Byzas
Aincrad Floor 41 - October 8, 2023
Though Sachi and I had joined In Memoriam, I still joined raids on my own, from time to time. I preferred regular raids on the Labyrinth because they tended to be shorter and took less time away from Sachi or In Mem, but the scout team on Floor 41 needed an abundance of tanks, and though I wasn't a true tank, I'd faked it often enough that some people didn't see the difference, so I was pressed into service.
Raids with the scout team were necessarily small and cozy affairs. Often the raiding guilds would let a whole small guild handle a scouting raid on their own, providing only a few extra people here and there, usually tanks. This raid was run by a smaller guild called Forgot to Repair, led by an affable, level-headed guy named Donovan. I'd raided with Donovan a few times before, and it was thanks to that that he asked me to go on the scouting raid with his guild and a handful of others from the raiding community.
"Thanks, everybody, for coming out! We're still trying to track down another tank, but hopefully we'll be able to get going in ten or fifteen minutes."
With that, Donovan, in his heavy purple-dyed armor, brushed down an unruly strand of brown hair and went back to conferring with his guildmates.
Ordinarily, it wasn't surprising for a scouting raid to be held up by lack of tanks. There was more of an emphasis on control of the boss versus killing it, and as such, the scout team tended to use more tanks in rotation and skimped on pure damage dealers.
But still, there was something strange about Donovan's statement.
You see, there were twelve of us, hanging out in the Floor 41 town of Byzas. We were milling about the teleport gate, watching as people came and went. The plaza sat on the shore of a channel, a small strip of seawater that connected two larger seas. It was a fine way to spend an afternoon, don't get me wrong. No, the place wasn't the problem, nor the company.
Rather, it was the composition of the group itself.
With only twelve of us, it would be unusual to have more than six tanks unless we already knew the boss required it. Counting Donovan and his silver-plated shield, there were already six of us. I wasn't a pure tank, but with my level and ability to parry and dodge, I could fake it well enough, and if a sixth tank wasn't required, I could focus on damage instead—usually, this was viewed as good flexibility. Aside from us, one tank was haggling with a waitress at the nearby tavern to try to get drinks for the rest of us. Another two were sparring in a series of duels. The sixth was seated next to me on the beach, writing in the sand with the tip of his sword.
"Oh, look, I think my seven-year-old can write better than that!"
Donovan came by to rib that other tank, who responded by placing a handful of sand into Donovan's boot.
"Serves you right, Don."
"If this were a real beach, and I couldn't just unequip my boots…"
Donovan scrolled through his interface, and with one touch, he made his boots disappear.
…and in the process, his feet sank two centimeters into the sand.
"Damn!"
As he shuffled his feet, trying to get as much sand loose as possible, Donovan said to me,
"Kirito, can I talk to you for a minute?"
"All right."
"Privately?"
I climbed from the beach and followed Donovan back to the teleport gate, where three of his other guildies were waiting. They turned aside as soon as the two of us approached, so I asked Donovan,
"What's the meaning of this?"
"Sorry, Kirito. You've raided with us before, so this isn't about you, but I heard you've been hanging around the people from In Memoriam lately?"
"And if I have?"
"Again, look, this isn't about you. It's just, you know, not everyone from over there is in the right state of mind to raid."
"And?"
Donovan sighed, touching a finger to his temple.
"Look, if we let you raid with us, then we have to let anyone from there raid with us. We just can't do that, you know? It's not safe."
"In Mem isn't a raiding guild. You're not obligated to take anyone from there, especially for a scouting raid."
"This isn't about scouting; it's the general principle of the thing. It'd be hell if we had to give every single person from there a chance if they asked for it."
"Why?"
"It just would be. Look, we've got a replacement coming. I pulled you aside here as a courtesy. It's nothing personal."
I'm sure saying that made him feel better about the whole thing.
By that point, most of the other raiders were watching—no, staring. They knew well the kind of conversation we were having. And really, I couldn't make them raid with me.
So I moved for the teleport gate.
"I'm relieved you understand, Kirito."
I understood just fine. I was unwelcome there, and for reasons that had nothing to do with my ability or preparedness to raid.
No, it was simply for whom I associated with, for who I was.
#
After leaving Donovan's raid, I went back to see Sachi. She, Aurora, Ezekiel, and a couple of the others had gone to Floor 39 to level. This was the other half of therapy, in Aurora's words: building an environment where people could be themselves, wounds and all, and not have to worry about being understood.
The group had gone to a tournament area on the outskirts of the main town, Paname. The arena sat in a rectangular depression, beneath ground level, with grassy, earthen grandstands. With one side much longer than the other, it was an ideal arena for jousting, but that day, In Mem was merely fighting an event boss in the arena.
Or at least, most of them were. Near the middle of the long side of the grandstands sat Ezekiel. He put one ankle on top of his other knee and sat back, sipping from a mug. I came down the grandstands from behind him and said,
"Mind if I join you?"
He glanced over his shoulder in surprise, but he patted the flat dirt at his side.
"Take a seat. The fight's just started. Oh, have you had any of this?"
He tilted his mug toward me, showing a yellow-white fluid inside, about the same color as Ezekiel's bleached hair.
"Vendor called it something unpronounceable, but it's pretty good."
Ezekiel gestured toward the end of the grandstands, where were some vendors and merchants camped out at street level. Ordinarily, I might've gone over there myself to check out the goods, but there was one small problem with this tournament that put me ill at ease.
"Excuse me."
An NPC spectator walked on by, and Ezekiel nodded, averting his eyes. I didn't, so I saw the spectator for what he was:
A translucent, ephemeral shadow of a man, still bearing a fatal lance through his chest.
The Paname Tournament was haunted by ghosts and shades, you see. The spectators were specters. The fans were phantoms. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. There are few things more unsettling than the echoing applause of apparitions, which continues long after the crowd has appeared to stop clapping. Even the tournament's festive music was played at a somber, deliberate pace, and in a minor key at that.
So when I peered into Ezekiel's mug once more, I shuddered at the sight of the fluid.
"You know, Ezekiel…"
He raised an eyebrow.
"What is it?"
"I'm pretty sure that drink is Ectoplasm."
"Really? So that's how you say it?"
He sloshed the drink around in his mug, watching the thick liquid flow like molasses inside.
"Strange stuff, right? So what is it?"
I winced.
"It's a slime associated with ghosts."
Ezekiel's eyes went wide.
"Oh really? Strange that it's…well, I guess it wasn't that good after all."
He lowered the mug in front of him and turned it over, but the liquid took a good three or four seconds to seep out, and it made a distinct plop when it finally hit the ground, forming a pile of yellow goo.
Ezekiel sniffed at the mug for good measure, made a face, and tossed the mug away. As it shattered, he said,
"So, Sachi's doing well."
I turned my eyes to the arena.
"Is she?"
"She is."
A few rows below us was the arena floor, where In Mem had a party engaged with the event. A cage of fog had separated the arena in half, and In Mem had divided itself among the two sides as well. Sachi, Aurora, and Castor (or so I was told) had taken one side while Peeler, Kali, and Pollux had the other.
The action on Sachi's side was easier to follow. They had single adds spawning on a timer—ghosts dressed up as valiant knights. Sachi held one of these adds while Aurora clobbered it with her mace. Every so often, Pollux would switch with Sachi and go to town on the Ghostly Knight with his scimitar.
Once this single add died, it didn't shatter, though. Rather, it split into four streams of fog, which penetrated the fog fence and spawned Ectoplasmic Blobs for Kali, Peeler, and Pollux to kill. While this half of the group had the Blobs to deal with, Sachi's group sat idle, waiting for the next Ghost to spawn. Sachi went right to the fog fence, standing by while the other group worked on the Blobs.
Only when Aurora went to Sachi's side to chat did Sachi take her eyes off the other group.
After a short wait, a new Ghostly Knight spawned on Sachi's half of the arena. Aurora tapped Sachi on the shoulder, pointing out the add. Sachi looked one more time across the fence, where Peeler's group had three more Blobs left, but Sachi took a deep breath and charged at her Ghostly Knight, shield first. With that, the cycle continued anew.
"She might need to wait a bit for Peeler's group to finish."
That was Ezekiel, leaning forward now with a tense, scrutinizing expression—the eyes of a raid leader.
I shifted my weight on the earthen grandstand, following Ezekiel's gaze.
"Do you think she'll recognize that?"
"We'll see."
Sachi pulled the Ghostly Knight back, to the center of the room. The Knight bashed at Sachi with a jeweled, ornamented mace, but she absorbed the hit, and she struck back with nothing more than a weak Vertical, cutting along the ghost's chest. Once the move compeleted, she hid behind her shield, making no move to attack. Aurora and Castor stood back, with Aurora at the fog fence, peering to the other side. Kali finished one of the Blobs with a dazzling yellow thrust, and that's when Aurora trotted from the fence, mace in hand, to attack the Ghostly Knight from the rear.
