A pair of light footsteps softly echoed off the onyx walls of the 22nd floor's tower. A dull shine stood out amidst the darkness reflecting off of a set of dark brown eyes, lit up from the analyzing skill. Despite the darkness, the avatar in the lead was seeable only by a light outline of his thin figure wrapped in tight-yet slightly baggy-vestments. Behind him towered another avatar that stood head and shoulders above him wielding a plain looking longsword. In contrast to the cloth vestments of the player in the lead, the partner was fully clad in a bright metallic armor with a kite shield hanging from his back.

The dark figure suddenly stopped, his eyes narrowing and straining against the darkness. "There are two kobold ahead of us... approximately two-hundred meters. One has a mace and shield and the other has a katana."

He kneeled down and fiddled with his inventory. A belt of throwing spikes appeared crossing his chest, two large vial-shaped objects appeared on the front of his belt, and two Katars rested on either side of his belt.

He turned to the second man revealing his thin face in the in the erie almost white neon light, "Give me thirty seconds. I want to make sure I haven't missed anything before we engage." His eyes shone with excitement for the coming battle.

"Fine." The second man brought his sword up from its relaxed position and reached around and pulled his shield around. He shifted a bit stretching before admitting "alright. I'm ready. Be careful."

Be careful. The words hung in the air. Death here, was always the span of a hair away-especially for the lightly armored, dex based characters. One mistake...

No. The dark figure shook his head slightly and then raised his head back up, revealing a slight arrogant expression that was obviously forced and slightly in jest. "Aren't I always."

He received only a scowl, but before he allowed a response, he suddenly sidestepped into a shadow and disappeared from sight.

Just short of a minute later, a message appeared in the shield user's vision. He leaned his sword against his shield and tapped the message.

"There are a few trash mobs aside from the two kobold. We're a full eight levels above them, so I should be able to dispatch them quickly with an ambush. You ready to charge in? I'll wait for your move and then I'll hit the Kobolds from behind. ~Etaru"

He strained his neck out of habit. In the real world, his entire neck would have likely released a series of pops and cracks. Picking up his sword, he began walking towards the spot where the Kobolds were. "Save my energy-with his recklessness, I'll probably have to step in and save him from his own carelessness."

As soon as the Kobolds were in sight, they both turned their attention to him flashing a brief spark of red from their eyes signalling that he had picked up the aggro. He launched forward with a battle yell dragging his sword to the side and above his head, crouched into a charge behind his shield. His sword began glowing as he locked a sword skill on the mace user. Its defense could present a problem for Etaru's hand to hand combat style.

He hesitated for a moment when a half-dozen smaller kobolds and wolf-like monsters turned a corner and crouched to prepare to charge. Suddenly a bright flash of lights sparked across the hallway lighting it into a bright scene that resembled the morning sun. The light coalesced into beams that nearly simultaneously struck all the trash mobs. The impact wasn't hard, but the accuracy of them stunned them long enough for the paralysis poison that had coated the throwing spikes took control before they could recover. He smirked and with renewed vigor raised his further preparing for the blow that would at best kill the mace kobold in one hit or at worst, deal massive damage and stun it long enough for a final-blow switch from Etaru.

The Whirlwind Throw hadn't yet broken Etaru's stealth, "perfect, this is going to clean and easy." His blow struck cleanly on the mace Kobold and like he had thought, it drained its HP completely. Before his follow through was even complete, his sword was enveloped in an explosion of brightly colored polygons.

"Oh Shit!" He had lowered his shield just enough where the katana kobold had a clear shot at his head. He started raising it to react but he already knew it was going to be too late.

A blaze of flashes appeared behind the katana kobold-fury ambush: a high level stealth and hand to hand combo skill. The katana kobold gave a slight shriek of pain and fell down to the ground. Instead of continuing raising his shield, he transferred the momentum into a simple slash skill and landed cleanly in the small of the kobold's back knocking the last sliver of HP off it.

Another flash of polygons surrounded his sword. The two of them quickly finished off the paralyzed trash mobs.

"Yeaaaaaa" Etaru raised a hand in the elation of success and raised his hand in expectation of a high five. "Troy! Hell, that was fantastic. Your strength attribute is always fantastic to watch when you one-hit those mid-level mobs!"

