Asuna
"And now that I've learned the basics of dueling from you, I have a duty to fight them as well."
"What?! N-no, that wasn't my point..."
"Well, I've decided! Listen up! You're not going to rush off without a word to me again, the way you did when you went searching for Argo on the fourth floor! You must be within my sight for all twenty-four hours. Is that understood?!"
"Whehh?! B-but what about when we stay at an inn...?"
"So we'll rent a two-bedroom suite like the last one. If we split the cost, it shouldn't end up being too bad. If it works for Jaymes and Koharu, it can work for us!"
"...Ah, r-right..."
"Good!"
Asuna said all those things after she and Kirito returned from the third floor. There, they upgraded their weapons at the elven camp in the woods, and she learned some tips and tricks to dueling. On their return to Stachion, they talked about their short meeting with Lind about the guild flag. The leader of DKB wanted to see the banner for himself, and Kirito reiterated the same conditions he gave Kibaou the previous night. Lind was somewhat shaken up during the meeting, understandably so - the man he looked up to and modeled fell in the battle for the guild flag.
The resulting discussion and lead up to Asuna declaring 24/7 watch on Kirito is the conclusion she came to last night - the man in the black poncho he and Jaymes encountered knew Kirito had the guild flag. Based on their hypothesis of Morte's friends, Joe the loudmouth is one of them, and he was present last night. And there might be more than those two infiltrating the ranks of the two guilds.
After lunch and arriving at a large mansion that stands tall on a hill at the back of Stachion, Asuna finds herself thinking about what she said. Since many other players were waiting to speak with the lord of the mansion, Asuna and Kirito were seated outside his chambers and served tea until their time came. Plenty of time for Asuna to wonder why she suggested keeping her eyes on Kirito at all times, including at night.
Her rationale at the moment is what she said; Kirito has a mean streak for abandoning Asuna and making her worry. The...level of partnership that Jaymes and Koharu exhibit seems to work for them, even to the extent that they share a room...and that's where Asuna's mind starts beating her brain. Like Asuna, Koharu was the one who told her partner they should share the same suite at the inns, but the black-haired dagger user took it a step further with renting one-bedroom suites for two people.
If Asuna did not trust Jaymes with Koharu - not that she'd have any right to interfere since Koharu trusts Jaymes, but let her be protective as a girl - that would be bad news. If she had no clue of the nature of their relationship, she would equate them to Liten and Shivata. Asuna knows she has nothing to fear about Koharu's safety behind closed doors, and she knows Jaymes well enough to know he wouldn't lay a curious hand on Koharu. In some regard, that is disappointing, but Asuna can't figure out why she thinks that way.
Her rational mind tells her the same of Kirito, that he's not the type to lay an incriminating hand on her. Maybe that's why she feels safe in the same living space as him...but not secure enough to lay down in close contact. How Koharu does it is impressive.
"Ah, you two are here. Should've known." Asuna looks up, seeing the fifth member of their party stroll over and waves to the pair.
"Mito, good afternoon."
"Where have you been all day?"
Mito reaches up to her neck and pulls out a golden pendant with a small purple crystal embedded within it. "I forgot about one of the drops I got from relic hunting on the fifth floor, so I went to get it appraised. Then I spent some time honing my crafting skill that I started back in the beta." She materializes another and tosses it to Asuna. It is a blue, pointed crystal attached to a string.
"It's beautiful. You made this?"
"Yeah. You can wear it if you want. I don't see Koharu around, so I guess she and Jaymes are elsewhere. Guess I'll give her the other later." She glances at Kirito and smiles. "Sorry, I only made them for the girls."
"O-oh, no, I wasn't... Anyway, I think it's our turn." The NPC butler who allows passage into the lord's chamber comes for them and escorts the trio inside. As expected, the room's interior befits a noble, but Asuna's eyes hone in on the man seated before them. He's small and frail with a snow-white beard and a showy toga.
Cylon's beta backstory was told to Asuna by Kirito in case things changed, but as the man spoke, nothing of the sort deviated from the past. Cylon was once an apprentice to the previous lord of Stachion, a puzzle-lover named Pithagrus (Asuna indeed snorted at the name's similarity to Pythagorean). The former lord was renowned for his ability to solve any puzzle. One day, a traveler arrived and put him to the test. Pithagrus was finally stumped, but he did not admit defeat. Instead, he picked up a golden cube and beat the traveler to death. With his last breath, the traveler cursed Stachion with puzzles everywhere.
"Pithagrus was driven mad by this, and he left Stachion forever, carrying only the bloodstained golden cube with him. It has been ten years already since then...I suspect he is no longer among the living. As Pithagrus's senior apprentice, I took on the responsibilities of his office and worked my hardest to undo the curse the murdered traveler enacted, but the puzzles only grow-a new one appears in the town every day. Nearly all the town's interior doors and storage boxes are afflicted by puzzles already, and their front doors will not be long. By that point, it will no longer be possible for us to live here...Good swordsman, please find the golden cube that Pithagrus took from this mansion and bring it back. If the cube is placed on the traveler's grave, and prayers are dedicated to his memory, the curse of the puzzles will surely be undone. Please, please save Stachion from this menace!"
Cylon bows to the trio and a gold exclamation mark appear over his head. Asuna glances at her companions and then nods to Cylon. "Very well. We accept your request."
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Jaymes and Koharu reunited with Asuna, Kirito, and Mito at their first destination outside the mansion. It's a home belonging to the former butler of Pithagrus on the southern end of town. If the northern end could be considered luxurious, the south would be more urbanized, middle to low-class. Houses were small and cramped, mostly made of wooden blocks.
