It is 8:47 AM on a Tuesday, and Tara is going to be late. Again.

  The office building looms across the busy intersection, mocking him with its proximity. The traffic light has just turned red, and the divider—that cursed concrete barrier separating the two sides of the road—stands between him and his destination like some kind of urban Mount Everest.

  "Just one more minute," he mutters, checking his phone. The underpass is too far, and the pedestrian crossing is blocked by a sea of honking vehicles. His boss has already sent three messages, each one more passive-aggressive than the last.

  Tara makes a decision that will, in retrospect, be the last decision he ever makes.

  He takes a running start, plants his foot on the divider, and launches himself into the air with the grace of a particularly uncoordinated penguin. For a glorious half-second, he is flying. The wind in his hair, the sun on his face, the complete absence of any physical coordination whatsoever.

  Then gravity remembers it exists.

  His foot slips. His other leg catches the edge of the divider at an angle that makes a chiropractor weep. He tumbles forward, arms flailing, and lands in the underpass below with a sound that is somewhere between a thud and a squelch.

  "Ow," he says, because that seems appropriate.

  His leg is definitely broken. Possibly in several places. The pain is impressive—a kind of deep, bone-deep ache that suggests his femur has decided to become modern art.

  A car horn blares. Someone shouts. The world starts to get fuzzy around the edges.

  "Great," Tara thinks, as darkness creeps in. "I'm running out of time because I was running to be on time. The irony is not lost on me."

  And then it isn't lost on him, because he isn't anything at all.

  ---

  Consciousness returns slowly, like a computer booting up after a particularly nasty crash. Tara tries to open his eyes, but something is wrong. He doesn't have eyes anymore. Or a body, for that matter.

  He tries to move, but there is no movement. He tries to feel, but there is no feeling. He tries to panic, but even that feels distant, muted, like trying to scream underwater.

  What he *can* do is see. Sort of. It is more like... perceiving. A strange, 360-degree awareness that doesn't rely on eyes. And what he perceives is:

  Darkness. Stone walls. The flickering light of what might be torches. And directly in front of him—or rather, in the direction his "front" seems to be facing—is a very large, very scaly posterior.

  A dragon's butt, to be precise.

  Or at least, something that looks like a dragon. It is massive, covered in dark purple scales that shimmer in the dim light. And it is sitting. Right there. In front of him.

  Tara tries to process this. He is... something. Something that can see a dragon's butt. Something that can't move. Something that feels... geometric?

  He attempts to look at himself, which is harder than it sounds when you don't have a head to turn. But through some strange sense of spatial awareness, he can perceive his own form.

  He is a pyramid. A triangular pyramid, to be exact. Four triangular faces meeting at a point. Made of what looks like some kind of dark, polished stone with faint glowing runes etched into each face.

  "Okay," Tara thinks, or whatever the pyramid equivalent of thinking is. "So I'm a pyramid."

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "The Egyptians built pyramids to reincarnate the dead. I reincarnated as a pyramid after death. Seems like the gods got confused on this one."

  "Wait, a triangular pyramid? That's a tetrahedron, isn't it? Four faces, four vertices, the simplest polyhedron."

  He tries to move again. Nothing. He is completely stationary, positioned on what feels like a high, rectangular slim pedestal.

  "Of all the shapes to be reincarnated as. A tetrahedron. Not a sphere that could roll away from danger. Not even a cube that could... well, be slightly more dignified. No, I am a tetrahedron—the least mobile geometric shape possible. I couldn't even topple over dramatically. I am basically a fancy paperweight. Or a glorified Tetra Pack."

  Through his spatial awareness, he can sense that this pedestal sits atop another, larger pedestal—the one the dragon is perched on. He is behind the dragon, elevated high enough to see over its form—which means his primary view is of the dragon's hindquarters. The only movement in his field of perception is the dragon's tail, which occasionally swishes back and forth with lazy, rhythmic motions.

  The tail is long and spiked, and each time it moves, it creates a small breeze that makes the torches flicker. It is hypnotic, in a way. The only thing happening in what appears to be an otherwise static dungeon.

  Days pass. Or at least, what feels like days. Time is hard to measure when you are an inanimate object. The dragon never moves from its position. The tail keeps wagging. The torches keep flickering.

  Tara—or whatever he is now—observes everything he can. The room is large, with high ceilings and stone pillars. There are piles of what looks like treasure scattered around, glinting in the torchlight—gold coins, gemstones, weapons, armor. Bones. Lots of bones. Some of them look disturbingly humanoid.

  He tries to understand what has happened. He remembers the jump. The divider. The underpass. The leg. The darkness.

  And then... this.

  Is this the afterlife? Some kind of reincarnation? Has he been reborn as a magical artifact? The runes on his faces seem to pulse with energy, and he can sense something—a kind of power flowing through him.

  He focuses on that feeling, trying to understand it. And as he does, words appear in his awareness, like a system notification:

  **ARTIFACT STATUS**

  - **Type:** Triangular Pyramid

  - **Special Effect:** Generates energy

  - **Current Stats:** m=2, v=1

  - **Energy Generated:** 1 unit per second

  Tara stares at those words—or rather, perceives them—for what feels like a long time.

  "Energy generation?" he thinks. "I'm a pyramid that generates energy. What kind of isekai nonsense is this? One unit per second. Is that a lot? Is that enough to power a lightbulb? A city? Make excellent toast? I have no frame of reference."

  The dragon's tail swishes again. The torches flicker. Somewhere in the distance, water drips.

  Tara sighs, or would if he had lungs. "Well," he thinks, "at least I'm not late for work anymore. And I suppose having a great view of the dragon's posterior is better than my old office cubicle. Marginally."