Vibrant green grass, clear water, refreshing breeze. The 22nd floor was just as picturesque as always.
Right now, that image was cracking. In Drifter's mind, the once beautiful 22nd floor, that lake with the weeping willow, the house Asuna wanted to buy... It was all being consumed by red.
His pupils were blown out, his heart was beating faster than ever before. And yet, he felt colder than he ever had before.
There was only one thing in his vision. Only one monster. Cruel red eyes underneath a skull mask, not a trace of humanity in them.
Red-Eyed XaXa stood amidst a swirling vortex of particles. Of death.
"Kekekekekekeke!"
And he laughed.
Something snapped. Drifter roared.
"XaXa!"
------------------------
7 hours earlier, 43rd floor of Aincrad. Reaver's Requiem first primary party. Party leader: Broken Spear Drifter.
"Snake Bite!"
Drifter's spear shot out, winding around a scaly arm to stab deep into the chest of the attacker. The blow went clean through the mob as it burst into shards.
"And that's the last one."
Agil commented from where he had been watching the fight, his ax-head on the ground and arms crossed, leaning on the hilt.
Drifter spun his spear deftly through his fingers and stabbed it on the ground next to him. Then he sat down and opened his inventory, pulling out one of Asuna's fresh sandwiches.
"10 minutes, everybody. Agil, can you keep lookout?"
"No probs, chief."
The rest of his party sat down around him, and started eating their own snacks. Griselda and Kizmel had their heads together, talking quietly about something or other, with Liz throwing a few comments now and again.
The sixth member of their party sat down next to Drifter, eating silently. The spearmaster spared Ran a glance, but didn't bother her. He recognized this as her normal 'I'm-tired-let-me-eat-in-peace' mood instead of the brooding 'I'm-a-liabilily' one she sometimes spiraled down.
Whatever it was that happened to Ran in the 40th floor boss raid, it never surfaced again. Most people had forgotten about it, but the swordswoman could still sometimes be caught looking at nothing and grimacing.
Drifter, her, and Yuuki, as well as Nautilus and Sinon, since they were the later two's lovers, had discussed at length the possibility of Ran's freezing having something to do with her disease.
Ran had been the one to point out that her AIDS getting the better over her was a very real scenario. Merida had died because of her ailment, after all, even if it hadn't been AIDS. No one had liked it, but they had to admit it was the most likely cause.
Which raised a whole new set of distasteful but important questions. First of which was: if it really had to do with Ran's disease, then why wasn't she dead?
Maybe it had been just a particularly bad outbreak. Or it had something to do with external influences. New medicines or treatments that could be used even while they were immersed in FullDive. The twins did say that they used to feel a little sick over the course of SAO's first months, but that stopped after a while.
Another question was, of course, will it happen again? It hadn't yet, and, in fact, Ran said that physically, she felt better than ever.
Which lead to another vital, but in no way the last, doubt: would it happen to Yuuki to?
Their end conclusion was that it didn't matter. It was a dangerous variable, a potentially deadly one, but there was nothing they could do about it but soldier on and get out of SAO as soon as possible.
So Drifter bit the 'how are you doing?' he was about to ask Ran, and turned his head to look over the floor.
The 43rd was a lot... Lackluster compared to other floors. Ground of brown, cracked stone, boulders jutting out here and there. And that was pretty much it. No trees, no vegetation, no discerning landmarks.
At least it made spotting the mobs easy. The Sand Tribe Lizardmen, for all that they had scales the same color as most of the floor, couldn't exactly hide when they stood at twice the height of a human.
With a muscular tail in place of a lower body, the lizardman had a certain range of flexibility that surpassed players'. But it was far from enough to win against the elites of Reaver's Requiem.
That was to say that, all in all, their journey so far on this floor had been fairly standard and stress-free. Not that Drifter would ever say that out loud, he wasn't a masochist to tempt fate, thank you very much.
He should have. Whatever the 43rd floor could throw at them would have been nothing in comparison to what the next hours would bring.
But the disaster didn't start here or now. It began on another floor, with a different ground of Reavers.
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31st floor, first secondary Reaver's Requiem party. Party leader: Shigio.
The 31st floor was famous for having some of the most annoying enemies in all of Aincrad. Be it the Wailing Owls or Burning Wraiths, or even the field-boss Scorched Seraphim, they were all berserk mobs. They kept attacking and attacking without giving you any room to breathe.
