Thursday, December 15th, 2022, 5:30 A.M.
After completing our quest, Asuna and I returned to the dark elf camp at almost the exact same time as Kirito and Kizmel.
The latter two divulged on what they had accomplished first; long story short, they had entered the spider nest and defeated the nest's queen. To my surprise, they had encountered Kibaou's group as well—however, through the use of a powerful invisibility cloak that Kizmel happened to possess, they weren't faced with a confrontation like us.
"Oh, duh…" I grumbled. "Kibaou and his group were out so late because they wanted to get the guild creation quest done as fast as possible, right?"
Kirito nodded. "That's what I had figured. Did you run into them too?"
"Yeah…"
Kibaou's activities weren't anything that would cause worry, so I decided to move the conversation forward. I produced a silver leaf-shaped insignia from my inventory, one that looked identical to the fastener of Kizmel's cape. "We found this and a few feathers near the forest elf camp."
Kizmel's face fell, her eyes dark. "This certainly belongs to the scout you were searching for. Those feathers no doubt mean that one of the forest elves' falconers was responsible."
That much I had been able to tell myself when we first found the insignia. The «Forest Elven Falconers» were the nastiest mobs on the Floor. While they weren't the first case of flying mobs, they were the first mobs that used their flying capabilities to the fullest—between the falconer and the falcon itself, fighting them could be more than a handful. There was no doubt that the scout we were searching for was killed.
"The scout was kin to the commander…" Kizmel said softly. "If you do not mind, I would prefer not to intrude upon your report."
"I understand," Kirito said. "What will you do for now?"
"I will go rest in my tent. Please, if you need my assistance, do not hesitate to ask." With a soft chime, Kizmel's health bar disappeared from my HUD, and she made her way to her tent at the other end of the camp.
We entered the commander's tent and I handed him the insignia. I thought I saw the commander's face twinge slightly, but other than that he showed no emotion. After giving him the insignia a new quest appeared in my vision, which luckily for us hadn't changed like the first quest had. Kirito immediately produced a fang from the spider queen they had defeated and placed it on the commander's table, thus completing the quest almost instantly. After receiving our rewards, we exited the tent.
"Follow me," Kirito said. "I have something I want to show you."
Asuna looked at me questioningly. I shrugged my shoulders; I was as clueless as her. Kirito led us to the space directly behind the commander's tent. The only things present there were a small tree and some wooden markers in the ground. As Kirito led us to one of the markers, I realized that they were graves.
The marker in question had only one word engraved into its surface: 'Tilnel'.
"Tilnel?" I mumbled. The rhythm of the name sounded similar to Kizmel. "If these are graves, was… this person related to Kizmel?"
Kirito nodded and crouched down in front of the marker. "Kizmel told me that her sister was killed by a falconer during an ambush. Tilnel was a herbalist, not a knight like Kizmel, so she only had a dagger to defend herself."
"I see…" Asuna mumbled.
I didn't say anything. The fact that we had never met this Tilnel before her death likely meant that she had never actually existed in the first place. It was just a memory planted in Kizmel to give her more character. Had I heard of it from Kizmel herself, though, I probably would have had a hard time viewing it that way.
"Kizmel was prepared to die fighting that forest elf. And she likely would've if you two hadn't fought with everything you had. It... made me feel guilty that I had just sat back and waited for the event to complete itself." Kirito stood up. "We should always be fighting as hard as we can, no matter what."
After a respectful moment of silence we returned to the rest of the camp. I tuned out the sounds of conversation and trailed a few steps behind Kirito and Asuna, following them mindlessly. I started paying attention again just in time to witness Asuna deliver a punch to Kirito's gut—albeit lightly enough to avoid causing actual damage. He probably said something stupid. She stormed off and Kirito and I followed at a safe distance.
"What was that about?" I asked.
"Um… she got mad at me when I told her there wasn't any sort of failure state when creating a new weapon…"
"... I don't follow."
"Well, she said I should have told her earlier. I guess… she got mad because she got nervous about it for no reason."
I shrugged. "Punch deserved, then. I take it we're going to the blacksmith?"
Kirito nodded.
