So, here we are again. Hey. Um. Sorry for my last breakdown. I was sitting here writing and realized I haven’t had the nerve to say anything for a bit. It’s just. I did it. I turned back time to save my daughter. I didn’t think it would work, if you want to know the truth. And then when it happened, I thought for sure that I’d screw it up. Obviously, I didn’t, or I wouldn’t be the one on the other end of the pen right now.

See, I got there, and I changed it all. I ripped the engine apart and reset hundreds of variables. I was just so mad. I’m not saying that I’ve gotten perspective yet. There’s this thing that happens when you live through a trauma, even after you’re supposedly safe from that trauma. I was in that safe spot that didn’t dare believe it was safe.

He was watching my thoughts, and he was in my head. There’s a violation that happens there. Not only had he killed a dozen people by shoving them into a machine that wrote stories for him, but he’d also sit there in his little house and judge us by how well we wrote out our own stories. And why? Because he couldn’t come up with the words himself.

I don’t want to get up on some high horse and say that he was a purely evil person. Ugh. Yes, I do. Wouldn’t you? Ah, come on, I mean who does that? I told myself I wouldn’t rant about him. It’s just, I’m reading myself writing and I wonder what you’re thinking of me. It matters. I guess it shouldn’t, but it does. And not just because my mana stores are determined by followers, views, comments, and reviews.

You matter is what I’m saying. At least, you do to me. There are a few readers nowadays that are dropping off, but you stuck with me. They read the stuff about my daughter dying and I guess it just got too real for them. Some folks stopped reading when I lost my mind or when I got all mean in my period of grief and I was like, fine, whatever. The review wasn’t so bad. At least I was brilliant along with the bleh. I was upset but then I saw that you, you were still reading. And stuff was okay, you know? The rest was all the little stuff I could write through.

I wish I could ask you why. I wish I could look into your head and see what you want me to tell you next. That I could know how to make sure you came back tomorrow. Then I think, wow, I’m just like him. Here I was just now saying that it was an intrusion that Fizzbarren was watching my thoughts and I’m wishing that I could see yours. I don’t mean it in the way he did. I don’t want to see into everyone’s thoughts, just yours. Not in the intrusive kind of way that he did, but in that way that a friend really wants to get to know you.

This is stupid. You don’t even think I’m talking about you. I’m having a War of the Worlds moment only in reverse. It’s like I’m standing in front of an audience, albeit a tiny one, and talking to one person. I just know that the person I’m talking to will think I’m talking about someone else and the person I’m not talking to will think it’s them. That’s life for you, right? Yeah, you know what I mean. Now I’ve gone from War of the Worlds to You’re So Vain.

Anyway, I should get back to the reason for this interlude. I was sitting in that dungeon, and I was trying really hard not to think things that the Nemesis Engine would then write into pages for Fizzbarren, because if Fizzbarren ever learned that I’d figured out how to manipulate time, he could do worse than I’ve done. Even more tragic would be how he’d reverse my changes to the Nemesis Engine. On the one hand, I don’t want to spoil any surprises or twists you might need to keep you reading, but on the other hand, I don’t want you to think I’m not invested emotionally anymore.

I think it might have been easier to write before this silly Quill started putting my thoughts on paper. I miss the feel of a keyboard on my lap, music blaring in my headphones, cat playing with my cords, dog slurping at some portion of her body, and family playing video games in the background. Now I walk around doing the vacuuming or doing the dishes as this quill goes darting around my head. I’m sitting here folding laundry right now. Does that surprise you? We forget that there are real people behind the screen, huh?

It makes me wonder what you’re doing. I hope you don’t think that’s creepy. I try to think of all the places I read, that is when I have the chance to read nowadays with all the writing and running a family and an alternate universe. Are you sitting in bed? Maybe you’re on a bus, or blowing off time on work breaks. If you’re in the bath, I promise I’m not watching. That really would be creepy. The quill has just reminded me of boundaries so I’m going to shut up about that. I’m surprised it didn’t just delete it.

