I gasped back to life with all the peace and joy of a newborn baby.

That is to say, flailing and screaming bloody murder.

I was lying on my back, and at first blush I thought I was still blind. All I could see was white. Except then I pushed myself up into a sitting position and realized that I was simply in a white room. Super white. Like a neo-Nazi retreat in the Arctic Circle.

It was a room, may I add, that seemed to have no walls or ceiling. I could only tell it was a room because there was a door across from me, a heavy metal door that was deep black, twisted with eldritch runes, and completely out of place in the peaceful white nothingness that surrounded us.

Oh, and I say us because at the same time I noticed the door I noticed the man. I shut up instantly, feeling strangely silly for screaming and flailing about on the floor. There was, I realized as I studied the stranger, nothing to scream about. The pain was gone.

The man leaned back against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked like crap.

His outfit was some sort of mix-and-match — CEO meets jungle guerilla soldier meets medieval mercenary. As if instead of business casual, he’d dressed for business combat. His slender frame was draped in a singed white dress shirt under combat webbing, navy dress slacks and an underarm holster where I could see the grip of a pistol. A matte black assault rifle hung by a sling on one side of his body, and at the opposite hip he wore a sheath and a long, straight sword. There was a cut over one black eye, purple and swollen. The cut wasn’t bleeding but was quite recently scabbed over, and his hollow cheeks and forehead were dark with camouflage face paint.

“I apologize,” he said, raising an eyebrow and looking me up and down. He had the kind of warm voice and easygoing eyes that made me want to like him, on instinct. “Usually import isn’t that painful. But I had to burn away the virus that was racing through you. Quite a vindictive little strain.”

I blinked, holding back the hellstorm of shit that I had been about to unleash upon his admission that he was the one responsible for all my pain. My hand went to my side and I glanced down, finding my skin unblemished and whole. My head snapped back up, eyes narrowing.

“I’m not dead.” Oddly, it was the only thing I could think to say.

Not where the hell am I?, who are you? or even, what on Earth is happening? Strangely, when it came to the last question, I had a sneaking suspicion I wasn’t on Earth any longer. And that scared me enough to shut me up.

“No.” The man hesitated, then reached into one of the pouches of his webbing and fished out a pack of cigarettes. It wasn’t a brand I recognized: an olive green package with a symbol on it of a white staff and two twining snakes. I took in the detail as he shook it out and tugged free a long, white cylinder with his lips.

He crouched beside me and offered held out his hand with the package.

I shook my head. All I wanted right now were answers.

“Fair enough,” he shrugged. “You probably have a lot of questions. But keep in mind…” He checked his wrist and I realized he was wearing shiny, expensive-looking watch. This man was a mass of contradictions. “You have maybe five minutes before true, irreversible death.”

I started to talk, stopped, wondered what that comment meant, and started again. There were probably a lot of good, reasonable questions for a man in my situation to ask. I opened my mouth to ask one of them, but instead blurted, “You realize that camo paint looks ridiculous in here?”

The stranger blinked in surprise. Then, the corner of his mouth twitched up in a smirk and he chuckled softly, shaking his head. “I like you, mortal,” he said. “Straight shooter.” He took a puff of the cigarette, then pulled it away from his lips, and I realized he must have lit it up at some point.

Weird, I didn’t see him do it.

It took me an extra second to register what he’d called me. Mortal. Well shit. That was just the sort of crap that Kyle would have been pumped up to hear and that just made me squirm.

“Any other questions, or are you ready to get started?”

I swallowed. “Are we… in the game?”

“Ah, the game…” The man seemed to muse for a moment, then shrugged. “We’ll continue to use the metaphor, if you wish. Yes, we’re in the game. Consider this a… hmm, a loading screen.”

I pressed my lips together in a hard line and nodded. “Okay… Okay…” Kyle would be going insane right now. I’m not sure I wasn’t going insane. “Why am I going to be dead in five minutes? I’m no gamer, but that doesn’t seem like a great mechanic.”

