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aire101 · 4 years

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Ferrum Chapter 4

Hey y'all, got this chapter out a bit sooner than the last one!

For those who read the light novels of SAO this chapter will be kinda familiar, for those who have only watched the anime, this is the town where Kirito ran to after leaving Klein in Episode 1, and the quest where he got his Anneal Blade we see in the series.

Also, while I make no promises that it will make it into the story, I am open to suggestions on what kind of adventures or shenanigans you would like to see the boys get up to in SAO. As I've mentioned previously I don't really intend to get the boys mixed up too much in the main canon, so if there's an aspect of the SAO world in general you'd like to see explored outside of the main battles and Kirito's storyline I'm open to considering it. I'm also ok with interactions with known characters, just trying to avoid writing the whole Kirito centric Aincrad arc.

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Activate-Vertical slash-hold

“Switch!”

1-2

“Switch!”

Defend-rage spike, upward strike—

“SWITCH!”

Peter fell back again, the post motion-delay that set in for a measly few seconds was nevertheless a highly vulnerable moment that he and Mr. Stark had figured out a work around for early on in their trek. The boars from Day 1 had been easy one hit kills, so they hadn’t noticed the system forced post-motion cool down period until they had been fighting on the road the next day. Their tag-team approach served them well, and best that Peter could tell from when they came upon other players in the wild, most of the rest had come to the same conclusion that they had. Because of that, it was unusual these days to find someone soloing in the pvp areas by choice.

Mr. Stark switched in with a strong horizontal slash, bringing the Little Nepenthe's HP down to zero.

“You know, I was never one for plants anyway, but after this quest I swear to god I will never put a single point into the gardening skill,” said Mr. Stark as he sheathed his sword.

“I’ve told you, green stuff is sadness and disappointment solidified,” replied Peter, following suit.

“I still expect you to eat your greens, kid.”

“It’s a tragedy, I tell you. Here we are, trapped in a fantasy game and every meal is still served with vegetables.”

“Yeah, that’s the real tragedy here.”

“I want my money back.”

“You weren’t even the one who bought the game. But either way, I’ll buy you every Playstation, X-Box, and Nintendo game ever in existence when we get back if you just never touch a full dive ever again,” said Mr. Stark, laughing.

And there’s Peter’s daily reminder that he still hadn’t informed Mr. Stark of the horrific truth of his situation.

“I think it’s time to call it a night, Underoos.”

“Is this quest even worth it? We’ve been out here for like three days weeding these things out. The drop rate on this thing is atrocious,” moaned Peter.

“From what our source says, this quest has one of the best weapons you can find on this floor as it’s reward. And while I’ve been funneling as many points as possible into weapon creation, its not quite where it needs to be to match that yet, so better to start with a good blade and just do the enhancement myself. Also, don’t think I didn’t notice that terrible pun, you should be ashamed.”

“Hey, there’s no shame in my pun game.”

Mr. Stark gave a deep sigh/groan before he turned and started walking back towards the direction of Horunka Village. He probably had rolled his eyes too, but it was impossible to tell through the helmet he always wore.

Night had long since fallen over Aincrad, and it had been dark in the forest even before that. Pale blue light slit through the trees overhead, lighting the path, but otherwise they made their way by memory and intuition. A breeze stirred up leaves from the ground, and Peter shivered slightly from the cool night air.

“Do you think its going to snow here in the winter?” asked Peter.

“If we’re all still here in the winter—which all signs point to yes— I think it will. We can see from the thunderstorm last week it has a functioning variable weather simulator. I wasn’t a part of that programing team obviously, so I don’t know for certain just how far that variable goes, but I would think the primary associated weather variations like rain, snow and heat waves will be included. It might also vary by floor. Probably won’t know the answer to that until we get a few floors opened up,” answered Mr. Stark.

“Huh… something to look forward to I guess,” said Peter.

“Why? You don’t get enough snow in Queens?” Mr. Stark said with a joking tone.

“Yeah, but you know in the real world I kinda have to be careful with the cold. My body temperature runs a bit cooler than the average, so unless I’m in the suit I try to keep exposure to a minimum. In here I can probably spend all day in it with out any trouble,” said Peter.

