I awoke to find myself lying flat on a thick carpet, my cheek covered in drool. Tilting my head upwards, I found my view filled by the face of an old man, who was talking at me, though I couldn't hear him. Closing my eyes for a moment, I grasped my nose and swallowed. The pressure in my ears vanished, and sound returned.

"Anto urit tema afer?"

"What?" I opened my eyes again, the man had kneeled by my side, and was looking down at me, repeating "anto urit tema afer?" as if expecting me to respond. He placed a hand on my shoulder and I threw myself sideways, then scrambled to my feet. As I turned to face him, fists clenched, I saw that we were not alone. Three other people stood around me, at the points of a compass. Looking down, I was surrounded by a ring of chain, about two metres across. Combined with the robes on the four people, it was beginning to feel a bit 'Rosemary's baby'.

I took a step to my left, aiming to sprint between the two shortest people, a mousy looking brunette and a hunched man, who managed to look even more ancient that the one I'd seen first, who now took a step towards me, holding his hands to his sides. "Anto urit nera itur?" I shook my head, but his words still made no sense.

I raised a hand in front of me to fend him off. "Where am I?"

"Anto?"

"Do. You. Speak. English?"

"Deso. Iton itur unta naga. Anto urit sepa lana Vescaloan?"

He took another step forward, and I moved backwards to stay out of his grasp. My heel caught on the chain and I started to stumble backwards. My flailing arms were caught by the man I'd been planning to avoid, a hulking slab of muscle, and panic set in. "Get off me! Get off, get off, get off!" Twisting away from him, I managed to free one arm, and drove a fist towards his face. He flinched backwards, pushing me away from him, and I fell over the chain, crashing to the increasingly familiar carpet.

As I hit, my vision flashed white, and suddenly there was a piece of parchment on the floor just beside my head. Printed in the centre of it were blocky blue letters, that read 'PTO'. The sudden presence of English in this strange world threw my train of thought far enough off the tracks that I stopped trying to get up, and instead reached out and swiped the parchment. My hand brushed it, and it flipped up into the air, halting at about head height and began to glow. Looking behind me, I saw the robed figures were all cautiously moving away from the shimmering paper, and I stood to put it between me and them.

Another flash of light attracted my attention to the parchment, and I watched as text began to appear on it, writing itself as if with an invisible hand. 'Welcome to the World of Vescaloan! We hope you enjoy your holiday of a lifetime in this interactive gameworld, but first, please read this safety announcement.' I blinked a couple of times, not believing what I was reading, and the paragraph began to fade, as more text was written on top of it.

'The World of Vescaloan is a simulated medieval environment with fantasy elements, including monsters. Player-adventurers may be injured or killed, but will always respawn at designated save points. No liability is accepted for mental distress.'

'In case of emergency, players may immediately exit the game world by summoning the in-game menu and selecting the 'Exit' option, which is a red button which has this appearance:'

Here the text paused to display a beautifully illustrated outline of a button. The word 'Exit' was slightly embossed, and highlighted with gold flecks.

'To summon the menu at any time, simply vocalise the word 'Menu' and this scroll will appear before you.' I immediately said "Menu", and another sentence appeared on the parchment. 'Please note, the 'Menu' facility will become available after completion of the safety announcement.' This sentence was written in bold, as if it were rebuking me.

'Finally, players should note that the language of Vescaloan is unlikely to be comprehensible to players. Completion of the character creation process will provide players with a working knowledge of the language to enable enjoyment of the environment. Please vocalise "Create character" to begin the game.' With those final words, the parchment rolled itself up and winked out of existence, with a tiny 'pop'.

Well, crap. I'd been portal fantasy'd into some dungeons and dragons ripoff. That explained the robe-clad weirdos and the funky church architecture. I'd have expected the welcoming committee to be a bit more welcoming though. The four figures still looked a little stunned by the appearance and disappearance of the parchment, and I used their distraction to study them more closely.

With the exception of the woman, who looked to be about my age, they all looked hard-worn, with leathery features and grey or greying hair. The man who had initially knelt by me on the floor was wearing some form of skullcap, but otherwise was dressed very plainly. The even older man had an elaborate chain slung around his neck, gold squares hanging from it, festooned with various jewels. The final man loomed above them, and looked to be corded with thick muscle, all the way down to his enormous hands. They had begun to recover from the sight of the scroll, and turned to face me directly, once again.

"Anto stuf desc?" the man with the chain asked skullcap.

"Iton itur unta naga," replied skullcap, beginning to look uncertain, "iton mags desc posc naga."

"Anto urur savo?" chain asked, sounding increasingly worried.

Big guy stepped towards me again, reaching his hand out. "Iton urur savo afer. Ante, sare init." He held his hand out in front of mine, palm raised, but came no further. His body quivered slightly, full of tension, as I slowly reached out my own hand to rest of top of his. He gently curved his fingers around my hand and shook it once, before releasing it and stepping back. The others all followed suit, with chain grasping my hand between both of his and shaking rather more vigorously. I was beginning to suspect he might be the elected official here.

