18.1 BSM Scouting
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
18.1 BSM Scouting
Foggy darkness hung around Shirou and his party, with bogland underfoot.
The ground was a thick spongy mire, hard caked earth and thin dead grass. Flat and broad, there wasn't much of a slope and not much in the way of geographic features. They'd come across no streams or gullies, or rocky outcrops, or even much in the way of slopes and hills. It was simply a flat plain. Hanging over the ground was a dense fog, which moistened the soil so it didn't dry out and crack, but there weren't much in the ways of puddles. The fog was everywhere, it was pervasive; they hadn't found anywhere without it.
And there was no sunlight; there was no moon, and no stars. There wasn't much consistency around whether there was a sky overhead or the plate of the next [Floor], but from here neither was visible. There were no stars visible overhead, and there were no stars just above the horizon, to indicate the ones overhead were blocked out. And in the days since, neither Sun nor Moon had risen.
The [25th Floor]. There didn't seem to be much of anything. Even the First City of the Floor was completely abandoned, only the Gate Plaza at the center of a [Safe Zone] only a hundred meters across, with collapsed, tired buildings spread out for a few blocks, before even those tapered off into the fog. There weren't any NPCs. There were no clues to where the Floor Dungeon was.
Three lights shone in the darkness, blurred strangely by the fog. They were in an even triangle, and they rotated slowly around in a circle, like a wheel with lights strapped to it.
Asuna raised her own sword, and loaded it with Fire prana, which she then carefully vented. Cheery flames erupted from the blade, warm yellow light that made the fog shine around here, flat and white. She raised the burning sword to shoulder level, holding it out in front of her, and carefully rolled the blade-torch around in a circle.
There was a skittering behind them. Shirou turned, staring into the darkness. The fog swirled around a lumpen mass, an HP bar popping into view before disappearing again as the monster retreated.
"I'll handle it." Shirou quietly said, glancing over to where Leviathan was standing. The other man nodded stiffly, his sword resting on his shoulder as he stood.
"Right." Asuna replied, without taking her attention away from the three lights in the distance.
Shirou stepped off into the fog, rolling his shoulders lightly and shaking out one hand and then the other, swapping his longsword between them. His arms from the shoulders to the fingertips were in perfect form. He gripped the sword in both hands, raising it up to hang parallel to the wet ground as the wet air pressed around him, the fog almost glowing as it reflected the light from Asuna's torch-like spell. The darkness was like water, looking down into murky depths.
The shape scuttled. His eyes, Reinforced to the maximum, picked it out, the black thing against the endless night.
It was a cape of ragged black cloth, hanging in tatters, covering a body that wasn't human. Five legs like those of a crab stuck out from the edge, matte-black exoskeleton that tapered to points, that stabbed into the ground as much as it walked across it. The HP bar popped over it.
The thing moved, shifting back and forth, a nervous, indecisive scuttling. Shirou moved towards it confidently.
Whatever computer process the game used for monsters to decide things made its decision, shifting its weight as it prepared to attack. It charged forward, three lumps raising in the dark cloth, humps forming under the fabric. It was preparing its claws.
It lunged, claw lashing up and then hooking down, a mantis-like appendage. He couldn't make out how many spines it had, scythe-like, on the bottom, but his sword parried the main arm to the side, and Shirou smoothly stepped forward, twisting the parry into his own thrust, stabbing into the monster.
There was a whispered scraping from his sword on the chitin, and a crunch as his sword broke the carapace, but the monster didn't screech or cry. They didn't vocalize at all.
It scuttled, swinging around and lashing out with a second claw, sideways. Shirou simply stepped a half-step back to evade, and then rolled a half-step in, sword raised, to slice downwards.
It would try to attack again, but Shirou wasn't interested in letting it get into a rhythm. He pressed the advantage, casually following up with an upward cut, drawing the blade back up along the underside, in a move that he hoped would spill its guts. He didn't have the knowledge of their [Anatomy] for more certainty than hope, though.
And another blow. Monster down, slumping pathetically before it evaporated away.
It is dark. You are about to be eaten by a Grue.
That was what people repeated to each other, anyway, quoting an old video game. Fortunately they weren't really a big deal. They were about on the level where Shirou needed to be careful that he didn't lose his footing in the mud when there were three of them, otherwise he could receive an injury.
He turned, and walked back to the wavering light, the flames of Asuna's [Torch] burning, the flickering of the flame showing the depth of the fog around them.
Shirou stifled his irritation at Asuna's spell. It was bad for a blade to be exposed to that high, continuous heat, since it would ruin the temper. It wasn't the correct time to say anything, though.
"You figure something out?" Leviathan asked from beside her, as his eyes flicked to check on Shirou.
"Somewhat." Asuna replied, sighing. "It's not good news."
"I see." He replied.
The three lights approached through the darkness in front of them.
The[25th Floor]. A flat and featureless land of fog and darkness. A land of monsters called [Grue]. They spawned at random throughout the darkness, but any light source a Player created forced more to spawn. Or rather, they spawned in the darkness outside the edge of the light. A monster train that built up, until either the Player's light failed, or a [Grue] with a special ability spawned; an ability that could force darkness back around a Player, or an ability that snuffed out the light. And then the monster train descended.
From one perspective it was good, in that a horde of monsters from the top Floor was an efficient way to [Grind XP]. Shirou's Level had fallen a bit behind the rest of the Front Line from focusing on Crafting more than fighting, so it was convenient that he'd recovered that.
From another perspective, it made mapping the Floor more difficult.
The rest of their party approached.
Rosalia was in the front. Three glass orbs floated in the air, lazily circling around a point in front of her, dropping down and then swinging up. They didn't move like pendulums, speeding up as they went down and slowing down as they rose, but instead moved at a constant speed, like they were orbiting a shared center, ignoring regular gravity. She was wearing her standard light armor, and was using her spear as a cane, frowning as she approached them.
Kuradeel and Silica were flanking her, as their eyes scanned the darkness around them. Silica was riding her current model of [Tama-chan], shorter now but still powerfully muscled, its shoulder only at stomach-level, green fur with darker green stripes, six legs and six pairs of eyes. Its ears twitched as it paused, glancing sideways, before it apparently decided it was nothing. Silica herself was glancing around into the darkness, her concerned frown looking more like a pout. She smiled when Shirou caught her eye, which shined with the same retroreflector glow as Tama's. Shirou nodded back.
Kuradeel was almost entirely covered by his cloak, with the hood up. He almost looked like a Grue himself. His sword peeked out from his cloak, hanging from his right hand, although it was in its basal state. In turn, his two Familiars were following on either side of him, a pair of panthers that were totally black, an absolute darkness that absorbed all light, although that wasn't too apparent on the current floor. They both had bags on their heads, bulky sacks that were cinched shut around their necks like collars, with a raggedly cut seam raggedly sewn shut over their mouths. Eyes were crudely drawn on their sacks, one showing [><] and the other, [^^]. Kuradeel, Silica, and Ilya had spent twenty-five minutes arguing about what exactly to draw. Kuradeel nodded at him, and Shirou nodded back.
"It's like you suspected." Rosalia announced, addressing Asuna. "When we separated, I could see the two points of light on the minimap, but they were slowly rotating around each other."
Asuna sighed, closing her eyes, even as she lowered her sword, flicking it as if whipping the blood off, the flames snuffed out, leaving only Rosalia's three orbs as the lights.
"Was the map rotating at the same rate?" Asuna asked.
"No." Rosalia replied. "It would speed up and slow down, and even reversed to rotate the other direction once."
"So we're lost." Kuradeel said, making it sound like an accusation.
"It seems we are." Asuna asserted, before opening her eyes, and looking between them, checking on their reactions.
