Kirito
"...So sleepy...so tired...so hungry..."
"I think this is the second time we've agreed on something, Asuna."
Kirito smiles slightly as Jaymes and Asuna, usually at odds with each other, slide down together against the pillar at the gate of Stachion. Tonight had been an ordeal for the five players, one they'd wish not to relive anytime soon.
In his battle with Morte, Kirito dismembered his opponent at the left elbow, taking away usage of the throwing picks. Afterward, Kirito attacked Morte with the thrusting sword skill Rage Spike and struck Morte in the heart accidentally. Because Kirito had not removed his sword from Morte, the cloaked man suffered continuous piercing damage beyond what he should have, almost killing Morte.
His partner saved his life by shouting so loud that Kirito removed his sword from Morte, throwing his dagger, then a smoke bomb to escape. He also called Morte "Mamoru", which was weird but bypassed their minds. After Kirito apologized and the pair affirmed their partnership again, they collected the attacker's dropped items - Joe's dagger, Morte's remaining pick, and his axe - and graciously gave them to a snatching monkey mob called a Muriqui Snatcher.
When Joe screeched, he summoned a swarm of them. Whether intentional or not, the Snatchers and their companions, club-carrying Muriqui Brawlers and Muriqui Nut Throwers, were close to the carriage. Most lingered in the tree, making a ruckus of noise, but three Snatchers and a Brawler inspected the carriage. While the Snatchers collected the rest of Cylon's drops, Asuna and Kirito threw the pick and dagger (Morte recollected his axe with Quick Change, as it was still registered in his ownership) to a Snatcher.
Asuna realized the method Kirito was using was similar to how they got her rapier back in the catacombs and suggested they eliminate the monkeys. Kirito was wary of fighting the sixteen monkeys, but then Jaymes and Koharu reappeared from down the road. The four made easy work of the monkeys, collecting all the drops the three Snatchers took.
Before they headed back to town, the large NPC man returned and completely ignored them as if he hadn't helped his dead master capture them. He didn't acknowledge Cylon either. He returned to the cart and resumed his trip to Stachion.
Mito was only a few minutes away in the direction of Stachion. After Koharu messaged her that she and Jaymes were safe, she turned tail. She reunited with them as the large man took off, enveloping Asuna with hugs and apologies. Like she and Koharu did to the boys, Asuna lets Mito off easily. The quintet, however, returned to Suribus since it was closer. This brings them to now, Kirito, Mito, and Koharu staring down the collapsed Asuna and Jaymes.
"What kind of expression is that?" Asuna asks Kirito and Koharu, who are smirking like idiots who know a secret.
"Oh...just that you said the kind of thing that I'd normally say first."
"And this might be the second time you two have agreed on something."
"Ah, shove off."
"You know...I can't even bring myself to deny that slander. Let's just go to the inn..."
"Good idea." Kirito led them to the Jade and Kingfisher inn, just off the river's west bank, close to the north gate. Because it is somewhat hidden and its sign is unassuming, it is 80 percent filled. While inside, Asuna ordered the deluxe suite before Kirito could ask for two single rooms. Mito ordered a deluxe as well and prevented Jaymes from ordering as well. Kirito thought Mito would stop Asuna from rooming with Kirito again or would buy her room, but as they headed up, Mito took Koharu and Jaymes with her.
Asuna was exhausted beyond compare. Once she was inside the suite, she chose one of the bedroom doors, said goodnight, and headed inside. Kirito heard her take off her equipment and checked on her after a moment of silence. She had her clothes on still and was sound asleep. He tucked her in and left her alone.
As he settles in the living room again, he hears a knock at the door. Kirito doesn't go to answer it - only three other people can get inside - but as the door cracks open, he welcomes them inside. It is only one person, Jaymes. He wears his armor, but his weapons are off. Kirito nods to him, sits on one of the sofas in the middle of the room, and then picks up a red fruit from the bowl on a table. Jaymes does the same thing, and the boys sit silently across from each other.
