[PP-F4] <<Avalanche>> Telling Tribulations

[Calypso 0]

Perhaps if their last excursion hadn't ended so peacefully, Shield might have been less inclined to let her lead the way. But, with no such objections, Callie took on an ambitious smile. "Alright, then! I'll do my best not to fall into anything this time." She had reached the point of joking about her previous mishaps.

She chose the left path, and the journey continued rather uneventfully for a while. Without any side rooms to investigate and very few other paths to choose from, it was almost as if the area was set-up to be a rather simple one. After turning another corner, Callie let out a sigh of relief to finally spot what looked like a well-lit chamber at the end of their path."I wonder if just being hidden and boring was all they were going for." She said with a hint of impatience.

As they drew closer to the room's entrance, she blinked against the light that poured from the many identical lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Much like the floor beneath their feet, the entire chamber featured a smooth stone of a dull bronze color. Aside from the light sources dangling overhead, the only thing of note inside of the room was a single chest placed neatly in the center. She paused for a moment, taking in the obvious possibility of a trap that might be sprung on them, but running with the assumption that she and Shield were more than capable of taking on the level of monsters that would populate the floor, she pressed on.

As soon as she had stepped through the entryway, an eerie silence seemed to hang over them. It wasn't like the earlier tunnels had been noisy, but there was something unsettling about how still the air in the room felt. Callie opened her mouth to make comment, if only to try and settle her nerves, but after her lips had formed the first few words, she stopped in her tracks. Golden eyes went wide, and her right hand moved to the base of her throat. Why wasn't any sound coming out?

She tried again. And when the result was the same, her silent breaths grew shorter and her heartbeat quickened inside of her chest. She was falling into a panic, unable to register the red tint that the lanterns above them had taken on. Even if the sound it produced would have reached her ears, she was oblivious to the door that slammed down over the entrance to prevent their escape. Not even the shapes of the monsters that spawned around them--at least a dozen goblins wielding rusted daggers and hatchets--drew her attention.

[Shield 0]

Shield was going to ask why Callie looked so upset, but before he could do so, the room began to fill with monsters. They were weak, and obviously scaled for the floor rather than the players, but there were a lot of them. Taking a deep breath, Shield made to unleash his howl skill, but all that escaped him was silent air. He tried again, more quickly this time, but produced the same results. He went to cal out to Callie, but that too was silent. He could see now what might have been affecting her. It just took him longer to find out.

There wasn't time to deliberate. Callie wasn't as weak as she had once been, but he did not like the idea of her having to tank all, or even half, of the incoming attacks. He reached around her, grabbed the scruff of her collar, and lifted her up, throwing her as hard as he could to the nearest corner. Drawing his sword out of the air, he began slashing his way towards her through the band of gibbering mobs, elbowing those out of the way that he didn't have time to hit.

My damage is pitiful for a front liner, but for this floor, it's enough.

Of those monsters he managed to hit, they turned their attention to him readily. They fell upon him, vaporizing as soon as they collided with his thorny defenses. The rest, however, were harder to convince, several of them even jabbing around his shield to try to strike at the prone Callie. Shield knocked the daggers and chipped sword blades away as much as he could, but Callie's health bar was no longer pristine.

Damn!

He crouched down beside her, holding his shield over the top of her as small blades rained down on the barrier. With his own pitiful excuse for a weapon, he jabbed and agitated as many of the devils as he could, but he could only look so many directions at once, and there were more and more piling up around them.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Shield

[Calypso 0]

Her fingers pressed against the top of her collarbone and her mind was blank, unable to make sense of the situation. It was as if she had forgotten that she was in the middle of a dungeon. Forgotten that she was in Aincrad, even. That is, until she felt something pulling her up by the collar of her leather armor. Danesh hurriedly jumped from the woman's shoulders, snaking through the air to follow after her as Shield moved her to the safest position he could manage. The next thing Callie knew was the shock of crashing into the ground, her frame tumbling a short distance over the smooth stone. She winced in discomfort, light-headed and slightly dizzy while she pressed her forearm against the ground to prop herself up as she managed to register a bit of the scene playing out in front of her.

