//------------------------------// // Chapter 01: The Mad Wizard // Story: The Manifold World // by Sven the Happy Unicorn //------------------------------// The young man with lank black hair frowned as he stared at the chaos on the streets below, one hand holding open the curtains while the other was scratching idly at the back of his neck. He let the curtain go and turned back to his startling guest. “D'ya know what the problem is?” the newly-made Mad Wizard asked Alien Aladdin. “There's too damned many humans running around.” The alien lurking in the small studio apartment seemed to agree, flashing what may have been a cobalt-blue smile that made the human’s skin crawl. “I asked you not to do that,” the wizard said. “It really creeps me out.” The glowing grin vanished. “Third wish?” it asked. If there was an expression on what passed for the creature’s face, the Mad Wizard wasn’t able to figure out what it meant. It was gently stroking the metallic box in front of it with perhaps a dozen of its far-too-prehensile fingers from two of its four arms while a third arm held the box aloft. “Yes, yes. I’m coming up with an idea for my third and final wish. You just need a little more patience.” The human, a skinny and gawky young man, flopped down in his faux-leather office chair and wiggled the mouse on his desktop. The alien regarded him with apparent impassivity. “So, I was thinking, what’s the point of wishing for magic to exist on earth if I’m the only one who knows about it?” he said. His computer was responding sluggishly, and the man clicked his tongue in irritation. “The world is still too ordinary, too boring.” The alien’s sinuous spine rippled in what could have been a shrug, simple impatience, or something else entirely. “I want more. I want a whole world of magic. There’s not enough diversity. Far too many humans, and not enough ‘other’.” A web browser popped up on his monitor, and he started flicking through several of his favorite forums. “Look at this, Alien Aladdin.” The alien, making no outward protests regarding the name that the world’s only real wizard had assigned him, undulated up next to him and wrapped several long, grey fingers over the top of his chair. “MMORPG. You know what those are?” “No. Make third wish, now?” “That’s what I’m planning on doing. But first, I need you to understand what it is I’m wishing for, okay?” Again, the alien’s spine rippled, and the wizard decided it was probably annoyance that caused it. The man turned back to his screen, pointing. “Humans, pretending to be different creatures in a world of magic. See? Look here, an elf. Trolls, Orcs, and so on. And this isn’t the only game like this. There are dozens!” Another screen came up, displaying another MMORPG. “I never played this one, but look. Cat girls! That’s awesome! I’d love to live in a world with cat girls!” The madman giggled and pulled up some more sites. The alien watched the screen. It was impossible to know if it understood what it was seeing, but it watched intently. “I want to make that real. All of it. If someone plays a game like this, I want them to become the character they play. If they play more than one, then the one they play the most. Can you do this?” “All things possible within reason,” the alien replied. It was the third time that day it had said that phrase. A long arm reached behind it and it pulled the metal box forward. “Wish?” “I think… wait.” Something grabbed the young man's attention, causing him to snort irritably at an image that had come up on his browser. The picture was of a cartoon horse, standing on a table on its hind legs and looking somewhat manic. Someone had posted it in a forum in reply to someone else’s question. It was pink. What the alien thought of it, no one on earth would ever know. “Bronies. Those guys with their damned ponies all over the internet. I want them in on this, too. They love tiny little horses so much? Let’s see how they like being them!” Alien Aladdin blinked each of his four huge eyes in succession but said nothing. The human swung his chair around and the alien pulled back slightly to make room. “Wish?” “Yes. But only after I make sure that you know what I want.” The explanation took hours. The human explained what he wanted down to the minutest detail, occasionally adding things like, “And those damned furries, too!” The alien, apparently expressionless, listened. “Do you understand what I want?” “Yes.” “I still want to be the most powerful wizard,” the human pointed out. “In the whole world. By a long shot. No one is to even come close.” “Yes. Wish now?” The human grinned. He made his wish, and the alien cooed with delight. It began stroking the metal box, which started glowing with an eerie blue light. The box sent a signal that went out to the spaceship that had suddenly appeared earlier that day in orbit around the planet Earth. The ship, massive and crystalline in appearance, was currently an enormous ring that circled the entire world, casually knocking satellites out of orbit, and had been the cause of much panic and rioting on the surface below. The ship glowed a matching eldritch blue. By and large, humanity stopped what they were doing to watch what was happening. The prevailing sentiment was fear, and when the glow spread from the ship and began settling over the entire planet's surface, the panic set back in. The ship then vanished, taking the alien with its odd little box with it, with a startling suddenness and lack of fanfare, leaving the world below it... changed.