Author's Note: I apologize again for yet another fairly short chapter, especially after having such a long delay with it. The main reason for the delay is because I was trying to wrap up that one Digimon story I decided to revive, which I managed to do this past Thursday. The other reason for the delay is because I decided to do a bit of a rethink on this chapter regarding the battle it contains.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sword Art Online (or the works of H.P. Lovecraft).
Chapter 17: Journey Into Leng
It did not take long for Kirito and the others to reach the mound that would take them back into the underground cities of K'n-yan, Yoth and N'kai. They all knew that they were going down there at a dangerous time, as the encounter rate for the horrid monsters that stalked those cities greatly increased at night. Yet despite the increased encounter rate, Kirito and the others didn't have much of a choice. Not if they wanted to get to the entrance to Leng and face Donis. They had to make it back down to N'kai, even if they had to hack and slash their way through entire armies of headless warriors and black blobs.
Despite the nighttime hours, Kirito's team somehow made it through the tunnel into K'n-yan without encountering a single headless sentinel. When they finally arrived in that blue-lit city of ancient death, they encountered the bearded old man who Kirito and Asuna both knew as the Traveler.
"What's that NPC doing down here?" Asuna asked.
"I don't know." Kirito answered. "Unless… if a quest had somehow been initiated either by me getting the Master's Blade or by Sugu and Donis opening the door to N'kai, maybe that quest isn't done."
"You saying that maybe this quest you're talking about might have a second half to it?" Klein asked.
"Only one way to find out." Kirit replied before walking towards the old man.
The Traveler instantly walked up to Kirito as soon as he came a certain distance. "It is good to see you again, fairy swordsman. Your arrival could not have been any sooner."
"Why are you here?" Kirito asked.
"Because the danger to this world has not yet passed." The Traveler answered. "Though you may have defeated the Sleeper of N'kai, you've yet to face the Crawling Chaos. He has only just made his move and set things in motion to open this world to unimaginable horror. If nothing is done quickly, this world will not survive the chaos that is to come."
"What do you want me to do?" Kirito asked.
"You must journey to N'kai to travel to the Plateau of Leng." The Traveler answered. "There you must face the Crawling Chaos and put an end to his twisted ambition before it is too late. When the hour strikes midnight, the sky will burst open and spew forth an unimaginable madness. You alone are the only one who can stop it, for you are the only one worthy of wielding the Master's Blade. Let me accompany you, and I will help you reach the plateau."
With that, a holographic screen showing the Traveler's request to join his party appeared before him. Kirito turned to the others to decide what to do.
"I don't know man. Do we really wanna take on a quest like this right now?" Klein asked. "I mean we're already kind involved in something."
"I agree. Why don't we come back to this guy after we castrate Donis?" Lisbeth suggested.
"I hear what you're all saying, but… we are heading to this Plateau of Leng anyway." Kirito pointed out. "Besides, this kinda sounds like it's connected to something happening in this game that only Asuna and I know about."
"Care to share what that is?" Sinon asked.
"…Not now." Kirito decided. "I can tell you that this quest is probably very important. Let's go ahead and take care of it, then when it's done we can kick Donis's ass."
With that, Kirito pressed the accept button on the Traveler's request.
"Come. We must make haste." The old man told them. "Our time grows shorter with each passing second."
The team made its way to the building that housed the entrance into Yoth. They encountered a few of the headless women upon entering the building, but made short work of them. Only a few minutes later they finally made it into Yoth. The red-lit city seemed eerily silent when they arrived. The team did not encounter a single black blob lucking among the buildings of the dead metropolis. The only explanation that the team could come to where the blobs were concerned was that luck seemed to be on their side.
After another few minutes, the team made it to the primordial black temple that housed the forbidden entrance into N'kai. They went in and journeyed down the long dark tunnel, eventually making it into the black underground world lit only by the florescent moss growing on its walls. The team was instantly assaulted by the noxious scent of N'kai as soon as they went in. It was not too much longer before the reached the large box-shaped temple that had once housed Tasthoggua and seemed to be their only way to get to Leng.
