Title: Adventurers

Prompt: Dungeon

Summary: Sometimes we need to remind ourselves we play games to have fun. This isn't always a life-or-death matter.


On Aincrad's second floor steeped within Mesoamerican-like desert foothills and open prairies grazed by derivative cow monstrosities, hollow towers of granite and dried mud reached for clouds beneath the transparent stone ceiling masquerading as a midday sky. Dozens of lazy hornets the size of two grown men put together loitered through the uncontested air and went about their day as part of a busy ecosystem.

"Did you know that most mound-building termites are a fairly unique phenomenon limited to the southern tropics like central South America, Africa, and Australia?"

"Nerd."

Argo and Kirito wandered around the wide base of a particularly monstrous termite mound the size of a small skyscraper. Unfortunately, Argo had all the facts and Kirito had all the impatience for their little adventure.

"Oh, you're no fun, Kii-bou. At the very least try to humor me."

"I could be chasing down a weapon upgrade quest, Argo. Why do you need me to help investigate a 'rumored' dungeon crawler quest?"

"Because I'm not sending Asuna into any crazy unknown levels until she's got some decent experience with formal questing. And good luck convincing anyone on the Frontlines to bother with a side gig like this that doesn't pay well."

"That still doesn't answer my—"

Argo snickered, "You're available. You're a loner. You care about player safety even if you pretend not to. And it's a minor change from the Beta so there's something exciting to see here. Also – we're friends and friends do stuff for each other."

"This the same friend that got me banned off my own gaming forum?" Kirito deadpanned.

"Yes," Argo answered without missing a beat.

"I have zero reason to do this for you. And this feels like kidnapping."

"It's not kidnapping if it's a kid kidnapping a Kirito."

"It definitely is if you're using the word kid and kidnapping in the same sentence."

Argo gave an uncaring shrug. "Kirito-Kiwi-toe."

The infamous Black Swordsman groaned at the English-pun-derived wordplay.

"Can I say, 'I hate you?'"

"I know you would never mean it."

"Damn… Fine."

The adventurers continued their hike in relative silence, taking note of obstructions and interesting protrusions in the termite tower. Easily a football field across, it took them a few minutes to circumnavigate its thick base.

"Notice how there's no wild mobs crawling up the structure. No flying ones providing security. It's the only one not crawling with «Jotun Termites». What's your guess? Zombie termites? Parasitic beetle larvae killed the hive or something? A case of cuckoo's egg?" Argo theorized, planting her knuckle to her chin.

"Could be all the above, or none of it. Not even sure if Kayaba built this dungeon or not. Or maybe it's randomly generated by the Cardinal System. Did you hear anything from your Argus developer contacts?" Kirito offered.

"No. As far as the ones I've found out, none have any field notes on this dungeon. Which is why we're here." Argo lamented with a slightly-sympathetic pat of her friend's shoulder.

"So, there's only one way in… A tiny hobbit hole into the extreme dark…" Kirito mumbled in distaste.

"You afraid?"

"I'm not a rat, Argo. I don't like tunnels."

She twitched one of her whisker-tattooed cheeks.

"And just because I once played a cat-themed V-tuber online and I'm now a rat-themed info broker instead, that does not make me a lover of dark spaces either."

"Hey, look – you asked. I didn't mean anything by it. I just don't wanna go in there."

"It's the only way in," Argo reiterated. "This job is going to end really quick if we don't proceed."

"You could just pay me as your escort for the day and call it quits," Kirito suggested with a mild shrug.

"No."

"Right… Fine, I'll go first – as your glorified muscle."

"As a friend, Kirito. I may ask a lot, but I can't trust a lot of people. We've known each other for years. That is worth its weight in gold in a place like this."

"I know…" Kirito replied in solemn agreement.

