An Englishman in Castle Aincrad

Floor 10 - Chapter 1 - Snakes on the Plains

Argo felt something new in this game as she sat at her desk, reading her messages. She was fairly sure she was getting a headache.

Trying to find someone who was both free to help, and willing to help her, was proving to be a far greater challenge than it had any rights being. Was it the national ''avoid Argo'' day, and she hadn't got the memo, she wondered, as she read another message saying ''they'd love to help, but...''.

Of everyone she knew - Kii-bou and Aa-chan had ran ahead before she could catch up and ask for their help, and weren't answering her messages (not that it was particularly unusual for one of them, she bitterly thought.), Knight-boy and Ko-chan had told her that they were having a short break after the events of the last floor, which was understandable in her opinion, especially after being put through the wringer like that, Rain had simply left her on read, and Phillia was off exploring a cavern on the seventh floor.

''Ugh, why can't I find someone!'', she mumbled to herself, as she laid her head on the table, her blonde mop falling and covering her face, before a thought came to her mind. It wasn't a good one, per se, but... well, better the devil you know, after all...

Without her usual avenues of discovery, what she knew about the tenth floor was fairly surface level - the main town, Senja, was heavily inspired by the Little Edos that could be found across Japan, along with the local cuisine and apparently, girls in kimonos. This was still a video game after all, so of course it had fanservice. Not that the game had fans, but the point stood.

She reckoned that the mobs on the floor would be based heavily off Japanese mythology, so she expected to see samurai of some form, snakes, and almost certainly some form of mythical monster as the floor boss.

Whilst Argo reminisced about trips to Little Edos and Japanese mythology, a partially cloaked figure approached her through the town, with a very familiar way of walking. A sway of the hips that showed confidence and arrogance at the same time... only one person she knew fit that description - Strea. The purplette had had a change of outfit since the last time they'd met. Gone was the ludicrously low cut dress, replaced with what Argo reckoned was lower level gear. A steel chest plate covered her assets, whilst she'd somehow removed the sleeves on the dress, leaving only two bands around her upper arms as a sign they were ever there in the first place. She'd kept the long black tights, but replaced the starter boots with knee high combat boots. Anyone who looked at her would think she was attempting to get peoples attention... which made the brown cloak that now covered her shoulders, back and part of her face all the more perplexing. All in all though, it was an outfit that screamed Strea all over. No one ever accused the woman of being subtle...

''Argo.''

''Strea.''

''You asked for my help?''

Argo noticed the number of people looking over at the pair, and bristled slightly. She would've rather done this somewhere with far less attention, but men will be men as it turned out. ''Yeah, can we discuss the job elsewhere please? Rather not do it out on the streets, ya know?''

''There's an inn over there. Should do, shouldn't it?''

/-/

Argo considered herself to be professional, at least when it came to her wheelings and dealings as an information broker.

Or at least, she thought she did... so why exactly was she watching someone down a glass of Moon Wine at 9:10 in the morning?

Oh right, Strea. Alcohol in this game did have a mild debuff, but only if you drank absolutely copious amounts of it, which almost no one would... except the person sat in front of her. Ignoring that, she'd heard things about the taste of the wine, and none of them good. It took a massive amount of herbs, spices and flavourings to make it even palatable, let alone pleasant... and the woman in front of her was drinking it as if it were a soda. She owed Jet an apology, she'd thought he was the weird one in the family, but nope...