Chapter 7: Kindling flames
[Hello guys, if you are liking the story so far then please follow and favorite it. School starts real soon for me so my chapters might take longer to come out then normal, it depends how hard it is this year, anyway time to get into it. Link start!]
Time Eric got home from school he grabbed his Amusphere and logged into ALO. Eric walked into Kirito and Asuna's house. "Sup." Eric said.
"Eric!" Sinon called out from the kitchen. Eric walked into the kitchen.
"Hey." Eric said.
"Can you help me?" Sinon asked.
"Of course." Eric said.
"Thanks, hold this stuff." Sinon said. She pointed to a pile of weapons on the ground. "We got to take them to Lisbeth so she can make sure they are combat ready, then wait for the others." Sinon explained.
"Got it." Eric said as he grabbed all the weapons. Eric and Sinon flew to Lisbeth's blacksmith shop.
"Welcome, the others are already inside and waiting." Lisbeth said as she grabbed the weapons from Eric. "Hey Eric, give me your sword so I can make sure it's ready." Lisbeth said. Eric shook his head.
"Sorry, but I'm the only one who does stuff to my sword." Eric said as he took it out and started making slight repairs. "My blacksmith skill is low, but still good enough for my sword." Eric said.
"Suit yourself." Lisbeth said as she started on the other weapons.
"Eric, all the players have already deiced what to do." Kirito said.
"Ok explain it to me." Eric said as he sat down.
"Well most of the weaker players stay here and guard the portal that will open, then more average players guard the portal from the inside, And finally the strongest players go out in groups to find and kill the boss." Kirito explained.
"And we are attackers right?" Eric asked.
"Of course." Klein answered. They all sat around talking for awhile until Lisbeth finished the weapons. They went and joined the other players in waiting for the portal to open. After a few minutes of waiting the portal opened. Lots of players jumped through the portal, the average players already started setting up camps and defense lines. Kirito and the others stayed to help while most of the attacker groups went ahead and left.
"Hey Kirito, I'm going to head out now, I know you guys will catch up fast." Eric said.
"I'm coming with you." Sinon said.
"Awesome, I could use someone to watch my back." Eric said with a smile. Sinon gave him a thumbs up.
"Ok, we'll catch up after we finish helping some more people here. Good luck." Kirito said. Eric and Sinon ran off through the caves. The whole map was nothing but caves and tunnels with a few non-cave areas, all the rock was red, and there was many lava pools.
"Hey Sinon, I hear what sounds like some combat up ahead, let's head there and help out." Eric said.
"Right." Sinon said. Eric and Sinon ran into a more open cave room and saw some players attacking a giant rock monster.
"Need some help?" Eric asked.
"Yeah." One of the guys attacking replied. Sinon ran past Eric and towards the monster. Eric started running trying to catch up.
'she is fast.' Eric thought as Sinon was getting further ahead of him. Sinon jumped into the air and started shooting arrow after arrow at the monster. It's health started dropping and it swung it's arm at Sinon. Sinon managed to block most of the attack with her bow, but she was knocked against the wall on the opposite side of the room, her heath dropped to yellow. "You are so going to regret that." Eric said as he stood in front of the monster. The monster swung it's arm at Eric.
"No!" Everyone but Eric called out. Eric unsheathed his Demon blood sword. Eric blocked the attack with his sword, the monsters arm was shattered when it his Eric's sword. The monster roared and fell backwards.
"Lighting skill!" Eric yelled. Eric's sword started sending off lightning bolts, at first they were small bolts, but they started getting bigger and bigger. "Time to end this." Eric said as he pointed the tip of his blade at the monsters head. A giant lightning bolt shot out and hit the monsters head, it shattered into pieces. The monster's heath reached zero and it broke into digital triangles. Eric sheathed his sword. Eric started walking across the room towards Sinon. Sinon and everyone else was awe-struck at what they just saw. Two of the guys ran up to Eric.
"Dude, what skill was that?" One of the guys asked.
"I got it from fighting the dungeon boss in the haunted forest." Eric answered while still walking. Both the guys stood next to each other and started talking about the skill. One of the girls stood a few feet in front of Eric.
"That was amazing!" The girl shouted. Eric just kept walking. "You are really strong, you should join me for coffee sometime." The girl said. Eric just walked right past the girl. She turned and watched him. Eric walked over and stood in front of Sinon.
