~Prepare for Raid~
Kirito and Asuna took their recruitment to the Town of Beginnings, while Leafa and Sinon worked on their recruitment around the higher level area around the town when they were looking around for other players who seemed friendly or at least remotely possible for recruiting.
The goal of the recruitment, was to first get a look at the players in combat or gauge them from how they held themselves, then send them to Ana's coordinates in the town where she primarily worked on crafting. There, Ana unfortunately had to turn many of the people sent to her away. There were simply too many people who would require too much training, didn't have enough resolve to fight for their way out of the game, or there had just been people going to her, thinking of the amount of people going to her as an event.
Overall, the situation wasn't actually that bad. They only needed nineteen people. In total, it would be eight groups of three really as far as Ana's plan for splitting everyone. Eighteen of those people simply needed to have decent form in fighting. They didn't have to be impressive. Just determined and quick to learn. Eighteen people had been chosen, but the choice for who would fill the last position with the main and off-tanking was still empty. Ana needed to have someone who would mesh well with the five in the main group. So far, that person hadn't shown.
Gear was handed out with obligation reminders on them for the boss battle to the eighteen who were accepted, and people with those gear sets would be noticed by anyone, because they would have a Raid tag beside their name. Those people were quickly picked out and understood to need to be training for the raid coming up. Even people outside of the group would know that those people should be specifically training for the raid.
Ana stopped her crafting toil after two hours waiting for a good meshing person to show up. She couldn't simply rely on the recruitment from the others to miraculously find someone who would mesh well with the party. She had to go out and find that person herself.
Since she knew it hadn't been one of the searching areas, Ana went to the dungeon after telling the rest to no longer send recruits to her crafting location. Along the way to the dungeon, she checked players who were training against the monsters. There was nothing really impressive or noteworthy aside some of the people of the raid party training together to show their spirit for the boss battle ahead on Sunday. Ana was happy that the people that had been picked were taking the position seriously. The gear wasn't simply a gift to those people.
Ana continued along the way until she reached the entrance of the dungeon, and noticed a group of six about to head in. They were under levelled, under geared, and the tank player was trembling like one strong breeze might send her flying through the air. Ana jogged over, and sent the party a message box.
"I have some experience in the dungeon. You look like you could use a more experienced hand if you're aiming to level."
The tank in the lead stopped trembling as if she had read Ana's message saying she was willing to lead tank. It wasn't far off. An experienced person offering to help a lower levelled team would often lead, and in the current game, that would often mean playing the role of tank.
"Why don't you talk? And why are your eyes closed?"
Another of her message boxes.
"I'm mute and blind in real life. I have a skill unlocked that works nearly as well as my senses do in real life, so I'm perfectly fine to lead if you'd like me to tank and show you around. I'd feel better if I could alleviate some of your tank's anxiety."
It was too early to create a guild within the game, but Ana assumed that the people in front of her aimed to be a guild. She was more interested in the tank than the confident others. The tank had a feeling about her that she would be a good support player, and good with dishing out damage. Definitely not a tank in this kind of game environment.
The rest of the players looked to their tank after Ana mentioned her anxiety, and they sighed.
"We've been telling her to just think of it like the other games where she plays tank. Guess she's still not ready."
"Better to not push someone whose personality is more suited to support. She might have played tank in computer games, but I sense a support kind of role from her otherwise. I can teach plenty."
The leader role seemed to fall on the one confident voice who continued conversation with her, shooting down nearly all suggestions that she lead their party into the dungeon.
"Let me guess, one of those beta testers who won't play with anyone else?"
She sighed.
"If you count the five minutes I was logged into the beta test as myself being a beta tester, sure. Most beta testers are very unimpressive though. I'm building a raid party with promising players for taking on the boss of this floor. I have a good feeling of finding the last person to add from your party, but want to get a feel for how everyone follows the rhythm I can set. This person would be part of the main two teams I'm setting up for main and off tanking the boss, so they have to be very good at putting out plenty of damage and supporting a tank."
The leader felt ashamed labelling her as a beta tester when he read how much otherwise MMO experience she must have had from her words. He was also very tempted to show his ability so that he might be accepted as the last role in the raid group.
"Alright, let's add you to the party then. Lead on."
Ana nodded her head, and she accepted the party invite. She was a little puzzled that the game was allowing her to be in two parties at once. Then again, one party was a chat party, while the other was a battle party. It didn't make sense to not be able to have both.