Another reason that I wanted to butt in here was that I’m going to fast forward through a whole day of probably very boring skills, stats, and professional training. I could have made it all fun and cute by going over a few of the conversations between Terra and myself about gnoblin hygiene and how many cleans it took to get the dog smell out of our hair. Speaking of gnoblins, that was not my idea. The creatures in the world were a simple cheating of smashing two regular creatures together to make up something Fizzbarren thought would be new enough.

That was part of the problem with Fizzbarren. He had a disdain for his audience. It was evident in how he took so many short cuts on the world building. It made so many things cliché. He fed a list of animals and mythical creatures into the engine and then made a table that squished the traits of two creatures together. He didn’t even bother to rename them himself. He took one name to the first vowel and the second after that and that was only when he didn’t just name them one or the other. I think his most clever creature was probably the fire lizards that laid chicken eggs that we could eat. That was just my favorite, but it was still evidence of yet another set of short cuts.

I have to say that I like AI as both villain and hero in my fiction, but as for it writing the fiction, that’s where I just don’t get it. It’s like saying, “Gee, I have a thought, now go write it for me.” All an AI can do is take what already exists and manipulate that with a table of words. It’s a sophisticated version of Mad Libs. This quill that is writing down this story and playing at being my editor is as far as I’m willing to go for that sort of thing and it’s more of a voice recorder, especially since I deleted all the writing algorithms of the Nemesis Engine. Then again, I’m getting ahead of myself again. It’s just that, as a writer, if I ever get to the point where I need a machine to make a story, I’ll stop writing first. I’d go mad trying to correct its autocorrect on my ideas!

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Pontification +10

Yes, I hear you, quill. Imagine me rolling my eyes right now. Be good or I’ll wake Terra and the kittens up to chase you again. It’s better than laser pointers. Don’t worry, I made it so that quill’s feather regenerates very quickly. The kittens are entranced with a fluffy feather thing that can be defrocked over and over again. It helps that it doesn’t hurt the quill at all either.

Superiority +10

See what I have to put up with? I’m joking. I’ve almost gotten used to it. These stats are what the Quill considers jokes. It’s fair though, considering that it is the only way it communicates. I’m trying to fix that, but for now…

Compassion +2

I spent the day in that dungeon doing crafts, collecting treasure, and practicing to get my stats and skills up. I also spent the time thinking because I was sure that Fizzbarren wouldn’t be watching me do something so mundane. I went through a hundred scenarios in my head of how to bring Kat into the world and keep her safe. I went through another hundred scenarios about bringing my psychotic husband to me first or even my best friend Cliff. The fact that I’d gone back into Fizzbarren’s madhouse world, under his thumb and vulnerable to his whims, was evidence of how crazy I was willing to get to save my kid. If I didn’t play it right, Fizzbarren could tuck me away on a shelf and the whole world could forget me and everything I had accomplished.

I also didn’t know if I could replay the scenario a second time. I was sitting there stitching up a leather outfit for my girl when I realized that my story could be so awful that I’d lose all my readers and never have the mana or power to do another time loop. The machine feeds me mana in the real world, Fizzbarren’s mana, to be precise, but only when enough people read my books. I had just enough old books on Amazon and even Frank’s book that I’d ghost-written, that I had a bit of a head start. This story being posted serially on Royal Road was my primary source of power. When I cast the first time loop there were barely enough followers and page views to take me back before Kat’s death. If I poked my head up out of the end of this, there was no guarantee that I’d have that again. Death might have put me back at the beginning of the loop again, since that’s generally how the genre works, but I couldn’t help but think that it would be just my luck to have that backfire badly. If Fizzbarren had shelved my story, I’d have tried the death thing.

What all my thinking came up with was that I’d bring over my husband first, but only if I couldn’t talk Sammi into my main plan. It was best to go it alone. In my house at home, my family is my greatest strength, but in this story, they were leverage that Fizzbarren could use against me. Cliff and my husband would both have been assets, but they were also all that Kat had at home and I just didn’t know how long I’d been gone out of their lives or if the time loop had looped for them or not. The final determination came from my current levels.

