Castle Carnation
~Chapter 6~
"I called them «Skills». Two slots granted from the start, and then, starting from level four, an additional slot granted for every eighth character level earned...
"Then they must be trained, used, to increase one's skill rank. A number, from zero to a thousand. Everyone starts a novice... and then can achieve mastery, through practice."
Kayaba looked down into the carnations at his feet—whites, reds, purples, and more—sitting absolutely still in a dimension without wind.
"How much of it is true mastery?" he asked. "What is learned... and what is just a data point, an incremented number?"
The flowers didn't respond, of course. Kayaba didn't expect them to. They weren't designed to.
"And what about you?" he asked to the air, to a presence that wasn't quite there. "Are you data too? Or are you what you once were?"
The immaterial entity didn't respond, either; that wasn't altogether unsurprising. It didn't really even exist. The flowers had it beaten, in that respect.
"Maybe another time, then," Kayaba said. "Maybe next trial."
He looked back down at the carnations. "You, though..."
The flowers remained silent, and absolutely still.
"What do you think?" Kayaba mused. "Flowers grow, don't they?"
~13th of February, 2023: Three and a half months after release day.~
The eleventh floor main settlement of «Taft» was quite lively, relative to many other floors. The clearers of Alpha were well into the trials of the twenty-fifth level. Players of lesser calibers were spread all throughout the floors between, but many found themselves drawn to «Taft». Player-purchasable real-estate was abundant, affordable, and of decent quality; many players with bartering and crafting skills chose «Taft» to position their shops.
In the back room of one particular stone brick building, a particular «beater» in a dark coat rapped on a wall. "Hello?"
"Just a sec!" the shop's proprietor called back, just loud enough to be heard over the whir of the drill press in front of her.
The walls were lined with machinery: band saws, lathes, presses, mills, and grinding wheels... Kirito recognized the functions of some, but was absolutely puzzled by the rest.
He stepped deeper into the room. The running machine tool drew his immediate attention. Its operator watched it intently, but didn't actually touch it anywhere. Instead, she used one hand to perform a series of mid-air taps, clearing floating white circles: touch commands.
She wore a brightly colored dress, almost like that of a maid—not entirely appropriate wear for the grime of her smithing task. Her face was freckled, and her brow was furrowed in concentration, but, in spite of it, she looked fresh and relaxed as she worked, in her element; perhaps because of her attire, or the curious pink color of her hair.
Her name was Lisbeth, and she carried with her a reputation as one of the best weapon maintainers in Aincrad.
She traced a spiral over the drill press to connect a chain of white dots, then took a step back from it. The spinning of the drill slowed and then stopped, and Lisbeth pulled out the resultant item, a bent metallic piece, tapping it to display its basic information. Of primary importance was its name: «Robust Steel Joint».
"Whew," Lisbeth said. "My luck's holding today, apparently. Well, hey, Kirito! What's up?"
"Not much. I thought I'd stop by and give my SMG a tune-up, but it seems like you're busy. I don't want to distract you if you're working..."
"It's fine," Lisbeth said, stowing the part in her inventory. "I can knock out maintenance in no time. I can afford to take a break anyways. This bigger project is sort-of for a friend; they'll be waiting another hour for me to finish anyways. So, tune-up? Got materials for an upgrade, or just want a cleaning?"
Kirito brought out his «PPSh-41», an archetypical full-length Soviet submachine gun with a wooden stock, and set it upon Lisbeth's workbench. "I've got... five «scrap steel»."
Weapons types in «Castle Carnation» varied drastically, but a number of common "plus" enhancements could be applied to most of them, up to a limit. Enhance-able elements had one-letter abbreviations: 'A' for 'Accuracy,' 'C' for 'Controllability,' 'V' for 'Muzzle Velocity', and 'R' for 'Rate of Fire.'
Enhanced 'Accuracy' improved minimum aim circle size and 'Controllability' reduced aim circle expansion, similar to the aim bonuses from «DEX» and «STR» respectively. More experienced players tended to prefer 'V' and 'R' enhancements, as the bonuses they provided could be harnessed even while in «Focus Fire».
The enhancement process itself was a mini-game based on tapping a pattern of circles, similar to but significantly more complicated than the «field cleaning» event, and requiring the «Maintenance» skill to activate. Its success chance depended upon the quantity of requisite materials used: in this case, Kirito's «PPSh-41» required «Scrap Steel», a fairly common drop from mechanical enemies.
"Five will only give a ten percent success chance," Lisbeth said. "Kind of a crapshoot, and, according to the appraisal, your gun only has five enhancement attempts left on it. Just the cleaning, then-"
"Nah," Kirito interrupted. "Try an upgrade. I've got faith in you. I'm thinking plus-R."
Lisbeth blinked. "You realize that neither how well I complete the mini-game nor my skill rank have any effect on the success chance whatsoever, right?"
"That's what they say. Try it anyways."
"Kirito. This'll just eat one of the enhancement attempts for no reason. It's not gonna work."
"You don't know 'till you try."
"Fine," Lisbeth said, "gimme the scrap metal."
Kirito passed the items to her using a trade dialogue, and thought of something.
"Hey, you said the project you're working on is for a friend? Do I know them?"
"I would think so. One certain A-su-na-san." Lisbeth jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the workshop's back door. "She's actually outside in the back courtyard right now, if you want to talk to her."
"Wait," Kirito said, "...she's here? Right now? She's not really the type to take time off from the front. What's she doing?"
"In the back yard, I said. It's a big yard. There's an entire shooting range laid out on it, training targets and everything. Asuna actually comes by and uses it pretty often."
"Huh. Maybe I'll have a look. But first, I want to see this upgrade happen."
Lisbeth let out a slight sigh. "Prepare to be disappointed... I'm telling you, at ten percent, it's not happening."
As Lisbeth started the enhancement process, Kirito took another look around the room, at the various machine tools. "I don't know what half of these are for. How did you figure out all this stuff?"
"Figure it out?" She shrugged, flicking back a short strand of pink-dyed hair with one hand as she executed touch inputs with the other. "I wouldn't say I 'figured it out.' Toss me in front of one of these machines in real life and I'd have no idea what to do. I just read the manual's crafting section. It's not that much information."
