Laughing Coffin - The Man, The Guild, The Confrontation
Sword Art Online, the first, and certainly grandest VRMMO, there are three types of player. Those who have a green cursor, who are normal players who have not committed a crime, or at least not for a while. Then there are those with an orange cursor, those players who have committed relatively minor crimes such as assault on another player, theft, or killed a red or orange player. And finally there are the red players. Those who have killed a green player, or committed another in game offense so heinous that they are labeled as red players, the worst of the worst, but SAO, like other, similar games, rewards those who become the best, and those who become the worst of the game.
Link Start
There was a brief shimmer of blue light that resolved itself into the form of a young man. At just over six feet tall with thick cords of muscle that that twisted and strained beneath pale flesh. A handsome and expressive face, with pale blue eyes that sat above a square jaw and straight nose. The other portion of the face that drew attention was the mans mouth, fixed into a large toothy grin.
With a groan the man began stretching, arms across his chest as he slowly lunged from side to side. With a final crack of the neck, he stood up straight and began jogging for the outskirts of the town of beginnings.
The buildings began to blur, and the town gave way to grassy hills, spotted with Boars and the occasional player.
With a wide grin, the man crouched, withdrew a dagger, and began making his way towards the nearest group of three players.
Nearby grassy Hill
PoH laughed as he sat reclining on the hill. He and a group of friends had gone boar hunting, a boar was a good, low level monster to start with, and since he was the only Beta tester out of the group he had been in charge of getting them up to snuff. Behind him, on the other side of the hill, he could hear the shouts of joy and excitement, and the clang of steel against Boar tusk.
And then a scream, and the sound of steel on steel.
PoH jumped to his feet and raced to the other side of the hill, standing with arms spread, over the paralyzed bodies of two of friends, was a man in a dirty grey cloak, a shadow obscuring his face, and a dagger clutched in each hand. PoH darted forward, sword and shield at the ready.
"Who are you? Answer me!?"
The cloaked figure smoothly rotated. Just visible in the shadows of the figures hood was a wide smile.
"I am the Memento Mori! I am the the last laugh! I am the un-ending show! And in this newly born game of death, I am Laughing Coffin!"
The figure blurred as he turned and ran away.
PoH just shook his head at the crazy role player as he ran, sheathing his sword as he made his way towards his friends still in-game.
"Hey. Jonny, Xo, you guys okay?"
Jonny grunted irately, his face smooshed up against the ground since his paralyzation status still hadn't warn off.
"Fine. The jerk got Tenin before we knew what was going on though."
PoH frowned.
"Damn… She'll be pissed about that. A Pk at the start of the game like that."
Xo smirked as his fingers began twitching, the axe wielders higher vitality working to purge the status effect at a quicker pace than the less hardy spear using Jonny, but his smirk quickly morphed into a frown.
"Shouldn't she have logged back in by now though? It wasn't like we're that far away from the town of beginnings, and its probably been 10 minutes since she got ganked."
PoH shrugged.
"Eh… She probably just quit for the night, you know how she gets."
The other two players laughed, but fell silent as a sky lit up, covered by bright red warning signs.
Scene Break
Laughing Coffin smirked as he flexed and stretched, testing out his new gear. A ragged cloak, a metallic skull mask, a set of leather gloves, a set of leather boots, and a pair of cross shaped knives. It was a rather unknown set of gear, and only acquirable one of two ways.
Either be the first person to Pk another player at the start of the game, or kill the player with the gear.
He had been a a beta-tester, and had been the first one to get a Pk in the Beta as well, which was the only reason he about the gear. He'd always enjoyed playing the crazed murderer or the assassin in games, and SAO just let him take it one step farther, and rewarded him doing it.
Coffin snickered as he remembered the newbs faces as he'd ambushed them, but then the Skys lit up, and he was abruptly transported into the middle of the town of beginnings gathering hall, all around him were other players, hundreds if not thousands of men and women, boys and girls.
Above the gathered men and women, a massively cloaked figure materialized and began to speak.
Coffin blinked as the figure who was revealed to by Akahiko Kayaba, the creator of the games, words sunk in.
And a lead weight formed in his gut.
Scene Break
Hours, and many miles traveled later, PoH sat with his surviving companions. XoXo and Jonny Black were exchanging nervous looks, before finally. PoH spoke, his voice quiet, but intense.
"How did he know?"
Jonny gave a questioning look to Xo before hesitantly asking a question.
"How did he know what PoH?"
PoH's head jerked to stare at Jonny with burning eyes.
"That this game was one of death."
Scene Break
Coffin stared at his hands in horror, and then up at his bright, bloody red crimson cursor.
He heard a rustling near by, he whirled, his hands coming to rest at his daggers, but relaxing as his friend Diaval came staggering out of the bushes.
The blue haired man took one look at Coffin's red cursor and winced.
"Oh David, what have you done?"
End of Chapter One
To David, let your garden continue to grow, and your tree continue to flower even now