Silica and you now stood in front of the sand temple's crumbling gates. She was still embarrassed from how you reacted earlier.

"I was only joking!" She said in a pouting voice.

You really doubted that, but you didn't have the energy to argue. The fatigue from earlier still hadn't worn off, and your breathing was heavier than before. It wasn't hard to tell that something was wrong, but neither of you knew what. You just had to focus on getting Lisbeth's goods from this place before it got any worse. Just from looking at the entrance up close, you believed this would be no easy task.

From the missing corners, a cold draft sent chills down both your bodies. What was left of the door wasn't very reassuring, either. A great beast devouring a crowd of worshippers depicted itself, albeit very faded, on what was left of the door. There wasn't enough detail to make out exactly what it was, though. It didn't appear to be locked, not that it would matter much. Wasting no time, you gave the gate a good shove, but it would not move. You could feel it give just a little, however.

"Silica, help me knock this open." You motioned for her to move beside you.

Both of you leaned up against the door, then backed away until you reached the staircase. Once you were both in position, the two of you charged at the gate, ready to ram into it with your shoulders. With a powerful yell, you slammed right into the door and shattered it into chunks. Emerging from a cloud of dust and rock, you tripped and fell flat onto your chest. You even inhaled some of the dust, causing your already rough breathing to erupt into harsh coughing. Silica seemed to have stumbled as well, but she was only on her knees. When she noticed your condition, she sent Pina to give you a quick heal. Both of them appeared very concerned now.

"Hey…" Silica grabbed your arm to help you up. "Are you sure we should do this now? I don't want you getting killed over this."

"Honestly, you might be right. Even so, I can't just walk out on this job. Not when Lisbeth is relying on me." You had to lean on Silica for support for a moment before standing on your own.

"I get where you're coming from, but I think she'd appreciate you coming back alive, too." Silica put on her best smile for you. You swore she could make indebted college students happy with it.

"Then can we think of something to keep us safe? Let's not leave until we're practically forced to."

"Hmm… You're a scout, right? Do you know anything about this dungeon? Like where enemies probably bunch up?"

"Sadly, no. I didn't spend too long on this floor, so there's a lot that I haven't seen. I get what you mean, though. My detection and stealth skills should let us avoid things on the fly."

"I guess that works. If you're ever in huge danger, though, I'm dragging you out with a teleport crystal."

You nodded in agreement, then began looking around the interior. Cracks ran along the walls, and small streams of sand flowed from the ceiling. Broken statues and pillars lined the floor, and a toppled brazier marked a fork in the hallways. Three paths stood before you, one of them sloping downward further into the darkness. The other two simply led outward to an unknown end. Your first response was to scan for enemies as far down as you could. Only one path showed signs of enemies, so you definitely didn't want to go that way. At least, it wouldn't be smart to. Maybe there was a clue in the area? You started to think about what you've seen around. The mural may have had something, but the details were extremely faded. You hadn't heard any legends of this area while you were in town. And you didn't realize you were being prodded by Silica until she yanked at your arm.

"I don't mean to disturb you, since you seem really deep in thought, but do you have any idea which way we should go?"

Still returning to reality, you gave your answer. "Oh, sorry. I'm not completely certain, so maybe you can help. Have you seen any clues about where these stones could be?"

"I think… they're guarded by a really strong beast, right?"

"Yeah. Like the one on the mural out front?"

"Yep! So we just gotta find that beast, and we'll find the stones!"

"…Any idea where that is?"

"No… sorry…"

You let out a deep sigh with your eyes closed, then noticed Silica heading down the left path. What the heck was she doing?"

"Hey! Where are you going?"

"To the left, silly!"

"But we don't know if that's the right way!'

"Okay? We can't just sit around thinking all day, so if we can't find out that way, we'll just pick a path and go down it. If we're wrong, even that's better than doing nothing, right? We've got each other's backs, too! So, I think we'll be fine."

What? How could she just… do that? Going in completely blind at a time like this? But then it hit you. That's exactly what you did all the time. You were a scout. Your party would travel into these kinds of situations on a semi-regular basis. Even then, though, you always found yourself relying on someone else to make a final decision. You were great at information gathering, and the other members always found themselves coming to you for advice, but that always led you to overthink things when you came to a decision like this. Because of that, you could never hope to lead people into the unknown. Someone else always took that role. You thought you would've been fine with that, all the way to the end of Aincrad, but you found yourself questioning it now. This experience was painfully similar to your scouting missions. Except this time, the leader was Silica. While admittedly bright for her age, she was someone who you only met this morning, compared to the scouts you had grown close to. As you were silently following behind her, you thought about if you would ever find yourself be forced to lead someone you didn't know. Would you be able to do it? Or would you just freeze up again when you had to make a tough decision?

Then you started thinking about Lisbeth. Specifically, what she told you the other day. Just go with the flow at a time like that? Yeah, that sounded about right. You still weren't entirely sure how sane of an idea that was, but that wasn't the feeling you got from your gut. It was time to actually take it to heart and start listening to your gut. It'd be a good time to, as well. All this thinking started making your head hurt. Or maybe that was just your condition. Either way, you made a mental note to thank her as soon as you got back.

