The Holder of Ideas

Behind a certain building made for religious worship, there is a forest. When you travel in the forest, initially, you must follow the path that is presented to you, but once you reach a split in the path, you must go off of the path entirely and wander to your right. If you wander for long enough, be on the lookout for a small house, which may or may not even exist. It will not present itself to you directly, you will have to search for it. It may take hours, days, weeks, or however long it takes for you to lose yourself in the forest and realize that you have no hope for survival when the wolves begin to howl.

If and when the small house presents itself to you, you must go to the front of the house. Do not knock on the door. Nobody will answer, the gesture will anger the host of the house, and the wolves will only find you faster that way. No, you must look to what is on the front porch: a glistening, black, grand piano, which contrasts heavily with the stark-white house. Do not spend all of your time looking at its utmost beauty. The wolves are sure to find you eventually, unless you get yourself into the house.

To get into the house, you must compose a piece of music befitting for your hosts' ears within five minutes. Sit down at the piano, and concentrate. Your musical composition must be original, it must be beautiful, and you must make it within those five minutes. When you succeed in creating a piece of music that meets standards, you may look out across the small clearing in front of the house and notice several of the wolves you heard howling earlier. Do not stop playing. They're listening to your music. While still playing, the front door should snap open, and a young, plain-looking woman will step out and whisper to you to hurry inside. When you are absolutely ready, stop playing and run for the door. Once both of you are safely inside, she will lock and bolt the door, keeping the wolves out.

From here, you must tell the woman, "I am here to speak with the Holder of Ideas." She will silently bow to you and lead you to a plain white door. Taking a key from around her neck, she will unlock this door with it, and then hand the key to you. Accept it graciously, then proceed down the short flight of stairs that has appeared on the other side of the door. When you get to the bottom, the woman, who has been peering at you through a crack in the door cautiously, will shut it. Look away, then back at it, and the door will be gone. Step off of the stairs and into the plain white room, then look back at the stairs, and they will be gone, also.

There is a trench separating you from the other side of this bright, white room. If you check your pockets, any other possessions you once had will be gone, save for the key the woman gave you. Behind you, on the wall, will be three tiny locks. This key will unlock each of these locks, which each open a separate door with three different items in them. These items vary from person to person, and you must use these three items to get across the trench. If you do not try, or try but get stuck, you'll be stuck for the rest of what remains of your life. Nobody will come to help you, and you will not receive the Object you were seeking. You will slowly die in that room, until eventually you turn to dust and are no more.

If you succeed in making your way across the trench, go through the doorway that is present. There is no door, just stairs, straight as an arrow, leading you up just as those before led you down. When you turn around, the doorway will be gone. When you reach the top and go through another doorway that has presented itself, the stairs will disappear, just as before. The room before you will be just as brightly lit as the one with the trench, but the walls are covered in etchings, and the Holder is busy making more. Some will be drawings in crayon, some will be painted, some will be carved (though with what you do not want to imagine), and some you will not know anything about.

When you look at the Holder, it is like you are in a dream. Don't be deceived by this, you are very much awake. The Holder, every time you blink, will be someone or something different, be it a tantalizingly beautiful woman or a tall lizard man. It is whatever the Holder wishes to present itself as at that moment, which varies and changes incredibly swiftly. This Holder, whatever you happen to see it as, will be holding some kind of artistic medium. Tap it on the shoulder, and the Holder will slowly turn its head to face you, and it will give you its artistic medium. Take it, and upon touching your hand, it will turn into a wooden paintbrush, with its thick bristles covered lightly in white paint.

The Holder, in its form, will turn to face you entirely, and look into the windows to your soul. It will then deem you as a great mind, an average mind, or a small mind. Pray you are not small-minded; the Holder will release you into the outside world, where no one will recognize you, as if your very being was wiped away, and all that you love will no longer exist, just as you don't. If you are average-minded, the Holder will simply scoff at you, and proceed to turn you into another of its paints. However, if you are deemed to be great-minded, the Holder will show you its true form, that of a young woman bathed in white. Once you have recognized this, you must say with no doubt, "Great minds discuss ideas." If you do not, you will have the same fate as that of a small-minded person.

Once you have put down your statement, the Holder will laugh a delightful laugh of tinkling bells and plucked harp strings, then smile and turn away from you. She will procure a new form of art media, a paintbrush like yours. She will paint your face into a blank spot on the wall you hadn't seen before, black paint contrasting on white just as the piano had. Once she is done, and she turns back to you, that is your opportunity to ask the question, "What is humanity's one true inspiration?"

She will laugh again, and explain in detail exactly the root of humanity's inspiration, and lay out the long story explaining why and how it came to be. It will be hours before she is done, and when she is, if she feels that you are worthy, she will hand over her other paintbrush, the bristles covered in black paint this time. She will tear the edge off of her white gown and give it to you. Use this strip to wrap the paintbrushes together around the handles, so that the tips face opposite sides.

When you look up, the Holder will be gone, and a small doorway will be next to where she had painted your face. Enter, and you will be blinded by a flash of white light. When you have regained consciousness, you will be on the front steps of the building of worship in front of the forest, and hopefully, you kept a tight grip on the paintbrushes.

These paintbrushes, tied together by the edge of the Holder of Ideas' gown, are Object 653 of 2538. Just like the tips of these brushes, these items must never come together.