Sword Art Online III: Asgard

Four

Sinon, the former sniper of Gun Gale online and now bow woman of ALFheim, nodded a greeting to her friends as Argo also arrived. They listened to the briefing on Asgard, including the powerful monsters. The same, interestingly, they had fought in the Thrymheim castle...

Sinon groaned dramatically. "Oh that was SUCH a bitch..."

"On the other hand if we do clear it there is going to be some REALLY nice loot to share," Klein noted optimistically.

Youko smiled wryly, "Assuming we live to tell about it."

"There's that," Silica sighed.

And worse, no one had made much progress on defeating the first floor. The groups that had had shared together the map data, so at least they had THAT. But it was looking grim overall. A few moments later Argo finished up, then headed off.

"All right," Kirito addressed the group, "we have a plan, generally. Klein and Liz with be our tanks, and the group they will be in will draw aggro. The rest of us will attack monsters while they are focused on them."

"We'd better get a LOT of healing potions," Sinon noted. She looked over at the others, "Silica and Asuna can do healing magic, too, I think..."

Asuna had been staring at Youko thoughtfully, but focused back on the meeting when she realized that Sinon was addressing her. "Leafa can too," Asuna nodded, "And I understand Youko has those spells as well."

"Somewhat," Youko answered her politely, "as well as some buff skills. I am still rather inexperienced, though."

"Other than Leafa we all are, in ALO terms," Kirito noted reasonably. He looked over at Liz and Klein, "Do you need funds for the armor upgrades?"

"Should be fine," Klein said, though he gave Liz a chance to contradict him. "You can pay us back out of loot."

"Works," Asuna nodded. "We should probably shop for supplies, then meet up at the new dungeon entrance?"

"Let's do that," Kirito agreed, and with that everyone got up to go.

As Sinon was heading out she saw Asuna excuse herself to Kirito, then chase down the new woman, Youko. 'Wonder what that's about?' she thought.

Potions were less vital in ALO then in other games, as healing was a learnable skill. Saying that, it was often easier to chug a potion than chant a healing spell, and faster too. So Sinon went to one of the game ran shops, and picked up both healing and mana restoration potions.

"Not going to a player shop? Agil will be SO disappointed," Silica teased, the shorter girl also picking up her potions.

"Player run shops vary in price too much," Sinon shrugged.

Silica laughed. Sinon still found it vaguely odd that the younger girl was really her senior in video gaming. Like Kirito she was a Sword Art Online survivor, and had become a well known player in the death game.

(In hanging around Kirito, Asuna and the others, Sinon had noticed a clear difference between the Sword Art Online players and other gamers. Having survived a game where losing meant death, they approached other games with that same intensity. Even the slightly goofy Lux had that... drive.)

"How is your new bow working out?" Silica asked as they headed towards the stairs.

Sinon reached over her shoulder to touch the red and black 'Bow of Elven Accuracy' they had quested for after the Excalibur quest. "It's very good," she nodded. "With the range and accuracy bonuses, I can actually do some sniping with it..." she said.

"You just wish you could bring your rifle into this game," Silica teased.

"Yeah, pretty much," Sinon conceded willingly.

Silica gave her a sympathetic look, "I know how that feels. There was gear in my original Sword Art Online avatar that I wish I still had."

"Because Kirito gave it to you?" Sinon teased, having heard the story of their meeting from others.

"Not JUST for that reason," Silica protested, but she blushed.

Sinon fought back a laugh.

Another thing Sinon had become aware of was the 'harem' that had formed around Kirito. Almost ALL the girls he knew had had a crush on him. Some, she suspected, still did despite his nearly being married to Asuna.

Even KLEIN was supposed to have had a thing. Involving Kirito, a maid outfit and a case of mistaken identity. He pretty much refused to talk about it. Anyway...

Sinon herself had felt a bit of attraction to Kirito, but had decided not to persue it. Both because Kirito was obviously taken, and because she had her own issues. The last guy to be seriously interested in her had lost his grip on reality, after all.

