[F1-SP] A Quest of the Heart

[Baldur 0]

Baldur stepped out from the huge, arched stone gates of the Town of Beginnings. This was not THE beginning, but it was A beginning. He had run around almost every bit of this floating castle so far, but there were few places he had yet to travel. This step, however, was filled with nostalgia of the first. The sky was not quite filled with the auburn light of sunset as it had been close to when Kayaba had given his speech that first day. Baldur was also not quite as simply garbed as they had been when they left to fight boars for the first time.

 

Looking down at his hands, Baldur saw the gauntlets that Tyger had forged for him. The appropriately named black and gold <<Knight’s Guard>> were lovingly decorated with a Norse motif. They were the highest quality of gear that could be made, and were much better than the simple starter gloves he had worn when they first created characters. The scene and design carved into them was elaborate, and bore the Norse runes of hope and strength.

 

Now, covering the rest of his body, was the sacred armor <<Amateru>>, and its power would keep him alive. Tyger had saved his life many times by forging him the most powerful of armors, but now it had shifted. She herself was more often his shield than any set of armor, so he would become her blade. The shining white armor covered him from the next down in plates and chain. It restricted his movements, but not as much it should have, and the Katana was a strength weapon, so he would not need to be as nimble as someone with a Rapier.

 

Baldur’s left hand rested on the handle of the favorite item she had made. His sword <<Ama-No-Murakumo-No-Tsurugi>>: The Sword of the Gathering Clouds of Heaven. It was the wind that preceded the storm; it was the Japanese version of Excalibur. The Katana was a bit more on the futuristic side, but in all applicable cases it worked just the same for him. The black saya had a white lotus design wrapping around it, and red sageo hung from it and wrapped into his armor.

[Baldur 0]

These three armaments had been forged by the love his life, Tyger, who had been trapped in this world with him. While Baldur wished that he could have protected her from this prison somehow, he was glad to have her here with him. The two of them were all but unstoppable together, and while there was no healer side of trinity in this game, they made up the other two legs, which let them run through content which would give others pause. The three armaments were three parts of who he was. The futuristic katana, the Norse gauntlets, and Japanese-meets-western knight’s armor, all were facets of who he was, and she knew this.

 

So no, he was not the same stepping through the gates of the Town of Beginnings this time; now Baldur was fully prepared for whatever would come. Now they would climb this tower, and he would pull them up one step at a time if they had to.

 

But before Baldur could do that, he had to fulfill a quest of his own design. He had begun the task a while ago, but he had been lax lately in pursuing it, now he would in earnest. Hopefully it would be enough to show her how grateful he was.

[Baldur 0]

 

Baldur made his way through the field surrounding the starter town. Even now, so long after the ‘game’ had begun, there were still people who were just now stepping out of its protections and gaining strength to walk on their own. He had passed through before, helping people when he saw they were in danger. The first couple levels were the most dangerous, when a stray hit could kill someone, but his walk now had a measure of nostalgia to it. Baldur remembered fighting their first boars here, and then they moved on to fighting wolves. As he walked past a <<Frenzied Boar>> Baldur pet the spikey mane of fur that ran down their spine. They had once been so fierce, dangerous, and could have taken his life, yet now they posed no danger to him. He could have crawled back to the Town of Beginnings before they would have been able to kill him.

[Baldur 0]

 

As he walked through the amber field, he saw the towering, funny looking mountainous platforms. They were beautiful to him, and from the top you could gain an unbelievable view of the first floor. In his opinion, it was one of the most beautiful floors that they had unlocked so far. Floor four could give it a run for its money, but that floor was consistently one season, where certain other floors would progress through the year as they did. Each floor had its own beauty, but unlike the others, this floor wasn’t an exaggeration of a single characteristic or concept, it was as if Kayaba had wanted them to see everything which was possible on a single floor.

[Baldur 0]

Baldur hated to do it, but he had to admit that Kayaba took pride in this world that he created. Undoubtedly he would die with this… experiment… of his, along with all of those others who had died, but when Baldur compared the grandeur of his world to that of the real world, this one would win his heart every time. He had gone to see some of the most incredible places the world had to offer, and while they were certainly incredible, some even were life changing, all of them had been bound by the rules of reality. That… solidness did give them a unique and incredible beauty, but there was something about the impossible being possible right in front of your eyes that pulled those special heart strings.

[Baldur 0]

Baldur had often believed, when he had been Jason in the other world that he was meant for a different place. He had always assumed it was a different time period, but the truth be told, Baldur could think of no world he was better suited for then one like this. This was a world where a sword and some talent could take you anywhere. It was the Wild West all over again, but this time there were rules people had to follow, a system that would not let anyone by-pass it. The fact that they could enjoy the game in this way was in some ways a boon greater than any he could have asked for. Where would he be if he could only play SAO for an hour or two every day after work? He did not wish the death game aspect, but he found the pure submersion into this world to be the more favorable of the two options.

