Sword Art Online: Little Known Legends

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Kakumei

The Wolf of Aincrad
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per day
Writing Levels
  1. Intermediate
  2. Adept
  3. Adaptable
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
  2. Female
Genres
Mix of Fantasy or Magical. Or even just a grand open world with a mix of odd styles.
"Sword Art Online: Little Known Legends" follows the lives of two players within the SAO universe. This story is to start following them a short time after the launch of SAO before the first floor was passed, and follow them through out the course of the two years within Aincrad.




[spoili]Note: May be added on to as the story progresses to give an over view of what is going on in the story at any given point, highlighting things that may be of importance or character defining events.[/spoili]

1) Mechanics within the roleplay must fit fairly into the mechanics of the story of SAO, or be something that is explained as believable.

2) Posts with dependencies should be maneuvered around or explained away in the next post, or addressed in private and edited to fit.

3) Players may be unique and fairly powered, but not exceed the main characters in the story (Kirito, Asuna, Kayaba, etc).

(This is mostly a reminder for myself. xP )

The story follows two main protagonists. Links to each character will be provided.

Additional characters or NPC's that have enough story will have separate character sheets or a blog written about them.

Derunia Nekoski

Karst
 
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A very large boar stood in the middle of a windy field. The sun was both brutally bright and almost right up in the center of the sky. The boar was clearly agitated by something as it turned in different directions, its hooves grading into the ground. There were no other boars around, which seemed strange as they normally tend to spawn in and roam in packs together.

Out of a nearby line of bushes, an young man with soft black hair with purple tips in his bangs popped out, leaves ruffling and falling from the branches. His deep blue eyes narrowed as he looked at the beast, his sword was in his right hand with the dull edge of the blade on his back. He dropped a bottle from his bottle to the ground, and it fell to the ground and shattered upon impact. His health bar could be seen filling back up to maximum. As of yet, the boar had not yet noticed where he was at.

"OSCAR MYER HAS A WAY WITH B.L.O. er... How do you spell bologna?" His shouting trailed off, but it still seemed to count as a howl, and the boar turned right into his direction. He started to stop its front left hoof into the ground as it reared up for a charge on him. The young man charged at the rather large boar, which probably stood about a foot taller than him. In turn, the boar started its own charge directly at him. He lost his footing and fell over right into the path of the boar. Looking up he rolled over to the left of it quickly as it ran right over where he just was.

He jumped up and jumped behind the monster which had just barely began to turn towards him from its charge. Placing the blunt end of his sword back on his sword, he crouched down a bit with a grin on his face. The blade glowed red and as soon as the boar started to run at him again, but this time his Sword Skill released and he dashed right across the boar with the blade cutting midway through its body.


He stopped just foot past it and looked behind it, his eyes widening a bit. He didn't do enough damage to kill it and it was quite pissed. It let out a hog-like screech and lifted its back legs, kicking him right in the back with its blunt hooves right before his Post Motion Stiffness. The force of the kick sent him skittering across the ground in painful and mad tumble. "Urrgh.." He stood up, the beast turning back around towards him. It charged forward with its head reared down to which the young mans only action was to block, holding the sword sideways to catch the incoming attack with his flat side. It pushed him back a bit but as soon as he was free from the impact he took a swing straight down from over his head sinking the sword right into its skull and jumping back as soon as it moved through.

"Damn.." He groaned to himself as he stood up and peaked at his health meter from the corner of his eye. "Tch.." The two attacks of this boar had brought him down to about sixty percent of his health, far more than he thought it would do. Sure, its a larger breed than the average boar, but not by that much. It was a clear miscalculation on his part.

The boar stomped down and charged him again. The young man readied his sword and jumped in the air a few feet higher than average, thrusting the sword down into the beasts neck with the tip of the blade firmly planted into the ground. He landed with his feet on the monsters head and simply left the sword exactly where it was as he jumped off and watched. "Looks like that was a little more iron in your diet than you are used to." He said, sitting down and watching the boars life slowly tick down from its already low health. A moment later, boar's avatar shattered and left his sword right in the ground.

