The air was danker than a thousand dead skunks rotting in the summer sun and the lights were dimmer than a castrated discotheque.

Where was it?

Well, it was certainly somewhere. In that somewhere it was night... because it was always night in the where that was that somewhere.

It wasn't just any night either - rain poured like a torrent and storm clouds were looming overhead, blotting out the sky and stars with a glooming gloaming. There was no torchlight to bounce up and off the clouds, either, save for a few faint green glows of some sort of strange alchemical substance that none of the dark, disturbing cretins lurking around in the periphery of the where could identify.

To clarify something about the where is, it was a very particular where - a confined area. In the parts of Nomachiato, and in general the greater Gifflenberg area (for that was wherein this where was tertiarily located), it was about the middle of the day, and was bright and sunny outside. There were birds chirping, indeed there was even a cluster of tamavens flying through the air with a bale of hay held up by strings tethered between the lot of them. The important thing to understand here is that, while the where itself was quite dark and nasty, the where that was only a few paces away from the where was actually quite nice, and indeed quite pleasant. The real problem was that there happened to be a bit of a dome-shaped protrusion that encapsulated this foul where from the nice where so that there was always this where that, from within, seemed to be almost nowhere.

Deep inside the nastiness of this nowhere, there was a tall, jagged tower. A tower covered in enormous cobwebs, surrounded by buckets and buckets of [enchantments] and powers and all sorts of absurd magical properties that would probably take a whole book and a half to describe on their own.

The most interesting of this endless myriad was the [Stratifier] [enchantment] applied to the tower. This [enchantment] was actually applied in several different ways, using several different methods - all of which were incredibly powerful to the point that many taumans, if they even tried such an enchantment, would instantly wither away and die. Yes, that was something that could happen - and quite easily, indeed, if one was not prepared to handle the full brunt and power of an [enchantment]. Now, one thing to understand fully is that, oftentimes at least, systems would do something referred to as semi-railroading wherein they'd prevent their users from accidentally killing themselves with overpowered [enchantment] attempts by not presenting them visual cues that there was such an option, and by heavily hinting that they should not. Depending on the brashness of the system user, some systems would even prevent people from using [enchantments] that could end their life. That being said, regardless of all this, there [Stratifier] [enchantment] was one such semi-deadly [enchantment] that was employed throughout the tower. It was been used to make the tower's structure more angular, it had been used to make the insects that dwelled on and within the tower very strange and distorted looking, and indeed also more powerful and deadly. It had been used to decorate and heighten the tower to its most extreme form, and finally, it allowed the tower to be much larger on the inside than on the outside. This wasn't a wildly uncommon use for [Stratifier], however, the real problem was that this same function applied to the dome wherein this where was contained, so in effect two spaces existed nested within one another wherein the one inside was always larger. That is to say that, the area to gloomy dome covered was big, but the area inside the dome was bigger, and the area inside the tower inside the dome was bigger than the tower and also bigger than the dome. It was a very large tower interior, and teeming with all sorts of fanciful oil paintings and lots of salacious sculptures that were, in many ways, incredibly distracting, sometimes distressing, and almost always decidedly uncomfortable to behold.

It's also important to note that the tower did not look like any normal tower. It looked like a large structure with three spikes up into the air, and at the end of each tall spike was a big, silver orb. What these orbs were for, absolutely no one knew - however, they did house nonfunctional bell-towers. And all this was quite interesting, but not even half of it was as interesting as the huge carving on the front of the tower. See, there was this enormous carving of a large eyeball, with carved fish swimming around in the iris as if it were but a pool of water.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Surrounding the tower was a moat filled with acid. Thankfully, there were plenteous drawbridges leading to the tower, so that no one had to wade through the waters and start hallucinating as soon as they got into the tower - although sometimes their horses would start feeling a little silly from backsplash as they traveled over the drawbridges.

