The Innkeeper

In a small room, in the center of a star, in solar system of little renown, a slightly chubby man was lying in bed with his feet up in the air. As he stared at his toes unknowingly his mind wandered through his memories of any time he even remotely did something interesting. He had changed his position multiple times, and although with his cultivation it was impossible for him to get cramps, he did his best to find the most uncomfortable position possible so that in the unlikely chance he finally did get a cramp, at least something relatively interesting would have happened to him.

This young, unkempt man was barely 12 Elisian cycles old and was already one of the most promising treasure manufacturers on the Elisian network. As such, he was entrusted with the task of manufacturing an incredibly strong and extremely rare treasure. To speed up the treasure manufacturing process his client even provided him with access to Protos energy from a newly formed universe, and even paid a premium to ensure no one else could enter this new universe for almost half an Elisian cycle. That is how this young, bored out of his mind cramp-less man found himself all alone working the longest single stretch yet in his life. To put it in perspective, he has been working nonstop for 14 billion Earth years.

About one and a half billion years ago he finished setting up the foundation of the treasure, which meant that his remaining work although important did not require as much attention from him. As long as he was within a certain range he could continue manufacturing using only his spiritual senses. This left him relatively free to do as he wished, but being alone he got bored quickly. He had devised many ways to entertain himself.

His latest and greatest idea was to manufacture multiple treasures with abundant spiritual energy until they formed their own souls. Then he set many restrictions on these spiritual treasures and made sure he could always monitor them, as well as provided them with ingrained tasks. He called them Systems. Finally, he released the Systems out into the vast universe. Now, all he needed to do was wait for some of the inhabitants of this universe to find them and his entertainment could begin.

The man repositioned himself with his back against the wall, using only the side of his head and shoulder as support. All he needed to do now was wait.

*****

On Earth, in New York City, at midnight in Chelsea Waterside Park a young man was sitting and staring out at the night sky in melancholy. He was exhausted, not physically, but mentally. From an outsiders point of view his life was going pretty great; he graduated from college early with honors and had gotten a job right out of the bat. In his spare time he made small video games and he only treated that as a hobby until some random online streamer uploaded a viral video raging at how horrible the mechanics of his game were. That caused more people to do the same. In the short span of four days wherein he was not even paying attention to his game, its sales had skyrocketed and out of nowhere he’d suddenly made a pretty penny. Then, a gaming company offered to buy it, and he ended up selling it for a little over $7 million.

Yes, from an outsiders view his life was going great. To be honest even he himself had to admit that there was nothing he could complain about, but regardless he was bored with life. Socializing with friends bored him. His career bored him. He took up a few hobbies to try and find something interesting to do, but nothing worked. He reminisced about his days as a kid when everything was filled with wonder and everything excited him. Playing was exciting, getting new clothes was exciting, meeting friends was exciting, even something as mundane as not losing a pencil till it was completely used up was exciting.

Lex let out a deep sigh before getting up. It was getting late and there was no point staying out. He looked at the night sky one last time before returning, and saw a shooting star. “Wish something fun would come my way,” he mumbled and left. He had made the wish ironically since he did not believe in shooting stars granting wishes. But whether it was coincidence or fate, the shooting star turned its direction and flew towards Lex faster than made sense. The shooting star did not seem to suffer from any atmospheric drag and made no sound as it approached Lex, so he was caught completely unaware when something hit him in the back of his head and knocked him out.

When he awoke, groggy and confused, he heard a sound in his head. “Assimilation complete. Launching System. Welcome to Midnight Inn. Host Designation: The Innkeeper.”