Author's Note: Happy New Year to all who are reading this. What better way to ring in the new year than with another chapter of this story? Well, there are probably more than a few, but here it is anyway.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online (or the works of H.P. Lovecraft).
Chapter 8: Knights of the Mound
It was very late in the afternoon as Silica wandered through a dense forest in ALO. Her faithful tiny blue dragon, Pina was perched atop her head. Silica had been trying to level up in the hopes of Kirito and Asuna in the coming boss fight on Floor 75 of New Aincrad. Unfortunately, despite all her work during the past month, the young dragon tamer still wasn't quite up to the task of helping in the fight. Of course Silica knew that the fight on Floor 75 wasn't life or death like it was in SAO, but she still wanted to help Kirito in whatever way she could in that battle.
Noticing how late it had become, Silica decided to get to a nice save point location and log out for the day. She knew there wasn't much time before the big raid, but she had some homework to finish still and it was a night when the stronger monsters started to appear in the forest. As Silica began to head out, she heard the sound of a twig snapping and froze. Pina rose from her perch and hovered near her master, waiting for whatever had made the noise to emerge. Whatever it was that made the noise was starting to emerge from the trees just up ahead.
Silica watched with her dagger in hand as the thing approached, but soon breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that it was only Leafa. Right away though, the pint-sized dragon tamer noticed something very different about the blonde fairy. Leafa was wearing a different outfit than what she usually wore. The blonde's new wardrobe was similar in many ways to her normal outfit in ALO; only her dress was gold with black trim, complimenting the black and gold breastplate she wore. The flower petal-like ribbon that Leafa used to tie her hair in its usual ponytail was black with gold trim, and she had on a pair of black boots. Around Leafa's left upper arm was a gold and black armband showing a shield-like symbol depicting the head of a snake. After noticing the armband, Silica checked her heads-up display and noticed the same symbol by Leafa's name.
"Hi there, Silica." Leafa greeted. "Surprised to find you out here so late."
"Same here. You kinda startled me." Silica replied. "Say, are you in a guild now?"
"Yeah, I have been for the last two and a half weeks now." Leafa answered. "I'm actually one of the founders along with Lisbeth, Sinon and a few others."
"Okay, but why a guild?" Silica asked. "I mean I have nothing against it, but why'd you guys decide to form one?"
"It was our friend, Donis's idea." Leafa explained. "He thought a guild would help us explore the dungeons of K'n-yan and Yoth. You know, those underground dungeons in imp territory."
"Oh yeah. I've been hearing a lot about that recently." Silica replied. "So how many players are in your guild?"
Leafa put her fingers to her chin and looked up in thought. "Last time I checked, I think it was about twenty or thirty. Say, would you be interested in joining, Silica?"
"I don't know. Those dungeons just sound kind of creepy to me." Silica answered.
"They're actually not that bad, especially when you're traveling through them with a large group." Leafa assured her. "How 'bout this? You could come along with me on tomorrow afternoon's raid as kind of a guest. Then you can see what it's like."
"Well… okay." Silica finally agreed. "I guess one afternoon off from level grinding won't hurt."
Sinon was totally naked and bouncing on top of an equally nude Donis on the bed in her apartment. Her lips had curved into a goofy open-mouthed smile as she rode the Kirito lookalike. The feeling of having Donis's rock-hard manhood inside of her was sheer bliss. Donis reached up and put his hands on the catgirl fairy's breasts, prompting Sinon to put her own hands over his and press them against her. Before long, Sinon felt herself coming close to the edge and picked up her pace. Then at long last the two lovers hit their climax in the same sweet moment. A silent scream left Sinon's throat as she felt Donis's warm seed shoot into her. As she came down from her high, Sinon dismounted Donis and flopped onto the bed next to him.
"That… was fantastic." Sinon declared as she caught her breath.
"Glad I could satisfy you." Donis replied with a cocky smirk. He then glanced over at the Necronomicon, which was lying on the nightstand. "Sinon… I noticed something interesting on one of the pages of the Necronomicon as I was reading over your shoulder while you flipped through it before."
"What was it?" Sinon asked.
