Chapter 3
The moment the barrier around the central plaza had come down Kirito had grabbed Tiana and Klein, and stealthily raced for the shortcut to the gates. They were blocked at the alley shortcut by a familiar face.
Relieved to see her best friend, Tiana jumped into Blaise's arms or rather Belle's arms, "I'm so happy to see you, Belle!"
The italian beauty smiled, "Likewise Tiana. I just wanted to make sure you had a plan and see if you needed any back up?"
Tiana smirked, "You know how I am, Belle, I plan on the go. Kirito's heading out right now and I'm going with him. I'll be fine. Find yourself a partner and stay safe. Message me every 2 hours and keep me updated. Do not leave this town without a partner you trust. Pass the word to the others. Tell them to take advantage of the gift shops. We'll need them."
She nodded, determinedly, "I'll get the word out. You just concentrate on staying safe out there and let me know what you need, Tiana."
Tiana nodded sharply, idly noticing the quick conversation between Klein and Kirito, "Stick close to Klein over there. Kirito's already given him some pointers, so you should be fine. I know your specialty is intel gathering but why don't you take up the medic skill as well. See if you can find out the limits to the medic skill. I don't think Klein and his group will be out in the field until maybe tomorrow. So you've got time."
She shifted her attention to Kirito and Klein. "Before we head out, Klein, do you mind keeping an eye on Belle for me? She specializes in intel gathering and will be persuing a medic skill."
Klein smiled, "No problem, we could always use a medic. Stay safe, Tiana."
Tiana grabbed Kirito's hand and ran for the gift shop so that Kirito could grab the Deluxe Quick Level Up and then headed for the medical shop. Kirito questioned Tiana in a low voice trying not to attract attention to them, "What are we doing, Tiana? We need to get to the next town before anybody else gets the same idea."
She nodded, "We need more medical equipment. This is now life or death, we cannot get impatient, that's one of the quickest ways to get yourself killed. We should probably grab the camping skill and the night vision skill as well. 400 sp altogether. And you need the extended weight limit skill, Kirito."
"The extended weight limit skill can wait until we get to the next town. I've got 5 potions and antidotes, 2 healing crystals, and a teleport crystal. We can make it to the next town on that." Kirito explained softly.
Tiana nodded shakily, "I've got 4 more potions and 5 more anitdotes than you and I have the same crystals that you do."
They grabbed the skill manuals for camping and night vision on the way out of town, forgoing the medicine shop until the next town. Within twenty minutes of the barrier falling Kirito and Tiana were racing for the next town.
"Kirito? There were a thousand beta testers right?" She asked, softly as she took out her 16th wolf monster in the last thirty-five minutes.
"Yeah?" Kirito said absentmindedly, his attention focused on trying to quickly deal with his own level up. They didn't have time to find a safe zone and all level ups needed to be dealt with immediately for the time being, so they would have to take turns guarding each other when one or the other needed to open their menus.
She bit her lower lip, she didn't like what she was about to suggest it would be very dangerous, "Other betas will have the same idea."
He nodded with a frown, "The next town's not going to do it if that's the case."
"Could we make it to the third town at the levels that we're at?"
"Yes, we should be able to no problem, but we'll still need to head for the next town. Unlocking towns usually have decent rewards since they are considered an event..."
Tiana nodded thoughtfully, "So we should probably unlock the second and third towns and then turn in for the night in the third town."
Kirito agreed, closing out his menu and continuing forward, "There are ten towns on each floor of Aincrad. If we can manage to power through them all we can stay in the tenth town for awhile and figure out what our plan is going to be."
"Alright, how much further until we make it to the next town?"
"We won't make it until just after sundown. That's a good thing though. All quest rewards and monster drops are better at night. That also means that they'll be harder though."
"Can we handle it?" She asked worriedly.
He shrugged, "Shouldn't be too hard. A bit time consuming, maybe. When we go to enter the town the quest tag will pop up and tell us what needs to be done. If we find that we can't handle it then we'll just leave the town, the quest will end, and we can try again later. We'll be fine."
"So we should stick to grinding at night then?"
He nodded, "The dungeons will be twice as bad especially at night. They'll be the best places to grind. The boss rooms will be in the dungeons. So we'll be spending most of our time there anyway searching for the boss room."
They were quiet for awhile until the sun finally went down and Tiana could see what Kirito meant when he said that the monsters were harder to kill at night. They were harder, but they weren't any match for Kirito and her's teamwork. They slashed, pivoted, ducked, stabbed, and jumped over each other, Tiana had even used Kirito as a spring board. They had excellant teamwork and when they finally made it to the second town both Kirito and her had made it to level 2 and needed to place their stat points and take a quick potion to get back to full health.
Tiana used the small break to place 2 stat points in her vitality, charisma, and her luck; and then took a potion. That done she took up guard while Kirito did the same.
"Ready for this, Tiana?" Kirito asked as he finished his potion.
Taking a deep breath, she nodded, "Let's do this!"
He nodded, determinedly as he moved to set off the quest tag.
