Authors Note: I won't be doing many author's notes so don't worry. I'm posting this story in hopes that review will help me improve my writing and perhaps somebody else will get some enjoyment from it. So please, if you think it's good, let me know! If you think it's terrible, let me know! There will only be a few chapters that are told in first person, the majority will be third. That being said, please enjoy and let me know where i make mistakes.

Disclaimer: Sword Art Online is owned by A-1 Pictures, Aniplex USA, and Reki Kawahara and I am in no way affiliated with any of the afore mentioned parties.

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(Vlinn)

November 6th, 2022

Do you know what it's like to be within an inch of death? To have your life balanced on the thin edge of a sword? On November sixth two thousand and twenty two, ten thousand people were trapped within the virtual reality MMO Sword Art Online. We were told that if we were to die within the game then our lives outside the game would also cease. That day hundreds of people died from having their Nervegear (a virtual reality enabling device) forcefully removed, while more died from the panic that ensued after Kayaba Akihiko, the games creator, told us of our fate.

If we wanted to live we needed to fight. If we wanted to return to our homes and bodies then we needed to win. It was on that day that my friends and I began the fight for our lives.

Had fate shifted differently I never would have even touched the game that day. I attended an agricultural college at the time and loved video games, my roommate, Kyle, was also an avid gamer, so avid in fact that he had applied and been accepted as a beta tester for SAO. The producers had sent beta invitations to the several countries outside of Japan that the game was being sold to in order to test the strain that might cause on their single server.

That month I watched on his monitor, attached to the Nervegear, as he fought his way around the first level and up into the higher ones. After his sessions we would discuss what I saw on the screen and what he felt in the game. Virtual reality…amazing. I couldn't wait to feel a sword in my hands, to see and smell the beautiful sights I had only glimpsed on a computer monitor, so as soon as I could I attempted to reserve my Nervegear and my copy of Sword Art, a pretty hefty sum of cash, but well worth it I thought at the time. Unfortunately the technology and the game were both very rare in the United States and I could not acquire either.

Meanwhile across the hall my friend Sarah listened intently to our conversations about the game, showing interest. However another computer game held her attention too tightly for her to actually join us when the time came. Another friend, Caleb, on the other hand was more than ready to jump into the game the first day.

Two months after the beta had closed the open games release day came and I found myself alone, awaiting the minute. Kyle had gone to visit his girlfriend that weekend and had not brought his Nervegear with him, Caleb meanwhile had work that he needed to attend to and forced himself to stay away from the game until it was all done. So when the moment came, I donned my helmet (or more truthfully, Kyle's helmet) and braved the virtual world alone.

When I opened my eyes for the first time I heard myself gasp. The world was gorgeous, I could feel, literally feel, the slight breeze graze my skin as it produced ripples in the emerald ocean that was the plain stretching before me. I could smell fresh air, I breathed in deeply several times just to make sure I was truly smelling it. My first moment in SAO was one of the most beautiful moments of my life and it all went downhill from there.

For the next couple of hours I would spend my time killing boars, the most abundant low level enemy on the plains. Level grinding was important and the amount of skin I was getting per drop would probably get me a nice amount of Col, the currency, to work with. The combat system in SAO was outstanding; all of the basic attacks were performed by you, the player. If I wanted to stab something I could do just that (although it wouldn't really do any damage without the systems skill assist program). My actions were my own.

Then there were the sword skills. SAO, true to its name, was based on sword play and the martial arts, thus there was no magic. Instead there were sword skills that could be performed by holding your weapon in a certain stance and letting it charge, like some kind of anime character. Timing was crucial to these skills, release too early and nothing would happen, too late and you may have just lost your window of opportunity in a fight. After about ten battles with my porcine adversaries I finally got the timing down.

I developed a particular fondness for the skill Sonic Leap, a skill I learned at level three with about thirty points in my one-handed sword skill. The skill was a charging type, when released my character would dash forward, slicing past my target.