"It appeared to be some sort of spell or ritual." Donis answered. "From the little I saw of it, the spell seems to detail a way to peer into other dimensions. Would you mind if I looked it up?"
"Go right ahead." Sinon agreed as she sat up slightly. "Now you've got me curious."
Donis took the book from the nightstand and began flipping through the pages. After a few moments, he seemed to find the page he had been talking about earlier.
"I was right. This spell seems to allow the one who recites it to see portals in space and pass through them." Donis confirmed. "Or to simply shoot or throw objects through those portals. For instance, if you were to fire through one of your arrows through such a portal, it would fly through and come out of another portal and hit its target at a completely different angle from the one it was fired from."
"Wow! That could come in pretty handy." Sinon observed. "So, what would I need to do to perform this spell?"
"Well… from what I can tell, it seems to involve a sort of sex ritual." Donis answered. "You'd have to recite the spell from the book while we have intercourse. Would you be willing to do something like that?"
Sinon couldn't help but find it odd that such a ritual would even exist in a game like ALO. Yet many things in the game had been rather strange lately, ever since the mound had appeared. Either way though, Sinon didn't have any objections to performing the ritual, and was very interested in seeing it could really give her the kind of power Donis had described to her. Besides, it was the perfect excuse to have Donis inside of her again.
"Let's do it." Sinon decided.
Donis nodded and used his pillow to prop the open book up at the end of the bed. Sinon then got on all fours facing the book so she could read it. Once she was in position, Donis got behind her on his knees. Sinon nodded once she was ready, prompting Donis to take hold of her rear and push his rod into her womanhood from behind. The fairy archer moaned as she felt Donis sliding inside her, but she quickly focused on the book passage that Donis had pointed out to her.
"Yog-Sothoth, guardian of the gate." Sinon read as Donis began to plow into her. "I ask thee to lift… to lift the veil from my eyes and reveal to me the corners of creation… hidden from mortal sight. Open my mind… as I have opened my body… and let me gaze upon the wonders, AH… upon the wonders concealed beneath the surface… beyond the surface of this world!"
At this point, Donis pulled Sinon's left leg straight back and began to plunge into her harder and deeper. Though she was overcome with pleasure, Sinon focused on trying to complete the spell.
"Yog-Sothoth is the key! I am the gate! I offer myself to be unlocked… so that I may witness the glories… the glories of the great… BEYOND!"
With that final word, Sinon and Donis came to a hard climax at the same moment. In that same moment, Sinon's body gave off a brilliant green aura. Her entire body felt as if it was on fire as Donis's warm seed shot into her again. When it was over, Sinon collapsed onto her side and Donis fell back against the headboard. The fairy archer's body was covered in sweat. A holographic screen appeared before Sinon to let her know that the spell was achieved successfully.
"Well… did it work?" Donis asked after catching his breath.
"We'll soon find out." Sinon answered as she managed to sit up a bit.
After enabling a command on the menu screen that popped up, Sinon's eyes turned a light green. The fairy archer began to look around the room and saw what looked like a small red dot in the corner. Sinon reached out to the dot as if to touch it, and suddenly the dot changed and expanded into a dark hole. As Sinon looked into it, she thought she could make out the image of the back of her own head in the distance.
"Whoa!" Sinon exclaimed as she fully sat up.
"You see a portal?" Donis asked.
"Yeah… hold on a sec. I wanna try something." Sinon told him as she got up from the bed.
With her arm still reaching towards the portal, Sinon began to walk towards it. The portal grew wider as she came closer and the images inside it became clearer, and after walking through the spectral opening she emerged on the other side in the opposite corner of the room.
"Oh wow!" Sinon declared. "This is incredible!"
"Indeed. Just think of how you can use this power with your arrows." Donis pointed out.
"I would've killed for an ability like this in GGO." Sinon replied. "It'll probably take some time for me to get the hang of it though."
"I have no doubt that you'll master it in no time." Donis told her.
"Yeah…" Sinon responded. "What other spells are in that book?"
