Chapter 3: Sword Art Online
Time: 11:43 AM
Location: Japan, Old Earth
POV: Third Person
The three dimension travelers had spent the week with Klein and his group of friends waiting for the game to come out, and Cole and Madeline's suspicions of Klein were proven correct in the sense that Klein turned out to be a nice guy and fun to hang around.
After they bought the game, Cole remembered that he had some gold he could trade in for some currency here. So after he found a place he could cash in. They rented a room in a hotel for a few months. Yeah, he had quite a bit of gold.
"Okay, Klein said that the servers are supposed to come on in about seven minutes, so find someplace comfy cause we're going to be playing this for a good while." Cole warned as he took a spot on the nearby couch he slept on due to there only being two beds,before grabbing all three Nerve Gear helmets and handing them out.
"I will use my bed." Logan replied as she took her nerve gear and heading into the next room.
Madeline took hers and left off to her room. She opened the door to said room and looked inside. It had sky blue walls with fancy looking paintings on it in two of the four walls. The other two however were windows that took up the entire walls. It was a nice room, she still didn't think they had to stay in that tent for an entire week, but like she said before, Sil- Logan, did a good job furnishing it. It was almost as good as this room she was staying in. But she could think about that later, she only had another minute before this thing kicked off, and Cole had done a good job of getting her excited for it. Sure she wouldn't have her trusty pistols by her side but she could live without them.
She slipped her sneakers off and climbed onto the bed and sat on the bed, but before she put the helmet on, she just held it there and gave it a once over. Feeling suspicious all of a sudden. She turned it to get a better look at it, trying to see what might be making her all jumpy all of a sudden. But after finding nothing to confirm her worries, she just sighed. "it's just a video game Maddy. Nothing to be afraid of." she whispered to herself with close eyes. After a moment, she opened them again, and placed the Nerve Gear on her head and laying down. She took a deep breath to calm herself and took a look at the Nerve Gears internal clock, seeing that it had just turned twelve o clock.
She smiled slightly and spoke out what Cole had told her to. Not knowing that Logan and Cole were saying it all at the exact same time as well.
"Link start!"
Madeline felt dizzy as she went through what looked like hyper space, getting somewhat confused when it stopped all of a sudden and was replaced by a screen. "Welcome Player! Please create your Character." is what it said before dissapearing and being replaced by a stereotypical character creation screen.
She didn't know if it wanted her to make herself look like she did in real life or not, so she decided to go with the former. The only thing she changed was her hairstyle. Deciding on making it the short and messy style she used to roll with instead of her now signature ponytail style.
All that was left now was to put her name down and she would be done. And after doing so she was transported to what looked like an medieval city. She shivered, realizing that she was without a body for that minute she was making her character and didn't even notice it until now. She shook her head and looked herself over and found that she was wearing baggy tan leggings, a dark green long sleeved tunic that was sort of skirt like towards the bottom, red leather chest piece, boots, and arm and knee pads, she also had black fingerless gloves. And to top it all off, she had a curved short sword sheathed at her hip.
She frowned at the skirt but decided to leave it for now since it wasn't doing anything to impede her movement Her first order of business was to change the postition of the sheath from her right hip to lower back. She was startled from doing so by a flash of light right behind her. She immediately pulled the sword from its sheathe and swung it at whatever was behind her, stopping only inches from it's neck.
"Sweet merciful crap!" a boys voice yelled as he fell backwards to avoid the blade. And as Madeline got a lok at who it was she scoffed and sheathed the sword. "I should've known, is there something amusing to you about sneaking up on me Cole?" Madeline questioned threateningly causing the boy to laugh.
"Really Maddy? You're trying to use your tough girl voice on me of all people?" Cole jested as he got up on his feet again. Madeline pouted adorably at this. But Jack always says it's intimidating." the soldier complained in a slightly whiny voice. Cole laughed once again. He like it when she got like this. Sure he loved her for who she is, but she's always so uptight and strict, so on the rare occasions that she is like this he cherishes every moment of it.
He didn't look too different from how he looked normally, the only difference being that his signature mohawk was replaced by a short and messy style. His gear was basically the same as hers minus the skirt and coloration, being what was green to her was blue on him, and the same sword she had equipped was on his right hip as well.
A third flash snapped the two from the moment they were sharing.
They saw Logan in front of them. Exactly the same as she looked IRL. Her clothes were identical to Madeline's, once again barring coloration. This time, hers were light gray with sky blue sleeves and skirt. And once more, she carried the same short sword the other two carried.
"Well, it looks like we're all here now." Cole spoke as he made a slow slashing motion with his hand, getting confused as nothing happened. He tried again two more times before voicing his frustration. "Am I doing it wrong?" he grumbled as he tried once more.
