Understandably, everyone (including both of them) was either shocked or confused by the two of them apparently knowing the other.
"Wait, how do you know my username? Whenever I visited I never told you because you didn't seem interested in playing games." The now named Sinon inquired, to whom she believed was Suguha.
"Yeah about that, I'm not my sister; for some reason I haven't figured out when Kayaba did his weird Mirror trick it changed my avatar to a copy of her. Which has been an...experience." Kirito, tried somewhat unsuccessfully, to explain their predicament in a coherent yet simple fashion.
However before they could continue their explanation, Klein broke out of his shock/confusion with a flurry of questions "You two know each other?! How? And since when?"
"Oh right, I had somehow forgotten you guys were also here. I guess some introductions are in order then while I try to explain things to Sinon." They looked a bit embarrassed that they had forgotten everyone else was still here. Before sighing and getting into the aforementioned introduction/explanation.
"Sinon, I'm Kirito and these guys are some friends I made on launch day and we decided to group up together because it was safest." Then turning to her other friends before continuing
"Everyone, this is Sinon, she is the friend I mentioned a while ago who I played the beta with. We are also friends irl, and as you might be able to guess Suguha is the name of my sister"
Sinon surprisingly took this mostly at face value, though Kirito had always been a trustworthy friend. It helped that the person standing in front of her definitely acted like Kirito, instead of his sister.
"So, just so I have this straight. Somehow you got stuck in your sister's body, which apparently broke your edgy Lone Wolf shtick you liked to use? Seeing as you are now partying with 6 other people."
"Hey! I didn't have an edgy lone wolf shtick and you know that. I just like the color black and don't like dealing with most of the random idiots one has to deal with on the internet. A trait you and I both know we share." which was followed by a sigh from them.
"Anyway. I suppose I should actually introduce you to everyone and whatnot. Also curious why you never told me you got a release copy."
Aforementioned Introductions later
"As for why I didn't tell you I got in, because I didn't think I would until I actually got a copy on launch day. And then….everything happened so it slipped my mind to tell you that I was in the game, sorry about that. But at least you seem to be doing well, other than the obvious thing. How does that feel anyway? I never messed with those settings, so I'm curious how the game handles it?"
Kirito looked somewhat uncomfortable about the subject, but answered anyway "Its not been too bad, the beginning was definitely weird and it was hard to move around because I was suddenly 4 inches shorter and had a different center of gravity. My reach was different too, but once I got past that, its mostly just been weird to see my sister in any reflective surfaces, or remember that I have boobs whenever I look down. Odd, but nothing like a horrible, terrible, thing that is all anyone could talk about like some pieces of media would have you believe. Though the game not including some bodily functions probably does help in that regard."
Sinon looks rather pensive as she processes what was just said before asking about something she noticed. "So...you just forget you have boobs until you look down and realize they are there?"
Kirito once again looks a bit uncomfortable, but seemingly more embarrassed than legitimately uncomfortable while answering "Uh...yes? Like, at first they kept throwing me off, but now they are kinda just there, like everything else about this body is. Probably helps that they don't move around much since I've started wearing a bra. The support definitely helps in that regard."
"Wait a second, you are saying you are willingly wearing a bra? Huh, learn something new everyday I guess." Before continuing now with a smirk "Though I guess with melons like those you don't really have a choice."
Kirito's face goes red with embarrassment, and it takes them a few seconds before they are able to utter a defense. "H-Hey! You try swinging a sword around with these so-called "melons" without any support and see where it gets you. Hmph."
Not expecting to actually get a rise out of them, she chuckles for a bit before putting up her hands placatingly "Relax Kirito, it was just a joke. You know I don't mean anything by it."
Sinon really did mean it as a joke, though she is now curious why that question was the only one to get such a reaction out of them. However she decides to drop it knowing she likely wouldn't get anything else out of them. So she moves onto a different topic of interest, their apparent magical ability. "Well all that aside, I noticed during the fight that you and your friends somehow got a source of magic. On the first floor no less, how'd you accomplish that?"
Instead of an answer from Kirito like she expected, one of Kirito's friends (who had been mostly silent during the exchange) answers instead -Dynamm if she remembers correctly- "Oh, we got those and our weapons from a quest we did a couple of weeks ago. Apparently did some sort of hidden condition by accident so we got a special reward. Which included the ability to shoot fire at things."
