ALL SEVENS FEEVAHH!

In a place displaced from the chains of reality, where all roads lead in time, and where time itself led from, there sat an old, old man, withered and bony. His chair shimmered with dust and age, glittered in the blazing twilight of the chaotic multiverse that surrounded him. His face could not be described. Were a living thing on earth to gaze upon his countenance, the laws would grant them a nanosecond to scream in mindless insanity before they exploded into the fundamental particles that comprised their existence. His age was such that it could not possibly be explained within the lifetime of mankind.

He sat at a pure black table (blacker than space, blacker than what is seen in the glimpse between life and death), opposite a shadow, a mass of dark misty tendrils twisting in and out of each other. In the centre of the maelstrom of shadecoils a glowing orb could barely be seen. A passing universe floated too close to the shadow and was gone for eternity, sucked into its writhing antiflesh.

Both man and shadow stared at the blank white square (when you were a child you dreamt of heaven and the square is whiter, know this) in the middle of the table, the blackest table. On the square were five dice, born of a billion compressed galaxies and nebulae. The dice had come to rest. The old, old man closed his hand carefully. All was still for but a moment.

Five sevens. intoned the shadow. A single tendril lashed out, grasped an infinity and swallowed it with relish. It often wondered what chance would taste like, were it able to catch it. But chance could not be caught, it could not be caged. And it certainly could not be eaten.

You're a bastard. Play on.

The old, old man smiled for the first time in all of time.

Fred stared at his hands. One moment he had been under attack by a lava based adversary and a bewitched warrior princess, the next he had.......he had........

"Fred? Is that you?" asked Astra. Her lich sword lay forgotten on the ground. Fred stared at the lava man. He was encased in a ten ton block of ice, which was steaming inexorably due to its proximity to the rivers of lava nearby. The ice had turned the lava man to solid stone. He had a surprised expression on his face.

"Fred?" repeated Astra, grasping his shoulder. Fred jumped as if electrocuted. He stared at her unblinking, as if in disbelief. Astra backed away. "It's......it's me, Princess Astra, of Aqualaria. Fred, how did you do that?"

"Wh.....what did I do?" mumbled Fred. He could feel the thing, the utterly inexplicable THING pass out of his spirit and move on to other worlds than these. He caught his breath once more.

"I don't know." said Astra simply. "I was compelled to attack you by the lava man's will. Believe me, I tried to fight it. And then this huge.......beam of ice just flowed out of your body and hit the lava man. It was.......pretty incredible. Then I felt control of my body return to me. I didn't know you were a mage, Frederigo D'Honaire."

"I......I got lucky." muttered Fred. He could feel it returning now, the mundane stasis of ordinary reality. Where for just a moment, the rules had fled him, permitted him to bend all to his whim, they were now coming back, shackling themselves to his perception. Fred's all sevens fever had ended.

"I'm alright." he said quietly, picking his trusty sword. "Let's go."

1. Fred and Astra continued on. And somewhere, an old, old man played on......

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