SP-F6: Gemini (Quest) - COMPLETE!!!

[Mack 0]

Mack stood before the Quest Board, on the sixth floor of Aincrad, and considered his options. He didn't feel completely comfortable being this high up in the tower. But, he'd also heard there was a fairly simple dueling trainer quest up here that granted an new player skill on completion. As he examined the board he noted that there were several quests available that looked like they should be fairly simple to accomplish. Finally, though, he spotted the one he was after. The quest's only description was "Engage in a duel with a stranger." Clearly, that was the one he was here to complete. Once he had his new skill he'd return to the lower levels to continuing gaining experience. How difficult could that possibly be? Mack assumed that if he won the duel he'd get one skill and, if he lost, he'd get a different skill. 

Probably, it was just meant to be Sword Art Online's dueling tutorial. It should be a cake walk.

Reaching out with his hand, he tapped the symbol to accept the quest and then waited. If this was anything like a normal tutorial quest then the blonde man knew he would be approached very shortly by the bot that was responsible for leading the quest and teaching about the dueling system. Unsheathing Midnight Eclipse, Mack planted the weapon's leather wrapped hilt in the ground and leaned on the weapon as he waited for the bot to get to him, or simply appear out of thin air.

Edited August 10, 2015 by Mack

[Mack 0]

Sure enough, within just a few seconds Mack was approached by the NPC character. The figure was a fairly impressive physical specimen. As near as the blonde axe-man could tell, the NPC was every inch as big and broad as the blonde was himself. Probably that was meant to be the game's way of intimidating other players. Mack shrugged and spat over his shoulder. "I suppose you're here to teach me to duel," he asked in a growling tone. The dark cloaked and hooded figure said nothing in reply as it unsheathed a weapon that Mack recognized as the beginner's two-handed battle axe. A second later a pop-up menu appeared in front of Mack as he leaned on Midnight Eclipse.

[Mack 0]

ID: 26962
MD: 3
Mack: 19/19
Stranger: 19/19

Almost lazily, Mack reached out with one finger and tapped the accept button on the duel request. No doubt that had to be the way that this quest was supposed to begin. Still, he leaned on Midnight Eclipse and regarded his black clad and deeply hooded opponent. He yawned, loudly, not bothering to hide it. After all, there was no need to be polite to an A.I. training bot that was only here to teach him how to duel. He didn't see any possible way that this duel could lead to his death. There was no way that even a death game like Sword Art Online could be that evil.

"So am I supposed..." The hulking axe man abruptly shut up as the bot swung its axe laterally across its body, trying to take off the blonde's head. Mack swore and ducked as the blade swung neatly over his head. "[censored]! So, we're getting right into it then? Fine!" Readying his weapon, Mack backed off and narrowed his grey eyes.

[Mack 0]

ID: 26963
BD: 8
Mack: 19/19
Stranger: 16/19 (-3 Dam.)

As the A.I. bot's blade whistled over his head Mack backed off in a hurry. But, the bot over-balanced and stumbled on its follow through from the surprise attack. Growling, Mack charged forward with his right hand right by the base of Midnight Eclipse's blade, the crimson cardinal feather flapping against his hand. With a grunt he swung a heavy blow into the stranger's gut. As the stranger was off balance from his missed attack it was easy for Mack to make the strike with a punching blade strike from Midnight Eclipse. There was a wet squelching sound as the blade connected and Mack pulled it back, again raising his own weapon into a defensive position and waiting for an opening to strike again.

[Mack 0]

ID: 26964
MD: 5
Mack: 19/19
Stranger: 16/19

It didn't seem to take the stranger all that long to recover from the blow that Mack had slammed into its gut. Of course, since it was an A.I. training bot, as far as the blonde warrior knew anyway, that was hardly a surprise. If the bot had a long recovery time it would hardly make a good sparring or practice partner. Abruptly, the bot took a step forward and feinted launching a sideways chopping attack before changing his grip and swinging the sharp blade of the weapon down towards Mack's feet. The blonde jumped and his feet cleared the sweep of the blade as the bot missed again. At least it was providing a good workout, so far.

[Mack 0]

ID: 26965
BD: 2
Mack: 19/19
Stranger: 16/19

As Mack came back down on his feet he swung his own blade in a high arcing swing. As the stranger had launched his attack he had left an opening in the high guard. An opening that the blonde axe-man fully intended to exploit to the maximum possible extent. Midnight Eclipse came whistling down, the blade slicing neatly through the air as the crimson feather fluttered in the slipstream produced by the axe as it came down. Just before the blade of the hefty bearded axe would have connected with the left shoulder of the stranger the bot abruptly ducked and rolled over its own blade, coming up behind Mack.

