A Hundred Floors in the Titan Castle

by TurtleWithoutASoul

Chapter 1: Unwelcome Return

Twilight could hardly believe what she was hearing. They were… trapped?

-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-

Twilight opened her eyes. She was no longer in her own body, and now she moved a fake one inside the world of virtual reality. She didn’t have a distinct appearance at all at the moment, and it looked… really unsettling. She looked more or less like a clay doll. She stood in an empty room, sized about a hundred square feet. The walls and floor were black, lit only by what seemed to be a heavenly light from above. An array of nine computer monitors in a 3x3 grid was embedded in the wall before her. A female voice spoke.

“Welcome to Sword Art Online.”

A small white window appeared, hovering in space in front of her, about twice the size of her hand. Input name and gender, it read. Twilight wondered briefly what kind of name she should go by in the game. After mulling it over a bit, she just decided to use her real name. Twilight Sparkle, she typed out. She hit the checkmark button and the voice spoke again.

“Hello, Twilight Sparkle.”

The voice spoke Japanese, as this was a Japanese game. Her name sounded a little funny in that accent, she thought. Oh well, just something she’d have to get used to. She could understand everything it said, as she was fluent in several languages, one of them being Japanese.

Twilight had powered on her Nervegear as soon as the SAO servers went online. As one of the five hundred players who had been in the beta test, Twilight was probably more excited than anyone else to be back in the world of virtual reality.

The computer monitors lit up, displayed a generic-looking female avatar, and highlighted a number of different body features. Looks like I can’t use the same avatar as in the beta, Twilight thought. She approached and tapped on one of the screens, and a number of different options appeared just for that feature. Twilight made her hair completely black instead of her usual dark people. She made it longer. She made her nose smaller. She made her eyes blue instead of pink. She lowered her cheekbones.

Twilight made a lot of changes.

Eventually satisfied, she found and tapped the checkmark again. Another window appeared.

Are you ready to play?

She tapped on the check one final time, and everything went white.

-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-

Twilight opened her eyes once more. She now stood in a huge circle in the center of a medieval looking town. The ground beneath her was a white brick path. All around her, more and more players started appearing, logging in for the first time. A quick opening of the menu would show that the current population of SAO was about four thousand and counting.

Twilight looked her reflection in the bronze starting shield she had been given. She no longer looked like the disturbing clay figurine, and now had the appearance of the character she had designed. She also wore a basic leather tunic, which looked more or less just like a life jacket. Underneath, she wore a purple sweater as was her color of choice, and some tan khakis. Players weren’t given any leg armor or anything else but the tunic, shield and iron shortsword.

As a beta tester, Twilight had previously explored the Town of Beginnings and knew exactly which shop to go to to find useful, cheap equipment.

The currency of this world was called Cor. Cor could be obtained in various ways, with the most common method easily being defeating monsters. One could also sell items to NPC shops to obtain Cor, complete quests, or trade with other players.

The starting Cor each player was granted when beginning the game was, unfortunately, zero, so Twilight immediately left the town to go fight some monsters. She needed to upgrade her stuff, pronto. A leather tunic, an iron shortsword, and a bronze frisbee weren't gonna cut it.

-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-

The white brick path underfoot gave way to a grassy field immediately upon exiting the Town of Beginnings from any direction. Twilight chose the north exit. The Town of Beginnings was on the southern end of the floor one map, and following basic RPG logic, the monsters would get stronger the farther you went from your origin point. Therefore, Twilight went north. She already knew her way around a sword pretty well, so she figured she didn’t need to waste her time training on level one enemies, even though she was still level one herself.

Inside the world of Sword Art Online, you didn’t actually walk on the “ground.” There was ground to walk on, but players were really inside an enormous structure floating in the sky, called Castle Aincrad. Inside Castle Aincrad were one hundred “floors” stacked on top of each other. On these floors were villages, forests, mountains, lakes, and countless dungeons to explore. These floors started with the largest ones at the bottom and grew smaller as you travel upwards, making the entire structure look somewhat like a cone. Monsters naturally became stronger too the higher up you went as you progressed through the game.

The goal of Sword Art Online was to defeat a boss at the end of every floor’s main dungeon and travel up to the top of Aincrad, where the final boss of the game awaited. Upon learning of the game’s lore initially, Twilight’s first thought was to wonder who came up with the ideas for a hundred different boss monsters.

As Twilight walked along the path, she examined her blank skill trees. “Mastery for different types of weapons… shortswords, longswords, broadswords, cleavers…” she mumbled. She scrolled down a bunch, intending to read into them more in-depth later. “Huh?”

Once Twilight scrolled past all the blades, it looked there were other weapons to master too.

“Magic?”

The biggest change to Sword Art Online since the beta was the addition of magic. Argus, the company that developed SAO, had originally stated that they would be one of the very few existing RPG’s to not have magic, their reasoning being that it would be too complicated with existing VR technology. However, it seemed that developers had massively overestimated the difficulty of implementing it.

“This is… really in-depth. Wow, can’t believe I didn’t know about this...” Twilight mumbled, scrolling through the different types of magic.

As she walked, she had stopped paying attention to the path she was walking on and bumped into someone, which really surprised her, since she didn’t think many people would be out this far yet. She had been walking for quite a while.

She stumbled backward and clumsily closed her menu. “S-sorry!”

“Get back!” A female voice barked. Twilight heard a blade draw. She looked up and saw a flurry of blonde hair lunge towards a furry, blue pig-like monster in front of her with a flash of red light. Twilight quickly picked out the monster’s HP bar in the scene in front of her. It was a level 3 Frenzy Boar. Its life bar dropped some as this person’s sword connected, but was still green. The boar rammed into the girl and she stumbled backwards. Twilight drew her sword too, thinking this might not end well.

“What are you-”

Twilight dashed forward past the other girl and slashed rapidly at the side of the boar before it got a chance to react to this new challenger. Its life bar quickly dropped to zero and it shattered into a bunch of little blue triangles that disappeared slowly in the wind.

