Silica was the happiest girl in the world at the moment. Or in Aincrad, at the very least. Like any child, she had always loved small and fluffy things. Even as a young teen, she was completely enamored with animals and other cute mascots.
She absolutely loved Feredir. He may not be very small, but he was extremely fluffy, and the sweetest wolf anyone had ever seen. She loved to run her hand through his fur, to lay down using his soft belly as a pillow, and to play with him.
But deep down, Silica always knew that Feredir, as much as he liked to stick with her, was Kizmel's companion. Which was why she was falling in love with Pina even faster.
The << Small Feathered Dragon >> was perched on her shoulder, rubbing her head against Silica's cheeks and cooing. It was the cutest thing in the world.
Silica was rubbing Pina's tiny head when she noticed a notification flashing on her HUD. Who knew how long it had been there. Her mouth fell open when she clicked it.
"Kyaaa!"
Her scream of surprise had the party turning around in shock, weapons flashing out for whatever attacked her. When they saw nothing, their expressions grew confused.
"What's wrong, Silica?"
"I just got a new skill! << Monster Taming >>! And it's giving me an option to take Pina as my << Tamed Monster >>!"
"Really?!"
"Well, what are you waiting for, Silica?! Accept it!"
The rest of the party watched starry-eyed as Silica clicked a button invisible to them, and both her and Pina shone green for a moment.
When the glow was gone, Silica still looked the same, but Pina was at least 50% bigger. And her eyes, when she chirped and rubbed against Silica's face, seemed brighter than before.
The not-as-tiny-anymore dragon licked her master's cheek, then made a thrilling sound before flying around and spitting beautiful bubbles in a display of joy.
When Pina settled back down on Silica's head, the party clustered around here, asking details about the << Small Feathered Dragon's >> status, now visible to Silica, and her skills.
"Griselda, Liz, Yuuki, have any of you ever heard of this << Monster Taming > skill?"
The girls shook their heads. Griselda scratched Pina's chin and made a writing motion.
"Maybe Argo knows something?"
"Right!"
Drifter had forgotten that he had an info-broker very conveniently waiting for news from him at the moment. He immediately coined a message and sent it, and Argo responded almost immediately.
Drifter read through it twice, to make sure he didn't misunderstand anything. Then he whistled.
"Apparently you lucked out, Silica. Argo says she only knows three other people with the << Monster Taming >> skill. Getting it is heavily dependent on luck, but also other requirements. You can't have killed too many of the mob type you are trying to tame. Well, I say 'trying' lightly. The mob has to be the one to initiate everything, like Pina did. Plus, you can only have one << Tamed Monster >> at a time. It should say that somewhere in the description of the skill. So if you want another, you'll have to release Pina first. But, like I said, really luck dependent. There's no guarantee you'll get another pet even if you let Pina go."
"Good thing I'm not planning on doing that, then! Isn't that right, Pina? You are with me forever! Hahahaha!"
First surprised, then a bit confused, then unconcerned by the information dump, Silica held Pina and played with her. The dragon chirped happily.
Good thing too that Silica wasn't planning on releasing Pina, since she was almost certainly the rarest pet you could get in SAO. The dragon part aside, Pina was the first and only creature with healing skills that any of them had ever seen.
Still, Drifter felt compelled to add one last bit of information that Argo had highlighted.
"Right, Argo says Pina only has one life, Silica. And that there's no known way to revive a dead pet. So just take note of that."
Silica's joyful expression faltered for a moment, and Drifter rubbed her head affectionately. He didn't need to repeat himself. She was a smart girl.
"Alright, we already welcomed Pina as Reaver's Requiem's newest member, so let's keep going! Argo's got a quest for us, and she's starting to grow impatient."
...
In the town, a very confused info-broker was wondering how Drifter had stumbled on a dragon and had one of his party members gain the very rare taming skill when she had sent him to run errands for her. Further, she was thinking: what about her damn quest?!
...
Having Pina with them made the party's journey a lot smoother. Not because she could heal them - they didn't actually get hurt that much against normal mobs - but because she could detect monsters from even farther away than Drifter's << Searching >>. That allowed them to avoid battles, or get the jump on the mobs if they so wished.
Still, Pina's detection ability or not, it was only 3 hours later that the party found something that might be related to the quest. By then, they were almost giving up, and even Argo had messaged that it was getting late.
Every minute was precious for frontliners. Their levels always needed to be the highest in SAO, this floor more than ever.
Unlike what some people in the outside world thought, it was impossible for players to just grind mobs until they were way overleveled for the floor. Kayaba would never leave such an obvious loophole.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The reason training grounds and good maps were so coveted amongst frontliners was that the amount of mobs in SAO was limited. Yes, monsters respawned, but never fast enough to allow all the players to maintain an acceptable leveling speed. Furthermore, there was a point when the experience lower-level mobs gave was so insignificant that even farming for years wouldn't be enough to level up once. Aincrad had a cycle. To climb higher, you had to get stronger. To get stronger, you had to climb higher.
Wasting several hours on such a convoluted and confusing quest would be unacceptable if it had been anyone else but Argo who asked for it. Pina made the entire trip worth it, however, even if they found nothing.
But something they did find. It was already past noon when Drifter spotted it. A moss-covered rock that looked different from others. A little too rectangular, too straight.
Curious, he walked over. Before getting there, he already knew it wasn't a rock, but a broken pillar. Moss and dirt hid most of it from his view, but he could see some engravings depicting what looked like the sun and giants.
"Got something, everyone! Try to find more of these, see if we can get a direction."
The girls spread out, never too far that they couldn't help one another if trouble appeared. After about 5 minutes, Yuuki shouted excitedly.
"I found two more here, Drifter! It looks sorta like a collapsed archway!"
