Warning: Mention of canon death and suicide.
Mayzer dashed into another inn, taking a quick look around, startling other players when she exclaimed, "Not here!" And ran back out. She took, Arkus trying in vain to catch his sister as she made a bee-line for the next inn she found. "Why are there so many inns here? The town can't possibly be large enough to support such commerce!" She ducked into the current inn, slightly out of breath, when she let out a pleased shriek and body tackled her wayward party-member. "Gah!" "Kirito!" "Are you okay?!" He was suddenly dragged back upright and came face to face with Mayzer. "Where were you? You just wander off and I had to go looking all over for you when you answer my message with just an 'I'll be at the inn'. Which inn? There's at least seven in this town! You know my tracking skill isn't as good as yours and Arkus has none to begin with, so I had to check every, single, one." Kirito looked at Mayzer, noticing she was out of breath and disheveled. He chuckled sheepishly, "… Sorry? I didn't notice I had wandered away until I realized I couldn't see you guys anywhere, and then I had to step in to help these guys."
Mayzer turned her head and realized Kirito had not in fact been alone. She felt her cheeks heat up, thankfully hidden by her bandana, and she dropped Kirito, coughing embarrassedly. "Um, hi?" She awkwardly raised and waved her hand. She leaned over to Kirito, "Who are these people?" she asked in what was supposed to be a quiet whisper. "If you ever stopped to breathe once in a while you would probably have found out by now." A voice growled out, as an armored fist suddenly crashed down on Mayzer's head. She yelped and hit the floor as Arkus caught the rest of his breath from the crazed race his sister had dragged him on, reflexively dodging the needles thrown by the prone figure on the floor. Kirito sighed and turned to the guild he had been talking to, "These are the other party-members I fight with. Guys, these are the Moonlit Black Cats. The leader Keita," he pointed to a red clad teen," Sasamaru and Sachi the damage dealers" the green and blue figures raised their hands," and Ducker and Tetsuo, the thief and forward respectively." The purple clad guy nodded while the yellow cloaked figured waved at them.
Keita seemed to deflate a bit, "Oh, you're already in a team? It just seemed you were on your own, I was going to offer…" Mayzer smiled, "That's fine, and Kirito usually looks like he's in his own world most of the time. You guys are your own guild? What's your levels?" "We're all around level twenty. What about you guys?" "Kirito and I are at level forty, but Mayzer is catching up at level thirty-five." Arkus explained leaning over Kirito and snatching his drink. "We all came down here to do some leveling and to get away from the front lines for a bit." The others are looking at them gob-smacked and Mayzer couldn't help but laugh, "No, no! Don't be like that. We wanted to meet some new people anyway. So, do you guys want to go out and level with us tomorrow? I think I remember this great spot to farm [Killer Mantis] on floor twenty." They all looked a bit uncomfortable, and Keita said, "Look, that's a nice offer but you guys don't have to-" "I insist! After all you were the guys to lead our wayward Kirito home and I couldn't think of a better way to repay you for it." "But, he was the one tha-" "No buts! So we'll meet you on floor twenty tomorrow for some leveling. You guys will catch up to us in no time. Good night!" Mayzer the proceeded to drag and push the two other members out of the inn and down the street to another one she had checked out earlier.
"Mayzer, why did you do that? They didn't seem to want to train with us." Kirito said, slightly bitter.
"They seem like a good group and I'm not going to let their own insecurities get in the way of their progress. They obviously have guessed we're from the assault team, so they should be happy to pick our brains for tips and tricks to level further. They'll get over themselves soon, don't worry." And with that she turned away from them and started to discuss room arrangements with the inn-keep. Kirito turned to Arkus, "Are you really okay with this?" "We came down here to relax anyway, right? Some lower level farming isn't too bad and what we probably would've ended up doing anyway. Plus, wouldn't you like to make sure they don't get into another tight spot again?" Kirito squirmed, "Yeah, I guess. I'm not the one who's going to have to pull Mayzer off them when she get to into explaining anything." Arkus cringed, remembering how focused his sister was when she wanted to be. Mayzer turned back with a couple of keys. "Alright, here you go. See you guys in the morning. Good night!"
As she headed up the stairs, the boys shared one last look before shuddering and following her up, each feeling a sense of foreboding about the next day.
Mayzer smiled as she spotted the group waiting by the teleport area in floor twenty and snuck up on them, not being noticed until she spoke up, "Great! You're all here! Now I don't have to go hunting you all down." She said with a chipper smile, internally cackling at the jumps of surprise from the group. The others of her party came up behind her and she took charge, leading the gaggle-or is it herd? What do you call a group of teenagers? Anyway, she lead them into the forests, chattering about random things and randomly explaining how they were going to go about getting there levels up in such a disjointed manner that Arkus inserted himself into the conversation to clear up what she had said for the confused teens.
