67A/N: This started as a fantasy AU idea, then effectively became an Eberron crossover AU with Droaam replaced by... heh. SAO and Eberron, definitely not mine.
"So you've returned, human." A dark chuckle, barely louder than the rustle of green silk skirts. "You're either brave, or foolish." She halted, almost within reach. "What's this?"
Gaze carefully on the floor so he just saw the toes of Stheno's black leather sandals, Kirito offered the obsidian sunglasses in an upturned hand. "You said, whatever gaze you hold turns to stone." He smiled, though he could almost feel his heart thudding in his chest. "But these hold any gaze. And they're already stone."
Delicate as a butterfly's pricking feet, clawed fingers touched his palm.
This is it. Either I've guessed right, or-
Stheno took the dark glasses.
The Lonely Gorgon: Quest Complete.
His avatar didn't really breathe. But Kirito felt like gasping anyway. Level gained, experience - he'd look at it later. Stheno wasn't an enemy, and she was apparently very, very difficult to aggro. She'd still left scores of careless players paralyzed or poisoned, and had carried out at least one TPK on a group that had deliberately attacked her rather than consider her quest.
Given the monsters that roamed the floors of Aincrad, even momentary paralysis was terrifying.
I haven't been turned, Kirito told himself, as he had every day since the game had become their world. I'm not going to be turned.
I'll die before I'm turned.
A sobering thought, and not one he planned to share. With anyone. Fuurinkazan, Argo, Asuna - they could decide for themselves what they could bear. He - couldn't.
The monsters can kill me, but I won't lose to this world!
"You may look at me."
Startled, Kirito glanced up. Tensed, waiting for the status effect to strike-
She's beautiful.
Not human, obviously; scales speckling her face like tiny emerald freckles, cobras in the same verdant hues curling out of long, dark red hair. But that was a friendly face behind dark glasses, and if the smile hinted at fangs in it... well, he'd seen worse.
Sometimes, much worse.
"We don't see that many humans this far inside Aincrad," Stheno mused. "What brings you here?"
Another quest?
It could be, even if Argo hadn't picked up any rumors of another one linked to Stheno. No one else had even gotten close to completing the Lonely Gorgon before; it was likely Cardinal hadn't had time to spawn new rumors yet.
Go for it. "We mean to defeat the Lord of the Black Iron Castle."
"A worthy goal, if true. The Dark Pack's lord is a threat to all of Aincrad." Snake tongues flicked in and out, as if to taste his truthfulness. "Yet I had thought the nations of Galifar - even the gnomes of Zilargo - denied there was such an evil lord, or such a castle. Only unholy monsters dwell within the hidden valleys, the mountain fortress of Aincrad, with no more just fate than to be slain and perish utterly." One clawed hand waved gracefully at the sword harnessed over his shoulder. "And of the humans of Galifar, only their fiercest soldiers and mage-warriors have such skills. So how come you here, human? To a land where all youkai's hands rise against you in dread and fear for their very lives?"
World information. Oh, Argo's going to love this! "We are not humans of Galifar," Kirito said steadily. "We are from islands far beyond the elvish kingdoms, so far that we only first heard rumors of Aincrad months ago." He hesitated. Stheno has to be a pretty advanced AI. I have to try. "My name is Kirito."
"Is it, then." Her voice was quiet. Curious. Her snakes barely stirred, but their gold eyes fixed on him. "If rumor is all that touched you, how came you to my homeland?"
"One of the Dark Pack's wizards, Akihiko Kayaba," Kirito replied. You wrote yourself into the game, bastard. Let's see what your own AI does with this. "He wove a spell to pluck twenty thousand souls from our realm, and teleport them here, to Aincrad."
Cobras hissed, and Stheno frowned. "Twenty thousand humans with no knowledge of our realm save rumor... so. The Ebon Wolf meant to take you all for his own creatures." Slowly, she shook her head. "Twenty thousand trained warriors, newly turned, with no kith or kin to help defeat the bloodlust in their hearts. Aincrad would be destroyed, utterly."
"We weren't warriors when we first came here." Kirito glanced at her, then at one of the snarling minotaur statues that guarded the entrance to Stheno's cave. "And surely the Ebon Wolf could not hope to face you."
"And surely he would not face me," Stheno said dryly. "Why should he, when he could summon a thousand turned mages and warriors to besiege me instead? I am immortal, not invincible." The medusa tilted her head, as if he'd said something very odd. "Not warriors? Then how did you escape his minions?"
"Some of us didn't." He'd never expected the Town of Beginnings to turn into such a nightmare. Kayaba's starting tutorial, wererats grabbing a hapless NPC and biting down, before the horrified youkai town guards arrived to chase them off, and seize their terrified, infected victim, and-
Kirito flinched, remembering the sickening pop of mutating flesh and bone as the man had begged to die.
That had been bad enough. But the fear that had swept through the players, as the first unlucky few encountered more lycanthropes, and found out the hard way that Kayaba wasn't bluffing...
This is our reality, now.
"Some of us didn't," Kirito repeated, half to himself. "I was lucky. I knew a little about swords before I was brought here. And I've learned more, often due to the kindness of strangers. Many of them youkai strangers." He met that dark-shaded gaze. "I'm not from anywhere in Galifar. I want to defeat the Ebon Wolf. We all do."
"We?" Stheno raised an elegant brow, snakes curling. "Survivors of twenty thousand stolen from hearth and home, and you'd have me believe you're all of one mind?"
A very complex AI. "No, of course not," Kirito said seriously. "But some of us will fight." His voice caught in his throat. He took a breath, and made it steady. "It's the only way we'll go home."
Dark lenses shaded her gaze, but he thought her eyes narrowed. "Come with me."
Have I triggered a quest, or not?
One crevice in Stheno's cave wasn't what it seemed.
Paint, not magic, Kirito realized, reaching out to touch the false shadows that directed attention away from the very real passageway. A Detect spell wouldn't find this. You'd have to see it. "Who threatens you?" he blurted out.
Ahead of him in the flowing channel of dark stone, Stheno glanced back, cobras curling up. "You believe someone threatens me?"
"You don't live in that cave," Kirito declared. "You make it look as if a monster lives there; gnawed bones, the fire pit, the statues. But there's no soot on your dress, and you don't smell like smoke." Small details. Most people wouldn't even look for them in another game. Who'd bother programming in stains and stinks, when players wanted a fantasy?
But Kayaba was a perfectionist. In SAO, details mattered.
"You're a medusa," Kirito went on, "and the legends say their magic rivaled the gods' own offspring, which is why they were... cursed." Oh hell. Talk about earning a penalty on his reaction roll.
Stop talking and you'll fail this for sure. Maybe you can still salvage it. "You make it look as if there's no magic around you at all," Kirito persevered. "Why? Who do people think you are? Who are your enemies trying to find?"
An impish smile tugged at her lips. "Maybe I just like my privacy." She stepped forward, and out of sight.
Where did she-?
He smelled... green.
...Oh.
The twists and turns of the lava-tube passageway had trapped light, making the corridor seem to be just another obsidian-dark stretch of cave. But one more step had taken him beyond the last bend of stone, where sunlight washed down over trees and blooming herbs like a glittering waterfall.
