by Miguel .
Even in the beta test, the background of the world was opaque. I completed this campaign quest back then, but I recalled the story being rather simple and unconnected to the origins of Aincrad–the forest elves and dark elves were fighting over some holy “sanctuary,” whatever that actually was.
When the retail game launched and promptly trapped all of its guests inside, I felt like I understood why the background of SAO was such a blank slate.
The lack of story, of any kind of descriptive background, was a challenge from the developer himself. Kayaba was telling us, The stage is set; it’s up to you to create the story now.
That was just my imagination talking, of course, but it didn’t seem very farfetched at this point. In that case, the words of Kizmel the elf knight–as an extension of the SAO system–surpassed even Kayaba’s intentions.
I was possessed by an urge to overwhelm the elven knight with questions as we walked. Whether this “Lyusula” was a continent, a kingdom, or a city. Why the dark elves were torn from their home. Why they were trapped here in this floating castle. What this castle really was, and why it had been built.
Most likely, none of that information had any bearing on our primary goal: beating the game and returning to reality. The only reason I had started this campaign quest was for the plentiful experience points and high-level rewards. There was no emotional attachment to the dark elf forces. If Asuna had insisted, I would have sided with the forest elf man against Kizmel earlier.
I stifled my sudden burst of curiosity with a deep breath and continued my silent march behind the knight.
As we approached the swirling black flags, the mists suddenly cleared away as though they’d never been there, and my field of vision returned.
We were very close to the southern end of the forest; sharp-cut rock walls extended left and right. A narrow passage barely fifteen feet wide proceeded through the rock, slim pillars on either side. Atop the poles flew the landmark black flags, adorned with crests of horns and blades.
Standing before the two poles were dark elf soldiers, proudly bearing glaives and wearing heavier armor than Kizmel’s–though still light compared to the variety available to players. Our companion strode up to the guards.
When I did this quest in the beta, Kizmel had perished against the forest elf, and our party of four had to approach these guards without a go-between. But it was this situation that had me more nervous. Asuna leaned over and whispered, “I might as well ask...Were not going to have to fight in this base camp, are we?”
“We won’t...We shouldn’t. As long as we don’t attack any of them, at least. Or maybe they just cancel your progress and kick you out...”
“You’d better not attempt to find out.” She glared at me, then summoned her courage and picked up the pace.
Fortunately, the guards did nothing worse, than glare suspiciously as we passed them. After a short walk through the narrow passage, it opened wide into a round space a good fifty yards across. About twenty tents of black and purple in various sizes filled the space as glamorous dark elves strode about the grounds–all in all, an impressive sight.
“Wow...the camp’s a lot bigger than it was in the beta,” I murmured, quiet enough so Kizmel couldn’t hear. Asuna looked at me doubtfully.
“Was it in a different place before?”
“Yeah, but that’s not a strange thing. Most of these locations related to the campaign are temporary instances.”
“Inse...tanse?”
Asuna had brushed up furiously on her gaming lingo in the last month, but this term was unfamiliar. I explained as we walked toward the largest tent in the back of the canyon.
“It’s a location that’s created temporarily for each party taking on the quest, I guess you could say. See, were going to talk to the dark elf leader to advance the quest, but if another party comes along, that makes it complicated, doesn’t it? Some quests are like the ‘Herbs of the Forest’ quest on the first floor, and they just shut off the area from general access if someone’s talking to the NPC.”
“So...you’re saying that you and I have temporarily vanished from the third-floor map to move to this base?”
“That’s right,” I said, impressed by the speed of her understanding.
She narrowed her eyes and gave me a searing look.
“We can leave anytime, right?”
The proceedings had been rather irregular, but the meeting with the commander of the dark elf advance forces went smoothly. Of course, being presumably stronger than Kizmel, the commander could have slaughtered us in seconds if anything went wrong.
He was delighted at the safe return of Kizmel and the Jade Key, granting us considerable rewards and equipment. Even better, we had our choice of several items. The saber decorated like Kizmel’s sword drew my eye, but my Anneal Blade +6 was stronger, so I settled on a ring that added a point to strength. Asuna made a similar decision, choosing an earring with +1 to agility.
The commander finished by initiating a new quest, the second leg of the campaign, and Asuna and I left the tent.
Back in the grassy canyon, the ceiling formed by the floor above that acted as our sky was turning the color of sunset. It had to be close to five o’clock. Now that my nerves had eased, fatigue was thudding down. It was time to rest for the day.
Kizmel stretched in a realistically natural way and turned to us, a hint of a smile on her lips.
“Warriors of humankind, allow me to thank you again for your help. I hope that you will assist in our next operation.”
“W-we’d be happy to help.”
“Now that I think on it, I have not heard your names yet. What are they?”
My eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets again. I’d never been asked my name by a mob before–no, I couldn’t keep treating her like a monster. She was an NPC.
“Um...my name is Kirito.”
“Ah, your human names are difficult to pronounce. Is it...Kirito?” Her intonation was slightly off, so I repeated myself.
“Kirito.”
“Kirito.”
