Author’s Afterword

“Why does the third of the three brothers, who shares his food with the old woman in the wood, go on to become king of the country? Why does Bond manage to disarm the nuclear bomb a few seconds before it goes off rather than, as it were, a few seconds afterwards? Because a universe where that did not happen would be a dark and hostile place. Let there be goblin hordes, let there be terrible environmental threats, let there be giant mutated slugs if you really must, but let there also be hope. It may be a grim, thin hope, an Arthurian sword at sunset, but let us know that we do not live in vain.” - “Let There Be Dragons” by Sir Terry Pratchet.

I’m writing this at the same time as 4.15, though it doesn’t really matter, does it? In the end, this is going to be shipped out the same time as the interlude. I’m not sure what to say, honestly, I’m not sure why you all are still reading. I can come up with plenty of explanations, entertainment, boredom, the need to simply burn time, but I never know.

When I set out to write this story, I had only a few things, a dnd character sheet for a cancelled campaign, a shit ton of notes for a VRMMO world and the desire to try my hand once again at writing after I burned out on ‘WTF I’m a Dungeon’.

So I sat down and wrote.

Mycology is the fourth iteration of a list of VRMMO stories, I can’t remember the exact order but there was a necromancer BBEG, murder hobo party and a steampunk story before it. The murder hobo party story had four different chapter 1s, each slightly different. Even not considering the VRMMO stories, I had three different dungeon core stories, a modern superhero, meta isekai and even a jojo fanfic written down.

I’m rambling again it seems. Well, they don’t really matter, since they probably won’t ever see the light of day, I’m just trying to show how much work happens behind the scenes in the hopes my effort will receive a small bit of validation.

Now, I’ll inform you of the purpose, or perhaps the structure I’ve been keeping to this story.

Originally, I didn’t want to post this, let the readers figure it out themselves, or maybe let them think it’s all the result of a strange stylistic choice.

But I didn’t want the work and thought I put in to go unnoticed, never known, or even worse, mistaken for something unintentional.

So here I am, writing.

Thus far, I have tried to keep to a writing style of absurd realism, with emphasis on the absurd. I’ve made it a personal challenge to give the phrase “Reality is stranger than fiction,” a huge middle finger. I’m probably failing, but still making a good effort.

I’ve told you all that from the beginning that Declan and Dustin were my self-inserts and by now you should have a deeper understanding of them. For the sake of convenience, I shall just refer to them as Declan. 4.23 was meant to definitively fill in that final gap you probably guessed, but didn’t know for sure.

Declan relies on logic, he hates acting on negative emotions no matter how justified they are, but he is a purposeless character stuck in the monotony of existence.

He has no true reason or motivation to ever act. Reading back you will notice that most of his important actions occur because someone else asked him to do it. Declan is a character with nearly no autonomy or care for his life. Even in the sole danger situation, the beginning of the story, did Declan actually ever say he was afraid for his life?

He didn’t, did he?

Something so simple and taken for granted. Not having it mentioned. I wrote in a way that implied it, exaggerated reactions, but no true actions against. What a person says, is not always true. Action, or inaction, in this case, speaks louder than words.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

How does one write such a character into a story? Not to mention a main character? They refuse to engage in anything like a plot and would be perfectly content living like a river rock. Most stories have a monotony at the start, before something happens which drags into the plot. Something that forces them to act.

In a darker story, Eve’s call would’ve led to some horrible sci-fi shit. Declan’s opponent is an A.I. far above anything he can intellectually match. Even if it was programmed to act juvenile, even human, it is a dangerous entity capable of freely hijacking people’s minds.

In a light hearted story, he would’ve gone on an adventurer with the first friends he meets. Discovering some bastardised Machiavelian plot including rats, a mastermind raccoon and way too many moving parts to not fail.

