Kahli looked at the third timeline scenario as it lit up under her big, left foot. It was finally time for her to know the timeline she would, inevitably, choose as the one she would continue on with. She was determined to see this through - it wasn't like she liked the idea of being stuck in limbo with the big, telepathic jellyfish entity for an eternity.
[Now viewing scenario 3]
Kahli looked to Lloyd, then to Omar and Unit 5a23, and then to Froufrou. And she thought long and hard about how she'd feel if she joined Lloyd in wiping all this stuff away. Considering she'd already seen the timeline where she had and seen his answers to her questions. She knew that material safety was there waiting for her if she chose to stick with the vile, little alien.
And yet, the idea of doing so was so awful, indeed it caused so much pain and turmoil within Kahli to even consider it, that she could barely bear to entertain the notion further. She felt compelled to choose the other option. The only prudent option, the only option that would give her more time to think this through and to act accordingly. The only option that made any sort of logical sense, and the only option that she felt truly aligned with her values.
"Alright, Lloyd, I'll take you up on your offer."
"Oh, yay! You mean you'll join me?"
"...Sorry, to clarify, I mean that I'll wait for five days. I'm just... Not really sure what I want to do, yet."
"Oh," Lloyd said. He looked like he'd had the wind knocked out of him. Was it possible to knock the wind out of him? Did his weird alien species breath like taumans did?
"That's the way to do it," said Omar with a smile. "Coward's way out Kahli. I dig it. Almost as much as I dig this gross alien dude's force field. Is that just some fucking alien power, or is it a [skill]? I can't seem to tell just from looking, you must be pretty fucking powerful to obfuscate your system from me like that."
"Believe me, I am," said Lloyd with a snicker. "But, you don't have to believe me. I'll show you!"
"Show me?"
Kahli suddenly felt a terrible pain shoot through the back of her neck as something like an icy claw gripped her. Her hand was freed from Lloyd's force field, but she was being lifted up, higher in the air. As she dangled there, above the scene watching like a perched bird, whatever it was that held her neck tightly halted its ascent.
"I said I would give you five days, Kahli, and that I will not backtrack on. You and your silly little world of Nomachiato have five days. But I never said anything about this idiot's life, or about anyone else's life her on Nomachiato. I plan to do a lot of killing over the next five days, so get ready for that."
Kahli felt bile rise in her throat. Who did Lloyd think he was, suddenly deciding to murder everyone and then falsely representing his own terms when he offered Kahli a deal? What a pompous freak he was, she thought.
"Kill? Me? Hah! I'd like to see you try!" spat Omar, twirling his flaming arm faster and faster, once again in a brilliant pinwheel fashion. "Just try to land a shot on me through this!"
"I'd like to see me try, too, Omar," said Lloyd with a hiss. His force field dissipated completely and was replaced with a thick, flowing ring of what looked to be turbulent seawater. It smelled salty enough, at least. "Try to beat this, fool!"
It was all Omar could do to gasp as the alien sprayed water all over his face and chest, and indeed his flaming arm too, which soon found itself snuffed out and unable to hold a flicker of a flame.
"Oh, fuck!" said Omar, shaking his head. "What the fuck have you done?"
"Only what I had to do to win. Bwa hah HAH!" Lloyd raised his right arm, and the ring of water surrounding him raised and stretched into the shape of a long, sharp, tidal blade. "You should've known better than to think I can't manipulate elements like taumans can. Sure, elemental control is not an inbuilt biological aptitude I have, but who cares when I have such amazing [skills] that it is absolutely trivial for me to do something like this in order to destroy someone like you!"
Kahli gasped as Lloyd shot forth his watery blade, and severed Omar's head in one swoop. She watched as the head flung and flipped through the air before tumbling down, down through the air.
"Just a little temporary parting gift, I guess," said Lloyd with a snicker. "After all, he was a bit of a jerk, anyway. I have a feeling you won't really miss him. I know I wont! HAH!"
Kahli sighed as she watched the headless corpse of Omar, the great curator, the master to her apprentice, zoom around in the air aimlessly propelled by his flaming flatulence. But even that, too, was soon coming to and end, and before long the cadaver dropped through the air abruptly after a sputter of final gaseuousness, as if it were an electrocuted fly.
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"I'll see you in five days, Kahli! That is, if I don't end up seeing you sooner than that instead! BWAH HAHAHAHAHA HAAAHHAHHHHH haha hahahaha hah hah HAH! HAAAAAAH!"
Kahli sighed as Lloyd rocketed up into the air, higher and higher, until his awful form was nearly invisible save for the trail of smoke he left behind, which after not much longer suddenly pivoted about ninety degrees and shot out across the horizon in a brilliant, speedy dash that pushed the clouds aside like they were but buoys floating in the ocean.
[End scenario 3]
Kahli would've gasped if she were able in this strange, timeless void she currently was inhabiting.
Wow, thought Kahli. That was... a lot.
