A heavy weight pulled me down and all at once the world exploded into my view. After falling in darkness for so long I had to close my eyes against the pain, but when I opened them I felt a strange numbing sensation.

I wasn’t looking through my eyes, rather I was looking out of the crystal. The crystal hovered in the air over a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, just grass, trees and hills as far as the eye could see.

A distortion of air beside the crystal released smoke and from it sprung forth more tendrils. They wove together in a mind bogglingly intricate fashion as the tendrils turned into nerve cells, over that manifested bones, then muscle. A split second later skin, clothes and accessories appeared. There I was standing in the middle of the road like I had always been there and the strange out of body experience ended when the crystal floated down and touched my palm.

I fell to my knees and vomited on the road as the world spun around me. Struggling to breath I had to focus and reteach myself how to function, breathing, blinking and that my heart should be beating. After a few seconds it felt like my body had finished it’s rebooting stage and I was back to normal.

In front of my eyes some strange thing appeared and I threw out my free hand, flailing it and sending it off somewhere. As I looked around I didn’t see anything around me and looked back at my crystal.

The crystal had changed, turning completely clear and faintly glowing with some inner luminousness. It was undamaged and I stuffed the crystal in my coat's breast pocket for safe keeping. Feeling much better after putting it out of sight I tried to look for whatever I had thrown.

Seeing nothing I rolled back onto my rump on the road and scratched my head in confusion. Squinting my eyes against the harsh glare of the sun I looked around for what I could have thrown. In the edge of my vision was a small box with a red exclamation point and trying to reach out for it I felt like my finger touched something that wasn’t really there.

Joshua Hale, Human, moderate size, Level 0 Keeper

0/100 XP

Strength 12

Constitution 12

Dexterity 11

Intelligence 14

Willpower 13

Charisma 11

Skills…

The strange box of information seemed to manifest within my mind and I couldn’t help but try to wonder what the hell it all meant. What did having twelve strength mean, was that good?

As if to answer my question two green exclamation points appeared and I clicked on each like I had with the red one.

Knowledge : World success!

Strength is a rough measurement and estimate of a creature's physical prowess. It can affect carry weight, melee damage and other abilities like throwing distance. Strength is a relative term to creature size, for instance small creatures and moderate creatures with the same strength score have different carry limits.

Well that made sense, and I scratched at my chin thinking about the games I had played in the past. It did make little sense if some four foot tall goblin and a ten foot tall giant with the same score had the same damage. So at least if I ran into something my size and it also had twelve strength I would be able to gauge its ability reliably. That did make me wonder if I had decent stats to begin with.

I felt like I had just been hit with a brick as I came to terms with my own thinking. Was I inside the board game? Was I dying from a gunshot wound and my mind was just filling in the gaps while I was in shock?

I checked my coat and shirt, to my relief I didn’t have a bullet hole in them. The meeting with the being claiming to be god surfaced in my mind and I had to conclude this was all really happening. Shaking my head in disbelief I checked the next pop up.

Knowledge : World success!

Humans are a type of creature that are both as numerous as they are varied. The average score of a human's stats ranges from 8 to 10. However a human in their prime can average up to 12 or even higher. With proper training they have the ability to improve their stats to a great degree, the most out of any race.

Well that was reassuring, I guess years of schooling and waking up early for a bit of exercise had actually paid off after all these years. I was in my mid twenties which meant if I ran into other people my age I could expect them to be about the same as me.

Skill bonus +2 XP gained.

The pop up came and went quickly but it did give me a big smile on my face. I was learning and earning myself some free points to boot. I looked around at the blank area around myself and saw nestled in the hills at the edge of my vision were a few roof tops.

At the back of my mind I was a bit panicked. I was unarmed, somewhere completely strange and foreign without supplies. I had the clothes on my back, an outdated cell phone I kept off most of the time and minimal food. Just a few candy bars from some damaged boxes at work and what that kid had given me on the street.