“Hmm.” The man lifted his cigarette hand, scratching his forehead with his thumb, and I realized the scab was gone. “Let me put this in terms your kind would understand.”

I rankled a little at the words, but he somehow didn’t seem to mean them insultingly. His tone was pensive and matter of fact.

“You are at a Crossroads, shall we say, between your home — Earth, of course — and the world of Thorr’un. You are neither here, nor there, but even though your soul is in neither place your spiritual imprint is still linked to your home verse. So, unless you complete Avatar Generation in the next four and a half minutes then the twisted chaos spawn that are currently rampaging through your domicile will find your Integration Pod, batter at it until it pops open, interrupt the circuit and yank your soul into the eternal darkness of the Abyss.”

I opened my mouth, snapped it shut, and scrambled to my feet. No time for any more stupid questions, I told myself. Death. Eternal darkness. Not good. Avoid. “What do I need to do?” I demanded, staring down at the man as he settled back on his haunches.

“I’m obligated to ask,” he said, taking a pull. “Are you aware of the Terms and Conditions?”

I frowned, then shrugged. “Assume I am.”

The man frowned thoughtfully. He seemed to be making a series of very complex mental calculations, then he took another puff and gestured as he exhaled to one side. “Even if I skip them, we still don’t have enough time.”

I clenched my fists. No. This is not happening. “What do you—?”

He held up a hand, cutting me off. “Unless you give me permission to cut some corners.”

I blew out a tense breath. “Anything you need.” Despite the atmosphere of calm, I could somehow feel a sense of impending doom. Like that feeling when you know you’re going to puke, but haven’t quite decided to sprint for the toilet yet.

“Good.” He gathered his thoughts. “Before we dash through character creation, I’m obligated to tell you. Character Customization is usually a delicate, personal process. You are giving up control over your physical appearance in-world to me, to expedite the process. Do you agree?”

I hesitated.

“There are several hundred variables to account for,” he added. “For a being like myself, not much to handle. For you, time we don’t have.”

I jerked my head in a nod. The man — or whatever he was — was right. I didn’t have time for that shit. But still… “Could you just… do something for me?” I asked. The man seemed to have some amount of power over this situation. Maybe he could…

“If I can.” A smile turned up the corner of his mouth, like he knew what was coming.

I felt a tug of self-consciousness, then furiously stomped it. This was a goddam game for crying out loud. And a fantasy at that. It was in the title. “Just make me stupidly attractive,” I ordered. “And muscular. But in like… a not-generic way. I don’t want to be some meathead.”

His grin was obvious now.

“And I want to be a man.” I added, somehow sensing that this was an important clarification.

My companion’s eyes twitched sideways and his grin turned a little sheepish. Then he asked, “So we have a future Cupid on our hands?”

I couldn’t help but snort and let a little smile twitch across my mouth. “I hope so.”

“Do you have any preferences for Race?”

I got the feeling that we were moving on, and furrowed my brow.

I’d never been a big gamer, but once upon a time I had read an absurd quantity of books. “Elf,” I snapped back instantly. “Or…” I shrugged. “Elf-adjacent.” No matter what universe I’d read, elves all seemed to share a particular set of extremely desirable traits: they were fast, strong, smart and lived a long damn time. Traits that would be pretty much the polar opposite of my current self — which was perfect, as far as I was concerned.

“Class?”

I blinked. “You mean like… Algebra?”

The man seemed unable to help himself. He actually laughed softly, snorting smoke out his nostrils. “I see you didn’t get a chance to read the Player Handout.”

Instead of saying, Lost that when my only friend died, I spread my hands. “Guilty.”

“Let me put it another way. In the land of Thorr’un, you begin your life with your feet on one of several paths. Arcane, the path of magic. Martial, the path of bodily force. Divine, the path of the gods. Psionic, the path of the mind. Primal, the path of nature.” He didn’t check his watch. “We have four minutes.”

