A/N: Sorry for the delay on this chapter. Long story short, sickness in the family, holidays, and finals, call conspired to eat away what time I had to work on this. That, combined with needing to find time to rewatch some of SAO and GGO, led to a two week hiatus. Things should be smoother starting in January. All that aside, this chapter was surprisingly tough to figure out in addition to all those factors. Thank you for your patience.
Once again, I would like to thank everyone who left constructive reviews to help with this story.
December 4, 2022
2nd Floor
Survivors: 7,786
Kirito, Asuna, and Sinon emerged on the other side only to be greeted by snow. They'd stepped out of a cave and into a crater, a hollowed out chunk of mountain. The city sprawled out before them, protrusions of brick and stone, shrouded by the falling snow. Sinon in particular could make out the walls that stretched up around the city itself. No doubt there were gates of some sort that would let them out into the rest of this area. She couldn't make out much of the specifics of the buildings. The sun was starting to set now, so they'd been in the labyrinth for the better part of the day. The three of them stood there, soaking it all in, and staying somewhat out of the cold for as long as they could.
"I don't remember it snowing last time," Kirito spoke first.
"It was August last time, towards the end of summer. It's December now," Sinon reminded him.
"Yeah, right, sorry. I'd kinda lost track," Kirito replied. He wasn't sure where she'd found time to pay attention to the day. They'd all blurred together for him.
"Hey, there's something that's been bothering me," Asuna spoke up. "You two keep calling me by my name. How do you know it?" She finally had put her finger on what was bothering her. She still didn't know their names, but they kept calling her Asuna. She hadn't had a chance to ask since they'd left the rest of the players behind.
Kirito just looked at her. She figured this was like her 'what's a switch' question earlier. Sinon, again, was slightly more composed. "Look about right here, beneath your own health bar," she said, pointing into the air near her own head.
Asuna squinted, looking where she was directed. "Ki-ri-to. . . Si-non. . . So those are your names?" When the two nodded, Asuna could only laugh at herself. "They were right there all along. I can be so dumb sometimes."
Sinon smiled, "Don't worry. We've both been playing this game a lot longer than you have."
Kirito nodded. Still, it was hard to reconcile the fighter who'd helped him slay Illfang with the player who didn't even notice her own heads up display. He opened his menu, selecting the Coat of Midnight that Illfang had dropped, having almost forgotten it in the events that followed, and equipped it. The long, black coat simply appeared on him, polygons forming together in a manner the opposite of the fracturing items went through when their durability was up.
"Show off," Sinon accused him, the girls having turned their attention back to him.
"Hey, it's cold out there," was his only retort.
The girls didn't have much of a comeback. None of them had planned on snow when they'd left the labyrinth. It had been a beautiful day back on floor one. "We can't stay here too much longer. The others will be coming through soon." The girls nodded, and the three of them lingered there for a moment longer, bracing themselves for the cold. Then they took off running down the hill, the inn seeming forever away.
The three of them were huddled around the fire, sitting in Asuna''s room. It had been the one they'd come to first. The cold had seeped into their bones, the group having spent so long in the summer of floor one. Kirito was a little warmer than the others, his new coat providing him some protection. He'd get them something to help against the elements tomorrow. Tonight was not the time to be showing his face. Kibaou's party was probably only just now settling in. In a couple of days, things will have died down some, and they'd have to worry a little less about public hate for beta testers. For now, they had the refuge of the inn.
Sinon and Asuna seemed to be warming up now. Sinon, at least, found herself able to talk. There were questions that she'd never had a chance to ask earlier. They'd barely had a chance to catch their breath since this morning. The three of them had helped to bring down Illfang just hours before. She rubbed her arms, trying to chase the last of the cold away. Kirito stood up, walking away from the two girls. Asuna was still shivering. She'd lost her cloak just a little too soon.
"Hey, Kirito, what happened back there?" Sinon piped up, glancing over her shoulder at the boy. Asuna gave her a puzzled look, not knowing what in particular she was asking about. Kirito, however, didn't respond immediately. "Kirito?" She repeated.
