“This is my least favorite part of NaNoWriMo,” typed Alex into his chat program.

“Why is that?,” asked his friend.

“Well, as you know, we’re just about to head into Thanksgiving weekend. Thanksgiving is a time for eating too much food, buying random things on the internet instead of going to Black Friday sales at retail, and playing too much Skyrim. And seeing family, of course. How am I supposed to cram a bunch of writing in there somewhere?”

“That’s a good point.”

“I’ve never liked it. I’ve tried different strategies over the years. The first time I did it, I just did some extra writing on the day before Thanksgiving, and that worked out well enough. But today I don’t feel like it, haha.”

“Haha.”

“It’s hard to work up the motivation to write extra content when it’s already hard enough just to keep up with the *regular* pace of this stupid thing. I suppose I could ignore the holiday altogether and just act like it’s a regular Thursday…but then I’d have to somehow account for Beanland being closed tomorrow.”

“Can’t you just write from home?,” asked Alex’s still-nameless friend. “Don’t you have a better computer there anyway?”

“I do! But it’s harder to focus on writing there now that I’ve established this daily coffee shop habit. Which happened entirely by accident. Years ago, I was thinking about the whole cliche of people writing novels in coffee shops, right at the same moment that I had finally developed a taste for coffee. I went and spent one day here at the Beanland, saw all the people writing on laptops, and realized ‘I could do that.’ And so I did. And then it kind of stuck.”

“Well…you could always take a couple of days off?”

“I certainly could! But that’d basically be the end of this whole project. It’d be quite the mountain to climb to get back on track. And besides, then we couldn’t have these random fake conversations for a few days.”

Selena came over to Alex’s table. “We’re going to be closed tomorrow, just to let you know.”

“Yeah I know, it’s bumming me out.”

“Honestly I don’t like it either, but my family expects me to come eat too much food with them. You still doing that stupid writing thing?”

Alex nodded. “Yup! I even gave Catwoman a bigger role!”

“Oh that’s good!,” said Selena. “I stopped reading it because it was too much to keep up with.”

“That’s okay, I don’t read them either.”

—

Catwoman, eager to show off her prowess to the weird kicking elf lady, stormed into the cave. It was filled with bandits, but she quickly dispatched them with her Space Laser Gun.

Then she noticed the treasure.

The cave was absolutely piled full of gold coins and random weapons. “Wow,” she said. “Maybe I should have left the jewel-thief business and just stood aside some random road.”

“The bandits did not take all of these things,” said Galadriel. “These treasures were placed here, specifically for us, by a supreme being.”

Catwoman blinked. She put her Space Laser Gun away in her magic Lego Person Pants, where you could just put stuff and have it kind of disappear. “What?,” she asked.

Galadriel nodded. “It’s true. This haul was placed here precisely for us to find in this precise moment. Everything is carefully planned out ahead of time, you just have to learn to read the signs.”

“You’re crazy, aren’t you?”

“No!,” shouted Galadriel. “I’m the only sane one left! Now come forward various viking folks, and gather up supplies. We have many Saurons to dismantle.”

The vikings poured into the cave and started to gather up the weapons. “My lady,” said the Viking Leader, “what about all of this gold?”

Lady Galadriel’s face scrunched into a dismissive grin. “What need have we plastic people of money? Have you ever actually had to buy anything?”

The viking leader blinked. “No, I suppose not. But until a few moments ago, I lived most of my life inside of a big lucite cube. And we never established much of an economy inside the cube.”

Catwoman walked outside of the cave and decided to enjoy the view. She pondered everything that had happened in this story up to this point. “Something doesn’t seem right about all this.”

—

“Do de do do do de do,” said Frank Honey. He was sitting against some random machinery in the Batcave, scribbling inside the library book.

“Frank!,” said Chase. “What are you doing? Don’t you know you’re not supposed to write inside of library books?”

“It’s okay Chase!,” said Frank. “I’m listed as the author, so it’s okay if I make a few adjustments.”

