A high rectangle of the stone wall in front of me faded into smoke.

Then the smoke faded into air, revealing a doorway.

Okay. Here goes everything.

I stepped through--

SUCCESS! Look at you, putting a key in a lock.

REWARD: Minor expoi.

BIG NEWS! Level up?

--into a sort of veranda, a stone-floored area beneath an awning.

Sunlight shone on a garden that stretch outward from the foot of the veranda. High, craggy boulders stood among stone paths that wound through mossy humps and joined with plank-bridges that crossed meandering streams. Short trees with triangular golden leaves glistened in the sunlight. Water burbled from a stone fountain in a clearing among the garden paths, and the orange pebbles lining the steam beds made the trickling water appear red and yellow like fire.

“Not bad,” I said.

SUCCESS! Look at you, putting a key in a lock and then gazing at the landscape.

REWARD: Minor Expoi.

BIG NEWS! Level up?

“Really?” I asked aloud. “There are levels?”

Despite my words, I wasn’t exactly shocked. I’d played computer games. Yet at the same time, I was completely floored. Because this time, it was happening for real, it was happening to me.

So I did the only sensible thing: I ignored the message.

When a cool breeze swept around me, golden leaves trembled in the garden and butterflies fluttered and flapped. In skinny trees that looked like miniature jacarandas, dangling seedpods clanked together, making a hollow wooden music. I exhaled a little bit of my fear and nervousness. The garden felt ... good. Unkempt and free, overgrown and untended yet still lush and meditative.

A lot better than a smoky altar.

I inhaled deeply, and the air smelled of deep forest and bright flowers. I exhaled, then crossed to the edge of the veranda. Two stone steps led down to a path that curved toward the fountain after branching off in every direction. Dappled shadows swayed on the garden plants, on still ponds and mossy burls, on fern beds and grassy glades.

I had no idea why I thought this was a garden instead of a forest. Well, probably because of the paths. And the fountain. Even if the area was open to the forest beyond, this section seemed to belong to the temple, sort of, or--

SUCCESS! Look at you, wrangling a lock like some kind of hero.

REWARD: Minor Expoi.

BIG NEWS! Level up?

I hesitated. Too much was happening. I already felt overwhelmed. I didn’t need to add any new freakishness to this shitstorm. On the other hand, while I was only a casual gamer, I’d played enough to suspect that leveling up was always good.

Yes, I thought. Fine. Level up.

SUCCESS! You’re now level one, and have achieved Wax Tier. That is low. Really low. Knee-high to a nematode. Better than zero, though.

REWARD: One point.

“Knee-high to a nematode? What the hell?” I took another calming breath. “Okay, so what are ‘points?’ Show points. Help points. Show options.”

Nothing happened.

“Um, help? Help. Info? Information! What are points? How do I apply points? Um, score?”

What the hell was kind of game-like interface was this? I’d mostly played online shooters--and silly mobile apps where you matched colors and shapes, or guided clumsy penguins through mazes. This was based on role-playing games, though. I’d played tabletop versions of those more often than computer versions, because a buddy of mine liked messing around with obscure ttrpgs. And for my part, I enjoyed gaming most when it involved drinking beer with friends.

So maybe there wasn’t a computer-type command. My buddy would always have me roll up a character and write the information on a ... what was that called? A character something.

Sheet!

When I thought that word, information blossomed in my mind.

Alex Levin

Anomaly

Level 1, Wax Tier

Archmage Status

Boons:

Domain (1/5)

Intuit (1/5)

Support (1/5)

Treasure (1/5)

Gems--

The sheet vanished when my focus shattered and I laughed. “Ha! Look at me, I’m an Archmage!” I addressed the empty garden. “I’m an Archmage. That is so badass.”

The garden didn’t seem impressed.

And, on second thought, I didn’t know why I was. I had no clue what ‘archmage’ meant, not in this world. Hell, for all I knew it was a wizard who made arches. You’ve got your arch mage, your drywall mage, your ceiling mage. And I didn’t know what ‘anomaly’ or ‘wax tier’ meant either. I didn’t know anything. So I cut the triumph short and sat on the veranda steps leading into the garden and just ... watched the fountain burble.

After a while, I tried a few commands. “Information Archmage. No? How about Help Archmage?” Though on second though, I didn’t know why I’d tried that. Whatever crack in the wall of reality I’d fallen into obviously didn’t include a helpfile interface. This was ... I didn’t know what this was. That quest screen had been sort of sarcastic, which was weird.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

On the other hand, it had also saved me from getting crushed to death by a huge stone.

