Everything is white as the earth roils under me, and I slip into what must be a blind panic. I’ve lived in LA for a decade and have had my share of little shakes, but nothing like this.

And then it’s over.

I must have stepped out of the tavern in the jostling because I’m struck by the sounds of a lively town square before my vision starts to clear, shimmering slightly with what has to be an effect of the Incite interface.

The square would make Walt jealous. Everything meshes exactly right, and it has all the small details: the people move around and talk to one another with purpose, their clothing looks lived in, the sun feels bright and warm, and there’s even a light breeze that carries the scent of wood burning fires, flowers, and a bit of barnyard. Gone is the sound-stage smell of plywood and paint that permeated the tavern. The whole thing is like if Ren Faire and Disneyland had a baby, and I stand there absolutely mouth agape before I’m suddenly run into by what I thought was just a hyper-realistic hologram.

“Can’t just stand in the middle of the road,” the man grumbles, shuffling away from me, leading what looks like a donkey? Maybe? It has four fluffy tails and a cat-like face, but it’s the size of a donkey and moves like a donkey and smells like one… and it steps on my foot as it passes.

In this brief interaction, my mind has to grudgingly acknowledge a few pertinent details.

First: these supposed holograms are physically interacting with me, and—

Second: I’m no longer wearing glasses. Which means this isn’t some kind of VR overlap; all of these people are actually people, and some of them either have the best cosplay make-up techniques I’ve ever seen, or they may actually be green.

Third: the adventuring gear I saw in the magic mirror feels pretty real right about now given that if I were still in my nine-dollar, bargain-bin ballet flats, that creature would have broken my toe. I look down to confirm that yes, I am now wearing badass over-the-knee leather boots.

Fourth: that is an actual sun up there in an actual sky, and not some projection or spotlight… but it can’t be the LA sun because the LA sun isn’t out today unless that bomb cyclone cleared out way faster than expected or I was in the tavern way longer than I thought.

And fifth: I have a quiver of arrows at my hip and a bow on my back.

“What the actual fuck,” I say, putting my arms out as if I’m on a balance beam about to fall off—like that’s going to do any good. “What the…”

Sixth: there are two moons.

Two moons.

One sun.

One sky.

Dozens of people.

All crowded into what is not a virtual reality experience. This is a reality reality experience. Somehow, some way, and I’m in the middle of it.

And why the hell do I have a bow and arrows?

As if answering my question, a box appears on the bottom right of my vision.

> [Background Detected: Urban Ranger]

“Aw, now that’s a little cliché, isn’t it?!”

I don’t know who I’m talking to. I’m aiming the exclamation toward the sky. Given some of the looks I receive, I must look a little… let’s say disconnected from any possible version of reality (which, let’s be honest, I am right now).

But seriously. Out of two dozen possible backgrounds, I was randomly created to be an elven ranger? It screams noob.

Not the point, Keira. Not. The. Point. You’ve played rangers before. You even like ranger. It’s fine.

Let’s talk about how those words just appeared at the bottom of your vision in a little message box. Like this is a game.

Mom always says I shouldn’t be so cavalier about the earthquakes. They’re unpredictable. Can take down your house or office building, destroy the road you’re driving on, catapult you to a different reality…

“This is alarming.” To put it mildly.

I turn around and away from the large square out of lack of what else to do. If something goes wrong, restart, right? Turn it off and back on again, IT 101. This is fine. I’ll just go back into the tavern and…

The tavern door isn’t immediately behind me the way I expect. Instead, I stare into an open courtyard carved out by tall hedges. Vines string between them like fairy lights in some hipster bar’s outdoor seating area. Throughout the courtyard there are tall, bar-height tables and stools, many with people of all types sitting and enjoying a pint or a meal. The attached tavern’s large windows are all pulled open to let in the fresh air, revealing the tap room inside. The whole place seems to sparkle. Not literally, but there’s an energy about it that feels fizzy. Almost like you’d expect animated birds to come flying out of the hedges and help you get dressed. A sign across the front reads "Wide Sky Tavern and Inn" in gloriously carved letters. A smaller sign below says: "Adventurers and Familiars Welcome."

I reach under my glasses to rub my eyes before remembering I no longer have glasses. It’s strange that— out of everything— is the detail I’m most disturbed by.

Denial, Keira, it’s called denial.

And why shouldn’t I be in denial? This sort of thing doesn’t actually happen. There are no magic wardrobes or cupboards, no Stargates, no ruby slippers…

Ruby slippers.