"Don't pay too much attention to her rambling, she gets like that when she gets new toy- I mean, friends. What we're basically going to be doing is Mayzer will attract the mobs and Kirito and I will lower their HP. Then, while the mobs are focused on us, you guys are going to take turns finishing them off. This way you get most of the XP for being the ones to get the last attack in, while still taking only a small amount of risk." The others nodded hesitantly, still not sure why such high-level players were bothering with a small guild like them. "We were getting bored." Mayzer said, looking back at them over her shoulder. The teens jumped, how did she-? "It's what I would be asking if I was in your situation. But yeah, we, or at least I, got bored just leveling, but we didn't want to go back to the stress of the front lines, so I thought helping some players would be a good compromise." The others still looked a bit unnerved, but some of the tension left as they got an acceptable answer. Mayzer grinned and turned back around. She pointed ahead and said, "There they are! Let's do this!" And with no more warning, she took out a knife and sank it straight into the body of one of the huge mantises trying to sneak up on the group.
The rest of the morning was spent fighting off the hordes of mantises that inexplicably homed in on the group of players. By the time lunch rolled around, the three high-level players looked pleasantly worked over while the guild-members looked about ready to collapse, but still happy as each of them had jumped at least one or two levels just in those three or four hours. As they headed to one of the field safe-zones for lunch Mayzer sheepishly admitted to equipping a mob attractant bracelet since she didn't want to go hunting the monsters down. The group just stared at her before Arkus cuffed her over the head and told to never use that again, and why did she have that in the first place? "Well it happened to be the first jewel I made, so I thought it would be the perfect situation to test it out. How was I supposed to know that many mobs would come down on us?" Arkus sighed, "Why did I let you buy that jewelers' kit? Your already enough of a mad scientist."
Making jewels and clothes that hold long-term passive effects, like speed or strength boosts or drain and poison effects, was surprisingly similar to crystal-making. With jewels you only had to replace minerals with semi-precious or precious stones, and with clothes you simply soaked the base cloth into a solution of herbs and other ingredients. She would call them potions but the lack of magic and realistic chemical reactions confirmed to her that this was firmly based in chemistry. Mayzer had journals full different properties of ingredients and how they reacted to each other to gain different effects already, and added to them each time they stopped for the night in town. Focusing on her research was the reason she wasn't as high a level as Arkus or Kirito. She was currently splitting her focus between the front lines, and her research into the different effects she could make with different clothes, stones, and minerals.
Arkus was the one to suggest taking a few weeks off the front lines after seeing how much time she was sinking into her skills. He knew Mayzer was selling off any extra clothes and jewels she makes in item shops at a lowered price, saving up to buy the three of them a house on her own so they could focus on their weapons. If she wasn't so stuck on being on the front lines and by his side she would have owned one of the most successful shop in Aincrad. He constantly worried for her, her neurotic tendencies and social blunders becoming more and more pronounced as the months went by and they were still in the bottom floors of the game. He was mulling over how just a couple of hours away from it all and some interactions from the baby guild had his sister acting more like herself as they munched away at the food they brought and shoved a packet of fries at Mayzer as she went over the items she gathered while they were playing 'whack-the-bug'. The girls were chatting about crystal making, and Sachi seemed much more interested in that than fighting mobs with her guild-mates. He would have to talk to the leader to see if would be willing to let her switch to a different job than he planned.
The days went on like this, them doing intensive training in the morning and then relaxing in the afternoon. Sachi started taking lessons from Mayzer, reading her notes and increasing her skill in alchemy. Keita agreed in letting her learn and focus on that, as long as she still joined them in training and continued to level up. She seemed much happier with something less life-threatening to occupy her mind. She was now able to make enhanced healing crystals and regeneration crystals, and was starting in on the recipe for antidote crystals.
Mayzer and Arkus have also improved their skills. Arkus now sported a full set of armor, with two jewels inlaid in the shoulders, one a +4 strength the other a +3 defense. His two-handed axe was now of better quality and had another jewel embedded where the blade met the shaft that gave a +3 critical hit bonus to his attacks. He was now also a pretty good cook, and now made most of the food the party ate. He also gained the stealth skill and was almost silent even when in his armor. Damn sneaky bastard he is. Mayzer's equipment also improved. Her long coat now had a +3 concealment and her boots +3 speed. She also now had a steel pauldrons on her left shoulder and steel plated fingerless gloves. Her leather jerkin was now replaced with a purple and red striped shirt with a +4 defense. Her red bandana also was treated to reduce the effects of toxic gas, and she had dyed her bangs a cherry red. She had also gained a new skill.
It was an accident really.
