MANTLE

An odd boy idles away the minutes in his house, waiting for a present that will arrive very soon.

Today is neither his birthday nor a major holiday. Well okay it's sort of a major holiday. But in any case, it is the day his friend’s game-developer guardian promised to send him a new game for testing. So he waits for the software code to arrive in his inbox on the computer, so he can modify and play it.

But who is this kid anyway?

Your name is OBERON SCYREB.

You are a master of ACQUIREMENT DEALS, choosing mostly to collect LEGO PARTS. This has been a bit of a blow to your MINOR FINANCES. However, you see your monetary losses as simply OUTSIDE SETBACKS to the enlargement of your substantial stash. As the years have gone by, you have amassed a few CONSIDERABLY VALUABLE ITEMS, which you are proud of.

You enjoy reading OBSCURE BOOKS and watching MOVIES, which you are apt to make various OBLIQUE REFERENCES to. Nobody ever gets what you’re talking about, but you still love your references. This highly unusual background in entertainment also sparks your imagination, leading you to pursue your LEGO ACQUIREMENTS as well as various OTHER PROJECTS such as WRITING that you don’t really tell anyone about.

You consider so-called "young adult" literature to be RIDICULOUSLY SHALLOW, and there is nothing you hate more than examples of said literature that also contain FALSE SCIENCE. You often mutter that looking through shelves of young adult books is a WORSE IDEA than participating in a PRACTICAL JOKE.

Your current username on the site you use to chat with your friends is oneiroiTaleteller .

What now?

It’s not that interesting. Your bed is sloppily made - you can hardly deal with those ridiculous new sheets. Somewhere in here, there are probably some nearly complete sets of US and Canadian quarters. You keep most of your important collections elsewhere. However, you do have a computer in here, as well as (at the moment) your sketchbook, an Artemis Fowl book you’re rereading, and an insanely awesome poster and figurine.

You guess you’ll look for anything new... again. You push the chair aside and look at the links, but no messages have arrived. Looks like your friend is available to chat with, though. Maybe he’ll know whether his guardian is sending the code?

You decide to go somewhere else for a bit. Maybe you’ll just go look over your LEGO stuff, go through the boxes or something. Plus there’s a laptop in that room, so you can be notified right away.

You cleaned it up a while ago, and only a few parts are left out on the floor – you’d arranged them to take a picture a few days ago, when you were going to make a trade. It sure looks spare in here now, though, doesn’t it? Lots of drawers, lots of windows (with closed blinds right now), and some scattered boxes and containers. Plus of course the couch-thing, with your laptop and “quarterstaffs” (more like walking sticks, but you can pretend).

What, this? This is a FIKOU, a spider from the BIONICLE story. It was first introduced as a creature from Le-Wahi, you think, a small arachnid that spun treacherously hard-to-see webs in the trees. You prize it and the set it came from - the set, of course, was the Master Builder Set, set number 10023. You recited that from memory.

You remember when you first got that set and were able to build several Rahi. Ah, those were the days...

… Well, that was awfully fast.