Kira had always loved fantasy worlds—from Tolkien to Rothfuss, from Earthsea to the Forgotten Realms. She drew maps, consumed books, watched every movie to ever feature a fantasy race, and dreamed of casting real spells. It was her escape from the soul sucking corporate world her parents lived in, and wanted her to be part of.

  In fact, her future was set without her ever having to think about it. Her parents were both corporate drones at Helixgate, a company that built “trust infrastructure.” Things like identity chips, biometric readers, credentialing software, and the secure networks that tie them together. All Kira needed to do was get her degree and then she could step right into a meaningless job alongside her parents.

  She hated the thought of wasting her life in a non-descript beige office somewhere. Hated the idea that she would be forced to create systems that controlled people. Hated the idea of working in the same building as her parents forever. If she was being honest with herself, she hated her parents too.

  They weren’t bad people. They were even nice enough when they were around. But that was rare. Kira had grown up with a nanny. Her parents worked all the time and were never around. Even when they were, they kept themselves busy with their own projects. They didn’t have a daughter because they wanted to have kids, they had a daughter because that’s what good corporate drones did—have families and add to the corporate legions.

  Kira didn’t want any of it. Up until this week though, she hadn’t been able to see a way out.

  But now, here she was. Standing in a strange engineering lab surrounded by her friends and a whole bunch of people in white coats, staring at a literal ‘way out’. Not just out of her soulless corporate future, but out of this world completely.

  The room was all too-bright fluorescent lights and brushed steel. It smelled like fake air and disinfectant with just a touch of burnt plastic. There were pipes everywhere. And cables snaking across the floor. A Dungeon Inc. handler stood by the archway with a tablet, checking names off a list like they were boarding a flight. Kira hardly noticed any of it after her first glance around the room though. She had eyes only for the shimmering portal in front of them.

  Alex had entered “work mode” now—all joking aside. He was calm and focused and carried the same expression he wore when he was DM’ing and the party got cute with the rules.

  Ryan bounced on his heels like he’d been caffeinating intravenously all day. Jake kept craning his neck around, trying to look through the portal like it was a window instead of a hole into a different reality. Jun hovered a step behind them, quiet, observant, eyes flicking between the arch and the ceiling cameras and asking quiet questions to one of the lab coats.

  “Last call for anyone who suddenly remembered they left the stove on,” Jake said, grinning too wide.

  Alex rolled his eyes. “Too late by hours now unless you have an app for it.”

  Ryan threw both hands up. “FOR GLORY.”

  “Ryan,” Kira said, flatly, not turning around, “I know you work part-time at the campus gym, but you sit at the desk and check people in. If you lift anything heavier than a beer mug this weekend you’ll hurt yourself.”

  “But if I die here, it will be heroic,” Ryan replied. Alex grimaced at that, but nobody noticed.

  Kira swallowed. The portal arch stood there—black interior, not quite reflective, not quite matte. It didn’t shimmer like CGI. It just looked like a piece of night cut out and hung in the air. Then someone powered it up. She heard the snap of a breaker somewhere and a hum that was quickly lost under the sound of a large fan spinning up.

  Around the portal, LED lights flickered green as they curved around the outside of the steel frame, climbing and pulsing in a slow rhythm until they reached the apex and winked out.

  The whole thing was metal ribs and bundled cables tied off with colour coded zip ties. It was a sheet of liquid black glass one moment, glossy and unbroken and the next it was crystalized oil, glittering and shifting before your eyes. It was unsettling and strange and scary. And strangely beautiful.

  Kira took a deep breath, tasting the sterile air. She was feeling a little motion sickness from the long bus ride through the rough country roads.

  “Okay,” she said, more to herself than anyone. “Okay.”

  She stepped forward as one of the lab coats gestured towards the portal.

  “Do you want me to go first?” Alex asked. Kira just shook her head and walked into the glittering pool of ultimate nighttime.