He snapped out of his reverie, pulling his eyes from the window to look back at the other two. "Huh? Sorry, I missed that." He'd been staring at the falling snow. It was enchanting, in a way, now that they were safe. It gave his eyes something to fixate on while his mind churned through the events of the day.
"What happened with Diabel?" She repeated, slight annoyance playing on her face. "I saw you try to heal him."
"I don't know why, but he refused the potion," Kirito responded. "He told me to beat the boss, for everyone there." He paused for a moment, thinking, replaying the scene in his head. The monster laying into Diabel, sending his body skittering across the room. The knight refusing help, all but confessing to being a beta tester. "He was after the last attack bonus. He was one of us."
Sinon chewed on this information for a few moments. "He was a beta tester? Why didn't you say anything when Kibaou was accusing you of murder? You think Kibaou didn't know? The two seemed awfully close."
Kirito shrugged in response, "Does it matter? He could just deny it either way. I'm not going to drag Diabel's name through the mud."
Sinon gave him a curious look. "How is that dragging his name through the mud? It's the truth, regardless of whether people like it or not."
Kirito shook his head. "When this death game started, all I could think about was my own survival. You were fixated on making yourself stronger. We kept each other alive, focused on our friends, people we knew, and abandoned the rest of the ten thousand players who are locked in this game with us. None of them mattered." He was suddenly acutely aware that Asuna was still in the room, listening intently. "But he wasn't like that. Even as a beta tester, he never abandoned the other players. He brought them together, led them out of the first level. We just showed up for the fight. He tried to accomplish something I couldn't. He gave his life trying to finish the first stage. So what if he got greedy and tried to take the last attack bonus for himself? It would still have cleared the first floor, with no casualties. That's a pretty big change from losing two thousand in a single month. Beta testers are the bad guys now. Maybe we could have handled that differently, but that's the way things are now. I'm not going to drag his memory into that."
Sinon thought for a moment, before finding she had to agree. "Suit yourself. Kibaou would probably just deny it and accuse you of trying to deflect the blame." She leaned away from the fire, finally feeling warm. They'd been back into a corner by Kibaou. Sinon made a note to herself, once things settled down, she was going to do a little investigating into Kibaou and Diabel.
Asuna sat silently through this whole exchange, her shivering past. It gave her a better grasp of who these two were. It occurred to her, now, that even though she'd fought alongside Sinon against Illfang, she'd never actually had a conversation with her. They seemed similar to Karin, in a lot of ways. By what they said when they did talk about the beginning of the game, she knew they regretted abandoning the rest of the players. They'd cracked under pressure. About ninety percent of players had done the same. They'd just handled it differently. The beta testers were the only one was that point who could confidently go out into that wilderness. Some had, trying to fight their way through the game from the word go. People like Kirito and Sinon. The ones like Karin had gone the other way. But all the beta testers she knew about, at least the confirmed ones, cared about the newbies. Diabel was just the one who'd shown it the best.
"Having second thoughts?" Sinon's voice broke into Asuna stream of consciousness.
Asuna shook her head in response, staring at the fire. "You guys didn't have to take me, you know. We've only known each other two days. You two have known each other for months. What made you decide to let me stay?"
Kirito responded, "You'd already shown yourself to be a competent fighter. We all seem to get along well enough. Besides, when it comes down to it, you stood up for us. That's hard to come by sometimes."
"Besides," Sinon cut in, "you do nasty things with that rapier of his, and someone needs to be able to pull him out of the fire once needles don't hurt things anymore."
Asuna gave a small smile at the last bit. It was good to be around people again.
"But what are we, now? Are the we going to stick together, stay partied? Are we trying to form the core of some guild? They're not official until floor three, but a few of them are already starting to crop up here and there. The Aincrad Liberation Front in particular already has a fairly sized following." Sinon asked the other two.
"I don't mind sticking with you guys for a while," Asuna responded, sticking to the first questions. "We seem a little small for a guild though."
"We're friends. We don't have to worry about guilds for a while now," he said, unsure why there needed to be much discussion.
