Chapter One:

Dungeons

A goddess and a sword, etched in stone, stands silently above a block alter. Miniana, the lovable yet scared milletian stood at the Ably entrance on the block. Her total level being one hundred and fifty, so she had no reason to be afraid, nevertheless, she was. A gold coin was given to the goddess as a fee, (Why she needs it or what she does with it, no one knows)and the scenery around melted away into a darker grey. Miniana walked around and found the darkest spot in the dark room to be the stairs down.

Below another goddess stood in solemn stone, and this time touching her only leaves a message.

You've memorized this location. (In translation, this happens to be the, if something rips your clothes off and kills you, point of revival.) Oh, and of course she requires ten percent of the experience points which usually makes all the work that's done meaningless. Not to worry though, happy thoughts.

The dungeon had an off grey light that kept going room by room, an endless maze of treasure chests, which where in actuality traps..The doors shut on every side like tombs that finally had the victim they waited so long for. Out of the black dust, random monsters of sorts, appeared to end her life. Most people would wonder, if they had not belonged in erinn, why exactly someone would waltz into a trap fully knowing indeed, it was a trap. Miniana would agree, it seems stupid, however, one of those monsters holds the key to a locked door, and for that matter, progression. The white spiders appeared and harmless as they were, she felt safe knowing they wouldn't attack her. So she took her time in clubbing them. Then came the red ones. And still no pressure to attack them, because they were far too busy trying to attack her.

Miniana also would admit she was one easy target. Indeed, she was a sore sight of neon color robes and well, barefoot. She'd been killed a lot you see, and well, I guess you can say a monster stole her shoes. She would've gotten them back but those evil npc men said it was thirty thousand which is ironic because she paid half for them. Miniana was too poor and they were too greedy so she just shrugged it off. This is off topic! Sorry! Sorry! Back to Alby.

A progression which leads to the the final door. The final door has a red lock, and no matter where you go, it is alwaysred. Red is a sign of danger as if to say 'stop don't go forward, it's not worth it, run!'And yes, they still do it anyway. Perhaps the designer would be better off using skulls, but no. Miniana opened the door with the massive red key.

Inside, a Giant, Massive and Scary red spider was inside. She finally understood why they made those doors red, it was designed after the thing before her. So she sat there for a half an hour staring at it because you see, Miniana has a bit of arachnophobia, but she doesn't like talking about it. Determined to fight her fears she took two steps inside. Thinking better of it she took two steps back. Did I mention how big that thing is? It's Big.

Finally, she had two choices. Face her fears, and go on to whatever treasures lie in the great beyond, or a preposterous choice of goingall the way back.

In this precise moment, she turned her tail and ran, yes, she ran, all the way back. Not one of her finer moments, but hey, she did it .. eventually.

Most of Miniana's in game friends were not very sympathetic to her fear of spiders or the fact that she would wear manly armor and patchy robes. She got called 'sir' a lot because of that. Come on! Her names Miniana, so what if she had a style, what guy names themselves Miniana? Of course, it was easy to criticize someone level one hundred and fifty, it's like criticizing a homeless person because they are homeless. Miniana's friends were rich and wore flashy apparel, and they had money, and they liked to brag. Especially a perticular friend named Darknessrey, whom she loved deeply, but was deeply annoyed by. Again, I'm off topic.

No one wanted to play with sad little Miniana or go do dungeons with her because she was level one hundred and fifty. Although they were sometimes nice, and would invite her on adventures. They promised it would be fun and although, she couldn't do much, she was an awesome cheerleader. They also promised to protect her, but .. that didn't happen, and coincidently, most monsters went after her. To this day, I'm not sure if it was her neon or perhaps they knew she was weakest. Either way, Miniana ended up doing dungeons alone. But you see, she was scared of being alone, so she simply didn't do that many. She felt so inadequate and alone, because she was shy so she had a hard time saying hello to random people.