  The moment her hand crossed the threshold, her skin prickled. Not pain. Not heat. Just… a pressure shift, or like walking from a dry room outside into dry air. Then her shoulder followed, and her body followed, and—

  The world blinked.

  For half a heartbeat there was no up or down. Her stomach floated disconcertingly. Her ears popped like she had made a rapid descent. She kept walking and on the next step her boots hit stone.

  Actually not stone, cement, or concrete, cool and smooth underfoot and she could immediately sense that the air was different here. Less industrial, but still a little stale. She could smell food coming down the hall in front of her, past the security checkpoint and the single guard that was smiling over at her.

  Kira didn’t realize she had stopped in front of the portal until Ryan bumped into her from behind, exploding through the portal like a golden retriever set loose in a park. He was laughing as he appeared and the noise just appeared in the room along with him, mid-guffaw.

  “YES,” he shouted, spinning in a circle. “IT’S REAL! Did you feel that? In the portal? Intense!” He spun around the large room laughing. He ran over and high-fived the guard who had started laughing with him.

  Jake stepped into the room laughing as well. Someone must have said something after she left. Better not be about me she thought.

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  Jake turned and faced the portal. As Jun stepped through he struck a dramatic pose with one foot hanging in the air on nothing in particular. “Behold,” he intoned, “a realm of peril and…”

  Kira stopped listening and walked towards the hallway to peek in the only doorways she could see—changerooms maybe.

  “Kira,” Alex said quietly, close enough that she jumped a little, not realizing he had even come through the portal yet. “You good?”

  She forced her lungs to work. “Yeah. Just… recalibrating I guess. I need a drink or something. The bus ride made me sick and… I don’t know, all this is exciting and a little overwhelming.”

  “Sure, we’ll swing by the cafeteria before we head topside. Probably best to eat now anyway. It’ll be dark in a couple of hours.” Alex smiled and she did her best to return it and ignore her upset stomach.

  Jake had moved over to Ryan and the two sounded like chipmunks that had fallen into a sugar bowl. Jun on the other hand stood on his own, looking as calm as always. He was usually either the most buttoned down or the silliest amongst them and had no in between stages. Right now he was looking around the room at the other portals, just as cool as can be, like he was the one that had been doing interdimensional travel between classes all semester.

  A woman in a neat black jacket over a blue blouse stepped past the guard checkpoint and walked towards them. She smiled with professional warmth. “Welcome to Earth3,” she said. “I’m Laila. We’ll get you into your in-world clothes, and then you’re free to explore the village. Alex, Valentina asked me to tell you she was sorry she couldn’t be here, but will meet up with all of you in the morning.”

  Alex just nodded. “Not a problem. Thank you.”

  Ryan leaned in toward Kira, whispering loudly, “she said Earth Three. Earth Three!”

  “Try not to faint,” Kira murmured back, but she was talking to herself as much as him.

  Laila clapped her hands warmly and said, “well, I assume you all want to head topside and explore so let’s get you kitted out for your stay shall we! Alex, if you want to take your other friends, I’ll show Kira to her outfit.”

  With a smile and a wave Alex gathered up the other three and took them through the door on the left side of the corridor exiting the portal room. Kira followed Laila into the changeroom on the right. It looked like a changeroom in a tasteful, high end fitness center. It was big enough for a hundred people probably, but broken up into a dozen smaller areas by lockers and wood paneled walls.

  Laila led her towards a central area that had a small table. On the table were two outfits. One was a beautiful green dress and the other was a smart blouse and slacks pair. She couldn’t help herself and reached out to feel the soft fabric of the shirt.

  “This trip was a little last minute and I wasn’t sure what your preferences would be, so you can choose.”

  Kira smiled. Normally she was a jeans kind of gal, but that was in the real world. Real world. It was going to take some time to reorient how she thought about the real world.

  She lifted up the dress to look at it more closely. It was built for movement and comfort, but was still very pretty.

