A Song of Ice, Fire, and Magic

Rebirth

James Lupus was your average everyday citizen living in California. He had never done anything worth mentioning. So why, why is he now slowly bleeding out while strapped to a chair with his teeth and fingernails missing, many bones broken, and covered in bruises from being beat half-way to death?

Well it's all a simple case of "wrong place, wrong time." James had been living in downtown Los Angeles and was unfortunate to find himself as the only person in a store when two rival gangs were encroaching on eachothers territory. One gang in particular, The MS-13s were trying to find out information about the other gang and they were told the informant would be in the store at that particular time. Little did they know that James happened to stop by the store and the actual informant had stepped out and asked James to watch the store for him for a few minutes.

The informant was the store owner. The owner's name was William Jameson and James was friends with his son Billy. James would always stop by to say hello while buying groceries.

The gang came by and kidnapped James thinking he was the informant and tortured him for information that he didn't even know. The reason he was tortured so severely is because they thought he was lying to them. For every wrong answer they removed something from him. At first it was fingernails, then after they had removed all the nails, they moved onto his teeth. After that they eventually just beat him for every wrong answer until they stopped to keep him from dying. It was too late for James though. He had already lost too much blood and spent the entire torture session wondering, "What did I do to deserve this?!?!"

James would never find out that answer as his life slowly started fading away. Right as he saw the darkness creeping up on him he smiled as he knew that the pain would finally end. He had long accepted his situation and death and closed his eyes for the last time. But what shocked him is he actually was able to open his eyes again. What he saw was he was in what seemed like a forested area. The problem was that the forest looked very strange. James walked over to a tree and he noticed it seemed to be made of brown plastic and as he got a closer look at it, saw it was not real at all, it was all fake.

"Hello young man."

The voice boomed from around James and he looked around for the source. It didn't take him long to find it. James saw that from way above him was what seemed to be a man in a red hood, but the hood was completely dark and James couldn't see his face. It was dark enough that he couldn't even tell if the man had a face. But that wasn't the most shocking thing. The man in the hood seemed to be a giant, as James looked around and saw he was standing in what looked like a diorama of some sort and he could see giant structures that he was familiar with in his life. He saw a giant pitcher of water and a pencil the size of a highway.

"Who are you? And where am I??"

"I am the Game Master, and you are in a model of a world I created. Well, more accurately, you're ON a model of a world I created."

As James thought about what he said, something seemed to click in his brain. The fake forest, the giant objects, and the giant hooded man. He was standing on a table and it was filled with makeshift landscapes.

"This looks like a TTRPG map!!!"

"Right you are young man. This is a map I created for a D&D campaign I have been working on."

James couldn't believe it even though it was right in front of him. He was standing on a map created for a D&D campaign. The hooded man slowly shrunk to James' size and took of his hood.

Standing in front of James was a man who looked exactly like Liam Neeson as Qui Gon Jin.

"I am sorry for the circumstances of your death, dear boy. It was more than anyone deserved, let alone an innocent person. To make up for your death which shouldn't have ended that way, I will allow you to be reborn in a world of your choosing."