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| This was a little marker drawing I did of the members of Darkness Falls in Scott Pilgrim format. Sorry for the mis-coloring of Josh's and Garrith's hair; I didn't have any good brown markers. Plus, it seems that I've forgotten Matt. |
I was back in the plain where I had killed the event boss, Lunastra Fatalis, and it was absolutely beautiful in the daylight. I thought briefly on the fact that the daytime and nighttime cycles were the same as the cycles in the real world; in SAO, it had made sense because there was no way to log out, but there was no reason why ALO couldn't follow the rules of most other MMOs and have an accelerated time cycle.
Well, it does make it easier to be able to tell what time it's going to be when you log in, I thought to myself, stretching out my hands and yawning. Briefly, I thought back to last night and turned around to check if PoH was behind me. The spot where his avatar had stayed after he logged out was empty and I breathed a sigh of relief.
After PoH had finished his threat, his avatar had stayed behind; it was of a Sylph girl with light green hair and a short sword. In practicality, it had been a good idea for him to use an avatar of the opposite gender; if it had been a male avatar, the system would of taken some of his real life features to create the randomly generated character. However, by choosing the female option, he had forced the system to generate a character using a bunch of generic faces, making it impossible to make any accurate assumptions on what his appearance in real life was.
Still, it seems perverse to pretend to be something that you aren't, even in a MMO, I mused, plopping down on the grass. Clicking the tips of my boots together, I gazed up at the virtual clouds that were slowly passing by above. I closed my eyes and sighed; even if it was just a bunch of ones and zeros in a made-up world, moments like this still made me feel good.
I felt a shadow from above me and I opened my eyes quickly, remembering that I wasn't entirely safe in the field. Landing quietly, a familiar Imp with a long black leather coat walked over to me. Succeeding in a not-so-quiet landing himself, Gerg arrived behind Vin and waved.
"What's up Aiken? Sleeping in a spawn zone?" the Leprechaun said, shifting the massive blade on his back. When I first arrived in ALfheim, I was surprised to see that Gerg was still just as big as he was in real life, even though he chose to be a Leprechaun. He explained that he and Vin had decided to import their avatars from Sword Art Online.
"Yeah, I'm gutsy like that; how are you doing, red head?" I replied, smiling; I had been surprised to learn that, in ALfheim Online, Leprechauns were not the little gold-hoarding, green suit-wearing fiends that we knew in America. In fact, shown by my friend's charcoal hair, the Leprechaun's color scheme was gray.
"I don't get why you keep saying that," Gerg said, rubbing the back of his head. "My hair isn't red." He offered me a hand and pulled me up off of the ground; bracing myself, I was prepared for the sudden rush of my friend's strength.
"It's an American thing," Vin said, crossing his arms and glanced at the weapon on my back with interest. "What's that?"
"Oh this?" I said, pulling the contraption off of my back. "It's my new bow that I got from the event boss." I proceeded to push the one side of the folded weapon to feel it snap into its functional form.
"Oh my gosh that is so cool!" Gerg exclaimed, leaning close over my bow and examining it. "It must work with some sort of internal mechanism. And this material: I've never seen it before!"
"Hey, calm down there, gear head," I said, pulling my arm back before Gerg ripped it off. "You know, I never got a chance to ask you about that chunk of metal on your back." I gestured to the hilt that was poking out from behind my friend's heavily armored body.
"You're talking about my baby?" Gerg asked, unsheathing the huge sword and holding it horizontally with his other hand on the flat side of the blade. "This here is the best greatsword to have ever been made, the Ancient Warblade."
"It's definitely .... big," I said, amazed at how the Leprechaun was managing to hold it steady. The blade itself was as long as I was high and its width was almost two hand lengths across. "Bigger than your greatsword from SAO, at least."
"It's the highest level greatsword that can be made," Gerg said, pulling the blade up and letting it rest on the thick plates of his shoulder armor. I wondered briefly if it would affect the durability of his armor; after a few moments, I figured that it wouldn't do any damage if he didn't let it hit the armor and just placed it there, like he had. "And you're looking at its creator." He jabbed a finger at himself and gave me a big grin.
"Did you make that too?" I said, pointing to the sword at Vin's side. It was in a black sheath and a chain dangled from the end of the handle. Vin shook his head before Gerg could answer and I waited for him to explain the origin behind his new sword.
"I got this from the Lord of the Imps, Alrik," Vin said, pulling the blade out of its dark resting place and holding it out so I could see. It was a dark gunmetal gray katana and it didn't seem to have a hilt; the handle was wrapped in a black leather and gave it the overall appearance of belonging in a Japanese armory. "It's the official sword of his honor guard."
