Thursday, December 29th, 2022, 10:00 P.M.

With my mind made up, I broke out into a run to get to the dungeon as fast as I could. Since Asuna's marker had already disappeared from the map, that meant she had to be on the second level of the dungeon. The stairs down weren't that far from the entrance, but it still meant I was a minute or two behind her.

In moments I was down the entrance, and made my way down the stairs to the second level. I didn't see Asuna immediately but she hadn't been to this part of the dungeon at all yet, so I figured that she would probably take it slow and go down the first branch she came across.

The second level of the dungeon was mostly the same as the first, with the notable exception that the jungle and mud hadn't crept this far down. So it was identical to what it was in the beta, and had a more orthodox dungeon or basement appearance of plain gray bricks, candles, and narrow doors and hallways.

Sure enough, one of the first few doors was hanging open. I peeked into it at just the right time to hear a small click, and then a flash of light-orange hair falling—

"Woah! Asu—gfhuh!" On instinct I dashed forward in hopes of catching our companion, covering the ten or so meters in record time. I barely just made it in time to grab her hand with both of mine before she fell completely into the trapdoor, but I wasn't prepared for the weight so I was pulled right to the ground. Fortunately I didn't slide into the trapdoor along with her.

At this point my panic levels grew a good fifty percent, as I saw what had caused Asuna to fall into the trapdoor to begin with - an astral-type monster was looming over my head. It's cursor was a very light pink, so even defenseless as I was it didn't pose too much of a risk, but that was the kind of rationalizing that could get you killed.

"Asuna—! Grab the ledge, hurry, please!" I strained.

After a moment of confused sounds from the girl, I saw her other hand zip up from the trapdoor and grab hold of the ground. With some of her weight relieved from me I was able to awkwardly shimmy onto my feet and pull up hard, pretty much flinging Asuna out of the hole much to her surprise. I used the momentum to swing a clumsy kick at the ghost, succeeding at pushing it away at the very least.

I hurried to my feet, standing up fully now, and dispatched the ghost without much further effort. I turned around to look at Asuna, who was still slowly reorienting herself after the whirlwind she just went through.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Uh, um… yeah. Thanks."

I let out a long breath, able to do so now that most of the tension was gone. "So… what prompted you to come down here? I'd guess that Kirito is in the dungeon somewhere as well, since he wasn't on the map, but clearly you two didn't come in together…"

Asuna gave me a bit of a questioning look as she started to speak, so I held up my hand to cut her off. "Well, fair. I wasn't able to sleep so I was taking a walk, I saw your cursor on the map vanish and I was already nearby so I came down to take a look. Glad I did, I guess."

"… Right. Um… ahem." She quickly shook off her discomfort, skilled as ever at composing herself after the fact. "Well. I had left my room to take a bath before going to bed, and I happened to hear Kirito leaving the inn so I followed him. I should've tried getting his attention before he got to the second level, but…" she trailed off.

"Bit late to worry about that at this point, yeah. Still, I wonder what he's up to…"

Asuna shrugged—she was just as in the dark on that as I was. It wasn't like he needed to do any extra experience farming, nor would he really be keeping anything hidden from us… Unless he was looking into something no one had concrete info on yet, maybe. Or it something that prompted his attention last minute.

We stepped back out into the hallway and started walking down it. "Hmm, from what I can remember the dungeon isn't too complex, we can probably find the stairs fast enough. Kirito could be anywhere, though…" I trailed off.

"Yeah… There was just the three levels to this place, right?"

"Yep. If I remember correctly, there's a boss at the end that guards a tunnel that takes you pretty close to, uh… Manananarena? No, that's not right… Bleh, the next town, I forget how many na is in its name."

Asuna stifled a laugh. "Maybe he's going to take a look at the boss?"

I shook my head. "Nah, I don't see why he'd have any reason to go do that by himself. That would be Argo's job… oh, maybe he's looking for her? We just ran into her not too long ago, though…"

"That could be it. Come to think of it, her guide isn't out yet… If that's the case, we should try to find the stairs."

