-Floor 58, dungeon, 1.5 months later.-
"Kirito?" Dark said, noticing the boy sitting on a wall.
"Oh, hey there, Dark." Kirito said, raising a hand in acknowledgement.
"What are you doing? I had thought you'd be in the dungeon." Dark asked.
"Well, Today is the nicest day of the year in Aincrad and I took a nap. Miss 'vice commander' over here joined me and isn't up yet." Kirito explained, pointing a thumb to the sleeping girl.
"That's pretty nice of you to watch over her. If I remember correctly, you two finished the first boss together. Right?" Dark asked.
"Yeah. She's gotten really irritable, though. Although, she could probably kick my ass if she really wanted to." Kirito replied.
"You two would make a good pair, couple, however you want to say it." Dark said with a smile, pulling her helmet off and sitting next to the boy.
"Huh? We're both lead players, friends, that's it." Kirito retorted.
"You're quite compatible with each other now that I think about it. The reason you don't get along too well is because you're ignoring that fact." Dark explained.
"...Tch... What would you know?" Kirito huffed. Dark smiled and pulled her right gauntlet off and showed her hand. A crystalline ring inscribed with her guild insignia was on her finger.
"A guild ring?" Kirito asked.
"No, stupid. Wedding ring. It's just Kira, Kuro and I in the guild so we thought the emblem appropriate." Dark chuckled.
"Wait, if it's just you three then..." Kirito started. Dark gave him a look. "Oh, right, you swing that way." He continued.
"That makes it sound like a bad thing." Dark said jokingly, though with a serious tone.
"Not really. It's strange, but I don't see anything wrong with it. Congratulations, when?" Kirito asked.
"Half a month ago. We finally convinced the player handling weddings to marry us. Pain in the ass, if you ask me. My advice to you? Elope. That's what we're going to do when we beat this damn game." Dark replied.
"What do you mean...- Wait! Why do you keep doing that? We're just friends and occasionally partners." Kirito huffed.
"Because it's fun to mess with you like that. You're a good guy, Kirito. Both you and Asuna know that. I can't imagine anyone better for either of you than each other. Think about it, at least. Everyone needs someone they can always rely on, no matter what, and a lover can be the best." Dark said, getting a bit serious towards the end.
"...Right... Thanks. Anyways, how is Kuro and Kira? I haven't seen any of you for a while." Kirito asked.
"We've been spending a lot of time away from the front lines for the marriage, and to get Kuro leveled up." Dark answered.
"You're all on my friends list, I haven't noticed much leveling going on. You're almost my level, with kira not far behind, but Kuro is only about half that." Kirito said, opening his friends list to prove the point.
"We've been focusing on her skills and her pet, but if you pay attention tonight she'll jump quite a few. I was actually just about to go back to floor 50 to buy the rest of the yellow herbs I need from Egil" Dark explained.
"Yellow herbs? You're spamming EXP boosts?" Kirito put together.
"Yes, but that's not all of it. As you probably know, you can bottle XP if you have a high level alchemist with empty flasks. We give most of them away, at least the ones we don't use, but we've been saving them up. An EXP boost comes in two forms. Time based, and single uses. Time based boosts give less of a boost, but last more than one boost. Single uses give higher boosts, but only modify the next group of EXP you get. We've been keeping the single uses." Dark explained.
"So you're going to bloat her with boosts and feed her bottled EXP, single uses to maximize the boosts?" Kirito asked.
"Yeah. I have a feeling Heathcliff and Thinker are going to have a fit if they find out, but Kuro really hates not being able to come with me when I go on the front lines and Kira is starting to get a bit underleveled keeping an eye on her." Dark said with a sigh.
"I see. Where are they now?" Kirito asked. Dark answered by pointing towards the dungeon entrance. There was a massive crystal blue dragon flying towards them.
"They were on the front lines farming respawns to make sure Onyx would match Kuro's level once she drinks the potions. Nice talking to you again, see you at the boss fight in three days." Dark explained, standing up and replacing her armor.
"Uh, yeah." Kirito said. For a moment, Dark's outline went red and the eyes behind the helmet glowed red as she jumped straight up into the air with enough force to leave a crack in the ground. Once she reached the peak of her leap, the Dragon zoomed past and caught her.
'Damn, Vampirism is a scary thing. I may have more levels and overall power on her, but at night she would destroy me.' Kirito thought. He heard a small sneeze coming from the general direction of behind him and turned to see Asuna stirring. 'Better not tell her about that' He thought, remembering what Dark said.