"Here." Eric said as he handed Sinon a Heath potion. Sinon drunk it and her heath went back to full.
"Thanks, and you know that girl was trying to flirt with you or something right?" Sinon asked.
"Didn't notice, only girl I want to flirt with is you." Eric said smiling at Sinon. Sinon's face went red. 'Wait did I say that out loud?!' Eric thought as his face went red.
"Eric." Kirito said as he put his hand on Eric's shoulder.
"Ahh!" Eric shouted as he jumped.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you, we just caught up, what happened here?" Kirito asked.
"It's fine Kirito you just caught me off guard, a rock monster was here so me and everyone here dealt with it." Eric answered.
"More like those two took it down almost fully by themselves. We just got it into Yellow, they killed it within a few seconds." One of the guys said.
"Well it was nothing, Kirito we should get moving. We still got school tomorrow and stuff so we should do as much as we can before we have to log out." Eric said.
"Right, let's get going." Kirito said. Kirito's group went one way and the other group went a different route. After a few minutes of walking around Sinon slowed down and started walking next to Eric. Eric and Sinon were in the very back, a few feet away from the others.
"Why do you stay so far back?" Sinon asked.
"Kirito and Asuna are in the front which means if something comes from the front they can fight it off while everyone groups together to attack, and I stick to the back so I can do that if something comes from behind. And since most of us are in the middle they would be fine if something attacked the middle." Eric explained.
"I'll stay back and help you then." Sinon said.
"Sounds good." Eric said with a smile.
"Say…" Sinon said.
"Yeah?" Eric asked.
"Did you mean what you said earlier?" Sinon asked.
'I was hoping she forgot about it.' Eric thought feeling the redness returning. "Yes, I meant it 100%" Eric said.
"Good, because I feel the same way." Sinon said smiling at him. Eric smiled the biggest smile he had in a long, long time.
'Wow, I've not enjoyed someone's company this much in years.' Eric thought as he walked beside Sinon.
"Guys, come up here." Kirito said. Eric and Sinon rushed up next to him. "It's a fork in the road, left or right, or straight down the middle." Kirito said.
"Right is always right." Eric said. Sinon laughed. "What?" Eric asked.
"Right is always right? Really?" Sinon asked with another laugh.
"Y-Yeah." Eric replied.
"Well I don't know about always but right is as good as any other choice, let's go." Kirito said. They all walked down the right path. They played for a good few hours, they got through many rooms and fought many monsters.
"Guys, I need to log off and eat. Then I should get to sleep." Eric said.
"Yeah, school and all that." Kirito said. Eric nodded.
"Over here." Asuna called out. Everyone ran over to where she was. "I found a cave that would make the perfect hiding spot for us to log out and stay safe at." Asuna said.
"This is a nice spot." Hunter said as he crawled into the tiny cave. Everyone followed him.
"Yeah, too small for most of the monsters we've been fighting, well we should log out today and I'll text everyone to see when they are ready to log in tomorrow." Kirito said.
"Right, Goodnight everyone." Eric said as he opened his menu.
"Goodnight everyone." Sinon said as she logged out. Eric logged out. Everyone said their goodnights and logged out. Eric went into his kitchen and started frying some chicken. Eric's phone rang.
"Hello?" Eric asked as he answered his phone.
"Hey." Kirito said.
"What's up dude?" Eric asked as he started peeling some potatoes.
"I was wondering if you wanted to meet up after school, I need to talk to you about something." Kirito said with a grim tone.
"What about?" Eric asked as he set down his knife and potato.
"It's about laughing coffin." Kirito said. Eric picked up his knife and stabbed the potato.
"Ok, See you in the morning Kirito." Eric said.
"Night Eric." Kirito said.
"Night Kirito." Eric said as he hung up. Eric finished peeling his potato and finished cooking and ate fried chicken with French fries. Eric crawled into his bed. Cody hopped onto his doggy bed and passed out almost instantly. "Cody, is swear you could sleep for days and still be tried." Eric said with a slight laugh. "That makes two of us." Eric said with a yawn. Eric laid on his bed and passed out. After school Eric and Kirito walked to a nearby tea & coffee joint. Kirito ordered coffee while Eric requested tea. "So, what about laughing coffin?" Eric asked as Kirito sipped his coffee.
