A/N: This one was absolutely later than the previous – blame that on a couple of idle games. I was really stressed out last week, sue me.
The second floor's main city, Urbus, was carved into the flat top of a 300-yard-wide mountain. I was not really a fan of the oboe music of this floor's towns, compared to the strings of the first floor's, although I could easily ignore it for the sake of getting things done in town.
On the topic, once I got into Urbus – 40 minutes from the first floor tower's exit – I went straight to the plaza, where there was a large archway, with a thin, rippling film as the 'door'. I touched the film with a single finger, and bright blue light filled the archway in place of the watery curtain. This was a teleport gate, connecting to a similar arch down in the Town of Beginnings.
Almost immediately upon touching the gate to open it, I took off out the west exit, into the dry plain which was populated by large, powerful cattle monsters. I was not here to challenge them, though, and with that in mind, I took great care not to draw their attention as I proceeded into a canyon.
"Uh, SAUER?"
"Hm?" I looked slightly to my left, seeing Monika running intangibly beside me, "What's up?"
"Turning back would be a good idea," she commented in an unconvincing tone.
I shrugged as I slowed my pace to a walk. "I know what I'm doing, Monika."
"No, turn back literally."
I blinked, and then looked behind me, seeing a hooded figure with straw-blonde curls approaching rapidly, and then I saw two figures further behind her.
"…Is that the Rat?" I wondered aloud to the dating sim mascot.
"Oh, yeah – that's Argo," she answered with a nod, "You should see what's going on."
Monika vanished as Argo quickly drew nearer, her painted whiskers becoming clear, while the two figures behind her also appeared more sharply in my vision, in full dark-gray cloth armor with light chainmail over it, dark gray bandanna caps, and scimitars over their backs.
"SAUER! Didn't think I'd see ya up this way," the Rat commented as she stopped in front of me, and turned back to face the other two, "These two ninjas are hounding me to no end!"
"Who is this interloper?!" snarled one of them.
I shook my head with a sigh. "We've still got roleplayers, in the current state of the game?"
"How dare you!" the other growled, "What you see as delusion, we see as identity!"
I simply rolled my eyes, as I saw another figure land between us from a ledge above, wearing the familiar Coat of Midnight I had given him.
"Another one?!"
"An ambush! This enemy is working with outside forces! We can't take this chance…!"
The two ninjas then fled back toward town, leaving me with Argo and Kirito.
"I think they took you, Kirito, as a rival," I chuckled lightly, "And me, as a foreign contractor."
"Yeah, probably," the boy sighed before turning to Argo, "Anyway, what were they after you for?"
"While you two figure that out, I'm going my own way," I said to them, "Catch you later."
As I took off, I barely saw Argo point at me, and say something I couldn't hear. Then, Kirito quickly followed me while the Rat headed off again.
"Ohh, I get it now," I heard just to my left, and I looked to see Monika running at my pace.
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"The floors," she answered as I approached one of the flat-topped mountains, "I've been looking at your map since we opened the second, and as I'd hoped, the Y coordinates are consistent to the full game world, rather than by floor. So the ground here is not, say, Y 100 on the previous floor but zero here; it's always going to be a higher number relative to the mass holding up the first floor."
"I mean, I figured that from the beginning," I replied with a shrug, "But what about it?"
"Well, it means that if we find a feature that uses coordinates, I might be able to edit the integers to reflect coordinates of a location normally inaccessible."
I scrunched my face in thought. "The only thing about that… is that I don't want to be in a place with enemies way stronger than I'm supposed to be ready for by that point."
"That's true…"
As we talked, I had rounded the side of a mountain and found a cave at the top. There, I waited for Kirito behind me to catch up.
"Hey, what's down this way?" he asked me.
"There's a river in this cave," I explained as we walked in, "It works like a water slide. Once we're at the bottom, we continue up past the cave's exit, onto a mountain at the floor's east edge."
I stopped and turned to him with a smirk. "There, you'll find exactly what the ninja guys wanted."
"Which is… what? Did you hear them ask her?"
I shook my head with a shrug. "All I know is, it'll answer another question for you, too."
