I narrowed my eyes and glared at my nemesis. I took a long, slow, deep breath and visualized the victory that would soon be mine. Today would be the day that I conquered the stairs.
For a brief moment I had a flashback to a moment from the prior week: I had promised my doctor that I would take steps to make my life less sedentary. A promise is a promise. So here I was, literally taking steps.
As I passed the second floor I congratulated myself. My breathing was still slow and deep. My legs hadn't even started to feel the burn. By the 4th floor, I wass huffing and puffing. By the 6th floor, I was dragging myself upward with the help of the handrail while silently telling myself that using the handrail is not cheating. All is fair in love and war.
By the 13th floor, I was sweating profusely and my legs were on fire. I felt like I was going to die. However, victory was mine. Someone once told me that some buildings didn't have a 13th floor due to some superstition about 13 being an unlucky number. I guess whoever constructed this office building didn't get the memo.
As I swiped my badge to get in the door, I silently reflected how lucky I was that I was usually the first person in the office. So none of my coworkers would see the sweaty aftermath of my battle with the stairs. I glanced at the clock on the wall as I walked over to my desk and threw myself into my chair. It was 7:00 AM. It would be at least another hour and a half befefore the office would start bustling with activity.
An hour and a half later, I had finished coding 4 new functions and was ready to run my unit tests. I started running my the unit tests and went to the lunch room to start brewing the first pot of coffee. As the coffee was percolating, I greeted a few of my fellow coffee addicts who had arrived and were waiting for the coffee to be ready. Aside from a brief greeting we didn't really talk much. Only crazy people have conversations before drinking coffee.
By 9:00 my unit tests had finished successfully. I was officially done coding for the day. The rest of my day would be reserved for what I generally refer to as "bullshit": meetings, email, phone calls, more meetings...basically every kind of productivity killing interruption you can imagine. As someone who came in 2 hours early and put in a solid hour and a half of work without interruption, I was usually praised as one of the high performers. It was the kind of thing that made me laugh. An hour and a half of focused effort was worth more than any amount of bullshit. It always seemed weird to me that no one else recognized this.
At 9:05 I was strolling into the conference room for the daily standup meeting. The daily standup officially starts at 9:00 but I don't think I had ever seen it start before 10 after. So I silently congratulated myself on being 5 minutes early as I took a seat. Sure, it's called a "standup" meeting but no one actually stands. It's just one of those things that only makes sense in the business world.
As the meeting was about to start, a shrill cacaphony began to echo through the building. A voice began blaring over the loudspeakers in the building and informed everyone to calmly proceed to the nearest exit. It looks like the annual fire drill was rescuing us all from the meeting. As we all shuffled into the stairwell, I felt a brief moment of gladness that going down 13 flights of stairs is a whole lot easier than going up.
After 20 minutes of shuffling around the parking lot and making small talk with my coworkers, I had mostly exhausted my supply of small talk topics. I'd already discussed the weather, football, and my plans for the weekend (none) with several people. I started to drift over toward the entrance in the hopes of finding out when we would be allowed back into the building.
As I approached, I overheard one of the receptionists talking to building security. It seems like they were having some kind of difficulty resetting the fire alarm. After overhearing this I spotted by boss and wandered over to share the news with him. My boss asked me about the current status of my work. Upon hearing that my work was on schedule and that we were not getting back into the building any time soon, he told me that I could leave and work from home if I wanted. Similar to how one usually sits down for a standup meeting, "work from home" doesn't actually mean working from home. So I was delighted. It was a Friday so I was basically getting an extra long weekend.
Since I had some extra time I decided to swing by the used bookstore and grab something to read. Upon arrival I made a beeline for the corner that had the sci-fi, fantasy, and role-playing games. As I was scanning the shelves, I came across an old friend. It was the second edition handbook for a roleplaying game that was popular back when I was a teenager. As I inhaled the familiar scent of dusty old books, I flipped through the pages and was lost in a moment of nostalgia. Back when this book was new, roleplaying games weren't about the stats or about power-leveling. It was about comraderie, teamwork, and roleplayong. There was very little of the min/maxing, multi-class, bonus feat, over-powered crap that you see today.