Sinon nodded in agreement with the two, just glad to have the topic cleared up.
Asuna covered her mouth as she yawned, the turmoil of the day and the warmth of the fire catching up to her. "Guys, it's been good talking to you, but we all need our sleep," the statement was a close to a dismissal as she could give. The three exchanged goodbyes and agreed to meet again tomorrow, to discuss how to move on from here. Then, Kirito and Sinon left her to move to their own rooms.
The two had a short walk down the hall from Asuna's room to their own. "It's not polite to stare, you know," Sinon told Kirito. Kirito, who'd been keeping his eyes down the hall, turned to look at her.
"What do you mean? I wasn't staring at anybody," came his confused response.
"Not now, earlier. When Illfang destroyed her cloak. You froze for several seconds."
Kirito felt a warmth and averted his eyes. He'd hoped the brunette had missed that. "I was surprised at what her face looked like, that's all."
Sinon chuckled a little in response, her disbelief clear. "Right. Well, don't get yourself killed over it, alright?" She could tease him over it more later. They'd arrived at their rooms.
"Yeah, thanks," he muttered, already opening the door to his room, the two exchanged brief goodbyes, before turning in for the night.
The three of them assembled in the lobby of the inn a little after breakfast time, letting the bulk of the other players filter out before sticking their heads out. They ate rolls, leftover rations from the last floor. Sinon had her back to the wall, taking her typical role as the eyes of the group. Asuna and Kirito sat across from her, backs to the the rest of the room. They'd picked a spot near the wall, out of the way. Sinon noticed that the snow had tapered off, a light dusting still falling on the city. She wondered to herself it was going to stay that way until the winter had passed. The were in the mountains, after all.
Kirito spoke first, quietly, but not whispering, "So floor two is still in the mountains. You think any of the quests are in the same place?"
Sinon nodded. "Everything but the dungeon was the same last time, doubt they'd change too much this time."
"We should still be careful. He may have just left the first stage alone so no one would notice. Besides, I haven't been here before. I still don't know where everything is," Asuna intoned.
Kirito spoke next, "Do we want to jump back to the frontlines, or do we want to quest for a little bit first?"
"You two just finished off the boss almost single-handedly, I think we can take a few days off to upgrade our equipment. Besides we know where we're going while a lot of people are caught up in the fact that we survived level one," Sinon responded.
"I'm fine with that," Kirito responded, while Asuna just nodded her assent. "So, what do we do today? Start mapping the place for everyone else?"
"I think we need to overhaul our inventories. There've got to be some upgrades to our weapons and armor. I'm running a little low on food, myself. I don't know about you guys," Sinon suggested.
"I can cook," Asuna spoke up. The other two looked at her. "I just started working on the skill, but I can cook, a little," she clarified. It felt childish having to defend her choice. She knew she was going to be here for a while, and she at least wanted to eat something that tasted decent while she was here. Kirito had showed her that the food in this world, even those rolls, could be tasty. She'd work on condiments later, but she had cooked her own food the morning of the boss run.
The other two couldn't quite find words. Kirito was surprised that someone would even put time into that particular stat, since he kept his character mostly combat based. Sinon was taken aback by the bluntness of the offer. Asuna barely knew her, and she was offering to cook for the three of them.
It was beyond touching. Sinon hadn't had friends in a very long time. She and Kirito had teamed up in the second week of the beta test. Now Asuna had tagged along with them because she felt they were better people than Kibaou said. Briefly, the post office flashed into her head. The man laying there bloody, gun in her hands. She shook her head, chasing the image away. She was starting to tremble. She only hoped she could live up to Asuna's first impression. She hoped she could make herself worthy of whoever here did decide to call her friend.
"Sinon? You alright?" Kirito asked, a concerned look on his face. Sinon looked over to Asuna, whose expression mirrored Kirito's. She realized she'd physically shaken her head, not just pushed the thoughts from her mind.
"Yeah, I'm alright. Just lost in thought for a moment," came her response. When the two said nothing else, she pushed the conversation on her own. "So, we're in agreement? A few days of training before we try to take down another dungeon on our own?"