Ezekiel nodded, sitting back again with a smile.
"That's good. Big improvement. Last week, Sachi just teed off on the Knight as soon as it spawned, no matter what. She just wanted it out of her hair as soon as possible, even though that couldn't possibly help the other side. Aurora came up with the idea of going to Sachi's side and keeping her grounded. Looks like it's working."
I smiled, saying only,
"Looks like, yeah."
Aurora and Castor dispatched the second Ghostly Knight, and once again, Aurora went to Sachi, engaging her with hand gestures and quick chatter. They even started going around their side of the arena, marking off positions in the dirt with their weapons.
I looked back to Ezekiel and bowed my head.
"Thanks, for all you and Aurora have done to help Sachi these past few weeks. It's really cheered her up."
Ezekiel chuckled.
"Don't thank us so blithely. You might say this is in our own interest, isn't it?"
I raised an eyebrow.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Sachi's doing better with her anxiety. Peeler's leveling up fast. Could be time for us to take a crack at raiding, pretty soon."
"That so?"
My eyes wandered back to the arena, but Ezekiel wouldn't let it go:
"Speaking of which, is the scout team through already? Or was there a no-show?"
I drummed my fingers on the earthen grandstand, frowning.
"I wasn't needed."
"Ah, too many forwards?"
"No, I was replaced."
Ezekiel's mouth hung open for a second, but then he scowled, and he swiped at the earth beside him, flinging some dirt and pebbles down the slope of the grandstand.
"Because of us, right?"
I nodded once, and Ezekiel let out a frustrated sigh.
"This is getting out of hand. You're the third person this has happened to."
Given Donovan's attitude, I wasn't surprised. He kicked me out without a second thought, once he found out who I'd been hanging out with of late.
I thought for a couple moments before asking,
"Does Aurora plan to do something about it?"
Ezekiel pursed his lips, and he stared at the arena below.
"Maybe we should switch Kali and Castor. Kali's single-target damage would be better suited on Sachi's side."
We watched in silence as the group finished up the event, mowing through a couple more waves of Ghostly Knights and Ectoplasmic Blobs until the fog fence separating the sides opened up. For the final phase, the arena was flooded with Ghosts and Blobs in sprint to the finish.
When there were only a handful of mobs left, Ezekiel wandered down to the arena floor, and I followed him. The others killed the last couple blobs, and to discordant fanfare, they guzzled potions to recover from the zerg phase. There was no hint of congratulations from the raid leader, though. Ezekiel went right to Aurora.
"Can we talk for a minute?"
Aurora raised both eyebrows.
"What about?"
Ezekiel looked back to the side of the arena floor, where I stood. When Aurora saw me, she deflated visibly, growing a year older right before my eyes.
"Let's get some privacy, then."
She and Ezekiel walked down the long side of the arena floor, and they turned a corner into a tunnel that ran under the grandstand, partially out of sight.
"What's the crisis?"
That was Kali, who leaned to her side to peer around the tunnel edge. She brushed a couple short, blonde hairs out of her eyes and pressed her lips together, watching Aurora and Ezekiel with a wary expression.
I scratched the back of my head and looked aside.
"Ezekiel and Aurora are talking about In Mem people being kicked out of raids."
"Kicked out why, exactly?"
"For being In Mem people."
"And who's been—"
Kali looked me up and down.
"Ah."
At that, Peeler slapped me on the shoulder, grinning.
"You sure it's about being one of us? Or maybe Don doesn't want you to show him up? Guy does like to be the hero."
I shrugged.
"Well, I—"
"We're not shoving ourselves into the raid group just to be attacked for it!"
Aurora's voice rang out in the arena, echoing three times over. The rest of us stared, and Aurora and Ezekiel looked back like clueless animals in front of an oncoming train. Aurora regained her wits first, though, and she dragged Ezekiel further down the tunnel, completely out of sight.
"Attacked for it? Why would she think we'd be attacked for it?"
That was Sachi, who came up beside me. She gave me a wan smile, saying,
"Hey. Are you okay?"
I kicked my boot on the dirt floor of the arena.
"I'm fine. Maybe I was due some fresh air anyway."
I glanced back down the grandstand, to the tunnel mouth.
"As for why Aurora thinks we would be attacked, I can't say, but I think Ezekiel's heard it before."
After a fashion, Aurora and Ezekiel came back out again. Aurora was in the lead, and Ezekiel followed her like a flag man for a military charge. Her fists clenched, Aurora marched up to us purposefully, her short red hair bouncing behind her like a candle flame in the wind. She took a breath to compose herself and said,
"Sorry about that, guys. I guess we're having some issues with the raiding guilds. Zeke and I have talked about it for a bit, and I just want to get a headcount. How many of you are interested in raiding, officially?"
I raised my hand. Kali did, too, as did Sachi. Ezekiel came up next to Aurora and raised a hand. Aside from Aurora, the only ones not to raise their hands were the Gemini twins, who looked to one another and shrugged.
"We're KoB, technically. We raid with them either way. Now, if people are going to start ignoring that just to cast In Mem out…"
Castor raised his hand in conclusion, and he elbowed Pollux to do the same.
Aurora sighed at that, hands on her hips, and she tapped a finger on her side as she looked at us.
"All right. I know a few others have already expressed interest. That's too many to ignore, isn't it? We have no choice but to take this to the raiding guilds, then. Zeke's going to make the case for us at the next strategy meeting. Everyone's welcome to attend. You can just be there to support him, or you can speak your mind. Up to you. Thanks for coming out, everybody. Sachi, good job today."
Sachi smiled briefly, but by the time she looked up, Aurora was already heading up the grandstand stairs.
"Hey!"
That was Peeler, who cupped his hands over his mouth.
"I thought we had enough time for another summon! Where are you going?"
Aurora stopped about a third of the way up the steps, and she turned sideways, putting only one eye on us.
"Sorry. Feeling a little beat today. If you guys want to keep going, Kirito or Zeke can take care of you, right?"
With that, Aurora jogged up the stairs to street level, and she disappeared behind the top of the grandstand.
#
Maybe it sounds silly, to make such a fuss about raiding. You could certainly argue that In Mem was doing its part to help people in the game, and that didn't need to include raiding to be meaningful.
But I think that was an important message that Ezekiel wanted to get across: that people who had seen death and lost themselves as a result could come together and make something bigger than themselves. There was a lot of hope in that message.
But to others, it could come off as ambitious, even arrogant.
The culture of progression raiding guilds can be very insular and closed-minded. In other games, where guilds more often compete rather than cooperate, the drive to be the best forces people to consider alternatives. That wasn't the case here: the progression guilds in SAO competed for members and prestige, but in the end, they had to cooperate to a significant degree in the interests of everyone's safety. They'd developed the system of scouting runs, open zone clears, and rotating leadership in raids. Everything was about the system, the hierarchy. That hierarchy hadn't changed much in the last few months—not since ALS was decimated and left progression to become The Army, not since Heathcliff had formed KoB in the wake of that tragedy.
A new, organized, unofficial guild group like In Memoriam had an uphill battle to try to establish itself, even in the best circumstances, but there was an unhealthy skepticism and suspicion about In Mem's members, too.
The place to confront that skepticism was the Floor 41 boss strategy meeting, held at a barracks outside Byzas. Sitting along the defensive walls of the city, the barracks were a little cramped, especially for such a big audience, but Aurora, Ezekiel, Sachi, and I managed to make a small corner of the room our own.
"This is a big deal, isn't it?"
That was Sachi. She kept her eye on the doorway, and each player who walked in, armored in rare drops or high-level crafted gear, drew a gasp or stare of awe from her. Soon enough, there were more than forty people all crowding around the central table, where the dungeon map had been placed. Stuck in the corner, we wouldn't see much of anything, but Sachi didn't seem to mind. She marveled at the raiders, but seeing so many high-level, well-geared players intimidated her a bit, too.
"It's really different, seeing so many of them all in one place. All together, they look like they could take on anything."
Ezekiel shook his head.
"Don't think that way. Everything they have, you can have to if you put your mind to it and work for it. And if you think they're not afraid, they are. They're just as afraid as the rest of us. The difference is how they react to it, right, Kirito?"
I shrugged.
"Some raiders I know have clothed themselves in all the best armor because they're so scared."
That drew a smile from Sachi, whose eyes were still on the assembled raiders.
"It makes me want to go get something crafted. I feel a little shabby in this old breastplate."
Aurora, who had sat stiffly and stoically throughout, loosened up enough to give Sachi some comfort. She leaned in to Sachi, trying to be heard despite the din in the barracks.
