Disclaimer: I do not own SAO nor do I own Harry Potter.
Chapter 2
Tiana went to find a decent weapon, but before she could even move forward a warning sign popped up in front of her, reminding her that all magicals had to have their core drained before being able to play. A safety precaution to keep her magic from frying the electronics if she got emotional. The energy needed to go somewhere though and so it was decided that all the magicals would be able to drain their core into either their Skill Points (SP), their Perk Points (PKP), or their Col. It would probably seem unfair to some of the mundanes but magic was a part of everyday life for most magicals, but for this game all magicals would be cut off from that, so it was decided to give the magicals a bit of an advantage. On top of that the magicals could find out just how much their core is really worth. The slight dig at some of the magicals made her grin in amusement.
As it was Tiana had decided early on that she would converted her magic into PKP, because it was more difficult to earn than Col or SP. In fact PKP could only be earned as a level up reward, an event reward, or you could buy a PKP for 2000 Col, that's how rare it was. Tiana had ended up with 9975 PKPs which had surprised the hell out of her but then she had sold 5 PKPs in exchange for 10000 Col. Every PC or player character started out at level 0 with an HP of 100, all their STATs at 3, 5000 Col (which was the substitute for money in Aincrad), and a basic sword skill.
Hopefully she could find a decent sword and maybe some throwing daggers. She made her way through the Town of Beginnings until she found one of the more expensive weaponry shops and by that she meant their prices went up to 2000 Col instead of the usual 500 Col that she'd found in the other shops. Most of the other newer players didn't like the idea of dropping that type of Col so early in the game, so the shop was pretty empty when she went in. She'd still have 13000 Col if she managed to find anything but she also needed armor and maybe a jacket to hide her bust size if the leers she had been getting were anything to go by. She'd known that she could change the body type of her avatar but her experience with polyjuice potion had made it clear that trying to fight with a body that wasn't yours or even move would be very uncomfortable and leave you off balance for ages. There was just no point to it.
She did end up finding a lightweight sword that was meant to be good for agility fighters, it gave her +5 to her agility and she'd be able to upgrade her sword ten times and each upgrade would give her +2 to her agility. She paid the necessary 2000 Col and then immediately equipped it to the left side of her waist, scabbard and all. She took another look around the weapon shop and found a set of ten throwing picks used mainly for hunting, shrugging she bought five sets of those as well since they only cost 100 Col each, once thrown they lost their durability and dispersed, so she would need to buy more once she was out. Equipping those to the back of the brown leather belt her sword was strapped to, Tiana frowned, she needed a darker colored belt, the one she was wearing looked tacky against her darker clothes.
Entering the armory, Tiana browsed for something that would be useful as both fashionable and functional. It took her a while to find something semi decent. It turned out to be a black leather waist cincher with what looked like garters strapped to it. It certainly was fashionable and since it came with an extended weight limit as well as doing everything her current belt did, Tiana was more than happy to buy it and replace her leather belt with it, even if it cost her 3000 Col to do so. It was odd to be wearing something that could be seen as a sex symbol if it was lace and not leather, over her dark blue dress, thankfully the leather garters extended passed the dress and wrapped around her lower thighs. She would be putting her medicine pouch on her right thigh when she got them. She still needed a jacket first, the stares were even worse than before.
Grabbing a men's black bomber jacket, she immediately paid for it and put it on, at least the jacket had +3 on defense and still fit her just enough to take the focus off her large bust and her small waist that flared out into a huge butt, or at least that's what the waist cincher made it look like. Tiana was aware that she had a body more than a few women would kill to have, especially at the age of fifteen, but more often than not it got her into some pretty sticky situations that she had been extremely lucky to get out of. Well, extremely lucky, powerful and wealthy, not many would dare to risk a blood feud against her three lines as well as her many allies, including a rather overprotective godfather who had access to the largest Black Magic library in existence.
She hadn't even looked at the price so she was pleasantly surprised to find that she still had 8500 Col left. Looking at the time, Tiana was amazed to see that it was already 3:20pm. She'd already been in Aincrad for 2 hours and 20 minutes. Tiana had never been able to have nice things when she had been with the Dursley's, so when she was finally free from them she had decided that she wouldn't care how much money she spent on herself so long as she felt comfortable with herself. Sirius had been more than happy to spend the Black's vast fortune on whatever his goddaughter and heiress wanted.
Walking over to the medical stall to look over the items, she found potions, antidotes, healing crystals, teleport crystals, and various forms of food, littered the stall. The crystals were expensive but usable during battle, to use potions or antidotes you would have to unequip your weapon. Probably why they were only 50 col a piece. She bought ten of each and stored them in her inventory and then bought 2 healing crystals and a teleport crystal, which she put in the medical pouch on her right thigh. These crystals were low level and likely wouldn't be able to restore much more than 1500 hp. The moment she could she was going to stock up on crystals. By the time she left the stall she was left with only 3500 Col. Not a bad job but there was no need to go broke this early in the game. After all she didn't know what the monster drops were like, so it was best to leave herself enough to get more crystals or upgrade her weapon, just in case.