He scrolled through the loot that he received from the fight. "Boar tusk? Average drop... Boar fur? Hey, that's a little bit better. Welp, I certainly have a full inventory, so I might as well go into town and sell off what I can."


A few hours later, the young man was walking through the entrance of the town. Another player came running up to him quickly as if she was waiting for him. "Heeey!" Her voice was very loud and high pitched, clearly grading on his ears as he placed his palms against the sides of his head. This only caused her to give him a sour look. "Hey! I know you don't like me, but the business is good right? So hurry up!" She swiped through her screen and offered a trade. He accepted the offer and quickly covered his ears again. "You're a jerk, Karst!" She said, pushing him over then running off.

The male, Karst, fell right over into a bucket of sauce that had no business being where it was. He jumped up and looked at himself, the sauce dripping off of his body like blood. "Argh, jeez... Whats up with this? Whatever, its not like I am some shining example of fashion." He walked down the street and ignored people who stared or laughed at him. He saw a small shop that he didn't recognize and thought that it might be a great place to start looking for new places to trade with.

Karst opened the door and walked in like something out of a horror film. He had what seemed to be blood dripping from his body with half step bloody foot prints leading from the street right into the door. Though anyone could wager to guess that it had nothing to do with him, a ridiculous scream could be heard in the background. He looked around then spotted the front desk.

"Excuse me! Do you own this place?"
 
Current Theme: Ievan Polkka(Intoxicated)
Current Date: December 1st, 2025
Current Time: 13:00 JST

----

A little over 2,000 people had died thus far in the three weeks during which Sword Art Online has been active. Only about half of the beta testers who had started off in the game remained. The future looked bleak. Not only had the players of Sword Art Online failed to discover the location of the first floor's boss before now, they were struggling merely to adapt to the new game world. Of the 7,500 or so players which remained among the living, only 10% had any skills with a level higher than 200, and only 1% had even one skill above 400. Even worse, the economy was completely one-sided in favor of the more experienced players, resulting in gruesome politics and desperate business deals which, at very least, promised the participants safety from death by hunger. Simply put, those without experience in games like Sword Art Online were at a disadvantage, thus the most common general emotion among the players was hostility towards the successful. Most of those who found themselves stuck in this situation considered their luck mortifying, as if they were a part of a disaster, the worst possible situation imaginable. Whatever hope they had when they bought the game was now shattered, just like the 2,000 unfortunate souls who were smited not only with misfortune, but also with an untimely death at Kayaba Akihito's behest.

But there was at least one player who adopted a completely different outlook on the situation. A rather small girl, lightweight, with soft features and an easily frightened, yet remarkably hopeful and innocent gaze. This girl's name was Deru, an 18 year old girl who had only barely managed to successfully graduate High School in America before moving to Japan. Instead of cursing her luck and whining like the rest of the general population, Deru was pleasantly surprised, excited even, by the opportunity to be unable to return to reality, and to instead live life as a video game avatar. Why is this the case, you ask? Another time, dear friend. Another time.

For now, all that you need to concern yourself with is the situation which she finds herself in presently. You see, Deru's avatar, a character named Derunia Nekoski, currently finds herself within her personally owned shop and home, a structure named the "Neko Teko Tailor". On its exterior, the rickety wooden structure would appear to risk toppling over and resulting in the demise of its inhabitants at any given moment. However, as luck would have it, the structure was counded as an "immortal object" by the Sword Art Online system, and was thus at no risk of being destroyed without the express will of the owner herself.

