November 9th, 2024

Shuddering, Philia staggered back, Swordbreaker falling from her hand. That was… me, she thought, the last instant of her double's life frozen before her mind's eye. Just… just like the mirror boss on the Fifty-First Floor, except….

Except this one had been in color. That shouldn't have stuck out at her, shouldn't have nagged at her, except her double had been the only thing of color, in this monochrome room. At least at Hyrus Fortress, the dungeon itself had been normal enough. Here, in this place….

Deep breaths. It was just a weird mob. This isn't as bad as the zombies, right? Just… just don't think about it.

Philia sat down heavily, on the stone dais that should've held a teleporter. Spooky as killing a mob with her character model was, she needed to prioritize getting out. She'd done a very stupid thing, jumping to what she thought was the Hollow Area without even leaving a note, and she kind of wanted to get home before anyone noticed.

So she sat. She breathed, in and out, until she was steady. And thought. Soon enough, an idea did occur to her, and she couldn't help a facepalm. "Right," she muttered, as much to hear something besides the crackling of white flames as to organize her thoughts. "I used a Teleport Crystal to get here. A weird one, but still. I don't know if I've ever heard of somebody teleporting into an anti-crystal trap, so I should be able to use a regular one to get out again… right?"

The treasure hunter was just opening her menu to try exactly that, when footsteps rang out on stone again.

Heart in her throat, Philia leapt to her feet, snatching up her Swordbreaker along the way, and darted toward the stone chamber's entrance. She wasn't going to be ambushed, not again—

"Well, well. What do we have here, hm? A visitor? And here Tia told us nobody could get past S to get here at all…. Oh." A chuckle, full of way too much humor for such a creepy place. "Now, isn't this interesting! And here I thought today was going to be boring."

Just walking through the stone arch was a tall man in a black poncho. His face was obscured by his hood, but the weapon in his hand was obvious: a huge cleaver, more fit for a butcher than one of Sword Art Online's Swordmasters, but obviously powerful enough to lop off limbs.

Philia's blood ran cold. She'd never seen that figure in her life. She still had no trouble recognizing him, based on Kirito and Kizmel's stories… and the briefing for the crusade that had destroyed Laughing Coffin. "…PoH," she whispered hoarsely, lifting her sword in trembling hands. "No… not you…."

She couldn't beat him. She knew that. Kirito had only fought him to a draw, and only with a weapon that had bonus damage against orange players. She knew she was good, but Kirito was better.

I'm dead.

PoH watched her for a few moments, as if enjoying her trembling, before the mouth she could just barely see curved in a wicked grin. "Hey, now, you don't need to look at me like that! I'm not going to fight you, girl. I don't have any reason to, y'know."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Philia demanded, voice higher and shakier than she wanted to admit. "You kill people! It's what you do!"

"Oh, sometimes," he admitted, with a casual shrug. "Blackie could tell you, though, that I like the subtle approach… hasn't Lux told you that, too? I get my hands dirty when I have to, but it's so much more fun to just whisper in the right ear. Sometimes, though…." He chuckled, lifting his cleaver to rest it on his shoulder. "Sometimes, I don't even need to do that. See, girl, you're in the land of Hollows now, where life and death are just abstractions. Here, you can hardly tell the difference between the living and the dead." His grin sharpened, full of teeth. "How d'you know you're the real one yourself, and not the Hollow?"

She stared at him. "…What? That… that doesn't even make sense." She forced her hands to steady, waiting for the inevitable moment PoH gave up the games and just struck. She couldn't fight him, but maybe she could run…. "I've fought copy-mobs before. There's no way I could be one!"

The very idea was just ridiculous. As disturbing as fighting a copy of herself was, it would never have even occurred to her that she might be one. It was just too bizarre an idea to even contemplate. He's just playing games. I just need to be ready to make a break for it—

"Don't be so sure, girl," a new voice broke in, from somewhere beyond the entrance arch. "Hollows aren't like regular mobs, y'know. Kayaba did something special for them." A shadow drifted into view, a strange mix of black and white in the monochrome and the light of the white flames. "Or should I say… for us?"

Wild, spiky white hair. The only pair of sunglasses Philia had ever seen in Aincrad. A tight blue tank-top, partly covered by a half-cape. A katana long enough she would've called it a tachi. An orange cursor spinning over his head. And the distinctive emblem of Laughing Coffin tattooed on his left shoulder.

Philia almost dropped her Swordbreaker. He was a player, he had to be, except he couldn't have been. "…Kuze," she whispered, mouth dry. "But you… I saw you die…!"

"And wasn't that a hell of a thing." Kuze grinned, showing teeth; as he inclined his head, the strange light of the white flames gave his sunglasses a blinding glare. "But the boss is right: in the Hollow Area, life and death don't mean much. Me, I died way up on the Fifty-Seventh Floor, so it's easy to tell who's who. But you, girl? You and your other half fought right here, in this room. It's a spawn point for Hollows, too. So tell me… how do you know you're the real deal?"

They were just messing with her. They had to be. PoH had said right out that he liked that more than fighting straight out. They were trying to break her with lies, before she could gather herself and make a run for it. And I could, Philia told herself, trying to ignore the pounding of her own heart. It doesn't look like either of them has paralysis poison. I could take a hit if I had to, and run. I'd bet on my AGI over either of 'em—

"Still don't believe it, girl?" PoH's lazy, too-cheerful voice broke into her planning, as he casually leaned against the stone archway. "Then maybe you'll believe your own eyes. Why aren't they attacking?"

Another time, she wouldn't have fallen for it. She'd have assumed it was a classic "look behind you!" trick, and kept her eyes front. In that place, rattled by a dead man talking to her, Philia risked a glance back—and froze, heart in her throat.

They weren't alone in the teleport chamber. She had no idea when any of them had gotten there, but the walls were lined by swordsmen. Some of them with green cursors, some of them orange; she recognized a few of them, and knew that none of them could possibly have been there for real. Some of them were dead, others she couldn't imagine would've been able to reach where she was.

All of them were watching her. None of them even reached for a weapon.

"Your own double attacked you, right?" PoH lightly tapped his cleaver on his shoulder, an unnerving rhythm. "Hollows do that, attacking ones who don't belong. But they don't attack their own." He chuckled again, and Kuze joined him. "Why, I bet if you tried right now, you couldn't. You'd freeze on the spot. They know that. You will, too."

No. No. No, this can't be right. They can't be—this isn't—no!

Fighting off panic she knew had to be irrational, Philia turned to look back at the PKers. "You're lying," she got out. "You have to be. Even if I was a Hollow, that wouldn't save you. I could still attack you."

"Not," Kuze said, slowly, and with relish, "if he's a Hollow, too." He stepped sideways, leaning against the opposite side of the arch from PoH, leaving the middle clear. "And if I'm a Hollow, and he's a Hollow, and you're a Hollow… maybe you should think about what that means." He paused. Adjusted his sunglasses. Widened his grin. "If you're a Hollow, then you're never leaving Aincrad. You might wanna think about what that means, girl."

Never… leaving…? If I were a Hollow, then— Her double's face, the all-to-real expression of fear as it—she—died, filled her mind. No, it's not true! It can't be!

But Kuze was there, and the other Hollows were just watching, and PoH was just grinning. And in that twisted place, alone and afraid, something in Philia snapped. Shuddering, she leapt off the teleport dais, landed in a run, and dashed between the two PKers, fleeing into whatever lay beyond.

Their laughter chased her.

Kirito was nearly asleep, snuggled close against Kizmel on the couch, when it happened. Worn out from the day's events—not to mention the day before—he'd have thought nothing could've roused him before morning. After everything, he'd vaguely thought that would even be a good thing.

Hearing a staticky screech, unlike anything he'd heard in two years in Aincrad, snapped him wide awake. Jolting upright so fast he almost spilled Kizmel onto the floor, Kirito whipped his head around just in time to see Philia's bedroom door distort and stretch. As with the sound, it was like nothing he'd ever seen, and it gave him a primal feeling of wrongness.

He still flung himself right off the couch. Glitches in any game could be bad; glitches in Aincrad, he knew from horrifying experience, could be lethal, and his friend was on the other side of this one.

Kizmel's hand caught his shoulder a moment before he could touch the warping, shifting door. When he snapped his head around to look at her, she only shook her own head silently, a wordless caution. A caution he inwardly chafed at, but heeded, trusting her judgment over his own—and in any case, the point was quickly moot.

The instant the distortion and the screech disappeared, Kirito flung open the door, for once deeply grateful his housemates trusted him enough not to lock doors. "Philia! Philia, what's happening—?!"

There was no one inside. There wasn't even any sign of what had just happened, as extreme as it had been. In his quick, panicked glance around the room, nothing seemed at all broken or out of place. If he hadn't known better, he'd have thought nothing had happened at all.

Except Philia was just in here. Where is she?!

Kizmel, always the calmer one, was already opening her menu. "She's alive," she reported after a moment, shoulders easing in what he knew was more profound relief than she cared to admit to. "But, Kirito-kun…" Taking his arm in her free hand, she led him over to the bed. "Look at this."

Philia's name was still in Kizmel's friends list, Kirito quickly saw. It wasn't grayed out, either, so she was definitely alive and not glitched out of the game completely. But her location… the information was completely incomprehensible, a jumbled, shifting mess of numbers, letters, and symbols.

Feeling suddenly cold, he sank onto the bed. "She's in the Hollow Area," he said numbly. "But… how? She was right here. Even if she could've gotten past Strea, she couldn't have done it from here!" His mind raced, dredging up all the knowledge he had of programming glitches in general and SAO in particular. "I guess it could've been another effect of Kayaba's patching, but for it to happen here, of all places…."

He had to figure it out. He had to. If Philia was in the Hollow Area, she was in danger. They had to follow her, right away. I've lost party members before. Never again!

Kizmel was still flipping through her menu. Abruptly, she went perfectly still, then quickly tabbed to another screen. A few seconds of inspection, and she let out of a quiet sigh. Leaning heavily into his shoulder, she said softly, "Recall the mock crystals we obtained from Nazzoth's manor, months ago? …One of the Warp Crystals is missing."

