Lost in a Fantasy

Have you ever known exactly what you want to do with your life, but have no idea how to go about achieving this dream? Drew found himself struggling with these exact thoughts, his mind a tornado of conflicting emotions. Should he pursue his dream and take a risk? Or should he just continue on as he has been?

Not having an answer for these thoughts, he activated his brains defense mechanism, and shoved all of the turmoil to the side to ponder for another day. Seeking a distraction, he opened up DNDB, a digital tool for all things Dungeons & Dragons, his all time favorite game. Though he never found much time to actually play the game, he thoroughly enjoyed creating characters. He had already used up 5 of the 6 character slots available to him, and began working on the 6th.

Continuing on with the theme with which he created the other 5, he began to create a character loosely based off of himself. He set to work and spent the next 30 minutes refining his character, and creating an epic backstory filled with trials and hardships.

"Now comes the hardest part," Drew thought to himself "What do I name them?"

Spending 10 minutes racking his brain and using the random name generator, he eventually decided to use Shaw as a placeholder until he could come up with something more creative.

Reclining in his chair, he looked at his character in satisfaction. Shaw was a Half-Drow, Half Wood-Elf rogue, with a backstory as tragic as they get. Smiling with pride, he looked at his emails and let out a groan as he saw how much work had piled up. Standing up to stretch, he went to grab a snack and relieve his bladder.

Opening his door with a loud creak, he was greeted by two shrieking cannonballs that crashed into his legs, knocking him to the floor. Laughing at his kids antics, he gave them both big hugs, picking them up as he stood and carried them over to the couch where his wife was sitting.

Bentley, the eldest at 5 years old, immediately launched into a plea for all of them to go to the park and skip nap time, because he wanted to swing with his Ada-girl, his affectionate nickname for his 3-year old sister. Chuckling, Drew promised both of them that the whole family would go to the park after nap time. Placated, Bentley and Adaline jumped off the couch and started riding their trikes around the living room.

"I wish I had half as much energy as those two had," his wife Eva remarked. "If I did I would have no problem getting my to-do list done everyday." Nodding in agreement, Drew stood up, kissed his wife, and went to the bathroom before grabbing a snack and returning to his office where he set to clearing up his inbox.

An hour and a half passed spent replying to emails, quoting materials and taking more than one call from a customer who thought their request was the most important and should be prioritized. Assuring them he would do his best, he wondered how these customers could be so self-centered, and wished they could be patient and realize he would get back to them as soon as he could.

With a sigh, he turned back to his work and spent another 30 minutes finishing the emails that came in while he was lost in thought.

At last, after 2 hours straight, he was finally done! He stood up, stretching again, and left his office to look for his family. He found them all peacefully asleep in the master bedroom, sprawled out at weird angles as only kids will do.

Figuring they would be up soon, he went back to his office to try to find a different name for his character. Pulling the page up again, he realized that there was a prompt on his screen that read "Danger has sprung up in the land of Tal'Dorei, will you join the ranks of mighty adventurers to save the world?" Recognizing the name Tal'Dorei from Critical Role, a group of voice actors who played DND, he assumed this to be some new character testing program for DNDB.

Not seeing any harm in it, he clicked 'Accept' and waited. His screen flashed bright white, and then went dark. Figuring his computer had crashed, he sat and stared at the screen while he waited for it to restart. Eventually he started to notice pinpricks of light had appeared, and started to swirl, getting faster and faster every second until the edges blurred and he felt his focus being pulled towards the center.

Feeling on edge, he tried to look away, but found his eyes glued to the screen and unable to turn away or even blink. Panicking, he tried calling out to his wife, but could not find the power to resist the hypnotic pattern, and slowly felt his body being lifted from his chair and being pulled directly into the vortex.

Tumbling through this rift in reality, he traveled to an alternate reality of myth and magic. His screen flashed one final message before returning to normal. Welcome to Exandria adventurer!