Alkor

Her voice cut into his thoughts before he had a chance to put them to words. She arrived more quickly than he anticipated, and that meant they could get away from there before he was buried alive. She might have noticed the nervous tick, the way he clicked his teeth- or that his eyes darted around, distrustful, while his hand rested near his sword belt. He was the same as them in some ways: uncertain, cautious, though perhaps his mania was an exaggeration born of innate anxiety. Up to this point, he stuck to the higher floors and honed his skills as a swordsman. Once he was able to confidently

His return to the tournament area was met with announcements. Baldur began to read through the winners, and Alkor winced as he heard the commentary attached to his name. It seemed there were still people who remembered, or at least, people who cared enough to remember. He much preferred the idea that his name would return to insignificance, and that his survival would be a painful memory to as few players as possible. Nonetheless, he continued to walk on the outskirts of the group, sizing up the group. His preliminary assessment was as useful as the updated one. He still did not know anymore.

Alkor was almost asleep, almost to the point where his dreams eclipsed reality. When his eyes snapped open again, he wondered if this was a dream. He stumbled forward onto his haunches as the tree- treant? - yes, it was clearly alive, and in a very foul mood as it raised out of the ground and lurched toward... someone. Alkor had no recognized the voice, nor had he seen anyone else or he wouldn't have tried to nap. His body moved forward on instinct, driven by the system and dragged along by the sudden manhandling that the other man gave his cloak. He rolled head over heels and up

The ship rocked, creaked, and jilted as they made impact. He hardly imagined it would go as smoothly as it had. Razwell's loyalists proved to be complacent and untested, which spoke of the Empire's decline. They enjoyed a period of peace for an indeterminate amount of time, without the need to take to the skies for war. Their pilots failed even to take evasive maneuvers. He would have pitied them if it had not been such a victory for the cause. The initial damage assessment was unnecessary, and he did not bother to take stock on his own. They traded their ship for the chance to seize

Dawn came in silence. He might have missed the sunrise if he hadn't glanced up for a moment. The willow trees dwarfed the small lichyard, and unlike the trees that swelled in the expanses of the floor all around them, these let nothing through. It was like eternal night, almost prodigiously so. He thought to ask one of the elves or a treant, or anyone else who might have been involved with the construction of the site, but there was no one. It was the untimely loss of the strange flora that bloomed around the monuments that drew him hear, on the winged words of an information broker, but

Lambent light nestled within the elegant structures of Ellesmera, glistening off the raindrops that seeped through the canopy of leaves. The architecture served as beacons in the absence of moonlight or the stars to guide him as he trekked through the sepulchral city. Whether it was the absence of daylight or the annoyance of rain that hurried them off the streets, there were no elves to be seen. The only sounds came from precipitation as it struck and reverberated, splotchy and dank in contrast to the surreal beauty. The shuttering of windows and soft shutting of doors broke caught his attent

Some time had elapsed since Jomei parted ways with him before Alkor returned to the group. They were abuzz with talk of the final fights of the first round. He caught bits and pieces of the conversation as he happened close enough, but voices and words bled together. Alkor was bad at large group activities, in no small part because they overloaded his senses. The inability to get his footing in the room put him on edge, and he looked for a spot along the wall to set his roots in. He heard his name, several times in fact. It wasn't a familiar voice, and in crowded areas he didn't trust his

The world was red. Heat unimaginable emanated from the belly of the beast Ifrit in earnest homage to its namesake. The resultant concussion force stretched our through the air like tendrils, wildly whipping and thrashing. He watched expressionless as it mindlessly devoured brick and mortar, tearing asunder the very realm that the man at its controls sought to lord over. Alkor was not impressed. The perspiration that beaded on his neck and brow now were born of the magnitude of this heat and the intensity of his thoughts, bewildered at how to oppose the might of this unexpected, woefu