"So he just gave it to you? Even though you're not part of his honor guard?" I asked, looking at my former second in command with a raised eyebrow. His dark violet hair moved slightly in the breeze and I wondered briefly if his eyebrows were the same plum color.
"He gave it to me after I beat him in a duel," Vin replied with a slight smile. My roommate seemed to be more alive in the world in ALfheim than in the real world; getting even a small chuckle out of him would have taken a miracle there, but in here he seemed normal, almost as if he was a different person.
In a way, I guess everyone changes slightly when they go online, I thought to myself, looking over the length of the deadly blade. Even I feel more assertive and powerful in the virtual world than in the real world. "Well, it makes sense that it would be a duel, seeing how you were the be-"
"WAAAAAGGGHHHHH"
I looked up to see a mass of golden-colored ... something hurtling down from above. Wait - is that Jinx? I thought to myself as the falling form became easier and easier to see.
"Watch out - I've got him!" Gerg yelled, pushing me out of the way. With a thud, the disheveled Pooka landed in his outstretched arms. I got up off of the ground and dusted myself off before walking back at where I had been before the Leprechaun had knocked me away.
"Oh hey, thanks Gerg," Jinx said in a dazed voice and patted his heavily armored arm. "You can let me down now."
Rather unceremoniously, the larger player dropped the Pooka to the ground in a heap. "Well, that hurt," Jinx said, rubbing the back of his head. I offered him my hand and helped him up, noticing how I didn't even have to strain myself in this virtual world.
"That's what you get for logging yourself out while flying," I said chuckling at my best friend while he tried to fix his appearance. Part of the back of his leather chestguard was flipped upwards and he was trying to push it down but it kept coming back up.
"It's smarter than just logging out in an open field; what if your avatar had been killed?" he retorted, finally managing to keep the part of his armor from coming up again. "Anyways, what are you guys up to?"
"Talking about weapons and waiting for the others to show up," Gerg said, checking to see if his gauntlets and arm pieces had been damaged by Jinx's fall. Apparently satisfied with his inspection, he shook out his arms and crossed them.
"In fact," I said, noticing something I hadn't bothered to before. "Isn't that your halberd from SAO? Did you find a lookalike? Or did you transfer it over somehow?"
"Yes. No. And sort of," Jinx replied, stretching his right arm across his chest and then switching to the other one. "For some weird reason, like a glitch or something, Orenmir transferred over to ALO without corrupting." He pulled the pole arm out of its sheath on his back and showed it to me.
Sure enough, the two weapons were the same; in SAO, Orenmir had been Jinx's main weapon since the day he got it as a quest reward. The quest, A Fool's Journey, had been an extremely hard quest that required a lot of players. Jinx and about 50 others had attempted to complete the quest together and succeeded. According to the quest information, the leader of the group who completed the quest would receive the rare item at the end; to prevent squabbling over who got the reward, the massive group agreed to not have a leader. However, for some weird reason, Jinx had been the one who had gotten the rare pole arm as a reward for completing the quest.
"Yeah, that's pretty weird," I agreed, pondering on how exactly something like that could happen. According to what I had been told about the MMO, ALfheim was based off of the same system that Sword Art Online had been based off but the save data for the items and quests were completely different.
"Hey, that girl isn't here anymore," Jinx said, pointing to the spot where PoH's avatar had been. After Jinx had healed himself, he had walked over to where I was still standing in shock from hearing the Laughing Coffin's voice. When he had asked me whose avatar the Sylph's was, I had just shrugged and told him that I didn't know.
"Vin!" a recognizable voice squealed and I turned to see my best friend get tackled from mid air. Hugging the Imp was a familiar looking girl with black leather armor and a sword clipped to her belt. Seeing her purple hair, I could tell that she was also an Imp player; judging from the way she was hugging my second-in-command and the fact that she also used a katana, I could guess who she was.
"Jesse, is that you?" I asked, taking a step closer to the player. When she turned to look at me, my suspicions were confirmed.
"Wait, do I know you?" she asked, picking herself up off of the grass. "I don't think I know any players with white hair." Vin pushed himself off of the ground and smiled at his in-game wife's ignorance.
"It's Aiken," I said, realizing that I was still holding my bow. Wrapping my finger around the outside of the handle, I pulled back and collapsed the bow with ease. "I didn't import my avatar from SAO. I almost didn't recognize you with the new hair color."