"We both know that you stabbed the leader in the eye, and that is keeping them from making to many bold moves. But they will get brave again and do something that we might not be able to counter." Kirito said.
"You're right, but I have no clue where to find the leader." Eric said.
"I might." Kirito said. Eric raised an eyebrow. "I know where a laughing coffin member is, he might not talk, but maybe you could convince him to talk?" Kirito asked.
"With or without force?" Eric asked hopping for with.
"I would prefer if you just sat down and talked to him." Kirito said.
'He didn't say without.' Eric thought with a snicker. "Alright I will talk to him, as a fellow SAO survivor and a player killer." Eric said, frowning at the last part.
"Thanks, I'll let you know when." Kirito said.
"Ok, and since you invited me here, I'll leave you the check." Eric said as he finished his tea and left.
"Of course he would leave it to me." Kirito said with a sigh. Eric drove home and logged into ALO. Eric opened his eyes and saw that everyone was still offline. Eric crawled out the cave and stretched. Eric saw monsters starting to spawn in a huge room just a few rooms ahead.
"Well I might as well get an early start." Eric said as he ran towards the room. Eric's eyes got caught on a pedestal in the center. It was protected by a force field, but Eric could still tell what was inside, a map. 'That map might lead us to the final boss.' Eric thought as he started killing the monsters. 'I must have to kill everything; these rock monsters are easy enough.' Eric thought as he took two out at once. After a few minutes Eric had destroyed every monster in the room. "What? Everything is dead. And the force field has not dropped yet." Eric said aloud. "Unless!" Eric yelled as he noticed that a new monster had spawned in. "This one is new." Eric said as he saw it. Unlike the big bulky rock monsters this new one was human sized and was made of flowing lava. It ran at Eric with a great bit of speed. 'Oh man! It's fast." Eric thought as he dodged a punch. Some drips of lava dropped onto Eric's arm. Eric rolled away and jumped up. "Great, I have to dodge the punches and lava drips." Eric said. The monster kept attacking Eric, Eric tried slicing the monster but couldn't. 'Of course I can't normally cut it, it's flowing lava." Eric said as he face palmed. The monster had gotten right in Eric's face. "Crap!" Eric yelled as he started to move. But with how close the monster was, Eric wouldn't be able to fully dodge. Whoosh! An arrow flew by Eric's face and went into the monster, it had an ice skill on it and it trapped the monster in ice.
"Attack it quick!" Sinon yelled from the entrance.
"Right!" Eric yelled. Eric swung his sword fast, hard, and precise. It chopped it ice, and the monster in half. The monster broke into digital triangles. The force field around the map lowered. Eric and Sinon walked over to the map and looked at it.
"Wait!" Sinon yelled.
"This is a map telling us the route to the main boss." Eric said.
"Hey guys." Kirito said as him and the other walked in. After Eric explained everything Kirito took pictures of the map and posted it to the game forums so that everyone knew where to go. Kirito and the others stuck to the map and was well on their way when they came into this huge room, it was way bigger than any other room in the cave system that they had saw yet. "According to this map, this is the first mini boss." Kirito said. They all walked in, both exists to the room were sealed by rocks. The room started rumbling. A huge wolf-like boss appeared. It had black fur and had random spots of fire all over it, it was also huge. "This is Skager the hellhound, remember once his heath gets low he will change his attack pattern." Kirito said as Skager yelled.
"I'll give us a temporary advantage!" Eric yelled. Eric slammed his Demon blood sword into the ground. Blood chains came out of the ground and kept Skager from moving. "It drains my MP kinda fast, attack with everything ya'll can!" Eric yelled. Kirito, Asuna, Klein, Lisbeth, Leafa, Silica, Hunter, and Sinon attack over and over again, doing the best they could. After about a minute Eric's MP ran out and The chains broke and Eric could move again. Skager was low on HP now.
"Careful, his attack pattern is now going to change!" Kirito shouted. Suddenly Skager shrunk a little. He disappeared and reappeared behind Eric. Skager bite Eric in the arm before running so fast that he was attacking everyone with amazing speed.
"This is bad!" Eric yelled as Skager jumped at him. Eric closed his eyes. Whoosh! Eric felt something brow past him. Eric smiled. 'That sound, I can know it by now.' Eric thought with a smile.