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Mythos / The Game of the World
Ch 1 - Confusion, Exploration, and a Raccoon

Ch 1 - Confusion, Exploration, and a Raccoon

I wake up, my mind in disarray. My memories, my chaotic memories, of growing up and loving, of befriending and making enemies, of being betrayed by those very same loved ones, and finally going insane and killing until I, myself, was put down as if a demon from the hells, all revealed in their truth to me. My life as I knew it was, quite literally, a lie, I realise, a fabrication to prepare me for what is to come, I reason.

After recalling all of my frankly horrible life, having a tiny anxiety attack, crying my eyes out, and going crazy all over again, I chuckle, as from what I could glean from trying to kill myself, is that I can't do it! Ha! Take that, Jade, I'm a goddess! Maybe, though, I should stop thinking and start to, at the very least check out where I am, no?

Well, as I stand up, I notice firstly the sheer enormity of the room I was in, with it's vaulted ceilings and massive statues, but my favorite part of it by far was the gardens. Every two corpse-lengths or so there's a beautiful garden full of alien plants and... A raccoon? I guess those guys really are everywhere, but there's no trash here, silly little cat-bear. As I reach down I also notice something else new, my ridiculously long hair changes color... Based on my mood? It's always flashing random colors, but I'm pretty screwed up, so I guess that's accurate. I bend over to pick up the 'coon, strangely enough, though, the animal didn't struggle or even try to run away, merely looked on with a sad looking expression.

As I try to touch the raccoon, my hands phase through it, as if a ghost. Though speaking... Thinking of ghosts, what am I? According to this strange urge inside me, my memories are fake, and I accept that, but now I'm just confused. Figures. Confusion seems to be my natural state now, for example, just now I realized that this hallway doesn't end. Now my hair's turning rainbow. Wow. The raccoon's gone, though I somehow doubt it ever existed at all.

I look up, understandably confused, and realize that A, I'm naked, though that really doesen't matter because there's nobody else around. At all. Well, with the notible exception of those statues, I mean, they're all different, every one of them, but I'm getting sidetracked. B is that I literally recognise none of the species depicted in the statues, or even any of the plants in the gardens.

How in Fiken did I get here? Wait, that doesen't work because I've been here the entire time, soo... what am I really? Y'Know what, screw it. I'm just gonna go with being a goddess until proven otherwise.

I cup my hands to my mouth and shout, "HEY, ANYBODY HERE?" as loud as I can... lo and behold, that's ridiculously loud, evidenced by the ringing in my ears. I lean back against the wall next to the statue of Johann Jans, juggler extraordinare, and giggle my breath away, "That was fun!" I laugh, proceeding to do it many more times until my voice is hoarse.

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Time doesen't seem to pass in this place, considering this entire space is an interior area, but about seventy-three yells later I finally get the motivation to do something else, in the form of an even weirder statue than Johann, who is now my friend, or even Jebus. This one looks like a tree made up of eyeballs, and I just realized that I don't feel tired. The tree's plaque says something along the lines of The Sea See Tree 3C, which makes me wonder, What happened to the sea? It has to have existed somewhere, but I can see no exits in this hallway at all, and I've been wandering from statue to statue for around... six hundred shouts?

But wait... There's a doorway over here, Between Gem Kantori and Beelzebabs. I creep over to it and peek inside, but what I see suprises me, as, dissimilar to the rest of this place I've been in, this area is, or at least, looks, to be open air, a glade in the midst of a grand forest. I peek inside as i begin to wonder if there are ANY people here, but that line of thinking was interrupted by a new realization of the room i was in. I found the wall, and it's just a bunch of arched doorways leading to... a bunch of stairways. Huh. By the way, the room's hexagonal with two doors on each side.

I'm climbing up those stairs. I will. Im just... irrationally scared of stairways. Don't laugh! Damnit, I hoped that had gone away with my new body. seems like I won't be going up there anytime soon but... The next side has a ramp. Well, I guess that problem's solved, to be totally honest I was completely considering just leaving it alone, but alas, I need to find someone to explain the raccoon. Poor guy.

