SWORD ART ONLINE: THE VELVET SWORD

CHAPTER 13, "THREADING LACERATIONS"

FLOOR: 68, ICY PLATEAU

October 15, 2024

*Velvet .*

Mare was the first to pass through the teleportation gate, before we left Ebonhildr she had equipped the rest of her armor.

Around her chest she wore a scaled leather chest piece that was tied over her black sleeveless turtleneck, two dark metal pauldrons with light blue striped rounded to her small shoulders. She blew misty air into her dark brown leather gloves lined with fur and metal plates over the upper palm, she eyed the snow and absent mindedly pulled the large detailed rose colored scarf closer arounf her neck causing it to list gently in the wind.

"Here, this should help with the cold." Gin equipped a small bottle shaped item after changing into a more weather appropriate coat.

"Wh-whats this?" Mare said stiffling her shivering eying the bottles we all held. She eyed it for a moment longer and twisted off the cap.

"Hot chocolate? How'd you guys get this? I thought that ramen shop was the only place that has it!" Mare tilted the drink forward and took a sip.

"Oh, I make it, Fitzgerald gave me the recipe at this real wild party." I told the girl recalling the events of that day with a half amused air.

The hot chocolate had a +30 cold resistance for at least 4 hours, which made the air go from deathly cold to about 60 degrees or so, when this floor was the front lines everyone was trying to get cold resistance gear.

Now that there was no reason to be here, hardly anyone was on this floor at all.

"Okay." I told Mare. "You're our guide, where are we going?" I said tapping a button to put away my bottle of the cocoa liquid and equipping my weapon I had asked Lisbeth to make me a while ago, Seigrail.

Mare saw what I did and equipped her axe, it was large and guilded silver but I knew it was a one handed weapon, I had always thought if Oliver were to still be here he'd use something like that, she called her axe Vassal.

"Well it shouldn't be too far from the spawn village, just remember, we're gonna be making two stops out in the field, the first gives us a gem that opens the 2nd stop, which should get us more than enough materials." She said taking the lead with Gin right behind on her left and me trailing right 4 or 5 paces behind.

This map was very very desolate and flat, the small hills were so unnoticable that you could see for miles in any direction without finding anything, but if a storm happens...well lets just say its a lot more complicated being out there.

*several minutes later*

"Here we are!" Mare said readying her axe and Gin readied his sword, I don't think we had been here during our time of being here.

"Oh, if you guys don't recognize this dungeun it didn't open up until a few floors later, I got its location from an information broker!" Mare said filling us in and I rose and eyebrow.

"Argo?"

"Yep, in return for a new hooded cloak" Mare smiled swinging Vassal to get a feel for it. "I actually haven't gone hunting for a while, most of level-ups come from crafting." She said working out the knots in her muscle.

"Oh Vel." Mare told me when I reached for Seigrail, I looked at her. "You still have your lute?"

"It's a harp!" I shot back and equipped it, causing my spear to dematerialize.

"Well when we go in there I need you to play it."

"What? Why?!" I asked looking at the small item.

"The beasts in here, they're humanoid. They only agro when they hear player noise." She saw I was still not following.

"Ugh, musical instruments don't count as player noise and to their ears everything else is nerfed, so, if you play the whole way through than we will be able to get through the cave virtually unseen." Mare concluded.

"Than why are you holding your weapons?"

"In case you hit a sour note or it doesn't work on all of them, don't worry between Mare and I we can keep you safe." Gin said as we started down the stairs and I begun strumming my harp.

The moment we pushed open the doors a gust of stale air pushed out the door and cold snowy air pushed in knocking up a gale of dust that sparkled brightly, the dust seemed to swirl until finally it was started to harden in certain areas and became dusted outlines of human like beasts.

Their red cursers displayed their names as "Shimmer commoner".

Now normally they would be rushing us but apparently they had no eyes and as I continued stringing a melody I loved they wouldn't hear us.

We rounded a corner and still more and more Shimmer figures ermerged from all around us.

"Mare." I whispered

"SHHHH!"

"Where are we?" I whispered again

"SHHH!" She replied, I didn't have any free hands or I would've checked my map, something was off about the shimmers, they were starting to have human atributes in their sparkly dust or something I couldn't explain.

We descended stairs and still I kept playing, this dunguen was full of enemies and if I mess up they're gonna come rushing down the halls after us.

"Mare I-" A hand shot back from Gin silencing my as we neared a corner, there must ve something up ahead.

"Two Shimmer knights, they're set agro so we'll rush them before they see us, keep playing." Gin whispered and I leaned against the wall picking up a new tune while seeing the Shimmer commoners in the hall seemingly stare at me. Or past me?

"Gin?" I whispered craning my neck the best I could around the corner.

"Keep playing!" He hissed while cutting down one of the figures.

