On May 3, 2018, thirty thousand Japanese players of the popular MMORPG Elder Tale found themselves trapped in -- or a world startlingly similar to -- the game.

Eun of the fox tails
Eun sighed this was chaos she thought as she looked at her clothed wrapped feet while she stretched while in her tree. She logged into the game hopping for some quick questing while she explored the changes in the new expansion. Though that changed as she noticed this was really her new body it seemed. having come to that conclusion when in her confusion yanked on her flowing fox tails and was met with pain. Wincing at the remembrance of the sharp pain she felt. It was really her body now oh well might as well try to find some new blood she supposed. Blood was her own way of saying that she was looking for some people to come with her for questing or that. This was their new life and she would remain strong so she would head out and fight to forge her own path.

Sakura The Shadow
Sakura remained quiet as she perched atop a tree the situation was different but like most other things she will not let it get to her. Remaining in the shadows she watched people go through and forth and panicking over the situaion which was not helping them if she was to say anything. Going by that she also saw one of her old "buddies" she supposed panic a bit it seems that he was actually a she. Watching the little spectacle of her going the trouble to get the potion. Seeing as there was no need for her to be there at the moment or at all considering she only partied with the glasses wearing one once.

Yang blinked from his spot on the ground with no idea how he got there. He looked around, taking in all the confusion and chaos. Wherever the hell he was, it sure wasn't the Beijing server. Recalling the steps in his head, he had gotten home earlier after finishing something a school with his brother. He called his girlfriend about something that was slipping his mind and started playing Elder Tales. There was a ton of pre-Novasphere Pioneers hype and many of his "students" were asking him about it as if he was a developer. He could only polity turn them down as they made a rainbow of emotes into the chat.

After that he went to the guild hall and dumped most of the junk that was filling up his inventory along with a good part of his fortune into the bank. He made a habit of not keeping too much money on his character incase he was jumped by a pack of PK-ers. Or if Gaigin from his guild, <Orbital Seekers> decide to play a trick on him that involved a hole dug too deep.

Another round of questing with his newer students and grinding out subclass levels with fellow Alchemists and Potion makers.
"Yang, you finished with the Alvian Oil?" one of his colleague's typed into chat, tiny magical fires burning as his character flipped through the pages of an old potion book.
"Yeah, I'm done with it. Also done with the blackpowder." Yang typed in as his character moved to hand the old ceramic pot from his inventory to his colleague.
"Don't forget to keep it in safe storage! lol" his colleague typed in as his character stuck out his tongue and bopped itself on the head.
"Dude, -_-; ", Yang was less then amused after some recent events that had transpired, "I'll keep it on me until tomorrow, I need sleep anyways. Damn Cui-Laoshi and her tests D:"

With that, Yang logged off and jumped onto his bed, already in his sleepwear. Within seconds, his lights were out and his body snugly under the covers. His mind wandered as he thought of the test, his game plans and his date with his girlfriend. As he thought of a mix of English vocabulary and alchemical ingredients, he drifted off to sleep. Funny, he never would have guessed his life would be like this looking back from a decade ago where Elder Tales was his digital paradise, his pixel dream.
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Yang woke up amongst hundreds of screams and yells. He opened his eyes, and instead of seeing his room, he saw Beijing. Elder Tale's version of it sprawling in front of him. He muttered something incoheant as someone grabbed his arm and ran, "Laoshi, follow me!"

Yang didn't seem to have a choice in the matter as he was dragged by his (supposed) student. No one other than those he taught ever called him "Laoshi". He only hoped that the person would be so kind enough to not let him die on the way to where ever he was begin dragged.

"We have to hurry! The Fairy Gates are closing!" the boy yelled as Yang gagged on a rock, wondering what kind of strength stat he must have in order to pull him like a doll.

Yang got one last sight of the Beijing Spawn, the remains of the Forbidden City off in the distance along with horde of confused Adventurers. One second later, he vision was blocked by the magical pudding/gel/field of the Fairy Gate. It felt like it was some slime enveloping his body without the wetness he'd expect. Soon it turned to a warm fuzziness, as if he was surrounded by kittens.

Suddenly, while he was still enjoying the feeling of being surrouned by a pool s kittens, he lurched forward and felt as if everything was pulling him back as something else was pulling him forward. The Fairy Gate had reached its destination and Yang was shot out of it. Straight into a blond-haired girl in a plate armor/skirt hybrid.

Yang grumbled, "I feel as if this is the start of something big. I also feel like this is that start to a bad shounen anime..."

