The day had finally come, Sword Art Online the first virtual reality massively multi-player online role playing game for the Nerve Gear system had finally been released to the public and had just launched for it's first time. My name is Steven Keywood and I was a 16 year old gamer with medium length flat lying brownish blonde hair and dark gray blue eyes. I was in my small bedroom which contained a bed, a cupboard and a drawer, I sat on my bed which was covered with a blank duvet and began to boot up my Nerve Gear system with the brand new game disc already in place. When everything was ready I picked up the plugged in head gear and laid down on my bed and placed it on. When the gray visor covered my eyes from the world I saw the time in the top left, 13:00, and the charging battery symbol on the right.
I then closed my eyes and let the full dive link begin. A moment after I closed my eyes bright blue circles began to appear in front of me bearing the words, touch, sight, hearing, taste, smell each individually coming online and then changing to OK once linked fully to my nervous system. They all then went green and flew off of the screen from the sides. Then came the language option, as I was from the . I chose English, this then disappeared and a login appeared in which I entered my account details and logged in. This then led to a large panel corresponding to my character creation where my In Game Name would be Woods, I pressed Yes. The screen went gray. Where the words in big black words "Welcome To Sword Art Online !"
This is how my adventure began.
As my senses began to fully synchronise into the world I slowly began to smell the light and sandy sent of the sandstone ground below me, I began to hear the countless voices of all the hundreds of players around me and as I finally opened my eyes I found myself in a huge city circle surrounded by beige coloured stone buildings with a grand white marble staircase leading to a large domed roof building but the thing that caught my eye instantly was the grand fountain which centred the whole circle. You could see every droplet in motion and see them reflect the light of the sun, which hung high in the blue sky. It was such a spectacular sight that I could hardly believe that it had been recreated in a virtual world.
I looked down at myself to see that I was wearing a dark green cloth shirt which was mostly covered by a leather chest guard and a pair of leather shoulder pads. I then reached my hand over to my back to feel the leather grip of a sword sheathed into it's scabbard, this was the reason I was here and this is why I shall stay. I drew it from it's sheath to see that it was a simple but perfectly balanced, moderately light feeling, shining metal short sword which had the look of never being used before. I moved the sword to reflect my face, I looked to see that I had been able to create a character that was nearly the same as my own real world body, gray blue eyes and long brownish blond hair.
After I reluctantly sheathed my simple sword I looked around properly to see that there was several roads leading off from the city circle. "But which to go down" I thought to myself. However as I couldn't decide a route, from a variety of equally interesting paths, I opened up my menu ,which was a smooth floating white panel which responded to my touch and was impossibly thin, and quickly opened up my map which was another like panel except blue. On this it showed the name of the spawn area I was in, "The Town of Beginnings", and had the city circle layout showing all of the different routes which led off from it and what they each individually held within them.
After carefully looking at each of the different choices in front of me I decided to go down the one which led to the town exit nearest to me. I chose this route so that I could get out of town and fight some of the low level monsters that were always around spawns to get some exp before my friend Andrew, who took weeks to persuade his parents to let him buy the game, logged onto SAO and we start doing quests with me. As I walked down the wide street I saw many different players talking to each other, walking to one place or another or buying items from the varied and numerous shops which lined most of the streets. As I walked past I saw that the stall had a range of items on show from armor and weapons to potions and foods which I had never even seen before in the real world."They must of spent years to create all this in such detail !" I exclaimed to myself.
When I reached the end of the road I was greeted with granite and marble archway exit which lead into endless fields of grass which flowed gently in the calm wind, these lined a smooth and straight dirt path which went as far as the eye could see. Within these fields I could see a number of animals walking around and grazing on the short grass. They were large dark gray furred animals with large red eyes and great white tusks protruding from the lower jaw of it's mouth.