Last stop before the spawning grounds - the gift shop. The gift shop was where you could buy perks with your pkps. Perks were very expensive because once bought and activated they stayed activated until the game was over, of course you can deactivate them but you really didn't want to do that for most perks, they're too useful.
Like the Linguist Perk; translates all languages. Costs 1000 pkps. Very useful, especially because some NPCs above the first floor spoke different languages, usually those that were quest related, but if you didn't know the language you couldn't do the quest. Tiana only knew four languages; English, French, Latin, and luckily, Japanese. Though French and Japanese, she'd learned because of Vernon's business trips when she was younger. She bought that one just in case.
Another one like the Cash Cow Perk; converts all forwarding exp into col. Costs 1000 pkps. Useful in a tight spot when you find yourself desperately needing col.
The one she was going for was called the Deluxe Quick Level Up Perk, it doubles all rewards. Level ups, monster drops, and quests. It cost 4000 pkps, but would be well worth the pkps.
There was another she wanted to get called the Times 2 Perk; it doubles SP and PKP on level ups. Costs 3000 pkps. She got that one as well.
After leaving the gift shop, Tiana began searching for a way out of the town to the spawning grounds. From the look of her map she wasn't too far away. Turning one last corner she finally saw the spawning grounds, squealing in excitement she rushed forward, drawing her sword and running for the closest boar monster. A blue glow enveloped her sword a moment before she reached the monster and a red line went across the monster before it expanded and then burst into blue pireflies. Pausing in her steps, Tiana wondered about the blue glow on her sword before remembering about sword skills, red tinged her cheeks. She had been so excited that she had completely forgotten about how to activate sword skills. She was surprised she'd even managed to kill the boar like monster, but she wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. A reward tag floated in front of her waiting for her to accept her reward. With her perk activated, she'd gotten 50 exp, 60 col, and 20 sp. A quick mental calculation told her that she'd need 19 more boar monsters before she could level up. Pressing the accept button Tiana moved on to the next monster, idly seeing a tall raven haired male coaching an even taller male with spiky red hair out of the corner of her eyes.
Ignoring the two males presence she spent the next twenty minutes killing the same damn boar monsters, it was quickly beginning to grow boring though even if she got rewards for it. She wanted something more exciting or difficult, but she wasn't about to move up until she killed the required boars to level up. She wasn't getting herself killed just because she was impatient.
Another thirty minutes later, she cheered as she leveled up and then pouted as she realized she couldn't open her status menu without placing herself in danger of being attacked by monsters. She'd have to find a safe zone to open her menu but she'd gone pretty far into the spawning grounds and she didn't know where the closest safe zone was. On top of that her hp was running into the yellow.
Looking around, she found only the two males from before sitting up on the hill overlooking the spawning grounds. Biting her lip nervously, Tiana moved to join them, hoping that they were decent people.
"Sorry to bother you, I don't suppose you could tell me where the nearest safe zone is, could you?" Tiana asked, smiling sheepishly.
The redhead immediately jumped up to help her, startling her into stumbling away from him but right over the raven haired guy. Lifting herself up a bit, she took in the situation; first, she was in someone's lap; second, her breasts had struck once again. And by that she meant they'd tried to smother the poor guy. Quickly rolling off said poor guy, she blushed and stammered her apologies, sitting delicately beside him, conveniently putting the ravenette between her and the excitable redhead.
"Hey, no problem. It happens to the best of us." The guy she'd almost smothered said, glaring at the snickering redhead, before looking down at her and smiling softly, "My names Kirito. What's yours?"
She smiled shyly, "I'm Tiana. Sorry for running you over like that. I wasn't aware that I could still manage to be a klutz even in a VRMMORPG."
He chuckled softly, "Don't worry about it. You were asking about safe zones correct?"
Still smiling, Tiana explained, "Yeah, I didn't want to open my menu to place my stat points only to get killed by a monster."
Kirito seemed pleasantly surprised, "Oh you've managed to level up already?!"
She blushed lightly, "Yeah, I've got a perk that doubles all the rewards I get."
"Which helps you to level up twice as fast and doubles your stat points and your pkps. That's the Deluxe Quick Level Up Perk, which costs 4000 pkps. How'd you manage to get the pkps for that this early in the game? Even the beta testers only got 2000 pkps." Kirito questioned amazed.
Tianana explained, carefully, "It's because I'm magical. All magicals need to drain their cores when they first enter the game and the energy has to go somewhere. So all magicals are given a choice of what to convert their magic to; sp, col, or pkp. I chose pkp after reading about the exchange rates in the game guide. I wasn't expecting to get over 9000 pkps."