Twilight sheathed her sword, ignoring the small window that appeared in place of the defeated enemy. “You can’t just go charging in blindly with a sword skill like that,” she told the girl who stood before her. “If you do that while the enemy’s guard is up, you do less damage and leave yourself wide open for a counterattack.” Expecting thanks, she was surprised at the outburst that came next.

“What the hell was that for?! You just stole my kill!”

Twilight finally got a good look at the other girl. She had long blonde hair which was worn in long pigtails--very long, as in those twintails didn’t end until around her upper thighs--and was about the same height as Twilight. She had gray eyes, which were furrowed together in an irritated expression.

Twilight blinked, taken aback. “You were- I was- I just-”

“I had it under control!” The other girl raised a fist to about chest height and stomped a foot towards Twilight, who raised her hands defensively.

“Under control?” Twilight countered. “Your health bar is yellow! One more hit like that and you would have died!”

“I fight better under pressure! I wouldn’t have messed up like that again!” The girl crossed her arms. “And what makes you such an expert on this game anyway? Were you in the beta test, or something?”

“Yeah, so?” Twilight said defensively. “I know how to play the game already, so what? That doesn’t make me an expert.”

She seemed to have calmed down mostly. “Hmph… Well, you know your way around a sword, at least. You swung crazy fast just then! And… what you said did make sense. So thanks… I guess?”

“Uh, no problem…” Twilight extended an arm with a smile. “I’m Twilight. Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight’s new friend accepted the handshake. “Kaiya. So… could I get you to tell me more about what to do here? You know, how to play this game? The monsters are really tough.”

“The monsters are so strong cause you’re not really meant to leave town through the north exit yet. Did you… even read the tutorials? They wanted you to go to the south so you can learn how to swing a sword.”

Kaiya waved a hand dismissively. “Psh. Tutorials? Give me a break. I learn more from experience, not by cutting down straw dummies. It’s only a matter of time before I completely master this game. I’ll be at the top of every leaderboard!”

Twilight stared at Kaiya’s hit point gauge, which had only barely regenerated past fifty percent and was now green again. “Uh huh… you won’t do that by getting slaughtered by some of the weakest enemies in the game.”

“You tryin’ to start me up again? I need to fight the toughest enemies I have access to so I can level up the fastest!” Kaiya crossed her arms and nodded proudly. “Stronger enemies are worth more experience points, so if I fight them instead of the weakest ones, I’ll have to fight less of ‘em! That means I can get more experience in the same amount of time and I’ll grow faster than anyone else! Isn’t that genius?”

“That’s not exactly a groundbreaking revelation… just about everyone knows that.”

“...H-What?”

Twilight scratched the back of her head. “Have you… even played any RPGs before?”

Kaiya drooped her head. “Uh… no, I haven’t…”

“Well, you sure started with a good one, I guess. Uh, but really, the north exit isn’t the best place to start. I’m not certain I could actually handle it for very long myself,” Twilight lied.

“Then where?”

“Well the south exit is where the weakest monsters are, but they’re just slimes. So while you do get experience points, you don’t really get battle experience, know what I mean?”

“What can slimes do?”

“Not much more than fall over. It’s basically target practice. You don’t learn from fighting an enemy that doesn’t fight back. So instead, the west exit is probably the best place to go. There are still the Frenzy Boars, but they’re level ones and twos. You can still learn how to really fight, but it’s more forgiving if you mess up. But if you’re out here…”

Kaiya raised her arms above her head. “Okay, okay, I give. I’ll head back to the town and then go west. Thanks for all the advice!” She turned around and started walking.

“I could help, if you want!” Twilight followed a few steps.

Kaiya kept walking. “Nah. You can take care of yourself just fine, even out here, so I’d just be wasting your time. I’ll be fine now. I may seem kind of hopeless, but I really can figure some stuff out pretty quickly. Especially if I actually read the tutorials and all that. So, I’ll see you later, I suppose.”

Twilight placed a hand on her hip. “If you say so. Find me again sometime!” she called and turned around, continuing on the path to the north.

-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-

As yet another Frenzy Boar shattered into small blue triangles, Twilight opened up her inventory.

“This much money will get me some okay equipment,” she said aloud to herself, briefly confirming in her mind the prices of a better sword and shield.

Twilight, since she had begun her training, had entered a small forest, where she could find Frenzy Boars and Mushroom Spearmen for training on. She had earned a decent amount of money and had also leveled up once. She ignored her stat allocations for now, as she still hadn’t read up on them in more detail.

When a player levels up in SAO, they get a few skill points, which they can add to a number of different stats. They affect things as follows:

Strength: The weight of the weapons and armor they can equip and the amount of damage they deal with melee attacks,
Vitality: Players' maximum hit points and slightly affects their maximum mana,
Defense: The amount of damage taken from physical attacks like swords or axes,
Intelligence: The complexity of the magic you can use and your maximum mana,
Resistance: A player's tendency to not suffer status effects like poison or stun and the amount of damage taken from magical attacks,
Agility: A player's movement speed in and out of battle.

There were other factors that affected all of these things as well, but spending your skill points was the main way to increase them.

When Twilight played the beta, she didn’t think much about what stats she should spend her skill points on boosting, as she knew it wouldn’t be permanent. Now, though, she didn’t use them yet, intending to further investigate the changes to the game and what type of stat build she should go for.

She checked the time. It was past one AM in her time zone. By now, her mother would be home. She would have thought Twilight to be asleep, so Twilight could play until the morning. Which would be… 10 PM in-game time. Right now it was 3:17.

It wasn’t the first time Twilight would pull an all-nighter, and it wasn’t the first time it would be for video games either. It did feel kind of strange though, because she was sort of acting on two different time zones at once. The first time she played SAO, she had discovered she didn’t really suffer any “jet lag” it inside the game. SAO was apparently programmed so your character would only feel tired when it became night time in Japan. And whenever she logged out, it turned out she wasn’t tired either. All of your physical senses are at rest while diving, so you could stay in as long as you wanted. It wasn’t very uncommon for people to stay in virtual reality for days at a time, sometimes even getting hospitalized due to dehydration because of it.