Kirito picked where he put his feet, afraid to stray off the subtle path worn into the underbrush. He didn't have the Herbalism Skill, but he could identify a half-dozen rare plants for healing or magical components just glancing around. There was Nightbane, and Rattlesnake Master for treating venom damage, Royal Catchfly to ward off insect swarm mobs, Firepink whose tiny notched petals added bonuses to Fire effects...
And one bunch of vibrant azure blossoms that seemed to have sprouted from a curling sculpture of silver-white bark and wood.
Yggdrasil Shoots. The same as the Tree that holds up Aincrad. I'm in a Pixie Garden!
Kirito froze, not daring to move. Almost not daring to exist. Pixies were small mobs, generally armed with weapons no larger than needles. Apparently laughable, compared to the sheer mass and DPS of a level boss, or even a pack of Dagger Dogs.
Small mobs. Small, complex-AI, magic-using, beast taming mobs...
He'd rather be facing Illfang all over again. Kirito slowly scanned the upper branches of the trees surrounding this hidden glen, catching flutters that might be tiny wings. They could be anywhere. Scan might find them. A Detect spell might work better, if he'd had one, pixies were intrinsically magical... but then again, so were most of the herbs here.
And so is Stheno.
A double layer of concealment. And none of it by active magic.
This is important. It has to be. He gulped. Oh no. Argo's going to kick herself for missing this... This isn't a quest. It's a triggered event!
And he was alone. Wonderful. Klein was right; staying solo really was going to bite him.
Well, if I die, he'll say "I told you so-"
"Cautious." Stheno had faded out of the bushes at his side, as if the plants themselves had parted for her. "Wise. You should put this on, I think, before you take another step." She held out a small ring of peacock-green and purple-copper feathers, and reached for his right hand.
He let her take it, curious and worried. She'd had plenty of chances to attack him already. And when something in a quest was stated as "you should", that generally meant do this or quit the quest if you don't want to die-
Stheno's Gift: the Cockatrice Feather Ring.
The what?
Downy feathers tickled his index finger, before the ring slipped under his half-gloves as if leather had swallowed it. Nothing seemed to change.
Stheno stepped back, and gave him a smile that was Argo's best I know something you don't. Picked up a basket, running grain through clawed fingers like a snake-haired farmwife. "Here, chick chick chick!"
Chirps like sparrows answered her, quail-sized creatures with clawed wings fluttering and strutting out of the bushes, toothed maws snapping up stray insects flushed out by their passage.
Archaeopteryxes? But they're so many colors-
One of the bitten insects turned stony gray, before a green-and-black feathered hen crunched it in strong jaws, feeding the grit to a rainbow dozen of peeping fluffy chicks.
"Oh," Kirito said, stunned. "So that's what a cockatrice looks like. Argo was wondering... eep!"
Stheno chuckled, shoving the basket into his grip. "Go on. They won't bite."
Easy for you to say. I don't do tests of bravery. Leave that to jerks like Kibaou-
No. Stheno had given him a gift. This wasn't a test of bravery.
It's a test of trust.
If he could trust Stheno to look at him through obsidian glasses, how could he not trust her now? Reaching down, Kirito let the hen sniff his hand.
Clawed wings gripped his fingers, pulling them down to draw the scent in better. "Chirrr..."
"Cheep!"
He went down in a pile of clawed fluff, trying not to giggle in exhausted relief. Good thing I'm not allergic to feathers.
"Don't let them get pushy." Stheno helped him rescue the basket, chuckling under her breath. Scattered her share of the grain, and cooed to a chick or two; then led them all farther down the path to where air turned cooler and moist, water trickling down a fern-wreathed cliff of granite to fill a small pool before running away in a clear stream. And sprouting in the midst of that pool...
Kirito almost froze on the spot, staring at the gigantic Jade Vine that lifted toward the sun. He'd seen one or two of the living-stone plants in other volcanic landscapes, but those had been small, fragile bits of jade, vines thinner than a straw and barely reaching his knee. This was as tall and sturdy as a wisteria in full glory, every tendril supporting chains of rubies like bunches of ripe raspberries.
No. Not rubies. Youkai Bloodstones.
The critical spell component that a youkai lord could use to transform a human player into... something else. He'd seen one at the end of a few quests, always politely walking away. Once he'd seen half a dozen, glimmering in a bakeneko youkai's keeping and guarded like the priceless treasures they were. In Aincrad's lore, a Bloodstone was the blood and memories of a youkai hero, frozen in stone so the clan could call upon lost knowledge in their hour of need. Or - rarely - so the clan could gift a deserving human with that trace of other, and adopt them into their new family.
He'd seen one Bloodstone at a time. At most, seven.
Stheno had thousands.
Argo couldn't have paid him to get any closer.
"Now." The medusa seated herself on a boulder carved into a friendly nook, with a lichen-gray and green cushion to make it more comfortable. "Tell me what you know of this foul wizard, Akihiko Kayaba. Few youkai have seen any of the Dark Pack and lived to tell of it. Tell me of his spell, and all that has passed since it brought you here."
"Everything?" Kirito said faintly. "That could take a while."
"To defeat the Ebon Wolf?" Stheno leveled a stern look at him. "I have all the time you need."
Clear all 100 levels, Kayaba had said, defeat the Lord of the Black Iron Castle, and you will be returned to your proper realm.
It was worth a try.
"Four months ago," Kirito began, "we were invited to a grand tournament. A place where we could... play... at being brave warriors and mages..."
Asleep at last. Stheno watched the still avatar of a human boy rest under the warmth of her flock. Fitting guardians; as one elan ranger had warned her, this young swordsman was almost as wary as a wild cockatrice himself.
Make that a feral cockatrice, the seeress thought darkly. Lost and abandoned. He hasn't despaired, but so many of the others...
One of the chicks shifted on Kirito's shoulder, its first green-black adult feathers gleaming against black hair. Stheno's breath caught, as memory stabbed her heart. Connlan.
No. Connlan was... Connlan had been older. And he was gone. The last of Aincrad's Moonswords to fall, and the one she'd never expected to miss so much.
Who'd expect an exile of House Vadalis to take so well to our ways?
And that was what had hurt the most. He'd come so far, from that desperate young warlock who'd made it into Swiftwater Pass. Struggled so bravely; first to fight the evil that had infected him, and then to win true acceptance among the youkai who'd saved him. He'd fought so hard.
And Karrnath had killed him, with no more thought than swatting a fly. Less; the wizards hadn't tried to murder him, they'd tried to murder all medusas, in hopes of truly slaying-
Stheno winced, shoving memory away. It was true memory. But it wouldn't help any of them now.
Rising, she stalked downstream, around a willow-draped bend that with a little magic would block all sound from Kirito's hearing. Even yelling. She rather thought there would be yelling.
A whisper to set the ward of silence, and she raised her hands over the stream. Water flowed up to clawed fingertips, gathering into a shimmering sphere. Sunlight glowed, caught in the lens of water, brighter and brighter-
Cleared, into the massive head of a red dragon. "Lady Stheno," the dragon chuckled. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"
"Lord Beniryuu." Stheno's lips thinned. "Tell me why I shouldn't advise Euryale to rip out your beating heart." Or ask Vincent to plot routes into your lair...
No. That was a threat best left unspoken. In case she ever needed it to be not a threat, but a promise.