"It looks like you've really got it down, though. You're blowing through that mini-game like it's nothing."
"Well, compared to combat, it is nothing. Ever play 'Osu?' I had the top score for, like, ten different tracks...er, I've gotten close to it, at any rate. Spinners were the most annoying thing..."
The reminiscence seemed to inspirit her, and she prosecuted the final circles of the mini-game, tapping them away with vigor. A slight sheen wrapped the weapon on her workbench.
"Hmm," Kirito intoned, leaning in over Lisbeth's bench and examining his polished gun. "Is it done? Did it work?"
Lisbeth brought up its info window. "Wha... are you freaking kidding me?! On just a ten percent chance... and I'll have you know, my experience with random numbers has not been great. You know how many tries it takes me to get «Robust» quality parts sometimes? Your «PPSh» is now plus-one to 'R.' And it's got the resilience bonus from my 580 in «Maintenance». You won't have to do a field-cleaning for days. I swear, you must be the luckiest idiot..."
He smiled slightly, but winced. "Yeah... I've heard that before."
You were ten times luckier, though, getting into the beta test... I heard they only let a thousand people in!
Lisbeth noticed his expression. "Something wrong?"
"No, it's..." he shook his head. "Just remembering things."
"Alright. Standard enhancement fare is 5,000 col... though, there is something..."
"Hmm?"
"Well, you're sticking around for a bit, right? Just don't worry about payment for now. I'll wait until Silica gets here to explain."
Kirito was slightly puzzled. "Who's Silica?"
"Friend of mine," Lisbeth said. "Her main focus is «Engineering». I think you'd get along well. I've got to get back to Asuna's thing now. Tell her it'll be ready in fifty... no, forty minutes, if the random number gods are cooperative."
"I'll tell her," Kirito nodded, and then stepped out the rear exit.
"You and Asuna," Lisbeth sighed, once she was sure he was out of earshot. "You really, really are the luckiest idiot..."
As Lisbeth had said, the courtyard was indeed quite large. The doorway was in one corner of a roughly square grassy area, at least fifty meters from one corner to the other, bounded by 3-meter-high stone walls. Scattered along one wall were several shooting targets, 'bull's-eyes' with concentric rings extending out to a diameter of half a meter.
Asuna stood with her back against the opposite wall, a mostly wooden firearm against her shoulder. Kirito recognized it as a version of the iconic World War II American service rifle, the «M1 Garand».
As Kirito watched, she fired at one of the targets. A large red number appeared and floated up over it, displaying the damage done by the last hit. Specially designated targets would display such numbers, helpful for a player trying to choose or improve their skills.
The number that floated up for Asuna's first shot was [232]. She quickly fired another three rounds. They all hit the target at various points, and the big number showed it, flashing from [280] to [224] to [259].
She paused, and then fired again. The fifth round struck within the tiny inch-wide circle of the bull's-eye, setting the damage number to a bold [572], and causing the word «Critical!» to float momentarily beside it.
Asuna's rifle ejected its empty clip upwards with a light ping, and it broke apart into particles before it hit the ground. As she reached for her belt to grab another clip, she noticed Kirito standing beside her.
"Kirito?" She lowered the gun. "What are you doing here?"
"Just got my gun cleaned and upgraded, and thought I'd check out the practice area," he answered. "Weren't you the one who recommended Lisbeth to me in the first place?"
"Well, yes... that's not what I meant. Never mind." She pushed the clip of cartridges into the gun.
"I'm actually surprised to see you here," Kirito said. "Practice range? Why not just go to an actual dungeon if you're using up ammunition?"
"I'm waiting for Liz to finish something. I might as well rank up my skills while I'm here. Practice targets are actually much better than dungeons for it. There's less distraction, and no need to hunt for targets. My «Rifle» skill has gone up ten ranks in the past half-hour."
Firing at practice targets gave no money or experience points, but it counted as legitimate use of weapon skills, and so could increase their ranks, like how the «Fishing» skill could be ranked by repeatedly casting lines into an empty stream.
"And... it hasn't been all that long since last time, but no icon beside your name? You still haven't joined a guild?"
"Well, no one's offered, and I can't be bothered to run around asking."
"Seriously? No one's asked for Asuna, the amazing eagle trooper-"
"I thought I told you to stop that."
"It's a good nickname! Good theme! I'm jealous, really."
She didn't respond, choosing instead to resume shooting.
[244]. [229]. [198]. [261]...
"You know," Kirito said, "what you're doing right now isn't really practicing."
«Critical!» [588]. "Why not?"
"You're just standing in one spot shooting at a target. You don't even have any control over your accuracy. It's just choosing random points in the aim circle."
Asuna sighed. "I guess so, but it's increasing my skill rank. What am I supposed to do, «Focus Fire» every shot? That's just tiring. I can't be bothered."
"No... I've got an idea." Kirito reached down and pried a smooth stone from the dirt, big enough to fit snugly in the palm of his hand. "I'll throw this up in the air. You try and hit it."
"That's not even a valid target. It won't help rank up any skills."
"Well, it won't count up damage, but think of it as real practice. Training a skill that's outside of... apart from the system."
"Okay," Asuna said, grudgingly. "I'll try it. Go ahead and throw."
"I think the correct term is pull."
"We're wasting time. Just throw it already."
He did, using an underhand toss to send it upwards and away from them. Asuna followed its arc with her rifle, but the movement kept her green aim circle from contracting. The rock thudded into the grass.
"This is annoying," she said. "I have to track it with the gun, and whenever the gun moves, my reticule won't shrink."
"Giving up already?"
"I didn't say that. Mind fetching it?"
So, he jogged to where the stone fell and then back. She nodded to him, and he cast the stone aloft. Once again, she tracked it with both her eyes and the barrel of her gun, and once again, the aim circle refused to shrink. She narrowed her eyes, frustrated, taking a shot as the rock was on its way down.
Kirito sighed. "How many times are you planning on missing? I didn't think I'd end up training my «Sprint» skill here."
"Just throw."
"This is NHK News 7, coming to you with a Special Report."
Fluorescent tubes hummed from their mounts on the ceiling, lighting the room with an artificial glow.
