Sword Art Online: Eclipse

Chapter Four: The Cake is a Lie

I was perfectly fine being in the center of the group. While walking through the woods near the boss dungeon, now dubbed the Roaring Holt by the players, we had a made a circle formation with the tanks on the outside. Magenta was next to me swiping her two fingers up and down, dropping and raising her inventory repeatedly in boredom. I, on the other hand, was busy keeping my eyes directly in front of me and hiding my vibrating body.

We had already been attacked twice by two duos of wolves. Luckily, I was able to inform Rouge about their last resort. He notified the rest of the Raid Party who smacked the snout of the creatures, disrupting their calls. I kept my anxiety in check, and as we went further the scenery changed. That helped me calm down as my senses were now picking apart our new surroundings.

Large walls mounted around us as we made our way into a steep valley. There were some NPC's standing near different entrances to dungeons carved into the side of the valley. The air was dry and cool the smell of rust was saturating the air. We kept moving, making our way towards the northern-most edge of the floor. My eyes took note of every little detail and I resisted the urge to run further and explore my surroundings. Magenta nudged my shoulder as we passed by a particular female NPC with dyed blue hair.

"Remember her?"

I snapped out of my lingering nervousness and looked, "Is that Remali?" We kept moving, past the blue-haired woman.

"I think so, her «Quest» in the beta was so annoying," she recalled, "but the armor reward was pretty cool. I thought she was supposed to be in a town though, they must have moved her."

I nodded but didn't say anything else. I had spotted something else that was familiar in the distance. A three hundred-meter wide, one hundred-meter tall squat tower grew defiantly. Near its roots, double wooden doors greeted our group as drew closer. Magenta started to hasten her pace which forced me to catch up to her as she power walked towards the front. We had seen the tower before, both in the beta and when we came with the Assualt Team, but there are some things in SAO that never lose their luster.

Everyone recovered their weapons from their inventories or sheaths as Muramasa and Rouge pushed the heavy overcasting doors open. My «Marked Anneal Blade» was dense in my hand, I probably should have gotten a lighter sword. SAO has a mechanic that makes heavier swords harder to «Parry» in combat. Some people think that just means that having an abnormally heavy sword is better, but I prefer the freedom that a normally-weighted sword gave. Unfortunately, the «Marked Anneal Blade» was the strongest sword you could get on «Floor One». Meaning I was stuck with it for now. Nervously, I pulled a loose piece of hair back to the side, I had combed my hair over so I could actually see everything that my UI had to offer.

Rouge gave an arousing speech as we entered and told us to stay on gaurd. At first, I took little of his warning, but when we entered the dungeon I quickly reconsidered this. The dungeon was completely different from both the Beta and my time with the Assault Team. Paths were twisted and gnarled in confusing directions, lights from flickering torches would sometimes go out, but most the most interesting part were puzzles.

They were simple puzzles that were clieché in gaming, such as rotating images to open a door. We had to actually defeat a mini-boss who dropped a «Silver Key» to progress further up the tower. It wasn't really a puzzle but it something more trope-ish than anything SAO had previously done and I enjoyed it. I actually slipped out the background of the Raid Party and relished the moment. Magenta was surprised when I dashed into the battle, but excitement twinkled in her eyes. Then one of our members was hooked in the gut with the «Brutal Kobold Sentinal»'s mace. He didn't die, but he needed to retreat back to the sidelines. After that, I followed his example, the mini-boss might have been a faceroll but I wasn't going to risk it. Still, I had to restrain myself when the others kept finding cool loot.