[Now viewing scenario 2]

Kahli stood there, looking at the formidable plant beast Sch'laong as it bared its copious thorns and stinning nettles at her. She knew that talking to Sch'laong was not a worthy task, as the beast was all planty brawn and no planty brain, all chlorophyll and no nucleus as it were, so she summoned up a big rock.

"I'm going to rock your world," Kahli said solemnly as she enlargened her rock to its maximum size. Froufrou squelched in empassioned anticipation. Then, she kicked her rock up into the air, as the ceiling was taller than the chamber was wide, and she watched as it sailed up, up, up. It was only a matter of time!

"WHAT kind of an ATTACK is THAT?!" blurted the planty fiend. "I'll SHOW you a REAL attack!!"

Before Kahli could respond, twenty vines shot out of the conglomerate's awful form and zigzagged towards her. Froufrou hopped out of her purse and quickly started parrying the attacks, but even that was not enough - there were more vines than Froufrou had tendrils, and all of them seemed to move with a mind of their own. Kahli, not one to give up, realized in this moment that, as she had access as well to Froufrou's [skill] that granted greater parrying ability and reflexes in general. Due to this, she quickly and surely raised her arms and spun them around like pinwheels, knocking away the attacks with expert efficiency.

"Nice TRY, but evade THIS!" spat the foe. It opened its mossy jaws and released a thing, green gas that quickly filled the area.

[You've been poisoned]

[You're losing HP]

Kahli felt weak, light headed, and nauseated. This thing was a tough cookie to take on, that much was for certain, but she'd won fights against worse enemies than a glorified bundle of vines, hadn't she? There had to be some way to win, even if her [HP] was dropping from moment to moment, and so was Froufrou's.

And then, Kahli had an idea. It was time to fight green with green, she figured. With that, she decided to use yet another [skill] from Froufrou - [Putrefy] - in order to blast out a big, green globule. And indeed, her blast was significantly larger than the blasts that Froufrou was able to generate herself. This big, green orb zoomed over to the plant construct and covered it in an encumbering goo that, among other things, lowered its power to the point that it seemed almost unable to even fully process what had happened. That being said, Kahli could already see the green haze of the plant beast's gas fading. Its attack was losing energy.

And it was just in time. Kahli watched as her big rock zoomed back to greet them, getting closer and closer as it arced around and then shot down towards her enemy.

"WHAT do you THINK you're DOING?" growled the foe. But, before it could go much further than to shoot out a few wimpy looking vines towards Kahli and Froufrou, Kahli's big rock shot down and slammed on top of its head. Quickly, the enemy crumpled to the floor, looking almost defeated.

Almost.

See, Kahli didn't see any notifications from her system that the construct had died. Which meant that, despite all appearances otherwise, it was still alive. Perhaps, it was even playing dead in order to attempt to deceive her. Regardless, all was not waht it seemed.

Slowly and carefully, Kahli walked up to the foe. It was coughing and rasping.

"Do you know, what I know? Do you know, what I have DONE? And do you understand WHY I am here in these ruins? Do you KNOW, truly, what these RUINS even ARE?" hissed the weakened plant construct as it threw some spiky gumballs at Kahli.

"Ow!" said Kahli as she kicked the construct in its plant-face with her big left foot. "That was so rude, Sch'laong! Why are you even still alive?"

"Are you SO CONSUMED by the POWER of your system that you are more focused on killing ME than on learning what I HAVE to know, what I am OFFERING to tell YOU?" growled Sch'laong.

Kahli looked at Froufrou, who just squelched a big old stinky squelch and shrugged with her tendrils.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"I am not some EVIL FOE as you seem to THINK I must be - I am here for a PURPOSE. I am here to PROTECT what you have ALREADY DESTROYED with your INSOLENCE."

Kahli frowned, and looked at Froufrou in confusion. "What? What do you mean? Didn't you yell at me as soon as the obelisk shot away that you were here to bring forth my doom?"

"THAT indeed was ME, you fool... Yes, you are NOTHING but a DISGUSTING, foolish, foolhardy FOOL! I may be out to get YOU and your PET, it is TRUE, but only as a great protector!"