The two stood in silence as they shared in some unspoken acknowledgment. Things changed between them after the first-floor boss room. Kirito did the entire server population a service that day. They would never thank him for it. But he kept players from turning on players. They were all survivors in Sword Art Online, but mistrust quickly built amongst the regular player population against the Argus employees and Beta testers after overcoming fear for anger and rage.

A mere high schooler and yet Kirito set all the players' rage upon himself in the face of the Frontliners descending into witch hunts. So-called crimes of the Beta testers: hogging the best and finite game resources, hording key and advantageous SAO game information, and providing flawed information that got people killed. All now attributed to the one called Kirito.

Kirito was a brave boy, a foolish boy. And Argo's best and only real friend in here. In a way, he saved her.

He dubbed himself a "Beater" and took responsibility for all the faults the player population suffered in the face of Kayaba's death game. No child should ever have to martyr themselves no matter the circumstance, but it happened. Kirito should have broke except here he stood bantering with Argo and stretching his shoulders as he prepared to dive a giant cave all because she asked. Argo knew she asked too much of him. It was selfish, but Kirito didn't refuse because this is also what he wanted.

He made his choice and reaffirmed whenever asked about his regrets or his mental health. Kirito dipped and crawled into the dusty hobbit hole without another word to Argo. Kirito was an unselfish boy, but no saint. He could seek glory or look out for his own best interest, but he didn't like putting people at risk. Even and especially when he didn't know them; and even more so when he did.

In this way, Argo and Kirito were much the same. He just had the unfortunate fate of being in the wrong place at the right time. The guilt ate at her. She did the little amount she could make it up to him, regardless of letting him know or not.

Her jokes at his expense halted as they crawled the tight atrium to the rumored labyrinth within. Argo didn't stop herself from getting a good look at his stupidly cute butt as they navigated the darkness with their enhanced vision ability.

"I'm seeing a light at the end of the tunnel," Kirito announced at a whisper.

"Any special coloration?"

"Just looks like bright candlelight."

Argo hummed in affirmation. "So, something more humanoid might live here. No zombie termites then."

"I wouldn't rule that out just yet but I'm glad we have some light. How far have we crawled?"

"Just ten meters. It's not that deep. This would be some traumatic game design if a dungeon entryway went any longer than that."

"I can only imagine claustrophobia and any other fears have worsen since the death game started. There was this science fiction book I read once about O'Neil Cylinders, despite all the amenities to make a centrifugal space station in space Earth-like – people still descended into madness called 'space cafard.' A sort of mad cow disease brought on living an extended time in space – I'm sure astronauts and submariners have their own version of that, but I could see in a way that Aincrad could be like that. Trapped in a giant metal castle floating in the sky. The sky isn't real. The Sun and stars aren't real. Even the data our brain currently perceives to be reality isn't real – kind of."

"Kirito. Please shut up and keep crawling to the light. You might just give me vertigo if you keep talking."

"Yes ma'am," Kirito squeaked out and from his nerd moment. Not that Argo could really judge him. They were both nerds; he resorted to judging himself instead.

SAO's hyperrealism gradually kicked in again. Covered in dirt and awash in a sudden need to take a shower, the itchy adventurers refused to turn back and continued to investigate deeper. The tunnel blossomed into a less claustrophobic interior and once under dim candlelight, Argo and Kirito found chiseled hallways formed like the interior of an Egyptian pyramid. A dungeon all right. Above the duo's heads, a quest log indicator flashed «New Area Discovered: Fairy Towers.»

"Well, glad to know we have a name to a place." Kirito commented with some sarcasm.

"Now all we need is a street address," Argo bantered back with dry humor.

"281 Fairy Towers, Aincrad Way, Tokyo, Japan. Somewhere at an Argus server farm." Kirito added.

"Not sure that's how an Aincrad address would work. Much less a real life one."

"I didn't really make an effort to be realistic," the Black Swordsman explained.

Argo nodded, "I could tell."

"So, «Fairy Towers» huh? You suppose we'll encounter fairies?"