“Quest,” I said, but nothing happened. “Okay, clearly this is dumb. I didn’t need to speak out loud to transfer something into my domain, so why speak out loud now? Because I’m freaked out, thanks for asking. So, I’ve got a character sheet and archmage status and a point to spend and a domain and ...”

I trailed off, because that reminded me of the other ‘boons’ I’d seen:

Domain. AKA ‘inventory.’ Easy enough to understand. And that 1/5 probably referred to the number of items allowed or the space available? Something like that.

Intuit. No clue. Maybe a Spidey Sense? That’d be cool.

Support. Well, that was completely, annoyingly vague. What kind of support? Financial support? Air support? Hell, at this point I was mostly hoping for emotional support.

Treasure. That sounded useful. Or at least clear. Find the chest full of gold where X marks the spot. Yo ho fucking ho.

None of that helped me now, though. I needed to calm myself and think. I needed to roll with this. Freezing in fear was the worst possible choice. And sure, I hadn’t achieved much in my life, but give me a little credit, I usually did a pretty good job rolling with the punches.

Okay. I’d already cried about this. Buckle down, Alex. I needed ... what? Well, first I needed to take the linchpin from the keyhole behind me. A short copper rod wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was better than my empty hands.

Except when I turned, the door into the temple was gone.

Gone. Like ... gone There was nothing there but a blank stone wall, the curved exterior of the temple. There was no keyhole outside, no copper bar. Nothing.

“Locked out,” I said, and bit back a hysterical laugh.

Fuck rolling with the punches. I dedicated a moment to soul-searching, then decided upon a wise and productive response: I kicked the wall a few times.

After that, my toes hurt, but I felt a little better. Except thirstier. So I started for the fountain and--

QUEST: Depart the safety of the stone steps to explore and clear the courtyard.

REWARD: Gain enough strength to survive outside the gate ... if only briefly.

FAILURE: Don’t gain enough strength to survive. See how that works for you.

“You’re a prick,” I said.

Nothing answered.

“How do I apply a point?” I asked.

Nothing answered.

Fine, I’d leave the temple steps. I’d explore and clean the ‘courtyard,’ which must’ve been what I’d been thinking of as a garden. That sounded extremely do-able. There was only one problem.

“What do you mean, ‘the safety’ of the stone steps?” I asked aloud. “If this is safe, what exactly is dangerous?”

I didn’t see anything that looked like trouble, but I wasn’t quite stupid enough to think that mattered in a world where smoke turned into steel. For all I knew, the calm breeze would turn into ice blasts and the tree branches into dragon tongues. So I gingerly lowered one foot to the ground in front of the steps, then immediately hopped backward.

Nothing happened.

I did that a few more times like I was dancing a jig. Listen, discretion was the better part of valor okay? Hell, if I hadn’t jumped in front of an SUV like an idiot, I wouldn’t be in this shitstorm. Of course, that little girl would be dead. And I’d be ... worthless. I’d hate myself. What kind of man didn’t at least try to save a kid? Not one who I ever wanted to be.

So screw it. No regrets. I was here because of a choice that I’d make again. Well, that plus whatever kind of interdimensional fuckery was going on.

I wasn’t going to be afraid of exploring and cleaning some pretty courtyard, though. I’d just keep an eye out for dangers. And for a weapon of some sort. At least a heavy branch.

I stepped off the stone veranda, onto the courtyard path. Nothing turned into blasts or tongues. Nothing growled or gibbered. Pausing every few steps to check behind myself, I followed the path to the fountain. The water bubbled up from some unseen source, crystal clear among the orange and brown rocks.

I cupped water in my hand and drank.

Delicious. Freezing but delicious.

I drank more, then scrubbed my face, then drank again.

When I raised my head, movement snagged my attention. There was a new shape in the sparse, sun-dappled woods in front of me.

A wolf.

A wolf stood there, twenty feet from me, on the other side of the fountain. A wolf with thick ruff, skinny legs, and yellow eyes that watched me with, well, with wolfish intelligence. So skittish and wild and beautiful.

I didn’t move for a long moment, afraid of scaring her off. Then I slowly showed her my hands, as if she’d understand I was telling her that I meant no harm. A few seconds later, I even more slowly took a few steps backward, still watching her.

I retreated halfway to the temple before she took a few steps forward. She moved like a forest deity. She went to a puddle at the base of the fountain and drank, her ears twitching with alertness. Then she straightened and took two more steps toward me.

She stood there.

I stood there.