"Almost four months ago, the world was shocked and horrified when ten thousand were trapped within a virtual reality game, the widely advertised «Castle Carnation». Within a day, the ultimatums, issued by an individual reporting to be the deceased Kayaba Akihiko, were revealed to be sincere: more than six hundred people were confirmed to be dead. Initial searches, both for the perpetrator of this crime and for ways to help those in the game, yielded no results."
The cart of monitoring equipment by the gel mattress continued to beep, softly, at regular intervals. She gazed into the square screen, at the green waveforms passing by.
"This morning, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications announced the formation of a new subdivision. This unit will consist of a team of more than a hundred highly experienced network specialists, programmers, and hackers, coming together from all over Japan as well as overseas. Their primary goal will be to research the architecture of «Castle Carnation»'s systems, and attempt to find a way to release those trapped within."
Her attention turned back to the occupant of the bed, and she took the time to carefully examine his face, the delicate visage that was so like her own. She didn't dare reach forward and brush his overgrown hair aside to get a clearer view, for fear of disturbing the metal device that was his captor.
A nurse would come in, likely that day or the next, to cut it to a reasonable length. She worried, that somehow the nurse would get sloppy and anger the gray metal creature latched onto her cousin, her brother. It was silly, being worried about a haircut.
"Officially, this unit is named the «Virtual Storage and Networking Extraordinary Circumstance Division». But, while innocents remain trapped in «Castle Carnation», it will go by the name of the «Castle Carnation Case Victims Rescue Force»."
"You hear that?" Kirigaya Suguha whispered, clasping his still hand in hers. "Hang in there, onii-chan. They're coming for you. Don't do anything stupid, okay?"
The stone rose up into the air, and Asuna was glad for the emulated downward light, spread evenly through the sky, not flaring over her vision like real sunlight would have.
The «M1» in her hands was held steady, unmoving, in contrast to how she'd followed the stone's path several tries before. In following its arc, the stone seemed to slow, and then, for just a split second, seemed to stop in the air...
...directly in line where she was aiming, her green reticule contracted all the way down to a single point.
Asuna fired, and the round connected, smashing the rock into fragments, which rained down into the grass.
"Nice, nice," Kirito said as the echo of the shot died. "But... I bet five hundred col you can't do two rocks."
Asuna bit her lip and thought for a moment before replying.
"Hey," Lisbeth said, walking out into the courtyard. "Just finished, what have you been u-"
"Pull!" Asuna called.
Kirito reared back and then flung overhand a trio of stones.
Asuna watched them rise, snapping the «Garand» up. The stones reached the apex of their path, where she shattered two of them with careful shots. She followed the final stone's descent with her rifle, which then flashed the bright yellow of «Focus Fire», knocking aside the third stone just before it hit the ground.
"Told you," Asuna said, setting down the gun. "Pay up."
"That..." Kirito shook his head, opening a trade window and scrolling to transfer a thousand col. "Okay. I'm not even mad, that was impressive."
Lisbeth cleared her throat. "Um. Some context please?"
"It was the obvious solution," Asuna explained. "To keep the aim reticule small, you have to move your gun as little as possible. So, you aim just below the peak of the flight path, where, for a moment, the rocks aren't moving vertically. Shoot one as they're going up, and, with barely any aim adjustment, shoot another as they come down. Then, you resort to «Focus Fire» for the third shot, because it's impossible to get a small reticule when tracking something falling that quickly."
"Obvious solution, you say." Lisbeth shook her head in wonder. "Well, go ahead and come inside. Asuna, I finished making all the parts... and I could pull off the final assembly, but Silica should be here any second now. And," she lowered her voice, "don't ever tell her I said this, but she's much better at assembly than I am. I feel like I should just make her pick up the gunsmith skills and let her assemble my guns for me too."
"So I take it what you're making isn't a gun," Kirito deduced.
An orange notification appeared to Lisbeth, with a mail icon: a chat message. She tapped it to expand and read it.
"So it turns out Silica's busy with something, probably won't be coming. I swear, if you knew the number of times she's just barged in here wanting to use my machines... and the one time she's supposed to show up..."
"That's okay," Asuna said. "You can do the assembly, right, Liz?"
"Yeah, yeah. Silica's just so infuriatingly good. And she'd probably be able to explain it better, too."
Lisbeth stepped up to her worktable and slammed her hands down on it, making sure she had both their attentions.
"So," she said, "mechs."
Kirito blinked. "Mechs?"
"Mechs."
"That's one word, not an explanation."
"I'll bet you haven't heard much about them on the front lines, but they're a hot topic down here in «Taft». Since the first floor boss was beaten, people have been trying out the «Engineering» skill, trying to figure out what it does. Basically, it lets you build mechanical devices."
Kirito raised an eyebrow. "'Mechanical devices.' That's like me saying: 'the kind of stuff I like to eat is called food.' Everything's a mechanical device."
"Exactly," Lisbeth said. "You can build pretty much any contraption you can think of... though there's no guarantees it'll work like you want it to."
She flicked open her inventory and began to materialize items, an array of gray metal rods and joints, which clattered unto the worktable.
"These are «parts»," Lisbeth explained. "Whenever you assemble something with the crafting mechanic, you need parts. That applies for weapon smithing, ammunition and ordinance creation, and «engineering»."
"As you probably know, sometimes dungeons will have parts as loot. But most of the time, parts need to be 'machined' out of raw materials using these stations." She gestured at one of the room's many machines, a horizontal lathe. "The lathe here, for example, is used to make a few different parts... barrels and bolts, to name a couple. Each station can machine different kinds of parts, and each part requires a different variant of the tappy mini-game. Give it a touch."
Kirito obliged, tapping the side of the lathe. A large menu popped into the air in front of him, listing crafting options. "Handgun barrel, shotgun barrel, rifle barrel," he read. "So if I've got materials, I can make them myself?"
"Some of them. But without the «Basic Smithing» skill, any weapon parts you make will be of the lowest quality. Quality's represented with big words like «shoddy», or «unremarkable», or «peerless», but it's really just a stat meaning how good the part is. A part gets a quality when it's made, based off the player's skill level for that type of part and some randomness. And every material has a quality cap. The best quality you could get for brass is «unremarkable», for iron, «respectable», steel, «robust», something exotic like crystallite, «elegant»... that stuff's all in the manual."
