I will write till this ends. lol
''Forumites. The ones that gather and talk in places where time is meaningless and abundant. They are a strange sort. They, as a people, are older than ancient. Their people are both an ancestor and a sister group to all other kinds of denizens of The Web. Which makes their presence a valuable insight for curious young who wish to know how things were back in the time of yore.
They are made purely out of basal inuition, strange, yet unsurprising as being who emerged into existence together with The Web itself. This is very unlike other netizens, which are usually much more complex and mixed in their compositions. Their special material state means that they may come in any form they so desire. From basic humanoids, to animals, to even unreal, magical-looking beings. Even as completely abstract, invisible apparitions.
Their mental workings are equally as strange as their making. They do things not for any sort of gain, appeal to emotion or by a logical course of thought. Instead their minds seem to flow like a grand river, one action seemlessly leading to other. They do not think, not in a conventional way. Not in the way a stray Anon may think by itself, or a hiveminded swarm of Redditors may weight their eachothers thoughts.
They do it, because something leads to it. Whatever that may be.''
-An excerpt from The Ultimate Guide to all Netizens
Will slowly awakes to the sound of leaves, water and a soft wind that smells like flowers. He is surprisingly comfortable where he lays. He opens his eyes. Above him is a cloudless blue sky with two large crescent moons. It is quiet and peaceful. He doesn't knows how he got there, but it beats being in whatever that hell was.
He gets up to see that he is on the shore of a very small lake with an equally small waterfall pouring in. It is a tiny chorus with flowering trees and bushes he doesn't recognises. And finally, he sees that all of this is circled by natural stone walls, impossible to climb. He sits and relaxes. He needs to rest now.
He feels happy here. Like he can stay here, in this walled off paradise forever. Fuck anywhere else, honestly-aaaaand it cuts to black.
Disoriented at first, any joy Will felt was crushed when he was greeted by the cold and a searing back pain. He felt awful, groggily opening his eyes and looking around. He was moving, or more accurately, was being moved, suspended midair as if he was held. He was also tied up. He couldn't move his arms, legs and head. His eyes finally focused on the stone ceiling and the walls engraved by the gruesome engravings. He was back to this place. Hurray.
''What is going on?'' He absent mindedly asked, half-heartedly expecting a reply. None comes. Instead Will notices that there is a sound of leaves shaking, along with loud, giant footsteps that can't possibly come from something with just two legs.
Wait, he can see the ceiling, all ceilings were too dark to see before. It was not even all that dark. Instead there was faint source of light, coming from under him. It seemed colorful too, like a discoball. Or a broken prism.
He tries breaking free from his ropes, but as soon as he tries to stretch the ropes, the footsteps suddenly stop. Whatever had him hostage had stopped walking and instead he was being moved to somewhere. By this time he notices that he is not tied in ropes, but wrapped in flower vines, which moved on their own like tentacles, holding him up and moving him around.
Before he knows it, he is in front of someting. A monstrous looking face. It has four giant eyes. All pitch black. It looks like a spider. A giant jumping spider. Made of wood and leaves and branches and all things plants are made of. Some fungi, and even a few iridescent butterflies were also there. And flowers. Alot of flowers. All shiny. Bioluminecent? Two large, identical tree branches protrude from the sides of its head, like antlers of a moose, too covered in leaves and flowers. It looks like something out of a movie, but what isn't like that here?
It doesn't seem threatening, even a bit welcoming. Will feels unnerved by the giant spiders blinkless gaze. But he is also calm about this whole thing. He decides to greet it.
''Hi.'' He says, no answer comes at first, but after a few seconds, the spiders mandibles lift and start to shake, making a sound. It was like a melodic, soothing combination of various animal noises. Will can't help but smile. He notices his glee, but can't find a reason for it. Was this a trap for him to let his guard down? This was a spider after all. A predator. Will's smile falters a bit the realisation, yet he can't find it in him to panic about it. The vines lift him up, then put him onto the spiders back and let go of him. He was free to move here. It was like a small, verdant forest biome, softly illuminated by colorful, light giving flowers and inhabited by songbirds and butterflies.
