I opened my eyes and tried to remember anything but my minded was blanked from memory. "What happened, where am I?" I asked myself as I stood up. I found myself it a strange looking place. It looked like a mix between swamp and cave and it felt rather familiar. I saw no color aside from blue and black. I walked in a circle trying to find out what had happened to me.  

I noticed something in the corner of my eye, drawing my attention to a strange cloaked figure holding a book. I could see no face and it seemed as if shadow were arcing of its cloak. The figure reached into its cloak with a skeleton like hand and pulled a book out of its cloak. A single thought shot into my head and I spoke one word. "Grim...."

All of a sudden the world around me started to shake and I woke up. The first thing I realized was a shocking pain rush through my bolt like a lighting strike. All I could do at this point was let a out pain induced scream. I yelled so loud that it hurt my ears and I started to wheeze, gasping for air. Every breath I took felt like a was being stabbed. I was granted no moment of clear thought as the pain swelled around my body.

My vision was blurred and I could only hear muffled sounds as I let out shout after shout. I could think of nothing other than the massive pain I was in and what made matters worse was that I couldn't move. I started panicking as I did everything I could to move. The pain only grew from this causing more shouts of agony and pain.

I gave in to my helplessness and stopped trying to move. After what felt like an eternity of pain I was finally granted a moment of clear thought. "What happened." I thought as the pain decreased somewhat. The pain started to focus onto part of my chest, back and legs. My memory senses started to regain control and I started to see sharply again. I could hear muffled shouts from somewhere around me but my ears were ringing to much to make out where or what they were.

"Did I get hit by a train or something?" I asked myself as I slowly tried to move again. I moved my neck slightly to get a look of where I was and found myself in a forest. My memory slowly started to return, giving me my first chance to focus on something instead of the pain. "Something happened, I.... fell?" I continued to do what I could to look around. "I fell from a tree, that's what happened."

I remembered the odd dream I had. "Did I really just die?" I asked myself remembering the cloaked figure. The wheezing stopped as I calmed myself down. I did what could to keep the my breathing from hurting. My hearing started to return and I could now easily hear something calling out my name. "Gunnar......?! Gunnar........!? Are you okay." The shouting continued for some time but I did what I could not to reply.

I lifted up one of my arms and did what I could to inspect it for damage. It was extremely bruised but I could move it just fine. My other arm showed the same result. "Oh god, this is gonna hurt." I said as I tried to sit up. Yet another shock of pain was sent through my body and I grit my teeth as I slowly forced myself up.

"Why do I have to be right at times like these." I asked myself. "Fuck that hurts...." The pulsing pain I felt through out my body dimmed as I got used to it. The trick was not to dwell on the pain for long and I turned my attention to the shouting. It seemed that something was shouting my name, desperately looking for a response.

I literally dragged myself to the edge of the branch and peaked over. By the time I had gotten my head over the shouting had been spotted. I did catch the glimpse of a blue pony in between the branches. I quickly remember the pony to be Longtrot and I finally regained the last of my missing memories.

"Well this is bad, how long have I been passed out. "I thought as I pushed myself away from the branch. It surprised me how I could just go from *AAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHH THE PAIN* to *Ug.. this hurts* In a matter of what I assumed where minutes. You never know when your in intense pain. Though I could admit that this pain was a sure rival for the tooth infection pain but it a different way. The jolts of pain were harder to get used to but hurt far less once I was used to them.

I made an effort to stand up but quickly gave up once I felt the pain my knee was in. "Please, please tell me its not broken and I just have some muscle damage. I don't want to be stuck in the trees for a couple months and have my knee grow back all weird, I need it to run around." I said in despair. I had never broken a bone before and I had seen how much it tormented my my mom when she broke her ankles, the only difference being that I was no where near good medical care and a war I was to take part in was just around the corner and worst of all, I'd be stuck in a damned tree with fairies that hang out around it.

It seemed once again I had completely ignored the shouting, which was still going on mind you. Now normally I would just ignore the shouting but in this special scenario I chose the best thing to do was react on it. Yelling wasn't really going to work considering I was laying on an already in pain rib cage. I pulled myself over to my bag o' stuff and grabbed an apple.

I took a quick bite out of it and threw it in the general direction of the blue pony who was still yelling like a mad man. "First bites the best." I said with a minor slime appearing on my face. I didn't really have an Idea of where it landed and simply hoped that it got her attention. I really wanted to yell: shut up :afterwards but I deemed myself incapable of doing so.

"You know what, I think I should let myself get caught now...... Wait, what am I saying?! Screw getting caught, I'm not going to let my stupidity go without good reason.....! If there really is a good reason for my stupidity." Any pain I had felt was gone due to the good mood I was forming for myself. The yelling had stopped adding on to my new happy streak and I was planning on keeping it like that.