-Floor 50, later that day, Egil's shop.-
"You're stacking pretty high on EXP ingredients." Egil commented when she bought lots of them.
"Kuro needs to be on par with us so she can be with us wherever we go." Dark said, handing the ingredients to Kira. She proceeded to spawn in a mobile alchemy set and sat down cross legged, brewing the potions, as Kuro watched with interest.
"Oh I see, I've never actually seen anyone powerlevel like this, but Kirito once told me about it." Egil said.
"Well the last potion is done, this should be enough to bring her up to our level." Kira said, standing up and spawning in a large goblet.
"What are your levels, exactly?" Egil asked.
"Kuro is level 37, I'm level 81 and Kira is level 76." Dark answered.
"Damn, I upkeep my level so that I can fight on the front lines if needed and I'm only 70." Egil said.
"Well then watch, this is the fastest way to level. It's not very practical, you don't get the physical experience and you don't learn much from it, but we've been teaching Kuro everything we know and she's the equivalent of a front-lines beast tamer in terms of that skill tree." Kira explained as she put a bunch of potions into the goblet and crushed them, leaving nothing but the liquid.
"It might taste weird, but you have to drink this." Kira said with a smile. Kuro nodded and quickly downed the goblet, grimacing slightly at the bitter taste.
"If we didn't give her the boots, we'd only have enough EXP bottled for about 2 levels at the most. With this, it should put her into the seventies." Kira said, taking out a large flask as an icon appeared under Kuro's power bar.
"4,298%?!" Egil exclaimed.
"It's single use." Kira said. "Crush this flask in your hands, don't worry it won't hurt you." She continued to Kuro, handing the large flask to her. Kuro shook herself, nodded and did as she was told. A large amount of glowing, multi colored orbs shot out of the flask and floated around her. Slowly, the orbs started floating into Kuro. a level up screen popped up as more were absorbed. The pace quickened and they lost track of how many times the girl leveled up.
When the gale of experience was finally finished, Kuro was down on one knee with a screen saying 'level 7980' was in front of her.
"Looks like that did the trick." Dark said with a smile, crouching down next to the girl.
"Mommy, I don't feel right. It's like, I suddenly got really old." Kuro said softly.
"You don't look any different, though it appears your mind has matured a bit. It doesn't matter, you're still our little Kuro." Dark said, helping the girl to her feet.
"Man that was tense." Egil said, rubbing the back of his head.
"We've got a lot of skills we need to get on par as well, but that won't take so much time. We've been so focused on your training with Onyx." Kira said.
"Hey Egil, got any good and rare gear on sale? I've got some stuff I'll trade in for." Dark asked.
"I do, guessing she needs a gear upgrade now?" Egil guessed. Dark nodded and they traded for a little while. When they finished, Dark gave it all to Kuro.
"Um... Is it alright if I wait to put all of this on? It feel wrong just getting it for free without earning it..." Kuro asked.
"Up to you, it's your gear now. Now that you have a high enough level I feel better about taking you into a boss fight. I hear that floor 58 is giving everyone trouble, wanna see if we can help? If you can kill the boss then you've earned everything." Dark suggested.
"Are you sure, love? That's the very front lines and the guilds are taking a break from trying to beat it today." Kira said.
"I got into contact with Fenrikkuzen, Klein's guild, and they said they figured out how to beat it but they need some strong players. I'd say Draconis Eluvium is good enough, eh?" Dark said.
"What about Kirito and Asuna?" Kira asked.
"I can answer that one. They're trying to solve a series of strange murders. They came by earlier to appraise a weapon for leads." Egil said.
"I see. We can handle it. See you later, Egil." Dark said as they left to make their way towards the teleport gate.
-Floor 58, Boss room-
"Huh?" Dark said as they found the boss room door. Klein and his guild were standing there, but so was Heathcliff and a few KoBs.
"Hello, Draconis Eluvium. I heard you were going to take on this boss today and was interested to see if you could really do it." Heathcliff said.
"You know we can do it, why are you really here?" Dark asked.
"Hm... Our guilds are allied, therefore I can see your members' names and levels. Kuro recently went from high thirties to 80 in a matter of seconds. I am aware that you were in the beta, and I haven't held that against you, until now. You're not telling us something that could be invaluable to getting lots of high level players on the front lines." Heathcliff explained, a serious look on his face.
