It's strange, this journal. Call it an outlet to keep my sanity, but when you think about it, I'll really be the only person to read this if we never get out of this game. I don't imagine there will be a future generation of gamers who would willingly enter SAO.

Anyway, I can't put my charcoal down. I had a strange feeling, after I came to the guild house to rest again. It seems that this party is like a family, and I feel like I don't belong. I'm unused to the genuine trust everyone shows for each other, because even in the real world, even before I had SAO, I was a loner. Call me an introvert and I wouldn't mind. But things are different now, and I'm going to have to change my ways if I need to stay in this group.

Today, these people got more real for me than ever before.

The morning came peeping into the window, eager to spread it's light. Dyna groaned, and sat up, his usually wavy cerulean hair now a maelstrom that swirled around his head. Not wanting to take the time to fix it manually, Dyna opened the player's menu and selected a default hairstyle that had the same length as he liked. Instantly, his hair altered itself to match it, and then Dyna toggled the style off, and his hair fell back into place, falling onto his face. He swept back the stray lengths obscuring his face to a place where he knew they would stay. It was an easy trick that most players figured out to save time preparing themselves, one Dyna had seen unprepared players do when rushed.

He opened his inventory, and selected his weapon for the day. He decided to use a lower level weapon that he had gotten on floor 40, the Steel Judicator. Instantly, a shining steel sword appeared in his hand, and Dyna swung it around to make sure he got a feel for it again, and looked at it's stats.

Unlike other swords at the same level as the Steel Judicator, the sword did not have any particular special ability other than "This sword ignores 9% of physical resistance", but the blade had generally higher statistics than other blades from floor 40, and it even offered two enhancement slots as well as customizability of the sword itself. Dyna had made the hilt long, but not long enough to qualify it as a 2 handed sword. He personally liked having as long of a hilt as he could so his time to unsheathe his sword could be quicker, among other things.

While he would be lowering his damage output, he wasn't taking any chances with his protection. He put on his Coat of Waves, a deep crimson surcoat that flared out in the back, ocean blue edges gilding the red. He looped Steel Judicator to his waist, and walked down the stairs back to the living room.

There, Lancelot awaited him, similarly dressed for combat. His dark hair was swept back, much like Dyna's, but Dyna knew that by the end of the day, his hair would already be reverted back to it's messy, curly state. Lancelot's armor was it's signature white, but he had a dark shield that had a lion's head emblazoned in brilliant silver. His weapon, a lance, was a spear that dully gleamed in the lazy light, it's pearl haft offset by the dark steel head. A one handed longsword rested at this left side, with a black hilt. Nodding towards Dyna, he greeted him as he came down from the stairs.

"Good morning! Are you ready?"

The swordsman nodded, and looked around. "Where is everyone?" He asked this out of curiosity and wariness for BlackAsp. Being paralyzed was a shaking experience, one that Dyna didn't wish to repeat.

"They all left earlier, after pairing off. I was the odd one out, so I waited for you."

Stepping onto the ground floor, Dyna raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"You let me sleep in? I wouldn't have minded it if you had gotten me up earlier."

"I wanted you awake for your first day. Also, I wanted to take the time to make sure we had everything we needed."

He gestured over to pile of items, which consisted primarily of healing potions and two spare swords. Throwing one of the spares over to Dyna once he had a look at everything, Lancelot started to put all of the items into his inventory, the items disappearing one by one.

Soon, they headed out the door, and out of the town.

The surrounding area was dominated by giant fir trees, their needles bristling out to give the entire forest a hazy look. Occasion spurts of mottled trails went into the forest, and the pair went in, weapons bared.

The first monster they encountered was an enormous bull with crimson eyes. Instantly it turned to charge Dyna, enraged by his red coat, drawing instant aggro.

How cliché, thought Dyna. He had heard somewhere that moving around erratically actually drew bulls to charge, not the color red. Jumping out of the way neatly, he attacked as it passed by, taking a fair chunk of it's hit points. Lancelot engaged a skill with his lance, Lightning Jab, and took less out of it's HP, the bar dropping down to yellow as the charged lance plunged into the steer.

Strange, Dyna thought again. Usually, skills dealt more damage than normal attacks. The bull turned to charge Dyna again, and this time he jumped and slashed across it's back, dropping the HP bar into the red zone, indicating that it was almost dead. Lancelot, recovering from his cool down from his skill, engaged another, Vertical, the spear head glowing an angry red as it hit the bull. With a loud bellow, the bull dissipated into green pieces of data.

