New Year, New Twists

There sits a quiet little desk, built with oak. Upon its surface sits a carnival wheel, designed so it can be spun by hand. Upon the wedges you would expect there to be prizes or punishments, but the colored wedges have no words, or pictures, appearing blank.

Only then do you notice the boy sitting behind the desk, next to the wheel. He seems to be a wee Hylian lad, with delicately combed and parted red hair, wearing a green business suit. A chord strikes in your mind. Somehow, you didn't even behold his face until now. Peering back at you is a faceless face--spreading an invisible grin, a grin overwhelming with a twisted sense of glee and malice both. A sense of dread overwhelms you as you can't help but stare at the faceless face. Upon the desk rest a pair of hands belonging to the boy, fingers interlaced, clenching each other so hard his knuckles are white.

It does not matter where this desk appears. Perhaps you see it in a busy street of Castle Town. Maybe it's all alone in a vast meadow. When you look upon the ceiling of your own home, even, the faceless face could be looking back at you. As you unroll a scroll, the desk may pop out as if it was a mere picture book. It matters not. The desk and the boy and the faceless face are all seen by you and you alone. Are they a fabric of your imagination? Do you perceive them? Do you perceive anything?

It matters not. When you have the slightest unconscious desire for a Twist, the Twister shall appear before you. An unseen mouth doesn't move as playful words spring into your mind...

"Seven little green gems must you forfeit, if you wish to play this game.
Knowledge or item--what do you call them? Ah, yes, treasures. You must sacrifice one.
Take your hand and spin my wheel. Let the color decide your gift.
If you favor the result, reach your hand into your mind, grasp it, and take it.
Doing so will forfeit your sacrifice to me, forevermore.
Whether you accept my generosity, or refuse it, your seven gems will remain mine."

Strangely, you feel you have all the time in the world to make this decision--practically an entire year. Once it has been made, however, you feel you cannot make it again.

Unlike how you might normally expect this to work--a piercing pain in your mind, an eye staring so forbiddingly through the back of your skull and into that feeble gray matter you call a mind--you may call upon the Twister wherever you wish, whether it be here, or elsewhere, even as part of a quest or... some other place. Once he has been called, however, you feel as though you will not be able to call him again for quite some time.

"If, for some reason, you are uncertain...
If my message is not clear enough to your pitiful mind, seek he who spawned me.
Bother that fool with your questions, as I have no time to spare for a mortal's stupidity."

Areyal was rather confused. She had never seen anything quite like this boy before. It looked like some form of a demented business man-child. It's blank face, was literally blank. There seemed to be no face whatsoever upon his, well, face. A cold chill creeped up her spine as she started to get really scared. This was not normal, that much she could tell. It was almost as if the boy, if she could even call it a boy, was waiting for him.

She had just been walking down to the library to have some scrolls translated, but for some reason she had took a path she had never used before. Cutting down through an alley, it looked like the only people who used it was either beggars, or rats. Shivering, Areyal started walking faster. Before she had even got close to the other end of the alley, she felt like someone was watching her. Ever so slowly, she turned around, and saw the Twister and his desk in the absolute middle of the alley. Areyal immediately screamed, which she was not proud of.

However, she was immediately tempted by the Twister's game. She knew that she must be dreaming, but it felt so real. How did he just randomly appear? How would he twist something? And more importantly why? What did he gain? Areyal wanted to ask him all these questions and more, but her mouth felt clamped shut. The Twister just sat there, staring at her as she tried to argue with herself not to fall for... whatever it was doing. But her curiosity got the better of her. What would happen?

She didn't have any physical treasures, but the thing had said something about knowledge too. Perhaps that related to spells? Areyal immediately knew which one she would give up. She had recently learned the spell Fire, thanks to an insane moblin. Surely if THAT was possible, perhaps this was real too?

As soon as she mentally chose Fire, she immediately felt some form of blockade in her mind. it was like she didn't know how to cast it anymore. Areyal remembered casting it before, and still remembered how it worked, but couldn't cast it now. Quickly attempting to shoot the ball of fire from her hands, nothing happened. Realizing that it was now or never, she walked over, and spun the wheel.

