The mad scientist sat up in her bed. She was still in the same room, but it was wrong, somehow. It was too… bright. She looked, and there was no source of light. She stood up and reached under her pillow for the dagger. It wasn’t there. She rushed to the window and threw open the shutters.

The world stretched out, a flat endless green under a vast endless blue. There was the same sourceless light illuminating the sunless sky. Hey eyes scanned across the featureless landscape, noting only a single far darkness on the horizon left unlit.

The smallest twitch in the corner of her eye alerted her to another presence beside her. In a single smooth motion she drew her sword from the nothingness that it failed to exist in just a moment before and swung it in a wide arc with great force. The shock up her arm and overly loud clang testified to contact. She turned behind the swing, ready for follow up.

In front of her, was a little red man. He stood in a little pinstripe suit and hat that failed to hide his horns. His feet were splayed as he braced his pitchfork, and grooves in the rug showed that the blow had driven him back. Daemon! warned the voice in her head, Careful! Kill it! She moved for follow up, planning to knock her enemies’ weapon free to open him up for the kill.

“What the hell are you doing?!” yelled the little red man, “I’m on your side!”

Something in the voice stopped the blade midswing. Some sort of recognition. The mad scientist looked the little man up and down.

“Do I know you?”

The little man looked at her quizzically. “You don’t, do you?” he mused. “I guess that makes sense. Call me Balance.“

She drew back her sword, a single drop of blood on it.

“What is that? How did you hurt me?” he said, looking curiously at the blade.

“It’s sword.” She said, “Which is how you got sworded, idiot.”

There is perhaps one expression someone might have at a response that asinine. It might be described a “poleaxed hippogriff” or “political reporter.” In any case, it took only a moment for Balance to recover.

“What’s it made of?”

She looked at it, sussing out the answer. It looked real, as opposed of the pastels of the rest of the place. She drew and sheathed it from a non-place, just out of sight. It had perfect balance, heft, and reach. It was, in all ways, the archetypical ideal of a sword. The answer was obvious to her. She said it as if talking to a child,

“Enthalpy, Balance. It’s made of enthalpy. “

She did not know that she had finally broken his willpower. She didn’t even realize she was hurting his head.

“Where am I, Daemon?”

Balance shrugged, “Some kind of remote uplink terminal? Electrokinetic fugue state? Your neurochemistry is outside my predictions and I don’t have spare cycles to figure it out.” He looked around. “These inputs almost look like a . . . room? Maybe a dream or a projection. Did you code a simulation?”

“I think I’m dead.” She replied, focusing on that niggling dark spot out the window.

She failed to notice the sigh and defeated slump in Balance’s shoulders, “Why do you think that?”

She explained. “Many heartbeats after I woke up, The lights through the windows faded. I suffered from a great exhaustion, and lay down. “ She gestured to the bed. “My eyes grew heavy, and I could not keep them open. Everything faded to blackness.”

“You mean you fell asleep. That’s normal. It happens everyday.”

Her mind latched onto the word instantly, Sleep, Enchantment/Charm, 2d4 hit dice limit, material component is a pinch of fine sand, rose petals, or a live cricket “A sleep would explain it. I think I heard crickets. Why are you here, then? ”

“I was about to ask you the same question.”

Author's Note

edit: sorry about the double post. I messed up trying to fix the author's notes.

Next chapter, our protagonist will start looking for answers.