2

Floor one, the first floor. Not what I would've considered a challenge, not for experience grinding anyway. Fuego would slash with his broadsword, Harbinger trying his best with his claymore - to quote, "why is this so heavy, it's a bigger sword!" - Brickman would be the one to push whenever there were large enemy waves, choosing to be the tank in our group, and I would often swish with my flexible rapier, making only small wounds, but making up for it in additional bleeding damage. We all knew our stuff about MMO's; even Peter, whom I hesitated to call capable at all on previous occasions. Dense, that is Peter was not at all dense, I reflected, before scolding myself. No Alex, I would think to myself, he already has an archetype, we shan't subvert expectation so soon, Alex boy.

There was pitiful bounty for our hacking-slashing of hostile critters - well, the loot was fine, but the experience points were scarce amongst us - luckily the points spread equally for any players that assisted to slay the beast, as well as extra for those who landed the killing blow.

On one of these farming quests on evening one I remember I happened to see a player with black hair and blue common armour, far, far away. He was just running. Running, and occasionally running past beasts with his sword forward, killing them with a single blow. This being the first evening, mind, I looked to my other friends, who also stared in disbelief. After a knowing look was exchanged between us, we all nodded, with an equally knowing mutter of such words as "hacks" or "cheat codes, am I right?".

I also noticed upon second inspection that a bit closer to us, there stood another player, just watching. He had brown, shoulder-length hair, and using detection, I looked closer at his gamer tag. "Charlie", it read. I didn't like this guy one bit. I could tell just from looking at him, he was surely some self-insert prick written by an eighth-grader with too much time on his hands that just discovered Japanese cartoons. Mayhaps just a cynical first impression made by just a single glance, I shrugged off this notion. He would soon be out of sight, out of mind. I decided not to bring this up with my fellow droogs, just for this reason.

We, a few months later, found a solution to this experience deficiency. A hooded fellow offered some advice in exchange for some of our col - money that is, and this time it's true. He told us we could form what is a guild, where a group of people could be a team with all that official niceness. With this title, we would - instead of earning set eckspee, as we would call it, divided amongst ourselves - earn the whole lot for each of us. Between us, that was four times the regular haul of eckspee, as Brickman told us before we could get it in. He was making Your Humble Narrator real hard to be belittling towards him. Additionally, we were told guilds could name themselves, which I fancied real horrorshow.

"Alright," began Harbinger, "now for a name. Any suggestions?"

Three dull expressions faced towards me, as if to predict I would suggest something referential to a certain book I've been slaughtering for these past few ages. Noticing these glares of disdain, I decided not to pick this battle. "What?" I asked all like innocent, "I wasn't gonna say anything," I lied completely and utterly.

"Well…" Fuego said slowly as if wary of an interruption, "What about… the Moonlit Black Cats?" he asked, before typing it into the prompter. "Oh, it's already taken. Any others?"

Brickman scratched his neck in thought, before saying "Maybe if we wait a few days it will open up? I like that name."

"No, there's a real slim chance of that happening, within days, no less." Fuego reasoned, and our Divine Creator gave a smug grin behind his keyboard, understanding the irony of how wrong that assumption was. "What, will they all just keel over in a dungeon after stumbling upon an obvious trap one day?" Our Divine Creator was feeling extra intrusive today.

"I get it," Brickman grunted. "Dumb idea. How about we call ourselves the… Hellhounds?"

This sent another chill up my spine. "Very nice," I complimented. "I like it; Ludovico's Hellhounds-"

"No!" yelled everybody towards me.

"Christ, Alex," Fuego rolled his eyes. "You read one good book, and suddenly it's again and again with the same old shit."

"God," Harbinger continued, "this guild doesn't even exist yet, and I still want to kick you from it."

"Er, sorry brothers," I reply. "Anywho, we should be getting to an inn or something. This is around the time all those bad groups band up." I had to bite my tongue to avoid drawing parallels to the Korova Milk Bar, but I'm sure they knew I was thinking it.

"Agreed," said Brickman. "It says in my map that there's one on the other side of this town."

"Well then, let's go," Harbinger said, and we all left real quickly.

I still feel contempt knowing that we probably ruined that info-broker's mood for the night, as we forgot to pay him.

In the in-door of the inn in which we were staying, there stood a group of players blocking the door, and so we were able to determine that there were many people checking in at this exact time. An accidental nudge caused a tall figure to look back at us, or rather Your Humble Narrator, as it was I who wasn't paying attention to where he was walking. As I looked at this figure I stood about equal height to, I noticed his hair looked familiar, like I'd seen it blowing behind him one time while he was killing a beast... or something like that, I didn't quite recall. "My apologies, I should be more careful next time," I said to this guy, looking him sincerely in the metallic silver eyes. Seriously, what's up with those grey eyes is what I was thinking.

"Do not worry, please be careful next time." He replied, in a voice that sounded like his own, but strangely modified. "I do not want you to be involved in any trouble."

I gave a somewhat odd look, as I considered this to be oddly intimate for just pleasantries between strangers. "Have we met before, by any chance?"

He returned an odd look. "What? No, I do not believe that I have met so far. Why do you ask?"

Suddenly I understood what was going on. This whole game was of course on an international server, so to accommodate for all, language was translated to the beholder as it was spoken. Revolutionary technology, I considered it to be, but did Google really have to volunteer to provide such an engine? "Oh, no reason, no reason. Thank's for your understanding, er..." I looked up at his gamer tag "...Kirito." A Japanese player, I suppose.

With a modest flourish of his black cloak, which was the heighth of overpowered fashion, he said "Yes, that is my name. I am happy to meet you… Alexander." He glanced up at my own name. Then a thought occurred.

"Say, Kirito," I began, taking a chance. "You don't happen to be affiliated with any guilds, do you? Because we may be recruiting," I murmured with a wink and a nudge.

This guy named Kirito gave a light chuckle. "Thank you for the offer, but I am already in the guild. Moonlight black cat."

The way the sentence was phrased was complete garbage, but that wasn't his fault, I put the blame for that one on Google-sensei, but I was able to grasp what he meant. He just so happened to be one of the Moonlit Black Cats. Now how about that coincidence. "Hey, cool name," I commented. "You don't plan on disbanding any time soon so we can take that name, huh?" I had a good laugh at this, to make it clear I was joking, or at least make one thing about my sentence clear through that shitty translate system.

Another laugh came from Kirito, although I could tell he didn't quite understand. "No, I made an appointment with other guild members that I would not let her go asigh."

Yeah, I had decided this engine wasn't working, and that "asigh" isn't a real word, but I tried again. "Can you phrase that different?" I used very simple English so I may be properly translated.

He nodded and said "I promised that someone would not die." A smaller looking girl turned around to look at me, and smiled politely. That looked like the smile of a character that would die in a short amount of time in order to make people feel things.

Looking at her, I didn't mention this grim realisation. "Right then," I said squeamishly. "Good luck with that…"

They both just turned back around in the line. Fuego tapped me on the shoulder, startling me more than I'd like to admit. "Hey Alex, what was that about?"

My face was pale. "Nothing, shut up."