I turned back to my harp and strummed a different cord, I looked up and gasped. The Shimmers were gently caught in a unseen gust of air and they came floating down the hall passing right by me.

I stood in front of the lower ranking Shimmers still playing my harp, the Shimmer in front tried to look around me as if I were a barrier, if they attacked it would take me some time to get Seigrail equipped.

I turned to Mare and Gin to see Gin grappling with a Knight, it was obvious the scuffling of his boots caught the Shimmers attention. Mare rose her axe and hacked it right into the Knights throat causing it to drop its sword and explode at the same time making even more noise.

I looked back in time for a Shimmer commoner to lerch around me, in its hand formed a small club made entirely out of sparkley dust.

"Vel-" Gin turned when he heard me not playing anymore but was caught off guard by what he saw.

I knocked the Shimmer back and launched forward colliding the side of my harp heavily against its temple causing it to explode, Another one charged me and I parried the strike with my harp and swung low at its leg but the harp went nearly straight through as if it didn't exist. I figured it didn't register the harp as a weapon.

I attempted to sweep its feet but the dust blew away and so did the rest of the Shimmer and it all blew in my face and passed me, I realized it was gonna back strike me and I turned around at the last moment only to see Mare spin her her wrist and cleanly cut the head off the beast causing it to burst into another gust of glittery air.

"Mare! Gin! buy me about 10 seconds to get my weapon!" I shouted and parried a strike and in the same fluid motion twirled behind my two friends and while facing the wall quickly began swipping through my menu, curse this weapon for being named with an "S" casuing it to be below a lot of other items.

*Items: Weapons: Two-handed: Seigrail*

*Equip?*

*yes**cancel*

I pressed yes causing my harp to disappear and for the Pike, lance? spear...thing? Lets just call it a pike?. The spearhead was traditionally shaped, it started diamond shaped that extended into the tip of the spear, the metal was the same seafoam/mint color all other weapons Lisbeth had been. The shaft was a very dark teal, at the base of where the spearhead and shaft meet there was a burgundy flag that caught in the wind of the hallway.

"Okay!" I yelled, I was still facing the wall but I heard and felt a gust of wind blow towards me. I sucked in a breath and kicked back away from the wall and slid to a halt and started spinning the pike out to my right and when the Shimmer came together behind where I originally was, I released a pierce sword skill stabbing multiple times straight through the chest of the shimmer, the monster exploded and I ducked seeing another charge me from the right, before it could get closer Gin must've used a warp sword skill because he rammed his sword straight through its chest. But the Shimmer Knight hadn't died, it raised its mace and I slid forward, my hands slide closer to the blunt end of the pike and I sharged a slash sword skill swinging almost awkwardly with the Seigrail catched the head of the Shimmer cleaving the neck right off.

"I was wandering when we'd ge to see your skill reset in action." Gin smirked eyeing the javelin in my hands. Immeadiatly after we departed from the L.C. raid I had gone to pick up a skill reset amulet. These were in basically every game, the first one was always free to replace your skill points you've spent while leveling up, I had removed all my one-handed and throwing blade ones in place for pike skills.

Mare backed into Gin and grabbed his arm thrusting his sword into the chest of a Shimmer Knight and I ran forward skewering the dust monster and spinning another ones strike. I raised Seigrail and blocked a sword from the closest Shimmer, I heavily smashed the blunt end of the shaft into its ankle hearing the dust crack and it collapsed to the floor, I spun the weapon around in my hand and stabbed it through the face. I stepped back holding the lance with my left hand near the spearheads base and my other near the shafts mid-point, my "at ease" poise, while scanning for more Shimmers but instead the floor was covered with small mounds of sparkily dust.

"Are these what we need?" I asked Mare pointing to the "Shimmer fabric x58" In my inventory and she nodded.

"Oh, no, please tell me we're not gonna be strutting around in reflective clothing!" Gin whined looking at his inventory.

"O-oh no nothing like that! I am a master seamstress, I can fashion burlap and rough hides into the finest of silks and metal!" Mare said holding a hand to her chest to feign offense.

"I am more concerned with you dear girl! What happaned?" Mare referred to the entire hallway.

"Loud steps here wouldn't stop scuffling and they started walking past me." I shrugged.

We all took a small health potion even if we didn't need it very much and pushed open the boss room, beyond the door there was a fairly deep stairwell, the gem was placed on a ornate pedestal.

"Be ready, I don't know what the boss is." Mare said walking forward slowly with Vassal in hand.

"You don't!?" I hissed in confusion, I thought she had cleared this before!

"No. I don't. The monster changes depending on the leader of the party." Mare said eyeing me, knowing I was the leader of our party.

A new gust of wind filled the room and all the dust in the hallway came blowing in. The loudest noise was the audible sound of Gin and I gasping as the dust blew passed me. Then all heavily splashed down in front of me.

