Chapter One

Disclaimer

I don't own Mabinogi nor any NPC's connected. Either Devcat or Nexon does.

A/N

I had the idea for this story for a while now and been debating on writing it. For this story, I will be drawing on my many years of playing Mabinogi as well as several animes I have seen. Once you read start reading the story you will understand. I will move from the stance I normally write my stories, I usually write in the third person point of view but for this story, it will first person. I hope I don't switch back and forth. If I do be patient but let me know about it so I can do better. In addition, since I paid money for my own pets in the game I will be using their actual names in this story. I doubt many would know them since I am not shall we say a well-known character.

I could feel the heat from the sun-rays on my skin as I was waking up. The next thing was I heard the cries of the sheep around me. 'Wait … What? I know I fell asleep at my computer screen again while playing Mabinogi so how is it I am waking up outside?' I asked myself while shaking the cobwebs out of my head.

It was then I heard the sound that quite literally scared me to death, the sound of a wolf growling. I looked over and saw a gray wolf poised to attack. From the looks, it was in either defensive stance or ready to 'Smash' me. Luckily there was a nearby dog that attacked it. While it distracted it I got up and ran to a nearby bridge.

It was then I took a good look around. It was then my true nightmare began. I heard of this happening only in other games or anime but never in real life. I was standing on a bridge in Tir Chonaill. I was actually in the game I loved so much. Now only that but I had all my five senses here so it was real. No dream I had was ever this real.

I had a million questions but the first thing I did was take stock in 'myself'. If I was right then I looked completely different from my real self. I went down stream to where it was shallow and looked in. Normally there would be no reflection but like in the real world the water acted like a mirror and shown what I looked like. What it showed astounded me.

I had the body of one of my avatars I thought I accidentally deleted a while back. At the time I had too many avatars and did not know what to do with them all so I started to delete them. This avatar was my original or main character. It was also my strongest. A bunch of my characters had similar names so when I got deleting I went overboard and too far. Afterwards I signed off and did not come back for a week and by that time it was too late as my main was gone.

I wept for days afterwards and almost did not go back to the game however, I loved it enough to create a new character. It was never the same after that. I felt no passion for the game anymore.

'Well if I am going to be stuck here I am glad to at least have this one little respite,' I thought.

As I looked into the water, I noticed the overhead display above me showing my name, skill, and the name of the guild I belonged to. I jumped for joy seeing this for the guild was the guild I loved. I so wished I could call my guild leader and talk to him but had no idea how to do that yet.

My next question was if this was only happening to me or if it was happening to other 'militants'. I went into towns and decided not to near the NPCs yet. I had no idea how to talk yet and mostly I wanted to observe the other players. Luckily, there was quite a few online today. I sat down, observed them for a while, and discovered others had no trouble doing the normal things players normally do.

In fact, I discovered it was just when some of them tried to talk to me. I could read what they were saying but I could not say anything back. It was frustrating. In the end many assumed I must either be 'stuck up' or having difficulties. I even got a message from my guild leader who rarely uses his main acct anymore but had no idea how to message him back.

Once the last of the players logged off, I sat down close to where Duncan stood thinking of my many problems.

"You look like you are worried about something, young one."

"Yeah you can say that …" Just then I leapt from my sitting position realizing I not only can talk hear someone talking but also know who spoke to me. The voice's owner was no other than Duncan. "Wait you can talk?"

"Of course I can talk why do you say such stupid things?"

How do I explain to an NPC the concept of a game? How do I explain why it is so incredible that they can actually verbally talk to me? Then it hit me how I can explain it to him. "You may not realize it but I am not like a regular militant. You realize they disappear for a while and reappear later. Well for some reason I cannot do that. I am not sure how to use my many skills. I also cannot speak to the other militants. So imagine my surprise when I am suddenly able to talk to you."

I can see Duncan slowly process this information. "I see your point. I can't fathom how you militant accomplish what you accomplish. However, I do have a suggestion. Go speak to Tarlach."