[Baldur 0]

Retracing the steps they had taken brought him near the wolf infested woods that edged the boar dominated plains. He could see one now, though the cursor which had once been read was now a pink so light it was almost indistinguishable from white. He had remembered fighting for his life against a pack of them when had tried to go off on his own, and he had barely gotten away with his life. He had spent a good part of the night speaking with a horse in a pen while his HP regened so that he could go back to the inn he was staying at with Tyger without worrying her. It hadn’t really worked, but he had come home safe, and learned a valuable lesson at the same time. After that they had taken their time getting their early levels and getting off the first two floors. Once they had gotten their stride, they hadn’t looked back. Now they could take on almost any challenge solo and not be at risk.

[Baldur 0]

 

Further down the long line of towering trees, Baldur found what he had been looking for. It was a ramshackle old wood cottage, or it had once been. The thatch roof had caved in almost entirely, and at least half of the walls no longer stood, their plaster and wood beams either littered around the building or in piles of rubble filling up the interior. Weeds and small trees were overgrowing the collapsed home, almost helping it blend in. The place looked like a ruin, but then it had already had that on day one. Had it ever been something? The thought of the castle having a fake past was intriguing to Baldur. There had been bits and pieces of lore and story, but he had mostly ignored it in favor of trying to level up and stay ahead of the masses before all the prime hunting grounds had been exhausted. It was true in every MMO that if you waited, then those 'Kill 10 boar' quests could take forever while dozens of players fight over the same boars.

 

This was the place we were first really challenged. Kobolds had ambushed us here, and we had to fight for our lives.

[Baldur 0]

Baldur drew his Katana and climbed over the half crumbled wooden wall. He wasn't sure if the <<Kobold Ambushers>> would show up again, but he would be prepared this time if they did. As he looked around the building, he couldn’t find what he was looking for. He hadn’t last time they were here either; it had been Tyger who found the treasure chest hidden somewhere now forgotten in the piles of rubble and overgrown bushes. That was where Baldur had gotten his fencing cape if he remembered correctly… or was that where he got his first sword? He could hardly remember now. They had been living in this game world for so long now that it almost seemed real to him. He could still vividly remember the new world. Perhaps it was a benefit to being older, but even with as much time as they had spent in this virtual world, it was only a sliver of his life, compared to those playing the game who were half his age... or even younger.

[Baldur 0]

 

Movement at the corner of his eye caught Baldur’s attention and just as it had the first time, a dagger narrowly missed his head. Rushing out the door – he had no idea why he ran through the door frame when the wall itself was missing – Baldur confronted the two Ambushers. A raider would be not far behind them as well, but it appeared Baldur was correct about this being a scripted event. Focusing his vision on the first Ambusher, Baldur dropped into a lunging position and streaked through the air like an azure flash of light, his blade cleaving the <<Kobold Ambusher> in half at the thickest part of its chest. The mob that had once been challenging now shattered into polygons in a single hit from his blade. Spinning on a heel, Baldur raised his sword above his head, parrying a blow from the second ambusher. Rising up to his full height, Baldur kicked the creature in the stomach but doing so dealt no damage without the <<Unarmed Combat>> skill. It did, however, create space between the two of them and allowed Baldur to perform a follow-up blow that shattered that Kobold into a multicolored shower of light reflecting shards.

 

The <<Kobold Raider>> will be next.

[Baldur 0]

Baldur glanced around the little cottage, waiting for the last mob to show up. When it didn’t, he let his guard down and started looking around for what he needed.

 

Come on, there’s got to be one here somewhere!

 

He tried moving some of the debris, but it just flashed <<Immortal Object>> onto his UI as the games way of telling him no. Frustrated, he started walking in larger circles around the cottage until he did finally find what he was looking for. A small daffodil which might have almost been trampled underfoot of one the Kobolds he had just dispatched.

 

“Perfect!†Baldur said with a wide grin as he picked the flower and transferred it to his inventory. “One down and only seven more to go!â€

[Baldur 0]

His path through the field of the first floor was much more direct this time. He knew where he needed to go, unlike trying to find this place they had not visited since the first day. Baldur made his way back through the gate and headed towards the main square of the Town of Beginnings. The boulevards which lead from the teleport plaza and the Black Iron Keep was huge. It was far larger than it needed to be as even Disneyland’s main drag wasn’t this wide, and there were far more patrons there than players here. He would have expected a pass this wide to be required if players were able to drive carriages and carts pulled by horses and donkeys, but since that wasn’t required, he had no idea what purpose it served.