"Are you trying to open the menu?" a new voice asked curiously getting the three players to turn to it and saw a girl that looked around their age give or take. She wore a white long sleeved tunic with a red vest and skirt, a leather belt, white leggings, red boots, and some kind of half chest piece. Her chestnut colored hair went down to her waist, and her eyes were the same color.
"Yeah, do you how to open it? The genius over here can't seem to figure it out." Madeline replied with a smile, grinning a little more it his grumbling.
"Yeah, just put your pointer finger and ring finger together and swipe down." the girl demonstrated.
"Madeline and Cole were somewhat confused when nothing happened but Logan was quick to explain. "We cannot see another players menu unless we are in the same party, or they have set it to public view." Logan spoke softly.
"Oh." the other two dimension travelers spoke, one of them feeling like an idiot.
Cole tried it out a few moments later and chuckled. "Well now I feel like a derp. Thanks Logan." Cole replied in a sarcastic voice.
"I did not mean to offend you, I was merely trying to help." the assassin replied.
"He was joking Logan. He thankful for the help." Madeline quickly spoke as she wrapped an arm around Logan and shot Cole a death glare causing him to shrug with a nervous smile.
"Anyway, thanks for the help. My name's Madeline, this right next to me is Logan, and the knucklehead over there is Cole." Madeline joked, surprisingly not elicting a reaction from Cole this time.
"It's no problem really, and my name is Asuna. Is that all or did you guys need anything else? Because I'm pretty new at this too so I don't know how much else I can help with." Asuna added.
"Nah, we should be good. And once again thanks for the help... oh! And by the way." Madeline spoke out quickly as Asuna turned to leave.
She swiped her fingers down like Asuna showed her and quickly scrolled through the menu. A few moments later Asuna perked up, most likely due to something Madeline did. Sure enough it was, the brunette had sent her a friend request. The girl smiled and accepted.
"Great. Anyway, do you maybe want to hang out for a little bit too?" Madeline questioned. Asuna shook her head in reply.
I wanted to get to know this place a little better first. Maybe another time though alright?"
Cole smiled. "Ah it's no problem, you can go on. We'll catch you later." the maverick answered as he gave her a two fingered wave.
"Okay, I'll see you all again some other time." Asuna responded as she waved and set off deeper into the colossal town.
"She was...Nice." did I say that right?" Logan questioned.
"Yeah, you got it. And yeah she was." Madeline agreed. Both girls blinked in surprise when a menu prompt showed up for them. "C013 invites you to his party." is what it said. The two looked to their friend and saw him nod.
They both accepted the prompt and watched as two names and health bars appeared by their name and health bar.
"Alright, that settles that. Now, lets go check this place out and see of they have some better weapons." Cole advised as he followed the path that Asuna had.
"Wait, if we're doing the same thing she did why didn't we stay with her then?" Madeline asked.
"You should know this better than most people Maddy, but some people like doing things on their own." Cole smiled and dodged the incoming shoulder punch his girlfriend sent his way.
"Weapons stall detected." Logan notified in her usual monotone voice.
"Wait... Logan do you have your powers here?" Cole questioned, somewhat hopefully.
"I have my strength, speed, stamina, memory, dexterity, agility-" Silver was promptly cut off at this point, due to the possibility of her going off naming everything she could do, and that would take a long time to listen through.
"That's actually pretty cool, but do you have your actual powers? Like, the magic, or, your snake steel? Maybe your shape shifting powers?" Cole added
"My magic and snake steel are inactive. It would appear that my shape shifting ability is still active however." the assassin replied.
Madeline got curious and decided to see if she had her strength and speed as well and grabbed a nearby rock, giving it a few tosses to test the weight before throwing it over a nearby building. She was pleasantly surprised when it flew much further and out of sight. "Huh, neat!" she smiled as she put her hands behind her head and continued walking.
"Yeah, this just got a whole lot more awesome!" Cole smiled as well. Unknown to the two warriors, their assassin friend was watching the with the faintest hint of a smile on her face as the three of them continued into town.
Half an hour later finds us just outside the town of beginnings. The three time travelers could be seen fighting several pig like enemy's called Frenzy Boars in an effort to level up.
Madeline had used her starter Col on a small kukri like blade around one and a half feet long could be seen in her left hand, while her right was occupied by a green metal buckler. It had two U shaped cuts out of the top and bottom of it and the edges were sharpened as well, giving it the appearance of an axe head.
Cole had bought a simple iron staff and sold his curved short sword for a straight sword
Logan used her Col to buy to get a simple hatchet, plenty of throwing knives, and she also kept her starter sword to use as a dagger for assassinations. She was currently using the hatchet to fight off a Frenzy Boar.