That wasn't really a problem to the Reavers party. Even if they didn't have any of the guild's main hitters, they were far too over-levelled for the mobs to be of any danger to them. Shigio, their tank, could stand still and let an entire pack of mobs go to town in him, and it would still take them nearly 10 minutes to deplete his health, thanks to his Battlefield Regeneration skill.
That being the case, it was pretty obvious none of the 4 Reavers in the party, Shigio, Keita, Sachi, and Tetsuo, could gain any experience from the mobs. But that was okay. They weren't here for EXP anyway.
"Got another one! Two in a row, baby! With that, we've got 49 Broken Magma Beaks. What's our Cota again?"
Tetsuo smashed a Wailing Owl apart with just 4 hits of his mace, and cheered when he checked the loot. Broken Magma Beaks only had a 1 in 5 drop chance. Sachi doused his enthusiasm in cold water, however.
"Liz asked for 160."
"Ow, man! That's gonna take forever! Why couldn't we just buy them like we do with other stuff?"
Sachi rolled her eyes at his whining.
"Because, like I already explained, it's expensive as hell. It's a key component for forging blunt weapons at floor 40 and above. Like the new mace that Liz promised you. Unless I should tell her you don't want it anymore?"
"Wait, wait, wait! Let's not be drastic here!"
Shigio and Keita laughed at the byplay. It was already the third in that vein today, and they had only been farming the drops for 4 fours.
Material gathering assignments were never fun, unless you enjoyed bullying mobs a lot weaker than you - it could actually be quite cathartic. But it was an essential part of a guild's livelihood, and someone had to do it.
The Reavers rotated the players tasked with it depending on what materials were needed, and what types of enemies to make it more efficient, but a lot of the time it fell onto the former Black Cats, mostly because leveling time wasn't as essential for them as it was for the frontliners in the guild.
Shigio, Wolv, and/or Agil usually volunteered to join them, both because landing a hand to the three clearers made things quicker, and also because they already had the contacts to offload the surplus loot they acquired.
Today it was just Shigio. Agil was with Drifter, and Wolv was tagging along with Kirito's party.
"Alright, less squabbling and more farming. Let's see if we can end this before nightfall. You don't wanna have to come back tomorrow, do you, Tetsuo?"
"Hell no! I don't even get any One-Handed Hammer proficiency from these weaklings."
"Then let's get this done. Argo's info says there's a spawn point somewhere to our east. If it's unoccupied, we can camp it. Hopefully it will speed things along."
...
It was unoccupied and it did speed things along. 5 hours later, the party had all the Broken Magma Beaks Liz wanted, and an inventory full of other drops they could sell to grow Reaver's Requiem's funds.
Shigio went to do just that, leaving the other three players to cool down from the 31st floor's heat in one of the many small restaurants in the safe zone of that very floor.
"Aaa... Finally. I was literally melting out there."
Sachi took a sip of a nice and cool glass of juice. Keita and Tetsuo, each occupied gurgling down their own beverages, made noises of agreement.
"Gross."
"We can't all be danty like you, princess."
Sachi rolled her eyes in bemusement at Tetsuo's jab.
"Don't I know it. You two ogres, on the other hand, couldn't do 'elegant' if it stared you in the face."
"Ouch."
"Hey, what's with the crossfire? I didn't even say anything!"
"You were thinking it, Keita."
"Eh- Okay, that's fair."
The staff-user scratched his head unabashedly. The three of them had known each other since primary school. Together with Ducker and Sasamaru, the five of them were a tight-knit group. Giving shit to each other was their love language.
"Uh?"
The two men looked over when Sachi made a questioning noise from the back of her throat, interrupting her laughter. She was looking at the empty air in front of her, eyes flicking from side to side in a rhythm. A tell-tale sign of reading a message.
"Everything okay? Who's it from?"
"Oh, yeah, everything's fine. Just a little surprised, is all. Ceba just messaged me."
"The painter? What she wants?"
Keita cooked his head in curiosity. They had met Ceba for Reaver's Requiem's day off, and she had been nice - not to mention pretty - but that was it. They hadn't talked after that, and, as far as he knew, neither had Sachi. He wondered why she was entering in contact with the spear-user now.
"She wants to meet. With all three of us, actually."
Sachi was frowning cutesy as she read the messages. There was something off about it, the way it was worded, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.