"You okay?" Silica asked, concerned that Sinon had gone silent.

"Sorry, was just thinking about something," Sinon noted.

They reached the opening to the new 'dungeon/stairway' up, the massive stone enterance built into the trunk of the up of blocks of carved stone the enterance was forboding, especially with the sounds of battle going on inside.

"Someone else is taking a turn?" Silica guessed, the two having been the first to arrive.

"Sounds like it," Sinon agreed as Lux and Liz hurried up next.

Liz had traded out her usual light armor for a heavier chest plate and scale armor, along with a large shield that could still be used one handed. In the other she carried the replica Hammer of Thor, the weapon they had gained during Kirito's quest for Excalibur.

"We're not late are we?" the pretty blond Lux asked a bit anxiously.

"It's fine," Silica said, "someone else went in."

Everyone winced as they heard an explosion. "I don't think it's going well." Liz noted.

Kirito arrived next, as Yui fluttered around him. "Ooh, that does NOT sound good," he remarked dryly.

Asuna and Youko arrived, and they looked much more relaxed around each other than earlier. 'I guess they talked about... whatever,' Sinon mused.

Klein was hitting on Leafa as they arrived, and the young lady casually smacked him. "Oh YOU..." she laughed.

"Samurai armor?" Sinon noted Klein's new look.

"Yeah," Klein adjusted the scale type armor, including flared shoulders and leg guards, "I thought about something european, but this is easier to move in."

"No helm though," Leafa observed.

"Who would want to hide this face," Klein beamed.

Everyone just kind of ignored that.

Conversation stopped as the group of five staggered out of the Dungeon. The two 'tanks' were literally still aflame, though the effect cut off once they emerged into daylight. All of them were heavily battered, and while they couldn't see their health bars, everyone could tell they were really low.

"Shiroe," Leafa blinked, recognizing the well known ALO player.

The tall, black haired man smiled back, "Ah, Leafa. I see you're planning to take this on as well."

Behind him the tall warrior Naotsugu was calmly patting the flames out om his cloak and armor. Thankfully it didn't really hurt, and the damage stopped once they were out of the dungeon. "That was WILD," he shook his head wryly.

"Agreed," Nyanta replied, the dapper Cait Sith nodding.

"Did you get any farther...?" Kirito had to address the group.

"Master Shiroe was able to find a way to bypass the fire monsters, and we made it to the floor boss," Akatsuki obseved, the petite swordswoman adding, "sadly we were completely outmatched."

"And we hit the fire monsters on the way out," Shiroe made a face.

'Oooh, ouch,' Sinon winced. "I see you made it out alive though."

"If barely," Nyanta added wryly.

Kirito nodded seriously. "I have to ask.. could we get your map data?" he asked.

Shiroe gave him a look. He CLEARLY knew Kirito's reputation... Finally he nodded, "Certainly. However, in the future I'll want whatever added map data your team generates."

"Agreed," Kirito shook his hand.

Shiroe called up a menu, then accessed the data before printing up a scroll. He passed it over as he said, "Good luck. You're going to need it."

"Thank you," Kirito said, taking the scroll.

"Well, that was encouraging," Sinon noted as the group of adventurers staggered off.

"Just means more loot and rare items for us," Klein blustered.

Sinon just gave him a look.

"Well, we've got to try," Kirito said, an odd determination in his expression.

'He seems more... concerned about this than I'd expect,' Sinon noted. She made a mental note to pull him aside and ask him later.

"All right, ready everyone? Let's go," Kirito said as he led them into the dungeon.

To be continued...

Notes: YES that's the crew from Log Horizon. I wanted someone to go in the Dungeon earlier who was not an existing SAO character, but who were bad-ass enough to survive it. So, them.

Next chapter will HOPEFULLY be a different character POV. Will also try to ignore the usual SAO shipping... instead it will have MY usual shipping. Heh.