If Kirito hadn't already been feeling cold, that turned his veins to pure ice. "Of course," he whispered, as much to himself as to her. "We got those from the Echo, and Vanel said the Echo is in the Hollow Area…. Okay, then we know what to do." He quickly brought up his own menu, opening the inventory tab. "We've still got at least three more of those—"

His wife's hand clamped on his arm, stopping him a moment before he could materialize a Warp Crystal himself. "No, Kirito-kun," she said gently, when he glanced at her in surprise. "We mustn't."

He stared at her, shocked. "What do you mean?! Philia's in danger! We can't just leave her!" He tugged against her grip, trying to press the key, but the elf girl's hold was stronger than steel. "Kizmel, please!"

"No." Kizmel's voice was firmer this time; a tone of command, that he hadn't heard in some months. "Kirito-kun, I understand—I'd like nothing better than to leap to her aid myself. But the first rule of rescues is not to need rescuing yourself." She pointed at the description of the Warp Crystal, which was little more than an explanation of how to use it. "We don't know anything about where we would appear, or even in what condition. Philia is alive; we have no way of knowing if we would be so fortunate. Indeed, we don't even know if we would arrive in the same place."

Kirito opened his mouth to dispute that, only to slowly close it without a word. Now that she pointed it out, the crystals gave no way of specifying a destination—and he knew of game mechanics where a teleport could be random. Kizmel was right: Philia using one safely was no guarantee they'd manage the same.

But… but… dammit…!

When his arm slackened, so did Kizmel's grip, and her expression softened. "I know, love," she whispered, reading him as easily as ever. "But Philia is strong, and she was a solo even longer than you. She stands a very good chance of making it on her own, at least for a little while. For now… neither of us are in any condition to fight. We should send word to Asuna, to Argo, to everyone we can. The best thing we can do for Philia, tonight, is rest."

Trust the veteran knight to cut to the heart of it all. It had been so long since Kirito had had to worry about anyone not right in his line of sight that he'd forgotten what it was like. Good thing Kizmel hasn't. I don't know what I'd do without her.

Reluctantly, he closed his menu, and with a sigh he fell back on Philia's bed. "…Why?" he said, at length, staring up at the ceiling. "Why did she do it? She didn't talk to us, didn't even leave a note… why?"

Kizmel sank down beside him, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder. "I don't know," she admitted. "She did seem down, after our encounter with Strea. Perhaps she felt as helpless as we do, only… more so." She turned a rueful, wan smile up at him. "I know I felt oddly useless, seeing Rain and Asuna taking charge when we could do little ourselves."

Yeah. He'd felt some of that himself. The partner he'd so carefully guarded, the first few months of the death game, truly had taken her place as the leader of the clearing. Kirito was proud to see it, but he couldn't deny feeling a bit left behind.

"I should've seen it," he whispered, pulling Kizmel closer. "I should've realized Philia was… whatever was going on with her."

"We did fail her," the elf girl agreed, closing her eyes and burying her face in his chest. "But we must not fail her now, Kirito-kun. We must save her… but first, we must rest. Even if that seems the cruelest action of all."

The sky was an unsettling copper—what could be seen of it, between the ground and the monochrome plate above. Black clouds drifted across that sky, and just under the plate, somehow more ominous than ordinary storm clouds. The ground was covered in black grasses and trees, occasionally broken by paths of oddly flat stones.

What unnerved Philia even more than the not-completely-textured ground, though, was the monsters. As she fled along one of those roads, fled from PoH and the ghost of Kuze, she encountered what seemed to be ordinary monsters, weak ones. No danger to a clearer. Except Frenzy Boars weren't supposed to have a flat, fur-colored hide. They were supposed to have at least a facsimile of fur, good enough to fool the eye at a glance. These couldn't fool even her panicked eye, not even while she was in the middle of killing them.

Frenzy Boars with incomplete textures, barely-programmed attack patterns, and battle grunts that just sounded wrong. Grassbirds with blocky feathers and calls that sounded out of tune. If she'd been calm, Philia would've written them off as just dummied-out mobs, not worth a second glance.

When she was half-convinced she was a dummied-out mob, they added to the horror atmosphere. And she could've sworn there was a lone voice singing somewhere, high and dissonant. Wailing….

Shaking her head, Philia sped up even more, racing to put distance between herself and the PKers. Nothing mattered but getting away. When an oddly blocky Wild Fang leapt into her path, howling discordantly, she just plowed right through it, running up a hill.

The impact didn't feel right either, as if its hit box wasn't nearly as precise as it should've been. She tried to ignore that, too, just as she tried to ignore the subliminal impression of figures waiting in the treeline beside the road.

She crested the hill, and that was when she saw it: a stone tower, resembling the watchtowers from the Twenty-Sixth Floor. It was lit by black torches around its uppermost level, just as eerie as everything else she'd seen. It was also the first thing remotely resembling shelter she'd seen since escaping the teleport chamber. She didn't know what might be in it, but she knew PoH and Kuze wouldn't be.

Good enough, she thought. Good enough!

Philia raced right up to the tower's open door—and skidded to an abrupt halt as a spear thrust out from it, almost catching her right in the face. "Stay back!" a high, shaking voice shouted from inside. "Don't come any closer!"

She skipped back, brandishing her Swordbreaker. "W-who are you?!" she demanded, fighting the urge to just turn and run. "What are you doing here?!" This close, she could at least get a glimpse: a tall man, with wavy brown hair, a green uniform… and an orange cursor over his head.

Her heart shifted into an even higher gear. If the NerveGear safety protocols had been online, she'd have been logged out from sheer panic. As it was, she did start to turn and run, only for the man's next words to stop her.

"L-like I'd tell you! Murderer!"

"M-murderer?!" Philia thought back to her other self, dying on her blade, and tried to shake it off. "You're the one with an orange cursor!" she snapped back, clinging to indignation. "And you're calling me a murderer?! At least I'm not with Laughing Coffin!"

"Laughing Coffin?!" The man's spear, already wavering, jerked, as a mix of confusion and anger merged into a strange frown on his face. "You're the one with the orange cursor! If anyone's with them, it's you!"

I have an orange cursor?! Philia opened her mouth to hotly deny it, only to pause, thinking back. Wait. I heard something, when I damaged… the other me. Was that…? What in the world is going on here?! And… haven't I seen a green uniform like that before?

Seizing some semblance of sanity from the realization, she took a closer look at the spearman. Sure enough, she had seen that uniform before—several times, that very day. "Just a second," she said slowly, lowering her sword from what she belatedly realized was almost the pre-motion for a Vorpal Strike. "…Are you Thinker?"

The man twitched. "Yes, that's me," he said warily, lowering his spear just a fraction. "How do you know that? I thought Laughing Coffin avoided the Army."

"I'm not with LC," Philia said sharply, before she could rein in her tongue. "I'm Philia," she went on, softening her tone and lowering her sword to hang loosely by her side. "With Team Kirito. Your Vice-Commander Yulier asked us to rescue you."

"Yulier did—? But you're a—" Thinker cut himself off, frown deepening. "Wait. You said I've got an orange cursor. I didn't even think to check, after…." Cautiously, he took one hand off his spear, moving to open his menu. A few quick taps, and his eyes suddenly went wide.

Philia could guess what he was checking, and had the unpleasant feeling she'd have seen the same in her own status. "Orange, right? You… didn't happen to fight a copy of yourself after Kibaou tossed you here, did you?"

Thinker nodded, very slowly. Closing his menu, he warily slung his spear over his shoulder. "I certainly fought something that looked like another player. Strangely weak, though, I shouldn't have been able to defeat it so easily…. Philia-san, was it? Now that you mention it, I've heard of Team Kirito. And, uh… I think we need to talk."

"…This is the most disturbing place I've seen since the Fifty-Seventh Floor," Philia whispered, leaning against the windowsill. Peering out across the Hollow Area, she shivered, and wrapped her half-cape as tightly around herself as she could. "Is this really a developer's room? It looks more like it belongs in a horror game."

Psychological horror more than gore, anyway. The vegetation didn't look diseased or dying the way it had on the Fifty-Seventh Floor, so much as unearthly. Black and gray dominated the grasses and leaves, but the plants did look alive… in a way. She could see crumbling ruins scattered here and there, plainly visible to her Search-enhanced eyes as incomplete—some of them barely modeled at all, others seemingly abandoned shortly before reaching release-quality.

Above, she now saw that the "plate" in the sky was actually the underside of Aincrad itself. The Hollow Area hung from Aincrad by four huge, rusty-looking chains. It seemed to made up of an irregular, roughly cross-shaped island, around fifteen kilometers across, of very hilly terrain. It flattened close to the west and south points, while the watchtower in which she stood was on a hill on the eastern edge. From her current vantage, she could spot a squat building on the western point that reminded her all too much of the Dead Workshop from the Fifty-Seventh Floor. A fortress she was pretty sure was a beta version of a Fallen Elf dungeon dominated the south; that she could see indistinct figures regularly traveling between the fortress and the workshop didn't help her unease.

She was less sure of what to make of the gateways on the very edges of the east, west, and south points. Though they did resemble something she'd seen back on the Twenty-Sixth Floor, she had no more idea what beta versions of them were supposed to do than the originals.

The center of the Hollow Area rose into a mountain, in which was buried a dark, oddly-gleaming castle. Though its coloring was a bit off, and there was a strange, bright silver orb glowing in its highest tower, Philia still recognized it as an early version of the Dark Elves' Moongleam Castle. The base of that mountain also held the teleport chamber she'd escaped from in the first place.

The north end was what really bothered her, though. A stone bridge extended from it, with no railings of any kind, to meet a cliff that seemed to just hang in the coppery sky with no support. On that cliff was another castle, this one all too reminiscent of pictures Kirito and Kizmel had shown her of the Fallen Elves' Twilight Citadel. She could only barely see the stone door from where she was, even with Searching, but she was uncomfortably sure it had six keyholes.

She'd seen the place before, after all. In a vision in a place called Castle Kelestraia, Philia had seen it. The Sanctuary, which supposedly held the key to Aincrad's very existence.

I guess it makes sense that it would be in a developer's room. I wonder what the Elf War quest would've done with it, if Kirito and the others hadn't stopped the Fallen King when they did?

She was afraid she might find out. Thinker had mentioned seeing three people approach the Sanctuary, two of them matching PoH and Kuze's descriptions. The third was a tall, lean man in a sharp suit and hat, whom she could only assume was Griselda's husband Grimlock. Apparently none of them had managed to enter the Sanctuary, but just knowing they were trying was chilling.