A rewards window appeared in front of Dyna, but he almost absentmindedly clicked the accept button, as the gold and XP wasn't that much to him, because of his higher level. However, an odd sound emanated from Lancelot.

A level up, already? Dyna looked at Lancelot, and looked down his stats as he decided which of the three stat points would go where in his stat block.

"You're level 31?!"

Dyna couldn't help his outburst. The incredulity of the situation had caught him off guard. It was recommended in the player's handbook that before entering a floor, one was at least the same level as the floor, if not more. And that was before anyone knew that Sword Art Online was a death game. The weakest wandering monsters were then an equal challenge, and one could progress on the floor, gaining enough experience for the next level. Higher level players had to grind on the highest level they could handle in order to be able to go to the next floor confident they could handle any surprises it offered. Some prolific players, like Heathcliff and Asuna of the Knights of the Blood Oath, could grind on the highest floor, which was floor 45, to retain their edge while clearing the game. Dyna was almost to that point, but he had wanted to play it safe as they approached floor 50. There were rumors that since floor 25 had a very challenging boss, floor 50 would be the same difficulty for even higher level players.

Lancelot broke his rushing thoughts with a collected nod.

"Yes. Don't speak of it to anyone aside from BlackAsp. Only high end equipment has kept me from dying, but it has also helped that we haven't really gone out to farm for equipment in the past few weeks. I also carry most of the healing potions, so I can take care of myself."

"But that's reckless! What would everyone do if you died?!"

Lancelot placed his hand on his party mate's shoulder to calm Dyna.

"BlackAsp will decide who would take charge in that case. But that's not going to happen. This is one of the reasons I wanted you specifically, Dyna. Your dedication to leveling is well known, and I figured that you would be the best person to level with."

Still shaken by this revelation, Dyna pulled away, and turned to find the next wandering monster, trying to gather his thoughts. Why would Lancelot keep this secret? It was important to know that one could depend off of others, as far as the solo player knew, which wasn't extensive. The guild did not need a party leader that badly, did they?

Almost as he had asked the question, he knew that they actually did. Based on what he saw of them yesterday, all of the players had some flaw to their character that would make them ill suited to leading others.

Rockblade was too stubborn, and critical. Tysandra didn't have a very outgoing personality. BlackAsp was a free loader. And Alana depended off of others far too much. Lancelot was probably the only reason they stayed together.

After not much happening, Dyna confronted his new leader, by turning to him in the cover of the trees, their branches arcing down to make a thorny wall.

"... I want to know everything about you. I don't like secrets being kept from me."

The white knight bobbed his head in understanding.

"I suppose that's not too much to ask. Perhaps I would too, considering your viewpoint. Very well. I should start with the reason why I have such a low level."

He sat, crossing his legs, and looked to the sky, his eyes narrowing as he called back visions from the past.

"As I went through the game, I was a clearer out of fear of the first few levels. I wasn't that familiar with games like this, and so I made sure I was getting ahead of everyone else, but there were others. My first guildmate was Heathcliff."

Dyna nearly fell down, trying to grasp what he had just said.

"What?! THE Heathcliff? The leader of the most powerful guild, the Knights of Blood?"

Lancelot held up his hand, and dismissed the awe.

"He started at the same state we were. He's human, just like you and me. I formed a party with him, and then we seemed to keep bumping into each other. We both noticed this, so I joined his guild as a good friend. I learned much from him, about how to lead and delegate responsibility. I even led my own raid party, and for a while, things seemed easy."

He looked around, almost guiltily, but he turned once more to face his questioner.

"Heathcliff told me that as the guild got bigger, we would need more room for our branches, and eventually we would clash with other guild interests. So, I was in charge of the lower levels, ensuring that we had influence in the area. I dealt more with players than monsters, and I'm afraid there's no experience to be gained that way. But I didn't mind. Even if I was lower level, I still was supported by the KoB. But then I met Alana-"

He was stopped by a yell for help, just beyond the wall. A man dressed in green robes was being attacked by a dark rider that lacked a head, atop of a nightmarish mount that was a twisted version of the familiar horse, it's legs so supple they seemed to be only sticks. The rider's spear had a bloodstained head, and the monster slowly trotted towards the man, relishing the fear he emanated.

Already, Dyna knew what this was. He whispered to Lancelot, who had drawn his sword and shield.

"That's a very good quest over there. If I remember right, there's good equipment at the end of this quest, as well as a hefty experience gain. Do you want to do it?"

His leader nodded, and they charged. Dyna went in first, so he was the first one to draw aggro from the black rider. His aggro skill was particularly high as he has had to draw monsters from other players that wanted the experience defeating them offered.

