I don’t know what happened before I appeared in the strange stone room. I say appeared because I didn’t wake up there. I was not there and then I was there. I’m not a morning person and I know I didn’t feel like I had just woken up.

  I was not foggy, groggy or cross. I just was.

  I smelled the stone immediately. Rough black, brown and white granite in big slabs. The air was stale, as if it had recirculated too many times. There were no signs or smells of rodents, mold or even dust. I licked my lips. The air was dry. I could almost taste the stone. Clean, dry stone like the quarry or the countertop stone place where Aaron bought his black and white and gold marble countertops.

  A moment after I appeared something odd registered in my awareness. I was not in pain. I have been in constant pain since I was seventeen. No reason. No accident or injury. I just hurt. Doctors never gave me a proper diagnosis.

  I blinked at the lack of pain and winced in anticipation of how much more it would hurt when the pain inevitably returned.

  Looking down, my body seemed to be the same body. Same skinny fat torso suitable for a computer nerd, same clothes I usually wore. Simple, solid colors. No logos.

  I picked up the hem of my T-shirt and frowned. Not the same. These were not my clothes. They were a good imitation of what I normally wore: T-shirt, sports bra that didn’t press against my neck, yoga pants that swished against my ankles, socks and simple shoes. I always get slip ons. Yes I can tie my shoe laces. I just always get slip ons. At least I wasn’t in crocs.

  The shirt was not cotton. It was smoother, but didn’t catch my fingerprints like silk. I lifted the collar to my eyes, but before I looked at the cloth I noted distantly that I wasn’t wearing glasses but I could see near and far. I would have sworn I had perfect vision or maybe was wearing contacts. Except I had never worn contacts and I didn’t think I was wearing them. Surely with my sensitivity issues contacts would drive me up the wall in moments.

  The shirt wasn’t jersey knit. It was woven, cut on the bias so it draped mostly like a T-shirt.

  I have been told by people I trust- friends- that it is weird to look at the grain of fabric. There are a lot of things about me that are a bit weird.

  I even slipped a finger into my waistband and felt the panties underneath. Elastic top, but the same fabric as… everything was an unfamiliar fabric.

  I made a disgruntled face. Not quite a frown.

  I sighed and rubbed my arms across the cloth. Not great, but it would have to do. At least there wasn’t a printed image, those usually drive me nuts. The ink is often slightly sticky, or dry and cracked or… something else distracting and annoying.

  These clothes would do. They were what I had.

  I touched my hair. Same length, I lifted a strand. Different color. I frowned deeper. I used to be dishwater blonde. This hair was almost reddish auburn. I tried to feel my face but I couldn’t tell if anything was different.

  I am average. Which Ike tells me means I’m IT gorgeous. Ike is the office flirt. I might take him seriously if I didn’t like hanging out with his girlfriend, Kelley better than listening to him talk about fossils again.

  Eh. Who am I kidding? I’m socially awkward among socially awkward people. Friends, coworkers, doesn’t matter. I’m the one who doesn’t catch the cues.

  I may have been nearly blind without my glasses, but I was not blind and not used to seeing faces with my fingertips.

  Speaking of fingertips, my nails looked manicured. They were perfectly smooth oval tips, glossy and natural colored. That was wrong too. I clip them short as soon as one of them breaks or when the corners get annoying. Yes, if you cut your fingernails short with normal fingernail clippers you end up with corners on your nails once they’re about half a centimeter long.

  An abrupt sound, metallic and stone like at the same time, surrounded me for a brief moment. No. Four simultaneous sounds. Each of the four granite slab walls had changed. Each now had a single word at my eye level.

  I stared at the word PATRONAGE for a long moment before turning to read LIBRARY, GEAR, and ADAPTATION.

  I breathed out as I turned in place. The room was only about a square meter of floor space, and I wanted to avoid touching a wall too soon.

  This felt like a game start. Maybe a litrpg web series. However, if I was in VR this was some ridiculously advanced rig. I couldn’t feel any echo of my meat space persona.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Right. Take it seriously. Assume it’s real life, not a game.

  I focused on the choices again.

  I dismissed patronage immediately. I wanted as little as possible to do with whatever beings, aliens, gods or madmen had placed me here.

  I acknowledged a sensation I had been trying to ignore. The gravity was different and the ceiling was smaller than the floor. It was subtle, incredibly subtle, but I’d read about it in science fiction books. The room I was in was part of a huge wheel, a space station wheel.

  Adaptation felt like a risk. I had no clue what was going on or what would be adapted.

  Library felt right, like the only true choice, but I hesitated. What use was knowledge if I ended up in a zombie attack or something?

  My friend Nick has a zombie survival fetish. He justifies it by claiming if you’re prepared for zombies you’re prepared for anything.

  Nick would choose gear immediately.

  I winced and said it out loud while also touching the wall. “Gear.”