But none of them happen, because Declan simply does not care. I’ve been hinting this, but Declan’s world is fucked on an irrevocable level, but he is a teenager, how is he supposed to deal with that? How is he supposed to fight off Skynet or solve a global crisis? There’s some kind of strange and fun plot with the players at spawn, but why should he care? It affected him somewhat but not unduly and the rats paid him well enough. If he’s capable of fixing it, why can’t someone else deal with it?

Why do anything at all?

Why even bother living?

I’m not sure myself, I can’t answer that question, but perhaps I can pose this question to you, dear reader.

Why did you keep reading?

This is a purposeless story, one that meanders, one that drops plot points and interesting characters, one that doesn’t have a clear goal until nearly 600 pages in. There is no reason for you to be here, so why are you here?

Why do you check the story for updates, why do you open the page when there’s a new release, why are you still here?

I think, whatever answer you give, will be as good a reason as any.

And so, I hope you understand now, why I have been writing this way.

The purpose of this story thus far, is to be purposeless, to not have a point, to not have a central ‘plot’ to make someone continue. To just be a realistic, if insane story where the world will continue to move regardless of the actions of the characters. More a report or biography than a driven story with a central plot.

I sacrificed the story, for a message. A realistic story isn’t about consequences for your actions, it isn’t Grimdark like most would have you believe, it is fun and enjoyment, chaos and order, horrors and sadness, simple inanity and boredom. That is why a realistic story does not always make for a good story, because unlike a story, real life does not have to make coherent sense, it doesn’t follow central themes or characters, just a report of the everyday. Of a thousand events, happening outside your control.

I’ve accepted that because of this, this story will forever be considered to have a ‘slow start’ at best or a ‘doesn’t go anywhere in 10 chapters 0.5 stars’ at worst. I’ve accepted that because of what I’ve done this story will never rise above a 3/10 as a story, for the simple reason I killed the story for this long, probably pointless message.

All of you who’ve read up till this point, probably understand what it means to be purposeless, to not have a good reason to do anything. But you are still here. Any reason is better than none. Or maybe I’m just being a pretentious idiot rationalising bad writing, who knows? Does it matter either way? If you are still here, it meant that some part of you enjoyed what I wrote, and honestly, before deep and great meanings, that simple fact is good enough for me. Reality is stupid, brutal and a thousand other bad things, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be enjoyed.

Though, the story sacrificed cannot be gone for long. That is why now was the end of the Prologue, because until now, the story hadn’t started. Many people spend their entire lives without purpose, and I would like to write a story like that one day, but in this one a purpose is found, even one made in pettiness. A reason to continue, why you should outstretch your hand to the wider world.

It is an eventual reward for staying by and congratulations my friend, you made it.

I will still be here, for as long as I want, maybe for as long as I can. I already have tons of future events jotted down in notes and wriggling inside my head, they only need to be written down. If I could instantly write and release all my ideas, Mycology would probably end with a lot of pages, but I’ll brag about that whenever I reach that point, but I’ll say this, relatively speaking, it makes sense for the prologue to be this long.

I’m in it for the long haul and will take breaks if I need them, I won’t make the mistakes of my past but I will not be afraid to experiment.

After this I’ll begin my second round of editing, Recent chapters are a bit wonky due to my lack of sleep writing them and I noticed a problem with how I’ve done the passive growth stats, particularly the ones every other level. The every two levels increase are somehow happening on odd numbered levels instead of the even.

Also, I’m gonna start posting advanced chapters on Patreon, mostly as a test. I've said before I dislike the idea of locking stuff behind a paywall but my morals aren't that strong so I figured I'll try. I’ll still keep to a normal release of at least one chapter every other week as well as committing to scheduled weekend releases now.

I hope you all do well, this is far from a perfect story, probably far from a good one as well. A 3/10 on my scale is the question of plot, and I’ve already fucked that up. Intentionally or not an artist who rips up the canvas still ruins the piece.

But in the end, I hope in this purposeless story, one that has no point or meaning, I hope you find something you can invest in or take away.

In the end, it’s up to you.

Sir Nil out.