Erin Solstice walks into her bathroom one night and she's suddenly in a cave dodging dragon fire. Quickly followed by running from little green people, who can only be goblins, until she finds an abandoned inn to hide in. Erin's not the only one who suddenly finds themselves alone in a world populated by several intelligent races, lots of monsters, dungeons, and where people have classes and skills. Erin, for instance, promptly becomes an [Innkeeper]. The storylines mostly center on the old inn that Erin dubs The Wandering Inn and the nearby city of Liscor that is about to have a very exciting, strange, and sometimes horrifying year. The discovery of a new dungeon draws several groups of silver-ranked adventurers to Liscor in search of artifacts and treasure. A young goblin discovers that not all humans are the enemy, the insectoid Antinium discovers that playing chess with Erin allows them to develop individuality, and a homeless [Mage] turns out to be a brilliant [Necromancer]. Welcome to the soap opera that is The Wandering Inn.
The first person from Earth we meet is Erin as she blunders her way along trying to survive. It's a little like watching a train wreck. I didn't actually like Erin as a person; however, I was quickly drawn into this story of a crazy woman making friends with a few humanoid drakes and insectoid Antinium, while generally living down to the human stereotypes hated by gnolls and drakes in general. She eats random fruits, traps exploding acid flies to feed as a menu item, and dodges giant stone crab-like monsters. She should be dead a hundred times over in the first week, but that's sort of the point. She levels even though she has no idea how it works, and it turns out that the system isn't always logical and it frequently acts as a comedic punctuation to the action.
On the other hand, the other main character in the book, Ryoka Griffon, does much more interesting things while completely rejecting the class advancement system. She's a city runner by occupation because she was a competitive runner in high school. Her job is to transport messages or small packages from city to city. She's a sullen loner with a gift for making enemies in her guild. She's also the fastest [Runner] in the human city of Celum, except that she doesn't have the class. One of the most coveted delivery runs is to a powerful noble [Lady] named Magnolia who quickly realizes there's something odd about Ryoka and it isn't long until her persuasive skills have the suspicious Ryoka admitting she's from another world. To escape Magnolia's machinations, as well as the murderous ire of another [Runner], she takes a strange and dangerous delivery request that gets her mixed up with a dragon and the infamous [Necromancer] Az'Kerash. Along the way she ends up meeting the Horns of Hammerad a silver-ranked adventuring team.
The Horns consist of their leader Calruz, a minotaur [Warrior], the half-elf Ceria, a [Mage], and several others. They met Ryoka when she delivered potions to them in a dungeon mid-fight, which they found amazing. That's because most [Runners] won't enter the dungeon itself, let alone dodge a Crypt Lord firing off spells to make a delivery. When Ryoka ia later severely injured by an envious [Runner], Ceria contacts an old acquaintance for help, the homeless Pisces. He's not a healer but rather a [Necromancer] and can manipulate broken bones back into position. Healing potions do a lot, but they can't reposition bones or remove arrowheads etc. Pisces and Ceria admit they met as students at the prestigious Wistram Academy for mages, which the imported humans keep comparing to Hogwarts.
My favorite storyline in the series follows a young goblin female that Erin dubs "Rags" because that's what she's wearing. Although wary, the young [Scavenger] is drawn in by Erin's offer of free food. The life of a goblin is hard. They are small, breed quickly, and mature in only three years because literally everything in the world is trying to kill them. In fact, most cities pay adventurers to hunt down goblins. So Rags is desperate to survive and decent food is hard to come by when your tribe considers losing fifteen of their number bringing down a rock crab to be a successful hunt. While at Erin's inn eating the best food she's ever had, Rags learns to play chess and gains a second class [Tactician] which she's never heard of among goblins. She listens to the adventure's staying at the inn and Erin even convinces her annoying [Necromancer] guest Pisces to test Rags for magic. He's astonished when she immediately picks up the [Light] spell. As a [Scavenger], [Tactician], and [Mage] Rags is a prodigy among goblins who only know shamanic magic and have common classes. But what will she do with it?
The Wandering Inn is the start of an addictive fantasy soap opera. How were Ryoka and Erin pulled to this world from Earth and most importantly, why? Ryoka at least is smart enough to avoid attention for the most part, while everything Erin does calls attention to her strangeness. Erin's friends don't understand her compassion towards goblins or how she can be a master at the game called chess that was only invented a year ago? What will happen when the adventurers awaken the monsters hiding in this new dungeon that appears to be an ancient crypt and what powerful artifacts and treasure do they guard? Let's just say pirateaba, the author, doesn't always give you the plot twists and endings you expect.
This is also available in audiobook form narrated by Andrea Parsneau, who is a veteran narrator who gets many positive reviews.