They put out official lore books on tons of things, but most western fans don't read them and instead learn things from osmosis.
Fate/Revelation Online
- Thread starter daniel_gudman
- Start date
TJSomething
That's... that's impossible!
It came out in 2010. The Mirror Moon translation was quite influential and the fandom hadn't completely solidified on majutsu = magecraft and mahou = magic.
Ooo, where can I find these?
Very few of them have been officially released in English, but there's fan translations in various places on the internet.
Okay, so there was a lot of fanon and headcanon in the last page and I really don't want to quote it all, so I'll stick to @'s...
That being said, while any particular path to the Root can only be used once before the World closes it off, it doesn't seem that there are necessarily limits on users of a Magic. Certainly, Zelretch doesn't seem to believe so, and while most of his attempted successors have gone mad, Rin seems to be succeeding in Case Files. (Source... hard to specify a single one, but check out fallacies translation of Rin's 'psuedo-Edelsteine' here. She is definitely using the Second, at least as a power source, and unlike the sword saint users like Kojirou she is definitely learning the Second 'like a magus' (or a Magician) and studying it as a general phenomenon.) It therefore also doesn't seem to be the case that they have no idea how their Magic works, since it clearly can be taught.
However, @plotvitalnpc is absolutely correct to assert that this does not make the Second through Fourth anything akin to simple 'greater magecraft.' At the end of the day, magecraft is something within the bounds of human comprehension, by definition, either something we understand well enough to define, or a re-enactment of something we've seen. Magic is neither, Magic is from 'beyond the sky', Magic is a true miracle that has not yet been grasped, not only by modern science but by any 'system of explanations'/'Foundation of understanding' on Earth. (Source: same as the first paragraph.) A Magic can never be lessened; we can only rise to meet it, and if that looks like a lessening to us, that's more of an indictment of consumerism and human nature than any statement about the metaphysics of the Nasuverse.
It seems likely -- though here I resort to speculation -- that learning a Magic is like reaching enlightenment. The result is an understanding of some phenomena, some miracle, that doesn't fit into any existing system of human understanding at all, cannot be fit into an existing Foundation. (If it could, it would be magecraft, by definition.) It cannot be easily taught to other humans, as it's an "alien comprehension"/"alien logic"/"wisdom from beyond the sky", and it probably cannot even be easily put into words by the same token; but neither is it completely alien to the actual wielder, and nor is it completely impossible to teach, especially to someone who has 'experienced wielding it themselves' like Rin has.
There are hints: the nature of the Flat Snark in Mahoyo (c.f. the first paragraph again: 'the Crown Phantasm'/'Highest Fantasy', composed of 'primeval yet False/modern Ether'), the fact that the wielder of the First was born "on the eve of the AD era" (translation here isn't perfect but good enough), which is also when the True Ether that filled the World was replaced with modern Ether; and the fact that "the beginning First changed everything" (first paragraph again).
From this, we might guess -- speculate, headcanon, please do not cite me as anything other than making my own guesses -- that the First Magic was responsible for creating the entire concept of modern Ether, and replacing the toxic True Ether of the Stars with a version that was more hospitable for humanity, possibly establishing the entire current system of magecraft in the process. (It might be of interest to note that the Lostbelts are described in Olympus as projected onto the Surface of the Earth... and that living in the Lostbelts doesn't seem particularly different from living in the Human Order, even down to them being Textures pinned down by tree-shaped Divine Construct Towers...)
Mystery is mystery. That's... really all there is to it. (KnK spells it out, in fact.) Mystery is just mystery, it's the degree to which we don't understand a phenomenon as a species.
It probably helps to understand the way gods work in the Nasuverse first, actually. It was fairly well spelled out before FGO, but Olympus really just handed it to us at the end, when it told us that the machine gods of Olympus and the conceptual gods we're "used to" are different subclasses of the same kind of being. All phenomena -- even concepts, Authorities and Magic -- work in some well-defined consistent 'way', some coherent 'physics' (even if, as is often strongly implied, that physics differs from World to World and celestial body to celestial body.) That physics is often hidden from us, especially from the reader, but it's still there. The system of all the laws of physics in a certain worldview is called a World. And a subsystem of that system ... that's a true, living god.* "The thing that implements a law of physics" is itself a living entity, and potentially can come to have a will and a personality. A machine god like those of Olympus is the same thing, but likely implements a different set of underlying laws from the 'native' World.
(* As opposed to a Divine Spirit, which is still a subsystem that implements a law of physics, but is 'dead' and is substantiated by human belief/delegated to by the Human Order rather than simply having that 'functionality' themselves.)
But... perspective is everything in the Nasuverse. That's sort of the core axiom, the core 'point of divergence' between our reality and the Nasuverse: a lived perspective is always, always a valid World. The map can affect the territory: uncertainty in the underlying physics results in some amount of actual ambiguity in the underlying physics. Enough uncertainty -- enough existential weight saying "actually, maybe it works in a different way" -- results in enough ambiguity to be exploitable. Of course, you still need to replace it with something, so there's your competing interests: you need alternate explanations with enough coherence and precision and belief to be useful, but enough of them and enough uncertainty that you can pick and choose which one you're using.
-- Anyway, that's Mystery. When the entities that allegedly run a World -- in this case, the Human Order, who despite its youth and immaturity as an entity nevertheless occupies the Seat of Primacy on Earth -- don't completely pin down and understand the laws of physics of that World, magecraft can exist, imposing an alternate 'physics' and an alternate 'logic' onto a phenomenon that can be arbitraged with others. Every coherent set of such physics is a Foundation. The more the laws of physics get 'pinned down' -- the closer our paradigm, our understanding of reality, comes to a complete coherent explanation of all phenomena -- the less ambiguity that magecraft has to exploit. In addition, the Human Order itself can make exceptions; the most famous of those exceptions are called "Heroic Spirits", whose achievements and powers are "grandfathered in" to modern reality when they're summoned.
So magecraft can operate through one of three ways:
The other reason (and to my mind probably the more pressing concern to a lot of magi) is that, as Waver demonstrates again and again in Case Files, spells are best undermined by comprehending their basis and then attacking their logical weakpoints.
- On Magic
That being said, while any particular path to the Root can only be used once before the World closes it off, it doesn't seem that there are necessarily limits on users of a Magic. Certainly, Zelretch doesn't seem to believe so, and while most of his attempted successors have gone mad, Rin seems to be succeeding in Case Files. (Source... hard to specify a single one, but check out fallacies translation of Rin's 'psuedo-Edelsteine' here. She is definitely using the Second, at least as a power source, and unlike the sword saint users like Kojirou she is definitely learning the Second 'like a magus' (or a Magician) and studying it as a general phenomenon.) It therefore also doesn't seem to be the case that they have no idea how their Magic works, since it clearly can be taught.
However, @plotvitalnpc is absolutely correct to assert that this does not make the Second through Fourth anything akin to simple 'greater magecraft.' At the end of the day, magecraft is something within the bounds of human comprehension, by definition, either something we understand well enough to define, or a re-enactment of something we've seen. Magic is neither, Magic is from 'beyond the sky', Magic is a true miracle that has not yet been grasped, not only by modern science but by any 'system of explanations'/'Foundation of understanding' on Earth. (Source: same as the first paragraph.) A Magic can never be lessened; we can only rise to meet it, and if that looks like a lessening to us, that's more of an indictment of consumerism and human nature than any statement about the metaphysics of the Nasuverse.
It seems likely -- though here I resort to speculation -- that learning a Magic is like reaching enlightenment. The result is an understanding of some phenomena, some miracle, that doesn't fit into any existing system of human understanding at all, cannot be fit into an existing Foundation. (If it could, it would be magecraft, by definition.) It cannot be easily taught to other humans, as it's an "alien comprehension"/"alien logic"/"wisdom from beyond the sky", and it probably cannot even be easily put into words by the same token; but neither is it completely alien to the actual wielder, and nor is it completely impossible to teach, especially to someone who has 'experienced wielding it themselves' like Rin has.
- On the First specifically
There are hints: the nature of the Flat Snark in Mahoyo (c.f. the first paragraph again: 'the Crown Phantasm'/'Highest Fantasy', composed of 'primeval yet False/modern Ether'), the fact that the wielder of the First was born "on the eve of the AD era" (translation here isn't perfect but good enough), which is also when the True Ether that filled the World was replaced with modern Ether; and the fact that "the beginning First changed everything" (first paragraph again).
From this, we might guess -- speculate, headcanon, please do not cite me as anything other than making my own guesses -- that the First Magic was responsible for creating the entire concept of modern Ether, and replacing the toxic True Ether of the Stars with a version that was more hospitable for humanity, possibly establishing the entire current system of magecraft in the process. (It might be of interest to note that the Lostbelts are described in Olympus as projected onto the Surface of the Earth... and that living in the Lostbelts doesn't seem particularly different from living in the Human Order, even down to them being Textures pinned down by tree-shaped Divine Construct Towers...)
- On magecraft as a whole
Mystery is mystery. That's... really all there is to it. (KnK spells it out, in fact.) Mystery is just mystery, it's the degree to which we don't understand a phenomenon as a species.