"Yeah," Asuna responded.
"I'm in," Kirito echoed. Then, after a moment, when the conversation wasn't forthcoming, "Good, then it's time for us all to go shopping."
December 8, 2022
2nd Floor
Survivors: 7,776
The mountains were cold, but not unremittingly so. The trio was starting to adjust to the more seasonal weather. Kirito hadn't needed to change his outfit much, his coat serving its purpose nicely. He did acquire a long cloak, in case they ran into any real blizzards. Asuna and Sinon had received more comprehensive wardrobe overhauls. Asuna had kept her primarily white aesthetic, but now was wearing significantly more covering clothing. The new clothes weren't bulky or cumbersome, her abilities were dictated by speed. She'd traded her skirt for pants and swapped her vest for a jacket. She'd also replaced her old cloak, though this time she kept the hood down, no longer needing the feeling of isolation from the world around her. Sinon wore a long, brown coat that fell to her knees. Beneath, she'd made the same general adjustments as Asuna, swapping out her skirt for pants, her shirt for one that didn't reveal any unnecessary skin. Her clothes were all a light green color, a stark contrast to the brown of her robe.
Kirito was out in front of the girls, skirting the edge of the mountain. Navigating this floor was proving to be as burdensome as he remembered. It felt a little different this time, though, given that falling this time was fatal. The snow was a light dusting for the moment. It only slightly obscured what was ahead of them.
It took them a few minutes, but the three came to the cavern they'd been searching for. It had been marked on the map. They slipped in, grateful for the respite from the wind and snow. Kirito leaned against the wall while Sinon and Asuna took seats on the floor. The cavern itself was lighted, just as most of the rest of the game seemed to be, by torches lining the walls. Kirito and Sinon remembered the room. Asuna glanced around warily.
"Be careful," Kirito said to the two, though Asuna knew he was saying it for her benefit. "These halls are littered with goblins, if they haven't changed anything." They were in one of the lairs of the goblin princes. General consensus was that these would litter the mountainous stages, with the true king somewhere much further down the road. Needless to say, it was filled with goblins.
This game's goblins were violently tempered, albeit somewhat stupid, weaponsmiths. Neither Kirito nor Sinon had ever seen a goblin crafted weapon's durability drop to zero, and some players who thought that the weapons couldn't be broken at all. They were probably wrong, but the trio did know that whatever they got at the end of this quest, it would last them for quite a while.
The trio had already cleared a number of this floor's quests, with minimal luck as far as equipment they could actually use. Kirito and Asuna both already had fairly powerful weapons from the first floor, and Sinon had found a passable weapon on the second day. She'd taken a liking to knives, keeping anywhere from four to nine hidden on her person or in her cloak at all times. Most of them were small, throwing knives, but one or two were large enough to be of use in a fight.
Asuna stood, having caught her breath. "We ready to get started?"
Sinon stood up, "Yeah. I'm fine. Kirito, you taking the lead again?"
Kirito nodded as he pulled himself away from the wall. He started down the hall, hearing the footsteps of his partners a few seconds later. Their eyes had all adjusted to the light, but the echoes of their footfalls took some getting used to. They walked for a few minutes before coming across the first room of the cavern. They walked out into it, wary eyes sweeping the room.
"Watch out!" Sinon yelled at the two, just a second too late to be of help. Guttural yells filled the air, the battle cry of goblins. Kirito wheeled around, mentally kicking himself for walking into this. Sinon ran forward, positioning herself between Asuna and Kirito, her own sword drawn.
The trio suddenly found themselves surrounded by goblins. Ugly green men, mostly equipped with clubs. They stood about half the size of normal player Brutes, most likely. Some of them were lightly armored. A number of them were drooling as they eyed the three. An ambush. Most of them had hidden to the sides of the entrance, but many seemed to be pouring in from the pathway out. Neither of the beta testers could recall this many goblins in one place during the closed beta. Kayaba had changed the game, again.
The creatures rushed at the trio, a mass of bodies and sticks, war cries and footfalls rolling together into one cacophony, threatening to drown out any communication the three might exchange during the fight itself.
