Third person episode coming up!
Experimenting on which one that feels best
Enjoy
Fangs gleamed in the soft moonlight, each flash of light promising pain and agony.
Paws moved softly over the rough earth, letting only a slight whisper of sound escape from it's soft touch.
Eyes filled with a savage hunger turned and regarded the figure in the center of a closing ring of death. Silver hair that shone with an inner light, piercing blue eyes and dark skin which blended together with the nights creeping shadow, he would've made a rather imposing impression; had it not been for his trembling stance.
His legs were set in a wide distance while his upper body was bent over, presenting the growling beasts with a small target. So far so good.
Dagger in one hand, formed from a claw taken by the very same race that surrounded him, and two Throwing Picks in his other, Sand could almost feel their rage.
He was scared.
His hand were shaking wildly. Sweat covered his forehead and his eyes, with their icy glare, darted forth and back, trying to discern his enemies. The "Dire Wolves", the toughest wolf mobs that spawned on the first floor except for the floor boss and it's minions, never let their eyes of their pray and moved to close their ring even further.
I don't want to die
Those thoughts hammered his conscience constantly as he saw the feral beasts creep closer and closer.
One of them stood out of the crowd: It was the Pack Leader he'd had spotted before. Looking at it now, not one thing implored that it was an easy kill like it had before. Now, with it's mane thick and glistening, it appeared as a king of the wild, standing in the midst of his followers.
Followers who were watching the ebony skinned youth hungrily.
Suddenly, the ring of growling fur and teeth stopped and left Sand standing in the middle, facing the Pack Leader. It crouched down and bared it's teeth, dripping with saliva. A deep thundering roar built up towards a crescendo as it transformed into a dizzy gray bullet that came charging towards me.
A not so distant memory of a similar fight brushed against Sand's mind.
That's it! I only have to repeat what I did there and I should be fine. They should go when their leader is killed right? Right? Ok, here he comes.
3, 2, 1, GO!
He drew his left hand back and threw both picks at the charging wolf's head, causing it to veer slightly to the left. Undaunted, and with it's HP barely affected, it pressed on.
It was faster than a normal wolf, much faster, but he managed to scramble to one side and avoid it's great rush by a hair's breadth. Thinking his victory in hand, Sand's left hand shot forward and searched for fur to grab on while the right charged up the sword skill "Horizontal" to be unleashed on the soon be exposed throat. But the tentative grasping hand never reached it's mark. With horrifying speed, the Pack Leader's head whipped to the side and sunk it's fangs deep into the exposed wrist.
Howling with glee, it tensed and set it's powerful maws into work.
Screaming from the blinding pain that erupted from his hand, Sand kicked it twice in the belly with all the strength he possessed.
It was like hitting an immortal object..
Razorsharp teeth sawed into the hand, ripped through the imaginary veins and muscles and then "SNAP!" the huge mouth closed shut and the limb burst into a million stars of light.
Numb from the sudden agony, the silver-haired boy could only watch in horror as it's head turned and came rushing towards his face.
"Sword Skill Activate"
Suddenly, his right hand worked on it's own and with a blade that gleamed with a sky-blue light, it went under the jaw and drew a deep line of crimson on it's belly! Howls of victory were replaced by yelps of pain and agony.
Critical Hit
Too shocked to stop, he did not deter and launched another sword skill, this time it was a "Slant" that cut diagonally into the thick skull and went all the way through. With a pitiful gurgle, the Pack Leader collapsed on the ground where it shattered, leaving not event the slightest trace of it's existence behind.
By an act of immense kindness, a god or goddess had not let his charged Horizontal be interrupted, and as Sand hadn't activated it on his own, the system had eventually taken over and forced it to execute the pre-written movement. But was it really kindness, or a cruel sense of humour? Sand wondered as his gaze stared at the furious pack of leaderless Dire Wolves. It didn't seem like they would leave any time soon, not while his body was still in one piece. Not a comforting thought.
They had also grown considerably larger when their leader was killed, now they were as big as horses! If they had been standing on their rear legs, they would've been much taller than the youth before them. That was the nature of the Dire Wolf. When it's comrades died, it's anger increase along with it's attack power. A truly difficult mob to tackle alone.
And here he was, facing at least twenty of them at the same time.
I must escape from here! But how? They are too large to be leaped over and there's no gap in the ring!
