SAO: The Rangers Black And Blue
Author's notes, yay, the part of a fan fiction that is the most fun to read, totally...
Also 10 Chapters! Yay!
Also Kirito's ring has now been limited to 5 uses per hour, because other wise it is too powerful, going up to ten uses in the hour once you get it to max upgrades, because it functions as if you had two rings then effectively.
I was going to write something else and just start with this, but I got a chapters length before I could get to it, I might start making longer chapters, and this shouldn't effect the number of chapters either because I will only make them longer when I have the ideas for it, I won't force myself too.
Chapter 10: Dungeon Night
(1st person, Sinon, November 22nd, 12:05pm)
Today we were planning on going to scout out the boss dungeon. Due to our speed at taking out the mobs and rather high movement speed, because we were all fairly light armor players, even Horum, who had a giant sword didn't use all the much armor, so while he was slower then the rest of us, he was faster then a lot of player, we were able to search the labyrinths quickly, maybe it was just luck, or maybe the labyrinth gave the first people an advantage and helped them. Whatever it was, we seemed to be able to go through labyrinths in a matter of hours or maybe a couple days.
Currently she was in here room, reading a book, she wasn't hungry so she hadn't felt the need to leave, it was annoying that the only things to do were to talk to people, read, craft something, or fight. She had considered picking up a smithing skill as a pass time, it would be useful and save them a lot of money, but it takes a lot of money and time that she didn't feel like wasting to level it up, so instead she wasted her time reading while waiting for her grinding partner to come back from his usual early morning grind, which seemed to be more of an afternoon grind by now, did he spend ALL his time grinding? Probably did.
The door opened and Kirito walked in "Hey Sinon." he said.
"Kirito, where have you been, I was waiting for you to go grinding." I said.
"Grinding, and why didn't you take Leafa or Horum, or both for that matter." he said.
"Gahh! You know that you are a better grinding partner then either of them are. And anyway, I have no idea where they even are. I think they are in town shopping because they are less known then the two of us."
"Okay, okay, let's go then." he answered.
I got up and equipped my combat gear, along with my bow. "Let's go start mapping out the dungeon, it is one of the best places to grind anyway." I said.
"Okay." he answered before heading out the door, I followed him out and we went out of the house.
"If the dungeon is in the same place as the beta test like the first one then it would be on the opposite side of this giant mountain, near the edge of the castle. Let's go around, not over." he said and I nodded.
"Okay, sounds good." I said.
We started walking in the direction of the mountain, for the second time now, well third for Kirito, most of the monsters on the way were super-sized bulls, they had quite a bit of hp but were basically just a buffed version of the boars on floor one, which mean't that killing them was as easy as dodging to the side and putting your sword, or in my case, dagger to the side when they charge. Despite being easy to kill they still gave a good amount of exp, so the only thing keeping them being great for grinding was their low spawn rate.
It took us about 30 minutes to get around the mountain and when we did the dungeon was in view. At the entrance of the dungeon stood a ruin with a... field boss in it?
"Why is there a field boss guarding the dungeon?" I asked.
"I don't know, it is usually just a bunch of whatever is inside in the beta test, field bosses showed up during events and in the field in certain areas." he said. So mister perfect memory thought the same thing I did.
"Well, let's go see its strength, judging by the fact that it is a giant cow it should be a charging type enemy. This means that with my ring I should be able to fight it fairly safely, we can escape if I use up all the charges on the ring." he said after a little bit of time.
"I don't mind, but you better not get yourself killed." I said, Kirito just nodded before starting to run down the hill, he drew both his swords, this was no time to be messing around, and there was no one around anyway so it isn't like anyone would see.
The moment he got in range of the giant cow, its name appeared for both of us, as party members, and it was [Bullbous Bow], it had two health bars.
The boss charged at him, attempting to run him over, he jumped to the side and the boss rammed straight into the wall, which appears to be an immortal object, stunning the boss slightly. Kirito didn't miss the opening as he ran forward, unleashing a non-sword-skill combo that he created onto the boss, it used a lot of spinning around to rest your balance, as he would slowly get unbalanced, this allowed his special combo to go on practically as long as the enemy allowed it, and because it included a relentless barrage of power blows and such, it made it hard to break out. For a normal enemy that is. The boss on the other hand was much more resistant to stun locks and broke out of the combo practically as soon as the time from its stun caused by running into the wall ran out.
But in that relatively short time, the boss had taken about 20% of its first bar in damage, in just one combo Kirito had taken down a tenth of the boss's HP. So all I needed to do was create some openings.
I took and shot an arrow the boss's eye as it got ready to charge, and to my surprise the arrow caused a small amount of freeze, I guess my bow regained some of its former abilities, but there wasn't enough ice for it to make much difference in a leg or something, but in the eye it meant that the boss was practically blind in that eye permanently. Its charge went wild and it got stunned again.
