sad that i won't be able to work on worldbuilding and drawing and stuff because i've been putting off my duties in my JROTC battalion and i'm the battalion publicist and Sergeant Major Responsibility has come a-knockin on my door to deliver my signed death warrant. in simple terms i have to do my job T-T
that is to say, stuff i was working on will be halted for like a few days lol. i'm sure you all would be devastated if any of you knew what my dastardly machinations were in the first place (all of my worldbuilding plans are currently hidden away in an ancient mountainous lair that reeks of centuries of rotting corpses and mysterious forms of life.
as you cautiously feel your way through the cavern---large enough that the torch in your hand cannot illuminate the roof nor further walls of the cavern so you cannot truly know the size of the mountain lair and cold enough for the wind to bite through your thick adventurer's coat---you hear the crunch of bones. not yours---thankfully. but something is in here with you.
you shiver---partly from fear and partly from the cold. you aren't used to this kind of weather nor environment. but you aren't here for the joy of exploration. you're here to uncover the strange and unpredictable goals of a madman. vile goals so spontaneous that not even their creator knows the next step.
months---years? or had it only been days... or mere seconds..?---ago, the lunatic had unabashedly released the location of his terrible plans on his tumblr blog. you've managed to reach the location, but you're having second thoughts now that you're in the heart of evil.
There it is again! You spin around in the direction of the sound as fast as you can---but there's nothing. And now you're lost. You've strayed far enough from the entrance that you can't find it anymore. You're sure it's over some bend or incline the cave you went down earlier, but you can't find it anymore. The spin's taken you off course too. You do your best to turn around and face the way you were going. Now there's nothing you can do but press on.
Your eyes nervously scan the imposing, choking darkness. The lick of the flames---such a small and lonely source of warmth---the steady drip, drip, drip of water off of stalagmites, and the wind blowing through the cavern are all you can hear.
You feel your left foot fall into something fleshy. You shriek---don't try to deny it! You did!---and jump backwards. Looking down, you find a boot-shaped impression on a carcass of human flesh. The skull---picked clean---smiles at you. Despite its rather bony appearance, there's quite a bit there... It seems rather new...
Shaking, you continue on. You walk for what seems like days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia, ages, eons, eras, periods, epochs, lifetimes of the universe, from explosive starts to whimpering ends, you walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and walk and
suddenly, you stop. Before you is a chest. Like a classic, basic treasure chest. You know the one---brown planks framed with gold and somewhat ornate but not at all too ornate or---God forbid---hard to draw or model. Stooping down suspiciously, you see a paper note pinned into the top by a dagger. It reads, "yeahhh this is nerdexer's bin where he keeps all his important stuff yeahhhhh this is it baby it's all right here"
Too tired to feel excitement, you squat down and inspect the chest. It has a keyhole, so there must be a key. Looking back at the note for any hint of a hint, you notice that the text has changed. It now reads "the key is under the chest by the way"
Lifting the surprisingly light chest, you find a key that seems to match the chest. It's a suitably nondescript key, made from the same gold-like material as the frame of the chest. The bow of the key is a stereotypical circle, the shaft is not ornate at all, and it has two rectangles that could not possibly be effective bits in any key. You lifelessly insert the key into the chest and turn it.
You hear a click and the chest magically pops open. You're startled by the unexpected movement, but you don't have time to react when a blinding light shines from the chest and bright, cheery music begins blasting at you from what seems like inside your own head.
You fall to the ground, overwhelmed, when you hear a few snaps---barely audible under the music. Then you hear a voice from the same direction saying, "Hey, hey, hey. Cut that music out. And that light too. What am I? Made of money?"
The music stops and the light fades out. The only things visible is the floor under you, your hands, and the torch.
...That torch... how come it hasn't gone out? Surely the time you've spent carrying it would have extinguished it, if not the recent drop. What... what is this place..? This isn't normal... is it..?
"Hi! Terribly sorry about that." you hear that voice again. "I haven't gotten around to uninstalling that yet... I really should, huh?" You feel their hand on your shoulder and spin to get a look at them.
It's nerdexer, hazy as ever. He says, "You're probably here for my plans, right? That's the wrong chest."
"Oh," is all you can muster. "W... where's the plan chest?"
Turning around, you see that an identical chest has appeared next to the first one. Stumbling up to the note pinned to the identical chest by an identical dagger, you read "this one is the plan chest"
"C-can I look inside..?" you ask tentatively.
"Oh sure!" says nerdexer.
Exchanging the key from keyhole to identical keyhole, the chest pops open. No fanfare this time, but inside, your trembling hands grasp one piece of paper. Written on it were the following words:
"Yeah... I never really got around to them," he says from behind your back. "Oh well, what the hell!" He rubs his neck and looks around at everything but you.
Silence fills the cavern for a moment. Then nerdexer says, "Oh I'm sorry, I know you were anticipating something more than a blank piece of paper, but really! I never did get around to it! Being battalion publicist is a lot of work when you don't do any work, you know!"
"Okay, how about this," he says with earnestness. "If you want something really dramatic, then how about this? Good luck leaving this place... alive!!" He melodramatically extends his arms out to his sides as a menacing tune on an organ plays in your mind.
As you stand there staring at him, he looks around and snaps his fingers. The menacing tune on the organ plays again. But actually, it turns out that the first menacing tune wasn't actually finished and was just in a dramatic silence so now there's two menacing tunes on an organ playing in your head at the same time playing different parts.
Looking around again, he dramatically grabs at the darkness around him and shrouds himself in it. But he accidentally grabs too much of the darkness and then you can see everything again. A bright red emergency exit door is visible right behind him.
"So......" you say, "can I go?"
"Oh yeah sure," nerdexer says. "The exit's... uhhh.. you know..." He started trying to give you directions to the exit but you already saw it and started walking towards it before he started talking, so now he awkwardly stands there gesturing towards the exit door and stammering while you do the same thing and shuffle past him.