The journey begins

Try to imagine getting transported to a world full of fantasy elements after living a life addicted to video games. Quite easy you think? Maybe you think now "I would love to live in such a world"? Yeah, could be if you were another main character with overpowered Items or Skills like those in the uncountable novels you have read so far, but my story is a bit different then you might imagine.

In my time on Earth, my name was Thomas. I was 28 years old, got a degree in Nursing and worked as a male nurse in an intensive care unit. I was neither the one with the most knowledge nor the one with the least. Every day at work I did my best to save dying people and nursed them with the best intentions, but apart from work, I had another life. While not at work, I was what you call a game addict. Playing Games like WoW, I was the Leader of progressive raiding Guild, managing Members, planning Events either IRL or in-game, sorting out raid strategies and much more, but I don't want to bother you with my past accomplishments.

My story begins on an ordinary Friday before the holidays. I had the morning shift where nothing exceptional happened, went to a grocery store to buy food for the coming week, in preparation for playing games without the need of leaving my Home. When I came home, I started my computer and put the groceries into the fridge. WoW just released a new patch, and I was eager to play it. Honestly, I could not think about anything else for the week. Just a few seconds after logging into my account, I noticed some nasty graphical bugs in-game. Turning my Computer off and on again didn't fix the problem, I went online to search for fixes, but I could not find any posts about a similar problem. Without any reference found on the internet, I contacted the Support via chat. Most people can imagine my surprise when I got a reply after just a few seconds, but this reply was a bit strange. The staff replied asking me "So do you want to have better graphics?". Answering as naïve as I was - Yes. But I would have never expected what happened after this answer. My PC's screen went white, and some ear-numbing sounds surrounded me. After what felt like an eternity, my vision got blurry and finally, I fainted.

Waking up, I felt something was wrong, I was neither in my seat nor was I on the floor beside my computer. After opening my eyes, I inspected my surroundings more closely. I found myself in an unknown room, it was quite small, maybe around six square meters. The room had terrible lighting. There was a bed I was sitting on, a small table in the middle of the room with four chairs and a closet. On top of the table, I could see a candle burning, explaining the bad lighting. Except for those few things, there was nothing, not even a painting on the wall nor other decorations. I could hear voices from outside, just after I discovered them they drew near the door, separating me from the outside.

The door opened from the outside, and a big man entered the room. He had broad shoulders, and muscles were visible beneath his shirt, he even ducked a little bit to enter the room. After he noticed me eyeing him he asked me in a friendly manner "Hello Boy, how are you doing? You are not hurt somewhere?" After hearing his question, I got bewildered. Hurt? Did he call me Boy? I inspected my whole body after his question, I couldn't find an injury, but while inspecting myself, I sensed that something was indeed wrong with my body. I was neither fat nor thin, just like it should be, but something still felt wrong. I answered him "I'm not hurt, but where am I?" "You are in my home, in a small village called Riverton." Riverton? I had never heard about a village named like this. Going for the next big question on my mind I asked why I was in his home, but all he could explain to me was, that he found me near the village lying on the riverside. After answering my questions, he sat down at the table and placed a loaf of bread and cheese at it. After he saw my asking expression, he said: "Boy, come here and eat, you must be hungry after sleeping for two days." Two Days?! What happened to me? I had to admit that I was confused, after waking up in an unknown environment, maybe that was the cause for my slow thought process at that time.

Pondering about my situation I remembered some fantasy novels, I read at home. After I linked the facts together, something like this must have happened to me too. But the questions most important were why and how can such things happen in real life? Thinking about those questions while I took the meal he gave me and bit a big chunk out of it and ate the cheese with it. The bread was old and not savory, but the cheese was the best I had so far. After understanding, that I was no longer on Earth, I asked him questions about this world. This worlds name was Ayetidan. He told me about the people living there could be distinguished between human and non-human races. Any creatures a fantasy fan could dream of living in this world, from elves living in the woods to orcs living in the plain. Even demons existed. Apart from the monster races they lived together and fought against the monsters. In Riverton lived mostly humans and a few beastkin. My curiosity took over, and I asked him if he may show me the beastkin. With a stupefied facial expression, he agreed and guided me outside.