With confidence, she led them into the dungeon, and she established aggro as smoothly as she would have with her own party. The party with her were staggered at the sight of how fast she moved while being blind. They took a little to realize they just needed to start dishing out damage to the enemies Ana was steadily controlling and not losing a point of health to. This continued on for a while. Group of monsters after another group, she quickly noticed the party levels jumping. They definitely weren't ready for the boss. Focus training one person would be fine, and the one person Ana had a good feeling about was fulfilling the expectations perfectly. She wasn't quite meeting the hopeful damage output, but she was reading Ana perfectly, and fitting into the battle and supporting her better than everyone else.
Ana sighed when she finished leading them to the earliest safe zone, and she turned back to them. She went over their levels again. Those people were so under levelled, they had jumped five levels during that time. It was utterly ridiculous, she thought. They were too under levelled. Not so much anymore after some levelling, but it was still distressing. She still had decided on picking the previous tank of the group, Sachi to join her team. The girl who had played so well as a support. Her damage was climbing the less she had to worry about taking damage. She had been so afraid when the situation dictated she be putting herself at the front of the damage, but she was the most determined to help a person who was at the front of damage. She was perfect for support and healing.
"You're all very quick learners, though you could definitely use a lot of practice. The use of skills, as far as I'm concerned, should be used for crucial situations your personal skill can't handle. Out of everyone, Sachi was the fastest to pick up, and she performed exactly what I was searching for when I approached your team. I would like to know Sachi's opinion on being offered a spot on my team. Since there was some sort of prejudice against it before, three other people on my team were part of the beta test, and they were more involved. However, they more earn their places on the team because of their personal skill from combat training outside of the game. Everyone can learn plenty. I can still learn plenty. We're all a very cohesive unit when working together, and Sachi is the only out of the dozens of players I met today who fits well into the feel of the party. This all had nothing to do with beta test players. Many of the beta test players have already left the game because of their misjudgements and acting too fast on the assumption from how the beta test worked. The biggest reason I chose Sachi, is because having another example alongside me who isn't recklessly charging about. The rest of your team needs to calm down a few notches and train like this is real life."
After Ana's long message was sent out, the players of the party stared at her, serious in their tone.
"How are we supposed to train without a tank?"
Ana shook her head and sighed.
"With the axe. You have much more a constitution for tanking. You'll need to learn and adjust to the idea of blocking and dodging, but you're the only person out of this group who is personality wise proper for tanking. Party leader, you were just behind Sachi in ability to support, so you would do well to practice this formation. Everyone else would learn to find their positioning and deal out as much damage as possible without taking the enmity from the tank. Support, learn how to use the utmost of your own physical abilities, and do one enemy at a time until you're more ready. Without my role here, I can tell very easily you were not ready at all, and wouldn't have lasted through the first pull. If you are serious about training, then return to the nearby town and I will provide some gear that could support your training. The gear I'm wearing alone is more defensive and offensive than your entire party as far as stats, and I can easily make you all the same level of gear."
The group seemed to take her words as law. As the best possible advice. Everyone except the leader. He seemed to be open to ideas, but he disliked the idea of Sachi leaving their team. After all, many MMO familiar players were familiar with a concept of a female player being valuable. Especially if they were recognized as good and valuable outside of gender since there was so much more of a male audience to the gaming community.
Ana knew that those people would have a vastly different idea of the demographic when they would find out that Ana's team was entirely female. Ana had everyone meeting up at where she normally set up for crafting in the town, and it didn't take long before everyone met up at the location. There, Kirito, Asuna, Leafa and Sinon were ready to greet the new member of the party. They knew about the rest of her previous team coming along, but they weren't expecting anything. The rest of the players from Sachi's team stared in surprise as Ana drew closer to the four girls waiting at the crafting station.
"So, you said it was Sachi who was joining us right? She must have been very skilled for you to choose her after denying dozens of people into our party."
Ana nodded her head and a general message window appeared above her head.
"I found a person who would support Kirito's reckless tanking very well. Off tank group will consist of Kirito, Asuna and Sachi. Main tank group will be myself, Leafa and Sinon. Leafa will provide my support and healing if healing is needed for myself. Sachi would provide the healing and support for Kirito. That is the plan."