It was a problem. As far as they could tell, the 25th Floor had no particular geographic features, just being a flat, boggy plain. There was no day or night cycle, just perpetual fog and darkness.
The 24th Floor Boss had been cleared, and the raid had advanced through to the next Floor, and been disappointed by the emptiness and uncanny darkness, and adjourned. Now, the next day, even after the sun had risen on every other Floor, it had remained dark on this one.
They had set out, heading due west. The plan had been to do simple scouting, go out for a bit, and come back.
They'd been swarmed by Grue twice, so far. Silica had lost both her hawks, and Kuradeel had lost the [- -] panther.
They had headed straight west, and come across nothing. Just the same marshy ground underfoot. There had been no over [Safe Zones], nor entrances to any [Dungeons]. The closest thing they had found to even a change in the geography was a slight depression in the ground that had filled up with water, a swamp-pond maybe a few meters across.
Only, they hadn't headed straight west. Every time they had checked their minimaps to confirm their heading, the compass rose had been lying to them.
"How do we get back?" Leviathan asked the question that they were all thinking, making it a neutral statement.
"We have a few options." Asuna announced. "I will list the ones I can think of, and then I will open the floor to other suggestions."
"List away." Rosalia replied, smiling in a way that didn't reach her eyes.
Asuna nodded, and raised her left hand, with one finger extended. "First, we can simply keep walking, and hope we stumble across a Safe Zone, perhaps even the main one." She raised another finger. "Second, we can stay put, and message someone for help." She nodded. "That would be common sense for getting lost, but…." She shook her head, as she trailed off.
That's right. It was something that had been taught in school. If you get lost in the woods, then rather than wasting energy getting even more lost, sit down and wait to be saved. However, that was in the real world, where modern society could mobilize helicopters and rescue parties. Where there weren't monsters. Here, in the [Game], as [Front Liners], there was no one that could rescue them. They were already the rescuers.
"Third option." Asuna announced, raising her ring finger to match pointer and middle. "We head in a straight line outwards, making for the Floor Edge, and use that to orient ourselves back to the middle."
"How?" Kuradeel said, frowning as he tilted his head to the side. "Maybe if one person tried to dead-reckon, walking straight forward, and we followed them. Then we could split in two sub-parties again at the floor edge, and triangulate?"
"That is a good suggestion, Kuradeel-kun." Asuna praised. "Does anyone else have any plans?"
"Does anybody have a compass?" Leviathan asked.
There was a pause. Shirou mentally considered his inventory, and then frowned as he gave up and swiped open his menu. He mostly kept his materials stored in his workshop in the castle, but small bits floated into his personal [Inventory] like detritus in his pockets.
"No." He replied, sighing after a moment. Silica and Rosalia had both checked their own inventories, but the rest of the party hadn't, or rather, had contented themselves with just mental review.
Rosalia and Silica shook their heads negative, and Asuna grunted. "It was a good ask."
"Um. Perhaps we can make one?" Silica asked. "A magnetized needle, punched through a cork button, floating in water… that kind of thing?"
"I don't have any of that." Kuradeel replied, eyes flicking around. "There's water, at least."
Shirou noticed motion. He jerked, stepping around to gaze out into the darkness around them. "They're building up again." He announced, turning back to the party.
"Let's clear them out, then." Asuna decided. "We'll test proactively turning our lights off, this time." The first time had been a surprise, catching them off guard. The second time, losing Rosalia's light-orbs had given them a few seconds of warning.
"Rosalia in the center." Asuna ordered. "I think she was drawing the most aggro, so everyone else circle up and keep her at your back."
"Right." Shirou agreed, turning and stepping forward twice, entering a fighting stance. Asuna and Leviathan stepped out on either side, flanking him.
It made sense that Rosalia, who had the Element of [Light], would be treated as the natural enemy of monsters who lived in [Darkness]. Since she was primarily a ranged attacker anyway, that wasn't a problem either.
Shirou closed his eyes. "Preparing eyes for darkness operations." He announced. Adjusting the spell Reinforcing his eyes for maximum sensitivity would naturally leave him weak against new light sources.
The pale darkness went totally dark around him, the light leaking through the skin of his eyelids falling away as Rosalia ended her spell.
He opened his eyes, looking into the blackness.
Skuttling, whirling shifting in the fog, as the various [Grue] closed in from around them.
He raised his sword, and stepped forward, a careless, flinching half-step.
The monster fell for it. The closest grue lunged in, and Shirou's minced half step became a firm lunge as his front foot pushed back, firmly planting his back foot so he could jump forward, matching the see-sawing leg work with a vigorous swing, the edge of his blade carving down into the monster before its claw could reach him.
Shirou pushed downward and pulled inward, a drawing cut that was a vicious second attack as he forced his blade free. It tried to claw while his sword was half-free, but he stepped in and pushed outwards, twisting the blade so that the edge near the cross-guard caught the claw before it could reach him.
A flare of light in the corner of his eye, Asuna's fire blazing explosively from her attack magic.
Another grue was approaching, scuttling around to try and pincer him, while his sword was trapped in the first one.
Meaningless. Emiya Shirou would never run out of swords.
He let go, stepping back and half around, raising his empty hands. "Trace, on." He told himself, and his empty hands firmly grasped the longsword that appeared there, swinging forward and down onto that second grue as well.
This time he pushed down on the near-part of the blade, levering the tip up and out, working the blade free toward the front rather than pulling it back. That seemed to work better, as his sword came free.
On his other side, Leviathan swung his sword, a wet-black arc following behind his blade, a curtain of [Blood] that would splatter against a foe, and gush out to let his own blade slide free easily.
Shirou twisted, and lunged forward, skewering the first grue with his second sword, and it fell away. He released the ones in his hands to hold it floating motionless with [Telekinesis], and grabbed his first sword before it could fall to the ground, whipping it down and then up to cut the second grue on a fast rising cut, and then grabbing the blade half-sword to guide the a straight thrust down into its center mass.
Two down, and countless more to come. One longsword in hand, one floating in the air next to him, on standby. Two grue charged in towards him together.
And even the little light he had went out. They were surrounded by total darkness, absolute blackness.
Shirou attacked, instantly lunging forward to give the two grue in front of him as little time as possible to attack. His sword made contact, and he grunted in satisfaction. The pressure against his palm, the web of his thumb, against his fingertips, the position of the body of the grue was transmitted to him from the sword in his hands.
He had a sense of where his other sword was, through the Telekinesis. A ghostly sense of touch, an extension of his own knowledge of his body's position.
Shirou released the sword in his hands, grabbed the second blade, and stepped back, letting the claw whiff harmlessly in front of him, feeling the breeze of it. He attacked, stabbing the grue. Good. Now both enemies had swords inside them.
He reached up. "Trace, on." He said, and his empty hands were holding a sword.
Shirou simply cycled through the swords. Attack one, pull out a sword, attack the other, push them back. Dodge their attacks as necessary, using the sensory information from his blade.
Four down. Shirou stood, two swords hanging ready in the air, one sword hanging ready in his hands. He closed his eyes. He could hear his party stepping around, heard the growls from Tama and Silica, the sharp shout as Asuna thrust forward. He could even feel the light from her fire on his skin, a delicate kind of heat, but he couldn't see it. Kuradeel growled as he attacked. Silica and Kuradeel were probably okay. They had their own ways of dealing with darkness.
Asuna was fast, and could probably manage with her reaction time.
"Leviathan. Rosalia." Shirou called out. "Are you okay?"
Contact. A scuttling step in front of him. Shirou lunged forward. The sword made contact, but badly. The shape of the grue was revealed to his touch. He released the sword in his hands to his TK.
He reached up, swapping swords, striking down fiercely.
He was open. Shirou swung his sword out, on a judgement. A bad clash, his sword awkwardly intercepting a claw.
