ALO: The Rangers
Hello!
Chapter 11: Leviathan
(1st person, Asuna, July 25th, 5:24pm)
We ate sandwiches and Sugu asked "How did you all meet onii-san and/or Shino?"
Keiko decided to start "On the 35th floor of old-Aincrad I got angry at one of my party members in the [Forest of Wandering], because she wanted to take my healing crystals because I had Pina to heal me, so I got angry and stormed off into the forest, a little bit later I got cornered by 3 [Drunken Apes] and nearly died, when Pina blocked the hit and died, just before they finished me off Kirito and Sinon showed up and killed them." she said and paused.
After a breath she said "They helped me go to the 47th floor and revive Pina while hunting down an orange guild, the leader of which was a green player and the very same party member who I got angry at. They arrested them all and sent them to the prison on the first floor. Afterwards they returned to the front lines and I only really saw them on the few breaks they sometimes took."
"Oh... so they used you as bait while helping you." Sugu said.
"Well sort of but they protected me so it is fine." she said.
"What about you two?" asked Sugu.
Before I could answer Rika said "My meeting with them was nearly as dramatic. They found me on the early floors and asked me to upgrade some of their stuff, after I got lucky they for some reason decided that I was a good choice of blacksmith and came for repairs/upgrades. At one point we went on a little trip on the 50th floor and hunted down some monsters that dropped a unique material and I made them their crystal bow/sword that used."
"Cool, and finally Asuna, your turn." Sugu said.
I sighed and said "They saved me from some monsters on the 3rd floor after I passed out from exhaustion. After that I took it upon myself to keep them from getting themselves killed."
"Okay, thanks, and incase you are curious how I met them, we logged on all together, or I logged on with onii-san and Shino also logged on with onii-san, I hadn't met Shino yet at the time. I got curious about video games because onii-san played them so much so I asked him to get me SAO, I logged on and had fun at first, then I was scared, and then I got used to it and was determined to clear the game." Sugu said.
(Sinon, 6:43pm)
Because we had missed the pool—because of the annoying government agent who seemed to enjoy bothering us—we were on a beach in Alfheim right now where it was still sunny because of the somewhat different daylight cycle.
Unlike the pool party everyone was here, including Klein, Egil, and Horum.
We splashed around in the ocean trying to blind each other with water or something.
It was surprisingly fun, I guess I had forgotten from not having been to a beach in a while.
Yui was here with us in her normal form.
We were splashing each other when Yui asked about what happened when we were on the 22nd floor after she nearly got deleted.
Yui ad I walked over to the shade where Kirito was being lazy and sat down.
We told Yui about Nishida and the fishing and once we got to the giant fish part Yui asked about whales.
"Whales are similar to fish but huge and can't breathe underwater." I explained.
Yui was asking more questions when Kirito said "I think there is a quest with a whale in Alfheim, we should go do that."
"Yay a whale, I'm gonna see a whale!" cheered Yui.
Then she said "I wanna ride the whale!"
I pat her on the head and she pouted slightly.
We found out where the quest started and head there.
Yui reverted to pixie form and rode on Pina, which looked absolutely adorable.
The quest started on an island and took place underwater so it took some convincing to get Leafa to come along.
"Come on, why else did you spend all that time training, it is just a game, stupid being such a wuss!" Lisbeth said to Leafa, who sighed and nodded.
Once Leafa agreed and everyone double-checked they had everything Asuna cast a spell on us that let us breath underwater.
We walked into the water and Leafa said "Cold." with a shiver.
True this water was colder then the other water but it wasn't that cold.
We swam/walked down to the bottom of the sea from the island looking for a large temple-like thing.
As we walked we looked around and saw a lot of fish and corals around us on the sandy floor.
Looking around just as we crested a hill I saw what we were probably looking for.
"I think that's it, let's go check it out." I said, pointing to the underwater temple.
"Yeah, it probably is." Kirito said and the group started walking towards the temple.
We swam over a large ravine and landed on an outcrop next to an old man watching the temple.
The old man had thick eyebrows, long grey hair and a beard that spread out to eight separate points.
Above the man the name [Nerakk] was written.
When we approached him he said "Please help, thieves have stolen a present that I intended to give to my friends and hid it inside that temple. The present was a very large pearl, please retrieve it for me and I will reward you."
Infront of Kirito—as the party leader—appeared a message saying 'Accept quest Plunderers of the Deep Sea? Y/N'
"Should we do it? It seems to be the quest." Kirito asked.
Everyone nodded and Kirito tapped yes.
The message disappeared and we turned towards the temple.
We walked towards it and entered, noticing an odd bubble surrounding it.
We walked along the blueish green corridors and suddenly we saw a large fish, of comparable size to the giant fish on floor 22.
"That thing is big." Silica said, shaking slightly.
"Don't worry, how strong can it be anyway?" asked Klein.
"Technically speaking we have absolutely no knowledge of the difficulty of this quest and it could be stronger then the 75th floor boss for all we know." Kirito said 'reassuringly'.
"I was reassuring myself we weren't about to die, just had to ruin it." Klein said sarcastically.
"Aw, and I thought you cared and were reassuring Silica." I said teasingly.