Once you were out of your headspace, you quickly scanned the area for enemies. Honing your senses, you noticed a group of footsteps in the distance. Not only that, but they were approaching. You darted your head around, looking for a hiding spot. In the small, round room you had found yourself in, there were several columns casting shadows along your torchlight, as well as a couple statues. Three exits, one of which you had come through, were also present. Choosing to hide behind one of the pillars, you dropped your torch, pulled Silica beside you, and told her to stay quiet. As the footsteps got louder, you found yourself beginning to hack and cough. Not wanting to blow your cover now of all times, you pulled up some cloth on your armor and applied pressure to your mouth. Hopefully that would muffle your coughs.

You couldn't have imagined what would have strolled in front of you. The best way you could have described the three figures was "somewhat humanoid, somewhat crunchy." They resembled the walkers you fought outside the temple, except they had uneven rocky growths emerging from all parts of their bodies. You could tell they had difficulty walking because of them. Not only that, but occasionally, their hearts would pulsate and glow. Other than that, they seemed to be mainly organic creatures. Once they reached your torch, one of them kneeled down and began to look around. Your heart was racing right now, and it was becoming really hard to tell what was from your nerves and what was from your wound. Luckily, they didn't seem to notice you, Silica, or Pina. The three of them moved on shortly after.

Once she was certain they were gone, Silica placed her hand on your shoulder. "Still okay? We can go at any time, remember?"

You nodded at her. "I'll manage."

Once you had left the back of the pillar, you grabbed your torch and continued down the only available path. There were some side hallways, but you decided to keep marching forward. Not wanting to be silent the whole time, you figured you may as well try to have a casual conversation.

"Hey, Silica, wanna know something odd?"

She turned her head toward you. "What is it?"

"When we were fighting those things out front, I noticed something. One of their corpses didn't disappear." Maybe it wasn't the most interesting of topics, but it was better than nothing.

"Really? Think it had something valuable on it?"

"Might've. If we get the chance, we should check it out."

Well, that was that.

You moved further still. This temple seemed to never end. Maybe it was all the side paths, making the entire thing interconnected. It might be a good idea to come back here and map things out. There's usually really good money in that line of work. To test your theory, you pulled Silica down one of the smaller hallways. After passing a few closed rooms, you found yourself back at the round room you hid in earlier. You didn't have the proper gear to draw out maps, but you always had a sketchbook ready for quick notes. Moving back through the side hall, you jotted down what you knew so far about the place.

"So how often do you get to relax from everything?" Silica suddenly asked.

"Me? I guess… not too much. That's more on me though, for not really taking much time off."

"How come? Doesn't exploring all the time get exhausting?"

"It does, but I wanna keep myself busy. Sometimes I even find a really tranquil spot while I'm out there, so I'll take a minute to rest then."

"Like what?"

You tried to think back to something recent. "There was this one place on Floor 61. God, I hated that floor, so many bugs. But anyway, I had set up camp inside one of the mountains. It wasn't too deep in, but there was an underground stream nearby. With fish, even. That water sparkled like gems, everything had a nice blue hue, and there weren't any monsters to bother me. I was on my own then, but it was peaceful. One of the better naps I've had out there." The talk helped keep your mind off your worsening fatigue.

Silica looked enthralled the whole time you were telling her the story, leaving silence after you finished. While the momentum was going, you thought you'd ask her about something she said earlier.

"Hey, Silica? What makes you think Liz and I would work out together?"

"Oh, that? Well, I know how much you're putting on the line for her, and when I talked to her earlier, she wanted me to promise that we'd both be safe. She was even telling me about how even though 'you seem pretty distant sometimes, you're just a big softie inside,' and stuff."

Oh god, she really said that? It sounded like something from a romanticized… romance.

"Look at that! You're even blushing really hard now!"

Wait, were you? Or was she just messing with you?

Well, whatever was going on, you made sure Silica never got the end of it.

After a bit more travel, you came across a small set of stairs. The layout of the rooms ahead was closer to something you'd see in the ruins of a cellar. The walls smoothed out like adobe, and felt like they were closing in on you. It'd be a nightmare for claustrophobes. You were first to walk down the staircase, and Silica hesitantly followed. Every stair creaked at your footsteps, and sand fell from the ceiling at the last step. Sand that unfortunately landed on your head. You heard Silica fail to suppress a giggle behind you.

One quick shake and rub of your head later, you continued down the path. After a quick right turn, you noticed a line of torches along the wall leading to a closed door.

"Torches aren't usually lit up in ruins like this. Something must still be using it." The sight put you on full guard.

