1 One.

"Hey!" a voice whispered. "Have you heard?"

"Heard wha-" I started to say, before the world shattered in front of my eyes.

I awoke on my bed with a gasp.

What in the world was that?

I checked the time. 7:30am. Still plenty of time to get dressed to go to school.

I hurriedly threw on some simple clothes and grabbed my backpack from the side of my bed.

I didn't feel like making a particularly complex meal for breakfast, so I slapped a small chunk of butter onto a slice of toast and hurriedly stuffed it into my mouth.

Before I could get too far from home, however, something sitting on my front porch caught my eye.

I didn't order anything but for some odd reason, the package was addressed to me.

I still had fifteen minutes to run to school, and I knew that if I ran quickly, I could do it in ten. Slicing the box open, I realized I had made a mistake.

Inside was simply a dice set. Iridescent and beautiful, it was the 7-piece dice set I was familiar with for Dungeons and Dragons. I thought it was odd, but thought nothing further as I dropped the pouch of dice into my backpack.

Without much thought, the pouch of dice simply slipped to the bottom of my backpack throughout the school day.

It wasn't until after classes ended that everything changed.

"Eh?" I said, as I scrolled through my phone more carefully after school. "Did I ever download this app?"

I was about to uninstall it, thinking it was a virus, but the option to uninstall wasn't presented when I tried.

"How odd," I remarked.

Suddenly, the world shattered in front of my eyes, the same way it had in my dream right before I awoke this morning.

I screamed.

Because in front of me, there was a giant board drawn on the ground. I looked around, and I was no longer in the clothes that I had worn to school, but instead a rough woolen cloak, with a quarterstaff tied to my waist. On my back, I felt a backpack weighing approximately 60 pounds. Swinging it to the side, I confirmed my suspicions. Torches, bedroll, lunch kit, rope attached on the outside... wasn't this exactly the standard Explorer's Pack from Dungeons and Dragons? What was it doing here?

A pouch swung wildly from my waist and I opened it. Inside was, interestingly enough, my smartphone and the 7-piece dice set that had come in the mail this morning.

"But still... what is this?" I asked myself.

I decided to power up my phone, the only familiar thing I had on hand.

What showed up on screen scared me.

First, it greeted me.

Then, a character sheet showed up.

Name: Braylen Clarke / 1

Class: Wizard

Race: High Elf

Upon reading that, I instinctively reached my hand up to feel my ears and sure enough, they were unexpectedly pointed, the way that elves are commonly portrayed. Instead of the rough brown hair I had before, my hair was how completely straight and blonde.

Odd.

I continued scanning over the rest of the characteristics. Standard, as far as wizard specing goes.

Before I could entirely finish processing exactly what happened, I was jolted awake by the sound of screaming outside. Unsure of what exactly was going on, I ran my way outside.

My phone vibrated, with the following text: "Mission: Save the Locals."

Was the person behind my phone the dungeon master? How would combat work?

I noticed the large grid under me continuing.

Movement speed is 30ft, so if I'm running at combat speeds with the Dash action... that's 60ft of distance covered in 6 seconds. It was actually the average running speed of an adult, though I had never noticed before while playing on paper.

When the party was in sight, I saw a party of five, struggling against a giant gelatinous cube close to the entrance of the cave.

A party of 1st-level character against a gelatinous cube? That's just asking to get wiped!

What caught my attention, however, was not that.

It was that it was a turn-based combat style. Every individual held a set of 7 dice, rolling them to determine combat outcomes. The cube, however, was exempt from this. It seemed to deal the same amount of damage every time.

A gelatinous cube was capable of dealing a maximum of 36 damage in a single turn, but to have it deal the average of 18 every turn made little difference to a first-level character. As a wizard, my first-level HP was only 8 points, meaning that if I got swallowed, I was sure to die without even attempting death saves.

I was now approximately 60ft away from the action. The cube was blind after 60ft and probably couldn't hear either, so I yelled at the party.

"Do you need any help?" I yelled.

"Yes, please!" I heard a yell back.

On my smartphone, the following words came up:

[Roll for initiative.]

This really was strange. When the encounter is over, I'll have to ask about what exactly is going on.

I let the d20 drop from my hand, where it landed on the ground.

13. Slightly higher than average. After adding my +2 initiative modifier, I had an initiative value of 15.

The initiative order instantly popped up on my screen. It seemed that I had the next turn, right before the cube.

One of the adventurers successfully slashed his sword through the cube before running away as fast as he possibly could, taking a splash of acid in the process.

At least that was the cube's opportunity attack for the round gone. The good thing was that although the adventurer that had just provoked that was now unconscious, he wasn't overkilled, meaning he would still be able to survive if given prompt medical treatment.

But now, however, it was my turn. I re-checked my spell list and sighed at the relative low damage of the first-level spells. Gelatinous cubes were rather tanky, at 84 HP, meaning that even at maximum damage, it would require four rounds of magic missiles to solo-kill one, though I didn't have enough spell slots for that.

The words popped up on my screen. [What do you wish to do?]

Out of habit, I declared my actions for the turn. I was currently around 60ft away from the cube, but my magic missiles had a range double that.

"Cast three magic missiles at the cube," I said.

[Roll for damage.] the system prompted.

Ah, the wonders of spells that can only hit. The downside is that they can never crit. Magic Missiles is a spell that casts three separate beams that do 1d4+1 damage each. That meant that I would roll a random number between 1 and 4 and add 1 extra damage on top of that.

I dropped my d4 dice three times, the system recording every roll. A 2, 3, and 4. Nice, that totaled up to 12 damage.

A drop in the bucket compared to the cube's monstrous 84 HP, but I hoped the rest of the party could make up for that. Strangely, however, my hands automatically reached out and strange words spilled out of my mouth as I cast the spell.

I paid it no mind, however, as the rest of the turns went by. The cube, seemingly angered at my attack, crawled 15ft closer to me. I was still 45ft away, though he seemed uncomfortably close.

It was probably better to get some additional distance. I surveyed the rest of the party. They seemed to be worn to bits, five individuals unconscious, and five that had clearly seen better days.

I couldn't tell how much HP the cube had left, but all I could do was cast fire bolts until the cube disintegrated.

Soon enough, my turn came again. The system again asked me what I wished to do, and I moved 30ft, my maximum distance, away from the cube.

"Then, cast fire bolt at the cube," I said.

The system again prompted for my rolls, so I let a d20 drop to the ground. 3, plus my spellcasting modifier of +5, totaling 8. Since the cube only had an armor class of 6, the spell would hit.

I then let a d10 drop to the ground. 10, maximum damage.

Again, my body made seemingly familiar moves, though I knew for a fact I had never cast a spell like this in my entire life. Words spilled out of my mouth, but I couldn't tell for sure what they were as they seemed to be in some odd language. The fire bolt hit the cube, leaving it rather weak.

You can tell the cube isn't very smart when it subsequently decided to chase after me again, moving 15ft closer, even though I had just moved 30ft away prior.

Thankfully, this freed the rest of the adventurers to deal the finishing blow.

After the battle ended, we ran up to each other.

"What happened here?" I asked.

"W-we were going to clear out an area, and found a nearby dungeon. Since there were ten of us, we thought it would be okay, but five still got knocked out, even though I think we'll all be able to live," a boy answered.

"W-we don't see elves around here very often," a girl stammered. "B-b-but thanks for helping us out."

"No problem," I said. "Do you guys live here?"

They all nodded in confusion.

So, it seems that I'm the odd one out in this situation.