It probably helps to understand the way gods work in the Nasuverse first, actually. It was fairly well spelled out before FGO, but Olympus really just handed it to us at the end, when it told us that the machine gods of Olympus and the conceptual gods we're "used to" are different subclasses of the same kind of being. All phenomena -- even concepts, Authorities and Magic -- work in some well-defined consistent 'way', some coherent 'physics' (even if, as is often strongly implied, that physics differs from World to World and celestial body to celestial body.) That physics is often hidden from us, especially from the reader, but it's still there. The system of all the laws of physics in a certain worldview is called a World. And a subsystem of that system ... that's a true, living god.* "The thing that implements a law of physics" is itself a living entity, and potentially can come to have a will and a personality. A machine god like those of Olympus is the same thing, but likely implements a different set of underlying laws from the 'native' World.
(* As opposed to a Divine Spirit, which is still a subsystem that implements a law of physics, but is 'dead' and is substantiated by human belief/delegated to by the Human Order rather than simply having that 'functionality' themselves.)
But... perspective is everything in the Nasuverse. That's sort of the core axiom, the core 'point of divergence' between our reality and the Nasuverse: a lived perspective is always, always a valid World. The map can affect the territory: uncertainty in the underlying physics results in some amount of actual ambiguity in the underlying physics. Enough uncertainty -- enough existential weight saying "actually, maybe it works in a different way" -- results in enough ambiguity to be exploitable. Of course, you still need to replace it with something, so there's your competing interests: you need alternate explanations with enough coherence and precision and belief to be useful, but enough of them and enough uncertainty that you can pick and choose which one you're using.
-- Anyway, that's Mystery. When the entities that allegedly run a World -- in this case, the Human Order, who despite its youth and immaturity as an entity nevertheless occupies the Seat of Primacy on Earth -- don't completely pin down and understand the laws of physics of that World, magecraft can exist, imposing an alternate 'physics' and an alternate 'logic' onto a phenomenon that can be arbitraged with others. Every coherent set of such physics is a Foundation. The more the laws of physics get 'pinned down' -- the closer our paradigm, our understanding of reality, comes to a complete coherent explanation of all phenomena -- the less ambiguity that magecraft has to exploit. In addition, the Human Order itself can make exceptions; the most famous of those exceptions are called "Heroic Spirits", whose achievements and powers are "grandfathered in" to modern reality when they're summoned.
So magecraft can operate through one of three ways:
- First, by directly exploiting Mystery--ambiguity--yourself.
- Second, by finding and exploiting one of those remaining "loopholes" and "grandfather clauses" to make use of a Mystery that shouldn't be valid anymore.
- Third, by outright overriding the World with something of higher priority. This is obviously the hardest route to take. The only real things that fall into this category are Curses, and certain--not all--uses of certain--not all--Reality Marbles.
The other reason (and to my mind probably the more pressing concern to a lot of magi) is that, as Waver demonstrates again and again in Case Files, spells are best undermined by comprehending their basis and then attacking their logical weakpoints.
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plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
Put one way, best distinction we can probably guess at between the result of the first magic and projection is this -
Projection uses the impossible means of 'from nothing/from magical energy' to achieve the possible task of 'creating something that can be created'. Using the nonsensical means of structuring magical energy into an imitation of the thing, you can create an ordinary sword that exists, limited by the fact that its material isn't exactly real (it's made of magical energy and ether) and the world hates its existence so it's gonna be preeeeetty temporary.
The first magic uses the impossible means of ?!?#@$?$% to achieve the equally impossible task of 'creating something that can't be created'. Using the power of magic, you make something that absolutely cannot be made, like a whole new element or a whole new exclusive system of magecraft not based on any ordinary thaumaturgical foundation that works on its own insular fairytale logic, and then that impossible thing just exists.
Projection uses the impossible means of 'from nothing/from magical energy' to achieve the possible task of 'creating something that can be created'. Using the nonsensical means of structuring magical energy into an imitation of the thing, you can create an ordinary sword that exists, limited by the fact that its material isn't exactly real (it's made of magical energy and ether) and the world hates its existence so it's gonna be preeeeetty temporary.
The first magic uses the impossible means of ?!?#@$?$% to achieve the equally impossible task of 'creating something that can't be created'. Using the power of magic, you make something that absolutely cannot be made, like a whole new element or a whole new exclusive system of magecraft not based on any ordinary thaumaturgical foundation that works on its own insular fairytale logic, and then that impossible thing just exists.
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The First Magic is Dark Matter from Raildex, confirmed.
Yeah, that sounds about right. First Magic's a Magic, so whatever it does has to be something absolutely truly ridiculous and borderline paradoxical, something on par with the Second's "basically the authority of the author to make things canonical" and the Third's "take a definitionally nonphysical concept like a soul and directly manifest it in a physical world". Pretty much the only other thing we know about it is the single line:
The beginning First, changed everything.
... Which, yannow, given what else we know of what it probably did and how even the "old monsters" of the Clock Tower treat the First, probably isn't hyperbole.
One little 'akshually' -- technically speaking, literally everything in the Nasuverse appears to be fundamentally fancy arrangements of magical energy/ether/True Ether, in much the same way that everything in reality is ultimately fancy arrangements of various quantum fields and energy. The reason projection is usually temporary is more that most people really suck at getting everything exactly perfectly right, at least by the standards of the World (i.e. the actual literal laws of physics themselves lol); even the geniuses who can get the material structure right, all the way down to the atomic level, still tend to miss out on the mass of metadata that the Nasuverse requires -- history, Origin, experiences, fundamental conceptual structure.
When Shirou does it with his eight-step process, the results hang around for months or years. I'm not even talking about his swords -- he has random projected rice cookers and shit that absolutely doesn't fall under the banner of his RM lying around in his shed, that he's been making since he was eight. He didn't even know that projections were 'supposed' to vanish even if they aren't broken until Rin told him lol.
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Your terminology is largely made up, so I'm not sure what's the point of being pedantic over it.
Where do we learn that Shirou's projections don't fade quickly? The rice cookers and such in his shed. Is that in the VN?
Yeah. Bear in mind that the full set of Magecraft that Shirou can actually do, and spent some eight-odd years playing around with, is, listed:
-Making Nerve Circuits
-Structural Grasp (and its UBW-related extra functions, making a permanent record) which he uses on a regular basis for repairman stuff
-Reinforcement, which only works some of the time
-Projection, which works slightly more of the time, but he keeps the stuff around in his "workshop". Note from wiki-browsing since it's the most convenient source; while there's no citation, it does suggest that his earlier Projections are not actually functional, useful objects; they're more like "[appliance] skinned magic blobs" that aren't really functional, even the knives and stuff. I feel like that fits from what I remember of the Fate route or the opening parts of the VN, but, grain of salt.
There's a comment in HF about the latter, where Rin basically goes "wait, you have what in your shed? that's not supposed to work like that" while she's trying to teach him magecraft.
Funnily enough, Shirou being consistently able to enact any magecraft other than Structural Grasp is purely a result of the outside influences in the Grail War. Fate is the least of this, where it's more like, idk, his willpower is focused enough to just do better in the war context than he would have before, although his real circuits do get activated by Rin. UBW and HF both have him get bleedover from Archer to drastically accelerate his skill. Outside those routes, per an interview, being able to actualize UBW would be the result of twenty years' work, in part because he wouldn't know it existed until he somehow got it working the hard way.
Copying the hard work of your alternate future self sure is a handy practice trick.
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Mattman324
you expected some anime, non-IRL giant robot, eh?
- Location
- Working in the basement on my giant robot.
Strictly speaking, like a lot of rules brought up in Fate, we find out when we're told that they should be doing that. Literally speaking it's pretty apparent from the first time we see his workshop.
This fic is following roughly from the Fate route, I believe, but not EXACTLY. As I recall, in the Fate route Shirou never finds out that Archer is his future self, but he drops hints that he knows a few times here (and interestingly, once he does this to tease Ilya, who apparently doesn't know). Which helps explain why he's so strong, even considering that the bar here is significantly lower than in a Holy Grail War.
I'm guessing if he tried to pull out Unlimited Blade Works, it would break the game. Though he might actually survive anyway, unlike the other times we see him pull out overpowered magic, since the whole nature of a Reality Marble is overwriting reality with your own.
Mattman324
you expected some anime, non-IRL giant robot, eh?
- Location
- Working in the basement on my giant robot.
Fate is the only route where Ilya survives - well, maybe HF Normal, but Shirou doesn't survive that one and is markedly different coming out of it so obviously a moot point there - so it has to be that by definition. And yes, he never develops UBW properly in that one, because Archer noticed that he was going in a different enough path from his own so encouraged him to further go down that route.
In this story, specifically, he's focusing much more his telemetry/skill copying since he can't trace the actual weapons without crashing the game. Like when he clowned on the Kariya boss by replicating False Assassin's swordmanship.
Which, when you think about it, is fucking terrifying considering Koujiro is one of the Nasuverse's Top 5 Most Skilled Swordman, ever.
Which, when you think about it, is fucking terrifying considering Koujiro is one of the Nasuverse's Top 5 Most Skilled Swordman, ever.
Right, but Shirou seems a lot more aware of his potential future here. In normal Fate route, he didn't catch on to Archer's identity. So it's entirely possible he could manifest Unlimited Blade Works if he saw Archer use it.
Although I don't think Archer used it in the Fate route.
The fact that the guy who is such a good swordsman that he BREAKS REALITY is merely "top 5" is absolutely terrifying.
- Location
- Philadelphia
I think the excuse the author is going with is that, because Shirou saw Kanshou and Byakuya and even briefly saw Archer's bow and thus had his Structural Grasp record them into Unlimited Blade Works, he has to know who wielded them but just avoiding thinking about it throughout all of Fate Route because he's good at compartmentalizing. But in the aftermath he's had time to mull things over a bit even if he's still not going to talk about it with Illya because what even is there to say?