Twisting: Fire-No Instrument Required

The faceless face sat with an eerie amount of patience as the Zora finally made her choice. The wheel began to spin. Her memory began to cloud. Faster, and faster, the wheel whirled--the faster it became, the wider the faceless face grinned. finally, when it seemed as though the wheel would pop off its hinges, it abruptly halted dead in motion, as if time itself had been stopped for this mere hunk of painted wood. It pointed to a color--a pale yellow, polka-doted with blue. Wait, what. Had the wheel even had polka-dots before.

"...Not my favorite choice, lass, but it will do." This was all uttered jovially through an invisible, mischievous smile. All of a sudden, his hands seemed to relax away from their white-knuckled tension. In that same moment, Areyal could feel something horrific piercing into the back of her scaly skull. It was cold, piercing--like the fingertips of Chilfos, spearing directly into her mind. Shock overwhelmed her, and she felt utterly immobilized by this uncanny force.

Unable to control her own body, her hands lifted, and she found her head staring down into her palms. The piercing cold shoved deeper and deeper, until she could feel fingernails grazing against the back of her gaping eyeballs. All of sudden, she felt her eyes plop out like mere grapes, landing with a splat in her waiting palms. She could... see... her own eyes falling forward?

She had no choice but to watch both eyes vaporize in a momentary explosion of flame--cold flame. In her hands grew a blue vine, its roots seeping into her palm, coiling around her fingertips. She soon felt tiny tendrils seeping through her palm, coiling around her vines... The plant grew abruptly into a paw, a maw, a strange pincer-like contraption composed entirely of blue vines. Strangely, instead of pain or terror, Areyal felt a strange sensation of relief.

The vines slowly disappear, receding back into the hand from which they came. The knowledge of the Fire spell swam back into the Zora's mind, but it was... different. She knew, somewhow, that whenever she launched the spell, this blue vine-pincer would immediately grow out over her palm--or whatever she held in her palm--and spit forth a familiar projectile. Instead of being Fire, however, it would be an orb of Blue Fire... if she formed the pincer on her right hand. If she formed it on her left, however, the pincer would instead launch a brightly glowing orb not unlike the Holy Bolt spell she had once seen cast. In either case, the same time restrictions seemed to apply...

Suddenly, Areyal looked back up towards the boy and the wheel, realizing that she had suddenly regained control of herself--and that the child had gone, desk and all. She felt a strange, slightly uneasy sensation in her palms, even though they now looked exactly the same. Her eyes were in her face. The piercing sensation was gone.

Suddenly, a voice poured into the back of her mind. "Remove them, to return your spell to its origin."

...Remove what, though?

Spinning, spinning faster and faster... the wheel raced. All of a sudden, without even stopping, it abruptly spun faster in the other direction, then forward again. Backward. Stopped, as if time before Julius froze. Wait a moment, it did freeze--not just the wheel. The child was motionless. Everything around Julius seemed to have utterly stopped, except for him. As he peered upon the wheel, he noticed it had stopped directly over one particular wedge. The wedge was a bright red hue, with what appeared to be a lopsided "V" on its face--one line going up twice the distance of the later. There weren't any letters on the wheel before, were there?

All of a sudden, time raced forward at thousands of times its normal speed. The boy before him grew old instantly, before crumpling into a pile of bones, then dust. The desk had already long since eroded into dust in the wind. For whatever reason, Lexi remained frozen on the ground where the desk once laid. Unaffected. Just like Julius.

Her form slowly fell, into a tunnel that opened in the ground. As Julius peered into the tunnel, he saw not earth, but the star-filled sky...

...All of a sudden, he felt a cold woosh of air over his shoulder. The portal on the ground had closed, and immediately formed over the edge of his shoulder. Shooting forth was unbelievable. A massive, double-helix sword almost three feet in length tore straight forward... violet and green. Wielding it was none other than a tiny fairy which Julius instantly recognized. No sooner did she appear, however, then she abruptly vanished into thin air again.