The enemies in the dungeon weren't particularly threatening to us, however the dungeon made up for that via annoyance. Of particular note were the occasional traps, like the trapdoor Asuna fell into. Then there was the «Sly Shrewman» mob, which would snatch up any items on the ground and run off with them. They were small, quite fast, and possessed the Robbing skill, which immediately erased equipment ownership.

Kirito had had a particularly nasty run-in with them in the beta. He had spent hours getting all his items back after trying to use the Materialize All Items trick to get a stolen item back from one—which wouldn't work anyways since they had Robbing.

They mainly appeared on the third level, as the lighting was sparser down there and brickwork was much rougher and worn away, giving them more places to hide. A brave few would venture up to the second level on occasion, though.

Dropping your weapon wasn't something that exactly happened often, though I decided to sidestep the risk entirely by just using Martial Arts. I could do with leveling it a bit more anyways.

As we progressed through the dungeon things proved to be uneventful. Asuna did her best to stand up to the astral monsters. She seemed to be handling them better than the first one that she had run into; not being by herself was a big help, I presumed. The Shrewmen gave us little trouble the couple of times we ran into them, since we made a point of being wary of their thievery.

We found the stairs downward without much trouble and continued exploring on the third level. The astral and undead mobs were slightly less common down here as the Shrewmen took over, but the gloomy atmosphere made them all the more frightening. While Asuna was working up the courage to take another ghost down, I saw that Kirito's health dropped by a few percent.

I frowned slightly. Accidental damage happened here and there, sure, but could the mobs here even do that much damage to us? The traps were sparser down on the third level as well, with no trapdoors to worry about.

And then, something much more concerning reached me—the sharp, unmistakable sound of swords clashing. It was a bit distant, but sounded like it was directly north of us. A quick glance at my map told me that we were likely slightly southeast of the center point of the dungeon. I looked back up to see that Asuna had just finished off the ghost.

"We gotta hurry," I said before launching into a full sprint to the north. Asuna followed along, confused at first but she let out a small gasp when the next sword strike rung out.

We were getting closer quickly; I could hear some shouting, now. They'd pull in a bunch of mobs before too long. I glanced at our health bars again—my heart about stopped, because as I looked I saw a paralysis icon appear on Kirito's bar. I sped up, going as fast as I could down the narrow dungeon hallway.

Then a bad spot of luck. I saw a wall up ahead of me, coming up fast. It split both left and right, so I'd just have to take a gamble. I didn't have time to slow down at this point, so I leapt and slammed my feet against the wall hard. I pushed off the wall and shot down the left pathway.

Fortunately, I made the right choice. I saw an orange cursor just ahead of me. Whoever it was—Morte, almost certainly—would have definitely heard us coming by now. I could only hope that he somehow mistook us for some mobs and didn't quite have his guard up.

Yep, definitely Morte. He was in sword mode at the moment with no shield, thankfully. He was clearly prepared for me attacking, so the best I could do was try to throw him off. I waited until the last second to draw my dagger—but instead of my primary, I reached back with my right hand and grabbed my backup, the Numb Dagger we had gotten back on the second Floor. It wasn't much for damage, but the misdirect of using my off-hand would help and maybe the low paralysis chance would proc.

Morte reacted quite quickly, but I was still able to graze his arm. No dice on the paralysis, sadly. At the same time, I queued up a Flash Blow with my left hand and put as much force as I could into it. He had almost no time to react and thus blocked it with the flat of his sword, which gave off a fairly loud shriek and some sparks. It looked like he was using an Anneal Blade still. It was certainly on its last legs.

The sight of the outdated sword was almost enough to throw me off, but it made sense after reflecting on it for a moment. The guy was running two different weapons. Upgrading was probably a giant pain, meaning he'd probably put it off as long as possible.

I leapt to the side and quickly scanned the room. I drew my main dagger as I went, since my combo attack had left my arms in roughly the right position for it. I decided to remember that for later.

Kirito was on the ground just behind Morte. Another orange player had been in the corner hiding from the doorway; he was already lunging at me. I tried to block it with my right hand but fumbled it a bit; his dagger slid across my arm. The gross sheen on the weapon told me that it was poisoned, but I lucked out—it was just a low-tier damage poison, not paralysis. I swiped back with my main hand and leapt back, leaving a good gash in his side.

