Renny placed the jawbone upon the stone alter and reached for the leather pouch. In it was the fine white powder, the ground remnant of the unicorn horn. He sprinkled a little of it into the stone bowl, adding it to the exotic herbs and other arcane ingredients. As he stirred he carefully noted the tiny amounts of sparkling pixie dust that seemed to rise above the mixture. Pleased, he began to chant the ancient words.
When he first started his work, things were much different. He worked in a lab with computers and test tubes and microscopes. Real science. Not this nightmare of mumbo-jumbo he was forced to endure. He was a man of SCIENCE. Not some third rate sorcerer.
All he ever wanted to do was find an inexpensive way to transport goods over long distances. Teleport -- actually. He believed it could be done. The science was solid. His figures checked out. When he finally got the grant he couldn't wait to get started. Within months he was ready to test the device. And it worked. After a fashion.
He was supposed to teleport a few grams of a radioactive isotope from a staging platform to a receiving platform, twelve feet away. Instead, his entire lab flashed and blinked and vibrated and sparked from this reality to the next. He had found a way to move between dimensions.
As it turned out, each dimension, or reality, had its own set of rules. Laws of Nature. Scientific Principles. What-not. The tools of quantum science did not necessarily work everywhere. But magic did. In some places. And not only did the rules change but so did he -- and his lab. Sometimes his lab was the bright, white and chrome, room he was used to. Sometimes it looked more like a rec room in someones basement. Sometimes, as it did now, he was in a cave, illuminated by torch-light.
As the room and equipment changed, Renny had to figure out what rules were in play in each dimension, based upon what tools were in his lab after each jump. He had reasoned, early on, that whatever reality he found himself in, he was the same person, doing the same research. So he would inventory his equipment, look at his notes (if any) and recreate his experiment as best he could. Hoping to jump back home eventually.
One time, God help him, he had to get twelve cats to walk two abreast through an obstacle course made of cardboard boxes. Another time, he was six inches tall in a normal size lab -- but the science was solid in that one. Still another time he found himself in a room full of chemicals and beakers. His solution lay in creating the correct chemical combination that would . . . well, you get the idea.
This time he was wearing an honest-to-god sorcerers robe, star encrusted, pointed cap and all. And chanting words from a book whose pages appeared to be made of human flesh. But he kept on. Chanting, waving his arms and occasionally sprinkling in another ingredient until, at last, he sensed the familiar vibration begin to build and he knew he hit pay dirt. His vision began to waver, the torch light flared and dimmed and with a crack of lightning -- he jumped.
The room he found himself in was decorated in bright primary colors. There was little furniture in the room and he found himself sitting on a yellow rug surrounded by an ocean of Leggo Blocks. He held up his hands and found them to be tiny and pudgy. Looking down at his dimpled knees and pink legs he realized he was wearing a diaper. And it needed changed. So Renny said what any scientist in his position would say, "Waaaaah!"
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