Just playing overnight wouldn’t hurt, though.

Twilight put away her sword and left the forest, jogging along the path back towards the Town of Beginnings. By now, nearly everyone who owned a copy of SAO had logged in, evident by the many small groups of people slaying monsters in the fields surrounding her. The population of the game was now up to 9,893. She figured maybe a fifth of those people had leveled up by now, meaning Twilight was roughly in the top two thousand players. Not exactly something to be super proud of, but she hoped to stay up there as long as she could.

Along with the many swords being swung around, there was an occasional small blast of fire.

“I guess there's a place to get magic here now,” Twilight mumbled. She absolutely had to try it.

Upon re-entering the city, Twilight was approached by an elderly NPC, or non-player character.

“Excuse me, are you an adventurer?” She asked.

“Yes, I am!” Twilight said cheerfully. “Is there something I can help you with?” She asked, recognizing this NPC and knowing exactly what the problem was already.

“Y-yes… you see, I used to have a silver pendant. My husband gave it to me many years ago, and now it’s been stolen by some strange creature that looked like a mushroom. Would you help? There’s a promise attached to that pendant and I just can’t lose it.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow, slightly confused. She had remembered this NPC’s dialogue differently. Well, it sounded like the quest was the same. It was probably just some developer fiddling with the scripts.

She ignored the thought and her smile returned to her face. “Of course! Do you know where it ran off to?”

The NPC woman gave a hopeful smile. “Yes, it escaped into the Sunflower Fields.”

A small window appeared in front of Twilight. Accept Quest? it read. Twilight tapped the circle button. “You have nothing to worry about. I’ll head right out after some quick shopping for better gear!”

The NPC’s smile widened and she disappeared without another word.

“Okay, that was a little weird… guess she just went back home,” Twilight mumbled to herself. “Okay, I need to find that magic… salesperson, and figure out how it works.”

-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-

Surprisingly, it only took her about two minutes to find someone that sells magic. This was probably due to the fact that just about every NPC selling anything had it.

“I guess that would make sense. Since it’s so low-level, basic magic wouldn’t be very difficult to come by. Specialized vendors must not start showing up until later floors. Now, let’s see here…”

Magic could be wielded with three tools: Wands, Tomes, and Staffs. Any type of spell could be used with any of the weapons, but their effects would be slightly altered in strength. Staffs gave a boost to healing and stat buffing spells, tomes were better for offensive magic, and wands were mostly neutral with what type of magic worked best. Most vendors only sold wands on the first floor.

On top of the tools used to cast the magic, you also had to buy scrolls to actually learn each spell.

“What a drag… there’s the fireball everyone is using, a small self-healing spell… and that’s it. Thanks, floor one. Oh well...”

Twilight made her purchases which included a wand, both spells, and a new sword. She had wanted to get a new shield and armor too, but she didn’t have enough money. The thought didn’t occur to her that her defensive ability might be insufficient for the quest she was about to do. Instead, she was still wondering about magic.

“Ugh, I don’t really want to have to wait until higher floors for new magic. Maybe I can find new spells by doing quests… maybe even this one? Oh, no, I’ve already done this quest in the beta… but, maybe they changed the reward? I hope not.”

Twilight was mumbling things like this to herself while walking towards the exit of the city again when someone grabbed her shoulder.

“Wh- Hey, what are you-” she stammered.

“Twilight?” A boy spoke. Twilight turned her head to look at him.

“Do I know you?” She questioned.

“It’s Hikaru! From the beta?”

Twilight’s face lit up. “Oh! Hikaru! Wow, it’s awesome to see you again!” She gave him a hug and stepped back, closing her menu. “How’d you recognize me?”

Hikaru crossed his arms with a grin. “You’re the only person I’ve seen who just mumbles to themselves out loud like that. And you also mentioned the beta.”

Twilight dug her toes into the ground nervously. “Is it really that much of a tell?”

“Well, I guess it could have been a coincidence, but you also have the same nervous habit.” He pointed at her foot. “So I know it’s you.”

“Uh, yeah…” Twilight forced her foot to stay flat on the ground.

Hikaru was Twilight’s best friend from the beta. They had challenged dungeons together, did a lot of questing, and even fought two bosses in the same party. He preferred to fight with a katana, but Twilight thought he was better with hammers. She figured he thought he just looked cooler with a sword. Which he did, but it got on Twilight’s nerves that he would deliberately wield something he wasn’t as proficient in for the sake of flashiness. She didn’t understand the logic behind it. Probably a boy thing.

“So!” Hikaru pulled her out of her thoughts. “You mentioned a quest?”

“Yeah, I found one of the ones I played in the beta. Want to join me?”

“Sure! Where are we going?”

“The Sunflower Fields.” Twilight opened her menu and added Hikaru to her friend list. Hikaru was inviting her to a party.

“Really? Don’t you think a quest there is a bit easy?”

“Oh, shut up. This one’s… special to me. Wait, what?”

Hikaru rolled his eyes. “Just cause you played it already? Or is the story so heartwarming? So beautiful that your eyes can’t help but become watery when you think of such sweet sorrow?”

How can you even say that without being embarrassed? “Stop talking for half a second.” Twilight spun her menu around. “Any idea what the deal with this is? Did you do something?” She joked.

Hikaru looked at her menu. “What? What am I looking at?”

“The accept button is grayed out. So I can’t join your party.” She turned her menu back around and closed it.

“That’s really weird. What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything! Maybe parties are just disabled in the game for now? Maybe they found a bug?”

“I doubt it. I was in a party with another friend earlier. It looks like it’s just you.”

“Why would it be me?”

“Maybe it’s your quest? Maybe it’s single player only?”

“I guess that would make sense. Its content didn’t seem like it would be one player though. Whatever. Want to tag along anyway even if we aren’t in a party?”