Mattman324
you expected some anime, non-IRL giant robot, eh?
- Location
- Working in the basement on my giant robot.
He did not, however, and you missed the important bit there - Archer noticed he was going down a different enough path to his own that he wouldn't fall into the same trap, and gave him advice that would further his development down that path.
He still has an inner world that could, eventually, manifest as a version of Unlimited Blade Works, unlike HF Shirou, but it would be different than UBW Shirou or Archer's.
I like to imagine his version would have actual fields and flowers instead of being barren, because he's ultimately chasing after Avalon.
18.4 Black Cats
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
18.4 Black Cats
"Nineteen!" Keita shouted, as the right-arm of his sectional couch slammed into the insect-like leg of the grue. "Eighteen!" He added, when the paired blades lashed out from under the cushions to cut, scissor-like, against the leg.
He couldn't see anything. The [Impertinent Grue] that loomed over his guild was hidden in the darkness. It wasn't the simple, normal darkness of the Floor; one of the Field Bosses they'd summoned had established some kind of [Bounded Field] that actively forbid light. It was a perfect darkness where photons weren't allowed.
The right-center portion of his sectional couch smoothly moved forward, the wheels spinning with supernatural ease as it glided along the swampy muck, slamming into one of the other legs.
"Seventeen, and Sixteen!" Keita continued.
Without sight, they had to rely on their [Whiskers], a modified kind of [Ether Thread] that stuck out from their bodies in a loop, reaching out to brush against anything around them and let them know where things were. A wireframe outline of the Field Boss loomed over Keita, and the wireframe outlines of his guildmates surrounded him, as Tetsuo and Sasamaru screened him against the regular Grues that were screeching around them.
The cornerpiece of the sectional couch slammed into a third leg, the smooth, luxurious leather of his furniture gripping the smooth, chitinous exoskeleton of the leg, before the swords hidden underneath slid out to spear the mob.
"Fifteen! Fourteen!"
There was a screech from the far side. Keita was focused on his fight too much to make out what it was about.
The left-center couch section slammed into a fourth leg. "Thirteen, and Twelve!" With four of its seven legs gripped by his couch, the grue was clearly struggling to move, stumbling and scrabbling with its free legs.
The left arm of his sectional couch slammed into a fifth leg, flipping up for the chaise lounge to slam full-on against as much of the leg as it could.
"Field down!" Shouted someone from far away, and Keita blinked as the darkness suddenly stopped being less absolute, instead leaving only the thick black fog instead of the perfect black of just a moment ago. He shook off the distraction.
"Eleven-Ten-Nine-Eight!" Keita announced, stepping forward.
The [Impertinent Grue] twitched, detecting him coming in range, and one of the strange hammer-like claws shifted under its robes, whispering out as it raised up, before rushing down towards him.
The [Great Recliner of the Guildmaster] intercepted it, the thickly-padded leather chair leaping up to block the blow mid-air, absorbing and dissipating the energy.
Keita had baited it with his step, to set up that very counterattack, as the swords inside his personal chair slid out from where they were hid inside.
"Seven, Six! Five!" Keita shouted, feeling triumphant that his plan had worked.
"Switching!" Sasamaru shouted from the side, a blurry flicker of red indicating he'd fired off his spear, trading places with Tetsuo.
With light no longer forbidden, Keita could use the full power of his last piece of furniture. His wardrobe, modified into a fancy Armoire, surged ahead, rumbling with unnatural speed as it wobbled back and forth and forward. The doors flapped open with a bang, slamming against the sides, revealing a strange bulky rectangular box with a curved, glassy front. The [False Television] lit up, weird black-and-light lines appearing as it hissed with ominous static. Flickering swords appeared in front of it, pseudo-illusions of the swords that were stored inside.
"Four, Three, Two!" Keita announced, swinging his staff, as the swords jerkily lashed out, slicking into the [Impertinent Grue], which flinched, recoiling, before it drew itself up, preparing a strong attack.
Ducker was overhead, hanging in the sky with something that wasn't quite flight magecraft. He had been patiently waiting.
"One." Keita could barely hear Ducker saw the word with quiet satisfaction, as the other boy descended like a spear of Zeus to slam into the Grue from above, driving his sword in to the top center of the carapace like he was hammering in a nail.
The body shuddered, and then collapsed, the [Impertinent Grue] vanishing away into those strange black-and-white pixels as it was defeated. Ducker slipped, falling a meter before he caught himself with a feather-falling spell and drifted serenely the rest of the way toward the ground.
"Behind!" Sacchi shouted to him. Keita glanced over his shoulder, where one of the regular Grue was approaching him. He gestured, and his Armoire swung in place, spinning with terrible dignity as it turned its blades on the new enemy.
"Status?" He asked, glancing across his guild.
"Good." Ducker said with a casual flick. With his stealth magic, he had the easiest time disengaging, so he could usually control how he engaged the mobs.
"Fine." Sacchi said, pulling up beside him, weakly smiling in his direction but not quite looking at him. She was the one managing the [Whisker Synthesis], integrating the sensory data from all of them and then sending them all a sensory composite. It worked by declaring herself a [Server] through the [Key of the Guild]. It compromised her fighting ability even more, but Keita didn't mind. Giving the rest of them excellent situational awareness was worth it.
"Good condition. Low on prana." Tetsuo quietly said. Indeed, he looked uninjured, but haggard. It wasn't just the low prana; he also looked mentally tired from the repeated battles.
"HP at abo~out 80%, Prana about half." Sasamaru sheepishly ended, bleeding from a cut on his forehead. He had to fill in as off-tank to ward away Grues while Keita and Ducker had been fighting the Field Boss, and it showed that he wasn't quite used to it.
The other Field Boss, the [Impudent Grue], was fighting the other party. They weren't doing as well as the Black Cats, Keita noticed with some pride.
"Shoot!" Rosalia announced, pointing her spear at the Boss. Nothing visibly happened, but the Grue flinched back more severely than compared to even Ducker's blow.
"Think we should help?" Ducker said, frowning with a slight pout. Keita grimaced. Was it the right thing to do, or was it butting in, and in the first place, did they have the stamina to throw themselves into another boss.
The [Impudent Grue] screeched, looming up, as it lashed down and forward. The sword-and-board fighter in the other party narrowly dodged the strange spear-like claw.
"How's the other line holding?" Keita asked instead, glancing over at Sacchi.
She paused, considering, and then shrugged helplessly. "Firm?" She guessed. "I don't have the [Familiars] to tell… Kuradeel-kun is the closest, and he seems okay?"
While the Brotherhood of Saint Mark maintained an outer perimeter, the two other Guilds they'd brought along with them engaged the Field Bosses when they spawned.
[Titan's Hand], that was it. The name of the other Guild.
Keita glanced out into the darkness, considering, and then back at the Field Boss, the sections of his couch gathering around them like fortress walls as he bit his lip. Did they go help, or what?
"Trapping!" Shouted the same voice as before, a man in a strange helmet slapping the ground, and the [Impudent Grue] lurched as it suddenly sunk into deep mud, the ground beneath it turning to sludge.
"Dammit Garland!" snarled the one with the bandanna (his medium armor and scimitar was more pertinent, but the bandanna was more distinct), struggling as he fell back, partially captured in the sticky mud himself.
A mass of ether lurched upwards into the sky from the far side of the mob, a roughly spherical mass with an eerie glow.
It began spinning, perpendicular to the ground. Rather than flattening and spreading out into a disk, paradoxically it began to converge, gathering tighter, although it was lopsided, the bottom gathering faster than the top.
No, that wasn't it, actually. It was forming a cone, pointed downwards, toward the [Impudent Grue] below it, strange ripples on the surface, long ridges that spiraled around the cone.
Not a cone, either. A drill.
"Fall Down!" A triumphant shout from a little girl, and the drill drove down, pressing into the [Impudent Grue] from above, brutally driving into and pressing down against the Field Boss.
Already damaged from fighting the other guild, the Grue arched its back, reaching out with its claws, trying to escape, but it failed. It was defeated, vanishing away into pixels.
A PM appeared in front of Keita. Looking at the rest of his Guild, they'd gotten it too.
"Let's go see what Ilya-san wants." Keita wryly said, checking that the rest of the Guild was following him as he started walking forward, picking his way across the swampy ground.
He nodded at the tall man from the other guild as they converged, who didn't nod back. Rude.
"Rosalia-san." He greeted, as they reached the huddle.
"Keita-kun." The other guildmaster replied, with her slightly saccharine smile. She was flanked by the sword-and-board fighter with the glasses and the bandanna guy from before, while the helmet guy lurked sullenly behind. The big guy shuffled over to stand next to the sword-and-board guy.
"Right!" Ilya announced as she approached, easily walking across the ground. Her dress was perfectly clean, despite the mud. "Is everyone having fun?"
A beat, as Keita looked over at his own guildmates. "Yes." They awkwardly chorused after a minute. The members of [Titan's Hand] were stiffly quiet, and Rosalia's smile looked slightly strained.
"That's lovely to hear." Ilya replied, clapping her hands. "Now, with this we've completed five rounds of forcing Field Bosses to spawn, but there's still no sign of the [Floor Boss]. And of course, you know what they say!"
Keita glanced over at Rosalia before turning to Ilya. "Sixth time's the charm?" He guessed.