“I didn’t know that, actually,” said Mr. Stark, this time far more seriously. “You haven’t mentioned it, and I hadn’t thought about that at all.”

“Oh. Well, that built in heater and temperature regulator in the suit pretty much took care of the problem. It’s just something I have to keep in mind,” said Peter, awkwardly trying to cover his slip up. Obviously that had been a conversation they had some time after Mr. Stark’s last memory.

It had been almost two weeks since they had been locked in this game, and Peter was still no where close to figuring out how Mr Stark was even here. And he was equally no where closer to telling Mr. Stark the truth about the events in the real world— Thanos and the Infinity Stones, Mrs. Stark and Morgan, Mr. Stark’s death and Peter’s own—

“Anyway, we should definitely make a day of it once it does. I don’t know about you, but its been years since I built a snowman and I kinda want to change that,” said Peter, quickly diverting his thoughts.

“Sure, might as well. Not like we’re going anywhere fast in here. Though if you start singing Frozen songs I might reconsider.”

“You know, they’ve written out your entire life story in news articles and magazines, but they always leave out how much of a killjoy you are.”

“Whatever, kid. I’m the life of the party.”

“A retirement party, maybe.”

Mr. Stark threw the finger back over his shoulder at Peter and kept walking.

Peter was just just about to follow suit when out of the corner of his eye, the sight of polygons coalescing into a hazy form caught his attention.

It was obviously another Little Nepenthe, but above the typical hellish roots and vines and the bizarre, speckled pitcher plant topped with its gaping fanged mouth, was a large, blood red bloom.

Petter inhaled sharply, the sound causing Mr. Stark to spin around as well.

This was it. This is what they were looking for.

Before the creature could attack and he could second guess himself, Peter drew his sword and leapt in with a swift Horizontal Strike at the plant’s weak spot— the joint between the stalk and the pitcher.

The strike hit true, and before the evil hell plant got even a single chance to spew its corrosive liquids, it dissolved back into broken polygons, leaving behind nothing but the delicate flower holding the Ovule they had searched for.

“Whoa! You actually got one!”

Mr. Stark and Peter both spun around, swords raised. Behind them stood another player no older than Peter, with his arms now raised in a sign of surrender.

“Sorry! I was using my hide skill in here. It doesn’t really work on the Little Nepenthes, but it helps avoid other confrontations,” said the player.

Despite what they said, Peter took a good look around, searching for others. The timing and the seeming lack of a party giving good reason for concern. PKers lurking around valuable drop spots to attack and rob unsuspecting players of their loot wasn’t an uncommon thing in PvP games, and unfortunately not even a full two weeks in, SAO was no exception. In any other game, they may simply be considered griefers. But here, to the best of their knowledge it was nothing short of murder.

“Where’s the rest of your party?” asked Mr. Stark, not lowering his blade.

“Eh, I don’t really have one,” said the guy sheepishly

“Forgive me if I find that a little hard to believe,” said Mr. Stark. “Kid, do you see anyone else? Or are they hidden as well?”

“Look, there’s really no one else, its just me. People in here don’t really like my type,” said the guy, with a sad note in his voice.

“Oh…” said Mr. Stark, voice now tinged more compassion than aggression. “You’re a beta tester, aren’t you kid?”

The guy flinched, but nodded. “Please, I promise I’m just doing some light grinding in the area. There’s no one else, and I already have the quest item.”

Mr. Stark didn’t sheath his sword, but he gave a nod and backed away.

“Alright, good luck then,” he said.

The other player nodded in return, turned and walked back into the woods.

“Pocket the ovule quick and keep an eye out. Don’t sheath your sword until we get back into town,” said Mr. Stark before he began running back in the direction of Horunka village.

Peter slipped the item into his inventory and easily kept pace with the other man. After a few minutes of running, Peter finally spoke up, “Do you think he was telling the truth? Pretty surprising he freely admitted to that. For all he knows we could have been Beta Killers.”