(1:18pm)
We had been battling the boss for around 40 minutes and it was almost dead. Had only had to use his ring once, which meant that even without it we would probably have managed, but it did speed things up because when the boss was certain it would hit him it sped up, charging even faster and causing it to get stunned for longer and even take some damage from the impact into the immortal ruins. Currently the boss's sight was gone and it had to use only sound to locate which direction to charge to get Kirito. I think I mentioned before but Kirito is naturally very quite, causing the boss some problems with locating him, making things easy on him.
I heard a sound like glass shattering as the field boss shattered and turned into a bright light, where a banner hung in the air.
Congratulations
I ran down from the hill where I was standing to Kirito and found him surrounded with a golden light
Congratulations on Reaching Level 20
was visible in the light, wait TWENTY? When did he get that high, he was 18 yesterday, before all that dungeon stuff, then he might have leveled up after we killed that golem, bosses do give a lot of exp. Plus the exp from the grinding he does alone and then from this boss. I guess it kinda makes sense but still, I was at level 17, as of this field boss almost 18, and I was almost certainly one of the strongest players. I decided to congratulate and ask him at the same time.
"Congrats Kirito, but when did you get that high?" I asked.
"Yesterday's golem made me almost 19, then I leveled up and got some exp on top of that there was this field boss and that just barely leveled me up." he answered.
"Looks like my sword can now burn a little now, and it seems your bow regained some of its freezing ability, the reason it was such a good bow." he said and lit his sword with black flames to demonstrate.
"Well, let's go in and start clearing the dungeon." he said and walked into the now open boss dungeon.
(November 23rd, 1:03am)
We may have stayed a 'little' late in the dungeon, we forgot all about the outside and time flew, no windows makes it easy to forget the time, anyway we had just reached the half way point, and unlike in the beta and the first floor, there was a teleporter and a boss door that signified a mini-boss or mid-boss, though this would be the first time I had seen a boss dungeon with a mid-boss, it was probably a mid-boss because it was the only way to go and it was on the tenth floor, smack in the middle of the dungeon.
"Um, Sinon, I don't feel up to fighting a boss right now." said Kirito, who through a combination of pure skill and over powered items hadn't taken a single point of damage yet. Simply put, he didn't get 5 times in one hour at any point. Despite the fact that there was no visible stat that showed how tired he was, the combination of the games stamina system and mental fatigue, which is there in any world, regardless of physical fatigue, made him practically unable to fight, so the checkpoint was very welcome, and the boss was a complete road block.
"I don't either." I answered, I hadn't been holding forward for 12 hours straight so I was far less tired, but the concentration of shooting a bow, and the 'occasional' dodging I had to do, because Kirito 'accidentally' let some mobs through, though I guess it is kinda of fair that I do some of the work, all put together made me pretty tired anyway.
We weren't hungry because the way this game works, if you forget to be hungry you won't be hungry, and losing track of time conveniently included your instincts forgetting to tell you you were hungry.
"Let's go home, we have the map data and this is a checkpoint, and I think that if I keep fighting I will use all 5 charges within half an hour easily." he said, I just nodded before grabbing his hand and helping him up and over to the teleporter, I hadn't even noticed him sitting down though.
"Teleport Urbus!" I said as clearly as I could muster, though it wasn't necessary, the system would figure it out even if I muttered it. We were surrounded by bus light and when it cleared we were standing on the [Teleport Gate] in the center of Urbus, thankfully there were no people around to see us in our pathetic state and we slowly wandered out way home, so slowly that a walk that normally took around 5 minutes took about 15.
We walked into the house, to our room, and collapsed on out beds, too lazy to press the few buttons required to remove the combat gear. At least in my case it took seconds for me to fall into a dreamless sleep.
(12:03pm)
I woke up and looked at the time, and was not surprised to find that it was already noon. I looked over and saw Kirito still asleep, given that he usually woke up first I think this was the first time I ever saw him asleep. He looked so peaceful, and kinda cute.
Surprisingly he woke up within the minutes that I was laying in bed to lazy to get up. That's very unlikely, that we would both wake up from a long sleep within a few minutes of each other.
"Morning Kirito." I said lazily.
"Morning." was all I got for an answer, he stood up and unequipped his combat gear—which I realized I would probably still be wearing as well—and was left in his casual wear.
"I vote for not fighting this afternoon, maybe in the evening." he said.
"I am all for it." I answered, still not fully awake, I stood up and removed my combat gear.
"Let's go down and tell Leafa and Horum that we are okay, they probably didn't know we came home and wouldn't check in our room so they will be worried." he said.
"Anyway, I am going down, I can tell them that you want to sleep more if you want... sleepyhead." I think he added the last part for good measure to insure that I would come.
"Coming, coming, I'll be down in 5-10 minutes." I said.
"Right..." he muttered before leaving.
(Kirito, 12:11pm)
Geez, yesterday was so tiring, brain, remind me to never do that again.
