Vigilon

Vigilon reached into his inventory and pulled out the blue crystals. He used them and then checked for any other soul crystals...nope, he was out of crystals. The Meta pushed Vigilon back again, and then prepared something huge. It didn't look like something Vigilon would be able to dodge, and despite being statistically fine, physically, he was not. "This can't...be it...this can't be how it ends...it can't..." Fatigued, Vigilon fell back down on the ground. "I'm sorry, everyone...he has...won..." "....." It felt hopeless, the attack his enemy was preparing was still

Vigilon had trouble getting up this time, and his enemy was now more powerful than ever. Guess this boss operated with phases, each HP bar being one phase. He was hurting everywhere, and even the souls with Vigilon were speaking up again, but there was too much mental traffic for him to understand what they were all saying. "Look at you now, you're already dying. No hope, no future, no lover you can return to alive. You can hardly even stand, the pain and the voices, you're crumbling beneath their weight and effect." The Meta taunted. Vigilon quickly reached for the soul crystals, us

The Meta Suddenly knocked Vigilon back, sending him flying. When Vigilon tried to get back up. The Meta suddenly grappled Vigilon. "One way or another, I WILL have your soul." It claimed. With that, it thrust its hand into Vigilon. Vigilon felt pain surging throughout his Avatar, maybe his entire being. The Meta began to slowly pull its hand out, but it seemed to be holding something. The Meta's hand emerged gripping a hilt, and as it pulled back further, more and more of a weapon came into view. The Meta stepped back with its new weapon. "Looks like I'll still have to kill you for y

Vigilon looked to his energy. He was going to need more if he was going to finish this battle. Before he should do that, however, he should make use of what he still had. Less was more, after all. "You cannot protect them. You could not avenge your own Father, you could not bear to do what was necessary when this all started because you were afraid. You grew lonesome, didn't you? You were so easily drawn in by the one you loved. If she asked for your soul, would you have given it to her? Is she a special case?" The Meta spoke. Vigilon unleashed an attack barrage upon his enemy. "If

Vigilon didn't know how to get back the souls The Meta had stolen, but he would if he could. "Call me weak all you want...you use these souls for yourself, and the only reason I keep them with me is to protect them from freaks like you!" He declared. "For once, I think you're right." The Meta remarked. "You'll believe that you are their fortress, even if you're destined to fail...but you're not a fortress, unlike your sister." Vigilon growled. "My sister was wounded, so she built up her defenses and guarded herself from even her own family. We just had different ways to cope." He pu

The Meta attempted to attack Vigilon. Vigilon blocked the attack, but there was enough force in the attack to send him flying. When he landed on the ground, he hastily pulled out two large soul crystals and used them both. Now he was probably out of large soul crystals, but at least he was back in the fight...well, he still needed energy to execute any sword arts. Also, there were six new voices in his head, so there was that, too. He blocked another attack, and he kept the block on lock with his opponent. He pulled out one blue crystal, and made use of it. Now it was time to get fighting

"So what?" Vigilon replied. "You always run the risk of dying when you leave a safe place, and almost everywhere I've been on Aincrad...one battle after the other. I may as well be used to it by now." "Impressive words, but do your actions support them? Do they have any real value?" The Meta questioned. Vigilon would be assaulted by all three enemies again. He blocked, he attacked, he took damage, he was having a rough time. Thankfully, the copies were only temporary, and they dissipated. Vigilon attacked once more, and blocked another attack before actually paying attention to his H

Why did it have to be this way? Why did things need to be so gosh darn complicated? He now had three things to worry about. "You're already like, forty two of my problems, why'd you have to give me thirteen more?" Vigilon asked. In response, the enemies all attacked. Trying to block three attackers at once was kind of more than he could handle, it seemed. He had to strike one of them. Vigilon attempted quite a few attacks, but he found that his weapon passed through two of them, and then dealt damage to the one on his left. Ah, there was the real deal. While Vigilon couldn't deal damage t

