Kaelrin shot up and opened her eyes.
She felt drowsy, as if she had woken up from a long coma.
Her body ached all over, and each joint felt stiff as she slowly got up from the floor.
She took a good look around, hoping to get a better understanding of her surroundings, but there was nothing there.
Well, it was more like a white room that had no shadows, which made it seem like she was nowhere.
'Where am I?' Kaelrin thought, trying her best to stop her shallow breathing, but she was near hyperventilation.
'How did I get here? I was perfectly fine doing…' she trailed off.
Kaelrin was a little puzzled. She had no recollection of what she did prior. In fact, she had no memory of anything at all, other than that her name was Kaelrin Dawnblade and she wasn't even allowed to drink by western terms.
That's when she heard someone behind her say "Where am I?"
Kaelrin quickly turned around and noticed that there were a plethora of people around her. More than a thousand at a glance. She had started counting, but soon became too stressed to continue.
'Take deep breaths' she thought. 'It seems that no one here knows anything, just like you. You'll be fine.'
As she was trying to control herself from having a panic attack, something appeared from above.
Kaelrin couldn't exactly describe it. It looked to be a person with a box for a head wearing an all-black suit. But then their head shape transformed into a cone. Then a sphere. Then something that resembled a mace.
"Welcome, group 432 from Earth of the Milky Way quadrant," it said.
Immediately the crowd around Kaelrin burst into hysterics. They frantically demanded that the suit person tell them exactly what's going on.
"Calm down, please" the suit person said. "Firstly my name is @#%*$•."
Kaelrin's ears hurt as the suit person said whatever their name was. She could feel the ringing the name left behind.
"Obviously that name is to powerful for the likes of you people to ever hear, much less say," the suit person continued. "So, for your sake, you all may call me Hazel."
"All of you have been chosen at random to partake in 'The Climb', where you attempt to reach the top of a tower by being up each level."
"It seems your world is already fimiliar with this genre, so there isn't a need for me to explain it any further to you," Hazel then said.
That made Kaelrin confused and a little upset. 'How am I supposed to know what you're talking about if I had all my memories wiped?'
She contemplated that for a moment before a status window appeared before her.
"These are your status windows. They'll tell you all your stats and skills that you could obtain as well as a picture to see how you look with your weapon and armor." Hazel said again.
Kaelrin found that very useful, as she had forgotten what she looked like. She took some time to examine herself in the window, and it seemed that others were as well.
Hazel had paused for a moment so that everyone could be able to see themselves. 'I guess she's not totally a jerk," Kaelrin thought.
She then turned to her window to see what she looked like. She was about average in size, maybe a little smaller than a lot of people around her and she had golden blonde hair that was dirty and matted, being held up in a half up, half down style by a thin piece or rope.
Her clothes were very plain. She had an itchy, fabric dress that was a pale, light brown and the seams were rough around the edges. It looked as though it had not been cleaned in weeks.
She looked at her face as was surprised to see that it looked relatively clean. In fact, though she didn't know how, she felt that she was the most beautiful one in the room. Her eyes were a fiery orange and yellow. She took a closer look and saw that she could see streaks of red in her irises too.
"Alright," Hazel said while clapping the ends of her arms. They weren't exactly hands, but they were where hands should be.
Kaelrin jolted back, surprised at the sound. She had competely forgotten the presence of Hazel, and the noise that Hazel made startled her slightly.
Hazel continued. "Now that all of you had ample time to admire yourselves, it's time to choose weapons."
She clapped her blobs, Kaelrin decided to call them that for lack of a better word, and suddenly windows appeared all around her, surrounding her entirely.
Kaelrin was amazed at the sheer number of choices. There were the standard things, like a sword, a bow, and a staff, but there was other things, like nunchucks and yo-yos.
Kaelrin had difficulty choosing and ended up just standing there for a little bit until Hazel hastily told people that their time was ticking.
"If you don't pick a weapon now, you're not going to get a second chance," she said.
That frightened Kaelrin. She knew that if we had to choose weapons, that means whatever was ahead would be truly terrifying, so it was better to have any weapon rather than none.
She decided to close her eyes, spin around, and choose whatever one she landed on.
When she opened her eyes, she saw that the picture she landed on was a sword.
'Oh well,' she thought.' Maybe not original considering the amount of sword options there were, but I'll take it.'
She clicked on her choice and a sword materialized in front of her. She gladly raised one arm to catch it and fell to the floor with the sword.
A couple of people around Kaelrin snickered a little bit at her. That made her so embarrassed she wished she could've continued falling through the floor.
She got up to look at her sword and was confused. Her sword was maybe the size of her, the blade being extremely long.
She looked around and saw that the other people using swords had theirs come up to their waist at most, so why was hers so big?
"U-Umm. Excuse me?" Kaelrin asked timidly, raising her hand a little bit to get Hazel's attention.
"What is it?" Hazel said with a tint of disdain. It seems as though the suit person was not particularly happy with being delayed so much by these humans.
"I think there was a problem with the making of my sword?" Kaelrin continued. "It's… really big."
Hazel sighed, disappointed in this group. "You chose the greatsword did you not?"
"Th-The greatsword?" Kaelrin asked puzzlingly. She didn't remember the name of her sword. She hadn't even looked at it.
"Yes. The greatsword. A big, double-edged, two-handed weapon? Did you read the description of your weapons at all?" Hazel asked.
Kaelrin immediately bowed her head down and said in a voice soft enough to be a whisper.
"No."
"Well maybe that's why you were confused." Hazel then turned around to everyone. "I hope you read the descriptions, because that also tells you how best to wield your weapon and the basics to unlock it."
"As you use your weapon, the tower will reward you with mastery, and your weapon will get buffs. After a certain point, your weapon will be able to receive unique abilities as well."
"Now that I've told you all the information, I'll give you a little bit of time to digest it, then you'll be starting off. Just know that more than half of you will die before you even make it past the first floor, so have fun everybody!"
With that, Hazel disappeared with a pop, leaving the room to fall into chaos. Kaelrin herself was scared out of her mind, but she tried her best to retain a calm demeanor, with surprising success, minus her shaking legs.
She decided that now would be the best time to read the description of her "greatsword", or whatever it was, if it was even available still.
She went ahead and opened her status window.
[Name: Kaelrin Dawnblade]
[Strength: 10]
[Agility: 10]
[Intelligence: 9]
[Stamina: 10]
[Skills: Downslash]
[More]
[Weapons]
[Armor]
Kaelrin went ahead and clicked on weapons, hoping that it could tell her anything about her sword. Luckily, there was more than enough information available for her.
[Weapon: Basic Greatsword]
[Description: The greatsword is a large, double-edged, two-handed sword with a very long blade. It is normally used for people with a lot of strength, as it massive size allows it to have a heavy impact. However, transversely, it is very slow and easy to dodge, so it is recommended that your strength stat far exceed your agility stat if you wield this weapon.]
[Warning: Not recommended for people with strength under 15]
[Weapon Mastery: 0/100]
'Well, now I know exactly what a greatsword is,' Kaelrin thought. 'And that I screwed up choosing it.'
P.S. Thank you for choosing to read this! I will do my best to update as soon as I can, but as I am fairly busy in day-to-day life, I may not be as fast as most people. I do hope you'll stay as this journey begins, though! :)