“If we had killed someone our player cursors would still be orange. It is unusual though. He must have figured it was worth the risk to try and get us to back off,” said Mr. Stark. “Poor kid, as if being stuck in this game wasn’t bad enough, having to hide a beta status from other players…”

Just as Mr. Stark had expected that first day, it didn’t take long before the terrified and angry masses started looking for someone to blame. And with Kayaba disappearing into the digital ether, apparently the scapegoats they chose were the 700 or so beta testers who had logged in with the rest that day. According to most pub talk, the beta testers had left the rest of the players in the dust of the Town of Beginnings, getting through the most lucrative quests and hunts before most even dared to leave the city. They were condemned as selfish and greedy, and were therefore persona non-gratis in most parties. Even worse were the stories of betas being outright murdered and monster PK’d. Out of the almost 1000 players who were already dead about two weeks in, around 150 had been beta testers. A staggering amount given how few of them there had been. Plenty had undoubtedly met their end due to the game itself, but many had ended up victims of angry mobs.

Peter didn’t understand it. Yeah, the beta testers had more info and experience than the rest, but they had shared much of that info on the internet before the game even began. Then after a few days in game, vendor markets began carrying a free SAO Guide booklet created by someone called ‘The Rat’, who had clearly made and circulated the original file Ned had uploaded to the Nervegear. Almost anything you could want to know was available. It was how they had learned of this quest in the first place.

“Hey Ferrum, why do people have to suck so bad?” asked Peter, mostly rhetorically.

“If I had the answer to that, I wouldn’t have been a weapons manufacturer.”

After a few minutes of running they finally crossed over into the town Safe Zone. Horunka was a small village, with only about ten buildings in all. One of which was the house of the NPC who gave the quest, and their current destination.

As they walked down the road towards the house, several parties milled about, clearly having just returned from their own hunts. A couple eyed the two of them as they walked through.

“Looks like someone finally managed to snag an ovule. Lucky bastards…” someone muttered.

“Who actually wears a helmet in this game?” said another.

“Yikes, imagine being stuck in here with your dad…”

Overhearing that last line caused Peter’s face to flush, which given its digital nature was just plain unfair. Did they have to be that thorough?

No bigger than the town was, they were soon standing in the living area of the house. The lady of the house whom they had met previously still stood stirring a pot of simmering liquid, her expression drawn and tired. The only thing that about her that gave her away as an NPC rather than a player was the exclamation mark hovering above her head in the place of a player cursor, indicating a quest in progress.

“Go on, kid,” said Mr. Stark, staying by the door.

Peter slowly approached. Even knowing that the woman was an NPC, it still felt rude to just barge into the house without invitation. He brought up is inventory and took out the ovule, handing it out to her to take.

Immediately her face brightened, and Peter couldn’t help but wonder just how developed the NPC AIs were. Were they simple rudimentary ones like most games? Or were they more like Mr. Stark’s AIs? Was she aware of what she was?

“Oh, thank you so much, kind swordsman! My daughter has only grown worse since we last spoke, I was beginning to worry she may not make it till your return,” she said, taking the ovule from my hand and adding it to the pot.

I saw my quest log update to the left of my view, but I was distracted by the sound of deep coughs coming from further in the house.

“Here, this blade has been passed down in my family for generations, but I gladly trade it in exchange for your aid saving my child’s life. Take it with my blessing,” said the lady, pulling a blade encased in a worn red sheath from an old trunk. With both hands she extended it out to me to take, a smile still on her lips, tears of gratitude sparkling in her eyes.

“Thank you,” said Peter, perhaps unnecessarily, but old habits die hard.

The lady nodded in response and went back to stirring the pot in the kitchen. The quest was complete.

In the center of his field of vision, Peter received a message declaring as much, along with one noting the EXP points gained.

“Alright, let’s head back to the inn and get some grub and call it a night,” said Mr. Stark, holding the door open for him.

Behind them the lady did not acknowledge them at all, but began carefully ladling the contents of the pot into a cup. Peter wondered if somewhere inside there really was a little NPC girl the lady tended to day in and day out, forever trying to alleviate an illness she was created to suffer through.

As Peter walked through the doorway out into the night, he thought back to Aunt May. Back to when he always seemed to catch whatever bug was going around at the time. She may not be the best cook, but one thing she had down pat was chicken noodle soup. She would stand over a pot in the kitchen just like the NPC had, cooking up a big batch that he could easily heat up through out the day when he felt up to eating. Their finances being what they were, she and Ben could not always get out of work so easily, if at all. They did their best to schedule their work so one could be there with him, but sometimes the overlap just wasn’t quite there. Fortunately, a little old lady all the apartment kids called Nana lived a couple doors down from them and was usually content to be on call for kids who needed it.

