We All Have Faults, Yours is Being Wicked

You scream and fall, then fall and scream, then cycle back once it becomes clear the original was always the best. Just as your starting to wonder if falling and screaming is due for a reboot, though, you impact with a reality shuddering crash into...you don't know. Existence? Either way, you immediately throw open your eyes and gasp in shock.

You're in....a bedchamber or something? There's a big canopied bed behind you, and the place is fucking lousy with candles. You're even dressed for bed, you're in a set of old timey yet anachronistic pajamas and can even see the pompom of one of those floppy sleeping caps dangling down near your chin. You came to with both arms outstretched, hands tightly gripping either side of a pretty fucking cool looking orb set in a pedestal right beside the bed. It's all full of swirling red and gold mist and stuff, awesome; it's hot as shit too. It's....oh fuck, oh OUCH!

You leap back, your palms bright pink as the scorching hot orb sits and steams vengefully. You hop about from foot to foot, waving your hands around and stupidly hoping that your little dance of torment will make the pain go away. It sure doesn't, but your flailings do happen to bring you face to face with a mirror. And that makes you forget all about your seared hands for the moment.

The man staring back you just as dumbly as you're staring at him is you...kind of. You were never bad looking, but this you has all your features filtered through a roguishly handsome lens. You've even got one of those totally cosmetic-looking scars underscoring one of your reddish brown-colored eyes. And this you is in better shape too, lithely muscled rather than bulky. When you throw the pointy little goatee on top of it all, you're the spitting image of some sort of cartoon vil...

Wait. Like, from the orientation sheet, right? This was the character you chose wasn't it? You raise a hand, intending to scratch under your sleeping cap in confusion, but give a start when a small leather-bound book appears in your grasp. You boggle down at the apparently self-creating tome, ULTIMATE POWER: DELUXE EDITION embossed in gold across its front. You dazedly run a hand down the book's cover, that same pins-and-needles feeling from earlier prickling its way over you again. That's, ah...oh wow, that is weird.

Yes, that's your big epiphany. Not that you're wrong. That (and this, and everything else) IS weird.

You gingerly shift your fingers to crack open the (apparently magical) book when the door to the bedchambers open, a silver-haired old man in a period-ish but still quite anachronistic tuxedo gliding in. Everything about this guy screams "butler", from his immaculate demeanor to the aloof expression on his tanned, heavily lined face. He pauses just inside the door frame, and you notice a small bottle of some sort of ointment resting on his upturned hand.

"I trust Sir burned Sir's hands upon the Orb again?" Of course he's British. When you simply continue to gape at him, he gracefully flows towards you as he deftly pops the stopper from his bottle. "Very good, Sir."

He extends a hand towards you expectantly. Oh, he must want to see your burns? It does hurt pretty bad, might as well just go along with it. You hesitantly offer him your hand, and in the process flip open your nearly forgotten book. Your only warning is a faint whiff of ozone before glowing words appear in the air before you, "WELCOME TO ULTIMATE POWER!" hovering right there in the air. You look wildly down at the butler, hoping he can explain this. but he is either ignoring or totally unaware of the bizarre display as he begins rubbing your palm with his salve.

Inspecting the old man seems to have triggered something, and you don't have much time to further consider what the fuck is happening before the words fizzle away to now say "PROCESSING...!", a little orb spinning in mid air. Wait, what's being processed? Or who? Or...WHY? The book seems to sense your confusion because the orb abruptly freezes. You blink as a soft voice appears in your head.

-It looks like you're overwriting a subject. Would you like help?-

You're annoyed at the question before you can even consider it, waving your hand dismissively and causing the butler to give a cluck of disapproval. The voice vanishes at that and the orb stars to spin again, and a moment later you are struck by an intense wave of dizziness. You reel, squeezing your eyes shut and just focusing on the soothing feeling of the butler massaging your hand. It actually does feel a lot better. At length you peek open an eyelid, then open them wide in shock as you take in what's now before you.

The whole room has been overlain with what for the life of you seems like some sort of graphical interface. You quickly shut the book and it vanishes, but the overlay says where it is, arrows indicating various points in the room with headers apparently marking what they are. Bed. Candle. Orb of Damnation (Orb of what?!). There's even one pointed at the butler marking him "Dogsbody". Is that his name? You cautiously reach out and boop the old man's indicator. The interface immediately retracts into the butler (Dogsbody, you guess), then shoots out in a new, seemingly endless tide of menus, charts, figures, and more. It's such a staggering array of data that you can make neither heads nor tails of any of it. You instantly regret dismissing that mystical Clippy voice, or whatever the fuck that had been. You absentmindedly reach out and, in what is nearly your worst decision in a day full of terrible decisions, blindly slide one of the entries at random.

You **** as the old butler tending to your hand is suddenly replaced with a serious looking little boy in a child's sized version of Dogsbody's tuxedo. Oh fuck, oh what the fuck?! You recoil and in the process accidentally select another option, the little boy morphing into a little girl who remains just as stone-faced and dignified as the elderly Dogsbody had been, even despite her long silver pigtails and chubby little cheeks. Now just straight up ****, you try to mash the entry you think was the first one you hit, hoping you can fix this madness.

It seems as if you lucked out because the little girl immediately grows up into a leggy young woman, her solemn expression doing nothing to obscure her cutely pretty features (or the fact that her tuxedo has now clearly been tailored to hug at her delightful form in a way you are grateful it never hugged O.G. Dogsbody). She purses her now plump lips, furrowing her brow in a way that is probably intended to be reproachful but is in fact adorable.

"If Sir wishes to be drenched in salve, Sir should by all means continue flailing." Her tone is grave but it is significantly harder to sound authoritative when your previously deep baritone is suddenly a chirpy, girlish birdsong. The full scope of what you've done to Dogsbody hits you: this is a total invasion. This is absolutely wrong.

...this is pretty fucking awesome. Maybe just a little more peeking through these options.