381 days after a wizard cursed the REALM…
Current Version:
Wordler 381 ran for his life, into the cornfield and through the stalks, just ahead of—who, exactly? He couldn’t quite remember, but his gut told him it would be bad if he were caught.
“If you build it…”
381 stopped short. The voice had been a whisper, but it seemed to come from all directions, loud enough to be heard over his pounding heart.
“…he will come.”
“What?” asked 381.
“If you build it, he will come.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. If I build what, who will come?”
“Go the distance.”
“Oh, you’re quoting lines from Disney’s <em>Hercules</em>,” he noted, not entirely displeased.
The cornstalks rustled at his back. The pursuer was closing in, and 381 had to keep moving. Suddenly, the stalks in front of him gave way to an old-timey baseball diamond, where players in old-timey uniforms were playing a version of the game where digital ads weren’t inserted behind the batter during every pitch.
“If you build it, he will come.”
“Okay, I get it,” said 381. “It’s a classic movie reference. So, if I build an Olympic stadium, Disney’s Hercules will show up?”
A mist rolled across the wall of corn stalks behind him. A red light colored the mist, accompanied by the sound of heavy breathing. A tall figure, dressed in space-black from the top of his helmet to the edge of his cape, stepped into the outfield with a red lightsaber in hand.
“Wait,” said 381. “You’re not Disney’s Hercules.”
“Wordler 381,” the Sith Lord boomed. “People will come, Wordler 381. They’ll come to Wordler Village for reasons they can't even fathom. They’ll subscribe to daily updates, not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll start reading, as innocent as children, longing for the past.
“‘Of course, we won’t mind if you look through the archives,’ you'll say. ‘Reading is free. Collecting is free. But quantities are limited to 888 at the most, and when the minting stops there’s a marketplace where collectors can buy and sell past episodes.’ They'll fill their wallets with NFTs without even thinking about it. For it is crypto they have and peace they lack.
“And they'll walk outside with their phones or tablets, and sit in shirt-sleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats on a comfortable bench overlooking scenes of nature, where they sat with books when they were children and cheered their literary heroes. And they'll read the stories, and it'll be as if they'd dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they'll have to brush them away from their faces.
“The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been story. The world has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But stories have marked the time. The readers will come. If you write it, they will come.”
381 frowned. “So…is Disney’s Hercules not going to show up after all?”
The world shook, and the Wordler woke up on a Greyhound bus on his quest to find the daily Word to save his village. “Is this Heaven?” he wondered.
“No,” said Darth Vader, from the seat across the aisle. “This is Wordle Quest.”
Web3 Draft:
Revision Notes:
To be added.
