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Gamer Beware (Candira and Jugger)

Candira

Candira

Singularity
Joined
Jan 9, 2009
The day had finally arrived for the release of Sword Art Online. Though she hadn't been a beta tester, the leaks that had been spread around on the internet were enough to pique Natalie's interest in the game. Before she knew it, she was camping out in line with other eager gamers, waiting to get their hands on the limited number of copies. And then, after she'd gotten home, she'd plugged herself into the nervegear and plunged into the world of SAO. In the game she had a slightly taller avatar, curvy with simple but nice enough armor. She was a fairly modestly dressed player for a game like this. Her red hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail as she wandered the streets of the town of beginnings, simply exploring.

Before long she was out in the fields to try out the combat system. She knew the basics thanks to the guide that had been put out by the beta testers, but it was something else to experience it first-hand! Natalya, her avatar looked so graceful, it was easy to feel that way, too. She kept working on her techniques, and before she knew it the fields started to fill up with other new players. She smiled and stood around to watch, claiming experience now and then when she took on the boars.
 
Nathan's image = Avatar
His armor = http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs37/f/2008/279/5/d/Dark_Swordsman_by_Chillymunster.jpg

Nathan watched as some woman had arrived and begun to start slaying boars left and right. He wondered how easy this game was. Then again, he wondered about all the possibilities this game had. The game was actual virtual reality, after all. And users could choose what their character's image looked like. Though, Nathan prefered to look like himself...not wanting to hide behind a persona to seem cool, to be someone that he wasn't in real life; even if that was the point of MMO games most of the time for most of the people. He shrugged and picked up his greatsword and held it with both hands, holding it against his shoulder as he approached a boar that was behind her and began to use his techniques to easily take out the boar, though with slower attack speed given the fact his sword's item class listed it as a large weapon. Once the boar disappeared, he smiled and greeted the girl. "Hello there...I was wondering. Do you know what to do? This MMO seems like every other MMO game...except its VI. All we do is hunt and shop? Doesn't seem like much of a point."
 
Her first player to player interaction was with a young man. Or at least, that's what his avatar looked like. Then again, hers wasn't all that different from the way she looked in real life, either--taller, perhaps, and a bit longer hair. Otherwise, though, she was pretty much the same, red eyes included. But those thoughts were pushed to the back of his head as he asked her a question.

"Hm? Oh, hello. Well, the object of the game is to make it through the 99 floors of this place. Each one is supposed to be unique and offer more than the last in terms of player enjoyment and difficulty. I don't think it's something you can do by yourself though--it seems like you would need a party to make it through everything. And there are different quests you can take on to earn different skills," she said, thinking over the helpful booklet the players had received with the games. In it had been information from the beta testers. It would prove to be helpful as they wandered through, no doubt.

Just then, a charging boar caught her attention. In the blink of an eye, she had out her rapier and was attacking the monster that was rushing at them. In a flash of color, the opponent was defeated with the use of Natalie's skills. Pleased with herself, she turned to face her new friend. "Sorry about that. I didn't want to alarm you. I'm Natalya," she said, referring to her username since it was impolite to use her real one. "Who are you?"
 
Nathan pointed to the indicator above his head. It simply read 'Nathan' on the username logo. "Real name, real identity. This world of ours with a virtual game as real as this, I expect a lot of fake people to show up and put on personas that they don't have. I'm going to be one of the people that keeps my real identity." He said in a somewhat annoyed voice, as if something had happened when it came to a MMO game. He unsheathed his greatsword and held it against the ground with one hand and looked around. No boars were targetting them, so it would be safe to speak. "So. I saw you fight and I think I could use you...er...Uh...By that, I simply mean as an ally. You may have noticed my sword? The power on it is very much devestating, even for our low levels...but I lack speed. Your rapier, on the other hand, is a fast weapon, faster than mosts from my self-gained knowledge from observation...So then...Party up?"
 
