Author's Note: Last night I got an anonymous guest review telling me that this story is starting out the same way as the Sword Art Online: Girls' Ops manga. I was already well aware of that fact going in, and giving this story the same kind of beginning as Girls' Ops was pretty much unavoidable. I can assure everyone reading though that this story will be much, much different from that manga.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online (or the works of H.P. Lovecraft).
Chapter 2: The World of Blue
After following Donis through the passageway, Leafa and the others arrived in a large underground city within a vast cavern that seemed to go in infinitely. The walls of the cavern were made of a stone that gave off a strange blue light that that lit everything in perfect detail. The ruined buildings of the city appeared to be more ancient than anything Leafa and the rest of the gang had seen in the land of the fairies. What was even stranger about the city was that there was a mixture of architecture where the building were concerned. Most of the structures were buildings that looked like they were from ancient Rome, complete with the iconic Roman pillars that adorned the entryway. Many of the larger buildings in the city meanwhile were pyramids like the ones built by the Aztecs and Mayans, and were made of a peculiar black stone. The trait of the city that really stood out to Leafa and the others though was that it was completely dead and silent as a tomb.
"You were right, Donis. There's no way I could've imagined something like this." Lisbeth spoke as they walked through the city. "Hey, are there any more of those headless monsters running around here?"
"Their encounter rate seems to be much higher in the passage we came through, but a few of them do pop up in the actual city every now and then." Donis answered.
"I wonder what sort of people used to live here." Leafa spoke.
"In the original story, this place is called K'n-yan. It was inhabited by a race of immortals with psychic powers." Sinon answered. "I guess they were all wiped out in the ALO version."
"What were those immortals like in the story?" Lisbeth asked.
"Pretty messed up." Sinon replied. "Because they were immortal, they had pretty much grown bored with everything in life. So they'd do things like have orgies or use their powers to torture and mutilate the creatures they kept as slaves or any poor person who wandered into their city from above."
"What do you mean by mutilate?" Leafa asked.
"You know those headless monsters we fought back in the tunnel?" the fairy archer replied. "The character in the story those things are based on was a woman those immortals used their powers on."
"That's… actually kinda disturbing." Lisbeth admitted.
"Let's talk about something a little less morbid, shall we?" Donis suggested. "I've only explored a few of these buildings and have so far found nothing of significant value. Tonight though, I was going to try checking out that building just up ahead of us."
The three looked in the direction that Donis was pointing in and saw a fairly large Roman style building elevated by a set of large steps. It had a dome-shaped roof and at least three large entryways, with the first facing the party's direction and the other two on the sides of the building.
"It's rather official-looking, don't you think?" Donis asked the others. "Perhaps it was supposed to be some seat of power or government back when the civilization that built this city was alive."
"Either way, it looks like a place worth checking out." Lisbeth decided. "Let's go take a look."
After a fairly short and silent walk, the four entered the official-looking building through the front entrance. As the team began walking down a dark wide corridor into the central part of the building, Lisbeth heard the sound of footsteps coming at her from the left. She turned her head and saw another one of the headless women charging at her with its sword raised. Just as the creature came in striking distance, Donis quickly moved in and blocked its attack with his right-hand sword. A few seconds later, the gold swordsman drew his other blade and struck the monster in the side, taking a good chunk out of its HP.
Donis then began slashing wildly at the creature, quickly bringing its HP down into the yellow zone. Lisbeth and the others stood and watched as Donis hacked away at the headless abomination.
"He doesn't just look like Kirito. He almost fights like him too." Sinon remarked.
"I know. He seems to have the same kind of intensity that Kazuto has when he's fighting an enemy." Leafa agreed.
As the ladies continued to watch the battle, the creature managed to land a blow on Donis and take a chunk off his HP. Lisbeth decided that she could stand by and watch no more.
"Donis! Switch out! I'll finish her off!" Lisbeth told him.
Donis nodded and fell back at the headless woman took another slash at him. Lisbeth charged in and struck the thing in its chest with her gold hammer. After Lisbeth struck the creature three more times, its HP went to zero and its body shattered into blue polygons. A holographic screen appeared before Lisbeth and informed her she had gotten a drop item.
"Way to go, Liz!" Leafa cheered.
