Sword Art Online: Asgard

Eight

The last 'Boss' of the first floor of the staircase dungeon was a Fire Giant. The only good news was that he was he wasn't one of the REALLY powerful ones, like Surtur. Even with that, he was massively trouble.

"THREE HEALTH BARS?" Lux yelped disbelievingly as they attacked the giant.

"We've fought worse," Kirito casually reassured her even as he raced in. His sword Excalibur was a huge advantage against these monsters, he had found, but even it couldn't swiftly carve away all those life points.

Along with Excalibur, Liz' Hammer of Thor was especially damaging too. Each of their strikes was doing huge damage.

As they charged in, Asuna had quickly taken overall command of the battle. Not unexprected, with her leading the Knights of the Blood, back then. "Youko, keep up the buffs!" she ordered. "Leafa! Silica! Focus on healing! Everybody else, help shield Liz and Kirito!"

"It's about to shoot fire breath again!" Yui yelled out a warning as the Giant tried to bathe the group in flames.

Kirito wasn't happy about being protected, but... it DID make some sense. From the corner of his eye he saw status updates appearing and disappearing. The Fire Giant attacks kept burning through the protective buffs, then Youko restored them.

'Hopefully she can keep it up," Kirito mused as he attacked, slashing with the golden sword and chopping away life points.

"Hyaaa!"Liz grunted, the mystical hammer literally trailing lightning as it hit the giant's side, staggering him.

Youko chugged down a mana potion, then cast the anti-fire buffs AGAIN.

Sinon drew her bow, chanted, then rapid fired several shots towards the Giant's head. The first arrow just melted, but the next two followed it in almost exactly, and detonated. The Giant screamed as the cold spells on the other arrows activated, and staggered.

"It's down to one health bar!" Asuna called.

"It'll probably get more unpredictable, now," Yui warned them.

Kirito and Liz charged in again, with Klein doing his best to shield them both. The Giant looked like he was about to breath attack again... then fire exploded from his hands too. "Kirito, behind me!" Klein ordered, then cried out in pain as he burned.

"HIT IT!" Asuna yelled as she raced in, striking with a Linear.

Liz struck once again with her hammer, and Silica darted in yo attack with her dagger. Slipping behind she executed a perfect 'back stab' as the Giant's life dropped to zero.

'Last Hit' appeared in mid-air in front of the mildly stunned Silica, even as everyone else gained experience and yrd. "Klein!" Silica yelped, then ordered her dragon to use 'Healing breath.'

"Ugh, that sucked," Klein groaned, but he was alive, and his nearly emptied health bar began to go back up.

"Thanks," Kirito told him, clapping him on the shoulder.

"Got Asgardian Leggings," Lux noted, "they probably go with Liz's new gear." She traded the item to her team mate.

"Thanks," Liz said as she equipped them, then the boots that made her old pants disappear. Thankfully, nothing vanished this time.

"Looks like stairs have opened up at the back of the room," Sinon warned.

"No attackers, so probably it's the route up to the next floor," Youko observed calmly.

"Agreed," Kirito nodded. He looked at the somewhat battered Kline and Liz, "Do you need longer to heal up?"

"Yes, but we can't sit around waiting," Klein shrugged. Thankfully his armor had regenerated as he healed, and he looked good to go.

"I'll lead this time," Liz offered. "I mostly avoided the fire, thanks to Kline. Plus I think my armor class went up again," she noted.

"Makes sense," Kirito agreed as they went up the stairs together.

There was an open room up at the top of the stairs, with a single passage leading off from it. They entered warily, looking for something to jump them.

"No attackers?"Lux murmured worriedly.

"I guess Cardinal isn't being that sadistic," Kirito noted.

Everyone finished healing up and chugged down more mana potions. Moving as a group they cautiously advanced down the tunnel, then entered a larger chamber, one that looked like a ruined forge of some sort.

"For the Nine Worlds!" a voice called, then a group of Dwarves burst from cover, charging them in a chaotic wave.

Liz and Kline took the brunt of the charge, even as the rest of the team spread out and attacked. Youko jabbed and lunged, moving fast but gracefully. Beside her, Lux and Silica struck, as Leafa preformed healing spells from behind, along with Asuna.

"NINE worlds?" Kirito muttered to himself as he swung, "Does that mean we'll see four more added levels...?"

"Less speculating! More fighting!" Klein yelled.

"Yeah, sorry," Kirito replied sheepishly.

Sinon perched near the back of the room, firing arrows with eerie precision. The jumbled rubble made it easy for the enemy to creep up, but Sinon kept dropping them whenever a head popped up.

"Way to go," Leafa grinned at her as she cast healing again.

"You too," Sinon smiled.

The Dwarves were physically tough, and the axes they wielded were dangerous, but thankfully they weren't too tough. And both Liz and Kirito had weapons bonuses against them.

The issue, weirdly, was trying to clobber tough, muscled warriors who were all about Silica sized. Or maybe Argo sized, Whichever.

"There we go!" Lux panted as she cut down the last of them.

As they finished the room, everyone got the usual amounts of yrd and item drops. "Everyone ok?" Asuna asked briskly.

"A dwarf tried to chop my leg off," Klein bitched.

Sinon was retrieving arrows from corpses as they talked. She only had so many, and a few 'broke' after using too.

"What did you mean, four more worlds?" Silica asked Kirito curiously.

Kirito made a face. "Well, this is partially speculation. But we know that AL Online is based on Norse mythology," he started.

Everyone nodded.

"So if we assume the real world is the ALO version of Norse 'Midguard' and we live in the land of the elves," Kirito continued, "we've only been to Jotunheim and Niflheim so far."

"And we're on our way to Asgard," Liz noted.

"Leaving four more worlds for Cardinal to drop on us," Klein noted wryly.

"Muspelheim home of the Fire Giants, Vanaheim where the Vanir gods are, Svartalfheim home of the Dwarves and Helheim home of the dishonored dead," Silica said.

Everyone looked at her in surprise.

"What?" Silica pouted. "When I realized ALO was based on Norse mythology, I read up on it."

"Nice!" Lux grinned at her friend.

"So does that mean Cardinal might throw some or all of those worlds against us in here?" Klein asked, frowning.

"Well, it's already chucked the dwarves at us," Klein sighed.

"Oh joy," Sinon deadpanned.

As they recovered Youko moved closer to Asuna. "Well done leading us back there," she noted.

Asuna actually blushed slightly, "Thank you."

Curiously Youko asked, "Is this the sort of thing you did in Sword Art Online?"

Asuna gave her an odd look, "Yes, I headed up a guild. You've never asked about it before...?"

Youko looked sheepish, "I'm trying to rectify that."

Asuna looked at her thoughtfully, then nodded slightly. "Maybe we can talk about it once we clear this dungeon," she suggested.

Youko smiled, "I'd like that."

"All right, everyone healed up?" Kirito asked, having given the women a moment to talk. Briskly he continued, "Let's see what they throw at us next."

"Aye!" the group responded, then they headed up the passage.

"RAWRRRR!"

"A dragon."

"That's a dragon."

"OH FUCK..."

To be continued...

Notes: still recovering from X-Mas gluttony, so short update.

With the Norse Mythology elements of ALO, it seemed logical we'd see critters and quests across the whole 'Nine worlds' concepts. I'm sort of annoyed it'll probably not come up in the 'main' series of books, but what do you do.