Floor 59
April 14 – Year 2
Backbreaker rolled out of bed and set her naked feet on the smooth wood floor. It was cool to the touch. She stretched wide, opening her body up so it was ready for the day. She stood up and grabbed an empty glass on her nightstand, which she took it to the bathroom where she filled it with water from the sink and downed it. Hydration was a cornerstone to her success in game.
Backbreaker walked over to the window and looked out over Mishe. The medieval town was quiet in the waking hours. The internal clock in her vision said 0546. Soon enough it would be bustling with decent activity as the lower mid level players began to live their normal lives.
A good part of Backbreaker envied them. They didn't have to lug around a big shield, or fight on the front lines. They did not have to carry the burden she did as the Iron Bulwark, always at the head of the line, the Tank that stood when the others got tossed. A small part of her thought they were cowards. They stayed on the lower levels, safe from most dangers as they hunted for just enough Col to live every day.
But all in all, Backbreaker recognized that the Wondercolts and the Assault Team were the odd ones out. A death game was not something most people could handle. And as long as they survived, that was what mattered. They were not cowards, they were real human beings doing their best to survive in this virtual world. And they were why she picked up her shield almost every day and charged into the Boss Chambers. They were why she would not, could not, bend or break.
Her friends were strong. She didn’t have any reservations or fear about them being able to handle themselves in this game. These normal players needed a hero though. They needed to hear the tale of the Iron Bulwark stopping some big monster or boss with nothing more than a scrap of iron for a shield and her raw strength. Backbreaker never read them, but she knew the paper published stories of her actions at times. Most of them were probably fake, unless they were talking about the Field or Floor Bosses. And even then they probably added in a sprinkling of extra pizzazz for the readers.
Backbreaker walked away from the window and pulled up her menu. She wasn’t leaving the Headquarters, so she changed into the outfit Diemond had made her. She was kind and gave her a plane white work shirt, made of a thick cotton like material, along with blue denim like shorts. Her boots were too short for normal work boots, but they were sufficient for wearing around headquarters. Diemond probably could make her a cowboy hat, but Backbreaker was certain Diemond hadn’t on purpose. She was never a fan of the cowgirl, rustic style a life on a farm required. Or her going to school in the same clothes she worked in.
Backbreaker grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open, stepping out into the hallway and fully into the new day. She heard a yelp from Diemond on the second floor and some more noise, which was probably Thunderborne and Astro getting into trouble in the common room.
Food was Backbreaker’s goal. Her stomach was growling like some of the monsters they had fought. And like them, she was about to end it by eating breakfast. Whatever it was AFCK whipped up. There was the odd morning where they didn’t have a meal made, but AFCK loved to cook, especially breakfast.
Down the stairs and on their second floor, no one was in any of the seats. They had all migrated downstairs or were still holed up in their rooms. Which meant Backbreaker was able to slip her shoes off and enjoy the feeling of the rug tickling her feet and massaging in between her toes. If Diemond ever heard of her doing that she would flip out. If she caught her doing it, it would be a disaster. By the stairs, Backbreaker slipped her boots back on and descended the circular staircase to the first floor. Her hand slid along the polished banister, enjoying its feel all the way down. By the time she was halfway down, she could smell food.
As usual, it was a noisy breakfast, which was mostly the work of Thunderborne, Astro, and some of Joltron.
“Well BB won’t even try to ride the windmills on the first floor!” Thunderborne declared. “She is too afraid to even try and beat me and my ability. I’m not talking speed, I’m talking agility. She has no chance in a foot race.”
Backbreaker felt the smile grace her lips. “Thunder, I just don’t care. I’ve told you a hundred times. I don’t care about riding windmills. I don’t even get why you would. You won’t goad me into that.”
“You just are not agile enough to do it,” Thunderborne quipped.
Backbreaker sighed and shook her head. She had moved away from the competition a while ago, but Thunderborne still tried to keep it alive. Back home, they were nearly equals, with neither having much of an edge over the other. But here, she clearly had Thunderborne outmatched in strength and she would never be close to Thunderborne’s speed or agility.
Backbreaker had put agility as her newest Skill, but Thunderborne didn’t know that. No one knew that. She was using a big shield and wanted to be able to move and deploy it faster. She needed to with the way the others moved. But she was not going to get into a competition with Thunderborne over it. Or become Thunderborne’s trainee. That would mean doing weird things to train agility, rather than focusing on simple things like jumping as high as possible. Repeatedly. Unlike Thunderborne, Backbreaker was used to repetitive tasks in the orchard back home. Especially during harvests.
This morning’s hunger was banished by a mix of fresh fruit, porridge, and scones with several types of jams. Even in a virtual world, Pinkie Pie outdid herself. And day after day she did it, without a single complaint and with a great variety of foods.
