Search the internet for information about the book.

Kacie's chair stops spinning and leaves her looking at her dual monitor set-up again. You knew she didn't really want to deal with internet perverts again, but with a whole day to kill, she couldn't think of anything else to pass the time. She grabs the mouse, opens a new browser window, and stares at the search bar for a few moments before she starts to type.

[ choose your own adventure the trap of the trickster ]

Your view over her shoulder shows the Wikipedia article about the urban legend behind the book. It is all information you'd seen before, but since the leggy blonde wanted to read it you were stuck reading along with her. Watching someone browse the internet is not as thrilling as you imagined.

The Trap of the Trickster is a fictitious gamebook, the subject of an urban legend that emerged in early 2000.[1][2] It has served as inspiration for several free and commercial video games by the same name.

The legend describes the book as a rare, near impossible to find volume of the Choose Your Own Adventure series. The story of the book involves the reader going head to head with the nefarious Trickster—a kind of deity whose specialty is mischief and misdirection. It is said that the book's many endings included material of a sexual nature. Some rumored endings include the reader becoming a member of a Sultan's harem, being transformed into a blow-up doll, and receiving corporal punishment from a dominant woman. The book was supposedly protested by angry parents and decried as obscene material by the Catholic church. This led to the burning of the entire printing run by the publisher, Bantam Books.

There is no record of such a book ever having existed, leading some to believe the legend to be a result of the Mandela Effect.

Of course both of you know that a great deal of the story is being left out. Nowhere in the article does it ever mention that the Trickster actually exists. Kacie checks a few more articles from different news sources, but each gives about the same account that was summarized on Wikipedia. She starts to type again.

[ choose your own adventure reddit ]

Almost immediately you see a post from several years ago asking about unwinnable Choose Your Own Adventure books. Kacie begins to read the thread. Most of it talks about Inside UFO 54-40, in which the goal was to reach a utopian planet called Ultima, but buried at the very bottom of the thread with no responses and a few downvotes was someone mentioning The Trap of the Trickster.

↑↓ [deleted] -2 points 5 years ago

The Trap of the Trickster is unwinnable. Trust me. I know. If you ever find this book, do not read it! Burn it! Throw it in the garbage! Do not try to win!

The user deleted their account after posting that message, but it is a lead of sorts. Furious typing ensues. Kacie leaves a post on the same subreddit detailing everything that's happened to her and Anne, not caring that it sounded insane. Someone at some point in time had found the same book and posted here. If they see her post, it could lead to more information, and maybe even a way to beat the Trickster. The headline of her post reads Transformed by The Trap of the Trickster. Please Help! Urgent!

It is almost an hour before she hears the first ding from her computer. A second one comes only seconds later. Nobody has replied to her post, but she has two requests to chat from other users on the site. The first comes from a user named "SillyRabbit" that has a white, cartoon rabbit as their avatar. The second comes from a user named "DADGAD" that has a picture of an acoustic guitar as their avatar.