For a moment, it felt like Kazuto was swimming in a massive pool of the fizzy Orange Smash that he'd just finished draining a can of in the real world. All floaty weightlessness and a strange tingling sensation all throughout his 'body' as his brain struggled to comprehend the sensations it was being subjected to. Everything was white yet grey yet black, complete and utter sensory deprivation.



First came sight. It happened all at once, the indescribable void becoming an equally void-ish yet comprehensible expanse of bright whiteness. A spinning blue disc hovered before Kazuto, stamped quite helpfully with the word SIGHT, before sliding off to the side. A second appeared in a hurry, as if 'stamped' on his eyes, accompanied by a satisfying and almost retro series of bleeps and bloops. HEARING flew off to be with SIGHT to be replaced by TOUCH, and at last the strange feeling of floating dispersed. The virtual Kazuto found his footing in the white void as TASTE and SMELL flew past, practically afterthoughts. A black slate, nothing than basic textures thrown over a wireframe of his measurements. Soon to be replaced.



"Character creation," Kazuto told the void, and the Sword Art Online logo flared brightly before him as the generator loaded. A soothing orchestra filled the 'air' as the character generation screen loaded in before him, his nose filled with the scent of fresh forest air. A soft-spoken narrator exposited the game's backstory, but Kazuto tuned it out. He'd only half-listened in the beta, and even then he'd assumed it was a placeholder. Not a good sign as far as worldbuilding quality went but hey, at least the gameplay made up for it.



He cycled through the races, ever-so-briefly considering a female toon. He'd tried it during the beta, and the dissonance was so crazy he'd practically wigged out after ten minutes. Nah, no point assuming that that had been fixed. Besides, he already had a fair idea of what he wanted to look like. Selecting Spriggan for the drop-rate bonus, he dismissed the 'would you like us to make your character look like you?' popup before it even finished loading. He twiddled his fingers in glee and went to work, molding his avatar like a master sculptor, sliders and presets replaced by manipulating the computer-generated creature with his own hands. Virtual hands, but the feeling was the same. It made him remember the hours he used to spend as a kid on his very first RPGs, taking forever to make sure that his character was just so.



They usually wound up off-camera or covered by helmets, and he'd never see his own SAO avatar, but still. It was the little things that counted.



Kazuto stepped back from his avatar, taking one last look. A six-foot Spriggan stood before him, decked out in the default equipment of the Swordsman starter class. Nut-brown skin automatically darkened by racial modifiers, built like a marathon runner, draped in a ragged coat stitched together from three different types of leather and a hooded cloak to match. The hood was down for the preview, allowing Kazuto to get a good look at 'his' head. Pointy ears, suitably shonen-spiked black hair, and serious black eyes. He nodded - good enough.



"Log in," he said.



The white void rushed around him like a hurricane, and for a moment he was robbed of his senses once more. Then, like taking an unexpected yet harmless fall, he felt himself thump down on solid ground. He was now his avatar, the virtual creation he'd fashioned for himself, standing on a slice of cobblestone road about as big as two dinner plates set down side by side. As he watched, more 'slices' of the world began to slot into place, merging seamlessly as if there had never been a division. As the world beneath his feet expanded, his other senses returned to him again too. He smelled the fresh, forested air once more. A tree slotted into place in a patch of grass to the side of the path, and a pair of birds in a nest among its boughs twittered audibly. The process seemed to speed up exponentially, rushing from him in a great wave, until a town seemed to construct itself before his eyes a hundred metres or so down the road. The golden light of midmorning fell warmly on his face, and as he finally took his first step inside Aincrad in six months, the world was exactly as he remembered it.



Well. Not quite. The beta had a lot less newbies spawning in amid a flurry of blooming particle effects and falling flat on their faces. From the amount of thumping collisions, of faces meeting floor, you'd think that a whole lot of spiked punch had just taken effect. Kirito let out an especially loud "snrk" as a rose-haired Salamander performed an astounding Three Stooges-esque pratfall onto his rear.



"Yeah yeah laugh it up," he grumbled, clambering to his feet and clanking like a sack full of kitchenware. He was the very idea of 'samurai' at first glance, armour and hair and all. The lack of katana somewhat marred the image, what with being a bit too powerful for starter gear, so he was stuck with a common-quality ninjato. At least he was on the Japan server and speaking fluent Japanese - Kirito did not want his first contact in SAO to be with a ginormous weeb.



"Take it you're new to VR games in general?" Kirito asked with more than a hint of smug, bending over to dust the other player off. All around them, other new players spawned in and slowly congregated in loose, chatting groups. The guys who'd picked Human were far and away having an easier time of it, and you could especially tell the ones who'd picked toons close to their real-life proportions.



"No! I mean... ehh?" The Salamander shrugged, then ruffled his own hair. "I mean I've had a set of 'Gear for a while now, but I've never played the really deep-immersion stuff. More into the AR stuff. Totally wigged out when I tried to play GunGale that one time. You?"



"You didn't miss much," Kirito laughed. "GunGale's unbalanced as all hell. I mean, the game shows you bullet trajectories. And I don't mean just for your guns, I mean everyone else's too. You can literally dodge bullets forever if you've got the stats for it. I mean snipers don't but-"



"Oh wait, that's where I know you from!" the Salamander exclaimed suddenly, cutting Kirito off. He was staring at empty space a little ways above Kirito's head. "Sorry, just worked out how to see avatar names. You're the Kirito? The guy that won the tournament last year?"



Kirito acted humble, but in truth he was swelling with pride that an average player (aka filthy casual) had recognized him by screen name alone. "Yeeeeaaaaah that was me. I mean, it was no biggie, but still. Oh and before you say anything-" He held up a finger before the Salamander could speak again and squinted at the space above his head "-Klllllein (hope I said that right), that video of me blocking a sniper round with the sword is staged as hell. Took me thirty takes to get the timing down."



"And? It was still impossibly sweet," Klein retorted.



Kirito snorted. "Yeah, little bit of that too." He grinned. "So, rolled a Salamander Warrior, huh? You a min-maxer like me or are you just roleplaying?"



"What, because they get higher strength?"



"Oh, well there's this hidden Luck stat that affects the item drop tables and Spriggans get an across-the-board boost and a bit more for Rares and Uniques but Salamanders get this special circumstantial bonus to weapon drop-rates so it's way easier for them to get new swords and stuff without having to farm forever and on top of that they've got bonuses to durability rates so their stuff lasts a lot longer and then Fire magic comes in and I've totally lost you haven't I?"



Klein blinked. "... nnnnnooooo?"



"... ohhhh, right, right. That's not actually in the race-selection screen, they just gave that stuff to us so we could test if the modifiers worked right."



Klein practically did a double-take. "Wait, you're a beta-tester?"



Kirito polished his nails on his coat and swaggered a little. "Well I'm not really supposed to talk about it but I was already playing it six months ago and-"



Klein seized him and shook him savagely, like a starving wolf trying to snap its prey's neck. With the Salamander racial Strength boost on top of it, it felt like Kirito's eyes were going to rattle right out of his head. "TEACH ME HOW TO PLAY THIS GAME I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA AND I DON'T WANT TO BE A NOOB FOREVER."



"Whoahwhoahwhoah calm down tiger!" Kirito pushed Klein off him and straightened his ragged overcoat. He cleared his throat and adjusted it again, popping the collar and equipping the smuggest look of superiority he had in his library. "Come with me, Klein, and I shall teach you how to Get Good."



Klein pumped his fist. The game was already starting to look up.