Besides. If she knew Valentine, the ranger had already scouted every lair Beniryuu claimed, and several more the dragon was sure no one knew of.
"Charming as ever." A rumbling laugh. "What have you Seen, to make you so testy?"
"You've brought children into Aincrad!"
"Of course I have."
Damn all smug dragons and their thrice-damned Prophecies. "The youkai lords bargained with you for warriors, not children! Willing souls, who would choose to join our land and our cause-"
"And they will." A thread of smoke rose from red-scaled nostrils. "I've watched humans for many centuries, dear lady. They will adapt. Especially the children."
"Not if they're afraid they'll become monsters!" Stheno sank claws into rippling water. "You show them a human being infected by a lycan, and never tell them there's a way to fight the infection? To keep their own minds - their own souls! - and survive?"
"I thought I would leave that to the clan lords in the game. Some of the bakeneko and kamitachi have already adopted their first players." The dragon smirked. "Before this level, none of the players would have had enough magic in their veins to survive casting a purification."
Stheno saw red, and knew she needed the lenses. Even through scrying water, her gaze would have petrified any lesser creature. "This world is a simulation! They don't have to cast the spells-"
"But they will have to, once we bring them to our world. They will have to know exactly what they can do... and how frail an infected human is." The dragon's breath hissed. "We are at war, dear lady. The elves breed thin and slow, yes - but the rest of the nations of Galifar multiply like rabbits, compared to our kind. In the time it takes one dragon to hatch and grow to leave the nest... Hah. Not even half that long. In the decades we need to raise one true-born lycan to master the shift, the humans can train a score of simple spearmen and two mage-wrights to arm them all with silversteel potions. We have no time for half measures!"
"We are youkai, not monsters!" Stheno hissed. "What you have done is wrong! They fear us; they believe they're dying-"
"And if they assume our Aincrad is a game, they will die." The dragon gave her a cold look. "Wrong? This, from Stheno the Fierce? Stheno, blood of Cato herself? Stheno of the Night of Shattered Stone, who slew more than Euryale and Medousa together?"
"Pointless deaths." Grief for her dead still clutched her heart, sharp as if it had been yesterday. "None of it brought our mortal kin back."
"Never pointless." Red eyes glowed with inner fire. "In one night, you broke the back of their mage-corps. You halted the Alliance advance, and bought the youkai lords time to savage them, and drive them beyond the Walls of Storm. In one night, you changed the world!"
So much death. So many lost. Stheno swallowed tears. She hated humans, she would always hate the Five Nations for what they'd done...
But that was the Five Nations. The humans of SAO were innocent.
"And now, we will change it again." Beniryuu's voice was a purring whisper, persuasive as only a dragon's could be. "So they fear what they might become? Good. We want those who can conquer their fear! Would you have them ours first, and only know fear once your blood runs through their veins?"
Stheno's lips tightened, almost baring fangs. She hated dragon charm almost as much as she hated humans. "What. Do. You. Want?"
"Only to know what party has sparked your... reasonable concerns," the dragon said silkily. "Most of those with a high enough level have decided your quest is too perilous for the likely reward. Who looked beyond the obvious, and won your favor?"
And if she didn't tell him, he'd just look in the records of his inscrutable machines. "It wasn't a party. Just a lonely human boy." She sniffed, as if the topic were beneath her. "Really, Lord Beniryuu. I'll slay those who offer me violence, certainly - but a child? What do you take me for?"
"A solo completed your quest?" For the first time in decades, the dragon looked startled. "How?"
"He used his wits, as well as his blade." She smirked at him. "Akihiko Kayaba had best not appear as a foe until the very end, lord dragon. You might find it painful, otherwise."
"So they've already begun to accept that humans can be the enemy." Ruby eyes were half-lidded, thoughtful. "Good. We must nurture that spark within them." The massive head inclined to her, plots already working through the faint haze of magic about him. "Good fortune with your guest, Lady Stheno. I wonder if I'll see him again, in the Black Iron Castle?" A reptilian chuckle. "I wonder what he'll be?"
In a burst of sun-dazzle, her globe rained back down into the stream.
Stheno caught water in cupped palms, and hesitated. The red dragon was pricking at her pride, she knew it...
Yet she couldn't help but wonder. It was such a simple spell.
She pictured the youkai races within her mind, and breathed a name into the water. "Kirito."
Clear liquid clouded, and blackened.
Breath hissed between her teeth as Stheno watched a parade of horror and death. Bakeneko, draconic, lycan, oni; Kirito's spirit flinched from them all, and so many more.
He doesn't want power, Stheno realized. He doesn't long to destroy his enemies. All he wants, is to be himself.
And this was a human Beniryuu had chosen to ensnare in his game? Damned fool of a dragon! Yes, there was enough magic locked in that mortal soul to make a jorougumo spell-weaver drool; magic that would only grow in strength and power, as the young swordsman used that formidable will to stay alive. But the wisps of emotion in his aura were all wrong for a child despairing of ever finding a place in his own world.
Kirito hadn't wanted to flee his home. He'd wanted to find it.
And now you are caught in our war, like the others, Stheno thought sadly. I wish I could-
Black water cleared.
...That's not possible.
Perhaps Beniryuu had left some lingering prank-spell in the water. Perhaps her own heavy heart was deceiving her. Surely, even with twenty thousand humans, the red dragon couldn't have found...
I have to know.
Gathering fresh water with a scoop of her hand, Stheno cast again.
Afternoon. Kirito blinked at golden sunlight, shading his eyes to look around the garden. Except for one bright-combed cockatrice giving him the evil eye from a tree branch, and a few hens and chicks scratching for bugs and seeds, he was alone.
He breathed in a sigh of relief. Stheno's company had been pleasant, yes. Like talking to another person. But time to himself, when he was safe - that was all too rare. Especially in such peaceful surroundings. You didn't see Kermes Knotweed and Orchil Irises every day-
Wait. What?
He'd laid down to nap near a bunch of simple Uncommon Flowers. He'd checked that before letting himself sleep; there wasn't anything much more embarrassing than accidentally rolling over a necessary crafting component. But now, awake-
Kermes Knotweed. Orchil Iris. Shaman's Fingerprints...
The plants even looked subtly different. Some dark green leaves now had lighter sage-green patches near the stems, like fingerprints. Others had leathery fronds and the first hints of red buds that said the root-nodules were ripe for harvesting. The irises had dustings of pollen on their flowers he could smell, like hot sunlight on cedar twigs.
The system's letting my Scan pick up more details. Kirito brushed a finger over one of the Knotweeds, studying it carefully. Why? And why now?
Sitting up, he took off one half-glove to look at Stheno's ring.
Stheno's Gift: the Cockatrice Feather Ring.
Automatic save vs. touch petrification.
+10 vs. petrification/paralysis/poison.
Col: None. Perm-equipped.
So anti-poison and petrification. Nothing about adding bonuses to Scan.
It was the perm-equipped part that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. Kirito could think of a half-dozen reasons why he couldn't take this ring off, and none of them were good.
Well, one might be, the swordsman admitted to himself. If this is just the start of a continuing questline - it might need someone who can't be petrified.
And so far, Sword Art Online had been fair. Not easy, and definitely not safe, but fair. Kayaba wouldn't have programmed in a cursed item without a warning to a player of what they were picking up. He hoped.