If he remembered correctly, this monster was significantly tougher than what they had encountered before, with improved statistics and a better AI. Dyna thought there was a rare drop associated with this monster, but he decided not to try it. Rare drops were hard to obtain, and required much more skill in calculating what the percent chance was, and luck to even run into the monster in the first place. On the first floor, there were specific spawn points for specific monsters, so players knew what would come out, but as the floors progressed the spawn points were increasingly harder to find, and areas were often overlapped by how far monsters would go, with increasingly complex wandering patterns. Dyna hadn't done this quest, but it seemed that the wandering pattern of the NPC and the black cavalier needed to coincide with each other, and the players couldn't know where that was until it happened. A lucky quest, it seemed.

Dyna activated a sword skill, his blade blazing indigo as he said the skill. "Cross Slash!"

His arm seemed to blur as he scored perpendicular slashes onto the monster, the skill giving him inhuman speed and power. He froze as he landed, the skills cooldown taking place, which involved a stopping period as well as a timer before he could use it again. He shouted "Switch!" and he was moved off to the side as Lancelot was pushed forward. The monster hesitated, trying to process the change in fighting style, and as it did, Lancelot swung his sword without using a skill and scored two more slashes into the monster. It's health bar flashed into the yellow, and the the horse disappeared in an explosion of green pixels. The rider remained, and the empty space where the head was burst into blue flame, and an impression of a skull showed through. Gone was the lance, a black longsword pulled out. The NPC whimpered once more, but Dyna re-engaged the monster. It was odd that the rider had two different styles, but perhaps that was because the horse had taken the burnt of the damage.

He didn't activate a sword skill this time, but just used his speed to slash into the rider, taking the HP bar down to the red zone. He took a hit in return, but he wasn't particularly fazed. His HP Regeneration was much higher than what damage the monster could deal out, and already the reduced pain of getting hit faded away. Lancelot once again finished the monster with a sword skill, and he turned around, and accepted the reward. This time he didn't level up, but Dyna would bet that he was already close.

The NPC stood up shakily, and bowed to them, and thanked them for saving him. Soon, he offered a quest the both of them, and it primarily involved fighting more monsters in exchange for a quest reward of the treasure they guarded, the blade Night Thorn. Dyna was a little anxious that it was a slayer quest, but he figured that he could handle anything that came their way. To be safe, he reselected his highest level weapon, Red Crest, to ensure that he could make an even bigger difference. The plain sword replaced Steel Judicator at his hip, and he nodded. They walked over to where the village was.

Comprised of mostly NPC's, there were even some players that had decided to make their home at the village that came out to see the newcomers. There was a floating display at the gates that said 'Ready?' with a yes/no option at the bottom. Nodding, Lancelot and Dyna drew their swords before they pressed yes. Interested players also drew their weapons, familiar enough with living around the quest area to know that some free experience could be earned.

Like shadows in the night, the riders came barreling from the cover of the trees, their nightmarish mounts frothing at the mouth, ready to kill. There was hardly a heart beat or two before they were close enough to lash out with their lances. Dyna avoided the lance by jumping to the side, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lancelot giving a glancing deflect to the rider that had singled him out.

Reengaged into the fray, Dyna lashed out with his blade, and slashed at the horse again, as it was the only thing really in reach. The HP bar barely went down, and Dyna gasped as the monster hit him, catching his shoulder with his lance. He saw his HP go down much more rapidly than before, and by golly, it hurt even by SAO standards. Dyna didn't understand; without fail, monsters on lower levels, meant to challenge players of equal level, would not be able to endanger higher level players. He activated a very fast sword skill, and his blade burned with purple wrath as he used Blood Crescent, a skill that included bleed damage, which took away from the HP bar over a period of 30 seconds. He hated to use swords skills on one on one combat, but he felt he could take the punishment that would result.

As he was frozen, the monster hit him with the spear again, taking more HP. Then, he dropped the lance and pulled out a two handed blade of obsidian.

As Dyna saw his Hit Points drop even more, he decided that he couldn't take another chance like that, and he activated Hand and Half Sword ability by grasping the elongated hilt with both of his hands. A wide variety of sword skills presented themselves in his mind, and he charged, slashing at horse with a horizontal skill, but he jerked the blade out of the preset path to a different stance, and instead of a cooldown, he instead engaged into a different skill. Alternating from an angry red to a blazing gold, he leapt up with an uppercut and came down, impaling the rider. Impaling a monster was rare, as often they were larger creatures than the sword could handle. The system saw sword strikes as they hit the surface, and since the sword could go through to hit two points of the monster, it registered as double damage every time the system checked for damage, which was every 1 and a half seconds. Speculation between players thought this delay in the system meant that the fastest combo had only one and a half second between strikes, but no one aside from the Lightning Flash or the Black Swordsman could even think of achieving that speed between strikes.