She had just vaulted over the offending pig and had landed in a crouch and reached for an arrow, but the boar wasn't going to have any of that and immediately righted itself and charged the assassin again. Unable to knock the arrow in time, Logan pulled the arrow from her quiver and sidestepped the pig and stabbed the arrow directly into it's left eye socket. The boar froze and disintegrated into hundreds of tiny blue particles. The assassin made note of the level up screen and dismissed it, looking over to her two companions and their fights.
Madeline had just finished off a boar by taking her buckler and hammer fisting it into the boars head by the sharp end, effectively splitting it's head in two before it dissapeared in a flash of particles like her enemy had.
The soldier saw Logan waving at her and waved back as she walked over to her. "This is way too easy. I thought Cole said this was going to be fun?" Madeline complained as she sheathed her kukri and folded her arms as they both watched the boy take on two frenzy boars with his staff.
"I saw why Cole would take a staff in real life, due to it having several ways of finishing off an opponent both lethally, and non lethally, but the damage system in this game would make staves inefficient. So why does Cole still use his staff?" Logan asked, just a hint of curiosity leaking into her voice.
"If I remember right, he says he likes them because they allow a lot of freedom of movement. Whatever he means by that I have no idea. But it's working for him so far, even if it is a bit inefficient." Madeline chuckled as the two of them watched the subject of their conversation use his staff to vault over one frenzy boar and use his drop momentum to stomp the others head into the ground, draining the last of it's HP and killing it. The other boar was seemingly infuriated by this and charged him, only for him to trip it up with his staff and expose it's stomach. Cole capitalized on this by bringing the metal pole down on the pigs rib cage breaking it with a brutal critical hit, it died moments later with a pained squeal and burst into particles like those before it.
Cole dismissed the level up window and walked over to his friends with a smile on his face.
"Dang girls! I guess being a badass in real life kinda helps out huh?" The maverick laughed as he patted Madeline on on the back as he checked out his drops.
"Alright, I got a whole bunch of Frenzy Boar Meat, pelts, tusks, and around two hundred col. How about you two?" he asked as he thought of things he could do with the items.
"Pretty much the same as you, but I found some weird item in one of them." Madeline replied as she opened her menu to look at the name again. "It's a... strange necklace. You think it's worth anything?" she questioned.
"I found a dagger embedded in the side of a Frenzy Boar. It is nearly two times better than my current sword." Logan announced, getting a whistle out of Cole.
"Nice! Weapon drops from level one monsters are pretty dang rare." He explained. "Anyway, we should be heading back to town soon. It's getting close to night time. We should go find an inn and bed down so we can grab some dinner." Cole spoke as he gestured to the setting sun. Madleline yawned and stretched.
"Yeah, I could go for a decent nights sleep. Those beds looked really comfy." Madeline replied.
"Very well. Nearest Inn would be near the entrance to the Town of Beginnings. We should arrive in approximately five minutes from now." Logan announced as the three warriors headed back to the Town of Beginnings. The stopped moments later as they heard the sound of bells ringing.
"Is that normal?" Madeline asked warily. Cole shook his head in amusement at his girlfriends paranoia.
"It's probably just the game letting us know it's the beginning of another hour or something Maddy, stop being so-."
"It is 5:22 Pm. There would be no bell to announce this time." Logan spoke. Shooting down Coles theory and wiping the smile off of his face as well.
"Then forget what I just said it's probably-." he was cut off as a bright blue light engulfed all three of them.
The three time travelers were deposited in the original spawn area in the Town of Beginnings, along with what seemed to be all of the rest of the ten thousand players as well.
"What the hell was that!?" Madeline demanded as she drew her kukri and brought her buckler to bear, looking around for something to maul.
"Warning." Logan announced dully.
"What? What's the warning?" Madeline asked as she continued to look for a threat. The assassins only response was to point at the sky. Her two companions and anyone else watching the scene they were making looked to where she was pointing and saw she was right. There was a small red "Warning!" box floating in the sky. All three of the time travelers drew their weapons when the one warning box multiplied so many times it made the sky turn an ominous shade of red. "Entity detected. Threat level: unreadable." Logan announced. Making the two warriors by her side even more uneasy.
"Since when have we ever found an enemy that Logan couldn't get a decent read on!?" Madeline whispered harshly to the boy next to her. Cole didn't reply however. He was too busy focusing on the blood like substance coming from between the warning bubbles.
"Well... we asked for a challenge I guess." he smirked as Madeline finally noticed what he was talking about.
"This is shaping up to be the best vacay ever!" he spoke as he got ready to charge.
That's it for this chapter guys, Hope you like it. The next one should be up soon. If you like it, why not leave a review and tell me what you thought about this chapter and all of the rest I'm going to write... dang, I sound like a freakin robot! Anyway, that's all for now. Good day and god bless guys.