He wondered what Aunt May was doing right now. Was she sitting beside his hospital bed, holding his hand, but he couldn’t feel it? Were they literally in the same room with each other, but worlds apart? Would she talk to him like she used to when she thought he was sleeping, hoping against everything that he could somehow hear her? What would she say? They had only just started finding their new normal when this happened…

He looked down at this hands, but all he could feel was the weight of the sword he still held.

Tears came, unbidden and unwanted.

If that bastard was going to lock them in this prison, the least he could have done was not code in visual emotion effects.

“Awww… look at the little boy crying,” mocked one of the players outside the inn as they passed.

“Don’t be an asshole, Derrig. You cried for two days straight when this shit started,” said one of his party members, while slapping the offender on the back of the head.

“You ok, Peter?” asked Mr. Stark quietly. “I would offer to go beat the shit out of that guy, but not sure if its worth a duel.”

“No, don’t do that. I’m alright,” said Peter. “Let’s just get up to the room.”

“You go on up, I’ll order some dinner to be delivered,” said Mr. Stark.

Peter nodded. They pretty much always ate in a room so that Mr. Stark could remove his helmet. Occasionally Peter wished they could eat with the other players, just to visit with someone else for a change. This wasn’t one of those nights.

Once in their room, Peter quickly removed most of his gear, leaving only his breaches and his tunic. The sword he placed on the table.

Apparently the sword was called ‘Anneal Blade.’

Peter fell back into a chair, letting his head roll back, closing his eyes.

In the real world, he would undoubtedly be able to hear every conversation going on in the rooms around them, as well as whatever hubbub was going on in the main room downstairs. But in here there was naught but silence. It had taken him a bit to get used to not hearing literally everything going on around him. He hadn’t realized just how much noise he was used to constantly filtering through in his day to day life until it was completely removed. He had thought he would love not having to deal with his extra sensitive senses, but come to find out it was pretty anxiety inducing to have them taken away, like an extended bout of sensory deprivation.

If only he had never put on that Nervegear. If he had told Ned that maybe they should wait until the next round of production of SAO to get into the game, let them get the bugs worked out.

Except…

The door opened, and in came Mr. Stark and two plates of whatever today’s special was downstairs.

“They were pretty busy down there, so I just brought it up myself. Figured I’d listen in on a pub talk a minute and see if any news has been circulating,” Mr. Stark said, setting down the plates.

“Did you hear anything interesting?” asked Peter.

“Not much. But one group did mention that there were some rumors floating around about a Log-Out point in a forest west of the Town of Beginnings. No one going in has come out alive though, and the Rat has been trying to get word out that the information is false and didn’t come from her,” said Mr. Stark, sitting in the chair opposite.

“Ugh, that sucks,” said Peter. “What’s the point in starting a rumor like that anyway?”

“Some people get their kicks in screwed up ways, kid. It’s as simple as that.”

The lapsed into silence as they ate their meal. But eventually Peter noticed Mr. Stark looking up at him.

“What?” asked Peter.

“Wanna talk about it?”

Peter swallowed and shook his head, “Not much to talk about. Was just thinking about Aunt May.”

Mr. Stark nodded, “I’m not going to say she’s doing fine, because we both know that’s probably a lie. But I will say that she’s a strong woman, and I know as soon as we get out of here she will be right there waiting for you with some awful attempt at baked food and the world’s longest hug.”

Peter gave a laugh as tears began to spring up again.

“You’re definitely right. Thanks, Mr. Stark.”

“Look kid,” said Mr. Stark with a sigh. “I know you enjoy watching me squirm, but I would really appreciate it if you would switch to just ‘Tony.’ For one thing, there’s millions of Tonys in the world, but with the right info out there the name ‘Mr. Stark’ might become a bit suspicious eventually. We’ve just been calling me by my user name outside of our room, and that’s worked out alright, but eventually you might slip. And given my track record on secret identities, we should probably do everything possible to avoid scrutiny as long as possible.”