"You're not only wrong, but completely off. It's not invaluable to getting strong players and I've not only spread the method but helped in doing it with others some. It's simple, you spam single EXP boosts and have an alchemist bottle a bunch of EXP. It's not invaluable, because all it does is give you levels and upgrade your base stats. Your skills don't level with you and you'd go from farming respawns on floor 20 to the front lines here, and you'd be useless." Dark explained.
"That's what you did? If it only gets you killed on the front lines then why are you taking her to the boss fight?" Heathcliff retorted.
"Because the reason her level was so low is because we've been focusing on her class skills and her other skills. She has the experience and strength to be this high of a level, she just didn't have the actual levels. She wants to earn her high level gear, though, so if she can land the final blow she earns it all." Kira replied.
"Um... Can we stop arguing and clear the boss?" Klein asked.
"Right..." Everyone said after a moment.
"Alright! Now, in our last skirmish against this boss, we found that it's weak to attacks from the air. Its not used to fighting things as high as he is." Klein said.
"Wait, what kind of monster is he?" Kuro asked.
"He's a mature Dragon, the only dragon bigger and more powerful is an Elder and those are only on the last 20 floors, if Algorithms hold true." Heathcliff said.
"Well then that works perfectly. We'll all distract the boss and Kuro will try and land a critical weakness attack. Does it have much HP?" Dark asked Klein.
"No, it only has one bar, but from below it takes 99% reduced damage and it flies up when you try to jump. There's a ceiling, so you can just use a dash skill to go super high." Klein explained.
"Kuro, equip that weapon I gave you. If you don't then you might not be able to beat it." Dark said to the girl. She nodded and opened her inventory. In a few seconds, the girl's uncommon glaive was replaced with a rare one. It looked as if the stave part was made from the spine of some beast, the blades the serrated teeth.
"Why do all of your armor and weapon revolve around dragons..." Klein deadpanned.
"Draconic gear is one of the best types in the game, only overshadowed by Crystallite and magic type." Heathcliff said.
"Plus it looks really cool." Kira said with a wink.
"Right. We'll distract it and use throwing weapons and lunging skills to keep it busy and force it into the ceiling. Once that happens it's up to you, Kuro. You know your skills and Onyx's better than I." Dark planned.
"Onyx?" Heathcliff asked. The Drakeling answered by lifting its head from where it was draped around Kuro's shoulders and letting out a small plume of smoke from its nostrils.
"I don't think she'll be much use against a mature dragon..." Heathcliff said.
"Trust me, She's not just a drakeling anymore." Kuro said with a smile.
"Alright. Let's do this. Good luck everyone." Dark said, beating a gauntlet on her chest plate in a sort of salute. Everyone repeated the action and they opened the door.
The dragon looked as if he was forged from metal, though they caught a glimpse of what appeared to be molten skin on its back before it launched into the air and rained molten metal upon them from his jaws.
All of the KoBs had shields, so they were the front line, while Fenrikkuzen had lots of high mobility attacks and were able to poke and harass the beast. Draconis Eluvium were able to do substantially more damage to the beast than Fenrikkuzen, but in the end only a tiny sliver of its health was gone. They did succeed in driving it upwards, though, and Kuro acted.
"Onyx! Beast tamer skill, Devastating Growth!" Kuro called as she leaped into the air above the flying Drakeling. With a roar mightier than the boss's, Onyx suddenly grew in a flash of blue light. The boss bellowed a yelp mixed with a roar and tried to fly further upwards, but the ceiling blocked it.
"Incapacitating bite!" Kuro yelled as she readied herself. With a yellow glow, Onyx shot forward and latched her jaws around the beast's neck. It suddenly found itself unable to move to counter attack, the bite had a paralysis effect, and Onyx let it fall from her grasp to the ground below. Before it landed, however, Kuro dropped from Onyx's back and plunged glaive-first towards the Boss.
She landed on its skull, which had more armor than the rest of its back, but it stopped struggling as its HP bar slowly dropped to red. She twisted the glaive once, then once more and ripped it out of the beast's head. It exploded into bits of data and the congratulations message appeared.
"Well, I guess you weren't lying about focusing on her class skills..." Heathcliff said.
"Was anyone hurt?" Kira asked.
"Eh, I went into red but we have plenty of potions." Klein waved off as his health bar went back into green.
"You know, both of your guilds are quite powerful. Fenrikkuzen isn't quite a major guild yet, but Draconis Eluvium is considered one. I can't ask you to disband your guilds to join the Knights of the Blood oath, but I will ask for you to possibly deepen our alliances and for you to become something along the lines of sub-branches." Heathcliff offered.