"I'm fine." Rosalia called back, sounding nervous.
"I'm lightly injured. Keeping up." Leviathan called out. Distracted by his own fight.
Shirou grunted, pushing on the clashing sword, and reaching to his other side to grab the third sword, pushing it over the top to thrust perpendicular along the one he just released, stabbing the grue.
He reached out for the first one as that grue surged forward, grabbing and twisting to pull it off-balance, both pulling it free and deflecting the claw attack as it stumbled. He lost track of it, but knowing where it was, he simply hit it with a brutal downward chop, and left the sword hanging in the air.
Kuradeel growled again, sounding even angrier, and Asuna grunted. A stiff breeze surged around him. Ah, was she using wind magecraft as a makeshift sound imaging?
He wrenched on the sword that had pierced the other one, finishing it off before it could ready its attack.
Six down.
"Leviathan. Call out." Shirou ordered.
"Here." Leviathan said, and then gasped in dismay. The HUD fixed in the corner of his vision showed Shirou that Leviathan had lost HP.
"Trace Bullet." Shirou announced, forming a fourth sword. It was launched. It wasn't shot from a bow. It wasn't like throwing a knife. He simply grabbed it with TK and pushed forward, propelled straight forward in a line from behind like a bullet getting pushed by the expanding gas in a firearm.
It punched into the mob fighting Leviathan. Shirou grimaced at the sound of the stumbling. He had been a little conservative, and had hit off-center on the grue facing his partymate.
Tama roared, and an instant later Silica yowled.
The darkness abruptly ended.
Rosalia's three lights were hanging in the air above her, orbiting around the top of her head, spinning as fast as he'd ever seen them, as she stood gripping her spear tight in two hands.
Leviathan pulled his sword free, at an awkward angle because the grue had twisted around, blood spurting from the wound, congealing and thick, the grue trembling. Getting human blood injected into it was bad, huh. The grue slumped as its HP ran out, and Shirou caught his fourth sword in TK before it could fall.
Asuna was fencing a grue, drawing her sword lightly along its surface, against its claws, using light attacks to pierce it without fully committing. It seemed she'd used the same approach as him, to rely on touch once sight was removed. She attacked more aggressively with the lights up.
"Boss grue defeated." Silica announced, sounding smug.
"You just got lucky." Kuradeel sneered dismissively, swinging his sword, which elongated and warped mid-swing to gouge into the grue in front of him. Beyond him, another grue was being batted back and forth between his two panthers' claws. So he hadn't been pushed enough they needed to [Bite], huh. He was improving.
Behind. Shirou twisted, parrying the claw and thrusting forward and in, reaching up and slashing down, and then pausing, frowning as he reached to the side for the third, before changing his mind and reaching over to wrench free the thrust-blade, letting it hand, and pushing forward and up with the slashing blade, forcing it out as well. That was enough.
"There are still enemies." Asuna called out. "Don't lose focus until we finish them."
I I I
Asuna kept her breathing under control as she flicked her sword out and down, a meaningless habit when there wasn't any blood on it. She glanced around the party, assessing their mental states.
For herself… fighting blind had been mentally exhausting. She felt wrung-out, from straining to keep track of the one grue that she had been keeping at sword length, constantly touching it with her blade so she could just barely keep ahead of its attacks.
Silica and Kuradeel were in acceptable condition. The stress of losing their Familiars had mostly abated as the rules governing how grue spawned had become clear. Silica's high ability with Sensory Reinforcement meant she could rely on hearing in the darkness, and Kuradeel had some kind of sixth sense he couldn't, or wouldn't, explain. They didn't seem to have experienced much stress from the darkness fighting.
Rosalia was putting up a brave face, but that last [Darkness Zone] spell, however it had worked, had clearly rattled her. She was in the worst condition, feeling the pressure most keenly. She had gotten off a few light blasts in the end, but frankly she was underperforming.
Leviathan was clearly shaken. He had received the worst injuries this time around. His magecraft was well-suited to self-healing so in terms of abstract stamina that fight hadn't cost him much, but Asuna was worried about mental stress. He was also not really on the same level in terms of fighting ability, but was catching up.
Shirou seemed totally unconcerned. It was kind of annoying. He had a bunch of swords floating behind him.
[Grue]. They were fast, tough, strong, and hard to predict. Their gimmicks, for the sub-bosses that had them, were straight-forward, things like that [Darkness Zone]. But they were simply dangerous, in the orthodox sense of being monsters with high, balanced stats.
And they would slowly build up those packs, until a mob of about fifty of them poured down. But not exactly fifty.
Forty-Eight, precisely, if what the others had said was correct, if her own counting was correct. A [Raid] of Players was 48. As long as they kept a light on, eventually the numbers would build up until there was a [Grue Raid] that would assault them from all sides.
So far they'd handled three raids. The first had been the worst in terms of what they'd experienced, but the second had a sub-boss with that fog thing, and now this third one had the sub-boss with [Darkness Zone]. It seemed like the gimmicks were trending up in quality with each one they faced. That was concerning.
"Okay." Asuna said. "Our plan is to head in a straight line in one direction, hit the wall, and then use that to triangulate back to the center." How long would that take. How long to get out, how long to get back.
Ah, what was Kirito doing. Was he out in this fog, too? Wandering around by himself? Asuna clenched her jaw, and then released it. Worrying about him wouldn't accomplish anything. Conversely, sending him a PM asking if he was okay would just make him worry about her. Get back to the Safe Zone first. Check on him then. If he needed rescuing… charge back out with Shirou, at least, in tow. Don't think about worse scenarios.
"Ah." Kuradeel agreed, seeming unaware of her inner turmoil, before he turned to glare at Silica with a challenging glint in his eye. "Did you know? My cute little kitties can dead-reckon perfectly. Can Tama-chan do that?"
"Ah ha ha." Silica laughed, awkwardly deflecting like she usually did when he got competitive about nonsense. She reached up to rub her head. "You've got me there, Kuradeel-kun."
"Speaking of Tama-chan." Asuna said, as she looked around. "Can you take Rosalia as a passenger, Silica-chan? I want to try and move at a faster pace."
Jogging through the fog would be dangerous. But if she was going to decrease the amount of time they spent out here, naturally they would have to increase their movement speed. Asuna judged the risks would be low.
Shirou was adjusting his swords, harnessing them in straps on his back, apparently to save on the prana from letting them float. He was conscientious about that. He probably wasn't worried about the fighting. Annoying.
"Kuradeel." Asuna commanded his attention. "Your panthers. Can they carry a human passenger?" It was a delicate question to ask because the answer was probably no, and that might make him sulk about them losing to Tama-chan, but she needed to confirm.
Kuradeel sneered. Asuna reminded herself that it was his attempt at a friendly smile, probably.
"No." Kuradeel replied, shaking his head. "They're optimized for speed."
"Thank you." Asuna replied, frowning, as she glanced at the rest of the party. "I want to move fast. Can we jog along behind the panthers?"
"In the dark?" Leviathan asked.
Asuna paused. If they moved through the dark… would that prevent the spawn raid build up?
"Can we do it?" She asked, glancing around the party.
"Of course." Kuradeel said, drawing himself up and looking offended she'd even asked.
"It's not a problem." Shirou quietly replied.
Rosalia glanced over at the large green tiger. "If I'm just riding, then yes." She didn't seem pleased to be literally carried. Asuna made a mental note that she might need to manage that. Later.
"I… don't think so." Leviathan admitted. "I mean, if it's running stamina, then I can probably manage with Reinforcement, but seeing in the dark is… a little beyond me."
That was what Asuna was worried about herself, honestly. But she felt she could handle it.
"Um." Silica raised her hand. "I can handle myself, and Tama-chan can carry two even if they're adults, so…." She glanced over to Leviathan, biting her lip cutely.
