Introduction: As the summary for this story said, this is a sequel to an earlier SAO fanfic I did called The Gold Swordsman. If you haven't read that story before, I suggest you go back and read it now because you might get a little lost otherwise. When I wrote The Gold Swordsman last winter, I did it as a kind of side project to deal with some stress that I was feeling at the end of this online class I was taken. The reason for doing this sequel to it now is because I just wanted to write something that wasn't a Pokemon or a Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic, which seem to be the only stories I ever write these days. I know that The Gold Swordsman wasn't my best work, and this story probably won't be much better. But I do hope that those of you reading will enjoy the chapters that are to come.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online, nor do I own the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
Chapter 1: Dream at Death's Door
It was fairly late in the afternoon as Asuna flew through the skies of ALO with her friend and fellow undine player, Siune. The two of them had just finished a minor quest involving a giant serpent living in the center of a swamp and had decided to unwind at this tavern in imp territory that they had discovered a few weeks back. After a twenty-minute flight, the two blunettes landed in the small imp village and went straight to the tavern. When the arrived, the place was packed with other players of many different fairy races. Despite how crowded the place was, Asuna and Siune were still able to find a small table near the bar where they could sit down.
"That swamp quest was a lot harder than I thought it'd be." Asuna declared as the two of them sat down.
"No kidding." Siune agreed. "It's a shame we couldn't get anyone else to come with us."
"It couldn't really be helped." Asuna replied. "Kirito's away at that big technology conference and all the others were busy."
"Still, we ended up doing pretty well with just the two of us, didn't we?" Siune pointed out.
"We sure did. And I think that with the way things have been going for me these past few weeks, I really needed to thrash a monster." Asuna admitted.
"That's right. You've been under a bit of pressure at school, haven't you?" Siune recalled.
"Yeah. It's been murder studying for those exams." Asuna replied. "And the added pressure my mom puts on me doesn't help at all."
"Well, your exams are done now. So now you can relax for a little while." Siune pointed out.
"And that's just what I plan to do." Asuna declared. "Of course now the question is, what should we do next here in ALO?"
"Well… you could enter that big tournament that's coming up here soon." Siune suggested. "You know, that tournament they're calling Clash of Queens?"
"Clash of Queens?" Asuna repeated with a raised eyebrow. "This is the first I'm hearing about it."
"Oh that's right. You haven't really logged in for the past week because your exams." Siune realized. "Clash of Queens is this tournament the admins are throwing to decide the top female player of ALO. The word is that the winner will be named, Queen of the Fairies. Her avatar will also get used for the cover of VRMMO Monthly. It's become a pretty big deal."
"Are you entering the tournament?" Asuna asked.
"Me?" Siune responded with a slight laugh. "I suppose I could, but I don't think I'd have what it takes to compete. I certainly wouldn't have what it takes to stand against someone like you."
"Well, this tournament sounds pretty interesting." Asuna admitted. "But I'm not sure if I want to get involved in something that competitive right now. Besides, I've technically been Queen of the Fairies already, and it's not all it's cracked up to be."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Siune asked.
"I'll… tell you about that some other time." Asuna answered as her expression darkened. "It's actually something that I don't even like to think about."
"I see…" Siune replied. "Well, whatever you decide, I'm sure that you'd come out on top in the tournament. Besides Yuuki, you're probably the best woman player in this game."
"Yeah… I'm sure that Yuuki would've been able to win a big tournament like this one." Asuna agreed, recalling the memory of their dead friend. "She really was the strongest player in this game. Not even Kirito could beat her, even though he came really close once."
"You two wouldn't happen to be talking about the girl they once called Zekken, would you?" a voice suddenly interrupted. "That girl was such an overrated hack."
Asuna and Siune looked in the direction the voice game and saw a woman sitting at the bar near them and sipping from a metal beer stein. She was an imp player with long silvery white hair that grew half way down her back. Her pale skin had a purplish quality to it like most other imps, and she had orange almost cat-like eyes. Covering the woman's forehead was a sort of tiara that was made of an odd black metal and had a red diamond-shaped gem in the center. Her outfit consisted of a sleeveless black shirt with silver armor covering her somewhat large chest, along with elbow-high fingerless gloves, a short purple skirt with a red sash acting as a belt, and a pair of black knee-high boots. Hanging from the woman's waist was a black rapier.
"What did you just say about Yuuki?" Siune asked.
