Sword Art Online-Encroaching Shadows

Chapter 31

"You two handled the Wright estate business yeah?" A man directly on Jayce's left asked the question. A mace hung from his hip accompanied by a wooden shield slung over his back. He slid a mug between his hands on the table while looking at Jayce. He had a grizzled war veteran look to him that gave off the impression that he was well trained in the use of his weapon.

"That's right." Jayce answered the man before taking a sip of the liquid in the mug he had been handed a few minutes earlier.

"Strange that Rose would trust a pair o newcomers with something like that." A woman with long blonde hair sat down on the opposite side of Jayce. The sword on her back was larger than a longsword, but not quite the size of a greatsword. A bastard sword was what it had to be then. A weapon able to be effectively used with one hand or two depending on the situation.

"They managed." The man beside Jayce responded to her comment.

"Aye, that's true I meant no offense. Name's Luna, Luna Duskmantle. This here's Roland McGlade." The woman held her hand out and Jayce shook it once before repeating the process with Roland.

"Jayce, nice to meet you both." Neither one of these NPC's had a quest marker over their heads. It seemed strange that they would converse with him like this without some sort of reason.

"And yer lass? Jayce turned towards Luna questioningly.

"My what?" He had to try not to smile as he asked. For whatever reason the programmers clearly generated Luna's manner of speech to resemble that of either a pirate or maybe even a high fantasy dwarf.

"Lass! Yer lass, what's er name?" Jayce understood her, but couldn't suppress the smile spreading across his face as he listened to this woman talk.

"Ah, Jemza is her name, but she's not my uh...lass."

"Jemza eh? White hair with the nice legs? Hard to miss a pretty little thing like that." Luna lifted her mug as she finished talking making Roland and Jayce chuckle.

"Ignore her, she likes to tease." Roland reached out and slapped Jayce on the shoulder playfully.

"Bah ye big sod who's joking? Acting like ye weren't staring at er hind quarters as she walked by! Hah!" Luna slammed her mug down on the table jabbing a finger towards Roland. Jayce turned towards the man who lifted his own mug up to his mouth to hide his face.

"Lies and slander." All three laughed and in that short amount of time Jayce found himself enjoying these two, even if they were just NPC's. The way they spoke seemed so natural as if they were real people.

"Have you both been part of the guild for a long time?" Jayce posed the question and the two looked at each other before looking back at him.

"Couple years for me. Worked as a mercenary before that. Was hired by all sorts of people, but one of them was this real big guy. Not even sure why he needed people like me with his size, but anyway he hired us to escort a small caravan of supplies. Or at least that's what we were told. Thing is, the wagons weren't filled with supplies. They were filled with the bodies of children. Kids that died in an iron mine the man forced them to work in. Made me sick to my stomach so when his men met us to take the wagons I cut them down. Rose caught wind of it and offered me a job." Roland's story made Jayce feel a knot in his stomach. It seemed that SAO had a darker side to it than just a fantasy MMO game.

"Been ere since I was a young girl. Me mother and father abandoned me when I was just a baby. An orphanage took me in and took care of me, but I mostly lived off the streets. Learned to take what I needed when no one was lookin. Got really good at it. Another kid like me was starving and couldn't afford any food. I was careless in me haste to find something that I got caught. I tried to explain twas for me friend who was dying of hunger, but he didn't care. Threw me in an alley and gave me this." Luna pulled the top of her tunic open revealing a jagged scar running from her left shoulder down into the shadows of her shirt.