//------------------------------//
// Episode 62 — Blue Stones 
// Story: EQG: Sword Art Online - Ruby Palace 
// by Mindrop 
//------------------------------//

Episode 62 — Blue Stones
Thirteenth Day in the Month of Willow (March 13) in the Year of the Griffon
Floor 22 — Front Line Floor 57

Bladescape exited the NPC shop in Coral, the main settlement on the quiet 22nd Floor. It was late in the afternoon with a nice sunset coming through the slits in Aincrad between the Floors. She had come straight here from Floor 54. She had spent most of the day hunting the dagannoths.  

Up to that point, Bladescape had spent a total of two days on the Floor. Both were during the radically short time it took to clear the docile floor. There were no monsters and it had no dungeons, bosses, or quests, at least that she knew of. Nothing worthwhile to their clearing efforts, other than a few days of relative ease. It was a Floor of Lakes and woods. Perfect for fishing and wood crafting. Malus came to this Floor to fish.

The NPC shop did not have any Blue Stones, which was no surprise, but it was a decent place to start. According to Argo, the stones were supposedly abundant on this floor and only on this floor. Bladescape was not sure where to go next, although she had a strong urge to head to their small inn. She was dragging from her time hunting the Dagannoths. The encounter with Laughing Coffin was also an enormous emotional weight to be carrying. Getting a good night's rest and starting in the morning might be wisest. 

The Wondercolts would be off the next two days. Natora and Knightstar decided to extend the day off to a three day break. They all needed and deserved it. Diemond could finish her apprenticeship without worry and Bladescape could acquire what she needed for Ashley to make the armor. The others were free to do what they needed to, after they finished getting the flax, since they offered to help. The short message length meant that it was unclear who exactly was bundling flax, only that Knightstar was heading up that task and Thunderborne was with her. 

A commotion from the players in the hamlet caused Bladescape to search her surroundings better. Her Search Skill hadn't picked up anything dangerous. Finally, she saw a large snake was making its way by a group of players, minding its own business and headed in Bladescape's general direction. The black and red scales shimmered like a rainbow as the sunset caught them just right.

"And just what do you think you are doing here‽"

Bladescape leaped as she twisted around to face the voice that had come from behind her. She even drew her sword. Her nerves were on edge more than she thought, which was no surprise considering what had happened within the past hour.

Split in her vision by her blade was Doombunny. A very angry Doombunny. Her arms were crossed and brow furrowed as she waited for an answer. Except Bladescape didn't know what she had asked. Colorra circled around Doombunny and slithered up her master to perch on her shoulders and torso. At least the elapid was relaxed. That was a good sign.

"Well?" Doombunny demanded.

"You scared me," Bladescape panted. She was still very tense and hadn't even lowered her sword. She couldn’t. "I don't know what you asked."

"I asked you what you are doing here?" Doombunny said, annoyed she had to repeat her question.

A crowd of ten or so players had formed. Half were clearly fishermen, the other wood crafters. They all were older players, at least in their forties. They probably had never seen this much "excitement" in their little town. 

"I'm here collecting materials," Bladescape fired back, annoyed. "The bigger question is what are you doing here? You're supposed to be with another Wondercolt. Those precautionary measures are to protect you by having an escort at all times. Remember that?"

"You never liked that decision," Doombunny stated. 

"That's not the point," Bladescape shot back. She was absolutely picking a verbal fight on an unrelated topic to consume the energy that had been unleashed into her body from the surprise. She needed to unwind, somehow. "Not right now."

Doombunny huffed. "We heard from Knightstar that you had been jumped by orange players. It didn't take me long to hear who exactly it was." Doombunny didn't say Laughing Coffin. She didn't want to disrupt the small-town folks who were just trying to survive in SAO. Floor 22 was quiet and a perfect place to live while waiting for SAO's to be cleared. "I'm not dumb. The others were busy picking and bundling flax. I skipped out and tracked you here to provide you back up. You got the hides you needed, now it's on to other things. Colorra and I will be helping you and backing you up, which is within the regulations the guild imposed on me. And there is nothing you can do about it." 

Doombunny had a decently high Search level. It was rapidly gaining experience. She could track players, like friends, and being guildmates made tracking even easier. Bladescape had been able to do it for a while. 

Bladescape finally lowered her sword and then shakily put it away. She pulled up her menu and sent a message to Knightstar that Doombunny had arrived to join her, and that the others needed to stay on task.

"Fine," Bladescape said, sending a party request. "You can stay. What I need next is on this floor and going home will kill my groove. I had one hell of a time hunting the Dagannoths and their flag boss."

"You soloed a flag boss‽" Doombunny exclaimed, shocked. Her anger had subsided since she had won.

Bladescape nodded. "I didn't have a choice and the ground in the swamp didn't give me a lot of room to work with. Or lack thereof, rather. At most, I could have had one other player with me. I unexpectedly ran into the orange players on my way out. They weren't hunting me. I'm not sure what they were waiting for. It was a big mistake on their part. I knocked them down a few pegs as I got free of their impromptu trap."