The double damage was too much for the monster as it tried in vain to lash out, although a strike or two went through to send Dyna's HP bar almost into the yellow zone. Both the rider and the horse disappeared in verdant hues bursting out. As Dyna turned to help Lancelot with what was an undoubtedly impossible challenge, he was greeted by the sight of the man defeating his own headless horseman which shattered into similar green shapes. Other players with the aid of NPCs finished likewise, and the man in green robes from before came out of the crowd, and thanked them. He pulled out the 2 handed sword from before, and handed it to Dyna, saying it was the Black Thorn. Upon further inspection, it was a wide bladed sword that tapered off to a fine point, with a motif of roses decorating the hilt and going along the blade. He put it into his inventory. If it had any enhancement slots, he would consider keeping it.

A rewards window popped up in front of the pair again, as well as the other players that had participated. Dyna paid more attention to the window this time, and what he saw made him blink his eyes in disbelief. The gold was nothing special, but the experience reward wasn't a set number, like it usually was. Instead, it was a percent.

One of the players noted his confusion, and spoke up.

"That's the special reward you get from saving Jouran earlier. It'll fill your XP up by 20% of what you need for the next level. Only seen it happen once per player, though..."

Clicking on the accept button, Dyna heard a very unexpected sound.

Ding.

He had leveled up, and the level up screen appeared before him, waiting for values to be upgraded. The azure swordsman certainly didn't expect this. He would have had to grind for experience for months on end on this floor to even make progress to level 64. And yet, here he was. Dyna put all three points allotted into Agility to help him be faster and avoid more blows. After taking care of that, he turned to Lancelot, who was busy healing himself.

"Let's take a break. We'll use our teleporting crystals."

After a nod, Lancelot pulled out his own teleportation crystal, that returned them to the main town. They were invaluable to any player who needed to get back after a particularly unlucky fight and would not prefer to take his chances with any wandering monsters.

The pair sat down back at the guild house, appraising Black Thorn as well as discussing what had happened. Lancelot asked the obvious question.

"What was that back there? I thought you only used one handed swords, but that was a two hand skill, if I ever saw one."

Dyna sighed. He had hoped to keep his skill private, but after Lancelot had shared so much with him, how could he refuse him?

"It's the Hand and a Half skill. I unlocked it by having both one handed swords and two handed swords at skill level 50 at the same time. I tried to keep the two close in case I found a good weapon with either, and it just happened. Do you know the dummy swords?"

Dyna spoke of the swords that were present on every level. They weren't two handed swords, but were one handed swords with longer blades. The longer reach, however, came with less damage output and they were generally inferior to the effectiveness of the one handed sword and were out-powered by the two handed swords, leaving players to dub them dummy swords and leave them.

"Yes?"

"They are simply hand and a half swords without the proper hilt. It's an easy forge check to edit the hilt, but using them as one handed swords would still be too heavy to be practical without the Hand and a Half skill. You can alternate between holds to maximize the effective damage per second by using one handed sword skills to get in quick hits while the two handed skills and deal more damage with the two handed sword skills."

Dyna illustrated as he spoke with his hands, holding an imaginary blade and swinging it around. Lancelot nodded. It was believable.

"Now... How about using two consecutive skills? Is that an Out System skill?"

An Out System skill was a skill that players used to take advantage of the system's limitations to get an edge over other players. Generally, they were regarded as dirty, but effective tricks that people like betas and cheaters (sometimes combined into the term 'beater') used. Dyna nodded.

"It's called the skill connect. You have to jerk into another position before the cooldown sets in to get another skill. It's tricky to time, as some skills are faster than others. I can teach you, if you want. It's very useful."

Lancelot nodded his head, assenting the offer.

"I'll be sure to ask if I want to know. However, let's call it a day. We've both leveled up, and so at this rate, we'll be there in no time."

Dyna smiled at how strange the feeling of waiting around was. It almost felt wrong, but he would be the first to admit that he needed a break after waking up from an actual bed instead of a bunk this morning.