My heartrate eases. I didn’t realize how hard it was pounding until I notice it ebbing.

I got knocked unconscious by the earthquake. This is all a dream. That’s it. The most logical explanation. Just call me Dorothy. I’ll wake up in the hospital in no time, and it’ll all be fine. Right? This is what a coma feels like. It’s not that bad. Think of it as a vacation. There are no smartphones, no emergency client calls, no having to drive in Los Angeles in the rain…

“Get out of the road, Pointy!”

I startle at the shout and am immediately swatted from somewhere low. I nearly fall over while warding off what seems to be some kind of stick and look down to see a tiny elderly woman with wild pink and silver hair and… is that body glitter? She’s just taller than my three-year-old niece and continues thwapping me at the hip with that stick.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Those knives not so good for hearing? Get out of the road! Out!” She swats me a couple more times making eet eet eet noises between her teeth like I’m a camel.

“You know, your ears are pointed too!” I try to ward her off as I backpedal toward a cobblestone-looking sidewalk.

She stops dead, looking up at me with wide eyes and levels the ornately carved stick at my face. “What did you just say to me?”

“Um,” I take another step backward onto the cobblestone. This is ridiculous, I’m literally twice this woman’s height. “Nothing. I said nothing.”

“Better not’ve. Mind yourself, this isn’t Gerai!” She gestures at me with three fingers in such emphasis that the meaning cannot be lost before she grabs up the reins to a smaller cat-donkey creature and continues on her way, occasionally glancing over her shoulder and grumbling.

“You okay?” a gentle male voice asks.

“I think I was just micro-aggressed,” I say, tugging slightly at the tips of my ears. As I expected, they are long, pointed, and do not even hint at coming off. Squeezing them even hurts a little. So no longer prosthetics. Awesome. Thanks, brain.

He chuckles. “Not so micro…”

I look over at him— and then up. “Who and the…?”

“Pardon me?” He raises an eyebrow. The man is tall, easily half a foot taller than I am, and athletic in a baseball-pitcher kind of way, though the rolled-up sleeves of his otherwise loose-fitting medieval-styled white shirt are taut around chiseled forearms. Chiseled, lightly tattooed, and pale green forearms. His black hair is cut longish, brushing his collar, but it still exposes his own slightly pointed ears. His eyes are a piercing steel gray— grayer for being against the green of his face.

“Nothing, nothing.” I clear my throat. “Sorry, you just reminded me of someone.”

“In a good way?”

“You know, that’s really hard to say? He’s fictional. Though I’m pretty sure you are too.”

He gives me a sideways look, brow furrowing. He’s actually kind of attractive for a tall, green, presumably non-human figment of my imagination. “Alright, elf girl,” he says, chuckling.

“Elf woman, thank you.”

He bows his head slightly with a small smirk. “I stand corrected. I’m uh… I’m Flynt Stoutbrooke. I run the local Emporium.”

“The local Emporium?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Family business.”

“And what do you empore?”

“Anything an adventurer could need,” he says, smirk breaking into a grin. “I noticed your bow.”

“Ah, I see. So this is more of a sales pitch.”

“Partly. But also, don’t worry about Embry, that wand’s been out of charges for at least twenty years. And she hates everyone.”

“Especially elves?”

“No, everyone pretty equally.”

“How magnanimous.”

“She’d think so. What’s your name?”

“Vex’ahlia.”

“What kind of name is that?”

I sigh. “The trademarked kind, I’m sure. Just call me Keira.”

“Keira.” He studies me carefully for a moment. “You’re not from Qeth, are you Keira?”

“I’m really not.”

He gives me another appraising glance and is about to say something when bells start ringing. I don’t mean a lunch bell or a silver bell, I mean full-on, the-British-are-coming, emergency-klaxons-blaring, Klingons-off-the-starboard-bow kind of ringing. Flynt’s eyes widen, and he looks down the broad thoroughfare just as a fireball goes off some hundred or so yards from us—though it’s powerful enough that I can still feel the blast of heat on my face.

“Keira, you any good with that bow?” His voice is tense but tinged with excitement.

My mind hasn’t caught up to what is happening yet, so I answer more sensibly than I might otherwise. “Uh,” I say, eloquently. “I have two levels in it. I think.”

“I don’t know what that means. But let’s find out.”

Another explosion rocks the area. I seriously consider panicking, but the man beside me seems to be taking it in stride. However, the people in the open-air courtyard of the tavern are not, and they cry out as they try to hide. Some duck under the tables, others run inside, and several make for the other direction down the street.

