Abyss of the Shrine Maiden

The One Who Resists God, Part One

It took us many hours, but we finally made it to the singularity's core.

After we reunited and Tia joined our party, our goal was getting to the singularity. Turns out there's more than just the one Ouroboros Gate that we found before splitting up. We found the third shortly after we began, and used the nearby teleporter to enter the Siobhan Eyrie region. We saw another fortress-like structure, which Kirito corrected us by saying that it is most likely a battleship, not a fort. He's proven to be right, though that comes much later.

We jump across the area, finding the warp gate to the fourth Ouroboros Gate, then another to the Orpharim Sky Fortress. In the eyrie and the latter area, we could see an enormous dark orb the regions seem to orbit, which I knew had to be the singularity. I confirmed it because the corruption was greater here than anywhere else. We couldn't even see the names of some of the mobs.

We came across a horde of stone golems along the way. a multitude of Delta Army Soldiers and the Lambda Commander. We fought them off as quickly as possible, given we had the advantage in numbers and the skill to handle the situation. We were rewarded with a metal plate of some kind, but continued on to the singularity, being barred by a ginormous black hole.

Kirito being Kirito, he tried to cross it. Kirito being Kirito, he failed.

With an item known as the Dimensional Isotype Crystal being unhelpful in crossing that specific wormhole, we headed back to the eyrie. Asuna suggested we look at the battleship in detail, and following that tip got us to a note found by Philia on a skeleton. Whoever the skeleton was, they had the same idea as us and failed. But they somehow got through by blasting a way through with the battleship. Crystals power the battleship, and while using them got the skeleton and company through the gate, it attracted monsters, resulting in the ruins around them. They sent soldiers to find new crystals and a control plate to get the weapons operational again, but that was a long time ago.

Thinking that the lore of floor, this Otherworld Gate, is synonymous or at least associated with the singularity, we got into "SAO frontier player" mode, using the story of the floor as our guide.

Lisbeth believed the plate we found was the control plate spoken of in the note, and near where Philia found the note, we found a suitable place for the plate..The control device caught us up on what happened to the soldiers sent out. We learned that they sought out Enhanced Dimensional Crystals, but because the soldiers were forbidden to enter the four Ouroboros Corridors and take the crystals that powered the city, nothing was done except protecting the Otherworld Gate from monsters.

Our goal to enter the corridors became our immediate priority.

Once the pathways to all four were located, we split up into four teams. Volunteering to make the sole party of three, I took Koharu and Lisbeth with me (they volunteered instantly, which creeped me out. It's...reminds me of you know who with red hair and you know who with grey hair) and we headed to the fourth Ouroboros Gate.

Each one is a procedurally generated dungeon, warped and seemingly formed by the singularity as we moved onwards with environments we've passed both on Ainground and Aincrad. There are numerous floors within each gate, and the only way to access the next floor is by finding Gate Keys in treasure chests and turning on the teleporter. To exit a dungeon, we had to make it to the final floor.

Team Kirito (Kirito, Asuna, Tia, Premiere) took on Ouroboros Gate One and entered a five-level dungeon with the features of the Kurjiez Desert, the highest level area on Ainground.