Backbreaker was brought back to the real reason she was awake. Bladescape had called for them to gear up. Most of them had to head to their rooms to grab their equipment. Backbreaker preferred to keep hers in her storage. A few clicks in the privacy of the bathroom and she was ready, hammer swinging off her waist. For now, she didn’t need her shield.
Bladescape had been in her gear when Backbreaker got to breakfast, so she was leaning against the wall by the double doors of the guild hall. Most mornings she was leaning against the wall while the others finished up. Backbreaker preferred to sit down. She had stopped fixing the chair in the back row she always use. It stayed permanently flipped around for Backbreaker to use.
It didn’t take five minutes for them all to be ready and present. Backbreaker sighed, bored, as the parties were organized. It was all routine. Backbreaker knew she would be with Bladescape. She never was with anyone else. The two of them made a good pair, but it got boring. Astro, Thunder, Joltron, and Kiefer was assigned to the party as well. Two Tanks, two Forwards, and two Damage dealers. Their best Damage Dealers and Tanks in one party was rare and unbalanced. But Backbreaker loved to work with Astro because of the reach of her spear.
They left their Headquarters and walked straight to the teleport plaza. A simple jump, command, and Danac glowed blue before she fully materialized. Backbreaker walked off the platform at the head of their group.
Danac was the main settlement on Floor 59. The rural village had a wide safe zone with plenty of open hills. Some windmills also dotted the landscape. It was a small village with only a few two story houses.
Backbreaker followed as Bladescape lead them the long way out of the village. Wood fences lined the path as they walked out. In different parts of the fields, there were low stone walls that once were the boundaries to farm fields. They continued out to the giant cloud pillar that ran from the fields to the bottom of the next floor. It wasn’t too far of a hike. They had dived a few floors into the dungeon before. Inside was old stone hallways with arched ceilings, lined by sporadic torches. They had been nicknamed “The Catacombs,” by other players. It was not hard for Backbreaker to see why.
The monsters inside were a lot of trouble. The worst was the “shadows,” which were the same as they had faced on the Necromancer quest. They were not bound by the walls, making them even more difficult to deal with. They only slashed with their shadow claws, which did limited damage, but it still could become a dire situation if a group was caught fighting a log group of monsters. And it was a nuisance that kept them on their toes. Players like Backbreaker were useless against them. She was too slow to hit them as a Tank.
“And here is where we left off,” Bladescape finally said. “This cross section. We mapped the left, and the right. So forward it is.”
Backbreaker moved up to be tight on Bladescape’s flank. She had a habit of charging forward and leaving the others behind. And it was always a pain for Backbreaker to catch up. She saved her more often than Bladescape knew. And that is why she had applied acrobatics as her latest Skill.
The hallways ended in a large circular room with a high ceiling. On the far side was the stairs to the next level on the Labyrinth. But the circular room was a trap waiting to be sprung. The first clearers took out the majority of the enemies, but they would respawn. They slowly worked out to the center. Nothing came of it so they slowly moved to the stairs. A group had been through the area recently.
Above, on the next level of the labyrinth, Backbreaker got that chill running along the spine. The one that signaled danger. From the way Bladescape’s eyes were darting around, Backbreaker knew she was tracking something with her high level Search Skill.
A shadow slid out partially of the wall and then darted back in. It popped up further away from them. Backbreaker smiled, knowing they were about to enter battle. They followed the shadow down the hallway. It led through through a few turns and then they found themselves in a square hall with pillars lining it.
As they proceeded in, Backbreaker’s vision picked up enemies. There were more shadows. But then there were also skeletons in shoddy bronze armor wielding battered wooden shields and rusty swords. They came out from behind the pillars, ready for battle.
As Backbreaker knew she would, Bladescape charged forward ahead of the others. She sprinted after her, trying to catch up. The heavy armor and gigantic shield made it very difficult to catch an agile player. Agility should help that.
Bladescape was slashing away at shadows and and ended up locking her sword against a skeleton’s. But she didn’t see the skeleton directly behind her. Backbreaker slid in between them and took the sword on her shield with a dull thud. With a roar her hammer glowed and she shattered the high level skeleton in a single hit. Her strength parameters added to the weight of the hammer's strike, where it usually dealt critical damage on top of a high attack.
The rest had joined the battle. Most of what Backbreaker did was block an attack, let Astro ram her cross yari into it, and then block another attack for Astro or Bladescape and then the others to do it over again. Most of every fight was her moving her shield to block, time and time again. Which was why Backbreaker enjoyed every time she could land her hammer on an enemy. It didn’t happen often enough with their fluid switching skills.