"Are we absolutely sure about this?" Siune asked. "If Tsathoggua has re-spawned, I'm not sure we can beat him."
"We don't have much choice." Asuna told her. "If Tsathoggua has re-spawned since we were here last, we'll just have to deal with it. Hopefully the Traveler may be able to give us an edge if he has."
"Our time grows ever shorter." The Traveler told them. "We must press on, or all will be lost."
"Let's go." Kirito told them.
Within moments after crossing the bridge over one of the rivers of black ooze, the team entered the temple. They readied their weapons in case Tsathoggua truly had returned, but what they found instead was the last thing any of them expected. Standing in Tsathoggua's original spot in the cavernous room was Selene.
"Hey there." The imp woman greeted. "Kind of a weird night to be strolling around N'kai, don't you think? By the way, if you were worried about running into that Tsathoggua thing, the word is that he won't re-spawn for at least another two weeks."
"What the hell are you doing here?" Lisbeth demanded to know.
"Donis got in touch with me a while ago after I came back from being a pin cushion." Selene explained. "He told me that you guys were going to try to get to that Leng place and come after him and asked me to stop you. I've got no clue why he wants you stopped, but I decided that it would be a good chance for me to get even with Liz and Sinon. Well… mostly Sinon. Nobody PKs me and gets away with it."
"We don't have time to deal with you, Selene!" Sinon told her. "If you wanna settle things with me, come and find me later."
"Nah, I don't think so." Selene replied. "Besides, this is the best chance for me to test out my new power."
"What new power?" Lisbeth asked.
"You remember how I said that Donis was doing something to give me a new skill when you saw me and him getting it on in the forest?" Selene reminded her. "Let me show you what it let's me do."
Selene began chanting an odd spell that Kirito and the others had never heard before. Suddenly globs started to rise up from the stream of black ooze inside the chamber and floated down onto the floor. Rather than becoming regular black blobs though, the globules became pitch-black duplicates of Selene. There were forty duplicates in all, each with its own HP gauge.
"Pretty cool, huh?" Selene told them. "Of course this power does have a few drawbacks. I can only use it down here in this sewer of a dungeon. Not only that, making them costs a good chunk of MP, and I can't really control any of them directly. They pretty much run on autopilot, but I can program who or what I want them to attack. And right now, their targets are all of you. Get 'em, laides!"
The ooze duplicates of Selene dashed across the empty boss room at Kirito and the others drawing swords that were made of the same black material as their bodies. Kirito slashed at the one that came at him with Excalibur. The duplicate blocked it with her own blade, only for Kirito to slash her across the stomach with the Master's Blade, causing her to turn white and her HP gauge to go into the red zone. Kirito finished the duplicate off with a slash down the middle with Excalibur, causing her to burst like a popped balloon. Kirito was relieved that the duplicates had the same weaknesses as the blobs, though their sheer numbers combined with the fact that they seemed to fight like their creator made them quite formidable.
"This is turning out to be easier than I thought." Selene remarked. "I'm not even having to break a sweat with this."
"Do you even know who you're fighting for?" Kirito asked as he slashed through another one of Selene's doppelgängers. "I don't know who you think Donis is, but he's not someone who you should be going to all this effort for! He copied my avatar to use for himself! What does that tell you about him?"
"What the hell do I care?" Selene asked as she shrugged indifferently. "So he ripped off your avatar somehow. Big deal. Like I told you, this is revenge for the way Sinon PKed me before."
"Dammit! Don't you care about anything, Selene?" Lisbeth asked as she struck another one of the duplicates on top of the head with her mace.
"Not in this world." Selene answered. "Sure I fight hard, but none of it's real. You guys seem to take things in this world way too seriously."
"That's because we love this game!" Asuna told her as she struck one of the duplicates with her Mother's Rosario move to finish it off. "I don't know what your reasons for playing it are, but if you ask me not caring about anything here is the same as not caring about anything in the real world! So if that's your attitude about, you must not care about anything at all!"