Worse yet I carried cards in my wallet and little cash, if my cash would even be accepted here. Reaching down into my pocket I pulled out my old battered wallet and found everything still in there. A strange goofy laugh came from me as I realised I found the strangest way ever to get out of being robbed.

Letting the thought lift my spirit I marched my way towards the distant buildings in the hope I might find some shelter and friendly people. It looked like it could have been some small tiny town of a dozen souls and I hoped that strong small town spirit extended to this unknown place. But as the minutes passed and my feet got me closer my heart fell.

The place was an abandoned ruin, just a dozen small stone houses caved in roof tops surrounded by barren fields filled with weeds. One big building took up a centrepiece of the place and I headed towards it hoping it had an intact roof.

I was in fact in luck, on closer inspection it wasn’t really that big, about the size of Paul’s small pawn shop. The floor had layers of dust and small pieces of grain that had tried to take root and died. It had to have been a granary or some kind of storage building for the people that had once lived here.

Perception skill : Success!

+1 XP gained.

Perception levelled up to rank II!

What the hell did that mean? As I scratched at my head looking around the space my eyes were drawn to a faint glowing outline on the dusty floor. Walking towards it I saw an almost invisible trap door. Crouching down I rubbed my hands along it’s edge and found a place to curl two fingers under. With a bit of struggling I was able to pop it up and found a small tunnel underneath.

Curious to explore the hidden area I dug around my bag and found my tiny flashlight. As I rapidly clicked the button on the cheap metal flashlight I saw a tiny flicker of light. Slapping it I had to jerk my head away as I nearly blinded myself from its powerful lights.

Lowering myself down into the small space I found I only had to slightly crouch to move around and looked both ways. Behind me there was a bit of sunlight and I could see out into one of the fields. Mentally mapping it out in my head I remember which house the tunnel went under and I went the other way deeper into the earth.

The tunnel twisted until it descended down for some distance. Following along I ran my finger on the walls feeling the rough uneven surface, whoever had mined this out did a decent job but never smoothed it out. Every once in a while my fingers bumped on some supporting beams of sealed wood that instilled confidence in me that the tunnel wouldn’t collapse on me.

The tunnel ended in a circular room, the dusty floor was covered in rust stained spots and in the centre by itself was a silver pedestal. Around it were shattered bits of glass and deep down I knew that a crystal had been destroyed here. Leaning over I saw the crystal bits on the floor had a deep brown colour to them and I reached over to touch it.

The crystal bits in the room turned into a puddle of liquid and pooled together in front of me. They solidified into a single tiny black stone and let out bits of shadowy black smoke, in the corner I saw another of the green alert boxes appear and I tapped it.

Arcane Icharian Stone acquired!

Just as I thought of what it meant another appeared and I read the next passage.

Knowledge : Arcane success!

Icharian Stones are the condensed matter of materials that can be used by a keeper or their builders to redeem for needed material. They are separated into three categories, organic, material and arcane. They are rare and should be spent wisely.

+1 XP gained.

Well that meant my crystal was made of rare material too, a reason it was so precious to me. Looking at the pedestal I had a vague understanding of what it meant. The silver pedestal grounded the special crystals like mine to the world and would connect me with it.

A sudden urge to claim the pedestal and the surrounding area filled me, like some deep primal urge that made my vision darken. Shaking my head I stepped back and fell to the ground stirring up dust. The strange sensation passed me and I let my clear head process all this.

My crystal was precious and I had to defend it at all costs, I just knew that. Someone thought the same thing and set up shop here only to get wiped out some time in the past. On one hand that could happen to me as well but on the other…

I looked at the dark stains on the floor recognizing it was blood and swallowed hard. If someone had been here before and got killed, perhaps no one would think to come by again. This meant I could hide out here while getting my bearings and figure out some of what was going on. Plus the crystal could always be removed and I could flee with it if things got dire.

