On the first page the tittle was repeated in bold text, and below it was a line of text that read “A book of things that every five year old in my world knows”. As annoying as that subscript was… I had to admit that I probably did know less about this world than your average five year old. After using this reasoning to swallow my annoyance I flipped the page and began reading what I hoped would be a well written, informative manual on this world.

The first page briefly described that the world was run by monarchal governments where the tittle of monarch was passed down by blood. The drawing of a stick-man with a crown sat in the dead center of the page. I inwardly groaned, she had drawn me a picture book.

I decided I’d act as if the pictures didn’t exist. The next page talked about the fact that there were five seasons, each corresponding to when some common crop could be planted, or when no crop should be planted in the case of ‘frost-time’. The name of the seasons had two parts, the first part being what crop grew in that season, which would change from town to town. The second part was simply the word “time”. The year was also divided into ten months, two for each season, the reason for this was apparently that each season could yield two harvests, so they divided each season into two. The months name were woefully uninspired as they were just the name of the season with first or second harvest appended to the end.

The next page was talking about family structure, skipped. How to open and close doors and windows, skipped. A short list of nursery rhymes, skipped. Skipped,skipped,skipped. I was almost ready to toss the useless thing into the river with all the ‘practical 5 year old knowledge’ when finally found something I was looking for, a section on magic. I took a pause to swear on anything that was holy in that world, if this section was as useless as the rest of the book… I interrupted my train of thought and started to read; if the book was useless then swearing wouldn’t make it any less useless.

“Magic is a super cool power that everyone has! On a human’s fifth birthday they are given the light test called ‘the light test’. The light test is a simple test where the young human is instructed to use the Illuminate spell by chanting some weird string of words; I don’t know why, all they have to do is know what they want to happen and have the mana to do it. Anyway they do this in a very dark room where the only light is a candle. If their light spell is stronger than the candle then they are eligible for more schooling. About one third of human children will pass this test, and the ones that do are trained for two years, until they’re seven, at which point they must find a master for the next five years. Once they are twelve, assuming they have been an apprentice for at least four years they can apply to a magic university. They can stay at a magic university working towards graduation for as long as they can pay tuition. To graduate from a magic university you must pass their graduation test. The test varies from university to university, usually the more prestigious the university, the harder the test.”

The poor drawings of what I assumed was supposed to be a magic university did nothing but waste space where more information could be. In the end the only valuable information was that I didn’t need chants for magic and that there are magic universities, though even the magic university information was of dubious usefulness seeing as they accept twelve year olds. I resisted the urge to try to use magic, opting instead to finish what I started while there was still some daylight. After the magic page there were a few pages about the most basic healing herbs and some edible berries that could be found pretty prevalently.

As the last rays of sun were slowly fading over the horizon I reached the last page. The header ready simply “Aylo”. My curiosity piqued I began to carefully read this page, “You, Aylo, are now a free soul in a world and an ally to the world’s god. That technically makes you a demigod, but don’t let it go to your head because you’re not really invincible and when you enter the world you’ll probably be about as strong as your average ten year old.” I could easily see Meril giggling uncontrollably as she wrote that… anyway the next part was much more interesting stating, “Since you’re technically a demigod you can change how old you are whenever you want, happy birthday! Oh and treat Dunfor well, he’ll grow along with you… and I completely forgot to tell you what siphon does… well I don’t really remember all that well anyway… but basically if you kill stuff you get stronger… anyway have fun!!!”

This information would probably have been useful before I jumped into the portal but better late than never I guess. It was also a bit annoying that she neglected putting in how to change my appearance but I decided I’d try using my imagination like how magic was supposed to work. But that was for tomorrow, I was tired and there was a nice nest of straw deep in this cave that was looking quite inviting right about now.

I closed the book and looked around for my bag as the last ray of sunlight left the sky. It took a solid couple minutes of groping around before I found it, then another minute to fumble it open and shove the book in the full bag and fasten it shut again.

I stood up and placed my hand on the wall following it around towards the back of the cave. I tread carefully, squinting to try to see any rocks protruding from the ground. The wind blew steadily outside and an occasional distant sounding howl could be heard, though I had whether it was the wind or a beast. Before entering the inner room of the cave I took a glance at the cave entrance just in time to see a big blue moon rise over the horizon. A slight smile flitted over my face, a real fantasy world, who would’ve guessed.

I made my way around to the back of the second chamber the same way I had the first and carefully lay on the pile of grass. My eyes slowly closed my mind began to wander, possibilities abounded, a new world… a new… world… my mind became heavier as I drifted off into the realm of dreams.