Chapter 1:When shit hit the fan
'Link Start', two words that started a whole mess of trouble. No, that's not true. I guess that it really all started when my friends and I bought a game. Well I say bought but really Banette got hired for the beta so that the language translation coders (Or something like that, I never really cared enough to pay attention) could test to see how English was translated to Japanese since the two biggest markets for the game were Japanese and English speaking gamers, So Banette managed to get the full game for two of his friends as compensation for his contribution for making the game. He had always been like that, gave a bigger damn about free merchandise than about money. Not that I can complain, it got me a free game.
What game was that? Only Sword Art Online, the very first VRMMORPG ever made for the NerveGear, and since I love long acronyms I immediately feel in love with this game. That doesn't mean I was immediately good at it though. That is why Banette had to teach Anale and I how to play the game. Or at least he tried to, it was a little harder than it looked.
"SHIT!" I screamed out as I ran from the boar that wanted to avenge its fallen brethren. "Save me Banette" I didn't really understand why Banette wanted us to get into the habit of using each other's usernames instead of each other's real names while in SAO, but I wasn't about to argue with the guy who got me the game.
"Your hopeless, you know that Dizmo?" Banette said as he killed the boar with a punch while I ran past him with the boar on my ass. Yeah that right one punch. Banette refused to use any weapon in favour of using his fists, like wise he preferred to use no armour other than a ruined hooded robe that reached the ground which he used to obscure his characters face and some heavy duty gauntlets that he calls the 'Ceastus', in memory of dark souls 2.
"You're a focking twat mate" Anale gasped out in between chortling laughter. "Learn your fucking place in society." He managed out as he finally came down from the hilarity of watching his friend get wrecked by a low level enemy.
"It's harder than it looks man." I said, only for my sentence to be ended by Banette slapping me on the back of the head.
"No it's not, it's easy as fuck."
"OW, hey that hurt" I exclaimed rubbing the back of my head
"No it didn't, you can't feel pain in SAO." He was right of course. Despite the look of his attire he was probably one of the most experienced players in SAO, and training noobs was a major waste of his time.
"What do you want me to do now then?" I asked, ignoring Anale's laughter at my expense.
"How about you get some damn SKILLS! How about you go kill those damn PIGS! Get some LEVELS DAMNIT! And don't even try to blame it on your NOOB armour" He said (More like yelled some parts) as he pointed at a recently spawned boar.
"Okay, okay, keep your pants on, I'm going." And so I went, for the 4th time today, and I had counted. Anale found it easier to kill the boars than I had. To be fair he had a giant fuck-off buster sword while I had a wimpy dagger. Banette explained to me that I should use a dagger since my skills were better suited for it. Something about my high speed and dexterity make using a dagger quickly and effectively much easier for me while Anale had higher strength so two handed weapons were better for him.
In short it meant that I can doge and run like a bitch, and that's about it. 'Can't give a hit for shit can't take a hit for shit, just run' is how Banette put it. Yet he still expects me to be able to kill anything the Anale could.
This time though, instead of running at the boar like an idiot I decided to try a different tactic. 'So I can't take a hit, but I can dodge. Let's make the enemy attack first' So with that though in mind I walked up to the boar. I was about five meters away when I picked up a nearby rock and threw it at the boar. Drawing the boars' attention as the rock impacted with the boars head, making it turn to me and kick up dirt with its back hooves. For a moment it was as if those glowing red eyes were staring me down, then it charged. I planted my feet in the ground, ready for it's approach. As soon as it got close enough it thrust its tusk's upwards, aiming for my stomach. But instead of hitting me in the gut it hit nothing but air as I stepped back then around the boar and stabbed it in the back of the head before it could recover from its failed charge. One strike wasn't enough to kill it however as it threw its head around intending to strike me in the side, so I jumped back and slashed the boar in the face, making it's HP hit zero, finally killing it.
"I killed it, HAHA I KILLED IT" I yelled out in excitement.
"You see that Banette? I killed it" I proclaimed proudly to my friend and instructor.
"Good job, you managed to kill a low level boar with the starting armour. Also you didn't even do it correctly." He said flatly, as if this whole situation was getting boring to him, which I would be surprised if it wasn't already.
"What do you mean 'I didn't even do it correctly'?"
"You didn't charge your attack." He stated bluntly.
"…What"
"Charging your attack. It's when you pull back on your weapon and hold it for a few seconds before striking. There are a bunch of combo's and stuff that you can use to do different charged attacks, but at the rate you're going you won't need to worry about those for a long time"
"Well it looks like someone's grumpy"
"Oh I'm sorry, I was stuck teaching a couple of noobs the basics instead of tracking down the new location of the first levels boss."
