Help Text: Food always restores stamina, but may also have other effects!

Before I knew what was going on I found myself falling down what seemed to be an endless void. At first I panicked, wondering what could possibly be going on, but then I realized that this had to be a dream. Didn't it? I relaxed and maneuvered myself so that I could watch where I was falling toward. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't figure out a way to make myself fly, but I shrugged it off. Who really knows how dreams work? Eventually a bright light seemed to surround me.

Once the light had faded, I found myself laying face down on a stone path in the middle of a forest. It appeared quite old, and looked like it stretched on for quite a ways in either direction. That's when I noticed a transparent map in the top right of my vision. As I focused my attention on the map, it enlarged itself covering my entire field of vision. It was styled similarly to the map in the game I played with my college buddies, except the edges had the horrible flourishes from the Mobile RPG I had been working on. As I was trying to figure out how to use it, an objective marker appeared north of me.

I briefly looked at the marker, and above it appeared the text "Starter Quest!" I couldn't help but laugh, it was like I was playing an alpha for a company that was hiring me. Once I finally figured out how to make the map small again I started walking up the pathway to the north towards the objective. I looked around at the details, and noticed small animals and bugs scurrying around the forest. They didn't look like anything I had ever seen before, even the trees seemed different. Regardless I made my way up the path. I walked for hours and eventually the sun appeared on the horizon to the east.

Eventually I took a short break, and checked my map. I had made progress towards the objective marker, but it still seemed quite a ways off. It was surprising to me that I had stayed in this dream for so long though. I couldn't shake the nagging suspicion that this might not be a dream after all, but if it wasn't a dream what could it be? I decided not to worry about it, there wasn't anything I could do, whether it was a dream or not. Continuing north the path became more and more covered in moss, and the forest grew thicker. The trees seemed to get taller and taller the closer I got to the objective. Several hours passed, and a marker appeared floating in front of me with "1+ miles" above it. Seeing that I decided to take another short break.

I looked around carefully at the landscape. It seemed as if the animals I had seen earlier were all gone. The trees here were significantly older, with some of their trunks being four times as wide as myself. I took the time to check the map again. Areas that I hadn't been in were obscured, but areas I visited remained on it. It appeared as if the range that was revealed was around a quarter mile radius around me. Looking off toward where the objective marker was, I could see a much more massive tree than even the ones around me now. I wondered how old it must be to have grown that large, but then my stomach growled.

I knew I wasn't going to be very successful if I tried to hunt anything, so I decided to look and see if the trees had fruit. I looked carefully, and noticed that there were some small blue cherry-like bunches hanging on some lower branches. I carefully removed a bunch from the tree, and took a small bite out of one to taste it and make sure nothing was off about it. It was very sweet and sour, but otherwise seemed fine. Once I was finished eating, I continued my way north towards the objective.

Eventually, I had gotten close enough to the objective for it to say "1700+ Yards." It was rather strange, because I hadn't seen yards used in games for years. I continued closer and closer 1600 yards, 1500 yards, 1400 yards. Once I had finally gotten close enough to see it it switched to "600 feet." Underneath it I could see what appeared to be a stone altar with something setting on top of it. I continued to approach, and looked carefully at it as I did. No matter how I looked at it, the object was definitely a generic touch screen tablet. When I was finally there, I looked around the altar wondering why I would dream of a generic tablet on an altar.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

The altar stood on a massive platform of carved stone, and the platform was surrounded by the roots of the giant tree. Sunbeams shined through the leaves of the massive tree almost focusing themselves on the altar. I searched around the area for any signs of a helper NPC, but the place seemed well and truly abandoned. I sat down and had some more of the fruits I had picked earlier, and contemplated what I should do now that I was here. All of the possibilities started racing through my mind, but I couldn't come up with any definitive answers.

Finally I gave up and went to pick up the tablet, but the moment I touched it the screen turned on. I looked carefully at the pause menu, which displayed a very simple UI showing various items, and the text "Select your tool!" above. I swiped through it wondering what the point of making a player walk this far to select their starting equipment could be. Each item was an ornate silver weapon, armor, or tool that had a gemstone embedded in it. To the right was a very basic explanation of what the tool was, and the bonuses it granted. Some of them looked similar to items in stories I had read and shows I had watched, while others were very obviously randomly generated. I eventually settled on one that looked similar to an item from a show I watched as a kid. It was a silver rod, with a large sphere on top, and a ruby colored gemstone in the sphere.

Once I had made my selection the tablet on the altar vanished and a large doorway appeared on the tree. This reminded me of a game I played a lot as a kid, and wondered if I'd have to fight a giant eyeball spider inside. Before entering though, several new things popped up in my field of view. Red, green, and blue bars appeared at the bottom left of my vision, while a small gear icon appeared at the bottom right. I looked at it carefully, and a tab appeared with several categories. Slightly above the frame I could see "Paused..." flashing. I looked through the pause menus, starting with "UI Settings" where, thankfully, I could turn off the awful flourish on the map. I moved on to "Help" which was not as helpful as I thought it would be. It was essentially a single paragraph explaining my current abilities.

I looked at "Stats" next, which showed me that the Rod granted me bonuses to my Armor Class, and Magic. Further down I could see my Ability Scores, and that I was a Level 1 Wizard. The different stats were nearly identical to the tabletop RPG I used to play when I was in college. It was at least a little comforting to know that it was something familiar.

Eventually I moved onto the "Controls" which was very strange. I was expecting to find something dumb like a controller or keyboard selector, but instead I found a list of my abilities and other things with blank boxes next to them. I looked through the list, and decided to test out how it all worked. As I looked at the box beside "Open and Close Configuration" a text cursor appeared in the box. I thought about what I wanted to be able to do to open it, and was surprised to find that each word I was thinking flashed in the box. I finally settled on "Pause" so it would be easy to remember. Once that was set, I used it to close the pause menu and look around.

I wanted to test something so I waited around patiently, hoping that I was correct in my thinking. Eventually, a soft breeze passed through, and the branches of the tree began to sway. Once again, I thought "Pause" to open the pause menu, and my suspicions were confirmed. While I was using the pause menu, time was frozen. I couldn't move my body, but at the very least I could buy myself time to think if I found myself in danger. So, I exited the pause menu, and started looking around for things that I could use before I went inside the tree.