Ugh! A wave of vertigo goes over me, and I have to make an effort not to be sick. I squat and hug my knees, eyes closed, feeling as if I had just downed a whole bottle of vodka. I'm thinking, is this what dying feels like? I'm really too young to die, there are so many books I haven't read and games I haven't played! I haven't even finished writing my Inefable Husbands fanfiction! And I will never figure out how to finish Pixel Dungeon??

Then, slowly, the world stops spinning, and the vertigo goes away, but my heart is beating like crazy from the adrenaline. I take a deep breath, and open my eyes. There's... nothing. Or rather, I can't see a thing. I can't hear anything either. The bus and the party are definetly nowhere near here. I sit on the floor, and relief washes over me like a tsunami. I'm alive! It's so overwhelming that I find myself sobbing and sniffing, tear and snot running down my face.

I lay down on the cold hard floor. It feels rough, like I'm laying on a rock, and the solidity is strangely reassuring. I try to gather myself here in the dark, to make sense of what happened. Fuck, I almost died! And then an angel saved me. Wait, that doesn't make sense. Did I die? Where am I? The bus was nearly on me. And then the angel... My thoughts start going in circles, playing the scene over and over again. I remember the angel's mischievous smile by the end. Did I... get tricked? Something weird is going on, and I should figure out what. At the very least, I can try to learn where I am.

My eyes are slowly adjusting to the darkness, and it seems there's light coming from a hole on the floor. I still have my phone and my backpack with me, laying on the floor beside. It seems I'm in a small room made of rough hewn stone bricks. Above me there are some wooden beams, supporting a ceiling I can't see, in the dark. There's no door, so the only exit is the hole on the floor. Okay then. Isekai rules? Isekai rules, I nod to myself. First, take inventory of what I have. Second, go... explore?

I'm wearing knee-lenght shorts and a T-shirt, which is not the worst outfit to go exploring, I guess. I thank past me for being more concerned about comfort than style. The only problem is, I'm wearing slippers. Too much comfort, past me! My feet are horribly exposed to the elements! There's nothing I can do, though, so I check out the bag. There's a hoodie, along with a phone battery, a notebook, a pencil case full of pencils and pens, a bottle of water and a pack of biscuits. I guess I have food and water for a few hours? Ok, inventory done. Time to check out that hole on the floor.

Turns out the hole is actually a stairwell. There are steps going to the floor below, which looks a lot like this one, except with some torch light. But different from this one, there's a wooden door on the wall. Promising! Ok I'm going down these stairs.

As soon as I step on the stairs, a brilliant floating parchment unfurls in my face, covered in what looks like letters. Oh, ho ho! Is this gonna be that kind of world? There is magic? And I get messages floating in the air?! Wait... but why can't I read what the parchment says? I examine it closely. There is something written, but I have never seen letters like these. They look... to be honest, they look a lot like made-up script from fantasy books. Great, I think, sarcastically. I've been transported to a story with a conlang. And one that uses it's own alphabet, to boot. Why couldn't I go to a world where everyone speaks the same language? Noo, I have to be in one of the ~creative~ ones. Cursing the author of my life, I examine the script with more attention.

I really can't make anything from the letters, but below the paragraph there are three boxes with drawings, which are more helpful. The first is a man with a sword and shield. The second is someone with a staff and robe. The third is a person with a bow and quiver. Ok! So these are classes? Warrior, mage and ranger? I can grok that. Below each picture is a word. I have to assume the words are the names of the classes, but right now they mean nothing to me. I do notice they all end with the same character, that looks vaguely like a fish with legs. I wonder if that means "class" or something like that. Maybe this script is like kanji, where each symbol can be a whole word.

Well. If this was a game, I would have to select a class now. The drawings are also shining slightly, which makes me wanna touch them. I just have to choose carefully... hahah yeah, who am I kidding, of course I'm gonna go with mage! Sure, mages are weak on the first level, but anyone who loves fantasy has dreamed of using magic one day, and I'm no exception! Besides, if D&D has taught me anything it's that mages have the most potential for growth, so it's not a bad choice strategically, either. I just need to survive long enough! Anyway, awesome magic powers, here I come!

I touch the picture of the mage, and a smaller parchment appears in front of the other. Is this a popup? Is shows some words, the mage icon, and a few more drawings, namely a staff, a potion and a scroll. Yeah, that's more or less what I expect from a mage. I still haven't turned into an awesome magic wielder, so I assume this is a confirmation dialogue. There are two shining boxes near the end of the parchment scroll, each with a word. Maybe they are something like "cancel" and "ok"? I think these words are gonna come up a lot, so I make an effort to remember them. Then I have an idea, and I pick up my notebook and copy the words to it, along with my guess at translation. Actually, I don't know which is which. Shrughing, I touch the word on the right.