"I've never heard of fairies taking over a former termite mound."

"There's always a chance for a new fairytale with SAO." Kirito pointed out.

"That's the thing I hate about this game…" Argo groaned back.

"Well, in another time if SAO wasn't some mad scientist's deadly experiment – I bet Suguha would've liked to see a virtual game about fairies."

"Your cousin?" Argo inquired out of curiosity.

"Yeah. She liked Western high fantasy. Brothers Grimm and all that. Not sure if she still reads them but I think she might find the idea cool – this game already does have elves, what's to say about fairies?"

Argo shrugged as a small smile tugged on her face. It was nice to reminiscence over happier times, to take their mind off the more current and pressing matters always stressing them out. "Yeah, I could see that."

Kirito looked around and noted a lack of other light sources amongst the darkness. "I don't suppose you know how this place works?"

"Nada," Argo responded. "When I say I don't know… I usually mean it."

"Let's give this a try then."

Kirito reached for the mounted candle resting atop a head-height oil dish. As his hands wrapped around the bottom of the light source, a spark crackled at his fingertips forcing him back in yelped surprise.

"Nothing ventured, nothing—"

"Shut it, Argo."

The static electric burst sailed across the cracks in the dungeon walls and floors, revealing light where it ran. The new radiant glow came with a rainbow aroma, waxing and waning like artistic clouds contained by panoramic glass. The walls were no longer stone but of an unearthly crystalline material to Argo's touch.

Kirito immediately mumbled upon recognition and with just a dash of karma, "This feels familiar…"

"Where from?" Argo asked.

"The first floor's boss room."

"That doesn't mean what I think it means, does it?"

"Well, that thing was a kobold god of sorts so probably not."

"Kirito. We're in a dungeon. With a floor dominated by cow and bull monsters."

"That would be more of a boss room or field boss scenario don't you think?"

"Any dungeon could be a labyrinth, Kirito…"

"Does this look like a labyrinth?"

"Yes," Argo confirmed meekly.

Foot falls crashed in the retreating darkness beyond. It came from afar, but it was fast-moving with many feet. Multiple entities or one with many legs.

"Back in the hole?" Kirito asked, his tone rising in mild panic.

Argo turned back towards the hobbit hole and found a solid crystalline wall in its place.

"I suddenly understand the rumors of this being a procedural dungeon now."

"Argo!" Kirito shouted in distress.

The info broker broke into a run without warning, leaving her best friend to pursue her cloak coattails. They sprinted in no specific direction, just following their weary instincts as long-casted shadows nipped at their flight.

"This wasn't part of the agreement!" Kirito shouted over their winded breathing and clattering footsteps.

"Not the time to complain, Kii-bou!"

The two slipped into a wide, one-story house-sized space with a flimsy stairwell at center. Large chests of the looting variety rested against the walls and corners.

"An escape and loot, okay… This isn't so bad depending on the resident mobs." Kirito remarked as he drew his sword and kept an eye on the five other entryways into the crossway space.

"My map data shows some incomplete sections, but this labyrinth is extremely small. It's not bigger than the mound base outside. We got a couple gaps but those are easy to figure out." Argo added as she examined her menu for gear and diagnostics in their predicament.

"I can still hear the mobs coming. What's the game plan?"

"Fight of course," Argo responded brandishing her knuckle claws.

Kirito heard a light chime over the many-footed marchers and glanced up. Argo might have missed it, but he grimaced at the completely useless questline notification text materializing overhead: «It's a monster house!»

Finally, the attackers came pouring in on all sides, and after all on many little spindly and stubby legs. For all the noise they made, Kirito had a sudden and disappointed realization as his eyes narrowed in annoyance.

The enemy mobs in this place were tiny. Really tiny. One foot tall, cartoonishly tiny.