"Wait what? Since when did quests have hidden conditions you could meet? That would give you special rewards? Especially something like magic this early in the game."
"Do you remember the quest back in the beta to get the Anneal Blade? We were doing that, but figured it would be easiest to just do all the farming for the drop at the same time. So when we showed up to turn in the quest, we apparently triggered a hidden condition that gave us a special reward. Which was our current set of weapons, and a tome about the basics of pyromancy. Along with some other rather interesting details but I'll get into those later." This time, it was Kirito who actually answered
"Ok, I'll hold you to that though. Onto the second thing I noticed during the fight; it looked some of the firebolts you guys threw were much more….successful at setting the boss on fire. Is that part of the magic system where sometimes spells are just more effective or what? Because there wasn't any real consistency to the effect that I could tell."
"Oh, that was actually the result of the special effect our weapons have. They are enchanted so that sometimes when they strike an enemy, that enemy gets coated in flammable, sticky, oil. It doesn't seem to be as effective on boss monsters though because that wolf didn't get slowed down or covered completely like with regular mobs. Looked more like it was only the general area we struck that got covered. Still it's a really useful effect, makes killing things a lot easier if you can just make them burst into flame." Another of Kirito's friends is the one to provide the answer, this time it was Anna. Who provided a more helpful answer then the last person did.
Upon hearing this, Sinon turned a very unimpressed look towards Kirito "Really? Well, I think I'd like to hear those "interesting details" you avoided mentioning earlier if that's the sort of thing that is included in them."
After the explanation/exposition i have no desire to write again
"Well. That's certainly…...news to say the least. Has Argo followed up on seeing if there was another way to get Anneal Blades? Or is that quest really finished for good?"
Sinon was understandably shocked by the news that some quests might be made unrepeatable.
"Actually, yes. A day or two ago I received a message from her saying that some new minor quests showed up in Horunka; that when all of them were finished would give the player an anneal blade. She didn't specify what the quests were about, or any of the details really, but she did confirm that finishing all of them gave her the sword herself. So presumably if a quest would have some sort of special reward, but is made unrepeatable then some other quests would show up to take its place."
"Though considering that was the only quest we did that worked like that, as far as we could tell, it is important to consider that we don't have a good sample size to say for sure or not. Because we tried finding out if there were any other quests with hidden conditions but we haven't had any luck so far." Klein said this with a shrug, which seemed pretty reasonable to her.
"Yeah, we tried doing various things to try and trigger something like it again, to no avail. Though all that aside for now, I'm curious what your plans currently are. Since you seem to be playing alone, which is ironic considering the jab you made at me earlier."
Sinon, was of course, unamused "Yeah yeah, laugh it up. I didn't want to party with anyone because the only ones who seemed interested were the stereotypical "oh look, a girl online, we must invite her to our party and try and impress her and woo her" and all that shit. So I've been going solo since then, which other than accidentally aggroing a boss by myself has been going pretty well."
"Well, that's good. Other than the dealing with idiots part of course. If you want, you could probably party with us for a bit." They turned to the others before asking "You guys would be fine with that right?"
"Yeah, of course." "No prob" "She seems chill" "The more the merrier" Was the round of agreements they received.
Sinon paused to consider this for a few moments however, before she could give an answer, the system made a little ding notifying her that she had received a message. And it seemed the others had as well. Opening it up she saw it was a message from Argo.
"Hey, so I received some news that some other players have found th' boss room. And that they are plannin on havin a strategy meetup in Tolbana in a few days. Figured ya would want to know. And don'tcha worry, this info is free, no charge."
Closing the message, she then gave the response was planning to. "Well, I was originally going to say "eh sure, whatever i guess" but if there is going to be a potential boss raid in a few days. Might as well party with you guys at least until then, since I doubt you are going to pass up such an event."
After closing their message boxes, the group all looks at each other for a second before turning back towards her. "Yeah, that's the plan, to check out this meeting and see if they are actually going to be fighting the boss or not. If they are, and it's not some seriously terrible plan that will get us all killed. Then we'll join the raid."
Later, in Tolbana
The group had headed to where the meeting was said to take place, an amphitheater the city had that was open to the elements. Upon getting there they noticed a decent number of people were there, to the point that a legitimate raid team could feasibly be assembled. Most of them didn't really stand out, though a few in particular did.
