This is how it began for the players now trapped in Aincrad. Those smart or strong enough left town and began to train with no end in sight, players began to map out the main dungeon area before the floor boss, players had got past the initial shock of the first day and had begun to adjust to life in the virtual world and had formed groups of friends and the beginnings of guilds were being formed within the main frontline players. However over the first month over 2,000 people had died from being to low of a level to fight in the dungeons, not being able to adapt to the world truly and therefore falling in a fight or simply through suicide caused by despair and hopelessness. Even with all this time and the many deaths the first floor had yet to be cleared, but we were ready and waiting.
"OI! WAKE UP!" I opened my eyes slowly and groggily moved my head up to see Andrew standing in the door of my bedroom wearing his usual dark blue shirt and full set of leather armor with a sharp white steel rapier hanging from his belt.
"You were supposed to be up over 20 minutes ago, the meeting is gonna start soon and your still in your bloody bed." he said with annoyance in his voice.
"Yer, Yer okay I know. Still no need to shout so loud, you have something called manners." I replied slowly as my brain started to wake up from the night's sleep of the usual bout of strange meaningless dreams. I got out of bed with a yawn and a stretch and equipped my gear ready to get out. I had donned a gray shirt with a metal chest plate and black metal bracers, I had a large two handed long sword strapped to my back with a leather strip which attached to it's dark red scabbard.
I was standing in the room of a small 2 bedroom house which me and Andrew had pooled are money to buy so that we would have somewhere near the boss dungeon so that we could go out and fight higher level monsters for most of the day with the rest of the Frontliners without worrying about a long walk home. Within the first month the main fighters who were always up at the dungeon clearing areas and mapping out a way to the boss room for a later date had been named the Frontliners by most of the players for what they dedicated practically all of their time to doing.
Today was one of the first official and organised meet up of the Frontliners in the town nearest the dungeon, the one we lived in, to discuss a proper strategy of how we should deal with the boss room which hadn't yet been found.
"When was the meeting supposed to be exactly, as you know I can never remember times when people talk to me." I ask Andrew as I walk out of my room with him at my side.
"It was set to be at noon, which is in literally 5 minutes you lazy idiot." he said irritably yet with a small smile.
"Crap, I overslept that much! Well I better forget about that nice breakfast I was just thinking about and we better start running." I said surprised at how late it really was.
The meeting was set in an amphitheatre like structure, made from the same sandstone as spawn was, where the speaker could be easily seen and heard and there was plenty of seats for everyone to sit in. When we arrived only about 20 players were assembled with Diabel, the person who organised the meeting, who had blue hair, blue clothes with an iron chest plate and shoulder guards, a sword with a blue grip in the back of his belt and a shield on his back, was standing on the stage area of the building. We decided to sit up at the back area so that we could see all over the building and could see each person easily and in detail about them.
"Okay, lets get started people!" He shouted in a friendly voice to everyone as we sat down. "Thank you for coming today. My name is Diabel. I like to consider my job as a knight." he continued in a loud voice before receiving a laugh at his last comment.
"There's no job system in the game!" came a laughing voice from the crowd.
"Today, our party found the boss room at the top of the tower." he announced revealing the main topic of the meeting to the assembled players who began to listen intently to what he was saying. "We need to defeat the boss, reach the second floor, and tell everyone waiting in the Town of Beginnings that it is possible to beat this game. Everyone present here shares this duty! Do you all agree?" he continued with confidence and passion and at his last comment people began to mutter their agreements and then began clapping which we joined in.
"All right, then let us begin our planning. First, divide into parties of six." I looked round at Andrew and realised that we only really knew each other in this world and most of the other people had large groups of friends so we decided just to stick as the usual pair that we had been for the last month, not even bothering to find a full party.
"An ordinary party has no chance against a floor boss. We'll need to form a raid group using multiple parties." at this I looked around at the groups to see that me and Andrew weren't the only pair along the top rows on the other side there was a boy with black hair a blue shirt and an iron chest plate sitting next to a red hooded and cloaked girl. After everyone had finished forming parties and it had quieted down a bit Diabel continued.