"You look so much different," Jesse said, intertwining her fingers with Vin's. "I guess I kindof expected you to pick to be an Undine. Because of your hair, that is."
"I thought about it but I felt it would be cheesy," I explained, placing the folded weapon on my back and feeling it latch into place. "Besides, it says that they're a healing race."
"So what race are you then? Sylph and Undine are the only races that I know of that can have white hair," she asked, leaning against her partner. Vin smiled and wrapped his arm around her with a gentle movement.
"I'm Spriggan," I replied, remembering why I had the avatar that I did and trying not to shudder. "The avatar is supposed to be super rare or something."
"I bet it is; I've never seen someone with it before," Jesse stated, patting Vin's arm lovingly. "So, where are the others?"
"Coming," Gerg replied, looking across the plains with his hand in front of his face to keep the virtual sunlight from obstructing his vision. "In fact, I think I see one of them now."
I turned to look where Gerg was facing and saw a red figure racing towards us. As he came closer, I could see that it was Auser's old avatar from SAO. He must have chosen to be a Salamander, the race focused most on combat, I thought to myself, as the player landed nearby and walked towards us. I should of predicted that.
Auser had been the main damage dealer of the guild and was legendary in SAO for his strength. When Mattias had first found him, he was fighting off a pack of level 15 wolves by himself; after defeating them with just a sliver of health left, he had immediately went off to fight another pack of mobs before Mattias had stopped him. When our intel-expert had asked the player if he would join our guild, he told him that he would only join us if one of us defeated him in a duel.
Being the leader, I had decided to accept his challenge and fought him. His moves were extremely predictable and I was able dodge most of them without a problem. However, his attacks were so strong and nonstop that the second I tried to attempt an offensive, he defeated me. After that, Vin, one of the best duelers in SAO, accepted his offer to a duel and defeated him within a few minutes. Seeing that we upheld our end of the offer, Auser held up his side of the deal and joined our guild. He soon became an important member of the group and, when the death game ended, asked if he could move out of his parent's house and into Jinx's house.
"Hey, who's the new guy?" the Salamander said, his confident stride matching his happy expression. It took me a few seconds to figure out that he was talking about me and I waved to him.
"Hey, it's Aiken," I replied, thinking about how more calm he seemed to be in the virtual world. I knew that despite however calm he seemed right now, his anger would pop back up again on the battlefield.
"Wow, you look super different with that hair," Auser remarked, coming to a stop at the edge of the circle we had made. "And that bow suits you better than your old sword."
"I can see that you're still using your favorite sword type," I said, not bothering to ask how he could tell that what my weapon was in its folded up form. I gestured to scabbard at the side of his crimson armor and smiled. "No reason to fix what works, huh?"
"Yea," Auser confirmed, drawing the broadsword to show a surprisingly red tinted blade. "This is Bloodspiller's Broadsword, my favorite weapon so far." In VRMMOs, the broadsword, even though it was a one-handed blade, usually required players to use two hands to wield it due to its weight. However, Auser was one of the few players who were able to hold it in one hand without wavering.
"Whoa, what kind of metal is that?" Gerg said, rushing closer to the Salamander and grabbing the weapon from him. I tried to not giggle as Auser fumed silently behind the Leprechaun with a red face. "I can't ID the ore used to make this and, because it's not a magic-type sword, I should be able to."
"I've heard people talk about that sword before," Jinx said, stepping into the conversation and rubbing his chin. Like Gerg, his faint stumble had been erased when he transferred his avatar from SAO to ALO, so the action seemed rather strange. "It's supposed to be this unique weapon that the general of the Salamander army had. How'd you get a hold of it?"
"I got it after a duel with General Eugene," Auser claimed proudly, obviously calming down from having his favorite sword taken from him. "He said it's always been too heavy for him, so he gave it to me."
"Wait, so you got a weapon after defeating him, like Vin did when he defeated Lord Alrik?" Jesse asked, mirroring my own question. She was still wrapped up in Vin's arms but she was leaning forward in interest now.
"Well... I didn't win the duel," Auser said, almost muttering the last few words. "He gave it to me because he said I had 'spunk'." I watched how his scarlet hair moved in the wind and thought about how well it suited him, despite being such a strange color.
"I don't know if 'spunk' is the right word for it," Jinx said, grinning as Gerg handed the sword back to the Salamander. "But you've got something, that's for sure."
"So do you use a shield as well sometimes like you used to?" I asked, curious to see if Auser's battle strategy had changed from his time in SAO.