"Let's set out, then." Asuna decided. "Leviathan, Rosalia. You two ride Tama-chan, the rest of us will go by foot." Asuna frowned, and then deciding admitting it would be wise. "I might need to swap onto Tama-chan myself, so we can rotate if necessary."
"Kuradeel." She said, turning. "You're in the lead, with the panthers ahead of you scouting. Understood?"
"Yes." He simply nodded.
"Shirou." She turned to her last party member. "Rear guard?"
"Understood." Shirou acknowledged. No, she was asking if he felt up to it. But that was a yes, it seemed.
"Right." She sighed, and then closed her eyes. "Spells up." She closed her eyes, circulated prana through her circuit, and concentrated on Reinforcing her eyes. It was difficult, delicate work, and it took her a moment.
"Ready." "Ready." Silica and then Kuradeel announced, one after the other.
"Standing by." Shirou added.
Asuna breathed out, spell complete, looking out towards the fog, and then wincing as she closed her eyes again, the light-orbs actually too bright, even reflected against the fog.
"Rosalia. Drop the lights." Asuna ordered.
"Lights out." Rosalia said, voice wavering.
The darkness wasn't total. Was it something like starlight? With her eyes Reinforced to maximum sensitivity, her color vision drained away as her cones drank up every possible photon through maximally dilated pupils, she could still make out the slight contours of the ground.
"Right." Asuna said. "Let's go."
The panthers set off, loping away in a straight line. Kuradeel followed, setting a good pace. Fast enough to cover ground, but not so fast it would expend stamina too quickly.
Tama-chan rolled, and then set off behind him, languidly moving along with the two on its back, and Silica at its side. Asuna fell in behind, and moved out to the other flank, so she could see further in front, keeping Tama-chan in front of her to the left, while Silica ran along the far side.
She glanced behind, quickly, to see that Shirou was falling in pace behind them.
Then she turned her attention back to the ground, and they set off.
Asuna could only pay attention to the ground. Each step ate up ground underfoot, and she had to seriously look at the ground to judge where it was okay to step. There weren't any roots or holes that could catch her foot and twist her ankle… yet. It wouldn't be funny to find an extremely rare thing like that.
The party ran. Occasionally she caught sight of what might have been a grue, lurking in the fog, but either she was wrong, or they didn't aggro in the dark, because they pushed along without any problems.
One of the panthers yowled, in front of them, off to the left.
"Supporting." Silica called out from somewhere in the darkness.
Tama-chan didn't even slow down, so Asuna stayed with the tiger, following along side it, trusting she wasn't needed.
"Grue defeated." Kuradeel shouted out from in front, sounding smug.
"Good." Asuna replied.
They kept running, feet eating up ground in the darkness.
And then the wall loomed in front of them.
The edge of the Floor.
They slowed down as they came up to it, easing up. The edge was different on every Floor, but always included some kind of barrier that prevented people from wandering off. Sometimes that was as simple as a handrail that could be climbed over, and sometimes it was like this. A smooth rock wall, that extended up indefinitely, soaring up through the fog. Was that why there was no sunlight?
The scenario was that [Aincrad] was a castle floating in the sky, a hundred disks stacked on top of each other. If they were on a Floor that was sealed up, then that was why there wouldn't be any sunlight, huh. No, in that case, where was the ambient light coming from?
Well, thoughts for later.
They drew up to the edge of the Floor. They seemed to be coming at it from a slight angle. So they really had gotten turned around, huh.
Asuna paused, catching her breath, and glancing over at Shirou, who was peering off into the darkness behind them, as he trudged along behind them.
She left him to it, moving forward to where Kuradeel was standing against the wall, in front of Tama-chan, where Rosalia and Leviathan were sliding down off.
"Right." Asuna said, as she swiped open her inventory, tapping through to materialize some ropes. It was fortunate that ever since the ice Floor she'd always carried rope. "What we're going to do is draw a triangle using the curve of the wall." She glanced around them.
"Silica and I will form one corner, with Rosalia and Leviathan forming the other. Kuradeel will stay here at the vertex." She turned, and glanced at Shirou. "You stand guard."
She reached out, handing the ends of one rope to Silica and Kuradeel, and then the ends of another rope to Rosalia and Silica. "These are fifty meter ropes, they'll be the legs. Pull them tight and press them against the wall, about a meter off the ground."
She materialized a second rope, and handed one end to Rosalia. "This will be the hypotenuse."
Rosalia nodded, seeming a bit confused, but gripped the ropes in one hand, and turned, walking along the wall, reaching out to lightly trace it with one hand.
"Let's go." Asuna said to Silica, as they turned and set off along the wall.
"Um." Silica began. "How is this going to work?"
Asuna walked along, hand up as she traced the wall, Silica behind her with the leg-rope in hand.
"I'll go out to the middle of the rope, and tell Kuradeel to point his panthers directly from him to me." Asuna explained. "It's relying on them being really accurate at moving in a straight line, but it's our best bet."
"That makes sense." Silica said, sounding thoughtful.
They walked along the side of the wall, and eventually the leg rope went taunt in Silica's hand.
She could hear sounds of fighting. "Is everything okay?" She shouted.
"It's fine." Shirou called back. "Just a pair of Grue. It's handled."
'Just' a pair of grue, huh. Asuna shook her head, turning her attention back to her task. She pulled the hypotenuse rope out, and taunt. She gave it an experimental tug, and after a moment, Rosalia tugged back. Good. She turned, and pulled it over and tight, handing it to Silica, the stack length gathered up in her hand. It was a hundred-meter rope, so naturally there was a bit left over from the fifty-meter legs. She swiped open her inventory, tabbing to her menu.
"Okay, I give up." Silica admitted. "I can't figure out the math that you're doing here."
Asuna paused, halfway through her inventory. "It's simpler than that." Asuna confessed, as she scrolled down a bit more, and then materialized a knife. "It's pretty trivial to find the [length] of something using [Structural Grasp]."
She cut the slack off the hypotenuse rope. Like that, it was as simple as taking out her ruler and putting it alongside the edge of the triangle, measuring it directly with a [Spell] instead of doing complicated geometry.
"It is?" Silica asked, cocking her head to the side.
Asuna paused. "Yes?" She replied, a bit uncertain herself. At the very least, Kirito had made it seem that way when they were talking.
"Okay." Silica said, not so much agreeing as letting it go.
Asuna [Grasped] the rope. There. She paced out, hand sliding along, her spell still echoing through it as easily as her finger tracing along the tickmarks of a ruler that was laid along the side of a triangle drawn on a piece of paper.
There, halfway. Asuna paused, aligning her body, the rope trailing off into the darkness and fog around her, hanging eerily.
"Kuradeel." She called out.
"Ahh?" He shouted back.
"Tell you panthers to move directly from you to me. That's the direction that the center of the Floor is in."
"Yes." Kuradeel replied.
She glanced over her shoulder, in the opposite direction. The fog hung thick and dark, the marshland stretching off beneath her. She couldn't see anything. Still, she was betting that she was looking directly back in the direction they needed to go.
Now all she could do was rely on it.
I I I
End
1) I've been writing pretty regular on an, uh, different project, but it's because PVNPC recruited me as a beta-reader for Certain Silent Neuromancer that I came back to this fic enough to revitalize all the memories, so kudos to that for dragging me back I guess.
2) I think the "Running through the Dark" thing was a little iffy, and the ending felt a bit tepid (although for that specifically I'm setting up for 18.2 so maybe that's okay). Gimme your thoughts on that.
3) I was trying to create a kind of irony where Shirou was like "yeah Grues are no big deal, we can handle them" and meanwhile Asuna was thinking "this is really hard." So that's another thing where if that didn't deliver, lemme know in the comments.
