[SP-F1] «Right Before the Game» {COMPLETED}

[Echo 0]

I walked around the Town of Beginnings, finishing up the errands I have before I move on to the next floor for good. I looked around the Town of Beginnings, and it seems like it wasn't busy as usual. I looked around trying to at least spot a player, but only NPC's. I walked towards an Inn, and ordered a day for a room. "100 Col per day. Here's your key." The Inn-Keeper said, as I walk upstairs into my room. I threw myself on the bed, and started to fall asleep. "The Death G-Game.." I said before I fell into a deep slumber.

[Echo 0]

Female announcer voice:

Welcome to Sword Art Online! In this improved and perfected world you can experience all the amazement of the original game in a new and safer environment. Please select the main details of you're character.

A screen showing my body exactly how it was appeared right in front of me in mid air. I chose the lightest armor and gear. Not that there was much to begin with.

[Echo 0]

Please select you're weapon that you will use in combat.

A different screen appeared in front of me showing all types of weapons. They were all slashing weapons along with a few type of staffs and even bows and arrows. I was about to choose the heavy two-handed sword when I saw a better weapon. With no hesitation I clicked it and a weapon appeared strapped to my waist.

One-handed sword, shieldless. Is this the weapon you want to use, and bring with you to battle? The voice said as it pooped up a screen in front of me with a or . I hit the and felt my entire body suddenly digitize.

With this weapon you're attack and speed will rise throughout you're gameplay but you're defense will fall. When you reach a high level you will be given a extra skill to raise you're fighting performance. You will be given you're first quest right after the tutorial. Would you like to start the tutorial?

"No I'm familiar with the controls of the game." I said before the tutorial screen even appeared.

[Echo 0]

Very well you will be sent into the game right after you tell us you're name. The voice said as it popped up a screen with a key board. I forgot all about what to call my character. I typed in a name and pressed continue. Echo, is this correct?

"Yes." I replied.

Then enjoy the online phenomenon that is Sword Art Online.

I quickly staggered, and fell before the voice ended its sentence.

[Echo 0]

I woke up, after the voice said that I was teleported to the Town of Beginnings. When I got there the place was packed. I could swear I saw more than 1000 players there. I tried to find a quest but I had no luck. All the quest were taken. After a while I walked pass the forest looking for enemies. If I'm not mistaken I could swear I had killed about 7 Frenzy Boars, and 10 Dire Wolves. I was only level four by then. After a while I saw someone under a tree with all its leaves on the ground. When she saw me she ran towards me and grabbed my hand.

"Please help me mister." The girl who looked like she had ten years of age said to me sounding worried. She didn't have a name or health bar so she must be a quest giver. "Would you accept my quest?" She told me as a message appeared right in front of me. I accepted it and soon after the girl pulled me over to the tree.

[Echo 0]

"This tree was my favorite one in the entire forest. Could you please harvest the fruit so that I can plant a new one please?" With the adorable look on her face I could never say no. I told her I would get it for her and she looked very excited. She pointed to the biggest plum I had ever seen.

"If you can get me that big plum, I'll give you a great reward." She said looking at me with her puppy dog eyes. I smiled at her before I started climbing up the big tree. As I climbed up I saw that one of the plums was right at my reach. I grabbed it and as I took a bite I felt my speed go up quickly. Before I knew it I was already half way up the tree. This dried up plum tree was bigger that a normal one, but I guess it's just part of the quest.

These fruits could boost my gameplay a lot. Every time I grabbed a plum it would go straight into my inventory. Once I gathered a few plums I got to the biggest one of them all and piked it. I raised it up and showed it to the girl and saw her smile with excitement. I suddenly felt the branch I was on break as as I fell to the floor I flailed. I hit the ground with my arms around my chest to try and soften the fall, but it only made it hurt even more. In the game you only feel pain for a few seconds but its still pain. The girl ran up to me and turned me over.

[Echo 0]

"Are you okay mister, are you hurt?" She said as I pulled out the big plum from in between my arms. She quickly grabbed it and helped me up. I noticed my life bar was in the yellow zone because of the fall, but the look on that little girl's face was a reward enough. "Mister I can't thank you enough for you're help. I think it's time to tell you the truth."

"What do you mean?" I said rubbing the back of my head. Confused on how this conversation was still going on. Aren't NPC's like robots. They shouldn't even be able to reply to anything I say. I thought to myself, and I looked back at the little girl to see what she had to say.

[Echo 0]

"I'm actually a really rare quest giver that will give you three special items. The first one is this plum." She said forcibly feeding me the plum. I took a bite out of it and felt rejuvenated. Suddenly a screen apeared right in front of me saying I have received a new ability called, «Agility».

"That's the rare ability called agility. It will boost you're speed to outrun or outmatch you're enemies." The girl then pulled out two items to materialize. They landed on her hands and handed them to me.

These were my big brother's clothes but I think they'll fit you better than they did on him." She said as I grabbed the items and the items appeared in my inventory.

[Echo 0]

"Come on try on the clothes. I want to see how they look." She said looking at me with those eyes again. I smiled as I looked through my inventory and equipped the two pieces of equipment. It was a white trench coat with black outlines on the end of the sleeves, and on the end of the torso. I also put on the white pants that were also part of the reward. It's a good thing it wasn't one of those skimpy pants, those look disturbing. I'm still surprised that there were these type of NPC's in a MMO like this.

[Echo 0]

"You're quest is complete, and you've claimed the rewards." The little girl said looking really excited. "To be honest, you even look a little like my big brother." she said, as she smiled at me.

