This chapter has been beta reviewed by shadowcaster01, so a big thanks to them for making this section much better than I could written done on my own
We stood in a large room which contained a three simple beds, each with a NerveGear placed upon the pillow with wires plugging into a gently whirring machine in the centre of the room. At the back of the room, a small table cluttered with an array of monitors sat beneath a wide window overlooking a small garden space behind the building. Beneath the table Long wires connected the computers to the whirring machine.
I stood with Aurora and Sky next to the beds while Daniel Hackett hurried around the room. He checked each machine carefully to ensure everything was connected and running smoothly, hopefully so that we'd have no problems logging in. As we faced the beds and our old NerveGear helmets I couldn't help feeling a bit conflicted and uncertain about everything. They'd held us prisoner for two years, but they had also left us in a world of salvation where we were independent and freer than we ever could be in reality. Without Sword Art Online, none of us standing here would have ever met and our lives would be extraordinarily different.
I was abruptly snapped out of my thoughts by a loud clap and, looking up, I noticed that my friends were just as startled. Daniel had finished working on the switches and turned around to face us and the maniacal smile which had returned to his face again."You're sure you want to be doing this?" He asked us cautiously.
"If we weren't," Sky quickly retorted "why would we be here?" Sky quickly retorted. I could hear a dark edge in her voice and I couldn't blame her for it. I didn't wholly trust him either – but we all agreed that this was something we had to do together. Aurora had taken the longest to persuade, although I understood her fears of being trapped again. I just hoped that they would be unfounded.
"Right, yer, gotta remember who I'm dealing with." He came back with a small smile. "But down to business. When you enter the game you will be asked to sign into the game, if you can remember your old SAO login, use it. If not, close the game and we can go down the long road of recovery, which is tedious at best." He spoke, once again as if it was rehearsed to some degree. The fact that it sounded as if he was reading out of a script, giving the impression that he was some sort of fake, made me inclined to trust him less.
He had also said that we were to be using our old logins from Sword Art Online. That was something that I didn't want to do, I wanted to let go of that old world and to try and move on. I wanted to forget those two years, but I knew that that time would stay with me for the rest of my life and the dreams caused by that game would serve as a haunting reminder. Using that old login would likely mean returning to that body and I couldn't help but feel that the game would once again trap us.
"When you get in you will be given the option to choose what race you want your character to be from 8 different races. As you can expect each gives different attributes and skills specific to that race." Daniel continued on slowly and a bit louder than before, pulling me from my thoughts to pay attention to what he was saying. But with a quick glance to my side I could see Aurora looking at one of the nerve gears with a blank stare.
"As the three of you are going in together I would suggest all picking the same race to make sure that you end up relatively near each other when you spawn." He ended his little speech with an affirming nod of his head and a wide grin formed on his face. The grin on his face reminded me of a mad doctor looking over one of his experiments, letting it play out with a small nudge here and there.
"It's all set up to go in, then?" Aurora asked slowly, while her eyes still hung blankly to the grey helmet placed on the bed. I could see her hands trembling slightly and I could hear that she had started breathing faster, possibly in panic. It was clear that she was scared of going back into the virtual world, even if there was a promised logout button.
"They should be," Daniel said after a few seconds of thought "But just to make sure of things I'll get each of you to go in turn." He sent a quick glance a glance to the large machine the NerveGears were connected to before he sat down in front of one of the monitors. As he started clicking and typing away, the three of us looked at each other with trepidation. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this, hopefully it would return a dear friend, but I feared that we lost him when he was killed by the Skull reaper.
Eventually Sky's expression changed and she seemed to have an air of determination about her. She moved over to the large bed, put on her helmet and lay down. Seeing no point in stalling I went to follow suit, but was stopped when a familiar hand squeezed mine. I looked up to see the worry and fear on Aurora's face; I simply returned the grip and gave her what I hoped was a brave smile before going to follow Sky's example.
I almost dropped the old helmet back onto the pillow. I don't remember the helmet alone being that heavy, yes it was large and filled with circuitry and sensors, but it was only just heavier than a general climbing helmet. I guess I'm still a bit weak but, then again, it hasn't been that long since I woke up. So I gripped the helmet firmer and with a bit of effort I managed to slip it on. It fit perfectly and its presence and weight felt somewhat familiar to me. With the NerveGear on my head I lay down on the soft bed.
I looked through the grey tinted visor up at the ceiling, but my eyes came into focus on the clock on the visor display. The black clock read 13:00 exactly.
I couldn't help remembering the day Sword Art Online first came out, when I was in my room booting up the system not long after it released. Back then it had seemed to be such a cool thing to do. Putting that grey helmet on felt so liberating after using computers for so so long; now I actually live inside of them. But the initial euphoria from the game wore off when we couldn't find the logout button. There had been no way to escape the world apart from the penalty of failure: death.