Surprised that he would give out such personal information about himself, Natalya found his attitude a bit reckless. Normally, it wasn't the type of person she liked to team up with, but he was a refreshingly honest player who had a point--he had a big sword and could do heavy damage. He would just do it very slowly. She, on the other hand, had speed and agility on her side, thanks to the rapier. Theoretically, they would be a good team. Besides, there was no law that said they had to stay together.

She sheathed her sword for the time being, satisfied that the boars wouldn't respawn near them, and held out her hand in friendship.

"Sure. Let's party up for the time being." Still, for the time being she would release her personal, real life info. That seemed a bit too much of a step for now.
 
He nodded. "Strength in numbers, Natalya." He replied and had drawn his sword once more to start attacking boars. He was...quiet the entire time they grinded. He killed boars and aided her, and none of them came to any close calls of death. "So...This is it pretty much...Just killing these animals or are we going to do some quests or something?" Nathan sheathed his sword when he saw the surrounding enemies were all defeated and none had respawned yet. "Lets head into town. I'm running low on crystals and I'd rather not make a fool of myself and die from an animal such as these." Though...something was off just then. The world around him, he had finally noticed was illuminated in the orange simulated glow of the sunlight. "Its this late already...Its about time for me to log out actually..." He murmured and began to attempt to log out...but frowned. "This is weird...How do I log out exactly?"

(Quick question. The anime in the first few episodes made it seem like Asuna was short sighted with her vision, and I didn't get past episode 8 1/2 I believe. Did they ever expand on that on the anime or the manga?)
 
"No, nothing like that. We're leveling up out here and getting used to the basics," she said with a smile. "We have plenty of quests ahead, and then eventually, we'll be ready to move to the next level of the tower. I hear the higher up you go, the better the towns, the equipment, and everything," she said with a smile. She was all for heading back when he mentioned being low on crystals, but a bit put out when he said he wanted to log out. "Oh, okay. It was fun," Natalya offered, watching him try to log out. Surprised that he couldn't, she tried the same. "That's odd. It must be a glitch or something. Let's head back to town and see if there's an announcement or something."

(Like short-sighted in her goals? Or what? I never read the manga, but I saw the anime on crunchyroll.com. Her character does get fleshed out a lot more and her goals change over time as well.)
 
(Like literally she is short-sighted in her vision I mean.)

"Right...Town..." He murmured as he looked to the town gates on the distance. It wasn't far. "Lets go- Wait what...?" He looked around as his character was enveloped in some sort of capsule which then closed around him and transported him to some colosseum within the town. He looked around as other players began to start forming around him as well, and when he saw Natalya, he walked over to her. "Whats going on here...? Why were we teleported here?"

(And sorry for a short post)
 
(Oh. No they never talk about it)

Natalya was just as surprised about being transported. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before in any other game she'd ever played. She was back in the town in the Colosseum with what looked like every other player on the server. Just what was going on? As though he'd read her mind, Nathan appeared at her side asking her that very same thing. Shrugging and at a loss, the woman looked around. "I don't know. Nothing like this has ever happened before..."

And then, the creator of SAO appeared as a giant in the sky above them. A sweeping declaration was made and a challenge was issued: "You cannot log out of the game until someone wins." Anyone who died in the game would die in reality. Absolutely shocked, people started to panic. A few made the mistake of trying to remove their nerve gear. Those people died, as evidenced by the news program that was being broadcast through the world.

Eyes wide, Natalya felt herself go weak, her eyes widening. And finally, to remove all hope of anonymity, the avatars of the characters were altered to look exactly like the out-of-game players. The people, now feeling weak and afraid began to panic more wildly and without thinking, Natalya's hand reached out to Nathan's. She held it tight and turned to look at him, looking much the same, but a bit shorter and with blue eyes instead of red. "We need to get out of here," she said, hoping that he would come with her. Being alone in this world didn't seem at all like a good option.
 