"Wow" a fisherman said. "You took down a boss on your own?"

Bladescape shrugged. "I won't lie, it wasn't easy, but I'm on the Assault Team. Plus, I wasn't going to waste a teleport crystal and then work all the way back to where I was a few hours later with one other player as backup. Going solo had its risks and challenges, but it was the right move. The boss was designed to be soloed, not that it made it any easier."

"Then what are you doing down here?" another asked.

"I need to acquire a large amount of the item specifically called Blue Stones for a crafting project," Bladescape explained. "And not stones that are blue, but the item called Blue Stones. Floor 22 was where the info broker told me to start looking, along the edges of the lakes."

"Yeah, they are here," he confirmed. "But they are spread out. If you need a lot, you will have to search for a while, across the whole Floor."

"Maybe," Bladescape said, a sly grin growing on her face. The boss had dropped her a lot of col. "But maybe you and others would be willing to help me. I'll pay you at least five thousand Col per full bag and I'll prorate smaller quantities. The price may go up if it proves to be harder to gather all the stones I need."

Bladescape opened her menu and pulled out a sack. "This is the size of the sacks I need filled up with the stones. I'll leave twenty here and you guys can see what you can rope up nearby. Me and my friend will head further out to see what we can drag up. I'll be back in two days, and we can trade here."

"You'll pay five-K for that sack being filled with Blue Stones?" He asked, clearly shocked at the prospect. It was likely a lot of money to him and the other fishermen, which was the point of the offer. "I'm in!"

The others around were as well. Bladescape handed out sacks and then went to the inn. She would hand out more sacks in the morning if other players decided to make some easy money. The news would pass around soon enough. The less menial work she had to do, the better. It would take too long if she didn’t pay for help and the Aincrad Materials Company would not do contracts for simple collection tasks.

The inn only had one room available to rent. Doombunny and Bladescape had to double up. It felt good to have another body in the bed, as small as it was. It had been a very long time since she shared a bed with any of her guildmates. 

The morning brought several more stone hunters. She passed out the bags and then the two of them were off. Since Doombunny didn't have Sprint, it was a much slower hike than what Bladescape could do on her own. It brought both frustration and contentment at having someone to watch her back. Doombunny wasn’t straying far as she hunted for the stones. She was always in sight and rarely that far out of reach. 

They came across one of the small streams that provided the lakes with fresh water. Doombunny picked up a small stone from the myriad of others at the bottom.

"Here's one," Doombunny said. "Reveal isn't just a Skill against other players, traps, or animals. It also allows me to find specific items. It fills in the gaps of what Search doesn’t do."

Bladescape's heart both stopped and moved to the pit of her stomach. The stone was no bigger than a marble. If that was the size of the stone, and she needed eighty bags, this would be a huge task. An enormous menial task that needed more people to complete in a reasonable time.

"Great spot, Doom," Bladescape said, extending the bag. "Put it in here."

"What's wrong?" Doombunny asked.

"I need eighty of these bags," Bladescape explained. 

"Oh my," Doombunny softly exclaimed. "Well, I am sure that was just a baby stone. Oh shoot! Now I sound like Konpeito going off about stones and their families."

Both of them had a good laugh. Konpeito was convinced that in this virtual world, rocks had a family, they grew up, had babies, and after they died, they were supposed to be harvested like a vegetable. Or something like that. They could only follow so many of her dream stories, she wasn't the best storyteller, and they seemed to shift and change at times.

There had been nothing referencing, or even hinting at, rocks being like that in SAO, but it wasn't something they could fix even with logic. Some of Konpeito's neural networks were locked into infinite loops of false or illogical thinking patterns. Bladescape herself couldn't remember plenty of things and relearning others seemed impossible; hence her Book of Memories. For the other Wondercolts, most of them also had to have their own patterns set by the shock of it all and what this game actually meant. Every single player alive had trauma from being locked in Aincrad and it affected all of their minds in some shape or form. 

They began to search the stream further. Bladescape found a Blue Stone that fit in the palm of her hand. It wasn't some tiny pebble. There was hope that this task would not take too long. They had soon gathered a good five bags from the first stream. 

They continued to travel away from Coral, heading to the boundary wall of the floor. There was a lake that backed up to the outer wall of Aincrad. The water calmly lapped against smooth stone shores. There were plenty of blue stones dotted around, but it wasn't going to be enough.

"Blade!" Doombunny called excitedly from further down the shore. "Under us are a whole bunch of the stones! Just waiting to be uncovered."

And that was the true power of the Reveal Skill. Search did a lot, but it couldn't pick out items, even with her Silver Sagacity Circlet. It certainly couldn't see deeper than surface level.

