One morning, a little over a week after arriving at the crystal, Kyle went outside to find Jacob standing awkwardly and excitedly in front of his door.

“What’s up, Jacob?” Kyle asked, shutting his door behind him.

“I built you a thank you present,” Jacob said. “For being such a help as I was finding my feet here.”

‘You built me a… um… thank you, Jacob. I appreciate it. Where… where is it?”

Jacob led Kyle to a very large, mostly nondescript wooden building. Kyle opened the door as Jacob shifted his weight back and forth in excitement. Rosy early-morning light flood into the building, illuminating the single, massive room. Within, kyle saw dozens of empty shelves and stacks and stacks of…

“Books?” Kyle asked. “You built me a library?”

“Yep!” Jacob said, beaming. “I figured you’re an adept, which is like a wizard, right? So you’d need a library!”

“I thought the apothecary was next on the list. When did this happen?”

“Last night, after everybody else went to bed, I stayed up and worked on this while nobody else could complain at me for building things ‘out of order’.” He bounced a little as he talked. Kyle sometimes worried that being a halfling was having an effect on Jacob. Being in a different body must really mess with one’s self-identity. “And the fatigue thing’s not that bad, if you just work through it,” Jacob continued. “Yeah, you get sluggish and stuff, but you don’t feel tired in the head. I had this place done in like five hours.”

“I… thanks. That’s really thoughtful of you.”

“Well I’m hoping that our ‘reader guy’ might find something in these books that would help us. I figured if knowledge is power, the sooner I could get this place up and running, the sooner you can start becoming all-powerful and help us get out of this game.”

“Where’d you get the books?”

“They appeared on the ground as soon as I told the crystal this place was a library. I kinda expected them to appear on the shelves, but, ah…” Jacob shrugged. “Hope that’s not a problem.”

‘No, it’s fine. It’s just that.. I don’t know what I’m supposed…” Kyle paused. Given that he was in a library, perhaps some help entries had unlocked to tell him how books worked? He flicked open his menus; a week of essentially constantly playing a game had left him pretty good at navigating them.

He found some entries he didn’t recognize in the section on spellcraft. Apparently books were part of the spell research system. Kyle smiled. “Thank you, Jacob. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I get the feeling these will be very useful.”

Jacob beamed. “If you need more shelves, or anything, let me know. Now I’ve gotta get on that apothecary for Dvorak before the little fluff-ball goes all Monty Python on me.”

The exact meaning of the antiquated dad-reference was lost on Kyle, but he caught the general idea. As Jacob left, Kyle looked at the piles and piles of books sitting in a disordered heap on the floor. What on earth had he signed up for by claiming to be a spell-caster? He picked up a thick tome and thumbed through it.

The book was full of symbols in a language Kyle didn’t recognize. They were angular and stylized, sort of like a combination of old norse runic and japanese. Kyle doubted they were real. He started counting the unique characters, and quickly came up with more than 26, implying it probably wasn’t a substitution cipher. Or if it was, it would be a nightmare to figure out. He kept leafing through it. About one page in 20 had a full page illustration of some kind, often of elaborate circular diagrams, but sometimes a depiction of a plant or animal.

Kyle sighed. He was hoping the spell research system would be intuitive. He put the book down and resumed researching the way he knew best: in his help menu.

* * *

Kyle awoke to shouts.

He felt groggy and sluggish for the first time since entering the game, in a half asleep state, only barely aware of the surroundings in his cabin. He tried to concentrate and pay attention to the shouts. They sounded panicked. Kyle reluctantly decided he ought to do something about that.

No sooner than he made the decision to get up, Kyle felt awake and aware again. The gameplay mechanics behind “choosing to be awoken from a sound” had fascinating implications, but he didn’t have time to explore them just then. He tried to dash to the door, but his movements were sluggish and unresponsive. He must still be under the effects of fatigue. Not for the first time, he wished the developers had bothered to include an adrenaline system; he knew in real life, he’d be moving faster than this!

He threw open the door and looked out at the village. He felt the heat on his face before his brain could finish parsing the scene in front of him.

The village was on fire.