One day, Miniana met a man who was obsessed with pink and vampire teeth in sentences. His name was Knives33 but he preferred to be known as Knives564. Please don't ask why. He was usually poor because he'd give his money away to anyone who asked. He promised to help Miniana, and he did when he could, but he was usually smoking green plants, so he couldn't recall much of his promises. Coincidently, he was a master in herbology. So Miniana was still on her own most of the time.

Still she pressed on in her adventure!

I call this experience 'The hell hole'. After I explain you'll understand why.

Miniana stood on the alter of Barri determind to do Generation two, drooling over the power of holy knight. I was total two hundred and five. Nexon was being lazy so the entire Mari world was shaken up. Every half an hour or hour, they all in mass amount would be trapped in a room with no monsters appearing, or monsters being defeated would not disappear, and even themselves disappearing from Mari. This horror went on for days, indeed, it was a dark time.

It was a solo hour long mission that needed to be completed multiple times. And each time Miniana had to buy a ticket as an offering for it, that old hunched evil square glassed npc would bump the price up. He had a horrible mustache so that made her feel better.

She would spend hours and hours doing the dungeon over and over. She would sometimes make it to the boss after hours of trying to get there and disappear. Again and again, She began to believe Barri was the only place shes ever been in her entire life. Unhinged, with a crazed look in her eye, and sleep deprivation, Miniana went on. After two days, and two dark circles under her eyes, she finally did it. I'm not sure if she laughed or cried or both.

To make a long story short it was hard.

Still in barri, still on Generation 2, way back in the days when generations were actually hard, Miniana confronted the ogres. Now back in the day, her idea of combat was hitting stuff. She was impulsive, and to be honest the equipment sucked, so there wasn't much to lose. Oh, how she wished there was someone there to slap her across the face and teach her how to fight. Sadly, everyone was busy with 'more important people'.

Alone but determined, she dropped her token onto the alter. Fighting through waves with her trusty and only pet, Saintbelle. Saintbelle was a black horse who loved apples. Together they fought mass goblins. They took down greens, and blues, and golds.

Finally, the end had come and once Saintbelle was unsummoned, Miniana opened the door. There was four or five ogres that needed a bit more clothing then they had on, but Miniana did her best not to look. Miniana quickly learned that simply hitting things would not do the trick, but she didn't really believe in skills. Unfortunately, she learned this the hard way. Each time she would get knocked out by the ogre's hammer. Even if she wasn't near it, the vibrations still traveled so far. She tried to run.

Really

Bad

Idea

As she ran it only gave the vibrations more power, and knocked her out cold. The worst part was, she hadn't even managed to hurt him that much. Not phased by what just happened, she continued to try again and again.. Each time, she revived at the goddess with less and less clothes. Finally, her weapon was striped off her too. So she was forced to retreat, naked, embarrassed, and with her experience points minus ninety nine.

Miniana bought herself Luna armor, (people were raving about them at the time,) for two hundred thousand after she sold her first dye ampoule.

She had heard a rumor from a nice musician named Gune. He told her the way to conquer the ugly beasts, required a weapon called a claymore. Still being just a rumor, she had to test out this theory. So, despite the little money she had, she spent it on a black claymore from the blacksmith. It was not cheap, and it wasn't even Wednesday, so she in no way got a good deal.

Off she went, back to the red and yellow tinted dungeon named barri. Only this time, she had a dress/tunic thing, and a claymore to lead the way. She smiled confidently.

'There is no way I can lose with this.' thought Miniana. Oh, how she was wrong. She did fail quite blatantly, and but she was far too convinced of herself winning with such equipment, so on she went.

Time after time, day after mabinogi day, she tried. Eventually she wanted to throw herself off a cliff, but she didn't, of course, because that would ruin the next story.

One day, Miniana was so bored so she just stood in Barri for an hour. Dwelling on her previous failures, she longer wished to try, however, she couldn't bear quitting. She was just staring into her own personal abyss, it was one of those days.

