Val found herself in a brown and wooden room with a fireplace and bed. The room, which had only one door, was half the size of her studio apartment, but with the structural integrity of a shack. She took a few deep breaths. Dry, rich air filled her lungs, much earthier than the strange beach ozone. This felt normal enough.

  An identical Guardian mirror hung on the wall in a corner. She walked over to it and, with an intentional thought, stuck her arm in, finding only the same vast emptiness.

  I wonder if Airaba is on the other side or if it would dump me back on Earth. Her piss-yellow apartment and heart-numbing cashier’s job were repellant. She pulled out her arm, stepping away from the mirror, worried Airaba might pull her through if she lingered.

  A knock at the door caught Val’s attention. Right next to the doorframe was a calendar.

  “Information!” Val gasped with relief and tripped over a red woven rug in excitement to get to it.

  The calendar had only four pages, the first page labeled Spring with three weeks of ten days, the weeks titled Aries, Taurus, and Gemini. The first day of spring glowed. Maybe that was the current day? She didn’t understand how it was glowing. Many of the days were marked with more information.

  The knock sounded at her door again, a quick loud rap. Val could laugh. She was sure this knock would be as life changing as Emily’s knock.

  On the other side of the door stood a lanky, pale man with short blond hair holding himself stiffly.

  “Minerva! What? You’re not Minerva. Who’s this? Who are you?” the man asked.

  “Val. Who are you?” Val adjusted her expectations.

  “Charon, a teacher in town.” He crossed his arms.

  “A teacher! So you’re here to teach me how things work? Excellent,” Val smiled and stuck her hand out for a shake.

  Charon didn’t smile back or say anything, but shook her hand once listlessly before pulling back.

  Val pushed past him, descending the porch steps. The farmhouse-shack stood on top of a rise with the acres of land in front of her sloping gently down. The lush trees past the farmland included young white oak, Douglas fir, western hemlock, and a few old, tall Sitka spruce, as far as Val could compare trees in Cascadance to Earth. They were an oil painting of greens: verdant, deep forest, and bright lizard green. In front of the forest grew a picturesque mess of waist-high weeds with thistle-like flowers. A breezy, beautiful blue sky topped everything. It felt as real as any Oregonian forest.

  “Airaba gave me seeds,” Val continued, breathing the fresh Christmas-tree air, focused on her mission. “Where are tools, machines, whatever else? Everything is so overgrown.”

  Charon was taken aback. “Are you’re expecting me to show you around? No. I’m a teacher, but I teach little kids. I came here to talk to Minerva. She left. We got a signal that she—or someone, I guess—came through the mirror. I’m not here to teach a strange Earth human anything. You don’t even have magic.”

  “I don’t, but Airaba said that’s a good thing. I expected a game mechanics introduction, but it seems like I was dropped into an old save file. I never had a chance to start a new file. But I’ll catch onto the game easily enough.”

  “This is not a game!” Charon descended the steps to face Val. “You met with a Guardian! We’re more real than where ever you came from. We’ve got magic.”

  “My apologies. Maybe you can give me a couple of tips? About farming? Are there any other farmers?” Val would do her best to not call this a game in front of other people.

  “No,” Charon said bitingly. “This is the only farm in the county, though it’s been in ruins for a generation.” Charon’s expression warred between irritation and wanting to help. Val loved teachers like that, where the teaching spilled out of their fingers. “What questions do you even have?”

  “I guess since I’m a farmer, I need tools. Any suggestions on where to find them? Hopefully Minerva didn’t sell or lose them.”

  “If she sold them, she would have done that through my wife and I would have heard about it. They should be around here.”

  “Your wife?”

  “Yes, Olive.” His face softened. “She’s the general store owner in town. My school rooms are right next door. Let’s look around. Minerva hasn’t lived on the farm for as long as I can remember. It looks like she hasn’t even stepped foot here.”