It probably would have remained that way, but then Jaymes spoke up. "Asuna and Koharu are amazing. Two months ago, Koharu couldn't handle one of those hogs on the first floor without trouble. Asuna didn't know she could see her party's status bar despite being around Mito, then us. Now here they are, holding their own against other players without fear of it."
"Yeah. I'll admit, I felt like an idiot for exposing Asuna to danger tonight. But now that you say it, she and Koharu have made great progress. They take in information about the game and are improving in fighting. Asuna put all she learned in practice this morning in the duels. Heck, I might have to step up my game if I want to beat her at a duel."
Jaymes chuckles as he sits back on the couch, eyeing the ceiling. "Yeah. Koharu won a duel against a dual wielder earlier today. Somehow, now that I remember, she executed sword skills despite dual wielding. Annihilator couldn't do so without ridding himself of his pick... I wonder how she did it. Guess I'll find out tomorrow. But that aside, I feel a sense of pride...but I can't get over what happened."
"Mhm." Kirito opens his inventory, scrolling down the items in order of being obtained until he spots the Namnepenth's Poison Jar. That is the jar that possessed the paralytic poison, empty after the girls blew it open to counter Morte. He fixes it to the top of the item list via a submenu to serve as a reminder of what happened tonight, "Never again," he whispers, but it carries over to Jaymes.
"Yeah... But I fear we will have more trouble. We knew there were more of them, but I never thought I'd see a woman in their ranks. Not as a willing participant... And the more we fight them, the more we'll be tempted to..."
Jaymes didn't have to finish his statement for Kirito to understand. Both boys have come close to crossing the line. Kirito accidentally struck Morte in the heart - or, more conveniently, the upgrades to Accuracy kicked in and took the sword to the critical point - and considered not removing the blade when it seemed Morte would escape. Jaymes, who upgraded his sword's strength stat, had unintentionally cleaved throught the midclavicular line of Annihilator's chest, his heart in the path. Incapacitated, Annihilator would further goad Jaymes into almost killing him.
Kirito reaches for the sheath from his back, then removes the Sword of Eventide. In the lamplight, it shines as brilliantly as ever. Twice tonight, the sword has hit an enemy's weak point, the other being an Annoying Wraith in Pithagras' second home, but it wasn't Kirito who aimed for those spots. He might be delusional, but it was like the sword had its own will.
"Hopefully, we'd never be pushed to those lengths. But Morte did learn to fear a one-hit kill. All of them did."
"...Mmm... So Cylon is dead. I wonder what comes next. We haven't gotten a notification that we failed the quest, which...bothers me." Jaymes opens his menu and navigates to the quest tab. "Like a standard MMO, Cylon as an NPC isn't gone from the game; but for us five, he is. Our Cylon is gone for good. I feel like I just answered Asuna's question for later. Yet I wonder what comes next..." Jaymes seizes there as if something is taking hold of his throat. He recovers a second later, looking pale for someone of African descent. "Look at the quest log."
Kirito does as asked without question. After clicking on the "Curse of Stachion" entry, he skims through the various updates until he gets to the latest entry. It reads. "'Cylon, lord of Stachion, has been killed by bandits. You must five the proper place to use the two remaining keys.'"
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"Wh-wha...? Hang on, was Cylon getting killed part of the story of this quest...?" Asuna asks after Jaymes and Kirito relay the news to the girls after breakfast in Kirito and Asuna's chambers the following day. The detail of the line of text stunned the boys. As Jaymes said, it was weird the quest wasn't failed with Cylon's death, so to see it specify Cylon's end was unexpected.
"N-no, that's not possible. Morte and his buddies weren't NPCs; they were other players. It says they're bandits, but it's not like the SAO system was controlling them and making them do that."
"Then why does the quest log say that?"
"Um...ummmm...The only thing I can think of is that they considered the possibility that Cylon might be killed by another player when the event goes in between towns and prepared that message...maybe?"
"I don't know," Mito interrupts. "Considering that there isn't actual reason for anyone to attack Cylon aside from a misunderstanding, I don't think they would have considered that possibility. The only reason we knew of the paralytic event is because we're beta testers. If this was your first time on the floor, you wouldn't have expected that."