"If you want them, the only path leads through me," he said, as their weapons careened away from each other and the force of her strikes made him slide backward through snow. "They've watched you kill their friends, they are wounded, they are terrified. Now that they have seen their weaknesses, they are malleable." Alkor took up his blade in a defensive stance, pensive as he fixed the woman with his stern, stoic's gaze. "Death is not a lesson to the dead," he called hoarsely, his voice at odds with the storm. "The dead learn nothing, and will never grow again. They can never feel the pain

"...date?" Alkor blinked as the comment processed. Jomei had already turned to leave, but he'd struck the proverbial final blow as the idea slowly spread and realization sank in. "Wait, what the heck did he mean by date?" It was clear there was fine print that Alkor hadn't bothered to read, and something sinister was afoot in all of this. If he won the tournament, would he be forced to sit through an agonizing night with some randomly chosen bachelorette? "Jesus Christ I hope not," he muttered as anxiety blossomed anew. Devoid of another human to pretend around he let his guard fall and h

"Easier...?" he repeated the sentiment, his thoughts out of focus for a moment. "I wonder about that." Alkor considered the man's final comment, though his eyes fled from Jomei again. He hated looking people in the eyes whenever it could be helped. Eye contact felt so unnerving, like someone could see past any number of layers of defense to his exposed heart. He could feel the other man's gaze on him, even if it weren't as intense as many that had come before. He just wanted to escape attention altogether. To see who you are, Jomei had said. His fingers traced the wooden rail of the

"You can ask Lessa how well talking about emotions goes with me," he said, not laughing nearly as much as the woman probably might have if she heard those words. "I won't be much help of you when it comes to sifting through your feelings, unless you just need a brick wall to bounce them off of. In which case, I'm about that useful, and you'll get about as good of a response." Whether or not he meant it as an invitation for Jomei to continue, the man did. Worth note, Alkor seemed at least somewhat appreciative when he shifted topics, because he gave no outward sign of frustration. With

"Hmpf." Alkor let out a tiny chuckle when the man asked him directly about forgiveness, and whether or not he believed he deserved it. That was never a question for him. More to the point, his gaze toward the other man was uninhibited now. "It's not pertinent to me, it just sounded applicable to your situation," he replied. "You can take it or leave it, no harm no foul." He slowly blinked and glanced back toward the dull roar of voices, cheering, booing, excited. "We're all in this place together, but we come from different worlds," Alkor said. "And some of us live in this world, set apar

Alkor's gaze softened a bit as Jomei spoke, focused on the water garden as light dance across the surface. "Some of us will go our entire lives and never deserve people like Lessa," he muttered. "Not as a friend or anything else. The weird thing about people like her is that they don't care. I figure it's called grace, or at least, that's how someone important to me described it- the whole idea of being forgiven, even when you have no right to be. Some folks are just built different. No matter how many times people spit on them, they keep taking it." It was different for him. He couldnt c

"Ah," Alkor replied evenly when the man indicated he would rather not discuss his loss. They had that in common. Asking about it was a matter of congeniality more than interest. Still, the man continued, and he revealed that he had lost. Equally something Alkor would prefer not to talk about, but for different reasons. If he had time to lose a fight, he had time to get back to improving so he would not lose again. Lessa had once pointed out that his mind operated on a single track, in fact. She promptly became the topic of conversation again, and Alkor closed his eyes. Had they not moved

This man was like Lessa in some ways. Whether it was affection toward the woman or genuine concern that prompted him to gush about their conversations or if Jomei generally had the gift of the gab, Alkor could not tell. What he did absently wonder was how these talkative people somehow always seemed to sus him out and decide he would make for an excellent conversation partner. The blonde managed to stifle his groan and continue smiling as he proclaimed that their mutual friend's concerns were valid. Whatever those were, Alkor could only respond with a throaty, "mhm." A veritable flood

"Mmmm..." Alkor reached into his shirt and produced a pipe, which he promptly struck and lifted to his lips. "It's fine, I've had to tell the story enough times that I'm almost numb to it now." There were few people Alkor had seen since his near death experience who knew about it, but those who did demanded answers more intensely than Jomei had. Each retelling desensitized him a little more, but the image of magma burned into his mind still remained. He watched the smoke swirl out from his lips. "...yeah, that makes two of us." Alkor saw the man dissemble into an anxious mess an

