“What am I going to do, Max?” BB choked out between sobs as she finished yet another drink. “This isn’t the life for me. I mean, I’m good at this, but this isn’t me! It’s all just sweat and dodging scurvy. But I want romance. I want flowers and silly little dances in a garden at night.”

“Mn.” Max wasn’t sure about whether he should refill her glass as she cried into her desk. Her determination to keep up with the liquor had been admirable, but drinking more would probably be a bad idea. “What’s the current star level again? If it’s not too high, then just finish it off. You can go ashore then.”

“It’s a two-stars. I only ever settle on one or two-stars stories.”

While she continued to sob, Max took the nearly empty bottle of whisky and placed it next to his chair. “You never attempt a three-stars? You’ll probably do well since you’ve done seventy-two stories.”

“Too distracting,” BB dismissively waved away his suggestion. “I know most of us want to go for the difficult ones or try to figure a way to get out of this, but I just want to have a good and fulfilling life. It’s more than most people get.”

“Good mentality to have.” Max hid their shot glasses. Out of sight, out of mind. “You’re the kind of person who’s well suited for… our situation.”

“Well, what about you-”

There was a large knock at the door. Tap, tap, tap. “What the fuck was that?” BB suddenly jumped up, alert in case there was a sub-goal event starting.

“Relax. It’s just Cy.” Max had long grown used to his weird knocks. He didn’t even need the system to tell him through a story prompt.

Opening the door ajar, a drunk Cy barged into the room carrying three pints of water-downed beer. “Aye, aye, captain and Maxie.” Maxie? “You’ll never guess what I saw. Settle down, landlubbers, and drink up while I tell a tale of-”

“Shut the fuck up.” Max felt embarrassed as he took the drinks away from him, but it was too late. A perked-up BB was holding out both hands to receive her share. “You shouldn’t call the captain a landlubber, especially because she was kind enough to give us a free ride.” He hissed at him, but it was hopeless. He was too drunk to understand that they should be on their best behaviour.

Cy resisted being guided to the chair Max just left. Quickly forgetting why he came in the first place. “It’s a free ride, but it’s only part way there, right?” BB confirmed with a nod while still holding her hands out. “We still have to travel for a few days-”

“Free is free.” Max forced him down into his seat. An idea occurred to him as he passed BB her pint while leaving the other two on her desk. “She’s given us a ride and let us drink her beer, so why don’t you give her a fate reading. He’s pretty accurate.” He said while giving a small nod to BB, indicating it was the truth.

BB put down the beer, suddenly eager and interested in the person in front of her. “I want to know about my love life. When will I meet my Juliet?”

“Your ‘Juliet?’” Cy asked, confused.

“Ignore her, she’s talking about a play.” Which obviously wasn’t around in this world. “She wants to know if she’ll have… a romantic partner.” Max was a little unsure what to say. His experience with Noah and the village showed that many were still closed minded about these kinds of things. He had assumed the same with Cy until he realised his lack of decency towards the blacksmith was because of the neutralising runes Noah kept welding into his piles of metal.

“They don’t have Shakespeare here?” BB seemed a bit confused for a second before it was replaced with a wide smile as she showed Cy the palms of her hand. “When am I going to meet my girlfriend?” Welp, there it was.

“No sweat, give me a second.” Cy brushed her hands a way before staring intimidatingly for a few seconds. His drunk stare began to waver in concentration before ultimately ending in confusion. “Max,” he said in a loud whisper. “I think she’s confused. There is no girlfriend in her future.”

BB burst into tears again at the revelation making Cy panic a little. It wasn’t too long before he was crying sympathetically. “It’s okay!” Max tried to reassure both of them. They were too drunk for this. “Her fate is still flexible, right? So-”

“It’s fixed.” The sobs from BB became louder. “But! But there’s a guy in your future-” The sobs became loud wails.

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“I think… I should end… this story here.” BB choked out between her cries.

That might be the right choice at this moment. She hated this story, had no desired love interest, and it wasn’t even complete yet. It might be better for her to just skip this lifetime. “Alright. Bye.”

“Wait, wait!” Cy leapt up, the severity of his reading finally dawning on him. “Don’t lose hope.” He began trying to pat her back while she buried her head in her arms. His pats were a little too strong causing her to choke between wails. “It might be a fixed fate, but Max can change fates, right?”

Only by delaying a fixed fate of a sick cow. Cy did have a point though. “If you use magic not native to… here, it seems to be able to alter fixed fates.” Cy frantically nodded to confirm when BB turned to him.

“He uses this weird writing and somehow it works. Maybe he could write something for you, like a girlfriend charm.”

“It doesn’t quite work like that.”