I think I guessed right, because immediately the parchments disappear and a blinding light replaces them Some serious magic is going on, and I'm so excited about it I don't even care that it's pulling my backpack and my notebook away and leaving me only with the clothes on my body. No wait, what am I saying? My stuff!! But when I try to get them back, I can't move. The light is holding me still. Then it pushes something onto my arms, and I reflexively grab it. The light wears off. Suddenly I'm at the bottom of the stairs, and a new scroll of parchment is open in front of me. I'm getting really frustated at not knowing the words, but when I look closely at it, this looks very much like a status screen. It has the word for the mage class on top, and a few more symbols, and the picture of the mage. Then it has what looks like a list of stats. I hate that I can't read the stats. I try to memorize them, annoyed that my notebook is gone. There's only one softly glowing word at the end, so I touch it, and the parchment vanishes. Good.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Now, what is this thing I'm holding? Oh, it's a backpack. Neat. My anger at the magic that stole my stuff abates a bit. The bag is made of soft leather, with a bunch of buckled pockets. There's a wooden rod strapped to the side, that looks suspiciously like a... mage staff?? I take the rod from the straps and wave it around, willing it to do some magic. Nothing happens. Am I gonna have to figure this out on the go? Hrm. Annoying. In games, you can always just press a button and be done with it, but it seems like in the real world there's a skill involved. Ok, maybe play with the magic staff later, check out what else is in the bag now.

In other words, since I lost all my previous gear, I guess I'm back to step one, take inventory.

Inside the bag pockets I find a clothwrapped package that smells like food, a small sack of really hard biscuits, an empty waterskin, a vial with a green liquid inside, and a scroll. Neat! So this must be starting gear. The rations must be standard, and the vial and scroll must be the potion and scroll I got with the mage class, along with the staff. This confirms that the wooden rod must be my mage staff. I wonder what the potion and scroll do, though? I examine the vial closely, and I even open it to sniff the content. It smells like lemon juice. So, is this a lemon-flavores healinh potion? Or, since I'm a mage, it might be a mana potion or something like that. I kinda wanna drink it right now, just to test it, but, if it really is a healing potion, I should save it for when I'm hurt. This might save my life later today.

Of course, it could also be a vial of poison which will kill me, but I'm gonna trust the magic parchments to have given me something a bit more useful than that. After storing the potion in an easily accessible pocket for emergencies, I turn my attention to the scroll.

The scroll is a simple white parchment sealed with red wax. The seal has a symbol in it, but it means nothing to me. I wonder how you use this? Probably I'm gonna need to break the seal and read whatever is written inside the scroll. Which might be in a language I can't read. So, odds are I can't even use this anyway. Still, if it's a scroll of fireball or something like that, I'm gonna need an enemy to try it out on. That's one thing I learned from playing rogue-like games, always test your scrolls in the correct circunstances.

Well, time to explore, then. I put the scroll in my pocket so I can reach it easily, and I equip my staff. Which means, I pick it up with my right hand. I swing it around a few more times, willing it to fire magic missiles, but nothing happens. This is very frustrating.

My bag on my back, my staff on my hand, I'm ready. The room I'm in only has one door. I can't go back upstairs, because the stairs now somehow end on a rock ceiling, the room I came from nowhere to be seen. The only way out is the door.

I push open the door, and come face to face with a giant sewer rat the size of a labrador. What the fuuuck!! This thing is huge and black and smells like a clogged university toilet. Am I expected to fight it?? It seems suprised to see me, but while I'm here reeling in shock, the rat shrieks like a demon and jumps towards me. I dodge, but it still manages to scratch my left arm, drawing blood. The rat lands by my legs and I bring my staff on it's head with all my strenght. Crack. Wow, did I crack it's skull? Go adrenaline! The rat is still moving, but more slowly. Before it can attack again I take a step back. The rat lunges at me, but I put the staff between us. It grabs the staff instead. Shit, what do I do now? The rat is too heavy and strong, I can't lift the staff. So I raise my foot and stomp on it's face while pulling the staff on the other direction. The sole of my Havaianas smashes the rat's head, and I try my best to keep the weight of my foot behind the rather flimsy footwear. The rat lets go of the staff, but not without scratching my leg and taking away my slipper. Keep it, you little gremlim! I scream and swing my staff at it again, hitting it's shoulder with another crack. The rat shrieks in pain, and lunges at me, grabbing my right leg. That's the leg you already scratched! It hurts! Are you biting me?! That's definetly gonna get infected. I hit the rat with the staff again, but now I realize the crack earlier didn't come from the rat's head. My staff is broken, and when I hit the rat it bends. High on adrenaline and pain, I look around for a solution. We're still standing on the door frame. If if move my leg just a bit...

Clenching my teeth to ignore the pain, I pull my leg back. The rat doesn't let go, and I pull it towards me. It looks at me, but since I don't do anything, it keeps gnawing on my shin. I slowly reach over it, and it stares at me, waiting for me to attack. But it's too late for you, rat, I got what I wanted. As fast as I can, I pull back the door. Bam! The rat didn't have time to let go of my leg and the hardwood door got him right on the neck. Since I threw all my weight back, I fall back on my butt on the floor, and it hurts. Then I look at the blood on the door and wince. That's why you don't let kids play with doors.

The adrenaline is starting to wear off again as I breath sitting on the floor. My leg hurts a lot, and it's full of disgusting rat spit. I push myself back away from the rat corpse, and I feel guilty all of a sudden. I've never killed an animal before. Well, not a mammal, at least. If it wasn't trying to kill me, I would have wanted to have a pet rat. But that's not how it works in a dungeon, is it? I take a deep breath to steady myself, and focus on how I survived the first trial of the day, and won my first real battle.

Ok, time to access my situation and make a plan to move forward. As soon as I think that, a floating parchment unfurls in the air in front of me, covered in foreign symbols, with a picture of a rat.