And that wasn't even the most disturbing thing she had on her mind. The quiet throat-clearing behind her brought her back to the worst part, whether she wanted to be or not.

"It is a disturbing place, yeah." Seated on the other side of the table that dominated the watchtower's highest level, Thinker's hands were clenched tightly together. "I didn't know anywhere like this existed in SAO, until Kibaou tricked me into that teleporter. Then that… that copy of me…" He took a deep, steadying breath. It didn't seem to help him much. "I'd read Argo's newsletter, about the Necro plague. This is… worse."

Turning away from the window—especially since she'd just spotted some kind of wyvern, and did not want it to spot her—Philia thumped down on her side of the table. "It's worse. Yep." She swallowed. "So, uh… what do you think about what PoH said? That… that I'm…?"

"A Hollow?" Thinker slowly shook his head. "It… strains credulity, honestly. Once, I would've said it was impossible. Kayaba couldn't possibly have copied player's minds, right? I know I've never seen NPCs that could pass for human. Not enough to fool themselves, that's for sure. But…."

"Yeah. But." In the short time since they'd met up and realized neither of them was likely really an orange player, they'd been able to fill each other in on a few key facts. Thinker, it turned out, had heard of Kizmel. He hadn't been sure what to make of the rumors, though; this was the first time he'd met someone who knew the elf girl personally.

At least he knows enough about Kirito to trust me. I don't know that I could face this place alone. No sign of Safe Havens, just doors that we can lock, and… too many things that want us dead.

He'd been able to confirm for her that the Echo was around, but he hadn't seen them lately. In his first, panicked run around the island, he'd spotted them heading for the workshop, and that had been about it.

"The Hollows do have pretty distinctive cursors, though," Thinker said, after a few uncomfortable moments of silence. "Black, with that purple flame inside? We may be glitched orange, but we don't have that."

"No, we don't." Philia would've liked to have considered that the end of it. Even as freaked out as she was, though, she could pick out the flaw in the assumption. "But… cursors don't look the same to everybody. Like in the Elf War quest, an allied elf has a yellow cursor for players working with them, but a standard mob cursor for anyone who picked the other faction."

The idea was still completely crazy. PoH and Kuze had to have been lying to her, trying to mess with her head when she was already freaked out from the location and fighting her own Hollow. Except Kuze is dead. I saw Kirito kill him. We even checked the Monument of Life afterward. He died on the Fifty-Seventh Floor. But his Hollow isn't just running on mob algorithms, no way….

Thinker sighed, slumped forward, and rested his head on the table with a thunk. "I don't know what to tell you, Philia. If you're a Hollow, then I probably am, too. But I don't feel any different… though it's hard to tell, after a week in this crazy place."

Philia couldn't help a quick, hoarse chuckle at that. "If we were Hollows, how would we know what 'feels different'? Especially here, with everything so…." She trailed off, belatedly registering something else he'd said. "Wait. Did you say you'd been here a week?"

He raised his head, blinking. "Yeah. I was still distracted by the news of Heathcliff turning out to be Kayaba when Kibaou asked me to meet with him. I probably would've been more cautious any other day…. Why? What's wrong?"

She stared at him, eyes wide. He knows about Heathcliff, but he says he's been here a week? "Yulier said you disappeared this morning, Thinker."

"…What?"

(Hollow Area Day 2)

"You're sure about this?" Thinker asked anxiously, as Philia peered under the trap door. "Technically we can just stay here, and wait for rescue. It doesn't seem like any mobs or Hollows can get in with the door locked, even without Safe Haven protections."

"We can't count on that," she replied absently. The spiral staircase below glowed eerily to her Search-enhanced vision, but there didn't seem to be any traps. At least, not near the top. "If Hollows are that smart, they could be trying to trick us. Besides, sooner or later, hunger is going to drive us nuts. We need to find out if there's any food around here before we run out of whatever we've got in our inventories."

Which wasn't much to begin with, in Philia's case. Thinker apparently had a stash he'd forgotten about nearly two years earlier, back when he'd still been setting up his guild in the first place. She'd always kept her own inventory as clear as she could, for treasure-hunting. Between the two of them, she didn't think their food would last another week. While hunger didn't kill directly in SAO, she was afraid it would distract them at a really bad time.

So when Thinker had mentioned the trap door in the watchtower's basement, she'd gone for it. It meant at least a possibility of exploring the Hollow Area without risking the nearby monsters, and that was important.

Her unlikely companion wasn't quite as quick to jump into exploring. Probably never felt the bad hunger pangs in this game, she thought wryly. Oh, what I'd give for some of Asuna's cooking right now….

Philia would never call the Army guildmaster a coward, though. Seeing she was serious, he drew himself up, took a deep breath, and reached for his spear. "Then I should go with you," he declared. "Going solo is too dangerous, especially in unfamiliar territory."

Oh, don't I know it. She shook her head, though, waving a hand to shoo him away from the trap door. "Hate to say it, Thinker, but it'd be more dangerous with you. You haven't been in a real fight in how long, exactly? Sure, the mobs I fought to get here were nothing special. Others might not be so easy. I'm a clearer, you're not. And…." She flashed him a quick smile, to soften the harsh truth. "When Kirito and Kizmel get here, I'd rather someone was here to tell 'em where I went."

"You're sure they're coming?" When her smile shifted into a frown, Thinker quickly raised his hands. "Sorry, I don't mean to imply anything. It's just… you say it's only been a day, but for me it's been a week. It's hard to stay optimistic, after that."

"They'll come," she said firmly, grinning. "It might take a while, from our perspective, but they'll come. I know it." Bolstered by that bone-deep conviction, she turned back to the trap door, and drew her Swordbreaker. "Okay, I'm off. Leave a light on for me, Thinker."

Only when she'd dropped into the stairwell and eased down, out of sight, did Philia let her confident grin drop. Not because she doubted her friends. No, it wasn't them she doubted at all. But it wasn't just the food, or the scouting, that had her running headlong into what was very possibly trouble.

What I really want to do is not have to think. I still don't know what happened with the other me, not really, and Thinker's been here a week. This place is wrong, and I don't think it's just because this is a developer's room.

So Philia descended the stairs into darkness, to get away from the darkness in her own mind. For a treasure hunter, secret passages were much safer than brooding. Even if it was pitch black, well, that was what her maxed-out Search skill was for. She could see in the dark as well as in broad daylight—better, even, in some ways. The loose stair that would've sent her tumbling all the way to the bottom glowed a neon green to her eyes, and let her carefully step over it.

At least her map was working. Not right, but working; it kept track of her progress, and its compass was still pointing to what passed for north. When the stairs bottomed out at the entrance to a stone-walled passageway, she was still able to orient herself. Okay, then, this leads… west. Good. Huh… as deep as this is, I wonder how much of the island it covers? One way to find out.

Slipping into the surprisingly-wide passage, Philia soon found herself relaxing, just a little. The black torches that started showing up a dozen meters and two blind corners in aside, she knew this kind of work. As off-kilter as everything else already was, it wasn't too hard to convince herself this was just another treasure hunt, mapping underground passages in a floor safely below the frontlines. This was what she'd done with herself, before joining the clearing group.

She hadn't gone more than another dozen meters or so past the start of the torches when she ran into her first spot of trouble. High-pitched squeaks were her only warning, before flapping wings dropped out of a shaft in the ceiling and started screaming at her.

Pure reflex flung Philia off to one side rather than immediately engaging the mobs. Normally sound wasn't anything to worry about, but these were variants of Sonic Bats—from three of those, a direct hit from their sound waves would've inflicted a nasty Stun. That would've given them free rein to tear at her with their disproportionately-huge fangs, and if anything else had been in the area, she would've been done for.

As it was, she caught the very fringe of it, making her left arm go numb and hitting her with a mild Slow effect. On the bright side, their AI looks to still be in beta. All three Sonic Bats swooped right in on her, squeaking, clearly assuming she had been hit with the full Stun effect.

A quick Horizontal disabused them of that, flinging all three of them into the opposite wall. The resulting squeak of protest was at such a high pitch Philia could barely hear it, and what she did hear set her teeth on edge. She only grinned, though, shook her left arm to get some feeling back, and readied her Swordbreaker for a Vertical Arc. These guys are too high-level for Thinker, but for me this is just a good warm-up. Bring it on!

After two hours exploring the Hollow Area's tunnel network, Philia had come to a few simple conclusions. Without her map, she definitely would've been lost in short order; even with it, the place was confusing, as it seemed the tunnels sometimes crossed over and through each other in a way that didn't conform to normal geometry. Exactly how that worked, she didn't know and was afraid to find out.

On the bright side, the monsters she'd encountered so far weren't really a match for a clearer over Level 90. Though she wouldn't have cared to bring Thinker through a couple branches of the tunnels, it seemed safe enough for her… if she kept her eyes wide open. They also seemed to have regular patrol patterns, if odd, so she thought there was a chance she could take Thinker along some routes.

So the mobs, Philia could handle. Running into her first Hollow had been something else entirely. The first time she'd encountered another "player" in the tunnels, she'd jumped so high she'd smacked her head into the stone ceiling. Her yelp by rights should've aggroed everything for at least a kilometer around, the way it echoed through the tunnels. Instead, the Hollow—based on a member of the Army, judging from the green uniform and gray armor—had simply ignored her completely. It had clanked right on by, heading west, only pausing to exchange a few very short words with another Hollow who emerged from a side tunnel.

The two of them had disappeared deeper into the tunnel network, giving Philia a little relief. Just enough to not be ambushed by the pack of beta Wild Fangs that had been attracted by her yelp.

She'd encountered several more Hollow patrols along the way, quickly banishing the relief she'd gotten from proper treasure hunting. A few of them had glanced her way, seemingly more complex than the first pair; none of them had shown any hostility at all. Which just left her all the more unnerved, to the point that she wanted to turn and run back to the watchtower.

She didn't, though. She persevered, making her way west through the tunnels. Her original intention had been to find a way into the beta Moongleam Castle, reasoning that it was the most likely place to have food. As the number of Hollows increased the farther she went, though, she had another idea. It scared her, badly, but she had to know. For safety, and for her own sanity.

Where are they all coming from in the first place? It can't just be the teleport chamber….

