I turned to her to see that her eyes were alert and filled with anxiety and worry, while her hands were ferociously typing something onto a white panel which was held suspended in front of her and a number of other random panels which she had opened up in her rush. She pressed a confirm button on one panel, which promptly rose into the air and disappeared, finding its way to its recipient. Yet she her hands kept flying across her menu panels, confirming some, swiping others out of the way and bringing more and more of them up. By the end of the very fast few moments she had equipped her usual blue coloured heavy plate armour, her great sword was sheathed upon a leather belt at her side along with a large, closed leather and cloth bag on the opposite side of the sword, presumably holding her crystals and healing potions.
"They're up on the 72nd floor." She started saying before bringing up another panel, containing a list of names, which she scrolled down and from one of the names produced a map from which she swiped over to me so that I could see. "They're in a forested area, along a long path in the western region of the floor. The fact that Aurora had to send me a message would suggest that they're in some kind of anti-crystal area against a boss, on their own as two rapier wielders."
I looked at the map for a few seconds and slowly closed my eyes as I realised that the map looked familiar to me, it was the exact same area which I had previously been a few days before hand, an area which I hadn't reported back to the rest of the Front Liners about. I opened my eyes and looked back up to Sky with a somewhat guilty look on my face, she saw it, sighed and looked away slightly.
"This is where you were before all of this, wasn't it." She said slowly in an exasperated way.
"Yeeeerrr... and I may have annoyed a big skeletal rider while I was up there." I said slowly as I started to piece together what might be happening up on the 72nd floor.
"Oh for God's sake, you're a complete idiot sometimes." She said in a thoroughly unimpressed manner as she started closing down the remaining panels in front of her.
"I try my best." I comment even though it was outright ignored by Sky.
At this point Lisbeth moved forward and slightly poked her head between us as if to say 'Hey, I'm still here as well.' as we had seemingly forgotten her presence due to our fast moving conversation. Waiting a few seconds to check that we had stopped speaking she continued, "So does that mean that you two are off to the front for the day, as I still need to trade you this item and I want to know more about your smithing skill and technique." She said, almost uninterested by the conversation which we were having.
"Keep the item, I never intended to take an item from you in the first place, just there seemed no point in fighting with nothing particularly important other than pride at stake. As for my skills and such, I can show you another day, but our duty on the front is more important right now." I replied, revealing my initial intentions from earlier whilst still trying to keep the conversation short so that we could get moving faster.
Sky also had this urgency at the foremost as she promptly said, "Take your time people, they're only in a boss fight, nothing too serious." she said this with heavy sarcasm yet with noticeable sincerity and worry behind it. I looked back to Sky and nodded at her words, knowing that we should have been gone and on our way to the battle as soon as we had received the message a few minutes ago.
I flicked open my own white menu panels and scrolled around for a teleportation crystal. Once found, I brought it out of my inventory where it materialised in the air, just above my hand, making me catch it as it gently fell. At the same time as this Sky rattled around in her side pack and brought out a similar light blue crystal. We both raised them in front of us and simultaneously shouted, "Shar'kir".
The crystals both lit up and engulfed the two of us in a bright bluish white light for a few seconds before it faded away to the sight of Shar'Kir, the main city on the 72nd floor. It was a Gothic styled city where the streets felt unsafe even during the daytime, even though NPCs like this wouldn't have been able to deal any damage to us. However the second the light of the teleport had dissipated Sky had turned on her heels and was already sprinting in the direction of the forest which both Andrew and Aurora were currently fighting within.
Not wanting to be instantaneously left alone in the centre of this large city I turned and pushed my tired legs into a frenzied sprint, allowing me to catch up with Sky after a few seconds of energy consuming running. Sky led the way, swiftly turning down a variety of different roads and small paths, concentrating wholly on trying to find the shortest route to reach our destination, leaving me to guess where she was next intending to go and always keeping me a step behind her. I noticed an unusual weight and pressure on my leg and looked down to see my newly forged sword still sheathed in its leather scabbard, I looked at it for a few seconds before deciding against using it as I had yet to train with it and Shadow Beam, my normal sword, suited my fighting style with stats to complement it. So in the middle of running I haphazardly flicked through a number of panels, equipping my black Longsword and donning my usual set of armour.
The run through the city lasted a few minutes and we quickly approached the forest which lay directly outside its outskirts. Still without any real caution we raced out from the small and dark city streets onto open ground for a few seconds before plunging into the darkness of the expansive forest. However unlike when I was here previously, Sky chose not to follow the pathways and threw caution to the wind by running as fast as she could, with her armour making a large racket past the many areas where I knew monsters to spawn and patrol around.
After being followed by a number of annoyed skeletons and having a few arrows shot in our direction in the 20 minutes of straight out running we arrived at the site of the battle which both Andrew and Aurora were supposedly stuck in. As we got closer I saw a large, purple tinted glass like dome covering a large area of land, including the large Torii gate which I had walked through a few days back. However nothing else could be seen through the dome, yet the sounds of clashing metal and the shouts of battle were coming very clearly through the concealing force.