[SP-F8] The Hollowed Tree

[Miaki 0]

It was a very brisk morning on the fourth floor. The snow was falling as it always seemed to do and the mountain air was fresh as ever. Today, Miaki's plans were to venture up to the eighth floor to scout out a new region of the floor. Thus far only a few explorers and cartographers had begun to map out the area and there was still much to explore. This was what Miaki had in mind to do for the day. Currently another team was assigned to scout the labyrinth out so Miaki wasn't needed there. Instead he chose to help with mapping out floors and dungeons.

Because the floor clearers were so obsessive of getting to the next floor, most of the time they overlooked many regions or areas that they considered unimportant unless they heard about a quest or valuable item that was present in the area. Miaki had heard of one particular dungeon, a massive, hollowed out tree, that had yet to be checked. He wasn't sure what to expect but knew that it would be interesting never the less what happened.

[Miaki 0]

Miaki had invited his fiancé, Nikki, or Abigale as he came to know her to come along in checking out the region but she had to train some new recruits and was too busy. So he kissed his lovely fiancé, wished her luck with the new recruits, left their place on the fourth floor, and used the local <> in the settlement to jump to the eighth floor main plaza.

Upon arriving through the vine wreathed arc, he looked around at what some were coming to call the "treetop" floor. This floor got its name for the one simple fact that the entire floor was focused on the high elevations of carved out trees and suspended rope bridges. Every time he looked at it he would swear he'd just stepped into Lorien from J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional works. It was this floor where he and Nikki confessed their caring for one another by kissing one another in front of the entire raiding party. It was also the same floor where he knelled before her, in one of the higher locations on the floor, and dedicated his life to her if she would accept him; and she had.

[Miaki 0]

Miaki couldn't teleport to the town closest to the region he was mapping because he'd never been there himself. With the exception of the main settlements of each floor, which were unlocked whenever a new floor boss was defeated, players had to activate the other teleportation gates themselves if they wanted to use them, you couldn't have someone do it for you. This was how it work with other MMOs as well. You couldn't expect to see everything the world has to offer unless you went out to explore it yourself.

The <> made his way for <> and from there it would be a straight shot to the partially charted area he was after. Using a network of zipline shortcuts that required some pretty decent STR requirements to use, Miaki was able to cut a lot of time to reach <>. He'd only been here once and had decided to check out the town before moving on. Atleast to see what kind of goods or food one could only get here and no where else on the floors currently accessible to players in AIncrad.

[Miaki 0]

Checking around the shops, he saw that, with no surprise, the shops and vendors all had different types of food with honey thrown into the mix. From candies to pastries, meats to dairies the town had all sorts of things to offer. He was thinking hard of something to get to bring back with him that Nikki would like. But he had no idea what exactly she would like more which became a dilemma. He could of course try sending her a carefully worded message asking for something that would lead to tell him what to get for her. But that wasn't something he was interested in trying to do. Plus she was more than smart enough to figure out he was up to something if he were to ask odd questions out of the blue.

[Miaki 0]

After a while he finally settled on a small jar of honey spread. It wasn't much larger than his fist and the golden contents inside the glass container looked rather appealing. Neither he nor Nikki had any stats put into cooking so it was pointless to buy cooking ingredients, but something that could be applied to other foods worked well enough for them. That was what made this item perfect for Nikki. It was something she could keep in her inventory and use whenever she wanted and on whatever she wanted. He picked up the jar and held it up to the vendor and paid for it with a small amount of his Col. Completing his purchase, Miaki left <> behind him and headed out for the unexplored territory.

[Miaki 0]

After perhaps an hours hike he found himself nearing the vaguely mapped out region. <> was the name that appeared on his map. The name was fitting for the area. In fact it was fitting for the floor entirely since practically everything one could enter was hollowed out tree. He checked his positioning and compared it to the location marked by other players that went before him. Some of the trees, especially the narrow ones were sealed up and couldn't be entered. If every building and structure he had seen in SAO was enterable then the memory required to manage 100 floors of buildings to enter would be ridiculous.

Not even the longest running MMOs could with seemingly endless budgets and resources. At the same time though most of the buildings in Aincrad could be entered. Some loophole found by a veteran video game programmer made it where most buildings could be entered but managed to saved memory space.

[Miaki 0]

As he rounded one medium sized tree, atleast medium sized compared to the other trees on the floor, a massive tree came into sight. The tree was atleast 50 meters in diameter. Miaki had never seen a tree so large before in his life. The tree itself resembled that of a great oak tree. It stood by itself, somewhat distant and distinct from the other trees. Only one footbridge led to the opening into the tree and Miaki was on it.

[Miaki 0]

As he approached the massive tree, resembling that of an oak tree, his gaze followed it upward trying to see the top of dungeon. The top branches far surpassed the tops of the trees around it. The size of it amazed Miaki as he neared the end of the bridge. As he stepped off the bridge and onto a platform that was in front of the entrance, he began to hear a wispy voice around him. Looking around for the source a creature began to fade into existence in front of him.

[Miaki 0]

The creature appearing in front of Miaki had elongated limbs and looked somewhat gangly. Having the figure of a woman she hovered inches above the ground and poised herself like a ballet dancer about to begin a performance. She had both her feet pointing to the ground as she faced the trench coat wearing swordsman. He had never seen one of these creatures before but the name floating above it and it's appearance was exactly what he would've expected a <> would look like in real life. But this one wasn't in the good mood he would've hope as he reached down for his blade.