“I’m Batman, and I have a question about these spheres. If the bad guy is trying to collect all of them together, shouldn’t we *not* be trying to find all of them? Like, wouldn’t we win by just keeping *one* of them out of his hands?”:

“You know,” said Ellie. “I never thought I would say this, but Batman is right!”

“Yes!,” shouted Batman. “I knew I made a good decision when I totally accidentally lost some of the orbs!”

“It’s okay Batman,” said Frank. “I don’t really believe in time travel, so I think I’m going to write it out of the story!”

Everyone turned and blinked at Frank. “What?,” they all said in unison.

“Yeah! I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I don’t think I really believe in time travel. I mean, it’s cool and all, but it gets so complicated! How am I supposed to keep track of all these different plot lines, timelines, and universes when I can’t even remember where I keep half of my socks? I liked it better when I was a detective and I was going to solve a case. Time to start all of this over!”

Frank began to tear pages out of his book, and the whole Lego Universe started to be torn asunder.

—

Sauron felt a strange pit in his stomach. He looked up, and noticed that he was inside what appeared to be a large cave or a tomb. In front of him rested five plinths, and atop each plinth was a glowing colorful orb.

—

“I really like the word plinth!,” typed Alex into his chat program. “It’s a fun word to say, and people don’t use it often enough in the modern world. If there were more plinths in the world, I would be okay with that.”

—

A booming voice called out to Sauron. “Behold, Sauron, destroyer of worlds, after thousands of years, your quest has finally come to an end. You have gathered the five orbs together, and brought them here to the sacred temple of creation. Before you lie the orbs of Fire, Time, Space, Wind, and Balloons.”

Sauron made a puzzled face under his helmet. “Um. I’m…huh. I don’t think those were actually the five names of the orbs?”

“NEVERTHELESS,” boomed the voice. “They are here now, and the universe is yours to command!”

“Great!,” said Sauron. “I’d like to…I’d like to destroy it!”

“No good, I’m afraid,” said the booming voice. “If you destroy the Universe, then these orbs won’t ever have existed at any point in time, thus voiding out your command to destroy the universe. Everything would more or less remain the same as it is right now.”

“That’s…annoying.”

The voice chuckled. “Yeah, isn’t it? I was like you once. I had weird universe destroying ambitions. But then I settled for being the booming voice in this room.”

“Well, what can I even do with these orbs then?,” asked Sauron.

“Well, with that last one over there you can make a bunch of balloons”

—

“Right everyone,” said Lego Galadriel. “We’re off! Gather up your things! It’s time to continue our epic journey.”

Galadriel and the vikings went outside and joined Catwoman, who was still outside enjoying the scenery and pondering the nature of existence. Galadriel snapped her fingers…or rather her claw hand…and nothing happened.

“Hmm,” said Galadriel, looking at her Lego claw. “That’s curious. That’s never happened before. I should try it again.”

Galadriel snapped again, and still nothing. No portal, no light, no nothing.

“Very well!,” shouted the Lego Elf Lady. “I am the best at solving any sort of problem, even if my solutions are sometimes so vague that others are confused by them and don’t come to learn their true meanings until much later. I say that we walk on foot down this road!”

Catwoman rolled her eyes. “Sure, whatever, what does any of it mean anyway!”

Lady Galadriel smiled. “Exactly! Let’s go!”

The adventuring party set off down the road. It wasn’t long before they came up against a lucite wall, beyond which they could see the darkened interior of a Lego Store.

The viking leader heaved a heavy sigh. “It seems that being inside of cubes is our lot in life.”

—

Frank Honey polished the new glass window on the door of his detective agency. “This is great! Even though I was fired for being a bad police officer, I can just be a random detective that people pay money to! I’m going to be very successful!”

A librarian lady came into Frank’s office and sat down. “I understand you’re a detective?”

Frank nodded. “That’s very nearly correct! I haven’t actually detected anything yet but it says on my door that this is what I do.”

“Well, we’re trying to find a man that made a really big mess in our library fighting a robber. He then escaped before the police could really talk to him, and—“

“Fear not random lady I didn’t meet till now, Frank Honey is on the case!”

Frank’s desk drawer popped open and Lego Robin jumped out. “And Lego Robin is here as well! Kabam!”