A trio emerges from the tavern. Two look human (or, at least, human adjacent), and one is definitely dwarven, standing probably a bit past my waist with a shorter than expected, but neatly trimmed, strawberry blond beard extending halfway to his chest. Flynt looks toward the group and doesn’t flinch as another fireball goes off—though I do, panic rising in my throat.

“I’m a caster,” he says. “She has ranged skills, at least, we think.”

“We think?” repeats one of the humans, a tall, stunning woman with a warm brown complexion. Her very long black hair is pulled into a thick French braid, and her amber eyes shine with anticipation. She has a small gold nose ring and a very large gleaming sword that she removes from its scabbard at her back.

“I’m new,” I reply, awkwardly.

“Well, New, either follow us, or find shelter inside.”

The other human, a man with cool brown skin and short black hair, smiles slightly at me, almost apologetically. “I’m a healer. That’s Tyrus, he stabs things.”

“Discreetly,” Tyrus, the ruddy-faced dwarf, adds in a pitched-low, gruff voice as he twirls a pair of daggers from behind his back.

“I do too,” the woman tells us. “Not so discreetly. Let’s do this.”

She takes the lead and rushes toward where the remnants of the first fireball still burn. Tyrus and the human man follow, and Flynt looks at me.

“You coming?”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Only one way to learn.”

I glance down the broad street at the backs of the others, my senses opening up to the screams and shouts of terrified people that somehow still manage to echo off the cacophony of bells.

I’ve always thought of myself as the type who would run into the fire if the situation ever arose. I want to be the person who helps, who throws caution to the wind to make sure others are okay. I want to believe that I’m the hero, or at least, have the makings to be one. But if I can’t even do that in a dream…

I meet Flynt’s gaze and nod.

> [You have accepted Quest: Fireball!]

“Oh, great,” I scoff, and follow after him, running quickly and easily along the unpaved streets despite the slight heel of my adventuring boots.

As we approach where the first fireball landed, something comes hurtling toward my face. I instinctively duck out of the way, keeping my feet and speed but find myself coming up on a burning cart. I’m going too fast to stop, so (in a panic) I drop into a low slide, which carries me under the cart, and I’m able to kick up to my feet on the other side.

Now, it’s not that I’m typically klutzy. I go to the gym and generally have okay enough coordination. I do not, however, have slide under a cart and get back on my feet in one sweeping movement type of coordination.

I can’t marvel at it for long, though, and I force myself to the present. Pulling the bow from its position on my back, I take a beat to carefully nock an arrow, not entirely sure what I’m going to be aiming at or if I even know how to shoot this thing— though I must, right? It’s my coma dream.

I draw a breath and catch sight of Flynt up ahead with the others, all of them sneaking their way forward. I follow behind by about a dozen paces or so, instincts telling me to keep some distance. My heart beats so hard it echoes in my ears, and my eyes pulse with it, giving everything a weird otherworldliness.

Then I see them: a group of people wearing white robes and white masks with a scale motif all over them. There’s probably a dozen of them making their way up the central street from what looks to be a now mostly demolished guard gate. People lay on the cobblestones, some smoldering from the flame, others bleeding, trying to crawl out of the way. One of the white robed individuals flings another spell down the street; it impacts with a building, sending it up into flames. Another, with a bow, nocks an arrow and sends it hurtling toward the group in front of me. The human woman (whose name I didn’t catch) dodges it, smacking it down with her sword like a warrior princess.

Well. No time like the present. Let’s try this out.

I raise my bow, trying to remember that quick lesson at the Ren Faire booth, which is the closest I’ve ever come to real archery in my life. You have to anchor it, right? Something like that.

But as I try, I find that my body at least kinda knows what it’s doing. I pull it back, sight my target, and release toward the white-dressed archer that fired toward us. They’re maybe a hundred and twenty feet ahead of me—I don’t know how I know that, but I suddenly do—and they have some kind of light glow around them. It’s hazy, not really distinct, but I notice it more as my arrow flies.

The arrow embeds, improbably, in the figure’s shoulder.

A small red 3 drifts up off of them.

“Aw, come on! That’s at least five.” Again, I don’t know who I’m talking to.

I’m so annoyed by this that I don’t immediately recognize the magical missile hurtling my way. Why would I? I hear Flynt yell at me, and I catch sight of this glittering ball of light. It’s really quite pretty. Until it slams onto the ground some ten feet ahead of me and throws me backward into the nearest stone wall with a sharp, painful crack.