Ana continued after sending that out to behind the crafting station, and she began setting up and preparing the new gear for the rest of Sachi's group first before preparing Sachi's new gear. The massive difference on the other players gave them a sense of Sachi being completely taken by Ana's team. There was no room for complaint though with the thorough coaching Ana had provided them, the gear, and the indisputable fact that she had saved the group from marching to their deaths inside of the dungeon before.
They didn't have the courage to go into the dungeon without her masterful control through her tanking leading them. That was about the only down side to her no longer training them directly. It might be a better idea, she thought, to train them further and teach them instead of an equal amount of other players, so that she could rely on their knowledge and ability in battle as it would grow. So far though, it was too much a skill jump for them in comparison to the other people she had allowed into the raid group.
"If you continue your training, it's very possible that you could end up leading your own raids on floor bosses safely later. For now, we need to be careful on this floor to figure out the skill requirements for fighting these bosses, so I've already settled on the people we will be concentrating on training for tomorrow and the next day. We will be raiding the boss room on Sunday, so you have some kind of idea on the kind of scale we're looking at as far as training time allotted."
The other party nodded their heads. Ana sighed, packing up her crafting sets after finishing explaining when everyone was in the max level floor one gear. She was exhausted. She was not a social person to begin with, and the amount of people she forced herself to communicate with through the day was beyond exhausting.
"Ah, Ana-san. One last thing. I'm guessing your group will have a guild name you will go by later when the feature is unlocked? If yes, then we should exchange that information now so we can keep in touch, guild to guild later. Help each other with info on rare floor monsters and such, maybe ask for backup on an enemy that's too much?"
Ana shrugged her shoulders and did a radius friend request exchange, where everyone from both of their groups would receive requests to add everyone as friends.
"Well, now that's done. Let's have some dinner and rest for the night. Tomorrow morning, mass training starts for the raid."
The other group, which the leader claimed he would name the Midnight Black Cats, were confused by the notion of such a healthy schedule. Eating scheduled meals? Sleeping at night? Sleeping at all in a video game seemed like such a strange thing to them.
"Is there any reason why you...do normal living in this game?"
Ana took a deep breath, and exhaled just as deeply as she typed out the entirety of the reply.
"My fiancee is a doctor. She was dealing with patients over the last month who had insomnia issues because they were playing the beta test and not sleeping properly at night. They had extreme exhaustion, dulling of their senses, and they would even have delusions or hallucinations. This would still occur within the game, unless we properly care for ourselves, even if it is just a game avatar. It wouldn't do any good to starve yourself in real life before a heavy exercise like a battle, so don't deprive yourself of the food energy before doing it here. Sleep properly as well, or you'll exhaust yourself. It's common sense. That idiot who trapped everyone in here explained it during his announcement on the first day. He made this world, to have people live out a life under his control. With consequences if you don't live life healthily."
With her explanation, the Midnight Black Cats nodded their heads in understanding. Ana's group already knew of this, and it was of course their reason for keeping healthy within the game. Plus of course keeping some normalcy in their daily lives so they could transition back to normal life as smoothly as possible.
Dinner went by quickly, and Sachi stayed with Ana's group, while the Midnight Black Cats went on to another inn to stay there together. Ana mentioned to them that if since the rest of the group were male, they could keep their party active and buy one inn room service for the night and all of them could use the one expanded room without issue.
Asuna, Kirito, Leafa, Sinon and even Sachi showed interest in this, as they looked at Ana as if she had been holding out on them for that information, but Sachi being new to the group, she didn't know that the group already knew of such thing. Ana had told them. They had simply forgotten since they didn't use the same room at all yet. The reason in the beginning for not using the same room, was because the agreement was to think of Kirito as male and not share a room between different genders, but that was no longer a valid reason to split the rooms. The only remaining reason, might be if Ana was still doing a massive amount of crafting at night or uncomfortable sharing a room with any other than Ryra. Now, she did her crafting during the day, so there was no need for her to craft at night. Their team of six total now would easily be able to occupy a single room and save plenty of money for other more valuable things later on. It had already been good fortune to be able to afford a room for each person every night to that point. Further good fortune for the fact that they still had plenty of money. Between selling gear Ana made to other players who were lucky on their money, the money drops from monsters which were easy prey to them, among other things made it very easy to accumulate a decent amount of funds. Other players wouldn't be able to believe with their average currency level that they had been sleeping comfortably every night.