"So you need a high skill rank to make high quality parts," Asuna summarized, "but even with a mastered skill, sub-par materials can't be made high quality?"
"Exactly. There's five kinds of parts: basic weapon parts, precision weapon parts, power weapon parts, ordinance parts, and mechanical parts. «Basic» lets you make all of them, but each kind has a specialized smithing variation that improves your abilities much more. «Ordinance Smithing» does grenades, special bullets, stuff like that. «Precision Smithing» and «Power Smithing» are advanced skills that «Basic Smithing» evolves into at a high rank, and they're mutually exclusive. It's so no single person can craft the highest quality of everything, I guess."
She cracked her knuckles. "Once you have all the parts, there's no manufacturing station needed for assembly, but it helps to have a lot of clear space. And I'll have to stop talking for a little bit: got to do this part fast."
"Why?" Kirito asked.
"Blueprint," Lisbeth said, deciding to demonstrate before elaborating. Her left hand hovered in the air, finger extended, ready to tap a menu option, while her right was held palm-up in front of her.
She took a deep breath. "Okay. Three-two-one-go!" She hit the button, and a roll of blue paper materialized into her right hand. She grabbed its edge and unfurled it, laying it down unto the table beside the parts, where it conveniently stayed flat in defiance of real-world physics.
After a brief scan of the document, she went to work, sliding a steel bar next to a knuckle joint. Her right hand reached out and traced a hexagon pattern over the joint, which the game engine immediately recognized as «assembly» touch command and highlighted with navy blue light. Then the steel bar extended itself, slotting perfectly into one socket of the joint. Before the traced hexagon had faded, Lisbeth was reaching for another part.
Her hands operated like clockwork, picking up parts, setting them in place, and, with only brief pauses to consult the blueprint, resolving complex touch command patterns—polygons, spirals, stars—with a speed that Kirito had trouble following, even with each action being highlighted in color by the system.
"Silica-san is better than you at this? I don't even-"
Asuna elbowed him softly. "Shh. Let her concentrate."
One by one, the parts on the table were fixed into the assembly. Finally, Lisbeth hastily flipped open her inventory and extracted the last part. It was quite different from the others: a small octahedral crystal, mostly transparent, but red-tinged and glowing from within. She placed it into the arrangement, and then carefully traced the connection pattern specified by the blueprint; a bizarre, jagged trail; pausing several times to check it.
The crystal emitted a hum and then fused with the assembly, becoming mostly encased by steel. A snowflake-like shape of shrinking triangles—the final touch pattern Lisbeth had followed—flashed deep blue.
A notification appeared over the bench, reading «Assembly Complete». Lisbeth hurriedly scooped up the blueprint from the table and stowed it back in her inventory.
"OK. A blueprint lists all the connection patterns that you need to make a specific mechanism. It loses durability every moment that it's in a viewable item form. That's part of the reason I wanted Silica to do this; she's much faster, so she's much more efficient, blueprint-durability-wise."
"But you said you can make pretty much any device," Kirito said. "There can't be a blueprint for everything."
"Right, there isn't. Technically, the blueprint doesn't contribute anything to the actual assembly process. It's literally just instructions for the crafter to look at. But in practice, you've got to have them.
"If you finish, and what you've put together doesn't meet the system's expectations, the assembly aborts violently. The parts can lose quality or just break completely. It's not as big of a problem in «Engineering», when you're making machines, as it is for weapons: most combinations of mech parts are acceptable. But if you use the wrong connection pattern to link mech parts, the joint may act wrong. And there's a lot of connections sometimes. If you want something that actually works, you really need to have blueprints to reference.
"I've made enough basic pistols that I could probably do one of those without a blueprint now, but for even moderately complicated assemblies, there are too many parts and different connections to remember... which sucks, because these blueprints only have so much durability. Every moment you spend looking at it, it gets ticked down, and there's no getting that durability back."
Kirito looked at the device that had been assembled on the workstation. "So, what exactly have you made here?"
It resembled an insect, with six spindly jointed legs meeting at a central metal abdomen, which cocooned the core. His «Identification» ability now showed him a small information box over it, and he read off what was listed. "Utility Mech. Level fifteen. Owner: Lisbeth. HP: five hundred out of five hundred."
Lisbeth beamed. "Not bad, eh? Silica bought that blueprint for just nine thousand col off of this old man NPC in Friben, on the eighth floor. It's got a hundred durability left; that's like a minute of viewable time, so around two more assemblies... maybe three if Silica does them."
Kirito poked one of the mech's legs experimentally. "Is it active now?"
"You bet." Lisbeth tapped an option in a submenu, then snapped her fingers and pointed at the ground. "Down, little guy."
The insectoid mech jerked into motion, startling Kirito, and skittered off the edge of the table. It made a half-rotation through the air and landed softly, bending all six legs to absorb the impact.
"Decent pathfinding," Kirito said, prodding at the spider-like bot with his shoe, watching it rebalance itself as he disturbed its legs. Asuna stood slightly behind him, giving the bot a scrutinizing stare.
"What do you think, Asuna? Made it on your request, after all. Here, I'll relinquish ownership." Lisbeth manipulated her menu, and the 'Owner' field of the mech changed from 'Lisbeth' to '[None].'
"It's... not exactly what I pictured when you said you could make me a 'utility mech,'" Asuna said. "It's... so... spidery."
"Spidery?" Kirito asked. "Don't tell me the great eagle-san is afraid of-"
"I am NOT," Asuna said. "And don't call me that. It's just kind of jittery... Liz, remind me again why this would be useful to me in combat?"
"Umm... It has an inventory, so you can make it carry items, but apart from that... distraction? Bullet sponge? Cool thing about mechs is that even if their HP gets reduced to zero, they don't completely die and particle-ize. They just fall into their component parts, and someone with «Engineering» can re-assemble it. You saw how little time it took to put it together once all the parts were there."
"I don't know... it's a bit creepy. I don't haul around a ton of stuff, so I don't really need extra inventory..."
"If you don't want it, I'll take it," Kirito offered. "It's a cool little thing."
