Existence involved a lot of paperwork. Not real paperwork, of course, that would be difficult to fill out with no appendages. That was a silly thing to think. No, the mental paperwork of sorting through an encyclopedia's (a book or set of books giving information on many subjects or on many aspects of one subject) worth of information.

Many encyclopedias. Language, science, philosophy, his knowledge was vast. It was not all-encompassing. For example, he did not know the exact mechanism for the flight of birds, but could make educated guesses based on what he knew of their biology. He also knew what birds were. There were topics, like philosophy and logic, that he felt confident enough to debate with a hypothetical opponent; others, like some of the harder sciences, he only knew in the most cursory way.

He would have been frustrated with the irregularities were he more familiar with the subject material. Unfortunately, lacking outside assistance, he simply dealt with what he had. Mentally, he sorted all of the data he possessed by topic. He hoped that this would aid with access later down the line, since he seemed to lack the natural heuristic thought process.

Time passed. In the room there was no frame of reference, so he was unsure how much. The process he was using for 'vision' did not rely on light, so he was even unable to tell the light level of the room he was inside of. This caused a revelation in regards to the diagram that currently held him prisoner. If he was unable to determine light, what was the light coming off the the symbols, then? The bubble that surrounded him, what was it made up of?

Taking conscious control once again of the tone he was making to see, he started to modify it. He tested higher and lower pitches, attempting to determine if it would change his vision. There was still a number of things he didn't know about his new body, and every little bit of information could potentially be put to use later.

Some time passed where nothing obvious changed. Then, as he moved into higher and lower scales, his vision shifted. Where once was blank stone there he now saw became a shimmering multicolored wall. A lower pitch and the room became a sea of blue, with red emanating from underneath the stone door. A consultation with his memories advised him that these were the ultraviolet and infrared spectrum, normally invisible to human vision. That made sense to the internal logic structure he was making. He was an intelligent stone, why should he be limited to something as base as ordinary human vision? Quick experimentation proved that, yes, he could mimic human vision as well. Better to know than be caught unawares.

A flicker, and his normal vision was restored. Even this wasn't the same as what humans saw. The only visible color in the room to him was his own crystal, hues swirling inside as if by a thunderstorm.

Was he never to experience humanity? There was a faint pain inside when he thought that. Curiously, he brought the pain to the surface, tried to experience it fully. He wanted to be human. Sort of. Hell, absent of any conflicting information he'd say that he was human and somewhere along the line lost his humanity. The lack of specific memories made the pain dull, however. It's hard to miss something if you don't know what you're missing, after all.

His determination rebounded. Yes, he was an intelligent floating rock, but by whatever deity held sway in the skies he was not going to be trapped in here forever!

Plans came into fruition. Dismissing the pain he summoned up his will. There had to be something that he could do to change his circumstances, even without arms. The diagram on the floor was his best bet.

During his brief bit of self-reaffirmation, the symbols had continued to do what they had been since his awakening. That is to say, nothing except leak some kind of light/energy. None, or at least very little, of that light/energy split off from the bubble or the symbols, and even the wisps he could make out that did were absorbed into the stone around the diagram.

He figured that the light/energy was his best chance. He was surely being powered by something similar, what with the glowing and all. So, summoning his courage, he flung himself against the bubble, crystal and all.

His new, flagship determination faltered as the crystal that housed his mind did not so much as quiver. The truth of the matter remained, he had nothing to move with. No muscles, no tendons, not even an engine to push him forward on wheels. (where had that come from?) He was trying to move, and it wasn't working.

But he had moved. The humming to see was a form of movement. Movement was not merely a possibility, but an inevitability. He would simply have to consider what made his own personal movement special. He concentrated, attempting to divine the answer from what he knew. What was the mechanism (a natural or established process by which something takes place or is brought about) that facilitated his existence?

Time passed by unnoticed in the lightless chamber. This particular problem was like a puzzle. He had all (or at least most) of the pieces, it was just a matter of making them all fit together in such an interlocked way as to make a complete image. Movement. Space and time. Mental actions. The illogical nature of his existence as an inorganic sentient.

Suddenly, it clicked. Mental action; inorganic nature. He had started humming by thinking about performing the action, not attempting to actually push air through lungs. He could influence the physical words with his thoughts.

That...was an entire messy, philosophically disturbing, and potentially world-shattering can of worms he didn't want to think about at this precise moment. Focus on the immediate, plan when you have the time. He didn't know where that thought came from, but the logic seemed sound enough for now.

With an effort, he cleared his mind. It was an easier process than he thought it'd be, but then again he assumed that lacking the chemical processes of a human mind allowed him to be more orderly, mentally speaking. The door became the focus for his attention. That was his only egress from this room. It was his chance.

He willed himself forward.

The immediate effect Was a notable draining sensation. Upon observation, the light inside of his crystal dimmed considerably. Whatever light/energy made up his 'soul', for lack of a better term, was being consumed.

More importantly, however, he was moving. Barely perceptible, his crystal shifted in the air, slowly closing the distance between the edges of the bubble that surrounded him and his own form. Hopefully, the ball of light/energy that encapsulated him was as insubstantial as it seemed. He was about to find out, at any rate.

After a seeming eternity which could not have spanned longer than a minute, the crystal made the faintest touch on the sphere. In an instant the diagram beneath him flared, the bubble responding in kind.

Pain filled his mind. It was like a chorus of people standing in a circle around him, screaming while stabbing. His thinking process locked up, unable to cope. His vision failed. Mentally he let out a tortured scream.

There was a wrenching sensation, and the pain disappeared, it's sudden absence as distorting to his psyche as the sudden onset agony had been. For a long while he floated, numb with relief, reduced to the darkness that he had started with.

He was well and truly trapped. Someone clearly had not wanted him to leave the bubble, and had somehow designed a way for it to affect him in such a...gruesome way. What that meant for him, what that meant for his future, was unknown. He couldn't even tell how long he'd been trapped by the diagram. For all he knew, this was going to be his prison for the rest of eternity, or at least the thousand or so years it would take for the stone room around him to collapse.

Gently, painfully, he started humming again. The first think he saw, as before, was himself. The crystal was thankfully still flawless, but the light within had diminished to a distressing degree. He didn't know if he would recover, or if he'd caused himself irreparable damage with that escape attempt. He enlarged his vision to the room.

There were two noticeable changes. The first was that heretofore unseen symbols in the ceiling had illuminated, casting a calm white radiance that caused him to be able to see more than pitch blackness in the visible spectrum.

The second change was that the stone door was open. Standing in the doorway was a man wearing robes, leaning casually against a wooden staff he was holding. The man had a slight half-smile on his face.

“Well,” he said, “Took you long enough.”