“Forget finding out how I got here, the biggest mystery’s where the hell that music’s coming from. And who do I have to kill to get it to shut up...”

Solon rolled his eyes. He had yet to learn anything relevant about his mysterious, presumably alien captor, or captors. The only thing he knew, actually, was that they seemed to have a single album, and were psychopathic enough to play it in a loop. ‘Blowing in the wind’ was a nice enough song, until you had to listen to it for the 17th time -why, yes, he was bored enough to have bothered counting- in what felt like not even half as many hours. Worse yet, the fact he had nothing else to do aside from listening to it made it all the worse.

”... my friend, is blowin’ in the wind,

The answer is blowin’ in the wind.”

“Come on!” He pointlessly barked at the wall. “How about you blow th-”

The words died on his lips as he felt the roof on top of him shifting. His eyes immediately darted towards it, drawn in by an invisible force. The previously impeccable whiteness was now marred by shifting, worming lines, dots, and some sort of curved characters that vaguely reminded him of Sanskrit. Which was pretty strange, in and of itself. He was fairly certain his proficiency in Sanskrit was about on par with his expertise on mathematical K-theory, meaning he knew its name, and little else.

Even more bizarrely, though, as he focused on the moonrunes, he found out he could actually understand what was written. Suffice it to say, the words were rather puzzling.

“Seriously?”

He blinked several times, as if expecting the first line to change. It didn’t.

‘Kind sir, a sudden Influx and Conjuncture has recently demanded we overextend ourselves, and your profile was unfortunately misplaced as a consequence. However, all is now in order. We sincerely apologize for the delay. Please, at your leisure, feel free to vocalize the following Teachings to begin Integration.*

Thank you for transmigrating with Solon’s Abyssal Express (trademark pending).

*Note to self: You stupid little shit, stop thinking too much and get going before we have to meet IT again! Trust me, we don’t want that!’

Hadn’t his situation been so convoluted -not to mention it involved some sort of auto-explanatory alien script-, he would have guessed he was being victim to the mother of all jokes. As things stood, though, he could only accept that life seemed to have endless potential to get increasingly bizarre.

Talk about a rabbit hole...

For a moment, he internally debated whether to follow the instructions or not. On the one hand, it was all pretty sus, the entire thing essentially claimed to have been left by himself, which he certainly didn’t remember doing. On the other... well, he had to admit that that was exactly the kind of way he would talk to himself, if he thought he was screwing up big time and somehow found himself unable to do anything about it directly. Which was actually a pretty confusing thought.

And another point for me having gone batshit crazy! That’s 2-0 so far, possibly even more, who the fuck knows? Step up your game, me!

Silliness aside, what was the worst that could happen? Sure, if the note really was, well, his own, the implications were uncanny, to say the least, but he could deal with that later... But, that being said, he was already being held prisoner heavens knew where, with nothing to his name but the stinky horrors poorly confined on the other end of his -rather tiny- cell...

In the end, it didn’t take long for him to decide to just go along with whatever manner of insanity was going on.

“Let’s see, I guess this wall of text over here is ‘the Teachings’?” He cleared his throat, scanning the characters a few times, just to make sure he wasn’t about to unwittingly sell his soul to the devil or some crap like that. “Alright. One is the Law,” The words seemed to leave a strange tingling on his lips. “manifold the Delusion...”

A frown marred his brow as he tried -and failed- to decipher what came next. Just a moment prior, everything had been clear, but now a sizable portion of the characters -most of them actually- had just become blurry. Rather, he couldn’t make any sense out of them.

“Uh...”

After hesitating for an instant, however, he just internally shrugged. In for a penny...

“Something, something, ... for Recurrence! Choose wisely, o Dreamer, for... An entiiire paragraph of somethings.”

Feeling somewhat bashful, he coughed.

“...may rescind the Call...” Another cough followed. “Squiggly line, dot, tilted squiggly line over a misshapen circle, to none but thyself!”

When his eyes reached the end of the scripture, -strangely enough, much to the relief of an ego he hadn’t even noticed had been bruised- they finally came across another stretch he could read in one go.

“One is the Mind, manifold the Dream. Awaken, Sublimity!”