Philia did take note of a wide open chamber, about thirty meters across, in the very center of the tunnel network. Wide open, and with a ceiling that was somewhere above the level the black torches reached. In the middle of it, a freestanding spiral staircase extended up into the darkness, probably leading into the castle above. She didn't remember anything like it in the "real" Moongleam Castle, but then she'd never really explored that place properly, either.

She took note of it on her map, sent a quick message to Thinker about it—and to make sure he didn't panic over how long she was taking—and then she moved on. From the look of it, the tunnels really did span the entire Hollow Area, which meant she would probably be able to reach the other buildings without ever going above ground.

Between the mobs, a primal need to stay as far away from the Hollows as possible, and the non-Euclidean nature of the tunnels, it took a good three hours to cross from the east point of the Hollow Area to the west. But Philia did, in the end, make it all the way there, and at the western end of the tunnel network she found what she was looking for.

The spiral stairway was such a complete copy-paste of the one under the watchtower that if it hadn't been for her map, Philia would've assumed she'd gotten turned around at some point. When she climbed it and gently pushed up the trap door at the top, though, the scenery was distinctly different. Even just lifting the door a crack, she could see gears on the walls. Lots of gears.

…Okay. That's different. Though it's kinda weird I haven't seen more steampunk around, after the trains on the Fifty-Seventh Floor. And… nobody around, looks like, so I guess I should take a look.

That there wasn't a screech of rusty hinges was almost as unnerving as if there was. Between that and the smooth clicking of the gears adorning the walls, the place gave off an impression of a factory still in use. Which was at least a lot different from the Dead Workshop, but made Philia feel like a guard was going to just show up from a patrol instead of being alerted by the door.

All was quiet, after a tense moment of listening. When a full minute went by with no sound but clicking gears, she relaxed just a hair, and took stock of her surroundings. It looked like she'd come out in some kind of storeroom, filled with long, narrow boxes. Just about the right size for coffins, which didn't do her nerves any good, but a brief inspection showed them to be more like shipping crates.

Still not opening any of them.

Well. If anywhere was going to have activity, it was going to be this building. Philia brought up her Hiding skill, wishing it was as good as Rain's—who could run flat-out and still stay invisible, under the right conditions—and let herself fade into the surroundings. Then she took a deep, steadying breath, and made for the door at the storeroom's far end.

The next five minutes were spent carefully prowling down a long, narrow hallway. When she finally concluded that all of the dozen doors that lined it were just more of the same kind of storeroom as the first, she picked up the pace a little, taking the door at the far end. That led her into another stairwell, and from there to a higher level of the building.

Another fifteen minutes of exploration, and Philia's nerves were about shot. Most of the building seemed to be a maze of storerooms, filled with shipping crates of various sizes, and the walls were all lined with those endlessly-turning—and clicking—gears. Worse, she kept hearing footsteps, a lot of them, but never spotted more than a handful of Hollows here and there, all of them heading toward the east end of the building.

It was when she came to a walkway on the upper floor of a much larger room that something of note finally happened. Her heart leapt into her throat at the high, ringing sound of a Sword Skill going off, and for a split second she thought she'd been noticed. Only when she heard it a second time, clearly nowhere near her, did she relax, and peer over the railing at the room below.

If the previous rooms had been for storage, this one was a workshop of some kind. Or more like a factory floor, Philia thought, even if the strange workstations didn't look like anything she'd ever seen. Some looked like blacksmith's forges, one section had steampunk conveyor belts, and there were chains rattling along toward… something… in the far end.

Nearer to her, a swarm of what she thought were beta Windwasps had gotten in at some point. Three players, or so they appeared, were fighting them off. Chillingly, she recognized two of them, and knew they had to be Hollows. She'd never seen their faces, but she'd seen pictures, and knew both of them had been dead for months.

"Damn, this is boring," Johnny Black's high-pitched voice whined, as he spun his knife around to gut a Windwasp. "These are mobs from the Second Floor, even! This is no fun at all. I still wanna kill the bitch that killed me!"

"Easy, Johnny," Morte replied, chuckling, even as he chopped a wasp in two with his one-handed axe. "You'll get your chance. Lux was too much of a coward to ever come here, but you know the Rat can't resist a place like this. As soon as the clearers find a way down—and they will, you know it—it'll be all the fun we could ask for."

Johnny Black grunted something Philia didn't care to hear. The third Hollow just kept on mechanically stabbing at wasps with an estoc. And Philia decided she didn't really need to see any more of it, and quickly moved along before any of them decided to look up.

Johnny Black and Morte… and I think that was XaXa. Two of them are dead, and one's locked up. Oh, I don't like this at all… though I guess now I see why I didn't run into any mobs on the way in here.

I need to find out more. When Kirito and the girls get here, I need to be able to warn them.

Shuddering, Philia left the copied murderers behind, following the chains toward the other end of the room. She was going to find out what the factory was making, and then she was going to get out. If she hadn't known that both Morte and Black had died before they got anywhere near her current level or gear, she'd have fled right then.

I'd better be careful anyway, she thought, crouch-walking to keep her head below the level of the railing. Black wasn't that bright, but from what Kirito's said, Morte was tricky. I can't count on levels against that guy, even a Hollow of him.

There was no sign that either noticed her, though, and for a precious few moments the only sounds disturbing her concentration were the clicking of the gears in the walls and the rattling of the chain she was following. She supposed it said something that those were less creepy that what she'd just encountered.

Then, as she neared the west end of the room, Philia started hearing voices again. "…Still not having much luck, huh?"

"Not as much as I would like, no. But progress is being made, I can assure you."

Coming to a halt, Philia risked raising her head enough to peek over the railing, and had to stifle a gasp. Now she could see where the chains led: to a small platform, just then halting over a glowing pit. There was something on the platform, under a tarp; she had the unsettling feeling that it looked humanoid.

Next to the pit stood a console, which had the first modern user interface not part of a player menu that Philia had seen in two years. It even looked like a proper keyboard, mouse, and monitor, totally out of place even in the factory's steampunk aesthetic. Though when she thought about it, the console made more sense for a developer's room than the steampunk did.

Not that she had much attention to spare for details like that. She was more focused on the man in the suit and hat operating the console, and the one in the poncho talking to him. The mere sight almost made her run for her life; only the realization that breaking cover would be more dangerous kept her rooted… where she could hear them, and maybe learn something.

"It's remarkable that we can operate this at all," the man in the suit remarked, tapping at the keyboard; Philia couldn't see his face past his hat, but could practically hear the frown in his voice. "I can understand access permissions to the Hollow Area being reset by the software patch, but this should've either required security privileges, or not worked at all."

"If there's one thing I've learned, Grim, it's that Kayaba is looking for a fun time as much as we are," PoH replied, shoulders shaking as he chuckled. "My bet is that when he found out we'd gotten here, he unlocked a few toys for us. The admin console in the Castle is locked down. Can't imagine the Foundry being open is an accident."

"Hm. You would know better than I, I suppose." Grim—Grimlock, Philia assumed—shrugged, and pressed two more keys. In response, the chains began rattling again, lowering the platform into the pit. "I will admit, in some ways it works more like it was intended for in-game use than as a developer's tool. Or maybe as a shortcut for simpler object generation…. I expect you're here for the latest version of the Key duplicates?"

"Got it in one, Grim." From her angle, Philia could just barely see PoH's toothy grin, under his hood. "I know you're busy, but you did just say you'd made progress."

"Some. You may be right about this being deliberate; I could've forged perfect duplicates the first day we were here, if this was linked to SAO's asset database." As the platform disappeared into the pit, and a three-section cover slid into place over it, Grimlock briefly turned away from the console. A few gestures suggested he was manipulating his menu, and in a moment a bag materialized in his hand. "There. The latest attempt. If they don't work…."

"I'll bring 'em back so you can melt 'em down again. I get it, Grim, even here the mats don't grow on trees." PoH took the bag, casually slinging it over his shoulder. "Much obliged. We couldn't do this without you, Grim."

Grimlock scoffed, turning back to the console. "You know this would go a lot faster if you didn't have me spending so much time refining the Hollows, PoH. If you really want this done right, being able to concentrate on one project at a time would help."

PoH laughed, turning his back on the blacksmith and the pit. "Aw, don't worry, Grim, I'm in no hurry. We've got all the time in the world, and the Hollows are just going to make my destined battle with Blackie all the more interesting. Just keep at it. Besides… you've got your own reasons for tweaking the Hollows, right?"

The PKer leader didn't bother waiting for a reply before sauntering out of sight, his laughter trailing after him. Only when the laughter faded did Philia begin to relax, letting out a breath she hadn't even realized she was holding. I know PoH said there was no reason for him to attack me, but I'm not crazy enough to trust that. If he decided I heard too much… brr. And what's Grimlock doing, anyway?

She wasn't willing to move until PoH had been gone for at least five minutes anyway, so she figured she might as well keep watching the blacksmith. Leaving aside the need to know what Laughing Coffin's survivors were up to, she was sure Griselda—and probably Fuurinkazan—would want to know what Grimlock was up to. Griselda had never said her husband had had her killed, but it wasn't hard to read between the lines.

What he was doing right then seemed to be just waiting. With a stoic motionlessness that Philia found just a tad creepy, he just stared intently at the closed pit, as if trying to look through it at whatever strange process was going on within.

The wait wasn't too long. There was a loud clank, the chains started pulling back up, and the pit's cover rumbled as it split open again. An eerie green glow emanated from below as the platform ponderously rose into view. After a few endless seconds that left Philia squirming from suspense, the platform came to a thudding halt about a meter above the floor.

Philia's stomach began to churn before Grimlock even approached the platform. Her Search-enhanced gaze showed her one distinct difference in the platform's cargo, compared to before it sank into the pit: the tarp was, very slowly, very gently, rising and falling.

Grimlock seemed to feel almost as much suspense as she did, reaching for the edge of the tarp. "Progress," he muttered, voice barely carrying to the walkway. "Progress for PoH's petty tricks… and progress for me. Please, please be perfect this time…." Visibly holding his breath, he lifted the tarp, folded it back, and stared—and then his shoulders slumped. "…Still not there yet. Still something missing…. If only Kayaba had left notes on how all this works." Sighing, he turned back to the control console. "Still, better. The body is right; now I just need to figure out which setting I need for the final piece. Damn Kayaba… why is part of the system in Sindarin, of all things…?"

