A/N: Not all Orc are evil wouldn't you say? Slave is pretty special. Probably the only Orc that's friendly to the players and NPC's. But what about the Coldwolf Clan? Maybe we'll find out when we get to them.
MARCH 17TH, 2023. FLOOR 12, TELEPORTING GATE.
I stand by the teleporting gate as the other members of the Assault Team activate it. We had just defeated the eleventh-floor boss and we unlock the 12th floor. The twelfth floor is a strange place. It's like a swamp forest, only there are giant mushrooms instead of trees or vines, and everything is blue instead of green like a normal swamp. There are lakes, however, so it's good to see there's still some...nature and life in this broken world.
Why am I comparing a floor or two to an entire world?
With the gate activated, players start appearing from the eleventh floor. Hope and Kirito gather around me. "Well, the boss fight wasn't so bad," Kirito says.
"We lost five people," Hope says.
"I agree. This death game is nothing to be taken lightly for." I say.
"Lightning is right," Hope says.
Kirito groans like he didn't enjoy being corrected. Asuna, who is the leader of this floor's assault team, makes an announcement. "All right, everyone. Great work on clearing the boss. That means we're one floor closer to returning to the real world. Now, I suggest everyone rest up, get some levels and gear for the next boss fight. That is all."
Everyone goes in their own direction. Some went to other floors, went questing, or head into the nearest town to rest up. I just went for a walk.
I nearly lost my life back in the boss fight. Rokel was being targeted by the boss several times. I had to either take a few hits or block the attacks. How do I end up in situations like this? I came to this death world just to keep Hope safe. Now I'm looking out for someone else just because he reminds me of Hope.
I stop at the shores of the lake. I just sit on my knees as the water waves in. I'm lost in thought. This game is making me feel like I'm losing my mind. All of my reality is all of this. I'm living inside a game. It's as if my mind is being tainted being trapped in this death game, while my real body is slowly rotting away on a hospital bed.
I close my eyes and remind myself:
I am Claire Lightning Farron. I'm 21 years old. I work with the Guardian Corps. My sister is Serah Farron. I live alone with Hope. My home is Bodhum, Cocoon. I enter Warlords Wrath Online, a death game where people can't escape. This is all a game. It's not real.
My mind keeps racing over the part about 'This is all a game'. If this is all a game, then how come our lives are on the line. If we die in this game, we die in the real world. This isn't a game anymore, but none of this is real.
I'm getting myself nowhere just sitting around thinking like crazy. I get up and continue walking alongside the path. The mobs around here are giant fungus and sporebats. It's a pretty strange floor. Whenever I encounter these creatures, I fight them.
FLOOR 12, LAKE LAGOON
I kept wondering until I spot two people by the large lake in the near center of this floor. It's a young boy and girl and some feathered dragon. I know it's Rokel and Silica. It's been a while since I've last seen them together. In fact, the last time I saw them as a couple was on Valentines' Day That was about a month ago.
Right now, they're just sitting, talking, with Pina on Silica's lap. Rokel says something I could barely make out, but Silica seems to find it funny since she ends up laughing.
As they look at each other, I must have entered Rokel's corner of vision. The next thing he does is turn to look directly at me. "Lightning!" Silica turns. She is surprised to see me. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you two the same thing." I saw, approaching them. "I was just wondering around, thinking."
"Really? About what?" Silica asks.
I stop once I'm on the shore. "Just...personal stuff."
"Oh...I see. Well. We're just hanging out. The boss fight was really tiresome." Rokel says.
"It sure was." Silica says.
Silica takes out some pebble from the ground. She aims it for the lake then tosses it. Pina raises its ears and shouts seeing the peddle, then spreads its wings and chases after the peddle. Silica and Rokel laugh at the amusing dragon. I even smile myself.
Pina flies all the way to the middle, then that's when things get ugly. Pina calls out when some trident bursts out of the water, nearly impaled the feathered dragon. Silica gasps horrified to see that. "Pina!" Pina flies backwards. Whenever he does, more tridents ride out of the waters, each of them nearly hitting the pet.
"What's happening?" Rokel says, nervous.