Asuna was on them first. She charged in and stabbed three of them in the face before they could swing at her, jumping back out of range as they collected themselves. Kirito was less careful. He threw himself into the left flank, bisecting two of the goblins with one swing of his blade. He tumbled, rolling out of the way of the clubs as they followed him, carving through another one of the goblins as he rose back to his feet. Asuna darted along the line, gouging at goblins as she went.
Sinon was trying to count just how many creatures they were dealing with. Even after the ones they'd slain, a quick glance still suggested at least thirty. Sinon whirled, sword drawn, remembering the goblins behind her. She took a club to the side as she did, having taken just a moment too long to get herself into the fight. She winced as she absorbed it, carving through the head of the offending goblin as she finished her strike. She was on her back foot, trying to get to her friends. She parried a stick aimed at her ribs and kicked away the offending goblin, not wanting to get dragged into a fight with the ten or so goblins that had emerged from the room's exit.
Kirito reeled back, feeling the sting of a club he'd taken to the face. He regained his balance, leaned forward, and cut through two of the attackers. He continued his headlong aggression, sidestepping another goblin and carving through yet more of them. He and Asuna had worked through a good amount of these things, but it felt like they just kept coming. He was standing in the middle of the group now, taking glancing blows as he fought his way through. His health had dropped some, but he still had about two thirds of it left. He swept his sword around himself, trying to drop a circle of them around himself. A few of them dropped, a couple of them retreated with glancing blows. They were back on him almost immediately in the wake of his attack. He felt something hit him from behind, right across the knees, and he dropped. Before he had a chance to regain his footing, the mob was on him, hammering him with sticks. He was lucky none of them had swords.
"Kirito!" Asuna screamed as she saw Kirito fall and the goblin horde seemed to shift towards him. They'd dropped about half of their attackers, already. They seemed to have little more than the durability of paper. She'd question later if this was what Sinon had meant about them having already fought things tougher than goblins, or if the game had just been changed slightly since the beta. She dashed over next to Kirito and gouged through a few of the goblins, hoping to draw them off, trusting Kirito to help her out when they all turned on him. No luck. Five of them turned to go after her, but the rest continued harassing Kirito.
Sinon's life was down to about half by now. She'd been practicing her swordplay, but just wasn't on the level of Kirito or Asuna. She'd been caught out of position. She heard Asuna's cry and realized just what trouble they were in. She managed to fight her way towards the other two. It seemed that fully two thirds of the goblins had been dispatched. She cut through one of the attacking goblins before they turned on her. She was pinned between the two groups, the one that had been behind them and the one that had ambushed them from around the doors.
Kirito, his dropped nearly into the red in the brief period he'd been pinned to the floor, managed to get his sword up and in the way of some of the onslaught, then managed to get back to his feet, swiping at the goblins as he made his way towards the girls. He produced a potion while still in his defensive stance, downing it to bring his health back up into the green range.
Asuna had done the best at avoiding getting hit, her health only just now dropping into the yellow range. The goblins were relatively slow, extremely weak, but the sheer number had done some real damage. The parried an oncoming weapon and ran the aggressor through. She fought her way to where she could see Kirito and Sinon converging. The unarmored goblins seemed to be all but wiped out, with just a small smattering of them spread through the ten remaining goblins. The three players had managed to maneuver themselves into the middle of the room, backs facing each other, surrounded by the remaining goblins. Now that she had a chance to count, Asuna could see seven armored soldiers and four unarmored soldiers left. She'd miscounted when she thought she saw ten.
A mocking laugh came from the exit of the room, deeper inside the cavern. The goblins weren't pressing the attack the way they had been. The armored goblins seemed to stand at attention. The ones weaker grunts started to run, only to be cut down by the other goblins for their attempt to flee. The party's eyes turned to the exit as armored footfalls broke the sudden silence. Eight green men in black armor marched out and arrayed themselves in two rows of four, facing the party. A ninth figure, human sized, with similar black armor, trimmed with gold, strode into the room. Most of his green skin was covered, but the figure's face was not. He looked nothing like the other goblins they'd found. His face was angular, almost handsome, but still distinctly goblin. The goblins surrounding the trio kneeled as the figure entered the room. He smiled at them, revealing a mouth full of sharp, pointed fangs. He raised his hand, palm up, and the soldiers stood. Sinon finally let the names of the enemies register. Goblin Knight, Goblin Imperial Guard, and Kurat, Goblin King.
