SAO: The Rangers Black and Blue
This chapter will probably involve Leafa and Horum splitting off from Sinon and Kirito due to circumstances, don't worry they don't fight, maybe the name of the chapter gives it away though.
There are starting to be less people reading this story. v_v
Did I do something wrong?
Well, even if no body reads this, I am going to keep writing because I am just writing this for fun, but I might not keep a schedule anymore unless at least one person reviews that they want me to keep a schedule, this isn't a threat, just if nobody reads it, then I am gonna write it whenever I have something I want to write.
Anyway, enough complaining.
Chapter 11: Beaters
(1st person, Sinon, November 25th, 12:53pm)
Today was the meeting for fighting the mid-boss in the second labyrinth. Horum, Leafa, Kirito, and I were all there, because we would all be at the fight, Kirito and I had suggested that Leafa and Horum not come, but we had failed to get them to stay behind so they were here as well. Diabel was the meeting's host again, and the meeting was at 1:00pm, so we had a few minutes to kill. We had already provided Diabel with the map data so we didn't have to do anything special.
The next few minutes were spent chatting and then Diabel came on stage.
"Thank you all for coming to this meeting." he said loudly and everyone cheered.
"This meeting is being held to discuss beating a mid-boss for the second boss dungeon. It appears that the mid-boss is a somewhat weakened version of the 2nd floor boss during the beta-test. Its name is [Baran the General Taurus], it has a giant hammer and will slam it into the ground or at people, you want to avoid being near it when it hits the ground because of an ability called [Numbing Impact], which will stun all players in the vicinity of the impact, the area is denoted by golden sparks and it will stun you for 3 seconds, being hit again before it wears off will cause paralysis. It will also have charge type attacks typical of taurus type enemies, when it charges it will charge the length of its room and run into the wall, when this happens it will be stunned for a second at most, while charging its hooves will create shockwaves that will knock people off their feet and deal damage, the best way to hide from this is to hide behind the numerous pillars, it is also possible to jump over the shockwave at the exact right moment." he said.
"The boss has 3 hp bars and is weakest on the head and neck, hitting him in the borns with powerful [Blunt Impact] type attacks will unbalance him and have a high chance of interrupting his attacks. If you have a bladed weapon the ideal place to strike is the neck, though both head and neck are difficult to reach due to his 4 meter height."
"The boss will only start charging when its last hp bar is down by 50%. So until then we need tanks to take the hammer blows and then everyone to retreat when he is going to his his [Numbing Impact]."
"It will be visible that he is going to use [Numbing Impact] by him hoisting his hammer high above his shoulder and holding it there for 1-2 seconds, then it will glow a golden light and slam down." he finally finished.
"That should be all, but stay alert because [Illfang the Kobold Lord] changed from the beta so this boss might have as well." he added.
"I will send everyone the map data to everyone here to reach him but please do not go until the whole raid group goes." he said, opening his [Area Message Menu] which allows you to send a message to everyone in a certain distance of you, though the distance and area can be controlled, but must stay within the max which is a 20m circle around the sender.
"Now everyone form up into parties, preferably the same ones as the 1st boss fight if you were there, because you will already know how to fight alongside those people well. Everyone else, form up parties and fill parties whose members didn't show up." he said and received some acknowledgment before everyone started grouping up. There ended up being 7 full parties plus our's, though some of the 7 parties were different from the first boss fight.
"Is meeting me here in 2 hours to leave for the boss okay with everybody here, or do some of you need longer to get ready, make sure you have a [Teleport Crystal] each as well as preferably some [Healing Crystals], healing potions are an obvious must." he said.
"If everybody is okay with that time then meeting adjourned, see you all in two hours!" he finally said and everybody started to head off to stock up on supplies, we were already ready so we stayed around.
"Diabel, did you scout the boss?" I asked him after walking over.
"Yes, I did, from all the info I got it seems to be a slightly weakened version with no major changes." he answered.
(3:00pm)
It was 3 o-clock and everyone was here so after Diabel confirmed that everyone had their crystals and potions, Diabel led the way through the dungeon until we reached the mid-boss, our party was right behind his so we were able to correct him when he mis-read the map and turned the wrong way.
It took us a total of about 2 hours to reach the mid-boss from Urbus, so everyone took a break, which lasted around 15 minutes, so it was 5:13pm when we finally entered the boss room, it was just as we remembered it, a long relatively thin, room, with the boss sitting on a throne-like chair at the end, despite not being a king.
"Commence attack!" yelled Diabel, being one of the tanks, he was in the front group, and so one of the people who made first contact with the boss.
Kirito, Leafa, and Horum all ran in with the attackers, while I threw picks at the horns and eyes of the boss, stunning and blinding it. I wouldn't bring out my bow yet, not until it was needed, because then all the beta testers would recognize Kirito and her and start asking them all sorts of stuff.
Kirito was releasing a relentless barrage of attacks on the boss, doing a lot of damage despite not using two swords. Horum had activated his charm of stone, which took about 30 seconds to activate and deactivate, and was striking the boss with powerful blows which slightly stunned the boss because they were effectively much more blunt then they technically were because of the boss's armor.
Leafa was also attacking the boss and her strikes were well aimed like her brother's and sought out kinks and weak points in the armor, allowing her to deal a sizable amount of damage.
Everyone else with lighter weapons like daggers and short swords, who were less trained and accurate with their attacks had to use leap abilities to reach lightly armored torso of the boss to deal any damage, leading their damage output to be quite small, because they didn't have enough agility to jump up high enough to land even a decent blow without using their [Sword Skills] which had cooldowns.
Kirito had tried jumping up to do more damage but found that striking weak spots in the armor was a better idea.