"Nope," the Salamander answered, sheathing his broadsword with a satisfying click. "I don't need to when I can use my other hand for the other type of damage."
"Wait, what do you mean by-"
"Hey guys!"
I looked behind me just in time to be hit full on with the force of a running player. I started to fall backwards before Gerg caught me and pushed me back up to a standing position. Feeling something furry twitch under nose, I leaned back to get a look at my grappling attacker.
Two slitted pupils in circles of gold looked back up at me and I smiled as I realized that the rest of the face was that of Kitty's. "Hey, what's up Aiken?" she said, the edges of her mouth curling upwards and her left cat ear twitching.
"Hey Kitty," I said pulling away and resisting the urge to touch her furry ears. "How can you tell it's me?"
"Um, you're the only one that's new here," she replied and I thought I saw the shadow of a tail move behind her. "So, what do you think?" She twirled around, letting her cloth-like armor spin around in the air as the current picked it up. Noticing light glinting off of something, I saw that she had four blades coming out of each hand and figured that these were the claw weapons that I had heard so much about. I confirmed the fact that she had a tail and, blushing, wondered briefly where it came from.
"It's a really good look for you," I said, knowing how much she loved how her SAO avatar had converted into the Cait Sith race. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized just how well the ears and tail fitted my artistic friend.
"There's something to be said about your... getup too," She said, taking off the gauntlets that made up the bottom part of her claws to run her finger down my exposed stomach. "I didn't know you were into this sort of thing, Gerg."
"Hey, I didn't design them: I just made them," Gerg said, his face turning a shade of dark pink as he shook his head and waving his hands in front of him. "Ashley was the one who designed it."
"Ashley the seamstress? She did my armor in SAO and here," Kitty said, pulling back her hand and poking my chestguard. "I wonder why she designed such a... revealing piece."
"Ashley did both Vin's and my armor," Jesse said, gesturing to herself. Although I didn't really necessarily notice it before, Jesse's armor showed a large amount of her cleavage while Vin didn't have any openings in the chest area of his armor. "Even though it's the same armor, mine looks.... different. When I asked her, she told me that she didn't get to really design what the armor was going to look like and that it looked different on male players and female players."
"Well, they do say that this game was made by a pervert," Jinx said, running his hand through his hair and shrugging. "Who's to say that he didn't like a little guy action too?"
"In actuality, the Dark Ranger's Armor Set that Aiken is wearing was originally intended to be a female-only set but the game master, Sugou Nobuyuki, never got around to fixing it," a familiar soft voice said from behind me.
I turned around to see my favorite former info-broker; Mattias was leaning on a dark blue rod and smiling. His hair was a light blue, similar to my hair in real life, but slightly darker; it looked like he had converted his avatar from SAO as well. "At least I'm assuming that you're Aiken because you're with a group of people that look like my friends from real life."
"Wait, so you haven't met up with the others in ALfheim before?" I asked, scrunching up my eyebrows in confusion. "And what's that weapon you have there?"
"Nope," Mattias replied, shaking his baby blue covered head. "I've been playing solo until today when you said that you wanted to meet up. And this is a staff, by the way; it's good for magic."
I walked over to where he was standing and inspected the weapon. "What's it called and - Wait: what do you mean magic?"
"It's called Gaze of Arrogance," the Undine replied, looking at me with a confused expression. "And you really don't know about magic?"
"Shoot, I forgot to mention that to him," Jinx said, combing his hair with his fingers. "ALO has a magic system that is unique to each race."
"That's what I was trying to say before," Auser said in an exasperated tone and held up his left hand. "I can use this hand to direct magic attacks while using the other hand to swing my sword." He started to draw his sword to demonstrate but Jinx waved his arm to show that that wouldn't be necessary.
"The types of magic are fire for Salamanders, wind for the Sylphs, water for us Undines, earth for Gnomes, dark for Imps, illusion for Spriggans, music for Pookas, crafting for Leprechauns, and beast taming for Cait Siths," Mattias explained and I nodded in understanding.
"Wait," I said, looking at his face and realizing something. "So all of you guys converted your SAO avatars?"
Everyone nodded and a weird feeling built up inside of me. "So that makes me the only one here who created a new avatar for ALO," I deduced, talking with the tip of my thumbnail between my teeth. I guess I'm the only one who has a reason to, I thought to myself, pulling my thumb away from my mouth. Just like dyeing my hair in real life, I have to be careful that no one from SAO recognizes me in ALO.