Kahli frowned. "Look you've been doing your best to try and make me feel like you're ready to kill me, what with all the attacks and such! How would me retaliating and fighting back be foolish? Great protector? Of what, your ego? Seriously, what is your deal, in the name of Theseosus?"

Sch'laong coughed a few times and spat out some dandelions into a chunky pile with a retch. "I am the great protector of-"

[End scenario]

Kahli was back in the void with Froufrou.

"Seriously?! Ugh, these second scenarios are always such a pain in the ass." Kahli quickly muttered an apology to Theseosus and paced around the void impatiently. "I just... I can't believe this. Who does Sch'laong think it is? Great protector? Seems more like a great allergen! At best, maybe a great pollen spreader! It's here to protect the ruins, is it? Then why did the ceiling of the room fall apart when Sch'laong showed up? Seemed like property damage more than it seemed like protection to me!"

Froufrou squelched in affirmative. For this moment, she was well on the same page with Kahli. After all, they had only wandered into a mysterious room in the center of the ruins. There was no indication that the plant construct Sch'laong had done anything differently than them. In fact, perhaps they'd be protecting the ruins from Sch'loang by destroying such a foe. Wouldn't plant growth be terrible for the ruins? Froufrou could only imagine all the retched sorts of mold that a plant construct could be bringing to the ruins and affecting their historical data. How dreadful it all truly was.

"Well, Froufrou, I've got to warn you that I'm leaning towards scenario two. Then again, I always am before I see scenario three, so, maybe that tune will change. Maybe scenario three will greatly change my opinion, although I'm not holding my breath."

Froufrou squelched in agreeance. Once again, she really was feeling that Kahli was in the right here. Sch'laong had showed up far too quickly and far too violently to be trusted, and yet, they were both absolutely dying to know what it was their enemy wanted to tell them.

"Wait a second," said Kahli as she picked at her face with the living wood that was her left hand. "Froufrou, this is something I've been thinking about my [skill] for a while, but I've never had someone to bounce ideas off of other than that awful jellyfish who only liked to hear himself talk. See, Froufrou, oftentimes I'll get catapulted into scenarios where I make wildly different decisions in the moment, and that makes up my timeline options. However, something I've never really determined is how much control I have over each scenario before it happens. Along with that, I've continued to notice something about these time [checkpoints] as I utilize them. See, each time I put the [skill] to use, and I view a timeline, I retain the memory of that timeline going forward into my experience of the next timeline. With that, I'm starting to wonder if my previous observations regarding this [skill] were totally off the mark."

Froufrou squelched softly, intrigued by Kahli's conjecture, and waggled her tendrils as if to entice her to go on.

"See, and this is before you were able to be here with me and use the [skill], but when I first started using it, I was absolutely convinced that the [skill] was almost useless because the three timelines seemed to always follow a pattern. In the first, I'd inevitably die. In the second, it'd get cut off before I had the chance to fully glean whatever it was that was being talked about in the middle of the scenario. And, in the third, it would generally be the most optimal timeline that I'd always end up picking."

Froufrou squelched subtly to signify that she was paying attention.

"But, see, even though at first this was a definite pattern, as I used the [skill] more and more, there would be little discrepancies. Sometimes, I wouldn't end up falling into that pattern at all. I actually ended up tricking that alien Lloyd - gee, I sure do wonder how he's doing - but I tricked that sinister alien Lloyd by using a first scenario. It was one where I thought I'd end up dying, but I didn't die in the scenario, and so I took the risk - it ended up being the best scenario, and it also ended up being the one where I lost my left hand."

Froufrou squelched rather stinkily, as she was indeed intrigued by this information.

"So, with that, I know that the timelines are not a rigid function of the system. Now, the next piece of the puzzle is this - when I choose a timeline, my choices in that timeline are often impacted by the aforementioned knowledge that I do have of the other scenarios. So, with that, maybe the third scenario always ended up being best because, well, I just knew what was going to happen in the other two scenarios at that point. What I'm really trying to get at, is that I think I've figured something out about my [skill] that I didn't really realize before. I think that we can actually craft a timeline, or craft the start of a timeline, ourselves."

Somehow, Froufrou squelched so much that its odor seemed, itself, infinite there in the void.

"Great, I'm glad you agree," said Kahli as she tried not to gag. "And what's more, I've got a plan!"