She was out gathering ingredients on floor seventeen, getting some alone time after the boss fight on floor twenty-five. It was a nasty piece of work, spewing poison and toxic gases everywhere. The Aincrad Liberation Army, or just the Army, had been stupid and tried to take on the boss themselves before anyone else. Trying to gain some popularity most likely. It had radically backfired, with twenty players dying in that fight before the rest of the assault team showed up. She and Arkus had been messaged to come along to help in the middle of a training session. They had cut it short and sent the toddler guild back to a lower floor with Kirito while they had rushed to get to the boss room. Mayzer had used all her antidote crystals in the first five minutes, and she had come prepared. The pair of them had gained a bit of a name for themselves as being a good team, one of the only ones to not have been recruited by a guild. Not that some of them haven't tried.
But, back on track she was getting her head on back straight in the woods, no weapons drawn because there wasn't much on this floor that could fight her and win. As she was walking she noticed something following her. She looked back and saw a blur as whatever it was darted behind a tree. She squinted at it before continuing on. This happened several times before she sighed and ambushed the thing, sneaking up behind it and lifting it up into the air. The tiny mob snarled and waved its claws at her ineffectually. She looked at it bemusedly, honestly it looked like a carnivorous teddy bear. Other than the three inch long claws and the enlarged fangs, it was adorable. It even had a red faux hawk of red fur on the top of its head. They stared at each other and Mayzer tucked it under her arm and went to her menu. She scrolled through her items and select a piece of meat. She crouched down and set the creature down on the ground and shoved the meat into its mouth before it could bolt. It looked kind of hungry and she was always a sucker for fuzziness. The teddy chewed on the food, eyeing her as if to make sure it wasn't a trick. Suddenly it launched itself and latched onto her waist, nuzzling its muzzle into her stomach. She hesitantly patted its head as she read the screen that popped up in front of her. [New Skill Unlocked: Beast Tamer]. Apparently only players without weapons are able to attract mobs that are able to be tamed, and only if the player hadn't killed one of its kind before. She took a look at the name floating above the little monster. [Bearwol], well, she couldn't decide if that makes it more adorable or not.
Arkus just sighed when he saw his sister walk into the inn with a living plushie clinging to her chest like a demented koala. He didn't mind too much since it would serve as a nice therapy animal for Mayzer to fuss over. When he asked what she was going to call it, she just looked at him, at the teddy, and back at him, and in the most serious voice said, "His name is Fitzgerald. Not Fitz, not Gerry, Fitzgerald." And everybody learned that when Kirito was roasted by a surprise fire-breath when he called it "Fitz". Mayzer was now teaching Fitzgerald how to sustain a lance of fire to help with her alchemy and jewel-making.
The kiddy guild was making good progress as well. All of them were around level twenty-five or six, with Sachi being the lowest at twenty-four. Mayzer couldn't wait for them to catch up and join them at the front lines and shove the assault team's elitist attitude right into their pompous faces. Their stupid, handsome, gray-haired… "You're squishing your sandwich, you're thinking of Heathcliff again aren't you." "Do not speak its name!"
The thing of her nightmares, the Knights of the Blood Oath's, or KBO's, leader Heathcliff. He had approached the duo after the floor twenty-five boss raid and "offered" for them to join his guild, which has grown to surpass the Army as the strongest guild in Aincrad. This was after they had already turned down their friend Asuna when she had approached them on his behalf. The fact he only came to see them after they had said no to Asuna when she had approached them, as if he would convince them when their friend had failed, had already set off Mayzer's asshole meter. The way he stared at them, like they were nothing, like they were simply NPCs going off script by saying no, had unnerved her to the point that she just walked out of the boss room in the middle of his sentence. Even though Arkus admitted to being slightly creeped out, none of the other players they met had felt the same level of unrest she felt in Heathcliff's presence. This only made her paranoia worst, and she avoided any mention of him and sent Arkus and Kirito to raid meetings if she got wind he would be at one.
Speaking of which, they had just gotten a message from Asuna, asking for them to join the assault team for the boss raid on floor twenty-seven. She replied they would be there, going over the details of the boss and sorting her crystals and gesturing to Arkus and Kirito. "Arkus and I are joining in on the boss raid, so you're in charge of the kiddies while we're gone, got it?" Kirito nodded and turned back to the guild lounging on the grassy step-like hill. Mayzer and Arkus went to the teleport station and went to floor twenty-seven, meeting up with Asuna and joining the assault team as they headed out, switching out weapons and clothes as they went. Mayzer gave some crystals to both Arkus and Asuna, and added a bracelet with +3 speed to Asuna as well. She nodded and slipped it on her wrist.