It seemed like that moment in those old samurai movies when the two warriors would rush past each other, slice, then stay posed until one of them fell. So after a while I ended up dealing the killing blow to the monsters with that skill exclusively.

The more boars I killed the more experience points I accumulated and eventually within three hours of killing boars I was just within reach of level four. At that point I had decided I would head back into the Town of Beginnings to sell off all of the loot I had accumulated. The town was the starting point of the game and it was where most players still were, they were enthralled with the idea of actually being in a video game city, with its merchants and shops.

Just wait until they see the plains, I thought with a smile, strolling down the cheerful cobblestone streets of the town. Players milled about me in groups, talking and laughing, discussing the game mechanics and the wonder of virtual reality. I marveled at the sights as I wound my way through the enormous city, it was probably the largest starting area of any game to date. Why had they made it so big anyway?

I dismissed the thought immediately, it wasn't important. What was important at the moment was finding a damn shop in this mess of stone. I wandered blindly for almost ten minutes, checking store after store for anyone that would buy the tens of boar hides I had in my inventory. I was beginning to lose hope as I left a small tea shop, imagine that, a shop for tea in an MMO, wonderful. I couldn't help but chuckle to myself, perhaps I would come back and have some mint tea after I had some Col.

I stepped off of the shops stone steps shaking my head, not paying attention as I turned right to head down the street…and smacked face first into a set of steel abs. I grunted and quickly stepped back blinking away virtual tears and holding my nose. I didn't actually feel pain, the game's safety feature wouldn't allow it, but I did feel an annoying tingling sensation in my nose.

"Hey," Said the man with the superman abs. "Watch where you're going!" I glanced up to see the largest player I had ever seen, including watching Kyle interact with other beta testers. He easily stood a few feet taller than me and was ridiculously buff; this man was a serious contender for the Ironman competition. His large size would have seemed rather comical compared to the starting short sword all players had at his waist.

Except the incredible Hulk doesn't look comical, ever.

I held my hands up peaceably, chuckling uncomfortably and slid back a few steps, trying to make some room between me and the crimson chin before things got out of hand. A shorter woman slid in front of sir-beats-a lot and shook her finger at him.

"Now, now Brandon." She said rather condescendingly, continuing to wiggle her finger. The stegosaurus of a man rolled his eyes exasperatedly.

"Damn it woman! I told you not to use our real names in game." Brick-wall guy threw his hands up. Brandon? I glanced at the woman's healthbar, above her head floated a green diamond and just above her healthbar was her user name, Skylarksister. That was a name I had seen fairly frequently.

"Marie?" I stared at the female player, she wore the basic clothing that every player was given, a tunic and grey/white pants. During customization players got to choose what color their tunics were, I currently wore a hunter green tunic with the top button undone. Female characters tunics were cut in a slightly deeper "v" than male characters. Marie sported a brown tunic and her bulky friend's was black with silver lining, strangely enough his was missing the middle so one could gaze upon those washboard abs. Seriously, you could grind cheese on those thi- Focus.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts before staring back at the female character. She glanced at me curiously and I saw her eyes move to the right of my face, she was looking at my username in her HUD, which read Vlinn.

"Jacob!" She squealed, yup it was her.

"Stop using our real names, jeez!" The big man, who I could only assume was Brendan snapped. Cronanbarbarian hovered next to his head, I smirked.

"Hi, Brandon."

"Fine." He hung his head in defeat. They would proceed to tell me about how they received their Nervegears and had been playing for about as long as I had, they had been out in the field for a little bit, long enough to gain enough experience to get to level two. They had come back into town to look around the shops and get acquainted with the locations.

"So you might know where to find a shop that will buy some boar hide." I smiled charmingly, trying to get them to disclose the secret to the biggest challenge of my life.

"Oh yeah," the girl said, jerking her thumb behind her. "There's a general goods store just up the road, we just sold our loot there."