The Meta jumped back and slashed his blade through the air, and some cutting force of energy was headed for Vigilon, who ducked to avoid it. Vigilon then ran towards The Meta again to attack, and managed two more hits on his foe. Suddenly The Meta was in the center of the arena again, and it was staring at Vigilon. "Why's it looking at me like that? What's it about to do?" Vigilon thought. Next thing he knew, The Meta split into three. Were two of them cheap copies, or illusory copies? It was most likely one of the two...and it would make dealing damage a whole lot harder,

Ok, so this enemy had more fancy tricks than expected. The Meta was proving himself to be a Boss opponent, but due to the amount of damage Vigilon was dealing, maybe it was designed for one on one combat, which was nice on Cardinal's part. "You could never best your rivals in Aincrad, so you crushed them like weaklings within your mind...how petty." The Meta spoke. "Nobody's perfect." Vigilon began. "I've come a long way, and I'm not gonna let some 'petty' thoughts drag me down." He almost drifted into thought, but it was as if the souls within Vigilon stopped speaking and start

"I don't care if I'm all three, I'm doing something other than just standing around being useless, so I'll keep going and have hope for the future." Vigilon responded before bolting again. The Meta chased after Vigilon, but it was a stalemate at this point. The Meta stopped and raised an arm to the sky. Three lights shot into the air...that can't be good. Vigilon rushed in to attack as soon as the lights came from his foe. He managed to hit twice, but was blocked the third time, and all of a sudden, sharp, small blades of similar material to The Meta's weapon were raining down on the batt

Vigilon needed to heal quickly, but if he used a bunch of soul crystals, his opponent just might spam that soulsteal attack. Was there a way to protect the souls and negate the attack? He didn't know, in all honesty. Maybe for now, he could use one crystal and prioritize evasive action, seeing that his opponent had a lot of HP and he didn't. Bosses like these, it always needs someone running around in circles, trying to find the right opportunity, the moment to let loose. He used one more small soul crystal and dashed to the right. The Meta was expecting him to run, it seemed, but Vigilon

Vigilon couldn't see a smile, but he felt the presence of a sinister grin for some reason. "Don't think a sudden burst of courage will give you power." The Meta claimed. "You had one when trying to defend Ayaka, and look what good that did you." Vigilon raised his weapon to block The Meta's attack. "Who cares that I got thrown in the dumpster, I saved her life!" He responded. "I saved her life so who gives a damn if I couldn't beat those bullies?" Vigilon pushed back at his opponent and moved in to strike immediately after. The Meta thrust its hand into Vigilon, and he heard a

Oh, how original. Since this was possibly a genuine fight to the death, it was also a terrifying response. "And uh, why the heck would you want it? I'll never give it to you, but..." Vigilon asked. The Meta would attack several times, and one attack managed to hit Vigilon. He felt the attack rip through him, and the pain was severe this time. Vigilon fell to the ground, but he wasn't defeated just yet. His HP had seen better days, though... "Look at you, you had so much potential back in your life, even in Aincrad." The Meta began. "Clearly, however...you yourself? Such a waste...I

If he got hit too many times, that was it. He didn't want it all to end this way, he had to fight back somehow... "Run all you want, you can't escape this." Came a sudden voice. Vigilon stopped, confused. He quickly turned around to block an attack from his foe. "You couldn't escape the imminent clash with Elverond either, couldn't you?" The voice continued, as The Meta seemed to stare into Vigilon's very being. Was this voice just The Meta talking? The souls that were with Vigilon continued to react, as if they seemed to be figuring out what was going on. Were they seeing through Vi

As soon as Vigilon placed the Essence he'd picked out into his inventory, the others were already leaving. Vigilon decided that he might as well leave with them. The party reached the upper floor just to witness Dazia flee, and then Astralin did what she could to take the lead as to solve the spike tile puzzle in order for the players to cross safely. Once the players managed to reach the other side of the puzzle... wait, was that a skeleton with a casual hoodie? ...Wait, doesn't it look similar to the description given by that unsettling kid...? The skeleton mentioned someone who ma

Dazia tired to grab the vials, but for some reason she could only grab one. After Dazia added the red one to her inventory, the sound of approaching footsteps could be heard. It was as if Dazia vanished and suddenly everything was darker. Vigilon began waving his arms about, hoping to find something. Instead, he ended up tripping over nothing because it was just too dark for him to watch his footing. When he got up, he saw Astralin coming in from the other room. He could mainly tell because of that glow-in-the-dark amulet she wore these days. She called out to her party that the area was