"I said she was a hack." The woman repeated. "I've heard a lot of talk about how strong she was, but frankly her abilities seem overrated to me. Then there was the way she and that small guild of hers swooped in and supposedly defeated that boss on New Aincrad. I don't know what sort of dirty tricks this Yuuki and her little friends used, but there's no way they could've defeated that boss in a legitimate fight. I'm sure even that sword skill of Yuuki's what do they call it… the Mother's Rosario? That was probably some kind of cheat too."
"You have no idea what you're talking about!" an outraged Siune told the woman. "Just who are you anyway?"
"The name's Nytokris." The silver-haired woman answered indifferently. "And I don't see why you're getting so bent out of shape about what I just said. Unless…" Nytorkis began to chuckle. "Wait, don't tell me. You were part of that pathetic little guild, weren't you? What's the matter? Don't want anyone else to know how you and your little friends cheated? If you ask me, you should all be ashamed of yourselves."
Suddenly Asuna rose from her chair and walked up to Nytokris. "Take it back! Everything that you just said!"
"And what if I don't?" Nytokris asked.
Asuna put her hand on her rapier. "Then I'm going to have to make you."
Nytokris chuckled again and took another swig from her beer stein. "Okay. Why don't we take this outside?"
With that, Asuna followed Nytokris out of the tavern with Siune following close behind. The other patrons in the tavern who had seen the heated exchange between Nytokris and Asuna soon drifted out after them to see the duel that was about to unfold. As Asuna and Nytokris stood across from each other in the middle of the street, a massive crowd had already formed to watch them.
"Let's keep this duel on the ground, shall we?" Nytokris suggested as she brought up her menu screen. "Aerial sword fights always tend to get a little out of control. Plus it's harder for the audience watching to follow everything that goes on. I want all these people to get a good hard look at how I'm about to take you down."
"Fine with me!" Asuna agreed. "Only you're the one who's going to get taken down!"
The screen showing Nytokris' challenge to Asuna appeared in front of the blunette. Asuna pressed the button to accept the challenge, and a timer appeared in the air above them as the two of them drew their swords. When the timer hit zero the two fencers charged towards one another across the battlefield and their swords hit each other with a loud clash. Asuna managed to force Nytokris back, but the silver-haired imp was somehow parrying all over blows. It was proving impossible for Asuna to take a single point off of Nytokris' HP gauge.
Eventually Nytokris was backed against the circle of spectators and was forced to break away and head for the other side of the circle. Asuna quickly chased after her, and once at the other side of the ring the two of them began to clash blades once again. This time it was Asuna who was being forced back. Not only was it proving impossible for the blunette to land a blow, it was taking everything that she had to block Nytokris' attacks. Suddenly Asuna spotted what finally looked like an opening, but just as she was able to strike Nytokris suddenly seemed to disappear. The silver-haired imp reappeared behind Asuna and struck her eleven times in the back with her sword in a circular pattern, followed by two slashes that formed an X. A stunned Asuna staggered forward a step as her HP dropped to zero in an instant.
"That was my own unique sword skill, Queen's Punisher." Nytokris revealed as she sheathed her sword. "It's far more powerful than the sword skill used by your friend, Zekken. Only unlike her, I didn't have to cheat to develop it."
Asuna's body then became a floating ball of blue flames that was her remain light. From Asuna's perspective, everything had turned grey and a digital timer appeared before her eyes to tick away the seconds before her light would go out. As Asuna waited for the end of the timer where her amusphere would automatically log her out of the game, the grey surroundings suddenly had another landscape overlapped over them. All around Asuna had formed a strange alien city with gigantic buildings made of a slimy black stone, and the architecture of the city was somehow distorted; as if the buildings and masonry around her didn't have the angles that they were supposed to.
A massive door on the gigantic building in front of Asuna suddenly opened up, though she couldn't quite tell if the door was standing straight up or was slanted like a cellar door. A dark and seemingly endless abyss yawned out from the doorway before Asuna, and within that darkness suddenly appeared what looked to be a pair of giant demonic headlights. At that point, Asuna heard a deep and slimy voice that spoke a single phrase.
"Cthulhu fhtagn!"
Suddenly a brilliant white light enveloped everything in the city. When the light cleared, Asuna was back in the village and her HP gauge was back at a hundred percent. Siune was standing in front of Asuna with a relieved smile on her face.
"Good thing I had that extra revival item, huh?" Siune spoke.
"You held out longer than I thought." Nytokris remarked, getting Asuna's attention. "But in the end, you were just as worthless as Zekken."
"You take that back!" Asuna ordered.
Nytokris chuckled. "I'll consider it, if you beat me in battle that is."
"Then let's go again!" Asuna told her.
"Nah. I'm done for today." Nytokris replied as she waved her off. "But if you really want to fight me to teach me a lesson, then enter the Clash of Queens tournament. I'll be glad to take you on there."