At the same time, Asuna had come barreling in right behind me, her powerful Linear running Morte straight through his left side. Thankfully she didn't seem to be hesitating with the idea of PvP at the moment.

All in all, our attack had worked out well. Asuna was still at 100%. While my HP was at about 95% and ticking down from the poison, it was pretty slow. Morte on the other hand was down a good 30%; Asuna's Linear hit home well and it seemed that Kirito had done some damage before we got here. The dagger user had taken some damage as well. Now the player count was even, plus Morte's weapon was certainly weak.

Morte clicked his tongue. "Che! Gamble didn't pay off. Welllll, you know how it goes, ha? C'mon, let's bail." He waved his hand at his partner. "Don't needa MPK ourselves, eh?"

Asuna tensed to leap forwards and attack again, but I shook my head to stop her. In any other situation I wouldn't let them go. But Kirito was on the ground with mobs certainly on the way, and we still had the risk of getting paralyzed ourselves. Honestly I didn't see how the odds were in our favor here, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

I had tried to get a better look at the other player, but they had on a dark cloak that obscured their face and most of their body. I'd like to think that they'd have to keep low for a while now that they'd gone orange, but it was too easy to wave off as an accident to their friends or guild members.

I wanted to just sit down on the ground right there and not move for a little while; my brain felt fried enough to begin with and that spike of stress wasn't helpful. I had other priorities at the moment, however. I pulled a couple of antidote potions out of my belt and knelt down next to Kirito. I chugged one of them myself to get rid of the damage poison, and I helped Kirito to drink the other down and… nothing?

"Right, shit, it's not instant for paralysis…" I muttered.

"No…" Kirito said. "It's changed some from the beta, it depends on what causes it. But that didn't do anything at all…"

"So it's a stronger poison? Damnit…" I could hear the sounds of a few Shrewmen coming towards us. "Aa-chan, help me move Kirito to the corner. …Aa-chan? Asuna!"

The girl seemed to be spacing out after the sudden encounter; it took a decent shout to get her attention. "H-huh? Sorry, right." Asuna hurried over and together we were just able to pick Kirito up for a moment and put him in one corner of the room.

We got him moved just in time to be ready for the mobs coming our way. In total, the sounds of our fight had drawn in five Shrewmen, and a couple of ghosts and a zombie to boot. Less than I had feared, thankfully, and nothing that we couldn't handle. It only took us a couple of minutes to clear them out.

Once everything was finally over, Asuna collapsed to her knees in the corner of the room next to Kirito. She was pretty shaken up. And rightfully so; that was the first time she had to cross swords with another player, totally unprepared. And we came pretty damn close to dying, despite what our health bars said of it.

Kirito's paralysis wore off after just another minute or two. But the three of us just sat there for a while huddled in a corner in the dungeon and trying to ward off our fears.

We spent a little more time in the dungeon after that. Argo had in fact been scouting out the dungeon's boss; it had changed completely, and it was taking her some time to get all the info sorted out. After making sure that she was safe, we made our way back to our inn. Asuna remained fairly quiet for the rest of the night; she was probably still trying to get her head around what we were actually dealing with now.

I got a small silver lining out of it in that the whole ordeal had left me so exhausted that I fell asleep right as I hit my bed. It hadn't seemed to do me too much good, though; I still felt pretty groggy after waking up the next morning. We ate a quick breakfast and reconvened in Kirito's room to decide what to do next. There was a small couch that Asuna and I sat on, with a small coffee table in front; Kirito grabbed a chair from elsewhere in the room to sit across from us.

"First, there's this," I said, materializing a small item from my inventory. "I got this from one of the Shrewmen."

"Ah… that's the throwing pick they used to paralyze me." Kirito said. It was hexagonal with a slow twist, almost like a drill bit, and only a couple inches long. It had an oily shine to it.

I nodded in response, and tapped the pick to bring up its description and shared the window with them. "«Spine of Shmargor»… It has a level two paralysis poison, like we thought, with three uses before it wears off…"

"What can we do to counteract the poison, then?" Asuna asked. She looked better after getting a decent sleep, but she still seemed a little distracted after our ordeal last night. To be fair, I wasn't feeling 100% either.