"You don't have to be so sarcastic Banette" (even though he can't tell sarcasm)
After Banette replied with a facepalm he ordered me to try again, but to this time he wanted me to charge my weapon. I was getting better at the combat mechanics, this time it only took me two more attempts before I had the proper technique for charging my weapon down. (after the first Banette said 'usually people get better on the second shot, but you just stay a failure')
We spent the rest of the day grinding mobs and talking about the game. Banette was a walking encyclopaedia of information when it came to SAO, It makes me wonder why he is just a sub-par student at school. Either way, Anale and I learnt a lot from Banette while we were grinding. He told us about the later enemy's, were the best places to grind were, about a murder guild named laughing coffin because pvp assholes are apparently already apart of this game. Apparently though it was more of a highway robbery thing where they only killed you if you didn't give them all your loot.
We also talked about making a guild, something we usually do early on in most mmo's we play together. It had become almost a routine. We enter the game, get our bearing`s, play for an hour or two, then logoff for the day. Or at least I logoff while Banette grinds twenty levels, I almost think he does it just to piss me off, But then I remember that Banette just doesn't give a fuck. It doesn't matter either way though since Bannete told us that you can't make a guild until you complete a quest on floor three, which means we probably wouldn't need to worry about making a guild for a long time.
After about three hours of grinding we went back to the spawn town, 'The Town of Beginnings' was its name. When we got there we spent some time to spend our items and buy some new clothes. I got a brown hooded robe, I didn't really like the colour but the stats were really good and Banette told me that I would be able to dye it later. Anale got some upgraded armour, to me it looked a lot like his previous armour but with some more metal mixed into it but to each his own. All in all it was a pretty good day, and to end it off Banette was taking Anale and I to somewhere he called 'the perfect screenshot location'. That's how we got to where we were now, hiking up a massive fucking mountain while the sun was setting overhead.
"How much further do we need to go?" Anale called to Banette
"As long as it takes" was his reply
"It has taken us like twenty minutes already, I'm going to have to logoff in about half an hour man." I said, adding my two cents.
"Well then shut up and walk." And so we did, for about five minutes.
"Seriously how much longer is this going to take?" I questioned.
"Yeah this is getting boring" Anale said, agreeing with me.
"Shut up, were nearly there"
"Oh yeah? How close?" I questioned, we had been walking for almost half an hour and I would need to logoff soon.
"Just climb up this cliff" Banette said with a wave of his arm in the direction of the cliff. It was more like a rocky wall with a few places that could make improvised footholds. With a shrug from Anale and I the three of us began to scale the cliff, I managed to make it to the top first despite Banettes head start, And what I saw took my breath away.
I stood there on top of the mountain, looking over the beauty and majesty that was the first floor. The sun was finally setting in the distance, colouring the sky's orange, making large trees cast incredible shadows and reflecting light off of the large bodies of water that were scattered throughout the plains making them shimmer in the sunset. From up here SAO felt amazing, it felt real.
"Hmm, it looks better in the sunset" Banette mused quietly to himself, standing to the left of me.
"How did you find this place?" I asked, refusing to take my eyes off of the beautiful tapestry that was painted in front of me.
"I found it in the beta. I got board of grinding monsters and decided to explore. I only found this place thanks to dumb luck, and as far as I can tell no one else knows about it."
"It's incredible" Anale whispered to himself, standing on my right. He was apparently trapped in a similar awe as myself.
"So this is our little secret, our own little slice of the garden of Eden" I said a peaceful smile on my lips.
"It more a mountain top of Eden" Banette corrected
"I don't even care, it's ours all the same." Was my reply, the peaceful smile never leaving my lips. This place felt incredible, as if the entire world revolved around just one location on top of a mountain. I was really incredible; it just had a way of making you forget it was just a video game. I felt at peace, and I never wanted to interrupt that peace by leaving. I just lost myself in the view of the world.
"Well, I need to go take a shit" And then the world came crashing back down on me.
"Wow Anale, way to ruin the moment."
"Hey man, when you got to go you got to go"
I gave an exasperated sigh and pinch to the bridge of my nose before I replied. "Okay, fine. I needed to logoff anyway and here is a good place to log back into, so yeah. See you guy's tomorrow morning, is around nine okay to you guys?"
"I have church tomorrow, I won't be on until later. Play without me though, you guy's could use the extra experience. Especially you Dizmo." Banette said after I got an affirmative from Anale, who was in the process of logging off.
"Hey Banette where's the logoff button" Anale asked confused.
"What are you talking about" Banette replied
"The logoff button, where is it"
"On the bottom of the menu"
"No it's not"
"what are you talking about?" I asked Anale. Surely he was just being an idiot or a troll. The logoff button was on the menu somewhere. Or at least that's what I though until I opened my menu only to notice the distinctive lack of a logoff button.