Suddenly, Julius realized what had happened. His tiny fairy had... somehow... transfigured into a spell. To cast it, all he had to do was snap his fingers, and think of Lexi. A small, star-filled hole would appear in the space where his fingers had snapped. Exactly five seconds later, Lexi would rush forward with a ferocious stab from the impossible massive sword, traveling the full three feet of the blade's length... before immediately vanishing. Julius would be able to select which direction she would thrust whenever he snapped his fingers, but wouldn't be able to change it once selected. It seemed he wouldn't be able to use summon Lexi for a few seconds after she last appeared... but otherwise it seemed he could do this as often as he liked.

A strange sense of accomplishment washed over him. As he looked around, he abruptly realized everything had turned back to normal--time hadn't been twisted, after all. The lad before him, however, was suddenly... gone... desk and all.

Julius abruptly felt a sharp pine slash up his spine, and into his brain, as if someone had just lanced a gargantuan sword straight up his ass. His entire body was immobilized in agony, as a clear, feminine voice whispered into his mind, "The blade will not harm a fairy... Should you command Lexi to stab a Great Fairy, she will forever lose the blade, and you your ability to summon her. She shall return to her old self at that point. Until then... you will only see her for these fleeting moments." As soon as the voice faded, so too did the pain...

As Lucian reached towards the wheel, it seemed to fade slightly--become ever-so-slightly transparent. The wide grin on the face of the boy faded into something almost akin to a frown, and before Lucian's eyes, the boy and the desk slowly faded as well, disappearing into thin air. All that remained was the wheel, floating in mid-air.

As it turned, it seemed to slow down much faster than physics seemed to dictate it should have. Abruptly, it stopped on a pale violet wedge--and upon the wedge seemed to be the painting of a glaring, omniscient eye.

"Don't push your luck..." The grumbled, old man's disembodied voice came from nowhere and everywhere, whispering into both of Lucian's ears at once.

...Strangely, as Lucian looked into the eye upon the wheel, he felt his eyes growing wider... seeing more... seeing something beyond sight, in ways he couldn't even begin to articulate. He felt as though he would be better able to acquire abilities and items that had to do with the Senses, in place of such that had to do with Weapons.

Somehow he knew, should his hand reach to cover the eye, it would become blind. He would loose his uncannily sharpened aptitude, to withdraw the intangible sword he sacrificed in this bargain.

...Hmmm. These weren't his normal hunting grounds. The desk and the garishly coloured wheel had appeared out of nowhere, so close to Horus that he had almost walked into them. When he looked over his shoulder to ask Luna if she sensed any magic, he realised she was gone. Huh. It wasn't like her to wander off, so something magical had definitely happened there. He turned back to the phenomenon before him and stuck his hands into his pockets, glaring at the little freak at the desk. He had no face, and yet Horus felt he was being grinned at. Was the freak mocking him? Well, he wouldn't back down. He didn't feel intimidated per se... that wasn't how he would describe it... but he felt bad things would happen if he ceded ground.

There was a sheet of paper with what he presumed to be instructions on the desk, between him and the freak. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of it. Whoever had cast this illusion must not have been aware of his illiteracy. Right as he thought it and decided to scoff, words were formed in his head, and his own thoughts formed the instructions for use of the wheel. For a few seconds after they finished, he only stared at the wheel, before turning back to the freak. "Knowledge?" he said, "Treasures? I only have one treasure and I would not offer it to you. That being said..." he removed one hand from his pocket and removed his sword from its sheath, passively placing it on the desk between them. "I'm intrigued. Tell you what." He placed seven green gems next to it. "My mentor left me with one technique of many. If you can figure out which it is before the wheel stops, I'll let you have a go with it."

He gave the freak maybe half a second to contemplate his words before he walked over to the wheel, took hold of it, and with a quick, strong motion, gave it a spin.

{{Twisting: Spin Attack}}

As the Horus tried to twist the wheel, he abruptly felt it push back against his hand, spinning frantically in the opposited direction. It seemed to be accelerating faster, but abruptly the carnival wheel ceased almost as soon as it had begun--stopping as if on a pre-designated course.