Troy gave a slight sigh before resting his sword against his shield and gave Etaru a high five. In truth, this entire day of dungeon crawling had him frustrated, but now wasn't the time to discuss it so he held his tongue. He saw Etaru looking at his face and his eyes flashing to his arms and stance with a suspicious face. Troy knew immediately that Etaru knew that he wasn't saying something that was on his mind-like always. It seemed like nothing escaped him and the very fact that Etaru had even made such a deal out of it, as subtle as it was, was to convey that he knew without saying anything. He wants me to know that he knows, but also that he won't make a scene out of it.

As soon as it had appeared, Etaru's suspicion vanished replaced by a look of great excitement. "Guess what I found!? It'll make this entire day worth all the effort, far above and beyond all the loot we've picked up!"

Troy's eyes lit up. He knew immediately what Etaru was going to say. This was the ultimate goal of the mappers who dungeon crawled in the towers. "No way! This tower has only been explored for two days! You found the Boss room already?"br /br /A look of pride crossed his face and a one sided smile covered the left side of his face. "Yeah! Man, do you know how much of a premium we can sell this for? We'll be able to get you a new and better set of gear!"

Troy also knew instinctively what was coming next. "... and you want to check it out don't you."

Etaru's face fell into a look of irritated surprise. "Of course! Mapping data by itself would go for a premium, but details on the Boss will increase that price triple-fold. Besides! That's been the focus of all the skills I've been raising anyway. That's what I do."

Knowing there was no point in arguing with him in his state of mind, Troy sighed. "Fine. Where are we headed then."

"It's right up this hallway." Etaru walked so quickly in his excitement that Troy had to go into a light jog to keep up. He didn't need to worry about getting tired, because Etaru was going to do all the work and at most, he'd only need to use defensive skills.

They got to the door and Troy, sheathed his sword and pulled out his teleport crystal with his shield still in hand. Etaru still hadn't prepared his despite the amount of fiddling he had been doing in his inventory. "Get your teleport crystal ready."

"Right, mom. I almost forgot" Etaru let out a hearty laugh. He deftly lifted the flap on a small satchel on his belt that held a health crystal and a teleport crystal. "They always are. Not that we've ever actually needed them. Stop worrying so much. We've done this a dozen times. We're such a good team, there's no way we'll fail. Just stay by the door so that it doesn't close on me while I figure this guy out."

Troy opened his mouth to speak but before he could say anything, Etaru had opened the door and slipped into the shadows again. A dark and massive silhouette stood at the back of the room.

A single beam of light streaked through the room striking the beast and providing a slight knockback. Etaru's strength stat was low enough that it was likely the most powerful blow he could inflict in a single throw. A deafening roar sent a blast of air through the room and echoed down the long hallway behind them. Bright red eyes turned to the source of the strike. Troy followed the motion in surprise-he could see Etaru.

He let his own stealth drop! "Idiot!"

A massive spear streaked across the room letting off a horrendous screeching sound. Etaru nimbly rolled out of the way. At the same moment, about twenty smaller mobs appeared as though the floor let the sun shine up through it and fill out the shapes of a series of what appeared to be kobolds before the light dulled and their silhouettes became indistinguishable. Etaru dodged through the mass of mobs, occasionally releasing a streak of light that left one paralyzed on the floor. Within a few seconds, half the mobs were paralyzed on the floor, but Etaru had run out of places to dodge to. A giant flash of light appeared from what must have been the Boss's sword for a large power attack.

Troy leaned forward in horror. There was no way in hell with nowhere to dodge that he could block that and even if he did, he'd probably die from the bleedthrough damage anyway.

A small flash came from the center of the circle of mobs and an explosion of smoke filled the entire back section of the room. A echoing clang filled the room and sparks flickered inside the cloud of dust like lighting in a dark storm cloud. Suddenly Etaru came flipping out of the top of the smoke leaving a trail of smoke following him. He oriented himself to land on his feet but before he landed, he disappeared again.

Troy glanced around the room wondering where Etaru would appear next. Before he had even scanned from one side of the room to the other, he felt a grip on his arm that dropped Etaru's stealth. He was in a full sprint stance and Troy barely caught, "... what we need, let's get..."

Etaru took a minute at the base of the tower to catch his breath. They both knew that the feeling of being out of breath wasn't real, but the knowledge didn't seem to sate the feeling in the slightest.

