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Post by skyeknight on May 26, 2021 2:58:01 GMT
Byleth blinked and looked around her. This was not her room. The game she had inserted into her computer was not a virtual reality one. But as she turned 360 degrees, she found forest all around her. She looked down at herself, to find armor and robes and a sword strapped to her hip. Like she would in any video game. Perhaps this was a dream? She had been stressed as of late. That argument was weak because she could feel the wind against her skin, the warmth of light peaking between the leaves, and the smell of the forest around her.
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on May 27, 2021 0:51:43 GMT
The Enchanted Forest could be a little unpredictable sometimes. If you set foot in it, you could never be too sure what you might find. You were just as likely to come across tiny fairies hiding among mushrooms as you were a bunch of thieves running from the law. Jiro had spent a lot of time in the Magic Realm though, and that made him prepared for almost anything. So when he saw a swordswoman looking a bit confused as she looked around her, he didn't think twice before deciding to head over and offer some help. "Hey there," he said. "Are you alright? You seem a little lost."
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Post by skyeknight on Jun 5, 2021 1:50:08 GMT
Byleth turned. Another player? She looked over the man in the shining armor. Was this part of the tutorial? Just dumping her into the game and letting her figure things out as she went. Perhaps that was why the game wasn't popular enough for her to have heard about it before. But she didn't see dialogue prompts. So she could speak freely? Maybe it was an MMORPG.
"I'm... not sure," she confessed. "Normally most games I play give more of a tutorial... Or at least a cutscene to explain the premise so far."
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jun 6, 2021 20:13:51 GMT
It only took Jiro a second to realize what was going on. It looked like this woman was a first-timer with the Magic Realm and still thought this was all a game. Admittedly, he'd thought the same thing when first coming in. A lot of people did. It usually took a little while for the realization that the Magic Realm was a real place. "Let me guess: A computer game called the Magic Realm mysteriously showed up at your doorstep one day. You have no idea where it came from or who sent it, and when you popped it in, you woke up here. Am I right?"
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Post by skyeknight on Jun 8, 2021 2:36:02 GMT
Byleth shrugged, "I get a lot of games. I was unpacking my things and that game was sitting atop of a stack of games I got from... work."
She made a face. She used to game professionally. Now she was just a homebody. In fact, this was the first game she had played in a very very long time. Not that she was about to tell the other player that. It was embarrassing enough to be made out like some noob. But really, the controls were... wait, was she controlling the avatar? Everything seemed to be in first person, but she couldn't see her room.
"The graphics are amazing... Is this a beta test?" she asked. "Because this game is insanely detailed. It needs work on the intro... There wasn't one."
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jun 8, 2021 23:07:56 GMT
Just sitting on top of a pile of games from work, huh? Judging from the way she talked, she probably played them a lot. Jiro just hoped she was ready to hear that this place wasn't exactly a game. "So, there wasn't really an intro 'cause...this isn't really a game," he said. "And I know games like to break the fourth wall and tell you that, but it's for real this time. Believe me."
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Post by skyeknight on Jun 10, 2021 3:02:24 GMT
"What are you talking about? Of course it's a game. I inserted the game and then..."
But she wasn't in her room. She hadn't put on her virtual reality headset. That had been sitting in a box because she hadn't found a place to properly display it in her new room. She couldn't even see her room around her. And normally MMORPGs were 3rd person so you could see what was going on around you and to tell your avatar apart from another player's. She didn't see user ID above the other man's head either.
"This... isn't possible," she said slowly, more to herself than to him.
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jun 11, 2021 2:00:56 GMT
It looked like the woman was finally catching on to what was happening. Honestly, so far, her reaction wasn't too bad. Some people could get a little crazy when they found out for the first time. "It is," he said. "Think of the disc and the Magic Realm as like the wardrobe that leads to Narnia." That was the best analogy he had for how this all worked.
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Post by skyeknight on Jun 11, 2021 4:43:17 GMT
The breath rushed out of her and she leaned against the nearest tree. She could feel the tree bark against her back, rough and textured. Her head was spinning. A million protests were trying to slip past her lips but she knew reality and she knew virtual worlds. She hadn't been that deep into gaming that she forgot what reality was. But the question was... how did this happen? How on earth could she have been slipped a game that whisked her away without her knowledge.
"Does... that make you Aslan?" she asked.
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jun 20, 2021 18:54:09 GMT
Jiro laughed. "No, no, I'm not a ruler of the realm or anything. I'm from Avalon, just like you. And when I first came here, well, this is the form I take." He gestured to his armor and held up his iron arm. "Some are still regular humans when they come through here, others change into something else. A mermaid, a werewolf, a fairy, anything pretty much goes. In my case, I became a wizard." He held up his other arm and with a simple spell, coated it in iron to match his other arm.
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Post by skyeknight on Jun 21, 2021 3:30:42 GMT
"This... is a lot to take in," she decided on.
She wasn't entirely sure what to do now that she was here. Then there was her father to worry about. He had been talking about dinner when she had put the game in. She held up a gauntlet covered hand. She wondered if many other people felt this sense of whiplash in coming to this world. Or if others from this world made it to the real world.
"How do I get back to... the real world?" she asked.
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jun 24, 2021 23:16:33 GMT
"It is for everyone, believe me," Jiro said. "When I first came here, I thought I had gone crazy." Given that he was still recovering from the trauma of losing his arm, that conclusion hadn't been too outlandish. The woman asked how she could get back and he replied "Portals. They're scattered throughout here and they take you back to Avalon once you pass through them. Or you can hop between kingdoms with them. It cuts traveling time way down."
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Post by skyeknight on Jun 25, 2021 4:14:39 GMT
"How... how is something like this possible? I've played plenty of games before and never..." she paused, thinking of the description that best suited this situation. "Crossed over into one."
She had hundreds of games under her belt. At this point, the plot of most of them tended to blur together. At least this was an RPG sort instead of an 8-bit game. She wasn't sure how she would handle the flat pixelated character sprite. But then she focused. She had to get back to the real world. Her father would be worried sick if he came up with dinner and she wasn't there.
"And I don't have to beat a boss to find one?"
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Post by angelofmusic1992 on Jun 26, 2021 17:08:44 GMT
Jiro tried to think of how best to describe this in a way the woman would understand, or at least not get more confused. All the information you got when entering the Magic Realm for the first time could be a bit overwhelming. "Well, there are no boss fights, so you can relax about that," he said. "As for all this, well, it's not really a game per say. Apparently, this place used to exist side by side with our world. But it faded away and the game acts as a gateway for us now. I've talked to some people who have been here for a long time and they said before computers became big or whatever, they came through with a book." He paused for a second before asking "Does that make sense? I know it sounds a little...convoluted."
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Post by skyeknight on Jun 27, 2021 3:34:58 GMT
"No, I understand," Byleth assured him. "Believe it or not, I've played a few games with a somewhat similar plot device."
It made sense. It had happened in her games before. If she thought about it, she could probably come up with at least a dozen titles that listed something along those lines. Parallel worlds were not uncommon themes in video games. They always liked to say that life in the other world was better. Just as the grass was greener on the other side. At least she hadn't died and been sent into a new work isekai style. Truck-san was not getting another victim.
"Interesting how the development of technology changed the means of transportation," she mused. "I wonder why..."
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