[Participating in the Nexon PEAK Post Challenge]

The time is currently 2 AM... on a midsummer night..

So tonight, I figured... why not tell a slightly spooky ghost story..

Have you ever heard the story of the ghost siblings said to appear in Ciar Dungeon..

The year was... 2004..

A whole 22 years ago, during the open beta for the original Mabinogi, this happened on the beta server.

Back then, it became such a huge topic that it even made it into newspaper articles.

The incident went like this: during Mabinogi's open beta in 2004, rumors started spreading that two unidentified characters were appearing at the entrance to Ciar Dungeon, which was an instanced dungeon at the time. Normally, players in Ciar Dungeon couldn't pass through walls, but these two characters showed up from beyond one. After hearing that, tons of original Mabinogi players went to see them for themselves. But according to the story, they weren't visible to everyone... only to certain people. And because the characters themselves looked so eerie, all kinds of rumors started swirling around the whole thing.

After the incident, people threw around all kinds of theories, like a bug, dev test characters, or some kind of easter egg, but Devcat said they couldn't confirm that those characters even existed. Later, the server said to be tied to the issue was shut down, and the related easter egg was removed, so the phenomenon stopped appearing. In the end, the exact cause was never revealed, so it still remains a mystery even now.

But then!!!!!!!!! Ghosts in Mabinogi Mobile too???????

The time now.. 3 AM..

From here on out, come with me.. let's go meet these two unidentified characters..

As far as we know right now, there are three conditions for meeting the Ciar Dungeon ghosts.

 Tir Chonaill Ciar Dungeon 1-3 / nighttime in-game / chance encounter off

But after running it around 50 times over two days,

real-world nighttime seems to be part of it too.

Also, since my friend and I both got them to appear at the same time, it feels like there's one more condition too: after the hour changes (12:00).

Once you've got in-game nighttime, real-world nighttime, and the top-of-the-hour condition lined up,

it's time to head into Ciar Dungeon.

I turned off chance encounters, didn't loot any currency, and ran it on Normal.

The two truly unidentified characters appeared.

They look exactly like the two characters that appeared in the original Mabinogi.

Let's get a closer look.

One of them looks like a relatively small-framed little girl, and

the other looks like a relatively tall boy, with striking red hair and red eyes.

Even when I walked up to them, they didn't disappear, and they didn't speak or do anything at all.

The moment I lit the campfire,

the two of them vanished.

That incident became one of the defining ghost stories of early Mabinogi, and it's even said to come up when people talk about Mabinogi's success, alongside the old saying, "A game where ghosts appear will prosper."

After meeting them myself, I can say this... for two days I basically threw myself at it over and over, and it really felt like they were never going to appear, but then at 12, my friend and I each tried it on our own and they showed up, and I got so startled.. the second they appeared, we both started screaming.. it was scary.. Devcat really knows what it's doing for putting in an easter egg like this.. It was such a unique experience to run into the same ghost commotion from the original Mabinogi in Mabinogi Mobile too. And the players who found this easter egg in the first place are amazing too,,

I'm turning off my computer now and going to sleep with my family...

And so ends this midsummer night's ghost commotion.