Once More With Footnotes

won.
     
                  The Thud game seeks to recreate this and has been credited with seriously reducing the number of major wars between dwarfs and trolls, replacing them instead with innumerable bar room scuffles in which Thud boards, and sometimes pieces, are used as the weapons. But since this becomes merely a police matter, it counts as peace ...
     

This was written a couple of years ago for the on-line game TimeHunt, in which each story incorporated a hidden phrase.
     
    It's relevant to the story, it's still in there, you need the mind of a fan to find it, and I bend the rules a little — or, rather, there are exceptions to the rule.
     
    I rather liked the idea of Heaven being a logical certainty              
     
     
     
     
     
D eath and W hat C omes N ext
    A Discworld short story
     
                  When Death met the philosopher, the philosopher said, rather excitedly, "At this point, you realise, I'm both dead and not dead."
     
                  Th ere was a sigh from Death. Oh dear, one of those, he thought. This is going to be about quantum again? He hated dealing with philosophers. They always tried to wriggle out of it.
     
                  "You see," said the philosopher, while Death, motionless, watched the sands of his life drain through the hourglass, "everything is made of tiny particles, which have the strange property of being in many places at one time. But things made of tiny particles tend to stay in one place at one time, which does not seem right accordi ng to quantum theory. May I continue?"
     
                  YES, BUT NOT INDEFINITELY, said Death, EVERYTHING IS TRANSIENT. He did not take his gaze away from the tumbling sand.
     
                  "Well, then, if we agree that there are an infinite number of universes, then the problem is so lved! If there are an unlimited number of universes, this bed can be in millions of them, all at the same time!"
     
                  DOES IT MOVE?
     
                  "What?"
     
                  Death nodded at the bed. CAN YOU FEEL IT MOVING? he said.
     
                  "No, because there are a million versions of me, too, A nd ... here is the good bit ... in some of them I am not about to pass away! Anything is possible!"
     
                  Death tapped the handle of his scythe as he considered this. AND YOUR POINT IS ...?
     
                  "Well, I'm not exactly dying, correct? You are no longer such a cert ainty."
     
                  There was a sigh from Death. Space, he thought. That was the trouble. It was never like this on worlds with everlastingly cloudy skies. But once humans saw all that space, their brains expanded to try and fill it up.
     
                  "No answer, eh?" said the d ying philosopher. "Feel a bit old-fashioned, do we?"
     
                  THIS IS A CONUNDRUM CERTAINLY, said Death. Once they prayed, he thought. Mind you, he'd never been sure that prayer worked, either. He thought for a while. AND I SHALL ANSWER IT IN THIS MANNER, he adde d. YOU LOVE YOUR WIFE?
     
                  "What?"
     
                  THE LADY WHO HAS BEEN LOOKING AFTER YOU. YOU LOVE HER?
     
                  "Yes. Of course."
     
                  CAN YOU THINK OF ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WHERE, WITHOUT YOUR PERSONAL HISTORY CHANGING IN ANY WAY, YOU WOULD AT THIS MOMENT PICK UP A KNIFE AND STAB H ER? said Death. FOR EXAMPLE?
     
                  "Certainly not!"
     
                  BUT YOUR THEORY SAYS THAT YOU MUST. IT IS EASILY POSSIBLE WITHIN THE PHYSICAL LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE, AND THEREFORE MUST HAPPEN, AND HAPPEN MANY TIMES. EVERY MOMENT IS A BILLION, BILLION MOMENTS, AND IN THOSE MOMENTS ALL THINGS THAT ARE POSSIBLE ARE INEVITABLE. ALL TIME SOONER OR LATER, BOILS DOWN TO A MOMENT.
     
                  "But of course we can make choices between — "
     
                  ARE THERE CHOICES? EVERYTHING THAT CAN HAPPEN, MUST HAPPEN. YOUR THEORY SAYS THAT FOR EVERY UNIVERSE TH AT'S FORMED TO ACCOMMODATE YOUR 'NO', THERE MUST BE ONE TO ACCOMMODATE YOUR 'YES'. BUT YOU SAID YOU WOULD NEVER COMMIT MURDER. THE
     
                  FABRIC OF THE COSMOS TREMBLES BEFORE YOUR TERRIBLE CERTAINTY. YOUR MORALITY BECOMES A FORCE AS STRONG AS GRAVITY. And, thou ght Death,