The sun already finished its descent in the west and was no longer visible to me. Not many people were outside, just a few kids were still running around, playing. At first sight, kids playing on the street was nothing unusual but taking a closer look, I recognized that some of them had characteristics from cats and dogs, to be precise they had ears and tails, this was far from the ordinary. Some of them were lizard-like, with scales on arms and legs, and glowing yellow eyes. They wore medieval clothing like simple wimples that draped over their head, around the neck and up to the chin. Once they noticed me, they showed a curious expression, not unlike my own, but they didn't get near us. Instead, they turned around and left heavily whispering to each other. After they had gone, I took a closer look at the village itself. The houses, build with stone, had one floor with a thatched roof. On some buildings, I could see a chimney spilling smoke into the dawn, few of them had a little flower garden in front of it. I had never seen flowers like those. Since it got dark now, I could not see too far, but hear the sound of a river on the other side of the village. The river must have been the one, where he picked me up. The atmosphere was very idyllic and reminded me of my visits to medieval exhibitions. My curiosity was growing. I turned around and asked my savior if he knew what happened to me and where I was. Not understanding the deep meaning behind the question, he explained with pride-swollen chest, that this village was not far away from a big city, which granted the villagers a sure safety from monster raids and ambushes. Even if they dared an attack, help, adventurers to be precise would be here within an hour. Asking about the adventurers, he told me about the guild leading them, who distributed missions. The missions were of a different nature, what the customer commissioned, was carried out. The customer is the king, even here money ruled. One could distinguish two kinds of adventurers. The first ones were physical adventurers, and the people named them as the warrior, rogue, and hunter. Warrior was known for his exceptional strength and endurance, and he fought with a big two-handed weapon or a one-handed sword paired with a shield. Hunter was known for his skill with bows and tracking; this class focused on agility. A rogue was a double-edged sword; he could be a good fighter or an assassin, the ordinary people feared those. The second type of adventurers was the magical type, like mages, warlocks, and shamans. Mages studied the arcane arts, some knew how to use elemental magic, but shamans were better with them. Warlocks were of a darker nature; they investigated the death and epidemics, powerful ones could even drain life from other living beings and transfer it to themselves. Priests existed in this world too, but they did not work for the adventurer guild, they worked for the temple with their unique healing abilities. The magical type was rare, with the physical type being common. We talked about his life as a farmer and the quiet life in this village. I never told him where I came from and he never asked me. Late at night, he excused himself and left.

Lying on the mattress was uncomfortable, it consisted of hay packed inside a piece of cloth, I was thinking about the pieces of information I got today. This world seemed to be like those fantasy games I loved. Magic? Adventures? Killing monsters? But I was a mere nurse without any combat experience, aside from the ones behind the monitor. My physical constitution was not bad, but I was not some musclehead either. I prefer to be at the back and do the strategies and kill from afar, in-game of course. Pondering about my future in this world, I noticed a blueish speck in my field of vision while lying on the bed. If it was there before or not was something I could not answer. While inspecting, it suddenly grew in size. After becoming more prominent, it resembled a character sheet from an RPG game. There were pieces of information about myself.

Name: [ ] Age: 18 Gender: male Race: Human/?

Titles: none Money: 0G 0S 0C

Skills: medical treatment (novice rank 1),

magic affinity (passive, -5)

Attributes: Intelligence: 7 Strenght: 5 Endurance: 5

Agility: 3 Luck: 10 Mana: 0/20

There was a tab with equipment and inventory, but I was too tired to examine them closer. The character sheet was self-explaining to gamers like me. My skill in medical treatment was probably because of my former work, but the magic affinity? Even with a negative modifier? What could the meaning of this be? Well, whatever, I had a link to it, there must be a possibility to learn magic. I needed to visit the city and the adventurers' guild to get more information about magic and the kind. The last thing I was thinking about before falling asleep was the blank space where my name should have been. Maybe I could create myself here anew.

In my eyes was a spark of euphoria visible just before they closed and I fell asleep.