"What was that back there? It obviously wasn't a sword skill..."

"You mean the cloud that appeared?" He grinned and pulled a vial off his belt-there were two before but he only held one now. "I discovered that there were some plants that when burned released a huge amount of smoke. You know, back when I was trying to learn cooking." He laughed at the absurdity of it. "I couldn't cook to save my life IRL let alone expecting to be able to pull off something so eerily complex in here. Anyway, I found that if I ground it up and put it in a bottle like this, I could use it to create a pseudo-smoke bomb!" Etaru was so proud of it, that his face practically gave off light. "I only figured it out the day before yesterday and the ingredients are kinda a pain to get, so I was only able to make two after all the mats I wasted trying to figure out how to get the result I wanted. Since we did so well today and it'll probably take the assault team a day or two to clear the boss, I'll go grind for more mats tomorrow."

Troy couldn't deny the usefulness of it-it had just saved his life by reducing the boss's accuracy enough for him to dodge out of the entire circle. Still, he couldn't shake his frustration which tarnished his excitement. "Figures the only thing you'd get out of trying to cook is smoke."

They both laughed over the truth of it and the tension finally started washing away.

"Alright, spit it out, Troy. I didn't say anything inside the tower because the last thing we would have needed in there is to get distracted. But, let's hear it now."

Troy leaned against the exterior wall of the tower and looked at the ceiling of the floor. Despite his frustration, he wasn't sure if he really wanted to discuss it. If he explained it wrong, it could come out really harsh and their group relied on the rapport and trust they shared to survive. Two player groups was a lot safer than soloing, but even so, the tension that could come could upset the balance just enough to put them both in danger in those situations.

Etaru turned. "I'll let you figure out how and what you're going to say on the way. Sun's going down and I need to meet with Natalie and get something to eat before I crash." His stomach growled. He scowled slightly thinking about having to meet with their information broker before eating. "I haven't eaten all day. C'mon. It's a long walk and I don't wanna spend the money on a crystal."

They walked in silence for a while. It was mostly clear fields and the impending sunset left a soft orange light across the coming autumn scene. Troy stopped and looked at the forest they were about to cross-the home-stretch of the trip. If he didn't say his piece now, there wouldn't be enough time in the trip through the forest and there was still plenty of time to talk and cross the forest before the sun completely went down.

"You're manic again."

Etaru bristled and stopped. He lowered his head in a bit of shame. He knew Troy in real life and he knew things about him that he would never admit to another soul. "At least we're out of earshot of anyone else. Yeah, so I'm in a manic stage. So what?"

"It's worse this time. In fact, every time it gets even worse. Your other side is dangerous. You're losing your cool rationality and even today, you took risks without a care in the world that you would have never taken."

"Yeah, what's your point. We cleared more than we have all week combined and we got some great loot and map data to go with that."

"You know full well what I'm getting at."

Etaru turned. It was obvious to Troy that Etaru was trying to look angry and he doubted anyone would have been able to see through it, but his eyes revealed a hint of despair that slightly shook his voice.

"Well, what do you want me to do? Lock myself in a house somewhere on a lower floor? Somewhere safer? That isn't going to make it go away! I can't just wish or will away the fact that I see a different person in the mirror all the time." Etaru turned away showing only his side to Troy, the angry front he held to his face starting to crack. A light shine gleamed reddish from the glare of the sunrise. "I have to keep moving. I can't stop even for a moment. I've always held on by finding something to distract myself from it using its weight to push back against it."

Troy hesitated. He knew that he didn't really have an answer. He had only brought it up because his own worries began to overtake him. He hadn't seen Etaru devolve into such violent swings since grade school. He opened his mouth and found words weakly leaking out of his mouth, "Well... the cooking system is pretty detailed in this game. Maybe they can replicate the sort of..."

"Hahahaha." A bitter laugh drowned out Troy's words. "What? You're suggesting I find a cook and ask for a prescription of Lithium? Hahahaha." He turned back to Troy and smiled. Again, to anyone else, it would have seemed genuine, but Troy saw the streaks of pain that hid underneath it. "Naw, I get it, dude. I'm trying, I really am. And you don't need to worry-I'll be fine I promise."

Troy wanted to believe that, but the problem was he could tell that Etaru also *wanted* to believe it but really didn't. He said it for Troy's benefit instead.

