YOU ARE AT THE NORTHEAST END OF AN IMMENSE ROOM, EVEN LARGER THAN THE GIANT ROOM. IT APPEARS TO BE A REPOSITORY FOR THE "ADVENTURE" PROGRAM. MASSIVE TORCHES FAR OVERHEAD BATHE THE ROOM WITH SMOKY YELLOW LIGHT. SCATTERED ABOUT YOU CAN BE SEEN A PILE OF BOTTLES (ALL OF THEM EMPTY), A NURSERY OF YOUNG BEANSTALKS MURMURING QUIETLY, A BED OF OYSTERS, A BUNDLE OF BLACK RODS WITH RUSTY STARS ON THEIR ENDS, AND A COLLECTION OF BRASS LANTERNS. OFF TO ONE SIDE A GREAT MANY DWARVES ARE SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR, SNORING LOUDLY. A SIGN NEARBY READS: "DO NOT DISTURB THE DWARVES!" AN IMMENSE MIRROR IS HANGING AGAINST ONE WALL, AND STRETCHES TO THE OTHER END OF THE ROOM, WHERE VARIOUS OTHER SUNDRY OBJECTS CAN BE GLIMPSED DIMLY IN THE DISTANCE. TO ONE SIDE IS A PIT FULL OF FIERCE GREEN SNAKES. ON THE OTHER SIDE IS A ROW OF SMALL WICKER CAGES, EACH OF WHICH CONTAINS A LITTLE SULKING BIRD. IN ONE CORNER IS A BUNDLE OF BLACK RODS WITH RUSTY MARKS ON THEIR ENDS. A LARGE NUMBER OF VELVET PILLOWS ARE SCATTERED ABOUT ON THE FLOOR. A VAST MIRROR STRETCHES OFF TO THE NORTHEAST. AT YOUR FEET IS A LARGE STEEL GRATE, NEXT TO WHICH IS A SIGN WHICH READS, "TREASURE VAULT. KEYS IN MAIN OFFICE."
The ghost turns to you. "Your story is in the next room. Being spectral is no fun, so think carefully." He strides into the mirror, where he turns back and stares longingly at you, then fades to a shadow.
You don't think you need to worry about the ghost's mysterious warning. You walk confidently into the next room.
You hesitate, trying to discern the ghost's meaning. You wander about the storeroom, distracted and puzzled.
The TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES maze leads directly to the storeroom. In the original ADVENTURE game by Crowther and Woods they weren't so close together.
We're quoting, not reproducing. The quotes from ADVENTURE provide a clue so that in the "you" character can understand the danger.
We're also linking the liittle story to a whole history and tradition that mixes story and performative meta-story. An ADVENTURE player ended up in the prop room for the game itself. Later came digital dungeons with some players becoming wizards who added to or altered their games. There is an established tradition mixing story and meta-story, playing and staging, acting out and discussing the action.
You play along and discover the game is bigger than you thought, and winning involves changing the rules of the game itself. This is true in some literary criticism, and it's always true in politics.
There are larger stories about relations and rivalries among wizards vying to control a game. And a still larger story about people trying out different roles in different games, and one about the evolution of games themselves, and one about game developers and their corporations and their fates.
Those are "external stories", perhaps about the author, or about a series of stories, or perhaps a political or academic story. These could be told or implied by the author, or by someone else, or be a commonly accepted "everyone knows." And those in turn can be part of a still larger story about artistic or political or academic styles and their development.
But why stop there? Those developments could be part of a huge story about the development of society through history, which could be part of some still more comprehensive story about evolution or nature.
Now, though, you're reaching the largest frame we have, and there's dispute about whether evolution can be a story with a plot. Does evolving nature have a goal, an intention, something with a beginning, middle, and end? Or is it surrounded by a larger story of gods and their intentions? Or is it not a story at all but only a collection of factual reports that frame a sea of little stories with beginnings, middles, and ends?
The issue is whether there is always narrative plot for the frames, or whether other kinds of framing exist.
In any case we're not trying to highlight these external narratives. We're trying to discern meta-stories that are necessary to the construction and performance of explicit stories.