"Ah, it's no big deal. Donis softened her up for me." Lisbeth replied. "Looks like I got a drop item out of it though."
"What'd you get?" Sinon asked.
"It looks like the sword the creature was using." The pink-haired blacksmith answered. "From the description, it looks like it's made of some kind of weird metal I've never seen before in the game. I'll have to take a closer look at it when I get back to my shop later."
"It seems that you've already found some treasure on this little expedition." Donis observed.
"Yeah." Lisbeth replied. "By the way, thanks for coming to my rescue before."
"Think nothing of it, my dear." Donis told Lisbeth before kissing the back of her hand, causing her blush deeply.
"We should probably keep going." Sinon suggested.
With that, the team continued further on into the building until they came to its very center. The core of the building not only had three other large doorways that led out to the entrances on the other sides of the building, but also four smaller archways in between the entry points that led into smaller chambers.
"Looks like we've got a lot of ground to cover." Sinon observed.
"Perhaps we could split up to cover more ground." Donis suggested.
"I don't know. That might not be a good idea." Lisbeth replied. "We don't know the layout of this place, and if any of us ran into another hoard of those headless monsters while separated it could get real messy."
"But didn't Donis say before that the encounter rate for those things is lower here in the city?" Leafa pointed out.
"True. Of course that may not be true in some of the individual buildings like this." Donis replied. "Considering the amount of rare items that might be hidden here, it would hardly be surprising if there were more creatures set in place to guard them."
"We wouldn't have to split up completely. If we just divided into two groups, we should be okay." Sinon suggested.
"Okay. We'll split into two teams." Lisbeth decided. "Leafa, you go with Donis while I stick with Sinon. Let's say we meet back in this spot in half an hour."
"We'll IM you guys if we run into any trouble." Leafa replied.
"We'll do the same." Sinon responded.
After the team had split up, Sinon and Lisbeth had ended up in a large circular chamber that turned out to be some sort of library. The two of them began looking through the various items on the shelves. Much of the library's contents were moldy old books written in an ancient language that neither of them could read. As Sinon continued to scan the shelves, her eye fell on one large grey book with gold writing on the spine to show the book's title, the Necronomicon. Sinon instantly recognized the book as a sort of forbidden tome that showed up in many stories the author, H.P. Lovecraft.
Finding that the book was a manipulable object, Sinon pulled it off the shelf to take a look. Suddenly a holographic screen appeared before the fairy archer asking her if she wanted to add the item to her inventory. With only a moment's hesitation, Sinon pressed the Yes button and the book turned into blue pixels before vanishing.
"You finding anything good?" Lisbeth asked from the other side of the room, not taking her eyes away from the shelves.
"I found one interesting item." Sinon answered. "What about you?"
"Mostly I'm finding these weird statues that don't seem to have any kind of special effect." Lisbeth answered.
With that, the pink-haired blacksmith came upon a small statue made of a peculiar black metal sitting in a large empty space on one of the shelves. The statue depicted a bizarre humanoid creature with an octopus-like head and a pair of bat-like wings on its back. Finding that the statue was manipulable, Lisbeth got a screen asking her if she wanted to add the statue to her inventory. After selecting the yes command, the statue turned into blue pixels and vanished in Lisbeth's hands.
"There, I just found another one." Lisbeth informed Sinon. "I've got like ten of these in my inventory now. According to their descriptions, the statues are all of some kind of weird gods. They're also all made of some kind of unidentified metal, but I might be able to melt them down to make armor and weapons."
"Well if you're done collecting weird art, how 'bout we move onto another room?" Sinon suggested. "I don't think there's too much more we can find in here."
"Fine with me." Lisbeth agreed.
Just as the two were leaving, Lisbeth spied another item on one of the shelves. It was an odd asymmetrical box made of a yellowish metal. After finding that she was able to manipulate the box, Lisbeth picked it up and opened it. Inside was a peculiar blackish crystalline object that was shaped almost like an egg but with several crystalline facets, and it was held in place by a metal band around the middle held up by seven thin metal bands attached to the bottom of the box. Lisbeth's eyes soon became transfixed on the crystal, which seemed to be giving off an odd a very feint red light. The blacksmith thought that she could almost see pictures of some kind inside the crystal.