"C'mon, let's get through the forest before night. I think maybe a nicer dinner than usual is a long-needed luxury that will lighten the mood." Etaru quickly turned and headed into the forest and shortly afterward, Troy sighed then followed.

As they walked, Etaru couldn't help but get drawn back into the memories of life before SAO. He fought his mood swings through High School and most of College, dismissing them as adolescent feelings that would go away over time. Not only didn't they get better, they got worse-a lot worse. Finally, he broke down and had a massive manic episode at work that landed him in a long series of psychiatric and psychologist sessions. He had pushed so hard to fight the problems that they overwhelmed him to the point where they weighed on his back and the trip and fall made it impossible for him to get back on his feet. Some of the medication slowly was helping him "heal" or "get better" or whatever the psychiatrist decided to call it at the time. But they were rotating through medications so quickly, his mood might have improved, but he was never sure because his head constantly felt like it was on a slow spin.

He had turned to working a light job to pay for the most minimalistic bills after his family got tired of helping him, thinking it was a ruse to live a mooching life of luxury, but he dropped what little savings he had to distract himself in the virtual world-a place without the constant judgment and pity he was constantly given. Just remember it all was nearly as bad as being in the center of a depressive whirlwind. He considered himself lucky though. His propensity for lying kept him from being forcefully admitted to a psych ward but even then, he had only barely avoided it.

Maybe it would have been a better fate, but Etaru knew that he couldn't stop moving. It wasn't a matter of "can" or "can't" anymore. It was lay down and accept reality, or keep crawling. Besides. He stopped and glanced back at Troy who was fiddling with his inventory. Troy had been his only "true" friend. He had helped him get through the worst of those times by helping him pay bills and spending time just talking despite the great inconvenience it sometimes caused him. "I can't shield them forever, but I can't let them down. It's a losing battle, but I won't stop fighting as long as I have breath... I hope anyway." He shook his head slightly, the sharp pangs of anxiety satisfied slightly by his internal dialogue and turned to keep walking.

"SHIT"

Etaru jumped sharply back narrowly avoiding a throwing spike that streaked past his arm. He took great care to not even allow it to graze him. He couldn't think of a single npc that used throwing spike. That meant players. That meant bandits. At worst, it could mean PKers.

"Troy! Ambush!"

What the hell are bandits doing so close to the front lines! Now that he was paying attention, he saw orange and red cursors popping up in the woods right ahead of them. He cursed at his own carelessness for getting lost in his thoughts. There were at least ten of them, more if his skill wasn't high enough to see through their stealth. That would make this situation exponentially worse.

Troy flipped his shield out and drew his sword taking up a defensive posture in preparation for any more incoming projectiles. Being hit by a single paralysis dart could mean both their deaths.

A lone man wearing dark greys and browns stepped into the center of the path before them. "I hear you mapped the boss room ahead. Hand it over and we'll let you leave."

"How long have they been trailing us to know that we were mapping?" He realized that they must have waited at the edge of the forest for parties weak from battling all day. More importantly, Etaru studied the bandit's face and knew, that no matter what they did, these bandits would not let them go. His face was full of contempt and malicious intent. In addition, he had a smile that sent a shiver down Etaru's spine. "Something's wrong-they know who we are."

"As if it wasn't obvious enough, you were hired to kill us," Etaru blurted out. The words made Troy take a step back. Etaru and Troy had always been careful to avoid making enemies or even rivals. The risk that something like this would happen was too great to take the risk. "And you're cocky enough to believe that you've already won, so tell me if you're so sure you can kill us both, who the hell wants us dead and why!"

"You're as insightful as we were told you would be," the bandit said as his smile broadened. "But you're wrong about one thing. We weren't hired to kill you-not really. We just can't afford to let that intuition of yours interfer."

"Either you're being purposefully cryptic or you're too stupid to understand my question!"

The bandit glowered. An expression of pure irritation filled his face before it lifted into an expression of rage. He snapped his fingers. "And here I was hoping for this to be an easy day. Fine. Have it your way."

crack

Etaru turned just in time to see the color of a person whose cloak was breaking for an ambush attack. She had carelessly stepped on a branch which revealed her to Etaru. "Troy, behind you!"

Before he could move to intercept her blow on Troy, another figure emerged on Etaru's side dragging a scimitar down towards his head. Etaru rolled out of the way and grabbed his katars and unleashed a flurry of attacks on the man who was stunned for missing with a power attack. He turned to throw a paralysis dart on the assassin assaulting Troy.

