Kahli was ready to level up alongside Froufrou now that they'd finally vanquished that wretched, giant jellyfish that had been haunting her [checkpoints] in time since she'd first learned to use the [skill]. Of course, in a way it all felt somewhat bittersweet - she had, truly, grown quite used to having the jellyfish around to goad her while she worked through each scenario. That was all in the past now - but, on the bright side, now she'd have Froufrou with her to journey through each timeline. Kahli was more than happy for the tradeoff, especially considering the fact that while the jellyfish had been pretending to be there to help her learn to use the [skill], any help it had provided her ultimately was but an act of trickery in order to make her more powerful before consuming her, and all her power, in one instant... It was a really wretched thing.
But Kahli knew it wasn't worth it to dwell on the negativity. She had leveling to do.
[Level up]
[Congratulations, you've reached level 24]
But no prompts came further for Kahli, which was a shame, she felt.
[Froufrou is ready to level up]
Excellent - Kahli was excited to level up Froufrou.
[Level up]
[Level up]
[Level up]
Froufrou looked a little exhausted. She'd just leveled up three times!
"Woah, Froufrou, what have you been doing to level up three times like that?"
But Froufrou couldn't tell her, no matter how much she wanted to, what had just come to pass, and the trials and tribulations she'd faced while implementing a twisted timeline.
[Froufrou]
[Level 8]
[Froufrou does not have any skill slots available at this time]
Wow, three levels and no [skill] slots. Kahli was definitely finding herself more than a little confused at this - after all, wasn't Froufrou the Harbinger of Doom? Why hadn't she transformed? Was the prophecy just embellishing or something?
Well, it was either that, or it was one of those slow burn prophecies where slowly, but surely, Froufrou would creep up in power levels and then suddenly, one day, as if in an instant although really it had been happening the entire time, Froufrou would be an overpowered monster.
Yes, that had to be what was happening here.
With that in consideration, Kahli was finally able to look down at her big left foot to see the three timelines she had to choose from. It was nice to be able to do this by moving her head, as opposed to just her eyes - being paralyzed by that big jellyfish had been no fun at all, and Kahli had always just thought of it as something caused not by an outside entity, but as a function of her [skill] - how foolish she felt! Maybe that was why the jellyfish had called her a fool, despite the fact that Kahli was obviously brilliant... Regardless, now was not the time for introspection. Kahli would have plenty of time for that when Unit 5a23 trained her on meditation as he'd offered - but first, she needed to check out these scenarios already!
[Now viewing scenario 1]
Kahli looked deep into G'athoong's glistening, reptilian eyeball.
"G'athoong, I have a serious question for you, and I hope you won't find it offensive, but how do you know B'raahsiet is still alive? And if she is still alive, how would she feel about you essentially just sleeping off her being captured for the better part of five centuries? Wouldn't she be a little burnt up about that? I mean, I don't mean to be blunt, but it's the first thing that comes to mind and it gives me serious pause when accepting this quest of yours."
G'athoong did not answer with thought speak. This time, she answered Kahli with the angriest, most blood curdling roar one could hear. It was so loud that a cluster of migratory birds dropped out of the clouds and tumbled down, down to the land below, shocked dead due to the forceful vibrations of G'athoong's terrible shrieking.
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"Hey, G'athoong, I didn't mean any offense-"
Fuck you, you, you fucking crazy bitch! Who the fuck do you think you are? You are fucking scum! I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU!!!
"Kahli, what the hell did you do?" asked Sahdi with a very minor amount of disinterested stress in her voice as she braided her hair methodically.
"I just asked G'athoong if she was sure that B'raahsiet was even alive, you knowm, because it's been so long since-"
Fuck you oh my fucking gods I'm going to kill you!!
Before Kahli had a second more to respond, a large dragon talon reached up and snatched her away from G'athoong's hateful gaze. Then, she flung Kahli through the air like she was an ant.