The battle fierce, reminding Mayzer of that first boss raid, except this boss had many, many, many, more minions to deal with. It took a good five minutes for the raid group to cut through the horde and make contact with the boss. Asuna separated from the pair to go for the boss with the rest of her guild. Mayzer and Arkus fell into their routine, blocking out all other stimuli, neither registering the message from Kirito until after the floor was cleared, and by then the message was joined by a system announcement, [Kirito has left the party.] When she checked her friends list, Mayzer couldn't find Kirito on it. She finally read the message and immediately started sprinting back towards town to the teleport station, Arkus right behind her. They shot out of the teleport and straight towards the memorial on the first floor, stopping in front of it and desperately scanning the names carved onto its surface.
-Keita.-
-Ducker.-
-Tetsuo.-
-Sasamaru.-
-Sachi.-
Kirito.
She gasped, tears streaming down her face and would have collapsed if it wasn't for her brother holding her up. Fitzgerald, who had stayed clinging to her back throughout the boss fight, whined, sensing his mistress's distress, and nuzzled into her neck. She buried her face into Arkus's chest, sobbing in both grief and relief. Her little kiddy guild was dead, and she felt her heart tearing in half, but her friend was still alive, and that brought new pain because she couldn't find him, he was hiding from them, why would he do that?
She faintly registered her brother picking her up and moving to the teleport station, didn't even know which floor they were now on or where they were headed before he set her down on a bed and she took in the swathes of cloth and smell of fumes and realized they were in the house she had recently bought for all of them. She broke out into new sobs as she thought of the empty room in the house, the room that would stay empty until they managed to track down their wayward friend. And find him they shall.
Mayzer strode into the inn, her serious expression at odds with Fitzgerald clinging to her back, its head poking over her shoulder. It was a couple of days after Christmas and all the floors were still covered in snow, sending many inside to avoid the cold. She went to the back corner where Klein was waiting, a tankard of mead in front of him. She sat across from him and ordered a glass of juice from the barmaid when she came around.
"Well? Did you find him? Did he look okay?" she asked anxiously.
Klein sighed, "Yeah, I found him alright. Had to stalk him all the way to the middle of the forest maze, but we found him. He was after the revival item from the Christmas event." "Did he get it?" "Yeah, we had to fight off the Holy Dragon Alliance to give him the chance. And here it is, just handed it over like it was nothing." She looked at the jewel like object, reading the description, her eyes widening when she gets to the 'within ten seconds' condition. Her eyes softened and Klein could barely make out the "Oh, Kirito…" she murmured to herself. She gave it back to him and got up and started to walk away. "You ever going to tell me what happened between you guys?" She stopped and looked back at him, "As soon as I find out myself." And with that she left inn and walked back to the teleport station, transporting to floor fifteen where their house was and unlocking the door and stepped inside. Arkus was on a solo quest gain some more Col, leaving her alone with Fitzgerald as her only company. It had been happening more and more as the months went on and their schedules began to diverge more and more as he focused on the front lines and she hunted down any and all rumors about a lone swordsman dressed in black.
As she came in she flipped on the lights, and paused, startled as Fitzgerald launched himself over her shoulder and into the other room, hearing something being knocked over and a cry of surprise. She slowly approached the doorway, taking out a knife ready to take out anybody trying to break in to their home. As she turned the corner she dropped the knife in shock and bolted over to the overturned figure being cuddle attacked by Fitzgerald. She latched onto his black coat and buried her face into his chest, tears soaking his shirt. She felt his arms hesitantly wind around her and his hands awkwardly pat her back. She sniffled, her breath catching in her throat as she tried to gather her thoughts. "Don't y-you dare do a-anything like that ever again, you hear me? I lost so many people in one day and then you just vanish and I couldn't find you and I don't want to lose you to, alright?" He was silent for a moment, before he whispered, "Even though it was my fault they died? I was the one supposed to watch over them, but they wouldn't listen to me. They thought they could go to a higher dungeon while Keita was on floor one buying a house for the guild…"
And so they stayed there, on the floor, as Kirito recounted how they walked into a trapped room, how they couldn't get out with their crystals, how Ducker was stabbed in the back, how Tetsuo and Sasamaru were clubbed to death, and how he desperately tried to get to Sachi but was too late. How he had spent the last few months furiously leveling up, trying to avoid the guilt eating at him, and the look on Keita's face as he came back with a set of keys and the way he accused them of being the cause, how he should have known better than to accept their help. How he had tried to stop him but he was just too far away to make it in time. He admitted to knowingly keeping away from Arkus and Mayzer because he didn't want to face the accusation he thought they would throw at him well. Mayzer just clutched him closer and said they would never blame him for that, he was a child for god's sake, and he shouldn't be responsible for the lives of others in the first place.
By the time Arkus came back home later that night he found both curled up on the couch with Fitzgerald in between, and after getting over the shock he sighed and threw a blanket over the three of them and went to bed.