“Sure. I’m done with my shopping. You ready to go now?”

“Yup. You buy any magic?” The two of them started walking towards the edge of town.

“I doubt there’s a single person who hasn’t. Everyone thought this would be a swords-only game so I bet everyone wants to at least try it.”

Twilight equipped her new sword while she walked. “Hmm… it looks like you can’t have both a sword and a wand equipped at the same time. That’s a bit unfortunate… What if you need to swap from magic and sword in the middle of battle?”

“Well, how long would it take to switch them yourself?”

“Probably about ten seconds if you were really rushed and you didn’t press any wrong buttons by accident, which could very well happen if you were panicking.”

“That’s not very long at all.”

“Ten seconds can mean a lot. It’s more than enough time to die if you let your guard completely down while you’re navigating your menu.”

“So your party members can cover for you while you switch. Why would you even need to? You should have, like, a balance of magic users and sword fighters.”

“I don’t know, maybe you underestimated how strong some boss is and need one more healer than you thought you would. You can’t just say you’ll never run into a situation where you might need both.”

“Okay, point taken.” They crossed the front gate of town and started down the path again. “Where are the Sunflower Fields? You’ve always been the expert on this game.”

“Once the path turns we keep going straight and we’ll end up there before very long. It’s about six minutes from here.”

They walked in silence for a couple of minutes. Hikaru was the next one to speak. “What kind of quest is it?”

“It’s, uh… kind of cheesy. Some NPC had her amulet stolen, so I just have to kill some mushroom thing and get it back for her. Her husband gave it to her.” Twilight scratched the back of her head.

“And you’ve played it before? In the beta?”

“Yeah, but it was a little different this time. She said her husband promised something when he gave it to her, and that little detail wasn’t in it before.”

“You sound irritated about it.”

“I do?” Twilight mentally cursed herself. “I just… well, the point is it’s different.”

Hikaru raised an eyebrow but apparently decided to drop the subject. “Did she say what that promise was?”

“No, I guess I’ll find out when I complete the quest.”

“And,” Hikaru pointed straight ahead. “Here we are.”

Ahead were sunflowers that seemed to be around ten feet in height, and they looked to be pretty thick too. “Yup. Sheesh. How does one even fight in that mess?”

“How do we even find your mushrooms?”

“Want to just try shooting some fireballs around?”

“Seriously?” Hikaru rolled his eyes.

Twilight crossed her arms. “Do you have a better idea?” They stopped walking in front of the sunflowers.

“Do what you will.” He pushed a few sunflowers aside and walked straight in.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed like that.” She followed him in anyway but opened her menu to switch to equipping her wand.

After about a minute, Hikaru spoke again. “Yeah, I can’t see anything at all anymore. Should we leave the field?”

“Maybe. We walked straight forward, right? So if we just turn around we’ll be fine?”

“Uh… maybe?”

“Great. So we’re lost. This was a really great idea. Nice job. So what exactly compelled you to walk in like this? Can you explain that to me, please?”

“I get it, I get it. Okay. New plan.” Hikaru drew his sword. “Start cutting down flowers.”

Twilight began repeating the magic words for the fireball spell over and over, burning up a few flowers with each ball she threw. “So didn’t you…” she said between incantations. “...say something about… the sunflower fields… being easy?”

“I only said that because I had entered the fields in a different place before, and that entrance happened to have a path.”

“That could have been useful information before we got ourselves lost in here.” Twilight blew a petal off that had landed on her nose.

“You didn’t ask. But…” Hikaru stopped cutting down flowers and squinted his eyes like he was looking for something in the mess.

“But?” Twilight dropped the arm with her wand to her side. “Shoot, I’m out of mana…” she mumbled.

“There were like… rabbit monsters hiding in the flowers, but we haven’t seen a single one since we got here… ah.”

“Hiding in the flowers?” Twilight backed up against Hikaru and opened her menu, switching to her sword. “...Yep, looks like they’re here right now. And… I think I found my quest enemy too.” A flash of orange in the green and yellow had caught Twilight’s eye, and looking lower, she saw many white blobs low to the ground. She turned her head left and right. “Looks like we’re surrounded.”

“Well, we made an okay battle arena, I guess.”

“This is… more or less a circle. Sure.” Twilight giggled a little. “So we're about to have a battle against rabbits and a mushroom in the middle of a bunch of sunflowers, hm? Video games are weird.” She drew her sword slowly and held it in front of her.

“So… who makes the first move?” Hikaru whispered. He held his sword still, ready to activate a sword skill at a moment’s notice.

“We do. Those rabbits are probably weak enough to kill with one good hit since they’re a swarm-type enemy. The faster we get rid of them, the easier on us this’ll be. Try a stabbing attack, if you can. The flowers will get in the way of a wide swing.”

“Gotcha. On three?”

“Whatever works.”

“One…”

Twilight gripped her sword hilt with both hands, pointing it upward. Her first real fight since starting the game again... She felt her heart racing.

“Two…”

She shifted her left foot slightly, ready to launch herself forward. She picked out her target, a rabbit right in front of her. The mushroom bandit was off to Twilight’s right. After she killed the first rabbit, it would try and hit her from the side. Mushrooms were slow, hard hitters. Twilight couldn’t see its weapon, but she was plenty confident in her dodging ability.

“Three!”

Twilight kicked off the ground and sprinted forward, activating a sword skill and stabbing the rabbit in front of her, right in its head. It broke into pieces and Twilight glanced over to her right. A rabbit knocked into her from the left and she nearly fell over. Instead, she jumped forward into the flowers, trying to kite the enemies into fighting her one at a time. She whirled around and cut down another rabbit. The mushroom now stood in front of her, holding a spear. Twilight could see it wearing some sort of necklace.