"I know a couple crafters I trust. Maybe after this we can talk to one of them? They should have a good selection, and you can get anything you want, really. We'll say it's for the guild's image."
Sachi chuckled nervously.
"Well, as long as it's blue, I guess it's okay…."
"Blue it is. Zeke, you've got plenty of dye, right?"
Ezekiel narrowed his eyes.
"Just because I dyed my hair, you think I have dye for everything?"
"Uh, yeah?"
Ezekiel sighed at that, and the girls shared a giggle at his expense. He went to me for relief.
"Save me, Kirito. Tell me a bit about what's going on with this boss. You must know something."
I shrugged.
"Only a bit. Klein told me it was all about the adds. The raid has to divide up into several isolated groups to deal with the adds in their part of the room, so it should be good for us. We can contribute a party and take care of a section by ourselves, essentially independent of the rest of the raid."
"That's good. I'm glad there are fights like that still. It gives me hope we can slot in a group here and there without having to tightly integrate with the whole rest of the raid right away. Though the downside is that if we don't hold up our part of the room, it'll all be on us, huh?"
Aurora pursed her lips with a thoughtful expression.
"I bet if we were in that raid, we'd clear our side just as fast as anyone else."
That was Aurora all right. Though she had misgivings about this meeting, she always had faith in her people, her guild.
"Attention! This meeting will come to order. This strategy meeting to defeat Hydralis the Seven-Faced will come to order!"
Only KoB liked to have so much pomp and ceremony, but it was definitely effective. The room quieted down to almost a whisper, and the leader of the meeting stood up, but in that red bandana, he didn't seem half prepared to match the formality with which he'd been introduced. Klein worked his way to the dungeon map and stood on the table to be seen above the crowd.
"Thank you all for coming. We've got a few things to discuss today—strategy for Hydralis, choosing the raid, and clearing the open zones of Floor 42 after Hydralis dies. Let's get started with the strat, yeah?"
The explanation was somewhat long-winded, as the boss fight was some complicated effort to stop this monstrous hydra from maturing into a giant beast that could destroy all of Aincrad. Somehow, this involved some steampunk scientists who would act as adds during the fight. It's not really important for what In Mem was trying to do, though.
Once Klein was finished explaining the boss fight and organizing the raid, we got to the heart of the meeting, as far as In Memoriam was concerned. Klein addressed the convened members on this subject.
"All right, once Hydralis dies, which we expect will happen today, it would be nice to make it to the next town before night. There's no limit on how many volunteers we'd take for clearing Floor 42, though it's probably best if it's not more than three full raids, just so we don't bump heads too much."
This drew a lot of interest, as it usually did. DDA put a raid together by themselves. KoB fielded three parties, and Klein himself put forth two. Clearing the exterior zones around the Labyrinth wasn't a much safer proposition than the boss fights, but that was only because the progression guilds had perfected and choreographed boss attempts so well. A limit of only one full raid per boss meant that there was more cooperation instead of competition.
That wasn't so when it came to open field clearing. Lots of guilds considered it a race to the next town for exclusive benefits, like rare items off vendors and so on. Smaller guilds did band together a lot to be competitive there, but these alliances weren't always happy ones.
"If there's anyone else who wants to work together for clearing the next floor, please speak now."
At that, Ezekiel looked to the three of us, and Aurora, though still somewhat dour, gave him a nod. Taking heart, Ezekiel rose, announcing his intentions for all to hear:
"I would like to offer a party for the zone clear. I represent In Memoriam, a non-guild group of players. We have people ready to contribute to the effort to clear this game."
The DDA guild leader, Lind, folded his arms and scrutinized Ezekiel. It's true, Ezekiel didn't look that impressive—with his bleached blond hair and tall, skinny physique. I couldn't fault anyone, even Lind, for being a little skeptical. And Lind was Ezekiel's former guild leader. That couldn't look good for him, either.
"We don't typically just take anyone off the street. What credentials do your people have? How do we know they're qualified for this content?"
"You can ask Heathcliff and KoB about us. They'll vouch for our ability to contribute here."
All eyes turned to Asuna, who seemed a bit stiff, but she answered steadily.
"Knights of the Blood have aided Ezekiel and In Memoriam in their effort to reach out to players in need of help and support in coping with this game. We fully endorse their offer to join the Floor 42 clear, with anyone they deem fit to contribute."
"Of course you would."
That was Donovan, in his shiny purple garb, and this time, he spoke with the bulk of Forgot to Repair behind him.
"KoB's big enough to do their own thing, if they wanted to. FtR can't do that. We would be forced to raid with many people who are largely untested. Most of the people who join In Memoriam are still dealing with traumatic stress from something they've seen or experienced in this game. They shouldn't be putting themselves into stressful situations again."
Asuna turned an icy glare to Donovan.
"Are you suggesting they're not capable of a meaningful contribution? It would be pretty early of you to say so, having never seen them in combat. I don't think you have the grounds to say that."
"Maybe I don't, but I'd like to hear how In Mem responds to it."
With the room watching him, Ezekiel made his way through the crowd and joined the guild leaders and officers around the strategy table. He met Donovan's gaze before addressing the crowd.
"In Memoriam is a support network. We hope to provide the sense of community and outreach that is necessary for people to cope with loss and the ongoing struggle of getting free of this game. Some of our people have been, or still are, part of established raiding guilds. Their ability to raid hasn't been questioned, and why should it be? Would you rather people stay quiet and suffer instead of seeking help?That would be insane!"
He opened his arms to the crowd, speaking to them as a whole.
"All I'm asking is for your consideration. Some of our members are not part of raiding guilds, but they wish to raid, and we want to offer that experience for them."
Donovan shook his head.
"Why? Do you think people deserve the chance to raid just because they want to? This is our survival on the line here."
"It's our survival as much as yours."
"But how do we know you're not going to break down in the middle of a fight?"
"I'm open to suggestions. Maybe you'd like to take a swing at me?"
Surprised, Donovan looked to two of his officers, who both shrugged in response. With no better idea, Donovan unhitched his mace from his hip.
"Hey! Knock it off!"
Asuna's cry was unneeded, for Donovan swung, stopping just short of Ezekiel's nose.
Ezekiel didn't even batt an eyelash.
"I'm really not scared of pixels, see? Does that make my point?"
"You may be fine, but that doesn't say anything about the rest of your guild."
"You're right; it absolutely doesn't. I said we would vouch for them, that we would make sure each person we put forward was in a good state of mind to raid. That has to be done on a case-by-case basis. You can't bar a whole guild, or accept them, on the basis of a single person. I'm glad you understand that now, too."
Donovan scowled, and one of his officers whispered in his ear. Nodding, Donovan cleared his throat, and he spoke up again.
"Fine. That proves you might be okay to raid. What about the rest of you? How do we know you're qualified to vet everyone in your guild?"
Ezekiel huffed at that.
"Well, I did raid in DDA once."
"Half of Aincrad has raided with DDA."
Three DDA members rushed in front of Lind and held him back, away from Donovan. Lind snarled, but he settled for just a glare at Dononan. Ezekiel chuckled, shaking his head, and he went on.
"As I was saying, I raided in DDA once, but I have more background than that. I've led raids in several games before this one, from EVE to Warcraft to Day of Saggittarius Online."
Ezekiel gestured to the stone table, where the mockup map of the boss's room lay.
"You guys talked about dividing the Hydralis raid into four parts, right? Each quarter of the raid would act on its own, independent of the others. That's all well and good if you can guarantee that each quarter has the same overall ability as the others, but it means the raid is only as strong as the weakest link."
"What would you suggest? Look at the doors."
Donovan tapped four corners of the map, where stairs from the lower level of the boss's room led to the upper balcony.
"Splitting the raid is the natural strategy."
"Sure it is; I'm not saying anything different. But! If there are problems with that strategy, you could do it with four groups, one covering each door, and a big rover group composed of four parties. They just go around the room, mopping up everything in front of them."
Touching a finger to the map, Ezekiel traced out a circle, and he tapped the map twice to emphasize his point.
"As long as they can get back around before the next wave, that strategy would work too. We did that on Floor 23, right? Vexalion? It's something worth keeping in mind, anyway, if the split strategy doesn't work. Does that demonstrate I have enough of a grasp of raid leading to judge people? Or will there be a written exam, too?"
"Wh—well…"
Donovan stammered, eyes wide, and his right hand started tracing circles in the air.
"Maybe there should be one!"
At last, a voice of reason came from the gallery.
"Come on, Don, just let it go already. We've got a dungeon run in twenty, and you're wasting all our time trying to get out of this hole you've dug yourself. The In Mem guy knows his shit, okay? Stop making a fuss until you actually have to raid with them. We've got better things to do with our time."