Then he found his answer. A primal fury rose from the depths within his conscious, overwhelming the freezing and replaced it with a state of cold calculating focus.
I can do this. If I die, it means I'm not fit to survive this prison and return to the outside world. SO BE IT!
Not a sound came from his mouth when he suddenly dashed forward, towards the waiting wolves. They snarled and similarly charged, but with howls and growls that echoed through the forest. Sand dived to the right, slashing off a leg of first diving mob with his dagger, and then reversed his momentum and leaped back left. The feint worked as two grey streaks crossed the path he had just abandoned. Behind him, the rest charged forward save for the injured one, forcing him to run as fast as his AGI points would let him.
Two wolves were now standing between him and freedom, and they came from both sides at the same time.
"If I can't go over them..." A whisper escaped from Sand's mouth
The monsters jumped simultaneously, intercepting the path of the sprinting figure of black and silver.
"I JUST HAVE TO GO UNDER THEM!"
His last words came out as a roar. Dashing at full speed, Sand suddenly threw his feet in front of him, skidded under the belly of the first wolf and initiated his last known sword skill, "Rage Spike". With a flash of red, his dagger dove into the second beast's belly where it became stuck. Unable to hold on, Sand flew past and scampered up on his feet.
Without a weapon and only one hand attached to it's arm, he ran for his life into the darkness, beasts close behind.
Back in the grove, the Fang Dagger had done it's job. With it's blade still in it's belly, the Dire Wolf struggled to stand, to follow it's pack in it's hunt. With a pained howl and shimmering eyes, it struggled to survive in this world where only the strongest could.
It's HP bar went from yellow to a scarlet red.
Finally, it's legs lost all strength and the beaten hunter went back to the ground. The contact between the daggers grip and the earth made it plunge deeper into the flesh, drawing small yelps of pain from the dying wolf's mouth. It looked up towards the moon one last time, took a final deep breath, and disappeared with a small:
"Cling"
Breathing was hard. Every step and leap he took sent burning pain though his arm. Roots seemed to appear out of nowhere and it took all the mental concentration that Sand had left to evade them, desperately trying to avoid a sudden fall and getting caught by the mobs behind. Clutching his left wrist with his right hand, he ran at full speed,.
Never stopping, never looking back.
But they were out there, they were always out there. With hungry mouths and sharp claws they would follow him to the end of the world if they had to. Dashing between trees and bushes, Sand suddenly came to another clearing. But now his luck seemed to have hit rock bottom, for it was a spawn area for most kinds of mobs. All he could see was green cursors, flickering with light, and then turning bright red as the mobs detected him. Plants, boars, wolves, horned beetles, they were all present. With no way out, Sand did the only thing that could save him.
He leaped up and grasped a low-hanging branch with his one functioning hand and heaved himself up.
If somebody would've asked him to recreate that manoeuvre, he would've laughed in their face. His STR parameter shouldn't have been anywhere near enough to enable him to use only one arm to support his full body weight. But the desire to survive defied that fact. Up he went, climbing as high as he could get. Beneath him was numerous scores of hissing, snarling,, screeching, growling and scrambling mobs, all focusing on reaching him. But they could not get up higher than the first branch and Sand was way higher up when they reached that point.
Scaling the giant tree, his eyes began to blur. All his energy supplies were exhausted and his grip faltered.
On the brink of conscience, he found a large hole in the tree. Not halting to ponder why there was a hole in the tree, he fell inside and landed 2 feet below entrance level.
Must... hide...
Must...survive.
Using the very last drops of energy, Sand opened the system menu, scrolled down, and the moment before darkness took him he reached out with his finger towards the hovering button
Passive Skill Activate: Hiding
Argo
Argo the rat sat in a tree located at the northwest section in the Town of Beginnings.Her hands worked in a blur to respond to the various PM's she received from her clients. Argo was an Informant Broker, an unofficial class of merchants who's primal source of income was their supply of information that they could deliver. Few chose that route since not many players had a lot of intel if SAO, but Argo had been in the beta test, and with her outstanding ability to recall any words spoken to her, she was the best informant in the game.
The nickname "The Rat" came partially from her ability to sniff out the most secretive players location and their status, but mostly because of her unusual choice of make-up. Three black stripes ran across each cheek from her nose to the side, very much like whiskers. Along with her hood with animal ears, she did look like a small rodent sometimes, thus the name which she carried with pride.
