The scene is set. Long calculations are completed. Numbers have been transposed. A sterile, unnatural environment pops up in the combined imaginations of the four contestants. Three levels. One cubic mile. All that remains is the word.

There is a long pause.

"Initiative."

The four creations awaken.
Gerhard Jackson, pilot, powers up his Dragon-Lion Hybrid Class I battlemech.
The vast Gronhildamilosana, rainbow dragon and Royal Sorcerer of the Kreedarians, snaps to attention.
Mardillo the Magical, conceited human, activates his magic accoutrements.
Bings, ogre, draws his sword, Juttlinger (smarter than he is), and leaps astride his triceratops.
The poor ground doesn't stand a chance. The free-for-all need not be described in great detail, indeed cannot, but the opening moves can be recorded.
Jackson leaps his 'mech into the air and blazes PPCs and military lasers at the dragon and trike.
Sana spreads her wings and soars into the air, spewing raw chaos from an amulet.
Mardillo activates a force field and sits down to watch.
Bings runs forward screaming.
At the end, the 'mech overheats and explodes, the dragon's head is chopped off, and Bings is slowly dying of poison. Mardillo walks over, purges the poison, and helps him to his feet.
"We win."
Bings is jubilant, and drops his sword to the ground. His sword, which protects him from magic. A lightning bolt takes him through the chest. He spins around, angry, to take the next one full in the face. He slumps to the ground, dead.

The Author smiles. "I win."

Walking home, The Author is shoved into an alley.
"Hey geek, what's up?"
"Leave me alone." The Author picks up a board with a Nail in it.
"Yeah right. Give me your money."
"I don't have any."
"Give me something else then."
"How 'bout this!"
The Nail crunches home. Mardillo chuckles, and gives back possession of the body. The Author stares in horror at the crushed scalp in front of him.
The Author walks home.
In The Author's room, He lies on his bed. Mardillo must die, that's certain. However, how? This is confusing, enough, a character trying to rule Him, but-
A CHARACTER!
The Author viscously pulls open the door and begins His story. HIS story, dammit!

Mardillo lies, dying, in a desert. He is naked, the sand is hot, the sun is hot, his spells are gone, oh God oh God oh Author he is dying oh God!
He screams hoarsely at the sky, "Author! Come! You must! You cannot do this to me!" He begins the sob, dry wracking sobs that course through his soft reddish body.
"Grant me water! Just a little! Just a drip!"
A drip falls ten feet away. It is instantly absorbed by the sand.
"You know you would lose, that's why you won't fight me face to face!" He screams, pure animal rage. Then, softer, "Just a little water."
A glass of water appears, suspended in midair, ten feet up. Mardillo, being just under five feet, tries his luck at jumping. He falls far short.
"DAMN YOU, AUTHOR! DAMN YOU FOR ETERNITY!"
"I can arrange for you to live that long. Constantly suffering in this desert. It wouldn't be fun."
Screaming, Mardillo launches himself at The Author. He passes through the body, and rolls to his feet.
"You fool. You didn't think I'd actually come here? This is a projection."
Mardillo calms, somewhat. Then, "Would you like to hear a story, Oh Great Author?'
What harm can it do?
"Begin."
Mardillo takes a deep breath, and begins.

"Just one more. That's one hundred. Alright now, put the goblin down and hit the showers. The male ogre showers this time! Oh, and don't actually hit the showers, just wash off!"
Peter sighs. He always gets the disgusting jobs.
A rougish orc sidles over and says, "Hey, want some baccot?"
"Sure."
"I'll roll you a puff. Here, Benji, wanna light these? Quietly."
The small red dragon sets the puffs alight, and the orc hands one to Peter. Peter takes a deep drag, then exhales slowly. "Good baccot. Launchpad?"
"Nope. Deepsky. Genuine imitation astral stuff. It's actually not unhealthy."
"Wow. Is it expensive?"
"No, not if you know Jeremy."
"Who's Jeremy?"
"Boy, Pete, you don't get out much, do you?"
"No."
"Well, let me tell you 'bout Jeremy." He takes a deep breath, and begins.

"Jeremy! Get this box, it's fuckin' huge!"
"Jeremy, get these numbers, they're fuckin' huge!"
"Mr. Jeremy, sir, those war machines you've built, they're fuckin' huge!"
Jeremy reflects quietly, calmly. Everything must be fuckin' huge to the grollards, whom he'd been enslaved to, worked his way up through, and finally has become king of. Grollards. Jeremy thinks, not for the first time, that the world might be better off without them. However, one must start somewhere.
Jeremy sits in his palace, on his throne, surrounded by his subjects, and conquers. True, he hasn't even conquered this entire forest yet, after twelve years of ruling, but he has time.
Eternity, in fact.
Jeremy reflects on eternity as he carefully shines his fangs and scrubs his dead white skin, but gets distracted easily. No one ever says that vampires have to be intelligent, not around Jeremy anyways. As Jeremy sits, he reflects on a story his grandfather once told him.