Little munchkin creatures with an assortment of fur bodies in vibrant rainbow colors bounding over one another and with the useless buzz and flutter of paper-thin flightless wings that looked more tacked on with glue than naturally occurring off their forms. The army of teddy-like dungeon mobs growled, squawked, whined, and mewed at the two intruding adventurers and hobbled over one another like drunk penguins or a tsunami carpet of fluff.

To put the encounter more simply, Argo and Kirito found themselves ambushed by an entire carnival game shop's escaped stuffed animal awards shelf. Baby horses, cats, elephants, dogs, mice, pigs, and so many more shapes Kirito could not pinpoint.

The horde of pillow monsters had many health bars over their heads but seem rather low in level and hit points. Kirito took a longer moment to stare and decipher the mobs' names, «Fairy Teatime Companions».

"Kayaba has got to be kidding, right?" Kirito growled out without taking his eyes off their very stuffy adversaries.

"Anything is possible in Sword Art Online, Kii-bou! And it has been my dream of mine since junior high to tear up a sea of teddy bears. To battle!" The info broker screeched in warrior delight sprinting once more unto breach and jumped into the flood of pillow monsters.

Kirito watched her body disappear into the waist-high swamp of fluff and fur and wondered if his friend was pulling his leg this entire time. No way she technically-hired out his services for this, right?

The Black Swordsman stepped toward the terribly angry pile of stuffed animals and noted their little beady eyes slanted slightly in cartoonish-like anger with stitched on eyebrows. Their voices upon closer listening were just varieties of someone shouting "Hey, listen!" through several rounds of an audio synthesizer. This felt like a parody, this felt like a joke.

A very grumpy-looking stuffed elephant waddled free of the pile on its hind legs as Kirito got closer to examine the mobs. The beast brandished a steak fork at Kirito as if it were going to stab him.

"You going to stab me now, little guy? How dangerous can you be?"

He offered out two fingers to the tiny toy elephant for experimentation as the thing seemed to stumble towards Kirito at an ever-drunken rate. It continued to stumble and flick the fork past Kirito's hand for a couple of moments before finally getting in a small gash and denting a single point into his health bar.

Argo had to be kidding. This whole situation… Kirito glanced towards the girl but only saw her gleefully breach in-and-out among the mobs leaving a seafoam-like trail of shredded stuffing.

Kirito grumbled and bisected the stuffed elephant with a carefree flick of his sword-armed wrist. It whined, toppled over, exploded into Aincrad-patented sparkly dust, and then left a small pile of white stuffing behind.

"Argo," Kirito called to his fluff-enraptured friend. "Argo!"

"Yeah, Kii-bou?"

"This is stupid."

"I can't hear you over the fluff and screaming of teddy bears! You'll need to repeat yourself."

"This is stupid!"

"You just don't know what fun looks like!"

Even as Argo slaughtered the attacking mobs wholesale, more seem to quickly take their place, and continued without end. More than plenty for a single person.

The boy rolled his eyes in mild annoyance and finally waded into the battle like his friend, embracing the brutal, one-sided massacre of some man-child's idea of a proper tea party. His sword flashed under the rainbow light of the dungeon and went to work like a foliage clearer with a rusty machete.

Chop, chop, chop. Without the stress and sweat of extraneous work and all the satisfaction of trimming lawn grass, Kirito finally admit he was enjoying himself but just a little. He lost count of how many stuffed animals he murdered after a few minutes. He certainly lost track of time when minutes became hours, and he registered a slight panic as the fluff level continued to rise past his waist and then his chest.

Through it all Argo just went on skewering with a long stream of manic laughter let loose from her nose and mouth. She was insane. Kirito confirmed it for himself. He had to drag Argo by her coattails kicking and screaming as the pillow monsters started to fall from the dark ceiling somewhere above and the small sea of slaughtered fluff continued to climb at a rapidly alarming rate.

"Argo, this is really stupid!" Kirito repeated as he pulled his friend along.

"Let me kill them! Damn them and their beady eyes! This is for all my sleep-deprived childhood. They used to blink in the dark. I saw them! Let me at them, Kirito!"