My nostalgic reverie was interrupted when a folded sheet of paper fell out from between the pages of the book and fluttered to the ground. I bent over and picked it up. Unfolding the paper and flattening it against handbook, I saw that it was a character sheet with nothing filled out for the name, stats, or proficiencies.
My vision blurred and I experience a moment of vetigo as the character sheet expanded to fill my vision.
Name: Stats: Strength 0 Roll 3d6. Can roll 3 times Dexterity 0 Roll 3d6. Can roll 3 times Constitution 0 Roll 3d6. Can roll 3 times Intelligence 0 Roll 3d6. Can roll 3 times Wisdom 0 Roll 3d6. Can roll 3 times Charisma 0 Roll 3d6. Can roll 3 times Race: Dwarf/Elf/Gnome/Half-Elf/Human/Halfling Pick one Class: Available classes depend on stats Proficiencies: Depends on class Equipment: based on starting class and race Gold: based on starting class and race
I blinked for a moment trying to clear my vision. The character sheet was the only thing i could see. I turned my head but the character sheet seemed to move with me. It was all I could see no matter where I looked.
Fighting down the urge to panic, I took a moment to see what my other senses could tell me. I could no longer hear any of the normal everyday sounds of the bookstore. Everything was eerily quiet. Taking a moment to inhale, I no longer noticed the dusty smell of old books. I sighed. This must be some kind of hallucination. Maybe I over-exerted myself on the stairs this morning and gave myself a stroke or something. There is an old saying, "Exercise won't kill you". In my mind I silently revised this to: "Exercise will probably kill me".
Looking at the character sheet in front of me my panic began to slowly fade as nothing else happened. As I inspected the character sheet, I rembered from my gaming days that I would usually roll my stats first and then fill out the rest depending on what I got for my stats. Looking at the sheet I saw that the first stat was strength. I mumbled to myself, "How do I even roll for strength". The words "roll for strength" seemed to echo and reverberate. Suddenly, there was a sound like dice being shaken and rolled. The number 12 suddenly appeared next to strength. The message saying that I could roll 3 times blinked a few times and then changed to 2.
The sheet said that stats are from rolling 3d6. So the minumum should be 3 and the maximum should be 18. A value of 9 should be average for a normal human being but maybe less than average for an adventurer. I though to myself that I should probably roll again. Even though I said nothing out loud it seems like making the decision to reroll was enough. I heard the sound of dice once again. Strength was now a 5.
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For a moment I forgot that the whole thing was probably a dying hallucination and was suddenly pissed at myself for deciding to reroll. I cleared my throat and hesitantly said, " Um...I'd like to keep the 12". Strength remained a 5. Apparently when I decided to reroll I lost the prior value. So although I was getting 3 rolls, it doesn't seem like I would automatically get the best of the 3. It looks like I didn't have much of a choice except to take the 3rd roll for strength and hope for the best. After deciding to take the 3rd roll I heard the dice sounds once again. It turned out that my final roll for strength was a 9. I was kind of annoyed with myself for not keeping the 12. However, it could have been worse. What would happen if I decided to take all 3 rolls and got a 5 on the last roll? I'd be stuck with it. At that moment I decided to only re-roll for values lower than 9.
A number of dice rolls later my stats looked like this:
Stats: Strength 9 Dexterity 11 Constitution 10 Intelligence 18 Wisdom 14 Charisma 8
I lucked out on intelligence. I got an 18 on my very first roll. I ended up rolling 3 times for charisma and my highest roll was an 8 on my third try. It looks like popularity and social skills aren't my forte even in this bizarre hallucination.