"You surprise me." The voice seemed oddly... familiar Horus looked to see not the faceless face, but a mirror--no, a clone. Looking back at him was his own visage, albeit one he had not seen in ages. He was a child--the twisted being before him had become how he appeared as a child, complete with red hair. Yet instead of his beautiful, seamless face, there were a myriad of cuts, and scars. He didn't even believe it at first, but as he stared on, the face grew more cuts and bruises, becoming increasingly injured without being struck or so much as even moving. "I dislike arrogance. It is... unbecoming... especially for mortals." It was only then that he realized the voice was his own.

Horus felt immobilized, as the boy grabbed the wheel, and spun it again. It seemed to spin faster and faster, gaining momentum as it turned. The desk on which it stood vanished, leaving only Horus, the boy, and a wildly spinning carnival wheel, drifting in a void of swirling colors. Only then did Horus realize the boy was holding the sword he had laid down, though it looked oddly large in his hands.

Abruptly, he thrust the sword with a ferocious stab--the sword itself seemed to launch skyward like a firework, pulling the boy along with it for nearly a five-meter jump... before landing with a heavy stomp, landing so hard his knees visibly tore and audibly crunched, falling into bloody pieces at Horus' feet. He felt the boy's--his own--tiny hands pulling desperately at his pant legs, whimpering and crying wildly in unimaginable agony.

There came the whisper of a young woman at his ear, as if she was right behind him. "The sword will propel your body upwards with a ferocious stab. You can only do this with both feet planted firmly on the ground. This simple trick is far more than your arrogance deserves. If you dislike my generosity, feel free to spill the blood of your calf with the blade--and you will be able to perform your magical pirouette once more."

Suddenly, everything snapped back into place. Horus stood beside Luna. The boy and his strange game was nowhere to be seen, but the seven rupees had unquestionable vanished. The sword was held in Horus' hand. For a split-second, he could have swore he heard her say, mockingly, "Freak."

Guy's head tilted to the side, his eyes narrowing. That couldn't be what he thought it was... In a shoal cave on what he had previously assumed to be an abandoned isle was a small child, Hylian, staring at him with a faceless... face. A chill ran down the Deku Scrub's spine as he tried to fathom how that was even possible. A grin he couldn't see looked down at him--from the ceiling. Defying all logic and gravity, the lad's little desk was glued to the ceiling.

Surely... surely... Guy had been taking too many 'shrooms lately. This was the most vivid hallucination he ever remembered experiencing in over 40 years of recreational use. As he stared with steadily-growing uneasy, the words seeped into his mind.

"A... game?" Guy's wooden face grew a grin most mischievous. Maybe it was the shrooms, or the surrealism of it all, but he was eager to play. He normally didn't even like children, but this was likely going to be the most interesting game he would play in all his life. Hopefully it wouldn't be his last.

Without much fanfare, Guy walked up the cavern wall, and onto the ceiling to join the child. He stood across from he desk, grinning slightly as he looked over the wheel and the lad both. It seemed strange. His own scarf and 'hair' flowed down with gravity, but this kid in his business suit defied it. He was a bit envious. Perhaps he would ask him how he did that--after playing the game, of course.

After reaching into his Adventure Pouch, he pulled out seven little green rupees, and spread them across the desk. "These are the gems you mentioned, right?" A cold feeling ran up his back. He couldn't help but feel this was a terrible idea, but felt compelled, eager to do it anyway. Recklessness was becoming of him anyway, he thought.

"As for knowledge... treasures, I guess... hmm... which one would you like?" The boy didn't seem to be in this for material gain, as seven rupees was practically chump change. Guy's head tilted, thoughtfully, intrigued in the prospects of this game. How did it work exactly? Would he be able to spin again? He hoped this wouldn't just all turn out to be an elaborate prank, or a dream. It seemed far too strange to be the prior, and far too real to be the latter.

"I get the feeling... you know what treasures I have. If it's alright with you, you can pick whatever you like." He shrugged a little, "But if you need me to decide, then..." Guy's hand wandered down to his Mirror Shield. Yet, as he looked at the familiar back of his wooden hand, he began to get the strange sensation that he could wager his own skin, in a matter of speaking. He didn't quite understand what he was saying, but he wondered, "Can I wager... my plant composition?"