Donovan shrank under this criticism, and he looked around the room for support, but there weren't too many friendly eyes in the house.
"Well, uh…fine! All right. I was just trying to look out for the good of the raid. All of you, do what you want."
With that, Donovan stormed back to the rest of the FtR contingent. His arms folded, he drummed his fingers on his elbows and pouted. Ezekiel stepped back as well, and with both of them having cleared the floor, Klein looked about the room.
"Any further objections to Ezekiel's request? No? Then I'll add In Memoriam's party to the list of submissions. Guild officers should expect a message from me about any cooperative teams in the next few hours. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or another officer in Fūrinkazan. Thank you!"
While most of the attendees filed out, Sachi, Aurora, and I fought through the oncoming tide to reach Ezekiel. As we made it through, Donovan shot us a strange look—frustrated, perhaps, but also skeptical and concerned—but when he noticed us looking back, he pursed his lips, admitting defeat, and called on his entourage to follow.
Aurora seemed most concerned about this.
"I guess we're ruffling some feathers. What are the odds anyone will actually want to raid with us?"
Klein hopped off the table and stretched a bit, shooting Aurora and the rest of us a reassuring smile.
"It's true some of the smaller guilds are concerned about you guys. Fūrinkazan is a small guild, too, but the core has been together a long time, so I don't feel threatened. It may be the others won't won't to raid with you—when I send the assignments for this evening, we'll see who complaints—but you have KoB's support, and DDA doesn't seem to care one way or the other. That's two big bullets you've dodged."
He called over his shoulder, to Asuna.
"Isn't that right?"
She gaped at us for a moment, uncertain what to say. She met my gaze, and then Sachi's.
I stepped halfway between Asuna and Sachi, and Asuna understood: she opened her menu window to navigate to something.
"If nothing else, the GM's comfortable with you guys raiding with us on the floor clear—if that's agreeable to all of you, of course. I won't be there tomorrow morning, if that makes a difference."
With that, she hurried out.
#
Klein took Asuna's suggestion to heart. He assigned In Mem to a mixed raid with KoB and a smaller guild called Kayaba Must Die. Anyone who had that sentiment had to be all right, but in a game culture where most of the guild names were fairly serious, it was hard not to smile a bit every time I saw that name.
The four of us—Aurora, Ezekiel, Sachi, and I—were having drinks at the tavern when Klein's message came in. Ezekiel was pretty relieved with the decision.
"Heathcliff should have everybody in that group on board with us being there. That only leaves KMD people to worry about. If we give them some space, we should be fine. Best to be seen and not heard, you know. If we can do that, and make everyone think we're just buttoned-up raiders doing our jobs, that's a win in my book."
Aurora raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"Look at this guy; not five seconds after we get the word about the raid group, he's already making plans for tomorrow. Maybe I should buy you another round, Zeke."
"Another round? I don't think you ever bought me a first one."
Aurora stuck out her tongue at that, but Ezekiel stole her mug of booze out from under her while she was pouting, drawing a good laugh. Despite their opposite personalities—Ezekiel was bolder but also more private, while Aurora was more cautious despite seeking people out—-the two of them worked well together.
Still, it had been something of a surprise to see them in open disagreement, as they had been about raiding. Since the topic had come up again, Sachi asked Aurora about it:
"You've been pretty concerned about us raiding. Why is that?"
"I don't know if concerned is the right word."
Aurora froze Ezekiel with a glare as she spoke, and she pulled her mug back to her side of the table, taking a short sip before she spoke again.
"I'm just trying to look out for all of us, you know? The raiding guilds aren't going to accept us overnight. People are wary of what they don't understand. Most of the people who come to us don't even understand what's going on in their own heads. I don't expect people on the outside to understand any better."
"You sound like you speak from experience."
Ezekiel and I both flinched in alarm.
"Sachi, let her be." "No, what she means is that—"
And then we stopped, awkwardly, cutting each other off. Aurora smiled slyly.
"So quick to come to a girl's defense! How charming. But that's okay, boys. Sachi has every right to ask."
She put down her mug, and she met Sachi's gaze with a sympathetic, but regretful expression.
"I do have experience with that. It's…very personal. I don't tell most people about it. I'm sorry."
Sachi nodded, casting her eyes to the table.
"No, that's my fault. It's rude of me to pry."
"It absolutely is not! We're all friends here, aren't we?"
Aurora slapped a hand on the table, trying to lighten the mood.
"No way you could know I'd be a little sensitive about that. That's why people have to ask each other things and communicate. Communication's important for people like us, right? So don't worry about it. Yes, I've been concerned, but we're going to have an opportunity, and we should take advantage of it. I haven't kept up on leveling just for fun. I like raiding. Haven't done much in this game, but now's a good time to start. What about you, Sachi? How do you feel about going tomorrow?"
Despite Sachi's episode with Asuna, Aurora had made a point to take Sachi on guild dungeon runs and the like. That Sachi was a tank might've had a little to do with it, but getting Sachi experience in groups without me, or then with me in a separate part of the zone, had been a priority. With those small steps, Sachi seemed to have adapted well—well enough to consider raiding with In Mem's blessing.
Of course, with all our attention on her, Sachi was blushing up to her ears.
"I'm feeling good, I think. I think I'm ready. I am ready. Should be a good time, right?"
"It'll be an even better time with some more beer."
Aurora looked about the tavern for a server. Finding none, she put a hand out to excuse herself from the table, and she tracked down the bartender for another round. Ezekiel watched her wander out of earshot before taking me aside.
"Kirito, do you know something about Aurora? I noticed earlier—you were trying to defuse the situation, too."
I winced. Maybe I'd given him the wrong impression?
"She only gave me a little hint, really. Something about being beaten?"
"Ah, is that so? I'm surprised she said even that much."
Sachi frowned at that, and she glanced over her shoulder, at Aurora and the bar.
"What happened to her? You know, don't you, Ezekiel?"
Ezekiel let out a long sigh, and he started sloshing his drink around idly.
"I wish I didn't. Remember I said Aurora and I weren't that close originally? The truth is, I thought she was this controlling girl who had a lot of pointless rules. When we ran into each other again, after I was kicked out of DDA, she was sympathetic, but I was too bitter to accept that. What did she know about what I was going through? What had she seen to give her the gall to say she understood? That's what I thought, at the time. I berated her and abused her kindness. I think I shouted it loud enough to silence the whole bar. 'Take your patronizing looks and tears of pity and go somewhere else!' Something like that, I think. Man, I was a mess."
He glanced back at the bar, where Aurora already had two mugs filled and the NPC bartender was working on a third. With one eye on her, Ezekiel sat back in his chair. With one last shake of the head in regret, he went on:
"Anyway, that's when Aurora told me what happened to her. I made her tell me. I didn't believe she was genuine until she did. I wish I hadn't forced her to do that. I don't think she was ready for it, but what's done is done. It's not my place to say what happened to her, but I can tell you this: if Aurora seems distant at times, or cautious, it's because she has reason to be. She'll welcome people into her life from a distance, but only up to a certain point. That's a point I haven't even crossed, to be honest.
"Aurora may be worried about raiding, but she wants to believe we can do it. She may keep us all at arm's length, but she wants to believe in this guild. Me? I already believe in it. I just hope we can make it something she can put all her heart in, too. If we keep up the sense of community, of sharing burdens, then I think there's a good chance of that, but we have to be the ones to make it that way. I like to think we're getting there, though. I like to think we're doing some good, don't you think?"
To that, Sachi raised her glass for a toast.
"To In Memoriam."
Ezekiel followed the gesture. Aurora came back with the drinks and said,
"A toast? Don't mind if I do. Hope it's for a good cause."
"It's for the guild."
"Then it's definitely a good cause!"
She thrust one mug into the center without hesitation. Against that kind of solidarity, I was forced to follow suit.
After another hour at the tavern, Sachi and I headed home. It was better to get a good night's sleep; the zone-clearing raid would start bright and early. The final word that Hydralis had died came in around 21:00. That was the last hangup. The raid the next day was happening.
And the last thing we needed was to be totally sloshed before In Mem's first raid.
"I love these guys SO MUCH!"
It may have been a little late for that. I had to keep a firm grip on Sachi's hand just to keep her walking straight. Even then, I could do nothing more than suggest a direction to head toward.
"Everybody gets along SO WELL, and Aurora and Ezekiel are REALLY CUTE TOGETHER, don't you think?"
I don't think Sachi and I had ever had so much to drink together, and it was striking to see how even just the simulation of alcohol had transformed her. Usually quiet and shy, Sachi had a silly, bubbly grin plastered over her face. Her voice was a little uneven, but she didn't seem to mind that passers-by were watching us as we talked.
"I don't think they're together. They seem close, but Ezekiel treats her like a sister, I think."
"You MIGHT be right."
