Floor 1
It was three days in to the game, and floor 1 had not been cleared yet. What were the beta testers thinking? They should have cleared the floor by now. The Town of Beginnings was cluttered with players, probably too scared to proceed. I didn't blame them, dying was scary enough, although dying in a game? Terrifying.
A loud cry rang through my ears as Flynn split a spider in two, "I'm liking this combat system" she said as she sheathed her sword.
I walked next to her and smiled softly, "As am I. It feels so much smoother than in the beta,"
By the time we had finished our quests, and collected our XP for the day, we found an inn. It wasn't anything too special, but it was an inn none the less. 40 Col for the night. Affordable. The room was small, no larger than my actual bedroom, it had two twin sized beds, a nightstand, and a vanity mirror on the wall opposite of the beds. The walls were all a dull khaki color, and the nightstands were a even duller looking drown.
We each flopped on to our respective beds, "why is it that you think we are here, Brady?"
I was sprawled out on my back, and my eyes were closed, "I'm not sure..."
I could hear the frustration in her voice as she whined, "I'm not sure why Kayaba would actually select us two to beta test, we aren't even Japanese. And why the fuck did he want to talk to you? What makes us so special? And what's with this crimson set of fucking NerveGear?"
I knew the answers to those questions before she asked them. "It's simple," I told her in a relaxed voice, half asleep, "He obviously researched us, or at least me. I'm not sure of your MMORPG history. Each of was was hand picked, the beta testers that is. As for the crimson NerveGear, I'm sure this game wasn't meant to be region locked. So obviously world servers would be spread out in different countries. I'm only guessing that the crimson set is to connect to the dedicated servers that SAO has in place. anything else you were wondering about?" I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling and relaxed my body.
Flynn's voice was small, as if she didn't want to displease me, "What skills did you choose?"
I laughed lightly when she asked, "One-Handed swords and Two-Handed Swords. Obviously. Same as the beta." I sat up on my bed, my back against the wall.
I swiped through my menus and unequipped my armor and weapon leaving only my clothes on, which consisted of a black long-sleeved shirt, and black pants. I turned my head to look at Flynn, she laid there in the same position she had been when we entered the room, like a rock she just sat there. "How do you feel about all of this?"
She turned her head towards me with a questioning look, "What do you mean?" she asked softly
"Well, to me, this is a dream, I love the environment. It's everything I wanted, and a hell of a lot easier than Dark Souls."
She nodded, "It sure is... But still... I mean, it's like..." she sighed. I could tell she was trying to formulate her thoughts in to words "It's just that I want to return home. I want to clear this game, but like everyone else, I don't want to die. I think I'm afraid."
She surely was afraid I could tell just by the look in her eyes, "Flynn, you have nothing to be afraid of, nothing will harm you. This I can asure you. I will never let anything bad come to you. Do you trust me?"
She climbed out of her bed, and curled up next to me in mine, "Obviously I trust you, why else would I ask Jacob to introduce us?" This I knew was fact, she knew me from school. Although we had never met, I guess she found me intriguing. I remember Flynn telling me about the time I had spoken out against the principal's hat policy, and how it made her laugh. It really was a stupid policy though! Our school district wouldn't allow our students to wear their hats backwards in camps, I was a photographer for christ's sakes! My hat was always backwards! I adore hats. I really do.
A few months had pasted since that night, the parties that looked day in and day out looking for the boss room were holding a meeting, it hadn't interested me though. I had just picked up a new sword, it was longer than the sword I had carried since launch, and gleamed like it had a fresh coat of polish on it. It was four feet long, with a cross guard that shrouded my wielding hand, the hilt was nothing special, it was leather wrapped, with silver looking studs. The coolest thing about the sword was it's scaling. A weapons's scaling is determined by the present stat requirements of the weapon, and how high those stats are determines how effective you are with that certain weapon. This sword scaled with my Agility skill, meaning that the faster I made hit combos, the higher the damage dealt. The sword's name was Biter and I could tell why, it was double edged and sharp, I was pretty sure it dealt armor piercing damage too Which was pretty cool by me.