Boars, I recognised them from the trailers, which advertised the game as a different world where we could forget about our real world troubles, have fun, relax and to break the limits of normal life. As I looked at the boars I noticed a small red crystal floating above their heads and a large green bar near their head showing their health, this is when I realised that these beasts would be the weakest and lowest level enemies in the whole game and I began to dread what we would have to face in the highest levels of Aincrad. However as I drew my sword once more I regained my confidence and charged down at the first of the boars, I drew my sword back, saw it glow a bright red and stabbed it straight at the neck my foe. The blade stuck into the virtual flesh for a moment before it's health bar hit zero and it exploded into hundreds of pixels which floated off in the breeze. A small panel appeared where the boar died showing how much I had earned from the kill, 24 exp and 30 Col but no item drops.
For the next hour or so I went around killing these boars getting my base level up to level 2 and my swords skill up to level 3. By now I was exhausted from the exertion and my sword arm felt like a lump of metal. I opened up the menu to see that it was now 16:54. I had been on for way over an hour and I realised that Andrew should be logging in soon so I decided to head back through the streets to the spawn area. By now practically everyone who had the game was now online and so the streets were completely packed and when I got to the city circle hundreds of people could be seen standing around talking.
I quickly spotted the reason for my return to the circle. Standing near the central fountain was a 16 year old boy with short curly brown hair and dark brown eyes, wearing a turquoise shirt and similar leather armor to me, was playfully swinging his virtual sword around in front of himself with a look of absolute excitement on his face. As I walked over to him, laughing at his carefree nature, he noticed me and began making his way over to me as well while at the same time sheathing his sword.
"So we are finally in here, a virtual world without limits." I said to Andrew when we met up.
"Much better than the real world at least. So now that we are here lets get started with some quests." he responded slowly, still in awe of his surroundings.
"Well lets party up then and get a bit of training out of town before we go at any main quests." I replied patiently before opening my menu and sending him a friend and party request at the same time, which he quickly accepted from a like panel which appeared in front of him.
A new bar appeared under my own health bar on the top left of my user interface and I quickly realise that it's showing Andrew's health and in game name now that we are part of a party.
"Terra, I like it, it suits you and sounds pretty cool as well." I comment after seeing his name floating slightly over his full green health bar.
"Woods, hmmmm such an original name for you isn't it " he responded in amusement at seeing my name which was so obvious to anyone who knew my name.
"Okay I know the way out of to-" I began before the loud sound of a bell resonated throughout the whole floor stopping me mid sentence and seemingly silencing everyone on the server. A few moments after this circles of blue and white light began to appear all over the city circle which people began to materialise from looking confused at what had just happened to them.
"A forced teleport? What's going on?" I say seriously beginning to get a bit worried about the situation. When the city circle was completely filled with the 10,000 players which were logged in, the sky began to fill with glowing red hexagons with the words "WARNING" and "System Announcement". Suddenly a section above the domed building began to bleed a red goo. This goo formed into a large mass with parts hanging from the now red sky. Then electricity could be seen flowing through the red mass making it start to take it's true form. A huge floating figure draped in a large blood red robe with nothing showing but it's gray, dead looking hands.
From the assembled players screams, gasps and scared voices were easily audible and this is when I truly began to get scared for what was in store for the players.
"Attention players." came a deep booming voice from the powerful and imposing figure. "Welcome to my world. My name is Kayaba Akihiko. As of this moment, I am the sole person who can control this world. I am sure you've already noticed that the logout button is missing from the menu." confused at this, I whipped open to my menu and skim searched for the logout button, but as we had just been informed, it wasn't there. "But this is not a defect in the game. I repeat, this is not a defect in the game. It is a feature of Sword Art Online" people were now truly getting confused and for those who realised what this meant were completely shocked and anger could be seen in their eyes, we were trapped against our will in a virtual world.
"You cannot log out of SAO yourselves and no one on the outside can shutdown or remove the nerve gear. Should this be attempted the the transmitter inside the nerve gear will emit a powerful microwave, destroying your brain and thus ending your life." People were beginning to shout even more in outrage or terror now that the fact that this game had become a death trap had begun to truly sink in.
"Unfortunately, several players' friends and families have ignored this warning, and attempted to remove the Nerve Gear. As a result, two hundred and thirteen players are gone forever, from both Aincrad and the real world." a moment after this a number of floating panels which showed news broadcasts concerning the event appeared in front of him for all to see.