"Okay, I have one issue now. At some point not too long ago, the blue pony, which I assume is Longtrot, sent a different pony back to ponyville to get Rainbow. He said it would take half a day to get there and one could assume that it would take 10-20 minutes to find Rainbow and then a little over half a day to get back here and find me/Longtrot and the unknown pony.  That gives me how long to crawl away? I little under a day, if I'm lucky. Lets go into caterpillar mode!" I said before grabbing the bag and inching my way along the branch. as long as I had made some distance then I could at least pretend that I was doing well.

The bag in had I moved up to the tree trunk. I sat up against it and checked to see just how damaged me knee was. The weird thing was that I couldn't see any signs of damage or what not. It just hurt like hell to walk on. My other leg was completely fine aside from some bruises.

"Well this is the first time I've fallen out of a tree and really, I don't regret it. A new experience involving extreme pain is something I can later use to shut up people complaining about the cold or how bad there hand hurt when they wrote or when they get kicked in the head when I accidentally knock them down during a race. You know, the normal things."

I tried to stand on my good leg with success. "I shall be the hopping tree-man, let the world fear me and I freeze it whilst hopping around!" I cheered quietly. I did what I could map out a route I could take that wouldn't work my legs to hard. Suddenly the copycat realization popped up in my head. "Why doesn't this hurt more!? I fell out of a massive tree and I'm pretty sure I died, woke up with a pain that could kill only to stand up a few minutes later as if nothing happened?! Something very strange is going on!"

I was in an ultimate confusion due to the oddity of the event. I understood I had a high pain tolerance but that was because of a lack of focus and an ignorant attitude towards pain but this should have been more than enough to at least make me shed a tear or make me lay down for a good long time. I was now only left with some pain in my chest and my damaged knee.

"I swear I'm going to find out why this doesn't hurt, not only that but should I be covered in scratches? Normally a fall would include them. Damn it, now I really confused." I ignored the confusion and continued to fish out a viable route down. The two things I had to keep in mind of branch to branch distance and a route that would avoid the ponies. It took a long time to find a route as I calculated the risks and probability of further injury on my way down.

I stood there for close to a half an hour mapping out the forest around me. I had tested just about every possible route in  my head and it seemed the only way to make it down safely was to take a guess and hope there was an easier route outside of my eyes reach. I started my somewhat painful climb down as I tried to keep anything from coming in contact with my knee and lower leg.

The first part of the climb was easy thanks to my planning ahead but once I moved out of the known area, things began getting harder. "You know, once I'm done I have to find a ground leveled hiding spot as quickly as possible. That will make the ponies ace card be worthless. Unless of course they get the idea that I'm not in the trees anymore. That's why I need to find a quick hiding spot."

I slowly worked my way down in peace. There was no more yelling and the birds were singing there songs. I stopped for a moment to absorb the peaceful moment. It was a great feeling but I quickly continued on my way down. "Wait, when I get the idea to climb down? Oh well, I too far to stop now." I tended to do things without ever giving them a good moments thought, or at least remembering whether or not a gave them a moments thought.

My way done became easier as I got closer to the ground. The trees lacked all sense of logic and had tons of small branches which I could grab onto instead of the massive branches closer to the crown of the tree. I was terrified that one of the small branches was going to break, sending me plummeting once more but to my luck that never happened.

I had but one challenge left before I could reach the ground. It seemed I would have to jump the last distance between me and the safety of the ground. I took a few deep breaths and prepared myself for impact with the ground. After a few minutes I managed to work up the courage to jump and hung myself in the ready position. I let go and felt myself drop to the ground. I landed like a ninja as I turned a large piece of the falling energy into a judo roll.

"Thank you teachers and stupidity for most likely saving my knee." I said to the nothingness. Due to my lack of reason during sports, I often found my self moving to fast and falling over as I turned. The judo roll has saved me from many injures and was burned into my brain, turning it into one of my most basic reflexes.

"Oh wonderful ground, I'm glad to see you on such short notice, some ponies are after me and I need you to help me find a hiding spot." I told the ever so friendly ground. I felt far safer now that I had stable not collapsy ground underneath my foot.  I was keeping all pressure of my bad leg in hopes of reducing any pain and it was working just fine.

I successfully hopped from tree to tree without the use of both legs and used each tree to catch my breath an plan which tree to go to next. Here and there I would put some pressure on my leg to see just how much it was hurting. At first the pain was intense making my grunt and grind my teeth together but so odd curiosity compelled me to continue. It was like when you had a blue spot and couldn't help but push on it.

As I hopped along I search for any spot I could use to conceal myself and found there were many points I could use. The only thing driving me not to use one of the spots was that I was still extremely close to the ponies and I really needed to make some distance.