"Seriously?! That's pretty cool and very smart of you. Not many people bother to actually read the game guides and end up missing crucial information." Kirito smiled.
"I love reading game guides. My caretakers never let me play video games so I use to read game guides at the local library. Thankfully I no longer live with them. I'd hate to have missed being able to play this game." Tiana rambled idly, her thoughts occupied by his casual acceptance of her magic.
Kirito nodded, "Well the nearest safe zone is an hour away and that's back to the Town of Beginnings. While it's good to be cautious about opening your menu in the spawning grounds, especially at low levels, it's not necessary on the first floor unless you're in the dungeons or the forests at night. In spawning grounds like this which only contain boar monsters, you're safe to open your menu. Boar monsters only attack after you've attacked them first."
Tiana grinned, relieved, "Thank goodness, I had noticed that there were only boar monsters around here but I didn't want to find out differently while I was unprotected. Thanks for letting me know. You're a beta tester right?"
Kirito nodded, curiously, "Yeah, why?"
"Think you can give me some tips on how to place my stat. pts.?" She asked, opening her menu and idly tapping on a potion to replenish her hp.
Kirito hmmed, "Sure, no problem."
As they both looked over her stat menu, Kirito couldn't help but question. "Hey, how'd you get your agility so high at level 0? I know most of it came from your sword but for it to be so high means you had to have gotten your sword at one of the more expensive weaponry shops?"
"I sold 5 of my pkps for col." Tiana answered, "Have you used your pkps yet?"
"No, I was saving them for the same perk that you have, why?" He asked turning his attention back to Tianana.
"Perfect!" Tiana chirped, cheerfully opening a trade request tag with Kirito to give him 2000 pkps. It'd still leave her with 70 pkps and that was fine with her. She knew those pkps would come in handy.
"You really don't have to do that, Tiana." Kirito said stunned as he saw the trade tag. "I don't mind giving out a few tips about the basics."
"I want to, besides I kinda feel a bit guilty at having such a big advantage this early in the game."Tiana smiled happily, a blush trailing across her cheeks, "Think of it as an apology for accidently getting to first base with you before introductions and a thanks for being decent about it."
It was Kirito's turn to blush at the reminder of their rather unusual first meeting, he muttered, "If you're sure?"
"Yep!"
He pressed the accept button.
She grinned, "Now how about we go get that perk? After I figure out where I'm going to put my stat points, of course."
She frowned and he laughed, "You don't need any on your agility so don't bother with that, but speed and accuracy won't do you any good unless your strength matches it, so put at least 3 in that. You're good on defense so I'd put 1 on vitality, 1 on luck and 1 on charisma. Vitality usually goes into your hp. Luck determines what you get in monster drops and charisma determines what an NPC will give you for completing a quest for them."
She followed his instructions and was pleased when she found that her hp had gone up to 250, "Alright let's get going. Do you want me to take front until we get back to town so you don't level up without the perk?"
Kirito grinned, "Would you mind?"
She laughed, "Course not. I offered, didn't I?"
Kirito nodded, "Alright let me make sure Klein's okay before we take off."
Kirito turned to speak with Klein, only to find him smirking indulgently at them, "Don't worry about me, Kirito, you go play with your new girlfriend. I've got to log off anyway, got a pizza waiting on me."
Kirito rolled his eye's at his new girl obsessed friend, and turned to follow Tiana back to the Town of Beginnings. Tiana giggled at them, commenting lowly to Kirito, "I've got a best friend who could probably give him a run for his money, flirt that she is. Think we should introduce them?"
Kirito snorted, "Let's give them time to settle first."
They hadn't gone very far before Kleins voice called out to them worriedly, "Hey, Kirito? Where's the logout button?"
Kirito sighed exasperatedly and Tiana snickered lightly at him as they both walked back to Kirito's friend. Still giggling to herself, Tiana reopened her menu, ignoring the two guys bickering with each other. At least she did until Kirito called for her to look for her own logout button in a rather worried voice. Tiana began to get a bad feeling as she did as he asked, finding that her own logout button was gone as well. Looking over to Kirito, she shook her head with a frown.
A missing log out button, while not a big deal for magicals since they weren't allowed to logout until the game was over anyway, would be a very big deal for the mundanes, of which Kirito clearly was. She hoped everything would be okay. Opening her mouth to ask Kirito for a worst case scenario, she was interrupted by the tingling sensation of a forced teleport. Quickly taking in her surroundings, she was curious to find that she was back in the central plaza of the Town of Beginnings. Luckily, Kirito and his friend Klein had been teleported close to her, she quickly sidled close to Kirito, placing her hand on his elbow. He didn't seem to mind and she didn't care that it was a girly move, she did not want to be separated from Kirito right now.
Read and Review! Let me know what you think?! Is this version better than the former SAO and HP crossover story of mine. Also I'll be posting some other rough drafts. Not for SAO and HP but for HP.
