Chapter 1: The Beginning
Hello, my name is Bryce and this, well this is my story of what went down. This all started on a fairly regular day. I had just gotten home from school, and was hiding out in my room as had been my recent habit, but one very important thin was different. SAO was launching today.
SAO was the first VRMMO game where you actually use your entire body. The creator, Akihiko Kayaba, was a genius! He had designed a helmet which intercepted brainwaves and instead sent them to the game. In English, I would be able to lay in bed, while in in game I'm in a really tense fight, and no-one on the outside would know the difference.
Only 100,000 copies of the games were released, and I just barely managed to snag one at the end. It made my wallet cry a little, but just the idea of a VRMMORPG is well worth the cost. I could hardly keep myself still as I went over the website, just waiting for the launch time. It was hard to believe that just a few years ago, the idea of Full Dive Technology was just a dream, something that was thought impossible.
11:59. Only 1 minute left. I shut my computer and stepped over to my bed, almost kicking my cat Haloe on the way. Laying down on my bed, I put the nerve gear on. The timer hit 12:00. "Link Start!" I yelled.
I put in my Account Info and was greeted by the Character Creation screen. Now I know you're not supposed to use your IRL name or what you look like, but it was kinda hard not to, after all, I thought I looked pretty handsome. Anyway back to the Creator. I made my character have longish, about mid-neck, hair. Playing with the sliders a bit, I choose a darker-brown color, (almost black) with a red streak. I choose a bluish-grey color for my eyes, and a pale complexion. Awesomely enough, they had an option for scars and burns, so I recreated the little burn scar I had on my bottom lip that I had gotten from, well lets just call him a mad man. All that was left was my height, which was about 6 foot. I gave my character a once over and hit accept. It kindly reminded me that I ha to choose a name to continue. Ugh, I feel pretty stupid now. I went through some names in my head, as we all know your name was everything in the RPG series. After a bit of thought, I came up with Mammon. The name came from one of the 7 princes of hell. Mammon was the prince of Greed, which sounded pretty cool to me. I hit accept again and off we go!
Wow….That's about all I can say right now. This world looks so much like the real one! I opened my menu and went through it quickly checking out all the features and screwing with the settings, which is what I did anytime I got something new. While going through my inventory It occurred to me that I didn't actually have a weapon, but I saw that I had a bit of money, or col as it was called in this game. I had 1500 on the dime. I pulled up my map, and searched for the market district, finding my target fairly quickly, I headed off into the crowded city Beginnings.
After searching, testing, and breaking many many weapons, I decided on a dagger. Being fast and agile enough to doge attacks instead of always having to block them had been one of my favorite parts of RPG's. The dagger was just a basic one, but I had a good grip and was super light, but it only had a durability of 75, which kinda broke my heart.
I was looking the weapon over a bit more when someone bumped me as they raced past. Well that was rude. I thought, and then decided that if he was running around like that, he probably knew what he was doing, so I sheathed the dagger and headed off in the direction he had gone. After a bit of tailing and freaking out when I lost him, I found myself out in the fields where he was showing another person how to fight a boar. The new guy, had spiky red hair that was tied back in a gold and red bandanna. I wasn't able to hear an of their conversation, and I couldn't move any farther up due to a lack of cover, so I settled on just watching. I saw the red head execute a sword skill and completely destroy the boar that they had been practicing on.
See, sword skills was a way to keep the audience impressed due to lack of magic. I couldn't believe it when I learned that an RPG(!) didn't have magic. They were stronger than basic attacks and could also look really cool, but they also had a downside. Post-Motion-Delay. See if your getting an increase in one area, you have to get a decrease in another rea, its just how the world works, and the Sword Skills followed that same rule. The stronger the skill the longer you were stuck after it was completed. There were ways to counter this such as increasing certain stats, or grabbing certain perks in the various skill trees.
After watching that scene, I moved off quite a bit, just so I could practice while not getting caught. I went through my own menu, and opened my skill tab. I had two skill slots open, quickly becoming one lot as I grabbed the One-Handed Dagger skill. I looked through the motions for some of m new sword skills. I started out with Rapid Bite: A basic stab, and Fud Edge: your basic slash. I followed the motions that the screen was showing and was relatively able to accomplish both of them after a few try's.