I noticed that options had now appeared in the class category. It looks like I could choose between fighter, wizard, priest, and rogue. Looking at my stats, I figured that only a crazy person wouldn't pick wizard. Even if my stats hadn't been leaning toward wizard, I thought I'd probably prefer a scholarly life with a lot of books over fighting, stealing, or praying.
Now that I had picked a class it looked like some of the options on other parts of the character sheet had changed. The character sheet noted that I could pick one weapon proficiency and 3 non-weapon proficiencies.
Perhaps due to my class, there were very few choices for weapom proficiency. My choices were dagger, staff, sling, or light crossbow. I spent about 5 minutes debating the merits of each before I decided on dagger. Sure, everyone pictures a wizard with a staff but no one ever wonders how he makes the gestures for his spells while holding a 2 hand weapon. It's probably best to just have a weapon that can be unsheathed and sheathed in a hurry.
The non-weapon proficiency list was huge. While there were a number of things I would love to choose, the fact that I could only pick 3 meant that I had to settle for essentials. So I picked languages, literacy, and spellcraft. I wondered if my high intellect would let me learn more later. I vaguely recalled something about bonus slots for high intellect.
For the race I picked human (male). If the things in this hallucination actually happened, anything else would just be too weird.
Glancing at the rest of the character sheet I noticed that the equipment and gold sections now had values. It looks like I had a robe (x2), boots (x2), cloak(x2), belt(x2), dagger, sheath, waterskin (full), bread(x5), spellbook, satchel, backpack, a small quartz crystal, and a coin purse with 138 gold.
It looks like the only thing left to fill out was the name. Naming things is hard. I suck at naming things. Since no one else would ever see this, in a moment of whimsy I decided to name myself "Leet Codar".
When all is said and done there is nothing more to say or do. So I wondered if I was going to be spending the rest of eternity staring at a character sheet. I didn't have to wonder for very long. I suddenly experienced something that can only be described as something similar to having your consciousness sucked through a straw. It was awkward, uncomfortable, and I thinked I blacked out for a moment.
The next thing I knew was a blade of grass tickling my face and the gentle caress of warm sunlight. It took me a moment to realize that I was feeling the warm embrace of sunlight on my whole body. Apparently I was stark naked. I also seemed to be younger or at least in better shape than I had been a few minutes ago. I wished I had a mirror handy. Quickly glancing around I noticed a pile of supplies next to me. It seemed to be the items from the equipment list on the character sheet.
There were some details that one might not have guessed just from looking at the character sheet. Out of the 2 sets of garments one looked of average quality and one looked rather fancy. I'm guessing one was travel clothes and one was for formal occaisions. I quickly put on the travel clothes and stuffed the fancy clothes into the backpack. The dagger and sheath took me a minute to figure out how to properly attach it to the belt. I practiced drawing and sheathing it a few times just to make sure everything was good. There was something that just sort of felt right when everything was the way it should be. I wondered if this was the effect of the weapon proficiency.
Thinking about proficiencies I turned my mind to my other proficiencies. I suddenly realized I knew how to read, write, and speak some languages other than English. I was shocked and disoriented for a moment. At this moment I decisively accepted the fact that I was probably dying on the floor of a bookstore somewhere and having the weirdest hallucination. However, until I actually die, I decided to live as if it were real. After all it is not like there was anything else I could do about it.
So I decided the next thing to do was split up my gold. I left 20 gold in the coin purse and stashed the rest of it in as many differences as I could think of. A couple coins went into my boots. There were also some places in my cloak, robe, and belt that seemed to be stitched as if they were designed to hide a few coins here and there. Some went into the backpack with my other clothes wrapping them in such as way that they would not clink together. Some went into the satchel where I also placed my spellbook and the quartz crystal. If I encountered thieves, I could toss the coin purse and run.
Having taken care of the basic essentials my next priority was to figure out where the hell I was and what to do next. Looking around I saw that I was in a small clearing near the edge of a cliff with the sun hanging directly overhead. Looking beyond the edge of the cliff I could see a walled city on the edge of a large lake in the distance. Or perhaps it wasn an ocean? I couldn't see the far shore. There did seem to be a decent size harbour with a number of ships.