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Moving up the stairs- *Ahem* Ramp, I let out a fit of nervous laughter, for there is a mural on the ramp... of stairs. ugh, it's giving me the creeps, but on the positive note, or negative, depending on whether you like stairs or not, is there a stairway fetish? Well, I certainly wouldnt know. Anyways, I figured out that there wasn't much to figure out, I read the writing on the walls, literally, there's a bunch of green glowing writing on the walls, I mean, I have no idea what it says, but that does tell me that I have no idea what this place is by design rather than me just being an idiot.

The view from the second floor is actually pretty nice, each of the archways showing a different view, whether that view be of purple clouds covering the ground at the foot of a glorious sunset, viewed from far above, or a glade, in a forest overlooking a lake, water shining in the moonlight of stars, which are closer than they appear. I take a moment to admire the views, feeling an emotion which I had felt only once, one described to me by others, as awe.

As I lean towards one of the portals, I begin to lose my balance and I fall through a strange place, as if I were being within myself, or two places at once. Falling, falling, until I reach the bottom, the grove where I started.

"Well shit," I say to myself, "Why am I back here?" I ask. The answer lies in the fact that- actually, I have no idea what just happened, so I decide to just get up, dust myself off, and get the hell out of there.

Right out the door, which is actually an archway, I walk to the left, and weirdly enough, I see a little black and white ringed tail sticking out of some of the plants in the middle of the hall. "Hey you, Get back here!" I yell at it while running after, wind rushing against my naked form, making me shiver and stumble a bit.

"Why are you running?" I ask, crashing through the gardens in search of this fatass lemur. While I cannot, seemingly, get tired, I can, however, get bored; so I, the genius that I am, decide to stop adding commas, and focus on the point, which is... I forgot. I walk over and hug a statue, Badonk Joe, Pioneer Of The Downs, a lovely huggable figure, though 6/10, too hard.

I peek back over at where the trash panda is watching me, his fat body sagging off of the limb upon which he rests. "What do you want from me, demon?" I question, and it answers me.

"This one wishes to guide you in this place." It offers, and I release Mr Joe to step closer to this guiding spirit or whatever it is.

"Why are you talking in the third person? I'm the crazy one here, shouldn't I be doing that?"

"Well you could if you wish, this one has to, master makes him..." The weird spirit raccoon sighs and shivers, almost at the same time, "anyways, we have to get going, Master will explain everything to you."

I hold up my hands, "Wait wait wait wait wait why?" I yell, running after him, down the endless hall. About three gardens later, I catch a glimpse of a dark area in one of the statue niches, definitely not a statue. So, I take the least logical course of action and go in the exact opposite direction, towards the statue niche that's empty, titled The Narrator.

And, as I had completely forgotten about the little raccoon guy, it took me by total suprise when I got practically tackled to the back of the head by a fur missle of fat and fluff. I, of course, being the unstable person that I am, fell off of the pedastal, in the direction of the door, so the wrong way, and flopped onto the floor and the ghostly raccoon. Strangely enough, I felt resistance, enough to break my fall. I also heard a loud-ass squeak from behind my head.

"Oi wait!" The shout comes along with much scrabbling, "Don't just leave like that, She'll get angry!" The masked floofer panics.

"And why should I listen to you?" I ask, turning my head as the fat bandit skitters back towards me.

"Wait, just wait, Master's right in this door, please, I'll be destroyed!" It now clings on to my leg, strangely heavy and dense, magic? Anyways, this guy... I mean, I don't want to be the reason of his demise, guess I'll come.

"I'll come, but what exactly is that room? It gives me bad vibes." And it was true, the room was practically radiating unease. "By the way, do you have a name?"

"Nope," He says as he opens the door, which I hadn't even noticed we approached. This grand reveal opens to a rather cozy looking study, with a high ceiling and a library in the back, also a fireplace, I like fireplaces.

And... "M-more stairs? Shit." I murmur to myself. A pair of flights go up near the sides of the room, close to the library-esque walls, leading to a catwalk and a loft.

"What did you say?" The 'coon asks, and then realises that I'm shaking. So what? I can't help it! "Are you fine?"

I do a bit of a doubletake as he asks my condition, myself starting to panic a bit, "I'm fine, just, let's go this way!" And as I move to the door on the other side of the room, my guide speaks up,

"The master is this way though..." Then he sees where I'm going and his beady little eyes open wide, "I wouldn't suggest going-"

I open the weirdly carved wooden door, a relief of tentacles and culinary prowess, and walk into a room straight out of a less crazy person's nightmare.

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