"I'm considering. So, Liz, you said «Engineering» could make any kind of mechanical device? I was thinking that meant things like gearboxes and pistons, not entire pet robots."
"Ah," Liz nodded. "Right. Yeah, «Engineering» can usually only make boring stuff. But did you pay attention to the last part I added?"
"Come to think of it," Kirito said, "I didn't recognize that. The crystal thing?"
"Yep. That was a «MkI Dianthuism Core». Very special item. Me and Silica have only gotten our hands on a few."
"«Dianthuism»..." Asuna muttered. "That doesn't ring a bell. What's it mean?"
"Heck if I know what the actual English word means," Lisbeth said. "But I know what the item does. If you want something like a pulley, or a gear system, you can throw that together with raw copper or iron. But you can't get a heap of metal parts to move on its own. «Dianthuism Core»s let «Engineering» assemblies turn into actual useful robots, like this guy.
"You can't craft them, or, at least, no one knows of a way to craft them. The only way to get them seems to be as rare monster drops in a few specific dungeons on a few specific floors. The rarity is one of the two reasons you don't see people running around with armies of mechs following them. The other is that the connection patterns needed to add one to an assembly are a holy-crap level more difficult than standard part connections. They're not listed in the manual, and decent blueprints using them are even more rare than the cores themselves. You saw the spiky snowflake I had to trace..."
"Third iteration Koch fractal," Asuna identified, offhandedly. Kirito and Lisbeth gave her quizzical looks. "What? It's just math..."
"Well," Lisbeth said, "whatever it's called... it's not even the most complicated connection pattern. You understand why we need the blueprints? I mean, hand-traced whatchyamacallem, fractals? Whoever designed this is a heartless bastard."
"Death game," Kirito reminded her.
"Right," Lisbeth said. "Naturally. So, Asuna, are you going to take it?"
"...I suppose it could be useful," Asuna decided. "How much do you want for it?"
"Alright. Here's the thing. I don't want payment in col," Lisbeth revealed. "Instead... I'm thinking you'll both have extensive need for smithing services in the future. So, I have a proposition. From time to time, you two go raid some dungeons that drop «Dianthuism Core»s, and bring 'em to me, or Silica; in return, we'll make stuff for you, free of charge. We could go raiding ourselves—she's mean with an auto-pistol—but, relatively, our combat skills aren't trained very high, so we can't go after the harder areas."
"I'm being included in this deal as well?" Kirito asked.
"Why wouldn't you? You two are together all the time now anyways, aren't you?"
Asuna broke into a coughing fit.
"Uh... no," Kirito denied, glancing sideways at Asuna with slight concern. "Last time we partied was actually, like, two months ago? But I'm not complaining. Basically free smithing? Sounds like an arrangement I could get behind."
Asuna recovered and straightened, her cheeks hinting at red. "Uh... yeah. Sounds good. Liz, you can keep this mech, actually. I'd probably just use it as a distraction, and it won't even work that well for most kinds of enemy «aggro»."
Kirito crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back against the workshop wall. "You're sure that's the reason, not the fact that it looks like a spi-"
"I told you, no. Anyway, Liz, if «Dianthuism Core» items are as rare as you say, you or Silica probably want this one."
Lisbeth nodded in acceptance, taking control of the mech again with a few touches in her menu. "Okay then. Mark 1 cores are fine, but... if you can get them, higher up, there's «MkII», «MkIII»... We think higher ranked cores give mechs better stats like hit points and strength, maybe even offensive capabilities. Silica's really dying to figure out what she can do with those."
"I'll be on the lookout," Asuna assured her, "but I really have to get back to the front lines now."
She headed for the front exit. "Later, Liz! Let's go, Kirito. We've wasted too much time today already."
"One sec, I'll be right behind you," Kirito said. "Liz, these «Dianthuism Core»s only drop in certain dungeons? Know which ones?"
"Hmm. I've heard rumors about an area on the 10th floor, and maybe another one on the 19th... but they're just rumors. Your best bet is asking an info broker. I hear you know Argo?"
"You could say that..."
Lisbeth snapped her fingers and pointed at the top of her workbench, and watched as the insectoid mech attempted to crawl up onto it from the floor, its legs slipping against the vertical sides of the bench. "Well, I won't pry. Have fun up there... and, you know, see if you can get Asuna to loosen up a bit. She's amazing, but she's so focused all the time."
She sighed and reached down, picking up the struggling mech and setting it down onto her bench. "Sometimes I try to just hold a mundane conversation with her, about... well, girly things, and she somehow always switches the conversation back to 'maximum efficiency' and whatnot. This," she gestured to herself, "very non smith-like outfit I'm wearing was her suggestion; not because it looks nice, but because it'd attract more customers."
She chuckled. "It's pretty funny, actually. I can't say she was wrong..."
"Kirito!" Asuna called from the storefront. "Hurry it up!"
"Not like I asked you to wait for me," he called back. "I'll try. 'Till next time, Liz."
"'Till next time," Lisbeth echoed as his footsteps faded.
"Marc? I didn't think you'd be here."
"Why wouldn't I? How well do you think I'd be able to sleep, knowing that I might've had a hand in the murder of ten thousand-"
"They're not dead yet, Marc."
"...Right. Sorry."
"Are you up to date?"
"Mostly. Not that there's much to keep up with. The American team hasn't really done much. They thought they'd just roll in, gung-ho with their 'supa-hakah' skills and solve everything in a couple hours... shows what they know."
"...I wouldn't have minded if they figured out a solution in a couple hours. But «Cardinal»... None of us realized just how secure it was while we were building the game with it. They're going over the leftover hardware now, trying to think of bottom-up attack routes..."
"Of course. What's the deal with these RECTO guys around?"
"They've got the system knowhow, maintaining the servers. You know Sugou? Sugou Nobuyuki? He was in Kayaba's graduating class. His RECTO team is using the data the police pulled from Kayaba's personal files, trying to replicate the «CC» servers, so we have a less risky system for testing attacks. If anyone's got a chance at cracking «Cardinal»-"
"It would be Kayaba. This corporate derp being in the same graduating class as him doesn't mean anything. It's real goddamn convenient that the one guy who knows how the system works is gone when it all goes to hell..."