The pain in my knee and leg gradually went away. I put more pressure on my leg and found that I could walk with a limb. It still hurt but I was not going to let a little pain slow me down. The fact the pain was reducing only further sparked the confusion in my head. "Why is the pain going away?! I don't know what is going on or why and I need to know." The urge to rethink my situation kept growing, driving me somewhat insane.

Finally, after a short walk I gave in to my curiosity and moved to the closest hiding spot. There was a reasonable sized hole in one of the tree trunks which was hidden by bushes and vines. After some work I managed to get into the trunk and found a tunnel leading down into the earth. I stayed close to the entrance and sat down.

"Thinking cap time!" I said before starting the long process of figuring out what in the world was going on. "I doubt I have any magical healing powers, so I'm going to cross that off the list right away. The good news it I don't think I broke anything but that's not the point. I need to find out why this pain, which should last for days, disappear in a matter of minutes or what I can assume are minutes."

"Now, in normal circumstances I could understand so resistance to the pain but the amount I felt was just to much, it indicated damage like nothing before. It made my tooth infection feel like a minor inconvenience. Adrenaline could have explain it but the trouble it that I should feel an increase in pain now, not a decrease."

"If only the whole name thing could explain it. Warriors are far from immune to pain so that doesn't explain anything. Wait, maybe the name thing can explain it. Lets understand the *Names grant power* thing differently. Instead of Lyra's theory that name grant power, lets say that the names define power. It might be hard to understand but hear me out. A name is something given to someone or something to explain or point it out, basically put. A name defines a person or object but that definition doesn't hold meaning unless either globally accepted. I can call a rock a stick but that doesn't mean that when I say stick, people with think about rocks unless they accept that it is called stick."

"In that sense, If I tell people my name is Gunnar, then they will define me under the word Gunnar regardless of its meaning. I accept its meaning and empower it giving it its alternate meaning. To simplify, when I accept that Gunnar means warrior, I am giving the word its power so even if it meant something else, my definition of it would grant it its power, thus granting me its power."

"Now keeping this definition thing in mind, lets look at how I think about pain. I don't see pain as something to worry about or think about. I see it as something that's only in the head and as something the has no true existence. By this definition, there is no such thing as pain and the so called *rules* of this world listen accordingly. It doesn't stop me from feeling the pain, as it is a natural reaction but it does help me fight and beat back any since of pain."

"Wow this might actually help me explain a lot of oddities and basically allow me to get a large idea of these ponies as I meet them. Now I don't know if the theory makes a lot of since to others but its not like I'm going to be telling anyone anytime soon."

I was rather proud of myself for thinking up such a theory. It said within the realms of logic yet it could be used to explain so much. "Even though it may seem as if the names define us, we define our names based on others. Take someone who managed not to gain a name or someone who is extremely stubborn and even if there are named one thing, there definition of themselves will differ. The misconception of names grant power, especially with the ponies is that there names are defined by others leading them to define there own names based on others."

"Now if only I had a pony to ask questions and try to confirm this or rather, a large group of ponies to ask. Once this whole war thing is over I think I'm going to reveal the fact I can understand English just to work on confirming this. Not only that but I could probably get some good counter arguments from Lyra and Twilight." I finished my theories for the meantime and grabbed some food.

Breathing and swallowing still hurt somewhat but it was no issue and I devoured a few apples. The meal felt nice after what had happened today but I couldn't help but wonder where the ponies were now. I couldn't see how light it was outside and didn't know how much time had passed. I remembered about my Ipod and reached into my pocket.

I shut my eyes tight as I slowly pulled the Ipod out of my pocket. "Please work, please work." I said before opening my eyes. Aside from a dent my Ipod looked fine. I turned in on and found no problems. "Thank you for working, I don't know what I would do without you!" I said thankfully. The last thing I needed now was a broken Ipod to ruin my good mood.

I went to my music and hunted down a good song to listen to. "Lets listen to something different." I said as I scrolled over my Fall Out Boy albums, I rarely listen to them but they had some great music. I turned on *Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet* and listen happily. "Damn you and your random names!" I said directed at my Ipod. The song was better than I thought it would be and a few loops later I found myself singing along with it.

I realized that I had been singing along with and turned my Ipod off. "That's enough music for now." I said as I put the Ipod into my pocket. The song was now planted deep within the realms of my mind. I closed my eyes for a brief moment and hummed the song softly. I spent some time listening to my surrounds and just enjoying myself. So would say that I'm crazy for enjoying this day at all but then again, people call my crazy for a lot of different reasons.

"I should probably start practicing my Frostbite soon." I said as I reopened my eyes. Any thoughts of practice disappeared as I saw a familiar red light shining from deeper in the tunnel. "Now the dumb thing to do would be to go find the source of the red light and thus, sounds like the thing I should be doing." I said. I got up and walked deeper into the tunnel.

