The strange man awoke with a start, as thunder roared outside. He sat up, heart pounding in his chest and looked around, seeing an unfamiliar room, no not just a room, a library? He shook his head in confusion and looked toward a flash of light, just as another boom of thunder sounded, to see a small window in the light of the lightning flashes, and rain through the window. He took a deep breath to calm his heartbeat before peering around himself for a moment, noticing the air was very dry, though the temperature seemed to be comfortable enough, and smelled of dust and paper. One of his favorite smells. "A dark and stormy night? How cliche." he murmured to himself.

He slowly stood up, and as he did so a small lantern slowly lit with a soft, warm glow. As the lantern grew brighter, he could see more of his immediate surroundings. There were rows of shelves going off into the darkness, all filled with books of every description he could think of. The lantern was sitting on a medium sized table with a chair pulled out beside it, an open book in front of the chair, and what appeared to be a mummified corpse dressed in rather rich looking robes sitting in the chair.

"And a corpse in a chair, the cliches keep coming." He said to himself as he looked around again, trying to pierce the darkness around him to see if there were any further cliches trying to jump out at him. Not seeing any he approached the table, noting that it appeared to be set somewhere in the center of the library, with a second chair opposite the occupied one. The chair and table appeared to be very well made, and the chair itself looked to be comfortable enough to spend long amounts of time in. He glanced at the corpse, and snorted at his thought, "Maybe not that much time though."

He moved over toward the end of the table to examine the corpse a little closer and as he approached, the lantern grew a bit brighter, giving full light to the book laying open upon the table. The words in the book were unintelligible to the stranger. He grunted, shaking his head, and looked closer at the corpse. The corpse had been a man, if the long gray beard was any indicator, with what were probably hawkish features, prior to his death and subsequent mummification. The robes he was wearing were very well made, and even now appeared to be in good shape and of high quality, colored in subdued reds and greens. There were rings of different types and apparent quality on several of the corpse's fingers, and a medallion about the size of a sand dollar made of some silvery metal, inlaid with gold, and inscribed with some form of runic writing.

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

As the stranger finished looking over the medallion, he was unsurprised to see it begin to glow softly with an odd light that seemed to draw in the darkness. As he watched, the darkness faded, and the library became visible. The corpse also started filling out, reversing its mummification, leaving an old man, with piercing gray eyes, with, as the stranger suspected, hawkish features. The stranger took a step back and chuckled softly to himself, as he appraised the old man in front of him, and softly said "I must be trapped in some kind of messed up dream, cliches everywhere. I have got to stop reading trash fantasies before I go to sleep."

The old man gave the stranger a piercing look as he made his quiet declaration, drew a breath, and croaked out, with a voice that wavered slightly from disuse, "Do you remember who you are, young man?" The stranger stopped and stared at the old man, thinking frantically, and shook his head, his stomach twisting, a feeling that this may not be a dream washing over him, before crying out "Great! Now I'm the damned cliche!" The old man raised an eyebrow and croaked out, "I don't know what you mean by that young man, but I have little time to explain. So if you would be so kind as to take a seat in the chair across from me, I will explain as much as I can in the time available to us."

The stranger stared at the old man in disbelief, before rapidly shaking his head, feeling his skin tighten as fear started to take hold, his breathing starting to become ragged, as he came to the realization that this was not a dream, that somehow, he had actually somehow been transported to this library! The old man frowned fiercely saying "We don't have time for your hysterics young man! Calm down!" as he pointed at the stranger and a softly glowing ray of light extended from his boney finger. The stranger attempted to back away from the ray, but was struck on the chest, the glow of the ray enveloping him, his fear seemed to be dampened, not gone, just held behind a barrier. His heart slowed and his breathing became less labored. He looked down to the glow surrounding him, then to the old man, and thought to himself, 'Great, a wizard, another cliche.'

The old man said, "Better now? Good!" and croaked out a laugh, before continuing, "Take a seat young man, we have even less time now than we did before, and I have a lot of information to impart to you!" The stranger took a sighing breath, looking down toward his feet, noticing for the first time that he was wearing clothes that were strange to him. He looked up again, thinking, 'At least they're comfortable' as he moved toward the chair, pulled it out, and sat down with as much dignity and poise as he could summon. The old man smiled, and said, "Welcome to your Library!"