Philia had to stifle a betraying laugh at that—something that was suddenly much easier, the moment Grimlock stopped blocking her view of the platform's cargo.

Eyes blank and unblinking, even as her chest rose and fell, Griselda seemed to stare right up at Philia.

Philia ran. She didn't care about being spotted, and only sheer ingrained habit kept a corner of her attention on the occasional traps her Searching revealed to her. Even when she almost fell into a trap door that led somewhere down below the island, she only slowed long enough to catch herself. From the Foundry's upper level back down to the first, back to the long hall of storerooms, she just fled.

She'd seen the Hollows, copies of people both living and dead, before. Seeing one of Griselda shouldn't have been any worse. Except something about that blank, soulless expression on a seemingly-living avatar was just that much more disturbing than the active copies. There was something viscerally horrifying about it, and about the implications of Grimlock's experiments.

After a day of killing her own double, being made to doubt her own existence, facing strange doubles of other players, and close encounters with PKers, the twistedness of Grimlock's soulless Hollow of Griselda was just the last straw. She had to get away from it all, or she was going to lose it completely.

PoH's mocking laughter chasing her had to be just her imagination. The eerie wailing that was the Hollow Area's BGM wasn't, and Philia drew on reserves of AGI she hadn't known she had as she returned to the first storeroom, flung open the trap door, and half-ran, half-tumbled down the stairs into the tunnel network. She winced as she repeatedly bounced off the walls in her haste, but with neither pain nor HP damage, it didn't come close to overriding her urgency.

Only when she stumbled out of the stairwell and into the tunnels, slamming the stone door behind her, did Philia pause to take a breath. Slumping against the door, she found herself heaving for breath, and absently wondered if her vitals in some hospital in the real world had gone wild. She knew her heart rate had.

Away from the Foundry, though, and with the door safely shut, she felt the irrational panic begin to recede. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she told herself, gulping in air. I'm stupid for letting this get to me so much. It's creepy as hell, yeah, and the BGM isn't helping, but I shouldn't freak out like this. I'm still me. I didn't even get spotted, so I wasn't even in that much danger, right?

And she'd gotten exactly the kind of intel she'd set out for in the first place. The Hollows were coming from the Foundry, and judging from Grimlock's actions, it wasn't as automated as the Fifty-Seventh Floor's zombies had been. Stopping them from spawning was going to be easy, as soon as more clearers got down to the Hollow Area. Considering that fighting them apparently counted as fighting players, that was going to be important—going permanent orange would be really, really bad.

They still haven't gotten into the Sanctuary, either. Months after we found the replica Jade Key, they still haven't pulled it off. Sounds like Grimlock's working by trial and error, and PoH's got him busy with something else, so he can't focus on it.

Breath and heart steadying, Philia pushed herself upright, fired off a quick message to Thinker to let him know she was on her way back, and headed off into the tunnels. The BGM was at least muffled down there, and even if she did run into any Hollows, she had reason to believe none of them would be as creepy as Griselda's. She could take her time getting back to the watchtower, and come down off the raw panic.

If there really is time dilation down here, that's gonna make things trickier, and whatever PoH is up to besides the Keys can't be good. I'm going to have to figure out some way to keep them busy… if I can. No way I'm taking on PoH all by myself. And where the heck has the Echo gotten to? They're supposed to be around here somewhere, but I haven't seen any of them. Well, we've got time to figure things out.

Wending her way through the brain-bending twists and turns, Philia kept one eye on her map and the other on the tunnels themselves, wary of more trap doors, mobs, and Hollows. Even if the last didn't attack her, there was altogether too good a chance PoH was using them somehow to get info. That would be worse.

Next time, I need to check the Castle. PoH said there was an admin console there; I'll bet that even if we can't use that, there's other stuff that can help us. Though exactly what, she couldn't guess. From the sound of it, though the Hollow Area had started as a developer's room, Kayaba had begun actively re-purposing some of it for player-use. Probably to make things "interesting".

Or else, Philia thought ruefully, stepping out into the huge central chamber, Kayaba is just weird enough to have deliberately made his developer's room look like this. That guy is not normal.

She was just passing the spiral staircase in the middle of the room, half-considering climbing it, when a sound toward the south end made her stop in her tracks. She had only begun to turn when she heard, "Why?"

The single word, spoken out of the blue, made her jump a good two meters straight up. Landing in a crouch, she spun to face south, and froze. It had been most of a year since she'd last seen that slight figure, the dark hair, the blue eyes, the blue dress and rapier. But it had been memorable enough that Philia recognized the girl instantly. "…Tia."

The NPC nodded slightly. "We meet again. Or," she added thoughtfully, slowly walking into the room, "should that be, 'at last'? We may not be so different, now."

A chill ran down Philia's spine, the panic she'd pulled out of beginning to gnaw at her again. One thing for PoH, a known liar and manipulator, to say something like that, but Tia…. "What do you mean?" she asked, drawing her cape as tight as she could. "How am I… like you?" She forced conviction into her voice and face. "I'm not a Hollow!"

"Are you sure?" Tia replied simply, tilting her head. "I don't have access to SAO's databases, not like the MHCPs. I don't know if you are or not. But Swordmasters aren't supposed to be able to exist here. This is a haven, for those of us with no existence outside SAO."

What? Philia blinked. The implication for her was chilling, but it also suggested something else to her. "…Are you saying even PoH is a Hollow?"

"Yes." Tia's reply was simple and blunt. "I don't know where the real one is. I'm not sure the one I met in Aincrad itself was him; even he doesn't know. That's why he's here now, trying to reach the Sanctuary. To protect us all, to save us from the Swordmasters."

The treasure hunter shivered. The idea of PoH as a "protector" was completely crazy. That the NPC seemed to really believe it was worse. "If he gets into the Sanctuary, we'll all die," she said, trying—without much hope—to break through Tia's blind faith in the PKer. "You know what'll happen if he gets to the Stone, don't you?"

"That is only if the Stone is destroyed," Tia countered, coming to a halt about two meters away. "It can also be used to induce a state change in Aincrad. And PoH believes it can be used to unlock an admin console, granting full control over the Hollow Area. With that, he can increase the time acceleration to maximum."

"Even if he could, what would be the point of that?" Philia demanded. "And why are you telling me? You know I'm PoH's enemy!"

Tia tilted her head again, obviously puzzled. "But you shouldn't be. If time acceleration is increased, everyone bound to Aincrad will have that much longer to live. That much longer for PoH to contact his allies in the physical world, and ensure the servers' survival. You should want that, too."

"No, I don't!" Philia snapped, fighting off the rising terror again. "I'm not one of you!"

"Are you sure?" The NPC turned away, calmly walking back toward the exit into the southern tunnels. "Even if you are not… you are just as trapped in this place as we are, you know. Criminal players cannot leave the Hollow Area." She glanced over her shoulder, blue eyes unreadable. "If you want to see for yourself, enter the Castle. Kayaba's records are there."

November 10th, 2024

"…And that's all we know right now," Kirito finished, staring glumly at the polished stone floor of Asuna's office. "Philia's not dead. Kibaou agreed to check the Monument for us, and I trust him not to lie about something like this. But… we don't know how to get her back. Not safely."

Asuna nodded soberly. She'd gotten to know the treasure hunter pretty well, in the "girls-only" quest they'd done after the Gleam Eyes, and she knew how important she was to Kirito. Learning that Philia had up and disappeared tore at her, for her own sake and for her old partner's. I'm just glad Kizmel was there to talk him out of doing anything reckless. He would have, without her. It's what he does.

Instead, thankfully, Kirito and Kizmel had come to Castle Kreutzen to ask the KoB's help. Conveniently, Asuna had already called a meeting with Fuurinkazan before the two even arrived; Rain had apparently uncovered a lead, and Asuna wanted the important players to hear it all at once.

She'd even invited Lind. The DDA guildmaster still rubbed her the wrong way, but there was no denying his guild was in a better position than the KoB at that moment, not having had such a massive shock. Can't deny he's been doing better lately, either, she thought, glancing at sober—dare she say, knightly—man standing in one corner of her office. Well, none of us are the same people we were two years ago, are we?

"I'm so sorry, Kirito-kun, Kizmel," Asuna said presently, leaving her desk to approach her old friends. "Of course, we'll do everything we can to help." Her attempt at a reassuring smile faded into a grimace, even as she reached for Kirito's shoulder. "Though I'm not sure how much we can do, just yet…."

"Well, you've definitely got us," Klein declared, from where he leaned by the office door with Sachi. Punching a fist into his palm, he grinned rakishly. "We've even restocked since the last boss fight. And one of yours is one of ours, Kirito." His grin shrank then, just a little. "…Once we've got a direction, anyway. Griselda's doing her thing, trying to find another way to the Hollow Area, but I haven't heard anything yet."

Asuna couldn't help a brief shiver at that. No fault of the ghostly former guildmaster, but Griselda's nature still deeply unnerved her.

"I wish we could help," Lind said, entering the conversation for the first time. His expression was deeply conflicted; a far cry from the days when he'd been in his own way as reckless as Kibaou. "Really, Kirito, Lady Kizmel. Both because even one clearer would be worth rescuing, and because of the dangers PoH could unleash in the Hollow Area. But without knowing where to go, our priorities…."

"It's fine, Guildmaster," Kizmel told him, giving Kirito's shoulder a reassuring squeeze when he seemed unable to say anything. "We understand. This is a personal matter, and as you say, we don't even know where to start. All we can ask is that you pass along any information you happen to stumble upon during your own efforts."

Lind's expression cleared with obvious relief, and he gave a respectful nod, smiling slightly. "That much, Lady Kizmel, I can promise you. I know we've had our differences in the past, but we are truly all on the same side here."

I'm not sure Orochi would agree with you on that one. Asuna had to admit, though, that that was unfair to Lind. And she was in no position to criticize another guildmaster over the actions of one or two subordinates, given what some of hers had been up to lately.

"Same from us, of course," she said, giving a quick bow. "Not that we have much else we can do now anyway, so long as Ark Sophia is still sealed—"

The crimson light that had shone through her office window for two days straight abruptly vanished. Asuna wasn't the only one who rushed over to take a look; Klein was right behind her, Lind awkwardly tried to look from the side, and Kirito and Kizmel got up to look from a distance. Not that a very close look was needed anyway.