Soon we walked up to the blacksmith tent; manning it was a lanky dark elf who had his hair tied back. If it wasn't for the apron, gloves, and large hammer in his hand, he would have been totally unidentifiable as a blacksmith. He was working on some nondescript piece of metal and thus paid us no mind when we stepped up to his tent.
"Excuse me, could you forge a new weapon for me, please?" Asuna asked politely, her anger from earlier either dissipated or hidden.
The dark elf turned to look at her, muttered a small grunt, and turned back to his work. A menu appeared in front of Asuna.
She hesitated for a second then turned away from the elf to look at Kirito, taken aback by the smith's attitude. "Are you sure this will be fine?"
Kirito nodded. Regardless of how rude the smith might have been, he was our best option for the time being.
Asuna turned back to the menu and tapped its visibility button, allowing Kirito and I to see what it contained. Before using the menu any further, however, Asuna removed the sheath from her waist. I wasn't sure how attached Asuna had gotten to her weapon, but it seemed like she had spent a lot of time making this decision. After taking one last long look at her Wind Fleuret, she held the sword out to the smith.
"Convert this sword into ingots, please."
The elf simply held out his hand, so Asuna placed the sheathed sword in it. The elf unsheathed and inspected the sword; after a few moments, he carefully placed it in the furnace behind him. The strangely-colored flames of the furnace flared up, and the sword started to glow. After a few moments, it had morphed into a rectangular ingot.
Once the ingot had cooled, the elf removed it from the furnace and handed it back to Asuna. She then filled out the options in her menu, selecting the weapon type, base and extra materials, and the core of the weapon—the silvery ingot that had just been produced. After a deep breath, she confirmed the final prompt that appeared in front of the first menu, removing all the materials and some Cor from her inventory.
The ingot and two leather bags materialized on the smith's workbench. He took the bags and threw them unceremoniously into the furnace. Kirito grumbled uncomfortably, probably himself starting to doubt how the smith's attitude would affect the end result. Once the materials had all melted down, causing the fire to turn a brilliant bright white, the elf placed the ingot into the furnace.
After a few seconds, the smith took the now-glowing ingot out of the furnace and placed it on his anvil. Asuna took a step closer to Kirito.
The elf started hitting the ingot with his hammer at a slow and steady pace. The general strength of a weapon could be roughly judged by how many hits the ingot took before forming; my dagger, for example, had taken thirty-two strikes to forge. I was kind of unsure whether that trend would continue for long; if it did, weapons forged by master smiths on higher Floors would take thousands of hits. Realistic, perhaps, but possibly too time consuming even for an MMO. Regardless, we relaxed once the smith had reached twenty hits—that confirmed that the sword would be at least as good as the Wind Fleuret before it.
But unexpectedly, he kept going. Twenty-five, thirty… it eclipsed my weapon and the smith only stopped upon the fortieth hit. The glowing ingot reformed itself into the shape of a beautiful silver rapier. The smith took it in his hands, muttered something, nodded, and then placed it in a gray sheath selected from a rack behind him. He then handed the completed sword to Asuna, who stepped away from Kirito to take it.
Asuna bowed. "Thank you."
The elf grunted in response. Asuna moved to equip the sword, but Kirito stopped her and dragged us away from the tent.
"What's your problem?" Asuna asked with a frown. "I got the sword just fine."
"Look, can I just… look at it for a second?"
Reluctantly Asuna handed over her new sword. Kirito's eyes widened when it hit his palms—it must have been much heavier than its appearance let on. He tapped on the sword to bring up its status window. Asuna and I leaned over to inspect the window as well. Named «Chivalric Rapier», Asuna's new sword had fifteen possible upgrade attempts.
"F-Fifteen!?" Kirito shouted in shock.
The number of upgrade attempts was another quick way to gauge a weapon's power without going over its other stats; put simply, the Chivalric Rapier was much more powerful than Kirito's Anneal Blade, which only had eight attempts. This sword could have easily come from two or three Floors above us.
"What's wrong?" Asuna asked.
"Nothing. More like… this sword is amazing," Kirito said
"Amazing?"
"Super-amazing."