"Okay, little girl. I've got to go, so please take care and when the plum tree you plant grows, message me." I said leaving the girl under the tree. As I walked away I looked back and saw the little girl eating the rest of the plum and waving goodbye. I waved back and headed back to The Town of Beginnings.

[Echo 0]

A while later as I walked down the path I felt tired and a little out of breath. My stamina was close to empty, so I needed to rest. I had walked a long way and since I don't have a teleport crystal yet I can't fast travel. I decided to rest in the meadow near by. I sat down next to a tree and felt something in the back pocket. I took it out to find was a small box with what looked like a sword symbol on it. I looked on its summary in the menu and found it was a Uncommon item. I was curious about the weapon, and wanted to open the box.

[Echo 0]

I thought about it a bit, and will save it for a better time. Right now I had to rest from all that walking. "Walking in game is quite tiring. I now know how my characters feel when I force them to run with no stamina." I laughed joking about the comment I made. The game was just like real life, with a touch of monsters. I enjoyed it, but right now I still had so many things to do, so I can save everyone from this hell.

[Echo 0]

As I layed down on the meadow, I look up into the sky. "There's so much to do on Sword Art Online." I said to myself. I sat up quickly realizing that I couldn't remember what happened before I came to this game. I'm a senior in high school, and I was a very bad student. What else? I thought to myself. I tried my best to remember but nothing came to my mind. I placed my hand on my head. What if I had something important? I thought to myself.

[Echo 0]

I gave up on trying to remember, so I placed the little box back in my packet where I found it and layed on the soft grass. I was slowly falling asleep when all of a sudden I felt a tingling sensation pass through my entire body. I was forced to teleport back to the Town of Beginning. Something was very wrong. Before I could do anything, everyone was stuck in the central plaza of the Town of Beginning. In that moment, I opened the box, and suddenly a window popped up.

Echo, you have received the heavy one-handed sword, Eterna, +1 Damage

[Echo 0]

I appeared in the Town of Beginning surrounded by other players. Compared to the others I was lower class and underpowered. My strongest weapon was "Eterna" that girl left for me. People were panicking and trying to use there teleport crystals to escape, but none of them worked. I saw people together and even more people joining parties. I was all alone and at a low level I couldn't survive that long. I thought if I could find someone that was a few levels higher than me I'd be safe, but at the moment I saw something that made a chill go down everyone's backs.

[Echo 0]

There was a red hexagon flashing up on it. I heard someone scream out like if someone had died. Soon enough everyone started panicking, all except me. I was in denial and as the sky was filled with those warnings. I screamed out, "N-NO! IT CAN'T BE HIM. HE'S DEAD, ISN'T HE?" The people around me looked at me horrified as blood started to flow from in between the warning signs. People started to scream even more as Akihiko Kayaba started to appear in front of everyone.

[Echo 0]

"Welcome all to Sword Art Online!" he said with a deep voice.

Everyone panicked and stated to scream until Kayaba moved his hand forward. I felt like if something clinched my neck not letting me talk. My eyes were glued to him along with everyone else.

"Now that I have all you're attention I may introduce myself. My name is Akihiko Kayaba the creator of Sword Art Online. You are no longer here by choice. Much like the last players from the original version of this game you're forced to stay in this world until someone defeats the final boss at Floor One hundred. I will not lie to any of you so I will come out clean. I rebuilt the Castle of Aincrad to finish my research on how to control the human brain, but no worries I will be fare to all the players and not interfere with all of you. This is the only time that I will appear in this form. Once the game is complete I will congratulate that person myself. Since you all need a good reason to keep playing, I will give you more than one. First off all of you have stumbled upon some rare items. Those people can keep their rewards for the simple task they had been given."

[Echo 0]

I looked around and heard players cursing at the players who got the rare drops. Now no one would let me in their party if they knew I had such a rare item and kept it to myself or worse. They would try and steal it from me using any means necessary.

"Now, now there's no need to get upset over this because I have given each of you a special gift. Check your inventory and see for yourselves."

At that moment everyone had taken out a mirror from their inventory now that Kayaba had let us move free willingly we all looked into the mirror that was in our inventory and transformed into how we actually looked. My character actually looked like me, but they gave me my white hair. Since I'm tall for my age, people would look at me older than how I actually was. I saw other people who turned from super stars to not so super.

[Echo 0]

"Now that I also took the liberty of paring up the people who need help. One of them will be teleported into the forest and the other one will look for their partner across the entire forest using a specia map. If you can find you're partner before the end of the day or before one of you parishes you will both be given a double EXP bonus for every monster you defeat within the quest. After you complete or fail the quest you will go to the inn the center of town to group up."

"Last but not least if your HP goes to zero your real body won't perish but your mind will be trapped in the game's mainframe to be used for experimentation. No one will actually die, but if every player is defeated you will ALL become my test subjects. Enjoy." The sick twisted Akihiko Kayaba disappeared into black smoke before the sky turned back to normal. I suddenly saw people disappear from the Town of Beginning and right in front of me a screen appeared showing me where to find my new partner. The quest said, "Find your partner before midnight or feel responsible for their death." I felt a chill go down my back and saw the information of the person I needed to find.

Name: %^&*^^&%^&*

Sex: F

Age: XX

Level: X

Location: Middle of the Forest next to a waterfall moving slowly.

"Will you find your partner?"

[Echo 0]

A question box appeared with blue for yes and red for no. I looked at the photo of the girl, and fell to my knees. My head started to hurt. I placed my hand on my head, and felt I had known her forever. I could never live with myself if I let her die. I pressed the yes button and saw the screen fade. I then raced out of the Town of Beginning and bought a teleport crystal. As soon as I got it I tested it out and teleported to the entrance of the forest.