Green fiery tongues licked over purplish, carelessly piled-up, peppermint-scented wood in the huge open hearth. Purple, aromatic sparks flew everywhere.

After they had reached a predetermined distance, they were captured by a black shovel hovering in the air–––one that was looking very grumpy. Upon closer inspection, the stray soot revealed the contours of innocent children pulling cute faces, as if teasing uncle shovel was the most enjoyable pastime and made their day.

A homey table of impressive size stood not too far from their playground, swaying to and fro in time to a gentle rhythm that only it perceived as soothing. It would sometimes pew a song terribly out of tune; at other times, it would mimic a random, broken instrument that had even less pity on the listeners’ poor ears.

Near the vanished door, a mad rug wiped the clean carpets as though there was an impossibly tight schedule to follow and only eternal stains in sight. On the other side, strange-looking wooden cutlery encircled an empty bowl as they reconstructed a mock fight.

The rug’s water, by the way, was entirely composed of tears flowing down the rug’s rugged face. A shadow lay in the middle of the room, perhaps the most striking aspect of this fantastical display of impossibilities far beyond common understanding.

A brownish-golden candelabra of unholy dimensions dominated the interior. Unanchored, it floated there, its blackened ends resembling many middle fingers set ablaze in flames of blue and cyan.

The worn cupboard on the right–––possibly a relic from great-great-great grandfather’s time–––had been viciously chained to the farthest illogically cobbled-together corner.

Having to give up its perfectly rectangular shape to fit in the cramped confines, it had taken on a ridiculous form. While its lot may seem strange, only a spirited glance would reveal its harsh grounding–––and a second, the wide, deep gully filled with a giant tongue and sharp teeth splitting the horror furniture vertically in half.

Just like a phantom under the light of the sun, learning of its confines would dissolve any lasting memory of it. Despite its sorry lot, its violent struggle continued unabated.

A portable chest and an imposing cabinet floated in the scented air as high as their shackles permitted to the left of the captive. Another prison, perhaps? Unlikely.

The mostly ornamental shackles were thin and questionable in their purpose and nothing like the chain dumpster in the corner. Perhaps they were only for fashion.

In the middle, another set of easily distinguishable kitchen utensils of unknown, and most likely tortuous origin, were playing a dangerous game of hide-and-seek. Anyone who stumbled into their midst would be skewered at best, sliced and diced at worst, or simply crushed if the poor sod failed to pay attention.

Had they been able to speak, our estranged protagonist would have been sure to hear merry laughter as they ran after one another. Under Linlin’s dirty, blister-covered feet, a dizzying number of carpets of different sizes and shapes were piled up next to each other, feeling surprisingly comfy on his injured soles.

Since there were so many, he wondered if there was any ground underneath or if they were simply stacked infinitely. As for the ceiling above... Linlin’s jaw dropped; the visual impact it brought him was beyond anything he could describe. To begin with, the ceiling was non-existent.

The vast expanse of a clear night sky, spared of any blemish even so humble, stretched out in front of his abyssal black eyes. It was packed with stars, gaseous nebulas, galaxies, black holes, rotating monstrosities, and other strange phenomena any astronomer worth his salt would kill to see just once in his lifetime.

Linlin, however, did not have much of an interest in these celestial bodies. His only concern was directed at the owner of this miraculous abode. There is no way he could stand his ground against such an entity.

‘Figures,’ he thought darkly, ‘what else did I expect? Puppies and chocolate?’ He stood there, frozen, leaning his back against the plain wooden wall as he carefully weighed his options. Or at least he tried to. Despite knowing he should have done so, Linlin was unable to reel his startled thoughts back in.

His lack of knowledge caused him to be awestruck and totally engaged in gawking like a hillbilly. Had it not been for a sudden aged voice that made his intestines jump in fright, this farce would likely have continued.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? The realms and worlds united in harmony. Elsewhere an impossible dream come true, but here… hmm. Can you relate?” He felt a shiver creep down his spine belatedly, coldness gripping his heart, goosebumps covering his shrivelled-up skin.

Even now, he was unable to locate the landlord speaking in a strange accent, a situation that mocked his earlier careful inspection of the room. “…what are you,” he asked utterly gobsmacked, followed by an angry shout, “and what’s your crooked aim?”