With a soft giggle, Asuna attached the sheath of her new rapier to her belt. "I'll be sure to treasure it, then."
Kirito nodded. "It's much stronger than either of our weapons… In fact, it's probably the most powerful weapon in the game right now."
Asuna looked at the new sword on her waist in surprise. "Really…?"
"Really. And now would be a good time to put some upgrades on it, too," I said. "I've been meaning to max out my dagger too."
"We don't have materials for that, though?"
I grinned and materialized a leather bag with a cow-shaped brand on the side of it. "This was the LA bonus from Colonel Nato." I opened up the bag and pulled out a small black metal plank about 10 centimeters long. "Just one of these will boost the upgrade chance of any weapon below +10 to its max, for any stat of your choice."
Kirito and Asuna stared at me blankly.
"You should have said that earlier!" they shouted.
After returning to the blacksmith, every single upgrade was successful; Kirito and I both maxed out our weapons at +8 and +10 respectively, and Asuna brought her new rapier up to +5. There were still six of the planks left over, so I returned the bag to my inventory to be used another time.
Next we had to figure out what to make of the Chivalric Rapier. The sword was brokenly powerful for the Floor we were on. There were too many variables to make a good judgement about it ourselves, so we decided to ask Kizmel about the smith.
He was very skilled but fickle, as we had experienced. Once in a blue moon he would produce a sword on the level of Asuna's new rapier, but if someone was pushy with their order or had ill intentions he would refuse outright. Because of that we decided that it'd be best to avoid telling the main group about the smith, at least for the time being.
After our talk with Kizmel and a breakfast of oatmeal (which apparently Kirito had never had before), we left her tent and started to head for the camp's exit. Kirito and Asuna left the camp and started to make their way to Zumfut; I told them I'd catch up with them in a few minutes, because I wanted to take another look around the camp. It was entirely possible that there was a new quest hidden away somewhere considering that the camp was bigger than before.
I went to the commander first to ask him if there were any extra tasks that we could take on, but he didn't have anything specific. He did however suggest speaking with the oldest elf in the camp, who could be found just one tent over from the commander's.
"Even for his age, he's quite studious," the commander told me. "He does most of our bookkeeping. Were he not on deployment here, he would doubtless spend most of his free time in the Grand Archive." I'd never heard of the Grand Archive before, but it was likely a large library of some sort, probably in the dark elves' castle on the ninth Floor.
I thanked the commander and made my way over to the next tent. The commander had made it sound like this elf was an old man, but he barely looked older than the commander. I was expecting a long-winded story, but the elf's response was brisk, relatively speaking.
"I am grateful for your help, as I have not been able to convince the commander to spare any troops for my needs. I will spare you the boring details, as I imagine an adventurer such as yourself has no patience for them—I am currently conducting some research into past civilizations, and I believe the ridge that bisects this Floor will contain some artifacts or ruins of note. This particular group of people was quite in-tune with nature, so any areas that are flourishing in life will be worth your time."
I actually was somewhat interested in those 'boring details,' but I didn't have the time to ask about them. I gave a bow and a brief reply before exiting the tent. As I walked towards the camp's exit I quickly checked the quest's information—the small description held no more information than what I had been told, but the quest's name stopped me dead in my tracks. With the name it had, I could only think of one place on the Floor where it could want me to go.
"Ohh, I am not gonna like this…"
Friday, December 16th, 2022, 3 P.M.
Unfortunately, my prediction was spot on.
On the western edge of the Floor, there was a waterfall that fell from the ridge into a large lake, which in turn fed into the river that flowed through the forest and around Zumfut.
I pointed to the top of the waterfall and looked at my three companions—Kizmel had accompanied us today. "That's where we need to go," I sighed. Although it was hard to see from the ground, there was some greenery visible at the top of the waterfall, which was without a doubt the place I was looking for. "That, or there's some cave full of plants that we don't know about."
"Well…" Kirito mumbled while rifling through his menu, "I kinda doubt that."
"I agree," Kizmel said. "I have heard rumors before of ruins and an oasis atop the ridge, much like what we can see from here."
"That's definitely it, then."