While she thought about how best to go about fighting it, the mushroom moved first. It stabbed forward and Twilight reflexively swung her sword upward, knocking the mushroom off balance. Twilight tried stabbing forward, but a rabbit headbutted her in the side again and she missed. “You guys are irritating me,” she mumbled. She glanced at her health bar and saw it about half depleted already. “Shoot!”

Just then, she heard Hikaru’s voice. “The rabbits are stronger than I thought! Be careful!”

“Yeah, I noticed!” Twilight called back. She sliced upward, cutting another rabbit in half. She glanced around for something to climb, but there was nothing tall enough to see above the sunflowers. Another rabbit tried ramming into her, but Twilight jumped back. She saw a window where the rabbit she had just killed was. An item drop… probably a minor healing potion. That’s something I could definitely use, but I’d have to get back over there to accept it...

Twilight kicked a rabbit to the side and swung at another one. Another still jumped onto her shoulder and scratched her. She grabbed it and hurled it away.

“Aren’t you done yet?” She heard. Then came an “Oh.”

“Why are they all… coming for me?!” She shouted and did a roll forward so she was next to Hikaru again.

“Your health is low. Go get your health potion, now!” Hikaru lashed out with his sword but missed a rabbit. “What the…”

Twilight scrambled to her feet and tapped the accept button on the item drop window. It went into her inventory and she immediately drank it, bringing her hit points to about 65%. As she ran back toward the crowd, she counted 5 more rabbits, and the mushroom. Hikaru was backing up.

“These rabbits are stronger than the ones I was fighting off.”

Panting, Twilight held her sword up again. “How can that be? They’re from the same swarm. That doesn’t happen.”

Hikaru chuckled. “Maybe they knew you’re better at this game than me and sent the strong ones to try and get rid of you first.”

Twilight stayed silent for a moment. “No, all swarm-type monsters from the same group should be the same level. Did you see any of your other ones’ levels?”

“I think they were level 3.” Hikaru’s sword drooped slightly.

“These ones are level 4… keep your guard up. They may be giving us a break, but they’re probably waiting for the smallest sign of weakness to jump again.”

“It could just be two swarms together, couldn’t it?” Hikaru raised his sword to a ready-to-swing position again.

“It’s extremely unlikely. Swarms don’t spawn within a certain distance to each other, so another player would have to kite one over. And I didn’t hear anyone else in the area.”

“Then we can blame your quest again. You don’t really think any quest would just have you fight a single enemy, do you?”

Twilight’s legs twitched. “Are we ready? I want to finish this.”

Hikaru nodded and faced forward. “Three!”

Twilight and Hikaru sprinted forward at the same time. They caught the rabbits off-guard and managed to each destroy one. Two of them jumped onto Hikaru’s arms, and the mushroom tried to whack Twilight with its spear. Twilight ducked and swung her sword upward and with frightening precision, cut one of the rabbits on Hikaru without hitting him. Hikaru grabbed the other one and tossed it at the mushroom, and the other remaining rabbit found itself under Twilight’s left foot. She slipped on it and fell over.

“Ah!” She scrambled up. “Did that one die? I don’t think stepping on it would do that much damage.”

“I didn’t see it break apart. It’s still around.” Hikaru swung his sword downward and knocked the mushroom’s spear into the ground. It stumbled backward from the recoil.

“This is more manageable. Swarms aren’t fun to deal with.” Twilight stabbed the mushroom in its chest. She saw Hikaru slash near the ground out of the corner of her eye and saw some blue triangles float upwards. She sweep-kicked the mushroom’s feet and it fell over on its back. Twilight jumped up and stabbed into its chest again from above. The mushroom broke apart, leaving the pendant on the ground.

Hikaru sheathed his sword and turned around to face Twilight. “I got them both.”

“Phew. I guess the swarm was the real challenge of the quest. The mushroom was just so we’d know where to look after killing everything.” Twilight knelt down and picked up the pendant the mushroom left behind. It was a silver locket that you could put a picture inside. Twilight fiddled with the button. “It doesn’t seem to open…”

“Weird. Is anything written on the outside?” Hikaru put a hand on his hip.

Twilight turned it over. “Nope. Completely blank on both sides.” She dropped the locket and let it hang in her hand from its chain. “I guess it’s kinda pretty though.”

“Back to the town?”

“Yup.” Twilight put the locket in her inventory. “This whole thing seems a little strange though.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, the party not working and the rabbits’ levels… And they changed this quest.”

“Twilight, you’re overthinking this. Video games change drastically all the time between beta versions and the completed games. Why do you care about this quest so much anyway?”

Twilight ignored his question. “Well, are we going or what?”

“We’re still kinda lost in here. I don’t suppose you have teleport crystals?”

“Uh… no. I ran out of money.” Twilight kicked the ground in embarrassment. “I was excited to try the magic.”

“Well, we can find the path after we get out of the field.” Hikaru picked a direction and started walking.

“Oh! Waitwaitwait!” Twilight grabbed his shoulder. “They’re sunflowers! They face east in this game!”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s helpful. So we want to go…”

“This way!” Twilight started moving in the opposite direction Hikaru was. “Glad you have me around, huh?”

Hikaru sighed and followed her. “Yeah, we would have done quite a bit more walking if you weren’t here.”

-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-

As Twilight and Hikaru crossed the town gates, Twilight heard a voice call out.

“Heeeey! Hikaru!”

Twilight turned around and saw someone waving a couple hundred feet back. She looked at Hikaru.

“Uh… yeah. I’ll catch you later, Twilight. I’d better go see what he wants.” Hikaru started jogging back down the path.

“Suit yourself,” Twilight mumbled. “I’m going to go see what they did to that quest.”

It didn’t take very long for Twilight to find where the map pointed her to turn in the finished quest. Twilight stood before a wooden cabin near the edge of town. There was a small garden in the front, which gave it the distinctive appearance of an NPC’s home, as the player homes on floor one were extremely basic. “Right… this is that lady’s house.” Twilight knocked on the door and checked the in-game clock, which read 5:42. “Still plenty of time to play.” The door opened shortly.

