Welcome to Multiverse #900.000.012.
It was a screen. A very blue, very peculiar screen. I looked up and down it like I would a toad. My gaze, such as it was, roamed the space I suddenly found myself in. Black floors, black walls, and a white ceiling. A little underdone, but tasteful enough, in a minimalistic sort of way. Now, I thought, if only there was a vase right there, the feng shui would be perfect. No sooner had I thought it than viola! A vase appeared, just where I had imagined it. It was terribly impressive, and I told the screen so.
Welcome to Multiverse #900.000.012.
"Not a very talkative fellow, are you. Oh well. I suppose I will have to puzzle out this mystery, as it were." I was quite confident in my pseudo-sleuthing skills. The instincts of countless detective novels flowed through me. I held out my hand and imagined a magnifying glass. And lo! I was a proper detective.
The hunt was afoot.
AH HA!
My first clue! It was terribly exciting. I debated conjuring up a fan to ward off a dramatic swoon, but decided against it.
The floor, the walls and the low-hanging roof were spotless. Perfectly, impossibly so. I'd had a hunch that I wasn't in Kansas anymore, but by Toto! There were no holes for air to get in- not that I needed any, but it was more the principle of the thing. Either whomever trapped me here had prepared this room especially for me, or this was one of many similar cells (I had begun to think of the room as a prison, and rightly so).
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Then there was the odd screen. Multiverse. A theoretical reality which includes a potentially infinite number of universes. Perhaps this had something to do with things appearing willy-nilly. What I really needed was an instruction manual.
AH HA!
Not a moment later, I began pouring over a massive tome. It was dense, penned in a language I couldn't recognize. That should have been impossible. To further demonstrate the impossibility of my situation, I summoned a plate of lemon tarts. Oh my, yes. Impossibly delicious, as I had suspected.
Additionally, the text moved. Not when I could see it, no- I would read a page, look at the vase, look back- and the entire wall of text would be completely different. Now you may be thinking, this is impossible. No Reader, no matter how genius, could possibly make sense of an unfamiliar language in a twenty-pound tome with words that refused to hold still. You would be right, dear Reader. Spot on, in fact. Luckily for the both of us, I am not a mere Reader. I am Author, and I had a hunch.
I turned the tome into a tart and ate it.
Why, you ask? Because my hunches are never wrong. Although sometimes, they give me indigestion.
Immediately, I felt terrible. Have you ever smelled moldy books?
Alright, but have you ever tasted one? Well imagine that, with the addition of a one lemon tart.
Naturally, I was not destined to suffer long. The blue screen flickered, and my tummyache vanished.
You have digested the Multiverse #900.000.012 Instruction Manual.
New Title: [Hungry Scholar] gained!
New Trait: [Devourer] gained!
"Hullo, what? What are you trying to say, chap?" The screen had returned to its uninspiring, inert state. Really, an uncooperative fellow. I huffed and showed the screen my nose. That would teach it.
Title, though. And Trait, no less.
It seemed someone, or something, was trying to make a fool out of me. I had been shoved into a game without forewarning, was given a rulebook I couldn't read, and now there were "Titles" and "Traits".
Yes, a game. That's exactly what it was! I, enamored as I was with the glory of sudden inspiration, almost didn't notice the room begin to change.