The requests she accepted could contain any piece of information between heaven and earth:
Where the highest chance of getting a rare item was?
What sort of crafting material that was required for a high level weapon or armour?
Attack patterns regarding different types of mobs.
Which build that was the most efficient in grinding,?
The current highest level blacksmith in the game?
How to find special quest with rare rewards?
How many female players were currently in the game?
How to unlock new sword skills.
etc. etc...
Needless to say, she had her hands full.
"Oii, Argo! Argo, is that you? Damnit.. ARGO CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"
With a startled shriek, Argo the rat fell face down from the tree only to be caught by a tall male with red hair held back by a bandana.
"Yo, apparently I was right"
"Get your hands off me you shitty samurai wannabe!"
"Sure, no problem"
Klein shrugged and simply let go, whereby Argo resumed her fall all the way down to the ground this time. She hissed and spun around with her claw weapons equipped.
"What the hell do you mean, scaring me like that Klein? I nearly died from from a heart-attack you jerk!"
Klein backed away with hands held up in a meager defence.
"Woah, woah. Calm down will you? People are staring you know."
As to emphasize his point, Klein gestured around where quite a lot of players and even NPCs had stopped and turned to regard the quarreling pair.
Argo noticed it too and let out a forced breath and sat down in the trees shade.
"What do you want Klein? I told you before that katana skills doesn't become available until you do a certain quest on a higher floor and level up your curved sword skill to 600"
Deeming that the moment of danger had passed, Klein eased down beside her and looked at the busy marked in front of them
"Actually I've come to ask about a favour. You see, there was this one guy I met in the plaza when Kayaba held his long speech of death. His name's s Sand. Blue eyed, dark skinned fella with silvery hair. Think he's a dagger user. I haven't seen him since the mass teleportation and I'm starting to worry a bit."
Argo regarded the worried look that Klein offered and tilted her head to the side.
"Hoo? Well well, this isn't like you at all Mr. Samurai. What would make you think I would give up that information for free, hm?"
Their eyes met and Klein answered:
"Because I know you care about the people around you. Besides, I don't want to know his stats or anything. I just want to make sure that he's still out there"
"hmm... Ok, fair enough. But you owe me one now, Klein."
"I wouldn't expect anything less from you" he replied with a small wink.
Argo shrugged, opened her system menu and began to send out countless messages to her numerous contacts. Within minutes, streams of replies came in from all over the area, not one containing anything useful.
The rat shook her head.
"I'm sorry, Klein. Besides from a few reports of seeing him on the plains before the speech , not one has seen or heard anything about your dark friend. Have you tried PM-ing him?
Klein looked down and took up a handful of dirt from the ground.
"I never though of adding him.."
"I see..."
In SAO, unlike other MMOs, a player could only contact other players via PM's if they were on their friend list. Otherwise, one would have to track down the player just like in the real world. And to befriend somebody, one would have to be within an area of ten metres. An annoying setting but there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Klein shook his head but then he stood up, noticing a familiar figure walking through the crowd.
"Thanks Argo. I'll just keep hoping."
Watching him sprinting away, Argo the Rat remained under in the comfortable shade, slightly uneased by the conversation that had transpired. She looked up quickly though when Klein's voiced echoed between the walls.
"Kirito! Hey man, what's up?!"
When Sand regained conscience, he did not know where he was. Soft rays of sunlight warmed his skin, bade him to greet the world outside. Stumbling to his feet with a moan, Sand did just that.
With a body soar from spending several hours laying on a hard surface, he climbed out of the opening by grasping the edges, unaware that he now had two functioning hands.
It was beautiful outside. Harmless birds built their nests in the trees with one occasional interruption to chase down a passing insect or a crawling worm on the ground. Sand sat down on the edge, mind still dazed and watched their flight. Everything seemed so peaceful, so full of harmony. He spotted a small worm on the ground and soon enough, a bird dove down, landed and picked it up. Chirping happily, it threw the slithering shape up into the air and snapped it's beak at it.
"THUD!"
Seemingly out of nowhere, a huge paw appeared and caught the bird between it's claws. Bending down, the wolf opened it's jaw wide and regarded it's catch whereby lifted it's foreleg. Screeching with terror, the bird flapped it's small wings furiously to try and escape.
It flew to it's doom, right into the waiting mouth.
