SKYRIM AND SWORD ART ONLINE YEAH!
SAO Note: This is something of an AU, but with canonical events tied in this fic starts right after Kirito accepts Asuna's party invitation.
Skyrim Note: There are a lot more Dragonborns, and four of them are argonian. This fic will also contain Dragonborn DLC and some Dawnguard DLC. There will be actual Skyrim events, some spiced up ones, and some made-up ones.
Chapter 1: An Unfamiliar World
Right after accepting the invitation, Kirito was met with a message.
In his main view, he saw Asuna notice something too… another message from her guild, perhaps?
He left her be and opened the message. Inside was a cryptic message:
Keizaal saraan.
Sent by:
Kirito was a bit suspicious at first. He grew even more suspicious when Asuna asked to herself, "What in the world is 'keizaal saraan?'"
Kirito gave her a look and asked, "You got that message, too?"
Asuna nodded and told him, "Yeah. Wait, you got it too?"
He nodded and started to say something else before he got another message. This one was from the system.
1 new item(s) has been added to your inventory
Kirito sipped his tea and asked Asuna, "Did you get a new item?"
She scrunched her eyebrows and shook her head, as bewildered as he.
He checked his inventory for new items, and he found it after some scrolling.
Keizaal
Item type: Misc.
Value: 000
He activated it, and the item clunked on the table in front of him.
A dragon the size of a pendant landed on his empty bowl. It was grey, faceless, and had its wings spread out like a diamond.
Both Kirito and Asuna looked at it. Both frowned.
"How much is it worth?" Asuna asked him.
Kirito sighed and told her, "Nothing."
"What do we do with it?"
"I don't know. It went other the miscellaneous category. It's called… Kizale or something."
"Please tell me it's harmless."
Conveniently, the item spewed out a dark cloud of misery in Kirito and Asuna's faces. They were enveloped in it, but it didn't feel like anything was happening. Yet it felt like they were moving, despite the ground feeling the same. Kirito could feel the air move, and he could hear the sound of swords clanging and dragons roaring.
"KIRITO I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Asuna shrieked in the dark void.
Kirito shut his eyes for some time, thinking, This isn't part of SAO.
After about ten seconds, he opened his eyes.
He wished he hadn't.
In the dark abyss that had swallowed them, a grotesque mass of tentacles with one eye in the mess stared at both he and Asuna, who were about five feet away from each other.
It only blinked, and then the demon was gone. All the same, the smoke surrounding the swordsmen dissipated.
They appeared to be in the wildlands, with tall grass and a mossy stone path. The night they had met was starless and darker than death. The moon was bright and was the only source of light available, revealing a stone fort of some sort. There appeared to be people in it, all adults and seemingly full of weapons.
They weren't in Asuna's house anymore. Or the game, apparently.
Nor did they log out.
Both of them crouched behind a nearby boulder, unsure of what to do.
"Where in the world are we?" Asuna asked, frightened, forgetting about her threat earlier.
Kirito opened the map.
Nothing.
"Somewhere outside of Aincrad?" he asked, trying to be optimistic.
Asuna inhaled deeply to keep in her rage.
"Very cute, you two. But we have something to do here," a raspy, reptilian voice hissed.
Kirito and Asuna's eyes went wide as they turned to look behind the neighboring boulder.
Lizards. On two legs. With armor. And weapons.
Kirito thought they were NPCs at first. Then he noticed that there were no cursors above them. Or health bars. Or a name.
Best solution? Freak out.
Kirito started sputtering and pointing at all of them at once, and the four lizardmen waved their arms for silence.
Asuna then slapped him in the face angrily, and Kirito went silent.
"Thanks," a burly, heavily armored one with big horns said. "Now stay out of our way, peasants."
"I'm pretty sure that there are no pea…" Asuna complained.
"How about I shoot an arrow for a distraction and then you get them with the crossbow?" a skinny one with a bow suggested, ignoring Asuna (which was unusual).
"We shouldn't waste arrows nor bolts," a cloaked lizard pointed out. "Just pick them off."
"Then what?" the last lizard, wearing kilted armor and a hood questioned. "Not even we have enough numbers."
The buff one turned to Kirito and Asuna and asked them, "I hate to ask this but… can you fight?"
As the lizards spoke, Kirito and Asuna had equipped their armor and swords.
Kirito gave the lizard a smug smile and asked, "What do you think?"
The lizard nodded and brought out a crossbow from behind his back. At the same time, the skinny guy notched a steel arrow in a curved bow.
Both fired at some sentries on the walls, and went to reload.
"Who are we attacking, anyway?" Kirito asked any of the lizards.
The cloaked one told him, "Bandits. They have a bounty on their heads, and we plan to take them out, take the money, and split it. You can have a share if you agree to cooperate."
Kirito raised an eyebrow at Asuna. She nodded with a small smile, saying that they were okay.
"Okay, we'll help," Kirito determined.
