When We Meet Again [Quest/August]

Given that this was her third time attempting this endeavor, August had concluded that NPCs must have gotten some parts of their memories wiped upon quest completion. Either that, or this particular NPC was just programmed to not recognize her. No matter how many times she introduced herself, the response she got was the same puffed greeting and impatience. If August was going to talk about impatience, it was running this same escort mission time after time. She was surprised that she didn’t have the route back to town mapped out in her head already.

August was sitting on top of the log that the NPC had been hiding under as Sonic approached. She wasn’t particularly observant (as usual) so the sudden sound of another voice appearing from behind her startled the women. Although, she didn’t jump as much this time as she usually did. Something about the voice sounded oddly familiar, as if she had grown used to hearing it before.

Wide-eyed, the pink-haired women’s head whipped around at a terrifying speed. She craned her neck down to get a good look underneath the hood the man was wearing. What came out of her mouth next was a yell that could only be compared to a small child being told they were going to Disneyworld. “FINALLY,” she continued yelling as she quickly hopped off the log she was sitting on, “I HAVE BEEN WONDERING WHERE YOU’VE BEEN.” The NPC was visibly startled by this outburst and hid behind the closest tree.

He looked decked out in equipment too. She guessed out the three of them, he was adapting the quickest. To say she was ecstatic would have been an understatement. How long had it been? A part of her was annoyed she hadn’t actually tried to contact Sonic earlier, but it wouldn’t be surprising for anyone to know that August had no idea how messages and such worked in this game. She was learning the mechanics slowly, but there were always bound to be gaps in her knowledge.

“Chill?” August laughed loudly, “you and I both know that’s a foreign concept to me.” How was she supposed to remain calm? August had been wandering in a world full of 9,997 strangers. She didn’t mind strangers, but it was always nice to see a familiar face, especially in an unfamiliar setting that was SAO. Stakes were being raised and having people she could trust were going to greatly ease her mind. “Oh, don’t worry about h-” August started to say as she motioned towards the NPC.

Her sentence was interrupted by Sonic’s sudden hug and hair ruffling. She was grinning widely as punched his hand lightly with her fist. “Kimiko gave me one of her extra copies. She thought it’d be a fun activity we could do together. Although, the circumstances haven’t been all that fun.” Sighing, August looked up at him with a worried expression, “I don’t think she’s taken the news very well.” Willingly shutting herself in and sulking definitely was not a good way to come to terms with their situation.

Where had she been all this time? “I’ve been around, spent most of my time wandering around the Town of Beginnings not understanding how any video game mechanics worked until I finally decided to wander outside and take up some quests,” August admitted. That seemed to be a pretty good re-cap.

The learning curve was pretty steep for someone who had never really played video games before. She picked up enough to get by now, but the beginning was such a struggle of her reading manuals and asking other players insanely basic questions. “Oh! We’re on a quest, aren’t we? We should probably get going,” August suddenly blurted out as she motioned for the NPC to come back. They could talk and walk at the same time, right?

“Oh, I dragged her outside on the same quest actually,” she admitted, “all she was doing was moping around outside so I thought some fresh air would be good for her. We ended up running into this same girl.” August made a motion towards the NPC. The poor thing was probably annoyed at them at this point. All this chattering definitely did slow down their progress, but from her experiment it didn’t appear to matter because the NPC was going to forget it all once she reset.

“Yes, yes. I do,” she promised as she hit the accept button and sent Sonic the party request. What she wasn’t going to tell him was how it took her an embarrassing long time to figure out how quest prompts work and how she had only learned the benefits of partying up and how to do it a few days ago. There were times she simply did quests without bothering to party up with the other members, but those were usually easier things that didn’t require her to fight anything or be in an environment where the threat of losing HP was present.

She probably could have spent this time interrogating Sonic for advice on the game, but she decided against it. That didn’t seem like a fun way to spend their time together and August had been capable of figuring most things out, even if it was at a slower pace than everyone else. She certainly didn’t have any sort of applicable advantages in here, but she was making due just fine.

One thing was nagging at her though. Out of all the players she had met, Sonic was one of the few that looked well-equipped with gear. She had also recently gotten word about the Labyrinth. In fact, August was pretty sure there wasn’t a single person who hadn’t gotten word of the Labyrinth. “Hey, I’m curious,” she trailed off a little bit to see if Sonic was listening, “are you going into the Labyrinth that everyone’s been talking about? I mean, you look like you’re dressed up for it.” She didn’t even bother to hide the concern in her voice.

“Yeah,” August laughed, “you’re too soft.” She was guilty of sometimes not pushing her friends when they needed it at times for fear of agitating them or upsetting them. But, there came a point where she drew the line, especially when it came to moping. Lots of people wanted her to tone herself down sure, but August wasn’t that kind of person.

She was perfectly willing to admit that she was always trying to get people to try harder when there was more that could be done, even if they didn’t want to hear it. Sometimes people just needed an extra push. August tried a little too hard sometimes to be that extra push. It worked and other times it backfired. Coin toss chances, really.

August mulled over Sonic’s reasoning as the quest NPC gave him the regular quest dialogue. She didn’t start speaking again until they were finally on their way of walking out of the woods. “I may not be a beta tester,” she remarked, “but I want to help too. Maybe if I get some gear like yours and a sword that doesn’t look like it was made by tin foil.” She thought about her one-trick pony and made scrunched her nose. It was better than the beginner sword, but barely.

“I can be useful! I mean, I might not really know strategy and stuff but I’m capable of listening to directions,” she laughed at that last bit. She was sure Sonic could recall several instances over the years that disproved that claim. “Well, I’m capable of listening to directions when I want to,” she corrected herself. She’d listen if it meant life her death, especially when concerning the wellbeing of her close friends that happened to be stuck here alongside her. “Besides,” she added in as she kicked a small rock out of the path, “I can’t let you guys have all the fun. I’ll get bored, and that’s rarely a good thing.”