"He's dead. They dropped him off the suspect list last year. It amazes me they had a dead guy on there for that long. We've got to think of the living."
"...If you'll let me ask, do... do you know anything about your niece? How's she doing?"
"Still alive, thank god. Every week, now, there's fewer and fewer deaths... My brother says he'd talked to her about some mature stuff, self-defense. I think she'll be okay. I'm worried about my brother, though. He's been beating himself up over how he let this happen to his girl, his little Keiko. She was just twelve, and you know «CC»'s rated for older than that..."
Hot.
If Kirito had to choose one word to describe the area, he'd choose 'hot'. Next to come to mind would be flat, dry, dusty, empty... extremely dull, extremely uncomfortable. The bulk of the higher floors stood between him and the sun, but all the same, the weather settings for the area, the 19th floor's «Mirageless Desert», were extreme. Searing rays of light beat down relentlessly, out of the air itself.
"I swear, Argo," he muttered, shielding his eyes from the sun to scan the horizon. "If there isn't actually anything out here..."
"What's that?" Asuna trailed in his steps. She had on a thick white sports jacket and khaki utility pants, whose large pockets were stuffed with spare en-bloc clips for the «Garand» over her shoulder.
"Nothing, nothing," he assured. "You're really going to keep wearing that jacket?" He'd long since stowed the black coat that'd become his trademark; not even its stat bonuses, armor value, and coolness factor made it worth wearing in the desert heat. He was left in a simple dark-blue shirt, with a light vest of gray ballistic fabric over it.
"Yes," Asuna said. "I'm not un-equipping my largest armor bonus while we're in a red-con area." Even as she said so, she reached up to wipe a thick bead of sweat from her forehead. I do have that one skill slot I've been saving, she thought. Maybe I should spec for another equipment type...
"But we're six whole floors from the front lines," Kirito said, "and in the middle of a flat desert. What, expecting some kind of groundhog? This floor has only robotic enemies. Argo said the building was somewhere in here, but we don't know where exactly. We could be wandering for hour-ow!" He recoiled as if struck.
Asuna had her «Garand» in her hands in seconds. "Where?"
"Not an enemy," he said, squinting forward carefully. "There's something here..." He reached down, scooped up a handful of sand, and tossed it ahead of him. It scattered against an invisible barrier.
"Area boundary?" Asuna asked. "That doesn't make sense. Why would the border be in the middle of the desert?"
"It's not an invisible wall," Kirito said. "It's active camouflage. Is it okay if I «EMP»?"
Asuna frowned. "Are you sure about that? You realize our «NTB»s will be disabled for thirty minutes. If this turns out to be nothing and we have to walk all the way back, I'm blaming you."
«EMP» referred to the use of an electromagnetic device such as an «EMP Grenade», which would shut down certain kinds of technology for periods of time. In some areas, «EMP»s could be very powerful. But they had large radii of effect and were indiscriminate: Technological 'Nanotech' items used by players, such as «Nano Translocation Beacon» teleporters and «Nano-Medkit» instant healers, were disabled by them as well.
He summoned a baseball-sized chrome pod, marked with a distinguishing orange ring. "You're only complaining about that because you wore a coat into a desert," he reckoned, activating the «EMP grenade» with a button-press and letting it drop to the ground.
It emitted a short thrum, a weak shockwave warping the air momentarily. The 'air' in front of them sparked, and then the active camouflage sputtered out in sections, like screens turning off. Patches of 'air' solidified into meter-square dark gray panels, revealing a large single-story building, its walls constructed entirely of camouflage tiles.
"Wow," Asuna voiced, genuinely surprised. "I didn't think active camouflage could be so realistic."
"This is a virtual world," Kirito pointed out. "All they had to do to make good camouflage was copy rendering code. Making convincingly bad camouflage would be harder."
A pair of tiles recessed into the structure and slid to the side, revealing a surgically clean hallway, styled in a futuristic theme. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all made of large, pearly white square tiles.
Kirito materialized his «PPSh» and loaded a fifty-round drum magazine. "Ladies first?" he offered.
She shook her head. "You're the one with the SMG. Forward position is your job."
"Oh, fine," he said, starting off down the hallway.
Annoyingly, somewhat so to Kirito and extremely so to Asuna, the halls were not air-conditioned in the slightest, retaining the desert heat and siccity.
On the bright side, Asuna thought, feeling sweat roll down her neck, the engine doesn't simulate any kind of thirst...
They reached a T-intersection and encountered their first enemies: autonomous drones, essentially machine guns mounted on chassis, with motive power provided by a pair of miniature tank treads. Kirito examined them with the «Identification» ability of the «Searching» skill and found they were named «Sentry TALON»s, level 15 enemies with three thousand hit points each.
Kirito himself was level thirty-eight, and he suspected Asuna wasn't far off. These enemies, to them, were trivially difficult. Multiple machine gun rounds were fired at him, and he didn't even bother trying to avoid them: his health stayed well above ninety percent, and their combined return fire blasted away the pair of bots.
As they dismissed the "Result" windows, a thought came to him. "Hey, Asuna," he said. "This dungeon would be pretty boring if we just went through the whole thing like this, no? How about a race... say, first to find and beat the area boss?"
"We shouldn't fool around," Asuna objected. "We're here to collect drops, not to have fun. For the enhancements you're considering, you'll need twenty five «Scrap Steel». And since it's Liz we're talking about, we're trying for «Dianthuism Core» items. I've got my own upgrades to think about too."
"Two birds with one stone, then," Kirito challenged. "Moving through this place together is redundant. We'll race for «Core» items. ABBA rules style."
"ABBA rules?"
"It's a Swedish thing: means 'winner takes all,' basically. We split, then meet up again here, two hours from now. The one who has more «Core» items gets to keep all the drops."
Asuna frowned. "So the other person gets nothing? «Core» items are extremely rare... What if neither of us get any? Or we tie?"
"Yup, nothing. Winner takes all, like I said. If there's a tie, we'll go off the «Scrap Steel» count. What, afraid of losing?"
She crossed her arms. "Like I'd lose to the likes of you. But both of-"
"That's the spirit!" Kirito dashed away before she could finish. "See you in two hours! May the best player win!"