They all muttered at me as they shook my hand, but it still made no sense to me. Obviously I would need to go through whatever the mentioned character creation scheme was, to have any chance of talking to them. At this point, it occurred to me that I was taking this surprisingly well. I mean, just to recap, I'd awoken on the floor in a church, and almost immediately been presented with something that implied I was in an incredibly advanced holodeck-style simulation. Maybe I was still drunk.

Just as I was about to try creating a character, it occurred to me that I could, and perhaps should, skip out. The scroll did offer me an emergency exit, and even if the holodeck was mostly safe, I didn't remember signing up for it. How had I ended up here? My last memory was of sitting in Waterstones, reading Scooby Doo fanfiction while drinking a hot chocolate and sneaking the occasional shot of vodka into it. Someone must have drugged me and brought me here. Wherever here really was.

Mind made up, I said "Menu", and jumped a bit more than I would like to admit when the parchment reappeared before me, floating in mid-air. It showed four boxes, labelled 'CREATE CHARACTER', 'CHARACTER STATUS', 'RESET CHARACTER' and 'EXIT'. The middle two boxes were grey and faded, but the top was a bright green and the bottom a bright red. I was tempted by the friendly green, but in the end sense won out and I stubbed my finger down on the 'Exit' button.

Immediately the scroll wiped clean, and another message came up, this in a bold type. 'Please note, due to high levels of corruption in the game architecture, the game must maintain a minimum playgroup number of one. Please reduce corruption level to enable the EXIT function.'

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Well, double crap. I was stuck. I turned to face chain, who was trying to not look like he was peering over my shoulder at the scroll. "What's the corruption?" He squinted. I talked louder and slower. "Corruption?" Nothing. It looked like there was no getting around playing the stupid game enough to be able to talk to people. I pointed at myself, then the scroll, and waved vaguely at them until they backed off. I plucked the scroll out of the air and wandered over to sit on a pew. They looked like they were considering following me, but then decided against it and sat down together on the opposite side of the church, muttering.

Flapping it out in front of me, I discovered I could get the parchment to float in the air. Taking a deep breath, I pressed the 'create character' button, and once again the parchment wiped before being filled with new text. 'The character system of Vescaloan is based around four key statistics;

Vitality, V

Strength, S

Magic, M

Dexterity, D

Each character class is defined by a high value in two of these statistics, as the below (click each class for more information):

S+M = Warmage

S+V = Knight

S+D = Rogue

M+V = Healer

M+D = Druid

D+V = Monk

Once you have chosen your class, please double click to select it.'

I clicked on each of the classes in turn. They aligned pretty well with standard RPG classes, with the only really unusual one being the warmage. It seemed to be a purely offensive class, allowing one to create a trail of destruction with both spells and weapons, but was a bit of a glass cannon. I was sorely tempted, having always been fond of chucking fireballs and slicing people open, but if I was the only player around, I probably wouldn't find a handy tank to soak up damage for me.

That sparked a worrying thought. If I was the only player here, the other occupants of the church must be NPCs. Were they actually self-aware, or just robots going through the motions? Flicking my gaze over to the group, I studied them for telltale signs of secretly being a robot. None of them were going on a murderous rampage, but they did seem very polite. Probably half and half chance they were robots.

Pulling my attention back to the parchment, I made my selection. The druid was a bit boring, but had some offensive spells, a bit of martial ability and most importantly, a certain amount of healing. Plus, I'd get a cool animal companion. It was the closest the 'game' seemed to have to an all rounder, and that was what I would likely need to be.

'Congratulations! You are now a level one druid. Your Magic and Dexterity statistics have been set to 12 and your Strength and Vitality statistics have been set to 9. Please select two spells to learn, and then select your animal companion.' The parchment grew three inches as a list of options appeared, and I starting poring over them.

I didn't have to think twice before picking up 'Slight Healing', but was a little torn between 'Befriend Animal' and 'Ensnare'. Befriending sounded like a good way to pick up some more allies, always helpful in solo mode, but the Ensnare, which caught an enemy with roots or vines looked like pretty good crowd control. In the end, it grabbed me.

Looking down at companions, the choice was fairly limited. It was either classic wolf, the slightly unusual python or a falcon. The snake got dismissed out of hand. Rubbish speed and would need carrying around occasionally. A wolf was tempting, but in the end I plumped for the falcon. It would make for a decent distraction if it flew at someone's face at 200 miles per hour, and the 'Sightshare' skill would make it a useful and hopefully hard to detect scout. A quick press of the 'Confirm' box and the parchment re-rolled itself, before winking out of existence. A brief fanfare sounded, seemingly without a source and a deep voice boomed "Welcome to Vescaloan! Enjoy the game!"

I turned to look once again at the crowd of natives, who had stopped talking as the fanfare played and refocused their attention on me. I decided it was time to test my language skills. "Hello? Can you understand me?" My voice was nervous and quiet, but underneath it I could hear a second voice, also my own, softly saying "Atonte? Anto urit nera itur?"

