ALO: The Rangers
Some author's notes go here.
Chapter 8: After Party
(1st person, Sinon, February 4th, 9:02pm)
After a painstaking half hour we finally got weapons for everyone.
"Let's go to some low-mid level dungeon, you guys probably won't be able to handle much more with your current gear." I said.
"Ouch. Like you could do any better in our gear." Rika said.
"Is that a challenge? For your information my bow is of the same quality as your gear, though my armor was made by Ashley." I said.
"Who is Ashley?" asked Lisbeth and Silica nodded.
"Best tailor in SAO." I answered.
"Oh? Why didn't I know about her?" asked Lisbeth.
"I don't know, maybe you never bothered, it's not like you used light armor anyway, and also she is expensive, like more expensive then we paid you all the time we've known you expensive if you want her best, which is VERY good." Kirito said.
"And I thought I charged a lot." Lisbeth said in amazement.
""""So did we."""" said Klein, Asuna, Kirito and I.
Lisbeth pouted and everybody laughed.
We made our way to the nearest low level dungeon, which took about half an hour, so an hour in and we have still not done anything meaningful, come on, we're the strongest players, we're supposed to leave a mark on the world.
Well I guess Kirito and I were the first people to complete the [Guardians of Yggdrasil] quest, and earned the optional title [Lord of Yggdrasil], a title we got for being the first party to complete the quest.
The dungeon looked like, well, a dungeon, not in the video game sense but in the medieval castle sense, down to the torture tools.
The monsters were skeletons and zombies, but at least it was all made in a way that while disturbing wasn't gory so even Silica was fine.
Kirito and I just sat to the side in a separate party. The former so we don't take any of the potential skill points they could earn and the latter just because we're like that.
We ended up not needing to help them a single time as we navigated the many labyrinths, apparently as well as infinite flight we also had the ability to fly in caves.
Why other fairies didn't doesn't make any sense, are their wings powered by sunlight? Because then why can they fly at night, even on a new moon with almost no sunlight (moonlight is just reflected sunlight so it would still count).
The fact that they were some of the best players in SAO, meant that while fairly low power in terms of game numbers they were very skilled, which mattered a ridiculous amount in this game to the point where if someone was good enough they could beat the highest leveled player with basic stuff unlike SAO, where the bridge part when we met Silica showed that Kirito could ignore the lower leveled players because they were unable to harm him.
This meant that they went through this dungeon with relative ease, the main difference between players who played longer then others is the magic level because it limits the spells you can use and there is only so much you can do with low level spells while even with basic weapons you could achieve a lot.
We reached a large SAO-like gate, which was probably the boss room.
"Let's kill this boss and get out of here, there is something we gotta show you." Kirito said.
"I wanna get out of here, it is so creepy." Silica said with a shiver.
"Well let's kill this boss then." Asuna said and walked to the door.
She opened and a rather large man, with his face behind a horrifying helmet and dressed in rags and armor with a gigantic one sided axe in his hands stood there.
Under the rags you see bits of rotten flesh and he smelled foul.
Damn you ALO developers, you could have turned down the stench.
Next to his head appeared 3 health bars and a name appeared.
The name read [Gorrog the Executioner].
I went into my inventory and saw Kirito doing the same, we pulled out clothes, blue and black receptively and wrapped them other our mouthes and noses.
"Why would you two have those with you?" asked Asuna.
"We come prepared." Kirito said.
They all scowled at us and Lisbeth said "You knew this was the boss didn't you?"
"Nope, never been here and didn't know this is where we were going to go. We played this game like two days longer then you and the whole time we were in the world tree or making our way there, with a small detour that involved fighting the previous strongest player, I think Kirito now holds that title. That was on the first day by the way" I said.
"Seriously you two are trouble magnets, you spend a day in a game and end up fighting the strongest player, and then on top of that you win. You know people are going to come challenge you for that title by the way Kirito." Asuna said.
"Like I care, I'll kill them or ignore them, depending on how annoying they are, I don't care about the title. Our goal is to be the strongest, not waste our time proving we are the strongest." Kirito said.
"You already are the strongest, including all the bosses probably." Asuna said.
"Well whatever, it is still fun, as long as they put up a fight that is." Kirito said.
"Are you like battle-addicts?" asked Asuna.
"Probably. Anyway, instead of talking to us you should probably dodge the giant axe about to swing at you." I said.
Asuna made a surprised sound and jumped into the air, just barely jumping over the boss's fast swinging axe.
They all turned to the boss and Asuna said "We need to make sure it can't use any special moves, so if it looks like it is going to use one, Egil, Horum, or Lisbeth need to hit it with a heavy blunt blow, in SAO that always canceled abilities, so it is our best bet. Other then that attack and dodge its attacks and take turns jumping in, it isn't a big boss so we can't all attack at the same time. We jump in, attack, jump out, then someone else does it, repeat until it dies or something major happens. I'll try to heal anyone that gets low and if all else fails we asked Kirito or Sinon to help."
