Work Text:
So, let’s get the basics out of the way.
I’m only a little bit real, as you may have realized. For a while I got to be a bit more real, but of course I was too stupid to hold onto that.
He tried though… He really did...
No, I don’t have time for that now.
In order to talk to you… Well, in order to talk to anyone really, I have to speak in riddles. It's nearly impossible to look at a pattern dweller directly, you need to focus your mind and think laterally to even pick our words up. Plus, I don't get to write on the same piece of paper for very long. It's like I'm writing this on a series of notebooks on a conveyor belt.
I fucking hate it, for the record. Why can’t I just talk to you like a normal person!? Why do I have to work so hard for you to even get the most basic understanding of...
Okay, I've got to focus. Let's start with a history lesson. I am a writer after all.
Long ago there was a multiverse before ours. It's called a lot of things "The Lands Before", "The Beginning", or, the most popular name these days, "The First Hytoth."
Not many people who are from there remember anything about it. Not many people from there *exist*.
Frankly, I'm one of the lucky ones who even exists a little.
What happened to it? That's... A subject of debate, but it's pretty clear something ate it.
That... is scary enough on its own, but what's worse is that the thing that ate an entire multiverse is still out there.
It might be one thing, or it might be a lot of things we don't know for sure. It, or them I guess, have got a lot of names, but the religious types call them the "Voruteut."
To me though, it's always going to be the Pattern.
Fuck. I’m running out of time. I need you to solve this puzzle:
"XXXX should be XypQ, but Caeser left seven letters explaining why it was not."
https://icedrive.net/0/c3Rk2MXXXX