She seemed disproportionately unhappy with this, as that grin from before wiped off in a heartbeat. She went on, a bit softer now, saying,
"But regardless, I think they have what it takes to see things through."
"To see what through? The guild? Or whatever we're calling it?"
"Yeah. You don't think so?"
We were home, and I followed after Sachi.
"It's only been a few weeks. I think it's best not to get too attached. I hope so, for them and for us, but…."
She stopped there, in the entryway, flashing me a sharp look.
"You ARE pretty cold."
That came out a little louder than Sachi intended, I think. Her cheeks flared up with embarrassment, but she looked straight at me and pouted.
"Why are you so afraid to get involved with people? Because this is a game? Do I not seem real to you, Kirito?"
No, that wasn't it at all. If it were, those puckered lips of hers wouldn't have commanded so much of my attention. Sachi wasn't the only one who'd had a little too much to drink. She seemed so alive right then. I could see her chest move as she breathed. Between that, the color in her cheeks, and the fullness of her lips….
"What are you doing?"
I was stroking the back of her arm. As my fingers ran between her shoulder and elbow, her breath caught, and so did mine.
"Kirito."
My heart skipped a beat.
"What do you want?"
I pulled my hand away.
"Sorry, I didn't realize…."
She cocked her head, frowning.
"I think I'll sleep in my room tonight."
#
That was a weird night. I'd never seen Sachi react that way to anything. It wasn't the booze. I could see the clarity in her eyes. There was more strength in her than I'd believed.
People are constantly misunderstanding each other that way. So why would anyone hope for anything different?
That's why I'd started playing online games like SAO: it was accepted—even expected—that people would hold something back about themselves. In groups and in cities, any interactions would be held with that common understanding in place. To shed that blanket of security, of self-protection—why would anyone want to do that? Weren't we close enough as it was? I'd tried to be there for her at every step of the way. Being involved with another person, being "together"—those were words; they didn't mean anything without actions to back them up.
So why did they matter to Sachi?
Because she believed you could really come to know someone—and have a relationship with them, whether that be a friendship or something romantic or whatever—without holding anything back. I couldn't give her that; it wouldn't be real.
Perhaps that was the best reason of all, then.
I did my best not to think about all this stuff, in the hopes I could sleep, but it did little good. I was wide awake early the next morning, when three sharp knocks came from the door. I trotted out there in a hurry, and a stout, bearded man was waiting.
"Who are you?"
Embarrassingly, those were the first words out of my mouth. The answer was right in front of me. In that red and white uniform, this man could only be a member of KoB.
"My name is Godfree; I'll be leading the raid on Floor 42 that you're joining. I've come to get you for the pre-raid strategy meeting that we're holding."
"Pre-raid strategy meeting? So there's intelligence from some of the kill team about what's on the floor?"
"No, but we must be prepared and coordinated for any eventuality."
That wasn't going to be a long meeting. There was hardly anything to discuss but switch rotations and maybe a bit about terrain then.
"Fine. When is this meeting?"
"It started ten minutes ago. You're late."
"What? You're kidding!"
Godfree folded his arms and shot me a stern glare.
"It's mandated that all members of the raid be one hour early for the meeting. I know you're not a member of KoB, so some leniency is being shown, but some minimum standards must be set. If you're not present within forty-five minutes of raid time, you will be replaced."
Maybe it was necessary to have the better part of an hour to wake up a backup raider, but wasn't this a bit extreme?
"Also, I need to find another In Mem player named Sachi, too. Do you know where I could reach her?"
"I have a pretty good idea."
"Good! Save me some trouble and find her then. This is no time to sleep in and be lazy. There are bosses to kill!"
I called over my shoulder.
"Sachi! There's a man here to see us."
Godfree's eyed widened to the size of beets.
"She—she's here?!"
"Yeah."
"You live together?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Aren't you a little young for that?"
At that moment, Sachi came up behind me and peered out the door at our visitor. Her bare feet stuck on the floor, and the blue nightgown swayed around her legs.
"Isn't it a bit early? I thought the raid was in an hour."
Godfree stared at her, then back at me, then back at her.
"You're Sachi? You're both—you're just kids! How is that—"
He bowed his head and rubbed his temple, mumbling to himself.
"This is a crazy game. Kids are shacking up and living together like it's no big deal. What's gone wrong with this world?"
I had to intervene here.
"The part about being trapped in this game disturbs you less than two teenagers having a house together?"
"Well, no. …but it's close!"
Thankfully, Godfree's utter confusion at the moral decay of SAO society bought Sachi and me some time to get dressed.
#
The raid gathered atop the Byzas city wall. With a wide walkway for NPC troops to stage their defense of the city (I won't even guess what they had to defend the city from), there was plenty of space for a raid group to meet. If only we had bows and arrows to aim through the gaps in the upper sections—we could've really made ourselves look like we belonged.
"All right, pay attention please, pay attention!"
That was Godfree. He stood on a raised ledge, which put him above the crowd, and beside a ten-meter drop to the next level of the wall.
"Welcome to the Floor 42 outdoor raid meeting. I'm Godfree, from KoB, and we'll be hosting this raid for our friends from the In Memoriam support group and the guild Kayaba Must Die. We at KoB are all about helping our fellow raiders find an empowering and synergistic raid environment. We feel that a serious and respectful raid environment is key to bringing about a true paradigm shift in raiding culture, one that hopefully will aid us in finding a survival strategy to clear this game."
A few KoB members hid around the corner from Godfree, out of his line of sight. They had cards out and feathered pens, which I thought unusual. There was seldom any need to write with in-game items. I couldn't make it out from a distance, but I made my way through the crowd to see what was on the cards: a series of boxes with words in them. Words like…
"While we have some new people in this raid today, I'm confident we can leverage their unique talents and abilities to make this raid a success."
Leverage. One of the KoB members crossed it off, forming a line of five boxes all marked through.
"Bingo!"
That was a whisper, but the excitement came through loud and clear. They were playing bingo with Godfree's speech, having a good laugh whenever he used a conspicuous buzzword or phrase. I had a pretty good idea, at this point, that Godfree must've been a manager in the real world. Ah well. At least he seemed calm enough not to scream obscenities if someone ended up punted into a pack of whelps.
No, Godfree was all business:
"In Mem and KMD will cover KoB's left and right flanks, respectively. I know it may seem like inglorious duty, but it's important in a first raid with people to establish some useful benchmarks for performance."
Godfree's phrasing could've used a little work, but his reasoning was sound. On these floor-clearing raids, the main front did most of the work. The flanking groups would just protect the rear and sides from unexpected adds. Usually, they were only expected to report and hold off any mobs until the main front arrived. It was also relatively low risk, and since it was common courtesy to divide col evenly among the participants, it could be a profitable task for not much real work.
The people who would be profiting from this raid were In Mem, of course, and KMD. The KMD crowd kept to themselves, but I recognized their guild leader, a spearwoman named Boudicca. We walked right by her on our way in, and all she did was nod. When Godfree asked if we could all cooperate in this diverse raid environment seamlessly, Boudicca had a pretty lukewarm answer.
"As long as In Mem and your people do what they need to do, KMD won't have a problem."
Ezekiel had been perfectly happy with that endorsement.
"I worried we might be viewed with skepticism for being fresh blood, but if people don't care about us as long as we do our jobs, so much the better."
One hoped so. KoB was already on our side; it certainly wouldn't hurt to make a good impression on one of the smaller guilds. They'd be more likely to call on us in the future that way.
But that was contingent on us getting along with them, too. Our first little scrape on entering the raid happened partway along the road to the Labyrinth. Aurora, Ezekiel, and Peeler had engaged a pair of Turanian Tigers:
"Where are we at? Mine first?"
The Tigers swiped at Peeler, but he beared down with his shield, absorbing the blow, and poked the left one with his spear.
"This one's for you, Aurora."
Aurora swung her mace around her body: back and left, over her head, then back and right, building up momentum for an Overhead Smash.
"HYA!"
BANG! The mace head blew out a crater in the ground, and the Tiger shuddered. It whimpered and blinked, swaying unsteadily with a stun effect.
Ezekiel clucked, shaking his head.
"What's this? Didn't finish it off?"
"Shush, Zeke. That's easily fixed."
Aurora put her right foot forward and wound into a spin, arms extended. The head of the mace blurred with speed, and—
Shink. A two-pronged dagger plunged into the Tiger's neck, shattering the beast.
"Sorry, did you guys need some help?"
The dagger's owner was girl, one with jet black hair and icy blue eyes—rather like Sachi, actually, but with her all-black attire and smug smirk, you never would've confused the two.
Peeler was quick to drag the other Tiger away from the girl.
"Ezekiel, get yours!"
"Right!"