"She is a natural leader." I said to Kirito.
Unfortunately things stopped going to plan about 5 seconds later when the boss charged at us who were far to the side and undoubtably the farthest players.
We jumped and tried to fly, but apparently we still couldn't fly in boss rooms as it didn't work fully, only assisting our jump somewhat and we landed on the ground where the boss had been.
"How do we lose it, what kind of boss goes after the strongest and farthest players?" I asked.
"What if we use illusion magic to hide ourselves?" Kirito asked as we jumped over the boss again, assisted by our partially functional wings.
"Do you know invisibility magic?" I asked.
"Yeah. Should I do it?" he asked.
"Go ahead, I don't have a better idea." I said.
Kirito nodded and started chanting "κρύψτε μας από το θέαμα και κρύψτε μας από το φως"
Once he finished we faded partially from each other and disappeared from the boss's and everybody else's view.
The boss looked around confused, then shook its head and started going after the people who we wanted it to fight.
"As long as you don't move to sharply, attack, or make to much noise we should stay invisible. Well that or my mana runs out but this spell doesn't drain that much mana to maintain, only on cast does it take quite a bit." Kirito said quietly.
"Okay." I answered back in a whisper and we watched them execute their plan.
The boss's axe glowed and Lisbeth jumped into the air, swinging downwards with all her might.
As the hammer hit the boss on the head, the boss got a [Stunned] effect and the glow on axe vanished.
Asuna jumped in stabbing with her accurate thrusts at the eyes in the helmet greatly reducing the boss's accuracy and then jumped back.
Silica jumped in and slashed at the throat and jumped back, dodging a swing from the recovered boss.
Klein jumped in and aimed at the arm, hitting it and weakening the boss's swings and slowing them, dodging a swing by backing out.
Egil jumped in and delivered a powerful strike to the slow boss's chest, doing considerable damage and damaging its armor, creating more openings for Asuna and Silica, then parried a blow from the boss by meeting it with one of his one as he stepped back.
Horum charged forward as fast as he could and slammed his great sword into the boss, aiming as high as he could and hitting the chest near were Egil had hit it, dealing massive damage then simply walking back from the stunned boss.
Leafa jumped in and slashed at the huge opening in the boss's chest armor created by Egil and Horum, also doing a large amount of damage before spinning round and hitting it again harder then before, then ducking under the boss's swing and running behind the boss. Her attack had done a huge amount of damage thanks to her fairly good sword.
As the boss turned to face Leafa again Lisbeth jumped into the air and slammed her hammer down on the boss's helmet, doing enough durability damage that it shatters leaving a—thankfully—sac covered but unarmored head.
Then they all take turns attacking the stunned boss's unarmored head and bring its HP down fast, because this was a pretty basic dungeon the boss didn't have any super-powered once-per-fight abilities to turn the tide and the boss died.
The moment it shattered the stench vanished and everyone breathed deeply.
A section of the wall opened and a treasure room was visible.
Upon first glance it looked like some money, but who knows, in SAO we found telepathy rings in a low level dungeon so there might be something good here.
Kirito dispelled our invisibility spell by swinging his arm violently and we followed them in.
"Anything good?" I asked.
"Nothing yet, there is a pure gold sword but it might be a little heavy, dull, and flimsy to be any use." Lisbeth said sarcastically.
The rest of them also said things along the lines of "Nothing here yet."
We decided to look around too, and probably by pure look found a pair of rings that looked exactly like our telepathy rings from SAO.
"Hey come over here." I called and Asuna came over.
"What is there to see just more gold?" Asuna said.
"There are a pair of silver rings right here." I said.
"Don't see them." Asuna said.
I brought my finger right next to one and said "About half a centimeter from my finger."
"Still don't see it." Asuna said.
"Hey Liz, come over here!" Kirito called.
She ran over and I said "Do you see a silver ring about half a centimeter from my finger?"
"Nope, is this some kind of joke?" she asked.
"Remember this is a video game, it is possible that it is visible only to them for whatever reason." Asuna said.
Kirito picked one up and Asuna said "Now I see it."
Kirito dropped and Asuna said "Gone again."
Then Kirito opened his inventory and scrolled through.
I second later a note appeared in his hand he read it out loud
"To Kirito, Sinon
We did our research.
-Ymir"
"It obviously belongs to you as you are the only ones who can see it and that note is specifically addressed to you from Ymir." Asuna said.
"Guess so." I said and picked up one of them, Kirito picking up the other.
We put them on and I thought at Kirito 'Does it work?'
'Seems so.'
"Well they work the way they did in SAO." Kirito said.
"I wonder if they work for other people." Kirito said and took off the ring and handed it to Asuna.