There was one concern which rose in Leafa, Sinon and Ana's minds however for sharing one room among the six of them. Whether Kirito and Asuna had the self control to not progress on their relationship in the same room as everyone else. They could go ahead and do that in a room of their own together, but it was inappropriate with the rest of the team present. Especially having a new member among their group.
Uneventfully the night passed with the six in the same room, Ana, Kirito and Asuna rising early from their beds to prepare breakfast. Breakfast passed with Sachi's unrivalled excitement for having real tasting food two meals in a row. The starving until the need for bread being critical had apparently been a habit in her previous group. A very, very bad habit.
After the breakfast, Ana sent out a message to all with the raid tag on their gear to meet up outside of the town. Minutes later, all twenty four people of the raid group were present and ready to start their training...and one additional person whose very energy felt out of place. She wore a combat hakama, had a katana at her waist, and her entire figure seemed to flow nearly as smoothly as Ana, Asuna or Kirito. That person was confused by the large crowd of people. She walked around between them while everyone waited for Ana to bring the meeting into organization and start the lessons and training. That strange feeling person with the samurai like feel to her, and hair long to the waist in the same way as Asuna and Kirito, ended up approaching the lead group, only to ask what was happening with so many people around.
"We're going to be starting our training today for a raid on the dungeon shortly. Had you been someone I hadn't met with yesterday from the recruitment?"
The girl shook her head, and stared at Ana with a very curious energy about her. Everything about her was very animated. She was also very fast on her instincts and reflexes, Ana could notice from small details of how she simply moved a little or held her posture. However, she didn't feel as if she were really present within the death game of Sword Art Online.
"Can I take part in the training? I don't mind if there's already a full group for your raid party. I just want to check how interesting everyone is."
Ana nodded her head, and the girl name Yuuki joined Ana's party for the training. The rest of the raid group were split up and organized into sections of three, a judgement from Ana calculating how well the groups would fit together. After a few minutes, she was satisfied. From there, she set herself up as the training opponent for all of the groups. Yuuki was invited to take her position in working with Leafa and Sinon. The three of them took the lead in the training, Ana feeling somehow that Yuuki would provide a very good and accurate image of what she aimed the rest of the group to be able to compose like.
When Ana switched the party leadership over to Kirito and she left the party, she signalled the start of the fight between herself, Yuuki, Leafa and Sinon. Yuuki carved forward like she herself were an unsheathed blade striking out to kill. Ana was ready for any kind of threat level to emerge from Yuuki, but she was surprised at how fast Yuuki had been. Leafa and Sinon couldn't keep up with her and eventually it turned into a real duel somehow. Ana continued to dodge, sometimes parrying or outright blocking Yuuki's attacks. Yuuki was very good, but she was also as predictable as anyone else could be. She was a normal girl, who was very fast and strong. She was impressive, and she would do well with a faster team to back her up. Kirito and Asuna would actually be a better team for her if she were to take part in the raid.
Not once did Yuuki come too close to striking Ana, and Ana ended up disarming Yuuki with a final parry at the end of their fight.
"You're very talented at fighting. I'm very tempted to substitute in, but for the time being the rest of the group really needs to train."
Yuuki was smiling wide as she stared at Ana after losing the fight.
"Amazing! You're like a real life fighter! Better than a real life fighter! This is just a sim right? Or is everyone here actually playing this with me?"
Ana was confused by the way Yuuki worded how she said everything.
"This...isn't some sim. It's the VRMMO project Sword Art Online. Thousands of people are trapped in here and we need to beat the game to get out. Do you not know about this? Weren't you at the announcement five days ago?"
Yuuki seemed more confused than Ana when she asked Yuuki about her understanding of the situation. It seemed Yuuki really didn't know about the Sword Art Online incident.
"You...you're really blind, and you don't talk like everyone else because you're mute right? You're probably in the medical VR project patients like me too then?"
Yuuki's suggestion sent chills through Ana. Ana immediately made a call to Ryra. Ryra picked up on the other end immediately.
"I wasn't expecting you to call so soon. Good afternoon to you. How's your progress in there?"
"We were about to start training for fighting the boss of the first floor, and this person named Yuuki showed up. She mentioned being part of a medical VR project as a patient. Would you be able to check on that for me?"
Ryra nodded her head on the other side, and quickly gave an answer.
"Another of your old colleagues was one of my colleagues, and she had been trying to make a safer, full body enveloping and safe full dive machine. She had five patients using this machine. All of them should be experiencing basic VR games or other programs...just a minute."