Foggy darkness hung around Shirou and his party, with bogland underfoot.
The ground was a thick spongy mire, hard caked earth and thin dead grass. Flat and broad, there wasn't much of a slope and not much in the way of geographic features. They'd come across no streams or gullies, or rocky outcrops, or even much in the way of slopes and hills. It was simply a flat plain. Hanging over the ground was a dense fog, which moistened the soil so it didn't dry out and crack, but there weren't much in the ways of puddles. The fog was everywhere, it was pervasive; they hadn't found anywhere without it.
And there was no sunlight; there was no moon, and no stars. There wasn't much consistency around whether there was a sky overhead or the plate of the next [Floor], but from here neither was visible. There were no stars visible overhead, and there were no stars just above the horizon, to indicate the ones overhead were blocked out. And in the days since, neither Sun nor Moon had risen.
The [25th Floor]. There didn't seem to be much of anything. Even the First City of the Floor was completely abandoned, only the Gate Plaza at the center of a [Safe Zone] only a hundred meters across, with collapsed, tired buildings spread out for a few blocks, before even those tapered off into the fog. There weren't any NPCs. There were no clues to where the Floor Dungeon was.
Three lights shone in the darkness, blurred strangely by the fog. They were in an even triangle, and they rotated slowly around in a circle, like a wheel with lights strapped to it.
Asuna raised her own sword, and loaded it with Fire prana, which she then carefully vented. Cheery flames erupted from the blade, warm yellow light that made the fog shine around here, flat and white. She raised the burning sword to shoulder level, holding it out in front of her, and carefully rolled the blade-torch around in a circle.
There was a skittering behind them. Shirou turned, staring into the darkness. The fog swirled around a lumpen mass, an HP bar popping into view before disappearing again as the monster retreated.
"I'll handle it." Shirou quietly said, glancing over to where Leviathan was standing. The other man nodded stiffly, his sword resting on his shoulder as he stood.
"Right." Asuna replied, without taking her attention away from the three lights in the distance.
Shirou stepped off into the fog, rolling his shoulders lightly and shaking out one hand and then the other, swapping his longsword between them. His arms from the shoulders to the fingertips were in perfect form. He gripped the sword in both hands, raising it up to hang parallel to the wet ground as the wet air pressed around him, the fog almost glowing as it reflected the light from Asuna's torch-like spell. The darkness was like water, looking down into murky depths.
The shape scuttled. His eyes, Reinforced to the maximum, picked it out, the black thing against the endless night.
It was a cape of ragged black cloth, hanging in tatters, covering a body that wasn't human. Five legs like those of a crab stuck out from the edge, matte-black exoskeleton that tapered to points, that stabbed into the ground as much as it walked across it. The HP bar popped over it.
The thing moved, shifting back and forth, a nervous, indecisive scuttling. Shirou moved towards it confidently.
Whatever computer process the game used for monsters to decide things made its decision, shifting its weight as it prepared to attack. It charged forward, three lumps raising in the dark cloth, humps forming under the fabric. It was preparing its claws.
It lunged, claw lashing up and then hooking down, a mantis-like appendage. He couldn't make out how many spines it had, scythe-like, on the bottom, but his sword parried the main arm to the side, and Shirou smoothly stepped forward, twisting the parry into his own thrust, stabbing into the monster.
There was a whispered scraping from his sword on the chitin, and a crunch as his sword broke the carapace, but the monster didn't screech or cry. They didn't vocalize at all.
It scuttled, swinging around and lashing out with a second claw, sideways. Shirou simply stepped a half-step back to evade, and then rolled a half-step in, sword raised, to slice downwards.
It would try to attack again, but Shirou wasn't interested in letting it get into a rhythm. He pressed the advantage, casually following up with an upward cut, drawing the blade back up along the underside, in a move that he hoped would spill its guts. He didn't have the knowledge of their [Anatomy] for more certainty than hope, though.
And another blow. Monster down, slumping pathetically before it evaporated away.
It is dark. You are about to be eaten by a Grue.
That was what people repeated to each other, anyway, quoting an old video game. Fortunately they weren't really a big deal. They were about on the level where Shirou needed to be careful that he didn't lose his footing in the mud when there were three of them, otherwise he could receive an injury.
He turned, and walked back to the wavering light, the flames of Asuna's [Torch] burning, the flickering of the flame showing the depth of the fog around them.
Shirou stifled his irritation at Asuna's spell. It was bad for a blade to be exposed to that high, continuous heat, since it would ruin the temper. It wasn't the correct time to say anything, though.
"You figure something out?" Leviathan asked from beside her, as his eyes flicked to check on Shirou.
"Somewhat." Asuna replied, sighing. "It's not good news."
"I see." He replied.
The three lights approached through the darkness in front of them.
The[25th Floor]. A flat and featureless land of fog and darkness. A land of monsters called [Grue]. They spawned at random throughout the darkness, but any light source a Player created forced more to spawn. Or rather, they spawned in the darkness outside the edge of the light. A monster train that built up, until either the Player's light failed, or a [Grue] with a special ability spawned; an ability that could force darkness back around a Player, or an ability that snuffed out the light. And then the monster train descended.
From one perspective it was good, in that a horde of monsters from the top Floor was an efficient way to [Grind XP]. Shirou's Level had fallen a bit behind the rest of the Front Line from focusing on Crafting more than fighting, so it was convenient that he'd recovered that.
From another perspective, it made mapping the Floor more difficult.
The rest of their party approached.
Rosalia was in the front. Three glass orbs floated in the air, lazily circling around a point in front of her, dropping down and then swinging up. They didn't move like pendulums, speeding up as they went down and slowing down as they rose, but instead moved at a constant speed, like they were orbiting a shared center, ignoring regular gravity. She was wearing her standard light armor, and was using her spear as a cane, frowning as she approached them.
Kuradeel and Silica were flanking her, as their eyes scanned the darkness around them. Silica was riding her current model of [Tama-chan], shorter now but still powerfully muscled, its shoulder only at stomach-level, green fur with darker green stripes, six legs and six pairs of eyes. Its ears twitched as it paused, glancing sideways, before it apparently decided it was nothing. Silica herself was glancing around into the darkness, her concerned frown looking more like a pout. She smiled when Shirou caught her eye, which shined with the same retroreflector glow as Tama's. Shirou nodded back.
Kuradeel was almost entirely covered by his cloak, with the hood up. He almost looked like a Grue himself. His sword peeked out from his cloak, hanging from his right hand, although it was in its basal state. In turn, his two Familiars were following on either side of him, a pair of panthers that were totally black, an absolute darkness that absorbed all light, although that wasn't too apparent on the current floor. They both had bags on their heads, bulky sacks that were cinched shut around their necks like collars, with a raggedly cut seam raggedly sewn shut over their mouths. Eyes were crudely drawn on their sacks, one showing [><] and the other, [^^]. Kuradeel, Silica, and Ilya had spent twenty-five minutes arguing about what exactly to draw. Kuradeel nodded at him, and Shirou nodded back.
"It's like you suspected." Rosalia announced, addressing Asuna. "When we separated, I could see the two points of light on the minimap, but they were slowly rotating around each other."
Asuna sighed, closing her eyes, even as she lowered her sword, flicking it as if whipping the blood off, the flames snuffed out, leaving only Rosalia's three orbs as the lights.
"Was the map rotating at the same rate?" Asuna asked.
"No." Rosalia replied. "It would speed up and slow down, and even reversed to rotate the other direction once."
"So we're lost." Kuradeel said, making it sound like an accusation.
"It seems we are." Asuna asserted, before opening her eyes, and looking between them, checking on their reactions.
It was a problem. As far as they could tell, the 25th Floor had no particular geographic features, just being a flat, boggy plain. There was no day or night cycle, just perpetual fog and darkness.