The butler's involvement in the quest was quick and straightforward, for no one else was present in front of Jaymes and Koharu. After giving Koharu a quick rundown of the quest (Jaymes completed this series, too), the five entered the butler's home. The old man told them of the murder; he did not witness the murder but came to his master's chambers after hearing screams. He described the scene as gruesome, with the traveler's head beaten beyond recognition and his garb bloodied.
Koharu was visibly off-put by those details, as any reasonable person would. Asuna herself felt a little sick in the stomach. Mito, Jaymes, and Koharu didn't look phased at all. This is their second time embarking on this journey, but they're a little too desensitized.
After the butler pointed them toward their next target, a maidservant in service at the time, Asuna privately asks Kirito a thought on her mind. "Say...don't you know the final destination for this quest already, Kirito? Couldn't we just skip all these steps and go right there?"
"Actually...you can't. If you don't go in order, things break down. Characters won't talk to you, and events won't happen. If we hadn't talked to Cylon first, that old man back there probably wouldn't have let us into his home."
"...And how many more people do we need to talk to in town, by the way?"
"Six."
"Falyoon!"
"...What was that?"
"I was saying, 'I much prefer the generic monster-killing quests to manhunt quests,' in Elvish!"
"Nga-grunga."
"...What was that?"
"'I completely agree,' in Orcish."
From the front, Jaymes turns to Koharu and Mito, whistling and beeping while looking back at Kirito and Asuna. Figuring out he's insulting her, she glares at him. "And what was that you just said?"
He smirks and turns away. "'Glad you two are having a good time' in astromech droid language."
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After meeting with the maidservant, a former gardener, cook, two apprentices, and the favored bartender, all they learned that was new information was that the former lord owned a home in the neighboring town. With that, the quest series was complete for the time being.
It was five-thirty after they left the pub, and Asuna was exhausted from all the running around town. As she stretches, she says, "So after all that...we didn't learn very much. Pithagrus was an eccentric, but everyone seems to admire him, and he didn't have a wife or children. That was it, I think? And nobody knows who the murdered traveler was-or where they were from..."
"You're lucky we didn't have to wait on other parties," Jaymes remarks, rolling his shoulders and gazing at the evening sky. "Imagine that."
Koharu sighs. "I don't want to... And how are we to find a traveler if no one else knows where they are?"
"Well, that's not so strange, now, is it?" Kirito responds. "If you're a traveler here, you don't have a passport or social media accounts to follow."
"But the teleporters weren't active ten years ago, so if it's a traveler, they came from somewhere on the sixth floor, right?" Asuna wonders. "There are maybe three or four other villages here, so if we wanted to track them down, it should be possible to identify them, don't you think?" A thought provokes Asuna's mind, and as if she shared the same opinion, Koharu looks in her direction - then to their respective partners.
"Wh-what?"
"Hang on...you three know the ending to this quest, don't you? Where did Pithagrus go? Who was the traveler?"
"Nice try, Asuna," Mito chuckles. "But I know you hate spoilers, and I bet Koharu does too."
Asuna rolls her eyes. "Ohhh, so you've been holding back for our sake! Well, it's all right. I don't get all worked up about this sort of quest."
"Um...this sort of quest...? Then what sort of quest would you get upset about-over spoilers?"
"The heartwarming ones and the tear-jerking ones."
"..." Kirito, Jaymes, and Mito turn to each other, unsure whether to spoil the quest's ending. They're probably uncertain whether this 'Curse of Stachion' is a heartwarming ending or a tear-jerker. Whatever their silent conversation determines, Jaymes is the first to speak up.
"Um... Koharu, are you okay with us telling the ending?"
She nods. "If it is okay with Asuna, it doesn't bother me."
"No worries. It's totally one of those disappointing kinds, right?"
Jaymes bobs his head. "If this was a murder mystery, this would be the worse case of 'whodunnit' I've ever experienced."
Mito agrees. "The truth is, there was never a traveler to begin with."
"Huh?! No traveler...? But the butler and the maidservant saw the body, right? And the gardener dug the hole for the grave in the backyard. So who was it that got killed and buri...? Oh!"
Koharu seems to come to the same understanding. "Pithagrus was the 'traveler' murdered, leaving only one person who could have killed him - Cylon."
Kirito gives Asuna and Koharu a round of applause. "Bingo, both of you. Cylon was the first apprentice of Pithagrus the puzzle king, but when he announced that a different apprentice would take over as his true heir, he got furious and beat his master to death. To hide his crime, he pulverized the face until it was unrecognizable, then put on shabby clothes to transform himself into a made-up traveler."
Asuna, more pissed by the disappointing ending, plants her hands on her hips. "I knew it! I knew it! I knew it was going to be a disappointing one! That's why I don't like this kind of quest! And what's the 'puzzle king' supposed to mean anyway? What do you get by being the heir to the puzzle king?!"
"D-don't yell at me." Kirito stammers. "I didn't write it...I don't know what they get out of it, but there are quiz kings and medal kings and so on. Some people just really want to have that honor, I guess?"
"It doesn't make sense...And for that matter, I don't know what a medal king is supposed to be, either..."
"Sorry, forget I said it. At any rate, that's the ending. But you get a ton of experience for it, so let's just tough it out and beat the quest."
"All right."
"Let's get dinner in the next town, and then we can continue the quest. If we can finish it up by the end of tomorrow, we should be able to get to the dark elf fortress the day after."
"Oh. Oh hoooo!" Jaymes sings excitedly as he takes the first step, turning to Asuna. "By the way, the second part of the quest will take us to Pithagrus' other place, and it has astr-AH!" Whatever the red swordsman was going to say, it was impeded by a swift kick in the back by Mito.