“Martial.” I didn’t have to think much about that. Fighting was all I really knew. “But…”

The other man hesitated, raising his eyebrows before he went on.

I felt a thrill run through me, then said it. What did I have to lose? “I… I really would like to know some magic.” It felt like a guilty declaration, like I was going against everything that had been pounded into my mind since I was a child. Magic isn’t real. There is no Santa Clause. The Easter Bunny? Pshaw. But it seemed like, just maybe, now would be the time to ask.

The man seemed a little surprised, but then he smiled broadly. “Your wish is my mandate… or however your saying goes.”

My shoulders slumped, and I didn’t realize how tense I’d been, waiting for him to laugh at me.

The man clapped his hands, rubbing his palms together. Then, with a grunt, he stood, fully. The man had some serious height. I’m not a short dude, and I had to look up to meet his gaze.

“Now, on to penalties, bonuses and upgrades.”

“Which are…?”

The man stared at me, meeting my gaze directly for what I abruptly realized was the first time. His eyes were strange, I noticed, shifting, hazel and green and molten gold all in the span of a few seconds. Then, his eyes went out of focus and it was like he was looking through me.

I hesitated, feeling a little awkward, but didn’t look away.

After several seconds, the man blinked and shook his head slightly. “Sorry that took a moment,” he said. He glanced me up and down, frowning slightly. “I just had to make sure you weren’t gaming the system.”

My eyebrows rose. “What do you mean?”

He scratched his cheek, thoughtfully, camo face paint smudging under his fingers. “I’ve been doing this awhile, and I’ve never seen someone so obviously prepared for Integration.”

“Oh.” Thank you, Kyle.

“Except in a few, obvious ways.”

I paused my self-congratulation. “How do you mean?”

The man shrugged. “For example, I’m going to have to give you a -3 starting penalty to Charisma.”

Somehow I knew that when he said Charisma it was capitalized, like it was the title of something, and not just a generic personality trait. I frowned, and started to protest, but he just shook his head.

“Friend, you haven’t spoken to anyone in a year. And you were never a super social guy to begin with. Do you want to waste time fighting me on this?”

My mouth snapped shut. I did want to know how he knew those things about me, but now also wasn’t the time to probe. “No.”

“Good, because that’s the end of the bad news.”

I nodded, waiting.

“Due to intense physical exercise and training, you’re getting a +3 starting bonus to each of Strength, Dexterity and Constitution.” He paused, seemed to do some more calculations, and shook his head. “My gods, mortal. What kind of training have you been doing?”

I hesitated, my mind whipped back through my daily routine: Wake up before sunrise. Meditate. Hunt. Return to shower off the blood and grime. Hours of language training with AI conversation partners. Work out at the gym two floors down from my apartment. Back for hours of physics, biology and chemistry study with another AI tutor.

I barely had time to eat or sleep, but that was what I’d wanted. Working myself that hard, I barely had time to think of Kyle. Barely had time to think of my life before. Barely had time for guilt. All that mattered was playing Kyle’s game.

“A bit of this and that,” I shrugged. “I don’t think we have time to go into it.”

The stranger jerked his head in a nod. “Right you are. I’m going to give you some appropriate Skills, Feats and Marks, and hopefully you’ll trust I’m not short-changing you.”

I shrugged again, pretending to know what Skills, Feats and Marks were. “Not like I have much choice.”

“Indeed.” The man hesitated, eyes flickering back and forth like he was reading something, and then he nodded. “You just have four more choices to make and we’re done.”

“Hit me.” My heart was starting to beat faster. I was getting excited, and for the first time in a year, it wasn’t because I was about to kill something. I wondered at it, and realized it might actually be because I was getting into the whole gaming thing.

“You have a strangely well-developed knowledge of your world’s laws.”