“That’s perfect.”
That must have been the system sequence to fine-tune name pronunciation. Somewhat relieved that she was finally doing something recognizably NPC-like, I watched Kizmel repeat the process with Asuna.
Once she was satisfied she’d learned the way our names were said, the lady knight continued, “Kirito, Asuna, please call me Kizmel. I will leave the timing of our departure up to you. If you wish to return to your human town, I can send you nearby with another charm, or you can spend the night in one of our tents.” Finally, something going exactly as I remembered, I thought. Back in the beta, I took a fair number of haps in the tents to save time on the travel back to town. The beds were nice, the food was good, and most importantly, both were free. It only lasted while the quest was active, but it would be a waste not to take advantage of that value.
Asuna read my mind like a book. With an exasperated shrug of her shoulders, she answered, “In that case, we will gratefully accept your hospitality.”
“Perhaps you should save your thanks. After all...”
That’s right, this is how it...wait, that’s not right.
At this point, we’d been granted the use of an empty tent, as its owner had died at the start of the quest. In other words, it was originally Kizmel’s sleeping chamber that me and my three party members (all men) had borrowed. But now the lady knight was alive. Which meant...
“...without a spare tent, you will need to share mine. It will be a tight fit for all three of us, but you are welcome.”
“No, we’d be happy to–three of us?”
Asuna stopped still. Kizmel seemed to be waiting for a more definitive statement, so I picked up the slack.
“Thank you. We’d be happy to use it.”
“Good. I will be here within the grounds, so call upon me if you should need anything. So long for now.”
The proud dark elf bowed again and strode off toward the dinin
g tent. Asuna was frozen in place for three whole seconds, then turned toward me, her face shifting through about three different expressions.
“Is it possible to back out and have her charm us over to the town?”
Sadly, I knew the answer already. One of our party in the beta had tried that very thing. As a beater, it was my duty to pass on the information in my pocket.
“Um...no.”
As with the base camp itself, Kizmel’s tent had been upgraded significantly since the beta.
The owner had described it as a “tight fit for three,” but in reality, six of us could have set up beds with room to spare. Thick, luxurious pelts were spread across the ground, easily comfortable enough to sleep on until the morning.
The tent fabric that served as walls was thick and woven as well, enough to block out all sound from the outside. In front of the center pillar was an oddly shaped heater that emitted an orange glow and pleasant warmth.
I walked into the center of the pleasant, comfortable space and sat down, sighing in contentment. Lazily, I lifted a my window and slowly removed my sword and various articles of armor.
When I rolled onto my back, I accidentally met the cold glare of Asuna. The fencer took a few steps over to me and gently nudged my side with the tip of her boot.
I submitted to her silent pressure, rolling over and over until I hit the left wall of the tent, at which point Asuna removed her boot.
“That’s your spot. Imagine there’s a border right here.” She traced an imaginary line with her boot about a third of the way into the tent.
I had to find out. “And...what happens if I attempt to invade your border?”
“This camp isn’t considered a safe zone, is it?”
“I read you loud and clear,” I said, nodding on the ground. She smiled back and walked to the other end of the room. The round tent was about twenty-five feet across, so there was quite a distance from wall to wall. I watched her cross, then remove her breastplate and rapier, shaking out her long hair before she sat atop the furs. She leaned her back against a pillar and mulled something over for a moment before putting her long boots in storage as well.
Asuna stretched out her long, white-socked feet, looked up at the ceiling, and let out a slow, steady sigh. When she eventually looked over toward me, I was rudely staring back. I glanced away hastily and babbled in a high voice.
“So, um, I don’t mind sleeping outside, if you prefer. I’ve got a sleeping bag and everything...”
“It’s fine, as long as you respect the border,” she responded, her voice surprisingly neutral. I hazarded another glance across the tent. Asuna was rubbing the furs on the ground with her hand as she changed the topic to something that had caught her interest.
“So, about this quest series...I’m not quite sure of the point of it yet. It’s not something about how either the dark elves or forest elves are good or evil, right?”
“Eh? Um...yeah, that’s right. Assuming the gist of it is the same as in the beta, there’s a floor above with a place called the Sanctuary, with some incredibly powerful item sealed inside of it. And the dark elves and forest elves are fighting over it.”
“Hmm...So that key in the bag of leaves was to the Sanctuary?”
“Yep. If I remember correctly, there are six of them in total, hidden across all the floors, so collecting them is the main focus of the quest.”
“I see...That’s what I was wondering about. You said that when we first spotted Kizmel and the forest elf fighting, we could choose which side to help, right?”
“I did.”
“Which means that some players could choose to side with the forest elves, and be working the other side of the story at the same time as us, right?”
“That’s right,” I said and finally realized what Asuna was getting at. “Oh, and you’re wondering that if we come across players working on the forest elf side while were doing the quest...”
“...maybe we’ll end up competing or fighting with them,” she finished, her eyebrows knitted in concern. I put on an awkward smile to reassure her.