After getting my two Sword skills down I headed off towards the closes enemy I could find, which turned out to be a boar, it's real name being,Wild Boar. I charged it and reached out, using Fud Edge along the right side of the boar before turning and starting the motion for Rapid Bite. The Wild Boar, charged straight into the dagger and shattered into millions of pieces of, glass? A rewards screen popped up. Nice, the boars gave a decent amount of exp; that being 50, which I guess could go up or down. I also got a few dozen col and 1x Wild Boar meat. Hmmm, I wonder if Wild Boar is Tasty…
For the next few hours I did almost the exact same thing, wiping out the all the Wild Boars that I could see, and man was I pooped. I plopped on the ground and opened my menu. I had managed to gain enough exp to get to level 2 and some, almost level 3 actually. I distributed my 2 stat points, both into agility. Now before you go harping on me, I had no reason to put any into strength right now, and I didn't plan on getting hit, so vitality wasn't huge either.
I was just about to get up and go find an inn, when a blue light started to surround me. What in the HELL?! I found myself back in the Plaza. Well that just happened… I tried to edge my way through the crowd, but it was just packed to tightly, it was 100,000 people after all. "look!" Someone shouted, and people started pointing at a red section of the sky, that read "WARNING". It was soon followed by another read "System Announcement". The sky was almost instantly covered in these red sections, and that when the sky started to bleed? No, it was forming something. A huge version o the game master appeared.
"Attention Players," The GM said, "Welcome to my world." Your world? Is this like a Welcoming announcement or something?
"My name is Akihiko Kayaba, and as of this moment, I am the sole person in control of this world. Well that's pretty cool. If he's as amazing as everyone thinks, this game will be amazing and difficult.
"I'm sure you've already noticed that the log out button is missing from the main menu" Kayaba said. Wait, the log out button is gone?! "This is not a defect of the game, I repeat, this is not a defect." Umm, the log out button, is what?!
"It is a feature of Sword Art Online." Kayaba said, "you cannot log out of SAO yourselves, and no one on the outside can shut down or remove the Nerve Gear." Ok this guy is a psycho! I thought while analyzing the situation. More and more people had that look, of despair on their face. I needed to get out of here as soon as I could.
"Should this be attempted, the transmitter inside the Nerve Gear will emit a powerful microwave, destroying your brain, and ending your life." God Dammit! People all around me were starting to freak out.
"Unfortunately, several player's friends and family have ignored this warning, and removing the Nerve Gear." Kayaba said, continuing his monologue. "As a result, two-hundred and thirteen players are no longer a part of Aincrad. As you can see, News Organizations across the worlds are reporting on this incident." Everyone was awestruck as various screens popped up, showing news casts in various languages.
"I hope you relax and attempt to clear the game, but I want you to remember, once an HP bar hits zero, there avatar will be erased forever, while the Nerve Gear simultaneously fries their brain." There was no way we were gonna beat this game…"Aincrad has 100 floors, as of now you are on Floor 1. Make your way to the dungeon, clear all twenty levels, and defeat the boss, opening up the next floor. Defeat the boss of Floor 100, and the game will end logging out all remaining players." If I can defeat that boss, I can escape!
"Finally, I have added a present from me to your item storage, please see for yourself, and players. Good luck, you will need it." And with that, Kayaba melted back into the sky, and disappeared, along with the red sections in the sky. Rather quickly, you could hear the ringing sound of thousands of menus being opened. I looked in my own inventory scrolling through, until I found, a Mirror? I tapped it and it appeared in my hands. After a few seconds the almost the entire plaza was covered in blue lights as people….changed. I looked at the mirror and I saw me. The real me not my avatar. Someone dropped their mirror, and that's what kick started the panic.
I quickly made my way out of the plaza heading towards the fields. This was an RPG, there was only so much exp and col to go around, and I needed the head start. As I ran, I opened up my map and saw that the nearest village was about a click west. That's where I had to go. They would have better weapons and armor, and tougher quests, yielding better rewards. I Will Survive This Death Game!