The red tint of the lanterns above matched the glow of several sets of eyes from the mass of green-skinned foes that greedily charged at the players. Callie instinctively recoiled when she felt the pricks of daggers and broken shortswords creating small red gashes on her legs. With the few precious seconds she used to take in her surroundings, something began to click into place. She watched the bits of metal that scraped against Shield's defenses, and the occasional goblin that would shatter when it made contact with the man's threatening armor. Was it her voice that was failing her, or her ears?

With the examples around her not enough to convince her hysteric mind, Callie pulled a hand to her ear, giving a couple sharp snaps of her fingers. When she concluded that the sound wouldn't register, she hurriedly pushed herself into a crouched position that served to make her a more difficult target, if nothing else. The concept of being deafened rather than muted was no more comforting, but at least it didn't hit quite so close to home--or at least, that's what Callie was trying to tell herself. Her eyes shot up towards her health bar. Its color was still green, but the gap between its current level and her maximum hit points was another cause for concern. Her heart was still pounding, but she took in a deep breath, holding the air in her lungs for a couple of seconds before it dispersed in a weak attempt to steady her breathing while she reached a hand up to grab at the hilt of her claymore.

Callie contributed little overall, but by the time half of the original number of enemies were remaining she had at least managed to pull herself together just enough to keep from staying a defenseless mass of pixels. She played carefully, now fighting against both the goblins that continued to throw themselves at the pair of players as well as the lingering anxiety that tightened painfully in her chest.

[Shield 0]

Shield's defenses were on a different level entirely. Even if he had removed his armor, the damage that these monsters turned out would not have been enough to outpace his healing. However, it was not himself that he worried about. Callie was still out of it. She was up, and she was fighting, but he had seen her fare much better against much harder. Something was inside of her head. Was it just the shock of being surrounded? Was it the removal of the insulation that a tank could normally provide with a proper Howl?

One after another, goblins fell, their numbers thinning until only one remained. Callie was damaged, but she was not in danger, at least not yet. However, she was fighting more than just the goblins, and whatever it was, he wanted to make sure she won, at least for this round. Shield let his weapon and his shield arm slack, straightening up and watching Callie. There was no anger or disappointment in his eyes. If anything, the look he bore was one of expectation and determination. Callie was going to finish the last goblin off. Until she did, she wasn't out of the woods.

The diminutive mob gabbled to itself, snapping its little pointed teeth at the air while swiping at Callie's knees with his dagger. Its other little knobby hand groped through the air, eager to latch onto something to make its stabbing easier to control. All the while, Shield watched, and he waited.

You've got this.

[Calypso 0]

Her hands latched almost tightly enough on the leather-bound hilt of her weapon for her knuckles to go white. The goblins' numbers had thinned until there was only one shambling across from her, though Callie focused so intently on her immediate surroundings that she wouldn't have known if there were even more creatures, threats, or other such obstacles waiting outside of her field of attention.

She took an unsteady step backwards to avoid the tip of the goblin's rusty dagger as it slid haphazardly through the air. Hurrying herself to retaliate, she was lucky that the creatures had very little to their name in terms of defensive stats. A single slice of her broadsword was enough to drain its health bar and cause the final ambusher to soundlessly shatter.

The air remained still for a second longer until suddenly the lights overhead returned to their unthreatening white tint. The eerie quiet was dispersed as the trap room was cleared, and two sounds immediately filled the air: the rumbling of the stone slab that blocked their entrance and exit lifting away into the wall above it, and Callie's short, ragged breaths. As the players' sense of hearing was freed from the oppressive silence, a clang of steel rang out from her lowered sword hitting the ground. Her now free hand found the base of her throat again and her mouth opened, grasping for a sound before her brain had thought of words to go with it. "Aah, I--" Callie's volume immediately dropped as a small wave of relief washed over her. "O-okay, alright..." Still shaken, she mumbled to herself with a few more soft words of reassurance.

[Shield 0]

Shield could see a change in her as the trap lifted, sound and normal light returning to the room around them. Shield took a step towards her and rested one hand in the small of Callie's back and the other on the back of her elbow. One hand urged her carefully forward as the other steered, and he maneuvered her over to the chest in the center of the room where he motioned for her to sit so she could collect herself.