"Awesome! Thank you, I'll catch you guys later!" And with that I jogged off in the general direction that her thumb had been pointing. True to their word the general store was on the corner of the street where I had met them. The NPC took my loot and gave me about 160C for the whole lot. Not a bad beginning if you asked me. Now that I had cash maybe I would go back to that little tea store and see just how well I could taste in this world.

But first I probably had homework that needed doing and the sooner I got it out of the way the sooner I could continue to enjoy the best game ever! I held my right index finger in the air and pinched my thumb against it, then flicked down. My menu popped into existence in front of my eyes; from here I could access everything, my inventory and equipment, my friends list, a messenger, a map and quest log and the settings menu. I tapped on the settings menu and it brought me to another screen with three options. At least there was supposed to be three.

I blinked once, twice. Where was the log out feature? I exited the settings menu then tried re-opening it. Again the log out option was not there. I tried this method three more times and still the log out icon never appeared. What the hell? Was there a glitch from too much activity on one server? I was sure they would send out a message about it and get this bug fixed soon. I shrugged; maybe I would go get that cup of tea after all.

I took one step and found myself in the main square of the town…which was at least four blocks from where I had been about four seconds ago…what? All around me people chattered, so many people. Had they all been teleported here, was this all of the players on the server?

"Hey!" I heard someone call to my right, I turned to find Marie and Brandon squeezing through the crowd toward me or to be fair Marie was squeezing, Brandon was plowing.

"Is your menu acting up too?" Brandon asked as he stepped on another innocent player.

"I take that as meaning no one can log out." I replied. "It's probably just being glitchy from so much server activity."

"Then why did they bring everyone to the center of the town?" The female player glanced around; a lot of the players seemed rather panicked over the situation.

"What's that?" Brandon pointed at the top of the town's clock tower. The pixilated sky above us had turned deep crimson, WARNING floated in the sky. SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT followed close behind.

"Hopefully it's about our log out feature." Marie muttered. For a moment nothing happened…

And then the sky bled.

Crimson leaked off of the announcement and hung suspended in the air before congealing into a figure. The man that now floated above us wore a red cloak with a cowl so deep that his face was hidden in darkness.

"Players, welcome to my world."

Kayaba Akihiko, the man that imprisoned ten thousand players in a virtual world. He would go on to tell us that we were now stuck in SAO with only one hope of escape. Clear the game. Reach the ninety ninth floor and we would be granted our freedom, die and you were dead. Fancy that. He would materialize hand mirrors for us to look into, to watch as our avatars transformed, creating perfect replicas of our real life bodies,

I watched in panic (and mild amusement I will admit) as the huge super buff Brandon shrank back into his average lean self and Marie lost a couple inches herself. What was jaw dropping was watching a lot of female characters turn into men, freaking weirdoes. When we first logged in the Nervegear had us touch all over our bodies for "calibration". This was clearly the true intention behind it.

After the game creator disappeared there was dead silence. No one wanted to believe him, but there was something in the back of my mind that wouldn't let me refute his claims. He just seemed right, I glanced around, people were starting to get hysterical. After a while there would be a riot and we definitely did not want to get caught up in this.

My friends didn't seem too phased or it could have been the fact that the news hadn't sunk in, either way they looked like they could move. I saw a man with red hair walk out of a nearby alley, as I looked beyond him I saw a black haired kid running away from the square and no doubt out of the town. That seemed as good an idea as any.

"We need to get out of here." I said lowly, turning to my friends. "Before everyone starts to riot or something."

"Where would we go?" Brandon asked, eyes shifting over the crowd.

"We could go to another town." Marie said, glancing down the various alleyways.

"No." I shook my head. "Everyone is going to either stay here or eventually move to the next towns, I have an idea of where to go, we will have to visit one of the other towns." I heard someone scream, this was followed shortly by mass shouting, the crowd began to churn and move dangerously, like waves in a storm. "Shit! Let's go!"

Without actually looking to see if they were following me I started down the nearest alley, running as fast as I could out of this town and away from the mayhem.