As the last word left his lips, much to his surprise -what with him having botched most of the incantation? prayer? fat ass alien joke?-, something did happen.

There was a sudden flash, and a popping sound reminiscent of a bottle being uncorked, only much louder, both of whom made him flinch in pain. A few seconds later, when the residual motes of light stopped bullying his half-blinded retinas, he was left facing what could only be described as a bunch of floating, pitch-black cards.

“Just what the fuck is going on.”

Even as he looked at them, pretty much in complete disbelief, the cards swiftly stacked on top of each other, then the deck got shuffled by an invisible hand... For all intents and purposes, it seemed like an illusionist was setting up a magic show that involved, well, actual magic.

At some unseen cue, the cards stopped moving, then, the deck spread out and slowly hovered towards him. Slightly waving up and down as if nodding in satisfaction, it stopped after coming within arm’s reach.

“Okay...” Solon frowned, following the deck’s slight sway with his eyes. “What now?”

The deck just stayed there, chilling.

After a few breaths, Solon hesitated, reaching out with a hand. “I suppose... I have to pick a card?”

Perhaps it was his eyes playing tricks on him, perhaps not, but, for a moment there, it seemed like the deck’s waving had become a little more enthusiastic.

Good enough. Well, here goes nothing.

After taking a deep breath, fingers that were certainly not shaking closed over the one particular card -indistinguishable from the others-, that had been drawing his attention the entire time. As soon as he touched it, the rest of the deck vanished into thin air. Then, but a blink later, the card morphed, and he was left holding onto a small statuette.

It was a precious thing, the vivid image of a mostly unremarkable man; an old bum of plain features and build, carrying a bindle over his right shoulder. The only things of note about it -and what turned the piece into an absolute work of art- were the little guy’s clothes and expression.

The man was pridefully wearing some sort of thoroughly threadbare, but still boldly colorful tunic that quickly caught the eye. It was so masterfully depicted that Solon actually had to touch it to convince himself it wasn’t well-worn fabric, swaying under the influence of a distant breeze.

Perhaps even more remarkably, though, the old man sported the most carefree and playful grin Solon had ever seen, to the point that he almost felt a pang of jealousy when looking at it. It was so lifelike, in fact, that Solon could almost picture the genial little guy letting out a hearty chuckle, before jumping out of his hand, eager to continue his vagrancies.

That’s probably why, when the figurine shattered under his touch -seemingly for no reason at all-, Solon experienced an unexpected pang of sadness.

Almost on instinct, he crouched down to collect its shards. However, as soon as his skin made contact with any of the broken pieces, they cruelly crumbled into dust. Still, he found himself unable to stop, a part of him perhaps hoping that it could somehow be restored, or perhaps just too stubborn to give up. No matter the case, soon, he was sitting in front of a small pile of multicolored dust, breath somewhat ragged. For some reason, his eyes were slightly moist.

Suddenly, the pile went up in a blaze, making him jump away in surprise. The flames burned with colorful joy, as high as his knees, and were honestly mesmerizing in their multitude of tones and dynamic shapes.

Solon found he couldn’t really enjoy the scene, though, since his first thought when looking at it went to how raging fires, confined spaces, and living beings stereotypically happen to have a rather dysfunctional relationship. He, for one, didn’t fancy the idea of being cooked alive nor, for that matter, asphyxiation.

His new worries were quickly forgotten, though, along with any residual thoughts of him just having been brought on a poorly accommodated trip by the military, or aliens. As he stared at the flames, they suddenly went out with a poof. Then, an eerie, seemingly origin-less fanfare echoed in his ears, and a new set of runes -as different from the ones he had seen before as they were from Cyrillic- appeared before his eyes.

::Integrating...

::Synchronizing preferences...

Congratulations! By finding your Primary Keystone, you have taken a first step along the Path!

May you walk a thousand more leagues, may the winds of fate forevermore blow your way!

Congratulations! As your Primary Keystone, Idol of the Fool has been anointed as your Pathfinder!

Congratulations! Idol of the Fool has been consecrated as Keystone of your Kismet!

New Quest acquired!

New Skill acquired!