"Banette, he's right there isn't any logoff button. What's going on man." I asked my friend, convinced he would know the answer.
"Your both idiot's, the logoff button's there your just not looking hard enough." He said confidently.
"Maybe we should try asking an admin for help" I suggested to Anale hopefully, I was convinced there had to be a reasonable explanation for this. I mean there are a ton of games that go through shit on their release, I mean look at Diablo 3. That was an error thirty-seven simulator at launch, compared to that this shouldn't have been a worry.
Before I could receive a reply from Anale or a sarcastic insult from Banette something happened. I wasn't entirely sure what it was at the time, all I knew was that I was enveloped in a blue light, the feeling of weightlessness for half a second and then the blue light again. Except I wasn't in our self-proclaim 'mountaintop of Eden', instead we were in the city of beginnings. Just so there is no confusion, when I said weI didn't mean Anale, Banette and I. No I meant EVERYONE ON THE SERVER!
"What the hell is going on?" I asked to no one in particular, as I was barraged with a multitude of Japanese murmurs of confusion. I couldn't understand what they were saying but I was pretty confident that they were asking similar questions as I was.
"What are they all saying" Anale asked.
"One second, let me turn the translation matrix on" Banette said, his voice almost completely monotone except the slight layer of annoyance at having to change the settings. He was always like this, one of the funniest and most random people alive, if sometimes a massive stubborn asshole, but he was almost impossible to surprise. It was as if he was prepared for any surprises.
"Hey how do you do that, which option is it in the settings?" I questioned, Banette's blasé attitude calming me to the surprise of the teleport that had pushed the absence of a logoff button to the back of my mind.
"I'll tell you later faggot, if someone says something important I'll tell you that too." As much as I wanted to complain there were two things stopping me, the first being that I understood that he was getting annoyed teaching noobs something as basic as how to change settings, even if it was a type of setting I had never heard of before, he deserved a break from the complaints and the questions. The second being that he turned on the translation matrix before I could complain and was now speaking Japanese.
After a few seconds of everyone running around like headless chickens somebody yelled something and everybody looked to the sky. It didn't take me long to see the giant red WARNING sign in the air, especially when it rapidly duplicated itself to the point that it enveloped the sky, turning it red and making the normally peaceful town of beginnings seem a lot more sinister. Or maybe the sinister atmosphere came from the blood falling from the sky.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING HERE" I screamed.
"Well I don't need to go to the toilet anymore." Anale said, standing next to me, while it looked like everyone else was stuck in a state of silent shock. Honestly I'm surprised no one else was freaking the hell out, but Anale and I are Australian and have always been really loud and vocal with our reactions so maybe it's just us. I mean Banette wasn't freaking out, but truthfully I would have been surprised if he did freak out.
It got even weirder when the blood pooled together mid-air and turned into a giant grim reaper looking thing that had no face. Japanese games are weird, but since no one else reacting to badly I was convinced that it wasn't something to be worried about, Christ was I wrong. The reaper continued to talk, in Japanese, for a while before showing some news video clips, that were in Japanese, then continuing its speech, in Japanese. It's safe to say that Anale and I were completely lost, we had no idea what was going on. We were definitely confused when everyone started checking their inventory, Anale and I gave each other a shrug before checking our inventories ourselves.
"Where the hell did this mirror come from" I asked as I pulled it out of my inventory.
"I don't know but I have one too" Anale replied as he took his own mirror out of his inventory. Then we looked into our mirrors, but there was nothing special about them. It felt kinda anti-climatic to tell you the truth, the sky turning red, blood pouring from the sky, the grim reaper giving a massive speech in Japanese then a weird item appeared in our inventories, I don't know I guess I was expecting more.
"Weird, I was kinda expecting something to happen." I told Anale, but it seemed that the universe decided to make me the fool since shortly after I said this Anale was engulfed in blue light. Yes, I know how stupid that sounds but that is what it looked like. In fact Anale wasn't the only one that this happened to. Everyone I saw was being enveloped by a blue light, until all I saw was this bright blue light. That is when I realised I had actually been enveloped by the light as well.
Before I could react to this sudden blue light it was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. I rubbed my eyes before I looked around, trying to get my bearings when I heard Anale exclaimed. "What the hell? You character looks like you, when did that happen?" When I play a game with a customizable character I usually try to make the character look as much like me as possible, of course SAO hasn't officially been released in any other country besides Japan so I was forced to make my character look as much like a Japanese version of me as possible. So when I heard Anale's shocked voice proclaiming that I looked more like my character I found it a bit odd, but when I looked up and saw what Anale looked like I understood the surprised tone in his voice.