For a brief moment I heard some shouting from outside which motivated me to move faster. Wood and dirt walls were quickly replaced by stone as I made my way deeper. The red light faded away, leaving me stuck without being able to see anything. I stumbled up to a wall and leaned against it. The wall felt odd, to flat and smooth to be natural but it was cracked and old.

A weird noise caught my attention, it sounded like human footsteps. The rhythm of the steps made it sound like an adult man. I stood up and focused on the noise. I could hear bones crackle and a smell of decay surrounded me. "Well this doesn't feel pleasant." I thought as I quietly wandered away from the noise. I continued looking into the blackness trying to pick up any sign of movement.

Out of nowhere I fire was light and a few meters away from me stood a half rotten man with a white rags covering him. He looked like a zombie mage or something like that and I didn't really know how to react. There was fire coming off of his hand and I could feel the heat come off of it. The man laughed deeply for a moment before making a throwing movement. He flung the fire ball at me giving me only a few seconds to react. I managed to remember my Blastshield. "Please work." I said before pulsing a burst of energy out of my body.

An Icy dome formed around me, blocking the fireball. My first reaction was to run but I ignored the feeling as an Idea popped up. "This is just the challenge I need to test my Frostbite power." I thought to myself as the dome faded. I started pulsing my Frozen aura and charged the rotting man. My focus was on max allowing me to lock in on him even in the pitch blackness. Another fireball appeared on his hand and he tried to throw it but it was too late.

As I took my final steps, the fire started going out. For the last moment of light I could see the rotten man look at his hand and panic before I sent my fist flying at his body. I pierced through the his rotting body and started to freeze his body. I removed my hand from what felt like the his torso and felt around for his head. Once I found it I stomped on it until the skull shattered. "The only way to kill a zombie is to aim for the head." I thought before realizing what happened.

"Wait.... I just killed a zombie man that could shoot fire out of his hands.... in a world filled with ponies and fairies... when war between two factions of dragons are about to wage war..... HOW FUCKED IS THIS PLACE?!?" I shouted. A super *WTF Moment* had just accord leaving me it a large state of confusion. I moved away from the frozen body and sat down. A million thoughts were shooting through my head and I was starting to question whether or not I had just gone extremely crazy.

I started an uproar which attracted all the wrong kinds of attention. I stopped my shouting and yelled as I heard a massive amount of footstep approaching my location. "Note to self: Don't go crazy deep under the ground after killed a zombie mage thing." I said as I bolted off. There was a faint light coming from the exit area and I quickly bolted up the tunnel. I grabbed my bag and stopped at the exit of the tunnel. I could see some faint movement move up to me and stop. After a few moments I could hear the sounds of footsteps retreating back into the depths of the cave.

"Well, that was eventful. I need to come back here with some kind of light source and wipe this cave out. The ultimate Skyrim experience." I said confidently. Really the challenge I had given myself filled me with excitement. "Maybe they have some OP loot in there." I wondered as I walked out of the tunnel. I was greeted by the glow of the sun causing my eyes to bleed once again. "Why hello sun, here to blind me once again, I see." I laughed at that statement because of the accidental pun I made.

I wondered up to some big bushes and hid myself in between them. I sat down and began to formulate a plan to bring light. "Fire is not going to work considering I won't be able to use Frostbite without putting the flames out. If only I had some of that glowing gem stuff from the Horgr cave..." I thought for a moment of that sentence. Something was sitting at the tip of my mind but I couldn't figure out what.

"Wait, those gems on my gloves glow sometimes, maybe I can just use the gems as a viable light source." I thought about it for a while and grabbed another apple. "Here's an idea, lets check just how much more food supplies I have left." I said before looking into my bag o' stuff. I had two more apples left and a mix of other fruits but it was more than enough to last me a couple more days, as long as I didn't get really hungry suddenly.

My plan for the rest of the day was to just sit tight, eat some more food and wait for the night to come. Once it was night I was going to test out the brightness of my gloves and either go back into the tunnel/cave thing and to battle with the zombie things that lay within or find a new tree and set up a sleeping area. "What a wonderful discovery I've made, lets hope no one decides to go in and ruin my time. I send before laying down to catch a quick nap.

[I got this chapter done nice and early :D. This is great news because that means I can play video-games all day but at the same time its a bad thing because now I won't have an excuse for any unmade homework >_>. A sidenote, I really do feel like Skyrim has been influencing this story quite a bit now and I'm wondering if it would become an issue if I kept it that way or not... Please tell me whether or not I should make my next little adventure a side thing or if you want to to make it part of the hidden, main story?] Next Chapter: Dungeon crawling. Estimated time remaining: 1 Hour, 53 Minutes