"Okay, have we formed our parties? Then-" he continued before being interrupted by a loud shout from a person standing at the top of the building.
"Just a second!" He shouted before jumping down the stairs quickly and then facing Diabel. He had ginger hair with random spikes in them and he wore a beige shirt with a scale mail shirt slightly protecting his front and he was armed with a simple sword on his back.
"My name's Kibaou. I wanna say something before we take on the boss." he said in a loud voice and turned to the audience. "Some of you here need to apologize to the two thousand who have died so far!" he shouted with anger pointing his finger at the amassed players.
"Kibaou-san, are you referencing to the beta testers?" Diabel asked with a hint of irritation in his voice.
"Of course I am!" Kibaou shouted back, now again facing Diabel. "On the day this stupid game started, the beta guys ditched us beginners, and they all disappeared. They took all of the good hunting spots and easy quests for themselves, so only they could get stronger. And then, they just ignored the rest of us." turning back to the crowd with anger on his face he shouted. "I'm sure some one here was in the beta! They should get on their knees and apologize, and give up all the items and money they've hoarded." he demanded with a strong voice. "Otherwise, we can't trust them to protect us as party members, and they shouldn't trust us!" He finished loudly.
After a few moments of silence a low voice was heard from a member of the crowd. "May I speak?" A person with dark skin rose from his seat wearing a beige short sleeve shirt and an axe strapped to his back. He walked down in front of Kibaou and Kibaou was completely intimidated by the great figure that towered over him.
"My name is Egil. Kibaou-san, tell me if I have this right. You're saying that because the beta testers didn't take care of them, many beginners died. That they should take responsibility, apologize, and provide compensation. Correct?" He asked Kibaou in a strong, unwavering voice.
"Y-Yeah." Kibaou responded slightly hesitantly.
"You got this guide book, didn't you?" Egil asked while pulling out a small brown book from his pocket. "It was provided for free at the item store."
"Sure, I did... Why?" he asked with confusion.
"It was compiled information given by beta testers." He turned to the now curious crowd. "Listen. Everyone had equal access to this information. And even still, many players died. I thought the topic of discussion here was what we could learn from their deaths, and how that can help us defeat the boss." He turned now back to the defeated and irritated Kibaou before Kibaou walked back to a seat and sat down in defeat. Egil then also went and sat back down.
"All right" Diabel began. "Then, can we resume?" The crowd nodded their answer.
"The latest edition of that guide book was just issued, and it contains information on the boss." he continued to the astonishment of the crowd. "According to it, the boss's name is Illfang the Kobold Lord. He is guarded by assistants known as Ruin Kobold Sentinels. He is armed with an axe and a buckler. He has four bars of health, and when the last one enters red, he switches to a curved sword-type weapon called a Talwar. His attack pattern changes, as well. This concludes the briefing. Lastly, items will automatically be distributed. EXP goes to the party that defeats the monster. And whoever receives an item keeps it Any objections?" no objections come forth so he closed the meeting. "Okay, we leave tomorrow at ten in the morning. See you there!"
At this people get up and begin to talk amongst themselves and some start the short walk back to the town centre. Me and Andrew however get up and go to the town blacksmith NPC to get our equipment quickly repaired before going in for a whole day of hard grinding against the lizard men and wolves in the first floor dungeon of forests. We do this until we reach a cave area in the side of a large hill at the centre of the floor which we hadn't come across before.
"Want a look in there to see if there's anything interesting?" I ask Andrew as I look into the darkness of the seemingly deep cave.
"Naturally, I'll light a torch and you go up front incase of any monsters." He replies as he takes out a lit torch from his inventory and holds it up lighting the path ahead. I grip my sword with both hands and slowly walk into the cave carefully checking all sides and shadows for monsters. But instead of a monster room we are confronted by a large stone door engraved with simple symbols.
I lower my sword and look at the tall door that blocks my way forward.
"Well that wasn't to hard was it. Shame we can't just go in and take the boss down, would sort of defeat the whole point of the meeting." I comment with a fake sadness to it, Andrew laughs at this.