Insane. Argo was insane. Kirito was certain of it and made doubly-sure to remind himself of that fact. Maybe she was even more crazy than Kayaba himself. In fact, Kirito found the single most difficult activity in Sword Art Online through this ordeal. It wasn't killing a difficult raid boss. It wasn't telling a bunch of bloodthirsty and armed adults that he was responsible for all their suffering.

The hardest thing in SAO, without a doubt, was pulling a teenage girl in a blood frenzy up some flights of stairs. After wandering and finding an unnecessary number of out-of-the-way, single flight staircases and clobbering through more waves of teatime fairies and over their stuffed entrails, the two started to feel a windy breeze on the dungeon's sixteenth floor.

The adventurers found their final staircase and broke out into whistling, air-blown darkness beneath a transparent stone ceiling glittering with a mirror a starry sky. The dungeon seem to open out onto a narrow alcove at the top of the termite tower with a reliable ledge overlooking Aincrad's second floor and the dark tower where the next boss room awaited Frontliners in time.

But such thoughts were not on Kirito's mind right now. He looked over himself, noticed an unacceptable amount of dust and cotton fluff from his killing spree with Argo. Shaking off his belts, coat, and gear, Kirito finally looked up at the night sky in relief and enjoyed the truest award of Sword Art Online.

"Finally, freedom! I can feel the fresh air again!"

Argo snorted. "Pfft. And I thought you could use a pointless side quest to relieve some stress."

Kirito rounded on his companion who stood to the side with a disappointed glare.

"What do you mean stress relief? You're more of a handful than the teddy bears. I haven't seen you more rage-filled than that time someone's dog jumped you when you came to visit me… Was that the second or third time you came to Tokyo?"

"Third time. That dog deserved what it got."

"You almost got the cops called on us by the mother just from that argument."

"Well, sorry. How am I supposed to know a dog would get more excited because I tried to get away?"

"I accept that's the first time a dog ever liked you, but still…"

"No. I don't like dogs. End of discussion."

"Okay, but this side quest deal? Why? You knew what we were getting into from the beginning."

Argo crossed her arms as she pouted, and her whiskered cheeks seem to grow more pronounced even in the dark.

"I tried hard to make this a fun hangout, Kii-bou. You should give me some credit."

"What do you mean tried hard?" Kirito raised an accusatory eyebrow.

Argo sighed. "You probably figured it out already, but this isn't the first time I've run this quest."

Kirito nodded in confirmation causing Argo to shrug, but she continued.

"I've run this quest twice before. I know its general concept now and its probably one of the easiest, lesser-known side quests on the Second Floor since players are still reporting new quests. I have no reason to lie to you, I just wanted to have a break for the two of us. I thought this would be fun. No big tricks or surprises, no death threats. Just some stupid twists."

"Okay. I admit that was fun, if a little weird," Kirito responded with some hesitation. "You could've just told me."

Argo shook her head. "Half the fun was seeing your reaction for me. Sorry, kind of not sorry. Still, I just wanted to spend some time with you free of SAO's usual nonsense. Plus it gave you and I a good excuse if anyone wondered why we work together or something like that."

"It might hurt your brand if people learned you were friends with me," Kirito reasoned as he said many times before.

"Maybe. I care about my reputation as much as you might, but I care about my friends far more. I have an excuse. Take it or leave it. I'm just making sure you're okay. And you shouldn't be shouldering the world on your own. You're an idiot if I haven't reminded you that."

"You've reminded me," Kirito confirmed with a small smile.

Argo huffed. "Good. Someone needs to make sure you still have a self-preservation bone in your body."

"So do you want to tell me what that was all about?"

"What was 'what' all about?"

"You going crazy over some stuffed animals."

"I may have overacted my dislike for the mobs but when I was a kid, stuffed animals scared me. I really did think they were watching me, so I consider this a little bit like overdue childhood therapy. It gives me some stress relief anyway; I don't know about you."