Alkor closed his eyes when the man mentioned him sleeping. "I hadn't intended to fall asleep, but I suppose I used more energy than I thought during my last fight." Koga might have called those last words the understatement of the year, but Alkor maintained that in order to improve he had to push himself. To that end, a small rest afterward was acceptable. The dream that came with it was less welcome. He was finally able to force a tight smile when the topic shifted to Lessa. Was the man one of her many friends, or perhaps something else? Alkor absently wondered if he was about to be punc

Their blows reached an impasse as the man hurried away, clutching the amputee in his arms. He didn't see if the potion were administered, nor did he avert his gaze from Setsuna at all. A moment with his guard down would be an invitation for disaster, especially at odds with an opponent like this one. "I don't," he admitted without giving ground. "But it shouldn't matter. One should always strive to find a solution better than the escalation of violence." He knew that Setsuna did not agree, and he knew why she did not. "Every life is irreplacable, and we should not want to add corpses to t

The taste of sherry cake was a welcome reprieve from the Cardinal system's falsification of true flavor. The scent reminded him of home, and the sight of his family gave him a moment of excitement. They were there at the table, sharing Christmas dinner, talking... and his chair was empty. He could see his grandmother smiling at his sister, and his father and mother found their one day of civility a year. They found peace, unity, and happiness in his absence. The one eyesore in the family, their greatest failure, the man who had retreated from their world into the virtual. In that moment, Alkor

Alkor felt the impact rattle through his entire body. If he had been a lower level Player, that kind of raw power would have torn through his defenses and felled him where he stood. Though his focus was on their environment as the true enemy, the man's experiences had taught him not to trivialize the strength of others. Murderers within Sword Art Online exploited the weaknesses of Players who dropped their guard. In instances where the world had offered them a reprieve, the nefarious Player Killers sank their fangs deep and drove poison into the hearts of others. More names for the monument. L

It was the promise of an introduction to the Commander in Braso that swayed him to venture westward first. What little the brokers had pieced together immediately after the floor became available indicated that this was where warriors went to hone their skills. It had yielded no fruit. Despite his best efforts, Alkor was barred entry and murmurs of "no outsiders" became the litany chanted from the top brass to the lowliest barkeep. "How it always happens, that is," an older woman nodded to indicate the soldiers occupying the city as the swordsman ambled past, shrugging off several layers of th

He found himself deeper within the labyrinthine compound, wandering far enough from the group that he could return quickly if called for the next round. Alkor was careful to go just far enough away to evade any unnecessary conversational entanglements. These large events only served to fuel his anxiety. The reward he found was a beautiful panoramic view of autumnal leaves cresting over one of the myriad ponds that flecked the island's surface. Lazily, he leaned against one of the walls and slid down to a seated position before he finally lost himself in the colors. With the lig

Alkor has achieved Paragon Level 28 (169,974 EXP) Alkor's Journal Link Therefore, I would like to claim the following: Paragon Level Reward 5 - 10 Gleaming Scale (1) Can be used to preserve an item's unique enhancement when merging it with another piece of equipment during Item Fusion. Three Gleaming Scales allows an enhancement slot on an item to be rerolled from the Unique Table. Demonic Shards (1) Can be used to upgrade an item from Perfect rarity to Demonic during Item Fusion. Must

Alkor blinked suddenly, as if he and Koga were talking about separate things. And perhaps they were. That seemed to be the case when he'd talked with Lessa on multiple occasions, where she had a very serious concern and he could only focus on very specific, not always relevant parts of what she was saying. Even when he was listening, it seemed, he was not always hearing. Or at least, he wasn't hearing what the other person wanted him to. He winced as Koga continued, reeling away from that initial conflict of ideas and attempting to refocus his attention. Clearly, while Koga had reference