Silence followed, only eventually broken by a raspy sigh what felt like ages later. “Brashness is no desirable characteristic, little pup.” Linlin suddenly understood the source of his strange feelings. The harsh words sounded like the cracking of knuckles in a street fight, and nothing like words.

“Admittedly, your start was... rough, and I’m to blame. Mostly. But not entirely. Anyhow, this and that are two different pairs of shoes. In good faith, I warn you not to hiss at your elders.

They know a lot more than you do... What’s more, such mannerisms shame your mother. She sacrificed so much to make sure of your proper upbringing.”

Linlin quickly flashed a toothy grin to calm his own nerves. When his facial expression returned to the apathetic stare he was known for, he replied coolly, his words laced with cutting sarcasm.

“My mother,” he only mentioned that name and his face distorted back into a heinous frown as certain memories flooded into his head, “showed me how to best adapt. Although not intentionally.”

“…I see.” Linlin felt as though something had rummaged through his mind for a moment or two before the sensation was gone. “What a twisted family yours is. Not enough to warrant a soul curse. But just right to hang from the next tree. Hmm.

My solution is a simple and decisive one that your world does not truly appreciate. What’s the point of continuing with complicated methods when there are easier alternatives? The older you get, the more you crave simplicity. Nevertheless, they were competent teachers.”

“Teachers?” Linlin spat the last of his spittle on the carpet, much to the rug’s grievous annoyance that kept hitting his leg until he violently kicked it away.

There was a laundry list of colourful words on his mind, reserved only for the likes of that hellish family with overcomplicated relationships–––and teacher was not among them.

This is unless teachers are to be understood as creative entities whose only true purpose in life was to send their fosterlings sooner than planned to the underworld. “Let go of your baffling thoughts and think about it as if you were merely a bystander.

I suppose that’s appropriate for someone of your kind.” The voice continued in its strange accent, making the old speaker’s gender a true mystery. “Think about it: They gladly spent every free second of their meagre lives racking their sick brains on how to make you disappear. Thoroughly.”

In an apparent display of sarcasm, the invisible elder chuckled condescendingly. In spite of this provocation, Linlin did not react. “While you, dear Linchester Linde, racked your brains for a way to survive. Is that not a real textbook teacher-student relationship?”

Biting his tongue, our protagonist resisted the temptation to utter many nasty words. As his body was in terrible shape, he should eat, drink, and rest, not engage in unnecessary discussions. Besides, this topic wasn’t something he liked to spend more time on.

“My name,” he coughed dryly instead, “I never introduced myself.” The mysterious landlord laughed at his wary remarks. “It appears we’re finally moving forward. Thank you for considering me worthy of a response.

But time’s of the essence here, mind you. And I hope you remember amusing this old seer with less than five minutes of speech since your arrival two hours ago.”

He gave some food for thought with his reproachful tone. “Two hours?” Linlin pressed his back against the suddenly squishy-turned wall, his deep shock visible in his abyssal black eyes which, however, did not extend further than to the corner of his eyelids. ‘So this one’s a seer? Hopefully no quack.’

“Sigh,” the landlord grumbled, followed immediately by the sound of facepalming with both hands, before giving voice to his increasing frustration, “another weirdo.”

It was unknown whether the seer behaved this way due to Linlin’s reaction or due to his thoughts. The landlord sighed once more before continuing in his musing, his voice uncharacteristically gruff.

“Its criteria remains questionable indeed, for only the weirdest of weird transmigrates over. An error? Lapse of judgement? Some kind of joke? Or the demands of the mentally impaired? I strongly believe in the latter.”

The room shook as soon as his words fell, as if something had given the box he resided in a few furious punches. “No tantrum, I implore you! My last repair took more than 200 years.

It’s just an unfortunate misunderstanding, you understand?” The gruff voice soon turned to fearful begging, and the disruption ended soon after. “What are you doing on the ground, little pup? I know it’s cosy, but we don’t have time.”

After things had calmed down, the landlord asked, his pleading tone vanished as he sounded carefree and proud of himself.

Baff!

In response to his carelessness, something invisible broke immediately after and the gruff voice eventually screamed hoarsely, “bastard, wasn’t it all a mutual misunderstanding?”