I flashed back to Kyle’s words — we learn the fundamentals of science to simulate magic.

“So, I offer you this choice of Abilities: Devious Conjurer or Arcane Framework.”

I blinked. “Um…”

The other man cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Three minutes left. Let me make it easier. You said you wish for a magical aptitude. Do you prefer the ability to steal spells? Or the ability to create your own?”

I hesitated. I wasn’t above stealing. I’d stolen countless times, just to survive. But stealing is only worthwhile if the other person has something worth taking. “Create my own.”

The man nodded. He puffed at his cigarette, which was getting on the shorter side. “Now, along with your obviously meta-gamed Skill and Attribute preparations, you also brought this thing,” with a flick of his wrist, he was suddenly gripping the haft of my double-sided spear, “and whatever this is…” A wave with his cigarette hand, and suddenly a panicked chirping filled the silence.

The small black cleaner bot Webster appeared, several feet above the ground. It plummeted, bounced, then vrrrmed across the floor, circled around me several times and then skittered behind my back. It cheeped and beeped several times, and I could have sworn it was swearing angrily at the strange man.

Or maybe I was just projecting.

Weirdest cleaning bot ever.

I spread my hands. “And?”

“You can’t bring them with you,” the man told me. “The portal is for sentient creatures only. But I can offer you trades.”

Huh… Why did I feel a slight twinge of regret when he told me I couldn’t bring Webster? I shook my head. “Good… Great. What do you have on offer?”

The man tucked his cig between his lips and gripped the spear with both hands. He flexed slightly, testing the strength of the steel pole, then spun it several times. He was obviously comfortable with weapons, and I was suddenly nervous. I wanted to protest, when he abruptly tossed the spear straight up in the air.

I tried follow it with my eyes, but by the time I glanced up it was gone.

“Interesting,” he said, and I glanced back down into his face. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Innovative. Primitive, but well-made. I can offer you one enchanted weapon in return.”

Primitive my ass! I wanted to protest. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a fucking lightsaber. But I didn’t have the time to quibble. Instead, I shrugged. A weapon for a weapon. Seemed fair. “Done.”

The stranger nodded. “Good. Now… for this strange device.” He clapped his hands and, with a panicked cheep, Webster suddenly floated through the air and landed in his hands.

I heard the whirr of the bot’s treads spinning uselessly as it tried to escape, and I felt a little sorry for the little guy. But if trading in this bot was going to get me something to help survive in a new world, then I would sacrifice it in a second.

The other man tilted the bot this way and that, sniffed it, and then looked up at me. “For this unique mechanical construct, I offer you a choice. A second enchanted item of guaranteed use in your coming perils. Or…” he paused. “A bonded companion animal.”

I blinked. “A companion animal?”

“Yes.”

“Like… a guide dog?”

“Probably less ferocious than a dog.”

I hesitated. Coming into the game with two magical items… That sounded pretty overpowered. And I was never one to get sentimental. I opened my mouth. Sorry Webster.

“I’ll take the companion animal.”

I blinked. Was that really what I’d meant to say? Damn it, Colin. I frowned and tried to ignore the gentle glow of warmth that radiated through me as Webster chirped several times. In gratitude? I wondered. But I didn’t really believe that.

The man was grinning. “You will be popular, won’t you?” he mused. He tossed Webster into the air, and with a final cheep the cleaning bot disappeared the way of my spear.

“That’s three choices,” I said, my internal clock ticking furiously. I ignored his offhand comment, though something tugged at my mind and told me it sounded important. “One left?”

He paused. “Your name.”

For the first time, I didn’t hesitate. It was the only question I was able to answer with absolute certainty. “Jondalar.”

“Jondalar…” the man mused.

I nodded firmly, not offering any further information.

“Very well.” He said it with an air of finality, flicking away his cigarette butt. It vanished.

I waited a second. Then another.

Nothing happened.

“Are we done?”