"Hey! You coming?" Sinon asked from the doorway, shaking Lisbeth from the trance she had seemingly fallen into.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Just a sec." Lisbeth replied.
Lisbeth finally noticed the screen in front of her asking if she wanted to add the item to his inventory. After she quickly pressed Yes, Lisbeth rejoined Sinon and they moved off onto another chamber.
The passageway that Leafa and Donis had chosen took them down into what appeared to be a vast dark set of catacombs. They had been wandering around the dark dungeon for several minutes and had not found any significant items. The only thing that they had found was silence.
"How long have we been down here?" Leafa finally asked as she took another look around while they walked.
"About twenty-five minutes, give or take a second or two." Donis answered. "Perhaps we should go back up and wait for Lisbeth and Sinon to return."
"Sounds like a good idea to me." Leafa agreed. "You know… I still can't get over how much you look like my brother."
"Is the resemblance really that strong?" Donis asked.
"He has dark hair and wears all black, but other than that you could be twins." Leafa answered. "He even uses two swords just like you do."
"That certainly is a strange coincidence." Donis admitted.
"I guess I can see how you might look like my brother if you had set your appearance features to random when you created your character, but why do you use two swords?" Leafa asked.
"It merely seemed like an effective way to eliminate various monsters in a short time." Donis answered. "I assume your brother fights that way for the same reason."
"Actually, his reason for using two swords is a little more complicated." Leafa told him.
Suddenly the two of them heard a disgusting squishing sound quickly coming their way. Leafa turned around, and looming before her was a horrid black blob that stood at about eight feet tall. Parts of the entity's body seemed to bubble like a soapy film on the surface of water. Every now and then one of the bubbles would pop with the sound of a bursting bladder, and two or three more would take its place.
"What is that thing?" Leafa asked.
"I'm afraid I have no idea!" Donis answered as he drew both his swords.
As the blob creature slowly advanced on the two, Leafa decided to charge the thing. Only a second or two after Leafa drew her sword, the blob shot forth a tentacle from its body that seemed to form into a flexible sword blade that cut into Leafa's weapon and knocked it out of her hand. Leafa quickly stopped her charge as her sword split into two pieces and shattered into blue polygons before the pieces could his the ground. The thing then stabbed Leafa two times before retracting its tentacle back into its body. Leafa fell to the ground and landed on her rear has her HP dropped into the near yellow.
Donis charged at the amorphous blob and slashed it several times with his two golden swords. The entity's HP only went down by a slight amount.
"This creature seems to be more formidable than the headless creatures we've encountered so far." Donis observed. "You better contact the others!"
"Right!" Leafa replied as she quickly composed a message to Lisbeth. "In the meantime, I'll heal you as much as I can while you fight the thing!"
Donis nodded and continued is attack on the creature. The rapid strikes from the gold swordsman's two blades were slowly having an effect on the creature's HP, but it was clear that it was going to be a long battle. At the same time, the blobs tentacle attacks were doing some serious damage to Donis. Leafa cast spells to reverse the damage almost as quickly as it was inflicted, but her MP was quickly starting to run out. It was clear the creature was going to outlast them both unless something changed soon. By the time Donis had finally gotten the creature's HP down to half, two arrows flew through the air and struck the creature where it's head would've been if it had one. Leafa and Donis both looked back and breathed a sigh of relief when they saw Lisbeth and Sinon.
"What the hell is that thing?" Lisbeth asked.
"It's not an ordinary slime, that's for sure." Leafa answered. "It broke my sword earlier."
The arrows that had struck the blob were sucked inside and broke into blue polygons before being completely absorbed. At the same time though, the creature's HP took another slight dip.
"This thing's not going down easily." Sinon observed. "I'm going to run out of arrows at this point."
"Let me take a crack at it!" Lisbeth told them.
Donis fell back as Lisbeth charged at the blob. As soon as she got in range, the pink-haired blacksmith's hammer struck the entity's front. The entire blob seemed to ripple upon being hit, but its HP only fell by a small amount. As soon as its body stopped rippling, the blob retaliated by striking Lisbeth with one of its sharpened tendrils, taking a large chunk of her HP. Lisbeth fell back and allowed Donis to strike it a few more times.
"Dang! Even Mjolnir doesn't seem to be enough to take this thing down." Lisbeth observed.
