Seamus continued along the path. Eventually he noticed that the mountains were much closer, and he was going uphill. It was starting to get dark, and the sun was going down. Oddly, he felt no physical or mental exhaustion.
Seamus made his way to a cave in the side of the mountains. It was lit with torches. He decided to go inside and spend the night, because the forest and mountains would, no doubt, be more dangerous at night, even though the cave probably had its dangers, too.
He made his way to the end of the cave. It was well lit, but pretty bare. There was a panel of controls on the left side of the cave, and a lot of potion-brewing gear on the right side, but other than that, it was pretty empty.
Seamus walked to the controls. Each one was clearly labelled. Seamus selected the lever called "conceal the cave" and flipped it to the right. The cave's door closed, and even from the inside it just looked like a natural part of the wall.
Seamus then walked to the potion tools. There was an instruction book, many beakers and vials, and a huge room full of potion ingredients. He picked up the instruction book and began reading.
After a while, he had learnt how to replicate potions he already had. He poured one sample of the Instant Health potion into a beaker, and went and got the ingredients for it. When searching for the ingredients in the room, they glowed and he had the directions to them in his head. Soon he had 8 health potions. He went to quadruple the number of FinnORLY Change and Body Reset potions as well, so that he had 8 health potions, 8 FinnORLY potions, and 16 reset potions, until he had reached the maximum he could carry for each.
With plenty of potions and time to spare, he went on to try one of the FinnORLY potions. He pulled it out of his bag and pulled the stopper out of the bottle, and poured the liquid down his throat. He noticed a mirror and walked over to it.
Suddenly, Seamus's insides felt like they were burning. He bent over in pain, but then the feeling went away to be replaced by a tingling, and he stood up straight and watched the mirror. His short red hair was growing longer and lightening from bright red to blond. His eyes became blue. He grew taller, and his skin lightened and his freckles faded. He was no longer Seamus Connor, he was Finn O'Reilly.
As Finn, he knew that he was seventeen and from Canada. He could could sense that he had many more levels and experience than Seamus, and that he had taken a Wolf Attack potion to try to kill Seamus to get more experience. The regular Finn had restarted the whole game, as that is what happens when you die in the game and he had done that several times already. He also knew that time doesn't really exist around the game, and that you can leave the game at any point and it'll only be a couple hours later, even if you've been in the game for half an hour, or a week, or several months.
Finn took one of the Body Reset potions and downed it. Watching the mirror again, he had the same burning and tingling sensations before his hair, eyes, skin and height all changed back to normal, and he was 100% Seamus again.
"That's just awesome," Seamus said in wonder. He then remade the FinnORLY and Reset potions so that he had 8 and 16 of them, respectively.
Seamus could tell that the in-game time was only about 11 o'clock at night, but that he wouldn't need sleep, and so he decided to leave the cave and explore the mountains and forest. He flipped the lever for the door, grabbed his stuff, and went outside. He was struck by a dilemma. Should he take the forest or the mountains?
…
Meanwhile, the Old Man watched Seamus and grinned.