I let his mind wander as he followed me through, and after half an hour, we reached a clearing with sheer rock walls all around, along with a spring of water, a tree, and a tiny shed.
I walked up to the shed, and the door flung open to reveal an elderly man of pure muscle and bone, bald and bearded with a gold questionmark over his head to indicate an available quest.
I turned to Kirito again, and smiled. "This Extra Skill will come in handy for you: Martial Arts. You can attack without weapons using this skill, or while waiting for cooldowns on Sword Skills."
Kirito entered the shack and stood in front of the meditating man in a robe.
"You want to follow my school?" asked the NPC.
"That's right."
"The road of training is long and fraught with peril," he warned.
"That's what I like to hear." After Kirito's answer, the questionmark disappeared, and the NPC took Kirito to a boulder at the edge of his stone-lined garden.
"Your training is simple: split this stone with your two fists. If you succeed, I will teach you all of my secrets."
"Um… Time out," the boy asked as he tapped the rock, figuring out its durability from its texture.
"You are not permitted to descend this mountain until you break the stone," the martial art master explained as he drew a jar and paintbrush from his robe, "I will put the sign upon you now."
Kirito shrieked as the master whipped the bristles across his face, leaving three whisker-like strokes drying almost instantly on each cheek.
The NPC concluded his explanation. "That sign will not vanish until you break this rock and complete your training. I have faith in your potential, my apprentice."
Kirito turned to me, and pouted at my smirk. "So, this is how Argo became The Rat…"
I nodded silently as I followed the old man to his shed, and proceeded through the same exchange. Then he ushered me out, and shut the door, after the quest marker became an exclamation mark.
"You're doing it too, SAUER?" the boy asked from around the shed.
"Why not?" I answered with a chuckle.
The shed opened again, and the master pulled a boulder out by rope, before untying it once it was outside, and lifting it onto his back. He then carried it to the garden, and set it in a shallow pit. He repeated the instruction, and then painted my face before returning to the shed.
"As you can now see," I continued to chuckle as I walked over to the boulder, "The whisker style is different every time. I'm not laughing at yours, by the way – the brush tickles."
Without Kirito seeing her again, Monika appeared and started feeling the rock all over. I sat on the ground in front of the boulder, watching her bend over in her default DDLC outfit as she knew exactly where my eyes would go. Meanwhile, the boy beside me had no idea there was a show being put on.
Finally, my virtual girlfriend took an upright stance, and thrust her fists at the boulder repeatedly, so I could watch and mimic her while standing in her space. Overlapping our visuals, I moved my arms up like hers, and then thrust my fists into the rock exactly the way she did.
Upon impact, a crack spread up and down the middle of the boulder, and the halves fell away from each-other harmlessly. I then returned to the NPC, who wiped off the paint with a light brown rag in his pocket, and then I waved at Kirito with a smile before leaving as he simply stared back.
By 3PM of December 2nd, Urbus already had over twice the population that Tolbana had yesterday, after the time of the strategy meeting. And that was likely to double, maybe even triple, as word got around about the teleport gate feature, down at the Town of Beginnings by the end of the day.
Three kilometers southeast from Urbus was the village of Marome, about as humble a settlement as Horunka on the first floor – a small shop, maybe some quests, but not much else. Even so, it was sure to prove useful due to being further south in the floor, closer to the tower.
Though it only took about two hours to get there, it would take about three days for the frontline players to get settled into the village, and as such, it was only after we'd done exactly that, when Kirito finally returned from the Martial Arts quest, face clear of any paint.
"Knew you'd get it," I commented to him when he came back, "Now that you've made it to Marome, suppose you're looking for Red Spotted Beetles in the east mountains?"
"You're very straightforward in determining the next step," Kirito sighed, "Let's eat something first."
Since it was still the later part of the morning on December 6th, we were able to get into the lunch menus of an NPC restaurant, and once a few sandwiches were out of the way, the two of us went out east to the mountains and fought the beetles for One-Handed Sword-related materials.