"If they were to make Cylon a fighter, he would be as strong as when could have chose between Kizmel and the Forest Elf, right? I can see the developers going that far."
"True. I mean, they go to the lengths of printing the entire contents of all the books in the world, even if we can't read them,"
Jaymes sips his cup of lemonade and places the cup on the table. "I believe you guys don't know how SAO operates, huh... In any case, we have two keys. The golden one goes to the dungeon underneath Cylon's mansion, but the iron one... Never seen it before."
"Dungeon? Is that where you find the golden cube?"
Kirito hesitates to answer that question, but since they've already gone off the storyline he, Jaymes, and Mito know, it doesn't matter if Asuna and Koharu know it. "Yeah, the one who took the cube from the site of Pithagrus's murder and hid it beneath the mansion was the former maid we talked to first. Her name was...Theano, I think. She was actually a puzzle genius herself, and Pithagrus wanted to make her his heir to the title."
"Oh, really? But Theano saw Cylon murder Pithagrus, right? Why did she hide the murder weapon, rather than accusing him as a witness?"
"See, the thing is, Cylon and Theano were lovers."
"Oh, my...ooh, aah," Asuna murmurs as she picks up and gazes at the keys. "Ten years ago...Cylon would be in his late thirties, and Theano would've been around twenty-five, I think. So maybe she didn't feel like accusing her lover of murder, but her conscience didn't allow her to stand by and do nothing."
"Yep," Mito agrees. "She put the golden key at Pithagras place and the cube in the underground dungeon. And since we're speaking of the dungeon, it is a super-hard giant puzzle made of smaller puzzles. You can't even complete the dungeon without a clue from the study in the hideout. As for why Theano did it, she wanted Cylon to admit and atone for what he did, then seek her help. Cylon would have learned of the golden key's location and the clue in the study to solve the puzzle dungeon. That dungeon is the test to become a lord of the mansion and the puzzle king."
"Of course, Cylon did no such thing," Jaymes continues. "If we made it to Stachion, we'd be locked inside the dungeon to search for the cube. Theano would come to our aide, helping us momentarily escape and begin her part of the quest. But now..."
"Could we skip Theano and go straight to the dungeon, as we did to the hideout?"
"Kirito and I discussed it last night. Since we already know what to do, I don't think it'd hurt."
"Well, no use wasting any time, then." Asuna gets up, ready to go with the keys, but Kirito grabs her sleeve and forces her back down.
"Hang on. We still haven't finished the most important investigation."
"Huh? But the rest of this is Cylon's stuff, right? Wait, you're not going to sell them, are y-?"
"No, no, no, I'm not. Although I bet this gas mask would go for a pretty good sum..."
"Oh, right, the poison picks." Jaymes materializes one from his inventory while Kirito clears the former lord's possessions off the table into the hotel item storage. "Morte and Annihilator, one of the new pairs we faced, had these picks. They're called the Spine of Shmargor. Spine as in 'thorn,' Kirito." Kirito makes an accused face as Jaymes smirks his way; even if the American knows Kirito has issues with English words and had been using Jaymes and Asuna as walking Japanese-English dictionaries...he didn't have to point it out.
Jaymes taps the pick to open the properties menu, then hands the pick to Koharu. "As stated in the item properties, whoever's on the other end of these spines earns a level-two paralysis effect and can be used up to three times each."
"Wow, level two? We haven't even gotten level-one paralyzing poison yet. That means a level-one cure potion from an item store probably won't even work on this."
"Then...what can you do?"
"Well, the Mixing skill is one way," Mito informs, "but that's unlikely. I will assume a proficiency of one hundred is needed to craft level-two antidotes or a Purify Crystal. Unlikely someone has gotten there at this point, and crystals are not dropping yet."
"So there's nothing we can do against paralysis?" Koharu asks.