The words seemed to have given her enough hope as she started wiping away her tears. “I can change my fate?” BB asked in a vulnerable voice. “If I use magic from another world? I’ve never been too good at it though.”

Cy looked BB up and down for a while. “Are you sure? You should be pretty good at magic related to water, metal, and… probably time? I guess? It’s hard to know unless you’ve done some training with it.”

BB and Max exchanged a glance before she let out a deep sigh. “Seems like I’ll need magic for my story later on,” she started to clean up her appearance. “Time to brush up on it. It’s been a few lifetimes since I’ve had to use it.”

Cy nodded his head in agreement even though his face showed his total confusion from her words. Max didn’t say anything for a while as he debated what he should do. Remembering his bad luck with seashells and mahogany wood, he turned to Cy. “In this room, what object has the most innate power?” Messing around with fates and gaining information might mean more cryptic messages from the system. It had only been in his vision for a minute before returning to normal, but he didn’t forget the scrambled letters in the description of Cy’s prompt. ‘emnAh TstiSgl eyb esRtea.’ It both irritated and intrigued him.

Cy stood up to look around the room. He stopped in front of the portrait of Sappho. “These portraits have a bit of power to them. They must’ve been made with a lot of emotion.”

“Thank you.” BB beamed from the complement of her handiwork despite her eyes were growing red and puffy from crying.

“The front side with the painting obviously has more power, so the portrait might get damaged-”

“Don’t you fucking dare!” BB hissed at Max before he did or said anything.

“You can just make another one?” Max replied coldly. “What about the portrait of Minna?”

“Oh, sure, do what you want with that one.” BB picked up the broken painting and handed it over to him. “Need a quill?”

“Nah, it’ll be stronger if I scrape off some of the paint.” Max pulled out his pocketknife. Before he scratched in the first rune, he began to second guess himself. “But since it’ll be carved into paint, it might not be as effective if the lines don’t come out sharply.”

“Sure, sure,” BB just seemed happy to have someone helping her. “Thank you, and if I can return the favour-”

“How about money?”

They ignored Cy. “If you notice something strange from the system then let me know. Especially if you see this message,” he motioned for her to pass one of her quills and parchments.

“He knows about the system?” BB asked, while keeping an eye on an unfocused Cy.

“What’s a system?” Cy asked, while Max wrote the message.

“He’s as drunk as a skunk, no shot he’ll remember in the morning anyway.”

“What’s a system?”

“It’s…” BB began but seemed hesitant to say anything.

“It’s the name of a type of rare magic I can use.” Max lied as Cy frowned, appearing even more confused. He had lived enough lifetimes to know that lying about the system didn’t result in penalties so long as the outsider’s understanding of it was too shallow or too different to the truth. Besides, it was going to be a miracle if Cy remembers this conversation. “If you see this message in any part of the HUD, let me know.”

BB and Cy both stared down at the words ‘emnAh TstiSgl eyb esRtea’ while Max got to work on his runes. “What is that?” BB seemed perplexed. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” Cy remained silent. Max wasn’t too sure if he was sober enough to understand what was happening. “If you change a fate, something like this appears?”

“I don’t know. I’ve just seen it in a prompt. Since I can’t interact with the HUD before starting a story-”

“You want me to be your guinea pig,” BB completed the thought. “Well, I’m game.”

Cy continued to stare at the letters. “Is this a riddle?” He seemed confused.

“I guess so.”

“You should ask Delrid. She’s really good at them. Back home, she developed her own type of magic to help solve them.” Max and BB glanced at each other. “I’m sure she’ll help you out if you ask her.”

“It’s a good job you guys are headed to Tsujuma,” BB murmured. Max didn’t say anything until he was done scraping a mandala filled with runes over the portrait of BB’s last lover. “So, what’s this going to do? Bring me true love?”

“Theoretically trick the system into thinking you’re at sea. But you’ll need direct contact with the painting’s fabric for it to be effective. I don’t know how long it’ll last though since my gauge on this world’s magic items is wrong, but you can use it in a pinch if you’re desperate. You’ll also need to let it charge after use. A few days should do the trick.”

Cy seemed to get excited as he began loudly whispering to Max. “How did you do that? Her fate is a lot more flexible.”

BB examined the portrait and the runes closely. “I never did ask how many stories you’ve done,” she murmured as she admired the handiwork. “Let’s make a deal, Max. I’ll drop you off as promised. Then in one month, we’ll meet again in the same place. I’ll test out your runes and theory as much as I can, and you get that riddle sorted. It’ll be nice to partner up and share what we know. Oh, and bring your friend, I need to know if after all this my fate can’t be changed for the life I want.”