Standing back up I pulled out my crystal holding it between my hands and hovered it above the pedestal. Shrugging and with nothing to go on I placed it in the small cut out of the pedestal, having to throw my hands up as the crystal shone like a beacon.

A red alert appeared and as I turned around to protect myself from the light, holding my hands over my eyes to protect myself I looked at the message.

Dungeon established, Joshua Hale has become a dungeon keeper. Using your abilities you may summon up to three drones for free and establish two furnished rooms at no cost. Defend your crystal at all costs!

The hell was a drone? Whatever they were it was nice I got a few for free and I looked back at the crystal seeing that now the light had died down to a dull glow. Wisps of shadow trailed off it and onto the floor, making something take shape.

Drone summoned. You have two free summons remaining.

The creature was up to my knee and was made of fuzzy black fur. Its large wide head looked up at me with big red eyes and it smiled with rows of tiny fangs. It had two sets of small arms that ended with little clawed hands that waved at me. The strangest part was it wore a work shirt just like me and on it was a tag saying “Hi I’m Drone #1, how can I help you?”.

Great, the universe had a sense of humour and even thought I was in some other world my stupid department store job reared its ugly head yet again. As I rolled my eyes I had to admit the black and red shirt worked for the little critter and its small size almost made it look cute.

Looking at it another pop up appeared and I looked at it with a bit of surprise, it seemed I could look at other creature’s stats too.

Dungeon Drone 1, small size, minion

Strength 4

Constitution 4

Dexterity 4

Intelligence 4

Willpower 4

Charisma 4

Skills

Minions rely on dungeon keepers abilities.

So the little things were pretty weak and didn’t have a level, meaning they couldn’t level up. Looking back at my own personal page I flipped through the skills telling myself I’d worry about most of them later, at the end I saw that I had two skills called minion management and builder both at level 1.

“Well minion, welcome to our new dungeon.” I said, throwing my arms wide.

Drone #1 looked at me with dumbfounded expression and after a moment smiled and clapped its hands together. It then stared at me as if waiting for instruction.

“You probably don’t talk, do you?” I asked and watched the little drone shake it’s head. “Well I’m new to this so just be patient ok?”

It gave me a thumbs up and sat down on its rear to rest, letting it’s small tail wag as it watched me pace the room. Two small pyramid shaped ears rose on its head as it kept them pointed towards me ready to hear anything I said.

Well it was certainly nice that I would have help setting up and I looked at the smooth stone walls seeing little icons appear. They had an image of a drone and as I peered at them a tiny list of commands appeared. I could ask the drone to shape the walls, mine it out and even make a new room appear.

Well I didn’t like that the first room in this place showed my crystal and tugging at the pedestal I found it did move meaning I could take it to a safer place later. Pointing at the back wall I mentally picked the option for the drone to mine out a hallway and then make a room off to the side. The tiny list of options followed, I could make a bedroom, a barracks or storage room with question marks below it hiding other options.

“Minion, make me a nice little bedroom if you could please.” I said to the minion trying to sound authoritative.

The little guy hopped up and ran towards the wall exactly where I wanted and started to dig his claws into the wall. As his claws touched solid stone it dug through it like he was running his fingers through soft butter, taking time to throw the bits of rock into his mouth to eat. Dust rose in the little room and after coughing I felt it was better to leave him to his work.

Following the path back out I closed the trap door and went the rest of the way of the tunnel entering daylight and open field. Breathing in the air I was dumbfounded by how clean and crisp it felt entering my lungs. Putting a hand onto my chest I took another breath and enjoyed the fresh air.

Smiling to myself, covered in rock dust and standing out in the open some unknown feeling, a deep sense of wonder filled me. I did it, I had gotten out of the rut I had fallen in so long ago and managed to make it somewhere. That somewhere being in the middle of an unknown field with nothing to my name, but that just meant anything that happened next I would be going up.

A whole new life and world to discover.