Sure it was. But, still, that's the timeline you've got to pick.
Kahli would've groaned if she were able. Did she really have to pick this timeline? It certainly seemed quite horrible. It seemed more befitting of what was often her second scenario choice, instead of her third. Usually, the third scenario had some goofy solution that made everything kind of okay. But in this situation, Omar died!
Sure, Omar was kind of a jerk, and he was definitely very obnoxious, but that didn't mean Kahli wanted him to die. She'd learned quite a lot from her apprenticeship to him, even though he'd incinerated the doomsday scroll that activated Froufrou's spawning. But still, that didn't mean she wanted him to die. Plus, he was so well connected in Gifflenberg! Kahli thought about how nice it would be if she had half the connections that Omar did - and, by virtue of knowing him, she in a way did have those connections, although now that was for naught as he was dead and gone.
Still, would other people blame her? Would Omar's aforementioned network turn on Kahli? Omar had definitely hinted at having people killed before, and Kahli could never tell if that jerk was joking or not.
Kahli, in all these other scenarios, certain doom unfolds one way or another. In the first one, you get set on fire! In the second one, you end up committed to teaming up with an evil alien that you can't stand, don't even try to pretend you don't hate the idea of that. This is the only future with a tangible path forward.
Kahli wanted to swallow air, because she was stressed, but she was frozen in this awful void where that wasn't really possible.
Look, there really isn't any other future?
Well, maybe there would be, if your [skill] was higher than it currently is. But, as it stands, you're only able to consider three scenarios, and those are the three scenarios your system is able to grant.
But, jellyfish, that's the problem here. It seems like the system only really gives me one timeline. Almost like it's taking my own agency away from me, like it's stealing my future.
The big jellyfish pulsated with concern. There is nothing to take here, Kahli. Time is immaterial, it is concrete, it is endless and it is finite, all at the same time. Time is the paradoxical curse of our age, and of everyone's ages. That's what I've been trying to tell you.
No. This was bullshit. There had to be another way to handle this situation than predictably choosing the only acceptable timeline. Kahli didn't want to blindly go through the motions here like Unit 5a23 did when he was trying to decide when to fight. Much to other peoples' apparent chagrin, Kahli wanted to go with her gut. Even if her gut feeling was completely wrong, she felt that following that feeling was probably the only way to exist without hating herself, for whatever reason. And she did not think that scenario three was the scenario to do that.
None of these scenarios were. She didn't want to die, she didn't want to join this stupid alien, and she didn't want to play his game.
She wondered if she could disable the [skill] and send herself out of this timeless void without choosing. Kahli gave it a go.
[Error: You cannot deactivate a skill while it is in use.]
So, that was a no. Kahli would have to choose.
Yes, I'm afraid you must make a decision in order to proceed here, mused the jellyfish.
This is a bunch of bull, said Kahli. Nobody ever told me that systems rely on what is essentially determinism to shape peoples' lives. Does this mean that free will doesn't exist?
Well, you know what they say, Kahli - nothing in life is free, so if you extrapolate that as an ultimate truth, then maybe indeed even will might not be free. That being said, if will costs you, what is the price of will? Is it reasonable? Is the price of will keeping up with inflation? Does will act on a subscription model, or does one act buy it forever outright? Has that changed recently? Do people from the old way get grandfathered in? These are all questions we must consider, if we consider the concept of free and indeed the concept of paid-for will.
Kahli sighed inwardly. All that nonsense just to say that I can't get out of picking one of these stupid timelines. And, of course, I'll have to do the third, because I don't want to die and I don't want to join that awful alien.
And then, Kahli had a thought. Had she died in scenario one?
She racked her mind.
I believe it ended when your clothes were set ablaze, added the big jellyfish.
With that, Kahli had to weigh her options. She could allow Omar to be murdered in cold blood by this alien, or she could really flip the script here. She could, against all odds, choose the timeline where her hand got lopped off and her clothes set on fire as opposed to agreeing to Lloyd's timeline, on the off chance that she didn't die when she chose it.
Then again, if she was aware she was going to be on fire, couldn't she try to mitigate it somehow? And what of Unit 5a23? Surely putting out a fire she'd caught on by accident wouldn't have counted against his silly peace pact. And, if Lloyd thought she had Curr, even though it was of course a lie, would he still try to murder everyone?
There was only one way to find out.
But Kahli, this is a huge risk! You could die!
Yea, well, everything is a huge risk. I could step out into a park for a picnic and have a huge meteor and on me, apparently. Nothing is guaranteed. So why the fuck should I live my life according to logic, and to some sort of a bullshit script? By the will of Theseosus, if I've got to go through with this life, I ought to do it in a way that I'm proud of. In a way that doesn't leave me wondering what the hell I'm doing with myself.
The big jellyfish had nothing to think-say back.
And with that, Kahli chose the first scenario with an inward smile. It was time to see exactly how wild this ride could get.