It was too late. A twisted smile hovered right above the shoulder of Troy's kneeling avatar who had a long sword plunged through his gut. His health bar was falling fast. If he missed, he could hit and kill Troy.

"I won't miss." A sharp beam of white light screamed from his hand into the face of Troy's assailant who fell backwards as the paralysis took over. Etaru reached into his pouch, withdrew a crystal, grabbed Troy, and yelled "heal." Silence.

"HEAL DAMMIT!" The crystal still didn't break-Troys health bar dragged down until it disappeared.

A peaceful smile covered Troy's face that made Etaru's stomach curl. Troy laughed weakly, "Somehow, I always knew you'd outlast me. You're stronger than this." He turned his head to the last flickers of a sunset barely visible through the trees. He stretched out his hand towards it and said, "Don't give up. I'll see you on the other side."

Polygons. That's all that's left. Polygons. Like water poured onto a fire, the polygons flew apart and disappeared. Then there was nothing.

A deep laugh came from down the path. A vindictive deep voice bellowed, "I can't believed you survived that. Maybe you will make good sport after all."

Sport? These bastards think this is SPORT?!

Etaru dug his Katar into Troy's killer and ripped it to the side producing another explosion of light. He could make out the sound of sword skills powering up behind him-probably a mixture of thrown weapons and a charge. He took the vial off his belt and flipped it over his shoulder.

Etaru flipped backwards narrowly avoiding a small barrage of throwing spikes. In midair, he smoothly sheathed his right hand Katar and withdrew several throwing spikes. As soon as he landed, he launched him in a fury.

"Yeaaaaaa!" They all seemed to fly at once, leaving a trail of white light as they struck the spike throwers. But as soon as those streams of light could even be seen, the vial hit the ground and flooded the area with smoke.

He choked down another battle cry to avoid giving away his position in the smoke. His skill was high enough that he could see through it well enough to make out the rest of the bandits. One by one, Etaru used the chaos he had created and from outside the smoke, you could see flashes of light inside the smoke followed by stray shards of light escaping the cloud. Finally as the smoke cleared, Etaru was hunched over one of the spike throwers who immediately unraveled and blew apart in a blaze of light. Only the bandit in the center of the trail remained.

Etaru's health hadn't yet fallen into the orange which was probably the cause of the bandits sudden unease with the situation he had just found himself in.

The bandits drew his sword and unconsciously faltered backwards. "Hey, hey, hey... it wasn't anything personal! I just followed my instructions."

"That is the most idiotically cliche thing you could have said and by far the most pathetic choice of last words you could have used."

Etaru launched himself forward in a burst of speed that threw all the leaves around him in a whirlwind. In a normal fight without the advantage of ambush, he could probably have never beaten a sword and shield NPC. If he had thought about it though, he would've realized that he was moving faster than he ever had before. Between the intimidating display of mercilessly cutting down the rest of the bandits and his unrelenting assault, the bandit was on the defensive and quickly losing HP but Etaru's health was falling just as fast.

Sparks flew off the bandit's shield and down the length of his sword. A white gash cut down Etaru's leg. A Katar strike barely finding a hole in the bandit's defenses leaving a puncture in the bandit's chest as he dodged backwards and away from the blow. Another gash appeared along Etaru's arm, then another at the base of his neck. Finally Etaru barely countered the bandit's power attack, took advantage of the momentary stun, flipped over him, and dragged his katar from the bandit's head to lower back leaving nothing but a flurry of polygons.

He slowly stood to his feet and sheathed his katars. He surveyed the path that was remarkably empty save a small crystal that was covered in a layer of dirt from the fight. Etaru noticed his health had dipped into the red. He trudged over to the crystal and fell on his knees right in front of it and weakly picked it up.

"... heal." The crystal shattered and his health bar refilled instantly. "I... I'm sorry Troy." He looked down and stared at his open hands. His hands were shaking violently. He clenched them into fists and pounded them against the ground, his weight falling against them. Despite his wide open mouth, no words came out-not a sound. The last ray of red from the sunset fell across Etaru as though the sun itself empathized with his pain. The only sound to be heard was the tapping of his tears falling to the ground and then shattering into light. Then it was dark.