I blinked, my eyes still trying to adjust to the influx of sunlight. After a moment, I grinned. It's been too long...
I clenched my fist before glancing down at my clothes. They were basic and the completely wrong shade of green for my avatar's complexion, but they would do until I got the funds together to get a new outfit. Before the outfit, however, I'd have to get a new weapon. At sign in, players get to choose what sort of starter weapon they'd receive: a straight or curved sword, dagger, spear, or warhammer. The spear I had now would work for the first floor but, after that, it was too brittle and its durability would be too low for it to be reliable.
My thoughts raced as I tried to figure out a battle plan for this first sign in. If I skipped the tutorial (which should be optional), I'd be able to bypass the other players and start hunting mobs right away. More hunting time means more experience and more money which means faster leveling and sooner upgrades.
A low chime interrupted my musing and I glanced down to my menu, where my friend roster had suddenly popped up with a trio of notifications.
Heidan would like to add you as a friend. Do you accept?
Maisie would like to add you as a friend. Do you accept?
Blake would like to add you as a friend. Do you accept?
Quickly selecting Yes to each request, I moved on to the map to try to locate everyone. Maisie and Blake were close by, probably in one of the other spawning points, while Heidan was already out of town and in the fields. He must have signed in right at 1 o'clock.
A smile pulled at my lips as I thought of my friends. "Maisie" and I met when we were seven years old and we've been nearly inseparable ever since. She tends to have a much more level head than I do, which helps keep me grounded. We both got into gaming together with old-school MMORPGs and SAO was simply the natural progression of that interest. In the past, she was a sword-and-shield user and I had a good feeling she'd go that way again.
"Blake" was Maisie's younger sister and, despite the three year difference, she refused to be left behind in anything. Her determination to keep up was occasionally a point of contention over the past ten years but she's become our third musketeer, for lack of a better word. When I discovered the wonderful world of troublemaking- and began dragging Maisie along for the ride- it was Blake that would constantly work to keep us in line. Blake wasn't much of a front line fighter so she would likely go for a more cloak and dagger approach.
"Heidan" was my newest friend. He and I had actually met through SAO during the beta test. He wanted to try his hand at info brokering so he spent much of the beta going back and forth from the front lines to the home front, talking to players and getting as much information about the structure of the game as he could. At sixteen, he was a little younger than me but he had a noble streak and a sense of adventure that kept him grabbing his warhammer and joining me on quests and boss raids.
Following my map, I tracked Maisie and Blake down to a plaza with an intricate fountain gurgling away in the center of the growing crowd. I glanced around, not sure what their avatars would look like in this world. Maisie and I always went for the same general look, but this would be Blake's first MMORPG. I had no idea what she would look like.
"Maisie! Blake!" I shouted into the crowd, hoping they'd hear me. After a brief moment where nearly everyone in the square thought it'd be interesting to look at me, two figures melted from the south side.
"Riva!" Maisie cheered, tackling me in a hug. Blake joined at a slightly more sedate pace with a broad smile on her face.
"This is so weird," Blake said, gesturing around her. I assumed she was referring to the fact that everything she was looking at was virtual and I laughed.
"You'll get adjusted pretty soon," I promised to Blake. I studied both of them, forcing my mind to cope with the fact that I was hearing the voices of my two friends in bodies that weren't theirs'. Maisie's nose was all wrong and Blake's jaw was far too round but I could trace little connections between their avatars and their real-life bodies that made identification easier. "Now come on. We've got a lot to do and I have to introduce you to Heidan."
I grabbed the two by their wrists and started dragging them towards the west gate of town. After a few yards, I dropped their hands and began to run.
It felt so good to run in a body that didn't have asthma. I loved to run and feel the wind in my hair but I generally loved breathing a lot more. Virtual reality meant that I could have both and I loved it.
As we ran, I pointed out a few things to my rookie companions and soon we were in the West Field.
"Your starter weapons are already equipped," I said as we started moving towards Heidan's position. We weren't in any rush and my need to run was satisfied for now so we were walking, which gave me plenty of time to explain how sword skills worked. "Normally, you would have to go through your item menu to use it but that's not hard. In fighting, SAO uses techniques called sword skills. They go from basic stabs and slashes to complex patterns dependant on your weapon," I explained, glancing from Blake's dagger to Maisie's sword.
We continued walking and talking about the game until we came to an open field. Boars dotted the area, each grazing peacefully.
"Heidan is gearing up to be an info broker so if you want any really detailed information, you'll have to go to him. He might charge you for it, though," I joked. A burst of pixels caught my eye and I glanced further out, the map clearing up as my eyes focused on the smaller area. "There he is. Heidan!"
"Hey! Long time no see!" he shouted back, starting to jog towards us. I grinned.
"While he gets his butt over here, who wants to try hunting? The boars here are just basic slimes- nothing hard."