“Miss adventurer! You’re back!” The NPC greeted Twilight.

“Yes I am, and I got your locket back!” Twilight held it out to the NPC.

“Ah, could you hold onto that for a few moments, dear? Please, come inside! I have some tea ready.” She held the door open for Twilight.

“Uh… okay.” This was weird. She wasn’t invited inside before. Twilight walked past her into the house.

The inside wasn’t anything strange. It felt a little warmer than outside, which made it feel pretty homely. To the side against the far wall, a faded gray couch sat with a scratchy looking blanket hanging on one of the armrests. The coffee table in the middle of the room was a dark walnut brown, rife with dings and scratches. Only important NPC’s generally have this much detail in their furniture... Taking in more of the house, which didn’t contain very much else, Twilight noticed the kitchen off to the side, just through a small doorway. She sat on the sofa and the NPC brought her a saucer and cup of tea. She took a sip and the NPC sat next to her.

“So… what was the promise you made to your husband?” Twilight asked.

The NPC sighed with a smile and sat back into the sofa like she was remembering something happy. “I still remember when he was here. He isn’t dead, just… off somewhere. He sends me letters sometimes. It’s a bit hard to explain.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. Perhaps she should have known better than to expect a straightforward answer.

The NPC continued. “When he left, he gave me this pendant and asked something of me. I made a promise.”

“Why did he leave?” Twilight asked. She took another sip of tea and set the cup on the coffee table.

“He went to go... make something. I’m not completely sure what. Anyone could see what it is by looking at it, but there’s more to it when you see it up close. Does that make sense?”

“I’m afraid I’m not following.”

“That’s quite all right, dear.” Her face fell a bit. “It makes me sad sometimes, that he isn’t here… I don’t completely like what he’s doing…” Her face turned cheerful again. “But I’m sure it will be okay in the end!”

Twilight remained silent.

“You know… that promise I’ve been talking about wasn’t actually one that I made to him. I promised something to myself when he left. May I see the locket, dear?”

Twilight handed it over. “What would that be?”

“I promised myself… that I would create a hero.”

“What?” Suddenly, the room started getting increasingly bright. It seemed to be coming from the locket in the NPC’s hands. Twilight tried shielding her eyes from the light, but in a matter of seconds, she couldn’t keep them open. A few moments later the light died down. Twilight opened her eyes and looked at the NPC again. The locket had turned into a silver ring. The NPC offered it to Twilight.

“Please… take it.”

There wasn’t anything weird about it. It was just a band of silver. Twilight tried to convince herself of that and hesitantly reached out and took it. It felt heavy in the palm of her hand. She slowly put it on the ring finger of her left hand, and it instantly shrunk and tightened on her finger. “Wh-what the…” She tried tugging it off, but it wouldn’t budge. “What is this?” Twilight looked up where the NPC was sitting, but she was no longer there. “What…”

Twilight looked around the house. The cup she had been drinking out of was also gone. The only sign the lady was ever even there was the silver ring that refused to come off her finger. “Well… no reason for me to stay here, I guess...” She stood up and left the house. There were a couple of players eyeing the house and staring at Twilight. They probably noticed the light from outside. Twilight decided to act like nothing was wrong. She tried walking away as normally as possible, but she was shaking pretty badly.

Twilight walked to the center of town and sat on a bench near one of the NPC shops. She took a few deep breaths and rubbed her temples. “That was so freaky…” she mumbled. She looked at her hand and tried tugging in vain on the ring again. “What’s the deal with this?” She tried coming up with some possibilities in her mind. This could still be part of some quest. There could be some NPC who is able to do some magic and take it off her finger. Twilight never saw the Quest Complete window, but upon checking her Quest Log, it seemed to have completely disappeared from the list. It wasn’t in the Ongoing Quest or Completed Quest list. So even if it was still part of a quest, Twilight would have no way to know what to do about finishing it. The game’s engine also scanned for inconsistencies in quests and rewards constantly, and deleted any bugged logs and quest items. So she decided that her still being in the quest was impossible. It could, however, just be a bug that the ring was stuck to her finger. Twilight looked at her Equipment Window. Players could wear rings to boost some stats, but her Equipment Window showed that there was nothing on her left hand. To test whether that was true or not, Twilight went and bought the cheapest copper ring she could find in the Town of Beginnings and tried equipping it to her left hand via the Equipment Window. It appeared on her left ring finger right above the silver ring. Then she took off the ring by pulling it off her finger. Then she put it back on her finger and de-equipped it with the Window. Just for completion’s sake, she repeated this process on her right hand. Everything worked fine. But she couldn’t remove the silver ring.

“This is so weird… What does it even do?” Twilight wondered aloud.

She didn’t have time to worry about that right at the moment though, as players suddenly started appearing into the plaza around her. Twilight stood up with a start from the bench she was sitting on. It… was getting really crowded. It looked like everyone in the game had been teleported into the Town of Beginnings all at once. Instinct told her to look for people she recognized, but she couldn’t pick out any familiar faces at the moment. It sounded like everyone around her was just as confused as she was.

“Why did we just appear here?”

“Is this an event?”

“Someone teleported everyone here at once.”

“An admin, maybe?”

“Whoa, what’s that?!”

Twilight followed that last voice and saw a pointing hand. She looked up at a gigantic red robe appearing about twenty meters above them. Twilight swallowed. She recognized that robe. It didn’t have a face, but it did have giant white-gloved hands in the arms of the robe. It raised its hands flat as if asking for silence. Most of the noise died down.

“Attention, players,” the voice overhead echoed around the plaza. “I welcome you to my world.”

So this is him… Twilight dug her toes into the ground and stared at the being before them.

“My name is Akihiko Kayaba. And as of this moment, I am in control of this world.” The robe turned its hands palms-up and widened his arms.

There was more mumbling around the plaza, but Twilight couldn’t hear any of it.

“I’m sure many of you have already noticed an item missing from your main menus--the logout button. Let me assure you, this is not a defect in the game. I repeat, this is not a defect. This is how Sword Art Online was designed to be.”

