Jon turned to the door, suddenly afraid.
"Oh, don't worry, it's only Karyn," the man said. "Hurry up and let her in, we're going to need her help."
"
Not knowing what else to do, Jon stood up and opened the door.
"Hey, Jon-boy," Karyn said as she came in. "What were you so panicked over that I had to come right over?"
Jon motioned to his computer monitor. "Well, for starters, there's that."
"Whoa, did you wish for an upgrade for your computer? I've never seen resolution that clear!"
"Actually," Jon said as he sat back down at his desk, "the computer's not on."
"Glad you could finally join us, Karyn," the man on the screen said. "We've got serious work to do."
"What did you do?" Karyn asked as she knelt down by the desk beside Jon.
"I wished something interesting would happen while I was holding the stone. Then, when I turned my monitor on this guy appeared and started telling me I did something stupid."
"Geez, Jon, and I thought I made a dumb wish," Karyn said as she motioned to her enhanced endowments and blonde hair. "There's no way to predict what a wish like that could do. I guess it's good that it was limited to your monitor."
"Oh, if only that were the case, Karyn," the man said. "My being here now is only an indirect result of Jon's wish. In point of fact, I'm here to try to prevent the direct result from being any worse than it could be."
"Ok, I get it, I screwed up," Jon said. "But we have no idea who you are or what's going on right now. Seriously, instead of saying there's so much to do why don't you tell us what's going on?"
"But of course," the man said. "My name is Arthur and I'm...well, I guess you could say that it's my job to police reality. It's my job to enforce the limiting factors of artifacts like your stone there so that they don't completely unravel existence. When you made your wish, worded the way it was, though, you did more than create a chance for something interesting to happen. You invited an extra-dimensional being into your reality and gave her carte blanche to act as she sees fit."
"What?" Jon and Karyn said in unison.
"It shouldn't have been able to work but there's something off about you, Jon," Arthur said. "I think I know what it is, but I need you here so I can run some tests."
Before either Jon or Karyn could say another word a white light engulfed them, blinding them to the world around them.