Meanwhile, Linlin crawled out from below the sturdy table that had cushioned his rocket-like fall forward and checked if all limbs were where they ought to be.

Our beleaguered protagonist glanced around warily, as if expecting another sudden dent in the wall that would extend all the way over. Instead of a follow-up, Linlin espied the livid landlord:

A grumpy old man, bald, short and somewhat withered. With three centimetre-long wings growing out irregularly from where his moustache was supposed to be, extending all the way to his impressive earlobes.

While his entry was not as majestic as he would have liked, the seer sat ramrod straight on the floor, surrounded by a mess of tattered cushions, shredded blankets, and other splintered remnants of what was once a proud wing chair but was now pleading heartbreakingly for revival.

“Never seen an old man sit on the ground? Good for blood circulation, and you won’t get sore backs either.” He barked unhappily, his lips hidden behind a mass of wrinkles and his white, fine-haired wings.

“You have quite a few petty complaints stacked in your head. But that’s for another day, let’s eat. We’re running late.” The old man rubbed his knees as he took flight like a ghost and floated across the room.

“Ask me all your questions later, really, and I’ll see which are worth my precious time. L-a-t-e-r, mind you!” Linlin did not move at a pace the landlord preferred, so he chided once more.

“Come over here and don’t think too much. Fret not, little pup. Since answering your stupid questions is part of my unthankful job–” he paused in surprise, noting the unsavoury peculiarities of his guest’s appearance and realising the whole nice echo was essentially pointless.

In the elder’s opinion, if a sewer rat like that was to sit with him around a table, he would be damned. This would not help his waning appetite.

The particularly short-sighted landlord made strict eye contact with Linlin, initially glaring unhappily at him before understanding dawned and a sliver of guilt flashed across his turbid eyes featuring pupula duplex.

However, his mouth still did not acknowledge the results of his thoughtless meddling. “Are you from the catacombs, perhaps,” he joked ruefully, “a stray believed dead that crawled out from the drainage?

However you look at it, you have very little life left in you.” “And who’s to take the blame?” Linlin snapped. Diplomacy has never been his strong suit. He would have been undoubtedly stupid if he hadn’t understood what had transpired by now, and not just slow to comprehend.

This entity was the sole cause of everything that had happened to him. “…pup, don’t harbour ill feelings. Listen, I have a job to do. Reasonably, that is. Your lot should never ever expect me to butter up your ungrateful asses!”

If that almost tangible gloom in the air was any indication, Linlin had hit a sore spot. At the same time, the landlord’s cheeks turned bluish, his capillaries crisscrossed in all directions, and the small wings on his upper lip flashed up in green as he swallowed down his anger and pointed furiously at the ceiling.

“That’s Ginnungagap. Do you see that glaring white star in the centre? You have taken root there. My home, to be precise. And that one,” he pointed at a cluster of bright stars in the middle of the map’s left side, “is where you crashed.”

“And Earth?” Linlin couldn’t help but ask, slightly curious about the answer. “Earth?” The old seer pondered for a moment, but the common name did not ring a bell.

He drew abstract lines across the entire starmap while mumbling some incomprehensible formulas, looked up and down our protagonist’s mangled body, seemingly recognising more than just appearance, and frowned even more.

He scratched his chin, tugged lightly at his long earlobe and pinched his nose before tucking his wings in place and deeming Linlin worthy of attention again.

“In the quadrillions number the stars I know, and that’s merely half a drop in the starry ocean. I can tell you straight out that a name such as Earth reflects badly upon your aboriginal heritage.

While at first, every race believes themselves to be special, unique, and of paramount importance to the universe, I can only laugh at their biassed simplicity.

Because in truth their evolution–––or civilization, if you prefer–––failed to reach the starting line. Self-consciousness is just one of the factors in defining a race’s position within all that exists, the vast expanse we call Ginnungagap.

In answer to your question, Earth alone is the name of so many stars, the number will blow your mind. “Your Earth, born so recently, is soon to follow the path of doom,” the landlord said, pointing to the far right, where Linlin struggled to make anything out whatsoever.

By the time the seer man uttered another sentence, it became clear that he had not searched carefully enough. “You’re almost there. The one that has mostly turned black, beyond the two insignificant, flickering stars.”