Returning to Urbus later that day, I sought out an NPC blacksmith. I got to see a player blacksmith in town for the first time in the release version of the game, but I didn't need his extra proficiency since Monika could give me successful rolls every time – all I needed was the bare minimum enhancement materials for two enhancement attempts, and an NPC to hit my sword with a hammer.
Now with my Anneal Blade maxed out at +8 – 1 Accuracy, 7 Durability – I took it back to Marome to attend the next day's strategy meeting, where a couple dozen players went over the details from the latest version of Argo's beta-curated guide. Before reviewing the information, Diavel revealed that his party, sans Lind, had scouted the Field Boss guarding the basin chokepoint, leading to the small south portion of the floor where the tower was. We had just over half of the group from the raid group for fighting Illfang, with few changes: this time, Diavel took my place as organizer and overall raid leader, for one, while Agil's tank party had dropped to a tight-knit quartet. Other than that, Kibaou's party remained the same, all specialized for DPS, except I was hesitant to stay in the party.
The other tank party from Illfang's raid, the third DPS party aside from Diavel's and Kibaou's, and the two support parties, all had not been present for this meeting, and opted out when Diavel contacted their leaders – except the leader of the tank party, a member of the DPS party, and two members of each support party. The tank leader joined Agil's party, along with a tanky member of the former support parties, and one DPS-specialized support player took the last slot of Kibaou's party, leaving two players who opted to join as a backup in case someone needed to pull out.
This composition satisfied me well enough, that I opted to join the backup party. On the morning of the 8th, the group handled the Field Boss – a massive bull named the Bullbous Bow – without any hangups that warranted intervention from the backup party. This was a clear indication of Diavel's leadership skills, and both Lind and Kibaou admitted that they looked up to him for that. And since Diavel had lived to learn that some changes made after the beta would make a huge difference, he would surely account for that in future raids, such that I would not have to save him again.
Upon beating the boss, Diavel took the group to the village of Taran to refresh, and then they began mapping out the lower floors of the second floor's tower throughout the afternoon, before pulling back to Taran in the evening to relax. In that time, word got back to Marome and Urbus that Taran was available, and handfuls of players made their way over, including crafters.
Kirito arrived in Taran shortly before we got back, followed by Asuna a while after. Diavel and I each made valid points for including them in the floor boss raid, and we were joined by nine more players from the Illfang raid, giving us enough for two tank parties – each with their original leaders – three DPS parties led by Diavel, Kibaou and Lind; and one support party for interrupting the boss. This left Kirito, Asuna and myself as an incomplete, fourth DPS party, who would fortunately still see purpose within this raid, as we learned on the morning of the 9th during the first strategy meeting.
"Now, many of you who joined us in exploring the tower yesterday," Diavel prefaced as he filled the role of co-organizer alongside myself, "Will have seen that the Taurus mobs wielding hammers, have access to a special stunning attack called Numbing Impact. Well, the boss is just a bigger version of these with a few extra details. Baran the General Taurus, as he's described in the newest guide, has a large hammer like the tower mobs, but his stunning attack is called Numbing Detonation – this attack can stack debuffs, turning a stun into a paralysis. If you get hit once, do everything in your power to avoid being hit a second time. That's about all you can do while we help you retreat to the walls."
I followed up on his exposition. "The only additional enemy in the room, is Nato the Colonel Taurus, who serves as a lesser boss himself – though he only has the regular Numbing Impact attack. Also, these two have frenzied states during their final HP bars, in which their colors change, and they use Numbing Impact – or Numbing Detonation respectively – much more frequently. Another important detail is that Numbing Detonation also has twice the range of Numbing Impact, fitting with General Baran being twice the size of Colonel Nato."
"To clarify the effect of Numbing Detonation," Diavel recalled after, "What I meant by avoiding being hit a second time, is that your second hit period by that attack, will paralyze you – I do not mean that you must avoid being hit while stunned. Just because you're not stunned anymore, does not mean that you can relax. If you're hit soon enough after being hit once, you'll still be paralyzed."
