Where the hell am I? Jeb thought, scanning the area. It was a featureless black void that seemed to stretch into infinity.
Did I get tossed into the Dead Zone or something?
No, that's not right.
There was something there, making Jeb’s eyes water and gum up as he tried to make sense of things his brain couldn’t fully fathom. It hurt to look at them, like ultraviolet light, causing pain but not causing his pupils to contract, because they couldn’t tell it was there.
Jeb’s heart kicked into high gear as he scanned the inky blackness and realized he was completely surrounded by these invisible things.
Is this where I get torn apart by extradimensional predators, like the langoliers or something? Jeb thought, staring hard at the invisible something directly in front of him, his heart trying to leap out of his throat.
No Myst, but maybe I can dodge the first attack and hit them with a point blank fireball...Jeb thought, his thumb turning the rangefinder on his wand as he stared straight ahead, trying to maximize the pain and discomfort in his eyes, the only sense he had of the strange things surrounding him.
If the pain fluctuated, that meant they were moving. That would be the time to dodge.
Jeb’s breath came in fits and starts as the pain slowly grew, radiating through his skull until his head felt too small to contain it all.
Jeb felt a tickle under his nose.
He smelled blood.
“Ah, but it did happen, even if it mostly didn’t.” a faint voice echoed through Jeb’s ears and mind simultaneously. It was a woman’s voice, with a strange metallic tinge to it. It tasted like motor oil.
Jeb blinked his stinging eyes as the amorphous thing in front of him gradually faded into view.
A woman, perhaps twelve feet tall, with orange skin, wearing absolutely nothing. She was more intimidating than erotic though, as she had magnificent horns resting on the top of her head, black rings around her eyes and lips, and massive streaks of a black, tar-like substance seemed to ooze from her breasts and dribble down her body, smelling of brimstone.
Her hair was composed of thick black horse-hair strands that gleamed with an oily residue.
Beside her was a pale, skeletal creature that reminded Jeb strongly of the operators in the treasure room. He was wearing rich gold and black silks that stood out against his pale skin.
The lipless creature glanced at Jeb and then above and behind him. Jeb followed the creature’s gaze and spotted more creatures sitting behind him.
A C.L.G. (Creepy Little Girl) sat on a cutesy chair, her clothes and furniture seemingly wriggling with barely contained tendrils of something not good.
There was a crag-faced man with thick scaly skin and no hair, scowling at the lipless creature over Jeb’s head.
Jeb’s attention was torn fromt eh dozen or so fantastical creatures when the lipless one spoke again.
“I agree, this may have occurred within a Pharos’ Knot, but it did happen, and frankly I’m more interested in seeing what happens if these particular humans are introduced to the world at large.” The lipless creature said.
“Should we change the name then? Inordinately Difficult doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it? No, this tutorial was labeled as impossible because it’s never been completed.” The crag-faced man with no shirt said. “It should stay that way.”
“Besides,” the thick-skinned creature continued, pointing at Jeb, “they cheated.”
“You know as well as I do that there are no ‘rules’ to a tutorial. Only a goal and the tools to achieve it.”
“But they left the tutorial. That has to be cheating.”
“Once again, there’s never been a Law against it, because escape from the exclusion zone had never been done before. It was our failure to predict the possibility, not his.” The horned woman said, staring at the thick-skinned creature with the sharp teeth. “If there’s no Divine Law against it, it must be allowed.”
“No rule that says a dog can’t play basketball,” Jeb blurted, nerves getting the better of him.
“It can perceive us,” the C.L.G. behind Jeb said cheerfully. “Precocious little guy, isn’t he?”
The attention of no less than a dozen entities that Jeb was fairly certain could squish him like a bug were suddenly directed towards him in a focused way that made Jeb regret opening his mouth. Jeb’s teeth clicked together.
“Do you have anything to say, Jebediah Trapper?”
“If it’s not too much to ask, could I know what’s happening?” Jeb asked as politely as possible.
“You’re in between possibilities while we decide whether or not to destroy you.” The CLG said with a grin.
“It’s our job to prune the branches of fate every now and then,” The lipless creature said, looking down at Jeb. “We are deciding whether or not to allow this outlandish outcome where you successfully finished the impossible tutorial, to become reality.”
“It’s a rather juicy cloud of Fate. Most Jebediah Trappers died, after all,” The thick skinned creature said, crossing his arms, which grated against each other. “Why should we go out of our way to fix this outcome as reality when we could derive so much Impact from ending him here?”
“You’re just saying that because your pet projects performed better in different realities.”
The thick skinned creature grumbled.
A floating creature that hadn’t spoken until now raised its voice. It looked like dew on a spider-web, that glittered strangely in time with its words.
“The question you’re failing to ask is how did the paradox begin?” the dew-covered web spoke. “Paradox by definition is impossible without outside influence. While you were bickering, I traced the error back to its source. It was an information paradox, where Jebediah Trapper was informed of the existence of the treasure room by himself, who had already
