And now you've been dropped off in the middle of who-knows-where (judging by the unearthly purple night sky above you) and maybe even who-knows-when (judging by the thatched cottages and unnerving lack of cell reception) too. Well, at least it beats ending up in Philadelphia. You stumble through the sleeping village, hesitant to knock at any of the strange doors, until a solitary light catches your eye. It's coming from...a treehouse?
No; more like a tree-house. A towering oak tree, as big as a barn, dominates the town square before you. A ring of small windows on the upper floor (do trees have floors? They do now, you suppose) are lit with a dim amber light, and as you glance up at it you swear you see a shadow inside move. Shifting your gaze downwards you see a door, emblazoned with the image of a burning candle, facing you. You have never seen anything like this strange tree. Who, or what, could possibly make this place its home?
Okay, fine. Investigating a fantastical tree in the middle of a strange village in the middle of the night should be easy compared to jumping into a mysterious, possibly trans-dimensional portal. You approach the front door, find it unlocked, and cross the threshold into a darkened room. To your surprise, the inside of the tree smells as strongly of parchment and ink as it does wood. Your mind flashes back to your old university library as your eyes adjust to the darkness. You realize you are surrounded on all sides by bookshelves, laden with seemingly endless stacks of tomes, carved into the living tree itself. Whoever, or whatever, lives here, they seem to be well-read. This tree is a library. A treebrary, even.
A spiral staircase is carved into the far wall. The weak glow of candlelight filters down from the top of the stairs. You're definitely not alone here. Someone is up at this late hour.
The oak creaks gently in the night breeze like a ship on the ocean. You hear a muffled pitter-patter echo down the stairs and a shadow seems to flick across the candlelight from upstairs. Though this tree is certainly strange, it is uniquely beautiful, and you feel no sense of danger or unease here. Instead, you feel an atmosphere of calm wonder descend upon you. You can't help but feel like you've been here before...and yet, at the same time, you also feel like you've never seen anything quite like it on Earth, either. You must know more.
Quietly, you snatch the nearest book you can find off a table, careful not to cause too much noise or reveal your presence to whoever or whatever is awake upstairs. You grasp about in the gloom until you locate a familiar shape: a tabletop lamp. Excellent. You find what must be the ON button and press it before quickly stifling a gasp as, instead of a lightbulb flickering on, a cloud of fireflies erupt from a sleeping huddle and begin to swirl and dance in the glass lamp. The dark reading room is bathed in their gentle luminescence, revealing the details of your surroundings.
This place just gets weirder and weirder. You slide to the floor, your back against the table, as the light of the fireflies illumines the book in your hands. You had grabbed it without thinking, eager for any sort of information on your predicament. You feel a growing sensation pulling at you, begging you to open it and peer inside. The rich brown cover bears a highly stylized emboss of...wait, is that a unicorn? Puzzled, you glance up and see a large wooden bust of a horse's head peering at you from its station atop a nearby table. What is it with the horse imagery, dude?
Turning back to the book in your hands, you feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. It feels like the unicorn on the cover is gazing back at you. Wherever you are, whatever this is, you're pretty sure you've stumbled onto something big.