"Dibs!" Maisie called, whipping her sword out of its sheath and pointing towards the nearest boar. Blake rolled her eyes but I only raised my spear as Maisie started jogging towards the monster. The boar was close enough... if I did it just right...
I felt the sword skill start to activate and I lobbed the spear towards the boar, a ghostly blue afterimage trailing behind my spear. Throwing weapons wasn't always a good strategy, but I had a point to make and a friend to annoy.
My spear hit home, striking the boar in the side just below its shoulder. It released an angry squeal as its HP dropped down into the yellow. It was still alive but I didn't hesitate even when the boar turned towards Maisie, incorrectly marking her as the threat. I dropped down and grabbed a rock off of the grass, tossing it up before pulling my arm back. I felt the skill begin to activate and I narrowed my eyes on my spear before launching the rock towards the boar. The rock slammed into the butt of my spear, sending it into the boar just another few inches but it was enough. Its HP dropped to zero and the boar shivered before bursting into a burst of glassy pixels. My spear and the rock hit the ground with a soft clatter. The rock bounced on the ground before breaking into pixels as well, its durability spent after being used as a weapon.
"That wasn't fair," Maisie complained. "I called dibs."
"And I ignored you," I said with a smirk as I accepted my reward-24 experience and a mere 30 cor. I also accepted the two items into my inventory, knowing that they'd be either boar tusks or ragged hides. The items weren't good for much but, after getting enough of them, I could sell them for a decent profit. "Hey, stranger."
"Who are you calling a stranger? I've been waiting here for hours," Heidan said with a lopsided smile. I raised an eyebrow, briefly glancing at my clock.
"It's only 1:40. The game hasn't even been online for a full hour. And, besides, I had to wait for my friends to be ready before I could log in. Speaking of, Heidan, meet Maisie and Blake. Maisie and Blake, this is Heidan."
"Nice to meet you!" my friends chimed in unison.
"So what's the gameplan?" Heidan asked me after glancing over Maisie and Blake. I smirked at exactly how long his glance over Blake took, intending to fully make fun of that later.
"Divide and conquer? Blake can't stay on past 6 so we won't be taking floor one by storm on day one. I think you should take Blake to train and I'll take Maisie. "
"Sounds good to me."
"Alright."
"Sure."
"Awesome! Let's get started, then."
Level Up!
I cleared the menu, glancing down the path where Maisie was taking on a boar by herself. She crouched low, holding her sword at the ready behind her as the boar squealed angrily and began its rush. She sidestepped it easily, her sword whipping out and slicing deep into the boar's side, causing it to shatter into light.
"Level two!" she cheered happily. I smirked, hefting my spear onto my shoulders.
"Level three," I bragged jokingly. Maisie scowled at me, holding up her sword threateningly.
"Are you asking to respawn? Because I'd be happy to oblige-"
"No thanks!" I said quickly, holding up a hand in surrender. Respawn time varies on how and where you died; as a PVP kill in a floor one field, my respawn time shouldn't be that long but the walk back here from the respawn points in town would be a killer.
"I thoughts so," she sniffed. Her face smoothed out as she looked at the sky. "We should meet up with the others; it's getting close to 5:30... Blake has to sign out soon."
"Yeah. I'll shoot them a message."
I opened up my menu but, as my hand drifted over the settings button, something that was there caught my eye. Or, more precisely, something that wasn't there caught my eye.
"Where's the logout?" I mumbled to myself. My finger hovered over the icon of the door but, unlike every other time I'd played during the closed beta, there was no option to exit.
"Huh?" Maisie asked, glancing over onto my menu. I gestured to the empty option.
"See? This is where the logout should be..."
"That's weird... Probably just a glitch in the system. Today is the first day of the open server, after all. There are still bugs to be worked out. I'm sure things like this happened during the beta, right?" I noticed immediately how Maisie's voice had kicked up an octave and I plastered a grin on my face.
"Yeah! I'm sure it's nothing. Let's go join up with the others. Once you and Blake get yourselves logged out, Heidan and I are probably going to try moving around the floor. Maybe we'll start heading to the next town. If we make a group, you'll be able to login right next to the guild leader."
"You mean you?" Maisie joked, calming down slightly. I rolled my eyes but grinned.
"Of course! Who else would lead our band of misfits and noobs?"
I opened my menu, again trying to get to the message board, but my hand froze again as a silvery blue light covered my skin. I glanced up at Maisie and flung my hand out to catch her wrist. Teleport!
I was motionless as Kayaba continued speaking.
"This marks the end of the tutorial and the official launch of Sword Art Online. Players, I wish you the best of luck."
The best of luck? The best of LUCK?!
I resisted every instinct I felt to curl into a ball and cry. Everything blurred and time began to slow down but I refused to let myself fall apart right now.