Ezekiel turned his dagger over for a downward cut, but as soon as he maneuvered for the kill—
TING, TING, TING! A silvery greatsword sliced through the Tiger in three distinct cuts: one across the body went perpendicular to the stripes, one upward cut gashed the Tiger's neck, and one downward slash chopped the Tiger in two. The halves separated and disintegrated, and the swordsman—a tall, athletically built man—turned his wrist over to sheathe his sword in one fluid motion.
"Get anything good?"
That was the girl. Her companion studied the loot window and said gruffly,
"Nothing."
"Figures."
Ezekiel fumed, and he stormed up to the two of them, dagger in hand.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing, barging in on our mobs like that? You guys here to steal our kills? Is that it? Go back to KMD's side of the raid. We're good here."
The girl tossed her dagger into the air and caught it nonchalantly.
"Dunno what you're talking about. Looked like you guys needed help to me."
Aurora scoffed.
"Your idea of help is taking our XP and col?"
"Whoever gets the last hit gets it. Isn't that right?"
The girl was talking to her companion, who held his sword in one hand. His response was particularly glib:
"It's all fair."
Ezekiel narrowed his eyes.
"We'll see what KoB has to say about that."
"Oh really?"
The girl rolled her eyes.
"KoB's not going to do a damn thing. You guys aren't regular raiders."
I think you can see why I've been unhappy with the raid group's mentality at times. Well, maybe people like that wouldn't respect us yet, but we could still make a good impression by doing our jobs well, and the time to prove ourselves was coming.
Thankfully, we didn't have any more problems on the way to the Labyrinth, and from there, we got a bit of a break. Most of those areas had already been cleared, so we only had to deal with a few scattered spawns that were no challenge to a full raid. We saw a bit of the boss room, and I could imagine Hydralis bursting from its glass tank and snapping with each of its heads at the raid. I would've liked to be a part of that fight, but Labyrinth bosses in SAO didn't respawn. Once they died, they died for good, just like us.
At the far end of the room was the stair to Floor 42. A scent of fresh air wafted in through the gap, and we followed it into daylight. The setting was a lush, arctic forest, with snow-capped mountains in the distance, but the immediate area was green and snow-free.
"It looks peaceful here."
That was Sachi, who shaded her eyes with her hand to gaze into the distance.
"I think I can see a fjord way out there. Can you believe it?"
I nodded. You could never accuse Kayaba of skimping on the world and its content. I guess he thought we'd go stir-crazy if we had to stay pent up with nowhere to go. It wasn't perfect, of course. At short distances, it was easier to notice the pixellation of objects or textures, but after a while, you got used to it, and I said as much.
"Hard to believe this is all a fake world sometimes, huh."
"You think that's what he wanted—to make the game feel real?"
With the innovation of virtual reality, I'm sure that was part of it. Was the world more real because death was permanent? Perhaps it was. Or, I guess that made SAO more like the real world because of that.
Whatever Kayaba's intentions, it was our destiny to keep fighting him and to push toward clearing this game. The world he had so painstakingly built and designed had to be left behind, and making our way through the arctic forest was part of that goal.
Godfree led the raid through a pre-cleared path—one deemed safe by a raid group slightly ahead of us—up until a fork in the road.
"The other group went right, so we'll head left and see who makes it to town first. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the power of parallel workflow."
Parallel workflow was a dead end for us, as we soon met the end of the road, and Godfree ordered us to turn back and pursue some other side branches and paths. That was fine; where exactly we were going had no impact on our job. The six of us—Aurora, Ezekiel, Sachi, the bare-fisted bruiser Kali, our third forward-tank Peeler, and I—were off the road watching for mobs from the woods. It was slower going there since we didn't have the benefit of a level road to walk on. We had to work our way around mossy rocks and thick tree trunks, but all that did was slow down the group's progress through the zone a little.
There wasn't anything serious to worry about until we ran into the Deer herd.
Now, I know what you're thinking: of all the dangerous and vicious mobs in SAO, I'm telling you what scared me was a bunch of deer? Well, no, they didn't scare me at first. At first, it was just one Deer crossing the road that charged at Godfree and made our intrepid raid leader flail with his sword. The KoB forwards quickly dispatched of the Deer, but already, there was some concern.
"Have you ever seen that before?"
That was Ezekiel.
"A deer that aggros on proximity? That's not supposed to happen."
We were all thinking it. Deer were usually non-aggressive mobs. They would attack you if you attacked first, or if you persisted in invading their space, but otherwise, they almost always left passing players alone. Something was amiss, and the subsequent cry that went through the raid confirmed it.
"Halt, halt! We've got debuffs here!"
That, too, was unusual. Other games might've had fights where you could end up putting over forty debuffs on a single boss, but SAO was rather frugal with buffs and debuffs. There were no buffing classes of any kind, and the interface for debuffs was boiled down into common debilitating effects (poison, paralysis, other DoTs, and so on) and special, unique ones. With so much emphasis on executing skills and maneuvering, SAO just didn't need a huge array of status effects.
But what was this that had slowed our raid to a halt? I couldn't see well through the trees, but it looked curable. Godfree and his forwards shared a couple crystals between them, and the raid started moving again. Word filtered in from the front:
"Get your Antidote Crystals ready."
Sachi replaced a red crystal on her belt with a green one instead. And we would need it, for another cry came from the front.
"They're coming! Get ready!"
A herd of Deer gathered down the road, and Godfree's main KoB force engaged them. The forwards were unusually timid, though, deferring to people with one-handed spears, people with reach. Was the debuff from these Deer that dangerous? Were they that short on Antidote Crystals?
I had to find out. Our side of the raid's formation may have been clear for the moment, but more of these mobs could come out of the forest at any time. I gave my advice to Ezekiel:
"We need more information about what's going on up front."
"Right. Sachi, Kali, Kirito, come with me. Peeler, you stay with Aurora. Got it?"
The three of us followed Ezekiel's lead, returning to the road. The KoB parties had encircled about a dozen of mobs, but these weren't ordinary Deer. Their eyes glowed red, and each one frothed at the mouth, biting and snapping at anyone who tried to strike them. Their fur was disheveled and missing patches.
"Rabid Deer? Oh, no, no, no."
Ezekiel sighed and pressed two fingers to his forehead.
"I'm pretty sure rabid Deer don't hunt in packs."
"It looks like they do here."
That was Kali, who peered around the crowd with a gruff, disinterested expression. Ezekiel didn't seem to see her logic, though.
"But I'm saying they don't in real life. Deer don't hunt, and they don't even like meat. If I run into a rabid deer, it's probably just one rabid deer, not a whole herd of them!"
"Maybe we should submit that as a bug report, right next to not having a logout button and suffering permanent brain death when we die in-game."
Kali's sarcasm aside, whether Rabid Deer liked to hunt in packs or not, KoB was handling them. There wasn't much for us to help out with or take care of there.
Or so I thought, until—
"Help! We need help here!"
One of the other raiders—one of the KMD people, given the stark, all-black executioner uniform—came running out of the forest, panting and wheezing, but he caught his breath long enough to finish his thought.
"We've got adds from the east!"
I drew my sword, and the four of us double-timed it into the woods on the opposite side of the dirt road. The ground was soft and gave easily under our feet, but when it slowed us down, we just kicked up mud behind us.
The KMD parties had run across a half-dozen more Rabid Deer, and their situation wasn't nearly as well-secured as KoB's. The Rabid Deer had penetrated the defensive line, each engaging two or three players in a chaotic melee.
Ezekiel set his sights on the closest mob and gave the word.
"Sachi, engage it first! Then Kirito can switch in."
"Okay!"
Sachi barged into the fray shield-first. Her legs blurred beneath her, and she knocked down a Rabid Doe. The KDM players fled as Sachi took the forward position. The Doe climbed to its feet and snapped at Sachi, thrusting its jagged teeth and spreading a frothy foam of saliva with each lunging attack. The Doe couldn't crane its neck around Sachi's shield, nor could it batter or kick its way through the metal barrier.
Sachi was cautious, refusing to strike with the Doe so close and frantic. With both sides frustrated, the Rabid Doe paced away, backing off. That was odd. It wasn't low on health, so why was it running? Unless…
"Sachi, don't let it get any distance!"
"Right!"
Sachi chased after the mob, but the Doe turned it back and fled at speed. It circled around, and with red in it eyes, it charged at Sachi like a missile. I couldn't help but shout:
"Get down!"
With her shield as protection, Sachi crouched to one knee and braced herself. She gritted her teeth and wrapped her fist tight around the hilt of her sword.
WHAM!
