There was a flash of light, and then Angela appeared at the very top of a mountain. Literally standing on the peak. Her heart was pounding from the drop onto the planet, and her hands had a death grip on the book she’d picked up off the ground when they were still on Earth.

Angela’s hands shot up over her head. “THAT WAS AMAZING! THIS IS THE GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!” Angela’s words echoed across an expanse that was only barely wider than the smile on her face, and she jumped up and down giddily.

“I can’t wait to… whoop!” A loose bit of scree slid under her feet, and there was a moment of 50/50 odds that Angela’s first day on Arenia would end with her lying at the bottom of a crevasse with a broken neck.

Angela looked up at the skies. “Heh, heh. Yep, don’t want that. Good one, gods! I’ll chill out.

“Oh, I need to find a forest!” she said, snapping her fingers. ’Cause Nature Goddess = Forest, one would assume. Fortunately, being on the top of a mountain made it easy for Angela to survey her surroundings.

It didn’t take long to work out that the mountain she was on was actually part of a more extensive range that ran roughly north-south. The range was wide enough that her visibility to the east was limited to more heavily forested mountains, whereas to the west, she could see a green expanse that came right up to the tree line of the mountain she was standing on. What’s more, at the base of her mountain was a river that carved its way out of the mountain range and headed west into the forest, meandering far off into the distance until it met a distant glittering sea. There was a barely visible bump of civilization at that meeting point, and she could only assume it was Palmyre.

Not that Angela would be spending much time there. Sure, she’d go visit her family, but she was going to be a freaking Druid, man! She’d be living in the forest with the animals. It was going to be amazing.

But first, Angela had to get off this mountain. She inspected the book that had inadvertently made the trip with her. After all, her great grandfather’s old survival manuals had been on that shelf. Wouldn’t that be great!

Angela flipped over the book and grimaced.

“Nope,” she said, staring at the high school math textbook in her hand. What was she supposed to do with a math textbook? She couldn’t exactly throw it away—leaving garbage in an otherwise pristine natural environment was hardly the best start if she wanted to get on the nature goddess’s good side. Maybe she could use it as a firestarter? She sure as hell wasn’t going to read it. The only thing she was interested in reading was—

“Holy shit, I forgot about my character sheet!”

The words were barely out of Angela’s mouth before a stack of stone tablets appeared in front of her, hovering motionlessly. Angela grabbed them excitedly, only to have the weight of the stone stack haul her off balance and send her tumbling down the scree, tablets and textbook tumbling with her.

After a good twenty seconds of rolling down the mountainside, Angela finally came to a halt lying face-down on a section of smooth rock that had finally slowed her down through the wonderful world of friction. Everything hurt.

“Ow,” she said. She continued lying on the rock, waiting for her health to regen.

Five minutes later, it became clear that wasn’t a feature in this game world.

“Well, that sucks,” Angela said. She rolled over and sat up. To her surprise, the stack of stone tablets was sitting neatly beside her. She stared at it for a good 3-count before understanding hit her.

“Oh. Hah, hah. My Tome is a tablet. Super funny.”

Still… character sheet! She grabbed the first tablet and plunked it into her lap, her eyes drinking in the remarkably legible words inscribed on its surface:

ANGELA SULLIVAN

Renown: Level 1 – Unclassed

Species: Human

Age: 24

Experience: 0

Experience to Next Level: 300

Base Attributes

Strength – 18

Constitution – 16

Endurance – 17

Dexterity – 15

Willpower – 17

Intelligence – 22

Charisma – 16

Luck – 12

AVERAGE: 16.6

“Yeah!” Angela shouted, pumping a hand in the air with her fingers in a classic devil horn position. “I’m a badass! 22 INT? As a starter stat? I must be a freaking genius on this planet. And Dex instead of Agility, huh? Old school.” The rest of the stats were okay, probably. She didn’t exactly have a frame of reference. If she’d had the choice, she would have swapped her Intelligence and Will scores since Willpower was probably the key stat for a druid, but 17 was doable. She could just pump points into that as she levelled. Her Luck was terrible relative to everything else, but it was likely a junk stat anyway. If something had to be a 12, that’s the one she’d pick.

Only one of the other tablets had anything written on it, and that was a quest to get to Palmyre, which was super cool. Angela dismissed the whole stack with a thought (also cool) and resumed her trek down the mountain.

As Angela walked, she peered closely at her surroundings.

“Critterrrrssss…” she muttered. “Oh, critterrrss! Come out where I can mash you for XPeeeeee…”

Then it occurred to Angela that she didn’t have a weapon, which wasn’t ideal. It also occurred to her that she’d lost the textbook at some point. Unfortunately, being on a mountainside above the tree line significantly limited her weapon possibilities, so she resigned herself to marching back up the slope. There were lots of sharp rocks up there that might be decent for her to throw, not to mention the book she’d lost during her downhill tumble. It was kind of bullshit that she hadn’t been given any starter gear, just some crappy clothes and an empty pouch. Maybe there was stuff in their house since that’s where they were supposed to have spawned if the lizard guy hadn’t screwed up. Whatevs.

Once Angela had the book in hand and a pouch full of rocks, she picked up one last rock and selected a boulder down the slope to use as a target. It probably wouldn’t hurt to practice her throwing skills before encountering an enemy. Sure, she’d played softball in high school, but that was a while ago.

Taking aim, Angela pulled her arm back and threw the rock as hard as she could.

NEW WEAPONS SKILL LEARNED!

Thrown Weapons – Skill Level 6 (Tier-0)

Yes, you played softball in High School. You did not play it well.

Tier-0 Bonus: Declining chance of injury when throwing objects.