I readied my Seigrail when a dust arm emerged from the pile and a cloaked figure pulled its self out of the pile and stood face-to-hood with me.

"It is you who leads this regiment?" The voice seemed to be in my head rather than to come from the figure that still didn't have a courser.

"Yes." I said trying to calm myself.

"Right...Tell me child, what eats at your heart and mind in the dead of night, what lingers in the darkness of your imagination in the shadows of every room," The figure grew in height and I could see the two bright orbs of its eyes staring deeply into mine. "What is your biggest material fear?"

The cloaked figure stared at me unmoving for a long time until my eyes shifted and it twitched. "Ah, I see."

The boss extended its arms and practically floated back from in front of me.

"Get ready!" I said to Gin and Mare and it sounded as if it echoed. The coat tails of the robed figure seemed to cut away from dragging a good few feet behind it to being a few inches above ankle length. The courser changed to reveal a name "Valiant Shimmer". The dust seemed to pool around its swirling hands "Try not to despair too hard." The voice came off a higher pitch but still clearly male. It thrusted its hands up causing the dust to rain down around its hooded head.

Valiant Shimmer out stretched its right arm and a large sword formed in its hands. The grip was a good foot or two long and the blade was truly a large rugged triangle shaped metal slab which shinned in the light catching the minerals glint.

I jumped back after seeing the large sword, this boss wouldn't use such a large weapon without reasonable stats to back it up.

The Valiant Shimmer placed the blade to his shoulder and pulled down his hood. His face was rather basic, he had short brown hair that was styled into long faux hawk and a small bit of stubble littered his chin, his eyes were dark brown. He was about my height and had a small smirk on his face. It grew when he saw my eyebrows furrowed.

"Vel, who is that? An Ex?" Mare said.

The boy cracked his neck and placed his left hand in the pocket of the glittery coat.

"No."

"Sibling?" Gin asked

"No, it's me." I said grimly. Really? My biggest fear is myself as a guy? How cliche is that?! It cant be something like a bear or a spider?

"Yo-oh right I get it." Mare shrugged "Kinda a lame fear to make a boss, it could've at least been something like a spider!" Mare said as her shoulders dropped. The Shimmer swung the sword to the floor causing the floor to shake and emit a cloud of dust.

"Lets just defeat my "fear" and grab the gem." I told everyone and we charged forward.

The battle was very very anti-climatic, between three highly skilled players it wasn't very difficult to defeat a boss that was 6 floors below the Frontlines. I mean it was like coming back to a low level area to grind.

The other me swung his sword and he and Gin clashed. Gin overwhelmed him easily and when he readied another strike Mare ran closely and swung her axe downwards catching him in the shoulder. He elbowed her and tried jumping back but I ran forward hitting the shaft of my weapon into its wrist and switched my grip causing a flurry of sword skills to embed theirselves in his chest. Gin blocked its retaliations and Mare ran forward spinning her axe to build up her momentum leaving a large gash across his chest. I wasn't entirely sure who got the last hit at first as we all kept overwhelming the clone. The thing about one handed sword users was they could get easily overtaken of they couldn't out speed an enemy.

The Shimmer exploded and the "congratulations" banner popped up, the roof of the cavern cracked and a large gale of dust floated out the crack and the light seeping through formed a beam over the gems pedestal ,We walked towards the pedestal and Mare grabbed it. The opposing rock face of the cave slide into the floor revealing the back exit of the cavern. In the distance there stood a solitary castle-like building, all the fust that had escaped the cavern was blowing towards it. Almost making it obvious we should take the gem there.

Without so much as a word we started our trek across snowy trail towards the structure.

"So…."

"Don't bring it up Gin." Mare said between breathes.

"ARE we gonna just ignore the fact that Velvet's biggest fear is herself?" He blurted out and I stomped my foot.

"Dammit you had to bring it up. Im not even afraid of that! Its just the cliche or like that was the only thing the system could put instead of transforming into an animal." I defended myself and we all dropped it at that. I was never afriad of who I was, I crossed that bridge years ago. The thoughts of who I could've been NEVER haunted me.

"Can we all admit bad guy version of me was pretty cute?"

"NO!" both gin and mare shouted

(AUTHORS NOTE!: WOOO GUYS TWO, ALMOST BACK TO BACK UPLOADS BECAUSE I FELT BAD FOR LEAVING YOU GUYS! ANYWAYS THIS IS A SMALL ARC I'VE DONE BEFORE WHERE WE'RE ON FLOORS OF MY DESIGN GETTING WEAPONS AND ARMOR, BY THE END OF NEXT CHAPTER WE SHOULD BE GETTING BACK TO MAIN STORY! LET ME KNOW HOW YOU GUYS ARE FEELING ABOUT SAOTVS BECAUSE I ONLY GOT ONE FEEDBACK LAST CHAPTER!)