The barrier that had sealed off Ark Sophia from the rest of the Seventy-Sixth Floor was down. Asuna was immediately torn, knowing that clearing could resume… and that the KoB was no longer free to just help out her friends.

Wincing, she turned back from the window, ignoring the shouts she could hear from the streets as other players noticed the barrier was gone. "Kirito-kun, Kizmel," she began, "I'm sorry—"

She was interrupted again, this time by Rain loudly clearing her throat. "Hold that thought, Commander," she said, speaking for the first time since the meeting was joined. Tapping the book she held, she continued, "I spent most of last night looking through this; a couple of new chapters appeared since the last time I read it. I know where all the gateways are now." The redhead smiled, probably the first genuinely cheerful expression of the meeting. "They're on floors just past the strongest of the Pillar Guardians: the Twenty-Sixth, Fifty-First… and Seventy-Sixth."

November 11th, 2024

Kusanagi's twenty-four-meter hull cut through the waves of the Fifty-First Floor's eight-kilometer sea, sailing east-northeast. Most of Fuurinkazan kept watch along the flanks, in case of monsters—mostly harmless to high-level clearers, not so much to the boat—with Sachi and Lux acting as lookouts on the bow. Dynamm was handling the sails, for once getting the chance to act the part of the pirate he looked.

Not that he quite looked the part at that moment, given the particular quirks of that floor. Dale, guarding Kusanagi's pilothouse, glanced from Dynamm down to his own bulk, and sighed. "I didn't miss this floor," he muttered, thumping his exposed gut. "Kayaba was cruel, making us wear swimsuits without giving us a weight-loss mechanic."

Keeping a light hand on the wheel, Klein tossed him a sympathetic grin. "Yeah, this floor was a kinda cruel joke on a lot of us, wasn't it? Even most of us who have the build for it don't have any reason to show off. Only some people got that kind of luck."

Really lucky, he thought, as Dale nodded glumly. Kirito even lives on this floor. Don't see him or Kizmel complaining about any of this, I'll bet.

"Never thought I'd even need to come back here, after the wedding," Dale grumbled. "Who knew there'd be a new quest location here, after the frontline reached Seventy-Six? And hey, Boss, I thought Team Kirito found one of the gates somewhere in the Forties. What's one doing here?"

Klein started to reply, only to shut his mouth and quickly duck under a tentacle that flailed at him from nowhere. Without missing a beat, the big tank swept his huge sword off his back, lopped the wriggling mass of muscle in half, and jumped out of the pilothouse to attack the mass of tentacles and sharp teeth it belonged to. Up at the bow, Sachi made a sound of pure disgust, and she and Lux unleashed twin Vorpal Strikes on another of the beasts that had popped up there.

Sharkkens, Klein thought, fighting with the wheel to keep Kusanagi on course while the rest of his guild fought off the horde of tentacled shark monsters trying to tear the boat apart. I forgot about those things. Fast enough to chase us, and if we weren't clearers, they might just be enough to wipe us.

But his people were clearers, and he trusted them to do their jobs while he did his. The only reason the monsters were a threat at all, given their levels, was the tendency to create giant swarms when "blood" was spilled around them. For the next five minutes, every one they killed would spawn another. Probably fatal to a low-level party, definitely fatal to an unwary boat, but only mildly annoying to clearers fresh from the Seventy-Fifth Floor.

To his right, Klein heard a phantom giggle, and he glanced over to see Griselda smiling. Though he had to admit, her face was a bit difficult to focus on—for the first time since he'd met her, the ghostly guildmaster wasn't wearing the armor she'd died in, but rather a green tankini. How she'd changed to it, even she didn't seem to know, but it was definitely… distracting.

If she noticed his difficulty concentrating, though, she didn't seem to mind much. "You have… a good guild, Klein," she told him, still smiling. "You must've known them… a long time now."

"Most of 'em," he agreed, fighting the wheel as one of the Sharkkens wrapped its tentacles around the mast and pulled. "The guys and I go way back—Fuurinkazan started off as a guild in an old-style MMO, and we got together in SAO late on launch day. …Once I found everybody in that riot, anyway."

A loud, angry yell accompanied the bright blue flash of a Reaver, Dynamm's cutlass slicing off half the Sharkken's tentacles. As it flailed the remaining ones, trying to grab Dynamm and pull him into its toothy maw, Harry One jumped in with a roar, smashing his hammer on the monster's head.

The Sharkken fell away, crippled or dying, giving Klein breathing room to stabilize Kusanagi. "Lux's story, you know," he continued, when he felt secure enough to glance back at Griselda. "She's only been with us since the LC Crusade, but she's done damn good since. Sachi…."

Up at the bow, the girl in the red one-piece snarled a curse Klein was pretty sure she'd learned from Kizmel—he didn't understand the word, anyway—and blasted a Sharkken's upper jaw off with a Vorpal Strike. The powerful Sword Skill's post-motion wore off just before the mangled monster could recover enough to launch a counter, and the snicker-snack of a Snake Bite took off three of its tentacles and all its remaining HP.

"Sachi's old guild died when somebody who turned out to be LC sold Argo bad info," he said quietly, watching with bittersweet pride as the girl vented the anger that had never entirely gone away. "Her guildmaster survived, but he turned out to be an ungrateful bastard. Long story, has to do with Kizmel. Anyway, we took her in about a year and a half ago now, and she's been awesome since."

Someday, though, I'm gonna visit Keita again, and give him a real piece of my mind. What he did to her was wrong, dammit.

"…It's nice," Griselda murmured, smiling wistfully. "It reminds me… of better times…."

Klein glanced at her sidelong. She'd never said much about her old guild, and he'd never asked. He'd gotten the measure of Schmitt during the zombie outbreak and hadn't liked it one bit, Kuze had caused the zombie outbreak, Krueger had died against the Skull Reaper, and Kumari had dropped hints of one hell of a bad breakup of the guild as a whole. Not to mention Griselda herself being, well, dead, and dropping ominous hints about how that had happened.

With his own guild occupied fighting off the Sharkken feeding frenzy—he was more than a little disturbed to see some of them eating each other, after his people wounded them—he decided that, just maybe, it was time to push his luck. "So… how was Golden Apple?" he asked, trying to act casual.

As casual as he could, when he was suddenly having to fight the wheel, thanks to a Sharkken trying to eat the rudder. He would've chewed out Dale for the words he used in the presence of a lady, as the big tank dropped an Avalanche on the monster, but he didn't think it was the best time.

Griselda leaned against the pilothouse wall, brushing a hand through her short brown hair. "We were… family," she said, her quiet, wistful voice at odds with the carnage going on around her. "At least… I thought we were. We knew we would… never be clearers. But we were content. As long as we could… survive, and maybe help others… along the way. We… I… thought that was good enough."

Klein found himself nodding. "I've known players like that. Heck, Fuurinkazan wasn't so different, for awhile. Sure," he added, taking a hand off the wheel long enough for a casual wave—and regretting it immediately, when the boat started to get away from him, "we were always aiming for the frontline, but… it kinda took awhile."

They probably wouldn't have been ready for the Fifty-First Floor when it was first opened, he knew, if they hadn't done so much power-leveling for the Christmas Eve boss. Good thing we did, though. Sachi couldn't bring back the Black Cats, but she sure saved Kizmel the other day.

"Mm. I thought… it was good enough. I thought those days… would continue to the end. To… the clearers ending the game, or a game over…." Griselda sighed, smile fading. "I didn't know. Didn't know… what my husband had become."

Ouch. Dangerous territory, now. Klein thought the topic was riskier than the snout full of teeth that got past Dale, shoved into the pilothouse, and tried to grab his leg. "What happened, Griselda?" he finally asked, kicking the Sharkken back out where Kunimittz's spear could gut it. "At the end. Um, if you don't mind."

"I… want to talk about it, I think. It's been… almost a year, and I haven't… told anyone." She turned to face him directly, ignoring the tentacle that slapped against the window next to her. "I don't… remember what happened. Exactly. I was asleep… when I died. But when I woke up like this… when I realized I was dead… I knew it had to be one of my guild." She closed her eyes, head drooping. "I learned of Schmitt's role early. Kuze… when the zombies appeared. It was months… before I learned my husband had…."

Definitely dangerous territory. Griselda faltered in her tale, and Klein gave her time. While she gathered herself, he swung Kusanagi's bow in a sharp turn to port, using the boat's own mass to crush three Sharkkens. If he was any judge, they'd be out of the feeding frenzy in just a couple more minutes. And on the bright side, it was giving Lux some much-needed practice.

Not that he blamed the green-haired girl for being so skittish out in the field. Her stellar work against the Gleam Eyes wasn't nearly enough to offset the trauma Laughing Coffin had left her.

"I don't know… where it all went wrong," Griselda continued at last, opening watery eyes to look at him again. "I don't know why… Grimlock did this. I think, maybe… that's why I'm still here. So I can ask him why… he would kill his own wife. We were together for years… before SAO… and I never saw this coming…."

Oh, man. That is bad. Klein had suspected Griselda and Grimlock were married for real, but he'd never risked asking. This was exactly why, seeing the gloom on the ghostly guildmaster's face. If there was a greater betrayal, he couldn't think of what it might be.

The conversation lapsed, Griselda seeming to lose herself in memory. About then, the last Sharkken exploded into azure polygons, allowing Klein to turn Kusanagi back on their original course, to the one part of the Fifty-First Floor no clearer had ever had cause to explore before. At least, as far as he or Argo had ever heard.

With the mobs out of the way, Dale thumped back into the pilothouse. "Like I was saying," he said, as if the fight hadn't even happened, "why are we even looking for a gate here? Up on Seventy-Six, I can buy, but I thought Kirito found the middle one ages ago."

"Part of the quest, but not one of 'the' gateways, according to Rain's book and Argo's research," Klein told him with a shrug, relaxing back into steering the boat. "I kinda zoned out on the details. I mean, one just after every quarter-floor sounds pretty logical to me, right? All we need to know is where and how. 'Why' doesn't matter, next to getting to the Hollow Area ASAP."

"Huh." Dale grunted, slung his sword over his back, and leaned against the hatch. "What the hell. Can't really argue with that, can I?"