Flynn went to the meeting, I had asked her to. Just to see what cool surprise they had discover, I had hoped it was the boss room. The town that everyone was meeting in, had a quest that gave you a food item for it's reward. The name of the quest eludes me, but I do remember going through a dense forest for herbs. I was a little bit disappointed when I found out that the reward for the quest was just some creme. I could probably have bought that off of a merchant or something. However, I do always appreciate EXP and Col.
"Hey! Brady!" I heard Flynn's voice call out from behind me, I turned around to see what she was yelling about, but before I could say anything, she tackled me to the floor, and we skid for about a foot or two.
I couldn't stop laughing for the life of me, "Flynn! Stop this infernal rough housing and get off of me!" I finally seemed to calm down and she climbed off and stood her herself up and held out her hand for me to grab, I did and it felt so real. Just the way the sensors react to touch in this game amazed me. I stood up with her help, and found her giggling.
"How has your day been?" she asked with a smile.
I took in a deep breathe and exhaled, "My day has been full of disappointing quest rewards and terrible monster loot."
"More spider silk?" she asked. I just sighed and nodded. I could tell that she was stifling a laugh. And I couldn't help but laugh a little bit myself.
"So. Why are you so happy? What happened at the meeting?"
She filled me in on most of the details about how Kibaou made a big deal of the beta testers, and how Agail stood up for us all, "It was rather funny if you ask me." she then told me about how they had discovered the boss room, and I fist pump in my mind.
She then told me about that other eta tester, Kirito, I guess he was there too. "When everyone started forming parties, instead of approaching a big group, he formed one with a girl who had a odd looking brown cloak, then went off towards the town with her." I nodded taking all of this information in, "So I take it you want us in the raid?" I had silently prayed that she would say yes.
"Obviously, the first floor must be our first memory of this place, we are going for the raid tomorrow morning, around ten-ish."
-The night passes-
I woke up, and yawned immediately, almost sending myself back to sleep. I resisted the urge, and sat up. "Flynn, you up? Almost time for the raid." within a minute, all of my gear was strapped and ready to go, my hood lay resting on my shoulders. Flynn made what sounded to be a groan as she dragged herself out of bed, hair looking like a porcupine that was just hit by a semi-truck. Still, to me, she was beautiful.
"Today had better be worth the trip up that dungeon," Flynn threatened as she equipped her leather armor set over her normal clothing. Her sword came next, strapped to her back, a longsword. Looked like mine, except for the fact that it was single edged, and a duller looking grey instead of a polished silver.
We walked out of the Inn without speaking to much, just the simple 'How did you sleep?' type stuff. "I dreamt that I was home, and SAO wasn't like this. We could come and go as we pleased. We had lots of friends, and even formed a guild." She spoke as if in a trance, enticed by the words she spoke, like a goal of hers.
"It won't be a dream someday. Someday we will be able to come and go as we please. And we will have all of our friends in a guild, I promise."
The trip in to the boss' keep was nothing, in fact, I found it rather relaxing. The cosmo-esc theme that all of these low level boss rooms held was amazing. All these different colors streamed by in an attempt to collide with each other. Red, purple, yellow, white. The variation seemed to never fade.
The larger party groups all dealt with the mobs that littered the dungeon with ease. They were all parties of at least 6, making switching out with each other almost unfair for the monster. One person would parry an incoming attack, and the others would charge the beast. It was very efficient in it's own sense. Me and Flynn hung back, not wanting to aggro anything yet. I remembered the last attack bonus for Illfang from the beta, I think it was a cape? Or a cloak maybe. Either way, it wasn't worth my efforts. People in the raid group had started talking about beta testers. Like they were a bad thing. I didn't get it, we were players all the same.
My thoughts were drowned out by cheers and shouts of victory, I pushed my way to the front to see what was happening. we had arrived.
A knight with blue armor and matching hair walked up to the doors first, "The only thing I have to say is... Lets's win!" the crowd exploded in cheers and smack talk towards the game. The first group, group A they were called, pushed open the doors. The boss' room resembled that of a large cathedral. Four stone pillars stood in the center of the room, and there stood the boss. Illfang, The Kobald Lord had four health bars, and was indeed, a very large Kobald.