Once again, the two merely talked. The subject was slippery and the thoughts not very profound, and yet by the end of the day, Dyna felt that he trusted Lancelot, even if he would be weak in a fight. It was a strange feeling, and although the feeling of being a stranger persisted, it no longer detracted from him with nervousness. He felt as though he truly belonged here, if but for a moment.

The door reopened to permit Tysandra and Alana. Smiling broadly, Alana went to Lancelot, their armor clanking as they shared a hug. Tysandra gave a cool smirk as she reported their day.

"Both Alana and I gained one level, although it will still be some time before we do so again. We'll need to grind on a higher floor if we want to progress quickly."

Lancelot released Alana as he smiled and nodded.

"Very good. We're making great progress."

The man turned around, and went to the kitchen, presumably to prepare dinner. Alana followed him in after changing out of her armor. She wore a simple sweater and a pair of slacks, covering her form of a slight girl, a seeming contrast to the bulkiness her armor gave her.

Then I met Alana, Lancelot had said before he was cut off. What was their connection? They certainly weren't a couple. Alana seemed too young and Lancelot seemed too focused on other things.

Dyna didn't know the answer. But, then again, it had only been a day. He would simply have to wait, and hope the answer revealed itself. Impulsively, however, he decided that he would ask Alana tomorrow, and hear her side.

Lost in what he would do tomorrow, Dyna decided to rest for a small time, and he ascended up into Lancelot's room. He opened the door, and walked in. The room was undisturbed, but yet Dyna felt his neck prickle. He closed the door, and walked to his bed, and as he turned around to sit down, he heard a quiet thump as BlackAsp landed in front of him.

To say the swordsman flinched would be an understatement.

From where he had bee sitting down, he had jumped back in fear to almost halfway down the bed, his arms up to protect him from any darts that would emanate from the cloaked figure.

Reacting oppositely, the player in black walked up and leaned in to shorten only the distance between their faces, gazes locking between them.

Those uninterested, careless eyes seemed focused at last as BlackAsp glanced up the newcomer once again, but this time he seemed to be looking for something else. Oddly, Dyna smelt a very faint smell of oranges emanating from his intruder. The two stood there, in an awkward pause until BlackAsp finally backed away with two steps.

"I take it you know the truth about our knight in shining armor?"

"Er, Ye-."

"Good. You're in an exclusive club, then. I've done my homework on you, Dyna, Wave Edge."

Dyna tensed. What did he have to say? Obviously, if he said anything wrong he would regret it later, so he kept silent as BlackAsp continued to speak.

"I have to say, you have been quite the hermit for the past year. More people knew you as 'that one guy who grinds' than people that knew you by your title, and there was only three who actually knew your username. But you are quite famous, even in passing. I suppose when you're at your level, that's inevitable."

Dyna finally mustered the courage to speak.

"What are you trying to say?"

The sneak merely raised his eyebrow.

"Me? Nothing, really. Just that I'll be getting to know who you've been for the past year or so. When I said that I was a technical fighter, I should have included that I'm not restricted to combat alone. It's my business to outsmart anyone, even my own friends. Right now, I'm just gathering information so you can be of use in this party."

"So I can be of use?" Dyna repeated, still quite stupefied at the sudden appearance.

BlackAsp rolled his eyes, as if he got this reaction a lot.

"How else are you going to help out the entire party? You should have realized that when you joined."

He sighed in exasperation.

"You'll find your place eventually, I hope. Well... No, you will. Do try to surprise me, will you? I like it when I'm surprised. Good night."

And like that, he turned to leave the room. Dyna blinked. What had just happened? The player in black was still full of surprises, as he proved by turning around and throwing another dart. Dyna managed to dodge this one, and it thudded into the bed post.

"Hm. You've put points into Agility, it seems. Good to know."

With that, he was gone.

Dyna exhaled the held breath that he had clung to when he saw BlackAsp. Downstairs, he heard Rockblades bellowing voice, and all of a sudden, Dyna came to a realization.

The Full Plate guild was more than a party that trained to stay alive together. They were a family, where all of the members watched out for each other, in all aspects of the game.

And he had just become a member of that trust.

Dyna hoped that it wouldn't crush him.

Author's Note: Hello everyone! With this update, I forward the plot! A mite. Anyway, let me just come out and say it- I LOVE LOVE LOVE it when you guys leave reviews! The only thing that will make it better would be stated in this verbal equation. The amount of excitement from a review is directly proportional to the length and depth of the review. I'm not saying that I don't appreciate the support, because I love it when there are comments about my work! What are your thoughts on what might happen soon? Later? What do you want to see out of these characters? I have all of these questions and more.

Also, now I know how to post a chapter properly.