"We'd rather not, sorry." Klein said apologetically. "We're only on the frontlines when we have an advantage. We're not strong enough to fight with you all the time." He continued.
"While our main focus is to clear the game, we don't want to be on the frontlines the entire time either. Besides, we give out almost everything we get. That's not exactly your way." Dark said.
"How about a duel, then? If you win then you will earn one favor from us, no questions asked. If you lose, however, you will do as I have suggested." Heathcliff offered.
"Nah, I'd never even put a scratch in your armor. Not worth it." Klein said.
"You obviously wouldn't make that offer if you had any chance of losing. I don't need favors, anyways, they're just liabilities." Dark said. Heathcliff's normal happy and helping mood dropped to a more irritated one, but he didn't do anything about it.
"Very well, it is a shame. I don't hold grudges, though, so I look forward to our continued friendship and your continued assistance on the front lines. Kuro, you did finish the boss in one blow. It is your right to open the warp gate." Heathcliff said. Kuro nodded happily and rushed to open the door to the next floor.
"What'd you get for the final blow bonus, love?" Dark asked her.
"I got pet armor!" Kuro explained after she opened the door. She opened her pet menu and equipped the items. As Onyx shrunk back to her normal size she gained a molten-looking metal helmet, bracers, chest plate and wing protectors.
"Well, she looks like that boss now. I wonder what would have happened if you weren't a beast tamer." Klein said.
"It's happened before, based on your general 'class' a bonus drop adheres to that class. If you are a beast tamer, you're more likely to get gear for your pet. If you're a tank, you're more likely to get epic armor etcetera andante." Heathcliff explained.
"That's interesting." Dark said as she took out a teleport crystal.
"Where are you going?" Heathcliff asked.
"My daughter just slayed her first boss in a single blow, I think that means celebration. We'll be back on floor 22. We've got a house there and the food ingredients are perfect for a celebratory feast. You're all invited when it happens, of course, since you helped." Dark explained.
"I probably won't have the time, but we'll see." Heathcliff said with a smile.
"You bet your ass I'll be there, player cooked food is always the best!" Klein exclaimed.
"If you guys run into Kirito, Asuna or Egil tell them they should come too. Kirito and Asuna are top level players, like us, and Kuro just become of of them too." Kira said.
"Sure." Klein said.
"She's on leave for a little while, I'll let her know." Heathcliff said. They all nodded to each other and either walked to the next floor or teleported.
-Floor 22, the next night-
"You know, I would have helped you cook all of this." Asuna said as she was the last one to get there.
"Well I like to cook too sometimes." Dark retorted, closing the door behind her. At the large table, most of their friends were there. Egil looked like he was about to eat the entire table, Kirito was looking out of the window, Kira , Kuro and Lisbeth were playing with Onyx and Klein was laughing at Egil.
"So you basically took that thing down on your own?" Kirito asked Kuro.
"Well, there were a bunch of people there to help me." Kuro replied.
"We only took it down to about 90% with all of it's damage reduction, She did a weakness critical from above and finished it with one blow." Dark explained.
"That's incredible, I guess you have really good teachers." Kirito said with a smile.
"Thanks. Well, I didn't spend all day cooking for nothing. Everyone sit down." Dark said. Within moments, everyone was seated around the large table.
"Alright, there's something I want to talk about now that we have pretty much everyone here. It's about what happens after we beat this game." She continued.
"Dark, Kuro and I are planning to all find each other and start living together. I know that you live alone, Klein, but aside from that I have no idea what we could possibly do for the rest of you." Kira explained.
"I live with my aunt and uncle and cousin, but finding all of you guys would be nice." Kirito said.
"I'm a bartender and I live alone, too, so I should be able to find out where everyone is. Bartenders hear a lot." Egil said.
"I used to live with my grandpa, but he was given a year tops to live. He has cancer, so if this lasts too long I won't have anywhere to go." Lisbeth said sadly.
"We can take you in as well." Dark said happily.
"What about you, Asuna?" Kirito asked.
"I have a family to go back to, but I'm sure as hell not forgetting about any of you. We'll all find each other, meet up and still be friends." Asuna answered.
"Perfect. Now, I had an idea earlier. Heathcliff gave it to me when he tried to make Draconis Eluvium and Fenrikkuzen sub-guilds to the KoB. Maybe we should form a general guild and each of our own guilds would be sub-branches of sorts. I know of a way to sort of exploit the guild system so that you can be part of two or more. In the beta, the GMs kind of cracked down on it, but there are none now so we could do it." Dark explained.