The Doe and Sachi collided. Two hooves pounded on the shield, but Sachi only dug her heels with the blows. With Sachi low to the ground but firm, the Doe couldn't bowl her over. The Doe's legs bent awkwardly as the hooves found no traction, and it tumbled, landing on it side. With legs flailing and jaw snapping, it was dangerous just to approach, but Sachi did more than that. She plunged her sword into the Doe's body with a stabbing strike, but her offense wasn't really meant for this task. She glanced over her shoulder, still holding her shield high to cover most of her chest.
"Ready to switch?"
I swooped in, sword in hand, and she backed away as I hacked and cut at the fallen Doe, but the thing was monstrously durable: my sword was like a toothpick, taking off 5% here, 6% there. The beast had Rabies, but it wasn't acting like a sickly, debilitated creature. It was acting stronger and tougher than any Deer I'd ever seen! What unrealistic game design!
"Kirito, can you keep it busy for a second?"
That was Ezekiel, who drew his dagger and held it sideways.
"Yeah, I got it. Get into position."
Ezekiel circled the Doe while it rose and kicked at me. I focused my efforts on dodging rather than trying to kill the beast. Still, one bite caught the edge of my coat and snagged it, ripping a piece off. This Deer was going to be murder on my repair bill!
"Anytime now, Ezekiel!"
He put a finger to his lips circled around, behind the trees and out of the Doe's sight. He tip-toed to the Doe's rear, crouched behind it, and raised his dagger to strike.
"HYAA!"
He slashed at the Doe's throat, and the last 20% of the Doe's health disappeared. It vanished into particles and light.
"That was good!"
Sachi removed a glove and wiped some sweat from her forehead.
"But what are we going to do about all the others? They have too much health, don't you think?"
She had a good point. There were far too many Deer to take on like that. If the KoB group at the front didn't get through with their mobs in a hurry, we could end up overrun.
Ezekiel frowned, and he tapped one of the trees with the flat side of his dagger.
"Kirito, what do you think?"
Ah, that was a good idea. If we couldn't do enough damage to the Deer ourselves, we could manipulate the environment to do it for us.
We tracked down the next-nearest mob—this one, a Rabid Stag—and put our plan into action. Sachi relieved a KMD forward, keeping the Stag busy while nimble Kali beat it down. In the meantime, Ezekiel and I went to work on the tree. Ezekiel stood by and provided cover while I chopped down one of the thick arctic firs. Sachi dragged the Deer into position, just in time for the tree trunk to smash it into the ground.
"Timber!"
The falling trunk took off only half of the Stag's health, but it kept the Stag pinned and bleeding. For the moment, we diverted our attention to the rest of the herd. Ezekiel directed traffic for the plan:
"Out of the way! We need as much of this area clear as possible!"
The four of us came up on another small skirmish with two Deer against a pair of KMD forwards. One of them was clearly outmatched: he didn't have a shield, and one of the crystal slots on his belt sat empty, surrounded only by red Healing Crystals. Sachi saw the same thing.
"I've still got an Antidote Crystal; I'll switch in for you!"
The first KMD forward gladly gave up his position, but the second was just a little incredulous.
"You're going to bring down a tree on these Deer? Isn't that dangerous? What if we end up pinned?"
Ezekiel did his best to explain the strategy.
"Just bring the Deer as close as you can to the tree; that means you won't have to drag them nearly as far once we know exactly how the tree's falling. If somehow you get hurt, we'll cut you out. We've done this before, and it's worked. Just do it!"
The KMD forward looked ill at the thought, but he nodded reluctantly.
"All right, fine, get it over with! This thing is freaking me out!"
With all that slobber coming off the Stag's mouth, I could agree with that.
When Sachi and the other KMD forward had their mobs roughly in a line, I hacked away at the nearest tree. It took four good Horizontals to bring it down, and I tried to carefully line up each slash, but every time I tried to do a practice swing, the system assist kicked in and yanked my arm out of my control, performing the full Horizontal cut. It was like getting your arm caught in the door of a bullet train.
"Something wrong, Kirito?"
Ezekiel checked over his shoulder, but the best I could do was shrug feebly.
"Just fighting the game a bit."
I did one more cut, but the gashes weren't quite lined up. As such, the tree fell at a slight angle away from Sachi and the other forward. Ezekiel noticed this, too.
"Walk it around! Easy now!"
Sachi backpedaled under the shadow of the tree, but the KMD forward looked up, saw the trunk coming down straight over his head, and bolted.
WHAM!
The tree smashed one of the Deer, but the other followed the KMD forward to safety. The frightened forward lost sight of his quarry, and because of that, the mob ended up engaged with no one. It went after the nearest target of opportunity: Ezekiel.
"It's loose! Get out of the way!"
I shouted at him, but Ezekiel couldn't dodge that Deer's charge. It slammed him into another tree; its antlers ran through Ezekiel's body, pinning him between the Deer's frothing mouth and the unmoving trunk.
"Hold still; I've got it!"
That was Kali, nimble and quick, who came to Ezekiel's rescue first. She darted around the Deer's frantic kicks as it tried to dislodge itself. Kali pressed three of her fingers together, and with a brilliant yellow glow, her hand drove into the Deer's flesh.
KA-PISH!
Yellow damage particles exploded from the wound, and the Deer made a sickened gurgling noise. It struggled to get free all the more, kicking at the dirt and screaming right in Ezekiel's ear. He turned his head aside and clawed for grip, but there was nothing he could do. The antlers were still holding him to the trunk.
"Get this damn thing off me! Hit it with that again!"
"It's got a cooldown!"
"Then hit it with something else!"
Ezekiel fumbled for his dagger, and he chopped at one of the antlers with frenzied, machine-like cuts. Kali circled around the Deer, trying to find another opening, but these desperate slashes and chops from Ezekiel limited her angles.
"Hold still! I'm gonna try to kick it loose!"
She backed up two steps and dashed at the Deer, unleashing a backflip kick to the Deer's gut. One of the Deer's antlers snapped off, disintegrating, but this gave the Deer more range of motion, enough to sink its teeth in Ezekiel's neck.
"AGH!"
And his health was dropping too, as he took continuous damage from the antler still sticking through his torso, the bite on his neck, and the debuff that bite had applied. Ezekiel's health fell below 40%, then 35%, then 30%…
"For the love of—will you get this thing off of me?"
Ezekiel gritted his teeth and stabbed the Deer's shoulder. He yanked the blade free, turned it in hand for a downward cut, and drove the edge along the Deer's stomach.
"Hey!"
And through Kali's leg, too.
"Watch it, ya damn moron!"
"Well, I'm sorry! If you had this thing biting into your shoulder, you'd stab it, too!"
Ezekiel and the Deer tangled in a flurry of metal and teeth, yet Kali stood her ground. She came up on the Deer's side and kneed it in the gut. The Deer's body rose, and Kali slammed it back into the ground with the bottom of a closed fist. This Hammerfist Strike broke the Deer's back, tearing it open with electric red sparks, and it shattered soon after.
"Thank goodness!"
Slumping at the base of the tree, Ezekiel sheathed his dagger with a groan and sipped on a potion.
"Gimme a swig of that when you're done, would ya?"
Kali wrung out her fingers and fell gingerly; with her body covered in damage marks, she looked worse off than she really was. She was still at 80% health, but the visible wounds lingered. Ezekiel handed her the potion and wafted some of the damage particles away.
"Sorry, Kali. You all right?"
She shrugged.
"Just a little friendly fire. Let me handle next time, all right?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
Sachi came up to me, watching Ezekiel and Kali with a warm smile.
"Nice to find a guild that doesn't punish people harshly for their mistakes, isn't it?"
Quite right. A real hardcore guild might've gotten on Ezekiel's case for wounding Kali. It felt good to see Kali let it go so quickly.
Actually, it felt great just to get a win there: to fight off some serious mobs in a raid with Sachi, with In Memoriam—it meant we were really accomplishing something.
"Let's go back and find Aurora and Peeler, yeah?"
Ezekiel said that, rising from the base of the tree, and he pulled Kali up after him. The four of us went together, heading back for the road and the other side of the raid formation.
"Good hunting for the rest of the raid!"
Sachi said that to a couple KMD forwards we left behind. They nodded, watching us go.
They didn't say anything. They only watched us go.
#
The rest of the raid was uneventful, and the group broke up once we made the outskirts of a town called Strjonar. Godfree tried to corral people for a closing speech on how raid synergy and cooperation had brought us success in the raid, but no one seemed enthusiastic about that.
Instead, with the raid over, the six of us from In Mem headed to the water. Strjonar sat at the base of a steep hill. Overgrown with trees and moss-covered huts, it was a picture of a subarctic village, like what you'd find in the northernmost reaches of Hokkaidō.
"Hey, you think we can go canoeing?"
The shore at Strjonar was a small, rocky coastline buffered from the rest of town by flat, grass-covered terrain. The teleport gate was on the shoreline clearing, and the six of us walked along the coast there. With boats and canoes tied up along the shore, there might've been a quest or fishing event out on the water.