Within this rickety-looking, but structurally stable building, Derunia Nekoski presently finds herself within the second story of the building. This second floor consists of piles upon piles of materials, items, textiles, clothes, accessories, and various other cloth, hide and leather items. The room contained multiple sewing instruments, including a loom and a large bucket containing small sewing needles, another containing crochet and knitting needles, an automated thread spinner, a leather tanning vat, a drying rack, and even a few chests for item storage. However, no matter how large 250 square feet sounded on paper, it was not nearly enough to satisfy Deru's need for space. The floor of the room was covered with random materials and items to the extent that one could not distinguish between carpet and thread. Indeed...the room was quite a mess.

And thus, here we are, observing Deru as she darts around the room, juggling materials around as she activates tools and items to craft with, occasionally glancing over to her menu to check her skill levels...

------

It had been 5 hours since Deru started her materials-burning cycle, and now she was starting to run out of everything but cloth. Cloth was the only item which she could collect a lot of, considering how cheaply NPCs were willing to sell medium-quality and high-quality wool and fleece for on the outskirts of town. She quickly threw up all of the leather and thread which she held in her hands in order to dash over to a loom to check on the progress of item production of a "Casual Blue T-Shirt". Immediately upon tapping the loom a few times to force it to continue it's work process, she dashed back over to the items which she had thrown into the air and continued to juggle them around as she moved on to the leather-tanning vat.

And so she continued, hastily dashing around her room for what seemed like another hour or so, when in fact, at that very moment, she was holding her very last strip of leather. The wool and fleece layer which was sprawled upon the floor steadily grew thinner and thinner as the material was fed first into the thread-spinner, then directly into the loom. The tanning vat's satisfying, [BING] upon the completion of the final strip renewed her eagerness to grind skill exp and, as she dashed over to the vat and reached in, she suddenly realized precisely how much she had accomplished. "Oh, uhh..." She started, hanging the leather on the wall as she took a brief moment to pause and look around the room, "I...guess I should go collect some more soon..."

Deru ended her brief break in order to finish up her use of the thread spinner and the loom, finally completing the last item in the long list of production pre-sets which she had already programmed to force the loom to automatically make once fed materials. With a few more bumps on the sides of the loom, an item plopped out and landed on the floor next to the mountain of other textiles. The item's name was, "Fluffles the Big Green Sweater". The stats were almost good enough to be considered light armor, however the giant kitten embroidered on the front of the shirt was not likely to arouse fighting spirit among the general population. For Deru however, as she held up the masterful embroidery which was Fluffles, she gasped, "...k.....k....kawaii..." and offered a slight blush and she briefly hugged the sweater. There was no question in her mind as to whether or not her work was worthwhile. Fluffles was evidence enough.

Once she was done with her tender moment, she set to work folding up each and every clothing item which she had manufactured and placed them all into two medium-sized chests. She then happily walked around her room, the floor of which was now almost completely clean without the organized chaos which previously reigned supreme upon its surface. Deru eventually decided that she had spent enough time in her room and ventured over to the door. Her hand hovered over the door briefly, as if trying to warn her about something, but her subconsciousness refused to accept the babbling of an illiterate hand, thus she flung open the door with a cheerful smile and, after closing and locking it behind her, pranced down the stairway towards the shop-level. Derunia Nekoski's Nekomimi and Whiskers flopped up and down with each and every step, as did her Scholar's Black Dress, gleefully bouncing up and down in celebration of their creator's new achievements.

By the time Derunia reached the ground level, she briefly giggled to herself and went about shifting her hair and clothes to their proper places so that she would look less disheveled in case a customer was within the shop. Then, once she was all set and ready, she made a faint "Mew~?" sound and peered around the corner to see how her friend, Felicity was doing.