It was midafternoon as Silica and Pina followed Leafa through the air towards the mound. As they approached the sinister landmark, Silica could make out that several people were standing atop the mound, at least twenty-seven people by her count. In moments, Silica and Leafa made their landing and Lisbeth ran up to greet them. Silica immediately noticed that the pink-haired blacksmith was wearing a gold and black version of her normal ALO outfit, complete with the same armband that Leafa had.
"Hey guys!" Lisbeth greeted. "Glad you could make it, Silica."
"Leafa made this place sound interesting." Silica replied. "Where's Sinon?"
Suddenly Silica felt a tap on the back of her shoulder that made her jump and let out a startled cry. She turned around to see who it was but found that nobody was there. In seconds though, Sinon seemed to materialize out of thin air right before her eyes.
"Hey." Sinon greeted with a mischievous grin.
"How… how did you do that?" Silica asked as Leafa and Lisbeth snickered a bit behind her.
"It's this new coat I got from a boss fight a few weeks ago." Sinon explained. "Whenever I put the hood up, I can turn invisible."
"And you got this in a boss fight down in one of these underground dungeons?" Silica asked.
"That's right." Lisbeth confirmed. "That was the boss fight that made us decide to form the guild."
"Well, well. What have we here." A voice cut in. The four looked to see Selene walking up with Aria, both of them wearing gold and black versions of their original outfits.
"Hi Selene. This is an old friend of ours, Silica." Leafa explained. "I invited her to join the guild and thought she could tag along on this raid to see what it's like. I hope that's okay."
"It's no skin off my nose." Selene replied. "Of course she does seem kinda young for a raid like this."
"I guess I don't have a problem with it either." Aria interjected. "Although Mr. Donis might."
"Oh please. Donis won't mind at all." Lisbeth told the undine. "Especially when he finds out Silica's a friend."
Silica began to look around at the other assembled players. Most of them had very pale skin with a purplish tint and dark hair, indicating that they were imps. Going by hair color alone, Silica picked out a few other undine players, as well as a few sylphs and salamanders. But there was one thing about every one of the players that stood out to the young dragon tamer.
"Hey Leafa, is everyone in this guild a girl?" Silica asked with a quirked brow.
"Everyone except for Donis." Leafa answered. "It just kinda worked out that way."
"It's no surprise I guess, since Donis has been helping me with most of the recruiting." Selene pointed out. "With those looks of his and that charm, he was bound to attract a lot of fangirls who probably just joined the guild to try and get close to him."
"No surprise there." Lisbeth remarked.
Before Silica could ask about what Donis was like, the gold swordsman landed on the mound before them. "Hello all. It looks like we're ready to go."
Silica did a double take upon seeing Donis. "K-Kirito?"
Donis raised an eyebrow and then chuckled. "I take it, Leafa, that this is a friend of yours?"
"Silica is old friend of Liz and my brother from their days in SAO." Leafa explained.
"This kid was in SAO too?" a surprised Selene asked. "Guess this kid's tougher than I thought."
"Anyway, Donis. We were hoping that Silica could tag along on this raid." Leafa continued. "She thinks she might be interested in joining the guild, but isn't sure yet."
"Well if that's the case, she's more than welcome to come along." Donis agreed. "Let us show her the wonders that lie underneath the mound."
With that, the assembled guild members plus Silica ventured down into the mound. As soon as they entered the dark passage, Silica almost instantly became on edge. It was like they had entered a massive tomb and whatever was buried there might rise from the ground to take their lives.
"You okay Silica?" Leafa asked, causing the catgirl fairy to flinch.
"Oh, yeah. I'm okay." Silica assured her. "Hey Leafa, why didn't you mention that Donis looked like Kirito?"
"Oh that. I guess I just don't really think about it anymore." Leafa answered. "It really surprised me and the others too when we first saw him."
"I'll bet. But don't you think it's just kind of weird?" Silica asked.
"It is pretty weird." Leafa admitted. "But in the end, does it really matter why Donis looks like Kazuto in the game?"
Silica didn't have a good answer for the blonde fairy. She and Pina remained silent for the rest of the trip through the passage. Within a few short minutes, the entire group made it down into K'n-yan. Silica couldn't help but be awed by the magnificent dead city and the blue-lit cavern walls. The whole place was very strange and creepy, but at the same time had a unique beauty all its own. Shortly after arriving in the dead city, all of the other players gathered around Donis.
