I stumbled towards the light, squinting as it grew brighter with each step. The tunnel opened up, and I found myself blinking rapidly, eyes watering as they adjusted to the sudden brilliance.
Sunlight. Real, honest-to-God sunlight.
I hauled myself out of the cave entrance, collapsing onto grass-covered ground. For a moment, I just lay there, fingers digging into the soft earth, relishing the feel of something that wasn't cold, damp stone.
"Okay," I muttered, pushing myself to my feet. "Let's see where the hell I've ended up now."
I turned in a slow circle, taking in my surroundings. My jaw dropped. The landscape before me was impossible. Familiar, yet utterly alien.
To my left, far in the distance, stood the Zap's Electronics building, its garish neon sign still flickering. But it wasn't quite right. Vines crawled up its walls, their leaves glowing with an ethereal blue light. The parking lot was overgrown with grass and wildflowers in colors I'd never seen before – vivid purples and electric greens that seemed to pulse with their own inner light.
Across the street, the run-down burger joint had transformed into a weathered stone tavern. Its walls were now rough-hewn granite, adorned with faded heraldic banners. A wooden sign creaked in the breeze, bearing the image of a grinning dragon clutching a mug. The scent of roasted meat and ale wafted from within, mingling with woodsmoke from the chimney. My stomach growled, reminding me I never even got to go on my lunch break today because we were so busy at Zap's.
I rubbed my eyes, certain I must be hallucinating. But when I looked again, nothing had changed. If anything, the scene before me seemed even more surreal.
The sky above was a deep, brilliant blue, dotted with stars that twinkled even in broad daylight. Two moons hung low on the horizon – one silver, one a pale green.
As I stood slack jawed at the transformed world around me, something flickered at the edge of my vision. I blinked, trying to focus on it. It was an interface. An honest-to-God heads-up display, like something out of a video game.
In the top left corner of my field of view, a small green bar pulsed gently. Next to it, numbers: 75/100 HP. My health, I realized with a start. Below that, a blue bar. 5/5, with the word "Mana" next to it.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," I groaned, rubbing my temples.
In the bottom right corner, a minimap showed a crude representation of my surroundings. A blinking dot – me, I assumed – stood at the center.
I took a deep breath, trying to process the insanity before me. "Okay, Stanley. Think. What would a protagonist in RPG do in this sitution?"
As if in response to my question, a notification popped up in the center of my vision:
[Tutorial Quest Activated: Explore Your New World]
Objective: Investigate the Local Flora and Fauna
Reward: 50 XP, Basic Gear Set
"A quest? Seriously?" I laughed, the sound edged with hysteria. "Fine. Why not? It's not like this day can get any weirder."
I took a tentative step forward, half-expecting the ground to collapse beneath me or some new horror to emerge. But nothing happened. The grass beneath my feet felt real.
"Okay, let's see what this body can do," I said, stretching my arms above my head.
To my surprise, the movement felt fluid, effortless. No ache from my usual hunched-over-a-counter posture. I bounced on my toes, then broke into a jog. My feet barely seemed to touch the ground, each stride covering more distance than I thought possible.
[Agility +1]
The notification blinked in my peripheral vision. I skidded to a halt, kicking up a small cloud of dirt.
"Did I just... level up?"
Curiosity piqued, I dropped into a crouch, then sprang upward with all my might. I soared into the air, easily clearing twice my height. For a moment, I hung suspended, the strange landscape sprawling out beneath me. Then gravity reasserted itself, and I plummeted back to earth.
I landed in a crouch, the impact reverberating through my legs. But there was no pain, no jarring shock. Just a satisfying thud and another notification:
[Acrobatics +1]
"Holy shit," I breathed, a grin spreading across my face despite myself. "This is actually kind of awesome."
A rustling in the nearby underbrush caught my attention. I whirled, hand instinctively going to the sword at my belt. But what emerged from the foliage was no lizard monster.
It looked, at first glance, like a rabbit. Soft fur, twitching nose, long ears. But as it hopped into the clearing, I noticed the differences. Its coat shimmered with an iridescent sheen, shifting colors as it moved. And sprouting from its head was a small, delicate pair of antlers.