  “I could believe it.” Val looked around. Most of the walls around the shack had crumbled to their foundations, with no signs of a kitchen or bathroom. This was why Airaba had put her body in stasis. If Val had to focus on survival, she’d never get any farming or restoration done. “Anyway. Tools. Machines. Farming things.”

  No standing sheds in sight. Would she have to dig through grass? The farm wasn’t that big, only an acre total, and full of the waist-high weeds. Would tools be rusted if someone dropped tools in the middle of the field? Or would the game’s magic preserve player essentials?

  While she faced the field with her ruminations, Charon kicked at the house behind her.

  “Val, here we go. Your name is Val, right?”

  “Yep.” Val turned around. “You found tools? They were up against the house?”

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  “No.” Charon pulled away more of the knee-high lizard-green grass from the house. “There are seals here. See? One for basic storage. You sweep it clockwise.”

  Etched in the house foundation were several glowing marks in a row. Val walked up to the one Charon indicated. The seal glowed brighter as she lifted her hand closer, a topaz glow, which buzzed just a little against her palm.

  When she swiped, a backpack popped up in front of them.

  “Ah, by the Guardians, I hoped you couldn’t open it,” Charon said, his hand in his hair with exasperation.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “The seals belong to the farm. If you can open them, that means the farm does indeed belong to you. I suppose Minerva really is dead.” Charon frowned and looked over the landscape, his thoughts adjusting to the change in ownership, then faced Val squarely. “So who are you? Minerva said she was going home. We traced her and found the Guardian mirror. Airaba wouldn’t tell us anything useful. Now you’re here. How did that happen?”

  Charon’s logic skills impressed Val. This truly felt like a different reality. She shared what happened, without referring to it as a game. “Minerva’s granddaughter Elissa inherited the Guardian mirror on the Earth side. She knew I’d enjoy a break from my regular life.”

  “Surely there’s more. Surely Minerva passed down information if she knew she wasn’t coming back.”

  “Yeah, that Minerva had made messes, and it was Elissa’s family’s job to clean them up. Do you know what messes she means?”

  “Are you being honest with me?” Charon asked. “You said you talked to Airaba? What did she tell you?”

  “To restore the ruined shrines, which includes farming,” Val reached down to touch the backpack.

  “Is that it?” Charon continued without waiting for an answer. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. Maybe you’ll be useful. Maybe you’ll just want to go home.”

  “Charon, I’ll be useful! Let’s get started now.” She crouched down to check inside the backpack, which was the kind with a drawstring opening at the top with a flap over the top. It was empty.

  “Val, there’s a tool seal,” Charon motioned to a glowing seal on the side of the backpack impatiently.

  Val swiped and tools appeared in the air, suspended like they hung a rack. She grabbed the hoe and watering can, noting how a magical backpack had been tucked into magical storage—magic within magic.

  The backpack was sturdy canvas under her hands and hefty as she lifted it off the ground, though lighter than a bag full of tools. She swung it onto her back and adjusted the straps. In regular video games, you kept your inventory with you. Surely that logic applied to this kind of game.

  Val checked her pocket and drew out her gifts from Airaba. The labels on her five seed packets read ignisbulb, bloodstone radish, peridot peas, charo-cabbage, and asparagustine. The labels said, Ready to harvest when glowing.

  “Ignisbulb,” Val read. “Airaba said I’d need that to repair the shrine.”

  “Fantastic. Do your best.” Charon waved briefly and spun away. “I’ll see you around, maybe.”

  “Wait! Charon, please don’t leave yet,” Val held up a hand. “Let’s make sure I can actually farm.”

  “Oh, fine.” Charon spun back and crossed his arms. “Five more minutes. I’ve got to get back to my kids. You are Farmer class, right?”

  “Yes. Farmer class with the associated stats and skill set, though my levels are at zero.” Val gave Charon a smile while picking up the hoe. She aimed the hoe at the first spot of bare dirt near the farmhouse, and swung. The dirt churned loose and loamy. She flung the ignisbulb seed at the hoed spot. The seed missed entirely.