I wanted to hit myself up the head with a bat when Duncan made that suggestion. Of course I should speak with Tarlach. If anyone can understand what is going on he would being the most powerful druid in Erinn.

I quickly thanked Duncan for the talk and headed north towards where Tarlach stood. Scanning the sky I noticed it was close to dusk. This brings up the next interesting thing I noticed. One hour in game time really felt like one hour in real time. For regular players one-day game time passes in twenty minutes in real time. That was not the way it feels like for me now. One hour is actually one hour to me now. My head began to hurt realizing all this.

When I got to the portal to the area where the snowmen was and I froze for a couple reasons. One, how is the portal going to affect me now and how is it going to feel. Two, there are powerful coyotes in that area and a few might be the ancient kind. I am not sure how to fight yet so how will I defend myself.

Well the first one I will not know until I try it and as for the second one I realized I needed to call one of my horses so I call ride it past the coyotes. Now how do I call them without the menu? I remembered some of my fellow militants verbally call their animals. I just need to remember how they did that and I needed to remember the name of one of my horses.

The horse was easy, as I always loved riding my Thoroughbred 'StarDestiny'. As for how that took longer way longer. It was close to midnight when I remembered. "Summon StarDestiny"

As expected my beloved horse appeared. Off chance, I tried another command I remembered, "Bag". Suddenly a screen popped up in front of me out of nowhere and it seemed to display the contents of StarDestiny's inventory. I said 'Bag' again to close the screen. Miraculously it did.

Now I had my horse out my next task was tough. To be honest I never really rode a horse in the real world. Even though I lived in the South, I am a city boy. I have been on a horse once but it was not with an experienced rider and horse did not wish to do anything but stand there. In the end I got off and never been on one since.

Mounting him was not hard, the one I mounted before was hard for there was no saddle. We were just young boys goofing around on his Mom's 5-acre lot. She only had one horse, which she just bought. Star-Destiny was made for game players to ride. He had a saddle so mounting him was easy.

After mounting him I had another question. How do I make him move? Normally players can preset the coordinates on the map or point and click the terrain on the screen with the mouse. However those options was not available to me. Also sitting on this saddle was beginning to hurt my rear. Well nothing I can do about the rear, however I seen some western movies were the main character was given riding lessons. I remembered somehow those sequences. I tried them and nothing.

Disgusted I hopped off 'Stardestiny' and said "Return" so cancel the summons. It worked as he disappeared. Obviously I will not be able to ride any of my pets until I learn how. The first step is to talk to Tarlach but how do I reach him past all the coyotes. If I could fight them I would but I still don't know how yet.

Then I looked up on a hill towards the west and almost face vaulted. There sat a Moongate. I then remembered a Moongate right next to Tarlach too. I ran to the Moongate only to remember I still did not know how to use it. I should not have worried so much for as soon as stepped on the platform a map popped up with the moongates I 'have' highlighted. I noted I still did not have them all but that was later. I did see I had the one for Tarlach.

I wondered if what I saw in the animes for this type of situation would work. I moved my finger to touch the gate for Tarlach on the map. Instantly I the map disappeared and the terrain shifted before my eyes. I suddenly found myself in a snowy area and Tarlach was right there only he was a bear.

He must have just shifted as the sun barely poked up in the horizon. Darn now I have to wait twelve hours to speak to him. As I have already said I do feel the full effects of time here, twelve hours feels like twelve hours. Man I was in for a very long day. On top of that I was freezing. I decided to wait for sundown back in Tir by using the Moongate.

A/N

I bet some of you is wondering where the blazes did you come up with and why I have not? I am also willing to wager a great portion of you already can answer those questions. Well to put it bluntly there have been two very popular animes on this subject recently and I know of one other anime series a long time ago that went along this line as well. I bet there a host of manga that has this theme too that I am not aware of. If you comment please do not list any of those. I do not wish to list all sort of disclaimers for each of them as there are too many to count. I will not mention any of their names inside this fic myself as you might have noticed. If you must please PM me those names.

I wish to know that you think of this chapter though so please comment/review.