Twilight’s heart lurched. She instantly opened her menu and scrolled down to the bottom of the list of options. The door icon that usually meant logout was there, but the words were not. She tried tapping on the button, but nothing happened. Twilight felt her heart beating faster. What does this mean?

Kayaba continued speaking. “You cannot log yourselves out of SAO, and no one from the outside will be able to shut down or remove the NerveGear from your head. If anyone attempts to do so, a transmitter inside the NerveGear will discharge a microwave signal into your skull, destroying your brain and ending your life.”

Twilight took a step back and nearly tripped over the bench she was just sitting on. She could hardly believe what she was hearing. They were… trapped? Inside a video game? Inside Sword Art Online?

Twilight had inspected the NerveGear fairly closely before purchasing it. She wanted to be pretty careful with something that could interrupt signals your brain sends to your body. She found that about thirty percent of the NerveGear’s weight comes from an internal battery, and that the plug from the wall that connects to the NerveGear connects to that battery. Players were instructed to only turn it on if it was plugged in, and the NerveGear couldn’t load any games if it wasn’t. No one really wanted to play without having it plugged in anyway, as even with such a large battery, the system could only run for about two hours if it wasn’t plugged in. Twilight had thought that was a pretty heavy design flaw, but suddenly that made a bit more sense. If people were going to be trapped inside a video game, unable to eat or otherwise take care of themselves, those two hours would give people time to move the players to hospitals and such.

This is… what’s going to happen to me…? To us all? Twilight found herself unable to continue standing and fell to her knees.

“Despite my warning, the families and friends of some of the players have attempted removing the NerveGear, an unfortunate decision, to say the least. As a result, the game now has one hundred sixty-seven fewer players than when it began. They’ve been deleted from both Aincrad and the real world.”

And I didn’t notice any of this happening? I didn’t see anyone panicking?

“As you can see…” Kayaba made visible a number of windows showing news stations, mostly in Japan. “International media outlets have round-the-clock coverage of everything, including the deaths. At this point, it’s safe to assume the likelihood of a NerveGear being removed is minimal at best. I hope this brings you a little comfort as you try to clear the game.”

Twilight had a brief panic attack. It was the middle of the night where she lived. Would Argus send someone out all the way just to inform her family of the circumstances? Or would she be ignored and in the morning someone would come and take the NerveGear off her head? Twilight started hyperventilating. She kneeled low to the ground, clutched her sides, and shut her eyes tight. She could die before she got a chance to do anything. No… think logically. This is a major world crisis. Other countries than Japan will be broadcasting news stories about this. My family will see the news and I’ll be okay. Maybe eventually someone will come and get me and take me to Japan or something, just so they can have all the victims in one place. Either way, no one will take off the helmet. Twilight slowly returned her breathing to a steady pace.

“It’s important to remember the following: There is no longer any way to revive someone within the game. If your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be deleted from the system. Forever. And the NerveGear will simultaneously destroy your brain. There is only one way for a player to escape now: you must clear the game. Right now, you’ve gathered on Floor One, the lowest level on Aincrad. If you can get through the dungeon and defeat the boss, you may advance to the next floor. Defeat the boss on Floor 100, and you will clear the game.”

Clear the game… beat Sword Art Online? Twilight slowly stood up on shaky feet. And… if we die in the game… the NerveGear still kills us? Even if no one tries to take it off of us? Twilight swallowed. She had died five times in the beta. Back then, she had respawned in the center of whatever floor she had died on, in the middle of town. But there would be no respawning this time.

Twilight finally noticed people shouting at the robe above them as she got over her panic attack. The initial shock had seemingly worn off of her, and now she looked around the plaza at everyone else.

“You want us to clear the game? Are you nuts?!”

“You can’t just trap us all in here like this!”

What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Kayaba continued over the mass of voices. “Also, I’ve placed a little present in the inventory of every player. Please have a look.”

Twilight lifted an arm and opened her inventory. There was an item without a name at the top of the list of the few items she had collected over the past few hours. She tapped on it and it appeared in her hands. “A mirror?” It didn’t seem to be anything special. But as this game goes…

The mirror suddenly started glowing white in her hands. The light grew and enveloped Twilight along with everyone else, completely blinding her in the process. After a few moments of disorienting whiteness, it slowly faded away. Twilight looked around. She didn’t really feel anything different. She looked down at the mirror in her hands.

“Whoa.”

Staring back at Twilight in the mirror was… herself. It was her own face. The face in the mirror blinked when she did. She raised her eyebrows, and the mirror girl did too.

Twilight lowered her arm and looked down at her body. Her height was the same as she made her avatar the same height as her real body, but now her proportions were exactly like her real body too. This is insane…

“Right now, you are probably wondering why. Why would Akihiko Kayaba, developer of Sword Art Online and Nervegear, do this? Ultimately, my goal was a simple one. The reason I created Sword Art Online was to control the fate of a world of my design.”

Huh? The heck is that supposed to mean? What kind of an explanation is that?

“As you can see, I have achieved my goal. This marks the end of the tutorial and the official launch of Sword Art Online. Players, I wish you the best of luck.”

And with that, the enormous red robe slowly dissolved into smoke, leaving nearly ten thousand players gaping at the empty space before them.

Unsurprisingly, panic quickly ensued. People began shouting obscenities, prayers, cries for help, or were just screaming, and a bunch of people started pushing each other towards the exits of the main plaza.

Shoot. Twilight jumped over the bench she had been standing next to and rushed around the mob heading for the north gate. She sprinted out of the town and slowed to a walk. People started rushing past her, running to nowhere particular. No one seemed to realize if they were afraid of dying, the safest place was the town. People apparently just wanted to run. Twilight kept walking, ignoring the rush of people on either side of her. A lot of them were bumping into her arms in their panic. Twilight was unfazed, her head held low.