There was a dirt road leading toward the city. If I turned left and left the clearing, it looks like things slope downward. If I go that way I would probably intersect the road at some point. Aside from this I really didn't see much aside from trees. I also didn't hear much aside from a gentle breeze rustling through the trees.
I shouldered by satchel and slung the backpack onto my back and started walking toward the trees. Fortunately, there was not a lot of underbrush and there was enough distance between them for me to make my way easily. The trees themselves seemed to be mostly deciduous with a few conifers every now and then. I'm not an expert on trees. So I couldn't tell if they were the same varieties you would expect. I didn't see anything particularly otherworldly. No trees with giant tentacles or goblins scampering through the underbrush. I uess this isn't suprising since I was pretty close to a city. I imagine that if there were bandits, monsters, or other dangers they would probably be farther out. Of course cities themselves are full of people and therefore full of trouble. I determined to be cautious when I get to the city.
It was about an hour before I reached the road. The road had a number of other travellers, mostly headed toward the city. I saw people travelling with wagons of produce. I saw people like myself travelling on foot and carrying backpacks. I saw horsemen wearing armor. When I say horsemen I mean people on horseback and not some kind of human-horse hybrid. I suppose the clarification is in order since I did see a number of non-humans. I saw dwarfs, elves, and some races that I had no name for. I tried not to stare but watched everyone I could out of the corner of my eye, trying to soak up everything I was seeing without appearing to be rude.
A few hours later, the sun looked to be around mid afternoon as I approached a large gate with a raised portcullis. There were guards on both sides who were wearing leather armor and holding pikes. To the left side was a gatehouse with a swordsman wearing chainmail standing outside. I noticed that the shabbier and scruffier looking people were moving to the right. The line to the right was moving rather slowly as it looked like each person had to have a lengthy discussion with a guard before entering. To the left the number of people was much smaller and was almost unimpeded with people typically speaking only a few words with a guard. A small number of people passed through without stopping to talk to anyone. However, these people all seemed to be wearing some kind of livery or would hold up some kind of badge as they passed through.
I did a quick self-assessment. Although my clothes were plain, they were made from quality materials. Most of all they looked brand new. While I wasn't as elegant as some of the people passing on the left, I definitely didn't look like I belonged in the line on the right. I moved to the left and walked slowly toward the gate, trying to listen to see what the people ahead of me were saying.
At this moment I silently thanked myself for picking the language proficiency. I somehow knew that the people on the right were speaking in Common. The people who would talk to the pikemen on the left were speaking Tradespeech. Carriages would stop at the guardhouse and speek to the swordsman in Highspeech. At that moment I knew that I could fluently speak in any of the 3. I wondered if there was some kind of caste system at work here. If so, I guessed it would be odd for someone who could speak Highspeech to identify themselves in some other way. So I walked over to the swordsman. Our conversation wasn't something that translates to English very well as Highspeech is very flowery and has a lot of nuance.
As I arrived in front of him, I was asked, "By your graciousness would you deign to make youself known?"
"Today, you have the rare honour of addresssing Wizard Leet of House Codar. As this is my first visit to your fair city, you may inform me where I can find an inn suitable for a person of quality"
"If one were to proceed directly ahead to the center of the city, one would find the Inn of the Golden Quill which is immediately adjacent to the wizard's guildhall. Many wizards find it eminently suitable to refresh themselves from the rigors of travel before presenting themselves at the wizard's guildhall"
I paused for a moment to consider how to say thank you but found no suitable words. It seems like there are no such words unless speaking to one who is socially superior. Apparently, my silence was interpreted as if something was lacking in his reply.
"It would be my honour to summon a carriage to take your lordship there"
"That will not be necessary."
As simply as that I was walking through the gate. I wished I had thought of some way to get him to tell me the name of the city without actually asking, "Where the hell am I?"