Anale usually did the exact opposite of me so instead of the giant, white, steroid abusing, goateed afro-man with face that not even a mother could love that I had gotten used to in SAO when I thought of Anale, I saw what Anale looked like in real life, a slightly black shaggy haired, tall, white skinned, brown eyed with only slightly above average height and what could be the beginning of a beard, In other words, your average gamer.
I immediately checked the mirror that was still in my hand, to be greeted by shock face. Dark brown, messy hair that was long enough to be annoying and wide, light blue eye's that were stuck in a state of shock. I looked up at Anale, him being only slightly taller me, I'm sure that my eye's showed nothing but fear. Things were getting really getting freaky, not in a weird video game sort of way. More like a 'Devs are getting stalky' sort of way.
The Japanese reaper talked a bit more before disappearing into a weird blood coloured mist and the world turned back to normal. The crowed was stuck in what had to be a shocked silence, Banette was not though, instead he just grabbed Anale and I and led us away from the crowed. He led us to some out of the way merchant square, I think they sold dye's. I would have to remember that for later.
"Okay this shit is pretty serious" Banette finally said after turning of the translation matrix
"What's going on?" Was my reply, Banette was never serious, and he was then it was worth listening to. "Okay, now I'm not going to repeat myself so you better listen now. We can't leave the game anymore, if we die in the game we die in real life. Apparently a shitload of people are already dead because people tried to take off their nerve gear so they died. The only way we can get out is if we complete the game and beat the boss on the hundredth floor."
"BEAT AN MMO?! IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?"
"Dizmo calm down"
"No I will not calm down Banette, this is bullshit. What the fuck is going on? What the fuck are we going to do?" I began to freak out, thoughts of my family and friends were in my mind. I had never even heard of anyone beating any MMO, I thought it just couldn't be done. But before I could fall further into hysteria Banette slapped me across the face with his plate gauntlets.
"Calm the fuck down bitch; you aren't doing anyone no good. Take a second to think about this shit, if we all freak out and die now we won't get out of the game."
"How can we even beat an MMO?" Anale asked, breaking out of his shock.
"I've beaten TERA online"
"that's one game, do you even know if we can beat this one?" I asked to Banette's reply
"Nope, but there are like ten thousand gamers who are going to be dedicating themselves to this game twenty-four seven. If they can't beat this game no one can, even if two hundred are already dead."
"TWO HUNDRED PEOPLE DIED?!"
"Well two hundred and thirteen"
"Were doomed" I said as a fell to the ground and slumped against a wall.
"Shut up bitch"
"Why aren't you freaking out?" Anale said to Banette, with a lot more composure than I was showing.
"Nothing to freak out over, we'll get out. Might take a few months, a year at the most, but eventually we'll kill the boss on the hundredth floor and get out. Until now this is just like a break from normal life."
"Your confidence isn't contagious Banette" I said with a sigh "But I'll be dammed if I didn't need some confidence right around now. There are a few major problems that we have to deal with though, one we don't speak Japanese, two were too low level to do jack shit and three level's and experience won't mean anything if people keep dying. We would get to the final boss and have nobody to fight it."
"Dude you don't need to even worry about the final boss right now" Anale said to encourage me. To be honest I was more of Banette's friend than I was Anales, but we would have to get over that if we want to get through this.
"Oh yeah, and the setting for the translation matrix is in the language setting's" Banette told us, as if the information was meaningless instead of being one of the only means of communication that we would have for however long it would take to get out of this game.
"I didn't even know there was a language setting." I said while we all opened out settings to change the language translation to Japanese.
"Okay now what do we do?" Anale asked.
"Wow that's weird" I said, his lips looked like that were speaking in English, but it came out in Japanese, It really was weird.
"Yeah I know, anyway, there really isn't much we can do. We should probably try to get some sleep though, I know an inn just a few minutes down the road from here, lets go." Banette told us.
"Just like that?" I asked, I was kind of hopping for more of a plan.
"Yeah, we can get our shit together tomorrow, after we cool our heads." With that Banette took us to a hotel so we could get some sleep, Anale and I asking Banette question's along the way.
While Banette and Anale were sleeping in room's either side of my own I was messing around with the settings. That's where I found this journal tab, buried in the 'social' options. I don't know if that 'Kayaba' asshole that trapped us here put it there to mock us or something, but I'm going to make the most of it. If I manage to make it out of this hell hole alive, I want to have my journey written down so hopefully, some day, I can find it when I get out of this place.
That's thinking too far into the future, and getting out of here is a big if at the moment. At the moment Banette has convinced Anale and I to take this one day at a time. So tomorrow I still need my sleep, one day is currently really far away but tomorrow is a lot closer.