*Since this Skill predates your arrival in Arenia, it has been set at a level commensurate with the practical ability you already possess. Also, guess what happens when you throw a rock really hard with poor dexterity but decent strength?

300 XP Earned (cumulative)

“AAAGH!” Angela shouted as pain shot through her elbow. She clutched her arm and doubled over in agony, only to accidentally slam her head into the tablet that appeared in front of her to display the message. The combination 1-2 punch caused her to embark on a swearing campaign so ambitious that it would have gotten her kicked off an oil rig.

Between the injury and the dickish manner Angela had been informed of her new Skill, a lot of the joy had been sucked out of the moment. Goddamn Luck stat.

“Can I PLEASE not have stone tablets appearing in front of me all the time!” Angela shouted.

A pebble appeared out of nowhere, pinging off her forehead at high velocity in the exact spot where she’d hit it on the tablet. As soon as the pebble made contact, information sprung into her awareness as though she’d just finished reading it.

RENOWN LEVEL UP!

Level 2 Achieved

XP: 300

XP to next Renown: 600

Even though the delivery method for the message had Angela rubbing her forehead furiously, the contents definitely got Angela’s mood headed back in the right direction. She rubbed her hands together and waited to find out how many points she would get to allocate from her level.

Nothing happened.

What the hell?

She must have missed something. The information was projecting straight into her head, after all. Angela summoned her Tome—carefully this time—and inspected it, only to find that other than reflecting her new Skill and Renown level, the tablets were completely unchanged.

That was also when she realized there were no indications of her health or magical capacity included on the character sheet.

How am I supposed to know my status if I don’t have hit points or mana? And where’s my HUD? she thought, referring to the near-ubiquitous menus that games had on the sides of the screen to give players information about their character in real-time. Her lack of understanding about what was going on was beginning to suck a little. How was she supposed to know the amount of damage she’d taken if she wasn’t able to track her remaining hit points? Not to mention that almost every game she’d ever played had some sort of “mana” mechanic, where you spent mana points to cast spells, then had those points replenish over time. If there wasn’t any mana, how the hell did magic work?

Okay. This isn’t your first rodeo. Focus on attributes. There’s got to be a way to raise them; you just have to figure it out.

Fortunately, Angela had played plenty of games where you needed to raise your attributes in other ways.

Unfortunately, testing her theory was going to suck.

“New plan,” she said. “Forget critters. I just need a rock. Heeere rocky rocky.” Angela looked around until she found a heavy enough rock to strain her, but light enough that it wouldn’t hurt her arm even further. She walked over and grabbed onto the rock, making sure to lift with her legs.

“Ung!” Angela grunted, straining to get the rock up off the ground and onto her shoulder. Which wasn’t easy when you also had a math textbook shoved in your pants.

“Just… gotta… carry… this… for a bit.”

With slow, plodding steps, Angela made her way down the mountain. At first, it wasn’t too bad. It just cut into her shoulder somewhat. After five minutes, she needed to switch shoulders. Five minutes later, and that shoulder sucked too. After that, she had to switch sides every minute just to keep it from hurting too much. An attempt to carry it in front of her was aborted after only a few seconds when her arms started shaking, and her fingers threatened to fall off. All in all, it was not a pleasant experience.

By the time Angela had been carrying the rock for 20 minutes, it dawned on her that if her stats couldn’t be improved through active effort, she had no way of knowing that her struggle was pointless. Maybe she needed to carry the rock for an hour? Maybe it was impossible? She could literally be carrying a rock down the mountain for no reason at all. Hell, there were probably trolls hidden in the hills betting on how long she’d carry the thing before coming down and eating her.

Actually… now that she was on Arenia, that last option was legit plausible, which sure as hell didn’t increase her enjoyment of the rock-carrying situation. It did make her pick up the pace though.

After another 10 agonizing minutes, Angela’s efforts were rewarded when a pebble materialized in the air and pinged off her forehead.

Constitution +1

I can’t believe you carried that thing so far. You rock.

Willpower +1

Way to persevere!

“Woohoo!” Angela shouted as she thrust her hands over her head, dropping the rock and barely avoiding crushing her foot. Another pebble flew at her head.

Willpower -1

Wow. You really did the bare minimum, didn’t you?

“OH, COME ON!” Angela shouted at the sky.

Willpower +1

Yeah, totally just messing with you—it’s impossible to lose points once you get them. You should have seen the look on your face, though!

“WHO ARE YOU AND WHY ARE YOU SUCH A DICK???” Angela shouted as she rubbed the spot on her forehead where the pebbles kept hitting. What was wrong with this world? Did everybody have a disembodied asshole fucking with them?

Angela took a few deep breaths to try and calm herself.

NEW GENERAL SKILL LEARNED!

Yoga – Skill Level 2 (Tier-0)

Calm your mind, calm your body. Basically, you need to calm down. Also, your mom is WAY better at this than you.

*Since this Skill predates your arrival in Arenia, it has been set at a level commensurate with the practical ability you already possess.

100 XP Earned (cumulative)

Angela froze as she processed that last message.

So far, Angela had treated her experience on Arenia as a game. But the reference to her mom reminded Angela that the rest of her family was still out there. Just as alone as she was. Angela and Mark had some experience with this kind of thing, at least as games, but her mom and dad? Or worse, her great-grandpa? Sure, Angela would blabber to him about the games she was playing, but they both knew he was simply nodding politely while mentally plotting crop yields for the next season. If Grandpa Jack was going to have any hope at all in this world, Angela needed to find a way to help him. To help them all.

But first, she had to find her family, and that meant getting to Palmyre.