[Baldur 0]

 

In the middle between the gigantic main gate and the Black Iron Palace  was a massive lake ‘man made’ lake ringed by a small forest of frees.. A trail and a bridge interconnected the path on the right and a few islands before reaching a huge, red roofed, richly decorated church. It was always a pain to walk around, but this time Baldur idly wondered what it was like inside. He had never actually brought himself to make that walk. It was a beautiful sight to look at, if oddly out of place for the main thoroughfare. What purpose did it originally have? Was it where players had resurrected during the beta? Perhaps it was purchasable once they unlocked housing. It had been listed in the game features, but no one had yet figured out how to do so. Guilds, however, had required that they get to a higher floor, so perhaps housing was the same way.

[Baldur 0]

 

As Baldur finally made his way to the main square, he passed the teleport alter and instead made for the <<Monument of Life>> inside of the Black Iron Palace. There, in what had once been the <<Chamber of Resurrection>> now stood a massive black stone tablet with the name of every player who lived and died in this game. He had come here often before, and had thankfully never seen the name of anyone he knew get their name crossed off the list, but it always broke his heart when he did see a new cause and time of death. Baldur took a few minutes to scan for the names he recognized, and once he had been reassured that no one had died without him noticing, he left to go back to the plaza.

[Baldur 0]

 

The <<Black Iron Palace>> didn't quite loom over the square, since the square itself was ringed by massive, rather ornate walls, but it certainly dominated the skyline of the Town of Beginnings. In any other game, Baldur would have expected to find this type of a plaza filled to the brim with players and merchants. He could imagine them all now, filling the square with chatter and merchants hawking their wares, but as it stood, people tended not to linger here. The Town of Beginnings itself was massive, but this area in particular had the effect of bringing back bad memories of that first day when Kayaba had trapped them all here.

[Baldur 0]

What player traffic did cross through this main cursed square was usually going somewhere else. The main road, as all main roads did in this castle, extended off to the North. Even from here Baldur could make out the trees which ringed the man-made lake and the church, but lesser roads also crossed here.

 

Eight spokes of a wheel emitted from the hub that was the teleport plaza, with its massive spire in the middle. To the south, where the final road of the compass point would have taken it, was the <<Black Iron Palace>> though behind it a road did continue if you walked through the palace. He had heard that some guild had taken to policing the first floor and setting up their base in that palace. It was no concern of his. Other than tending to his store, Baldur tended to avoid the first floor himself.

[Baldur 0]

"Umm... excuse me." 

 

Baldur turned when he heard the voice of a player who seemed rather unsure of themselves, her voice was meek but curious. She still wore the starter gear, and no weapons were visible on her. That wasn't as uncommon as he would have thought. Many players removed their gear when they were not planning on going out adventuring or grinding. But you could not languish here forever. You needed to sleep, and the only safe place to do that was in an Inn or a rented room. On top of that you needed to eat food. Baldur wasn't sure what purpose having a hunger system served, but it was annoying if you didn't eat food. How all these players could stay here and not fight... did they just go out and kill enough boars to pay for a room and food?

[Baldur 0]

"How can I help you, miss?"

 

Baldur hadn't meant to drop his voice into something more knightly, but perhaps it was something left over from when he had been acting. Playing the part of a Noble, of a knight, was something he had spent years performing, and some part of wearing this armor brought that back to him.

 

The young girl barely looked to be sixteen. A shame to be so young and have been exposed to so much.

 

"Umm... Do you fight on the front lines?"

 

Not yet. Baldur wished. That was their goal, to make it to the front lines and fight to save themselves and all the people here, stuck in the town of beginnings. What will become of this world? Will we never be able to return? It was a horrible question to ask. Why would he want to come back to this death game? But how could he want to return to the real world as well.

[Baldur 0]

"Not yet." Baldur said with a slight frown. She seemed to see that and grow even more embarrassed. Baldur tried to offer her a calming smile, "Soon though. We'll be there soon."

 

His words and sudden smile seemed to have the desired effect of reassuring her.

 

"I hear they're about to start the 10th floor boss fight! Uhaaa! I can't imagine risking my life against something like that!"

 

Baldur had once shared the same thoughts. Why risk your life on the fight lines when you could eek out a perfectly comfortable, perfectly safe fight. Certainly between the two of them there would be no need to ever be at risk in this game, barring coming across the rare orange player, and even still, with how well geared he and Tyger were, they would likely choose weaker prey.

[Baldur 0]

Baldur smiled encouragingly to the young girl.

 

"They are the bravest of us, and the most selfless. I don't know that I will be strong enough for this fight, but I will try to make it to the next. Please cheer us on!"

 

The young girl bowed to him respectfully and then ran off, apparently she had friends waiting for them at the edge of the plaza, they chattered for a moment and then with a wave from all of them, they ran off. Baldur turned to face the teleportation gate at the bottom of the massive clocktower. The teleportation gate was a fancy looking alter with an obelisk on each corner. Moving up onto the small raised platform, Baldur head out his hand and called out “Delilah Village.â€

 

The world went white as Baldur disappeared.