Edited August 9, 2015 by Mack

[Mack 0]

ID: 26966
MD: 8
Mack: 17/19 (-2 Dam.)
Stranger: 16/19

As Mack was whirling around to face his opponent once more he felt the bite of the Stranger's axe blade as it bit, just barely, into the front part of his chest. Mack grunted and thanked the gods of random numbers for their blessing. If he had turned to face the Stranger any slower the bot would have landed a critical hit on him in the back. As it was, the hulking axe-man swung Midnight Eclipse into the ready position once again and narrowed his storm grey eyes at his opponent and then pursing his lips. A white globule of spit escaped from the blonde man's lips and landed with a wet splat at the feet of the stranger. 

Edited August 9, 2015 by Mack

[Mack 0]

ID: 26967
BD: 6
Mack: 17/19 (-3 Dam.)
Stranger: 13/19

Without warning, Mack charged forward and slammed his right shoulder into the Stranger, delivering a shoulder check with all of the force he could muster. Mack hadn't really expected to knock down or cause major damage to the Stranger with the attack, and he didn't. But, it did stumble the hooded and cloaked figure, knocking the Stranger back a few steps. Mack followed up the shoulder check with another punching strike with his hand protected by the blade of Midnight Eclipse. The blade again made solid contact with the bot's cloth covered midriff. Mack growled and slammed his chest into the stranger as he made contact with his blade. As they collided the Stranger was shoved backward off of the axe's blade, freeing Midnight Eclipse once more.

Edited August 9, 2015 by Mack

[Mack 0]

ID: 26969
MD: 4
Mack: 17/19
Stranger: 13/19

As Mack was backing off and bringing Midnight Eclipse into a defensive ready position to ready himself for the Stranger's next attack the bot surprised him a bit by launching a wild sideways chopping attack across his cloaked body. The attack really didn't have a great chance at connecting with Mack, as he proved by simply swinging his own blade clear of the Stranger's strike and leaning backwards slightly to make sure he cleared the path of the still all too familiar newbie battle axe. This fight was proving to be a bit more of a challenge than Mack would have expected from a tutorial training bot and the thought began to enter his mind that this might be more than a simple training match.

Edited August 9, 2015 by Mack

[Mack 0]

ID: 26970
BD: 2
Mack: 17/19
Stranger: 13/19

As the bot completed the follow through from its most recent attack Mack switched up his grip on Midnight Eclipse. Swinging the axe up like a crazy batsman in cricket, he launched a powerful cross body strike with his own weapon, trying to slam the blade into the Stranger while the bot's blade was out of the way and there was an opening in which to strike. Unfortunately, at just that moment, the bot threw out a hand to steady itself on the ground and the blonde soldier's attack went sailing harmlessly over the Stranger's exposed back. Incredibly disappointing to have wasted such a prime opportunity to land an attack on the bot.

[Mack 0]

ID: 26973
MD: 6
Mack: 15/19 (-2 Dam.)
Stranger: 13/19

As Mack completed his attack the Stranger pushed off with his hands and got his beginner's axe off the ground just high enough to be able to swing the weapon in Mack's direction. As off balance as the bot was, there wasn't much power or strength behind the Stranger's swing of the axe. Still, Mack was also a bit exposed from his most recent attack and, as he spun to try and avoid the swing of the blade, he felt the razor sharp edge of the weapon just barely connect with him to nick his left leg. Another hit had been scored by the bot, costing Mack a further two health points. At this point, the two of them were trading blows. This fight was looking like it might go on for a bit, but as long as Mack maintained his one hit advantage, however tenuous that was, he knew he would win the bout.

[Mack 0]

ID: 26974
BD: 9
Mack: 15/19
Stranger: 9/19 (-4 Dam.)

With a howl of frustration over having left himself open for the Stranger's attack, and extremely angry that he had been unable to avoid such a pathetic attack, Mack altered his grip on Midnight Eclipse. As the Stranger stood up and started to swing his weapon into the ready position to attack or defend the hulking blonde bellowed like a wounded moose and attacked. Swinging his blade straight up in a jaw crushing uppercut, Mack slammed the inky black blade of his weapon into the hood shrouded jaw of the Stranger, snapping the bot's head back and lifting it off of its feet with the force of the blow. As the bot slammed back to the ground, flat on its back the Stranger's hood fell away and Mack stared into a very familiar face.

[Mack 0]

Mack: 15/19
Mack Bot: 7/19 (-2 Bleed)

Mack was staring down into his own face. His own blonde haired, grey eyed face. He was momentarily brought up short by the appearance of the bot. Why on Earth would the bot have his appearance? That didn't make any kind of sense at all. Sitting up, the bot turned its head to the right and spat out a single white tooth in a globule of blood flecked spit. Then the bot rolled its head around on its neck, popping the neck in exactly the same way the real warrior did. It was even accompanied by the same sound of popping vertebrae as when Mack did it. "What in the ever loving..." Mack quieted down and didn't finish the sentence as he was interrupted by a beeping noise from the game itself. 

