The Framework - Dodge and Kylan: Initiation (A LitRPG Adventure)

Dodge has spent his whole life reading about people with extraordinary abilities. He never expected to become one until an ordinary afternoon at the Getty Museum turns into anything but. Kylan is everything Dodge isn't: confident, athletic, the kind of person who commands a room without trying. When she asks the school's resident Dickens obsessive for help with an English paper, neither of them expects much to come of it. But somewhere between illicit museum photos and stories about the people they carry with them, something shifts. Two people who should have nothing in common start to realize they might have everything in common. Then the Framework finds them. In an instant, Dodge and Kylan are ripped from their ordinary lives and dropped into a training dungeon, a living, breathing simulation of Victorian London, stalked by undead and worse. Stat sheets. Skills. A Synergy Perk that binds them together whether they like it or not. The rules are simple: grow strong enough to survive, or don't survive at all. The nerd and the jock never had a reason to know each other. Now they're each other's only chance of making it out alive. A LitRPG adventure built on Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying system, where survival depends less on stats and more on who's got your back. Author's Update (9/12/2026): After reviewing all 18 chapters together, I found some continuity errors, math errors in the skill updates, etc., so went back and made some revisions. Nothing key to the plot, but some character improvements in the interaction between Dodge and Kylan, as well as bringing Kylan more to the front in some scenes. Author's Note (AI Use): I use Claude (an AI assistant) as an editing and brainstorming partner for pacing feedback, scene structure, talking through plot problems. All prose, worldbuilding, and character work are mine; nothing here is AI-generated text.