The sounds of her breathing went uninterrupted. Shield did not speak for a long time. Even if she was capable of real speech, it would not benefit either of them to rush answers out of her. For now, she needed to regain herself. He stood beside her, avoiding looking directly at her. If there was one thing that he remembered from their first meeting, it was that she had her pride, and as she came out of it, that was bound to be a little fragile.

After a solid minute had stretched between them, Shield gave Callie a nudge to convince her to make room for him on the cramped, improvised bench. He took a moment to let her get used to his presence there before he spoke.

"It's over," he said, letting the simple sentence speak for itself. "It caught me off guard too, but we're still in one piece, and it's over."

[Calypso 0]

Callie had enough awareness to follow Shield's guidance without difficulty, but lacked the composure to form any kind of explanation for her more extreme reaction. She took the seat that Shield offered her, placing her hands in her lap as she focused on her breathing. A deep inhale through her nose, a short pause, and a steady exhale through her mouth. She repeated the cycle several times while her pulse gradually decelerated.

Danesh, who had provided little support in their battle against the small goblin horde, snaked over to his companion. Rather than take his standard perch atop her shoulders, he lowered himself onto her lap, waiting patiently until her hands lifted so that he might curl himself up. As the little familiar did so, Callie scooted herself over for Shield to take a seat beside her.

Though she was feeling better now, and was grateful for the time he had allowed her to regain herself, she wasn't sure what to say. Her head dipped forward in a single nod of acknowledgement, and her fingers began to run along the short, curled fur that covered Danesh's long body. She thought about apologizing, whether for her inaction or for leading them straight into a trap, but decided against the sentiment. 'Sorry' was unnecessary here. "It's, uhm... A fear I have." She was still figuring out the best way to word her thoughts as she spoke up. Her eyes were pointed off in the distance, looking over to the dim tunnel that they had entered from. "Losing my voice, I mean." She offered more clarity. Though she wasn't offering the full truth, what little she offered thus far wasn't a lie. "I didn't think it would freak me out so badly, though." She admitted, the corner of her mouth twitching upwards in the smallest of wry smiles.

[Shield 0]

"That's..." Shield looked for a more delicate way to phrase the rest of his thought, but given that she seemed to have recovered somewhat and with at least some semblance of her pride in tact, he decided that delicacy was less necessary than it had been in the moments following the trap. "That's not much of an answer," he said, finishing the thought with a fuller sentiment than he might have at first. "I'm fine with giving you your space and letting things go in general. Heaven knows I play my own cards pretty close to the chest, but if this is something that could happen again in the future, freezing in a fight, or even in the face of a trap like this, then that's something I'm going to need to know about, and not just for your sake. If this same thing had happened on a higher floor, I would be in danger, and you would be dead."

Bluntness was not something he was necessarily known for, but when the situation warranted it, he was not afraid to be shrewd. He looked at their party HUD and saw just how much of Callie's health was left. It was over half, but not by enough. This was a conversation they needed to have. As they sat, Lilith wriggled slightly, moving the first few inches of herself, tube sweater and all, out of Shield's sleeve. He brought his other hand over and ran a finger back and forth across her snout. She recoiled slightly, not entirely accustomed to being pet, but she did not retreat, instead settling herself with just tasting the air, more tongue than actual nose extending from her warm tube.

[Calypso 0]

She supposed that she deserved a bit of a scolding. A twinge of guilt flared up in her chest at the truth that carried through his last statement. Her gaze fell to the floor, and she mulled over his words while carefully thinking of her own. "If something like this happened again, a trap just like this one... I want to say I could keep my cool, but really I have no idea." She admitted with a dry embarrassment. "It's not really a surprise after thinking about it a while." The words mixed with a breathy sigh as she picked her chin up to look towards the white glow of the lanterns overhead. "This machine connected to our brains, replicating sensations. Of course it can take them away when it wants to, just like how it's harder to see at night or in a dark cave."

She was skirting around the topic, and she knew it. She still hadn't decided how to address it directly, but Callie knew the least she had to give was it her best shot. "Monsters here don't scare me. And it took a bit to get used to, but getting hit or taking damage doesn't really bother me, either. It's usually easy to shake off. I don't like heights, but that hasn't stopped me from exploring the tall mountains on the second floor."