"Oh, excellent Keita-kun, that's exactly correct!" Ilya said, smiling at him as she folded her hands behind her back. "Yes, I don't think we can give up quite yet, can we."
Keita was starting to feel the soreness from absorbing too much mana from the atmosphere. Sacchi had the best endurance for that, but she had lower tolerance for mental stress. Ducker was probably fine, but it was getting risky for Sasamaru and Tetsuo.
"I'm not sure I have another one in me." Keita admitted. "I mean, I'm fatigued enough that making mistakes is starting to be a risk."
Ilya frowned, opening her mouth, but then closed it, pouting, as she glanced down. She frowned more intensely in consideration, before she nodded, her expression clearing up. "Well, if that's how it is, that's fine." She said, like she was making a decision. "We can retreat in good order now, and try again tomorrow."
Keita felt his smile go a little rigid at the thought of doing this all over again.
I I I
Sacchi sat, her butt sinking into the plushly stuffed leather of the couch. Her legs were pressed together, and she was leaning forward, keeping her back upright, remaining slightly stiff.
Beside her, on the right end of the couch, Sasamaru was less reserved, leaning back with his heels stuck out on the ground while he supported his face with his right hand, with his right elbow resting on the armrest.
Diagonally across from them, Ducker was fully splayed out, lying flat on the chaise lounge of the left end of the sectional couch, blinking slowly as he clearly started to dose off.
[Giltstein], the Capital City at the center of the [25th Floor]. Sacchi, with her guild, and the rest of the Raid that the [Brotherhood of Saint Mark] had assembled, had retreated back here. However the Floor Boss worked, it seemed that it couldn't be summoned by simply aggroing Field Bosses to spawn against light sources. Well, less than five times. Sacchi quietly dreaded that the result of the meeting was going to be 'try ten times next.'
They were relaxing in the courtyard of some kind of restaurant. The sky was midnight-black overhead. Outside of town you could sort of see clouds, if you looked carefully, but here in town that was all washed out by the steady glow of those [Streetlights] that were placed everywhere.
"Here." Tetsuo said, speaking quietly, as he walked over from the counter, which was covered by the roof of the building but was completely open to the courtyard, with no wall between the [inside] of the restaurant and the courtyard they were sitting in.
A window popped up in front of Sacchi, an item that Tetsuo was offering. "Thank you." She murmured, materializing her milkshake so she could drink it.
"Thanks." Sasamaru also said, materializing what looked like a skewer of roasted meat, some kind of [Not-Quite-Chicken] in one hand, while the other hand held a beer. Sacchi didn't think it was alcoholic, since they were all still below the [Age Limit], but it was kind of strange to see one of her friends casually drinking a beer.
Tetsuo nodded, and then sat down on the middle-left couch section next to Ducker, sighing in relaxation as he slumped down, into the welcoming embrace of the leather. He materialized his own drink, which also looked like some kind of milkshake, but also had steam coming off. [Milkshake-but-Hot] seemed like one of those very strange things Cardinal would just invent sometimes.
Sacchi sipped her drink, enjoying the cold, sweet flavor, as she tried to unclench the tension. It wasn't a physical feeling, exactly, like the muscles in her back were all tight, but that was the closest way she could describe it. Going out into the Field… Sacchi hadn't appreciated how safe the modern world was, how little danger she had been exposed to, until the Death Game. She didn't know how other people could just… get used to it, acclimate to the idea that they could die. All she could do was turn away.
Sacchi shook her head, slightly, to banish the thought.
"You ok?" Tetsuo murmured, looking concerned, and Sacchi smiled at him, trying to look reassuring. He didn't look convinced, but at least settled back without pressing it.
She took another sip. It was cold, and sweet, and the thick milky texture paired nicely with the [Not-Vanilla] spice flavor. Sacchi tried to focus on that.
Ducker sat up, pushing up to glance out towards the gate in the wall surrounding the restaurant courtyard.
Sacchi followed his gaze, and saw Keita stepping through, followed by Kirito-san. The two boys walked over towards their guild.
Keita came to a stop next to his Recliner, which was sitting placidly between the two extended edges of the couch, formed in a circle around the fireplace that wasn't here, but was back in their guildhouse.
"So, we're not trying again today." Keita announced, and Sacchi felt most of the tension release inside her from that announcement.
"Aw." Ducker complained, slumping back down into the lounger. "We leveled, though."
Keita smiled at him, and then his eyes flicked between them, assessing their condition. "Well, we might still be able to level." He turned and glanced over at Kirito-san, raising an eye.
Kirito-san was staring at them, with a strange look on his face. No, at the couches? Sacchi wondered what was so odd. He'd seen Keita's couches out during the raid, hadn't he?
Kirito-san shook himself, and then smiled. "Right, so. You know how I've been creating those [Sense Prana] spells?"
"Yes, sensei." Sacchi said, chorusing with Ducker and Sasamaru, smiling at the flustered look.
Everyone could sense prana, but not everyone sensed prana the same way. Some people could [Feel] it, and some people could [Hear] it. Just inside the guild, Ducker and Sacchi were the [Hear It] type, whereas Sasamaru and Keita were the [Feel It] type. Kirito-san was also the [Feel It] type, and had created a new kind of sensory spell by using the Inheritance System on Ducker to 'listen in' while Ducker opened his circuits and gathered mana form the atmosphere.
He had also tracked down someone through his Front Liner connections that was a rare [See It] type and done the same thing with them, creating two new kinds of [Detect Prana] that were linked to hearing and sight, instead of touch.
As a result, Sacchi had learned [Detect Prana Visually] from Kirito-san. It was intensely embarrassing to use [Inheritance] on a boy, especially Kirito-san. She was still working on learning [Detect Prana Tactilely] from Sasamaru, which was less embarrassing since it was just Sasamaru.
Combining [Ether Whiskers] with [Key of the Guild] allowed Sacchi to integrate what every [Guild-Member] was feeling with their Whiskers. That was Guild-Members as defined by being marked with the [Private Key Number], even Familiars. And [Detect Prana Visually] had been the hint she needed, using the spell… backwards, kind of, to sent the integrated sensory knowledge back out to the other [Guild-Members] as a visual illusion.
"Anyway." Kirito-san said, coughing as he broke the long moment. "I've been trying to learn echolocation with help from Silica, which hasn't been going too well, but rather than using sound, I was thinking of trying to use Ether Pulses to do that through Ether, like… well, I'm not sure whether it would be more like Sonar or Radar. I guess it would be some secret third thing."
Kirito-san was rambling, the way he did when he wasn't sure how to say what he was trying to say. Sacchi smiled at him encouragingly. Of all the Front Liners she'd met so far, Kirito-san was the one that seemed the most… normal, the most human. Sacchi supposed that was because she'd interacted with Kirito-san more than the others, though. She supposed even Diabel-san was a normal person, really.
"Yeah, we can help with that." Ducker said, sitting up. "That's no problem."
Keita grinned, but it looked slightly forced, as he glanced at the rest of the Guild. He made eye contact with Sasamaru, and then Tetsuo, and then Sacchi herself, as if asking if they were up for it.
Sacchi didn't want to be the one to hold them back, so she smiled affirmatively, even as she felt the tension start to tighten back up inside her. It never really went away, anymore.
"Well, I think we can help you." Keita said, glancing over at Kirito-san with a polite smile. "Did you want to head out now, or…?"
Kirito-san blinked. "Well, yes, but I mean, not here. I think the darkness would help with sensory isolation, but experimenting out on the Front Line Field is a little…." He grimaced as he trailed 0ff, and Sacchi stifled a sigh of relief, grateful that Kirito-san was taking their safety seriously.
"I was thinking a lower Floor, like way down on Two or Three, and then using blindfolds and ear plugs if we needed to." Kirito-san continued. Ah. Well, that still wouldn't be too bad, Sacchi supposed.
"Aww." Ducker complained, even as he rolled off the chaise lounge onto his feet, smoothly standing upright. The rest of them took that as a que, and Sacchi sat up as well, easing forward off her own section of the couch while Sasamaru and Tetsuo did the same.
"Right." Keita said, turning and walking back towards the exit, letting Kirito-san get ahead of him so that the Front Liner was the on in the lead. The rest of the guild followed along, the couch silently breaking into its sections to silently glide along the ground behind them, as they walked across the courtyard and out onto the brickwork of the road.
They walked down the road, Sacchi hanging back and taking up the rear, as Kirito-san and Keita quietly talked up at the front of their little procession. She glanced around as they walked.
The constant darkness of the 25th Floor was unsettling, but Sacchi was getting used to it, a little bit. The streetlamps were a little too harsh, the light a little too flat, to really make it cheery. But there was a liveliness to the capital city at the Front Line that couldn't quite be matched anywhere else, even Elvengrad.
The buildings all clashed with each other, none of them matching their neighbors. When she looked at them with [Detect Prana Visually], she could see the Bounded Fields that people had laid down around their buildings, a blurry glow that added another layer of interest. She was still working on the spell, trying to develop an intuition to assign different Elements to different colors, and to improve her [Skill Ranks] to sharpen the blur and resolve details.
She glanced at [The Cube], idly staring at it as they walked past. It was a monolith of a building, a huge featureless square thing without doors or windows to break up the featureless plane of the walls, made of strange blocks fused together, coated with some kind of lacquer. It also glowed with a strange bounded field that hugged the walls, precisely matching the giant Platonic Solid shape of the building. She had heard it was some kind of project being run by the DDA, but she didn't really know more than that.
