I stared in stunned, silent awe at the mirror for a few more moments. It was hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that my eyes were so utterly alien.
"What am I, a comic book character? What is it with these eyes?" I asked, combatting the silence of the room, as I continued to examine my reflection in the mirror. I eventually managed to pull my eyes away from the reflection of my eyes and turned my gaze upwards. I had neatly coiffed hair, hair that was arranged in a way I had never arranged my hair in before.
I possessed light brown hair and it was naturally curly. My hair was arranged in a way that allowed it to capture someone's attention, without being extravagant. Styling my hair was something that I had never mastered, so it felt strange to see it arranged so perfectly. That said, the fact that it was relatively familiar allowed me to study it for a moment without finding it as interesting as the other changes I had undergone. It was a relatively underwhelming, perfectly plausible change after all.
I must have spent a total of three minutes staring at myself in the mirror before pulling myself away from it. When I did so I immediately began to walk until I was standing in front of the odd section of wall to the right of the bed I woke up on that was made of glass. As soon as I stopped walking I began to gaze through the glass and finally got to clearly see the sources of the sounds I could hear.
The building I was in was very close, perhaps the length of an average two-lane street back home, to the beautiful ocean and the beach that jutted out from said ocean that I could see laying down in the bed I had woken up on. The beach was a small one, but that sand that was visible to anyone who gazed upon it was the finest, most brilliant sand I had ever seen. The ocean itself was also breathtakingly beautiful, and its gentle waves lapped at the shore.
There were a number of children running over the sand, laughing and giggling. They had skin that was similar to mine in tone, a warm, olive-like color. They wore simple, lightly colored outfits that I suspected were designed to help regulate heat and also let their skin breathe. They were having the times of their lives.
After a few seconds I was startled to find that my vision seemed to begin to "zoom-in" on the children. I felt my gaze close in on them, and was confused as I was able to visualize them in far greater detail than before. All it took for me to undo my odd vision was for me to shake my head in shock, which returned my vision to normal.
I tore my eyes away from them after a few seconds of watching them play. They were far from the only children on the beach, and they were far from the only sights for me to study. Closer to my house I began to see a densely packed throng of people. They were the source of the din I noticed earlier.
The densely packed throng of people were shockingly diverse in their appearances. Some of them, obviously the poorest of them, wore rags that were little more than potato sacks with holes cut in them to allow them to serve as inexpensive clothes. They formed the majority of the throng that I could see. They were dancing energetically, ecstatic smiles on their faces.
The next largest group of people were dressed in what I immediately recognized as fashion that fused aesthetics from both Rome and the Spanish Empire, mixing Roman style with Spanish utility. These men and women wore actual clothes and carried goblets in one hand and food in another. They were singing or chanting, many without skill but more than a few weren't half-bad. They were in incredible spirits.
The third group and the smallest of the groups visible to me from through this wall-sized glass barrier I could see a number of muscular men carrying weapons, shields, who wore red armor. From a distance, they looked quite intimidating, but I noticed that even they had smiles on their faces. It seemed that there was an infectiously good mood that suffused the air outside this building.
The air in the room I was in smelled almost supernaturally clean. The sort of clean that was out of reach without the usage of disinfectants and other cleaning substances. I continued to look out the window, for a few moments before tearing myself away from it and back into the room proper.
I strode back to the bed and momentarily wondered what to do. I did so in silence, lost in thought. It was as I was walking now that I noticed something odd. I was very fast.
I hadn't consciously noticed this before but despite the considerable size of my room, I was able to traverse it in less than two seconds and I wasn't even pushing myself. Even at my athletic peak as a college student, I was barely half as fast as I was evidently capable of moving.
I must have been moving at something like 28 meters per second, and the thought of moving that fast without feeling any exertion at all was enough to make me laugh. I was expending the same energy I'd have previously expended to do something simple like lifting a book or getting out of bed despite moving faster than sprinter did. It almost made me want me to try sprinting, just to see what happened if I pushed myself. I quickly shelved that thought though. Not now, not here.
Now that I was on the other side of the room, back where the bed was, I walked over to the door to the right of the bed, the one that isn't to a closet, and opened it. It opened to reveal a gigantic, complete bathroom.
The bathroom was modern and itself had another door on its left. This bathroom had a toilet, sink, gigantic shower-cubicle complete with a seat to sit in, and various other amenities including a massive bathtub that looked like it could fit a small family to the side of the shower cubicle. As I entered the bathroom, I heard the sound of something soft falling onto the sink to my right. I turned to study the sink and was surprised to find another note. I picked up and began to study it.
"Welcome to your new home!" The note read. The handwriting was still nondescript. Before my very eyes more writing began to appear on the note, appearing as if someone were writing on the note despite it being in my hand.
"This mansion is your new home. It is magically tethered to your soul and is one perk you've acquired as a consequence of the summoning ritual that brought you to the world of Luna. However, the supernatural abilities you'll discover over the course of the next few hours or days are not a consequence of the ritual that brought you here." The note read, confusing me.