I went down the stairs and was greeted by the smell of breakfast, which Leafa cooked much earlier normally so they must have stayed up late.
"Good morning!" I called.
""Good morning Kirito!"" said Leafa and Horum at the same time.
I came down the stairs and saw Horum trying to cook, emphasis on trying. "What is going on?" I asked.
"Well, we didn't want to go out incase you two came back—we forgot to check your room—and so because we were bored, Horum asked me to teach him how to cook, this is our 10th attempt now or something, I think he is the exact opposite of a natural at cooking."
"Oh come on, this time is turning out pretty good." Horum half-whined.
"We are making eggs, those are really easy. We tried pancakes, but he couldn't even do that!" complained Leafa.
"By the way, where were you guys last night, we stayed up till like 11 for you guys to come home but you guys didn't so we went to bed." she asked in a now curious tone.
"Well, we left at around midday, then we fought a field boss guarding the boss dungeon and killed it. Then we went into the boss dungeon and lost track of time and didn't notice how tired we were, we ended up going at it for 12 hours straight, we only realized to stop because when we reached half way there is a mid-boss blocking that way and a teleporter we can use as a checkpoint, once we noticed it took us like 15 minutes from the teleporter in Urbus to here, that is like a 3rd of the normal pace, then we fell asleep not removing our combat gear and woke up 10 minutes ago." I explained.
"Oh... YOU GUYS ARE CRAZY!" Leafa screamed the second part.
"Sorry, we lost track of time." I said slightly raising my hands in mock-surrender.
"Geez, you guys could stand to be a bit more quite you know." a sleepy looking Sinon said from the stairs.
"Is breakfast ready?" she asked.
"No, because Leafa was trying to teach Horum how to cook." I told her. She surveyed the kitchen and then held down a laugh.
"What attempt number is this? Number 10?" she asked.
And Horum answered slightly ashamed and quietly "Yes."
"I can do it instead, if you want Leafa, I live alone so I can cook okay." she offered.
"No thanks, and anyway, he seems to have gotten the hang of eggs." Leafa answered.
(November 24th, 12:02pm)
Sinon and I were meeting with Diabel to discuss setting up a meeting regarding the mid-boss, we had scouted it in the evening yesterday and found that it was the second floor boss from the beta test, though with only 3/4 the hp and probably some other nerfs.
"We would like to hold the meeting within the next few days so we can get through this game quicker, but not today, we are still tired from the day before, plus part of yesterday we spent in that dungeon, 13 hours straight of fighting, including a field boss. It seems that things are getting harder, there was an extra field boss and mid-boss compared to the beta to progress to the next floor, at least." I said to him, he listened to this carefully.
After a while he said "I'll see what I can do to arrange the meeting, I was at the second boss raid during the beta so I should know just as much as you two about this boss so it should be fine. Well, see you guys in a few days, I'll send you a message once I get the meeting set up.
(1:14pm)
"I wanna go to the beach of something, this boring, Leafa won't let us go out and fight, but there nothing else to do in this game!" Sinon whined, for nth time this past hour. After I told our little story Leafa, she didn't want us to go out until the day after tomorrow, that was yesterday, which means we are stuck doing nothing until tomorrow.
"Sorry, but there aren't any beaches of significant size on the first two floors, or the 3rd one for that matter. Though if I remember correctly the 4th one does, so just wait two more floors and you can go to the beach." I told her.
"Let's go and see if there are any decent player smiths yet." Sinon said. It was a good idea, and if we could find one with good luck with upgrades. There was a hidden luck stat in the game and ironically, how 'lucky' you were was determined purely by luck, as in the stat was just a random number, though if you consistently get lucky despite having a low luck stat it will slowly raise, this mostly happens when you are around people with high luck stats, so it effectively is that peoples luck rubs off on their surroundings, the converse is also true, but to a lesser extent. Also if people do nothing they slowly get less lucky, this is to prevent inflation of luck because positive effects of being around lucky people are larger then the negative effects of being around unlucky people. In short it was complicated.
Few people knew all this, in fact other then Kayaba-san and Sinon, I was probably the only one.
"Okay, that seems like a good idea, maybe we can find a lucky one." I said and we head into town.
We saw a pink-haired girl in a stall with a sign saying "Lisbeth's Blacksmith Shop", we walked over and I had her upgrade my [Anneal Katana], which at this point had an incredibly low success rate, she got all the upgrades, which would correspond to about a 1% chance by the stated, pre-luck stat rates.
I whispered to Sinon "I think this is our lucky smith." she just nodded.
Sorry if this chapter ended kinda abruptly, but I kinda couldn't think of anything to write that wouldn't take at least a few more thousand words so I ended here, sorry.
Please tell me if you think the story is getting more boring and why and I will try to fix it.
Also please leave reviews!
Anyway, cya, me oouuttiiyy!