“Dude, you never had a secret identity. As soon as Iron Man became a thing you outed yourself on live television,” said Peter with a caustic tone.

“Whatever, my point still stands,” said Mr. Stark, waving off Peter’s remark.

“Does it though?”

“Yes, please, please start calling me Tony.”

“It really bugs you, doesn’t it?” asked Peter with a laugh. “Why?”

Honestly, when he asked he had expected Mr. Stark to blow off the question and change the subject. Because in the real world— back before the Decimation— every time they’d had this conversation and he had asked, that was ultimately what Mr. Stark did.

This time however, a tense silence met his question.

“Growing up, Howard was always ‘Mr. Stark.’”

There was a pause, as if he was unsure whether to continue, or how.

“Pretty much everyone on earth calls me ‘Mr. Stark.’ And that’s who they see— billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, wanna-be hero, narcissist, hedonist. That’s by design. It’s what everyone expected from me—being my father’s son— and I rose to the occasion. There’s only a handful of people who have gotten past ‘Mr. Stark’ and made it to ‘Tony.’ At this point, I’d like to think you’re one of them who has.”

Peter sat in quiet shock. Then slowly his heart filled up to the brim with something warm and sad, until he felt he could have burst.

There were a million things he felt, and only a few he could say. But only one he felt needed to be said right then.

“Ok… Tony. But I don’t want to hear you call yourself a wanna-be hero again. Because you are a hero. To everyone… but especially me.”

Tony didn’t reply for a moment, but eventually settled on a nod.

“Alright, deal,” Tony finally said, turning back to his food.

The got a few more bites in before Tony spoke again.

“I’m thinking of skipping on meals for a while. I’m kinda curious how long it takes to actually start feeling hungry in here.”

Peter looked at him confused, “What do you mean? You haven’t been hungry? Like at all?”

Tony blinked at him, “No, you mean you have?”

“Uh, yeah… several times a day usually.”

“Huh… maybe its because of your real world metabolism bleeding through. But no, haven’t felt it at all yet. Seems like a waste of Cor for me to buy meals if I haven’t actually been hungry,” said Tony, finishing up the last bite of his roast. “Not to say that its a wasted experience. They did a pretty remarkable job on this coding. But it would probably be better to save what money we can for now.”

Peter nodded, turning back to his own plate, but could only bring himself to push the food around a little, his stomach suddenly a bit queasy. Perhaps Tony was right, and it was just because of his RL body needs…

He’d talk to a few other players about their experience. Just to be sure.

“So, ‘Anneal Blade,’ huh?” said Tony, looking over the sword still laying on the table. He brought up its specs to analyze.

“Yeah, not exactly sure what the name is about. I mean, I know about the annealing process in biochemistry. I studied it a bit after the spider bite. But not sure how that would really apply to a sword,” said Peter.

“It was originally a process to remove impurities and harden iron for weapons. That’s where scientists originally pulled the term from that they used for the DNA process,” said Tony offhand, still reading through the sword’s numbers and looking it over in his hands. “The sword is as good as the guide implied. It should definitely hold up for you for a good while. Especially once I can start enhancements on it. Looks like we can attempt up to eight.”

“Does that mean we need to put a blacksmith’s forge on the shortlist?” asked Peter.

“Nah, I still have a few levels before we need to worry about that. Still, like I said, it is probably a good idea to start pinching pennies where we can. Jesus, I haven’t had to save money since that time my old man cut me off for a while back in college. This sucks.”

“Welcome to how the other 99.9% live,” said Peter, not an ounce of sympathy in his voice.

Tony shrugged, “Karma is definitely a bitch.”

“This isn’t karma. You’re just a spoiled brat.”

Tony stuck out his tongue, just like the mature adult he was.

Peter laughed, “Exactly. I’m calling it a night. We good to head out in the morning?”

“Yup, heading west from here to grind a bit on some of the higher level forest mobs. We’ll see where we end up after that.”

Peter nodded. Where ever they went and whatever they faced, they would do it together. They’d make it through this.

Even without his spider powers and Tony’s money, they were still Spider-man and Iron Man. Kayaba couldn’t take that away from them.

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