After correcting his line of sight once more and narrowing his eyes in search of what was barely visible, Linlin identified what was almost a black spot; only one tenth or so still glowed.

The meaning of that was intuitively apparent to him, even without an exhaustive explanation. “Don’t dwell on it, for it’s only a matter of time before your race loses the last shred of reason altogether and rightly dies out as all vermin do.

In addition to ruining the apple on which they feed, they also destroy the tree. What a bunch of charlatans. But enough of meaningless chatter.” The landlord shook his head, making his many wrinkles swing like a bird would its wings, and thought no more about the inconsiderate, mentally-retarded but profit-oriented society our protagonist hailed from.

However, there was something else he could not ignore. “This won’t do...” The seer looked ponderously towards a certain direction as if to wait for instructions, tsked in irritation, and then clapped his hands, which brought a wave of soothing sensations to Linlin’s wrecked body.

As his hair and stubble grew back, his tendons, muscles, and skin healed at an incredibly fast rate, as did his mangled hand. Many layers of dirt slowly loosened and disintegrated, dispelling the uncomfortable sensation of tug and tear.

An entirely different man stood before the elderly, amazed by the means at his disposal. Looking at the thin young man of considerable size with an unruly white mane and noticeable stubble on his chin, the landlord grinned deviously.

“Much better. In the event that it ever finds out I let its precious contractor go through so much just because I’m not keen to gaze upon a pothole outside my window, my home’s dust.

Hmm, add to that many near-death experiences, rather I am dust.” Linlin swallowed any thanks lingering on his tongue and stared at the old seer with an icy, razor-sharp gaze instead.

“Darnation, you understand… Olden Speech? That thing… what an overprotective coot cooking my goose!!” With a certain motion, he instructed our protagonist to take a seat around the table and with another, to forget whatever he heard if he wanted to live for a bit longer.

Then he acted as if nothing had happened, and Linlin wisely played his part. “Well, Linchester. In lieu of your arrival, I requested a miniature dung fork, a tiny sabre, and a tiny instrument of bloody torture your backwater tribe cannot live without.

I discovered their apparent use through clairvoyance, but do tell. What kind of twisted logic is it that prefers sadistic torment of your meal even after it has already been served, over an adequate culinary preparation in the kitchen?!”

Linlin didn’t know how to answer that question and didn’t care either–––because he was still livid over the ridiculous reason for his struggles. The so-called tableware the landlord held in his hands–––some screws resembling what a genius would use to construct a thermobaric weapon’s chassis–––looked in turn completely out of place in his eyes, yet he really couldn’t care less.

If that was how the seer preferred to eat, so be it. Unhesitatingly, Linlin grabbed the familiar knife and fork before coming to a sudden halt. Soon enough, the landlord realised that waiting for an answer would be of no use, so he quickly forced himself to forget about that unimportant issue entirely.

Silently, he complained how difficult it was to converse with that emotionless puppet. If only the things he was required to do by contract did not include small-talk... The seer kept his thoughts to himself. There was no point in ruining his image as an omniscient expert.

“Dig in, dear guest; dig in and eat your fill. All the dishes are on me!” The landlord majestically clapped his hands once, and, immediately after–––as if the previously rocking empty table had been nothing more than an illusion–––the living furniture literally overflowed with all kinds of delicacies piled upon one another before finally quietened down.

As his guest still did not move, the mysterious landlord eventually read his thoughts and cursed in heart-felt annoyance. “I told you, that’s stuff for later.

Pup, you do lack manners,” he got himself a laptop-sized steak while speaking, “I may have changed your airstrip to Central, but that’s where you’re heading to anyway. But that’s not all I did!

As caring as I am, I sent my darling to fetch you. Guess what? You approached the fluffy, sweet thing with wicked thoughts, and–––if that wasn’t a show of enough stupidity already–––ran away as soon as it greeted you!” “… who do– that… squirrel?”

“Not squirrel, mind you. Country bumpkins and whatnot, dear me.” He sighed in frustration as he stuffed his mouth full. “It’s a pure-breed dragon with squirrel ancestry!”

The landlord added directly in Linlin’s head as his mouth was occupied for the moment. Then he felt stupid for doing so. As if any caveman could comprehend a dragon’s exalted nature!

End of Chapter I