"This... 'mansion'?" I muttered, curious about so many parts of this strange note, and among the other questions I had was how this piece of paper managed to be written on while in my hand.
"This manor itself is conscious. Sort of. It has a limited consciousness. It can respond to your will and will reshape or even relocate itself to please you. It is also a place that uses your innate magical energy, a resource you yourself can't use, to power the myriad of electrical devices here, including to recharge the prototype electric cars, that are equally tethered to your soul, waiting for you in your garage. Those particular cars, which were experimental in your world, are wonderful luxuries in this pre-industrial world." The note read, after another increase in the visible handwriting.
"Mansions and... electric cars, 'tethered to my soul'?" I asked, taking in the contents of the notes. I, of course, didn't believe it, but there was something... persuasive in the strange note that made a small part of me want to believe. It was the curious nature of the note's ability to spontaneously generate more handwriting that made a part of it persuasive. That sort of thing was beyond what I knew as "possible" so it naturally gave the note a bit more believability if it talked about things like magic and what was "tethered" to my soul.
The note also mentioned superpowers and that would explain why I could walk so fast and so effortlessly hear and see things from so far away. But despite its possible supernatural nature, I was not about to just believe random notes found in bathrooms. I sighed and walked over to the door within the bathroom and opened it.
The door opened to reveal what I immediately recognized as a sauna. There was something odd about the room, including the fact at that the moment it was positively cold at the moment but I recognize the design as an exact match of a sauna I once visited back home and the fact that most saunas I had been too had nearly identical designs. I study the room for a few moments before closing the door and moving to study the shower-cubicle.
The shower-cubicle was large, more than large enough for several people, even people of my height and width. It contained a single large shower nozzle that appeared to pour water directly down on people, and also several handheld, omnidirectional showerheads that one could grab and use to aim where they wanted to get soaked.
I spent a few minutes in here, testing the water using one of the handheld showerheads and find that it has a wide range of water pressure options and temperature options as well. It was a delightful way to spend a few minutes relaxing given the oddity of the situation I am in. Before I left the space altogether I also explored the table that houses the sink.
The space that houses the sink has a number of cubbies I could open. When I did just that I found numerous types of soaps, shampoos, skin cream and other things to maintain my personal hygiene, all of which had silly, generic-brand sounding names. I also found towels and toilet paper.
That said, it didn't take me forever to leave the bathroom. After a while I managed to refocus and reenter the bedroom I woke up in.
I quickly enter one of the closets, explore it and found that it has a wide variety of footwear and matching socks. I grabbed a pair of boots, and socks, and found that they fit me perfectly. I sighed because this lends a comically thin layer of credibility to the silly idea of the mansion being "tethered" to my soul, and also to the even sillier idea that such a place could be mine. Once I have the boots on, I quickly exited the closet, walked over to the other door that didn't lead to a closet and opened it.
It opened to reveal a gigantic common area, like the biggest living room and kitchen-combo that I've ever seen, that must stretch even wider and longer than the bedroom I was in. At the center of this area is a large square opening in the floor connected to a stone-platform that has stairs leading up and down. Sunlight streams into this weird place from the opening, suggesting something like a glass roof if I walked over to the opening in the floor and looked up.
This common area included an enormous T.V., probably the single largest one I've ever seen, built into one wall on one far end of the space, complete with an oddly "home-theater" like arrangement of chairs and sofas. A part of me was curious to see what's on the T.V., but I managed to resist the temptation to turn it on, for now. I know that if I turned it on and see something I'm not ready for, like a program in a language completely unlike Spanish, that'd make this whole thing well and truly real.
Not far from the home-theater was a kitchen island-like table that stood near the weird opening in the floor. I could see a number of microwaves built side-to-side within the kitchen island, and even a modern, electrical stove/oven combo built. There was a massive refrigerator that helped cement the reality that this weird space was a kitchen, probably one meant for simple family snacks.
There are a number of doors that liter this space. Walls abound and each wall has at least one door. Some of the doors have handy glass areas that allow one to peer into them. Those doors universally lead to utility rooms, such as one that is obviously meant for little celebrations, or private dinners. These rooms also into a single party room that is impressively wide, and I joke, to no one in particular that that's a room for a Quinceanera.
I walk over to the door that leads to the party room and I noticed that in addition to its the sheer size of the room, it is even larger than my own room, after all, it also has a door that leads to the outside. I try the door into the room and am unsurprised when it opens without resistance.
The room is split into quadrants. I walk through each, so that I can make it to the door that leads outside.
The quadrant closest to the door leading in and out is a simple area filled decorated by chairs, tables, and a buffet area for self-serving food. Two of the remaining three quadrants are a simple, yet masterfully crafted, dance-floor made of hard, white wood.
The last quadrant is split in half, half of which is a cordoned off, private dance floor, which is laughably obnoxious in a private home. The other half of the last quadrant is an area that includes an intricate sound-system and DJ setup built into the room. Behind it is a wall that includes glass areas which allow sunlight to shine into and illuminate the room.