The 24th Floor Boss had been cleared, and the raid had advanced through to the next Floor, and been disappointed by the emptiness and uncanny darkness, and adjourned. Now, the next day, even after the sun had risen on every other Floor, it had remained dark on this one.
They had set out, heading due west. The plan had been to do simple scouting, go out for a bit, and come back.
They'd been swarmed by Grue twice, so far. Silica had lost both her hawks, and Kuradeel had lost the [- -] panther.
They had headed straight west, and come across nothing. Just the same marshy ground underfoot. There had been no over [Safe Zones], nor entrances to any [Dungeons]. The closest thing they had found to even a change in the geography was a slight depression in the ground that had filled up with water, a swamp-pond maybe a few meters across.
Only, they hadn't headed straight west. Every time they had checked their minimaps to confirm their heading, the compass rose had been lying to them.
"How do we get back?" Leviathan asked the question that they were all thinking, making it a neutral statement.
"We have a few options." Asuna announced. "I will list the ones I can think of, and then I will open the floor to other suggestions."
"List away." Rosalia replied, smiling in a way that didn't reach her eyes.
Asuna nodded, and raised her left hand, with one finger extended. "First, we can simply keep walking, and hope we stumble across a Safe Zone, perhaps even the main one." She raised another finger. "Second, we can stay put, and message someone for help." She nodded. "That would be common sense for getting lost, but…." She shook her head, as she trailed off.
That's right. It was something that had been taught in school. If you get lost in the woods, then rather than wasting energy getting even more lost, sit down and wait to be saved. However, that was in the real world, where modern society could mobilize helicopters and rescue parties. Where there weren't monsters. Here, in the [Game], as [Front Liners], there was no one that could rescue them. They were already the rescuers.
"Third option." Asuna announced, raising her ring finger to match pointer and middle. "We head in a straight line outwards, making for the Floor Edge, and use that to orient ourselves back to the middle."
"How?" Kuradeel said, frowning as he tilted his head to the side. "Maybe if one person tried to dead-reckon, walking straight forward, and we followed them. Then we could split in two sub-parties again at the floor edge, and triangulate?"
"That is a good suggestion, Kuradeel-kun." Asuna praised. "Does anyone else have any plans?"
"Does anybody have a compass?" Leviathan asked.
There was a pause. Shirou mentally considered his inventory, and then frowned as he gave up and swiped open his menu. He mostly kept his materials stored in his workshop in the castle, but small bits floated into his personal [Inventory] like detritus in his pockets.
"No." He replied, sighing after a moment. Silica and Rosalia had both checked their own inventories, but the rest of the party hadn't, or rather, had contented themselves with just mental review.
Rosalia and Silica shook their heads negative, and Asuna grunted. "It was a good ask."
"Um. Perhaps we can make one?" Silica asked. "A magnetized needle, punched through a cork button, floating in water… that kind of thing?"
"I don't have any of that." Kuradeel replied, eyes flicking around. "There's water, at least."
Shirou noticed motion. He jerked, stepping around to gaze out into the darkness around them. "They're building up again." He announced, turning back to the party.
"Let's clear them out, then." Asuna decided. "We'll test proactively turning our lights off, this time." The first time had been a surprise, catching them off guard. The second time, losing Rosalia's light-orbs had given them a few seconds of warning.
"Rosalia in the center." Asuna ordered. "I think she was drawing the most aggro, so everyone else circle up and keep her at your back."
"Right." Shirou agreed, turning and stepping forward twice, entering a fighting stance. Asuna and Leviathan stepped out on either side, flanking him.
It made sense that Rosalia, who had the Element of [Light], would be treated as the natural enemy of monsters who lived in [Darkness]. Since she was primarily a ranged attacker anyway, that wasn't a problem either.
Shirou closed his eyes. "Preparing eyes for darkness operations." He announced. Adjusting the spell Reinforcing his eyes for maximum sensitivity would naturally leave him weak against new light sources.
The pale darkness went totally dark around him, the light leaking through the skin of his eyelids falling away as Rosalia ended her spell.
He opened his eyes, looking into the blackness.
Skuttling, whirling shifting in the fog, as the various [Grue] closed in from around them.
He raised his sword, and stepped forward, a careless, flinching half-step.
The monster fell for it. The closest grue lunged in, and Shirou's minced half step became a firm lunge as his front foot pushed back, firmly planting his back foot so he could jump forward, matching the see-sawing leg work with a vigorous swing, the edge of his blade carving down into the monster before its claw could reach him.
Shirou pushed downward and pulled inward, a drawing cut that was a vicious second attack as he forced his blade free. It tried to claw while his sword was half-free, but he stepped in and pushed outwards, twisting the blade so that the edge near the cross-guard caught the claw before it could reach him.
A flare of light in the corner of his eye, Asuna's fire blazing explosively from her attack magic.
Another grue was approaching, scuttling around to try and pincer him, while his sword was trapped in the first one.
Meaningless. Emiya Shirou would never run out of swords.
He let go, stepping back and half around, raising his empty hands. "Trace, on." He told himself, and his empty hands firmly grasped the longsword that appeared there, swinging forward and down onto that second grue as well.
This time he pushed down on the near-part of the blade, levering the tip up and out, working the blade free toward the front rather than pulling it back. That seemed to work better, as his sword came free.
On his other side, Leviathan swung his sword, a wet-black arc following behind his blade, a curtain of [Blood] that would splatter against a foe, and gush out to let his own blade slide free easily.
Shirou twisted, and lunged forward, skewering the first grue with his second sword, and it fell away. He released the ones in his hands to hold it floating motionless with [Telekinesis], and grabbed his first sword before it could fall to the ground, whipping it down and then up to cut the second grue on a fast rising cut, and then grabbing the blade half-sword to guide the a straight thrust down into its center mass.
Two down, and countless more to come. One longsword in hand, one floating in the air next to him, on standby. Two grue charged in towards him together.
And even the little light he had went out. They were surrounded by total darkness, absolute blackness.
Shirou attacked, instantly lunging forward to give the two grue in front of him as little time as possible to attack. His sword made contact, and he grunted in satisfaction. The pressure against his palm, the web of his thumb, against his fingertips, the position of the body of the grue was transmitted to him from the sword in his hands.
He had a sense of where his other sword was, through the Telekinesis. A ghostly sense of touch, an extension of his own knowledge of his body's position.
Shirou released the sword in his hands, grabbed the second blade, and stepped back, letting the claw whiff harmlessly in front of him, feeling the breeze of it. He attacked, stabbing the grue. Good. Now both enemies had swords inside them.
He reached up. "Trace, on." He said, and his empty hands were holding a sword.
Shirou simply cycled through the swords. Attack one, pull out a sword, attack the other, push them back. Dodge their attacks as necessary, using the sensory information from his blade.
Four down. Shirou stood, two swords hanging ready in the air, one sword hanging ready in his hands. He closed his eyes. He could hear his party stepping around, heard the growls from Tama and Silica, the sharp shout as Asuna thrust forward. He could even feel the light from her fire on his skin, a delicate kind of heat, but he couldn't see it. Kuradeel growled as he attacked. Silica and Kuradeel were probably okay. They had their own ways of dealing with darkness.
Asuna was fast, and could probably manage with her reaction time.
"Leviathan. Rosalia." Shirou called out. "Are you okay?"
Contact. A scuttling step in front of him. Shirou lunged forward. The sword made contact, but badly. The shape of the grue was revealed to his touch. He released the sword in his hands to his TK.
He reached up, swapping swords, striking down fiercely.
He was open. Shirou swung his sword out, on a judgement. A bad clash, his sword awkwardly intercepting a claw.
