Chapter 1
✦ ✦ ✦
“BE THE HERO of your own adventure!”
When I was a student, those words captured my imagination. I must have spent hours and hours playing tabletop role-playing games. Honestly, there were plenty of times when I wished more than anything for a chance to become one of the heroes laid out on my character sheets—the personas that I spent so much time role-playing.
But I never seriously thought that wish could ever come true.
Least of all at an age when both heroes and adventures had long since lost their appeal.