, Aikoto, who should be around soon. Umichi, this is....Tatsumi, right? Is Tats okay?" she asked, almost boldly. She didn't particularly know why she had asked Tatsumi if he wished to join them, just...she didn't think sadness would do well here.

She looked to Umichi and smiled "is it alright with you, if he joins us?" she asked him, not really for any permission, but wanting to make sure there was no hard teelings or such, as well as waiting for an answer to her bakery breakfast suggestion

He rushed up to suki and took her hand, shaking it. "Well met. I can't think of anything better to do than to fend off impending death from a crazy game with loyal companions." He rolled his eyes, indicating his sarcasm if his tone did not already do that. He grinned too, surprisingly relaxed still about the whole situation.

It was the second day after the game had launched. The sun was slowly rising up into the vast virtual sky. The sun shone down upon the field and city making it steadily become a nice warm temperature. Yui slowly opened her eye as a ray of light had started shining upon one of her eyes. She let out a tired yawn as she lifted up her right arm to her eye. It was still blurry by the morning light shining bright into her eye, but it was clearly noticable that her hand was there. Her other eyes started opening as well, both her eyes scanned from left to right before she averted her eyes on the street next to her. It was already starting to look pretty packed on the streets. She leaned her body weight on her left arm and scooted herself on her feet. She stretched widely before leaving the alley she had slept in during the night. It possibly was the first night she head slept so horrible in many years. It wasn't a custom for her not having a nice warm bed to sleep in. Some random guys had already tricked her yesterday by saying that they would split the share they got from all the hard work they did.But nothing they just ran off leaving her like that. So today she had to make a little more proffit so that she could live in luxury again. After some training and money grinding she settled down on a bench near the market area droping her weapon against the side of the bench while plenching her butt down on the sun warmed wood.

A tired groan escaped her mouth as she dropped her head down in depression. There was a only little hope that she would be seeing more people her age... and gender... most of the players didn't look weird or anything, but just really hard to approache. She quietly sat on the spot for a few more minutes and slugged on further with the tip of her weapon sliding along the ground behind her. She fighted more monsters off, one after the other however, something wasn't completely right. She had been fighting a Dire wolf for a few minutes now but something felt off about her weapon 'Slant' Her sword cut through the beast dealing a huge amout of damage bringing the monsters hp in the red. At first there was only a soft cracking sound but a louder followed short after. Yui's eyes questionly turned to her sword "Huh?"seeing how it just broke out of nowhere. She was silent for a moment before the dire wolf striked back taking her full healthbar only a little down. She trew her broken weapon on the ground and hurriedly started running away from the monster.

Only a few moment later she arrived at town once again. She had to find the weapon shop but she hadn't see any as of yet. She quielty looked around her and tried approaching some of the other players but quickly scowered away when they saw her. There was no helping it, she to just walk around town now looking for it herself. Only a while later she found out it was of no use, maybe this town didn't even have a weapon shop. She gave up and decided to look for a place to spend the upcoming night atleast. There were a lot of players around so it was better to reserve a place now she still had the money. She had entered a close by inn and walked over towards the inn keeper before seeing someone that was a tad more approachable for her taste. She quietly snuck up on Suki and tugged on lightly on her sleeve "Onee-chan do you know where the weapon shop is." She looked very nervous and especially tried to avoid eye contact with the others sitting at the table.

With Suki accepting the party request, Umichi smiled. "Why wouldn't I want to?" She said, with some shock"There's still safety in numbers, right?" She smiled again, "I saw Aikoto last night, and sent him to bed. He's probably still asleep. He seemed troubled last night. I hoped my words helped him" "Well, some people may want to go solo, or you might have decided you would prefer to be among more females or something else. I just wanted to be sure. Anyway, I'm sure your words reached out. For now, let's keep getting along." Umichi replied to her.

"um. There's a nice bakery just down the road. We could probably get some sweet buns or something, instead of waiting for breakfast here" "Ah, su... Umichi was about to reply to Suki, before she interrupted his reply. "Hang on" she said suddenly, rising and acting on impulse she went over to the guy. "Excuse me? Would you like to join us? We just lost a member, and you seem to need team mates"

Umichi looked on as the two conversed for a moment and came over. He understood what had happened, and mentally sighed a little. He seems quite rowdy. Oh well, things should be fine. As he was introduced, Umichi sent the party invite to the rowdy player known as Tatsumi. Suki asked "is it alright with you, if he joins us?"
"Sure, nothing wrong with it. Anyway, as I was saying before, bread for breakfast if fine with me." he replied.

As he was about to head out of the inn, he saw a small girl, smaller than Suki, who was quite small herself, ask about a weapon shop. Walking up to her, Umichi spoke, "Hello there.". Bending down, to be more towards her height, "You can get a weapon from the NPC blacksmith on the other side of this small village. What kind of weapon would you like?" He spoke in a soft and kind tone, to try to keep the girl at ease, smiling kindly. "Are you by yourself?" he asked curiously.

@Caits @Savo @YipeeXD @liferusher