Chasing Brinley (a story inspired by Sword Art Online)

Brinley

"Brinley, I thought I told you to give it up!" Cole groans as we fight evil demons. A fight I forced Cole into.

"No, you said it's useless to try to get out of here. You never told me to give it up!" I yell back to him as I cast an ice shard spell. Ice shards stab the two demons I'm fighting, causing them to burst into pixels.

Cole grunts loudly. He drives his sword into a demon's head, killing it. He rips out his sword and repeats his process. I do the same with my trident, casting the occasional electric cloud spell to electrocute my selected enemies.

I pat myself on the back as Cole finishes off his last handful of demons. When the last one dies, Cole drops his sword and places his hands on his knees, panting from exhaustion and great concentration.

In MMO, a player has to concentrate on their enemy when they attack. The greater damage the attack is meant to inflict, the more concentration you need. Concentration is part of your skills, it has nothing to do with real life. The higher quality your concentration is, the more powerful enemies you can fend off. Concentration reduces your health and mana a bit each time you use it, so you can't go ballistic on this power. Mana is treated like your health and concentration. Which each attack inflicted on you, your mana is also lowered. It's also lowered depending on how many and how great your magic spells used are. Think of it as your strength stats. Concentration and mana regenerate through boaster packs, health regenerates through healing potions.

Cole jerks his head over to me. "Thanks a lot for that, Chloe!!"

I smirk and pick up my trident, slick from blood. "See? You need more training."

My game menu opens up. 'Congratulations, you have obtained a new item. Collect item?' I tap yes, and my item is placed in my inventory.

I walk out of the dungeon, swaying my hips as I go.

"Hey!" An enraged Cole sprints over to me and nudges me a bit. I laugh.

"How's your mana?" I ask.

Cole hesitates, then opens up his menu. "I'm a little low."

"That explains it," I tease. "Eh? Explains what?!" Cole overreacts.

I roll my eyes. "Well you're still breathing heavily. Look at you, you look like you just ran a marathon." Cole scoffs.

"How's yours?"

I open up my menu. "I'm okay, but I could go for a boaster pack."

A boaster pack. These are energy drinks that will bring your mana up 25%. (Your mana is measured in percentage.) Very useful to stock up on those before a fight, though we didn't.

"Then how about we go to Summoner's City? Y'know? Get a boaster pack or two, go to the arena?" Cole suggests.

"I thought you said no training, hm?" I wag my finger at him. Cole laughs and pushes my finger away. "I never said that," he starts, "I said it's useless to try to get out of here." He smirks.

I smile. "Alright then." I nod my head. "See ya there, loser!" I suddenly break into a sprint. I hear Cole yell for me. As I run, I jump into the air, skidding my trident across the ground, causing a black and gold hoverboard to form. I land on the hoverboard, using my feet to steer it towards Summoner's City.

"Hey, no fair! You know I can't do that!" Cole's voice blares through the speaker in my menu. "Sorry, Otto! You should've been training to learn how to summon it!" I yell back, closing my menu and laughing afterwards. I activate a speed boast as I completely steady myself on the board.

I gaze at the landscape below me as I steer my board, careful not to fall. I see two players practicing their combat in a forest. Green players. Good.

My eyes travel across the virtual sky, the illusion of it being real waving through my hair and slightly pushing my board back. I see a player, now a speck, way ahead of me in the sky. It looks like they're using their hover hands to fly. Hover hands are gloves crafted by a player, they can't be bought. You need to acquire high skill stats to craft them, and even then you have to go through hours of training to learn how to correctly use them.

I flutter my golden eyes shut, running my hands through the wind. It feels so peaceful, and I love it. It's something like this that helps me escape the fake world I'm living in. I imagine my sister next to me.

My board suddenly jerks downwards. My eyes snap open. I'm falling. I'm falling!

I'm thousands of feet in the air, and my hoverboard has disappeared. I'm falling head first to the ground. I remember my training. I straighten my back. I close my eyes and deeply exhale.

Making hand gestures, I activate a spell to surround my body with a force field. Due to my inability to concentrate while I fall to my untimely death, the force field only covers the top of my head and my hands. That's all I need to at least survive.

I reach my arms out as much as possible and open my hands, my palms facing the world beneath me.

This all happened in seconds.