“Don’t worry, it won’t come to that. It’s not like those quests to kill a certain number of enemies or collect a certain amount of loot, where you have to compete with other players to reach your allotted total. These story-style quests make it so that each player or party has their own independent, um, whatchacallit...”
I tried to frame it in a way that a beginner to MMOs would understand, but Asuna had already pieced it together.
“Oh, like this base camp? So a number of different parties can be at different points in the story and reach completely different endings?”
“Yeah, that’s the gist of it. So we don’t have to worry about groups following the enemy camp’s quest trying to take the items from us. It’s not as if one side completing the quest successfully means the opposing side loses.”
“Ahh...”
Asuna nodded in apparent understanding, but her expression did not clear up in a way that suggested her fears had been eliminated. She heaved herself back up to sitting position and crossed her legs, facing me directly.
“Something still bothering you?”
“Umm, I’m not sure if it’s bothering me or just hard to grasp. If you’re right, and this base camp...instance? If a different one exists for every party doing the quest, then that means the same number of Kizmels and commanders exist, too. That seems kind of...”
“Ah, yeah...”
I finally understood the nature of Asuna’s confusion; it was the greatest contradiction of questing in an online game. Normally, an incident should only arise once. For instance, in the “Herbs of the Forest” quest from the first floor, the sickly girl Agatha required special healing herbs that could only be collected from plant-type monsters. I handily–okay, it wasn’t quite that easy–collected all of the quest materials, Agatha’s mother brewed a medicine from them, and the girl recovered.
But the next player who visited that house would find a sickly Agatha. As long as there were players to accept the quest, she was locked in an eternal cycle of painful disease and recovery.
The campaign quest Asuna and I had started was an expanded version of that concept. After a twenty-minute battle, we defeated the forest elf knight and saved Kizmel’s life, but as more players took on the quest after us, dozens, if not hundreds of Kizmels would die, along with a similar number of handsome forest elves.
But that was unavoidable. If each quest was only playable by one player or party for the sake of story consistency, the game would lose all pretense of fairness. It might be one thing to sidestep that by creating an infinite number of unique quests, but that was not realistically possible–even for a mad genius like Akihiko Kayaba.
When I finished explaining all of this to Asuna, she nodded slowly and thanked me for the information, but I suspected she’d known it all along. Like her, there was something about this that still sat wrong with me. After all, for an event-related NPC, Kizmel was all too human–or elvish.
A lonely, plaintive horn blew within the camp. I checked my clock and saw that it was already six o’clock. Plagued by equal parts sleepiness and hunger, I was wondering which of the two to address when the flap of the tent entrance lifted open.
It was Kizmel, the owner of the tent. She was still dressed in her gleaming metal armor and long cape. Asuna and I hastily scrambled to our feet. Kizmel looked at each of us in turn and said, “I’m afraid I cannot offer you much at this humble camp, but you are free to use this tent however much you wish. The dining tent will serve you food anytime you need it, and there is also a simple tent for bathing.”
“You have a bath?” Asuna repeated instantly. Kizmel nodded and pointed off to her left.
“It is next to the dining tent. Again, it is available at your leisure.”
“Thank you. I’m certainly going to take advantage of that,” Asuna said without hesitation, bowing to Kizmel and heading out the tent flap without a backward glance at me.<
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Kizmel strode farther inside and said, “I believe I will have a rest. Just say the word if you need anything.”
I was still idly contemplating whether I should prioritize food or sleep when Kizmel stopped next to the heater and put her hand on the large gemstone that acted as a clasp on her shoulder plate.
With a strange tinkling sound, her armor, cape, and saber vanished into motes of light. All that was left beneath it was a sheer undergarment that shone like silk. I was so shocked that I couldn’t pull my gaze away. There was a distinctly un-elven volume to the body beneath the black fabric–perhaps that was what made her a dark elf...
Suddenly, a hand grabbed the back of my collar and an icy voice said into my ear, “You should take a bath as well. You must have gotten sweaty during that boss fight.”
...Well, I’m certainly feeling a cold sweat now.
An irresistible force dragged me backward out through the entrance of the tent. Outside, the dark elf camp looked even more fantastical than usual with the transition from late afternoon to evening.
Here and there about the base were elegantly designed steel mesh cages holding silent, purplish flames. A restrained lute melody was playing from one of the tents, to which the crickets in the grass added their own ringing harmony.
Even the soldiers’ laughs coming from the large dining tent and the clanging hammer of the elves’ attendant blacksmith seemed like musical instruments adding to the performance. I walked behind Asuna, concentrating on the unfamiliar sounds of the nonhuman camp. Suddenly, I remembered a very important mission and called out to the back of the tunic ahead.
“Oh, Asuna.”
“What?”
She slowed down so I could catch up to her side, but did not stop walking.
“The NPC blacksmith here is a really high level, so we should upgrade your weapon to its maximum while we can.”
“...To the maximum? Are you sure?” she replied doubtfully. She must have been recalling the scene of her favorite sword helplessly shattered before her eyes several days ago. Of course, that was only a fake substitute switched in with the Quick Change mod, but she hadn’t known that at the time. The visceral shock still remained in her memory.