Within the walls of the tower there was a courtyard. It was mainly not that remarkable, although there was a lot of expensive things in there. A lot of these things, many folk didn't even realize actually existed. That is to say that the courtyard was teeming with said-to-be mythological artifacts that were, in fact, not actually mythological as much as they were, in actuality, legendarily but also quite real indeed. There was the Iron Beaver Tail of Dahmn Hughe, the Perpetually Scalding Hot Chamber Pot, and the Screaming Weasel of the Occident, to name a few key items. None of these were actually expected to exist, and yet at the same time, all had very specific histories that included lots of little details that would easily prove, to anyone beholding these items, that they were indeed incredibly legitimate.

In the courtyard, there was a hallway. This hallway was pretty boring, most of its doors led to different sets of spiral staircases that lead up to gods knew where. However, there was also a bookshelf in this hallway. A bookshelf that held on it a book, a book with a big eyeball painted on its spine. If one were to pull this faux-book out, the bookshelf itself would immediately shuddered and jolt and silde aside to reveal stone steps down into the darkness. Down into this darkness there was, surprise surprise, yet another hallway. And this hallway was exceptionally long, it was the kind of hallway you walked into and that, five or so minutes later, you were still walking down that hallway. Many people assumed that the length of this hallway was a direct problem created as the result of people overdoing it with the [Stratifier] [skill], but soon enough after plenty of negative correction they were able to realize that the architect of the tower indeed simply liked hallways, especially long ones. Longer the better, they had said.

At the far end of the far hallway was a tall, imposing wooden door covered in steel refinements. And on the other side of the door, was where it was all happening.

Glathalia hung her head low as she addressed the Grand Low Jester, a mysterious figure in the upper levels of seniority in the Order of Ahw Gizer. They were wearing a shrouded cloak that completely hid their form in shadows. In their lap sat a feline with three eyes - two in the normal spot, and one in the middle of their forehead.

"HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAAAAA... Is all this really true, Glathalia?" The Grand Low Jester cackled maniacally as they petted their 'cat.' You're telling me that this... Omar let a consumer into one of our meeting grounds? HAHAHAAA? With you present? HAH? Am I correctly understanding the story that you've just relayed to me?"

"I assure you, your Jesteriness, I had no idea what he'd done until-"

"HAHHHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHA! Shut the fuck up! HAHAHAHA! Do you think this is FUNNY or something?! HA!"

"Um, no, I don-"

"HAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAA! Well I think it's fucking hilarious."

"Oh," Glathalia said with a nod and a pained smile. "I'm glad that-"

"I'm joking, you fucking idiot! HAHAHAHAHAAAA! How the fuck could I laugh at such a heinous failure of our security? Seriously, Glathalia, it's one thing from Omar. You know he's a bit of a wildcard. Whereas me, and you? We know one another, Galthalia. HAHAHAHAHAAA! You know how seriously I take this, right? I mean, you do realize that this is serious business? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAAA!"

"Yes," said Glathalia, clearing her throat. "I know that this is serious."

"HAAAAHAHAHAHAAAA! Good. Glad to hear that. If you didn't, I'd have to rip off all your skin, fry it, and feed it to the Skin Chicken. HAHAHAAAA! Understand?"

"Yes." Glathalia hated talking to the Grand Low Jester, but he had in her a captive audience.

"HAHAHAHA! Great. HAH! So, with that, I've got a few tasks for you. First things first, you're going to need to attend a few security seminars with the Brain Bending Entity. Understood?"

Glathalia felt her skin crawl, remembering the last time she attended one of those seminars and what the Brain Bending Entity (abbrev: BBE) did to her perception of self. Stilll, she forced herself to nod.

"Great, HAHAHAAAAA!" replied the Grand Low Jester. "Next, there is the question of what we will do with Omar."

"What we'll do with him? What do you mean?" Glathalia looked confused.

"Well, HAHAHA, let me just HAHAHAHHAAA clarify it all for you. See, he's crossed the line. We've got to snip this in the bud before Omar becomes a full blown dangersome person to the Order, now don't we?"

Suddenly, Glathalia felt a tinge of pain and regret. She knew what was coming.

"Of course we don't - HAHAHAHAAAA! With that, here's an easy ask for you. HAAAAHAAA! I need you to destroy him. He's got to be so dead he won't even be able to come back as an undead skeleton. HAHAHAHAAHAHAAAA!"

Glathalia swallowed air again in pain. "Understood, your Jersteriness. Understood."