The road is empty, as you would expect at this hour. Your drive home from work has been characteristically uneventful. The radio's playing the same crap it always does and you don't get much service out here in the backwoods so no streaming. Looking down at the clock, you can see you're making decent enough time and should be able to get home in time to catch that show you like. Alone. Like every night. Maybe don't dwell on that, huh? No one likes sad sap.
You're pulled out of your ruminations by the radio turning to static. Really loud static. Weird. this doesn't happen. Like, ever. You curse and try to turn down the volume. Weirder still, that doesn't work. A pounding begins to overtake your head. Your vision blurs. All you can think is that, out here in the middle of bum fuck nowhere, you're going to crash and die. Everything goes black.
"Richard Arkane. Awaken!" A thunderous voice rouses you from the most comfortable slumber you've ever had. That weird seizure turning to a car wreck must have been a nightmare...but who just called to you? You don't know anyone who sounds like that. And if you were asleep, safe at home, wouldn't you be in your soft, comfortable bed?
Oh, shit...You _ARE _dead. Is this heaven? Hell? Probably Hell with how much you fap...and to _WHAT _you fap.
"You are not in Hell, Richard. You are not dead, either." You finally brave opening your eyes to find yourself in what appears to be a beautiful dreamscape. All around you is the funky, cosmos of space, far more vibrant than any sci fi you've seen. Looking down at the cold smooth surface beneath you...was a mistake. There's nothing beneath you. Oddly enough, you don't feel the vertigo you would expect when staring into a shimmering void when you were expecting ground.
You rise and try to compose yourself, while further taking in the sights around you. Stacks of books stretching higher than you can see hover around as if carried by drunken invisible little men. There's also a plethora of doors, connected to nothing, yet you just know they each lead someplace fantastical. The centerpiece, though, is the throne. Or, rather, the man sitting upon it. he regards you with a warm smile through his bushy white beard. His radiant purple eyes seem to look straight into your soul. Despite his kindly face and demeanour though, you sense a darkness within him, too.
Wait. You sense a darkness within him? What the hell kinda wizard-y shit is that?
"That's the transfer beginning to take place, Mr Arkane." He answers your internal monologue.
Before you can utter anything he begins an explanation, "I am Varzidraxx the Mage, master Sorceror of Earth. And my time is coming to an end. After a century as guardian of the Arts, I may finally return to being just...Carl. If, that is, you are willing to accept my gift? To take all my skill? My knowledge? And become the leading master of the arcane arts on this world?"
"Wait." You finally say aloud. "Your name was Carl? Will I need to call myself something different, too?"
"No. That was wholly my choice. You CAN, though."
He looks at you expectantly