"How are we supposed to get up there, though?" Asuna asked.
"I'll bet you 500 Cor that there's a pathway behind the waterfall," I said.
"I'll… pass on that."
I sighed. "Let's just get this over with."
I started walking along the edge of the lake, and the others followed behind me. The lake's edge reached all the way to the ridge, but it only came up to our ankles at the edge, so we were able to walk to the waterfall fairly easily.
We walked through a small gap behind the waterfall to find a small cave hidden behind it. There was a tunnel on the left side of the cave, but that was the only other exit. The far end of the cave was mostly barren, but showed some signs that someone had inhabited it before. There were a few random materials and scraps lying around, and there was a charred patch of ground next to the back wall surrounded by stones.
"It looks like someone used to camp out here…" I mumbled.
Asuna shivered, cold from the waterfall's spray. "How the heck could they have a fire going in here?" she asked.
Kizmel walked up to the makeshift firepit and examined it more closely. "I see no way of telling who made this… a random adventurer is a possibility, but it appears more likely to me that forest elves were here. If that is true, we can expect to encounter them above. We should tread carefully."
Kirito shrugged. "We'll find out soon enough. Let's go." He disappeared into the tunnel, prompting the rest of us to follow him. The tunnel was fairly dark and wound in a slow upward spiral. The floor was slippery, but it was a gentle slope so it wasn't too dangerous. Thankfully, the tunnel was narrow enough that it was pretty much guaranteed to not have any mobs in it.
After a minute or two of walking, we were greeted at the end of the tunnel by blue-tinted light and the roar of the waterfall. We emerged from the tunnel onto a small plateau, with the waterfall to our right and a pathway that meandered its way up a cliff face to our left before entering another tunnel near the top. Kirito and Asuna walked over to the edge to peer down at the bottom of the waterfall.
I felt the color drain from my face as I looked up the cliff. My voice probably jumped by about an octave. "W-We have to go up that? Isn't it kind of dangerous?"
Kizmel nodded calmly. "That is true, doubly so due to the waterfall. It would be best for us to stay to the far side of the path, away from the edge."
Asuna stepped away from the edge of the plateau and turned to face me. "Well, I don't think it's that bad. Besides, is there any other way up?"
"I… I guess not…" I muttered.
"This view is amazing! I can see the whole Floor from here!"
I found it difficult to share in Asuna's jubilance. "Um, yeah, it is…"
The ascent had been a little rough for me. Along most of the path there was a short lip on the edge so that we couldn't simply slip off and fall all the way down, but it didn't do much to block the view. I made sure to stick to the side of the path next to the wall, with Kizmel between myself and the edge of the path. On top of that, the whole way up was slippery due to the spray from the waterfall and I slipped on a step, which caused me to fall on my face. For a moment I had thought that I was about to fall all the way back down the path or even off the edge.
I hastily made my way further into the oasis-like area that we had found at the top of the waterfall in order to remove myself from any sort of reminder of how high up we were.
The source of the water was tucked away in a small cave near the highest point of the ridge, totally inaccessible. There were three bridges in relatively pristine condition that spanned the wide body of water that fed the waterfall. Two of them were rope bridges, but the narrower area of the waterway had a stone bridge above it. Luscious greenery ran along the banks, more tropical in variety than what could be found in the forests below. The plant life on the far bank was dense enough to block the view of anything beyond where the bridges landed.
There were ruins scattered about; they were rather sparse near the water, but as the plants gave way to the barren stone of the ridge the ruins became more dense. There were even some structures made of stone that were still fully intact. But there was nothing in any condition near that of the bridges, which sent up a red flag.
Asuna, Kirito, and Kizmel had caught up to me, and had noticed the same discrepancy.
"That's a little suspicious…" I mumbled. "What do you think?"
"Kizmel's guess from earlier is probably right," Asuna said. "If there are forest elves up here, they would probably want to keep the bridges that they use safe."
"Well, why don't we look at the ruins on this side first? They probably won't be on this side."