"I do care about one thing, and that's winning." Selene told her. "And I'm going to cream you all in this little battle we're having."
Suddenly the Traveler raised his staff and began chanting a spell unfamiliar to Kirito and the others. A bolt of blue energy shot up from the end of the old man's staff into the air and exploded. Several bolts of lightning came down and struck the remaining duplicates, brining their HP to zero.
"I do not know who you are, fairy swordswoman, but we do not have time to waste with the likes of you!" the Traveler told her. "Do you not know that this world is in peril?"
"Are you guys on some sort of quest?" Selene asked. "Well, sorry to screw things up for you, but I'm afraid you're going to fail it."
With that, Selene chanted the same spell that she had used before to create the duplicates. Forty more globs of the black ooze rose up and transformed into another set of Selene clones.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" Klein exclaimed. "How many of these things is she gonna send at us?"
"This isn't as bad as the time with fought Tsathoggua, since she can't keep making those blob golems forever." Kirito pointed out. "Still, this could be a long battle and we don't have the time."
"How do we stop her though?" Lisbeth asked. "Chances are we'll run out of steam before she runs out of MP."
"If we can take her out directly, there's a chance that these golems will disappear with her." Sinon suggested.
"But how do we get at her?" Siune asked.
"Leave it to me." Sinon told her as she strung one of her arrows.
Sinon aimed her bow at the far corner of the boss room on her left. She shot three arrows in rapid succession at the spot. Each arrow disappeared into the shadows of that spot, only to come out from behind Selene and hit her in the back. After being hit with a fourth arrow, Selene's HP dropped to zero and her ooze duplicates shattered to bits.
Selene fell to her knees. "How… how did you…?"
"You're not the only one who ended up with a special skill from sleeping with Donis." Sinon told her.
Selene fell on her face and turned into a floating ball of purple flames. Kirito and the others turned to look at Sinon.
"I was wondering where you ended up with that little ability." Lisbeth told the archer.
"The ritual for obtaining that power was in the Necronomicon." Sinon explained. After a moment, she gave Asuna a small smirk. "Hey Asuna. If you and Kirito are interested, I could let you borrow it. There might be a ritual or two from that book you might be interested in trying."
"Uh… I'll think about it." Asuna replied with a heavy blush.
"We have little time to waste!" the Traveler reminded them.
The old man chanted another spell, and all the damage Kirito and the others had taken from fighting Selene's duplicates had been healed. Kirito and the others then followed the Traveler to a seemingly black spot on the boss room wall. Kirito recognized the spot as the place where the door to the hidden room was. After the Traveler chanted another spell, the stone door opened on its own. Upon going inside, it seemed to Kirito and the others that the cylindrical room was a dead end.
"So how do we get to this Plateau of Leng from here?" Siune asked.
"This room must be like some kind of teleporter." Klein assumed. "The only question is how do we activate it?"
"Leave that to me." The Traveler answered as he aimed his staff at the green crystal mounted in the wall.
As the Traveler chanted yet another spell, a beam of yellow light flowed from the end of his staff into the crystal. The crystal flashed and soon the room was washed out in a dazzling flash of white light. When the light faded, Kirito and the others found that they were in another set of ruins somewhere.
"We have arrived." The Traveler told them. "Follow me. I know where the Crawling Chaos is."
"So I guess we're taking care of this chaos thing first." Lisbeth realized.
"It doesn't seem like we have a choice." Kirito told them. "We'll take care of this quest as quickly as possible, and when we're done we'll go find Donis and give him the beating he deserves."
Author's Note: Well, I hope this chapter wasn't too lame. I had originally planned for Kirito and the others to fight Tsathoggua again, but decided for whatever reason that such a battle might've been a little repetitive. So I decided to have Selene use a similar trick to Tsathoggua's. Anyway, we're getting near the climax of this story, so stay tuned.
Please review and let me know what you think.