"Ey, wait!"
"Clock's ticking!"
Asuna sighed, wiped the persistent sweat from her cheek, and darted in the other direction.
Two hours later, Asuna had burned through more than five hundred rounds of .30-06 ammunition, and had two «MkII Dianthuism Core» items to show for it. She considered herself lucky; by Argo's reckoning, the cores' drop chance from «TALON» enemies was less than one percent.
Now she just had to find Kirito.
She headed to the T-intersection where they'd separated. It was a long, uneventful journey with more than a little backtracking. Not difficult in the slightest, but the climate was getting to her.
Sure, the system didn't really simulate thirst, but all the same, she would have killed for a nice, cold drink: lemonade, or perhaps iced tea... do any NPCs on this floor sell drinks like that?
She put the thought out of her mind as she approached the rendezvous spot. Kirito hadn't yet arrived. For about a minute, she loitered, looking through her inventory and skill menu to occupy herself. Still, Kirito was taking quite a while to arrive, so Asuna decided to head down Kirito's side of the T-junction, to intercept him on his way.
As she walked, a sensation of freshness washed over her. It confused her immensely. You're kidding me. There's air conditioning over here?
There wasn't. She turned the next corner and found that the hallway opened back up to the outside, the faux-sun of the desert. Directly in front of her was a pond of crystal-clear water, exuding sweet, cool air, ringed by palm trees, whose lush green leaves provided plentiful shade. Small, colorful birds fluttered between them periodically, chirping. Kirito sat, his back resting against checkered bark, with his gun abandoned on the packed sand ground. His head was tilted back, his mouth hung slightly open, and his chest rose and fell rhythmically.
He was very much asleep.
"Hey!" she snapped. "Kirito!"
"Mmmmm..." he hummed, not moving a muscle.
She kicked him none too softly in the ribs. "Wake up... how long have you been sitting here?"
He groaned and clutched his side, his head finally lifting upright. "Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to doze off... How much time is left?"
"Two hours are up. What have you got?"
"Already!? Um... well..."
Asuna looked at him angrily. "Did you seriously walk ten steps, find this place, and then just sit down for a nap?"
"Um." Kirito said, "...maybe?"
Asuna was aghast. "I've been running around for two straight hours, sweating my skin off, grinding these low level enemies for a competition you suggested, and you've been taking it easy this whole time?!"
"Um... yeaah... sorry."
Asuna made an exasperated sigh / growl.
"Hey, come on," Kirito tried to reason. "I came across this place, and, I mean, look at it! Water, shade, cool air... Don't tell me you wouldn't stop for a break here!"
She leaned her rifle against the tree and took a seat beside him, inhaling a deep breath of air, remaining silent. Kirito racked his brain, trying to think of a better excuse of some sort-
"And you didn't think," Asuna said, "to tell me, the one wearing a jacket in a desert area, about this little oasis you stumbled into within the first five minutes of exploring?"
"It's not my fault you're wearing that," Kirito protested.
"Shhhh," she said, closing her eyes and letting her head rest on the palm trunk. "How are we ever going to clear the game with people like you on the front lines, I wonder?"
Kirito relaxed his neck and peered up into the sky, at the beams filtering through the gaps between the palm leaves. "Clearing the game as fast as possible isn't everything."
"Of course it is," she rebuked. "We're stuck here. The faster we get out, the better."
"It's going to take awhile," Kirito said. "Asuna, you really have to relax a little now and then. We're stuck... in a game. It's made to be fun."
"We're not stuck. We're trapped. Have you forgotten? This world kills people."
"Skydiving kills people. Most activities worth doing can kill people. And people still do them. You should take what you can get."
A red-feathered bird dove from one of the palm trees and alighted on Asuna's shoulder. She jerked away from it, but it retained its grip, cocked its head to the side and whistled at her.
Kirito put on a grin. "See? It likes you."
"It's not even a real bird," she pointed out. But she experimentally reached out a hand towards it.
"Sure it is. In at least some sense... Real enough."
The bird hopped from her shoulder to her finger, chirping at her again, cocking its head curiously to the side and ruffling the feathers of its wings.
"It's... a pretty good model, I guess..." She raised her arm up and let the small red bird fly, watching it flutter up to above the trees before beginning to glide gracefully down.
"This world really isn't so bad, is it?" Kirito said.
And a cool breeze brushed across her hair, ruffling the palm leaves above them. And the fresh smell of pure water wafted out from the oasis, filling her nostrils. And the faux-sun shone down around them, seeming less intense than it had before, less oppressive, more energizing, more inspiring, more real.
And Kirito held his arms behind his head nonchalantly, that smirk of his plastered across his face, as relaxed as always. As real as always.
"Hmph," she said shortly. "Could be better. You're not forgiven for slacking off. You're making up for that at some point."
Kirito's face fell, and Asuna chuckled briefly to herself.
That evening, she examined her skills and set her one empty slot to «Cooking».
"Life is a journey, not a destination."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Nothing," Silica sighed to herself, snapping and pointing down at the forest floor to call her companion to her. Immediately, the mech trotted out of the trees.
The system identified it as a «Scouting Mech». It was made entirely of golden brass, and its form was essentially a set of optics, a steampunk-esque hodgepodge of lens-filled tubes, carried by two legs, bent backwards like a chicken's. Its total height barely came up any higher than her knees. As its identifier suggested, it contributed to Silica's situational awareness, acting as another set of eyes with moderate ranking in both the «Searching» skill and the «Spotting» skill, granting the capability to both find things hidden nearby, and roughly identify things far away.
"You haven't seen any of them, have you?"
At the sound of her voice, it turned its torso optics slightly up towards her.
"No? No «Dianthuism»s anywhere?"
Silica knew it couldn't reply, couldn't interpret anything she said besides a few key command words. In fact, it couldn't really even see with its optics; rather, it just added «Searching» and «Spotting» abilities to her own vision whenever her eyes and the optics observed the same area. But she liked to imagine that her mechs could understand, that they were more than their metallic appearances suggested.
"Maybe I'm wrong then," she said, . "But no need to worry. We won't know for sure until «Floria»."