Still doesn't explain why my Scan is picking up these herbs. Unless - I finished the quest. Maybe the experience leveled it up more?
With another glance to check that he was still alone, Kirito opened his Skills list. There was his Scan, and yes, it was higher. That could only help the two subtrees he'd already unlocked, Nightvision and Tracking-
Three subtrees, he saw, heart sinking. Magesight.
Oh no. No, no, no; he'd gone for a straight DPS build from the start of the game, even in the beta. Sure, he'd talked to people who had indulged in magic. Like Argo, who'd taken to sneaky spell-code in the game like hackers to slipping through firewalls...
But he'd always fought as a swordsman. And if Argo's information was correct, there was only one way a person could pick up Magesight.
Swallowing hard, Kirito went through his entire Skills list, one by one.
There was one Skill too many.
Sorcery.
That... didn't make sense. SAO magic use came in four Skills you could choose. Wizardry, Mage-crafting, Shamanic Paths, or Potions - which overlapped with Herbalism, if he remembered right. And he'd never picked any of them-!
...He was panicking. That was bad.
Deliberately, Kirito closed his Skills list. And forced a smile. "I think I found a bug."
Even the best beta-tester hadn't gotten past the eighth level. Stheno's Cave was well beyond that. And The Lonely Gorgon was a complicated quest. You had to be able to sneak. You had to be able to fight. You had to be able to recognize and slip past the Magical Wards on the Scarlet Wizard's Library, and then you had to be able to read enough Common and Draconic to puzzle out which of the ancient tomes was his Bestiary. And then you had to put together tales, rumors, and Stheno's own words to figure out something that might work, and search the wilderness for Obsidian Shards a mage-crafter could polish into protective lenses. Which required the Survival Skill, at a level most people just didn't have yet. He wouldn't have leveled it nearly this high so early, if the first Martial Arts Skill quest hadn't somehow led to a continuing quest line. Every few levels, he'd run into his old teacher again, and Vincent Valentine was a ghost in the wilderness.
You needed all of that. And all the while you had to be devious, so the locals wouldn't realize you were trying to be friendly with the man-eating medusa outside town...
Except the Bestiary said medusas didn't eat people. Stheno was a killer, yes. Cannibal monster, no. The Scarlet Wizard had to know that.
So why does everyone think she is?
Something to worry about later. The key problem here was, he'd completed a quest meant for an entire adventuring party. And somehow, the developers had missed the possibility that a solo might do it.
The Sorcery Skill should have been dumped on a magic-user, Kirito thought ruefully. But I was the only one here. So...
What a mess.
Well. Just because he had it, didn't mean he had to use it. Ever. He'd seen the way magic sucked in people in the beta. Even Argo, though she'd kept a fairly level head for someone who could now turn invisible. It was one thing to lean on magic in a game, when you could log out and remind yourself the real world didn't let you throw fireballs. But here and now, with Aincrad their only reality - no. He had to think past the game. He had to get home. And given how much he'd seen people change these past few months, just to survive... no. No magic.
And I'd better not tell Argo I do have it, or she'll never let me hear the end of it-
His hands prickled.
Kirito flexed his fingers, but it didn't seem to be coming from the ring. Just - everywhere. A pulse in his palms, like the one he hadn't felt since his avatar had first opened its eyes. A crackle, like touching cat fur on a cold, dry day. And then a tingling pain, as if that cat had twisted to sink fangs into his flesh-
Something's wrong with my HUD!
His hit points were fluctuating up and down, pulsing in time with the shocking pain. His Skills and Equipment lists were flickering; there, not there, there again, text on them twisting from Japanese to Draconic and back.
Oh god; he really had found a bug.
Bad enough he was locked in a death game at a madman's whim. That he'd forced himself into a life as a solo, a Beater, so the unity of purpose that had brought the players past Illfang would survive. Now he was going to die because of a stupid bug, that nobody had found because Kayaba had been so eager to murder innocent people...
It hurt. Like something was reaching inside him and twisting, and damn it, the game was supposed to be fair-
Make it stop!
Dark fire blazed in his hands.
Kirito bit his lip to keep from yelping, trying to bat the purple-blue flames away. Which was crazy, fire wasn't solid-
Except this... sort of was. He felt something, delicate as a bit of gossamer ribbon, tickling off of his skin as it fluttered toward the stream.
Pop.
Blinking spots out of his eyes, Kirito held still and listened. For one second, all had been dark. Even now there were holes in his vision. Anything might strike through them.
"Hmm." The medusa had a warm chuckle. "Interesting way to wake up."
He glanced Stheno's way, cursing the still-dark splotches in his vision. "That wasn't- I didn't mean to-"
"Hush." Clawed fingers gripped his shoulder, points just pricking the surface of his coat. "Catch your breath. The first casting always hurts." She crouched slightly, dark lenses meeting his gaze. "You're not going to run screaming, are you? Galifar humans think sorcery comes from monstrous blood in your lineage, but I'd hoped your islands knew differently."
Exhaustion hit like a wave; if it hadn't been for her hand, he would have stumbled. His Skills and Equipment lists shimmered, then closed. His HUD-
Two bars where there should have been one. HP was green, but slightly down, just as it got when you fought for hours without taking a break. And below that, in the yellow that marked half-exhausted...
MP. It wasn't there before. I didn't have it.
Kirito shivered. And decided maybe, just maybe, it was the better part of valor to sit down.
Ack.
Ah. Right. Sit, and unlatch his sword harness, so he could sit without poking either of them somewhere unpleasant. If Stheno hadn't attacked by now, she wasn't going to get aggro'd by a few questions. "What's... sorcery?"
"Huh." Stheno settled herself on the green beside him, snakes alert and interested. "That, I didn't expect... shhh, shhh, it's all right. Sorcery doesn't mean you're a youkai. All that lives has magic. Wizards tap it through study and practice. Shamans speak with the spirits, the fay, the elements themselves. Potion-makers, mage-crafters - they use skill and hands to draw magic from themselves and the world about them. But in those of us with sorcery... hmm." She knuckled her chin, thinking. "If wizardry taps a deep well within, in sorcerers that well bubbles closer to the surface. Like a spring." A soft laugh. "And when we're young, and don't know how to use what grows within us... eventually, it bubbles over."
Which implied this could happen again. Damn it. He cradled his sword closer to his shoulder, glad for the familiar weight of steel. "I'm a swordsman."
Stheno raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to go on.
That, or the AI just didn't parse it. Kirito sighed, tired beyond what the HP bar could show. "Is there any way to get rid of sorcery?" He hadn't asked for this Skill. If the game was fair, there should be a way to wipe it off his list.
"There is." Stheno glanced away, troubled.
Oh, wonderful. If he'd thought her quest was hard, this one might be deadly-
"Why do you want to?" The medusa folded her hands over each other, as if afraid they'd betray some emotion she wished hidden. Her snakes stirred like a restless wind. "I have seen those who've had power scourged from their spirits. There is something... empty... about them."
Which implied getting rid of Sorcery would cost him at least a level or two. Ouch.