The lad offered nothing but the slightest of nods--or what Guy perceived as one. With trembling fingers, he reached towards the wheel, and spun it. He couldn't help but feel as though his fate would be decided, here and now.

The boy's grin grew and grew, the wheel spinning faster and faster. Eventually, the wheel seemed to not be spinning at all. The boy's cheeks split as his smile continued to grow.

There was a warmth in the cove, Guy felt -- but no, the boy spoke, "Perhaps it's just you..." The heat grew hotter and hotter, emanating from the core of Guy's form. Only it wasn't his form. Not any more.

Soon, he was on fire; no, he was incinerated. His ashes joined with the earth. In time, his body would reform -- but it seemed to take ages. Centuries seemed to pass. Millenia. Eons. Time grew to a stand still -- before Guy's eyes abruptly snapped open. It would seem that he wasn't himself any more.

His form was now that as the ground beneath his feet; that is to say, he was stoned far more than he was prior to this encounter. It seemed, in fact, that he even had control over this form; with enough concentration he could summon the heat from within, only to once again reform his body... This time, it would be of molten stone; and in this form, he would find himself quite similar to a Subrosian. In this form, he would consume all that he could. It seemed as well that he lacked the finesse and agility of his prior form as well...

And, should he tire of this gift... he must simply let the flames consume once more.

Dante watched the boy, seeing his grin twist ever wider. A moment soon as the seventh gem was laid down, the wheel slowly began to turn... gradually gaining momentum, as if pushed by an unseen force. Dante could feel the snow around him twisting, the still air picking up into a breeze, then a torrent, and finally a tornado, a mad vortex whirling around him and the boy at an insane, deafening speed. By now the wheel was spinning so quickly it seemed like it would rip right off its hinges.

Even as Dante felt as if he was going to be sucked into the sky, the boy before him sat still, his hands still clenched together with white knuckles. His glare was pensive, motionless, upon Dante's eyes. The wind did not even seem to push a single strand of his hair astray, nor even ripple his immaculate little suit.

Through the deafening roar, his voice boomed as clear as sunlight, "Relatively speaking, of course, I appreciate you. Hopefully you will enjoy this." No sooner did his sentence finish, then all of a sudden his faceless face exploded like a Powder Keg, bursting apart into a trillion tiny black moths. Many of the moths were bursting apart like firecrackers, but those who didn't instead soared into Dante's face, driving ferociously into his gaping wooden snout and down his gullet. He could feel them writhing, exploding, flapping wildly inside him--all as the vortex flung him high into the sky, so high he could no longer even see the desk beneath him, writhing helplessly into the white clouds which bore motionless snow.

Finally, there came one final, catastrophic detonation--so loud Dante was deaf, so bright Dante was blind. When he could finally see and hear again, he found himself in a snow-covered prairie far to the north of Hyrule. Gently falling out of the sky came a myriad of snowflakes. The boy was nowhere to be seen, nor even a desk, but at Dante's feet sat a carnival wheel. It pointed to a black wedge that had seemingly burst apart--nearby wedges charred with blackpowder, while the selected wedge was in pieces.

Only then did Dante look to see his right hand... exploded apart, charred black... and yet it didn't hurt at all. It didn't even feel weird--in fact, a strange sense of relief washed over him, as though he had just peeled off a scab of sap. He watched the hand slowly reform into a different shape... His fingers seemed similar, if not the same, but his palm... There was a strange gate, not unlike an aperture, which he could open and close at will.

As if his body was moving on its own, he felt his arm raise, pointing at a nearby tree. Like the shot of a cannon, a projectile suddenly exploded forth from his hand--could he do this at will?--it appeared as a small black orb, which bounced off the tree as if the projectile was made of cloth. Indeed, the impact seemed lackluster, incapable of hurting a Keese. Over the course of three seconds, however, the orb flashed brighter and brighter, until it abruptly exploded apart ferociously, seemingly even a bit stronger than a Bomb.

Dante felt as though he couldn't shoot another one of these bombs until the last one had detonated. Still, if he shoved something else into his... hand-hole... would it fire too? Maybe he could even attach an adhesive to the bomb as it flung out, if he had the right materials. He felt that, at the very least, he could fire Deku Nuts from it as easily as he could fire them from his snout.