When he saw the characters begin to start glowing and transforming into different forms, he frowned. His wasn't as dramatic...His eyes glowed and his character seemed to shrink. When the light left his eyes, they were azure blue. Feeling his hand being held by hers, he frowned and looked to her. "Who are you exactly?" He said with a serious face and then smirked slightly and patted the girl on the head. "Kidding..." He seemed to be forcing some...positive aura on the situation, but it was clear that even he was disturbed by what was going on. He held her hand right back and turned to leave, taking her out of the colloseum and into the town, almost running into a boy with another, taller red headed one that ran by. "We need to be careful...If we die, we die. We can't just throw ourselves into danger...And the only way is to beat the 100 floors...And this is only the first floor, and we barely leveled up more than once..."
 
Natalya took a deep breath, glad that Nathan seemed to be so calm. It really helped to know that he was pretty much what he'd seemed to be. It helped that he was making jokes. She smiled gratefully and let him pat her head. He would have had to have been made of stone to be unaffected by what was happening around them, but it was good to know that he was handling it. She squeezed his hand and followed him back into the town. "People are panicking. Sticking around isn't very wise if we want to avoid dying. And if we stay here, it's unlikely we'll gain enough experience to move on. And we have to move on."
 
"With our level, I'm sure it would be alright for us to stick here for a bit..." He frowned. "Though it might be crowded, indeed...Do we really want to risk moving onto monsters that are like two levels higher? I think we'd be safe together so long as we do not separate when we level up...We should hurry then. People might already begin forming ideas to go out and fight the surrounding monsters for experience. Lets get out of here before they see us and do the same thing. I'll follow your lead. You're the party leader here."
 
"We'll be okay as long as we're together," she said, holding his hand. At that moment, she truly believed in what she said. Holding hands, they managed to get out of town without much trouble. She let him go once they were out in the field. "Low level monsters will be guarding the path between us and the next town. Let's get to the next place and work from there as a home base," she said, trying to find the best way to go about it all.
 
"Lets just be careful, okay? I don't want either of us to die. I don't know if what he said is true or not, but we seriously can't log out so we have no choice but to be cautious of this new information." He frowned and began to leave the safety of the town gates. He saw boars out in the distance. "Lets try and fight only the ones we have to and lets not die. We gotta hurry to the next town right? Then we can stock up on supplies there and then farm experience on the surrounding enemies, which have got to be stronger than these stupid boars."
 
She nodded in complete agreement with Nathan. It was frankly amazing how cool he was staying under the significant pressure of their situation. "Right. Let's be really careful." And with that, she took a deep breath and walked out of the city with him. Luckily, they only had to kill a few of the boars and the new enemies between the Town of Beginnings and the next were pretty sparse along the path. When they made it to the next town, Natalya thought she'd never been so relieved before in her life.

Pleased that they'd made it, she smiled brightly at Nathan and put her hand on his shoulder. "Great job! We did it. Now, we should stock up on supplies."
 
"Yeah...But its late...and I really feel fatigued. Its weird how we can really feel exhausted in a game...We need to sleep. Lets go buy two inn rooms. I have some loot to sell. It should be enough for one night for the both of us, assuming boar meat and boar tusks can fetch a decent enough price in the market." He sighed. "What do you have? We'll need to try and save up for supplies as well...I'll buy the inn rooms if you buy the supplies for the both of us."
 
"That sounds like a good plan to me," she said thinking it over. "Well I earned a pretty decent amount of money for supplies, but I could sell some of my things for a little extra. We could always go out and hunt for more tomorrow. We should get some food too. I'm starting to feel hungry. Let's save some of the boar meat. I'll boost my cooking skills and we can eat that." She smiled and then opened up her menus to do just that.
 
"Cook out here in the open? It would be best if we just get the inn first, eat there...and then we go buy supplies. Besides, won't the inn have a kitchen or something which will prevent you from messing up or anything...?" He questioned as he did not fully know the mechanics that came to the cooking system on this game. "Though...try not to poison me, alright?" He chuckled as he began to trudge along to look for an inn using his map.
 