Pina makes it out of the water and rushes into Silica's arms. The tridents submerge into the waters. I draw my sword out. "Stay back," I say, as I slowly creep into the water. The moment my feet are on the water surface, I look closely into the lake.
Close, but cautious.
Something comes out of the waters. Something scaly, and a full army. The creatures are strange fish snakes. There are two different kinds. Those that are male, muscular with dark blue scales, and carrying tridents. Those that are female with light blue scales and are carrying staffs.
Blackskin Mercenary and Phantom Mistresses.
We are surrounded by an army of these creatures. "Air breathersss." A Blackskin Mercenary says. "Take them!"
The creatures hiss as the Blackskin Mercenaries comes at us and the Phantom Mistresses casts their frost spells at us. I rush in, cutting down any of the Blackskin Mercenaries that come close. We're outnumbered by ten to one, including the dragon, but we don't give up.
Silica and Rokel fight in vain, with Silica's dagger and Rokel's spell casting. Personally, this is the first I've ever seen a Shadow Sniper using a dagger as the main weapon. I parry each attack a Blackskin Mercenary makes at us. Avoiding the frostbolts is not easy.
The fight gets pretty rough. Each of us is in our yellow zone of the HP gauges. We've only killed seven of them. I'm on my last legs, facing against five Blackskin Mercenaries. Suddenly, I hear a scream. I turn to see some Phantom Mistresses is channeling some kind of magic on Silica. The girl is incased in some pearl sphere.
"We have our sssacrifisce." The Phantom Mistresses says.
My eyes widen in horror seeing that. They're going to sacrifice Silica? "Quickly! To the caverns!" A Blackskin Mercenary says.
The Mistresses channels teleporting magic, then they all vanish, along with Silica. Rokel and I are shocked to see this. NPC's have kidnapped Silica. I did not think something like that would even be possible. Talking and treating them like they are real people is one thing.
Rokel drops his staff, then drops on his knees. "No...Silica." Then he drops to his hands. "They...they took Silica!"
Pina seems lost as well. He's just on his paws, sniffing the ground. After a minute of sniffing, he stops beside Rokel, looks up at the Wavemaster, then lays down, curled into a ball, with a depressed moan. I feel upset about this as well, only not as much as Rokel is. Soon enough, the boy breaks down crying into his hands.
I know Rokel well enough, and I'm guessing he loves Silica very much. I walk up to Rokel then kneel beside him. "Rokel...look."
Rokel instantly turns, grabbing me by the shoulders. "They took Silica!" His screaming and worry face has me surprised. "I've...I've lost everything! My home. My family. And now my life hangs in the balance of this death game! Then they took Silica!"
He whimpers for the moment, then buries his face in my chest, sobbing. This situation made me think about Hope. He was always crying whenever he was upset. Especially during the first few days since his parents died. After hesitation, I wrap my arms around the boy, putting a hand on his head.
"Okay...There, there." I fall in silence to let Rokel get the tears out of him. "It'll be okay. Look, we'll find Silica and save her."
The moment I said that the waterworks stops, then Rokel pulls back, looks up at me with his tearful eyes. "R...really?" I nod. Then he smiles and pulls me into a tight hug. "Oh thank you!" I'm astonished. I'm having a moment of deja vu. This happened when we first met, when I decided to help him rescue his guild from the fifth-floor boss. "Oh...wait..." Rokel sits up. "How are we gonna find her?"
"Isn't Silica on your friends' list?" I ask.
"Oh." Rokel opens his menu. He looks over his friends' list then locates Silica. I look over his shoulder. Silica appears to be in the northern area of this floor. "There she is. Come on!"
Rokel grabs me by the arm and starts pulling me.
FLOOR 12, SPOREFIELD.
We have been misled. Slicia's location leads us to nowhere but a spore field. Rokel looks around for Silica, while I stay behind with Pina in my arms.
"I don't get it. She's supposed to be right here." Rokel says.
"Well, this is a waste of time," I say.
Just then, Pina raises his head, staring at the ground with a confused groan. The feathered dragon jumps out of the arms. It moves around, sniffing the ground.
"What's it doing?" I ask.