"...Arms dislike smoke," the voice boomed from nowhere and everywhere all at once. It was that of a young man, strangely. "...Fill the hole with smoke, and your arm will spit out one last gift: that which you sacrificed to me."

Holle stood, pursing his lips. He was incredibly intrigued by this odd offer, especially from this odd individual, but…
There were no treasures or tricks which he was entirely willing to sacrifice.
Oh, wait, nope. Spark. That little thing meant practically nothing to him now.
"Yeah, I'm down for this. I want to see what happens to, ahem, my little spark."
Seven rupees, so recently gained from that crazy moblin person after that incredibly confusing discussion with that apparently non-existent fellow, clattered down onto the desk.
"Let's give it a spin."
[Treasure to Twist: Spark]

As Holle reached for the wheel, he found that it.... couldn't turn. Try as he might, the wheel refused to so much as budge or even tilt, as it was frozen at a fixed point in space, an unmovable object. He blinked, and the wheel was gone--as was the desk, even the boy, and even the terrain on which he stood. He found himself in a sea of infinite blackness, a void, floating alongside the seven rupees he laid down.

Slowly, the rupees coalesced into two separate objects, fusing and transforming before his eyes. One seemed to be parchment with words written upon it, while the other appeared to be a quill of some kind.... which an extremely astute observer may notice to be a Drift Quill. The parchment read, in plain, and utterly boring writing, "If you wish to create flames once more, use this quill to write the words, 'I am lazy and cheap.' Better luck next time."

"...What a poor fool you are." The child's voice seemed to come from behind Boris, even though there was nothing behind him but a void. "If you twist the rules, the rules twist you." As the devious, invisible grin grew wider, Boris couldn't help but feel a sense of dread.

"Your purpose and your career you forfeit to me, so easily. Very well. Instead, I shall... allow you... to become a hand of mine in the world of mortals. An example. A message." He felt words etched into his backside, words of crimson ink that could never be erased, an invisible knife literally carving them into his hide:

"PAY THE PRICE,
OR NEVER GO BACK.
TWIST THE RULES,
TO FIND NO TRUTH."

...He gathered that not sacrificing rupees was a poor choice. Perhaps because of that, he knew what he had done could not be undone. His fate had been sealed. He felt the carving knife push into his body, stabbing into the period that ended the cryptic sentence. The cold steel seemed to entwine with his being, becoming part of him in ways he could not even begin to fathom.

The voice of a child, a young girl, rang in his ears, once again coming from behind him. "I am the creator of all tricks, the source of all illusions. You are nothing compared to me, but... I will allow you a speck of my power... to replace the expertise you have lost. This mere speck will forever eat away at you, clawing, tearing, pulling your life--for no living creature can be touched by me." There was almost a perverse glee behind this lass's words.

Boris felt the warmth drain from his fingertips, the beat of his little Deku Scrub heart come to a stop. As he gazed upon his hands, he witnessed the familiar brown hue fading, into a dull, lifeless, dead gray. Though he couldn't see it, his once-orange eyes had faded into an eerie, glowing violet. He knew without a doubt that he was no longer among the living, but some form of undead.

"Your appearance is what you make it. Illusions are your hand." Strangely, Boris knew he could guise himself however he wished, as any creature living or dead, or even a material object. Even his voice would change. It seemed he would not be able to change his size, however. As an extension of this ability, he is able to create minor illusions in his hands, and of course guise himself as other races. There was one thing he could never be again, however--anything resembling a living, breathing Deku Scrub. Illusions he does not himself create are child's play, and he can effortlessly see the truth beyond them. Furthermore, it seemed as though he could obtain Illusion-based techniques, spells, and items... as if he had some kind of specialty in Illusions.

Finally, he realized that becoming undead was not his payment. No, that was merely a catalyst. Whenever Boris completes a quest or dungeon, 5 of the rupees he would otherwise earn instead go to The Twister. Furthermore, this gift counts as a Major treasure.