The stranger nodded, smiling. “And with a minute to go, no less. I’d guess we set some kind of record.”

I gave him a look. Then looked down at myself. “Is something… supposed to happen?”

“Ah.” The man shook his head and tossed a thumb over his shoulder. “Not until you cross through the portal.”

I nodded as the black iron door beyond him opened. That makes sense. I dashed past him, putting my hand on the frame. Through the doorway there was nothing but shadow and inky darkness. I hesitated, and as I paused an idea suddenly springing to my mind. I glanced back at the man. He’d turned to face me, and was shaking another cigarette out of the pack. “You forgot something,” I told him.

He cocked his head. “What’s that?”

“Something else I brought to trade.” I grinned.

“I don’t follow…” His expression drew together, like he knew I was trying to pull something.

“The virus,” I told him. “I assume that won’t be coming with me, either?”

The man opened his mouth to retort, paused, then smiled instead. “Very well,” he said. “What would you have me trade you for such a pestilence?”

I paused. Hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Any suggestions?” I finally asked, weakly.

My companion laughed. It was a hearty, full-bodied sound. “Trick me and then beg my help,” he said, shaking his head. “You are an amusing one.” Then he gave me a level look, considering. “For your clever wits, I will grant you a blessing. And for amusing me, a favor.”

“A favor?” I asked.

The man shrugged, his assault rifle swaying in its sling. “As I said, friend Jondalar.”

I knew I didn’t have much time. I could almost feel the seconds of my life ticking down. Somewhere, far away, back on Earth, there was a raging tide of subhuman creatures battering at my coffin. Trying to kill me. But I took a step away from the open portal. “What’s the favor?”

The man chuckled softly, and held out the pack of cigarettes. “It’s good for you,” he told me around the white cylinder he held between his smiling lips. “Take one.”

Big tobacco really did a number on you if you actually believe that, I thought, but for once I kept my mouth shut. If I was being honest with myself, the man had been straight with me so far. And he had no reason to fuck me over now.

I took several tentative steps forward. I tugged free a smoke, sniffed it carefully, and put it to my lips. I waited for him to take out a lighter, or matches, or something.

Instead, with what I swear was a twinkle in his eye, he snapped his fingers and then took a long pull. I blinked as I saw the tip of the cylinder glow orange with ember.

Okay, I thought, trying not to let my mind spin out. That’s fair.

Then, the man blew out a plume of smoke that seemed thicker, greyer and more aromatic than anything I’d ever smelled before. And I frowned. Because it smelled…

Amazing. Like, warm-chocolate-chip-cookies-from-grandma’s-oven type amazing.

I pulled in a breath, curious, and the instant I tasted the smoke I realized that whatever this stuff was… it wasn’t tobacco. It wasn’t any sort of thing you could find back home. And I should know because… well, I’d tried most things you could find back home.

Then, a split second later, I stumbled back a step and tripped over my own feet.

Glowing golden letters had appeared in front of my eyes, flat and close like they were inches from my face.

You have completed unlocked an Achievement! Congratulations!

Smoke ‘Em If You’ve Got ‘Em

Hermes, god of the Crossroads, has deigned to smoke with you: a lovely blend of Ambrosia, Hand-Rolled Leaves of Hesperides and Nostalgia.

You are the first person to unlock this Achievement.

Gain 500 xp!

You have tasted Ambrosia of the gods.

Gain a permanent 100% boost to Stamina regeneration! Gain a permanent 100% boost to HP regeneration!

You have received the Mark of the Traveler.

I felt myself falling backwards, through the open door, through the darkness as my hands and feet flailed wildly. There was nothing beneath me. There was nothing before me. There was only the rectangle of light that dwindled as I fell.

The cigarette was no longer between my lips, and I realized it was because my mouth had fallen open. I was yelling again. Cursing. Screaming. Bellowing out in terror.

Far above me, the door swung closed.