"The attack's stun from the first hit lasts three seconds," I continued after him, "Enough time that the only thing you should be preparing yourself for upon recovering, is to dodge the next attack. During your stun, the game can choose to fumble your weapon from your hand. Do not retrieve it. Wait and dodge, then get back in for your weapon. Even the most basic paralysis effects last ten minutes. You do NOT want three seconds to turn into ten minutes – you simply do not."
"As you may have seen when fighting Illfang on the first floor," Diavel picked up again, "The stun on your avatar looks like yellow sparks around you. Paralysis is similar, but pale green. If you see this on your allies, help them move out of the way to the far walls of the room, so they can recover safely, while the rest of us fight unobstructed. When the time comes for us to go up there, make sure you have debuff recovery potions – and make sure you can reach them with only your dominant hand, because that's the only part of your body which can move, and even then, very slowly."
I closed my copy of the guide, and held the book over my head, after Diavel finished speaking.
"As we saw when fighting Illfang, certain details of this game may have changed since the beta, that greatly change how it's played. Whatever changes we're to expect in this fight, whether it's different weapons and attack patterns, or even a slight adjustment of how an attack works, or how the two boss-class characters fight together – do not confidently stride in for the final stretch, keep your cool, and be prepared to adapt to a new strategy on the fly."
Diavel nodded in agreement, his head down for a moment afterward, before resuming.
"Once we've found the boss room and seen inside, we will gather again to discuss our composition. During that time, more players could possibly show up, and we will need to figure out how to work with them. Currently, including the two of us, I can see 39 players. We have space for another nine players to make a complete, eight-party raid group. Until further notice, meeting adjourned!"
Amid an applause from the group, I walked down to Kirito and Asuna to check on them.
"How do you two feel about this arrangement?" I asked them, "You two being stuck together—"
"You're just as much a part of the party this time, so don't isolate us into our own pair."
I blinked at Asuna's interjection. "I didn't mean for it to sound that way, I knew I was in with y'all."
Kirito shrugged. "I'm just glad we're still in the raid. Asuna has shown a lot of potential, it won't be difficult for a guild later on to recognize how valuable she is for the clearing effort."
The fencer simply sighed. "As much as I've realized that death isn't inevitable in here, I don't think that means I'm ready to devote myself to the responsibility of pushing to the top…"
I chuckled and accepted Kirito's party invite. "You do have more to learn, and you're a long way yet from a level to beat the 100th floor – but that's the same for all of us, even the beta testers. You can even be better than the beta testers… hell, you've lived longer than at least a couple hundred."
Asuna awkwardly looked away. "That's an awful way to put it… but you're right. Thanks, SAUER."
Late in the afternoon of the 11th, Diavel announced that the boss room had been found, and we all agreed on the raid taking place the next morning, this time at 10:30. Then, Diavel arranged the raid composition by front and rear parties – front for General Baran, back for Colonel Nato.
Diavel and Lind would take the front DPS, while Kibaou's party and mine would be rear DPS. Agil's party would tank for the rear, with the other tank party at the front. The support party present last time, would take rear support, while a new party of five who showed up this time, called the Legend Braves, would take the front support role. The party itself didn't seem too special, for them to call themselves by a group name before the guild feature was even available, but their equipment was very advanced relative to the raid group's average – the upkeep would have been expensive.
"Now, SAUER, you're going to be an odd case," Diavel addressed me at this point, "You've found yourself a particular weapon that can prove especially useful in this battle, haven't you?"
I nodded as I materialized it with «Quick Change», a skill modifier unlockable from increasing the proficiency on weapon skills. Though a good number of weapon skills had Quick Change, a player needed to only unlock it on one skill, to use it with all weapons.
"This is a boomerang, common in my home of Australia," I explained as I held the thin crescent, this one forged from metal while real ones were only ever wooden, "Some of you may have familiarized yourselves with thrown weapons, but mostly run into straight-shot missiles, like picks and knives. Missile-class throwers are precise, but quickly run out, and are typically single-use and really small. Even if they stuck around, you'd have to find them in grass or something."
I then pointed to the glove that appeared on my hand when I equipped the boomerang.
