As I regained consciousness, I felt the rough sensation of a cobblestone road against my face. Opening my eyes, I saw that the sun which had been just rising earlier, was now beginning to descend against the horizon.

“Ugh” I groaned grabbing my head. I’d never been drunk in my life, but recovering from a forced disconnection felt everything like I imagined a hangover would. The lights and shapes around me were all blurry as my eyes tried to get into focus. Desperately my numb fingers grasped along the cold stones on the ground when all of a sudden I grabbed something soft beside me.

“Any higher is gonna cost you.” A nasally voice called out from beside me. My focus returning,I realized my hand was grasping firmly on the thigh of Argo who sat behind me.

“GWAAH! I’M SO SORRY!” I cried out crawling backwards as fast as I could until I collided into the wall of a building. Argo however gave a simple shrug, completely unfazed by my forwardness.

“That client I mentioned earlier has this sort of thing happen to him all the time.” She replied in an uncharacteristically matter of fact manner. “Never happened to me before though. I’ll consider this a learning experience, though I suggest not trying to be too much like him. One is more than enough.”

Leaning back, Argo let out a deep breath. “I’ll give ya this. You really did catch ole Argo off guard with that one. I hadn’t seen a scene like that since the Great Separation on launch day. It was one piece of information I wouldn’t mind leaving my memory.”

“I’m sorry.” I replied gripping my aching head again. “Kayaba warned me this might happen a little while after I entered the game I just-”

I stopped mid sentence as I noticed Argo tense up at the mention of Kayaba’s name.

“Ah! I don’t know Kayaba or anything!” I began to ramble. “He just gave me a copy of the NerveGear and Sword Art Online… and gave me another message and a weird small mirror thing that made me look like this when I entered the game!”

Argo stared at me, but it was hard to tell if it was with suspicion or concern.

“Hey. How much Col ya got?” she asked randomly.

Clumsily I opened my inventory and checked my current funds at the bottom.

“100 Col.” I replied reading the amount.

“Show me.” Argo pressed.

At Argo’s instructions I made my menu visible to her and then showed her my empty inventory and wallet.

“Uuuwaaaaaa…” she responded in awe. “You weren’t kiddin were ya. Today really is your first day in Aincrad ain’t it? And here I thought you were just a beta player or something.”

“THIS is what finally convinces you?” I asked exasperated.

Argo looked thoughtful as she leaned back against the wall.

“People can fake their equipment, their level; you even could’ve been faking a false disconnect to scare ole Argo here.” she explained. “But Col is what makes the world go round.”

Argo leapt to her feet before offering me a hand up.

“I don’t often do this.” She explained, “But wha’dya say I offer ya your first lesson on the house? I consider investments in future clients an important endeavor in my trade. If you’re gonna survive here longer than a day or so, you’re gonna need Col, and lots of it! Sure it helps for equipment, buffs, and of course; information from yours truly… but you’re also gonna need it for food to eat and shelter to sleep in. Of course ya don’t need to break the bank on that, but if ya wanna take my word for it, it’s more than worth it to splurge a bit on food!”

“Wait! I need to eat in game??” I asked surprised. “How on earth does that work???”

“It’s a pain ain’t it?” Argo replied sympathetically. “But dontchya worry! This game’s got a ton’o flavors. Maybe even more than you’d taste in real life! If you can make friends with a chef, they’re worth their weight in Col I tell ya!”

I let out a laugh at the frank but unexpected advice. Pausing, I thought for a moment.

“Hey Argo,” I asked. “Are you sure you don’t want payment for this help? I may not have any in game currency, but I know just about everything that’s happened outside the game this past year. As an info broker that must be-”

My words were cut short as Argo clamped a hand over my mouth.

“Anything told to me automatically becomes merchandise for other clients to buy.” She warned. “That’s my disclaimer, but it’s also why I don’t want to hear anything ya know about the outside world. This group has just started to reach a point of equilibrium. We’re clearing floors faster, and we may even reach the halfway point before the end of the year. People are dying less often too. The guilds are more organized than ever before. What would happen to all that enthusiasm if people suddenly found out about what is and isn’t being done outside? It may be bad business for me to say this, but sometimes ignorance is bliss.”

I let out a sigh looking back towards the ground. Argo was right, but this was an incredibly volatile world I had entered into. I was like a torch falling onto a powder keg. It seemed like every choice I had made today was a bad one. I wasn’t thinking things through thoroughly enough and risked hurting not just myself, but all the players around me.

“There is one piece of information I wouldn’t mind having from you though…” Argo pondered. “Why on earth would ya enter a game like this in the first place?”