  “I mean, I did set my coordination stat low, but I thought it was a multiplier to my natural amount. Did Airaba lie to me? Ugh.”

  “I don’t care what your Guardian character stats are, but a 10 is considered baseline.”

  “What! She did not say that. I can’t say she lied though.” A stat of five would have a multiplier of 0.5. Her stats needed increasing stat. Work hard, lady!

  Val carefully picked the seed out of the weed and placed it carefully into the hoed dirt.

  One thought jumped into her brain. Maybe Charon isn’t friendly because my charisma is low. I didn’t know what I had until I lost it. I’ll have to schmooze to make up for the loss.

  She got the watering can and watered. Now she noticed two game-like meters hovering in the air at forehead height in front of her. As she watered, one meter went down by a noticeable amount and the other filled only a tiny amount.

  “So it looks like the Guardian system has energy and skill meters,” Val called out to Charon from her plot. “I can’t see yours, so I guess you can’t see mine?”

  Charon shrugged. “Congrats on your first experience points. I’m assuming it’s Farming skill.”

  “You don’t sound that impressed,” Val said, continuing her work.

  “Most kids max out all their chosen skills before they get to university. No one likes to start from scratch as an adult.”

  Val sighed. If she was such a new baby at everything, how could she help this world? She wanted to stay. Farming was better than her Earth job. She picked up the hoe and stepped to the next spot of weed-free soil.

  She hoed, planted, and watered. Even though she worked only five spots total, her energy meter dropped by a full quarter. So much for good stamina and strength. Then, feeling a little religious guilt, sent a thank you to Airaba for her blessings. Val laughed at herself for thinking this was real.

  “I need to get back to my students,” Charon said, interrupting Val’s thoughts.

  “Wait, where are the ruined shrines?” Val stood up from watering the last patch.

  “Listen, Val, just focus on farming. Don’t worry about the shrines.”

  “Where’s your attitude even coming from? I want to know!”

  “Fine. The ruined shrines are in a reflecting pool forum—”

  “Oh, a forum! Airaba mentioned that.”

  “Did she mention it’s Ophiuchus’ lair? When you see the pool and forum, I think you’ll understand why Minerva spent her years just playing around. If it doesn’t make you want to go home, well, I’ll be keeping an eye on you to see how useful you are.”

  With that, and without any goodbye, he stalked away on a path that led to behind the farmhouse.

  Charon exasperated Val as much as Val exasperated him, but she wasn’t finished with him. She clumsily put her tools away, swiping at the tool seal on her backpack without taking it off. I’m not misplacing you guys. She ran off to chase Charon, who had reached an opening in a fence with tall shrubbery on the other side.

  “Where are you going?” Val asked. “I need just a little more information.”

  “This is the northern entrance to your farm,” Charon said, not stopping.

  “The boundary! Northward! Excellent.”

  Charon stepped through the shrubbery. Val followed, intending to follow him into town, as she didn’t know what else to do.

  Charon pointed west. “That way is town.” He pointed east. “That way is the reflecting pool forum, though there’s no point.”

  “Maybe Ophiuchus will be better company than you.” With that line, Val flounced away. After a few paces, her manners caught up with her. She turned back, but Charon had disappeared.

  “Game,” Val said. That word would explain anything abnormal. Val would throw herself into this game. She had asked Airaba for a different role, but if this was a farming game, she’d be the best farmer ever. While Airaba had given her a firm goal to fix the shrines and the farm, Val was sure there was more to the game than that. Airaba had hinted at “things.” This world was too intricate for a simple grow and fetch quest.

  Watching her energy meter, Val noted that walking and even running through the sparsely wooded fields didn’t drain it, allowing her to keep up a fast pace.

  Time to meet Ophiuchus and see what these shrines were about.