"As for this..." She finally returned to the cause of her earlier panic attack. Her face fell again to check on Danesh, still content in her lap with the gentle strokes she ran across his skull and along his spine. She then turned her gaze on Shield. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not talk about the 'why'. Or, at the very least, save it for another time. What I will say, is that my voice is my most precious treasure. So having that taken away from me is something that would likely shake me up in the future, yeah."

[Shield 0]

"It's your business what you choose to share or not," Shield said aloud, giving Callie a searching glance, though not an unkind one. She was regarding him as if he was talking down to her, which he really did not intend to do. He knew that he had a certain way of seeming though. "I don't want you to feel like I'm angry at you. If anything I was just a little freaked too. I haven't lost a real companion yet in SAO, and I do not plan to any time soon. I did just watch someone go through such a loss, and believe me, you don't want to go through that any more than I do."

Shield reached out and gave Callie a light thump on the shoulder with the side of his fist. He couldn't quantify it exactly in words, but he hoped that his sentiment would translate through that. Death was so rarely discussed in depth even here in this death game. In the end, most people were too afraid to talk about it. Even he had not told Beat yet of the will that he left in their joint inventory. It had been labeled something mundane so that Beat would not snoop until the time came to go through his things in the event of his death.

"I don't want you dying," he said, being as direct as possible without getting into the uncomfortable sentiments that came with such notions. He did barely know Callie, after all.

[Calypso 0]

The light nudge against her shoulder, followed by a few more simple words brought a small smile to her lips, one more genuine than those that normally formed out of habit or when the situation called for them. Her eyes flickered downward to the dragon snoozing in her lap. "I haven't really taken the time to think of anyone as a companion, besides Danesh here. But," Turning back up to Shield, she pulled a hand up and found a section of his arm that wasn't protected by a thorny pauldron, tapping lightly against it to return the gesture. "I don't want you dying, either."

Though her consciousness existed among thousands of others in this death game, she had hardly found herself lingering on the topic of death much more than she would in their other world. It wasn't until recently that she had been looking to gain experience, and for Callie that seemed to go hand-in-hand with looking for trouble. In hindsight, she was both glad that she hadn't gone on such an irresponsible adventure on her own, as well as irked with herself for burdening the man that had agreed to accompany her.

"I didn't mean to come off that way." She spoke up again after a few short seconds of silence. "I started kicking myself a bit in the middle of all that, and I guess it slipped out." She angled her hands in her lap in order to scoop the napping creature up into her arms as rose to her feet. "Thank you, though. I feel like I owe you a lot more than a trade of a quest run." The side of her boot pulled forward and knocked against the side of their impromptu bench. "But first, I wonder if we stumbled on anything good?"

Edited December 13, 2017 by Calypso

[Shield 0]

"Careful about hitting me," he said, suppressing a smirk of his own. "You'll end up like the goblins." Shield stood, opening up the chest and looking inside. "I don't... what?" He planted his forehead into his palm, sighing heavily. "Well, I always suspected that SAO looked at equipped items to find out what kind of loot to drop."

He pulled Lilith out of his sleeve, laying her out along his arm and tapping her to summon up a menu. With a few swipes, her pink tube of a sweater disappeared to be replaced by an even more ill-fitting piece of clothing.

"I think Cardinal looked at the wrong entity."

Spoiler

Shield dismissed the display windows and guided Lilith's snout back to the opening of his sleeve. She tested the air, felt the warmth with her tongue, and slipped in head first. As the awkwardly placed sweater reached Shield's cuff, the snake's garment got hung up for a moment before the her muscular body pulled the lumpy portion in to join the front portion.

"I think on that note, we should call it an evening,"  He sighed once again. "I might head up to the twenty first floor to do one last little bit of poking around before retiring. You're welcome to come along, but I'd understand if today was a little much already."

Edited December 13, 2017 by Shield

[Calypso 0]

Her head tilted inquisitively to one side at Shield's reaction to the chest's contents, wondering just what it could have held that caused him such exasperation. When he retrieved the serpent from his sleeve equipped a tiny wintry-themed sweater to her, Callie couldn't suppress the laugh that bubbled up from inside of her. "That's...That's possibly both the sillest and cutest thing I've seen in this game." She got out through a chuckle.