With that, Nytokris' purple transparent wings appeared on her back and she took off into the sky. The spectators that had assembled to watch the duel quickly dispersed; some of them going back into the tavern while others either flew off or walked away to another part of town. Asuna and Siune remained where they were in the middle of the road.
"…You okay?" Siune asked.
"I'll be fine. I just need a little time alone." Asuna answered. "Why don't we meet back up later IRL at Agil's place? We can talk about what just happened then."
"Okay." Siune agreed. "Um, do you mind if I bring Klein along? We already kinda had some plans."
"Klein?" Asuna repeated as she blinked in surprise. "Uh… sure. That's fine. I mostly want to go to Agil's so I can tell him about… this thing I just saw."
"What thing is that?" Siune asked with a raised eyebrow.
"…Not now. I'll tell you about it at Agil's." Asuna answered.
"Okay then." Siune replied. "I'm going to go ahead and log out. See you later tonight."
Siune then brought up her menu screen and vanished with a flash of blue light as she logged out of the game. Soon after, Asuna took back off into the air and was out of the village. Several minutes later, the blunette had arrived at the little cabin in New Aincrad that she shared with Kirito. Once Asuna was safely inside, Asuna brought up her menu and changed out of her normal battle outfit. Appearing in her armor's place with a flash of blue light was a light blue t-shirt that was only a shade lighter than her hair and a pair of black shorts with dark-blue trim.
As Asuna went to prepare herself a pot of virtual tea, she couldn't help but think about her encounter with Nytokris. Losing to a player like Nytokris stung, but not as badly as the way the silver-haired imp had trashed Yuuki. That was something that Asuna couldn't stand. Though they only knew each other for a few months, Yuuki had become like a sister to Asuna. Yuuki was the strongest person that Asuna had ever known, even though a horrible incurable disease had ravaged her body and took her life. It was through knowing Yuuki that Asuna had been able to become stronger, both in ALO and in the real world. So it was unacceptable to Asuna for anyone to call Yuuki a cheater.
With the tea ready, Asuna went back to the living room of the cabin, placed the pot on the coffee table, poured herself a cup and then put her legs up on the couch. As the blunette sipped the virtual liquid from her cup, Asuna decided to try and take her mind off of what happened by going through her item storage to see if there was anything she could delete to clear some space. Asuna scrolled down the list of items carefully, occasionally deleting a few very common items that she was fairly certain she didn't need. Then at the very bottom of the list, Asuna found an item with the name, Johansen's Journal. Asuna found it very strange to find such an item in her inventory, as she knew that there was never anything in there like it before.
Curious, Asuna set her teacup on the coffee table and clicked on the item. Materializing in Asuna lap with a flash of blue light was some sort of logbook bound in black leather. Asuna began to look through the book and found several entries scrawled in a shaky hand. The entries told the story of a doomed sea voyage commanded by a captain with the name, Johansen. According to the log, after Johansen's crew had survived an encounter with a group of pirates, they had come upon some sort ancient stone city in the middle of the ocean. Johansen's crew had come ashore on the city and had encountered some sort of gigantic monster. Just what the monster was, Asuna couldn't tell from the log.
The entries that described the creature were almost completely illegible, as if it was too hard on Johansen's nerves to tell what the monster looked like. Whatever the monster was though, it had apparently destroyed almost all of Johansen's crew. Only the log's author and one other crewman had managed to make it back to the ship and escape out to sea. During the voyage though, that final crewman that had escaped with Johansen had died from some extreme case of shock. The logbook ended with Johansen telling how his ship managed to make it back to a seaport called Innsmouth, and even included a detailed set of directions that told how to find the port in question. The very last entry in the book revealed that Johansen had left a key to finding the ancient city somewhere in Innsmouth, but strenuously warned the reader that the city should be avoided at all costs.
Asuna shut the book and thought long and hard about what she had just read. She wondered if perhaps the book was somehow connected to the nightmare vision she had experienced earlier has her remain light burned away to nothing. Asuna then remembered how she heard the word, Cthulhu in her vision and realized that both the vision and the logbook were connected to the well-known Cthulhu Mythos. Many strange things had been showing up in ALO since the game's creators had decided to phase in elements from H.P. Lovecraft's famous writings. After pondering the log for several more minutes, Asuna finally decided on two things. She was going to enter the Clash of Queens tournament to make Nytokris pay for what she said about Yuuki, but before that Asuna and a few of her friends were going to find out about this city out at sea that Johansen's Journal talked about.
Please review and let me know what you think.