Nathan Farlance woke to an unbroken wall of black. It was a dark so complete that it had weight, crushing in on him from all sides. But that wasn’t what disturbed him. While his eyes were useless, there was sensation. The air felt wrong as it pressed against him, sharp and crisp in a way that was unfamiliar. It seemed to almost have a taste, subtle hints of a sharpness and a spice he could not identify. He couldn’t see the room he was in, but it felt…wrong.
This was not his room.
The thought was not even fully formed, a sense of dread began to descend, when the darkness broke, interrupted by the faint glow of blue lines swimming across his vision. They came so suddenly that he almost cried out, squinting his eyes reflexively to protect them from the burst of light. Yet there was no pain.
Welcome to Farandway, traveler. Your orientation will begin shortly. Please wait.
The words seemed to hover, just out of reach, as though displayed by a projector. Nate turned his head, looking for other signs of light in the room. The words followed, staying centered in his vision. That was…odd. Nate focused on the box for a moment. He could almost feel it. Like it was a distant part of himself. There was something in that feeling that…
Click.
There was a tactile rumble deep in his chest. Then the box was gone.
What the hell was going on?
There was a swish in the air, then a torrent of bright light. This time, the blaze did hurt his eyes, and he squinted against the doorway that had appeared. A figure was silhouetted there, tall and dark against the light spilling in all around it.
“Greetings, traveler.” The voice was feminine and smooth, not at all what Nate had been expecting from the imposing profile. “Congratulations on your selection to participate in the seven hundred and seventy seventh Games of Farandway. You may know me as…” the figures head twitched to the side, as if in thought, before continuing, “Jean. If you will follow me, we can conduct your orientation and assignment.”
Nate swallowed hard, trying to work moisture into his mouth for a response. But the figure had vanished, leaving only the glowing doorway. Oddly, the light it cast failed to penetrate the room, leaving everything around him concealed in an impenetrable black gloom. A voice in the back of his mind was trying to scream, telling him to run, to get away. But there was nowhere to go. There was only the door.
With no other options, Nate rose and crossed the room. There was no bed that he could detect. No sense of his limbs, of his breath. He wished to be at the door and, a moment later, he was. He hesitated for a moment. He could see nothing on the other side. It was more like a portal than a doorway, giving off light and nothing else. Cautiously, he moved through it.
Data collection in process. Data collection complete. Analysis complete. Initial values assigned. Good luck, traveler. The future of Farandway depends on you.
Nate found himself in a plain, circular room of stone, unadorned save for a large table set into its center, the surface slick and reflective. Looking behind in bewilderment, he saw that the doorway he had entered through was gone. The sensations that had been so noticeably absent a moment before returned in a rush, goosebumps forming on his skin as cold air caressed him, and his nostrils burned slightly at a pungent odor like disinfectant. Baskets, made of woven reeds, sat in recesses at regular intervals around the room, each glowing with a warm, diffuse light. His feet recoiled from the touch of the cold stone beneath him. He glanced down, bemused, wondering where his socks had gone. It was a strange thing to worry about, all things considered. But he always slept in his socks.
His heart skipped a beat at seeing that it was not only his socks that had gone missing. He was completely naked. And the cold air wasn’t doing him any favors.
“Approach this Tablet of Awakening,” the smooth, feminine voice intoned.
Nate started, his face hot and his hands jerking forward to cover his sensitive bits, as he looked to the voice’s owner. His jaw dropped, all thoughts of modesty vanishing.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The figure was tall, lithe, and humanoid. But it was clearly not human. The limbs, torso, and head were smooth and angular, silver in color and completely without covering. The face, or the space where a face should have been, was as smooth as the rest of its form, though the eyeless mask was pointed at him as though it could still see somehow. Nate gaped.
“You’re a robot,” he said, dumbly. The thing’s head ticked to the side, as if considering, for a moment.
“Not accurate, but a close approximation. As I have mentioned, you may call me Jean. Approach the Tablet.” The words were said without emotion, but with more natural fluidity and inflection that Nate had heard from any AI bot.
“I’m naked,” he said, his brain still refusing to catch up with events.
“Your starting equipment has not yet been assigned. This will be rectified when you choose your class. Please approach the Tablet.”
“Who are you? Where am I?” Nate eyed the table in the center of the room uncomfortably. Choose his class?