[Mack 0]

Mack: 15/19
Mack Bot: 5/19 (-2 Bleed)

Alerted by Sword Art Online, he pulled up his menu quickly to check the message. He knew it was a stupid thing to do when he was in a duel, but he suspected that the alert noise had something to do with the quest and he needed that information. As long as he was quick about it, he should be able to get his hands on the information before the bot managed to get back to its feet to continue the duel. Pulling up the message, he saw a quest alert. Tapping it quickly, he scanned through the information and growled. His eyes narrowed in rage. This kind of switcheroo on the part of the game and quest was, quite simply, pure evil. Instead of dueling with a training bot, this was now a duel to the death. If he lost, Mack would die. His lip curled back and he closed out of the menu as he readied himself to continue this life and death battle.

[Mack 0]

ID: 26976
MD: 7
BD: 9
Mack: 13/19 (-2 Dam.)
Mack Bot: 1/19 (-4 Dam.)

With a savage snarl, the blonde warrior readied Midnight Eclipse. He could tell from looking at the bot's health bar that he should be able to win the match. That wasn't the point. The point was that the game had lied to him. The game had behaved in a manner that was neither fair, nor honorable. That the game had probably killed more than a few players with this quest because of the savage and cruel twist of this quest. As the A.I. controlled bot swung its battle axe in Mack's direction the soldier decided it was time to end this game, once and for all. As the bot slammed its axe into Mack's ribs the blonde brawler retaliated by blasting the bot with an overhand chop, the blade making solid contact at the point where the bot's neck and shoulder connected.

Edited August 9, 2015 by Mack

[Mack 0]

ID: 26978
MD: 7
BD: 4
LD: 1
Mack: 11/19 (-2 Dam.)
Mack Bot: -1/19 (-2 Bleed)

In a towering rage, Mack slammed the haft of Midnight Eclipse into the chest of the bot that represented him. The blow shoved the bot backwards a few feet. Mack immediately followed with a sideways swing aimed at the side of the bot's head. The bot ducked and the attack from Midnight Eclipse's jet black blade went right over the bot's head. The bot followed up its evasive action and the blade of the bot's axe found another score as it bit into the blonde warrior's left thigh. Unfortunately for the bot, no sooner had it landed the hit than it allowed its blade to fall from its suddenly limp fingertips. It took Mack a moment to work out the cause for the bot dropping the weapon, the bleeding damage that he got from Midnight Eclipse.

[Mack 0]

Mack watched as the bot collapsed to its knees. Suddenly, beneath the bot's depleted health bar a new name appeared. Where it had once only been described as Dueling Bot, now the bot's name read as Gemini. As the bot collapsed to the side its body came to rest atop the axe it had wielded. Not taking any chances, Mack readied Midnight Eclipse to strike again, should the need arise. Having been fooled once by Sword Art Online during this quest, he was not about to be fooled again. Slowly, beginning from the feet and moving towards the head of Gemini. Seemingly one pixel at a time Gemini slowly dissolved and faded away into wherever it was the the A.I. bots went when they died.

[Mack 0]

Mack glared hatefully down at Gemini as the other fighter slowly dissolved into pixels at an incredibly slow rate. As he continued to think, stew really, over everything that the Gemini bot represented the left edge of the soldier's lip began to curl up in distaste. This wrinkle that the creators of the game had thrown in was, in the axe-wielder's opinion nearly unforgivable. They had already made it impossible to log out of the game and informed the players that, were they to die within the world of Sword Art Online that a microwave emitter built into the nerve gear system would fry their brains and actually kill them as well. While some people could take that kind of a wrinkle in a game, there were plenty of people that had probably already cracked under the mental pressure.

The frustrations that he felt, the anger that was simmering below the surface, finally boiled over. With a vicious growl, Mack swung Midnight Eclipse down off of his shoulder and buried the blade of the weapon deep in the already dead and disintegrating form of Gemini. The blade sank deep into the bot's chest, but did little to speed up its death, as there was still nearly half of the bot still to die.

[Mack 0]

After what seemed like entirely too long of a period of time, the final digital chunks of Gemini's head dissolved and were no more. That left Midnight Eclipse embedded in the ground at an odd forty-five degree angle where the bot had just been laying. Still in a fairly towering rage over the whole ordeal, the enormous fighter ripped the blade from the ground with a savage wrench. In his current mood, a small part of the back of his mind knew that he would be fairly dangerous to be around. He needed a bit of time to cool off and so, settling down on the ground he pulled up his inventory and removed one of the breads and one of the waters. Sinking his teeth into the digital representation of the bread, he tore a hunk out of it as if the bread owed him some kind of debt.

[Mack 0]

Chewing the hunk of bread in his mouth, and looking slightly barbaric, Mack finally swallowed and picked up the small container of water from his inventory that he had set on the ground next to him. Taking a long pull from the water bottle, the blonde man finally set it back down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then he sank his teeth into the bread again and ripped out another hunk and began chomping it down. How dare the programmers of the game throw a wrinkle like this into their dueling tutorial quest? Sword Art Online had been sold to the public as the next big thing in online Fantasy MMORPG's. Except without the magic, which was just fine with Mack. Sword slinging was always more fun. Instead, though, what it looked like the public had been given was one big reality warping mind game that had only one goal, to destroy the psychological health of the player.