The trio instinctually took a step back. The noise of swords being drawn, armor settling as soldiers moved into position, made them think better of it. Kirito and Sinon knew they were way out of their depth. Even in the beta, no one had run into the goblin king. Asuna figured the same thing out pretty quickly, given their body language.
The goblin king laughed. "Stay still, children. I'll get to you in a moment." He muttered something else, this time in a decidedly different language. The Imperial Guard silently drew their blades and rushed the other guards, cut down each of them, and returned to their position protecting their king.
"Now, with that unpleasantness out of the way, I must say I'm impressed," the goblin king said to them. "Troust had been hoping to ambush me with the whole of his army. Doomed, but understandable. You killed almost all of them on your own. For that you have my respect." He produced something from a pouch at his waist. He tossed them three items, what looked like silver bands. There was text on it, but none of the three could read it. "Leave. If you try to loot the traitor's coffers, I will have to kill you. This is still my domain."
"What are you doing here?" Kirito asked, voicing what everyone was wondering. He was as surprised as the others that he'd spoken up.
"The mountains are my domain. I go where I will amongst them. Troust's treason became known to me. The situation has been corrected." The king stared through the players, his patience appearing to wane slightly. The players took that as their cue to leave, knowing Kirito had already pushed their luck.
The three of them were back out on the mountain trail, walking back to town, taking in what had just happened. That wasn't how the quest had gone the during the beta. That wasn't even how the quest had gone for other players who had completed it in this game. It was supposed to reset daily, and some players who'd completed it earlier had said the reward was goblin weaponry, and certainly had said nothing about a talking enemy.
"You guys ever see anything like that before?" Asuna asked.
"Never even heard of it. Maybe we walked in on some sort of weird, unannounced rare quest." Kirito fumbled for an explanation. "You think the Goblin King can really jump to whatever mountain range he wants? I can't imagine he was supposed to be here."
"Those bands he gave us, I just finished going through the item description," Sinon said. "Apparently, they mark his blessing. Should give us safe passage through goblin territory. Apparently it also gives us access to goblin shops, though I have no idea how we'd find those." She had equipped hers to her off hand. The three had equipped the bands to their right arms. They were small, plain bracelets, with the text barely visible if one wasn't looking for it.
"We should probably trust him, if he really has that kind of authority," Asuna responded.
"So we have to watch out for him every mountain floor we come across, and I can't imagine this is the last one. At least we didn't have to fight him. You think we should warn people?" Kirito pondered.
"Who'd believe us?" Asuna responded. Much as she wanted to, there were no witnesses, and they weren't exactly popular right now. Saying there was a wandering, likely level ninety or higher boss floating around on floor two was not likely to be believed or to be helpful.
"The only evidence we have are these bands. . ." Sinon trailed off, trying to remember the name of the items, "Kurat's Blessing, and I don't plan to show off any rare items right now. Besides, it might be fun to see how long this rare quest runs. Didn't he say something about betrayal? Maybe a few floors down we'll find ourselves involved in some full-scale civil war."
"It would certainly be interesting. You think it'll help us get out of this place any sooner?" Asuna wondered.
"We can't focus too much on clearing this whole game. We have to take it one day at a time. Try to do it all at once, and it's just impossible," Kirito intoned.
Asuna gave him a questioning look, but saw his logic. If they were going to survive this game, they would have to become part of it. This was their world now, and whatever twists and turns it took, they had to deal with them.
A/N: I hope this chapter didn't come across as stilted or slogging. I promise, things are moving towards action. I could have kept rewriting it over and over, but if I didn't put something out there soon, this whole thing probably would have stalled before the narrative really began.