Kagetane quickly covered his right eye with his hand.
"Oh crap!" he said, running off. He had seen a mask somewhere in a shop and hoped it was still there.

Yukimura's blood ran cold upon Akihiko Kayaba's declaration. It was as if time slowed down to nothing more than a snail-like crawl. This virtual paradise was nothing more than a gilded cage, trapping all 10,000 unlucky souls within it's gates until a party to cleared all 100 Floors. Looking around, everyone else seemed to be scared, angry, sad, in denial, or perhaps some combination of the four. However...

Yukimura couldn't help but smile peacefully, as if it were all some bad joke with a terrible punchline.

Finally, a second declaration. It seemed that the <<Game Master>> had left them all a present. With a few swipes of his hand, the young man glided through the inventory screens and saw the addition: a <<Hand Mirror>>. Not one to waste any time looking at it oddly, Yukimura decided to inspect the object. Suddenly, like all the other players, he was engulfed in a bright light.

When the light-show ended, Yukimura found himself not staring at the avatar of <<Ikusaba>>, but rather, his own true, ghostly-looking appearance. He recoiled back a bit, before realizing that Kayaba was finished dropping bombs and he was wasting time standing there like a fool. A few mobs wasn't much to go around for 10,000 players, and he had absolutely no time to waste. He had to get out in the field and pull some more level ups.

...Even so...

Yukimura glanced around at the other players. All of those were healthy young men and women with their futures ahead of them. He couldn't just hog all the EXP and leave them to fend for themselves. He just couldn't. However, letting them put themselves in danger fighting bosses with their hypothetically superior levels while he sat on his ass, twiddling his thumbs wasn't an option either.

The sickly teen clenched his fist and snarled. He turned on his heel and rushed past what seemed to be two friends, both females. Pink-haired and black-haired. Not that it mattered.

There was no time to waste. They all had a long journey ahead of them.

Lily sighed bitting her lips, yes she was nervous and yes she was so scared! If she died her, she dies in real life. And she didn't want that....mainly because she has a family over there. Talking about family, Lily turned around
spotting her oldest sister. Her eyes widened walking to her. "What are you doing here?" She said and noticed a guy rushing past them, for some reason she couldn't stop looking at him, who was that guy? Lily shooked her head snapping back and looking at her sister.

Pebbley was put back to his real appearance, but, unlike others, he didn't care. The character he created resembled him, so it didn't matter. He gasped at the death announcement though, [i] What? How did they even get that to work? [i] He began to breathe really heavily, was this not checked first? He couldn't just die here, he had to do something. Pebbely debated whether to go on and try to get to floor 100, or just stay here, feeling sad.

"Liz, how did you....I didn't know you..." Zillah trailed off and stared in shock, then it slowly dawned on her. She had to beat this game, especially now that her sister was in it. She had someone to protect. "C'mon guys let's beat this thing," She said with determination. She saw a boy run past who looked like he knew what he was doing. "C'mon!" She said and ran after the boy, dragging Lily along with her. She was hoping he didn't think that she wanted a free ride. Far from it, she just thought it was better to work with others, than alone.

"I'm Zillah" she said quickly as she ran next to him, "Do you want to join our party? We could always use some more people." She said and looked at him questioningly as they ran.

Pebbely still stood there in shock, he didn't know what to do. If felt like he had just went on holiday and his plane had crashed. This world he was just loving now felt like a nightmare. He simply fell down and sulked.

Lily was amazed and very confused into why her sister was in the game. Now she was worried about her. As soon as the guy passed, her sister grabbed Lily's hand as she rushed behind him. "Woah!" She said turning around telling the other party members to come, she yelled their names since she didn't know how they looked now. Lily turned back at the guy who seemed to be in a rush. "Im...Im Lily!" She said as they ran beside him.

Pebbely snapped out of his thought when he heard his name. He saw, what he presumed to be two of his party members. He got up and followed them. "Where are you guys going?"