The creature regarded me with large, liquid eyes. A red cursor appeared above its head, along with text:
[Jackalope - Lvl 1]
"A jackalope? Seriously?" I chuckled, shaking my head. "What's next, a unicorn?"
The jackalope's ears twitched at the sound of my voice. It took a hesitant hop towards me, nose quivering as it sniffed the air.
[Animal Handling Check... Failed]
Before I could react, the jackalope bolted, disappearing back into the undergrowth in a flash of prismatic fur.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
"Wait!" I called after it, but it was gone.
Sighing, I turned my attention back to my surroundings. The quest objective blinked insistently in the corner of my vision: Investigate Local Flora and Fauna.
"Well, I guess that counts as fauna," I muttered. "Now for the flora."
As if on cue, something caught my eye. A few yards away, nestled between the roots of a gnarled tree, was a plant unlike any I'd seen before. Its leaves were a deep, vibrant purple, and at its center bloomed a flower that seemed to glow with an inner light.
I approached cautiously, half-expecting it to be carnivorous or poisonous or some other video game trope. But as I drew closer, the plant remained stubbornly inert. Just a weird, glowy flower.
"Okay," I said, crouching down beside it. "Let's see what you do."
I reached out, fingers brushing against one of the luminescent petals. The moment I made contact, the flower pulsed with light. A chime sounded, and a new notification appeared:
[Quest Activated: The Whisper of Petals]
Objective: Gather 5 Lumina Blossoms
Reward: Minor Healing Potion, 25 XP
"Oh, come on," I groaned. "I'm already on a quest. I don't need another one!"
But the notification remained stubbornly in place, a constant reminder of my new objective. I glanced around, spotting several more of the glowing plants scattered throughout the clearing.
"Fine," I sighed, reaching for the stem of the flower. "I guess I'm a botanist now."
I plucked the glowing flowers one by one, each disappearing with a soft chime as I touched them. The fourth blossom vanished from my fingers, leaving behind a trail of sparkling motes.
"One more," I said, scanning the clearing.
There. Half-hidden beneath a fallen log, the final Lumina Blossom pulsed with ethereal light. I reached for it, my fingers brushing against its silky petals.
The moment I touched the fifth flower, a cascade of notifications flooded my vision:
[Quest Complete: The Whisper of Petals]
[Quest Complete: Explore Your New World]
[Reward: 75 XP]
[Reward: Minor Healing Potion added to inventory]
[Reward: Basic Gear Set added to inventory]
[Level Up! You are now Level 2]
"Whoa, whoa, slow down," I said, blinking rapidly as the text scrolled past. "I can't even read all that."
A soft ping drew my attention to the corner of my vision. A small backpack icon had appeared, pulsing gently.
"Inventory, huh?" I reached out, muscle memory from a thousand video games guiding my hand. The icon expanded into a full inventory screen, filled with neat little squares. In two of them sat my rewards - a small red vial and what looked like a bundle of cloth and leather.
I tapped the potion icon, and a description popped up:
[Minor Healing Potion]
Restores 25 HP
"A novice alchemist's first success. Tastes like cherry cough syrup, works about as well."
"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence," I said, closing the inventory screen. "At least I got some new clothes out of the deal. Maybe they'll be less damp than-"
My words died in my throat. Something was wrong with the world around me. A massive oak tree at the edge of the clearing flickered like a bad TV signal, fading in and out of existence. One moment it was there, ancient and imposing. The next, nothing but empty air.
"What the-"
Pain lanced through my skull, sharp and sudden. My vision swam, pixels of static dancing across my field of view. I stumbled, nearly falling to my knees as nausea washed over me.
[Error Sensing activated]
[Warning: Reality Instability Detected]
"No shit," I gasped, pressing my palms against my temples. The headache intensified, a pressure building behind my eyes. Through the haze of pain and static, I saw the tree flicker again. This time, in the moments it vanished, I caught glimpses of... something else. Wires. Circuit boards. Lines of code scrolling past faster than I could read.
Gritting my teeth against the pain, I forced myself to move toward the malfunctioning tree. Each step sent a fresh wave of agony through my skull, but I pressed on. As I drew closer, the flickering intensified. The tree strobed in and out of existence, the glimpses of its true nature growing longer, more frequent.