Rokel pays attention to Pina. The dragon moves around sniffing for a while, then calls out as it starts to dig its paws on the ground. Did not think it could dig like a dog. "I think he's trying to tell us something."
I roll my eyes and shake my head. I turn only to see those fish creatures far off. At first, I'm on alert, then I notice they're not facing us. It's heading towards the lake. As they dive in, that's when I realize something.
"Wait a minute." I walk towards the lake. "If a...snake fish thing wants to hide something, what would be the best place for it?"
Rokel stands beside me, looking into the lake. "You think they have some underwater lair?"
"Maybe...Only one way to find out." I jump into the lake, diving into the waters.
This is my first time being underwater in this death game. A "breath" bar appears in the center of my vision, slowly depleting. Guessing that means how long I can hold my breath. Rokel catches up with the feathered dragon beside him. We found the sea creatures and following them. They head for some cavern at the one end of the lake, which is at the direction of the Sporefield.
Seeing that, I realize that Pina could be saying that Silica is right under our feet. We follow the creatures to the end of the caverns, where some mistress awaits them. Rokel and I stay out of sight, watching closely.
"Neptunesss Wrath." The Blackskin Mercenary says.
"'When the tsssunami reinsss sssupreme.' You may enter, fellow brother." The mistress says.
The mistress pushes a rock on the cavern wall. It seeps in and the wall slides open, revealing a hidden entrance. That certainly surprises Rokel and I. The sea creatures swim in, then we swim towards them. I draw my sword back, as it charges. When the mistress sees us, that's when I do Heroic Throw, throwing my blade towards the creature.
The mistress dies in that one hit. As we swim, my breath bar is not empty, and now my HP starts depleting. That's not good. We swim faster. As we go further in, I start to wonder there's no air. But there's no point in turning back, even if we try, we won't make it.
We're literally swimming into our grave.
Just when we're both down to 30% of our HP, we see the surface. We swim up, bursting out of the water, gasping deeply for air. The second we inhale all that oxygen, our breath bar starts filling up rapidly. Once it's full, it vanishes.
We swim to the shore, laying on the ground once we hit land. "That...was close," I say, between pants.
"I thought were we goners," Rokel says.
Once Pina was on land, it just moans and shakes the water off like a dog. After doing that, he got all fuzzy. If Silica were here, she would probably laugh at that. We get back on our feet, then get a view of the lair. It's not very big, but it is filled with those sea creatures.
"Oh, man. This is the second scariest lair I've ever seen." Rokel says.
The certainly surprises me. 'Second'? What could be the first? I carefully look around, until I find Silica. Imprisoned in that magic pearl, alongside some elite guards and some mistress who looks pretty powerful. I'm guessing she's the leader. She has snakes for hair and carries power with pink glowing eyes.
"Over there." Rokel looks in the direction I'm facing. He's excited to see Silica. Just when he's about to shout, I cover his mouth and pull him back. "Stay quiet, unless you want to get captured too, or worse." Rokel nods, understanding. "There are too many right now...We need to find a way to sneak in."
We both think for a moment. "Oh! I got it." Rokel opens his menu, scrolling down through his items list. A large cloak appears in his hands. "Silica's friend made this. It's a cloak of invisibility." Rokel and Pina stand close to me. At first, I feel uncomfortable, then Rokel wraps the cloak over us.
We are completely covered. When the cloak is activated, it starts turning invisible. On the outside, we're invisible. On the inside, we can see through the cloak.
"Talk as quietly as you can." Rokel whispers. "If we're too loud, we'll be detected."
"Got it," I whisper.
Slowly, we sneak across the camp, making our way to the altar where Silica is being held. We keep our eyes on the creatures. Some are patrolling around. Whenever we got close, they look at us like they saw something, but we manage to get away before they realized us.
We finally made it to the alter. We're only twenty yards away. The mistress leader is in front of the pearl prison, next to some shadow image of some demon. The demon is a shirtless purple-skin elf with a blindfold, with demon wings and longhorns.
"My lord. I have brought us a noble sssacrifice." The mistress says.
