Two entities gazed down at a world.
It was a world like very few others, the first entity mused. It could not, in all its vast memory, recall anything similar to this world. And yet, it very carefully did not commit to the thought that it was a world like no other.
It was not a spheroid, like most worlds. It was not a disk carried on the backs of any mammals or reptiles. It was not a ring-shaped ribbon surrounding a star.
No. This particular world was shaped like a large strip formed out of small rectangles, and shaped into a large square. Each of the rectangles inside held a different terrain. The entity could see rectangles containing forests, swamps, deserts, caves, and even a city or two.
The entity itself was vast and shapeless, as infinite in space as it was eternal in time. And yet, if anyone was looking, it also gave the distinct impression of an aging man wearing a brown tweed jacket, black corduroy pants, and black dress shoes. Its non-existent face was decorated by a well-groomed conceptual goatee and fashionable (several millennia ago) pince-nez glasses.
The entity’s name was as vast and unknowable as its owner, and for the sake of the medium these words appear on, it will be simply referred to as “The Professor”.
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“Well, Professor?” Asked the second entity. “What do you think?”
The question was not, of course, asked with words. The entities were far beyond the need for such crude means of communication, and even if they were, there was no air in which sound could propagate between them.
The second entity itself was at the same time as vast, shapeless, infinite and eternal as the first, and yet so vastly younger and simpler that the difference could hardly be understood. Its theoretical body was tall and lanky, wearing torn jeans and a T-shirt decorated by a logo for a band that might exist someday in a hypothetical alternate universe.
Its name, just like The Professor’s, was incomprehensible and maddening. It shall be referred to as “The Student”.
“It is an intriguing concept,” The Professor contemplated. “Risky, too. If it doesn’t work, you will fail and will have to waste the next few millennia retaking the class.”
“But if it works, I will have aced the class!”
“You always were the gambling sort, I supposed. Very well then. How do you plan for the players to move between the spaces?”
“I have two planned methods, Professor. I can let them move a set number of spaces every time, but my favored option is to randomize each move.”
“Of course it is. Very well. You may allocate two souls for the first test of your Realm.”
“Thank you, Professor. I promise you will not be disappointed!”
The Student vanished, eager to start the next phase of his term paper, leaving The Professor to gaze contemplatively down at his game board world.
“I wonder,” The Professor mused to itself. “Just how, precisely, do you plan to randomize the move?”
No answer was coming, of course, but The Professor still curled its immaterial lips up in a smile.
“Either way, this one is certain to be interesting.”