Kahli had no doubt in her mind that death was coming swiftly to her in this timeline, but at this point, that was expected, and she was almost numb to it. She was more interested in seeing the other timelines, and how her leveled up [skill]'s new powers would impact them, than about worrying over yet another death. Instead, she figured there was no problem with just allowing herself to soar through the air, seeing it all blur, seeing the ground quickly rush up closer and closer to her-
And then, something occurred to Kahli. Sure, this was a timeline wherein she was supposed to die, surely, but what if she didn't die in it? Wasn't it worth it to have it as an option as a scenario? Who was to say how the rest of these timelines would go. With that consideration, Kahli summoned up a big rock and started kicking off of it with all her might. Soon enough, her descent slowed, and before long she was treading air as she'd learned back during that fight with Lloyd the alien.
Only, there was a problem. G'athoong was flying right towards her! Kahli hadn't considered that happening...
And before much time had passed at all, G'athoong was right up there before her, and growling and hissing and roaring in that awful dragony fashion.
"Theseosus save me," said Kahli as she kicked her big rock as far away from the water dragon as she could.
Fool, thought G'athoong.
"Why does everyone keep calling me a fool? I think you're a fool, G'athoong! There's no way your lesbian dragon lover is still just sitting around waiting for you! You should've tried to save her earlier instead of going to sleep!"
Stop it! thought G'athoong. We had a... We had a big fight before I went to sleep! And she got captured right after it! And I was really mad at her!
"That's a terrible way to cope with domestric strife, G'athoong!"
Fuck you, bitch, I didn't ask for a therapy session.
Before Kahli could respond, G'athoong opened her massive jaws and breathed a huge wave of icy cold water all over her, smothering Kahli in an instant and quickly shooting through her throat and drowning her in midair.
[You died]
[End scenario]
"Wow, that was rough, Froufrou," said Kahli as she looked down to her putrid companion. "I really thought that would go better than it did... Not sure why I thought that, though, in hindsight. Well, on to the next scenario, huh?"
Froufrou squelched in affirmative.
[Now viewing scenario 2]
Kahli looked deep into G'athoong's glistening, reptilian eyeball.
"G'athoong, I've got a quick question for you."
Ask away, kind tauman.
"Um, thanks." Kahli smiled and cleared her throat. She could feel it - there were definitely small specks of living wood on her face now! How exciting. "So, what if something bad has already happened to B'raahsiet? Like, something really bad?"
Well, she's incredibly strong and powerful, so really it's a wonder Basstardio ever captured her, anyways. And I am doing just fine after five centuries of sleep, we dragons live long, sleep long, and we... Well, we do a lot of things for a long time, let's leave it at that.
"Great," said Kahli, appreciating G'athoong's discretion. "So, do we know whether Basstardio is alive? Well, er, I mean, that he's still here in the land of the living? After all, even for an undead skeleton, five centuries is a decent chunk of time and nothing to balk at. What if he double died or something?"
I highly doubt that. His chambers are impeccably designed, he essentially crafted a chateau of undead debauchery, surrounded by some of the finest undead defenses known to the afterlife, in order to protect himself and make his time concealed from the vile living as enjoyable and safe as possible. It is, from what I understand due to information I've gathered from the underwater network of sleeping dragon dreams, one of the most-
"Sorry, back that up," said Kahli, a serious look on her face. "What did you just thought say to me right now? Did you just say that you've gathered information from an underwater network of sleeping dragon dreams? What exactly does that mean?"
Oh, you don't know? We dragons are exceptional at disseminating information. We do it between ourselves through our collective unconsciousness, as in, when we're asleep, we transfer thoughts, energy, and memories to eachother - well, at least that's what we water dragons do. And that's what I was doing for five centuries. It's great - much like trees in a forest we can even seep in stimuli and information from the waters we sleep in and use it to learn about the waking world whilst we slumber. It's exceptionally powerful. Poor B'raahsiet is actually cut off from our network while under Basstardio's control - I really fear for her mental safety, it must be torture to have to sleep and dream without other dragons' consciousness to keep her company and give her information of the outside world... So very sad.
"Wow, that is, fascinating," said Kahli.
Well, if you think that's fascinating, just wait until you hear-
[End scenario]
Kahli was back in the void.
"Ugh, classic. I feel like this [skill] really loves to mess with me during the second scenario, Froufrou. It always cuts it off too soon, and usually I don't pick the second scenario." Kahli looked down at her big left foot. "The third and final scenario is usually the best one. And I'm interested to see what it'll bring up. Aren't you, Froufrou?"
Froufrou squelched in a cautious agreeance.
[Now viewing scenario 3]