The lizard nodded and held out a hand.
"Erneth," he greeted.
Kirito took it and introduced, "Kirito. My friend here is Asuna."
Erneth nodded and turned to his other friends.
"Are we okay to charge, Sjol?" he asked, pronouncing the name like seal.
The bow guy, Sjol, nodded.
"Then in that case, let's go."
The burly reptile drew a green, edged shield of some sort and a black, curved sword that looked a hundred years old and was dark as ebony. Mister Kilt set his left hand ablaze with a spell and drew a grey, elegant sword as long as Kirito's arm. Sjol kept his bow out and dragged behind, arrow aimed to any bandits coming out. Erneth himself electrocuted both of his hands, like Mister Kilt.
As the others raced on, Sjol turned to the newcomers and asked, "You going to join them, or what?"
In response, Kirito and Asuna leapt out of their hiding places.
The bandits, covered in fur armor and using iron weapons, fell easily to Kirito and Asuna.
The buff lizardman, after running through one of the bandits, saw Kirito easily cut down two bandits of his own, seemingly stared and asked, "Where did you learn attacks like that?"
"Tell you later!" Kirito called back.
A bandit jumped from the wall to Asuna, but she turned and ran him through before he landed on the ground. She stepped back before the corpse landed on the ground. Then she waited for it to disintegrate.
The dead body did nothing.
"Why aren't they disintegrating?" she asked aloud.
"Why would they?" Erneth asked, blasting a ball of electricity at another bandit.
Asuna shivered. She wasn't used to death with the bodies staying there like that.
Eventually, the whole courtyard was littered with dead bodies, and the lizardmen went for a body-searching spree.
Kirito went to assist the buff lizardman, and the creature asked, "Are you new to Skyrim? You come from a different part of Tamriel?"
Kirito scratched the back of his head and replied, "Yeah. I guess I am."
The lizard took a good look at him.
At first, Kirito had thought that the horns on it were natural. Instead, it turned out the lizard's horns were attached to a grey helmet of some sort. His armor was like a big piece of metal that was turned into shoulderless and armless armor. He had thick, grey gauntlets and boots that reminded Kirito of mesh.
The lizard himself was hard to determine at the darkness of the night, but Kirito could see enough if he squinted: dark green scales, red war paint on his face, and sharp, focused eyes.
"What's your name? I could get used to a guy like you."
"Kirito. And don't get used to it. I'm a solo player."
"I'm sure that your betrothed over there agrees."
Kirito hoped that the night covered his blush.
"We're not lovers!" he hissed.
The lizard quietly went back to his work.
"Then prepare for a dull life," he finally said.
Kirito coughed and pointed out, "You never told me you-"
"Hytul," he simply said.
Kirito took a look at the other lizards. Erneth had left… to get the bounty, most likely. The spellsword slipped into one of the doors as he watched. Sjol was deep in conversation with Asuna about something.
He saw a flash of movement behind them, and he cried out, "Behind you!"
When he shouted that, he was mostly warning Asuna to save Sjol, but something else happened instead.
Sjol punched the bandit in the nose with his bow hand, then dropped his weapon. He sent two hooks to the enemy's face then grabbed his head and headbutted him.
Sjol dropped the bandit's dead body and started looting it.
Hytul snorted at Kirito's dumbfounded expression and told him, "All of us are prepared for a… physical confrontation."
Erneth came back near dawn and announced, "We got six hundred gold!"
He raised six small, leather pouches to the heavens. He threw five out in the air.
Sjol quickly dived for one of them and caught it before it could hit the ground. Hytul took his time and bent down to pick his share up. The unnamed kilted lizard ran to grab his, and shook the small pouch.
Erneth took a look at Kirito and Asuna, who were standing next to each other, faces neutral and eyes flickering from the money to the lizards to each other.
"What's up with them?" the unnamed lizard asked Hytul.
Hytul, his face placid and calm, told him, "They don't know this world, Letarn. They're bound to join us."
In a final decision, Kirito went over and accepted Erneth's gift. He grabbed his coin pouch and handed Asuna his. The two faced the four lizards.
"Okay, we'll join you guys," Kirito announced, hard faced. "But only until we find a way back home."
Hytul nodded and agreed, "As soon as you two find a way back wherever you're going, we'll leave you be.
"Where are we, anyway?" Asuna asked.
Hytul opened his mouth to answer, but Sjol interrupted, "We'll tell you… over a bottle of ale of celebration!
I'm pretty sure you can guess what'll happen with the ale.
So then, ah, SK's note of the day:
If you checked out the art before the anime for GGO, you would think that Kirito's a girl (not knowing it was him) and become temporarily gay, right? That's what happened to me… and my brother.
My first reaction to Kirito: Whoa, who's this chick?
Me realizing it's Kirito: WHAT THE HECK DID I BECOME GAY THERE?!
My brother's first reaction to Kirito: She's kinda hot…
Him realizing it's Kirito: (angry face)