I was always the sort of girl that looked for the call to adventure, be it in real life or between the pages of a book. So when my time came, I jumped on it.

  It all began one fine m in math css. I was leaning forwards on my desk, elbows down and eyes on the board where our teacher was expining something about geometric series. It wasn’t my favourite teacher and it was certainly not my favourite subject, but I wao keep my grades up all the same. I only had a few months to go before high school was over, and then the whole world was going to open up.

  A low sound rang out. Sort of like a cowbell being dropped from the top of a skyscraper into a fifty-five gallon drum.

  I jumped in my seat and looked around, but all I found were a few students and friends looking at me curiously. I smiled sheepishly and got some grins iurn.

  I was about to ask if they had heard the bong noise when it appeared before me. A box, thin and nearly translut, held in the air by nothing at all and with a simple request on it.

  Bong! A great evil has set its root in the world. You are called upon to save it! Do you accept this quest?

  There were two boxes below that, one belled ‘I accept’ the other ‘I refuse.’ I tilted my head to the side, the box following the motion, then whipped my head to the other side of the desk only for it to glide back to the tre of my vision.

  I held back a smile. It couldn’t be real.

  “Hey,” I whispered to the girl o me. “Do you see that?”

  She followed the direy finger ointing and stared at the boy sitting one row ahead. “His hair?” she asked.

  So, she couldn’t see the floaty prompt box. I waved off her questioning look and refocused on the box. The box that offered me a quest. The box that had appeared with a sound no one else could hear. The box that I suppose no one could see. My grin was so wide my cheeks were hurting.

  I sidered what my parents would say, but they were both struck with wanderlust ahe ones responsible for my desire to see the world. They would have been tapping the ‘I accept’ box a million times a sed by now.

  Grin firmly in pce, I reached out and pressed the ‘I accept’ button.

  Ding! The world thanks you for your sacrifice!

  I promptly fell onto my butt.

  The world had ged iime than it took to blink. I wasn’t in a sterile anymore with a window overlooking a snowy courtyard or surrounded by about twenty other bored students. No desks, no chairs, no low rumble of distant cars and air exge systems. Instead, there was birdsong and the croaking s and the gentle murmur of wind through trees.

  I hopped to my feet and looked around. I was in a room still. Most of a room. An ex-room. The floor aved with rge ft stones slotted into each other, and the walls were made of a slightly different kind of stoh thick wooden beams running up to the ceiling above.

  Tables that had rotted away were left lying arouo crushed chairs and piles of mulch that might have been leaves ohe entire room stank of mold and rot. It reminded me of camping out in the woods when I was a little younger.

  Most of one wall was entirely missing.

  “Whoa,” I said as I moved as close to the edge as I dared.

  It was immediately obvious that I was in a tower of some sort, ohat rose a level or two above the treeline of the forest beyond. Trees stretched out as far as the eye could see, a sea of swaying greeops that rose and fell with the dip and rises of the ndscape. In the distance was a grey blur that might have been a mountain rahat swept into the horizon.

  I couldn’t see any kes or rivers, but could hear the nearby gurgle of water spshing against stones. Maybe the tower’s other side was against the o or a river or something. I couldn’t tell, and in that moment it didn’t matter.

  The giddiness rose up in my tummy like an overflowing well, and it burst out as a happy giggle.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” I shouted to the heavens as I started jumping around the room, arms waving in the air with every cheer. “I made it! I get adventures and dragons and princesses!”

  I ran in little circles while giggling and might have boogied down a little, shaking my hips as happy energy coursed through my veins.

  “Woo! This is going to be awesome!” My scream sent birds flying into the air all in a flutter.

  A bell sounded, light and tinkling, like crystal chimes being struck together.

  Ding! For pleting a Special A while Devoid of Csses, you have unlocked a new Css!

  My breathing hitched, but if anything the core of excitement in my gut only grew bigger. “A css,” I whispered.

  Ding! You are now a amon Buh + 5Stamina +10Mana +5Resilience +10Flexibility +10Magic +5

  “Really?” I asked the prompt, but its only response was to fade away.

  The tropes and stereotypes of a game weren’t o me, of course, but I had never heard of a css called amon Bun. I had eaten some of those before, in fact, and they certainly didn’t taste like something someone could be. But maybe this world was different. I hoped that this world was different.

  With dragons and elves and monsters of all sorts! I would be able to grow strong and tough and I’d meet a dragon and ride it into battle and maybe have tea with some dwarves and I was getting ahead of myself...

  There was usually some menu or status page in the books that I’d read. And so thinking, my mind was flooded with information. Not very much, but some facts and figures and a sort of... memory of a s. “Whoa.”

  NameBroccoli Bunbsp; RaceHuman First Cssamon Bun Age16  Health

  105 Stamina

  110 Mana

  105  Resilience

  15 Flexibility

  15 Magic

  10  SkillsRank N/A  “So cool!” This, of course, prompted more happy dang. I had a css and ay skills list and a bunch of hat meant more than anything I had worked on in maths css. Also, Magic.