"It looked like it froze the thing for a few seconds though." Sinon noted as Donis fell back. "Maybe we can use that to our advantage."
"That was my thinking exactly!" Donis agreed. "Liz, as soon as you land a blow to the creature, I'll move in to attack it before it can unfreeze. But we'll have to be very quick about it."
"Right!" Lisbeth replied, as she stood ready to attack.
Once Leafa finished using another healing spell on both Donis and Lisbeth, Lisbeth charged in for another attack. The pink-haired blacksmith's hammer struck the blob and caused its body to ripple again. Before the creature could stop rippling, Lisbeth fell back and Donis moved in and slashed the thing several more times with his two blades. As soon as the rippling stopped, Donis fell back and Lisbeth moved in for another attack. They repeated this pattern seven more times until the thing's HP had fallen into the red zone. Lisbeth and Donis had taken a few more hits since beginning their strategy, but they were still in fairly good shape to fight. Just as the creature launched one of its tendrils at them, Sinon fired another arrow that struck the blob in what could be considered its chest.
Upon being hit, the blob's HP gauge dropped to zero and its body shattered into blue polygons. Leafa and the others all breathed a sigh of relief.
"That was brutal!" Lisbeth declared.
"Perhaps we should leave the city of K'n-yan for now and come back another time." Donis suggested.
"Sounds good to me." Sinon agreed. "It's gotten pretty late, anyway."
Within another half hour, the team had made it out of K'n-yan and back to the top of the mound without encountering other monsters. Leafa brought up her screens to check the time and saw that it was 10:32.
"Wow! It really has gotten pretty late." Leafa told the others.
"Well ladies, it truly was a privilege working with you all this evening." Donis told them. "We should do this again very soon."
"Yeah. Though we should probably get some stronger weapons before we try going back down there again." Leafa pointed out. "I know I'll need a new sword before we go back."
"Don't worry. I'll forge you a new one tomorrow afternoon." Lisbeth assured her. "I'll also see if I can forge anything from all those metal items I got down there to see if I can make some stronger weapons from them."
"How long do you think that could take?" Sinon asked.
"It's hard to say since I've never seen this kind of metal before, but let's say about three days to be safe." Lisbeth answered.
"In that case, how about we all meet back here in three day's time?" Donis suggested.
"Sounds good." Leafa agreed.
"Very well then. I will see you all then." Donis replied. "In the meantime, I must depart to take care of one small matter before retiring for the night."
"Hey Donis. Feel free to stop by my shop in the next few days." Lisbeth suggested.
"I will endeavor to do so." Donis told her. "Until then ladies, good evening."
With that, Donis flew off from the mound. Leafa and the others watched him go until he was barely a speck in the night sky.
"It really was lucky finding a guy like that on our way down there." Lisbeth remarked.
"Yeah. It really is weird the way he looks like Kirito though." Sinon pointed out.
"He probably set the appearance of his avatar to random when he made it and somehow got that." Leafa assumed.
"Pretty weird coincidence if you ask me." Lisbeth replied. "Still, he seems like an awesome guy."
"Well, we should probably log out for the night." Sinon decided.
"Right. I'll contact you when your new sword's ready, Leafa." Lisbeth told her.
"I'll be waiting." Leafa replied.
With that, Lisbeth and Sinon logged out, vanishing before Leafa's eyes with a blue flashed. Leafa logged out as well and was pulled through a tunnel of light.
Suguha opened her eyes to see the familiar ceiling of her bedroom. The dark-haired girl sat up and stretched as she put her virtual headset on her nightstand. Soon after, she got up and prepared to get ready for bed. As Suguha undressed, her mind went back to Donis. She couldn't help but wonder about the kind of person he was in real life. It was true that he somehow had Kirito's face, but that was only in ALO. Suguha knew that Donis had to have a face of his own in the real world. The thought that Donis might also have a completely different personality in the real world also crossed Suguha's mind.
Despite these facts though, Suguha couldn't help but be drawn to Donis. She didn't know if it was simply because he looked like Kirito in the game, or if it was something more. Either way, Suguha found that she was greatly looking forward to the time when she would see him again.
Author's Note: I apologize if this story is taking a little too long to set up. Rest assured, things will start to get a bit more interesting in the next chapter.
Please review and let me know what you think.