"Alright. We're still a fairly small guild, and the monsters roaming around Yoth are a bit more powerful than the creatures than the ones here in K'n-yan." Donis began. "Therefore, for today the majority of us will stick to exploring this city. If you encounter any monsters, use them as an opportunity to grind your levels and get adjusted to your new equipment. Meanwhile, Selene will be leading a reconnaissance team down into Yoth to begin mapping the area. That will make it easier for us to explore Yoth once we're all properly ready.
"In the meantime, the rest of use will stick to finding any rare items that might still be here on this level. Remember to bring any tok'l-metal ore or statuary items you might find to Lisbeth so she can use it to forge new equipment later. Now then, let's get to it."
"Silica, you stick close to me and Sinon." Leafa told the dragon tamer. "You're the only one here who doesn't have the equipment the monsters down here are weak against."
The assembled players began to disperse throughout K'n-yan. Selene left with a group of four other imp women for the entrance to Yoth. Silica and Pina tagged along with Leafa and Sinon as they scavenged the dead city for metal items. Every now and then they would run into one of the headless creatures that stalked K'n-yan. Silica found that she was quite impressed with the way Sinon and Leafa were able to dispatch the monsters with only a single shot.
Two and a half hours had gone by, and the trio had ended up collecting a sizable quantity of metal items. They met back up with Lisbeth, who had set up a sort of temporary desk by the door of one of the abandoned buildings.
"Did you guys get a good haul?" Lisbeth asked.
"Yep. You should be pretty well stocked for raw material for a while." Sinon answered.
At that moment, Donis arrived with Aria. "I trust your search was a profitable one."
"And how." Leafa confirmed.
"Hey Donis. If this sort of thing keeps up, we should look into recruiting more blacksmiths into the guild." Lisbeth suggested. "We could turn out equipment a lot faster. Plus it'd free up my time to try and come up with a weapon that can work on normal monsters just as well as it works on the monsters down here."
"Selene and I will look into the matter tomorrow." Donis assured her. "I certainly don't want you to be overworked."
Before the conversation could get any further, Aria let out a startled cry. The six looked and saw three of the black blob monsters that occasionally showed up in the dead cities. All three of them were clustered together in a close formation.
"What the heck are those things?" asked Silica as the color drained from her face.
After issuing a command to her menu screen, Sinon's eyes turned an odd green. The archer pulled her bow tight and aimed the point of her arrow at a spot where the wall of the building they were standing by met the ground.
"Uh, Sinon? The monsters are over there." Lisbeth reminded her.
"Trust me." Sinon coolly told her.
Sinon fired her arrow at the head of it began to glow with a blue light. The arrow vanished into the ground and suddenly came down from the air above the center blob, striking the top of its gelatinous body. In mere seconds the blob's entire body froze into ice. Sinon quickly fired two similar arrows into the same spot, and seconds later they came down from above the two remaining blobs and froze them like the first.
"Ice arrows?" Leafa realized.
"Now! While they're still frozen!" Sinon called.
The three horrid ice sculptures began to tremble as if they black substance inside them was trying to break free. Donis wasted no time and charged forward with both his swords drawn. At the same time, Leafa drew her sword while Lisbeth charged in with her mace. Donis quickly slashed at the center one while Lisbeth began bashing into the one on her left. Meanwhile, Leafa struck the remaining blob with an energy attack from her sword. All three of the blobs were destroyed in a matter of seconds before they could break free of the ice. Silica breathed a heavy sigh of relief as soon as they were gone.
"Sinon, how the heck did you do that thing with the arrows?" Lisbeth asked.
"Oh. It's, um… just something I picked up recently." Sinon answered, looking away with a slight blush on her cheeks. "Anyway, this is the first time I've seen those blob monsters show up as a hoard."
"Indeed. It seems they have been appearing more often lately ever since we defeated Yig, but this is certainly the first hoard that's ever been seen." Donis replied thoughtfully. "This could be an indication of something, but of what I do not know."