"As you can see, news organisations across the world are reporting all of this, including the deaths. Thus, you can assume that the danger of a Nerve Gear being removed is now minimal. I hope you will relax and attempt to clear the game. But I want you to remember this clearly. There is no longer any method to revive someone within the game. If your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be forever lost. And simultaneously, the Nerve Gear will destroy your brain. There is only one means of escape. To complete the game." That was it, now the full extent of what was happening was out, this virtual world was no longer just a game it was now a fight for survival and a fight to get as many people standing here in the square out of the game alive back into the real world where families waited for loved ones to wake.
"You are presently on the lowest floor of Aincrad, Floor 1. If you make your way through the dungeon and defeat the floor boss, you may advance to the next level. Defeat the final boss on floor 100, and you will clear the game." 100 floors worth of dungeons and 100 bosses, that was the trial we had to face, but how many would come out of it at the end.
"Finally, I've added a present from me to your item storage. Please see for your self." At this everyone, including me and Andrew opened up our personal inventories to see that there was only one item placed in there, "Mirror". We all went to activate it to see what it actually was, after I activated mine I caught a small square mirror that appeared from thin air and looked into it, seeing my in game avatar before being engulfed in a plume of blue light. When the light subsided I felt shorter and slightly less muscled, I looked into the mirror to see that my in game avatar, which I made to represent my real world body with some alterations, had turned into an exact replica of my own body without a single visible flaw. This was my body but it was also now my avatar in which I would have to live through this world in. I turned to look at Andrew who also had only slightly been changed to his real world body, but as I looked around people had been completely transformed to represent their true body. There was children, teenagers middle age men and people that could be seen from every known background. We had all been changed and there was no turning back as each of our mirrors shattered in our hands and fell to the ground where the still glowing particles disappeared.
Kayaba began to speak again and all attention was drawn to his imposing and unchanged avatar. "Right now, you're probably wondering "Why?". Why would Kayaba Akihiko, Developer of Sword Art Online and the Nerve Gear, do all this? My goal has already been achieved. I created Sword Art Online for one reason, to create this world and intervene in it. And now, it is complete. This ends the tutorial for the official launch of Sword Art Online. Good luck, players." A few moments later the figure began to flicker and fuzz up, it began to evaporate away into the virtual world from which it was conjured and within a couple of seconds it had disappeared with no sign of it ever being there. The sky suddenly emptied of the redness that had plagued it for the last 5 minutes and the falling sun lit the previously dark circle.
A lot of people were still staring at the spot where Kayaba had just disappeared from still in shock from the unbelievable turn in events whereas others were desperately hitting the logout button in vain with the rest of the players moving from the circle distraught or with an undying vengeance against the game's creator. I turned to look at Andrew and saw the terror on his face, he looked at me and said in a quiet voice.
"We're trapped here, no way out and with death waiting for us every second of the day. How are we supposed to get through all 100 floors alive, I mean I heard the betas only got to around level 20 and they had it easier."
"Your forgetting that there is around 9,800 people still left in this world and all of them wanting to get out of here, with this many people it's a certainty that we are going to get out however long it takes. There's no need to worry about getting out the only bad thing is what's happening in the world outside us." I respond in a calm force. "And anyway do you think that I would let you go down while I'm still able to fight, trust me we are getting out of here alive no matter how long it takes or how much we have to sacrifice, we will survive to see the light of day." I continue in a stronger voice intending to bring strength back into my friend.
"Well then in that case, we better get started on that dungeon shouldn't we." he replied slightly braver as he drew his sword. "So which way is it to the outside?."
"This way, follow me. I was out there fighting some boars before you got on and to be honest they weren't the hardest enemies for the exp and money you get from them." I say before also drawing my sword and turning to walk in the direction I had originally came from before the game had become a death trap. As we walked down the streets we saw many people buying weapons, armor and potions with a fiery determination. When we reached the fields number of players could be seen fighting boars without mercy and getting better and better with their weapons of choice from each swipe. With this amount of sheer grit and anger there was no way we couldn't get through this.
As the initial field was already being farmed we decided to charge down the dirt path to reach the next small town where we hoped there would be a good amount of quests to take or monsters to fight so that we could level up as fast as we could to be ready for the boss battle when the time was right.