"Come on," I grumbled, reaching out toward the trunk. "Show me what you really are."
My fingers brushed against rough bark - and then suddenly, they didn't. For a heart-stopping moment, my hand passed through empty air. Then, with a sound like a computer booting up, the tree snapped back into solidity. The flickering stopped. The pain in my head receded to a dull throb.
I stood there, hand pressed against the now-stable trunk, trying to process what had just happened. The tree felt real beneath my palm, solid and unyielding. But I couldn't shake the memory of what I'd seen in those moments of instability. The glimpse behind the curtain of this strange, virtual world.
"What are you?" I whispered, staring up at the gnarled branches above. "What is any of this?"
A sudden creaking sound startled me, and I stumbled backward as the tree's bark began to shift and warp. A seam appeared down the center of the trunk, splitting open like a bizarre door. From within emerged... well, I wasn't quite sure what to call it.
The creature stood barely waist-high, with skin that looked like polished wood and leaves for hair. Its eyes glowed with an inner light, reminding me of the Lumina Blossoms I'd just collected. A green cursor hovered above its head, identifying it as [Rootwhisper - Guardian of the Grove].
"Oh, thank the great one!" the little creature exclaimed, its voice high-pitched and melodious. "You've fixed the glitch. Jolly good show, new player!"
I blinked, my brain struggling to process what I was seeing. "I... what?"
The creature - Rootwhisper, I supposed - waved its twig-like arms excitedly. "The glitch, my boy! You fixed it! Nasty business, those reality fluctuations. Makes the whole game go wonky."
"Game?" I echoed, feeling like I was several steps behind in this conversation. "What game?"
Rootwhisper tilted its head, leaves rustling. "Why, Arcadia, of course! The grandest game ever conceived. And you, my friend, are our newest player!"
A notification popped up in my vision:
[New NPC Encountered: Rootwhisper]
[Tutorial Guardian Unlocked]
"Okay, hold up," I said, raising my hands. "You're telling me this is all... a game?"
"Of course!" Rootwhisper chirped. "What else would it be? Now, let's get you properly oriented. Can't have new players stumbling around without knowing the basics!"
The little guardian began pacing, launching into what felt like a well-rehearsed spiel. "Arcadia operates on a system of quests, experience, and levels. Complete quests, gain XP, level up. Simple, yes?"
"I guess, but-"
"Excellent!" Rootwhisper interrupted. "Now, you've already completed your first quest and reached level 2. Well done! But that's just the beginning. As you progress, you'll unlock new skills, abilities, and areas to explore."
My head was spinning. "But how did I even get here? One minute I was at work, and the next-"
"Oh, character backstories!" Rootwhisper clapped its wooden hands together. "Always a fun bit of roleplay. We can delve into that later. For now, let's focus on getting you started properly."
The guardian's eyes lit up - literally, glowing brighter. "I know! A fetch quest. Perfect for beginners. Nothing too strenuous, but it'll help you get the hang of things."
Before I could object, a new quest notification appeared:
[New Quest: A Guardian's Request]
Objective: Collect 3 Shimmerfruits from the nearby bushes
Reward: 50 XP, Basic Adventurer's Pack
"There we go!" Rootwhisper said, beaming. "Just gather those Shimmerfruits, and you'll be well on your way to becoming a proper Arcadian adventurer."
I opened my mouth to argue, to demand real answers about what was happening. But something in the guardian's eager expression made me hesitate. It was clear I wasn't going to get straight answers - at least not yet.
"Fine," I sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat. "Where do I find these Shimmerfruits?"
Rootwhisper pointed towards a cluster of bushes at the edge of the clearing. Their leaves seemed to shimmer and shift colors in the sunlight. "Right over there! And don't worry, they're not carnivorous. Probably."
"Probably?" I echoed, but the little guardian was already retreating back into its tree.
"Good luck, new player!" Rootwhisper called, its voice muffled as the bark sealed shut behind it. "And welcome to Arcadia!"
I stood there for a moment, staring at the now-ordinary looking tree. Then, with a resigned shake of my head, I turned towards the Shimmerfruit bushes. It seemed I had a quest to complete.