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Pyrex woke up feeling grumpy.

He couldn't remember exactly why. All he knew was that he'd felt an urge to complain right before being put to sleep by big, pulsing eyes, and that this urge had somehow stuck to him throughout his sleep. Now that he was awake, he couldn't make much sense of the situation, but he decided he'd find out soon enough. Things sort of tended to be that way.

He tried to fight the impulse to have breakfast - he hadn't needed coffee for quite some time now, or any ordinary food for that matter - and stood up, stretching and letting out a very soft, still-slightly-sleepy screech. Shaking his head as if he could get rid of the displeased feelings inside him just as easily, he decided to go downstairs and go about his day until he remembered why he was feeling so cranky to begin with.

Just as he reached the end of the stairwell and tried to enter his lab, something weird happened. His brain froze momentarily - and before he knew it, he'd made a 180º turn and was walking the way he'd just come. Even with his thoughts getting sort of blurry for a split second, the kobold managed to stop himself in his tracks. What had just happened?

He tried to walk into the lab again. This time, when he turned around, he was about to slip on a particularly annoying carpet he kept near the entrance of his house.

So this is it, he rationalized, irritation slowly taking over him like venom from a vampire's bite. This is what they did.

He had the vague memory of a bat telling him to take the day off for once. Pyrex had refused, of course! There was plenty of science he needed to do, papers that needed scribbled with notes. He'd obviously said there was no way he could take a single day off.

And apparently, somebody had taken that as a challenge.

He soon found out that they'd been thorough, too. It wasn't only the door to his lab. As the morning progressed, whenever he tried to work in any way, his body found ways to prevent him from doing so. When Pyrex tried to pick a pen to write some notes on a blank piece of paper, it suddenly felt as if the pen was impossibly heavy. Furthermore, when he tried to consult some books from his library, he realized that he'd completely forgotten how to hold a book. The kobold stopped trying once they began piling up on the floor.

Pyrex was fairly new in the world of hypnosis and conditioning, but he knew what a post-hypnotic suggestion was. Basically, someone had left an imprint of an instruction in his mind - and apparently it would trigger whenever he was about to do something that he shouldn't do, like walking into his lab or picking a book to read. His analytic mind was quick to note that such an imprecise mechanism would have plenty of room for loopholes. Perhaps he could override the post-hypnotic suggestions embedded in his mind by doing something the bat hadn't thought about.

First, he tried walking into his lab backwards. He made sure to be heading in the right direction - then he began stepping back, surely but steadily.

Pyrex regained his awareness a few minutes later. Apparently he'd walked backwards to his sofa instead and he'd been comfortably lying on it since then.

He considered running. Would something that simple work? Probably not, but he felt like testing the limits that had been established around his brain.

The next thing he knew was that he was taking a lukewarm shower in his bathroom.

"Ack!" was all he said as he stepped outside and rubbed himself dry, frowning.

It seemed the bat had gotten creative with the suggestions after a while. Had they considered all the possibilities, though? Pyrex was a scientist. He could surely think of something.

The kobold spent the rest of the morning trying to find a way to override those pesky suggestions. He did it at his room, though - the sunlight at the parlor that led to his lab was too intense at this hour of the day, and it was definitely making him more irritable. Trying to calm himself down, Pyrex sat down at his chair and tried to narrow down his options.

When did those suggestions trigger, he asked himself? Whenever he was about to work on something. Well, no! Whenever his body moved to work on something. What if he didn't move? What if he found a way to enter his lab without taking a single step? Was that even possible?

It was then when he thought of the stairs. The bottom of the staircase was just a few meters away from the door that led to his lab. And the door was open. Momentum!

An idea began forming in his mind and for the first time in that awful, unproductive day, Pyrex smiled.

A few minutes later, he was at the top of his staircase. He'd gone down before and moved the annoying carpet from the entrance to the bottom of the staircase - right below the end of the canister. Pyrex had also moved a houseplant he kept there to make some room. It was a blackberry plant and, as much as the kobold thought they were really tasty, the idea of crashing into it felt really unpleasant.

_So much work just to get to work!_he thought, still a bit annoyed.

He faced the canister and tried climbing on it, but his body refused. For a terrible instant, he was about to complain again and give up on his endeavor, but then he had another idea. Pyrex climbed on the canister backwards, one leg at each side of the mahogany structure.

Somehow, that seemed to work!

And then, he began to slide down. Slow at first, but gaining speed with every passing second. This is it! he thought. This has to work!

As he was facing upstairs instead of downstairs, he had no idea of when he'd reach the end of the canister - and it took him by surprise when it happened. The kobold let out a shrill yelp and fell backwards to the carpet, which slid on the floor, guided by his momentum.

_Eureka!_the kobold thought as he saw the ceiling moving fast. His claws grabbed onto the edges of the carpet as he watched the room go and reached his lab's doorframe and then--

The carpet stopped and so did Pyrex's brain. He caught a brief glimpse of the same pulsing light that had placed him in that situation and a sliver of a complaint crept up his throat, but never left. The kobold lay there - motionless, glassy-eyed and blank-minded, as his thoughts melted away, one last embedded suggestion making sure he wouldn't move a muscle.

He would spend a long time there, but oh well. At least the lab was conveniently shielded from the sunlight. And it was nice and comfy on the carpet.

Unable to move, unable to think, Pyrex resigned to comply, forcibly stuck on his day off.