Once she put it on I thought at her 'Can you, um, hear me? I guess that's the best way to put it. Say so out-loud if you can.'
When I got no answer I said out-loud "I guess they don't, unless Asuna is just trying to make it look like they don't."
"I am not!" Asuna said with a humph.
"I guess they are pointless for everyone else." Kirito said as Asuna handed him back the ring.
"Yeah guess so." said Asuna with a sigh.
"Well, let's get back to looking and see if there is any treasure not meant specifically for Kirito and Sinon her." Asuna said to Lisbeth and they started looking again, us doing the same.
Our method of looking was 'stick it in your inventory so you don't double count anything, if it is worthless, throw it in the pile in the middle, if it is interesting throw it in the smaller pile'.
After about 5 minutes everything was either in our inventories or in one of the two piles.
In the junk pile were things like wooden chests and other trash, in other words junk.
The interesting stuff pile had an item called [Amulet of the Wind] which boosted your wind magic stat by 50 so Leafa got it. T
here was an item called [Flame Waker Katana], which fit Klein perfectly with its ability to catch fire, like his temper.
There was a great sword called [Wind Cleaver], which was a funny name for it given that it was, well, a great sword, but it obviously went to Horum, it had the nice feature of extending its range by about 1.5 with a wind slash.
There was the [Earth Splitter] battle axe for Egil with the ability to create earth spikes in a row that retracted after a moment if you hit the ground.
The [Charm of Lakes] for Asuna which boosted water-based healing magic by 100 points, which was an amazing item for a healer Undine.
And finally, for Silica there was the [Water Collar], which was similar in effect to the [Charm of Lakes], increasing healing abilities, but it was for a pet, in her case Pina.
"Okay, now that everyone got their upgrades there is something you guys should probably see." Kirito said.
"But first we need to get out of here." I said and walked to the nearest wall and kicked it, hoping there would be a secret door there and I wouldn't look stupid.
Surprise surprise a door opened and behind it there was a staircase leading up and—hopefully—out of this stinky dungeon.
"How did you know that was there?" asked Leafa.
"I didn't." I said and walked up the stairs with Kirito, them all following along.
Once we reached the top I said "Follow us." and flew into the air, trying to reach a position where Aincrad would come out from behind a cloud in an epic manner.
We reached a perfect spot and stopped, all of them catching up and stopping as well.
"So what are we doing here?" asked Leafa.
"Just wait." Kirito said in 'be quiet' voice.
After about 10 seconds Aincrad floated out from behind the clouds and eclipsed the moon.
"Is that..." Lisbeth started.
"...Aincrad." Asuna finished.
"Yep, it is Aincrad. The same floating castle that tried to murder us, now let's go have fun there!" I said and flew in the direction of the castle, there was a platform on the bottom with a teleport gate, the way in and out of Aincrad, added by Ymir.
We landed on the platform and shortly after Leafa arrived, then we waited for the rest to arrive. They were flying slow because they still could only fly using the controller and not free flight, also Kirito and I had out flight capabilities improved.
A bit later they also landed and Asuna said "You're going to have to teach us to fly without a controller, looks like so much fun and it is so much faster."
"We will, but later." Leafa said.
We all held hands, with me and Kirito in the middle with Asuna holding my hand and Leafa holding Kirito's.
"Teleport Town of Beginnings!" we all said at the same exact time and were surrounded by a blinding blueish white light, once it cleared, we were standing in the familiar plaza of the beginning of SAO, the place a prison for others and vacation for me.
""We're here, for the third time."" Kirito and I said.
"Right, beta-testers." Asuna whispered, mostly to herself.
We let go of each other's hands—well everyone but me and Kirito—and walked off the platform.
"They changed some things so it won't be exactly like SAO by the way." Kirito said.
"So are we all going together or are we splitting up into a bunch of parties for now?" asked Asuna.
"Well some of us never focused on fighting very much and probably wouldn't be able to fight alone right away." Lisbeth said, referring to her self.
"I said parties, though it would end up as Kirito and Sinon in one party and the rest of us in the other." Asuna said.
'I need a better bow.' I thought at Kirito.
'Let's go get you one and give them a bit to catch up to us.' Kirito thought back.
I nodded and Kirito said "We're going back down to go get Sinon a better bow so you guys go on ahead, we'll find you somehow, by the way, wings don't work in most places of Aincrad."
With that we stepped back onto the teleport gate and said "Teleport exit!"
The world was once again blocked out by the blinding light and we appeared on the bottom of Aincrad.
I know, I'm mean, but next chapter is tomorrow anyway.
Sorry if the quality of the chapters has gone down somewhat, just I'm having some trouble with all this non-canon stuff so I'm going to try to get back to the canon ASAP.
Spell guide:
Group invisibility: hide us from sight and hide us from light
Pronounced: krýpste mas apó to théama kai krýpste mas apó to fos
That's it for this chapter.
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