"Oh, I'm just leveling up my stats right now," she said with a smile. "You're right, though. We should get to the inn first." She took his hand in hers as they both trudged along together. They found an inn in their price range that included food in the fee and Natalya gave up her cooking scheme for the time being. "Oh, I wouldn't end up poisoning you. The worst that would happen is that it wouldn't come out right--like it would burn or something. But it's probably best to just sell the meat now and rely on the food we can buy."
 
He laughed lightly. "Thats good to hear...I wouldn't want to be dead because of some bad food preparation..." He grinned and agreed with her. "Anything we can buy. Supplies and all that. Gotta sell our current stuff first to afford a night and some supplies...Shouldn't be that much." Nathan walked with her to the market, and sold all the boar meat and furs that he managed to loot off of the bodies he had helped her defeat. He came out with a decent amount of coins for their level. "This is good enough...Lets get to buying that inn and using these food items...I'm really hungry, actually..." He replied as he felt his stomach grumble.
 
She walked with him to market place and sold most of her unnecessary items as well. They had a good deal of gold between the two of them now that everything was finished off. "First let's get some food," she said with a smile. "Then we can head to the inn." It seemed like a reasonable plan. If she went to bed now, she wouldn't want to get up to do anything. The game was draining--the emotional distress would have been taxing enough, but then there was the fact that she was actually fighting monsters, and the strategy needed would require a good deal of thought. Sighing softly, she looked around and found a cheap food stand. the item descriptions promised simple dishes that filled one up. She could only hope that it turned out alright.
 
When he bought the two of them something to eat...he was hesitant at first. Indeed he was hungry but...He was worried at the same time. What of his body in the real world? How would he be able to live if he wasn't able to sustain himself? People would probably eventually die out due to this...or would the helmets provide life for them? That'd be impossible...He was curious as to what this all would mean for them in the future. He sighed...and took a bite and enjoyed it. "It...tastes good actually...I can really taste this. But..." He smiled and shook his head. "No...Nevermind...Lets just eat and get to an inn so we can buy the room out for a day and then we go out to farm some experience."
 
She knew what was troubling him. Honestly, it was bothering her, too. She might be found, but there was no real guarantee. And even if they found her--what would they do? It was best to focus on living here in the game. There was nothing she could do about her circumstances. She ate her fill and thanked him for the food. Natalya thought it tasted pretty good for being on the first floor of the game. When they were both finished, she used her map to find the nearest inn, and set off with her partner in all of this.

"I don't know about you, but I'm tired. I wonder if I'll be able to sleep," she said, frowning a little. It would be difficult to let herself relax enough to get the rest she needed. Maybe if he stayed with her?
 
"You know..." He said as he moved a bit closer to her as they walked. "I don't mind sleeping beside you if you need someone...?" He said and smiled to her. "If you need some company in bed...I'm here." Nathan looked to her and winked a bit...trying to ease up the situation with small humor. The two of them were scared. It was obvious. But they needed to work together if they were going to survive this. Tension like this is unwanted, and it would only make things worse when they go out into the field. Even the slightest of hesitation could get them killed. "Lets find an inn, and buy a bed for two?"
 
When he suggested staying with her, she was honestly relieved. She laughed at his wink and figured that his innuendo was more a joke than anything. Maybe he needed comfort too. And if he wanted to stay with her in the same bed, she had no problem. Besides, it was probably cheaper that way. Glad that Nathan was with her, she began to relax a bit more. "Yeah. Let's do that," she said with a smile.

It would take her awhile to get used to this kind of life, and she was worried about her real body. But she needed to focus on the reality she was facing here and now. So she decided to give it her all...tomorrow. For now she needed to get this fear, this insane need to be close to someone, out of her system.
 
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