"Okay, Megan."Daniel called out to the three of us. "You can be the first one to log in."
I didn't recognise the name he called, so at first I thought that there was a fourth person in the room somewhere. Though there was only three NerveGears set up and I don't remember hearing anyone else come in while I've been on the bed.
After a few moments it suddenly hit me. In the two years that I've known them, neither Aurora or Sky has used their real names, only Ingame Usernames. They knew my own name, of course, but out of habit I suppose they'd never thought to mention their own names. It hit me hard to think that, even though we were close friends, I really didn't know them as well as I thought or wanted.
"Link start!" I heard Sky, or Megan, shout out the command.
The room went silent for a minute or so before Daniel called out again: "Amy, your turn now."
After a few seconds of what could be hesitation I heard Aurora call out the command, her voice much quieter than Sky's - no, Megan's.
I waited again for a small while before Daniel's voice rang out again, "Damn it, just remembered to tell you about logging out." I would have thought that talking about logging out would have been an important thing to talk to us about, considering what had happened to us. But for some reason I trusted him more for it, maybe he wasn't reciting from a drill manual after all.
"When you get to it you'll need to do it in a safe zone as otherwise your avatar will be left inactive wherever you logged out, letting people attack it." He continued at a fast pace.
"Also we're not keeping you on life support this time, so do try to log out more frequently." He ended, leaving the room quiet again. His last piece of advice did make sense in the fact that we would have to log out at least once or twice a day so that our real bodies don't die from starvation or thirst. After two years in a game being fed by wires and then three weeks having food brought to us every few hours, this seemed somewhat a foreign concept.
"Link start!" I shouted the words with confidence when I was sure that Daniel wasn't going to comment further.
The world around me faded to a deep grey before changing to a blinding white, where colourful tube-like objects flew past me. Just like in SAO, several hexagonal panels appeared, each checking the senses and moving off to the side. When all of them were lined up they lit green and left the screen, replaced by a panel verifying language. It automatically chose English before disappearing.
The next moment I stood in a grey, circular room with orange lighting flickering in different patterns. Welcome to Alfheim Online appeared in front of me in a glaring white before speeding at me and vanishing. All of the wall panels morphed into a bright blue, providing more light. This room looked the same as what had been presented to me in SAO, it worried me and I hastily took a step back from the centre of the room worried that I was being placed back in Aincrad.
A blue holographic panel appeared in front of me asking for the name I wanted to use. I glared at the thing for a few seconds but, with trembling hands, I typed in the name Terra. I chose the name not out of choice, I held no feeling for it more than it being almost like a mask, but I had to return to it so that the other two could recognise me. I hit the button for male and confirmed my choice.
The panel vanished and a number of figures appeared in front of me in a circle, floating somewhat from the ground. Seeing so many figures appear out of nowhere made me stagger back and reach for my sword. But I realised that I no longer had my sword and the figures were just static models.
A new panel had also appeared in front of me asking which race I wished to play as. On closer inspection there was nine figures, each with differing physical appearances and representative colours. The models however had something that I was not expecting at all, wings. Each had translucent wings protruding from their backs, sparkling a little and styled by race.
I quickly scrolled through the races, each had their name and attributes displayed in the panel. However I was drawn to one of the races for its description, Salamander. The panel described it as the best fighter and the perfect wielder of fire. But it was also described as the best race for player versus player combat. As I read the words my entire body froze, this game condoned and even encouraged the killing of other players. A wave of unexpected anger went through me and I smashed my hand on the solid panel, making it distort. There was no way that I was willing to kill anyone, nor see anyone die in any world.
I quickly moved from the Salamander, instantly against the idea of even associating with a race built to kill. I looked back up at the rest of them and realised that we had never actually discussed what race we would actually pick. Daniel had told us that we would spawn depending on what race we chose. After quickly flicking through once more I had set my mind on playing as an Undine.
The only thing that put them above the rest was the fact that they were the masters of healing. A lack of healing had managed to kill a saddening number of people, a lot of them being those I knew from the front lines. Even if the other two ended up on other sides of the world, I wasn't going to risk one of us being close to dying in this game. Even if we weren't killed in reality, the fear of outright death was ingrained deep in me.
So I closed my eyes and pressed the confirm button for the Undine race, hoping that I had chosen the same as my friends. I didn't want to be in this new world on my own.
"You will now be transferred to the home town within Undine territory. Good luck." Came the sound of a mechanical announcer before a blue light engulfed me, blinding me and covering my entire body. I was on my way into the world Of Alfheim Online.