"Well, the level one potions we have certainly don't work. Level two pots you need «Mixing» at 100 or so to make. Or you could use a «Purify Crystal», but we won't get those for at least a couple more Floors…"

"Ugh."

Our mannerisms were definitely starting to rub off on Asuna a bit. As I pondered that, I continued reading the item's description; it had some flavor text. I let out a shocked "Huh?" as I read it.

"What is it?"

"Look at this… 'The Fallen Elf General N'ltzahh faced the Dread Dragon Shmargor and cut off every last one of its spines, which dripped with deadly poison.'"

"N'ltzahh… wait, isn't that that Fallen elf general?" Kirito said. "so…"

I frowned. "They couldn't have killed him, right? There's just no way, that guy was way too strong, going by what you two said."

"How would they have gotten this then? A quest reward?" Kirito shook his head. "But that would mean they're working with the Fallen elves?"

I shrugged. "Maybe. I sure hope not, but I don't see what else it could be. What are we actually going to do about this though? In general, I mean," I asked, changing gears slightly.

"I don't know… I don't think we can continue staying quiet about this, though," Asuna said.

Kirito nodded in response. "Right. I didn't get to overhear much, but those two seemed to be talking about messing with the guilds… they wanted to push one of them into fighting the Floor boss on their own, but thankfully Lind and Kibaou didn't seem to be keen on the idea. The Floor changing so much saved us there, I guess."

I put the throwing pick down on the table in front of us and looked at it silently for a while.

"Is there something else?" Asuna asked, noticing my contemplation.

"It's just… there's a lot more on top of this too. Those weird Khazmeri monsters, and some of the items I've found… I'm sure there's more going on here, but I just don't know…"

"Oh, there was that journal you got the other day, right?" Kirito asked.

I nodded in response. "Right. That rusty jewelery I picked up, too. I dunno if we need to find a smith to open that lock or what…" I leaned over to one side, resting my forehead on my hand. "Ughhh… this is gonna give me a headache. Look, I don't think we can do anything about Morte and them right away, right? I'm not exactly eager to go back into the dungeon, but let's just get that boss dealt with and we can go from there. They're probably not going to try to pull anything right away."

Said boss proved to not be all that challenging. It was a great big shambling zombie, covered in moss and small plants much like those that invaded the first floor of the dungeon, however a lot of them looked wilted and dead. Between its size, thick skin, and overgrowth, normal attacks did next to no damage to it. Its own attacks were dead simple, so to speak, but also fairly heavy-hitting. It was slow and easy to dodge though.

In lieu of attacking the boss, there was a series of levers and buttons spread around the boss room, which had to be activated in a certain way. Once that was done there was a puzzle of stones that needed to be rearranged, and once that was done a big trapdoor at the top of the boss room opened up, allowing sunlight to stream in. All the dead plants across the zombie's body sprung back to life and its health bar drained rapidly.

«Mananarena» was the correct spelling of the next town of the Floor. We only spent just enough time in the town to pick up a few quests, as our current destination was actually «Shiyaya», a small town towards the north end of the Floor not far from Mananarena. It wasn't too significant to most, as Mananarena and general clearing would provide enough experience for the Floor. For us however it was another site for Elf War happenings, if just a minor one.

We did get to meet back up with Kizmel, but the rest of the 30th was fairly uneventful. We got a minor quest or two done for the campaign, and returned to Shiyaya to get some early rest.

Author's Notes

Hey everyone!

I'll spare you the comments about how long I take to write, you get the idea.

My original intention for this chapter was to finish up the Fifth Floor—I didn't have much intention of spending much time here. After rewriting this chapter, though, the Morte encounter buffed up its size pretty quickly. I could have made this another long chapter, but I figured getting an average length one out now would be better than spending another n months on it, and this is a pretty clean break point for it anyways.

Not much to say about the content today. More canon-adjacent stuff. That's almost done with now though, and we're working our way towards some plot points picking up steam.

I keep my profile page updated semi-regularly with my estimated progress on the next chapter, so if you ever get to wondering about that do take a look over there.

That's all for today. Take care!