Chapter 1: Chapter 1, in which I convince the smartest girl in class to tutor me for the History final.

I crept through the thick brush, spellbook strapped to my belt as I searched for the final ingredient I needed to brew a [Potion of Speed] - a yellow flower that grew in the specific glen I was headed to now.

BRRRRINNNNG

A loud noise made me jump out of my skin.

“And that is all you need to know for the final tomorrow.” My teacher closed out the lesson as the bell rang. 

This snapped me out of my daze and everything came crashing down.

There was no spellbook, no [Potion of Speed] to brew so I could finish a side quest. I was now firmly back to reality.

A night up late playing DnD with my buddies had left me exhausted and unable to think of anything else.

After acing all my other finals, I was finally relaxing, preparing for the summer.

I shook off those thoughts and looked up at the board, as the teacher was arguing with a girl, who kept getting caught snacking in class. He handed her the bag of grape sweets back and then headed to wipe away the notes he had made on the board.

I bolted toward him.

“Mr. Patterson, hold on a second, I haven’t finished copying down the notes, could I take a picture?” I asked, as nicely as I could muster. 

To his credit, Mr. Patterson let me take my picture.

“I hope you had the time to copy down the other two boards worth of notes, Viktor,” He said, as I was retreating back to my seat to pack my things.

“Of course, sir! I just started getting distracted towards the end,” I replied, while my mind raced - two more boards of notes for the final! How did I daydream through all of that?

I bolted out of the classroom and tried to find the only person I knew of, who took impeccable notes - Paige, who also happened to be the girl that was arguing with the teacher moments before.

That girl was a total bookworm and always got better grades than me. I’d talked to her a handful of times, and we were paired up for a physics project the year before. She learned the material for the project alright but I don’t think she ever grasped what the project was about. I kinda pulled through on that one, so I hoped she would be happy to return the favor now.

I rushed through the main door to the school grounds, scanning the small groups of students already there. 

They were all wearing the distinct light-blue polo shirts that were a part of our uniform. It made searching for Paige even harder because everyone blended together. 

My eyes stopped on her distinct head of dirty blonde hair just outside the schoolyard. She was already heading out to the bridge into the city center.

Shit! I have to catch up to her!

I took a deep breath and ran after her. On my way, I bumped into a few other students who didn’t appreciate it and made it known by shouting after me.

I didn’t care - I had to get at least a decent grade on this, which meant trying to pester Paige for her notes. I would have just called her to ask, but she was one of the few people in the class who I hadn’t exchanged numbers with, even after all these years.

She was halfway over the bridge when I finally caught up to her.

“Hey, hold it, Paige!” I shouted, then got into a coughing fit from panting too much and stopped to catch my breath.

She continued walking but shot a puzzled look back at me before returning her attention to the phone in her hands. “Yes… What do you want?”

“I was wondering… You’re the smartest girl in history class and I need a favor…” I trailed off. I didn’t know how to go about this.

“Look, Viktor, if you are going to ask to cheat off of me like the Lynch twins, you’ve got the wrong person,” She said, cutting her words short, visibly annoyed with my presence.

I didn’t want to annoy her, but I needed that A in history. I didn’t know why she was so annoyed or assumed I wanted to cheat on the final. Though that sounded a lot like the twins - to try to cheat their way through.

“Well, I don’t want to cheat… But I totally zoned out in class today,” I admitted. “Can I at least borrow your notes to study for the final tomorrow?”

“Cramming notes for one night won’t help. We’re going to have 3 long-answer questions and a discussion topic, simply remembering the stuff from the notes won’t help much.” She shook her head, then whipped around and continued walking, this time faster.

I was losing her - the only chance at passing this final was walking away from me.

Think, Viktor. Think!

“So if cramming those notes won’t help me, would you help me study?!” I shot back at her, as I jogged to catch up to her.

“No,” Paige said then started walking away faster.

“What about that physics project, you still owe me for that.”

“I don’t owe you, I would’ve still passed without you.”

She wouldn’t have, but I knew better than to die on this hill with my grades on the line. “Fine, what do you want?” I asked, but she ignored me completely. 

“I can get you more of those grape sweets Mr. Patterson caught you eating in class today,” I called out after her again.

She didn’t stop for that either. I guess it wasn’t as good of a deal as I thought. She probably didn’t care and had more at home.

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“How about I treat you to lunch - I know this great gyro spot, I bet you haven’t been there,” I said as I got more desperate. This normally worked when I tried asking a girl out.

It was half sarcastic and I was sure she’d reject me, or ridicule me for this suggestion. I had already ruined any chance of getting into her good graces by not backing down up until now.

But to my surprise, she stopped walking and turned to face me properly. Her bright hazel eyes locked on to mine. She stared up at me from under her eyebrows, which narrowed as she tilted her head, examining me.