Anything that I went up against would be at or near my level and anyone I brought over would be more than ten levels behind that. Just the level difference was enough to make it so that I’d have to keep them out of the way. Would my husband have the patience to take on a dozen trade skills, juggle up all these stats, constantly cast spells, and do it all while travelling toward my next nemesis? The only reason my husband wasn’t a serial killer was that he was essentially unmotivated. He’d do anything for me and our daughter, but he had the drive of a cat. Naps were more important than stats. Okay, honestly, I imagined him with me just once without those rose-tinted glasses I wore when it came to family. All I could see was frustratingly telling him to practice his spells instead of sleeping on the coach while I was desperately trying to find a spell that cured motion sickness for myself.

The story picks up when I exit the dungeon for the second time. Of course, I went back in and reran the elite guards! That was three levels in four hours, more like ten hours once you figured in that really good sleep I got on the King’s bed. Are you nuts? I only got two levels the second time. I took a little nap and then jumped out of dungeon, thinking I’d run it one more time before heading back to the tavern to face Beau. I misjudged the timing and I’d assumed Beau would do the same thing he had before. I was wrong. That happens a lot. That’s okay. Some surprises are good.

This is where I’d progressed to before Beau so rudely interrupted my perfectly delightful grinding. In retrospect, I’m guessing that Fizzbarren gave Beau a little push when I managed to outlevel the bard. By a lot.

Name: Karma

Class: Mage-ish

Level: 12 (13574/30755)

Profession: Cook (Level 5: 1250/1800), Blacksmith (Level 3: 50/800), Singer (Level 3: 70/800), Storyteller (Level 3: 20/800), Carpenter (Level 2: 120/500), Seamstress (Level 1: 150/300)

Health: 2175/2175

Mana: 2233/2233

Intelligence: 36

Will: 41

Strength: 40 (my, what a big hammer you have!)

Constitution: 35 (gnoblin stew does a constitution good!)

Charm: 22 (still a little rrrough around the edges with those dogs)

Beauty: 16 (all those cleans + a new set of black leather armor does wonders for a girls’ figure)

Perception: 37 (if only you could perceive how much you smell like dog still)

Dexterity: 45 (juggling responsibilities doesn’t count)

Luck: 40 (if I just made up a number, would you notice?)

Skills: Blacksmithing (45), Knife Fighting (42), Dodge (40), Identify (38), Meditation (35), Leatherworking (33), Cooking (30), Dual Wielding (27), Multiple Foe Combat (26), Piercing (25), Storytelling (20), Bartering (19), Grapple (19), Singing (19), Alcohol Tolerance (18), Intimidation (15), Kick (15), Mana Manipulation (15), Woodworking (15), Comedy (14), Dancing (12), Sewing (12), Sneak (11), Unarmed Combat (11), Manic Charge (9), Barricade (7), Disarm (6),

Spells: Poisoned Mana (55), Cleaner (52), Flare (51), Repair (42), Heal (39), Mana Vision (35), Buff (20), Casting Stone (16), Cure Poison (15), Freshen (14), Soft Breeze (14), Moisten (13), Lift Spirits (5), Summon Witch’s Familiar (5),

Recipes: Fruit Pie (9), Sharp Dagger (9), Leather Boots (8), Stew (8), Leather Tunic (6), Sourdough Bread (6), Leather Bracers (5), Leather Pants (5), Chili (3), Cornbread (3), Meat Pie (3), Porridge (3), Buffalo Sauce (2), Chicken Coop (2), Cobbler (2), Gnoblin Stew (2), Leather Thong (2), Mint Sauce (2).

That’s a HAIR thong to hold back my hair, you perverts. Thong? You had to call it a thong? I don’t care if that’s what it’s called. It could have been barrette, or hair holder. It didn’t have to be thong. I’m going to have to level that up just to get a name change on it. What do you mean recipes don’t change names? Dammit Quill!!