He scowled and drew his sword, the rest of us doing the same.
I drew back my bow and shot the thing's ugly face.
It turned towards us and started swimming at us, but once it was only a few meters away it turned sharply down and slammed into the floor, surprisingly smashing a hole in it that led into another tunnel, a tunnel that was not full of water.
That meant that the water poured through the hole in a vortex and tried to pull us along with it.
Everyone braced themselves against their swords or the wall.
Suddenly Leafa got flung off her feet and launched hole, or almost as she fought against the current.
Kirito jumped after her and caught her hand before stabbing his sword into the side of the vertical tunnel.
They just hung there until the whole tunnel filled up and the current stopped.
Then Kirito swam up and pulled Leafa up with him and they landed on the floor.
Everyone let out a breath no one knew they were holding and Kirito asked "Do we go down the new tunnel or keep going where we were going?"
"I want to go down the new tunnel." I said.
"Anyone object?" Kirito asked.
When no one said anything we swam down the tunnel.
After a little while I realized something, where were the 'thieves' that supposedly stole the pearl from him, if it was such a huge pearl they would probably guard it or sell it, right?
'Hey Sinon, don't you think it is odd there are no guards of any kind?' I 'heard' Kirito 'say'.
'I was just thinking the same thing, well, let's keep going for now and figure it out later.' I thought back at him and saw him nod.
A few minutes later it opened up into a huge open domed room.
In the middle of the room was a vary flat and large chalice-looking stone structure surrounded by 8 pillars.
On top of each pillar was a floating glowing golden orb with strips of light around it and in the chalice was a nest-like area made out of golden rods.
In the middle of the nest was the 'pearl' that Nerakk spoke of but this was suspicious, why would someone so rich need to steal? Why were there no guards? I wondered but came up with no answer except that Nerakk's whole story was a lie.
We took the 'pearl' carefully and carried it back the way we came, leaving the temple 15 minutes later.
We walked to the old man, once again passing through the mysterious barrier.
Kirito stepped up to the old man and was about to give him the 'pearl' but hesitated.
"Give me my pearl." Nerakk said.
Instead of giving him the 'pearl' however, Kirito raised it to the light and looking through it on the light you could see some sort of creature inside, meaning this wasn't a pearl at all but some sort of egg.
"I think we'll put it back where it belongs instead." Kirito said.
"Fine, if you will not give it me, I'll take it!" Nerakk said and in a blinding flash of light there was a a giant octopus instead of the old man.
The octopus's name was [Kraken the Abyss Lord] and had 6 large tentacles and 2 small ones.
There were 8 health bars next to his name and generally he looked very scary with his disgusting circular mouth and giant blob of a body.
Kirito tossed the pearl to Leafa and drew his sword just in time to 'block' the attack.
He got thrown back and into red HP in one blocked hit.
Everyone gasped in surprise at the fact that Kirito had been nearly killed in one hit despite blocking.
The boss lashed out again but before it could reach the Kirito a gigantic trident slammed into the ground between Kirito and the boss.
The tentacle slammed into it and bounced off.
"I know that spear." said Kraken.
"It's been a long time, old friend, I see you're still up to your old tricks." said a giant king, next to his head appeared the name [Leviathan the Sea Lord] and 8 health bars.
"And I see you're still playing lap dog to the minions of Aesir, you disgrace your title, lord of the sea." said Kraken.
"I am the lord of the sea, and you are in my backyard, now, do you really wish to fight me, lord of the abyss?" said Leviathan.
"I shall retreat for know, but this not over, old friend, I shall soon claim the power of the 'child'. Then I will rise up against Aesir, mock my words!" said Kraken and retreated into the watery depths out of sight, yelling the last part.
"What just happened?" I whispered to Kirito.
"Not sure." he answered.
"Little fairies, please return the egg of 'the child'." the king said to us.
We nodded and Leafa gave him the egg.
After we gave it to him Silica said "We never did get to see a whale." sadly.
"Yui looks like she had fun though." Leafa said.
"I will take you back to the surface world." the king said his blue beard grew out, surrounding his whole body and fusing together until after a moment the sea lord became a whale.
Then in a voice that sounded more distant he said "Get on fairies."
"Looks like you do get to ride a whale." I said to Yui who nodded happily and swam up, sitting down on the sea lords back.
We all climbed on after and the whale surfaced, bringing us to the surface.
"In Hebrew I belive leviathan means whale so I guess it makes sense." Kirito said.
"How do you know that?" I asked, Kirito had no reason to learn Hebrew.
"I just looked up leviathan at some point and got that it means whale in hebrew among other things." Kirito said.
The whale surfaced and swam to the land.
"Go now fairies, I must return to my kingdom." said Leviathan and we jumped off, landing softly on the ground with the help of our wings.
The whale then resubmerged and vanished into the depths of the ocean, leaving us on the island we started the quest at.
A menu popped up in front of Kirito and when I hung over him and looked at it I saw it said 'Quest Plunderers of the Deep Sea Complete'
"Looks like we're done." Kirito said.
Bye (the author's notes are strong with this one)
There will be another very short chapter with the info of the next story and stuff plus a bit of chapter.
Cya me oouuuttiiyy!
