There were exactly three things Kaia Veyris hated about her life.
First, waking up.Second, waking up in the rain.And third, waking up in the rain in a ditch, with a dead slug on her cheek and no shoes on her feet.
"Yup," she muttered, blinking up at the weeping grey sky above her. "That tracks."
She didn't remember falling asleep in the ditch. But then again, the memory of last night was fuzzy. There had been thunder. And shouting. Possibly an angry cabbage merchant. She vaguely recalled being chased for stealing half a loaf of bread and a questionable turnip.
Kaia groaned and rolled onto her side, dislodging the slug. Her clothes were soaked, her coat smelled like damp regret, and the only warm thing in her possession was a half-melted candy stuck to the inside of her pocket.
Welcome to Dallira, the muddiest, dullest, most aggressively boring border town on the western edge of Fiore. If Fiore was a grand storybook full of legendary wizards and epic battles, Dallira was the back page someone accidentally spilled ink on and then tried to fold into an origami goat.
Fifteen years. She'd spent fifteen years here, watching the world pass her by like a parade she wasn't invited to.
Kaia sat up and checked her boots gone. Again. Probably stolen by Rollo, the town drunk's goat who had a thing for chewing leather. She'd have to go barefoot. Again. In the mud. Again.
She pulled herself to her feet with a sigh that could have wilted sunflowers. Her stomach growled like a possessed accordion. "Shut up," she snapped at it. "We had that crust of bread yesterday. Don't get greedy."
The town was already awake, its narrow dirt paths squelching under the boots of merchants and miserable people. Smoke curled lazily from crooked chimneys. Somewhere, a dog barked. Somewhere else, a baby cried. Somewhere very close, someone threw cabbage at her.
"Thief!" came the familiar shriek of Old Man Garrick.
Kaia ducked automatically as the vegetable soared past her head and splattered against a wall. "I didn't take anything today!" she called back. "That was last week!"
"You owe me three turnips!"
"They were rotting, Garrick!"
"And so is your attitude!"
Kaia flipped him off cheerfully and ducked into an alley before he could hurl more produce. She was pretty sure Garrick's cabbages were some kind of minor elemental at this point. They had vengeance in their hearts.
She wandered through Dallira's cluttered streets like a ghost that couldn't be bothered to haunt anything. The only building that didn't make her want to crawl into a barrel and roll off a cliff was the town library. Which was, unfortunately, also the only building with no actual books. Just pamphlets about turnip farming, two volumes of a romance series someone had spilled ink on (she assumed it was intentional), and a spellbook with all the pages ripped out and replaced with bad poetry.
She sometimes read those poems when she felt especially masochistic.
Today, she ended up at her usual hiding place a half-collapsed windmill on the outskirts of town. It leaned like it was about to fall over but never did, probably out of spite. Kaia climbed inside, found her little corner with the blanket she'd stolen from the mayor's laundry line, and flopped down dramatically.
"This sucks," she announced to the windmill. "My life sucks. This town sucks. My boots are gone, my stomach is empty, and I think I stepped on something sentient in that mud puddle."
The windmill didn't argue.
Kaia closed her eyes and let the sound of the rain lull her into a semi-doze. She dreamed about fire magic. Not fancy wizard fire no, hers was cooler. She dreamed of cracking time open like an egg and bending it into a pretzel. She dreamed of glowing runes, dramatic poses, people saying, "Is that Kaia Veyris, the time-warping badass?!"
She smiled in her sleep.
Then the windmill exploded.
Okay not exploded. But something definitely screeched loud enough to rattle the roof, and when Kaia bolted upright, half the wall had been knocked clean off. Rain poured in. She stared at the hole. The hole stared back.
And then it clucked.
"…No," Kaia whispered, crawling backward.
Something emerged through the broken wall something with scaly talons, ragged wings, and a face that looked like someone had smashed a chicken and a lizard together, then cursed it into existence. It had feathers, sort of. It had teeth, which no bird should ever have. And it had a stare that said, I eat weird teenagers for breakfast.
Kaia had never seen one in person, but she'd heard the drunks talk about them. This was a Cockatrice.
"Low-tier, my ass!" she yelped, scrambling up. "You're horrifying!"
The creature hissed and lunged. Kaia grabbed her blanket and threw it like a net. It bounced off the beast's face with the effect of a wet napkin. Kaia bolted out the back.
"Okay okay okay think think think," she muttered, feet slapping through the mud. "Can't fight it. Can't outrun it. Can't reason with a bird-lizard chimera—unless it's really into bad poetry?"
She dove behind a fence. The Cockatrice barreled past her hiding spot, paused, turned its awful head, and glared at her with intent.
"I swear I'm not free-range!" she shouted, and ran again.
This wasn't fair. Monsters weren't supposed to be this close to town. This was Dallira, land of bland safety and aggressive mediocrity. The worst thing that happened here was turnip theft and the occasional exploding goat.
And now she was going to die.
She reached the riverbank and skidded to a halt. Behind her: one nightmare chicken from hell. In front of her: a ten-foot drop into a shallow, rocky stream.
"Oh for the love of—"
The Cockatrice shrieked again, its wings spreading. Kaia turned. There was nowhere to go. She braced herself.
The world seemed to slow.
Time stretched, then snapped.
DING.
A glowing screen popped up right in front of her face, displaying bright teal letters:
[CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED FOR SYSTEM INSTALLATION: "SURVIVE FIORE OR DIE TRYING." PLEASE STAND BY.]
Kaia blinked. The Cockatrice blinked. The system screen flickered.
[CALIBRATING USER… ERROR. USER MAGIC: UNDEFINED. USER STATUS: UNIMPRESSIVE. USER SHOES: MISSING.]
"HEY," Kaia shouted. "That's rude—"
[Installing survival package. Activating emergency protocols. Good luck, you beautiful disaster.]
A pulse of magic surged through her. Kaia gasped. Her hair lifted slightly, like caught in a wind. The air shimmered.
The Cockatrice lunged.
Kaia raised her arms on instinct.
The world cracked.