Sword Art Online: Asgard
Five
Lizbeth took a nervous breath as she studied the stone entrance of the new dungeon. Her new chest plate and scale armor was a bit heavier and more encumbering than she was used to, and she shifted her shoulders to try to get it to settle better.
"All right, ready everyone? Let's go," Kirito said as he led them in.
The rock trolls spawned almost as soon as they entered the room, but they had expected that, Both Klein and Liz launched attacks immediately, drawing the three huge monsters attention. As Liz swung her hammer, she noticed the one visibly recoil.
"They really do not like Mjolnir," Liz noted aloud.
"I'm not doing much damage," Klein complained as he attacked with his katana. It was a powerful quest reward they had all helped him win after the Excalibur quest...
The three trolls roared in anger, attacking with bare fists the size of maces. Liz's shield rang with the heavy blows, and Klein was forced backward a bit. But before they could do too much damage arrows raced by and impailed two of them, fired just seconds apart.
'Sinon is SO cool,' Liz thought admiringly.
Kirito and Asuna raced in, Kirito carrying Excalibur at the ready. Asuna struck with a flurry of rapier strikes, staggering a troll even as Kirito slashed at another. Both trolls' life bars dropped rapidly. Then Kirito started rapidly striking at his target, using that weird 'skill connect' trick he had developed to 'chain' sword skills together.
"One down!" Liz cheered as Kirito's troll died.
Lux and Leafa double teamed another troll, even as Asuna dropped back to cast healing on Kirito after he took a hit. Youko, the newcomer, was casting heal on Liz, as Klein chugged a healing potion. The second Troll's life bar was nearly done, then Lux finished it off with a slicing attack.
"The last troll is going berzerk!" Sinon warned as she fired her bow again from behind.
Indeed, the troll screamed it's fury as it flailed about wildly. Liz yelped as it grabbed onto her shield and bodily tried to rip it off. "A little help, please!" she yelled.
"Pina! Breath attack!" Silica ordered. The mini-dragon Pina got into the troll's face then sprayed, sending the troll reeling backward.
Once it was clear Liz swung Mjolnir again, feeling the heavy weight of the weapon pulled her around a bit. With a crash almost like thunder it rammed into the troll's side, taking out a chunk of stone flesh and dropping it's life bar a lot!
"Hit it again!" Lux yelled.
Liz twisted as she brought the hammer around in a overhead blow then with a loud crash smashed it down on the troll. The power of the blow, coupled with the existing damage, literally cleaved the troll in two! Then, with a rumble, it crumbled to dust.
"Damn," Klein managed tiredly as he caught his breath.
There was a tense moment as they waited for more trolls to pop up, then breathed out relieved sighs when it appeared the battle was over. "Everyone heal up," Kirito ordered. "we need to move on before the trolls re-spawn."
"And give me a chance to cast the buffs," Youko noted wryly.
Liz checked her stats, noting with some surprise how much experience and yrd she had recieved. If they all got shares like this, the quest was sure to be popular. AND she got an new item drop, too. Interesting.
"Valkyrie Armor Chest," Liz murmured aloud and equipped it.
"Eeep!" Silica 'eeped' and turned.
"Whoo!" Leafa blinked.
"It's the mythic Chain Mail Bikini!" Klein cheered.
"ACK!" Liz yelped. The 'Valkyrie Armor' amounted to two metal plates cupping each breast and that was it. She very quickly switched back to her newly bought armor.
"Well, that was interesting," Kirito muttered, blushing.
Liz GLARED at him and Klein. "You didn't see that," she growled, "understood?"
"Yes, ma'am," Klein said meekly while Kirito nodded.
"Anyone else get interesting item drops?" Sinon changed the subject.
Liz listened as she examined the bikini with her blacksmith skills. She studied the stats, then cursed softly.
"What?" Lux asked mildly.
"It actually is better armor than my full breastplate," Liz scowled.
"Huh?" Klein blinked.
"LOTS of bonuses. Plus it gives pluses against 'enemies of Asgard.' Well," Liz frowned thoughtfully. She REALLY didn't want to wear something this indecent, but...
"Didn't you get that knight overcoat thing when we quested together? Silica suggested. "You could wear it over that for added coverage."
"That's a idea," Liz agreed. Turning away she equipped the bikini again, then the tabard. Which provided reasonable cover. There was some 'side boob' visible, but she felt mostly decent. And there were no minuses for covering the armor, thankfully.