Again, the head ticked to the side. The pause was longer this time, as those the creature…eh, Jean, was considering.
“I have told you; I am Jean. You are in the Grand Cathedral of Dawn. Dawn in a provincial capital within the autonomous world of Farandway. Please approach the Tablet.”
“Why am I here? How did I get here?” Nate asked, his mind swimming with the unfamiliar names. What the hell was an autonomous world? Again, the head ticked to the side.
“You are one of many who has been chosen to participate in this iteration of the Games of Farandway. You and these others were collected from your world of origin and brought here for this purpose. Please approach…”
“What do you mean, brought here?” Nate interrupted the litany, the shock finally easing enough for him to find some heat to put in his words. “And what do you mean, world of origin? Are you saying that I’m not on my own world anymore? That this isn’t earth? That I’ve been teleported somewhere else?” He tried to sound angry, indignant. But it came out as somewhat hysterical.
“Correct,” Jean said, passively. Nate shook his head at the simple statement.
“That’s impossible,” he muttered.
“Incorrect. It is merely improbable. Therefore, it was inevitable.”
Nate shook his head, his panic and confusion building. He was starting to feel a bit dizzy.
“That makes no…”
“The cosmos are limitless, infinite worlds across infinite planes spanning an infinite stretch of time. In a boundless universe, all possible realities, no matter how improbable, will ultimately and inevitably find expression. Therefore, Nathan Farlance, it is incorrect to state the impossibility of your current circumstances. In a very real sense, it would be most accurate to say that this version of you, in this time and iteration of reality, could be nowhere else. You are in Farandway because you are meant to be here. A cynic might call this determinism. I prefer another term. Fate.”
Nate tried his best to absorb the torrent of words, but his mind rebelled. He had never subscribed to the idea of fate, never believed in a higher power. His worldview didn’t allow for anything beyond random chance, coincidence, and free will. The choices he had made in his life, the ones that had put him in the mess he found himself trapped in back home, had been circumscribed, with no easy outs or obvious wins apparent. But they had been his choices. Now he was naked and cold, standing in a dark room while a robot named Jean lectured him on multiversal causality. he had expected today to be a rough one. They had all been rough lately. This, though, had not been on his list of possibilities. He hadn’t even had his coffee yet.
“I don’t understand.” He finally managed to get out.
“Your understanding is not required.” Jean shifted, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer, a facsimile of sympathy tinging her (Nate had decided to think of it as a her) words. “You are right to question. Much in this place will be unfamiliar to you, and an inquisitive mind will aid in your assimilation. But the time for such things in not now. The ceremony will begin soon, and you must not be late. The arrow of time moves ever forward, Nathan Farlance, and your orientation should not be rushed. Please approach the Tablet of Awakening.”
Question after question warred within Nate, each struggling to be the first to bubble to the surface. He felt hot, despite the cold, and a tightness in his stomach threatened at any moment to erupt into full-blown nausea. It couldn’t be real. None of this could be real.
With a colossal effort, Nate closed his eyes and drew in a long, slow breath, just as he had been taught so very long ago. He pictured a calm, still pool, its water like glass reflecting the sky above. He imagined he was that pool. He sunk into it, letting the storm of emotions slip beneath the surface. The panic was still there, but surrounded by that pool of tranquility in his mind, they were concealed.
Never let them see you sweat, a voice from the past muttered in a rough, raspy voice.
Settled, Nate opened his eyes. Then, he stepped forward to the table. Deal with what’s in front of you first. The rest could wait. Fortunately, the thing that needed to be dealt with first was painfully obvious. After all, Nate was still naked.
He stood before the table, round like the room, unmoving. It wasn’t obvious what he was supposed to do. Its surface was like glass, hard and smooth, as placid as the pool in his mind. He was about to turn back to Jean to ask what he was supposed to do. But, before he could, another of those strange prompts sprung to life before his eyes.
Welcome, Traveler. It is time to complete your character creation. Your race and base statistics have already been set by system default. Your first choice in this world will be to select your character class. Choose wisely. This single decision will become the root from which all others spring. Touch the Tablet of Awakening to see your options.
With another steadying breath, Nate reached out and tapped the surface of the table. Instantly it came to life, images and texts filtering across the surface. He scanned over the information, his eyebrows rising higher and higher.
“Am I going to a renaissance festival?”