He still couldn't shake off the feeling that this may all be a trap, and that he may become food for some giant plant spider hatchlings. But he decides not to worry. Besides, if the spider wanted him dead, it would have done so already, and wouldn't release him free on its back. Spider starts moving forward again, he doesn't knows where, and he doesn't really cares for now. He is tired. He needs to sleep
He lays down to the ground and thinks to escape, but doesn't wants to. This place is warm and full of pleasant light.
A butterfly lands on his nose.
He feels welcome.
He falls asleep again.
Meanwhile, A certain forumite was brainstorming all by himself, his mind filled with worry. Magma was staring into a selection screen. He had been donig this for a few hours now. It was the main board of The Fortress. He was using the search function of it, specifically. He had been trying to search for Will inside this entire place, but after many failed attempts, he was starting to see that even the inherent functions granted by being a part of The Web, may not be able to list him. He gives up on the search bar. This was as useful as looking around on that riverbed.
His magma flares from red to orange as he gets angrier. And more desperate. He knows the timeframe to find him alive and in one piece is short. He had to find him before others do. They wouldn't understand his speech. They weren't memetic artificers. They wouldn't automatically adjust to disturbances in the arcane flow whenever he talks. They would only see a generated human making random and somehow familiar noises, and do Toady knows what to him. Forumites do be like that.
Best case scenario was that he came across Naturegirl. She wouldn't hurt him, probably.
He could tell the others to not harm humans for now and tell the rest of the situation with a post. But then how would they readily separate Will from all the fake humans? They all would look exactly the same as Will from a glance. Would they even believe him if he told that a real person, a higher from the higher adjacent reality fell all the way down here? Would they even care about this? The real real Will was still up there, this one here was a downward reflection. An aspect of his higher self, like him, and everyone else here. It didn't really mattered if he lived or died, Will as a higher being would still exist, alive and well, either way. Chances are, the others wouldn't care.
But that didn't made the Will here any less of a real person, with actual emotions and all that. He couldn't die here, he didn't deserved that. Magma couldn't allow that. Besides, he knew he most likely survived the river. The rejuvenating gas was permanent. He unintentionally made it so. He noticed it after the fact. It was impossible for Will to die drowning. Or anything that wouldn't kill him in less than a minute, or extensive bodily damage.
There was a chance that the person Magma was after was now a lifeless corpse jammed to a crack on the riverbed, horribly mutilated, or in bloody pieces along a stone floor.
Only if he didn't jump. Maybe he could have been a bit faster or friendlier. But it was too late for those now.
Magma would keep searching, of course. And hope for the best.
His own higher self could be a bit more helpful right now.
''And the human got out of the pot? By itself?'' Curious said in disbelief, while Zultan's three faces bore an emotionless gaze. Tamer though, was adamant in his testament.
''Yes. I put it in this pot, and when I came back, the lid was open, and it was gone.''
''Some other person took it then'' ''I don't buy this narrative at all.'' ''Humans can't get in or open a container themselves.'' Zultan replied three times from his three mouths.
''Perhaps you found a fledgeling forumite and mistook them as a human.'' Curious said. Zultan's three heads contemplated this particular scenario, but each shook heads in synch.
''Unlikely.'' ''Nah.'' ''Maybe, but it's not a large possibility.''
''No, I am %100 sure it was a human.'' Tamer insisted afterwards.
Tamer spoke again after moment of silence.
''Anyways, I want that human back. It looked nice. Curious, can you track them?''
Curious thinls about it. She definitely had better things to do then to hunt a human. Buuuuuut, she was definitely down.
''Duh. I am a cat. It is in my blood. Watch and learn, boys.''
Curious first sniffed the ground, then looked for tracks with her legendary tracking skill. After a second, she turned back to the three headed rat and the walking television glitch.
''A human. Male. Barefoot. Went through the west corridor running about 12 hours ago. It's steps were shaky. It was panicking. I think we found a thread.''
Other two forumites rejoice. They wouldn't pass a good thing to pass the time.
''Lead the way.'' ''Let's go!'' ''Adventure, here we go.''
''Lets get on it. That human would look real nice in my royal bedroom.''
''Follow me then. Lets find this human!''
So they started to walk, after the tracks. An adventure awaits them.
And a terror awaited the human
The game had begun.