Current Theme: Kikyou Kaoru Iroha Michi(Heart Attack)

Immediately upon looking around the corner, she saw a tall man covered in blood walking through the door. Her eyes widened as she stared at him, immediately feeling her chest tighten. The stranger wore damaged armor, and over his head was a red light, the same blood-red color as the sinister liquid covering his right arm. A....Player Killer? How? She could almost see the weapon outlined by his hand, the wicked grin coating his face with the malice of the demon of demons. She couldn't move, let alone run away. Her eyes were locked on the stranger as he steadily got closer and closer to the desk. After a few moments, the stranger was all she could see, and with one swift movement of his head in her direction, he shot all of the murderous intent of the world straight towards her. Instantly, all blood drained from Deru's face. Her chest tightened even more, as if threatening to implode from shock. N-No! It's not possible to have a heart-attack in this game...is it?! She mentally shouted to herself, still staring at the blood-covered stranger as the world around her hastily faded to black. "N-No.....Not...Like.......this....." The only sounds she could still make out before completely losing consciousness were the sounds of claws scraping across the immortal object known as "Wood Flooring" as the murderer shot her way. "No......please...." She tried her best to protest for her life one last time, but it was too late, she was already out.

[THUD]

-----

Meanwhile, at the front of the shop.

-----

Felicity sighed as she stared at the entryway. There was little to nothing for her to do but sit in the hammock-chair designed by her employer and wait for customers to walk in. It was potentially the most boring job imaginable. But it wasn't entirely a waste of time. She got paid a good amount, considering how her employer was one of the wealthiest players in SAO at the time, and she was able to train her Musical Instument, Straining and Searching skills while sitting around.

Still, I'd prefer to be bursting boar's skulls right about now... She continued to stare at the door, focusing her Straining skill as much as she could to see if she could detect anyone nearby. To her surprise, she was able to do so quite well, and a few seconds later, an individual grabbed the door handle and walked through the door. Felicity grinned, both because she was finally given something to do, and because the tiny red counter light she installed above the door worked perfectly. The second the stranger entered the room, it flashed on and made a tiny jingling noise, indicating that a customer had entered. However, after looking over the customer a bit more carefully, she started to frown. Just as she was about to comment on his...interesting fashion statement, she heard whimpering from the stairway. Immediately, she shot a look over to the doorway to the stairs and chills shot up her spine as she watched Deru plummet towards the ground, the little girl's expression offering all the explanation Felicity needed to know what was happening to her.

The store clerk immediately planted her foot into the ground and charged towards the doorway, abandoning her post at the cash register momentarily. The second Deru hit the ground, Felicity dove towards her and immediately started checking her for wounds. "Deru? Deru! Speak to me! What's going on! Were you attacked?" She insisted on asking a few more times, but gave up soon after and carried the poor girl over to her station. Felicity carefully laid Deru down on the counter-top, took a moment to pause and sigh again, then remembered the stranger in the shop and shot him a quick look. She eyed him up and down for a few moments, then something clicked in her mind and her eyes narrowed momentarily. She then hopped over the counter and hastily advanced towards the stranger. Despite how cushiony her Fox Paw Slippers looked, each step made a sharp thud from the shock of impact. She wore a clearly fake smile on her face as she darted towards the sauce-covered stranger, but her eyes were as honest as could be - they expressed a bloodlust and malice which the stranger's corpse could not possibly quench, an expression so painfully obvious in intention that she might as well not even attempted the smile. She stopped precisely one foot in front of the visitor and growled, "Welcome to the Neko Teko Tailor Shop. How can I help you?" She then pointed down at the ground, which was becoming progressively more coated in red sauce as the stranger carelessly allowed it to drip onto the well-maintained shop floor, "Perhaps you can start by dealing with that," and once she had said this, she sharply pointed back at Deru and continued, "Then you can apologize for traumatizing my employer."
 
Karst watched the young lady faint. He was thoroughly confused beyond all confusion at the girl fainting. He was even more confused when the other woman approached him, until she pointed out the mess that had been made. "Oh that.. Oh you see I uh..." His voice trailed off quickly, knowing that whatever he said didn't mean much to her.

