There is a point when there is just so much wrong with a statement that you stand agog. Don’t worry. It didn’t last a whole round, but my mind did have to process that shit for a millisecond before I just closed the Dispel Magic Umbrella magic all the way around me. I even had enough time left over in the last four seconds of the round to figure out how to cast my own spells through the bubble. To be fair, I think I only got away with it because the game engine liked me. A little timer popped up in the corner of my screen with a minute counting down.
“Let me get this straight,” I sat in my bubble of magic, making it cost less mana. “You think this sloppy-ass shit show is justified because I made something work in it?”
Kat level 22 (Health 17,654/20,105) (Mana 19,195/21,660) Poisoned (-75/5 seconds)
Spell Learned: Magic Bubble (maybe a mix of I like you and hate him)
Exp +30 (3,154,865/5,985,462)
“Of course,” Fizzbarren stated quite officiously.
“How much do you like me?” I asked the game engine, but I said it out loud since Fizzbarren was easier to deal with when he thought it was all about him. There is nothing more entertaining than watching a narcissist twist anything you say. You might as well say something that challenges them. My friend Shirley is popping popcorn right about now, not that she’s gotten this far into my book. I’ll remove any of these references the instant any one of these folks say they read it. Seriously.
I sat in that bubble and mused about what it might take to make the bubble reflective, like a two-way mirror for spells. The stuff heading toward me reflected back at the caster, while the stuff I cast out of my bubble worked just fine.
Kat level 22 (Health 17,579/20,105) (Mana 19,195/21,660) Poisoned (-75/5 seconds)
Mana Manipulation +3 (I don’t think so, but nice try.)
Exp +30 (3,154,895/5,985,462)
The Fireballs that Fizzbarren cast at me lost three quarters of their damage going through the bubble while spells I cast out through the spell got a few edges shaved off of them, at least that’s what happened with the Fireballs I threw back at him this round.
“I find you quite amusing as a character, but I’m becoming bored with your insistence that I’m the villain here,” Fizzbarren explained patiently. See? I told you it would be amusing. You can’t make this shit up, right Green?
“MMHmm,” I mimicked my classmate Julia by saying. What that means is, “Yes, please keep feeding me the answers to this complex question so that I can write what I like of it into our report and get all the credit for it, all while stroking your ego.”
Health -20 (21,532/23,517) Shielded
Kat level 22 (Health 17,424/20,105) (Mana 18,875/21,660) Poisoned (-75/5 seconds)
“It is you who is the villain, missy,” Fizzbarren was saying as he didn’t really notice that his spells weren’t all that effective anymore. “I am the hero, as you will see. You had one insight in saying that everyone thinks they are the hero of their own story. That includes you, dear.” So, I resisted throwing up on him, but only because I was worried my bubble might trap some of the smell in the small room that was a swirl of magic.
Constitution +1
“MmHMM,” I quote Julia again. This inflection means, “Sorry, I’m distracted and can’t respond to you right now, but I want you to think I’m listening.” This classmate was the President of our student body council. Obviously, these semi-randomly applied grunts can pander enough to a world of academia to become the epitome of political power a student can attain on a college campus. Then again, when applied to a larger political arena, I’m pretty sure she’ll be crushed by life, but I told her that after the second type of MmHMM, instead of the first one so I doubt she heard me. She did stop talking to me though, so maybe I misheard the inflection. “Are you sure?” I asked the game machine, but I’m just evil enough that I said it aloud because… funny.
Kat level 22 (Health 17,349/20,105) (Mana 18,875/21,660) Poisoned (-75/5 seconds)
Pontification +1 (pretty sure…)
Exp +10 (3,154,905/5,985,462)
“It is a true sign of narcissism when one cannot accept that they too are subject to the same rules of the universe as everyone else,” Fizzbarren walked straight into that one. Does it even bear mentioning that people often accuse others of what they can’t face in themselves. Even the Bible references that vice with the admonishment to take the plank out of your own eye rather than point out the splinter in another’s eye. That is how old that idiom is. Fizzbarren should even know it.