"I hope Selene and her team aren't having too much trouble down in Yoth." Aria spoke. "If we're encountering hoard of those blobs, there's a pretty good chance she's running into more of them."
"I'm sure she'll let the rest of us know if she encounters trouble down there." Donis assured her. "Now Aria, I think we should continue our rounds and see how everyone else is doing." With that, Donis and Aria went off towards the entrance into the city.
"So Silica, what do you think of this place?" Lisbeth asked.
"To be honest, I don't think it's for me." Silica answered. "If you guys don't mind, I think I'll be going now."
"That's okay, Silica." Leafa assured her. "You should probably get going now though. At night there's a bigger chance of those headless monsters popping up in the passageway."
Silica quickly said her goodbyes to Leafa and the others and headed back towards the city's entrance. As she and Pina got closer, they heard the sounds of someone being attacked. Silica ran for the entrance, thinking that a monster was attacking another member being of the guild, but she quickly realized that the voice crying out was male. When Silica finally got to the entrance, she saw a male sylph player being attacked by two members of the guild. After being slashed across the chest by one of the guild members, the male player was knocked onto his back.
"What the hell! I was just coming down here to look around!" the male player protested.
"Only guild members are allowed down here." One of the two guild warriors told him. "Those are the orders of our leader, Commander Donis."
"Why you…" the male player began as he prepared to draw his weapon.
"What's going on here?" a voice interrupted. The male player looked back to see Donis approaching with Aria.
"We caught this non-member coming down here while on our patrol." The second guild member answered. "You told us that no one outside the guild besides that girl Leafa brought was allowed down here."
"Do you want us to finish him off?" the first attacker from the guild asked.
"No, that won't be necessary." Donis replied with a cold expression as he stepped forward. "I'll handle this personally."
Donis drew both his swords and advanced on the male player. The non-member fairly swung his sword at Donis, but the Kirito lookalike easily blocked the attack and struck him in the side with the sword in his other hand. Silica watched frozen as Donis repeatedly attacked the male player with the most emotionless expression she had ever seen. In that moment it became clear to the dragon tamer that while Donis certainly looked like Kirito, deep down he wasn't anything like him. There was no possible way that the real Kirito would ever be that merciless.
It wasn't long before the intruding player's HP had dropped to zero and his body had been reduced to a floating ball of green phosphorescent fire. Donis calmly turned around as he sheathed his swords, and with a mere glance he noticed Silica standing just a few feet away.
"Why my dear Silica, I hope I did not frighten you just now with that unfortunate display." Donis told her as he slowly walked up. "You of course are more than welcome to remain here, as you are Leafa's guest."
"Why did you attack that guy like that?" Silica asked. "He only wanted to look around this place."
Donis gave a wave to the two women who had first attacked the male player, signaling them to leave. "It was nothing personal, Silica. It's simply important that my guild establishes a foothold in this new unexplored territory. In time, we will allow other players to start traveling more freely down here, but for right now I'm afraid we must hoard certain resources for ourselves if our order is going to become a power in this world. You are welcome to become a part of this, if you wish."
"No thanks." Silica told him. "I don't know how you got Liz and the others to be a part of all this. But if this is the way you guys run things, I'm not interested."
"Very well then." Donis replied with a cold look in his emerald eyes. "The door is over there. I suggest you use it."
Silica quickly walked past Donis with Pina still perched on her head and went through the doorway. She stopped and glanced back after a few moments and saw Donis standing closely behind Aria, kissing the side of her neck. He whispered something in her ear and the two of them went off into one of the nearby abandoned buildings.
"There's just something not right about all this, Pina." Silica told the little dragon. "I think Kirito should know about this."
Suddenly a holographic screen appeared in front of Silica, notifying her that she had gotten an instant message. The message turned out to be from Asuna, telling her that the battle on Floor 75 was going to begin in less than an hour. Silica realized that she didn't have a moment to loose. She needed to tell Kirito about Donis in person, and soon. There wasn't going to be much of a chance of that during the boss battle. Silica ran through the passage as fast as her legs could carry her and hoped that she could get to New Aincrad in time.
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