Okay. Let’s see. How much of that is true? Probably all of it. Wait. Not the last thing. The reason he created SAO? That’s… most likely complete bull. But he had to say something. Kayaba… Obviously, the reason Sword Art Online was created was for the same reason any other company makes a video game: to sell a product and make a profit. But the development costs of the Nervegear had to have been astronomical. Only ten thousand launch copies of SAO surely can’t turn a profit with costs that high. Maybe he thought his game was going under and he just cracked? No… the Nervegear had to have been designed with the microwave signal in the first place. So what then?

“None of this makes sense…” Twilight mumbled and rubbed her head. So what do I do? She looked up at the artificial sky above her. What… can I do?

Her step wavered a little as she came to sit down with her back against a tree. She gripped her own arms in a futile attempt at self-comfort. I’m stuck...we’re ALL stuck… Inside this… giant metal death trap. She felt her breath quicken, practically hyperventilating once more. Everything here… is out to kill us. To kill me. It’s only a matter of time...

She held her head in her hands holding back tears, too terrified to utter a sound. None of this makes any sense. Why? Why, why, why, why, why?

“You!”

Twilight, who didn’t notice the steps approaching her, opened her teary eyes to see a pair of white booted feet a bit to her left.

She looked up at a rather short girl glaring daggers at her. Twilight rubbed one of her eyes with the back of her right hand.

This girl looked to only be about thirteen or fourteen but was showing no signs of fear at being presented with such heart-crushing news.

“Huh?” Twilight croaked out lamely.

The irritated stranger pointed a finger at her with such force that Twilight flinched. “I recognize you. I saw you training earlier.”

Twilight rubbed her other eye clear. “So?”

“So what the hell are you doing moping around?! You should be fighting already!” With each accented word, she jabbed her pointing finger again in Twilight’s direction.

“...Huh?” Twilight repeated.

The other girl facepalmed with the hand previously used to point. “Ugh!” Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Why is someone as good at this game as you just sitting around?!” She practically spat out each word. “The only way out of this game is to finish it! So what are you waiting around for?!” She reached down and yanked on one of Twilight’s arms to pull her to her feet.

“What are-” Twilight was pulled up so hard she nearly fell forward and on her face.

“Don’t ask me what I’m doing! I’m keeping your sorry ass from stalling our way out of here any longer than it already will be!” She blew a strand of brunette hair out of her eye. “Stupid game,” she mumbled. “That doesn’t happen nearly this often in the real world. Need a hair tie or something… even a damn bow…”

Twilight could only stare at this other girl. She was… awfully forward. But while not exactly the most polite way to say it in the world… she was right. The longer I mope about, the longer it’ll take to escape here...

Twilight took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right. Though I’m not really sure what it is you see in me, everyone needs to be working towards clearing the game.”

All she got in return was a “Hm? You say something?” As the other girl turned back towards Twilight, probably pondering solutions to the inconvenience that was her hair.

Twilight sighed. “Thanks for cheering me up, however weirdly you managed to do it. I’m Twilight Sparkle.” She extended a hand, but the other girl was already turned around again and walking away. “Uh…” Her arm fell back to her side.

“...Did I ask?”

Actually, maybe it’s better we don’t become friends after all.

After this thought from Twilight, there came an overly-exaggerated sigh in front of her.

“Uuuuggghhh. Name’s Lucky. See you around, Sparkles.”

She almost couldn’t hear it, because Lucky never even slowed her gait and was still turned around. “O...kay…” Twilight mumbled. She dusted herself off and sighed. So what now? Obviously, I play the game. Everything’s just… Yuck. This mood is terrible. Maybe I’ll start tomorrow. But…

Twilight suddenly had a frightening thought. What if one or more of her friends were playing SAO? What if one was already dead?! She vaguely remembered hearing about a stone monolith in town from the beta with every tester’s name and the number of times they died. That seemed pretty weird back then, but maybe now it…

Twilight rushed back into town. She found the monolith in a building near the very center, a cathedral. It was a large smooth black stone wall, the only thing in the room. Etched into the stone were a bunch of names. These… must be the dead players.

Twilight approached the left side of the wall. The writing was pretty small. I suppose it has to be, if it can fit up to 10,000 names… she pushed that thought out of her head and scanned the list of dead players. None she recognized immediately. What if they were using a different name, though? She couldn’t know for sure.

Twilight was about to leave the cathedral when another name appeared on it. It wasn’t someone she knew either, but the idea made her feel sick to her stomach. People are dying right now. And they’ll keep dying.

She finally left and found an inn. She checked into a room for the night, ignoring everything else around her. She sat on her bed and opened the menu again, and tapped the population number, which was now 9,714. What appeared was a list of every single username in the game.

She spent over an hour, feverishly scrolling down the list, praying to whatever gods she could think of that she wouldn’t find any name she recognized.

Over three quarters of the way through the list, Twilight was starting to feel a little hopeful. There wasn’t anyone so far. Then, around the end of the S’s, she read a name that made her heart sink.

Sunset.

Comments

[MrAskAPirate]

Ooh, I've read a number of SAO crossovers/inspired stories, but even so this one has managed to pique my interest!

s6.postimg.org/5ul2jmext/continue_Monkey.jpg

Also:

*ten seconds to swap between a sword and magic*

As someone who plays a ton of MMOs, ten seconds might as well be an eternity,

I'm gonna go out on a limb and theorize that the thing that NPC woman's husband set out to make was a sword that could also be used as a magic implement, allowing the player that wields it to skip having to switch weapons in the middle of a fight... though the MMO player in me wonders if being able to switch between weapon sets isn't something you unlock at a higher level anyway?

[ParodiaTheSilent]

8197323

As someone who plays a ton of MMOs, ten seconds might as well be an eternity

As someone who plays a ton of MMOs, by the time ten seconds is up, you're probably dead if you can't move during those ten seconds.

[ParodiaTheSilent]

8197323
As an aside, I'm pretty sure lots of MMOs in which you can switch between weapons allow for the nigh-instantaneous weapon swap at a higher level.