It looked like the universal translator was up and running, because suddenly skullcap beamed. "Hello! Yes, I can understand you. Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Well, sort of fine. Well, not very fine. Where the hell am I?"

"Don't you know? You're the hero, you have to know where you are. You came when we summoned you. Have you not been to Vescaloan before? Do you get summoned a lot?" He looked increasingly worried with each question, wringing his hands before mopping his brow. I almost laughed at the cliche before I noticed he kept doing it. A perfect cycle of three hand rubs and one dab. He was stuck in an emote cycle. Seemed like they were NPCs after all. Watching his hands closely, I said "I think I might be the hero. Could you show me how you summoned me?"

He beamed again and walked towards the altar. Bending down he slid open a panel that was lighter than the rest of the wood and brought out a small box. Opening it revealed a scroll, which he passed to me. Unrolling it, I read "If the Corruption is stalking the land, hold up this scroll in the palm of your hand. Read aloud the words upon it, and see the hero spring from it." Beneath that, in bright red text, were printed the words 'Activate debugging function'. If I squinted slightly, I could make out a faint impression of the true text, a blocky script which made absolutely no sense to me.

Obviously the 'spell' was meant to summon someone who could fix the problem, which seemed a bit like the world needed defragmenting, but it had apparently grabbed me instead. If there were no other players here, I'd have to fix the problem myself in order to leave.

No other players. No other players. Hmm. "Can you perform the ritual again? It might be useful for me to have another hero here in case it's too difficult for just me."

"We can try" said the man with the skullcap, "but is that likely? Surely you're a strong hero." I considered waving off the idea, with a casual 'You're right, I can do it all myself' before quickly realising that letting pride rule me to that extent would be madness. I was stuck in some insane parallel world, and tech support was apparently built into it. Since I had no plans of turning off and then turning on any dimension I happened to be standing in, tech support was my first port of call.

"Please, I think this is quite a challenging scenario, and you don't want it to go more wrong. I think it's better for all of us if we have more than one hero." Looking a little unhappy, skullcap waved the other three over and they stood back around the chain. Raising their voices, they recited the short command I'd previously read, and fog filled the chain circle. A red light began to pulse slowly within it, and it was matched by a bell striking. This continued for eight strikes until suddenly the fog vanished.

Skullcap turned back to me, a sheepish look on his face "I'm sorry...oh I'm doubly sorry. I didn't ask your name. Unless, is it Hero?"

"No. I'm Felicity. Alright, if that didn't work, let me have another look at that scroll."

"Of course, Felicity. Also, I'm Yestin, this is my novice, Jenefer, the Mayor Peder and the blacksmith Kenver." He rattled the names off and I rewrote my mental list. He paused, then as I looked at him, handed me back the scroll. Flipping it over, I discovered the text on the reverse. 'In case of excessive Corruption, please activate the "reset" function from the throne room of the Castle of Doom. To facilitate access to high level area, please enter password below to release debug equipment.' Below that was eight dashes, in the same bright red. I entered 'password'. There was a harsh beep and the dashes cleared. New text appeared below them. 'Password incorrect. Login attempts restricted for 000:00:10.'

Well, that was helpful. Evidently something had gone more than a bit wrong, and whatever system was in place had grabbed me instead of whoever was actually meant to be here. And they weren't answering the phone. You know how sometimes, you just know it's going to be a crappy day?

"Right, young lady, you're obviously the only one coming, so would you like to get on and fix the problem?" The Mayor, having spent the last five minutes looking annoyed, had finally decided he'd had enough. "Those damn animals broke into our village proper last week, did a lot of damage and they need stopping. Now, we don't know where they're coming from, or why they're that weird grey colour or even where that one bear went to after it got into the larder, but it's high time someone did something about it. And I reckon that's you, hero."

Throughout this speech, his eyes had flicked down to his hands, held just in front of his stomach, palms angled slightly upwards. At that moment, I'd have given up my last rolo to get a quick look at his hands. "Alright", I said. "I'll do the best I can to help you. Perhaps you should show me this larder?" As I finished speaking and began to step forward, I almost walked into another scroll that unfurled before me.

'Tutorial quest accepted: Investigate the spooky cellar!' it proclaimed, in an unnecessarily cheery font. I turned to the Mayor. "This larder, it wouldn't happen to be in a cellar, would it?"

"Why yes, why do you ask?"

"No reason. Please, lead the way." He stalked towards the church's door, signalling the blacksmith to precede him with a point of the chin, before holding the door open for me. Turning back into the church, he gestured at Jenefer to follow us before looking at the priest.

"You stay here and watch the church Yestin, just in case anyone else comes as well." Yestin looked unimpressed to be being left behind, but obeyed. The Mayor held out his arm to me. I pretended to not notice it and followed the swiftly moving Kenver. I continued pretending to not notice as he offered it to Jenefer, who accepted.

As I exited the church, I had to pause briefly to examine my surroundings. The church was on the edge of a forest, at the end of a dirt track that headed down a hill. Below, I could see a collection of thatched buildings in a rough circle. People moved between them, going about their business, whatever that was.