Terry Deschain groggily awoke from a wonderfully sexy dream, not unlike those the author is prone to having. These are primo dreams, too; holy shit, you wouldn't believe the antics involved in them. The sexy antics, as they were. Much could be said about them, but it is inappropriate to discuss such things here; wait until after dark. For the now, our intrepid young hero with the brown hair and hazel eyes was about to find himself in a real fix. There were quite a few things wrong with the scene he found himself in, and it's the duty of the fellow writing all this down to inform you of every one of them. First things first; this was not his room. No funny posters on the walls, no computer, no TV, no copies of Playbo-- I mean, academic literature, yes, that's what I meant. Instead, there was a dingy old-timey bed that was in such a state that the only adjectives that could be used to describe it were “dingy old-timey”. The room itself was simple and bland, with not much else in it beyond a nightstand and the door out. It was this door that Terry stumbled towards, confused. Where the devil was he, and why could he not remember how he had gotten here? Such questions would likely become major plot points later down the line, if the author was a good little boy and kept updating this thing right as rain. With a creak, the door was opened, granting the confuzzled Terry exit from the boring room, and making the author decide to include a paragraph break here so as not to burn out the eyes of the readers.

Like someone quickly changing the subject of a conversation to avoid an awkward moment, the scene quickly changed. Terry now found himself in a tavern bar sort of place, and was even more puzzled. There were people here and there, sitting at the tables and getting drunker than Canadian lumberjacks, and all were dressed oddly. The garbs looked strangely familiar to Terry; the combination of robes and armor and other assorted accessories like something he had seen before. It was like he had walked into some sort of cosplay-themed bar, except there weren't any weeaboos glomping anyone.

Forgive me the paragraph break, but when I said wee-- Er, I mean, that W-word up there in the last sentence, a bunch of businessmen with paddles jumped me and started paddling me, yelling “WEEABOO! WEEABOO!”

It happened again. Ow. Anyway, Terry, who was unburdened by author intrusions, wobbled over to the bar and caught the attention of the bartender. The bartender looked up, and spoke the first actual line of dialogue in this sordid tale of wackiness.

“Need a drink, Mage?” he asked, polishing a glass absently.

“That's alright..” Terry replied. “Just tell me.. Where am I?”

At this the bartender chuckled, and the author realized he only ever uses three adjectives for talking. Oh goddamnit.

“Had a little much to drink last night, did we, Mage?” he said with a grin. “Well, you're in the Spinning Yarn, in the fine town of New Ambrosia!”

Terry blinked in even more confusion.

“New Ambrosia? Where the hell is that?” he asked.

“My my, Mage, you must've had a hell of a round last night. New Ambrosia, on New Island, off the coast of East Ivalice. That ring any bells?”

It did, but it rang all the wrong bells for Terry. Hearing the bartender Ivalice finally made him realize where he had seen the cosplays the patrons were wearing.
“Oh my Christ, I've gone mad.” he muttered to himself.

His mind was filled with questions now. How did he get here? How would he get back home? What was that cute blonde's number again? No, wait, that last one is one of my questions, sorry. Find out all of those questions except that last one, and more, on the next exciting episode of Dragon Ball Z!

Hey get back here, I was kidding. Dur.
“You look a might pale, Mage.” the bartender said. “Everything alright?”

“For now.. But, why do you keep calling me Mage?”

“Well, I figured, you're dressed as one, you must be a black mage. Aren't ya?”

Terry was oblivious to the bartender's reasoning, until he turned and saw himself in a mirror. Sure enough, he was wearing the traditional yellow hat and blue robes of a black mage; but this getup showed his face, which made it different from a trademarked Square-Enix Black Mage and thus kept the author from facing a class-action lawsuit. The sight of himself in such a nearly-accurate getup finally broke Terry, and he jumped back with a yelp.

“Okay really now, what the hell is going on here?” he yelled. Luckily for Terry, his freakout was cut short by the loud thunk of a man bursting through the door and into the bar. Lucky for the author, too, as now some actual plot can occur. The plate mail and modestly-sized sword at the man's side plainly showed he was a knight and not, in fact, a carrot. The man walked with a swagger that was not mad at all, groaning and clutching his chest in obvious agony. The knight's right hand was the familiar maroon of dried blood; something had cut him pretty damn good. Terry gaped stupidly at the wounded bugger, before finally speaking up.

“Good God, what happened to you?” he asked, helping the man towards one of the beds.

“A-arena.. in New Harbour.. I fought a swordsman.. strongest I've ever seen..” the knight stuttered, his ellipses punctuating the air. “C-curse that man... Sephiroth Dragoon..”

Terry was so shocked by what had to be the worst name to ever grace a creative medium made by any human ever that he dropped the knight onto the bed comically and ran out the door.

There's only one idiot who would use a name like that.. he thought, and for a moment the author was worried he would be mentioned by name, and then get stalkers, gay fanboys, and death threats. Luckily, it wasn't him Terry was thinking of. He made it two steps outside the bar, realized he didn't know where New Harbour was, and ran back into the bar.

“Which way to the arena at New Harbour?” he asked.

“30 minutes' walk east.” the bartender replied.

NOW Terry ran dramatically out of the bar in cinematic fashion, to head to the arena in New Harbour. The author is a total lazy bugger, so he hit Save on his word processor, and decided to call it a chapter. Hey, it was a whole two pages; now that's progress. Oh, but wait, he forgot to add those questions at the end that would make people intrigued. Damnit.

Who is the mysterious “Sephiroth Dragoon”? Why did he pick such a stupid-ass name? How much more author intrusion will there be in this thing? What's taking the big-chested girls in bikinis so long to get here and sleep with me for writing something amusing?
Some of these questions might get answered next time. Or not. I dunno.