"I'm fine." Rosalia called back, sounding nervous.
"I'm lightly injured. Keeping up." Leviathan called out. Distracted by his own fight.
Shirou grunted, pushing on the clashing sword, and reaching to his other side to grab the third sword, pushing it over the top to thrust perpendicular along the one he just released, stabbing the grue.
He reached out for the first one as that grue surged forward, grabbing and twisting to pull it off-balance, both pulling it free and deflecting the claw attack as it stumbled. He lost track of it, but knowing where it was, he simply hit it with a brutal downward chop, and left the sword hanging in the air.
Kuradeel growled again, sounding even angrier, and Asuna grunted. A stiff breeze surged around him. Ah, was she using wind magecraft as a makeshift sound imaging?
He wrenched on the sword that had pierced the other one, finishing it off before it could ready its attack.
Six down.
"Leviathan. Call out." Shirou ordered.
"Here." Leviathan said, and then gasped in dismay. The HUD fixed in the corner of his vision showed Shirou that Leviathan had lost HP.
"Trace Bullet." Shirou announced, forming a fourth sword. It was launched. It wasn't shot from a bow. It wasn't like throwing a knife. He simply grabbed it with TK and pushed forward, propelled straight forward in a line from behind like a bullet getting pushed by the expanding gas in a firearm.
It punched into the mob fighting Leviathan. Shirou grimaced at the sound of the stumbling. He had been a little conservative, and had hit off-center on the grue facing his partymate.
Tama roared, and an instant later Silica yowled.
The darkness abruptly ended.
Rosalia's three lights were hanging in the air above her, orbiting around the top of her head, spinning as fast as he'd ever seen them, as she stood gripping her spear tight in two hands.
Leviathan pulled his sword free, at an awkward angle because the grue had twisted around, blood spurting from the wound, congealing and thick, the grue trembling. Getting human blood injected into it was bad, huh. The grue slumped as its HP ran out, and Shirou caught his fourth sword in TK before it could fall.
Asuna was fencing a grue, drawing her sword lightly along its surface, against its claws, using light attacks to pierce it without fully committing. It seemed she'd used the same approach as him, to rely on touch once sight was removed. She attacked more aggressively with the lights up.
"Boss grue defeated." Silica announced, sounding smug.
"You just got lucky." Kuradeel sneered dismissively, swinging his sword, which elongated and warped mid-swing to gouge into the grue in front of him. Beyond him, another grue was being batted back and forth between his two panthers' claws. So he hadn't been pushed enough they needed to [Bite], huh. He was improving.
Behind. Shirou twisted, parrying the claw and thrusting forward and in, reaching up and slashing down, and then pausing, frowning as he reached to the side for the third, before changing his mind and reaching over to wrench free the thrust-blade, letting it hand, and pushing forward and up with the slashing blade, forcing it out as well. That was enough.
"There are still enemies." Asuna called out. "Don't lose focus until we finish them."
I I I
Asuna kept her breathing under control as she flicked her sword out and down, a meaningless habit when there wasn't any blood on it. She glanced around the party, assessing their mental states.
For herself… fighting blind had been mentally exhausting. She felt wrung-out, from straining to keep track of the one grue that she had been keeping at sword length, constantly touching it with her blade so she could just barely keep ahead of its attacks.
Silica and Kuradeel were in acceptable condition. The stress of losing their Familiars had mostly abated as the rules governing how grue spawned had become clear. Silica's high ability with Sensory Reinforcement meant she could rely on hearing in the darkness, and Kuradeel had some kind of sixth sense he couldn't, or wouldn't, explain. They didn't seem to have experienced much stress from the darkness fighting.
Rosalia was putting up a brave face, but that last [Darkness Zone] spell, however it had worked, had clearly rattled her. She was in the worst condition, feeling the pressure most keenly. She had gotten off a few light blasts in the end, but frankly she was underperforming.
Leviathan was clearly shaken. He had received the worst injuries this time around. His magecraft was well-suited to self-healing so in terms of abstract stamina that fight hadn't cost him much, but Asuna was worried about mental stress. He was also not really on the same level in terms of fighting ability, but was catching up.
Shirou seemed totally unconcerned. It was kind of annoying. He had a bunch of swords floating behind him.
[Grue]. They were fast, tough, strong, and hard to predict. Their gimmicks, for the sub-bosses that had them, were straight-forward, things like that [Darkness Zone]. But they were simply dangerous, in the orthodox sense of being monsters with high, balanced stats.
And they would slowly build up those packs, until a mob of about fifty of them poured down. But not exactly fifty.
Forty-Eight, precisely, if what the others had said was correct, if her own counting was correct. A [Raid] of Players was 48. As long as they kept a light on, eventually the numbers would build up until there was a [Grue Raid] that would assault them from all sides.
So far they'd handled three raids. The first had been the worst in terms of what they'd experienced, but the second had a sub-boss with that fog thing, and now this third one had the sub-boss with [Darkness Zone]. It seemed like the gimmicks were trending up in quality with each one they faced. That was concerning.
"Okay." Asuna said. "Our plan is to head in a straight line in one direction, hit the wall, and then use that to triangulate back to the center." How long would that take. How long to get out, how long to get back.
Ah, what was Kirito doing. Was he out in this fog, too? Wandering around by himself? Asuna clenched her jaw, and then released it. Worrying about him wouldn't accomplish anything. Conversely, sending him a PM asking if he was okay would just make him worry about her. Get back to the Safe Zone first. Check on him then. If he needed rescuing… charge back out with Shirou, at least, in tow. Don't think about worse scenarios.
"Ah." Kuradeel agreed, seeming unaware of her inner turmoil, before he turned to glare at Silica with a challenging glint in his eye. "Did you know? My cute little kitties can dead-reckon perfectly. Can Tama-chan do that?"
"Ah ha ha." Silica laughed, awkwardly deflecting like she usually did when he got competitive about nonsense. She reached up to rub her head. "You've got me there, Kuradeel-kun."
"Speaking of Tama-chan." Asuna said, as she looked around. "Can you take Rosalia as a passenger, Silica-chan? I want to try and move at a faster pace."
Jogging through the fog would be dangerous. But if she was going to decrease the amount of time they spent out here, naturally they would have to increase their movement speed. Asuna judged the risks would be low.
Shirou was adjusting his swords, harnessing them in straps on his back, apparently to save on the prana from letting them float. He was conscientious about that. He probably wasn't worried about the fighting. Annoying.
"Kuradeel." Asuna commanded his attention. "Your panthers. Can they carry a human passenger?" It was a delicate question to ask because the answer was probably no, and that might make him sulk about them losing to Tama-chan, but she needed to confirm.
Kuradeel sneered. Asuna reminded herself that it was his attempt at a friendly smile, probably.
"No." Kuradeel replied, shaking his head. "They're optimized for speed."
"Thank you." Asuna replied, frowning, as she glanced at the rest of the party. "I want to move fast. Can we jog along behind the panthers?"
"In the dark?" Leviathan asked.
Asuna paused. If they moved through the dark… would that prevent the spawn raid build up?
"Can we do it?" She asked, glancing around the party.
"Of course." Kuradeel said, drawing himself up and looking offended she'd even asked.
"It's not a problem." Shirou quietly replied.
Rosalia glanced over at the large green tiger. "If I'm just riding, then yes." She didn't seem pleased to be literally carried. Asuna made a mental note that she might need to manage that. Later.
"I… don't think so." Leviathan admitted. "I mean, if it's running stamina, then I can probably manage with Reinforcement, but seeing in the dark is… a little beyond me."
That was what Asuna was worried about herself, honestly. But she felt she could handle it.
"Um." Silica raised her hand. "I can handle myself, and Tama-chan can carry two even if they're adults, so…." She glanced over to Leviathan, biting her lip cutely.