I step past all of this, taking a few moments to visually study the room as I do so. I reach the door leading out and open it with ease. When I step past the open door I feel the outside breeze and the smell of the ocean hit my skin and wrinkle my nose respectively. It's not an unpleasant smell, if anything it's the opposite, but it is a powerful one.
This outside area is a sizeable patio-like space that lacks windows and provides a beautiful, almost cinematic view of the ocean. This space is about a half of the size of my bedroom, meaning there's considerable legroom here. It also has a few tables decorated with a stunning red tablecloth and two chairs each, though I suspect that this incredible manor has a space filled with chairs, just in case. This space is obviously intended for outdoor parties or for intimate dinners.
Other decorations in this space include a number of instruments, ones I recognize like a piano and a violin, and others I don't but manage to infer are instruments from their proximity to the piano and violin. There's even a bar tucked away in a corner, and I figure that it's probably fully stocked, given the supposedly magical and undeniably incredible nature of this place. I walk to the edge of the patio.
There are handrails that stop someone from just walking off the patio's edge, and I stop short of them. I look out at the assembled crowds and can now finally count the people who are gathered here.
The number is considerable, it's easily in the thousands. The crowd is gathered around my house in three directions, west, north, and south. To my east, relative to where I am now, is the ocean. I only scan the crowd for a few moments before I retreat from the edge of the patio. As I retreat away, I look in the general direction I came from and am surprised to see a colored glass door off in the distance.
The patio is a strange area that appears to wrap around the entire building, at least on this floor. The glass door off in the distance is colored and cannot be seen through, offering whatever amenities such a space offers, as well as a bit of privacy. I suspect that somehow my room likely offers, or could offer, a way to a private patio space. I sigh and make a mental note to figure it out later.
I turn around and begin to walk back towards the party room. As I do I notice that the patio continues in the other direction as well, and that there is an equally private glass door in the other direction, which I see as evidence that this patio wraps around the entire floor.
When I once again reach the living room area I immediately begin a thorough exploration of the floor. I open each door, and by the time I am done, nearly forty-five minutes later I have discovered a lot about this area.
The first thing I discovered is that "my" room wasn't the only bedroom. It was the largest, but three other, almost as large bedrooms exist. These rooms also had gigantic bathrooms with tubs and shower-cubicles of considerable size, as well as smaller saunas.
One of the rooms I explored was the large workout room I noticed earlier. It was split into two sections: one is a family cardio area that includes a wall of mirrors for group-dancing, machines like treadmills for running in controlled circumstances, and even ellipticals. The other section was an area for weight-lifting, with weights and machines for weight-training that were marked in both the imperial measurement system and the metric system.
In exploring the rest of the floor I found two medium-sized laundry rooms with modern washers and dryers. They were industrial-sized and are suitably large and hefty machines. These rooms also had a number of tables for folding clothes, and a small break-like area for anyone who found themselves here, complete with a microwave and a small refrigerator. It reminded me of depictions of a hotel's laundry room.
The last really odd thing I found was an elevator. I find it after entering and exiting one of the bedrooms. It stood in a lone corner of the living area, and had the usual buttons indicating whether someone who needed it intended to go up or down.
When I was done with my exploration of the floor I entered it, just to see what it was like, and upon entering it was greeted with Hispanic elevator music, a calming salsa beat. The inside of the elevator was just like any other elevator.
There were a total of seven buttons. It appeared that there were two basement floors, and the elevator labeled them "B-1-Clinic" and "B-2-U.G.F."
The first non-basement floor had the nondescript label "G-social-and-business-floor", and then there were three floors marked as floors "2-clinic-and-laboratory", "3-help-and-apprentice-housing-and-work-space", and "4-personal-and-familial-housing". "4" was the floor I was on, as marked by the fact that that button was glowing already.
There was one final floor, marked solely as "Rooftop garden". It was the sole floor above me. I chuckled and clicked on that button.
The doors in front of me, which had remained open this whole time, automatically closed. I felt the vibrations of the elevator beginning to move. A few moments later the vibrations stopped, and shortly thereafter, the elevator door slid open.
I stepped through the doors onto the rooftop garden and smiled. For the first time ever I was fully outside. There was no roof above me, allowing me to feel the glow of the morning sun on my skin.
The rooftop garden was a place of incredible greenery. Countless plants are growing all around the garden, and it's hard not to admire the place. I walk through the enormous garden and even with my speed it takes me a bit to reach the edge of it. By the time I do, I realize that the sheer square footage of even a single floor of this place must be truly gigantic. Up here, without walls, that's a lot more apparent than downstairs.
When I reach the edge of the garden I walk over to a set of handrails and look out at the crowds. Up here I am easy to spot, which becomes apparent a few seconds after I do this because the din of the crowd stops for a moment. The suddenness of the silence makes it all the louder, and it goes on for a few seconds, uninterrupted.
It was abruptly shattered when the crowd suddenly began to cheer even louder than before, the noise truly explosive in volume. This renewed cheering lasted for a full minute before a single voice made itself heard above the roar of the cheering crowd.