"You're very quick… to jump into unknown content," Griselda remarked, coming out of her reverie. "I would've expected clearers… to be more cautious."

Klein exchanged a quick glance with Dale, before turning a crooked smile on the ghost. "Normally we'd like to do a scouting run, but there's not really any way to do that here. Besides, Grimlock is down there somewhere, right? You deserve a chance to confront that son of—I mean, ask the guy what he was thinking."

He could feel Dale rolling his eyes, both at the quick correction and the dramatic declaration. Griselda, though, smiled with genuine humor. Then she quirked on eyebrow. "And…?"

His smile shrank, but straightened, even as a small island rose into view ahead of Kusanagi. "And we all owe Kirito a hell of a lot," he said quietly. "The day all this started, he taught me the basics. That's the only reason I'm still alive. He and Kizmel helped us make the final push to take on an event boss for Sachi's sake. That's the only reason Fuurinkazan is strong enough to be on the frontlines.

"I don't know Philia that well, but I'll be damned if I let one of Kirito's friends be stuck all by herself."

"I wish I was going with you," Asuna said wistfully, gripping Rain's shoulder. "It doesn't feel right, not being one of the first ones out to map a new floor. But, well, you know how it is." Standing by Ark Sophia's north gate, she glanced over her shoulder at Castle Kreutzen, towering over the city. "I have a feeling I'm going to get really sick of that castle soon."

Rain couldn't help a wry chuckle. Honestly, she was pretty sure the entire KoB was sick of Castle Kreutzen already. Pretty place, straight out of a fairy tale. And we've seen almost nothing of the Seventy-Sixth Floor but the castle, between Kayaba's patching and trying to straighten out the guild.

"Don't worry, Asuna," she said, patting the other girl's hand. "You'll be out here soon enough. Even Godfree and Daizen can only stall things so long—and you can't let the DDA get too far ahead, right?"

Lind's Divine Dragons had set out early that morning, while Rain's team was still getting ready. Whether it was a determination to get past the shock of Kayaba's unmasking and return to beating the game as quickly as possible, or the greed the guild was still known for, she wasn't going to guess. That they hadn't waited for Argo's initial scouting report left her shaking her head either way.

"I suppose you're right," Asuna said, sighing. Releasing the redhead's shoulder, she lifted her hand to her chest in salute. "I'll get the rest of the guild back in clearing trim as fast as I can, Rain. Until then, I'm counting on you and your team." Turning to head back into Ark Sophia, she glanced back over her shoulder. "And if you find any horses, let me know! This floor makes me tired just looking at it!"

The new KoB commander wasn't kidding. Ark Sophia was built on a hill near the southern edge of the Seventy-Sixth Floor, giving it a commanding view of the entire floor. At seven kilometers across, it was smaller than most lower floors, but most of those floors hid their exact size better. The Seventy-Sixth was one vast plain, broken only by a few mountains that did little to block the view and one wide river that snaked from east to west. Though there were a couple of other towns visible, the thought of needing to walk straight to the other side was hard to shake.

You know it's bad, Rain thought, shaking her head, when any of us start talking about riding horses. It was, technically, possible; several floors did have horses to rent. It was also rendered so realistically that very few Swordmasters were actually able to do it. Kirito, she remembered, had once remarked that fighting a boss without Sword Skills was easier than riding a horse in Aincrad.

"Well," she said aloud, "we'd better get to it. I want to reach at least the next town today" It looked like a clear path to the town she saw nestled by the river. Even on a post-quarter-floor, she was willing to bet it wasn't going to be that easy.

So as the sun climbed out of sight beyond the floor that hung above them, Rain and her team of five Knights of the Blood finally set out from Ark Sophia. To explore, to get a feel for the mobs—especially since Kayaba had supposedly "rebalanced" everything—and hopefully to get some clues about one of the Gateways to the Hollow Area.

"I was not a clearer when the Twenty-Sixth Floor was opened," her second-in-command remarked, as they descended the hill at a cautious trot. "The Fifty-First was quite relaxing, however. How do you suppose this floor will be, Vice-Commander?"

Rain had to suppress a chuckle, glancing at the other girl. Kumari had switched to KoB white and red, but she was still wearing a catsuit and a half-mask, and still spoke very formally. Justified by her fighting style, sure, but it definitely stood out from the rest of the team. I feel as weird as she probably does, though. I may look the part, but the whole "vice-commander" thing is really gonna take some getting used to.

"Probably more like the Twenty-Sixth," she said aloud. "Not too tough, but not a walk in the park, either."

"I'd have to agree." She glanced over at the third member of her team, who idly twirled a chakram around one finger. Where Kumari seemed tense, Nezha looked downright nostalgic. "The Fifty-First seemed like it was meant as a break, halfway through beating the game. Now we're entering the home stretch. Between that and Kayaba probably not changing any more than he had to for 'rebalancing', my guess is that this floor will give us a taste of what's coming for the last quarter."

He'd know, too. Nezha hadn't been in boss fights that often, but the former Legend Brave had been one of the earliest clearers. And he'd been in the fight with Fuscus the Vacant Colossus, where the entire room had been part of the boss. Rain would bet he understood Aincrad's quirks as well as any of them, and better than many.

When the Braves had finally merged with the KoB, Rain had snapped him up for her party before the guild's other team leaders could blink. If she was going to be stuck with the vice-commander gig, she wanted every advantage she could get. Nezha's experience, and status as the only ranged fighter in the entire guild, made him perfect for what she needed.

Most of the KoB sneered at his chakram, looking only at its relatively weak stats. Rain knew better. Besides her own trick of throwing swords—which, as far as she knew, no one else had unlocked—Nezha had the only ranged weapon in SAO that did more than scratch damage to higher-level mobs and bosses.

"Then we'll just need to be on our guard." To Rain's left, a tall, shaggy-haired youth walked a little ahead of the rest of them. His footsteps were only a little louder than those of the wolf that padded alongside him; if Rain hadn't had the Sharp Hearing mod, she didn't think she'd have heard him at all. "Jaeger will warn us if we miss anything. Well, as long as it's not Astral."

Strida, as he called himself, was something of an unknown, just recently arrived on the frontlines. The morning after the Seventy-Fifth Floor boss fight, in fact; he'd shown up at Castle Kreutzen's gates, having come in response to the clearers' call for reinforcements in the wake of the battle's heavy losses. Most of the longstanding KoB members had wanted nothing to do with him, but after checking his story with Argo, Rain had chosen to take a chance. If he was the real deal, he was exactly the kind of Swordmaster she needed for her party.

He was, as far as she knew, the only clearer besides Kirito and Asuna who'd completed the Elf War quest. He was also the single Beast Tamer she knew of on the frontlines, having apparently picked up his wolf in the process of soloing the Dark Elf side of the questline. All part of being a ranger, he'd declared during his recruitment interview. His skill set seemed to back it up, so Rain had brought him into her own party. Between his wolf, Jaeger, and his high-level saber skills, she expected him to be an asset.

With three members of the team—and herself—being newcomers to the KoB, Rain had been more than a little concerned that she'd be causing more problems in the guild. That was why she'd brought in two veteran members to round things out, picking the most open-minded Knights she could find. At least, she hoped they were open-minded—this recon run was their first foray into the field.

So far, it was looking promising. The party's Two-Handed Axe wielder Gunther—one of their two tanks, providing much-needed defense to an otherwise squishy group—mustered a wry grin at odds with his stolid frame. "Now you guys are just begging for trouble," he said, in his rumbling baritone. "Just how many death flags are you trying to raise, anyway?"

"Totally." Gunther's partner, an unusually tall woman who went by Ral and carried a heavy shield and sword, shook her head. "C'mon, I know Kumari and Nezha have been clearers off and on for ages. You know it's always right when you say something like that that the game springs a surprise or three."

The ribbing seemed to be all in good fun, to Rain's relief, and Nezha clearly took it that way. "You're being paranoid," he said, even as he very carefully stepped over a fallen branch. "I've never seen anything that could hide right in an open field like—aiyeeee!"

Rain's first, random thought, seeing Nezha abruptly drop from sight, was that she'd forgotten the man had a depth-perception Full-Dive Nonconformity. Usually he knew how to compensate for it, after two years in SAO. Sometimes, it still tripped him up.

Like when there was a narrow crevice just on the other side of a tree branch.

She and the rest of the team immediately dashed over, barely stopping short of the hole in the ground themselves. "Nezha! Nezha, are you okay?!" His HP only went down about a third, but who knows what's down in a hole—!

"…I'll live," he called back up. "But it's really dark down here. I think I can see some light in the distance, but it's hard to tell. The contrast is really messing with my head…."

"So, guys! Is this a bad time to tell ya most o' the good stuff on this floor is underground?"

Rain jumped half a meter, almost tumbling into the crevice herself, at the unexpected voice. Jaeger's surprised yip at least meant she wasn't the only one caught flat-footed—though seeing who it was that'd snuck up on them cleared it right up. There was no mistaking the hooded cloak, the whiskers, or the grin, and she found herself sighing in exasperation. "Argo. I'm not even going to ask how you fooled even Jaeger's nose. …How much do we owe you?" Because even if she was giving crisis discounts, the Rat never did anything for free.

"I'm on retainer fer now, Rain-chan," Argo replied, still grinning. "Now, Dai-kun might be a bit testy with little ol' me…. Well, anyway, first thing you wanna know is that this floor's got a big cave system. And lots of holes and crevices goin' down to it."

The plaintive wail that rose from the crevice expressed what Rain thought was the general sentiment of the day, if not the week. "Now you tell me…!"

I never thought I'd have reason to come here again, Kizmel thought, staring down at the bubbling swamp that lay beyond the town of Rukina. It feels almost… nostalgic. The chill November breeze bit at her, and she pulled her cloak more tightly around herself. And cold. I never thought this place would have such unpleasant winters.

"Been awhile since we've been here, huh?" Kirito mused, wrapping an arm around her waist to lend her some of his warmth. "Have to say, last time around I was glad to see the quest over and done with, so we could just get out. I don't think we ran into a more uncomfortable scenario until the Fifty-Sixth Floor."