[Miaki 0]

With a bright silvery flash, Miaki had drawn his trusty katana <>. Today's first encounter was going to be glorious he told himself for he could feel the prospects of not only mapping a new dungeon but also improve on his combat skills. Holding the katana, which he had become very familiar with in use of combat, in his hands he made eye contact with the tree nymph and squared off shifting into a combat stance.

Battle result: Hit! 6 DMG!

Miaki initiated with a first strike and attacked the <> with a diagonal slash.

Miaki: 67/67

Dryad: 9/15

Dryad's Theme

[Miaki 0]

<> Battle Dice Roll

1-5, miss.

6-8, hit, 1 HP of Damage.

9, Critical. 2 HP of Damage.

10, Massive Crit. 3 HP of Damage.

Miaki: 67/67

Dryad: 9/15

Dryad's Theme

[Miaki 0]

With the new combat patch going active, Miaki noted that much more damage was dealt by players. More than likely monsters would soon have a similar buff added to them making them more feared and difficult opponents. He moved quickly with the <> as it glided around the entrance to the hollow tree. Shouting at him in a singsong voice, the dryad was suddenly behind him. Miaki slashed backwards trying to catch it with his blade.

Battle result: Hit! 6 DMG!

The dryad had missed him when it attacked from behind but Miaki was ready with backward swing, striking the dryad for another strong health point loss.

Miaki: 67/67

Dryad: 3/15

Dryad's Theme

[Miaki 0]

<> Battle Dice Roll

1-5, miss.

6-8, hit, 2 HP of Damage.

9, Critical. 3 HP of Damage.

10, Massive Crit. 4 HP of Damage.

Miaki: 67/67

Dryad: 3/15

Dryad's Theme

[Miaki 0]

The forest nymph skirted about on the wooden platform as Miaki swung at it. The girl was parrying some of his strikes by hardening her arms with some sort of reenforced bark that it would sprout on it's skin. On one of these blocks the dryad countered with a smack to Miaki's head.

Battle result: Missed!

After taking the hit to the face, Miaki made a quick, backhand swing which proved ineffective.

Miaki: 65/67

Dryad: 3/15

Dryad's Theme

[Miaki 0]

<> Battle Dice Roll

1-5, miss.

6-8, hit, 2 HP of Damage.

9, Critical. 3 HP of Damage.

10, Massive Crit. 4 HP of Damage.

Miaki: 61/67

Dryad: 3/15

Dryad's Theme

[Miaki 0]

The <> spun around doing a puriat before scoring a critical on Miaki mid-spin. Miaki was dazed for a moment and refocused himself. He almost had her down and then he would be able to enter the dungeon itself. Holding his blade in front of him, guarding his chest, he waited for the dryad to slow down and open itself up for attack.

Battle result: Missed!

As the dryad began to slow down its momentum, Miaki thought that meant it was open for a direct attack, he was completely wrong. In fact, the dryad even managed to knock back Miaki a couple steps due to blocking so well.

Miaki: 61/67

Dryad: 3/15

Dryad's Theme

[Miaki 0]

<> Battle Dice Roll

1-5, miss.

6-8, hit, 2 HP of Damage.

9, Critical. 3 HP of Damage.

10, Massive Crit. 4 HP of Damage.

Miaki: 61/67

Dryad: 3/15

Dryad's Theme

[Miaki 0]

After performing it's spin attack and evading Miaki's counterattack, the <> stopped spinning entirely and instead began strafing left and right, ducking and avoiding multiple hits. Miaki was getting frustrated that such a simple looking creature was giving him such a hard time to hit. "Let's end this dance bitch." He told the creature in a cutthroat tone.

Battle result: Crit! 7 DMG!

The Dryad took a swipe at him with her left arm but Miaki evaded and counterattacked with a simple upward, quick swing.

Miaki: 61/67

Dryad: 0/15 - Defeated!

[Miaki 0]

With the defeat of the dryad, Miaki held onto his katana, keeping it low to the ground, almost dragging it, and entered through the spacious doorway. As soon as he crossed the threshold, the music changed and a name appeared in his vision.

<>

Miaki guessed that it was perhaps sacred to some NPC village that may of had some quest for players to take up inside. The interior was massive; looking up you could see small holes that would claim reckless travelers in a heartbeat. There were huge, thick spiderwebs hanging around waiting to entangle the weary and unsuspecting. The background music he was hearing was incredibly fitting, he couldn't explain why but it just seemed right. Staring up at the ceiling the strawberry-blonde haired young man tried to spot the top of the dungeon but all of the obstructions and the fact that there were only small pitfalls kept him from seeing up that high.

Nothing interesting on the ground floor, aside from the fact that the interior was very well kept and small like fresh wood shavings, he strode towards a small ladder that led to the next floor.

<> BGM

[Miaki 0]

Climbing up the ladder Miaki mentally made a prayer that he wouldn't be climbing ladders the entire time to get climb the tree otherwise this day would be unbearable before it even truly started. Having reached the top he broke away from the ladder and looked around him to see that the vast opening proved an answer to his prayer. To his left was a small staircase attached to the wall that circumvented the interior of the tree and went up a long ways. Without missing a beat Miaki went straight for the stairs when a sudden monster fell from the sky. Its body was larger than a horse, made all sorts of nasty insect sounds, and had black eyes shimmering like pearls. It was a <>."My brother would've loved you". Miaki said sarcastically as he first thought about his father and brother's fear of spiders. Reaching for his sword as the spider closed in, the next battle began.

<> BGM