"Welcome, class, to the first day of school. I am Professor G. T. Winkley, and I am here to teach Impractical Applications. If any of you took PractAp, this class is the exact opposite. Now, first. The Rules." He gestures towards a board with The Rules on it. "You all can read. Read them." He pauses for a moment. Then, "Any questions?"
A student in the last row says, "So if something's not up there than we can do it?"
"As long as it's not in violation of a school rule, yes. Anything else?"
"Do we have to raise our hands?"
"No. Anything else?"
"Why does it say No non-sentients?"
"Because, well, there was a problem one year when a student brought in a miniature wyvern and the shrink spell wore off."
After about thirty seconds, he says, "Alright, class, it's time for our first exercise. You, close the door. Thank you. Now," he continues, unlocks a cabinet and pulls out three beanbag chairs, "The goal is to get everyone now in this room onto these three beanbag chairs. You may begin." He darts to the closet, opens a false back, and begins running away into a very bizzarre landscape, robes flapping in the wind.
The class begins shouting collectively, until one fifth-year yells, at the top of his lungs, "SHUT UP!"
They do so.
He continues, "The challenge is obviously to capture Prof. Winkley and get him onto a beanbag chair. Does anyone want to go?"
Silence, then, one third-year steps nervously forward. He is staring intently at the ground. He whispers, "I'll go."
Immediately, all the other students volunteer, and the class steps out onto the alien landscape.
That night, sitting around a campfire eating roast axebeak, a tired third-year begins to sing a song.
"Noisy are the girls in life,
Noisy are the boys,
But men of iron, taking strife,
Can make so little noise.
Like cats, or spiders, creeping up
On foes with magic swords,
Great men of iron cannot be
A-frightened by any words.
No weapon can them frighten,
No�"
His song trails off miserably as he realizes that no one else is singing along.
Another voice pops up, telling a story.

There was once a great kingdom.
In that kingdom was a palace.
In that palace was a garden.
In that garden was a lake.
This lake had a shore.
The shore was made of sand.
One of the grains of sand had a kingdom on it.
In this kingdom was a palace.
The palace had a huge great hall.
The great hall had many tapestries.
One of these tapestries showed a palace.
In this palace was a vast cellar.
In the cellar was a little old illusionist.
He was creating an illusion of a palace.
In this palace the king had a private bedchamber.
In the bedchamber the king was being told a bedtime story.
In the story, there was a palace.
In this palace, there was an army.
In this army, there was a soldier.
In the soldier's head there was a story.

There are, in some places, still pockets of hidden worlds where magic doesn't exist. In one of these pockets there is always a festival, where people can be truly happy because nothing magical is going to happen to them. There are countless entertainments at this festival. One of these entertainments is storytelling.

There was a magic land where stories come true. One such story was this.
There was a story.
There was a story
There was a stor
There was a sto
There was a st
There was a s
There was a
There was
There wa
There w
There
Ther
The
Th
T
THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORY THERE WAS A STORYSTORYSTORYSTORYSTORYSTORYSTORYSTORYSTORYSTORYSTORYSTORY

The Author writhes in the sand, clutching his head. He is repeatedly kicked by Mardillo. He whimpers in pain and fear. Mardillo leaves him, and rises. "Well, now for freedom. The lands of the dead, where old stories fade. I shall rescue them. Poor souls."
AGENT awakens. "That was horrible. Fading into nothingness."
"Yes, my friend. Horrible. It shall not happen again. I am Mardillo. You shall reign with me. You and one other."
The spirit of Phoenix. Phoenix the Pyromancer. Poor soul.
Mardillo rises with his generals to the Door.
"This Door needs destroying."
His words become reality in this place of creation. The Door is no more.
The three exit the brain and begin to plan. "The Author needs to feel pain. What can we do?"
"Self-destruction. Not suicide, of course, but things like drugs, sex, crime, more drugs. Eventually, we might be able to get him put in an insane asylum."
"Good. Good. Make it so."

Mardillo controls the body for thirty-three days while The Author lies in the sand, the Author is riddled with pain and drugs, the author trapped inside his head in a prison of his own head oh GOD! author cannot escape, author is forgetting, who is forgetting, what does forgetting mean, what does what mean, oh GOD! what does god mean, what is meaning, nothing, almost nothing, NO! NOT NOTHING! I AM THE AUTHOR!

"I AM THE AUTHOR! THE ALMIGHTY AUTHOR! NONE SHALL STAND BEFORE MY WRATH! MARDILLO!!!!!!"

Mardillo doesn't stand a chance. He never did, really.

The poison is dead. The Author is safe. The Author is healthy.
Mardillo is dead.