"Goodbye, Boris." The girl's voice trailed away behind him, into the void of his dreams. Somehow he knew, he knew beyond reason, that never again would he be able to hear such a voice again. It seemed as though the entity had taken from him everything it could ever want from his body and soul, and as such it had no need to directly do business with him ever again.

... ... ...

Boris awoke with a start, his body cold, numb, trembling. As he saw his hands, gray and withered, he knew all too well that the nightmare was real. He could still feel the sting of the knife, and the words carved into his back. There was no turning back.

The invisible grin grew wider. "An interesting wager, boy..." Boy? The lad saying this seemed like he wasn't even half Leskar's age. His tight, white knuckles seemed to relax slightly, and the wheel gradually began to turn on its own. The colors spun ever-faster, and as they did, the desk--and the boy behind it--slowly rose into the air. Even as the colors spun wilder and wilder, all too quickly they ceased in an instant--and in that same instant, the desk and boy spun instead, flung through the air in a circular pattern behind the wheel, and blinding speed. All the while, the little lad sat pensively in his suit, an unseen but omnipresent grin staring blankly back at Leskar--until finally the desk spun so hard that it launched into the side of the cavern with a tumultuous CRASH, exploding into countless wooden shards against the hard stone wall. The chair was in countless pieces, but the mysterious boy was nowhere to be seen. How could this be?

As Leskar stared, bewildered, he abruptly felt a strange tingling sensation in his fingertips... on two hands out of four. It was as if invisible strings were suddenly tied around them, tugging gently. Yet more and more invisible strings coiled, pulling upward. Leskar would look up to see faintly glistening wires above him--as if he was a puppet, attached to an invisible puppeteer. The wires seemed to disappear into the ceiling. As he stared, the strings coiled down over his hands, then his arms, tugging him harder and harder upward--it begin to hurt, until it became agony. The strings were like steel, hard and cold, constricting, squeezing, until...

...A shower of blood and flesh rained down over Leskar, his own arms in shreds. Why didn't it hurt? No, it almost felt like a relief. He looked at his hands, finding that he only had two. It was almost unnerving, if it wasn't for this feeling of relief--this faint tingling of euphoria, even as he saw and felt blood dribbling down his own flesh. In place of arms, he felt two new... strange... limb-like appendages on his upper back. Either sat above giant scabs which he recognized as the spots from which his third and fourth arms once protruded. They didn't seem to protrude from him, but instead hovered in place. He could see the appendage's reflection in the pool of blood that formed at his feet. They were a pair of faintly-glowing orbs, seemingly of a pure-white color. Using them as if by instinct, he was able to slowly push himself, effortlessly, into the air. Then, he began to float to one side and the other...

...The orbs seemed to exude some sort of invisible force that let him fly. He could even float backwards, or hover in place. It took him a while to build up speed--he couldn't just push off the ground like he could while sprinting or jumping--but after a few seconds, he would be able to build himself up to a running speed. If he had more room, he supposed it would even be possible for him to shoot through the sky like an arrow. He knew without a doubt that he could travel at far faster speeds than even a Rito. However, it was particularly difficult to stop or maneuver at these high speeds. Indeed, the control seemed very loose compared to magically hovering or flying with Rito-like wings. It was a trade-off, he supposed. Still, he could fly or even hover seemingly without effort.

As he looked down to the ground---how trivial land-bound travel suddenly seemed--the pool of blood had mostly vanished. Instead, were words written in his former blood. "Pull them into your body before you submerge fully, lest you want your former arms to regrow in their place." Indeed, now that Leskar thought about it, they seemed dry, almost brittle... He somehow knew it would be painful should they get wet, and that they wouldn't function unless they were dry. He supposed he would have to walk during rain, at least, and flying underwater was obviously out of the question if he wanted to keep them.

Leskar couldn't be sure if paying double the normal cost had any benefit, but 14 rupees were nonetheless sacrificed in playing this game.

This thread has been closed, at the request of The Twister. If you wish to make a request of him, you are encouraged to post a new thread in "The Twister's Domain" forum. Similarly, you are encouraged (but not required) to reply to any Twist which occurs.

Similarly, if you would like to respond to one of the Twists which has already occurred, you are encouraged to do so in a new thread of your own making.