You pressed your ear to the door to check for any noises. Nothing, from what you could tell. You then weakly pushed into the room, seeing that it was a storage cellar. Empty crates lined one wall; shelves lined with linen wraps stood against another. In the center of the room was an unopened chest, and behind it another faded mural. Holding your torch to it, you viewed an image of two groups fighting. One of them seemed like normal humans, the other had glowing chests similar to the creatures you evaded earlier. Fighting alongside the glowing ones, however, were rock golems. And behind that? The same beast you saw at the front of the temple. On its chest was some sort of crest, but it was cracked and in worse condition than the rest of the mural. It was certainly interesting to look at. For all intents and purposes, however, this was a dead end. May as well take what you can get.

You popped open the chest, hoping to find the stones you needed. Unfortunately, it wasn't. Admittedly, what you did find had very good use in your hands. There were five vials of a mahogany liquid. Blood, if you had to guess. Monster blood was useful for poisons, potions, and the odd antidote. Still, it wasn't what you wanted.

"Silica, I think we have to go-"

You were cut off by the sound of creaking stairs. Silica nodded and ducked behind one of the crates, while you blew out your torch and tucked yourself in a crevice between shelves.

Three creatures, the same ones you hid from earlier, had entered the room. Except this time, they were dragging something along the ground. From its shape, you believed it to be a humanoid corpse. Ignoring the open chest, one of them began to beat on the wall with the mural. It knocked on the crest of the beast until the wall began to shake. Soon, it slid apart and gave way to a natural-looking cave. The creatures continued onward into it, with their footsteps being quieted by the sand. Once the walls closed behind them, you wiggled your way out of your hiding spot and pulled Silica out from hers.

"Whatever I said earlier, forget it. Let's follow them."

You asked Silica to knock on the beast's crest, and lifted her up to the right height to do so. As expected, the walls opened to allow the two of you to pass. After you lit a new torch and conducted a quick scan, you were the first one to head into the cave. Immediately, dust and sand floated into your eyes and nose, causing you to erupt into a terrible coughing fit. And this time, you started coughing up red particles: SAO's form of blood. You needed to move quickly.

Thankfully, the cave wasn't too long. The environment itself wasn't too much to take in, but the guttural noises coming from deeper in were. Wanting to sate your morbid curiosity, you increased your pace to see what was going on, even dragging a fearful Silica along. At the very end, the narrow cavern opened up into a vast sand pit, where the human-rock hybrids carried the corpse to a glowing crystalline spire. For a while, nothing happened, allowing you to look around the rest of the clearing. The walls seemed unusually spiky, and unstable stalactites dotted the ceiling. There was also a second crystal spire buried in the sand.

You spoke as quietly as you could while still allowing Silica to hear you. "I think that's where we'll find our stones… er, crystals." You stood up and prepared to sneak in, but Silica held you back.

"Wait, look at that." She pointed at the dead body.

At that moment, you saw the crystal spire rise from the ground. Turns out it was on something's back. Specifically, a giant rock demon. You watched in awe as it consumed the corpse and grew a small crystal nub on its back. After it had consumed its meal, it sunk back into the ground. The three hybrids began walking in your direction towards the exit. There weren't any convenient hiding spots around here, so you began to panic.

That's when Silica nudged you with her elbow. "Hey, Pina and I can distract them. You go grab a few stones, then call me."

You had a few objections, but now was not the time to voice them. Instead, you just nodded to her. Silica ran out and threw her dagger at one of the monsters, which grabbed their attention. Once their melee began, you pulled out a pickaxe and hoped Silica would be okay. As you approached one of the crystal spires, you noticed something pretty horrifying. A humanoid figure formed from pure rock sat inside, with its heart glowing bright. You swear it even twitched at one point. Hesitation starting building inside you. You might be awakening this thing from its cocoon, and there was no way you could take it on in a straight fight. Not that it would be fair, anyway. Your skin started to feel uncomfortably rough beneath your gloves.

As you continued to mine, you felt the ground start to shake beneath you. It was now or never to harvest these stones. Struggling to raise the pickaxe above your head, you began harvesting Immortal Sandstone from the crystal spire. With every swing, the spire began chipping away, as did your energy. You only needed a few from this place, but you thought that Lisbeth might need more in the future. So well after getting a few stones, you kept going. The quaking beneath you intensified, and Silica started getting worried.

"Hey!" She spoke between dodges and knife swings. "You got what you need yet?"

"Just a bit longer!" You hoped that lie didn't get you killed.

One or two more would do. You raised the pickaxe once more above your head… then lost your balance as the ground raised beneath you. The rock demons had awoken and began to stand up. You tried to remain upright for as long as you could, but eventually gravity overcame you. It was at least 15 feet to the ground, and you were falling headfirst toward it. The sand broke your fall, but your HP was very low. The bar itself seemed to be cut by over half as well. The rock demon noticed you moving, and lifted its foot to crush you. Between exerting yourself mining and dealing with the initial wound, you didn't have any energy left. You saw the fatal attack coming, yet you couldn't do anything but weakly yell Silica's name. Nothing but hope she would grab you just as her teleport crystal goes off, bringing, you, Pina, and her back to Sahal's town square. But that was just you hoping, right?

Then you saw a figure leap in front of you, before being enveloped in a bright, warm light.