"Aside from stating the obvious, don't you have a reason why you wanted to meet up with us?" Mattias said, shifting the conversation's direction. I could tell that he was trying to appear impatient but he only came off as excited, which was more likely what his true emotions were.
"Yes," I said, wanting to ask more questions about magic but keeping in mind what my priorities were. "I wanted to ask you guys if you will accept me as your leader once again and start our old guild again."
There was a moment of silence as we stood in our distorted circle and the faint breeze blew through the group. I started to worry that I had made the wrong move by stating my intentions before explaining how I should be re-elected to my old post. In SAO, I had remained the commander, even after I started hunting PKers, because I was a skilled player and leader. However, in a VRMMO where death in-game didn't mean death in real life, there was no reason why I should still be the leader of a guild, much less their guild.
"You know that I've always got your back, little brother," Jinx said, breaking the uneasy quiet that had settled around us. He walked over to me and gave me an exaggerated salute with a goofy grin. I smiled at my best friend and felt my eyes water a little.
"No matter what, you'll always be my commander," Gerg said, stepping closer to me and placing his hand on my shoulder. "I'll be glad to be a part of your guild again."
There was a short hush and Kitty opened her mouth to say something but Vin interrupted her before she could speak. "You're my best friend," Vin said, his normally quiet voice seeming to echo in the tense atmosphere. "I don't trust anyone more to lead me into battle." He walked over to where Gerg and Jinx had positioned themselves beside me and gave me a small smile.
"I'll go wherever Vin goes," Jesse stated, following her partner and standing beside him. "And you always seemed to be a good leader."
Kitty, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, looked like she was going to explode if she didn't say something soon. "I-I trust you!" she blurted, her voice gradually getting lower as she realized that she was shouting. "Everything you did was to help the rest of us and I don't think we would of made it if it weren't for you." She grinned at me with a sort of unease and walked over to take a place next to me.
The only two that were left were Auser and Mattias; seeing that they seemed to be deep in thought, I tried to figure out what was on their minds. "What about you Auser? Do you want to have me as your leader?" I asked, knowing that I might not exactly like what I heard.
"Are you sure that you're suited for the job of leader?" Auser said, his eyes scrutinizing me. "I don't mean anything bad, it's just that: what if we get attacked by some players? What'll we do?"
"We'll protect him, of course," Gerg replied, crossing his arms and taking a step forward. "Because that's what we do: we keep each other safe." I glanced over to my roommate and gave him a grateful smile.
"Well... when you put it like that...." Auser said, taking a step forward and staring at me with scarlet eyes. "I couldn't really ask for a better commander; you're a great fighter and you treat everyone with the same amount of respect. I'll join the guild again." Having stated his mind, he made his way over to my side and turned around to look at the only member who hadn't joined us yet.
The Undine was leaning on his staff and seemed to be deep in thought. Noticing that he was the only person who remained that wasn't on my side, he cleared his throat and stood up. "In Sword Art Online, you left your post multiple times after the death of a member to get revenge," he stated, his intelligent azure eyes piercing mine. "For a year, you seemed to be a completely different person, one that was filled with hate and disgust for everyone else."
I hung my head, knowing that when Mattias left, the guild would just be a hollow shell of what it had been before. It would make seeing him in the real world really awkward and weird, I thought to myself, dreading the situation that I was in right now. As much as Mattias could be a know-it-all and an arrogant nerd, I still considered him as one of my friends and I would be sad to see him go.
"You killed so many people and, although we understand how you felt when you got back to the real world, we were all a little scared of you in Sword Art Online," Mattias continued, gesturing to the players that were on either side of me. Although no one outright agreed with him, the obvious lack of dissent with Mattias' statement told me that it was true. "However, you were only doing what you thought was right. After that year, I saw that you changed and you were no longer hunting for revenge, but to protect all of us."
"The truth remains that if it wasn't for your actions, hundreds of other players would have continued to die because psychopaths were roaming free in the game," Mattias concluded with a faint smile. "Because of that, I would be glad to be under your leadership once again." And with that, he lifted his staff off of the ground and walked over to me.
With tears in my eyes, I thrust my hand out in front of me, palm down. "Then let's put in guys," I said as Jinx and Gerg placed their hands on top of mine. "Because, without you guys, I wouldn't be anything."
One by one, each of my members placed their hands in the middle and I felt pride swell up in me. Because.... without them, I wouldn't be anything, I thought to myself.
Without them, I wouldn't be able to heal from these wounds I've given myself.
can you PLEASE stop STEALING, copying and editing my art? that would be damn nice.
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