Before the spearmaster could go over, Silica called for him too. Well, Pina flew over and grabbed his shoulder with her claws, trying to drag him.
"Over here too, Drif! More columns!"
Griselda and Liz soon reported similar findings. Drifter himself found more ruins. After a quick mental triangulation, he discovered that the bulk of the ruins were concentrated in one direction.
"That way. My gut is telling me this is finally Argo's quest."
The party started walking in the direction Drifter pointed. More and more ruins came into view, broken pillars giving way to entire structures, collapsed and overtaken by nature. Clearly, this forest had once been a bustling civilization.
Even the mobs changed, the deeper they went. When soil gave way to cracked cobblestone paths, the << Archeo Lungers >> disappeared, replaced by golem-like mobs covered in moss and roots, literally pulling themselves out of the ground as the party came closer.
The first time the party saw one of the mobs, called << Forgotten Guardian >>, they stood back and allowed it to laboriously get up, showering the surroundings in dirt and plant matter. The being was a little over two meters tall, with stubby arms that ended not on hands and fingers, but a solid-looking, white marble, mortar-like fist on the left arm, and a glinting obsidian blade on the right, still wickedly sharp despite the passage of time.
The << Forgotten Guardian >> was heavy and slow. Drifter didn't let down his guard, however. There were two types of mobs: those which were all-rounded, jack-of-all-trades, and mobs with glaring deficiencies in certain aspects, which were compensated by overwhelmingly higher stats in other regards.
The << Forgotten Guardian >> very clearly belonged to the second type. Its speed was as low as it could be, but its defense was bound to be mind-bogglingly high. What remained to see was in which end of the spectrum its attack power was.
"Liz, we'll be relying on you this time around. Griselda, Yuuki, you are support. Silica, we are aiming for the joints, try to restrict its movement."
Golem-like mobs, or those with some kind of heavy armor, had a much higher resistance to edged weapons. You had to use hammers or maces and other blunt weapons to kill them within an acceptable time-frame, which automatically made Liz the vanguard for this battle.
"Hmm."
Liz calmly took the lead, shield and hammer ready. She had started SAO as a simple blacksmith, and joined Reaver's Requiem still with the same position. But with time, she had moved up to become a clearer and then a frontliner. It had been several months since then. Being the vanguard and staring down a monster didn't make her heart beat nearly as fast anymore.
The same could be said for Yuuki. Once they entered a battle, her playfulness vanished, her expression set in firm determination. Even Griselda, despite not having as much experience, could face the mob without huge complications.
Drifter didn't need to be mentioned.
Silica just reversed her grip on her dagger and crouched as Pina took flight. The twelve-year-old girl didn't hesitate for even a moment when Liz provoked the << Forgotten Guardian >>, and dashed past the blacksmith and under Drifter's spear to sink her dagger on the mob's knee with a << Tiger Bone >>.
The high-level << Dagger >> skill shouldn't be underestimated, despite the strange name. It was one ferocious stab, followed by a twist of the blade, dealing massive damage.
While Liz, Griselda, and Yuuki took the front, and Silica sneaked around the mob's back, Drifter chose to go at it from the side.
The blade-hand of the golem chopped down on Liz, who hurriedly raised her shield to block. Drifter stabbed the arm with a << Double Tap >>, twice in the same spot, forcing it to change trajectories and missing the pink-haired player.
The obsidian blade cut deeply into the ground, and Liz took the chance to strike it, hoping to smash it off. She failed, unfortunately, but the force behind the blow was enough to send the << Forgotten Guardian >> stumbling back, right into Griselda and Yuuki's waiting blades.
Drifter himself swept his spear up, leaving a series of cuts on the mob's stone torso. He deflected the hammer-hand with the shaft of his weapon and spun, a << Tornado >> knocking the mob even further back.
Silica jumped on top of it, her dagger a blur, and Liz ended the fight but smashing its head with all her strength. The visual effect of both girls standing amidst the swirling shards made the rounds around the world, not that they knew that.
"Good work, everyone. We'll keep the same tactics for the next << Forgotten Guardians >>."
Balancing his spear in the creek of his arms, Drifter typed a quick message to Argo. Then he looked at the loot from the battle, and raised an eyebrow.
"Huh. Now I'm sure we are on the right path."
The girls looked over, and Drifter took out a purple-ish crystal. The item had a very imposing name: << False Star Fragment >>.
"It's pretty, but why do you think it's related to your quest, Drifter? Did it update?"
"Nope. But remember the clue? 'Broken embrace of fallen stars'. Can't be a coincidence."
Drifter stared at the item in his hand for a while more before throwing it to Liz. It was a forging material. Even if the quest resulted in nothing, just finding a new type of mineral was worth it, especially if the blacksmith could make something with it.
For the next half an hour, the party advanced deeper into the ruins. Other than the << Forgotten Guardians >>, there was also another type of mob called << Rubble Python >>, giant snakes that disguised themselves amongst the destroyed buildings. They also dropped the << False Star Fragments >>. Drifter didn't question the logic. Liz was already coming up with new blueprints.
Slowly, a giant building came into view. It looked like a temple of some sort, with doorways big enough to let an eighteen-wheeler truck through them with room to spare.
The roof was spherical, or at least it used to be. There was a huge hole in it now, like a giant had punched through it. That very same hole was letting sunlight into the building, and even from outside, through the doors, Drifter could see the culprit behind the destruction. A big rock, which could be nothing else but a meteorite.
"I think we found your quest, Drif."
Yuuki whistled, and the spearmaster nodded. There was no doubt this was the right place. 'Broken embrace of fallen stars' indeed. He prepared his spear.
"This feels like boss time. On your toes, girls."