All of the commotion from his player caused Danesh's beady eyes to blink open, and once she felt the familiar shift in her arms she lifted them up to one side to guide him back to his perch across her shoulders. His head ducked behind the curtain of cerulean hair as his top half snaked behind her neck.

She contemplated Shield's offer for a few long moments before answering. "I'd like to stick around, if it's not a bother. I'll be sure not to go around touching all the crystals this time." She let out a small huff of breath through her nose in a half-chuckle. "I think I've had my fill of traps for now."

[Shield 0]

"Good idea," Shield replied, nodding with a note of finality and letting the lid of the chest fall closed with a snap.

He straightened up and dusted himself off, leading the two of them to the exit. There was an easier silence between them than on some of their previous ventures. Shield wondered if it was because of a sense of the worst already having happened so it could only go uphill from there, or perhaps he had passed some sort of initiation by not pushing her too hard after a difficult situation. In either case, they came back to Snowfrost and Shield led them to the teleportation plaza.

"Tomoika!"

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ID# 92229 results: Loot: 8+6=14 - No chest

The tunnels were no different than they had been on the previous visit, only now there was one fewer trap lying in wait to catch them off guard. Still, either because other players had cleaned the tunnels out recently and the area had yet to refresh, or the luck of the draw had not been in their favor. Each spot that might have been a promising place for a chest or something valuable was a no-go.

"Well, I guess there are always going to be days like this," he said, tossing away yet another hunk of mundane crystal. "Still, it would have been nice to find something besides the lousy sweater."

Edited December 13, 2017 by Shield

[Calypso 0]

"Hmmm," She hummed with a disappointed tone. With how few materials she had found on their last excursion in the winding tunnels and caves of the twenty-first floor, Callie thought herself either unlucky or lacking in whatever stat could make her better at finding higher-level items out in the wild. Shield seemed to be coming up empty-handed as well thus far, leading her to wonder if she should just chalk this up to either of them having an off day.

Though she thought Lilith's new piece of clothing was quite the amusing find, she held her tongue from making comment so as not to provoke the already-frustrated player ahead of her. Instead, she brought a hand behind her ear and pressed her nails flat against her head while lightly tousling the hair between her fingers. "I'm surprised there aren't more monsters just roaming around the tunnels here." She commented. Though it was possible that Shield had been purposefully avoiding the mob-filled areas he was familiar with, she had expected to see a denser population of unfriendly creatures in the closed spaces that the floor allowed them for exploring away from town. "Not that I'm complaining." She added in a mumble.

ID#: 92230 | LD: 4 - nothing

Edited December 13, 2017 by Calypso

[Shield 0]

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ID# 92232 results: Loot: 20+6=26 - Great... a material [1 total]

As they turned another corner down deserted mine shafts, Shield shrugged. In all honesty, there had been a number of potential spots for monsters to spawn, but not only had he been avoiding them, it sounded as if those halls had been deserted to begin with. It was as if the twenty first floor had been fished completely empty. He knew more things would spawn as they went, but it meant that they would need to go the extra mile to find anything useful.

Shield looked behind a nearby boulder, again, turning up empty on his search. He thought to himself how silly it was that there was so little to go around and wondered how long until there would be a new floor to explore. Still, his earring was glowing, which told him there was something at least to be found.

"With all of the high level players only being restricted to this one floor for level appropriate loot, I guess it gets more traffic the more people level," he thought aloud, placing his hands on his hips as he made one last visual sweep around the great stone. After a moment, he shrugged, throwing his shoulder into the boulder to try to force it aside. It slid, and beneath it, he found a single shard of crystal. He picked it up and frowned. "Seriously? This is it?"

Edited December 13, 2017 by Shield

[Calypso 0]

Callie sighed, the edges of her mouth turning downward into a frown that was not unlike a pout. The soft glow of his earring caught her attention, and with his search of the immediate area persisting, she concluded that it must function as some sort of item indicator. With her memories lagging, it took her a few moments to remember the light that same earring had provided for them in the darker caverns below after Shield had supplied a crafting material from his inventory.