Sei "Doll Maker"
She couldnt help but sigh as she looked at her pocket watch. Checking the time though for some reason it wasnt ticking and the time seemed to become screwy. With another sigh she put it away it was a odd day that was for sure. Being a frail and sickly person she wasn't complaining to be able to walk without a fear of tripping though it was the fact that she was her elder tales char that made it worse. She couldn't log out and it was starting to worry her a bit this was a really odd situation something she never dealt with before really though looking around no one had. Walking down the street she stopped by a small park area with three small trees in a triangle shape deciding to sit down in the middle on the provided bench she started to play around with two of her small summons "Shanghai and Hourai" Two summons that came from the chinese server as she understood still these were her favorite summons being small and easy to summon they have additional spells to cast upon them allowing them to fight and or in some cases grow to the size of a raid boss. Looking at the tool summoned dolls she laughed a little as they did their little game of tag though she stopped her bell like laugh as she saw someone approach her two someones it seemed.

Yang - A Curious Youxa

Yang walked around the town, wondering where the hell he was. He opened his mouth to try and ask for help but was repeatedly turned away. After the fifth time when he was shoved aside by a hulking brute in some red armor, he walked down the street and spotted a little girl sitting on a bench, playing with some dolls running about in the air, a Summoner no doubt.

"Mind if I sit here?" Yang's eye wondered as he pointed to the open spot before taking a closer look at the floating marionettes, "Wait... where did you get those dolls?"

Yang knew he had scene them once, in a place far away, in a place called China.

Sei A confused doll maker
"These dolls? I got them from a Monk class person from the chinese server she was awfully odd that much is for sure though we traded items I gave her some leftover fur from the wonderland event and in return she gave me these doll summons." Sei said as she remembered how she got those two summons it was odd something that taught a skill to a certain class was odd though it wasn't unheard of. From her understanding these was rare summons that could have only be gotten from a certain event on the china server. Though she wasn't complaining these was her best summons able to change to match a variety of situation and what gave her the nickname the "doll maker".

Yang-C - An Ingrish Youxia

"Rearry? Could I have the name of such a person?" Yang hoped that she hadn't notice his Ingrish. He secretly recognized the dolls, he had seen them as rare quest rewards for the Chinese New Year's event.

This little girl however was of a certain amount of interest to Yang, she seemed delicate and doll-like, fitting for one who uses dolls as their primary weapons. He watched as the dolls floated around her head, racing each other around the locks of her blonde hair.

"Can I also ask the name of such a girl like you?" Yang leaned on the edge of the bench and stared at the dolls, of which stared back at him. There was a certain uncanny creepiness to seeing inanimate dolls gaze into your soul, "Mind if I take a seat next to you Ms. uhh.... ummm...."

"Sei my name is Sei" she said softly as she watched the dolls fly around the area after softly nudging them somewhere else. "Though to answer your question I believe the person introduced herself as "China" I believe. How about you I dont think your native to this server are you?" She decided to question most people spoke japanese here and his speaking english was kind of easy to spot plus the auto translate which seemed to still be in place was trying hard to translate it into the correct language but had a hard time keeping up at some points it seemed.

Dammit, she noticed. Yang laminated over his ingrish and the auto-translate inability to work correctly. Sighing, he took a breath and returned to a speech pattern which would not trigger his ingrish, "You are right, I'm a Youxia from China with the subclass of Alchemist. Please, call me Yang or Laoshi."

With that he took out a small vial from a pocket and broke the top off with a satisfying "pop". He threw it into the air and watched as multicolored smoke drifted from the end of it. The colored cloud twisted itself over and over until it became a beige colored nimbus which Zhang took a seat on in front of Sei, "So, do you want to talk or do you want to do something fun like hunting?"

"Hunting? she questioned what exactly are you going to hunt?" she asked in a situation like this she supposed doing the standard would be better than not doing anything at all. Though looking back she wondered how did this start still he seemed to have a solid grasp of things. "I guess hunting sounds good though we should stick with slightly weaker enemies since they would help in the end since things are how they were. I only managed to summon those two through the standard whistle and not the actual spell." She stated as pointed out some key problems with hunting the larger enemies common to their level group she assumed.

Yang waved a hand, "No, no. How about we try for something bigger, like the <Wild Dragon Beasts> in the eastern forests? We're both level 90, we should be able to handle this kind of stuff."

Yang smiled as he brought out his axe, "Don't worry, you can have some of the good loot too when we're done." He made several hand motions with each swipe increasing in furiousness, "Umm... would you know how to create a party Sei?"

Sei (Doll Maker)
"Very well let me handle this." With unnatural dexterity with her fingers and hands moving at near impossible speeds she quickly had multiple windows up before sending two requests to Yang one for friend the other a party request. "There we go" Sei said as she the windows disappeared from her view. She was unnatural with manipulating them but she supposed it was from puppetry which requires a large amount of dexterity. "So what did you want to do take the standard quest chain to eliminate them or standard hunting?"

"Let's just go hunting out side, I'm not too familiary with Yamato's quest-chains." Yang releed back from the temporary shock of seeing blurs of what was suppose to be fingers, "You sure are fast with your hands."