"Meet with us? Why?"
"Apparently one of her paintings didn't turn out the way she wanted. She would like to know if we can meet her on the 22nd for a do-over."
"Right now?"
"As soon as we can. She's already there."
Keita looked between his two friends. Sachi had her forehead scrunched in thought, and Tetsuo was tapping at the table idly.
"I mean... Sure? If neither of you has somewhere else to be or something else to do."
"Nah, I'm free as a bird right now."
"Sachi?"
"Hmm... Yes. I can go."
Getting their assent, Keita shrugged and got up to pay the NPC cashier.
"I'll hit Shigio up, so he knows where we're going. Can you answer Ceba please, Sachi, and tell her we'll be there in an hour?"
Sachi nodded, and not even 5 minutes later, the trio was strolling down the street towards the teleporter. Sachi was still frowning.
"What's got you thinking so hard, Sachi?"
The spearwoman jumped.
"Ah- Ahem! Uhmm... I don't know. Nothing, I guess?"
"Doesn't sound like nothing."
Keita raised an eyebrow, and Sachi flushed. She was in a bind. She also didn't know why she was thinking so deeply about Ceba's message.
"It's just... I really don't know. Something about how she wrote. Ceba, I mean. Her message's very... Dry. And she was so... active... when we met her."
"You mean she was a ball of energy comparable to Yuuki."
Sachi snorted in a very unlady-like manner, then quickly covered her face with her hand.
"Tetsuo!"
"What?! It's true, ain't it? She could have given all the children a run for their cor in that regard if she didn't quiet down when she was painting."
Keita snapped his fingers.
"Ha! Maybe that's it, Sachi! You said she isn't satisfied with one of her paintings, ain't that right?"
"Yeah?"
"It's probably eating away at her, hence why she isn't as cheerful. All artist types are like that. Plus, it's a written message, y'know? You can't quite convey the same emotion as speaking face-to-face."
Sachi nodded slowly. That made sense.
"Anyhow, we'll find out soon. There's the teleporter, and Shigio."
The older player waved at them, his wall-shield hanging on his back. By his grin, he must have made quite the killing with the excess materials.
"So, Ceba?"
Shigio asks, and Sachi shrugs.
"We are supposed to meet her-"
A bright flash as they emerge on the 22nd floor.
"-at the lake for a re-do of one of her paintings."
Shigio tilts his head in curiosity much like the other player before him, but eventually nods.
"Sure, we have time. You guys don't mind if I tag along, right?"
"Not at all."
The quartet casually made their way out of the safe zone. They weren't in any hurry, and it was always nice to take a moment to see the sights of the 22nd floor. There was a reason why it was on the top 3 of Aincrad's vacation spots.
It wasn't meant to last.
The first sign they had that something was wrong was the lack of a canvas in front of Ceba. That already had Sachi and Shigio frowning. They might have only met the painter once or twice, but it was enough to know she never went anywhere without painting apparatus in hand. Not to mention the whole point of coming here was so she could draw the Black Cats.
The second sign was Ceba herself. There was none of the usual cheer they had come to associate with the painter on her face. Instead, her eyes were sunken and her expression hollow. She looked like she hadn't slept in days.
The third and final sign of just how wrong the current scene was was how rigid the painter was. While her gaze followed the four Reavers, pupils blown wide, she didn't turn her head or raise a hand to greet them.
Shigio stopped a good 30 meters away from the woman. By then, the former Black Cats had also realized something wasn't right, and had their weapons in hand, although still pointed at the ground.
"Ceba?"
Sachi called cautiously, but the painter said nothing. Her eyes were darting from side to side.
Go away. Be careful. No.
Shigio could practically hear the silent pleas. It took all he had not to immediately order the party to teleport away.
It wouldn't have worked. No sooner had the Reavers stopped, Shigio caught a glint of something silver flying towards him. With reactions only a frontliner could had, he put his shield between the projectile and himself.
TING!
With the high-pitched noise of metal striking metal, the Reavers watched a throwing pick, sparking with the tell-tale effects of an applied paralysis poison, fall to the ground.
"Tsk! I told ya we shouldn't have paralyzed the girl! She gave it away!"
An annoyed voice rang out, and Shigio's heart fell as he watched a dozen hooded players appear seemingly out of nowhere.
"Laughing Coffin."