The wolf snapped it's jaws shut and swallowed, not even bothering to chew it's snack.
Startled, Sand got up and instinctively reached down for his dagger.
It wasn't there!
Like a punch in the face, memories of the night before rushed into his mind. The Dire Wolves, the clearing, his dagger stuck in a beasts belly, the hellish escape through the woods, the spawn area..
Spawn area?!
Tearing his eyes from the spectacle up high, Sand gazed downwards, towards the ground. He gasped.
Boars stalked the area, occasionally digging in the soft soil with their long tusks. It seemed to be an unspoken rule that mobs don't attack each other so they were not disturbed at all by the fact that wolves paced between them. Carnivore plants were rooted to the ground, bathing in the sunlight.
Eyeing the scene, Sand understood that even the previous struggle he had witnessed was as it should be. Small animals were eaten by the big. That was the law of nature, and it applied even here. Another sign of the ingenious mastermind behind it all.
Still something was off
They should've detected him by now, but their cursors were still a pure green. What was going on?
Sand opened his system menu, thinking of equipping his only remaining weapon, the Starter Dagger, but he halted at the opening menu that showed his stats and skills. Everything was seemed normal at first, his level was still five, but there was one skill whose number made him react:
Hiding: 278 / 1000
No way! It was a meager 67 the last time I checked! What the...?
Once again, his face got an imaginary punch. The last thing he remembered before all went black was his trembling hand, reaching for the system window towards a button. The Hiding skill activation!
But that means that I was hiding at the same time as I was asleep. Is that even possible?
Apparently it was, and his stats showed the proof. Sand realised that he had discovered something very important here, and that he had to guard the secret carefully. Or did he? With this method, a newbie could rise from a stealth novice to a master within a span of maybe two weeks. Would that be so bad? But then again, there was no guarantee that they would use it for good purposes. Thieves would not be caught by anyone except a tracking master, and those would be very rare, even at the higher levels.
I can't risk it. I will keep it a secret to everyone, and use it to ensure the safety of the people trapped here. It is a burden I must bear alone.
Deciding on that course, Sand began his descent, still in hiding mode, while eyeing the mobs. They showed no reaction yet.
Right, lets try it out
Without a sound, Sand manoeuvred himself to a low hanging branch that stretched out just above a digging boar. He was glad that he had selected the leather armour as a start since it gave the user the highest mobility rate. Another bonus was that it did not screech when the player moved, like steel armour. Sand drew his remaining dagger and eased himself forward, until he was looking right down on the beasts neck. With the grace of a cat, he nimbly threw himself out and dove down on the boar, dagger leading the way. It did not know what happened before it was too late.
The dagger, surprisingly gleaming a soft green colour, struck the boar in the neck where it stopped a moment before it met no resistance as the boar shattered without the slightest squeal. Sand, who had expected the mob to provide with a temporary platform to land on, overbalanced and landed hard on his back, looking at the thousand stars (or polygons) who had appeared over his head.
"Ouch"
Scratching his sore head, he stood up and looked around. No wolf was nearby fortunately, and the surrounding boars was too far to detect him. The wolves had an innate ability that sensed when someone attacked a nearby mob and they would then turn on that person. But board lacked that ability and did not react at all. A blinking icon in the corner of his eye made him open his skill window.
New Skill Unlocked:
Fatal Stab
Will only activate if the target is unaware of the attackers presence.
Deals a critical strike x3 a normal attack.
5 % chance of instant kill
N.. No way! Such an awesome skill actually exist?!
Then thinking about it, it wasn't surprising. A monsters field of awareness worked not only as a circle, but as a full pillar, meaning that it could detect a player at any height. But not if the players hiding skill was high enough. So the requirement for this skill to activate was almost impossible if you didn't have a ridiculously high Hiding skill number.
Which Sand did.
He looked at his weapon. It's durability was down to 7 / 100, which meant it could break any minute. He gazed at the spot where the boar mob had disappeared. A faint smile player on his dark lips.
"I need a new blade"
Well, that's it for this time. Longest chapter so far. Please be patient until i write the next one
Note: I added the ten metre friend request thing by my own accord as well as the skill requirements for unlocking the katana. I don't know if it's the same in the original story but I thought it fitting so now it's a LAW!
The Fatal Stab thing is my own invention so there should not be a problem there.
