Sword Art Online: Echoes

Respite

2022.08.01JST1608: F1 ToB-Eastern Church

We make our way to the church and it's absolutely massive. It has a library connected to it, what seems to be classrooms for various crafting skills, dining areas, a kitchen, even has rooms for rent. Rooms are on the second floor and are labeled 1-6 with the direction (NESW) as an indicator for which side it's on.

"Wow, this is a church?! A plethora of utilities as well. Let's turn in this quest and rent a room." Turning towards the turn in NPC marked with a checkmark above his head.

"Just 1 room together?!" Sasha with a shocked face and mumbling under her voice "but we just met..."

"Huh? Well, why not, it'll save us Col renting one for 2 of us. Plus I'd feel a lot better knowing you're nearby. Also, we can sort everything we have out. There are more functions for the two of us that I want you to learn." 

"Functions for the two of us??!" Sasha's face is beet red and her eyes look dizzy.

"Your face is red again, you must be really sick! This game really is immersive. Let's get you to the room before you get worse." Speaking in a really worried tone while pushing Sasha from behind leading her while she flails about beet red.

2022.08.01JST1612: F1 ToB-Eastern Church-Room 1N

Entering the room, it smells of lavender and fresh morning dew. While it looked small on the outside, the room itself is rather large, it's an instanced room so there won't be outside distractions. Good game design if you ask me.

Leading her through the door while chit chatting, I pause and take a good look at the room. "For this being a fantasy game, its really has modern details to it. This isn't a bad room and for only 250 Col a night to boot. We have a dining table, kitchenette with a sink, and a single bed. Oh, only 1 bed... It should be fine since we're both guys."

"Only 1 bed..." Sasha's hands cover her face and she falls backward fainting.

"Whoa there!" I catch him and securely move him. "You really are sick, let me put you in bed."

I tuck him in bed while I decide what to do while he's resting. "Hope you get some rest, you're a great guy to be around." I place the back of my hand against Sasha's head to check for the temperature and don't notice a fever. "Not a fever, maybe allergies? Really hope that isn't the case, that sounds terrible to have allergies in a VR game. Then again why would you be able to get sick..."

"Well whatever the cause is I hope you get better, I bought some soup and bread for you while we were out." Taking a seat a the dining table I pull up my menu and check on my stats. "Let's see, my STR is at 11, END at 14, AGI 12, DEX 11, INT 10, PER 13, LUK 31." Noticing the 3 points from reaching level 5 I allocate them into LUK giving me 34. "My INT hasn't increased... Maybe I can read a book from the library to increase it? This room is instanced so it's safe to leave him for a bit. If you can hear me, I'll be right back."

2022.08.01JST1622: F1 ToB-Eastern Church-Library

Leaving the room, I head on over to the library. "I remember him mentioning he wants to skill cooking and sewing, what a girly guy. I should see if there are books regarding those. I'm interested in herbology and alchemy so I'll snag myself some of those books." An NPC monitoring the library has a trade symbol over her head. "Oh, I guess I can just buy them from the NPC. That saves time." While perusing the NPC store I notice that there are a lot of books from the real world, ranging from children's books to scientific ones. "Wow, this game really is serious about making it immersive huh." After finishing up at the library I head back to the room with 15 books total.

2022.08.01JST1633: F1 ToB-Eastern Church-Room 1N

I enter the room as quietly as possible and see Sasha still sleeping. Grabbing the chair I pull it over to the bed and sit down. "I'll just read this book until he wakes and we can eat dinner." The first book I pull out of my menu is on the basics of alchemy. "Let's learn some alchemy." As I go to open the book a window prompt pops up and asks 'Would you like to obtain the knowledge from this book?' "Oh, that's rather convenient sure, accept." A sound effect plays and a prompt shows up saying that I've learned the crafting skill Alchemy. "Very convenient indeed. Let's learn the rest of these books."

After a couple of more minutes, Sasha regains consciousness. "Huh, where am I?"

"Sleep well?" I peek over as I finish up on gaining knowledge from the skill books. "I checked your temperature and you weren't running a fever. You feeling any better?"

"Yeah, I guess I was just really tired." Sasha rises from the bed, peeking over at the table littered with books. "Did you get those books from the library?"

"Yeah, I got some books on sewing and cooking for you since you mentioned it early when we were shopping on the way here. Oh, that reminds me, do you know about the shared inventory function?"

"No I don't know about, was that what you were meaning when you said 'other functions for the two of us'? Sasha says with a slightly relieved look on her face.

"Yeap! Let me send you a request while I explain. Shared inventory can be set between two friends. It allows placing and taking items between the two of us without requiring to do a trade request every time. Plus we can do it when we aren't in the same area."

"Oh, that's a very nice sounding mechanic." Sasha accepts the request.

"Yeah, I'll place some of the potions I bought earlier along with these skill books for cooking and sewing."

"Thanks, I'll be sure to put in any herbs I find for you too." Sasha says as she gets out of bed.

"Speaking of inventory, I'm hungry. Let's eat." I stand up and move my chair back to the dining table. "I got soup and some bread earlier while we were out. It's really nice that it stays nice and hot while its in the inventory. It's like time slows down in there." I spawn the food onto the table as Sasha heads over the other chair and we eat dinner together.

"Thank you for the meal!"

While out and about earlier we broke down the equipment from those two PKs earlier, giving us enough material to improve our current gear to +2. Choosing to improve rather than buying new gear is a more financially reasonable decision.

2022.08.01JST1708: F1 ToB-Eastern Church-Room 1N

"It's interesting that we get hungry and sleepy while playing this game. Just how realistic did ARGUS intend to make this game?" I say as I gather the bowls to head wash them in the sink. "We even have to clean dishes, but good thing we can just instantly do so if we wanted." I chuckle as I press the accept button to instantly wash the bowls.

"We don't even have to go to the bathroom so why do we need to eat? Speaking of bathrooms, are we able to take baths?" Sasha questions as she sifts through her menus.

"Oh, yeah we can upgrade our room to include a bath for another 100 Col a night. We probably should add another bed too. A single twin bed won't fit the two of us. That was a bad move on my part." I scratch the back of my head in embarrassment while putting away the dishes in the shared inventory. "I'll change it soon, you should read up on those skill books while I go do that."

"Mm, sounds good." Sasha yawns as she pulls out a book from the inventory.

Author's note: I opted to cut this from the first chapter and made it into its own chapter.