And her cubs trundled forward from the underbrush, three of them, probably four or five months old. I caught a glimpse of another adult wolf in the trees beyond, or maybe two. Maybe those were the danger? A single wolf didn’t scare me much, but an entire pack gave me pause.

So I went all the way back to the lower temple step, then stood there while the cubs’ pink tongues lapped at the puddle. They were adorable, and as I watched I felt a little more of my fear fade. After all, wonder was the opposite of fear.

When the wolves eventually left, I waited a good twenty minutes before I started exploring. In the other direction, naturally. They were gorgeous, but I didn’t want to surprise a wolf pack.

First I walked around the outside of the stone temple. That didn’t long. Maybe five minutes, and most of that was picking my way through bushes and vines. The temple was quite small, and perfectly round. At one point in the past a path had hugged the exterior wall, then radiated outward like the spokes of a wheel. The paths were overgrown now, but I followed a faint trace of one to a little orchard. Well, there were a handful of trees, at least, with fruit that reminded me of round bananas. Green and yellow, and growing in clumps.

I picked one and the stem looked exactly like a banana stem. So I peeled it and damn, the flesh smelled like a cross between a banana and an apple.

A banapple. Ha.

I scooped up a bit with my fingernail and tasted it. It tasted like it smelled. Delicious. It was definitely edible. Probably. I took a tiny bite and waited a minute to check that my tongue didn’t start swelling or my eyes bleeding or anything.

I decided that needed to wait more than a minute, so I started heading off--then I stopped. I thought for a moment, then touched a low-hanging banapple, and tried to blip it into my domain. Nothing happened. Hm. I picked it, then tried again and it vanished immediately.

So I couldn’t grab anything that was still attached to larger object?

I experimented a little more and yeah, the instant I broke the stem, the fruit would appear in my domain, but not a moment before. That made sense. Sort of.

I domained seven of the grapefruit-sized fruit but the eighth attempt failed. And when I checked, I saw a new message:

Domain:

7 rahico fruit

Rahico? Well, I preferred ‘banapple,’ but whatever. The more important thing was that I’d determined I had room for seven fairly chunky fruits. That sounded like something I should know. Apparently it wasn’t much of a ‘domain,’ more of a small-ish backpack. Still, it was undetectable, as far as I knew, and rendered its contents weightless--and made packing easy!

And I still felt fine after taking that single bite of fruit. I’d give it an hour and take another, bigger bite.

So now I had water and food. I was currently exploring--slowly, but exploring the area. What next? According to the quest, I needed to finish exploring, then ‘clean’ the courtyard.

Except I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.

I could trim the bushes. Edge the paths. Scrub moss off some of the statuary I’d spotted, though I liked that ‘ancient ruin’ look. Er, though in this case it probably wasn’t a ‘look’ so much as an actual ancient ruin. I could at least sweep the paths. Maybe unclog the smaller streams so they flowed more freely inside their stone-lined banks?

I’d need tools, though. So that was step one: explore and find the tool shed.

The familiarity of the task calmed me. I worked at the waterfront in a small, mid-coast California town. There were only four of us full-time, so we handled everything from tourist information to parking citations, landscaping to event-planning. In the summer, the waterfront got super-busy, but in the off-season I spent most days wandering around, enjoying the weather, chatting with the locals, fixing the odd problem. Sure it was a dead-end job, but tourists spent $400 a night to experience the laid-back lifestyle that I got paid to enjoy.

I considered that a win.

Anyway, lazily tidying paths and pruning bushes was completely my thing. So much so that I wondered if that’s why I’d been ‘summoned’ here. Like, say this magical temple just needed a temporary groundskeeper? So it had scanned the multiverse for a good match, and found me.

That wouldn’t be so bad. I’d do some trimming, some edging, some weed whacking. I’d fix this place up then get teleported home. Yeah, that sounded okay. I mean, it was a long way to go for a gardener, but whatever.

Except I’d thrown myself in front of an SUV, which didn’t sound like it dovetailed perfectly with ‘get teleported home.’ Also, that notification had talked about surviving outside ‘the gates.’ Which implied that I needed to leave through some gate--and face deadly dangers.

To which I though: tuck that. Why leave the courtyard if it wasn’t safe outside?

I had fruit and water. I didn’t need to leave. Unless, I guessed, that wolf pack got ornery. But why would they? Wolves basically never attacked humans. Well, unless those were some kind of vicious fantasy wolf. Though I refused to believe that, based on the scientific evidence that those cubs had been completely cute.

Okay, so one step at a time. First: find tools to clean the courtyard.