Backbreaker took another rusty sword on her shield. But she was through with only blocking. She moved forward, twisting as she stepped so the skeleton was still facing her shield, stopping Astro from switching, and swung her hammer around her shield. It destroyed the skeleton with ease. The powerful strike came with a solid delay time, but it was the last of the ones directly attacking them. It was their turn to block her. And each time she got to destroy one of the pitiful pile of bones in a single hit, it made it all the boring blocking worth it.
A safezone was on the other size of the hall, giving them a perfect lunch break. Backbreaker always unequipped her shield rather than set it aside. It was too big. She sat down along the wall with the others and ate the food AFCK had packed. There were days she contemplated having a smaller, back up shield. Only the bosses needed her big, heavy shield. The the Iron Bulwark was earned by her, a gift from the game. If she set it aside, even for a battle, she felt she was rejecting that gift.
A player entered the safezone, alone. It was a player Backbreaker was very familiar with. She had fought by his side a number of times over the Floors, mostly early on. Kirito also took the opportunity to rest up and grab a bite to eat. Backbreaker was not going to give him an extra thought, just like he was going to give them, except AFCK jumped up with an excited shout and offered him a cupcake. He did take it and enjoyed it, something Backbreaker wasn’t expecting from an aloof player like Kirito.
Kirito moved out before them by a few minutes. Backbreaker also would have been on the move a lot sooner too if she was alone. However, Bladescape and Knightstar had to balance 11 players, which took time.
The rest of the day was the same. More enemies pounding away at her shield while Backbreaker just took the pounding. Today was another day where she felt like the kick drum on Pinkie Pie’s drum set with the Rainbooms. She didn’t have more pieces to the "drum kit" because her one shield blocked it all.
After running into Fuurinkazan later in the evening, they decided to pack it in. They were going to clear as a trifecta starting fresh in the morning. It was too risky to sleep in the safe zones, especially with Danac so close by.
Back home, Backbreaker headed up to her room. She changed into the same clothes she had worn after she had woken up. Then she sat at the desk on her room and leaned onto it like she usually did. She rested her chin on her hands and looked out over the city. Mishe had once been very busy at this time. But it had been slowing down steadily as they cleared each Floor. The city lacked the excitement it once had. Backbreaker knew her value, but it was no longer exciting. The enemies changed, the landscape changed, the dungeon map changed, but her job didn’t. It was just the same old, same old, for an experienced tank.
The last time she had been excited, truly excited, was when the six of them raided Kalzuk Dungeon together.
The rest of them didn’t know how Backbreaker felt. She couldn’t be tired. She couldn’t fail. And she wouldn’t. But she was looking forward to her next day off, when she could go fishing.
Bladescape (SS): Lvl 79 – Two-Handed Sword – Search – Weapon Defense – Leather Armor – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Sprint – Acrobatics – Blade Throwing – Extended Weight Carry
Knightstar (TS): Lvl 69 – One-Handed Sword – Shield – Equipment Appraisal – Parry – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Light Metal Armor – Search – Armor Pierce
Thunderborne (RBD): Lvl 72 – Rapier – Sprint – Acrobatics – Armor Pierce – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Leather Armor – Weapon Defense – Extended Weight Carry – Search
Backbreaker (AJ): Lvl 75 – Heavy Shield – One-Handed War Hammer – Extended Weight Carry – Heavy Metal Armor – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Fishing – Search – Martial Arts – Acrobatics
AFCK(PP): Lvl 72 – Two-Handed Axe – Parry – Cooking – Weapon Defense – Martial Arts – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Light Metal Armor – Thrown Weapon – Musical Instrument
Diemond (R): Lvl 72 – Heavy Shield – Mace – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Heavy Metal Armor – Tailoring – Light Metal Armor Forging – Heavy Metal Armor Forging – Jewelry Making – Extended Weight Carry
Doombunny (FS): Lvl 69 – One-Handed Dagger – First Aid – Hide – Search – Listening – Battle Regeneration – Fighting Spirit – Familiar Communication (Colorra) – Drug Mixing – Reveal
Astro (PS): Lvl 72 – Two-Handed Spear - Purchase Negotiation – Armor Pierce – Acrobatics – First Aid – Light Metal Armor – Battle Regeneration – Weapon Defense – Parry – Extended Wight Carry
Kiefer: Lvl 69 – One-Handed Curved Blade – Parry – Weapon Defense – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Light Metal Armor – Slash Weapon Forging – Katana – Martial Arts
Lessa: Lvl 69 – One-Handed Sword – Shield – Light Metal Armor – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Equipment Repair – Metal Equipment Repairing – Armor Pierce – Search
Joltron: Lvl 73 – One handed Axe – Heavy Shield – Heavy Metal Armor – First Aid – Battle Regeneration – Metal Refining – Blunt Weapon Forging – One Handed Weapon Creation – Two Handed Weapon Creation – Extended Weight Carry