Then they were past, walking towards the central plaza, and she turned her attention to the buildings around her. Some of them were almost recognizable as modified [Elven Dorms], but some were completely unique.
She paused, sensing something, and turned her attention forward.
Kirito-san was standing stock-still, back tense, as he stared at the gate plaza.
There was a woman standing next to the gate. She was an adult, wearing a conservative dress, with a simple bob cut as she glanced back and forth, scanning the crowd, before her gaze landed on Kirito-san.
Then she walked forward, smiling slightly awkwardly, before she came to a halt in front of Kirito-san, and bowing low. "It's been a little while, Kirito-sama."
"Uh." Kirito-san replied.
Keita was glancing back and forth, eyes wide, while Sacchi felt her own eyebrows twitching upwards into an arch expression. Why was she using 'sama', Sacchi wondered.
Ducker coughed, bending over because Tetsuo had thumped him before he could speak.
"Will you introduce me to your friends?" The woman asked, politely.
"Right, right." Kirito-san agreed, with a strange, awkward look on his face. "Uh, these are the Black Cats, a [Guild] that I'm friends with. Um, this is..." He glanced back at the woman.
"Cecilia." She said, after an awkward beat, bowing to them. "It is a pleasure to meet you." Did… did Kirito-san really not remember her name? Suspicious.
"I see." Keita said, maintaining professional neutrality.
"She's a Quest-Giver from the first floor." Kirito-san explained, still looking slightly flummoxed.
Eh? An NPC? Sacchi relaxed, slightly, feeling a bit relieved that Kirito-san hadn't been cheating on Asuna-san, after all.
"I heard that my daughter had moved to the a city here, with Sensei." The woman explained. "I was hoping you could escort me there."
"Uh." Kirito-san replied again. "Okay?" He glanced over at the rest of them. "I need to take a rain check? I guess." He glanced over his shoulder, before turning back to the Cats. "Actually, I think there's a light-street now, so maybe you can tag along?"
"Sounds good." Ducker immediately agreed. "So, uh, how did you meet Kirito?" He said, turning to address the woman.
She smiled softly, and opened her mouth, before turning her attention to Kirito-san. "Would it be possible to walk as we speak? If possible I would prefer not to delay."
"That should be fine." Keita smoothly inserted. "Why don't you lead the way, Kirito-san." He added.
"Right." Kirito-san said, before visibly shrugging. "This way, then." He said, as he turned and set off.
I I I
It wasn't that interesting of a story. Or rather, it was a bit studiously melodramatic, the sort of overwrought soap opera you could got from puffing up the lore for what was at bottom a fetch quest.
They were walking through the fog and darkness, along a dirt path formed from beating the dirt hard, packing it tight with magic, clearing a furrow in the grass they could walk along with the darkness pressing in on either side.
My daughter is sick. Please go into the forest and fight the same monster over and over again until the 1% rare drop happens, which can be used as a medicine. I'll give you a sword. That was it, really. It was interesting to remember that there used to be quests to get weapons other than the [Trials of the Ranger].
Lamp-poles were pushed into the ground at regular intervals along the path, the same as the ones in the Safe Zone, but carefully tuned to only be about half as bright as would trigger the light gradient that would start Grues spawning, but still enough light to discourage them from random-walking onto the path. It was a thin line of safety that Front Liners had carved through the darkness.
Sacchi felt like it was a good-enough story, but there was one detail that stuck out: Kirito-san was the very first person in the game to complete the Quest.
"So, if you don't mind me asking." Ducker began, and it was obvious what question he was going to ask. Sacchi was curious, too.
Kirito-san paused for a moment, before shaking his head. "Launch day." He admitted.
"Huh." Keita said, impressed. "That's… you were on the Front from the very beginning, then."
"That's so cool!' Ducker enthused. "Did you seriously beat everyone else there?"
Kirito-san paused strangely, before speaking. "...No." he admitted. "There was somebody else. Another beta tester. He… didn't make it."
The party walked along the marsh, their footsteps quiet on the hard earth, the familiars of Keita's couch silently gliding over the marsh in a perimeter around them. Sacchi, linked to their senses, knew there weren't any Grue nearby.
"Oh." Ducker said, deflating. "Um, I'm sorry."
"It's okay." Kirito-san said, glancing over at where the NPC was following in the middle of the group. "We… didn't get along." He shook his head, before turning his attention back to the NPC. "But, that's not the end of the story."
After successfully fulfilling the Fetch Quest, a followup had been generated once the fifth floor had been unlocked: an Escort Quest to take the sick daughter to a doctor in the second city of the Floor.
That doctor's name? [Zolgen.]
"Like the," Ducker began, before cutting himself off as he glanced at the NPC, clearly wondering if she knew.
"Not just 'like' that one, it was the same guy." Kirito-san said, with that awkward, sad smile on his face again. "So, uh, after Ilya-chan opened up the Sixth Floor, so to speak, the kid ended up in the care of another NPC, Zolgen's assistant. I've talked about him, he's my [Numerology Instructor]."
"Huh." Keita said, eyebrows up. "I wasn't aware of the connection."
"Yeah." Kirito-san awkwardly agreed.
The conversation fell into a delicate silence, then, slightly awkward, but also slightly comfortable, Sacchi thought. Like Kirito-san had opened up to them, a little bit, and as a result solved something in his past.
Quietly, Sacchi also felt a little bit of pride. The Cats hadn't been the guild to form the earth and put up the lamps along this path specifically, but they had done others, and it was through their work that they were able to have this kind of quiet walk, even on the Field of the Front Line. She still felt the tense fear worrying about mobs, but it was a tension she was used to, a constancy in her life, now.
I I I
Mother and daughter embraced, the woman on her knees, the girl scooped up in her arms as they shared a hug after being reunited at long last.
Sacchi felt a vague sense of discomfort, like a voyeur seeing something she shouldn't, although that was mostly because she hadn't followed the quest arc.
Kirito-san had a weird, pinched expression on his face, his eyebrows scrunched together and his lips open in an expression that wasn't a smile, that was too queasy for that.
"Something wrong?" Keita quietly asked.
"It's..." Kirito-san trailed off. "This is the emotional payoff of a Quest I started the day the game started, and… people died along the way, so… it's…." He trailed off. "Foul." He decided. "I'm glad I got here, but…." He trailed off again, this time looking frustrated that he couldn't articulate his emotions.
"Ah." Keita agreed.
"Anyway." Kirito-san shook himself, before blinking. "Oh, I got a PM." He said, with cheerfulness that was obviously forced.
"Huh." He said, after reading it. "Paladins forced the Floor Boss to spawn, but a timer expired and it left, so there's a meeting about that." He paused, looking up, and then out into the darkness around them. "I should get going."
"Should we come along?" Ducker eagerly asked.
Kirito-san shrugged. "I'm… not sure?" He turned to Keita. "How fast can you guys go? If I run, I'll barely be able to make it."
Keita hummed, tilting his head to the side. "I'm… not sure we can keep up with you." And he wouldn't want to split the party.
"Okay." Kirito-san agreed. "You fine to find your way back? I'll ping you with the results. It sounds like the next attempt is going to be tomorrow."
"Sounds good." Keita said with a nod. "Stay safe."
"You too." Kirito-san agreed, turning to give the rest of them a quick nod, before he dropped to stretch one leg, then the other, before standing back up right and setting off at a sprint down the path.
"Shall we?" Keita said.
"Ah." A voice from behind them. The NPC woman, who had stood upright, and had a hand out to her side to hold hands with her daughter. "Has Kirito-sama already left?"
"Yes." Keita politely replied. "Is there something we can help with?"
"Um." The woman said, biting her lip. "The truth is, I arranged for a new house of my own, on another part of the Floor. I was hoping Kirito-sama could escort me."
So the quest chain continued, huh. Another escort quest.
Keita glanced between them, silently polling the party. Sasamaru and Tetsuo both gave a nod, and Ducker flashed a thumbs up, so Sacchi put on a brave smile as she nodded as well. Keita nodded, before turning back to the NPC.
Keita turned back to the NPC. "We could probably escort you." He offered.
The woman bowed. "Thank you." She said.
Sacchi breathed in, carefully, and then released it, feeling the tension gather up slightly inside her. But that was good, almost, letting her know she was ready for what was about to come.
18.4 End
1) This is very much Part 1 of 2, I think, rather than being a sub-chapter in its own right. I'm splitting them in half now, but once I finish off the second half and post it, I might rejigger them into a single bit. We'll see.
2) I think this was the first time I've used Sacchi as a viewpoint character? I'm trying to strike a balance where you can tell she is Stressed but not beat you over the head with it. Lemme know if that worked.
3) The world building here was good, I think, but I think maybe it could use a little more fleshing out? But I also thought I didn't want to overdo it, so here we are. Lemme know if that worked too I guess.
4) I feel like the pacing in the second half is a bit rushed, but like… I already ended up splitting this, and I felt like focusing too much on caravanning through the dark would be too repetitive, and over-describing the plot-beats from earlier would be too repetitive in a different way, so here we go.
5) If you're not Spoiled on the Spoiler Thread I'd be interested to hear guesses on what you think is gonna happen in the next part of the chapter. If you are Spoiled on the Spoiler Thread bite your dang tongue.
6) the couch was cool right
"Nineteen!" Keita shouted, as the right-arm of his sectional couch slammed into the insect-like leg of the grue. "Eighteen!" He added, when the paired blades lashed out from under the cushions to cut, scissor-like, against the leg.