"To level up and beat this sick game," Zillah said as she ran. She pulled out her menu and sent messages to all the party members to go where they were going, which looked like the Northwest road out of the Town of Beginnings. Her green cloak was flying out behind her as she ran. She knew she was being a bit rash, but she was angry, and wanted to beat this game.

"You're being insane, but I'll follow!" Pebbely quickly sped after Zillah, he wasn't losing his only friends here. "You really think he'll let us out if we do beat it? It's not like he's trustworthy!" He felt like he was going to vomit and faint at the same time.

Kagetane quickly went inside the shop he had found earlier. Rushing as fast as he could he took the mask, put it on, and left the money for it.
"That was too close..." he said.

Pebbely felt horrid and he eventually threw himself on the floor. "God... why do..." He didn't finish but took his Rapier out of it's pocket, they were in a virtual world where he could die at any second. He kept looking left and right, he felt so panicked and scared.

Defender decided to sit down and think what to do I could kill more boars. Seems like a good way to level for the time being until my skills improve for more bigger and badder enemies. Or I can just go right to the dungeon...Nah, too quick for my taste. He thought before making any decisions. "Well! Time to kill more boars!" He exclaimed.

"Why are you excited?" One of the players asked him. "Don't you worry about dying for real in this game?" Defender looked at him with a smile.

"Please. This is now a MANS game. Either play it like a man, or stay here and cry til you die. Hey they sorta rhymed." Defender laughed as he left the town in search for more boars.

Pebbely sat there, his Rapier still out. "You know what? I'll just kill somethings, gain EXP and at least get to floor two. If I die at floor two, it's good enough for me!" Pebbely stood up, and gathered himself, before running off the path, he wanted to carry on, not lose or mope around.

Rath knew that few boars would gone soon as around 10,000 players went after them. So Rath ran to go get exp in the fields. People not in shock moved out of his way, while he had to move around the players that were in shock. Rath hoped running to the fields wouldn't draw a lot of attention, but he knew that chance slim as he was 6'3" and 256 lbs. Rath seen a few other players running ahead of him so he used his sprint skill, hoping it would speed him up enough to pass them.

"Come on." Pebbely was running fast, he knew that his high speed skill would be an advantage. He looked around, Wolves,Boars and others. What to start with?

The field were bursting with players as they trained hard in order to escape the virtual reality they are in. But for Defender. Boars, boars and more boars, he killed alot of enemies over the course of an hour and gained two levels from it. It was hard, trying to find his own enemies to kill in order to get stronger. He had to steal some boars and even stronger enemies like wolves other creatures. He had a bad reputation from some people for stealing their creature for exp, although it is shared among those people who fought that specific creature so it's not big. He felted a bit lighter and more stronger over the course of an hour. Defender was beat and decided to call it quits. That was good training. Time to get some rest in town. He teleported back to town and sat down on one of the benches for a bit.

Pebbely decided his kill list.

-Three Boars

-One Wolf

He looked for a boar or pig, or some sort of pig shaped animal. They were the weakest enemies, so two hits did it. "I think I can do this..."

Two... No, four players following after him. The two lady friends from earlier, and two young men who were presumably party members of theirs. Or perhaps they were all just following suit and were completely unrelated. He couldn't blame them for that after all. Taking initiative for the EXP was important in this 'death game'. The more efficient you were at it, the more powerful you were. Simple as that. He couldn't afford to manage the problems and levelling of four or five people. So he just dashed in silence, the people following after or leaving or whatever.

...Still, he was a <<Beta Tester>>. He had the ability- No, had the obligation, to pass his knowledge, if not sacrifice his EXP. Besides, he had both high speed and the <<Sprint>> skill, so if push came to shove he could easily outrun any player and go his own way. So he slowed how fast he was moving in order to allow the others to catch up before starting back up on an easier pace.

"...<<Ikusaba>>," Yukimura answered, voice coarse as usual, "as for your offer... I'll have to decline. I'm sorry, but I'm not sticking around in these fields."

Hikari was curled up in a dark corner crying softly. She had gone to try and gain experience points and took major damage instead. "I'm going nowhere..." she spoke through her tears. "I'm nowhere close to my goal and I am going to die..."