I'm stuck here? I can't go home?
No. You're going home. We just have to survive.
But how can I? So many people are already gone...
Snap out of it!
I forced my vision to focus, wishing the blurriness away. The figures around me sharpened into silhouettes of people in various stages of distress. I couldn't let myself fall into it; I couldn't. I wasn't alone in this. I needed to get out, because if I got out, they got out.
Saya was already next to me. I mean, Maisie was already next to me. Where was Hana- damn it- where was Blake? I needed Heidan. We weren't just a few misfits and noobs now; we were a guild. We were literally each other's' lifelines in this place and I was sure as hell not losing any of them.
I swiped into my message menu and typed out a message as quickly as my fingers could manage before grabbing Maisie's wrist, hitting send just as I started dragging her out of the plaza.
Heidan. Get Blake and meet Maisie and I in the shopping quarter. We're getting new weapons and we're getting out ASAP. -Riva
My body was moving on its own as my thoughts were racing-we had spent most of the day training; our starter weapons' durability would be almost down to zero so we needed to replace them as soon as we could. MMORPGs always had a finite number of resources available and it wasn't hard to assume that the vast majority of the beta testers would be on the move first. They would take the best hunting spots and the easy quests, something I wasn't okay with. My thoughts we moving so quickly ahead of my emotions that I had almost dragged Maisie to the shopping quarter before I realized something: she was crying.
"Maisie. Look at me," I ordered, harsher than I intended. She jerked, tears still building in her eyes. I had discovered that early on in the beta; because the NerveGear is so intimately connected with our minds, we can't hide tears. We can fake some emotions, plaster on a smile, but tears are strong. Tears fall, especially when we don't want them to.
"What?" she hiccuped.
"We are getting out of this. You, me, and Hana. We've got a good group here. Heidan will have our backs and we'll have his. We will survive this."
"You called... her Hana..." Maisie murmured to me. I nodded.
"Yes. Because that is her name. Being trapped here for a little while won't take that away from her, just like it won't take Saya away from you or Kori away from me. Those names are who we are, not these avatars."
"But we look like us now... What if something happens to us? Do you think it's true? Will we really die?" A horrified look overcame Maisie's dark green eyes. "I nearly killed you before! I could have actually killed you. Oh my god..."
"Hey! You wouldn't have killed me. There's no way a greenhorn like you could have taken down the master of the Hunters of Artemis, remember?" I teased gently. That was our usual guild name, assuming HoA wasn't already claimed. She laughed weakly but I knew this battle wasn't over. It was likely one I was going to fight with her and myself until we were finally out of this game.
"Now come on. Let's go find Danny-boy and Blake," I hummed, rubbing Maisie's shoulder comfortingly before grabbing her wrist again and tugging her along.
"Hana!"
"Saya!"
I stepped to the side with Heidan as the two sisters reunited. Even though I was very close to the two, we weren't related by blood and that did mean something. I would defend them as fiercely as if they were my blood sisters, but, when all of this was over, we would go to separate houses and families for comfort because, even if no one else really understood what happened inside the game, blood is thicker than water.
"I'd appreciate if you respected their privacy," I murmured to Heidan. He shrugged.
"Blake and Maisie are already in my head. They might look a little different, but those are their names to me... I want you to know, though... My name is Hayato. In case I don't make it out..."
"Shut up!" I growled lowly, smacking him on the shoulder. "Of course you're making it out! We all are. You, me, Blake, and Maisie. I don't care if I have to throw you into the 100th floor myself... We're getting out of here..."
"Thank you," he murmured quietly, watching Blake and Maisie cling to each other.
"Kori..." I murmured back. "And don't mention it."
When at last, the two sisters were able to mutually let go of each other without sobbing, Heidan and I pointed them in the direction of the NPC weapons were generally the weakest weapons in a game since they were easily bought and rarely improvable but a poor weapon was far better than one that was liable to break before we made it to the next town.
The merchant-smith we had stopped in front of seemed to offer a strange variety of weapons, something Heidan and I very much appreciated since neither of us used the basic dagger-sword-spear set that was common in Aincrad during the beta. Heidan got a new warhammer and, while Maisie and Blake poked through the basic blades ranging from straight daggers to katanas, I perused the bladed staves. I liked spears okay, but I found a monster drop during the beta that I loved: a naginata that bore a blade on both ends of the staff. The monster drop had all sorts of cool features, but I would be content with a basic bladed staff at this level.
Much to my relief, there was a double bladed naginata not unlike my old weapon hidden in the back under a shelf of maces and polearms. Trying not the cringe at the price of the specialized weapon, I equipped my new weapon and sold off everyone's starter weapons for scrap metal. That's all they were good for at this point.
The street was notably more crowded than it was when we arrived at the shop and, after exchanging a quick glance with my friends, we started moving out towards the next town.