The ruins were mostly empty, but towards the back of them we found a small cave that descended a short way into the ridge. At the end of the cave was a small stash hidden under some plants and rubble. It contained an old necklace and surprisingly a handful of Cor. The necklace was unidentifiable to us; we probably needed to take it to the elf back at the camp, although my quest log didn't update when I picked it up. After our search, we made our way back to the water's edge and crossed the stone bridge. It was safer than the rope bridges, and there were no indications of any dangers at the other end.
We quietly made our way into the small break in the trees in front of us, wary of any enemies that might spot us. Soon I was able to hear faint voices above the roar of the waterfall. We moved forwards as silently as we could, and through the foliage I was able to spot a couple of forest elves, proving our earlier assumption to be correct. It was hard to tell, but it looked like there was a camp set up in the distance behind them.
Immediately I got a popup on the left side of my vision—a quest update. We were to return to the dark elf camp and report what we had seen to the commander immediately.
We backed away from the elves to a safer distance.
"Hey, Kizmel…" Kirito whispered, "would it be possible for you to sneak past them with your cloak?"
"It is too risky, as elves are not as easily fooled by it. If we must, I believe it would be best to search for an unguarded area instead."
We did as Kizmel suggested, and we split up temporarily to cover more ground. Kizmel and I headed towards the north side of the ridge. Most of the trees and foliage were too dense to risk trying to pass through them, since any elves on the other side would hear us immediately. At the edge of the ridge, though, the greenery thinned out and the path that it opened up appeared to be unguarded.
I was hesitant to go further along the path, as it was quite close to the edge. There was also the possibility that there were more elves further in, and here we wouldn't be able to rely on the trees for cover as much.
"Not very fond of heights, I take it?" Kizmel asked. Her sudden question caught me off-guard.
"N-No, not really." I turned around to face her. "I mean, climbing up here wasn't too unbearable—besides falling on my face—since I had the wall on one side of me and you on the other, but I can't handle being so close to a drop like that."
Over the past day-and-a-half I had grown used to interacting with Kizmel. Yesterday, when Kirito showed us Tilnel's grave I felt kind of lost, but now I understood what he was getting at. The way she spoke and acted was simply too humanlike compared to a normal NPC. Because of that, trying to think of her as an NPC really just made things harder; if it wasn't for her pointy ears and yellow cursor she'd be almost indistinguishable from a player. Treating her as such made working with her feel natural, though notably we tended to avoid using videogame terms around her.
That didn't mean there weren't any issues or questions raised, but I didn't have the luxury to worry about it for the time being.
Kizmel chuckled softly. "Well, I hope that it is not too debilitating for you; this Floor will not be the last with such heights."
I grimaced. "Yeah… anyways, what should we do now? Try to investigate the forest elf camp?"
Kizmel shook her head. "Honestly, it is likely too dangerous, especially during the day. It would be better to return to the commander and possibly organize a party more suited to the task, since we do know of a safer way in. It is also possible there is already some intel on their activities up here that we were unaware of. At the very least, we should reconvene with Kirito-san and Asuna-san."
I paused for a moment before nodding. "That's good with me."
Kizmel turned on her heel and strode off in the direction we came.
I sighed and quietly followed Kizmel back to the bridge. I was not looking forward to the descent.
Author's Notes
Hey everyone.
Man, I sure shoved my foot in my mouth on this one, huh? Over three months since I posted the previous chapter. Yeaaaah. I feel like I can't apologize enough.
If you don't mind me making a few excuses:
I can't say that I haven't had the time to work on writing; I certainly have. It's just that that time went towards some other hobbies and SoLaD kinda got put on the backburner. That's changed in the past couple weeks, but as one would expect I can't guarantee it'll stay that way. Making statements about the future is sketchy, as I have learned so well.
Also, I have a bad habit of making tiny changes when a chapter is about done and putting off posting it for another day because of that. And I'll do it over and over, and all of a sudden a whole week's gone by, with little progress. It only really gets that bad when I've been working on a chapter for as long as this one, though.
And maaan, the time has just absolutely flown by. It turns out that actually having stuff to do every day makes a huge difference in that regard.
Anyways, a chapter happened up there.
That's all for today. Maybe actually hopefully the next one will come sooner this time.
Take care!