Mine and Flynn's job was simply to keep the ruined Kobald sentinels off of the main raid group. Me and Flynn were about to charge in when I had spotted a player who seemed to be alone, there was no way that I would let him go at these sentinels alone. I rushed up to him and grabbed his shoulder, he turned around to face me, with a questioning look on his face. He had medium long hair, it was a dirty blonde, almost a light brown. His light green eyes seemed to twinkle in the cosmos lighting of the cathedral. "You need something buddy?" He sounded decently arrogant, and I was starting to second guess myself about my decision.
"Yeah, are you solo?" I asked.
He nodded and gave me a charismatic smile, "None of the other groups had room for me, and there was no way I was going to miss this fight for the world!"
I smiled and asked him if he would like to join my party, then told him about the security detail we were to hold. With some thought, he nodded and I sent him a party invite. Within seconds, a third health bar appeared on my screen. Cole was his name. It seemed to suit his character style. Flynn joined us not a second later and introduced herself. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Flynn. And I appreciate the invite to the party, I would have gotten destroyed on my own." we laughed at that as we entered the boss room with the others. Cole's clothing was different from the others, he had a white coat, almost like a duster, on the back was a bird that was on fire, probably an Eagle. He had on a grey shirt and no visible body armor. Blue jeans and grey boots that went up his calfs half way. He had a longsword on his back that was black, and had a long cross guard protecting the users hilt. It's hilt was wrapped in leather, bound by a single black stud at the bottom of hilt.
The first two minutes of the first, I spent learning the sentinels attack patterns. Slash, slash, thrust. It would jump backward if, when aggroed, you tried to circle behind them. The next thirty minutes we spent switching in and out, when one would parry, the others would attack. "Asuna! Switch with me!" I heard Kirito yelling to his partner, Asuna was her name I could only assume. Kirito was even more so Fearsome in a fight than what I imagined.
The fight was going better than expected, until the boss' last health bar dripped in to the red zone. He bellowed and the attack groups backed up, I heard someone yell something at the others, I guess he was going for that last attack bonus. The entire crowd fell silent as Illfang unsheathed a large sword. It resembled a large version of your basic butcher's knife. The only differance was the length of the blade, it was at most ten feet long. No cross guard, and a bare hilt. The knight that had spoken before we entered the room had taken charge upon the monster. he was a beta tester, he knew the risks. He got batted away from the beast and flew twenty feet towards the right side wall. Kirito rushed to his side and tried to use a potion of healing to mend the fallen knight's wounds. Within seconds the knight had shattered. He was gone.
Kirito and Asuna rush forward after this, and began to attack the boss with lightning speed. Leaving me to take over their job. It was no bother, I could parry and slash at these guys all day long. Cole and Flynn sat back and dealt with our load, they also seemed to not have difficulties with their opposition.
After two minutes of soloing the Kobalds, I heard a sharp sound, like glass breaking against a tile floor. I kicked away the last if the sentinels and peered over my shoulder to see Kirito standing in the middle of the room. Cheers and shouts aroused from the crowd, until the one whom I believed to be Kibaou stood up and started yelling at Kirito. Something about him being a cheater. I didn't pay too much attention, I was busy distributing my points between my stats, I had just leveled up again.
As soon as I had finished, Flynn and Cole came over to me, Cole rested one of his hands on my shoulder, "Come on, we're going to watch group A link the teleportation gate!"
The thought of us actually clearing a level in this game brought great satisfaction to my heart. I couldn't help but give a smile, "Obviously we are going to watch that. In the beta, the display was amazing! All of the colors that pop up, my my."
We entered the second floor, and I took in the scenery, flowers bloomed as we took our first steps on the grass. Buildings rose in the distance, and paths presented themselves. The town we had spawned in looked beautiful. The market that hugged the streets were littered with fresh foods galore, I turned to face my party members, and smirked, "This is going to be a cake walk."
And truly, I felt that it was going to be a cake walk, I like cake.