“I willingly pull this teeny tiny splinter out of my eye and dare you to hold it up to your own plank for comparison,” I muttered around trying to suck the magical energy out of the room’s many rampaging spells to power this bubble. I keyed in some fire and ice resistance and then tweaked the resonance with a bit of poison resistance.
Kat level 22 (Health 17,274/20,105) (Mana 18,875/21,660) Poisoned (-75/5 seconds)
Spell Learned: GOD Bubble (fine, you win, but you need to kick his ass now before I have to cut off his villain speech for good)
Exp +30 (3,154,935/5,985,462)
“Yes!” I pumped a fist in the air and because it popped out of the bubble, I got a bit of damage from the maelstrom circling my little bubble. “I knew you loved me best.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
“You are a bewildering thing,” Fizzbarren eyed me, probably annoyed that my speech was difficult to reconcile with what he was saying. BONUS. “This is why I’ve had to do so much work on the edits of the book you are in. You are simply too erratic. There is a thing called foreshadowing and you almost always toss out ideas that have no precedent. Readers become too shell-shocked by such things. You must ease a reader into new ideas with the proper introductions.”
The first problem was that Fizzbarren was exhibiting his god complex, something a lot of writers fall prey to when a world of their creation can give them anything they can dream into being. The bigger problem was his disdain for his readers. That sort of thing seeps into your writing. I want to apologize for his behavior, and on the behalf of all authors who fall prey to this malady. It is why I personally cannot write romance, but that is another story.
Health -10 (21,522/23,517) Shielded
Kat level 22 (Health 17,199/20,105) (Mana 18,875/21,660) Poisoned (-75/5 seconds)
God Bubble +1 (if I add another thousand points of damage to your lightning spell, it could not end this fight fast enough)
Exp +10 (3,154,945/5,985,462)
“Yes, it’s true,” Fizzbarren nodded through the firestorm coming out of his hands. “You are a bad writer. I would try to spare you this, but you have left me no choice but to reveal your failure or else you would continue to waste your time on efforts that simply cannot result in anything of worth.”
“Even with foreshadowing, that was shocking,” I shook my head at him, casting Lightning, which, because it was summoned from outside my bubble, was a spell that did full damage. “Is that a possibility?” I asked the engine silently.
Kat level 22 (Health 17,064/20,105) (Mana 18,795/21,660) Poisoned (-75/5 seconds)
Lightning +100 (yes)
Lightning -100 (no, I am better than that.)
Exp +1,000 (3,155,945/5,985,462)
“The truth often is,” Fizzbarren turned my daughter’s pitying eyes on me, something that my daughter would never do to me thus making the obscenity that was his possession of her seem even more like a five-year-old trying to wear an adult bigfoot costume.
“We all know how stupid, insufferably arrogant, and clueless you are,” I stood, allowing the bubble to stretch, burning more mana. “We had all the foreshadowing imaginable in how idi-fucking-otic this world of yours is and how blind you are to any fault that lies at your door.”
Kat level 22 (Health 16,989/20,105) (Mana 18,795/21,660) Poisoned (-75/5 seconds)
Lightning +10 (maybe)
Exp +100 (3,156,045/5,985,462)
“Jealousy does not look good on you, dear,” he took a step toward me.
“And the condescending endearments!” I threw up my hands, casting a double dose of Cement Shoes that sunk Fizzbarren a half inch down into the wooden floorboards of the room. I’d assumed the room was underground, but maybe that was because of its lack of windows and the fact that I would have stored Dom’s comatose body in an underground lair. “I’m not your dear, darling, girl, missy, or whatever other word you use to make yourself feel superior to me. I’m in a sixteen-year-old body because that’s how you wrote the programming, but I’m over fifty in the real world and honestly, your comments are very close to sexual harassment.”