“You’re trying to bribe me with food…” she snorted then a smile grew on her face “Sweets and gyros then we’ll have a deal.”

I guess this was my lucky day! Who would have thought Paige Furi was going to be swindled to tutor me and get lunch with me? God must have been feeling generous today.

***

I was a man of my word, we got our food and were now headed up to my dorm room. I had 2 gyros in a plastic bag, while Paige was still snacking on her new pack of sweets. I bought it at the corner store down the block and she was already nearly done with it. I swore she inhaled them or something, same at school really, she always had them on her.

All of the confidence building up in my chest came crashing down when I unlocked the door and realized I hadn’t cleaned up the room from last night’s get-together.

“Sorry about the mess, I wasn’t expecting company.” Frantically I bolted to the table, trying to put away the papers and dice that were scattered all around. I was thankful I had left the window open at least or the room would have still smelled of sweaty boys, grease from the leftover fries, and the chicken bones that were piled on the end of the table.

“Well, this certainly explains why you’re so worked up about tomorrow’s final- You’ve been playing DnD all weekend?!” She gestured to the mess on the table after setting down her bag of sweets. 

“Do you play?” I asked while taking the box I had discarded last night on the floor and started to put away all the dice and terrain boards.

“I wouldn’t say I do,” She stepped up next to me and joined me in clearing the table so we could have space to get started on studying. “Especially not when I’m still studying for finals.”

“Cut me some slack, it’s nearly summer. And I’d rather play in my air-conditioned dorm than sweat buckets outside.” I mirrored her intonation, as I put away the box of stuff up on the very top of my bookshelf.

But her attention wasn’t on the mess or the box anymore, instead, she was now looking at a spot on the bookshelf just under the box I just put up. I kept all of my father’s things there. Well, the ones he left me before he disappeared - mainly all his amazing home-brew DnD campaigns which I was now replaying with my group.

“Hey, what’s that?” she asked and walked up next to me, pointing out one of the journals.

“Paige, wait- That was my dad’s!” I stuttered and reached out to stop Paige from taking the book from the top shelf.

Bad call, I knocked the book off the shelf as she was taking it out and it fell open on the floor.

Paige picked up the journal and gave it back to me as she apologized.

“I’m sorry for that, it just looked really familiar,” She said pointing to the symbol on the cover.

It was strangely familiar to me too and I rummaged through every corner of my brain trying to remember where I had seen that symbol on the front cover before or what it meant. Seven stones were embedded in the book’s spine as well. It looked way too fancy for this to be just a normal journal of my father’s. I traced them: a brown one, a black one, a clear one, a blue one, a dull green one, a pink one, and at the very top of the spine - a shiny red one.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt to open it and see what it was all about. I put it on the table and motioned to Paige to take a seat on the chair next to me. As I opened it, I felt a strange shift in the air.

“What is this stuff?!” she asked, then scooted closer to me to read over my shoulder. 

This journal was filled with way more detailed world-building than I had ever seen in any other journals of my father’s. Why was this one with the bunch of them on the shelves? Was it even his? I had no recollection of ever reading this one or him letting me flip through it before he disappeared.

“Not, this can’t be-” Paige shook her head as she whispered while I flipped through the pages of the journal.

Paige asked me to stop on a page and traced one of the symbols drawn there - a big λ next to a drawing of a clear crystal on a chain, that was followed by a paragraph of information.

Information I couldn’t read because of the bright white light that shot out of the book, blinding me.

My stomach lurched like I’d been swooped up in a tornado.

Then dropped out of the sky.

…

First thing - I tasted dirt. And as I got up from being face-planted on a grass field, and spitting out the bitter taste in my mouth, I saw I wasn’t in my dorm anymore, but on a large green field - too green to be real even.

Before I could get up properly and scan my surroundings, I was met with a slap to my face. You know how in cartoons, the characters see stars when they get hit hard - yeah, I felt that for the first time in my life. Let me tell you it wasn’t an exaggeration, you really do see stars.

I looked up and tried to focus on the source of the slap - it was Paige, but she wasn’t dressed in our school uniform anymore, and neither was I. 

I patted myself down and concluded we were both dressed like villagers at a renaissance fair - white linen shirts and simple brown pants. I was going to say something about it as I tried to blink away the black spots that were forming on the edges of my vision.

“You fucking idiot!” she screamed before I could get any words out. “Bring us back, RIGHT NOW!”

The journal lay beside me and I reached for it, before processing what Paige was even saying.

The moment I touched the journal, the stones from its spine flew out and shot up into the sky, then each disappeared in a different direction.

I watched it all happen completely still. Something was telling me that this was very, very bad.

“Where the fuck are we?” I asked, finally getting up on my feet, journal in my hand.

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