Yang watched as Sei got up and walked next to him as they walked down the street, Yang had a feeling this would be the start of something big. That or it was hit back hurting like he just tried to go against hollywood superstar Shia Labeouf in the ring with a pack mule on his back.
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"That ought to do it." Zhang arranged a pile of sticks into a short stumpy cone with ring of grey river rocks into a camp fire and dripped a bit of a alchemical fire potion on to it, setting it a blaze. The alchemical coal inside the cone of sticks would let it burn for a while.

"There, now we have a place to fall back to to rest if need be." Zhang finally figured out how to use the menu and equipped his axe into his hand, "If we get lost, we can try to find our way back. Ready to go hunting Sei?"

"Very well" Sei said as she stood up and dusted off her clothes. Her two dolls was floating around her armed with iron jousting lances and large tower shields. Her left hand held a book tied in two red ribbon with a ornate golden lock in the middle locking it shut somehow. "So how many do you want to hunt exactly?" She asked it was a legitimate question she was a summoner and a such had to fight from the back lines unless something came up in which case she would use a decoy to take the attack.

"Hmm..." Yang thought hard, "Hows does dusk sound? Wait, no that would be too long. I still want to find some place to live and..."

Yang wound up on a tangent of thoughts, self-doubt and contradictions. His mind declared civil war on itself until he came to the simple resolution, "Let's just hunt until we're tired. There should be something worthwhile that comes up soon. Worse comes to worse, we can always just camp outside the wall. Be one with nature."

Yang turned his head to look towards the left and then spotted something growing next to a tree. With haste, he ran to it and picked it up. It was a delicate purple flower, the center became lighter and lighter in contrast to the deep royal purple of the outer petals. Gentle sparkled shimmered around the beautiful thing.

Yang examined it and held it out to Sei, "Its a <Chrysanthemum Throne>, it give small boosts to luck when worn like this. It shouldn't decay or wilt. Want it?"

Taking the flower and gently placing in the ribbons of her book she smiled at the gesture. "Shall we get started hunting than?" she asked as she looked at the area. This was a odd to be honest as a summoner she was used to larger parties than this but it was still a nice change of pace all things considered. "So Yang how did you end up here?" she decided ot ask to try and get small talk going on as they roamed searching for the required monsters.

Yang slung his axe over his shoulder as he began walking, the forest was nice, it made him feel like a Bhuddist monk in some far off monastery. He turned to the summoner, "Short version is that I got dragged in by a student of mine right as the gates died. I have no idea where he is all I can hope is that he's okay. If you want the long version of how I ended up playing Elder Tales, well, that's going to have to be a story for another day when we have the time."

He dug in his pack and fished out a corked vial after a bit of fumbling around with his hands. In one swift move, he pulls out the cork with his teeth, drank the contents of the vial and re-corked it before placing it in his bag once more. His eyes tingled and his mind cleared, his face broke into a grin as he could feel the life-force of the animals around him, "There's a pack of <Wildforest Dire Wolves> nearby, want to go after them?"

"might as well" she said as she packed her items and took out her book and opened to a specific page. "A question must be asked one simple and true will you die for me?" She intoned as a ten card soldiers rained down and dropped in front of her spears at the ready. Smirking at a semi shocked Yang "close your mouth you might catch flies" she laughed as she walked forward.

Yang quickly shut his mouth and watched as the little girl and her soldiers march on into the forest. He had seen summoners work before having trained been originally taught himself by a summoner but rarely had he seen one with more than two active summons.

"I'm not sure if I'm willing to die for you but I can teach you." Yang said as he caught up to their new little army, "Also, in about a meter or two you might want to have your soldiers line up into a spear wall Miss Red Queen of Hearts."

If Yang remembered correctly, Wildforest beasts rarely let the enemy come to them and would always try to get the first hit. At least in China at any rate.

"It was not a question rather a statement needed to summon these special monsters." Sei replied "though I guess I can get where you would make that mistake." She added as she motioned with her hand for the card soldiers to move from with six forming a large walking wall and four forming a diamond formation around her. "Be careful something approaches from the northwest" She intoned quietly as she the book was floating in front of her with the pages flipping by a unseen wind as her own body was levitating as well her eyes taking a gleam to them as she looked in the said direction.

"So I'm to be used as a human sacrifice." Yang lowered his axe to meet the wolf that the girl spoke of, "Charming."

A moment of silence as the rustling of the wind grew louder, the underbrush crept around the two and the wall of spear-weilding poker knights. THe forest stalked around then as the trees looked for an opening to strike. As Yang inhaled a breath and formed a little to the front of the spear wall, the rush of wolves began.

"Here they come!" Yang shot his axe out, at the first wolf, leaving a long, dark red gash on its back before spinning around and bring its head down on the next, "Sei! Your turn!"