Kat level 22 (Health 16,914/20,105) (Mana 18,795/21,660) Poisoned and Grounded (-75/5 seconds)
Lightning +10 (I can get behind that)
Exp +100 (3,156,145/5,985,462)
“Rather than be grateful for the young body and healthy vitality of your new life, you’ve childishly vilified me, so I will call you a child as you deserve it,” Fizzbarren tossed back at me with impotent Fireballs, making sense, which made me sorry I’d given him anything to throw back at me. “You are a child to me, an infant compared to how long I’ve walked this earth!”
“And you are an imbecile to me!” I nearly screamed at him, jumping on the floor to test its strength. There was definitely a room below us, but the floor was pretty solid. “Does that mean I have ten times your IQ?”
Kat level 22 (Health 16,839/20,105) (Mana 18,475/21,660) Poisoned and Grounded (-75/5 seconds)
Lightning -10 (seriously?)
God Bubble +1 (because you’re going to need it)
Exp +10 (3,156,155/5,985,462)
“Petty name-calling?” Fizzbarren sniffed Kat’s pretty little nose. “That is beneath even you.”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I told him, casting Lightning with one hand and thickening those Cement Shoes with the other. The various paintings and rugs around the room had been reduced to singed and sodden scraps that only added to the debris our storms kicked up.
Kat level 22 (Health 16,704/20,105) (Mana 18,475/21,660) Poisoned and Grounded (-75/5 seconds)
Lightning +10 (um?)
Lightning +10 (OH!)
Exp +200 (3,156,355/5,985,462)
It’s just that I’d forever been seized with the concept that Fizzie-baby was a modern-day incarnation of Rumpelstiltskin. The very symmetry of having Fizzbarren stomp himself through the floorboards and straight into hell just like the first version of the story I ever read was something that called to my poet’s soul. But, could I do it? I backed away from Fizzbarren, watching the floorboards beneath him.
“Finally some wisdom,” Fizzbarren was saying, probably about my backing away from the cracking floor. Terra cast a heal at me, darting the long way around Fizzbarren so that she was back behind me and yet had avoided the displacer kitten under the bed, or what was left of the bed.
“So have you made a decision about what happens to Kat if her body dies with Fizzbarren inside?” I silently asked the game engine.
Health +100 (21,622/23,517) Shielded
Kat level 22 (Health 16,629/20,105) (Mana 18,475/21,660) Poisoned and Grounded (-75/5 seconds)
Cement Shoes +1 (ugh, these needy requests for surety!)
Exp +10 (3,156,365/5,985,462)
It boiled down to how much I trusted what I knew about the rules of the engine. I was banking on the idea that Chester and Lily could be released from the game engine even after having been shelved, but that was just a hope and the best they could hope for at this point, having already lost their battles before I came along. If Kat died, she’d end up in the buffer, where Chester and Lily had been, but she was already there in the buffer, at least her mind was there. Did she have another body in the buffer? My mind reeled with the possibilities that centered around the only being in the universe of past, present, and future that I wasn’t willing to gamble on. At over seventeen thousand health, this was still an esoteric matter, but I also wasn’t one to make good decisions without some time to think on it. I had about fifteen thousand health to think and while that seemed like forever when you were slinging Fireballs and Acid Devils, it was less time than the philosophical conversation that would change Fizzie-baby’s mind about anything.
“I am not an entity to be trifled with, but I am not without compassion,” Fizzbarren was saying, but I had given up on even MmHm’s to give pretense to listening. That didn’t stop him from talking. “Since you do not want to be in my miraculous game world, I’ll make you an offer.”
Kat level 22 (Health 16,554/20,105) (Mana 18,475/21,660) Poisoned and Grounded (-75/5 seconds)
Had we stopped casting? I hadn’t. I was casting heals and considering how to mutate my Repair spell so that it would degrade the condition of the floor that was already struggling to hold up his weight plus the Cement Shoes he wore. He had, but probably only because he hadn’t felt the sting of a new spell cast at him in a round or two.
My mind drove itself up out of my mental meanderings to hear one word. “Offer?”
“Perhaps, you can be reasonable,” Fizzbarren grumbled, frowning at the cement that kept him from approaching me.