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Kyran took a sharp, startled breath as his eyes snapped open, light streaming in from the midday sunlight. A spire rose in the distance and ruined buildings stood on either side of him, small places that looked like they used to be houses.

Where am I?

He stood on a wide road, torn up by roots of large trees and covered in cracks and grass. A small bird took flight as Kyran started walking towards the spire, a bird that he was sure he'd never seen before.

Wait, that looked like a game bird... What the?

Looking down at himself, he noticed that his stomach was gone and replaced with a much fitter upper body. While not ripped, it was certainly fitter than before. Looking at his arms and legs, he noted the various items, and small, floating boxes appeared, letting him know what they were.

Am I in Elder Tales? He looked around and spotted another person, someone huddling under a tree, head in their hands. Another box appeared with options underneath. Tapping one of them opened the game menu for Kyran, who then went to try and loggout. The option was greyed out.

Well.

Moving over the menu options, he opened his friends list. A lot of the names were grey, with 'offline' next to them. Some more people were logged in, their names bright. Selecting one, he smiled faintly as he tapped the dial symbol.

"Hey Cai-Ann," he said, a faint smile on his face.

Sval exhaled. What a night. The raid had went well. Although he'd never met his comrades before, they'd performed rather well. Of course the dungeon wasn't a particularly challenging one, but he enjoyed it all the same. This would be probably the last time he'd run any of the older dungeons before Novasphere Pioneers launched, so it was more of a nostalgia trip than anything.

He opened his eyes again, expecting to see the illumination of the monitor in front of him, opening onto the great city that served as a hub for all the players in the game world. Instead, there was no monitor, just the city. A cool wind buffeted his face.

This felt ridiculously real. Too real. He tried blinking several times, smacking his cheek. No luck.

Finding a rock to sit down on, he realised that his body was more muscular than before and he felt.. strong. "This is not.. me.. this is my character.." he thought to himself. Almost to answer this introspection, the wind piped up again, brushing some of his character's signature black hair over his shoulder.

That hair was meant to be brown.

In real life, Sval was an avid follower of the latest developments in virtual reality. Could this possibly be what this is about? He had no idea how the developers of Elder Tales had managed to implement it so quickly without any changes to hardware. Attempting to access the status screen by motioning with his hand to perform key-binds, he found eventually that by waving his arms about he could find the information he wanted. Log Out was not available. This was very unnerving and slightly frightening.

Sval noticed many of his friends were still online, and some had recently come back online. Perhaps they'd been pulled into this predicament as well?

He decided to open a call to Cai-ann, one of his best real life friends and an excellent assassin to boot. That seemed like the logical place to start.

"Hellooo?"

"Not weird at all.. Okay Spire I can do that. I'll pass the word along a try to remember if there is anything in the game lore that could help us. Although I'd feel better if I had any idea how anything worked. Sval you're the most experienced player are control commands working the same?"

As she spoke she slowly begun walking towards the land mark trying to keep an eye on the surrounding area.

"Ahh guys? I just worked out that I'm in a combat open area."

The controls were most definitely not the same. Sval had used keybinds for years and his muscle memory was like second nature to him. The finger motions he made to use his attacks were of no use now.

Standing up from the rock he was sitting on, he noticed that the sun was glinting just above the horizon, the plains lit up by the orange glow. The nearby water sparkled a little bit. Was that magic or just the sun?

"The commands are definitely not the same... I wonder if this will work though..."

He pulled his sword off its (presumably) magical holder on his back. Lightweight but it was fairly large, made out of some strange material that didn't exist in real life. Swinging it around was easy enough, but using special attacks? Hmm, that would take some work.

"I can't figure out how to use special attacks with my sword yet, but I'm sure someone will at some point. So where abouts are you Cai? I'm in the fields out to the west, near the healing well. Nobody else is here."

"North," Kyran muttered to himself while looking at the spire, the area around him. "Sun rises in the west, so I'm southish and need to head that direction." Pulling a sickle from a loop in his belt, he started walking fast, letting his tails fan out behind him as he picked up speed.

"Cai, I'm on my way, I suspect a couple of minutes. It's a low level area with not too much agro, so try and stay safe."

He let the call drop as he concentrated on his running, letting his tails keep his balance for him. As he sped up, he noticed that his breathing didn't become labored and his muscles didn't cramp. His new body was amazing and his fan of tails helped with his balance. It wouldn't take him long to get to Cai.