At the sound of the voice the three of us sharply to face in the direction which it had come from. Sky raised her sword and moved into a low stance, as if ready to pounce straight forward at whoever was there. Aurora nocked an arrow on the string of her bow but didn't raise it to draw, her eyes were scanning the darkness of the forest trying to pinpoint the exact location of the voice. I on the other hand, although still on my guard, let my sword drop to my side and I loosened my grip on it.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Sky demanded of the person who was still invisible within the darkness of the trees.
"I know you've just been fighting, but do you really have to be that hostile?" The voice came out from the darkness once more. This time Aurora raised her bow and drew the string back, pinpointing the position of the hidden person. "Well okay then, I suppose I had better introduce myself before you take one of my eyes out with that bow. My name is Valanyonnen, yer I don't understand the name either, it was a random name. Most people just call me Val or something of the like."
After this introduction, which showed the man's somewhat relaxed nature, Aurora lowered her bow and took the arrow off from the string. Sky on the other hand stood stoic, her sword still extended outwards towards the darkness which the voice was coming out from. "Where even are you, how can we trust you if you wont even show your face to us?" She called out in a demanding tone once again.
I heard the man give out a large sigh, as if disappointed by something. A few moments after this a figure moved out from behind one of the trees and the man walked further out into the moonlight so that we could see him. He was a shorter than the average person, yet his confident and upright stance gave off the impression of someone much larger, someone more intimidating. He had short, somewhat spiky, light grey hair which looked as if it had not seen any care for a very long time. He wore black leather trousers, bulky boots which clinked of metal as he walked and a large grey jacket which was partially covered by odd pieces of dark metal plates that were strapped to his body as armour.
"Now that I've introduced myself to you all, will you share you own names with me?" The man asked this question very calmly while staring down at Sky's blade, which was still pointed towards his chest.
I quickly glanced at Aurora who simply shrugged her shoulders, I then looked over to Sky who looked back for a split second and nodded her head towards us.
"I'm Terra, this is Aurora," I said with a slight gesture to my side, "And the one with the sword pointed at you is Sky." I said this slowly and with caution as I moved forward, next to Sky so that I could talk directly with the man.
"Hmmmm interesting names, nice to meet you all." He held out his hand for a few seconds, expecting on of us to go and shake it, but none of us moved from our spots so he retracted his hand.
"Ok then, no handshakes with you lot. Anyway, you lot are wearing beginner's gear. How did you manage to survive that encounter boss?"He asked this question with a very confused and curious tone, almost as if was looking at something he had never seen before.
Once again I looked around at Aurora, who shrugged once more, the I looked to my side to Sky who rolled her eyes and sheathed her sword.
"Can we trust you with how we defeated that boss?" Sky said with a tone of mystery, it seemed to me as if she was trying to drag this out until one of us had an idea.
"On my honour as an Leprechaun smith and as an experienced player, I swear by my overly long name to not share the majesty of the secret you are about to reveal to me." He spoke in a very drawn out and theatrical manner, even including a grand bow to the three of us.
The man looked up from his bow and his eyes flicked between the three of us, I didn't believe any of what he just said nor did I trust his word and it likely showed on my expression. From the disappointed look I saw on the man's face I guessed that he had been met with similar unimpressed expressions from Sky and Aurora.
"Right, not ones for theatrics then." After saying this in a somewhat more normal tone, he got up from his bow and looked at us more seriously than before. "Come on, can't a man play around a little, we are in a game after all?" He said this but quickly moved on without waiting for any answer. "Honestly I'm not a high level player, nor do I know any, so I don't have much to profit from knowing how you killed it. The fact is, I have never heard of anyone surviving in a fight with one of these monsters before now."
"All right then, I'll tell you how we did it." Sky began before either me or Aurora had much chance to do anything. "We're using accounts from Sword Art Online, all of our old levels and stats transferred when we came over to Alfheim. We were also part of the group that killed that boss in Aincrad, so we know how it fights."
The man's expression turned from calmness to complete shock the moment Sky mentioned the name 'Sword Art Online'. However he was not the only one that was shocked by what she had said. I was under the presumption that the three of us were going to keep this one fact a secret from anyone we met, but Sky had just gone and said it to the first person we met.
"How did... why are..." Through the shock the man was having problems finding his words. But after a few seconds of slight muttering his eyes widened, he took a few quick and long steps away from us, drew out a short sword from under his jacket and four, grey and somewhat transparent wings materialised on his back.
"Are you lot like those Wandering Knights?!" He demanded of us, however I could hear fear in the tone of his voice and his sword hand was shaking slightly.
"Wandering Knights?" Aurora hastily asked the man as next to me Sky unsheathed her long sword and raised it to match the man's shorts word.
"Player avatars, not the fairy ones in this game though, human ones, like what players in Sword Art Online would have used. These avatars wander the wilderness killing anyone they come across, never using magic and always unreasonably powerful." He replied in a hurried voice, once again taking a few steps backwards.
"We're not one of them, we've literally just logged in using the same accounts that we had for SAO. We're here to find one of our friends from that game. He may be one of the Knights your talking about, but us three aren't anything of the sort." Aurora replied without much hesitation.
The man simply stared at the three of us, holding his sword up and still slowly moving back into the tree line he had previously hidden in. This man seemed to be able to help us with this new game and even with Steven, so my mind went into overdrive to find a way to convince him of our innocence.
"Wait, wait. You said they never used magic, but Sky used fire magic earlier and if they are SAO players they wouldn't be using ranged weapons right? But Aurora is using a bow and all of us have avatars created by this game, we're all fairy avatars and not human ones." I spurted out anything that I could come up with that may stop the man from running.
What I said stopped his cautious retreat and he seemed to stand there and think about something. "Prove it then, if you're fairies then materialise your wings." He seemed proud of this test he had made on the spot as he looked smugly at the three of us.
"And how exactly do we do that?" Sky asked in an irritated manner, "We are still new to this game."
"You didn't even read the controls manual..." He said quietly and then with some exasperation said, "Move your shoulder blades inwards and think the word 'wings' or imagine then on your back."
What he said sounded slightly stupid to me, but I went with what he said and decided to at least try it. Not really having much idea of what the wings looked like, other than what I saw in the character creation menu and the wings on the man's back I decided to just think the word 'wings'.
As I thought the word I felt a slight addition of weight to my back and something clinging onto the skin on my back. I looked over my right shoulder to see a very thin, deep blue wing protruding from my back and reaching just over my head, but spanning past an arm's length. On my other side was a similar wing, both were large and seemed to be made from a very fine silk-like material.
Next to me I saw two red wings burst out of a small ball of fire before attaching themselves to Sky's back. Behind me Aurora already had two green wings reaching outwards and fluttering slightly. As I was looking at the delicate wings on Aurora's back I noticed her feet just leave the ground and her body rise up slightly above the ground, I looked upwards at her to be met with a face of sheer excitement and elation, something I had not expected from her.
"So have you we proved ourselves to you yet then?" I heard Sky ask the man. However through the slight gruff and blunt manner in the way she spoke, I could hear a slight bit of excitement. Even I was awaiting the moment that we could use these newly found wings, a promise of freedom in a virtual world which brought back memories of an old cage.
The man gave out a massive grin and opened up his arms as if he wanted to hug one of us before saying, "Oh definitely, you're actual players from this game." He then put his hand to his chin, squinted his eyes and looked over each of us, as if inspecting us. "I suppose you could use some new gear, something to fit your levels properly. I can make up some gear pretty quick back at my forgery, what do ya say?"