Quietly he stepped back, and rubbed his foot on the smears that he made and quickly switched over to his Safe Zone Skills which unequipped his sword altogether. His foot grinding into the spots one by one until they broke. Karst was rubbing the back of his head a little awkwardly, not even having noticed that he had been the cause of the mess in the first place. It didn't take him long however, to clean up his mess and reequip his clothing.

After everything seemed cleaned and his appearance properly suited for Aincrad society, Karst came back up to the counter to see if the other lady was alright. "Hey.. Uh.. Sorry about that. I totally didn't even realize that I looked like I had just Ghengis Kahn'ed my way through Aincrad. Is she gonna... Be alright?" He asked. He didn't usually feel awkward at all about anything, but trying to get into a shop so that he could sell stuff and making someone faint right off the bat probably wasn't the best way to start a relationship.

His ocean blue eyes started to look around the shop a bit, noting that everything was made in the strange, super cutesie fashion that made him wonder just what exactly he had walked into. Sure, the stuff looked pretty great, like it was right out of an American 'Hello Cutie' shop. If he was going to sell stuff to this store, it wouldn't be just run of the mill clothes. Silk, maybe. Definitely colored dye's, which he happened to have a lot of girly colors for. The few leather shops really didn't deal with light colors or pinks as far as he could remember. Boar tusks were a more rare drop, so perhaps they would be interested in those since buttons could be made from them. The problem was only going to be in getting this girl to wake up and hopefully not pass right out again.
 
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Current Theme: Pint-sized Alchemist(Speechless)

The stranger's response wasn't quite satisfying for Felicity, so she continued to stare at him, her right arm twitching from anticipation as it pointed back towards the yet still unconscious little girl. She remained more-or-less still until the stranger started to back off and fix his mess, then, once Felicity was satisfied that the stranger wasn't a punk, she took a few deep breaths to calm herself and folded her arms across her chest. The malice and bloodlust had drained from her expression by the time the stranger re-equipped his outfit, and was instead replaced by calculation and caution as she freshly analyzed her customer. The purple-tipped hairstyle he had bore a vague semblance to spikes due to how well-maintained they were, his armor was worn, and his HP gauge wasn't quite full, but aside from that, nothing about his first impression warranted the treatment which she had given him. His color cursor was green, for one, and his armor was of the NPC-shop variety, of a fairly low quality.

As Felicity slowly stepped backwards away from the stranger, she calmly commented, "Sorry about the rough greeting. Once again, welcome to the Neko Teko Tailor. Feel free to browse, and ask me if you have any questions." She then hopped over to the other side of the counter and lifted Deru off of it after quickly checking her health gauge once again. She laid the girl down in a safer location against the wall further behind the counter, then quickly returned to her position on the hammock seat. As the stranger approached the counter, apologizing and offering what appeared to be some sort of a joke, Felicity merely nodded, now hosting a slightly more genuine smile, with eyes just as calculating as before. In response to his rather reluctant question about the health of her employer, Felicity chuckled a little and narrowed her eyes at the stranger. "She's just like that. Easily sucked into her own fantasies. That's how she makes all the items you see around you." she commented, gesturing towards the clothes around the shop, "I'd still recommend apologizing to her, but don't worry about it too much."

Felicity continued to watch the stranger intently after saying this much, especially focusing on his face and hands. She only looked down at his hands when necessary so as to not tip him off, but she still didn't trust the stranger enough to turn her attention back over to Deru quite yet.

-----

A few moments later

-----

Current Theme: Kyoidai(Stalking)

[.....A book....with writing....what is the writing?....What does it say?.....Cloth.....thread....string....rope....wind, knit, crochet, bind, tie, cross, bind.....a recipe...but, for what?...What is that...thing...]

She looked up from the book after realizing that she was reading it. There was a winged creature standing before her. It moved it's beak, as if to speak, but no sound came out. Somehow, Deru managed to understand it. It was asking for something.