Then three people entered. One left, but the two remaining had a heated argument. It was like watching a Mabinogi soap opera, and she was bored so she remained quiet pretending to be asleep. They were arguing about techniques. So she watched the comments fly, until finally, the other girl left as well. "Interesting." Miniana said aloud. She was greeted with the response "I was wondering whether you actually were listening." Miniana, being a loner didn't often meet people who were willing to talk to her. It was a world of snobs, after all. She told the man about her troubles with combat techniques and he offered to teach her.

'Wow.' Miniana thought. 'A man willing to help me.' She was excited, but she tried not to get her hopes too high, she'd been let down a lot.

He led her down the empty hallways in the dungeon for a trial run. Eventually, they had arrived at the ogres. He taught her a pattern which went, four fire shots, and the ogre falls down. Then, when it gets up to run in a stomp motion which shakes the entire floor, then the final fire of the five is to be shot out. Then run with the claymore fast as can be, run back even faster, and recharge. Miniana repeated this over and over again, but she went unconscious every single time. The pattern worked great but afterward, there was an angry ogre and not enough time to recharge. Eventually, he, out of phoenix feathers and patience, took them out himself. He made it look so easy, but being total one thousand, his fire level was bound to be higher. However, at the time, Miniana blamed it on her own personal inadequacies and not on her own level. No step further and a little discouraged, Miniana remained in barri.

Still determined but highly annoyed, she acquired sixty stones of life from the goddess nao, so that when she went in, there would be no losing. Like a fire of glory, she bolted in with the high of her false security. She would beat this dungeon, no matter how many times she fell to the ground.

At the end of the day, it cost her thirty three Nao stones. That's right. It was indeed thirty three.

Finally, she had defeated Barri, and finally she would never again have to face the once traumatized dungeon which held in it's liar, the ogres.

She had even asked one her friend to possess her, for the finale of barri, because after that, she never wished to see barri, ever again. However, afterwards, she regretted missing the opportunity, and her friend began to say that they had done generation two for her. Still, no one will ever know the true pain that was Barri and what Miniana had been through in that hell hole ..

Dungeons were here, dungeons were there, really, dungeons were everywhere. Everywhere anyone went, without even trying, they would find a dungeon. It was a challenge, a joy, and a pain. Miniana was not prepared when finally dungeons were acknowledged to be boring and ancient.

People had flocked like sheep to a new place known as Tailltean. It was a new place that had been discovered and put onto the map. At first it seemed like a charming idea to Miniana. After two weeks of consideration, she decided to set out and see this new city. Once there, she studied the new shops, the new characters, and this newly learned ability to farm. Up past all of this in the left corner, past berched the wizard, was said to be the place. She made sure to stay on the path, there were wolves and bears around, so far from the city.

After the long journey, she saw it, at last! Stones in a row held down by higher stones. She called it stone hedge, she thought the name was quite catchy. Then as she viewed the people inside, moving forward, she saw they held signs over their heads.

'Help us, level one thousand and up please.' Her heart dropped. All the signs said that same thing. Miniana was not level one thousand. She wasn't even half.

Sullen and sad, she slumped back to her boring and ancient dungeons.

A long time after this, came the birth place of another new city named tara. However, Miniana had the same dilemma as she had with Tailltean.

The very day that Miniana became level one thousand, was the announcement date of the talent system. And now, people no longer needed to be level one thousand to do shadow missions.

Miniana totally wigged out. She was upset, she was even considering crying. But then her friend knives33, who preferred to be known as knives564, comforted her in the knowledge that at least she could now do them, and it was still a triumph.

So still, a bit blue, she set out to tara, only to find herself heartbroken. You see, now that lord passes and elite and talents had been released, now there were signs that said 'Help us, only level two thousand and up please.' Some of them even had the cheek to write three thousand. Again, sullen and sad, Miniana slumped back to the boring and ancient dungeons.

It was time to accept that dungeons were her fate.

The only good luck many great men have ever had was being

born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck.

~Channing Pollock