In about 30 minutes the boss's hp dropped down to half the last bar, which meant that it started charging. Everyone hid in the alcoves as he charged and he slammed into the wall, but instead of the expected second long stun, he just turned and started charging the other way almost instantly.
Some people (Kibaou's group) didn't realize and charged in anyway. He ran over them and stunned them. Kirito ran out to help them but before he could reach them the boss stomped down on one of the people, killing them. It was about to stomp down on another but Kirito used a [Martial Arts] skill with high knockback on its foot and knocked it off course. The boss then resumed charging and while it was on the other end of the room people dragged them into alcoves.
He would repeat this process 5-6 times before he would finally stop. This left very little time to attack and it took about 15 minutes to get his hp down to the red, where he started charging faster and for longer, which meant people couldn't hit him at all.
"I have a crazy idea, but thanks to my little item, it should be fairly safe." Kirito whispered to me, before running out.
I watched as he ran straight towards the charging boss. He jumped up towards it and it tried to slam him with his hammer in midair. It was impossible to dodge and Leafa and Horum watched in horror as the hammer was about to slam into Kirito when... it passed right through him, surprising everyone here but me.
Kirito then landed on the boss's shoulder and proceeded to ram his sword into its throat. Its HP drained very quickly and the boss shattered before it could reach the end of the room. Kirito fell to the ground and rolled, before sheaving his sword on his back.
People erupted in cheers, thankfully forgetting about the little phasing stunt he pulled. All the people except 2, Leafa and Horum.
"Kirito, why did the boss's hammer pass right through you?" asked Leafa and Horum nodded to the question.
"This ring" he said showing him the ring on his hand.
"It has 5 charges, there is a minimum 10 second delay between charges being used, and each charge recharges in one hour after use." he continued.
"We got it in the same place we got the [Charm of Stone] for Horum, it is called the [Ring of Shadow Phase]." he finished.
Then right after he finished explaining someone yelled "STOP CHEERING!" it was Kibaou, of course.
"Why did you let him die? Why did you let Korban die?" he asked loudly.
"Let him die?" Kirito confirmed quietly.
"You heard what I said, if you hadn't given us wrong information, he would have lived." Kibaou continued.
"I know why he didn't tell us! Because like all the other beta testers, he is selfish, he didn't tell us because he wanted all the people to die right before the boss did so he could get the [Last Attack Bonus]!" yelled someone else in Kibaou's group, though he had moved into the crowd it seem like a random person.
"Come on, I know there are other betas here, show yourselves!" said another one of the people.
Kirito whispered to me "Sinon this is bad, I have an idea but it will probably make every person in the game with few exceptions hate me, but they won't hate the betas."
I whispered back "I'm with you, and don't even try to stop me."
"Okay" he whispered back.
Then he started laughing maniacally and said loudly "So your calling us beta testers? Please, don't compare us to those noobs." At this point I had also stood up.
"Most of the beta testers were so green they didn't even know how to level up, but us? We are on a whole different level! During the beta test, of the 19 bosses that were killed, we duo killed 5 of them!" he finished.
"If that's the case then you're worse then beta testers, you're cheaters!" someone said.
"They're beta testers and cheaters! They're beaters!" someone else said.
"Beaters? Yeah I like that. Just from now on don't confuse us with those noobs known as 'beta testers'!" Kirito finished before turning away and leaving into the pillar of light, I followed him, everyone else was to shocked to move, hopefully they would just hate us instead of the all the beta testers.
In a flash of light we appeared in Zumfut, the main settlement on the 3rd floor, wait what? Wasn't that a mid-boss? Oh whatever, if it was the floor boss all the better. We moved to the side and waited for Leafa and Horum to come through so we could explain to them, of course we also hid so no one else would notice us. Kirito was out with his hiding skill, which he had from his [Cloak of Midnight], while I was just hiding, waiting for him to tell me when. A few minutes after three people came through one and then seconds later the other two. The first one was Diabel, who called out our names, and the other two were Leafa and Horum who also called out our names.
Kirito turned off his hiding skill and I stood up, we went out to meet them.
"Thank you for that." said Diabel, "Though people do not know I am a beta tester, I thank you on behalf of all the beta testers for taking the heat off them. If you ever need anything, I will try to help."
"Okay." answered Kirito.
Then I decided to speak up, "Leafa, Horum, it would be best if you split off from us until people stop hating us so much, otherwise everyone will hate you as well. And we WON'T be taking NO for an answer." I said the last part very sternly "Got it?" I finished somewhat gentler.
""Okay, but be carful you two."" they both said in perfect sink.
After that Kirito and I walked off to go grinding.
(10:03pm)
"Let's get our stuff from that house and get an inn on the 3rd floor, we are going to want to stay the highest level players, which means we need to grind a lot so we won't spend much time inside our lodging anyway." I said, we were about ready to get a break and now would be a good time to do it.
"Okay, let's go do it right now." answered Kirito.
We were currently sitting on a kill waiting for all the monsters in the area to respawn. It was cold and at some point I grabbed Kirito's hand without noticing, when I noticed I think I blushed a lot, but Kirito didn't seem to mind, he seemed to be lost in thought.
Finally he stood up and pulled me to my feet. "Okay, let's go." he said, turning towards town and pulling me with him. I ran to catch up so he wasn't dragging me along and we walked at a pleasant pace side by side, enjoying the night air. How well the Nerve Gear worked was amazing!
Sorry shorter chapter, for the reasons at the top and because I got what I wanted to put into this chapter into it already, was somewhat out of ideas, wanted to upload it around now, and because I wanted to go back to reading SAO.
Please, PLEASE, leave a review telling me whether you want me to keep updating at this pace of an approximately 3k word chapter a day, with bonus chapters, I will treat nobody telling me to keep going as a sign that it is okay to slack off and just update whenever.
Anyway, cya me oouuttiiyy!