"Let's set out, then." Asuna decided. "Leviathan, Rosalia. You two ride Tama-chan, the rest of us will go by foot." Asuna frowned, and then deciding admitting it would be wise. "I might need to swap onto Tama-chan myself, so we can rotate if necessary."
"Kuradeel." She said, turning. "You're in the lead, with the panthers ahead of you scouting. Understood?"
"Yes." He simply nodded.
"Shirou." She turned to her last party member. "Rear guard?"
"Understood." Shirou acknowledged. No, she was asking if he felt up to it. But that was a yes, it seemed.
"Right." She sighed, and then closed her eyes. "Spells up." She closed her eyes, circulated prana through her circuit, and concentrated on Reinforcing her eyes. It was difficult, delicate work, and it took her a moment.
"Ready." "Ready." Silica and then Kuradeel announced, one after the other.
"Standing by." Shirou added.
Asuna breathed out, spell complete, looking out towards the fog, and then wincing as she closed her eyes again, the light-orbs actually too bright, even reflected against the fog.
"Rosalia. Drop the lights." Asuna ordered.
"Lights out." Rosalia said, voice wavering.
The darkness wasn't total. Was it something like starlight? With her eyes Reinforced to maximum sensitivity, her color vision drained away as her cones drank up every possible photon through maximally dilated pupils, she could still make out the slight contours of the ground.
"Right." Asuna said. "Let's go."
The panthers set off, loping away in a straight line. Kuradeel followed, setting a good pace. Fast enough to cover ground, but not so fast it would expend stamina too quickly.
Tama-chan rolled, and then set off behind him, languidly moving along with the two on its back, and Silica at its side. Asuna fell in behind, and moved out to the other flank, so she could see further in front, keeping Tama-chan in front of her to the left, while Silica ran along the far side.
She glanced behind, quickly, to see that Shirou was falling in pace behind them.
Then she turned her attention back to the ground, and they set off.
Asuna could only pay attention to the ground. Each step ate up ground underfoot, and she had to seriously look at the ground to judge where it was okay to step. There weren't any roots or holes that could catch her foot and twist her ankle… yet. It wouldn't be funny to find an extremely rare thing like that.
The party ran. Occasionally she caught sight of what might have been a grue, lurking in the fog, but either she was wrong, or they didn't aggro in the dark, because they pushed along without any problems.
One of the panthers yowled, in front of them, off to the left.
"Supporting." Silica called out from somewhere in the darkness.
Tama-chan didn't even slow down, so Asuna stayed with the tiger, following along side it, trusting she wasn't needed.
"Grue defeated." Kuradeel shouted out from in front, sounding smug.
"Good." Asuna replied.
They kept running, feet eating up ground in the darkness.
And then the wall loomed in front of them.
The edge of the Floor.
They slowed down as they came up to it, easing up. The edge was different on every Floor, but always included some kind of barrier that prevented people from wandering off. Sometimes that was as simple as a handrail that could be climbed over, and sometimes it was like this. A smooth rock wall, that extended up indefinitely, soaring up through the fog. Was that why there was no sunlight?
The scenario was that [Aincrad] was a castle floating in the sky, a hundred disks stacked on top of each other. If they were on a Floor that was sealed up, then that was why there wouldn't be any sunlight, huh. No, in that case, where was the ambient light coming from?
Well, thoughts for later.
They drew up to the edge of the Floor. They seemed to be coming at it from a slight angle. So they really had gotten turned around, huh.
Asuna paused, catching her breath, and glancing over at Shirou, who was peering off into the darkness behind them, as he trudged along behind them.
She left him to it, moving forward to where Kuradeel was standing against the wall, in front of Tama-chan, where Rosalia and Leviathan were sliding down off.
"Right." Asuna said, as she swiped open her inventory, tapping through to materialize some ropes. It was fortunate that ever since the ice Floor she'd always carried rope. "What we're going to do is draw a triangle using the curve of the wall." She glanced around them.
"Silica and I will form one corner, with Rosalia and Leviathan forming the other. Kuradeel will stay here at the vertex." She turned, and glanced at Shirou. "You stand guard."
She reached out, handing the ends of one rope to Silica and Kuradeel, and then the ends of another rope to Rosalia and Silica. "These are fifty meter ropes, they'll be the legs. Pull them tight and press them against the wall, about a meter off the ground."
She materialized a second rope, and handed one end to Rosalia. "This will be the hypotenuse."
Rosalia nodded, seeming a bit confused, but gripped the ropes in one hand, and turned, walking along the wall, reaching out to lightly trace it with one hand.
"Let's go." Asuna said to Silica, as they turned and set off along the wall.
"Um." Silica began. "How is this going to work?"
Asuna walked along, hand up as she traced the wall, Silica behind her with the leg-rope in hand.
"I'll go out to the middle of the rope, and tell Kuradeel to point his panthers directly from him to me." Asuna explained. "It's relying on them being really accurate at moving in a straight line, but it's our best bet."
"That makes sense." Silica said, sounding thoughtful.
They walked along the side of the wall, and eventually the leg rope went taunt in Silica's hand.
She could hear sounds of fighting. "Is everything okay?" She shouted.
"It's fine." Shirou called back. "Just a pair of Grue. It's handled."
'Just' a pair of grue, huh. Asuna shook her head, turning her attention back to her task. She pulled the hypotenuse rope out, and taunt. She gave it an experimental tug, and after a moment, Rosalia tugged back. Good. She turned, and pulled it over and tight, handing it to Silica, the stack length gathered up in her hand. It was a hundred-meter rope, so naturally there was a bit left over from the fifty-meter legs. She swiped open her inventory, tabbing to her menu.
"Okay, I give up." Silica admitted. "I can't figure out the math that you're doing here."
Asuna paused, halfway through her inventory. "It's simpler than that." Asuna confessed, as she scrolled down a bit more, and then materialized a knife. "It's pretty trivial to find the [length] of something using [Structural Grasp]."
She cut the slack off the hypotenuse rope. Like that, it was as simple as taking out her ruler and putting it alongside the edge of the triangle, measuring it directly with a [Spell] instead of doing complicated geometry.
"It is?" Silica asked, cocking her head to the side.
Asuna paused. "Yes?" She replied, a bit uncertain herself. At the very least, Kirito had made it seem that way when they were talking.
"Okay." Silica said, not so much agreeing as letting it go.
Asuna [Grasped] the rope. There. She paced out, hand sliding along, her spell still echoing through it as easily as her finger tracing along the tickmarks of a ruler that was laid along the side of a triangle drawn on a piece of paper.
There, halfway. Asuna paused, aligning her body, the rope trailing off into the darkness and fog around her, hanging eerily.
"Kuradeel." She called out.
"Ahh?" He shouted back.
"Tell you panthers to move directly from you to me. That's the direction that the center of the Floor is in."
"Yes." Kuradeel replied.
She glanced over her shoulder, in the opposite direction. The fog hung thick and dark, the marshland stretching off beneath her. She couldn't see anything. Still, she was betting that she was looking directly back in the direction they needed to go.
Now all she could do was rely on it.
I I I
End
1) I've been writing pretty regular on an, uh, different project, but it's because PVNPC recruited me as a beta-reader for Certain Silent Neuromancer that I came back to this fic enough to revitalize all the memories, so kudos to that for dragging me back I guess.
2) I think the "Running through the Dark" thing was a little iffy, and the ending felt a bit tepid (although for that specifically I'm setting up for 18.2 so maybe that's okay). Gimme your thoughts on that.
3) I was trying to create a kind of irony where Shirou was like "yeah Grues are no big deal, we can handle them" and meanwhile Asuna was thinking "this is really hard." So that's another thing where if that didn't deliver, lemme know in the comments.