One was a large, muscular black man who presumably wielded the axe strapped to his back. Another was someone who had the most…unusual of hairstyles, that could be likened to a spiked mace or perhaps even a cactus and seemed to be radiating a surly aura. Finally there was an indistinguishable figure whose entire body was covered by a brown cloak who had seated themselves away from all the others.
After seating themselves and waiting for a bit, a man with blue hair and armor walked onto the open area at the bottom and proceeded to introduce himself as Diabel and started to discuss his plan for tackling the boss of the first floor. Though he didn't get very far before being interrupted by the surly person with the cactus hair. Who stood up and shouted
"Oi, what's this about those no-good beta testers!? They haven't helped anybody and just ran off to do all the best quests and get the best items! So they should forfeit all their items and gold to me! In fact, I bet there are some beta testers here right now! Trying to steal the boss' loot like the thieves they are! We oughta throw them out of here and expose them to everyone else!"
His words made the others in attendance visibly uncomfortable, though whether that was from having to deal with someone like him, or a different reason was not apparent. Kirito in particular seemed very uncomfortable and was trying to avoid being noticed.
Klein, who had never heard such bullshit before, and wanted to defend his friend's honor. Got up and started shouting back at the cactus headed man.
"Shut up you narcissistic jackass, you just want to get things handed to you without doing any of the work! And do you have any idea of how an mmo works? Or of the situation we are in? It doesn't matter who clears the game, long as someone does"
As he paused for a breath before continuing to point out the absurdity and blatant incorrectness of the guy's statements, the large man with the axe stood up to say his own piece.
"Now now, let's not get too heated here. Best to save the fighting for the boss." He turns to the instigator of this situation. "So you claim the beta testers did nothing to help us regular players correct?"
"Yeah they are a bunch of no good thieves and scrubs! Leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves!" He once again shouted, as if that was the only way of talking he knew.
In response to this, the man pulls out a small bound booklet and begins speaking again "While it may be true that some beta testers did as you claim, not all of them did. Some of them worked together to make a series of these guide booklets that have instructions and explanations of mechanics, as well as good farming spots and quest locations."
"Also, it is as the other man says; clearing this game is a group effort. So we shouldn't discount some players just because they were beta testers or not. And on that note, what are all of your names? I figure if we are going to be working together, introductions are a good start. Mine's Agil." He piece concluded he sits back down.
"Ugh, I still think we shouldn't trust them but whatever. Names Kibaou and don't you forget it." Grumbled the bellicose individual
This was followed by some of the assembled players introducing themselves while others remained silent.
Seeing that those who were going to introduce themselves were done, Diabel tries to redirect the conversation back to why they were all there. "Ok, back to the matter at hand. As Agil here mentioned, there were a series of guide booklets published. One of which contains the details the beta testers had about the first floor boss; Illfang the Kobold Lord. And according to it he uses an axe and buckler, and routinely summons a series of kobold sentinels as adds. Then when its health reaches the red, he ditches his weapons and pulls out a talwar. Causing his moveset to change so we should be careful of the adds and the change in attack patterns. So, we should group up into different parties and establish who is going to be doing what during the boss fight. That good with everyone?"
He receives a round of nods and everyone appears to start doing that, before Kirito -who still looks a bit uncomfortable, but much less so- stands up and addresses them. "If I may interject something here? I feel like there is something important that should be mentioned."
"What would that be? I believe we covered everything important, other than loot distribution and stuff like that. Which we can just do later after we kill the boss." Diabel sounds confused, but also curious about what he could have missed that was important.
They look a bit hesitant before continuing with their observation "Well, those are the details of the boss from back during the beta right? So it's possible that some details might have changed since then. Because most games do change things when they go from beta to a full release after all."
Diabel pauses to consider that for a few moments before responding "That is true, I hadn't considered that. However without knowing what those changes are, or if they even exist or not, we can't really plan around them. All we really can do is be careful and not overly commit to anything. So, let's just continue as we were with forming parties and establishing roles."
A/N Next will be the rest of the leadup to, and the actual boss fight itself. I'll try to get it out within a reasonable time frame but chapter 3 was the last chapter I had pre-written so it might take a while. Or it might not, I can't promise anything. Though I am going to try and have it out within the next 3 weeks.