Deru looked around, hoping to discover where she was, but the world was blank. After a moment, what was previously nothingness faded to blackness. The image of the winged creature steadily decayed from her brain, leaving her desperately clawing to maintain the memory as she gradually began to awaken. All she could remember were the words, [Trust...and Awaken]

Deru steadily opened her eyes to the sound of Felicity saying, "but don't worry about it too much." She remained still for a few moments, staring up a the ceiling, then she looked over at Felicity. All she could see from where she sat was Felicity's tail drooping down towards her, performing it's standard idle animation of wagging back and forth very, very slowly.

Current Theme: Heavenly Spirit(Bored)

She watched it for a few moments, mesmerized, but soon remembered that another human was in the room. She then slowly flicked open her menu and switched her active skills around. [...yes, hiding, sprinting and acrobatics...that should do...] She then activated hide and, as quietly as she could, she made her way over to the counter and peeked out over the top of the counter. Once again, she saw the stranger, but after straining a little, she could tell that his color cursor was very green, and that he was not covered in red.

I'm such an idiot. she thought, blushing as she continued to stare at him. He didn't have any sort of malice on his face, in fact, he seemed to be just like any other customer who walked into the store. Something deep within her gave her the urge to sneak back upstairs, but she knew that doing so wouldn't accomplish anything. Instead, she scooted slightly closer to Felicity, who still hadn't noticed her, and she whispered into the store manager's ear: "I finished....the new batch...I need....more materials...p-pwease...uhh...c-can you...hewp...?" She then cautiously backed away from Felicity, moving back towards the other end of the counter, just in case.

Current Theme: Logos Naki World(Bloodthirst)

But Felicity wasn't having any of it. In an instant, her expression grew grim. She shot to her feet, causing Deru to make a quick, "eep!" sound, then her hand shot over to Deru's hair faster than lightning, making a resounding, [SSSHTHWIP!] sounds as her hand moved through the air. Deru squealed in fear as she realized that she had been caught, but Felicity unflinchingly brought her to her feet. "W-Wait! F-Feewe! P-P-Pwease!" she begged, trying her best to move her limbs in resistance to the treatment, but unable to reach the girl who was currently holding her, nor the floor. Instead her limbs just rapidly moved back and forth, accomplishing nothing. Felicity brought Deru's face right up against her own, nearly bashing their foreheads together, then she stared into Deru's eyes.

"Listen here, Deary." she started, her tone level and calm. Deru froze after hearing the very first word and stared helplessly at the lady for a few seconds afterwards. "If you want me to manage your shop, fine. If you want me to deal with customers, fine. If you want me to gather materials, fine." She then twitched and adopted the same expression of bloodthirst and malice which she gave the stranger earlier and roared, "BUT DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE EXPECT ME TO DO ALL THREE AT ONCE." Midway through her shout, she pulled Deru back and the combat assistance system immediately caused Deru to start glowing a bright red. She gave a quick squeal, but was interrupted as she was catapulted towards a pile of loose clothing on the opposite side of the room, two large red circles flying off around Felicity's arm as she tossed Deru, indicating that the combat assistance program registered Deru as a projectile.

The poor girl squealed as she sailed through the air, but once she connected with the clothes, she went silent. The clothes barely shifted, instead cushioning her with a remarkable degree of plushness. Deru remained in the pile of clothing for a few seconds, staring at Felicity with the most glassy of puppy eyes, but Felicity's blood rage still hadn't worn off. "You got something to say?" she calmly asked, the leftover demonic energy from her soul reverberating through the room with each word. Deru shook her head from side to side as desperately as she could, then tried burying herself deeper into the pile of clothes to hide from the lady. Felicity continued staring at the pile of clothes for a few more seconds, then returned her gaze to the customer, immediately calming down enough to offer a reassuring smile. "As I said, no need to worry about it too much." she commented, then returned to sitting in her hammock seat and closed her eyes, this time reclining a bit more, as if in protest to her employer.
 
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