He couldn't see anything. The [Impertinent Grue] that loomed over his guild was hidden in the darkness. It wasn't the simple, normal darkness of the Floor; one of the Field Bosses they'd summoned had established some kind of [Bounded Field] that actively forbid light. It was a perfect darkness where photons weren't allowed.
The right-center portion of his sectional couch smoothly moved forward, the wheels spinning with supernatural ease as it glided along the swampy muck, slamming into one of the other legs.
"Seventeen, and Sixteen!" Keita continued.
Without sight, they had to rely on their [Whiskers], a modified kind of [Ether Thread] that stuck out from their bodies in a loop, reaching out to brush against anything around them and let them know where things were. A wireframe outline of the Field Boss loomed over Keita, and the wireframe outlines of his guildmates surrounded him, as Tetsuo and Sasamaru screened him against the regular Grues that were screeching around them.
The cornerpiece of the sectional couch slammed into a third leg, the smooth, luxurious leather of his furniture gripping the smooth, chitinous exoskeleton of the leg, before the swords hidden underneath slid out to spear the mob.
"Fifteen! Fourteen!"
There was a screech from the far side. Keita was focused on his fight too much to make out what it was about.
The left-center couch section slammed into a fourth leg. "Thirteen, and Twelve!" With four of its seven legs gripped by his couch, the grue was clearly struggling to move, stumbling and scrabbling with its free legs.
The left arm of his sectional couch slammed into a fifth leg, flipping up for the chaise lounge to slam full-on against as much of the leg as it could.
"Field down!" Shouted someone from far away, and Keita blinked as the darkness suddenly stopped being less absolute, instead leaving only the thick black fog instead of the perfect black of just a moment ago. He shook off the distraction.
"Eleven-Ten-Nine-Eight!" Keita announced, stepping forward.
The [Impertinent Grue] twitched, detecting him coming in range, and one of the strange hammer-like claws shifted under its robes, whispering out as it raised up, before rushing down towards him.
The [Great Recliner of the Guildmaster] intercepted it, the thickly-padded leather chair leaping up to block the blow mid-air, absorbing and dissipating the energy.
Keita had baited it with his step, to set up that very counterattack, as the swords inside his personal chair slid out from where they were hid inside.
"Seven, Six! Five!" Keita shouted, feeling triumphant that his plan had worked.
"Switching!" Sasamaru shouted from the side, a blurry flicker of red indicating he'd fired off his spear, trading places with Tetsuo.
With light no longer forbidden, Keita could use the full power of his last piece of furniture. His wardrobe, modified into a fancy Armoire, surged ahead, rumbling with unnatural speed as it wobbled back and forth and forward. The doors flapped open with a bang, slamming against the sides, revealing a strange bulky rectangular box with a curved, glassy front. The [False Television] lit up, weird black-and-light lines appearing as it hissed with ominous static. Flickering swords appeared in front of it, pseudo-illusions of the swords that were stored inside.
"Four, Three, Two!" Keita announced, swinging his staff, as the swords jerkily lashed out, slicking into the [Impertinent Grue], which flinched, recoiling, before it drew itself up, preparing a strong attack.
Ducker was overhead, hanging in the sky with something that wasn't quite flight magecraft. He had been patiently waiting.
"One." Keita could barely hear Ducker saw the word with quiet satisfaction, as the other boy descended like a spear of Zeus to slam into the Grue from above, driving his sword in to the top center of the carapace like he was hammering in a nail.
The body shuddered, and then collapsed, the [Impertinent Grue] vanishing away into those strange black-and-white pixels as it was defeated. Ducker slipped, falling a meter before he caught himself with a feather-falling spell and drifted serenely the rest of the way toward the ground.
"Behind!" Sacchi shouted to him. Keita glanced over his shoulder, where one of the regular Grue was approaching him. He gestured, and his Armoire swung in place, spinning with terrible dignity as it turned its blades on the new enemy.
"Status?" He asked, glancing across his guild.
"Good." Ducker said with a casual flick. With his stealth magic, he had the easiest time disengaging, so he could usually control how he engaged the mobs.
"Fine." Sacchi said, pulling up beside him, weakly smiling in his direction but not quite looking at him. She was the one managing the [Whisker Synthesis], integrating the sensory data from all of them and then sending them all a sensory composite. It worked by declaring herself a [Server] through the [Key of the Guild]. It compromised her fighting ability even more, but Keita didn't mind. Giving the rest of them excellent situational awareness was worth it.
"Good condition. Low on prana." Tetsuo quietly said. Indeed, he looked uninjured, but haggard. It wasn't just the low prana; he also looked mentally tired from the repeated battles.
"HP at abo~out 80%, Prana about half." Sasamaru sheepishly ended, bleeding from a cut on his forehead. He had to fill in as off-tank to ward away Grues while Keita and Ducker had been fighting the Field Boss, and it showed that he wasn't quite used to it.
The other Field Boss, the [Impudent Grue], was fighting the other party. They weren't doing as well as the Black Cats, Keita noticed with some pride.
"Shoot!" Rosalia announced, pointing her spear at the Boss. Nothing visibly happened, but the Grue flinched back more severely than compared to even Ducker's blow.
"Think we should help?" Ducker said, frowning with a slight pout. Keita grimaced. Was it the right thing to do, or was it butting in, and in the first place, did they have the stamina to throw themselves into another boss.
The [Impudent Grue] screeched, looming up, as it lashed down and forward. The sword-and-board fighter in the other party narrowly dodged the strange spear-like claw.
"How's the other line holding?" Keita asked instead, glancing over at Sacchi.
She paused, considering, and then shrugged helplessly. "Firm?" She guessed. "I don't have the [Familiars] to tell… Kuradeel-kun is the closest, and he seems okay?"
While the Brotherhood of Saint Mark maintained an outer perimeter, the two other Guilds they'd brought along with them engaged the Field Bosses when they spawned.
[Titan's Hand], that was it. The name of the other Guild.
Keita glanced out into the darkness, considering, and then back at the Field Boss, the sections of his couch gathering around them like fortress walls as he bit his lip. Did they go help, or what?
"Trapping!" Shouted the same voice as before, a man in a strange helmet slapping the ground, and the [Impudent Grue] lurched as it suddenly sunk into deep mud, the ground beneath it turning to sludge.
"Dammit Garland!" snarled the one with the bandanna (his medium armor and scimitar was more pertinent, but the bandanna was more distinct), struggling as he fell back, partially captured in the sticky mud himself.
A mass of ether lurched upwards into the sky from the far side of the mob, a roughly spherical mass with an eerie glow.
It began spinning, perpendicular to the ground. Rather than flattening and spreading out into a disk, paradoxically it began to converge, gathering tighter, although it was lopsided, the bottom gathering faster than the top.
No, that wasn't it, actually. It was forming a cone, pointed downwards, toward the [Impudent Grue] below it, strange ripples on the surface, long ridges that spiraled around the cone.
Not a cone, either. A drill.
"Fall Down!" A triumphant shout from a little girl, and the drill drove down, pressing into the [Impudent Grue] from above, brutally driving into and pressing down against the Field Boss.
Already damaged from fighting the other guild, the Grue arched its back, reaching out with its claws, trying to escape, but it failed. It was defeated, vanishing away into pixels.
A PM appeared in front of Keita. Looking at the rest of his Guild, they'd gotten it too.
"Let's go see what Ilya-san wants." Keita wryly said, checking that the rest of the Guild was following him as he started walking forward, picking his way across the swampy ground.
He nodded at the tall man from the other guild as they converged, who didn't nod back. Rude.
"Rosalia-san." He greeted, as they reached the huddle.
"Keita-kun." The other guildmaster replied, with her slightly saccharine smile. She was flanked by the sword-and-board fighter with the glasses and the bandanna guy from before, while the helmet guy lurked sullenly behind. The big guy shuffled over to stand next to the sword-and-board guy.
"Right!" Ilya announced as she approached, easily walking across the ground. Her dress was perfectly clean, despite the mud. "Is everyone having fun?"
A beat, as Keita looked over at his own guildmates. "Yes." They awkwardly chorused after a minute. The members of [Titan's Hand] were stiffly quiet, and Rosalia's smile looked slightly strained.
"That's lovely to hear." Ilya replied, clapping her hands. "Now, with this we've completed five rounds of forcing Field Bosses to spawn, but there's still no sign of the [Floor Boss]. And of course, you know what they say!"
Keita glanced over at Rosalia before turning to Ilya. "Sixth time's the charm?" He guessed.
"Oh, excellent Keita-kun, that's exactly correct!" Ilya said, smiling at him as she folded her hands behind her back. "Yes, I don't think we can give up quite yet, can we."
Keita was starting to feel the soreness from absorbing too much mana from the atmosphere. Sacchi had the best endurance for that, but she had lower tolerance for mental stress. Ducker was probably fine, but it was getting risky for Sasamaru and Tetsuo.
"I'm not sure I have another one in me." Keita admitted. "I mean, I'm fatigued enough that making mistakes is starting to be a risk."
Ilya frowned, opening her mouth, but then closed it, pouting, as she glanced down. She frowned more intensely in consideration, before she nodded, her expression clearing up. "Well, if that's how it is, that's fine." She said, like she was making a decision. "We can retreat in good order now, and try again tomorrow."
Keita felt his smile go a little rigid at the thought of doing this all over again.