"Okay," Kirito shrugged. "I can kind of understand where you're coming from now. You're a little weird but I accepted that. And I did have fun so, yes, stress relieved a little. Thank you."

Argo was patient enough to wait for Kirito to finish before offering him a very cat-like hiss.

"Oh don't give me that," Kirito shook his head good-naturedly. "And what's this quest actually about anyway since you know so much?"

Argo exited the alcove's shade and onto the termite mound's ledge. She pointed up at the open air where another questline notification materialized into existence. «There doesn't seem to be anything here. We'll come back next time.»

"What kind of quest is this?" Kirito gapped.

Argo took a breath as her voice rose with some slight embarrassment. "I am… Still working on that…"

"Maybe its associated with another quest then?"

"I figured that as a possibility. But I still haven't turned up any quest-giver NPCs attached to this dungeon. Either way, I'm sure it's a reference to something."

"Sounds reasonable," Kirito agreed. "I don't know if you noticed but when the mobs started entering the first floor another message popped up saying something about a monster house."

"Yeah, I've seen that one before. Figured it's a reference too. Hard to do research when you're stuck in a video game without access to the Internet."

"Heh. Very-early-2000s, wouldn't you say?" Kirito suggested as the quest-end notification disappeared into thin air.

"Something like that but I barely remember the 2000s," Argo pointed out.

"Fair enough, so what's next and how do we get out of here?"

Argo gestured for Kirito to follow her to the open ledge overlooking Aincrad's Second Floor. They stood together over the darkness and noted small open bonfire's used by field troll encampments during the game's evening cycle. Despite the death game, Sword Art Online was still a beautifully complex and living-breathing world.

Kirito took in its majesty as Argo pressed him another question.

"Do you trust me?"

Kirito glanced to his friend, his eyes narrowing slightly, and he put a step of distance between them. "When you ask that? No. Not really."

"Oh come on Kirito, I'm not that predictable."

Argo stepped closer to her friend and bumped his shoulder as they stood just over the ledge and out above windy, open air. Kirito tensed in concern but stood his ground, pressing into Argo in case she tried to push him off or something else stupid like that. He wasn't ready for Argo of course, in typical fashion of their relationship.

The info broker leaned on her toes slightly to match her lips to Kirito's cheek and feathered it briskly with a light kiss. She finished, "I'm completely unpredictable."

Kirito's lips parted but confusion prevented him from saying anything intelligent. "Why did you do that?"

Argo gave a very uncharacteristic giggle that Kirito might have expected from Asuna more than this whiskered friend of his. He vaguely remembered reminding himself that Argo was probably insane. Kirito only half-recalled it in time for Argo to draw him into a hug around the neck and push her full body into him, off the cliff.

Her giggling turned into a roar of laughter and his parted lips became a terrified scream as they descended into a free fall, carried by wild evening winds toward the savannah grounds below.

Final note. Despite all the insanity of this adventure – they were all right. It took Argo another week before she figured out what the questline for Fairy Towers was though that's not important. They had their fun and that's what counts.


A/N: I didn't plan this chapter out as well as I hoped. I'm also delivering it almost eight months late. Other chapters will also be late I suppose. Chapter 5 is about a 2600 word draft at the moment but hasn't been worked on since January. Sorry about the tardiness but I hope you enjoy this chapter, and we're back to a 4000-word chapter at that. And if anyone is curious about the references in this chapter, its a little all over the place but it takes inspiration mostly from the old Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games. Also a reference to a pulp science fiction novel I read some time ago: Lagrange Five by Mack Reynolds.

Hopefully my next chapters don't take as long. There was an Asuna/Kirito week-challenge I wanted to participate in a few weeks ago for SAO Fanfiction Central but I didn't get around to it. I might still try to later in the year depending on my other Fanfiction commitments. Until next time, the next one is themed: "Rest."