The day of the tournament is upon the players, and they have all used the teleport passes they were given. The island is silent. Thousands of players are gathered around, but they're all muted. Even the normal ambient sounds that come from the virtual flora and fauna, the sound of the wind, the players' footfalls, cannot be heard right now. In the center of the island, they're all gathered around an ornate stone dais. Some have tried, but they can't get up on it. The structure is made of a solid slab of black marble, with small white imperfections throughout. As the players look on, the large structure begins to spin counter-clockwise.
The marble rises up and becomes a tower. It twists up higher and higher, stretching to around thirty times the heights of the tallest player avatars. Pillars frame the tower, underneath the top platform that served as a dais only a few seconds ago. Once the tower stops twisting, a loud crash indicates that it has locked in place. A non-player avatar, dressed in an elaborate gold suit, ascends stairs viewed through a dense screen of marble pillars. The avatar is female, and her long purple hair flits and flounders in a breeze that nobody would have otherwise known was there.
Once she reaches the top, she strides confidently to the edge of the tower to face the crowd below. Collectively, the masses shift from around the tower so that they're all directly in front of her. "Players!", she shouts. Her unamplified voice echoes, hanging heavy in the silent air. "At the top of this tower will be a portal. Dive through, and you will be transported to an inverted version of this island. You cannot leave except by dying, and you cannot come back once you have died. The last three alive will receive cash prizes in the real world, and the last ten alive will also receive in-game rewards." She gives the players a moment to consider, then finishes. "Once you enter, there is no turning back." With those words, her avatar begins to deform and melt, then reshape itself. She becomes an archway, and a purple light the same shade as her hair filled the space between the legs of the arch.
The sound snaps back on, and player chatter fills the air. Cries of "Hell yeah!", "I'm not so sure about this!", and "I have to win!", can be heard about the deafening roar of the crowd. The fighting begins as players shove, hit, and throw one another to reach the stairs first. Gunshots ring out and blades clatter, but no bodies hit the ground. The area is a safe zone. Beleaguered players choke the tower entryway and some tumble down the stairs or between the pillars and onto the ground below. The unharmed would-be contestants, annoyed, get back up and continue their trek.
Grappling hook users are already at the top of the tower by the time the other players arrive, and EmoryEdge is among them. He anticipated resistance from other players, but didn't think that the announcement area would be a safe zone. Unfazed, he switches up his strategy. Rather than using his knives to get other players out of the way, he begins flinging them about with his grappling hook, garnering shouts of protest. A heavy punch from behind pushes him toward the portal, and he rolls into it while throwing his hook out again. The puncher is snared, then thrown off the tower with a yelp. The first of the players without grappling hooks begin to reach the top of the stairs as EmoryEdge crosses the threshold and enters the alternate island.
EmoryEdge finds himself on top of a much taller version of the tower he was just on. As beneficial as it would be to quickly distance himself from other players, jumping from this height would be suicide. He weighs out his options for only a split second, then leaps. He fires his hook at the side of the building and snags a pillar, then loosens it and goes for another one further down. As players bustle and jostle through the portal, enraged screams begin ringing out. Already, players have begun to kill each other off. An explosion shakes the tower, and dozens of players plummet past EmoryEdge on his descent. Many are already beginning to dissipate, but some survive the initial blast and dart past him screaming their protests. A clever few direct their falls or use tools to avoid going straight to the ground. Some players begin climbing down the stairs at the best pace they can manage. Others climb down using grappling hooks, ropes, and melee weapons.
A heavy blade user gets closer and closer to EmoryEdge with every thunk of his blade into stone, and his intent becomes crystal clear when he produces a dagger from his belt. EmoryEdge kicks hard off the building and goes into a freefall, then looses a few knives as he backflips, before finally grappling another pillar a bit further down. The blades find their mark, and the player's avatar goes limp. "Fu-", the man cries as he falls, but is cut short by his avatar fading into the aether. EmoryEdge notices gunners at the top of the tower and along the same side as him, and begins swinging side to side. As he predicted, the bullets fly his way, but very few find purchase. He speeds up his descent.