I I I
Sacchi sat, her butt sinking into the plushly stuffed leather of the couch. Her legs were pressed together, and she was leaning forward, keeping her back upright, remaining slightly stiff.
Beside her, on the right end of the couch, Sasamaru was less reserved, leaning back with his heels stuck out on the ground while he supported his face with his right hand, with his right elbow resting on the armrest.
Diagonally across from them, Ducker was fully splayed out, lying flat on the chaise lounge of the left end of the sectional couch, blinking slowly as he clearly started to dose off.
[Giltstein], the Capital City at the center of the [25th Floor]. Sacchi, with her guild, and the rest of the Raid that the [Brotherhood of Saint Mark] had assembled, had retreated back here. However the Floor Boss worked, it seemed that it couldn't be summoned by simply aggroing Field Bosses to spawn against light sources. Well, less than five times. Sacchi quietly dreaded that the result of the meeting was going to be 'try ten times next.'
They were relaxing in the courtyard of some kind of restaurant. The sky was midnight-black overhead. Outside of town you could sort of see clouds, if you looked carefully, but here in town that was all washed out by the steady glow of those [Streetlights] that were placed everywhere.
"Here." Tetsuo said, speaking quietly, as he walked over from the counter, which was covered by the roof of the building but was completely open to the courtyard, with no wall between the [inside] of the restaurant and the courtyard they were sitting in.
A window popped up in front of Sacchi, an item that Tetsuo was offering. "Thank you." She murmured, materializing her milkshake so she could drink it.
"Thanks." Sasamaru also said, materializing what looked like a skewer of roasted meat, some kind of [Not-Quite-Chicken] in one hand, while the other hand held a beer. Sacchi didn't think it was alcoholic, since they were all still below the [Age Limit], but it was kind of strange to see one of her friends casually drinking a beer.
Tetsuo nodded, and then sat down on the middle-left couch section next to Ducker, sighing in relaxation as he slumped down, into the welcoming embrace of the leather. He materialized his own drink, which also looked like some kind of milkshake, but also had steam coming off. [Milkshake-but-Hot] seemed like one of those very strange things Cardinal would just invent sometimes.
Sacchi sipped her drink, enjoying the cold, sweet flavor, as she tried to unclench the tension. It wasn't a physical feeling, exactly, like the muscles in her back were all tight, but that was the closest way she could describe it. Going out into the Field… Sacchi hadn't appreciated how safe the modern world was, how little danger she had been exposed to, until the Death Game. She didn't know how other people could just… get used to it, acclimate to the idea that they could die. All she could do was turn away.
Sacchi shook her head, slightly, to banish the thought.
"You ok?" Tetsuo murmured, looking concerned, and Sacchi smiled at him, trying to look reassuring. He didn't look convinced, but at least settled back without pressing it.
She took another sip. It was cold, and sweet, and the thick milky texture paired nicely with the [Not-Vanilla] spice flavor. Sacchi tried to focus on that.
Ducker sat up, pushing up to glance out towards the gate in the wall surrounding the restaurant courtyard.
Sacchi followed his gaze, and saw Keita stepping through, followed by Kirito-san. The two boys walked over towards their guild.
Keita came to a stop next to his Recliner, which was sitting placidly between the two extended edges of the couch, formed in a circle around the fireplace that wasn't here, but was back in their guildhouse.
"So, we're not trying again today." Keita announced, and Sacchi felt most of the tension release inside her from that announcement.
"Aw." Ducker complained, slumping back down into the lounger. "We leveled, though."
Keita smiled at him, and then his eyes flicked between them, assessing their condition. "Well, we might still be able to level." He turned and glanced over at Kirito-san, raising an eye.
Kirito-san was staring at them, with a strange look on his face. No, at the couches? Sacchi wondered what was so odd. He'd seen Keita's couches out during the raid, hadn't he?
Kirito-san shook himself, and then smiled. "Right, so. You know how I've been creating those [Sense Prana] spells?"
"Yes, sensei." Sacchi said, chorusing with Ducker and Sasamaru, smiling at the flustered look.
Everyone could sense prana, but not everyone sensed prana the same way. Some people could [Feel] it, and some people could [Hear] it. Just inside the guild, Ducker and Sacchi were the [Hear It] type, whereas Sasamaru and Keita were the [Feel It] type. Kirito-san was also the [Feel It] type, and had created a new kind of sensory spell by using the Inheritance System on Ducker to 'listen in' while Ducker opened his circuits and gathered mana form the atmosphere.
He had also tracked down someone through his Front Liner connections that was a rare [See It] type and done the same thing with them, creating two new kinds of [Detect Prana] that were linked to hearing and sight, instead of touch.
As a result, Sacchi had learned [Detect Prana Visually] from Kirito-san. It was intensely embarrassing to use [Inheritance] on a boy, especially Kirito-san. She was still working on learning [Detect Prana Tactilely] from Sasamaru, which was less embarrassing since it was just Sasamaru.
Combining [Ether Whiskers] with [Key of the Guild] allowed Sacchi to integrate what every [Guild-Member] was feeling with their Whiskers. That was Guild-Members as defined by being marked with the [Private Key Number], even Familiars. And [Detect Prana Visually] had been the hint she needed, using the spell… backwards, kind of, to sent the integrated sensory knowledge back out to the other [Guild-Members] as a visual illusion.
"Anyway." Kirito-san said, coughing as he broke the long moment. "I've been trying to learn echolocation with help from Silica, which hasn't been going too well, but rather than using sound, I was thinking of trying to use Ether Pulses to do that through Ether, like… well, I'm not sure whether it would be more like Sonar or Radar. I guess it would be some secret third thing."
Kirito-san was rambling, the way he did when he wasn't sure how to say what he was trying to say. Sacchi smiled at him encouragingly. Of all the Front Liners she'd met so far, Kirito-san was the one that seemed the most… normal, the most human. Sacchi supposed that was because she'd interacted with Kirito-san more than the others, though. She supposed even Diabel-san was a normal person, really.
"Yeah, we can help with that." Ducker said, sitting up. "That's no problem."
Keita grinned, but it looked slightly forced, as he glanced at the rest of the Guild. He made eye contact with Sasamaru, and then Tetsuo, and then Sacchi herself, as if asking if they were up for it.
Sacchi didn't want to be the one to hold them back, so she smiled affirmatively, even as she felt the tension start to tighten back up inside her. It never really went away, anymore.
"Well, I think we can help you." Keita said, glancing over at Kirito-san with a polite smile. "Did you want to head out now, or…?"
Kirito-san blinked. "Well, yes, but I mean, not here. I think the darkness would help with sensory isolation, but experimenting out on the Front Line Field is a little…." He grimaced as he trailed 0ff, and Sacchi stifled a sigh of relief, grateful that Kirito-san was taking their safety seriously.
"I was thinking a lower Floor, like way down on Two or Three, and then using blindfolds and ear plugs if we needed to." Kirito-san continued. Ah. Well, that still wouldn't be too bad, Sacchi supposed.
"Aww." Ducker complained, even as he rolled off the chaise lounge onto his feet, smoothly standing upright. The rest of them took that as a que, and Sacchi sat up as well, easing forward off her own section of the couch while Sasamaru and Tetsuo did the same.
"Right." Keita said, turning and walking back towards the exit, letting Kirito-san get ahead of him so that the Front Liner was the on in the lead. The rest of the guild followed along, the couch silently breaking into its sections to silently glide along the ground behind them, as they walked across the courtyard and out onto the brickwork of the road.
They walked down the road, Sacchi hanging back and taking up the rear, as Kirito-san and Keita quietly talked up at the front of their little procession. She glanced around as they walked.
The constant darkness of the 25th Floor was unsettling, but Sacchi was getting used to it, a little bit. The streetlamps were a little too harsh, the light a little too flat, to really make it cheery. But there was a liveliness to the capital city at the Front Line that couldn't quite be matched anywhere else, even Elvengrad.
The buildings all clashed with each other, none of them matching their neighbors. When she looked at them with [Detect Prana Visually], she could see the Bounded Fields that people had laid down around their buildings, a blurry glow that added another layer of interest. She was still working on the spell, trying to develop an intuition to assign different Elements to different colors, and to improve her [Skill Ranks] to sharpen the blur and resolve details.
She glanced at [The Cube], idly staring at it as they walked past. It was a monolith of a building, a huge featureless square thing without doors or windows to break up the featureless plane of the walls, made of strange blocks fused together, coated with some kind of lacquer. It also glowed with a strange bounded field that hugged the walls, precisely matching the giant Platonic Solid shape of the building. She had heard it was some kind of project being run by the DDA, but she didn't really know more than that.
Then they were past, walking towards the central plaza, and she turned her attention to the buildings around her. Some of them were almost recognizable as modified [Elven Dorms], but some were completely unique.
She paused, sensing something, and turned her attention forward.
Kirito-san was standing stock-still, back tense, as he stared at the gate plaza.
There was a woman standing next to the gate. She was an adult, wearing a conservative dress, with a simple bob cut as she glanced back and forth, scanning the crowd, before her gaze landed on Kirito-san.
Then she walked forward, smiling slightly awkwardly, before she came to a halt in front of Kirito-san, and bowing low. "It's been a little while, Kirito-sama."
"Uh." Kirito-san replied.
Keita was glancing back and forth, eyes wide, while Sacchi felt her own eyebrows twitching upwards into an arch expression. Why was she using 'sama', Sacchi wondered.
Ducker coughed, bending over because Tetsuo had thumped him before he could speak.