"Boomerangs fit into spinner-class throwers, alongside the chakram dropped by Taurus Ringhurlers. They are easy to retrieve for one reason or another, they have a mostly-consistent trajectory, and as spinners, use a different set of Sword Skills in the Blade Throwing category. Real boomerangs are typically wood, as in real life, metal does not fly simply by spinning. But this is a video game, yet not without its own acknowledgements – metal boomerangs come with a glove that features a bracing bar across the palm, because realistically, a flying piece of metal would just slice your fingers off. It's not the best excuse for that not happening, but it's a neat idea."
The only other detail I didn't explain, was that spinner-class throwers required the Martial Arts skill, which I only left out for Argo's wellbeing. We didn't need people crowding the mountain and then being angry at her for leading them on such a tedious and possibly embarrassing quest.
I put away the boomerang, and Diavel resumed his explanation for the weapon's importance.
"SAUER will be going back and forth between his assignment against Nato, and an auxiliary addition against Baran. The Taurus enemies are weak in the horns, and hitting them increases the chance of them being stunned themselves. This applies to these bosses, too, but they stand tall enough, that Sword Skills could only hit them if you jump to reach them – and jumping at a boss is not practical. This boomerang will be thrown at the horns, instead. SAUER will attempt to stun Baran first, before returning to engage Nato with his party. Whenever he sees an opening to join in again, he will try stunning Baran again, and the process repeats. …And that should be it! 10:30AM, tomorrow!"
The group went their own ways for the evening, as I turned to talk to Kirito and Asuna. But as I was about to speak, I saw the Legend Braves approaching me.
"What's up, LB?" I asked casually.
"I'd like to ask you more about spinner-class throwing weapons," answered their leader, Orlando.
"Oh? What else do you need to know?"
"Well, we have another member that is sitting out of battles," he began to explain, "He has this uh, issue with the VR technology. It's called… FullDive Non-Conformity?"
"Ah, I've heard of it," I replied with a nod, "Saw someone who couldn't feel touch. What's his?"
"Well, he can only see out of one eye in-game," Orlando answered with a sigh, "It's been a problem for our performance in other multiplayer games, and he couldn't hit enemies in front of him, due to underestimating how far he was from them. In this game, we tried to help him level up the Blade Throwing skill because distance wasn't so much a factor in ranged attacks if we were still closer for fighting the same monsters in melee… but we couldn't get enough throwing weapons…"
I nodded in understanding. "You want an easily-reusable weapon for this guy. Keeping in mind that ranged attacks usually require leading, which itself requires depth – as long as he's throwing at an enemy that isn't moving left or right, only towards or not moving, it could work."
Kirito added to the exchange. "A chakram travels in a straight line, so it will be a better fit for that player, and you can get one rarely from a Taurus Ringhurler. At some point, you can set aside time to hunt those monsters until one drops, while your other member takes the Martial Arts quest."
"Ah, that's right," I chuckled nervously for Argo's sake, "Spinner-class throwers do require that skill, because chakrams in this game have an extra function as a fist augment, while boomerangs have a special finesse to being thrown. It should take him roughly three days to beat that quest, though."
Kirito nodded hesitantly. "I can give you a map that you can give to this friend, leading to the place where the quest can be taken. It might be a good idea if you wait until after this boss fight."
"We'll keep that in mind, thank you. And thank you, too, SAUER."
I went off to get dinner, while Kirito prepared a map for the Legend Braves to take. Then I took to rereading the beta info for the rest of the night, before sleeping for the next morning. And despite us heading out shortly after meeting up, we only got to the corridor near the boss door at about 1:45PM. Fortunately, this tower had a safe zone just around the corner from the boss room.
"Alright, everyone," Diavel called out as we made our way from the safe zone to the boss door after refreshing ourselves for the battle, "Only one thing for me to say: rear group, when you finish up on Colonel Nato, come up and I'll let you know how to fit into the front assault. As for the front group, remember that if you get hit once, make sure not to get hit a second time. Now, in we go!"