  I didn’t know what some of them meant, but it didn’t matter! I had them and they were mine! A bit of a push and the box with my status and all appeared before my very eyes. I hugged it.

  Or, well, I tried to hug it. The box kept juking out of hug reach, even when I started ughing and skipping after it. It was a good box and good boxes deserved all the hugs. Then, with a soap-bubble like pop, the box disappeared.

  “Okay, okay, Broc, calm yourself,” I said between still esg giggles. A few deep breaths helped to chill me out. I wao sit down, to i my super cool ats and maybe to skip some more because I felt brilliant.

  Unfortunately, the tower’s floor was a mess. Tables ruined, chairs, all save for one rickety thing in the er, all busted up. There was a shovel with a ft head leaning against one wall though, and an a broom with bristles made from some pnt or another.

  If I wao have a rest, this wasn’t the pce for it, not unless I ed it up a little.

  The o to the room was behind a stack of fallen stones, eae looking as if they weighed as much as I did.

  I pulled up the only seat that looked able to take my weight, then wiped its surface .

  Ding! For doing a Special A in lih your Css, you have unlocked the skill: ing!

  I ughed. A skill! A silly, rather b skill, but maybe ohat would help. It would help even more if I grinded a little, and I did like ing.

  Nodding to myself, I picked up the broom and shovel and got to work. First making sure that the ground below the opening in the wall was clear of anyone or anything, then I started shovelling up the dead leaves and pushing them out.

  A bit of grunting and some sweating had the broken tables busted up even more and stacked up ly off to one side. The moldier bits I tossed out. Maybe I would have to build a fire ter. Not that I had a lighter or matches, but I could make do.

  Then came the sweeping. I swiped at the cobwebs in the ers, swept the floor and even dusted off the one usable chair I found.

  Every so often I felt a whisper of a ‘ding’ in the bay mind, like a distant hat was just barely audible. A quick bit of fog revealed that it was my ing skill rising up, and quickly at that.

  Probably because of its low level, I decided.

  Soon enough the room was as as it would be. The mold brushed off the walls with more enthusiasm than skill, the floors swept, the broken furniture sorted and a small table and chair arrao one side where I could sit down and rex.

  I sighed as I flopped onto my seat, the old wood creaking under my weight but not breaking. “Csses!” I decided. That’s where I would start.

  First Css: amon BunLevel 0You are the amon Bun. Too good for this world. Too pure. You are the perfect support and friend to all. Nature itself smiles upon you.se this world of its impurities in the name of love and justice!

  I shat wasn’t the most helpful description I’d ever seen. Too pure? Well, that... okay, so maybe I was a little naive, sometimes, all of my friends said so, and everyone was my friend. But the Css description didn’t have to be so smug about it. Also, First Css, which meant that I could maybe unlock a sed at some point. Dragon Rider css, here I e!

  The ing skill sort of made sense if it was tied to some sort of css ability to se things.

  Maybe it was a css that was good against the undead? I certainly hoped so! Seeing a walking skeleton would be creepy. Unless it was a nice gentlemanly skeleton, in which case that was alright.

  It wasn’t okay to mock or judge others because of their appearaer all.

  Humming to myself, I focused on my ing Skill instead.

  ingRank F - 90%The ability to . As this skill rises in level your ability to will improve!

  “Well, okay.” That was utterly underwhelming. Still, maybe as I got better at it I would be able to keep myself and the world around me too! It was worth it!

  I stretched in my new seat then hopped off. It wasn’t time for sitting bad rexing. It was time to do stuff! First I had a bunch of things to test out!

  Trying to figure out if I had an iory of some sort was fruitless. No amount of shouting ‘iory!’ amouo anything. Then I looked for a handy help menu, but that was absent too. But, after much searg and some head scratg, I found something incredible.

  You have one (1) Active Quest:The Hole Down UnderAn evil root has plunged into the world. Find it. Remove it.

  That was it. No oints, no hints. Not even a handy-dandy list of rewards. I huffed at the quest box and that arently its hint that it wasn’t needed anymore. What even was an evil root?

  Well, that didn’t matter. Maybe it was the sort of quest that would take a long, long time to aplish. I didn’t have that luxury. The sum total of my belongings amouo a pretty blouse I had bought on sale a week ago, a sturdy pair of shoes I liked, a thick cotton skirt that reached to just below the knees and some warm stogs. And of course my uhings.

  Not even a jacket.

  Fortunately it was warm wherever I was. So no need for too much warm clothing. Though a b would have been nice. Or a towel.

  I had failed hitchhiking one-oh-one already.

  Shrugging to myself, I moved to the edge of the hole in the wall and looked down. Two stories from my little nook to the ground, at least judging by the number of windows. The floors looked rather tall. Or maybe that was my newly discovered fear of falling to my death that was talking.

  A look over to the blocked doorway firmed that there was no way I was moving the stohere.

  No ropes, no safety equipment, no easy way down.

  At least the rocky walls of the tower were rough and had plenty of handholds. It might be possible, easy even, to climb down.

  Firming up my resolve, I prepared myself to climb over the edge. My first step into a wild new world!