"Vashj! You call this mere mortal a noble sacrifice! I shall have your head and make you into a seafood special!" The demon says. "Make me a real offering, or I will-Wait! ...Someone's here." The demon turns in our direction. Seeing that has us nervous. We've been spotted. The demon casts a dark spell at us, destroying the cloak of invisibility. "Mistress Vashj! You have let intruders into your base?"
Silica is surprised to see us. "Lightning? Rokel!?"
"My. My. Friends of yoursss I take it?" Vashj asks.
"They must be strong if they would come this deep to save the girl." The demon says. "Vashj. Deal with them, and bring their corpses to my lair."
The demon vanishes. "Asss you command, my lord," Vashj says. "Ssso. You land loversss dare ssstand againssst the Naga? I shall sssend you to a watery grave." Okay, after a while, it's starting to get really annoying to hear them hiss their S's. "Highborn! Dessssstory them!"
These creatures...the Naga, have us surrounded. "Rokel? Can you break that prison bubble?" I ask.
"It's a high-level magic trap. None of my spells can penetrate it." Rokel says.
"All right. Then you hold of these creatures." I turn and charge towards the pearl prison.
I pull my sword back as I yell and strike. I hardly did much damage to the prison, but I keep on trying. Rokel casts an energy barrier around us, to hold off the Naga. Every strike I make, I grunt heavily. The prison barely cracks from my attacks.
"Come on! Come on!" I say in irritation.
"Get me out of here." Silica says, slamming her fists on the pearl bubble.
I keep attacking the pearl prison, each strike fueled with rage. "Lightning! Hurry! I can't hold them off!" Rokel says.
Attacking the pearl prison is draining my energy, but I keep trying. Eventually, the pearl starts creaking, getting bigger and bigger with every three strikes I make. For the final strike, I jump back, hold my sword back until it's charging, then I leap, unleashing Flash Penetrator, rapidly piercing at the pearl prison until it breaks.
Silica collapses onto her knees from being released. "Air breathersssss!" I turn to the Naga. "You really think your pathetic magic can ssstop usss!" Mistress Vashj channels lightning magic then unleashes it all over the barrier. The electricity destroys the barrier and knocks out Rokel.
"Rokel!" Silica rushes to Rokel, holding him. The boy lays out cold on her lap. The Naga comes closer. "There isss no essscape!" Mistress Vashj says.
"Guess again!" I get close with Silica and Rokel, take out my teleporting crystal, and hold it in the air. "Teleport: Dawn's Blossom!"
We made our escape as the Teleport Crystal gets us out of this mess.
FLOOR 1, DAWN'S BLOSSOM.
It's been half an hour since we escaped with our life's from the Naga. I'd never thought we would encounter those creatures. As if Demons and Fel Orcs were bad enough.
Rokel still hasn't woken up from the attack he had. Makes me wonder if the attack Mistress Vashj did put an effect on his real body, or at least his Nervegear. As long as he still lives, I have no complaints. All though I wish I could say the same thing for Silica. She has hardly left his side, just sitting on that stool. Pina is laying on Rokel's side. Meanwhile, I'm just leaning against the door.
A moan escapes from Rokel's lips, that's when I notice and Silica is caught by surprise. Rokel starts to wake up, Silica is smiling to see him waking up. I smile as well, only not as excited as she is. Rokel sits up.
"Rokel! You're awake!" Silica says. She starts embracing him in her arms. That certainly caught me by surprise, and I thought Vanille was the excited one.
"Uh...Silica. I uh..." Rokel hesitates to hug Silica back. "I'm glad to see you too." They disband the hug. "How long was I out?"
"Just half an hour. I was really worried." Silica says.
"You were worried? You were taken by the enemy. I thought I lost you." Rokel says.
They are silent for a moment. I think I can see where this is going. Sighing, I open the door. "I'll leave you two alone then."
Once I'm out of the Inn, I wander around the town, thinking. What were those creatures? How could they come after players like they were real? Something strange is going on in this world. There's no way regular NPC's would act of their own will against players.
More importantly, who was that demon? It looks like those purple-skin elves from the third floor, only demonic. How could it even detect where Rokel and I were? That last one was probably one of its other senses since it's blind, but it still made no sense.
Nothing is making sense on the floors beyond ten. What is Kayaba up to?