Bladescape began digging, tossing aside the regular stones with little care. After a good 8 inches were cleared away, there were plenty of stones hidden away. It required several holes, but they filled up sixty sacks just on that jackpot alone. They almost had what they needed, but night had set in, halting their work. The moonlight was strong, but it wasn’t enough to easily tell the color of the stones. 

Every Wondercolt carried a sleeping kit for use in the field. They now had to keep watch if they rested, running shifts in case orange players came along, but they still carried it as standard gear. Search helped reduce the chance of being jumped. At higher levels, they could set a field up so that if the distance was broken, an alarm woke them up. It was especially useful in dungeons and labyrinths, when camping out in safe zones. Another great use was the overnight training, being able to set alarms and search fields helped them rest when they were out of rotation.

Since there were no monsters to worry about, they camped out overnight. Bladescape set a Search zone as they slipped into their sleeping bags. It was a very safe floor. 

"What are you going to do about the others hunting stones for you?" Doombunny asked as they bedded down. “We found almost all of what you need.”

"I'll pay them, as promised," Bladescape yawned. The dagannoths dropped a healthy portion of col and the dobharcu's col drops were not shabby either. "They don't know how many I need and they also don't know how many we acquired. Bringing back extra won't be a problem either. Besides, I can afford it."

"Good point," Doombunny said. "About the first part. I figured you could afford it."

The night was a lot more peaceful than expected. The water gently lapping at the rocks helped calm them down with its lullaby. Bladescape slept soundly because of it. The morning sun, slipping in from between the floors, made sure they were awake through its gentle, but piercing, rays of warmth. Awake and up before their alarms woke them up.

The hike back was quiet, uneventful, and beautiful. The vast lakes, hills, and forests made it one of the prettiest Floors designed by Akihiko Kayaba and his team. Aincrad was supposed to be their new lives, but it was still a game at its core, despite what it had been turned into.  

They got back to Coral about noon. News of their arrival sparked the fishermen and wood crafters to come and present their bags of Blue Stones while Bladescape and Doombunny ate lunch in the local NPC restaurant. It was the only NPC place to eat in the small village.

True to her word, Bladescape paid full price for a filled bag. Twice as many players had come to sell stones than the sacks she gave out. Many brought in sacks only half filled, or even less, their luck being lower than their friends. Bladescape paid what she thought was a fair amount for their harvest and the players living in Coral made some easy money. Everyone was happy and satisfied with the deals. In the end, Bladescape had eighty-nine full sacks of Blue Stones. 




 
BLADESCAPE: Level 78 — Two-Handed Sword — Searching — Weapon Defense — Leather Armor — First Aid — Battle Regeneration — Sprint —  Blade Throwing — Extended Weight Carry — Acrobatics 
NATORA: Level 74 —  Two-Handed Spear — Purchase Negotiations — Sales Negotiation — Weapon Defense — Light Metal Armor — First Aid — Battle Regeneration — Acrobatics — Armor Pierce — Sprint 
KNIGHTSTAR: Level 70 — One-Handed Sword — Shield — Light Metal Armor — Equipment Appraisal — First Aid — Battle Regeneration — Acrobatics — Extended Weight Carry — Armor Pierce — Search  
MALUS: Level 73 — One-Handed War Hammer — Heavy Shield — Heavy Metal Armor — First Aid — Extended Weight Carry — Battle Regeneration — Fishing — Search — Martial Arts — Rend 
THUNDERBORNE: Level 73 — Rapier — Sprint — Acrobatics — Weapon Defense — Light Metal Armor — First Aid — Battle Regeneration — Armor Pierce — Martial Arts — Blade Throwing 
KONPEITO: Level 73 — Two-Handed Axe — Cooking — Weapon Defense —  Light Metal Armor — Martial Arts — First Aid — Battle Regeneration — Music — Blade Throwing — Bard — Extended Weight Carry 
DIEMOND: Level 74 — Mace — Heavy Shield — Sewing — Heavy Metal Armor  — First Aid — Battle Regeneration — Light Metal Armor Forging — Heavy Metal Armor Forging — Extended Weight Carry — Jewelry Creation 
DOOMBUNNY: Level 70 — One-Handed Dagger — Hide — Fighting Spirit — Blade Throwing — First Aid — Battle Regeneration — Familiar Cooperation — Mixing — Search — Listen — Reveal 
KIEFER: Level 71 — One-Handed Curved Sword — Slash Weapon Forging — Light Metal Armor  — Weapon Defense — First Aid  — Katana — Battle Regeneration — Slash Weapon Forging — Blade Throwing — Armor Pierce
SORYUTO: Level 70 — One-Handed Sword — Shield — Light Metal Armor — Music — First Aid — Battle Regeneration — Fighting Spirit — Armor Pierce — Acrobatics — Extended Weight Carry  
REISENKI: Level 71 — One-Handed Axe — Heavy Shield — Heavy Metal Armor — Equipment Repair — Metal Equipment Repair — First Aid —  Battle Regeneration — Cooking — Metal Refining — One-Hand Weapon Creation