Klein looked vaguely disappointed.
"Men," Youko sighed.
"Anyway... let's move on," Kirito said briskly.
"Thank you for the buffs," Liz added to Youko as they headed down a stone hallway lit by 'torches.' The icons hovered above her health bar, along with the other members of the team.
"Just trying to help. I'll renew the anti-fire one before we hit the fire giants... hopefully it'll buy us time," Youko noted.
As they walked Liz saw Asuna fussing over Kirito and repressed a flash of annoyance. She KNEW she really shouldn't let it bother her. Heck, they had MARRIED in SAO and later here in ALO. But somehow, the 'crush' she had had on him still lingered a bit.
"According to Argo's map and the data we got from Shiroe, we're coming up to the dark elves. They're swords users, so we should be okay," Kirito said.
"Don't SAY that," Silica groaned.
"We're jinxed," Klein agreed.
Almost as soon as they entered the next chamber, the elves attacked. Both she and Klein deliberately drew attacks, though this time the enemy fought more like other players. The band of ten elves spread out, launching attacks on everyone pretty much.
"Aaaah!" Liz yelled incoherently as she fought a heavily armored elf. The pointy, ominous looking armor was really impractically designed, she noted, but it still survived a blow from her hammer.
"An Asgardian? Here?" the elf demanded, looking at her strangely.
"Just borrowing the gear," Liz replied, swinging at his side while he was distracted. There was a loud 'GONG!' noise, and he went flying.
"Nice!" Klein cheered as he unleashed a fire based special skill on his enemy, sheathing his sword in white hot flame.
"Ewww," Silica noted as the elf was basically sliced in two.
Liz blinked as the elf who had hung back from the battle appeared to cast a healing spell on the one she hammered. "They have healers too?" she noted aloud.
"This is like PvP not usual dungeons," Kirito noted.
"I'll take out the healer," Sinon said as she drew her bow. "Just keep them off me a minute."
Predictably, as soon as Sinon moved to draw the surviving enemies charged. Anticipating this Liz, Klein, Leafa and Youko had pretty much put themselves directly in front of Sinon, but even then they could barely block the charge.
Seizing the opportunity Kirito and Asuna charged in to attack the stragglers, too. Excalibur proved as deadly as ever as Kirito cut two wounded down. Beside him asuna struck with the combo attack 'Mother's Rosary', defeating a nearly uninjured elf.
Muttering a spell under her breath Sinon fired two arrows off in just second, sending them racing across the battlefield. The caster gtried to dodge but both arrows struck home, then shockingly exploded. There was a burst of light and heat, then just smoke wear he had been standing.
"Wow," Liz blinked.
Without support the elves were finished off fairly quickly, and they all recieved more look, yrd and experience. "I didn't get to do much," Silica sighed.
"You back stabbed that one knight like a champ," Leafa reassured her.
"Everyone, heal up," Kirito ordered. "We took more damage this time..."
Liz noted they had taken a LOT more hits in this battle. She chugged down a healing potion, even as the members who could do magic cast healing spells. The chainmail bikini, annoyingly, had taken no hits at all.
"Huh," Asuna noted aloud. "I got a piece of Valkyrie armor. The gauntlets," she informed the group. She looked at Liz, "I'll give them to you."
"You don't have to..." Liz started, but heard a 'ding' notifying her she had received the items. "Next time I get something nice, I'll give it to you," she promised.
"It's fine," Asuna smiled back warmly.
Liz un-equipped the plain gauntlets she had bought with her new armor, and equipped the Valkyrie ones. She immediately noted they were high quality, done in silvery metal and with detailed engraving. They also felt very light, despite going half way up her fore-arms.
"Oooh," Liz exclaimed as she checked her stats.
"What?" Leafa asked curiously as the blonde cast healing spells.
"More bonuses and accuracy boosts," Liz noted. "I like this armor."
"Give me something REALLY nice later," Asuna teased.
"Will do," Liz laughed.
To be continued.
Notes: GOD I suck on fight scenes. Might re-write bits of this later.
I'm trying to get away from the 'harem' bits in SAO too, as much as possible. I know its a popular trope in anime, but in something like SAO it makes very little sense. Canonly, Kirito MARRIED Asuna in-game, for god's sake. The other girls should be moving on.