Yuuki was even more confused with the conversation Ana and Ryra were having. When Ryra returned to the conversation the question was answered.
"Apparently her patient Yuuki isn't accessing a local game through the Medicuboid. Yuuki seems to have accessed Sword Art Online on her own, as the data is showing. Hey, are you sure it's her Ana? She's a critical level patient. If she's-"
"Is that a doctor Ana-san's calling? You sound like you're about to say I need to be careful because I'm a terminal patient. I'm perfectly fine in these places though."
Ryra stared harshly at Yuuki as she entered the view space of the conversation.
"Yuuki-chan, the programming for Sword Art Online uses a technology that still exists in your Medicuboid to make everything you do inside of Sword Art Online dangerous. If you're removed from your device, fail to meet healthy living in Sword Art Online, or die otherwise, you like hundreds of others would end up dying."
Yuuki realized when she heard those very serious words from Ryra that she really was in a dangerous situation. But only in the sense that she had to fight for her life alongside the other people playing Sword Art Online. She was very confident that if she and Ana worked together, they would be able to get out of the game without need to worry. Either way, she didn't have long. A few years at most. She was making the most out of it, and it sounded already like she would get a very real and fulfilling life inside of Sword Art Online.
"I'll be fine and take this serious, doctor. I'll help everyone get out of the game. With someone as strong as Ana here, no doubt it'll be easy. Have some faith!"
Yuuki left the view screen and went back over to Leafa and Sinon. Every person of the raid party stared at her as if there were something completely wrong with her. There was something very out of place with her. She was unlikely to have her own actual appearance like the rest of them. She was confident she was totally safe. Everyone had to agree on how good their odds felt with Ana around, but relying on the idea of one person out of thousands sounded ridiculous. Of course it would take more people. Ana was even taking the precaution of a full raid party for the first floor boss.
The call with Ryra was ended, and Yuuki was no longer the centre of attention. Ana had Kirito, Asuna and Sachi take over for showing the example she was aiming for from the beginning from the rest of the teams. Ana was easier able to give everyone else an idea of how much she was expecting from everyone else. It was slower and less deadly than Yuuki's fighting, but it was also much more understandable for everyone else.
"Ana-san, can we fight later? I want to see just how strong Ana-san really is."
Ana sighed and shook her head.
"Not like before. You didn't even wait for the duel request. If I had been a less skilled fighter and you fatally wounded me, I would be dead. You need to calm down. I understand being excited and aiming for fun in this, but the other people around you are fighting for their lives. I'm another person fighting for my life here. Now, so are you. No, I'm not a medicuboid patient. I am surprised Mai-san continued with the medical project though. That doctor from before is my fiancee. She is taking care of myself and many of Japan's youth who have been stuck inside of this game."
Ana took a deep breath and sighed again.
"We can fight, but at this point there wouldn't be much a point. Unless you were holding back before, there would be no comparison if you wanted to see my real capability. Seeing my real capability would be better seen from me fighting a boss monster within this game which I can go all out against."
Yuuki nodded her head in understanding, and she watched as Ana continued to train and teach the rest of the raid group. Yuuki wanted to test some of them too if they seemed strong, but she dropped it right away for the reasons Ana had mentioned, and because no matter how good the other people seemed, they just wouldn't be as satisfying to fight and beat as Ana.
Yuuki sent a friend request to Ana, and smiled.
"I'll do my best to catch up to Ana-san."
The two of them smiled at each other, and Ana wondered. While it seemed everyone was about ready for the boss monster battle, wouldn't it be interesting with a less scatter oriented boss fight to fight alongside Yuuki? She definitely felt it could be the case. Yuuki seemed as if the more she would fight against Ana, the more she would learn and be able to react to her movements. Yuuki was very excited to grow stronger from Ana. She was, however, determined to live a normal life for once, and she felt somehow that she would get it from being with Ana.
Yuuki was somewhat added to the team though not for the floor boss fight, and Saturday wasn't far off. Yuuki learned between lunch, dinner, and the team sharing the inn room at night, that everyone was very close in their group. She was reminded of the other patients of the medicuboid she had been playing with, and she sighed in disappointment. She wanted them to be able to experience such an amazing thing together with her. She could have her own team to compete with Ana's team. It would be amazing.
Night fell, and Yuuki was easily taken into their habits, falling asleep with them in the inn room.