I can win back lost levels. I'm not going to give up my self. "I have allies who have taken up magic since we were brought here," Kirito said quietly. "They're different now. It's hard to describe." His hands curled, fighting not to become fists. "It's as if they forget they can solve their problems any other way. As if they think they were born to it, and just remembering, and it's our world that's becoming the dream. I-" He stopped. Took a deep breath. "My family is waiting for me. I won't let them become strangers." Not twice. Not again. "I will go anywhere in this world to defeat the Ebon Wolf and win us free. But I'll do it with this sword."
Stheno's shoulders slumped. "Is that your choice, then?"
"Yes." The AI probably wouldn't get this, but he had to say it to someone. "What good is all the magic in the world, when one bite from a wererat..."
He couldn't go on. He hadn't had to kill a turned player to protect himself, not yet. Not directly. But he had led one luckless maddened soul through a nest of Venus Man-traps. That lonely, raging howl, cut off by crunch and snap-
"There were no shamans in the City of Beginnings?" Stheno frowned. "And of course, there were no Moonswords. There have never been many, and we lost the few that survived in the Last War."
The Last War. He could hear the pain and fear of it in her voice. But the hint was too valuable to pass up. "Shamans can help? I know they can cure wounds, but - lycanthropy?"
"If an infected soul is brought to them in time," Stheno stated. "It's not a minor evocation. The shaman must have a strong helper spirit, even to cleanse an infected bite. To cure one the curse has fully taken - that needs the most powerful of spirit-workers. And even they may fail."
Kirito swallowed, mind racing. I have to tell Argo this. Get player shamans talking to the NPCs. If there are high-level NPC shamans willing to help us-!
"But before the Last War bled us," Stheno went on, "while we still sought to rein in errant lycans, unaware of the depths of the Ebon Wolf's evil... we found another way."
Kirito tensed. And guessed. "Moonswords?"
The medusa inclined her head, cobra hoods flaring. "The greatest barrier to a cure is time. From the moment teeth meet in flesh, the victim is racing the moon, and the darkness in their own soul. Some have the strength to fight for weeks. Others, only hours. And often the greatest shamans are old and frail. They have no place on the battlefield." Snake eyes dipped, almost a wink. "Though I wouldn't try telling Grandmother Tetsutora that. I rather favor not being a pincushion."
Grandmother Iron Tiger? Eep. "So someone has to buy time to get infected people to a shaman," Kirito thought out loud. "Which means they have to be there, while the fight's going on..." His breath caught. "Lady Stheno. What is a Moonsword?"
A wistful smile crossed her face. "A wielder of eldritch power, who can fight."
If he were in his own body, Kirito thought he might be deafened by the blood racing in his ears. "Please," he said faintly. "Explain."
"There are herbs that can be used to clean wounds." Stheno gestured to her garden. "But it takes Magesight to find them; like a lycan, such herbs disguise themselves as something else. Shaman's Fingerprints is one of the easiest to use. Its virtue is weak, but if the wound is only a scratch, it may be enough. A Moonsword begins with his Sight, and his courage; for while his powers are small he must be there before the curse takes hold." Her shaded gaze met his, fathomless. "But over time, a Moonsword can do more than just delay the curse. The evil in the wound that goes beyond the shift of body, the curse that twists an innocent mind and heart to raving bloodlust and horror - that is a monster. And that monster can be fought."
Kirito drew himself up straight, intent. "How?"
"Lycans can adopt with a Bloodstone, like any youkai," Stheno said plainly. "But when they bite... what is forced on an unwilling soul is two infections, not one. The first touches only the body, changing mortal blood to one of us. The second - that malevolence is a fragment of the akuma that is the curse itself." Clawed hands curled and uncurled, as if she would rend that demonic spirit with her bare hands. "When a human will loses the battle to survive, that akuma-shard fuses with their soul. Twists it. Taints it. But if a Moonsword can reach a human before they lose that battle - with enough power, you can pull the akuma from spirit to flesh. And if it can bleed..."
"It can die," Kirito breathed. Hearing that howl in memory. That scream, that meant he would live, but someone else's loved one had died.
If only I'd had another way. If only-
Wait. "You said, you." Kirito blurted out. "I'm not-"
"But you could be." She gazed at him, resolute. "You have the strength. You have the will." A quiet smile. "Most of all, you have the heart. How many humans would help a monster stop killing?"
...It wasn't a bug.
Cardinal hadn't dumped Sorcery on him by default. If what Stheno said about Moonswords was accurate - the quest had been meant for a fighter who didn't want to kill. Who didn't look at a youkai and think monster.
Kirito hugged himself and his sword, trying not to tremble. With fear or rage, he wasn't sure. Kayaba was killing people. How could the man have written a quest meant to gauge kindness? "Did - did you give me sorcery, Lady Stheno?"
Cobra hoods furled, as Stheno sighed. "I could have," she said levelly. "I am a youkai lord. I have that power."
A youkai lord. Kirito tensed, somehow not surprised. No wonder she could pull off a TPK. They're supposed to be as strong as a raid boss.
"But I did not," the medusa went on. "I would not force power on anyone." A soft chuckle, as she ran her fingers over a stray cockatrice feather. "Mind, I may have nudged it a bit. The way your aura was sparking, your power would have surfaced on its own in a few more days. Likely in the midst of a battle. That is far too common, for young sorcerers." She grimaced. "With the foes now loose in Aincrad, that could have meant your death." She waved a hand around the garden. "So I let you rest here, where magic breathes in the very air. And waited."
Sorcery Skill might be a level-based random event. Kirito frowned, trying to think how he could frame this for Argo. And high-magic areas might add a bonus to the encounter roll-
"So I did not break the shell. Only-"
Her hand moved, too fast to see.
"Tapped it," Stheno said softly, fingertip touching his forehead, claw pressing down just slightly above. "Given the chance, you hatched out well enough on your own."
Hand on the hilt of his sword, Kirito swallowed. And let go. He was used to being the fastest fighter in the room. Stheno was faster.
"I have not dealt with many human sorcerers." Stheno withdrew her hand. "But I have helped many of the adopted learn to live among us. So I know the fear you speak of, when you say those who use magic may lose themselves." She glanced at the hilt resting against his shoulder. "You did not know you were a sorcerer before you came to Aincrad. Did you know you were a swordsman?"
It was on the tip of his tongue to say yes, of course. He'd always planned to conquer this world with wits and steel-
But that was when it was just a game. When losing a fight meant you just had to respawn. When getting bitten by a monster... just lowered your HP. Nothing else.
Four months of death, and everything had changed. He calculated his moves before he made them. Checked every angle of attack, every route that might possibly be used to escape. Because now if a fight was going badly, you didn't stay to the glorious end. You ran.
And then they chase you. A wry smile tugged at Kirito's lips, as he remembered a dark dungeon corridor, a massively overconfident lizardman, and a kukri that had swung so close...
Even now, he still felt some of that hot thrill. Knowing he'd timed his dodge right, knowing this was going to work-
Kirito swallowed dryly, facing the truth. I enjoyed that.
On the one hand, that was no surprise. This was the game he'd longed to play for months, and there was no greater rush than reaching the very limit of your skill, and winning. On the other...
"No," Kirito admitted, to himself as much as Stheno. Swordplay had been a game. Now it was his life. "I thought I knew. But... no. I didn't know."
"Life changes all of us," Stheno acknowledged. "Even an immortal. You should not fear your magic, any more than you fear your sword."
"Or any less?" Kirito shot back.