She couldn't help but nod in rueful agreement, even as she leaned into his leather coat. The Forty-Third Floor consisted largely of swamps, which stayed warm, wet, and sticky year-round, apparently from underground heat. The two of them had experienced quite the awkward adventure in a cave system, when the floor had been the frontline. At the time, it had even been quite embarrassing, and she still prayed Argo never learned the details.

"At least this time we know exactly where we're going," Kizmel said wryly, as the two of them stepped away from Rukina's gates and headed down the road to one of those swamps. "We should be able to avoid the Corrosive Slime nest, at least."

Her husband shuddered. "Yeah. Hopefully. Though the gate itself probably won't be what we're really looking for, and with our luck the key will be in the nest. …We'd better switch to spare armor when we hit the caves, just in case. We don't want to risk our best gear, not now of all times."

"Mm." For once, the elf girl wasn't even tempted to tease him, seeing the blush on his face. Her own cheeks were feeling just a little warm. For all that she'd never minded showing her partner her skin, even before she fell in love with him, that quest had been a bit much.

Crossing an entire floor with little more than a cloak and a spare pair of pants between them had not been Kizmel's favorite experience. She was disinclined to repeat it.

"At least," she said, when the road narrowed to a slim path of relatively dry ground running through the swamp, "there will be no one else to see, if anything does happen." She slipped her hand into his, tangling their fingers. "Like old times, isn't it?"

"…Yeah." Kirito squeezed her hand, glancing her way with a small, sad smile. "Just like old times."

Kizmel didn't question his somber mood, only adding some reassuring pressure to their joined hands. After all, the reason it was just the two of them again was one of their number was missing, and the other doing her own part to save her. As much as the elf girl enjoyed the alone time with her husband, the circumstances left much to be desired.

Their friends had even tried to dissuade them from going alone. Klein had all but begged them to travel with Fuurinkazan, suggesting that they didn't need to search for every piece of the puzzle at once. Agil, having caught wind of the situation, had even suggested putting his old team back together and joining them for it—quite the gesture, considering the so-called "Bro Squad" had left the frontlines almost a year earlier, after Wolfgang's death.

They had declined all offers, however. Kirito, because he refused to burden anyone he didn't have to; Kizmel, because it made her feel too weak. With Rain having joined the Knights of the Blood, and Philia vanished—right after the emotional blow of learning her father's true identity—she needed to prove to herself that she was still the warrior she'd always been. Normally, she would have welcomed such aid, refusing to let pride get the better of her, but this once….

They had been a team of two for half a year, before "Team Kirito" was ever formed. If the two of them couldn't handle threats thirty-three floors below the frontline by themselves, Kizmel thought, she would never have the confidence to face the challenges Kayaba had prepared for the final quarter of the Steel Castle.

"Just like old times," she murmured. She made herself focus on those days, reminding herself of all the quests they'd conquered together, all the monsters, great and small, the two of them had defeated. It had, she remembered, just been the two of them throughout the Reliquary quest, which had brought her the first glimpse of how Swordmasters saw the world. Through puzzles, riddles, emotional challenges, and powerful monsters, they'd done it all, aided only by a few scraps of information from Argo.

Even battling PoH and XaXa, they'd survived and thrived, just the two of them. As terrible as that battle had been, the memory of it gave Kizmel much-needed strength.

She was about to mention it, as they left the open-air swamp to delve into the stuffy, humid cave system. A look at Kirito, though, stopped her short: his shoulders were slumped ever so slightly, and there was a shadowed, haunted look in his eyes. "Kirito-kun? What is it?"

He jolted, as if, despite their twined hands, he'd forgotten she was there. "Eh? Oh, it's… it's nothing. Just… feeling sorry for myself, I guess." At her arched brow, he sighed. "I was just thinking. About Philia disappearing, and Rain joining Asuna, leaving just the two of us…. In the middle of the Skull Reaper fight, it… almost got Asuna. Would have, except one of her Knights shoved her out of the way, and…." He slowly shook his head. "I didn't even know his name. Didn't know most of the people who died in the battle. Then Philia went and disappeared, because I didn't notice how she was feeling…."

Ah. In short, her husband wasn't feeling sorry for himself, so much as feeling he wasn't worthy. Again. Not that I can entirely blame him. I am at least as guilty here as he.

So Kizmel squeezed his hand again, and leaned her head against his. "I wish I could say you have no reason to think ill of yourself here, my love. Though I can say I'm no better—and I do believe you're being too hard on yourself. But what is done, is done. All we can do is try not to repeat our mistakes." She mustered a smile, then, and was as surprised as he to realize it was genuine. "If you would feel better knowing more of those who share our battle, I expect Asuna would not object to the two of us spending more time around the Knights of the Blood."

Kirito blinked, and to her relief managed a rueful smile of his own. "I don't know if the other Knights would agree with that… but you're probably right, Kizmel." He leaned in to give her a quick, gentle kiss. "Thanks. I needed that."

"That is why you married me, isn't it?" Laughing, Kizmel took the time to press a deeper kiss on him, before pulling back and drawing her saber. "Now, then, I think it's time we cut our way through this rabble, and got on our way rescuing Philia."

While they'd been distracted, a swarm of Swamp Bats and three Muck Spiders had surrounded them. A potentially fatal predicament the last time they'd ventured into theses caves, this day Kirito only grinned and drew Elucidator. This battle, against foes that could not even scratch the cloth parts of their armor, would be nothing more than stress relief.

Ten minutes later, standing before the huge, inactive ring of the gate that lay in the deepest reaches of the caves, some of the humor was gone. The strange device was very much like they left it, as if not a single day had gone by. The same could not be said of the lifeless pedestal that stood before it. A year ago and more it had merely been useless, which had seemingly been the expected result of the quest.

Now, there was a noticeable hole in it, where part of the apparatus had been removed. Worse, the hole was conspicuously partly filled with blue slime.

The two of them exchanged a weary look. "Slime nest?" Kirito said, a smile tugging at the edge of his lips.

"Slime nest," Kizmel agreed, unable to completely stifle a chuckle. "At least this time, if things go awry, you've no need to look away—and we can teleport straight home, if it comes to it. Just remember…."

"I know: no telling Argo!"

November 11th, 2024 (Hollow Area Day 14)

Philia leaned against the balcony railing, looking out over the Hollow Area. From the terrace near the top of Silver Moon Castle, almost the entire island could be seen. From there, she could keep an eye on the comings and goings of the other denizens of that twilit realm, without ever getting near them herself.

"They've thinned out again, haven't they?"

She turned, and accepted the steaming mug Thinker held out to her. "Yep," she said, taking a grateful sip of the herbal tea. "It's definitely starting to look like a pattern. I just wish we knew what it meant. Can't be level-grinding, and I can't see what mats they could be getting, so I doubt they're just slaughtering them."

Planting himself at a table closer to the door back into the castle, Thinker drew on his own tea. "Frankly, if you can't figure it out, I'm not likely to be much help. All I can say is, I'm glad they haven't triggered the Apocalypse yet."

"Tell me about it."

In the two subjective weeks since Philia had trapped herself, she and Thinker had relocated to the castle at the center of the Hollow Area. The Hollows themselves seemed to avoid it—which she thought was a good sign—and regular monsters were actively harmed when they got too close to the light shining from its highest tower. It also had a good supply of food, easily enough to last two Swordmasters for months.

So far, neither PoH nor Grimlock had shown any sign of trying to enter the castle, either. That left Philia and Thinker a safe place to stay, and try not to lose their minds from the isolation and the existential questions.

From there, they could watch PoH's efforts, which still remained mostly a mystery. The PKer could be seen periodically, mostly going to and from the still-locked Sanctuary; otherwise, most of what Philia saw was beta-version monsters, and an ebbing and flowing tide of Hollows. Grimlock's experiments seemed to be creating a fair number of them, yet every few days a lot of them just seemed to disappear.

Philia's best guess was that they were being… recycled, in some way. Judging from her own fight with her Hollow—she tried not to think of the other possibility—the EXP gains wouldn't have been worth defeating them.

Besides the safety and the vantage point, Silver Moon Castle's library was the real attraction. It had at least a partial copy of the Library of the Ancients' archives, which kept her and Thinker from going completely mad. Maybe more importantly, as Tia had claimed, it seemed to have copies of Kayaba's research notes. Or at least, that's what Philia thought a particular set of books was.

Hard to say for sure, when the "books" demanded user ID and password to open. I bet I know who could open them, though….

A soft throat-clearing brought her attention back from staring at the Sanctuary. Thinker had finished his tea at some point, and was giving her an oddly somber look. "Philia. It's been three weeks. Well, two, for you…. Do you really think rescue is coming?"

She understood his concern. Especially since there was no way to tell if the time dilation was constant—or if it might get worse, like Tia claimed PoH intended. Still….

"I do," Philia said, looking up at the Steel Castle hanging in the sky above them. "One way or another… Kirito and the others will come for us. I know it."

Author's Note:

Less than two months! …I probably shouldn't brag about that.

So… I'm not honestly sure what to say about this chapter myself. It feels like it's lacking something, maybe a bit disjointed, but not actively bad? Guess I'll have to let you guys judge that for yourselves. I can say that I've at least figured out a big part of what my problem is—my writing style just is not suited to having as many subplots going at once as I do right now—so while I can't entirely fix the Hollow Area arc's problems, I can avoid such issues in the future. …I think. So bear with me for this arc, guys, and I believe I can promise the climax of the Aincrad arc will not be so haphazard.

One thing I can promise about this arc is that the next chapter will have some big events going on. As I mentioned previously, I'm going to be doing mostly highlights of this arc, to keep it from getting incurably bloated; having finished the needed setup with this chapter, I know exactly which bombshell to drop as the beginning of Chapter 35.

(Side note: the Hollow Area scenes were written while listening to the Xenosaga Episode II rendition of the Song of Nephilim. I highly recommend it if you want the proper ambiance in those scenes.)

If anyone is worried about Oath of Rebellion, by the way, or—like me, honestly—disappointed by the long hiatus, I do hope to get back to that fairly soon. I'm just kinda trying to get the Hollow Area done, or close to it, as Duet has been away from its main purpose for way too long now. (Trust me, the climax of Aincrad will have plenty of Kirito/Kizmel fluff, even in the middle of all the associated drama.)

Hm… I think that's about all I have to say this time? Let me know if the chapter was good, bad, or should be used to heat the house in the winter. 'Til next time, comrades! -Solid