Surprisingly enough, much of the battle was fairly straightforward. Large hammer slams and sparking shockwaves aside, the parties were very well organized, and with Monika's unseen help, all of my boomerang hits yielded a successful stun effect on each Taurus. Even so, by the time Nato's HP had drained to yellow in the final bar, Baran's final bar had already begun chipping down, too. After Nato turned purple – from his original blue – we pummelled the Colonel down to the end, and by then, General Baran's final bar of five became yellow, Nato having had three before being defeated.
As I glanced at Kirito dismissing the yield popup, I ran beside him as we headed over to the front grouping to help wrap up against Baran.
"Say, Kirito, this is a Colonel and a General, right?" I commented to him.
"Yeah, I thought about that, too…!" Asuna answered from behind us.
Kirito looked back at her, then to me again. "Well, what's above a General?"
A crashing sound rang out from the center of the chamber, between the ends of the chamber where each Taurus was being fought. A series of black stone circles turned counterclockwise, grinding harsh against one-another as they formed a three-step stage. Then, the light of the room seemed to wave slightly over the stage, like the heat lines in the distance on a hot day.
The convulsing light then formed into a full shape, and coalesced into a humanoid model with two tree trunk-sized legs thudding onto the stage. Dark chainmail covered the waist, but the torso, like pretty much every other Taurus monster, remained bare. A long twisty beard hung to his stomach, while six horns surrounded a platinum crown on the bull-head, and six HP bars scrolled into view.
The black minotaur roared as his name appeared: «Asterius, the Taurus King».
I pointed up with a sigh. "The commander-in-chief. Alright, guys, same rotation for now!"
We were still a fair distance from the center, but we were the closer portion of the group, and so, Asterius turned his attention to us – the rear unit assigned to Nato, closer to the chamber entrance.
But then the king leaned back, chest bulging like a barrel, as if charging a long-range breath attack.
"Rear unit, pick a wall and stick to it!" I ordered them, in case Asterius' stun window was limited. I launched my boomerang up, high at his crown, and after a metallic clang, the Taurus King flinched, sparks harmlessly – yet menacingly – billowing from his nostrils like steam.
"Nevermind, get in!" I chuckled triumphantly, and the rear parties acted accordingly, resuming the rotations we had done before. And as they began attacking, I peered around the true boss' side.
Diavel struck the last blow on Baran, then turned to point at Asterius with his sword. He was too far from us for me to hear, but his front unit headed this way to assist, and as such, we'd find ourselves quickly on the same page.
"Great job, Diavel!" I called to him once he was in earshot, "Rear unit, make way for the front!"
Diavel, Lind, their respective parties, and the Legend Braves attacked once the tanks pulled aggro, dealing the meat of the damage against the king – the kind of damage that allowed them to keep up against Baran at the same relative pace as we had with Nato, despite the two-bar difference.
Each time Asterius began sucking in for the breath attack – which we eventually figured out was telegraphed by glowing eyes – I threw my boomerang at his crown to stun him, with Monika guaranteeing both the hit and the stun effect. This left him with only as many options as the first two: Numbing Detonation, and a trampling rush.
The Legend Braves turned out to be a tank party themselves, as they took multiple direct hits from Numbing Detonation and didn't get stunned or paralyzed, thanks to their expensive equipment.
The front unit as a whole still had to rotate out eventually, though, and a few minutes after we got back in, Asuna scored the last hit on Asterius. As far as I remembered, no-one pressed her on what she received as the Last Attack Bonus.
Then again, maybe they were all preoccupied with the boomerang, to which I redirected all praise thrown my way – though it was still my weapon, making the point moot. Even so, I welcomed the enthusiasm for incorporating reusable throwers into other players' repertoires.
"Come on, can't you see it by now?!" cried the same squeaky voice from after the Illfang boss, who was now behind a leather mask, "There's more to beta knowledge than what gets into the book, or what was suppressed from the blogs and gaming news sites!"
"Oh, shut up, Joe," groaned Kibaou, which I didn't see coming, "Let it go, what we got is still useful, you're not making things any more favorable."