  The underdress was a soft, undyed linen the color of oat milk, long-sleeved and it looked like it was big enough to flow loosely over her shoulders. Over top of that was a sleeveless dress of deep moss green wool, softer than any wool she had ever touched before. It laced up the sides with thin leather cords dyed a dark blue.

  She held the dress to her chest and lifted a leg. The skirt fell to mid-calf, heavy enough to sit but light enough to swish. The hem was reinforced with stitches the same dark blue as the leather cords. The stitching was practical with just a touch of ornamentation and someone had added a narrow line of embroidery just above it—a simple repeating leaf pattern, small and careful, and looked to be hand stitched.

  There was a wide leather belt that would sit low on her hips, stamped with the same leaf motif and fitted with a plain bronze buckle. It was more than ornamental and clearly meant to hold some weight. Pouches, keys, tools or whatever one needs in a fantasy village she thought.

  On the table below the dress there was also a short cloak, dyed in a muted charcoal blue, with a small metal pin fastener shaped like a feather.

  It was incredible. The sort of dress that she had always imagined her elven warlock character from their last campaign might have worn. Kira quickly put it back down on the table and rubbed her eyes before she started crying.

  Taking a deep breath, she moved to look at the shirt and pants options.

  The blouse was a pale, warm looking linen in a blue colour that was so subtle it almost looked gray. The neckline was modest but opened in a deep vee that could be closed up with a thin gray ribbon that criss-crossed the gap. The sleeves were three-quarter length, gathered loosely at the forearm and the stitching along the seams was a darker gray, deliberately visible, giving it a handmade feel without feeling rustic.

  The slacks were exceptional.

  They were cut from dark brown wool, slim through the thigh but looser below the knees with wide hem cuffs stitched closed at the bottom of the legs. The waistband looked like it would sit high, and was secured with a side tie rather than buttons at the front. Unlike most of the pants she owned back home, these had deep, functional pockets sewn into the seams. The fabric was sturdy, matte, and faintly textured.

  A narrow leather belt was looped through simple stitched guides, and came with a small pouch at the hip. Over it all is a short, fitted vest in a darker, but also muted blue colour. It was lightly padded and lined and looked like it would add warmth and structure without quite turning the outfit into armor. The vest fastened with three flat metal toggles that look forged rather than stamped.

  Laila stood there and gave her a warm smile. “I’ll go wait in the hall and give you a few minutes. When you get changed, just grab any of the open lockers in that last row. They have manual keypads that let you choose your own code. The rest are all keyed to the ANIP system.”

  Kira couldn’t talk. If she tried, she was pretty sure she was going to cry. So she just nodded and smiled back and dug her nails into her palms. She wasn’t the kind of person to cry on a whim. But seeing these outfits made this whole ‘journey to a fantasy world’ craziness real in a way that even the portal hadn’t.

  ***

  Personal Journal

  Mara Feld

  Village clothier and resident, Pine street.

  When my husband first took his security job, he worked one week on and one week off. It put a lot of pressure on me to raise our daughter. But after about six months he suggested we just move full time. Free house, full benefits, regular work schedule. How could I argue?

  Then I learned all about Earth3.

  I remember that first week. I thought it was going to be so fake. I thought it would be like living in a theme park, like moving into one of those fake houses at Disneyland and we’d be dressed up like peasants to walk around like character performers.

  But there are no tourists here and the village feels more real than any place I’ve lived before.

  It’s clean, safe and an exciting place to raise a family. Our daughter goes to school every day and then plays in the village with other kids. Neighbors knock instead of messaging. And the work is honest and fulfilling—I make clothes now and get to see people in the village wearing my creations every day!

  I know why we’re really here. My husband’s on contract and provides security for the village. It’s actually funny to see him all done up in leathers and walking the wall with a spear, but I’m not na?ve about the dangers in this world. Those are real too.

  But here’s what else I know: I cook again. I sew for people whose names I know. When something breaks, it’s fixed by someone down the street. We have all the modern amenities we could want in the Undercity too. But the longer we’re here, the less I care for most of them.