Aurora took to that idea.
"Let's see if we can find an NPC to rent some canoes from. In Mem's just had a successful raid; it wouldn't be a crime to treat ourselves. Who knows what'll be out there, right?"
And to think she'd been so standoffish about raiding just a day before.
Well, I was content to just relax for the rest of the day. No doubt we'd have a big party in the evening to celebrate with the rest of the guild. I didn't mind if we went out on the water or not, so I left the task of finding the NPC owners to Aurora, Peeler, and Sachi. Kali sat along the water with her feet on the rocks. Ezekiel went to talk to some NPCs about the Labyrinth boss.
So I was alone, then, when she came to find me.
"I like your new friends, Kii-bō."
The hooded figure stood in the shadow of a shed. She hunched over slightly, avoiding a life ring that was hanging on the shed's outer wall, and only that gesture revealed strands of her reddish-brown hair, or the fake whiskers painted on her cheek.
"You got here quickly."
She sniffed at that.
"If you want information about the highest floor, best to be there as soon as the raiding guilds unlock the town. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to stay in business."
"So you want to know what we've found out since we arrived? That's forward of you."
"Not at all. I know you know nothing."
"Oh really? I think I should be offended!"
Argo the Rat pulled her hood back, and she locked her eyes on me: cold, unwavering eyes.
"Kii-bō, do you like your new friends?"
I glanced down the shoreline. Sachi and Aurora skipped stones on the water, laughing about something I couldn't hear.
"They're all right. They mean well. Why do you ask?"
She opened her interface menu and materialized a newspaper, which she handed to me. It was her newsletter, the Weekly Argo. Argo was quick to point out something:
"This is just a draft. I owe it as a courtesy to get all sides of a story before I send it out in print."
What story could that be? I scanned the headlines: "Raiding guilds clear Floor 41," "KoB moves headquarters in 12 million col purchase,"—all pretty typical news and gossip.
That was, until I saw the bottom of the front page:
"Support group officer suffers breakdown in friendly-fire incident."
My eyes flashed, and I turned the paper back on Argo.
"What is this? Who told you about this?"
She touched a pinky to her lips, thinking.
"Well, let's see, we didn't discuss confidentiality fees—"
"Argo…."
"The Kayaba Must Die guild, Kii-bō. To a man, they're saying Ezekiel had a bad reaction to being trapped. It's well-known that Ezekiel was involved in a similar situation before, from his time in DDA."
"But that's not what happened! Kali is fine. We're all fine. Ezekiel is walking around town looking for hints about the next boss. There's nothing wrong with him, nothing wrong with us!"
She smiled sympathetically.
"I believe that, but people—I fear people in general will not."
No, people in general would look at us with the same eyes those KMD forwards had when we left them—wary, suspicious, even a little afraid.
Argo touched her interface window, and the newspaper dematerialized from my hand.
"I won't publish such a one-sided story, but I don't think I can avoid mentioning it at all. Already, KMD players are saying they're not sure they want to group with you again. And it was a friendly-fire incident, Kii-bō. People have died from those."
She couldn't keep it quiet, even with Ezekiel's side of the story. I understood that, but that didn't mean the rest of the guild would take it well. I rounded up the others to tell them what Argo had heard, and Kali probably said it best:
"That's bullshit."
She kicked at the water, making a splash, and she shook her head with tight, bitter lips.
"That's total bullshit. I'm the one who took the hit. I'm fine. It wasn't that big of a deal. You'd have to be crazy to think differently."
Scowling, she turned to Argo.
"Can't you make this lie go away? You're an information broker. Go get the truth."
Argo shrugged.
"Your word against theirs. But, maybe you could get them to change their tune? I know where you could find them."
I narrowed my eyes.
"How much is that going to cost us?"
"Please. For the pursuit of the truth, that information is free."
She looked to Aurora and bowed magnanimously.
"But only if In Memoriam's fearless leader accepts it, of course."
Aurora cocked an eyebrow at Argo, and she cast her gaze over the water with narrowed eyes.
"Let it go, guys. We did our part. Let's not let rumor and gossip get us down."
Peeler shook his head and sipped from a flask.
"That won't matter one bit when people think we failed the raid."
Sachi nodded.
"I'm with Peeler. We need to go to KMD and explain our side of it. This isn't fair to us."
Aurora looked to me, but all I could do was shrug. At that, Aurora sighed, muttering to herself.
"This isn't a good idea…."
#
Nevertheless, we headed up the slope, into the main part of town. We sent a message to Ezekiel and followed Argo's intelligence to the town smithy—a small building made of rough, irregularly shaped stones and with a small garden growing on the roof, of all places.
"So the best place to look for ores is by the glacier?"
That was Boudicca, talking to an NPC blacksmith. He nodded, his beard shaking as he spoke.
"That's right. Not many of us go too close to the ice this time of year, but if you're adventurous, you might be able to get at some veins that aren't usually exposed."
One of the KMD players looked down the road and met our gaze. He tapped his mace handle on the cobblestones.
"Bou, company."
At that, Boudicca trotted up the steps, away from the smithy, and stood at the front of her group.
"Something you want?"
"Yeah, something all right."
That was Ezekiel, and he marched right up to Boudicca, even as her guildmates drew their weapons to defend her.
"Relax."
Boudicca held up a hand, warding them off.
"Everybody relax. This is an Area; I'm sure there's no cause to be concerned."
She shot Ezekiel a sharp look.
"Or is there?"
"You tell me. Your guild is the one spreading lies about what happened in the raid."
Boudicca opened her mouth to speak, but her eyes wandered to Argo, who had a feather pen and a piece of parchment in hand. Argo, for her part, smiled sunnily and kept writing.
"Oh, don't mind me. I'm just putting those hours in Journalism Club to use. Please, continue."
Still eyeing Argo, Boudicca cleared her throat, and she refocused on Ezekiel.
"Look, I talked to five different people. They all said you cut the martial artist over there pretty deep."
"It was a miscommunication!"
Ezekiel paced around Boudicca, fuming.
"I did not have an episode! Anyone who characterizes it that way is deliberately exaggerating the facts!"
Boudicca raised both her eyebrows.
"Come now, Ezekiel. I've seen you raid with DDA before. You may be a little hot-headed, but you know how to execute. By all accounts, you weren't level at all today. You made a serious error. I know this is damaging to you all, but as far as I could tell, this is the truth. This is what happened. I'm not going to tell my people to be silent about it."
Ezekiel gawked at her.
"So to hell with us, then? To hell with us trying to raid, is that it?"
"You'll raid when the raiding guilds are ready for you to raid with them. That's nothing new. Pretty sure Gordok had the same problem with his guild, but now, nobody cares that he's twelve and leading a guild. He did a good job, and people got over it."
"And until people get over us, we just sit here flapping in the wind."
"Life's tough sometimes."
"Even though we're doing good work for the raiding community, good work for clearing the game?"
Boudicca shrugged.
"Maybe you are? Look, I'm just concerned with clearing the game. I don't think we have time to go pursuing some social agenda. Either you're ready to raid, or you're not. That's all people should judge you on, so just go play the game."
She looked to her guildmates and twitched her head, and using her spear like a walking stick, Boudicca headed down the road, toward the glacier in the distance. Ezekiel came back to us, shaking his head. Argo, too, pursed her lips, and she put her parchment and feather pen away. Sachi was the first to break the silence.
"That's awfully naïve of her, if she thinks people won't look on us negatively just for who we are."
"It's more than that: it's willful ignorance."
Aurora scraped her boot sole on the cobblestone road, looking like she needed to spit something out.
"It's whatever paper-thin excuse she can pretend to believe to get us off her back and not make us her problem. People like her? They're more dangerous than obvious trolls like Donovan. They think it's right to sit in the middle and do nothing, like they can say nobody's right and nobody's wrong."
She scoffed, shaking her head.
"There's no fighting that, guys. You'd have better luck getting that glacier to move."
With that, Aurora turned about, heading down the cobblestone road to the center of town. Whatever small hope Aurora had come to believe in, hope for our guild to play as equals, it died that day.
It shattered like broken sword, and like all broken things in this game, we weren't even left pieces to pick up and put back together.
Auld Lang Syne updates every two weeks, so look forward to the next chapter on Saturday, October 4, 2014, at 1 PM EDT (10 AM PDT), after the official stream of SAO II Episode 14.
Next time: "Strjonar." Kirito and Asuna work to convince the raiding community that In Mem can be trusted in a raid again, but their greatest opponent, more than any hostile guild, is Aurora.
For notes and commentary on this chapter and others, check out the Auld Lang Syne thread on Sufficient Velocity, linked from my user profile.