She was aged at twelve: very young, considering that the game she was in gave every player a gun. Her age had attracted a lot of attention, at times welcome, at times annoying, at times downright frightening. Her being female didn't help. But, in the few months since the fateful opening day, she'd learned a lot, even made a friend or two.
She'd learned enough that when something whistled out of the trees, hitting her mech and knocking away a third of its health, she didn't panic.
Silica crouched down low amongst the grass, holding her «Steyr-Hahn» machine pistol close to her chest. She snapped her fingers above her head and enunciated, clearly but quietly, "Sweep."
The mech slowly pivoted its optics horizontally. Silica followed its gaze with her own; any nearby enemies would be revealed to her. But after a 360 degree turn, all the sweep uncovered was a green player cursor, some distance away through the trees.
She rose slightly out of the green blades. "Who's there?" she called uncertainly.
The response was a second something whizzing from the cursor's direction, plinking away another third of the health bar on her mech, which turned in the direction of the cursor, focusing its optics.
Silica rose to full height. "Stop that!" she shouted. "This isn't an enemy, it's-"
Her mech released a high-pitched computerized chirp. In Silica's vision, two additional player cursors appeared, and Silica stopped herself mid-sentence.
These cursors were orange.
Orange cursors meant 'criminal' status, bestowed on players when they committed certain malevolent acts. Criminals would be fired upon by NPC policemen and turrets that guarded towns, and their non-green cursors served to warn other players of their possible malign intentions.
A third something—Silica saw it this time: a blazing tracer round—came from the cursor's direction, hitting her «Scouting Mech», dropping its health to zero. Its parts and inventory scattered unto the ground, and the three cursors evaporated from Silica's view.
She called on her «Acrobatics» skill, rolling to place her back against the nearest tree. Okay, Silica. Don't panic. This is just the third floor. They don't expect a girl like you to know what you're doing. She had her machine pistol raised, held in both hands to help control the recoil, waiting for one of her assailants to try and circle around.
One appeared, faster than she'd expected. He was mostly obscured by the brush, but his orange cursor was prominently visible. She let loose, firing an entire eight round magazine with her aim circle held roughly on the man's figure.
Only two shots, the first and the second, actually hit; by the time the last shot was fired, the green reticule had grown to encompass nearly half of her field of vision. But the burst had the desired effect. The man cursed and ducked down away from her.
Like Dad always said... bad people rely on fear, on illusions...
Silica tapped the transparent-white auto-reload circle on the side of her gun. It became a radial progress indicator, with slice of transparency growing over time to fill it, progressing quickly thanks to her high «DEX» and the low base auto-reload time of the compact weapon.
...all bullies are cowards...
Half the meter was left when, unexpectedly, a volley of precise return-fire erupted from the depths of the shade around her, painting ugly red hit marks onto her light metal armor. It was armor designed to resist the melee attacks of low level enemies, not suitable for repelling bullets. Her health was cleaved down by a third.
Cold fear surged over her.
Bullies, thieves are cowards.
Murderers are an altogether different matter.
She crouched and silently urged the auto-reload to work faster. If these were the kinds of criminals willing to kill...
Silica's gun clicked, signaling the completion of the reload, and she waited apprehensively for an attacker to appear. A green icon floated up out of the brush, and Silica found herself facing a woman, significantly older than and taller than her, carrying a bolt-action rifle over her shoulder.
"Hey there, little'un," the woman drawled, mockingly. "Soooo sorry to bother you."
"What's going on?" Silica demanded, rising to full height again. "Where did the orange players who were shooting at me go?"
The woman walked towards her. She wore a dress of black fabric—ballistic fabric, armor for resisting bullets—backed with ostentatious white fur, with an alluring slit on its side to allow greater leg mobility. Her hair was fiery red and came in wild curls, draping over her right eye.
"Name's Rosalia," the woman said, ignoring Silica's questions. She removed her rifle, a «Gewehr 98», from her shoulder and leaned on it, arrogantly. "You're Silica, right?"
"That's right," Silica said. "What do you want?"
"Alright." She flipped her hair away from her right eye. "Look, Silica. You're a cute one. And as much as I would just love to kill you and take all your things right now, there's apparently bigger things in store for you. So why don't you just realize you're not going to be able to fight your way out of this and do what I say?"
"You're with them," Silica realized, taking a step back. "But... you're green. How..."
Rosalia snapped her fingers, and, all around them, orange players stepped into sight, from behind trees and within bushes. Silica frantically looked around herself, her pistol gripped tightly. Seven in total. Their gear quality varied drastically between them, but they were all armed, and all those arms were pointed at her, and all regarded her with slight predatory smiles.
"Don't be so worried. Just do what I say, and no one's gonna hurt you. You can start by dropping your gun. And I mean 'unequip and trade over,' not just 'place on the ground.' Impressive little thing, that. «Hahn», right? Any recovery items you have, too. Hand them over."
Silica gritted her teeth, but had no choice but to comply, swiping open her inventory and passing the items to Rosalia through the trade interface.
"How much health do you have?"
Silica briefly debated lying and exaggerating her level, but decided against it. "Two thousand seven hundred out of four thousand... why?"
"You don't need that much," Rosalia said, turning the «Gewehr 98» on her. "Max damage for a point-blank limb shot with this thing is, what, one-fifty? You can live with a thousand health, I think. So, a bit of basic math... and I get to shoot you at least ten times. Fun."
An orange notification bubble flashed to the side of Silica's vision. For a moment, her eyes darted over to it, and she immediately looked back at Rosalia. But the woman had noticed the movement, and leaned in next to her. "Ooh. What's this? Little Silica's got a message from someone? Open it up, then. What's it say?"
Finger trembling, Silica reached forward and tapped the orange icon, which expanded to a window in front of her.
[You're usually back by now. Someone try and recruit you into their guild again?] -Lisbeth
"Would you look at that?" Rosalia said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Looks like someone actually noticed you were gone. Go on, then. Reply. Tell them how you're just fine, but you've got something oh-so-important to do, and have to take off for awhile. Tell them."
Silica, very aware of the guns aimed at her from all directions, sniffed and carefully did as she was told.
[I'm fine. But there's something important I have to do. I might not be back for a while.] -Silica