Finally on solid ground, EmoryEdge is faced with a smattering of other players. Most of them dash off to look for resources and hiding spots. Four of them look back and forth to one another, then forge a silent truce and begin approaching him as a unit. He hooks a machine gunner by the head and pulls him to a swift death against a sheer cliff wall, then steals his falling weapon and flings his lifeless avatar into the katana user. He empties the clip on the revolver user before him, but the bullets don't do much good against the final brute; before EmoryEdge stands a giant axe user, clad from head to toe in heavy armor. EmoryEdge remembers the long hours he spent building up his strength stat for brutes just such as this one. His hook sails, and he slices the blades into the armor near the neck, then twists his wrist to get the rope around the neck and under the armor. Noosing the fellow, EmoryEdge shows off his well-honed strength by tossing his enemy high into the air. With his armor damaged, the player eats a few explosive-tipped knives on the way down, then hits the ground and is no more.
By this point, EmoryEdge's antics have drawn a small crowd of onlookers. Some cheer him on, and others step forth to challenge him. A shout goes up. "This guy is too strong! Let's get him now before he finds any good buffs!" With that shout, a mass of man-shaped pixels rushes at EmoryEdge in a tidal wave. His grappling hook soars, and he finds a perch atop the cliff. From below, the masses open fire. EmoryEdge sinks into the trees, tossing a volley of incendiary knives behind him. Many find their mark, and he hears a fading cacophony of gunpowder, growing flames, and screams as he nestles into the underbrush. Footsteps rise behind and around him as the survivors of the incendiary blast make their way up the cliff and into the wood in search of him.
EmoryEdge doesn't make it more than a half mile into the surrounding wood before a straggler from the search party happens across him. The player is clad in heavy armor, with a minigun slung across his back and a large sword next to it. The player pulls a flare from their inventory and detonates it, signalling the others. Deciding to choose discretion over taking this player down outright, EmoryEdge tosses a pair of smoke bombs, then ignites them with an incendiary knife. The forest goes up in flames, and he hears players and animals screaming as he makes his escape.
Beyond the burning wood, roughly two miles out, EmoryEdge finds a jarring shift in biome. A damp rainforest greets him, full of color and life. Here, treasures await. EmoryEdge scoops up scattered parts, weapons, and scraps of metal as he finds them. Unnatural animals, seen only in the game world, become XP points and piles of loot as they try his defenses. A few drop meat. EmoryEdge begins chopping away at nearby trees to produce wood for fire, which will allow him to cook a stat-boosting meal to help with the battles ahead.
As one hour shifts into the next, EmoryEdge is finishing up the last of the pre-cooking. He has made enough to buff his character for fourteen days, and he can't imagine the tournament lasting much longer than that. As he cleans up his supplies to prevent enemies finding his camp, a message appears in front of him. He lifts a hand and presses the open button. The virtual envelope unfolds into a paper. "Elias, it's time for dinner. Log out and come downstairs, please. Love, mom." Smiling, EmoryEdge lays his avatar down in the folds of a large bush, hidden from view, and logs out.
Elias peeled the headset off his sweaty face, set it in its cradle, then leapt up from his chair. His mother's cooking never failed to impress, and tonight was no different. The aroma of caramelized onion wafted into his bedroom, tethering to his senses and drawing him toward the stairs. As he drew closer and closer to the kitchen, more delicious smells assaulted him, tightening the food's hold on him. Grilled steak. Fried rice. Steamed bell peppers. Each exquisite flavor blended with the next, combining into a spellbinding mix that drew him like a fisherman's line. The spell was broken by his father's grating voice. "Dammit, Lydia, you can't entertain fantasies like this!" His mother fired back. "And what's the alternative, Rudeus?! Just roll over and die?!" Plasticware clattered to the ground. "Pathetic! Absolutely pathetic! Look at you, trusting your life to a prepubescent boy in a virtual playground!"