"Is it that heart wrenching that you can't face the big guy in a blaze of glory on your own. Come on we can't do much more and the suns going to be going down soon so we better start heading back home. And this time don't oversleep." He responds with a distinct smile.
The next morning I am sitting at the dark dining room table flicking though my maps when Andrew walks in groggily after obviously just waking up and looks at me surprised.
"How long have you been up then?" He asks before yawning loudly.
"All night I think. As I knew I would oversleep if I didn't. Anyway get ready then, It's nearly half nine and this time I intend to have a breakfast." I say slowly not moving my attention from my maps. "And I just realised, we must have walked past that stupid cave like 5 times now. Stupid trees getting in the way made it look like nothing was there and so we went another way. Oh well doesn't matter any more, we're going in there no matter what and we are going to clear it, hopefully without any deaths." I say irritated and seriously.
"Why are you always a grump if you stay up during nights, seriously you've been like that for years. Now come on turn those useless maps off and help me make something worth eating." He replies getting annoyed with my attitude.
"Just cause you can't cook or mix ingredients to save your life." I say with an arrogant smile. Andrew rolls his eyes at this before we both start laughing at our bickering.
After breakfast we arrived at the start of the dungeon floor where most of the Frontliners stood waiting. A few minutes later when everyone had arrived, Diabel gave us the plan.
"Okay now that we are all here we can go through the floor plan quickly. Each party will pick a route which each will lead to the centre area where the boss room is situated. This is due to preference of area and so that the floor area doesn't become overcrowded and hard to fight in if necessary. Any objections?" once again no objections came forth from the players. "Then everyone pick a route and we shall meet within an hour at the boss room, any late comers will have to join halfway into the battle." He finished off as the parties began to choose routes to follow.
"I've already made a good route for us during the night." I tell Andrew as I show him my map with the route marked on it.
"You staying up all night wasn't pointless then. Okay seems a good route and a one we've done before so shouldn't be too bad. Lets get going then." He replies with confidence before letting me take lead on a route which we usually went down when we were up here over the past month. It was a generally monster free route with an easy to follow path which lead to a larger path going to the boss room.
It took us around 20 minutes to reach the boss room door and there was only one other party already here. Unsurprisingly this group contained Diabel, Egil, Kibaou and three other players I recognised as some of the main Frontliners.
"We the only ones that have arrived so far?" I ask Diabel as we walk over to him.
"Yes, and I thought the plan was to be in parties of 6, not 2 people, however good you may be at this game." He answers after noticing that it was just me and Andrew arriving.
"We work best together on our own and we didn't actually know anyone who was at the meeting yesterday." I respond indifferently to his comment. "So the plan for the minions was to knock their weapons up and attack them when they are exposed while your party hits the boss unchallenged, correct?"
" Correct, except that we will all surround Illfang in the final red hp phase, but you make it sound as if we are purposely attacking the boss on our own just for the exp." He says in confirmation of what I was saying.
"I didn't say it like that, but anyway I can hear some more parties turning up so we better get ready for the fight ahead instead of arguing." I say seriously as I look over my shoulder to see at least two parties walking towards us from a clearing.
About 5 minutes later we had all assembled and we all knew the plan by heart and were ready for the imminent fight that presented itself on the other side of the stone door.
"Alright everybody, lets move out!" Diabel shouted to the players once he was certain we were ready. At this he got up and walked at the front of the procession of players with his sword and shield raised in preparation. When we reached the door we all drew our weapons of choice and held them up ready. Diabel then turned to us and rammed his sword into the soft soil ground.
"Listen up, everyone. I have only one thing to say. Lets win. Lets go." these final words were spoken with utter confidence and with the air of a leader speaking to his troops before a battle had initiated. He then turned to the door and pushed it open with one hand while his other picked up his sword. When the doors had opened a long hallway with pillars lining the side supporting the high roof and a polished red and gray marble floor, and at the end sitting on a stone throne upon a raised platform was the boss.