Sure enough, Dazia entered the room. She explained that she'd found whoever cleaned the place out, and that said person wasn't interested in PKing. Dazia then sliced up the training dummy, proceeding to make a negative remark. "...You do realize we could have just picked it up and moved it, right? You didn't need to do that." Vigilon countered. It was basically a waste of energy destroying it when there could be something up ahead. Vigilon and Dazia would travel to the other side of the room, and there seemed to be something odd keeping the door sealed. There were symbols that looked deta

Vigilon continued on, and the next room wouldn't exactly have much, save for a simple frog hopping around the floor. It was probably looking for cave insects, and it was probably fine to just leave it alone. It stared at Vigilon for a few seconds as he passed by it, but then it returned to its usual business. Had someone cleared this place out already? They must not have been looking for treasure, otherwise that treasure chest would have been opened and looted before Vigilon came across it. He pondered over this for a brief moment, then he continued on. The next room would kind of bottleneck,

Okay, now was the time for focus, and deep breaths. He needed to handle this carefully, lest he take too much damage from stepping on spikes. Now, how to tell which tiles were spike tiles and which ones weren't? Talk about minesweeper...or "spikesweeper", in this case. He shouldn't have been surprised when almost a quarter of his HP was lost from all the spike tiles he'd stepped on...in total, of course, the individual spike tiles didn't deal much on their own. With red dots all over the bottoms of his feet(or boots, whatever), he walked up to the chest he'd spotted. "Alright....this bett

Dazia seemed willing enough to enter the ruins, but when the path split, Dazia was silent. Vigilon walked on the right path, and he soon entered a seemingly empty room. "Well, Dazia, it looks like-" Dazia was nowhere to be seen. "Um...where'd you go? Are you in stealth, or did you take the left path? Don't you know it's bad to split the party?" Well, the room wasn't exactly empty, but what was around seemed to be mostly junk...and weird tiles. The tiles seemed to have holes in them, so that was enough for suspicion. Vigilon slowly placed his right foot on one, and the tile began to sink.

Vigilon thought for a moment. "I'm probably gonna end up separated if I do this, but I can only hope it's not a dungeon..." He considered all the possibilities, then he was confident in his decision. "We wouldn't know what we're getting into or what's up ahead, anyway. This floor is a subterranean maze and we just so happen to be lost." He told Dazia. "In other words, we're going in." This better not become something he regretted.... The structure was definitely old. While it wasn't crumbling down this very moment, its walls were definitely showing signs of age, and there were mushro

"I didn't forget about the maps, I just remember them being 2D and surface-level." Vigilon replied to Dazia's remark on maps. Soon after the two players' HP regenerated to full, Dazia suggested taking the south tunnel to try and find a way out. Vigilon would find himself walking down the south tunnel, until there was a fork in the tunnel. "Well...now what? Are we gonna pick a direction, or are we gonna argue about left and right? Personally, I don't think splitting up would do any good." Upon saying that, the rocks in front of the players crumbled, revealing another option, a third path that w

Vigilon backed away upon hearing Dazia's threat. Both Players got up, and Dazia asked what Vigilon's next move was, although she admitted that she was ready to leave the party this very moment. "Well, before we go anywhere else, we should take a short rest and recover our HP, maybe keep a lookout for anything dangerous while we're at it. Then we should probably head back to the safe zone and figure out our next destination." Vigilon suggested. "I won't stop you from leaving on your own, but, well, do so at your own risk, there's strength in numbers, after all." He added, hoping that this would

Every story has a beginning, though some stories begin within other stories, which also happen to be part of one greater, grand tale. Some stories begin with peace, some stories begin with a collapse... This one...began with a Fall. Vigilon landed face-first onto the ground. He sure didn't see that drop coming...now that he thought of it, he hardly saw anything at all during that moment. He looked to his HP, and he'd taken some damage...but he was relieved to know that he was alive at all. Still somewhat dazed, he tried to get a grip on his situation. Where was he? H