"Oh," She hadn't realized that there was only a single floor housing the higher-quality components, though if she was recalling correctly in that there was a similar jump between floors ten and eleven, it made perfect sense. Still, the thought of having to compete with all the other higher-leveled players in the game for whatever farming grounds existed on this single floor caused her to frown again. "Makes sense, I hadn't thought about that." Her eyes flickered to the bottom-right of her field of vision, reading off Aincrad's local time in her head. It was still only late afternoon, meaning most players were still awake and many were likely to be grinding for loot, experience, or whatever they could get their hands on. "Bad timing, I guess." Callie thought aloud. She was unsure of how to lift the mood that was turning sour the more time passed while they had little to show for it. She wasn't the type to strain to do so, and even if she was she was still feeling the slightest bit out-of-sorts from the day's events herself.

ID#: 92233 | LD: 5 - only found more salt

Edited December 13, 2017 by Calypso

[Shield 0]

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ID# 92234 results: Loot: 12+6=18 - Cool cool. [2 total]

"It isn't a big deal," Shield said with a shrug. His tone was even, and his face registered very little as far as surprise. "You don't always find something, but it's more productive than hunting down on the floors below." He motioned back the way they came with his head. "Come on. We've put in enough time grinding on our separate floors," he said. It wasn't a long walk back to town, so he took his time guiding them back, picking and choosing passageways that would be safer and, when possible, provided better views. He didn't think terribly much of visuals within Sword Art Online, but Callie seemed to, and if nothing else, it was fun to see her react to the scenery.

As he took her through a small section of tunnel that burrowed through a massive crystal, he even managed to find a piece that registered as an item. He pocketed it and continued to lead them through the rough-hewn, multifaceted hall of tinted mirrors that was the tunnel through the crystal before emerging on the other side.

"I can't be completely mad at the outing," he said, gesturing with one hand in such a way to suggest not only what happened on this floor, but below on the fourth as well. "We're getting you closer to be able to stand on both legs without someone there to carry you. And you're learning plenty along the way, even if it means doing it the hard way."

Edited December 13, 2017 by Shield

[Calypso 0]

While she would have liked to get her hands on more of the top-tier materials, it seemed her luck was just as abysmal as her first visit to the cavernous floor. At some point she stopped looking as carefully, and as she followed Shield's lead back to Tomoika there seemed to be other, more interesting things to catch her eyes. Her chin tilted upwards as they walked through the massive crystal stucture, a smile stretching wider on her face as she watched the overhead reflection of the two players.

"I suppose." Her lack of enthusiasm was more brought about by stubbornness, as if the childlike wonder she sometimes displayed from the more impressive surroundings had bled into her attitude. Realizing her curtness, Callie took on half a smirk while her gaze was still directed elsewhere in the tunnels. "No, you're right. Although it seems the hard way is my default lately." She paused a few moments, mulling over the words in her head before pushing them out into the air. "I hope I haven't been causing you much trouble. I feel a bit bad for relying on you so much lately, and pulling you away from more important things, I'm sure."

ID#: 92236 | LD: 6 - nothing

Edited December 13, 2017 by Calypso

[Shield 0]

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ID# 92237 results: Loot: 4+6=10 - No mats [2 total]

"I wouldn't spend time with low level players if I didn't want to," Shield replied. His tone was very direct, and almost rehearsed, as if he'd said so a number of times before. In all honesty, he had. However, the fact that it was a regular, almost practiced response didn't make it untrue, and it certainly did not seem insincere. "Truth is, I was carried through my first few levels by another player too. Both Beat and I. If we hadn't had the help, we wouldn't have made it as far as we did."

They rejoined the main path back to town, slowly snaking further and further up out of the mines towards the main cavern where Tomoika rested. Ahead, Shield head voices, and he slowed his gait. He did not have specific reason to expect the other players to be hostile, but it was a high level area, and carrying someone low level when actual players were around was more of a risk. Players didn't have to respond to his howls the way that even stronger monsters would.

"If we're not working both to advance the front lines and bring other players along with us, we're shooting ourselves in the foot." With that, they crossed the bridge back to the main settlement.

What a day. I might need to stop in and see if Piera has any more of that stuff that got me so messed up. A sip or two might take the edge off.

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- Quest Rewards -

- Calypso -

4 SP
400 Col
Snowfrost - Unique Consumable [1/2 damage from fire for 1 thread]

- Shield -
2 SP
400 Col
Snowfost
2 T3 Materials

 

Edited December 13, 2017 by Shield