The first actual page of Enchanted Lands in prose form

A Perfect Candidate.

    "Where did I put it?", Halfway muttered to himself as he pulled up some papers and stacked them on his desk.  Halfway Harold was fairly short and stout and dressed in the typical blue robes of any self-respecting wizard.  Looking around at the mess in his study, he noticed a particularly long unrolled scroll sitting in the middle of the room.  As he rolled it up the large crystal ball became visible sitting in its cradle.  Even though the scroll had been covering it, it still had a thin layer of dust, that he promptly blew off, and polished with his sleeve.
    "Ahh here it is!  Boy, you haven't been used in ages, have you?"
    As he waved his hand over the giant orb, it started to glow.
    "I need some volunteers to help me figure out what's going on around here.  Show me three likely candidates that are maybe shy, or outcasts, extremely smart, loyal, and seem amenable to the existence of magic."
    A triptych appeared out of thin air as though it were being projected onto fog.
    "Show me Daniel.", commanded Halfway.
    Daniel's image seemed to take up most of the space as Halfway examined it.
    "He seems ideal, but no.  He seems to have gained his confidence after being taught Karate."
    "Please show me Harry."
    "Hmm Amenable to magic, but, after learning he was a wizard, gained some friends, no he won't do either."
    The last one, John, appeared as Halfway exclaimed, "Aha!  This one should do nicely.  Okay we'll try John."
    The triptych faded out as Halfway commanded, "Show me what he's up to right now."
    An image appeared on the ball itself. John was putting library books back on the shelves.  At five-foot-six-inches, John wasn't particularly tall.  He had brown short hair, and was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that said "S Raw Rats '77". Turning away from the crystal ball and toward the bookshelf behind him, Halfway started scanning the shelves for his hat-magic reference book.  Craning his neck he spotted it on the top shelf.
    "Now why in all the lands are you way up there? Oh yes, that apprentice I had once.  Poor fellow had been cursed into doing everything in reverse, and thus put the reference section at the top.  I've been meaning to fix that, but no matter.  I think a levitation spell is in order."
    Halfway had briefly forgotten his spellcasting problems and arranged 3 hats on his head in a specific order, then said some magic words.  Just then he saw a flash of light, and the sound of static, when out of nowhere a book popped into existence.  It was just long enough he could read "Unicorn Sign Language for Beginners" before another flash of light seemed to change it into "Beauty and the Beast" before it blipped out of existence with a puff of smoke.
    "How odd, those weren't the right books.", he exclaimed as he examined himself in a standing mirror while adjusting the hats, "Oh, that wasn't even the right spell.  Realm swap?"
    He reordered the hats and then did the spell again, and this time the "Hat-Magick Compendium" started to float down from the top shelf until it started to drop.  It nearly knocked him out if he hadn't stepped out of the way.
    "Blast this "half-way" magic."
    Halfway went over to his desk to sit down and figure out the next step - how to get a silver ticket to John.

Hit 1 to continue.

Hit 0 to quit.