"Ha! Just so." She clapped her hands and rose, pleased. "Just so, young swordsman." She paused, and weighed him with a look. "Or should I say, young Moonsword?"
Kirito stood, slinging his sword back over his shoulder. "I don't even know how to use Shaman's Fingerprints."
"That, I will teach you..."
Werewolves. Klein gutted the last Werewolf Guardsman with a snarl, not listening to the cheers start as the Limping Werewolf Lord was destroyed. Because Kunimittz was down, Kunimittz had been bitten, and if Issin couldn't heal him...
Fuurinkazan gathered around their fallen man, and waited for the verdict. Klein could already see it wasn't good. The curly-haired tank's icon had gone dire orange, and his HP kept fluctuating between green and yellow, despite their bakeneko shaman's hissed spells.
Klein gulped, and prayed. Despite what everybody had seen on Opening Day, lycanthropic infection wasn't quite as fast-moving as Kayaba had portrayed it. The reality was more than nasty enough. It was a DOT, and if you didn't get it completely, it kept gnawing at you...
If it goes red, we've lost him.
Klein went to one knee and gripped Kunimittz' whole hand. "Hang in there. You fight, got it? We're going to beat this."
From the way Issin's black-furred ears flattened against his head, they all knew he was lying.
Damn it. I wish we'd all asked that nekomata now.
But the two-tailed cat youkai had only been interested in their shaman. And even if the offer had been made, the thought of living in the game as something not quite human was spooky...
Only spooky beat monster any day of the week. His guild trusted him to lead them, to make the right call - and damn it, this wasn't fair.
Kunimittz glanced at his own HP bar, and swallowed hard. "Guys? Do me a favor."
"Kun," Klein said warningly, gripping his katana hilt. Damn it, he could hear someone running this way. If the other guilds knew Kunimittz was about to turn-
The tank's smile was bleak. "Get me to the edge before I go nuts, okay?"
Hell. It made sense, damn it; once a bitten player's HP went red they were pretty much dead anyway. The system took over and tried to make them bite everyone.
But not Kunimittz. Not one of his guild, damn Kayaba to hell!
"Leader." Kunimittz' voice sank. "Klein, please. Damn it, I'm not going to take you guys down too-"
"If you give up now," a familiar voice growled, "I'll kill you myself!"
Kirito?
Klein hadn't even been sure Kirito would show up for this boss fight. The last time the guilds had met, Kibaou had been nattering on about Beaters again, and Kirito had just disappeared on some damn-fool quest.
One of these days, that's going to get him killed. Or worse.
Apparently not today. The black-clad swordsman skidded down to one knee beside Issin. Opened his inventory with a pull of fingers, and yanked out odd green leaves. "Use these on the wound as an augment. Cast again!"
"Augment?" Issin blanched. "I've got a little of the Silent Casting subtree, but augment's more a Potions thing-"
"Then damn it, just cast!" Kirito crushed the herbs on Kunimittz' bitten arm, whispering words that seemed to ripple the air over the wound and set veins of green leaves glowing with a violet-and-blue fire.
Activate Component, Klein recognized, gaping. Since when did Kirito pick up magic?
Issin, bless his furry ears, didn't waste time asking. He just gripped Kunimittz' arm tight enough his claws scraped armor, and gritted out the words to Heal one more time...
Kunimittz' cursor shattered. Klein's world went gray.
Orange shards shimmered. Coalesced, slowly coming together, orange to red to purple to blue-
Green. And whole again.
Bite and leaves shattered and vanished, leaving unmarked skin behind.
"What's going on over there?" Thinker came through the gathering crowd, a contingent of relieved Army guys behind him. "Is something wrong?"
Thinker, not Kibaou. Good. Klein was in a mood to hit someone, and if it'd been the idiot loudmouth he wouldn't have had the will to hold back. "Nothing's wrong. Now." I hope. "Issin?"
"It worked." The shaman sagged in relief. "Kunimittz. You're okay." Black ears perked up. "What was that stuff?"
Kirito paled. "You didn't hear Argo's shout?"
"She has a new bulletin," Thinker nodded, as Fuurinkazan looked at each other. "It came in just before the boss fight. I checked for keywords, there was nothing on this level's boss-"
Kirito buried his face in his hands. "Read it."
Klein eyed his solitary buddy, and flipped through his own menu until he got to his messages. That was the kind of tone that usually came with sharp edges piercing you somewhere painful.
Argo Alert - New Bulletin, read the simple message header. The bulletin itself was a good ten pages. No wonder people had skipped reading it right way, if there wasn't anything on the boss-
A screen capture of familiar dark leaves. Shaman's Fingerprints. Must be found with Magesight. Bonus on save vs. infection. Augment for Heal spells, vs. infection.
Oh. Oops.
Thinker's eyes went wide. "There's a cure?"
"There's a treatment." Kirito lifted his head, hands dropping to his sides. "Shaman's Fingerprints isn't powerful, but it's easy to activate. You don't need magic to use it. Though using it to augment a Heal makes the save better." He materialized more leaves out of his inventory, handing them to the astonished guild leader. "Argo has seeds. The last I heard, she'd found a farmer on level 10 who's going to try growing them."
Thinker took the herbs, eyebrows almost brushing curly hair. "A second chance... how did anyone find this?"
Kirito shrugged. "Ask Argo. The herb likes woodland glades. She said something about the developers having a ginseng fixation."
Klein blinked, and did his best not to let surprise show on his face. Ask Argo, my foot. This was rare info, the kind that could change the whole game. Argo wasn't going to sell who found it in case Kibaou and other morons started screaming about Beaters keeping life-saving secrets again-
Oh. I'm an idiot.
Rare, game-changing info. And Kirito had been gone for days. On a quest.
Damn it, no wonder he's being shifty. If people know it's him - ouch.
Gone long enough to have missed Issin getting adopted. Klein almost held his breath, as Kirito looked at Issin - claws, catlike ears, just an overall air of wild - and Issin looked warily back. Helping a shaman in the middle of a fight was one thing; Kirito wouldn't cut and run on someone hurt. Now?
This is no place to talk. "So, Issin," Klein said loudly. "What do we need to do so somebody in Fuurinkazan can help you activate that stuff next time?"
The bakeneko relaxed a little. "Well, from Argo's notes, if somebody's got Herbalism..."
...And Kirito was fading back out of the boss room. Good.
As the guilds regrouped and everybody started talking about taverns for drinks, Klein swiped open his message menu.
Kirito. Buddy. We need to talk.
Safe in the most warded garden in the capital of true Aincrad, Stheno fed her flock, considering magic, and fate.
"You look pensive, sister."
"Euryale." Stheno nodded to her chainmail-clad sister, careful not to meet gray eyes. From the way silvery serpents coiled and hissed, the Council of Lords had put the younger medusa in a mood. And when she grew angry, Euryale's gaze was deadly. "I was only thinking on our bargain with Beniryuu." Stheno sighed. "After the Last War, I had hoped to go back to my woodland glade. Yet here I remain, caged even as those young humans in the other world are, so you may guard me when my spirit walks in a dragon's waking dream. It's oddly fitting."
Euryale scowled, claws stroking air near the belt coil that held her spare bowstring. "Nothing to do with humans is fitting."