"Not true," her partner counters. "There are many ways to raise your resistance to debuffs. Armor and accessory bonuses, food and drink that give a temporary bonus, and there are materials that can provide cures and heals in their raw form-"
"Oh..." Asuna's sudden breath interrupts Jaymes, drawing all eyes on her. Asuna keeps her eyes on the property window of the pick Kirito took from Morte and read, "'The Sunken Elf General N'ltzahh faced the dread dragon Shmargor and cut off every last one of its spines, which dripped with deadly poison.'"
"H...hang on. You mean this pick is a spine that General N'ltzahh chopped off a dragon?"
"That's what it says here..."
"But that's... Could Morte have defeated General N'ltzahh?"
"No way, Ko. You remember how dark his cursor color was."
"And we hadn't gained that many levels to change it."
Kirito and his party indirectly encountered the general of the Fallen Elves on the fourth floor. They infiltrated a Fallen Elf hideout as part of a questline on the floor. Kirito and Asuna were inspecting a shipment a group of humans gave to the elves while Jaymes, Koharu, and Mito kept watch over the warehouse. When the general appeared, surrounded by his subordinates, Kirito recalls the cold chill down his spine as he noticed the pure black cursor. That was the darkest color he's seen in the two versions of SAO he's played. He was level-16 back then.
And as Mito suggested, it's been ten days since that moment, and even though Kirito has grown three levels, he doubts that color would change much if he saw N'ltzahh today. If Morte and his three compatriots had defeated the powerful enemy the previous night, they'd be the best in the game now; they could have disposed of Kirito's party with ease without the paralysis event.
"If anything...they'd either have to sneak into the Fallen Elf hideout and steal them, or they got a very rare drop from one of the lower Fallen Elves-the kind we were fighting...I think..." Unsure about his thoughts, Kirito decides to tap on another item, a dagger on the table, taken from the dagger user suspected to be Joe.
The description calls it the Dirk of Agony. It gives a bonus to poison and frost resistance and a low chance of inflicting a bleeding debuff. What causes Kirito to catch his breath is the flavor text to the dagger, that it is "' given as a prize from the Fallen Elf Commander.'" "A Fallen Elf prize?"
Asuna forces Kirito's head away from the properties window with her own so she can read it. She bears the same reaction. "Does this mean...it was a quest reward?"
Jaymes grunts and crosses his arms. "That...doesn't seem right. I thought the only way to enter the quest was encountering the Forest and Dark Elf warriors in the forest."
"But you cannot deny the possibility that if they're joinable, so are the Fallen Elves." Mito's expression is grave as well.
If what Mito and Jaymes are leading towards is true, Morte didn't steal the picks from the Fallen Elves as he was initially thinking. He and Annihilator were given the picks, while Joe took the dagger. That's not that big of a problem under normal means...but going against the PKers, it spells danger. If the quest that follows the commander is one and done, that's one thing; but if it is repeatable quest, or worst, if there is a third storyline that the beta testers never knew about, the PKers are able to access unlimited poisoned picks."
"Hey, Asuna..."
"Say, Kirito..."
"Um, Jaymes..."
"Koharu..."
"Guys, I think..."
Five pairs of eyes stare at each other, urging each other to speak until Asuna gets impatient. "Well...I'm curious about the Stachion quest, but for now, I think it's smarter to investigate these picks a little more."
"I think all of us were about to say the same thing, more or less."
Mito nods. "We need to be sure that they don't have an unlimited supply of these picks, but if they do, there's nothing we can do about that. But we can surely get information on obtaining resistance for us and everyone in the wilderness."
"No," Koharu interjects, "but for everyone. We might be the targets as frontier players, but those behind us... Those like Lisbeth, who venture out to perfect their craft, people like Rain who are on the frontier but not with us or the guilds, or like Sachi who lingers behind in the midlevel group. They'll need this information too."
"I completely agree," Kirito says, "but like I mentioned before, we have very few options for dealing with level-two paralysis poison as it stands...so I think we should ask about that, too."
"Ask...whom?"
Kirito gives Asuna a grin. "A knight who would know something about the Fallen Elves and poisons."