  The wall shimmered out of existence. Like magic or like it had always been an illusion or like it teleported away.

  I stepped into the new meter square space.

  There were only three choices now: OFFENSE, BALANCED, DEFENSE.

  I barely read them before I picked balanced.

  The same process repeated, a wall disappeared and three more choices were presented:

  HIGH VALUE/LOW VARIETY

  MID VALUE/MID VARIETY

  LOW VALUE/ HIGH VARIETY

  The low value was obviously a no go. The question was should I risk ending up with a weapon I didn’t like or accept the lower quality?

  I was going to assume that I would have weapons, armor of some kind and possibly survival gear, at least food, water and a bedroll.

  I winced, hoping there would be safe to places to sleep.

  Ultimately the low variety lost and I took the middle option. The slab disappeared and I walked into a little armory. Pole-arms, swords, clubs… all manner of medieval melee weapons, then six armor stands with six very different armor styles.

  Past the armor were the ranged weapons, no guns. Then the part that made me smile widest. Packs, gear, devices, anything needed for camping.

  The far wall held the same lettering.

  TAKE ANY OR ALL OF THE GEAR. YOU HAVE TWO HOURS TO PACK. YOU MUST BE ABLE TO MOVE YOUR GEAR.

  As soon as I read the message a ball of light appeared above my hand with a two hour digital countdown in it. I nodded. Can’t take forever.

  I picked up a tiny bottle next to some bandages and rattled it a little. Sounded like pills.

  “Identify.” I said, peering at the bottle. “Analyze. Inspect. Divine. Intuit.” I scrunched up my nose. “Come on. I have to know what I have.”

  A book, more like a booklet or magazine, fluttered down from the ceiling. I flipped to the first aid supplies and matched the bottle to Minor Pill of Healing (Common) 20/bottle

  “Score!” I muttered. I skimmed the book quickly, noticing how it was laid out and searching for key words like bag of holding, spatial ring, spell, and other web novel ideas. Nothing so convenient.

  I did see spell book, spell ink, scribe pen, and so forth, but nothing that seemed like an actual spell. But it confirmed magic as a thing in the world. Of course with healing pills I would expect magic.

  There was one more book I spotted on the skim through. I found it inside what I’d taken to be a stew pot meant for a camp fire. It was a little A6 size book, tucked among the alchemy supplies in my very own alchemy cauldron.

  At that point the countdown caught my eye again. I had wasted ten minutes on a list of what I could take. I wanted to take it all and I had a decent idea of how.

  I mean I knew full well I could not use all the gear at once. I was counting on seeing more people at some point, hopefully just past the next wall. Maybe even people who had made different choices from me.

  My big idea was a travois, but I outfitted myself first.

  I had been thinking about armor all along. Without taking off my clothes I layered on the blue/purple/black ninja pajamas. The cloth was a solid color, but it was hard to tell which color.

  The rouge armor was slightly padded, a good under layer for the lightweight fighter armor I donned next. On top of that I put on the archer armor.

  The combination was tight in odd places, reduced my mobility in dangerous ways, but wearing something keeps you from having to pack it. It’s something I learned in my gap year taking busses all over the US while staying at hostels and shelters and the occasional shanty town.

  As I loosely tied the extremely adjustable archer boots over my new and clean sturdy leather boots I found something that I hadn’t realized I’d been looking for.

  All the bags and packs were neatly lined up under the table holding the miscellaneous survival supplies. I sighed as tension left my body. There was a bit less need for the spaces between my clothes as supersized pockets if I had bags. I nodded. The travois was really going to work.

  I pulled out the bags. Several were specific purpose, and there were even a few helpful notes. The alchemy supplies fit neatly in a cross body bag, the first aid kit could be organized neatly into a case. While that had a strap it looked flimsy so I tucked it into the many folds of my clothes.

  For some reason a tall wizard’s hat with moons and stars garishly emblazoned on the cone was under the table. With a shrug I used it to stuff all the spell books and inks, plus the mage robes that matched it. The whole kit just barely fit, leaving the hat looking lumpy.

  The rest of the supplies I packed into two bags. The smaller, which I would wear, was for food, water and shelter in the form of a bivvy tent. The larger bag accommodated the larger tent, the last two armors and anything that looked more like trade goods than anything I would want.

  I checked the time.

  I grabbed the rope and the twine and a spool of wire which I had deliberately left loose. I marched right back to the pole arms and bundled most of them as travois legs, lashing swords and similar length weapons across the width. I did make sure I could drag the thing. In fact I stationed it near the exit.

  It wasn’t pretty, but it was functional and I managed to pack all the weapons onto it. Even the bows and shields.

  I finished packing up the entire room with ten minutes to spare and took the time to peek into corners.

  There was a whet stone kit under the weapon rack and a pill bottle had rolled off the table when I wasn’t looking. I stuffed it in a pocket.