Ah. So it'd been another battle with the Council over the young ones. Not surprising. "Then perhaps we should tell our fellow lords to stop thinking of those of SAO as human," Stheno said, a bit more sharply than she'd intended. Euryale might champion her vision in public, and save her doubts for the privacy of her sister's garden, but Stheno was not another weak-willed courtier currying favor. Even if her strength was in divination, not the battlefield. "Some of them are not, even now. And many more of them will be youkai, before Beniryuu's arcane device runs its course. That their adoption is only of the spirit - for now - and not of the body, makes it no less real." Her breath caught. "Especially for the warlocks."
"Warlocks." Euryale's scowl deepened. "Creating warlocks. This is madness."
Stheno cast her a look askance.
"Your power is controlled, sister," Euryale admitted, grudging every word. "You rule the wild magic that flows through you. But you have a medusa's will, and millennia of discipline to chain your power. How could any magicless human ever hope to do the same?" She snarled under her breath. "Human warlocks, told they're sorcerers instead. Sorcerers told they're wizards! Sister - you can't think this will work!"
"Remaking the rules of magic, so we may shape it in our favor? It might," Stheno said thoughtfully. "With an arcane device, with a great dragon's will to draw all the power of a planar conjunction, with thousands of souls fighting for survival who do not know what magic cannot do... it just might."
"But warlocks?" Euryale's lip curled in disbelief.
"The daelkyr went to great lengths to eliminate any Moonswords - and any warlocks who might become Moonswords - they could find," Stheno reminded her. "Powers they fear, we should nurture. And if we can train Moonswords, restoring the gifts the Gatekeepers struggled to keep alive these six thousand years, only to mourn them as lost to human hate and vengeance... then we may find allies in the Shadow Marches." And we need allies, sister. We need them. More than you can imagine.
From the way silver snakes curled, Euryale heard what she did not say. "You say all other paths lead to death and ruin," she stated. "You say this mad scheme is Aincrad's best hope-"
"It is," Stheno murmured. "May the gods forgive us."
"Forgive us for working our will on humans?" Euryale leaned in toward her, fangs bared. "What do you think the gods made them for? They are weaker than we, they are less than we; they spark and die in less than fourscore years, and perish still bleating for someone to save them. And you and Beniryuu and Tetsutora, of all lycans, claim that we should clasp these weakling murderers to our bosom!"
Naked hate. Coiling rage. Stheno stood in the teeth of it, and endured. "They are hope, sister."
"Humans destroyed our hope!"
"Not these humans." Euryale might rule this city and those within it, but Stheno would not yield. "They did not curse the Walls of Storm to be barren, land and youkai alike. They did not try to spread that taint even to the snowmelt, to poison our land..."
Her throat seized with grief. The Walls of Storm had been cursed for millennia, sad victims of wizard-wars between demi-humans and the goblin shamans who had once called this land home. But centuries ago her mortal kin had discovered a loophole in that baneful magic: though earth and stone of those mountains were cursed never to bear life again, the snow and water were not.
Craft magic with elementals of air and water, shape snowmelt to an airy, solid lattice to hold earth away from the mountain's bones - and that rescued soil lived.
It had been hard, painstaking work. But even mortal medusas had time. Inch by inch, decade by decade, green had begun to cloak the mountains once more. The starkest pass through the Wall had become a haven of boreal jungle, inviting trade...
But with trade had come travelers, and the Dark Pack, and disaster.
The way of the world was war. Stheno had seen too many centuries to deny that. Humans and youkai would fight. That was how the gods had shaped them. To think otherwise... as well wish for autumn never to come, or spring to never return.
What she could not forgive - what she would never forgive - was that last Making cast by Karrnathi wizards. The mountains' curse surging into snow and water for one awful night, killing and maiming everything it touched...
We're thousands of miles from their borders. We've never threatened them!
But the Dark Pack had, just as they'd threatened every human and demi-human in the Five Nations. And among the human kingdoms, Karrnath's greatest rival was Breland - who were just across the Walls.
Strike down Aincrad's strongest defenders, Karrnath reasoned, and Breland would turn on them surely as wolves on limping deer. And with Breland's attention fixed on Aincrad... Karrnath had a host of opportunities.
And they are taking them. "The next ten years are critical." Stheno kept her voice steady, even when she wanted to weep. "Karrnath must be distracted before their undead army grows enough to threaten Aundair. For now, their necromancers only use the bodies the Karrnathi give them. Once the warmongers around the court unleash those hordes, and gain even a city's worth of corpses to add to them..."
"So? Let the humans war with each other again." Euryale shrugged. "It will only profit us."
"It will not." Stheno clenched her fists, claws digging at skin. "The paths have not changed! If Karrnath wins, the undead hordes come for us next. If Breland is the victor, the battle with us weakens them so Cyran survivors fracture the nation, and the Mournland spreads. If Aundair triumphs, they will tear Flamekeep from its foundations, and the demons prisoned there will bring darkness to us all. And if Thrane wins - the Church of the Silver Flame spreads, and is corrupted, and comes for us. We need another way!"
Euryale let out a hissing breath. "And you think these humans will be your unseen path? Sister..."
"If you find another alternative, tell me." Crystal chimed in the sleeve of her dress, signaling that a player approached Stheno's Cave. "I must do what I can."
"Tread carefully, sister." Euryale stepped away. "I am not the only Lord who doubts Beniryuu."
Elegant as a steel blade, she stalked out of sight.
Stheno sighed, and found her comfortable carved-boulder chair. Took the crystalline diadem from her sleeve, and settled it on her brow. "Link start!"
She opened her eyes to another garden, and listened.
"They didn't read it?" An unfamiliar young woman's voice, incredulous and accusing.
"Everyone was nerved up for the boss fight." Kirito's reply was quiet, and maybe a little rueful. "Ten pages. You need to break it into smaller chunks."
"Shorter's always harder than longer, Ki-bou. I can't believe they didn't read it!"
"They did. After the boss fight." From the echoes, Kirito had paused in the tunnel exit. "Stay here. And don't make any sudden moves. The cockatrices aren't aggressive, but the chicks are curious."
"Cockatrices?"
"Heh." Kirito raised his voice. "Lady Stheno? You asked me to bring one I trusted."
"So I did." Stheno moved through her garden, plants parting before her to unveil a cloaked, brown-haired girl, with odd whisker-markings on her face. "And so you have. Argo the Rat. An interesting choice."
Argo's jaw dropped. Stheno had a feeling that didn't happen often. "You know who I am?" she almost squeaked.
"Very complex AI," Kirito said under his breath.
If you only knew. "Your guidebooks have made interesting reading," Stheno stated. And interesting fodder for her translation spells, as well. If her people were going to take in humans from another world, she wanted to know how they thought. "I knew there were strange humans in Aincrad, though I did not know how strange until Kirito braved my cave. Even so, I knew you were not a wizard as Galifar knows them." She arched an eyebrow, truly curious. "They hoard their knowledge; at best, they share it only amongst others of arcane bent. You and your fellow lost humans seem to share it. If sometimes for a fee. Is this common in your islands?"
"Ah..."
"Cardinal can read our pulse and respiration, even if we can't feel them." Kirito's voice was barely above a whisper. "Stick to the truth."
Interesting. Stheno had known Beniryuu's computer could detect some falsehood without magic, but she hadn't known how.