"Will you introduce me to your friends?" The woman asked, politely.
"Right, right." Kirito-san agreed, with a strange, awkward look on his face. "Uh, these are the Black Cats, a [Guild] that I'm friends with. Um, this is..." He glanced back at the woman.
"Cecilia." She said, after an awkward beat, bowing to them. "It is a pleasure to meet you." Did… did Kirito-san really not remember her name? Suspicious.
"I see." Keita said, maintaining professional neutrality.
"She's a Quest-Giver from the first floor." Kirito-san explained, still looking slightly flummoxed.
Eh? An NPC? Sacchi relaxed, slightly, feeling a bit relieved that Kirito-san hadn't been cheating on Asuna-san, after all.
"I heard that my daughter had moved to the a city here, with Sensei." The woman explained. "I was hoping you could escort me there."
"Uh." Kirito-san replied again. "Okay?" He glanced over at the rest of them. "I need to take a rain check? I guess." He glanced over his shoulder, before turning back to the Cats. "Actually, I think there's a light-street now, so maybe you can tag along?"
"Sounds good." Ducker immediately agreed. "So, uh, how did you meet Kirito?" He said, turning to address the woman.
She smiled softly, and opened her mouth, before turning her attention to Kirito-san. "Would it be possible to walk as we speak? If possible I would prefer not to delay."
"That should be fine." Keita smoothly inserted. "Why don't you lead the way, Kirito-san." He added.
"Right." Kirito-san said, before visibly shrugging. "This way, then." He said, as he turned and set off.
I I I
It wasn't that interesting of a story. Or rather, it was a bit studiously melodramatic, the sort of overwrought soap opera you could got from puffing up the lore for what was at bottom a fetch quest.
They were walking through the fog and darkness, along a dirt path formed from beating the dirt hard, packing it tight with magic, clearing a furrow in the grass they could walk along with the darkness pressing in on either side.
My daughter is sick. Please go into the forest and fight the same monster over and over again until the 1% rare drop happens, which can be used as a medicine. I'll give you a sword. That was it, really. It was interesting to remember that there used to be quests to get weapons other than the [Trials of the Ranger].
Lamp-poles were pushed into the ground at regular intervals along the path, the same as the ones in the Safe Zone, but carefully tuned to only be about half as bright as would trigger the light gradient that would start Grues spawning, but still enough light to discourage them from random-walking onto the path. It was a thin line of safety that Front Liners had carved through the darkness.
Sacchi felt like it was a good-enough story, but there was one detail that stuck out: Kirito-san was the very first person in the game to complete the Quest.
"So, if you don't mind me asking." Ducker began, and it was obvious what question he was going to ask. Sacchi was curious, too.
Kirito-san paused for a moment, before shaking his head. "Launch day." He admitted.
"Huh." Keita said, impressed. "That's… you were on the Front from the very beginning, then."
"That's so cool!' Ducker enthused. "Did you seriously beat everyone else there?"
Kirito-san paused strangely, before speaking. "...No." he admitted. "There was somebody else. Another beta tester. He… didn't make it."
The party walked along the marsh, their footsteps quiet on the hard earth, the familiars of Keita's couch silently gliding over the marsh in a perimeter around them. Sacchi, linked to their senses, knew there weren't any Grue nearby.
"Oh." Ducker said, deflating. "Um, I'm sorry."
"It's okay." Kirito-san said, glancing over at where the NPC was following in the middle of the group. "We… didn't get along." He shook his head, before turning his attention back to the NPC. "But, that's not the end of the story."
After successfully fulfilling the Fetch Quest, a followup had been generated once the fifth floor had been unlocked: an Escort Quest to take the sick daughter to a doctor in the second city of the Floor.
That doctor's name? [Zolgen.]
"Like the," Ducker began, before cutting himself off as he glanced at the NPC, clearly wondering if she knew.
"Not just 'like' that one, it was the same guy." Kirito-san said, with that awkward, sad smile on his face again. "So, uh, after Ilya-chan opened up the Sixth Floor, so to speak, the kid ended up in the care of another NPC, Zolgen's assistant. I've talked about him, he's my [Numerology Instructor]."
"Huh." Keita said, eyebrows up. "I wasn't aware of the connection."
"Yeah." Kirito-san awkwardly agreed.
The conversation fell into a delicate silence, then, slightly awkward, but also slightly comfortable, Sacchi thought. Like Kirito-san had opened up to them, a little bit, and as a result solved something in his past.
Quietly, Sacchi also felt a little bit of pride. The Cats hadn't been the guild to form the earth and put up the lamps along this path specifically, but they had done others, and it was through their work that they were able to have this kind of quiet walk, even on the Field of the Front Line. She still felt the tense fear worrying about mobs, but it was a tension she was used to, a constancy in her life, now.
I I I
Mother and daughter embraced, the woman on her knees, the girl scooped up in her arms as they shared a hug after being reunited at long last.
Sacchi felt a vague sense of discomfort, like a voyeur seeing something she shouldn't, although that was mostly because she hadn't followed the quest arc.
Kirito-san had a weird, pinched expression on his face, his eyebrows scrunched together and his lips open in an expression that wasn't a smile, that was too queasy for that.
"Something wrong?" Keita quietly asked.
"It's..." Kirito-san trailed off. "This is the emotional payoff of a Quest I started the day the game started, and… people died along the way, so… it's…." He trailed off. "Foul." He decided. "I'm glad I got here, but…." He trailed off again, this time looking frustrated that he couldn't articulate his emotions.
"Ah." Keita agreed.
"Anyway." Kirito-san shook himself, before blinking. "Oh, I got a PM." He said, with cheerfulness that was obviously forced.
"Huh." He said, after reading it. "Paladins forced the Floor Boss to spawn, but a timer expired and it left, so there's a meeting about that." He paused, looking up, and then out into the darkness around them. "I should get going."
"Should we come along?" Ducker eagerly asked.
Kirito-san shrugged. "I'm… not sure?" He turned to Keita. "How fast can you guys go? If I run, I'll barely be able to make it."
Keita hummed, tilting his head to the side. "I'm… not sure we can keep up with you." And he wouldn't want to split the party.
"Okay." Kirito-san agreed. "You fine to find your way back? I'll ping you with the results. It sounds like the next attempt is going to be tomorrow."
"Sounds good." Keita said with a nod. "Stay safe."
"You too." Kirito-san agreed, turning to give the rest of them a quick nod, before he dropped to stretch one leg, then the other, before standing back up right and setting off at a sprint down the path.
"Shall we?" Keita said.
"Ah." A voice from behind them. The NPC woman, who had stood upright, and had a hand out to her side to hold hands with her daughter. "Has Kirito-sama already left?"
"Yes." Keita politely replied. "Is there something we can help with?"
"Um." The woman said, biting her lip. "The truth is, I arranged for a new house of my own, on another part of the Floor. I was hoping Kirito-sama could escort me."
So the quest chain continued, huh. Another escort quest.
Keita glanced between them, silently polling the party. Sasamaru and Tetsuo both gave a nod, and Ducker flashed a thumbs up, so Sacchi put on a brave smile as she nodded as well. Keita nodded, before turning back to the NPC.
Keita turned back to the NPC. "We could probably escort you." He offered.
The woman bowed. "Thank you." She said.
Sacchi breathed in, carefully, and then released it, feeling the tension gather up slightly inside her. But that was good, almost, letting her know she was ready for what was about to come.
18.4 End
1) This is very much Part 1 of 2, I think, rather than being a sub-chapter in its own right. I'm splitting them in half now, but once I finish off the second half and post it, I might rejigger them into a single bit. We'll see.
2) I think this was the first time I've used Sacchi as a viewpoint character? I'm trying to strike a balance where you can tell she is Stressed but not beat you over the head with it. Lemme know if that worked.
3) The world building here was good, I think, but I think maybe it could use a little more fleshing out? But I also thought I didn't want to overdo it, so here we are. Lemme know if that worked too I guess.
4) I feel like the pacing in the second half is a bit rushed, but like… I already ended up splitting this, and I felt like focusing too much on caravanning through the dark would be too repetitive, and over-describing the plot-beats from earlier would be too repetitive in a different way, so here we go.
5) If you're not Spoiled on the Spoiler Thread I'd be interested to hear guesses on what you think is gonna happen in the next part of the chapter. If you are Spoiled on the Spoiler Thread bite your dang tongue.
6) the couch was cool right
The couch was cool.
... Being very spoiled from the spoiler thread, my lips are zipped.
As to the pacing... There's a feel that Kirito has just been made quite uncomfortable, and was glad for the excuse to go away and recharge his "dealing with people" batteries? I think that was the intent, though.
... Being very spoiled from the spoiler thread, my lips are zipped.
As to the pacing... There's a feel that Kirito has just been made quite uncomfortable, and was glad for the excuse to go away and recharge his "dealing with people" batteries? I think that was the intent, though.
DamnedAeons 187
An Ally of Convenience is an Enemy of Opportunity
- Location
- Texas
The little things in the background to show off what the players as a whole have been doing are one of my favorite parts of this story.
plotvitalnpc
Once more walking the path of the catgirl.
Always a pleasant surprise to see an update on the main thread. The couch was cool and the worldbuilding was nice and textured. I fear the hot milkshake, but I enjoy the personality on display in how these characters become one with the couch.
DamnedAeons 187
An Ally of Convenience is an Enemy of Opportunity
- Location
- Texas
Also, hold the faith. That which is not dead shall never die