"No, seriously! Think about the way that new boss spawned," Joe whined completely unlike a guy bearing facial hair – the only feature I could remember, "He appeared in the middle of the room, as each party fought at the far ends by the entrance and floor exit. And they killed Nato just before he spawned in, and moved right on him while we were still working on Baran! They agreed to Diavel assigning them to the weaker boss, so they could get to Asterius first, like they knew he was here!"
Diavel simply shook his head. "Joe, if something changed on the first floor, there had to be a change for the second floor, too. If Asterius wasn't new, what was?"
Joe turned to Diavel, allowing me to see that he'd passed over spears in favor of a dagger.
"How do we know the katana was a change? How do we know that the talwar was in the beta? We can't know, because the book has to have some lies in it to throw off the trail! We can't do any due diligence ourselves, because we don't know! The beta testers know!"
The masked squeaker turned to my party again. "And how is this info being curated, anyway? How does the Rat know the beta testers who have the info, if not for being a beta tester too?!"
"Bitch, please!" I snapped at him, "She wants to escape the game just like the rest of us! Even if she were to know some beta testers, who cares?! We don't know for certain if the number still alive, is enough to win without the new players! They have no reason to screw you over! That would reduce the number of available frontliners, which severely affects the odds of winning at all!"
Lind nodded in agreement. "That's right, guys. The less players are willing to trust one-another, the less coordinated they'll be against higher floors, and the less likely that the game will be cleared. No more division – it doesn't benefit anyone, beta or new. Drop it."
His assertion was met with silence. Joe seemed to realize he wasn't getting anywhere.
"Right. In any case, we're done with the second floor," Diavel reminded us, "Take whatever time you need to regain your bearings, discuss drops and how you'll each proceed until the next boss, and any other thing you need to take care of before moving on. Thank you all for fighting!"
As the parties sat down to talk, the Legend Braves came over to me, to thank me again for their sixth member's new opportunity. As promised, Kirito gave them a map to the Martial Arts NPC, and gave them a chakram that had dropped for him a few days earlier. They thanked us once more before heading back down the tower.
Kirito, Asuna and I didn't have anything else to do, so we proceeded up the new stairs, up to the exit door of the tower, which would lead out onto the third floor. On the door was a relief depicting two swordsmen clashing among gnarled old trees, each figure slender with pointed ears, but of differing shades in the texture of the door.
"Ah, the real start of SAO," I commented, prompting a puzzled look from Asuna, "For this is where 'Sword Art' becomes an accurate part of the title. Proper humanoid opponents, more acclimated to using Sword Skills – from this point on, the risk in solo play far outweighs the reward."
Asuna shrugged. "I thought it would be a good idea to follow you two around, anyway. Let's go."
Once we were on the third floor, the dungeon categorization of the tower wouldn't stop messages anymore, so we sent word down to second-floor towns that the boss had been beaten. All that was left, was for the teleport gate in the third floor's main settlement to be activated.
However, Kirito decided to leave that task for the others in the raid group, once they entered the floor. He had another idea for us to tackle, instead.
A/N: I'm posting this chapter at almost 6AM – and I'd been awake since 9:30 the previous day. I've been buying sports drinks in order to stay hydrated while still technically drinking less often; that's how hot Australia was yesterday. I drank four bottles yesterday, and those were my last ones. Roast my lifestyle choices – and my writing – alongside other far better SAO fanfiction authors at this Discord server, SAO Fanfiction Central, using this code: Nq8xrbYFEw
Authors like Ikell (Unyielding), Flamelordy (Caring for a Rat), Midland (Englishman in Aincrad, ACES Online), and spokespeople for otherwise absent authors (Waffles, for Solid Shark's "Monochrome Duet") are among the many you'll find at that server, and all the active ones have their fun at my expense, which is always a learning experience for me. Encourage them, mock me, it helps all of us improve and continue. (Disclaimer: Some of them, I think prefer Ao3? Gee, I wonder why)
Anyway, I'm up to my favorite floors (you know if you read Virtual Immigration, and god help you if you did), so my morale should have these done sooner, and Monika will be a lot more likely to find relevance outside of just tweaking numbers. See you then.