Yet you knew, little human. How?
"Yes and no," Argo said cautiously, eyeing the bright feathers and teeth peering out of the bushes. "On our islands, people like to work together to solve problems. And... being stuck here is a problem." She looked around, eyes wide and interested. "Though this is one of the most beautiful places I've seen."
"It is my garden, and my allies', and I do what I can," Stheno acknowledged. "Once there were gardens more beautiful still, carved from the cursed mountains, the Walls of Storm, by my people's hands and magic. Before the humans came. Before the Dark Pack struck, and human vengeance consumed us all." Grief stabbed her. She paused, waiting for it to unclench its grip. "Shall I tell you of them?"
Argo nodded, eyes alight with the hunger to know. "We would be honored."
Buddha, what a mess. Argo shared some rations with Kirito as they mulled over Stheno's story. The background info before Sword Art Online had started said humans and youkai were enemies. Some of the game fluff had given reasons why. But this was different.
It's like talking to someone who was actually there. Who saw everyone they loved... die.
Someone who'd had the power to take one night of terrifying vengeance. Stheno hadn't tried to gloss over how she'd infiltrated the heart of each army's arcane corps, armed with an enchantment of look at me and her own terrible gaze.
And special squads of stealthy, strong youkai to follow her. Armed with sledgehammers.
"That's why you hide as just another monster, isn't it?" Argo asked, after Stheno fell silent. "The Five Nations are still looking for you."
"They were always looking for me," the medusa said quietly. "That is half the reason my mortal kin were slain, in hopes that death would slay me, too... You truly must be from another world. I am Stheno the Fierce, yes. But I am also Stheno of the True Sight."
Kirito looked up from the blissful hen in his lap, fingers still scratching through glossy feathers. "You're a seer."
The medusa inclined her head.
Kirito drew a deliberate breath. "Then how-?"
"I do not See every possible future," Stheno said levelly. "Who could? I See what I know to ask of. And even then, I see not a future, but - paths. Options, taken and untaken. The Karrnathi wizards have ways to cloud divination. And they were clever. They did not cast a curse. Instead, they twisted the malevolence already clinging to the mountains' bones. Amplified it. And struck." Obsidian lenses glinted as she shook her head. "Now only the minotaurs dare dwell in the Swiftwater Pass, where the bones of my mortal children lie. The Walls of Storm are abandoned, save for those youkai who can resist the venom within the very earth."
"Which means the Alliance can't cross them, either," Argo pointed out.
"They cannot settle them," Stheno corrected her. "But adventurers and armies have recourse to the power of their gods, who can bring forth clean water from the very air. The Five Nations of Galifar can attack us, if they choose." Her voice sank. "And sooner or later, they will."
Argo sat silent, furiously chewing over everything they'd been told, and how it might fit into SAO's ultimate quest. Humans have killed youkai, and youkai have killed humans. No one's just evil here. Everyone had a reason for what they did.
With one big, glaring exception. "So why did the Dark Pack start infecting humans?"
"Because they could," Stheno answered. "Lycanthropy is a curse, young human. Some lycans choose to fight it, and vanquish the demon-taint within. Others... choose to do what they wish, rather than what is right." She stretched out a clawed hand, palm up. "And humans are so very fragile. It is easy for youkai to see them as less. As weaklings. As playthings, to be toyed with and broken."
Kirito glanced at her. "But you don't."
Stheno smiled, just a little. "Medusas are fragile, too. We are agile, and fast. We can endure grievous wounds, if we train our magic to heal ourselves. But we are not oni, who can shrug off a dragon's blow and fight on. Nor are we lycans, who barely notice blades not of silver or magic." A susurrus of snakes, shifting in dark red hair. "We are not so different. And like you, we know we make mistakes."
Guilt, Argo thought, looking at that scale-speckled face. "You didn't stop the Dark Pack," she blurted out, before she could think it through. Oh, that was a bad idea...
"I did not," Stheno said quietly. "I told myself that I could not. That I was no warrior, to take on trained lycans and live. That they were far away, in human lands, and how could I walk there without causing greater panic than even a vampire? And all of that was true." Her shoulders slumped. "But I should have found a way. They are evil. And evil must always be fought. Even when it comes in the guise of your dearest kin."
Evil has to be fought. Argo mulled over that thought. That's the core of the game. Human or monster; if it's evil, you can't turn away. You have to do something. She could already think of a few ways that might factor into the later levels-
Kirito set the cockatrice down. "I'm sorry." He held out his hands. "No one should have to lose everything because of one mistake."
Cobras stilled as Stheno looked at his open arms, as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Frankly, Argo wasn't sure she believed it. Sure, under all that Beater lone-wolf attitude Kirito was a nice kid, but Stheno was a medusa...
Stheno's breath hitched, and she froze.
Oh boy. Um. Ki-bou. Snakes.
One cobra rubbed its jaw along the edge of Kirito's ear, as he leaned into her shoulder. "I wish it hadn't happened," he said quietly. "I know it hurts."
"You are a very strange human."
"I guess." Kirito had an odd half-smile on his face. "I know what it's like to be lonely. And to know you could have done something. And didn't."
Okay, now Argo was getting a kind of hair-raising prickling on her neck feeling. What could Kirito have done to make him feel like he had anything in common with a youkai lord?
"So you say-" Stheno cut herself off, as she and Kirito both glanced toward the tunnel exit.
Uh-oh. Argo focused her attention and listened; she hadn't leveled up her Scan as much as Kirito obviously had...
Armor clinking. A low conversation.
"Heh, heh, heh." Stheno's grin flashed fangs. "Visitors."
A/N: TPK - Total Party Kill.
DOT - Damage Over Time.
The most drastic alterations from Eberron canon: Galifar nations and Valenar are a lot less tolerant of "monster taxpayers" and "sorcery" (really warlock powers, as opposed to wizardry and D&D canon sorcery). Droaam is now Aincrad, and instead of the Daughters of Sora Kell, it was the three medusas (Stheno, Euryale, and Medousa) who led their mortal relatives (other medusas) and other monsters centuries ago to claim a dark and savage territory as a land for youkai. The youkai have some interesting druidic-type spells to reshape areas more to their liking, and Kayaba is a red dragon with an eye toward the Prophecies and an arcane device.
And medusas (and most youkai) are much more Cute Monster Girls (and Guys) than D&D canon. I freely admit the bunnies went a bit berserk with this (and some of the magic), likely because I'd had high hopes for a particular Eberron novel with medusas in it and... well, not so much.
SAO icon colors: PCs are green if they've committed no crimes, orange if they have. Red (not SAO canon) has been added for "infected and not sane"; the players have no idea how the program manages that, since they have no idea it's not exactly a program... NPCs are often green with an "NPC" tag under their HP bar. Inactive monsters and some NPCs may be yellow. Quest-giving NPCs may have a gold icon. Active monsters are red, and red with a yellow border around the icon means "needs to be killed to complete a quest". The shade of red indicates how dangerous they are: monsters weaker than a player are light pink to white, those of equal level are red, those of higher level are purple. Finally, dark crimson is "cannot be defeated by you, no way, no how, run for it."
Note that players see icon colors based on their level and Scan. A 40th level player will see a 40th level monster as red, while a 50th level player would see it as pink, and a 10th level player would see it as dark crimson.