This question caught me off guard. So much had happened already since I had first logged into Sword Art Online that I hadn’t had much time to think about my purpose for coming here. As soon as the question was asked however, all the memories came flooding back to me. In person I had always been good at hiding my emotions, but the emotion system in Sword Art Online was a different matter entirely. Tears began to stream down my face as I thought about Miku.

“I’m looking for my sister.” I replied. “A year ago, we both preordered the game. My copy came in, but hers was lost in the mail. I… I thought I had been doing her a favour by lending her my copy of the game… I… I had no idea what the game really was…”

“Ya didn’t just log in for a suicide mission out of some form of misguided penance did ya?” Argo asked suspiciously. I shook my head in response.

“My sister was still fairly new to video games.” I explained. “It was thanks to me she got into the hobby, but she often turned to me for advice in what to do. Just… I didn’t want her to have to face this alone. I thought that… maybe if we were together, we could help find a way to get everyone out of this prison.”

For a while Argo sat there without saying anything. After a while she walked up and patted me on the shoulder.

“Come this way.” She guided. “There’s a place I wantchya to check for me. It ain’t the nicest atmosphere in Aincrad, but it might be the best first step for ya.”

Argo walked a few steps beyond me before stopping momentarily.

“One more thing.” She called out turning back to me. “I get the whole wanting to save your sister thing. In all honesty you’ve got my respect for that. But in my experience, anyone who’s survived in here this long ain’t weak ya know.”

I didn’t quite understand what she meant, but followed along silently behind her as she led me through the town. The streets were fuller than when I first logged in, but it wasn’t an atmosphere I could call “lively”.

Everyone around me moved nervously. No one made eye contact, most just kept their heads down. It looked like the survivors huddling together after a disaster struck as people peeked nervously out of windows or sat huddled together munching on bread. One man sat under a tree attempting to catch a piece of fruit that was starting to ripen and yelled at anyone who got close. A little ways away, a brown haired girl with glasses divided the food in her inventory to a number of young children who seemed to be orphaned in the game.

From the atmosphere across the city, it was easy to tell. These weren’t gamers. They were survivors.

“How did ya know how to activate that sword skill by the way?” Argo asked breaking the long standing silence.

“It was from another VRMMORPG I played when I was trying to find a way into Sword Art Online.” I replied still distracted by my surroundings.

“So this didn’t kill out VRMMORPGs for good.” Argo said softly.

Realizing what I had said, I quickly turned back to Argo to apologize. Not only did I break the rule about not talking about the outside world, but I also admitted that people were still enjoying the type of game that currently held their lives in the balance. I felt so insensitive, but to my surprise Argo looked relieved.

“As a gamer it makes ya kind of happy to hear ya know.” She replied with a big smile on her face. Once again, the strength of these Sword Art Online survivors was beyond me.

“I guess ya never used a dagger in that game though did ya?” Argo continued completely oblivious to my newfound admiration for her.

“No,” I shook my head. “Daggers were the least popular weapon in the game. Most power players loved two handed weapons, so coming up against those with a dinky dagger seemed like suicide. I only had one in this game because I made a mistake in the character creator.”

“Nee-hee.” Argo laughed in her usual nasally fashion. “That’s because most gamers only think in terms of strength and not strategy!”

Argo went into her inventory before pulling out a small booklet of pages and handing it to me. On the cover was a simple logo of a rat with three whiskers on either side. Inside was all sorts of information about the game mechanics of daggers.

“It’s been a while since I’ve sold one of those, so consider it as thanks for the info about new games to look forward to once we get outta here.” Argo explained. “The basics are pretty simple though. Daggers are lighter than swords. They don’t help much in a face to face fight, but they can raise your hiding percentage and give ya bonus damage if ya can land a critical strike or attack an enemy unaware. Not to mention all the debuff states you cause. A pretty good weapon for mischief if ya ask me.”

Argo stopped walking and turned back to me.

“If you wanna switch to a different weapon you always can.” She added. “Stinks to lose all the progress you’ve earned but you can do it. But if ya want some advice from ole Argo, I think this might be a good skill set for finding your sis. I know hiding’s helped me a lot with my information gathering and seeing as you’re such a low level, it might give you the edge you need. Anyways, we’re here now.”

We stood outside a palace made of tall black pillars and large metal sheets. The palace’s courtyard was surrounded by massive walls. Unlike the town, the palace seemed a lot more crowded than the town had been as players of all types and levels walked in and out.

I shifted uneasily as I saw a lot more players wearing the same green armor as the men from earlier, but they never tried to stop us as Argo led me past them.