"How would we display it, then?" Kirito asked.
"I've made a bunch of rings. They're the key to the general guild, as long as you wear the ring it acts as if you're in a guild with that person and takes on it's own emblem. If you're in a party with that person and they're on the 'IRL' section of your friends list then it displays a guild icon, or second guild icon if you're already in one." Dark continued.
"So it's like an unofficial guild. I like it. There are a good amount of people who know each other in real life, so it won't be odd if we have people in that section." Kirito said.
"And you can keep up your image as a badass solo player." Kira said.
"This is all well and good, but that food is smelling REALLY good. Think we can talk about this more after we eat?" Egil asked.
"Sure. Dig in!" Dark exclaimed.
"So, what's your story?" Kirito asked Dark after the meal. They were sitting on the porch as everyone continued their meal and told stories inside.
"What do you mean?" Dark asked.
"I'm just some random kid lucky enough to get into the beta. There's nothing special about who I really am, what about you?" Kirito replied.
"I'm not too special either, though I do have a relative that works for the company that was Kayaba's competition. I don't know why, but I was sent an exclusive beta copy. Maybe they thought the niece of the enemy loving a game developed by them would somehow help them." Dark explained.
"What about you personally? My parents died when I was young and my aunt and uncle took me in." Kirito asked.
"I don't know what happened to my parents, all I know is that I've been living alone since I was 13 since my uncle was too rich for me to be in a foster home. He never did anything for me, though, except put a fortune in a savings account I can't get into until I'm 18. Maybe it was my parents' will or a wave of pity, I don't know." Dark answered.
"So you grew up on the streets. I guess that's why you don't hesitate too much when it comes to killing someone when you know they'll really die." Kirito said.
"Those deathscythes were the fist time I've killed someone... Ever. I've been in plenty of fistfights and knifefights, I've even been part of a firefight before, but I've never killed anyone. It's just... Sometimes, people deserve to die. I know you hesitate to actually kill someone in this game, don't. If you're going to kill them then they obviously deserve it. You're not like Laughing Coffin if you kill a monster." Dark explained.
"I know that some people can be monsters... I just don't know whether they really do deserve to die." Kirito said with a sigh as he looked at the sky.
"If you get used to doing something here, it'll carry over to your life when we beat the game. If you get used to killing people, or cutting them up and watching them be fine after a potion, you'll keep doing it when you're out." Dark said.
"You've got a point." Kirito said.
"Mommy! Come on back inside, we're all trying to come up with names for our unofficial guild." Kuro said, sticking her head out of the door.
"Oh? What have you got so far?" Dark asked, standing up.
"Not much, but we think it has to have something like alliance in it's name and isgnify everyone in a few words." Kuro answered.
Back inside, everyone thought hard on the name.
"I like the alliance idea, but if it was just 'alliance' then it'd be so unoriginal." Lisbeth mumbled.
"Well, what brings all of us together?" Asuna asked.
"We could use something like 'Sword Art Alliance', but we would want this to outlast the game, right?" Egil said.
"Of course." Everyone agreed.
"We're all different, but we're all working together. how about 'Draconian Alliance'?" Kuro suggested.
"Hm... Your group's love of Dragons aside, that just may work. This was, after all, your idea and the dictionary definition of Draconian is something along the lines of would the emblem be?" Kirito asked.
"I dunno about you guys, but I want that emblem to have something that represents all of us, just like the name." Egil said.
"I've got it." Dark said. She spawned in a small pouch and upturned it onto the table. A series of black-metal rings with empty emblem palettes on them rumbled out of the bag. She put her hand over the pile and concentrated. Slowly, something was etched into the emblem palettes. The finished emblem consisted of eight blades. They overlapped each other to form a shoddy circle, which surrounded a large 'DA'. The letters were in a font that could be considered gothic.
"Now that looks badass." Klein said with a grin. With a nod from Dark, they all picked up one of the rings and put them on their right hand. Dark and Kira had to move their wedding rings to the left hand first, but they did so as well.
"Hey, I never noticed before, but why did you have those on the right hand when the left is proper?" Kirito asked.
"We thought of it as the rings going on the right hand to signify engagement, we'd move it to the left once we married in real life. I guess that this guarantees that now, though." Dark answered.
"To the Draconian Alliance!" Asuna said happily, putting her Rapier into the air.
"To the Draconian Alliance!" Everyone repeated as they put their own weapons forward. The resulting point was misshapen due to the axe-katana-rapier-longsword-scythe-glaive-mace combination.
