--- Rania ---

The Bad Guys were getting away, but Rania was going to catch them for sure.

After all, she hadn't done anything awesome, yet. So she was due for a success.

Some stories had a pretty lopsided party balance, where the Main Character was super awesome, and the others were just set dressing to make them look even cooler in comparison. But Rania had paid close attention to her own life, and she was pretty sure her story wasn't like that. It was much more equal.

Everyone in her party had a different strength, and they all played off each other.

Atrog was strong and nice and kept them all together. Galanys was really, really smart. Balron was immortal, and an experienced mentor. Dov was a psychic adventurer dragon princess quest-giver with her own super detailed backstory. Whiskers was a scout. Pebble was wise and smart. And Aranea provided valuable moral support.

Rania herself was good at killing things and talking to spirits, even if she was otherwise much more normal than the others. It was important for a story to have somebody normal that the other characters could be compared to, and she didn't mind having that role so long as she wasn't useless.

There was nobody on her team who only existed to make the others look better.

She was really glad for that.

In stories like that, where everyone had their own contributions, big and important scenes usually highlighted everybody's strengths. It was not a hard rule, but it was pretty reliable.

Unless of course it was a scene to establish that a character could rely on the others to have their back. In those kinds of scenes that character would sometimes be inept, so that they could be saved by the others. But everyone on her team already knew that they could trust each other, so this didn't apply.

The important thing was: They had just been in an important fight, and Rania hadn't done anything awesome, yet.

It was their first major fight in a while, and really intense and important. Balron had saved them all by noticing the ambush in time. Galanys was the one who came up with the plan. Atrog had cast Fist, which had looked very cinematically impressive. Dov provided oversight and coordination.

Whiskers, Pebble and Aranea were non-combatants, so they didn't count.

But Rania was a fighter, and she had done really poorly in that fight. She hadn't done a single awesome thing. The boss assassin even caught her throwing knife. At first she thought that was bad, but in retrospect it was a good thing, because now her allotment of guaranteed victory was not filled, yet.

And then the Bad Guys ran away. Rania was the fastest out of all of them. The only one who could keep up with the Bad Guys.

Naturally, this meant that she would be sure to catch them. She was still due a success in this scene.

There was only one problem: Right now she was chasing after two Bad Guys. One Boss and one Minion. If she caught the Minion first, then that would count as a success, and the Boss Bad Guy would escape. She knew well from her books that a single strong assassin was much more capable and dangerous than a group of weaker ones. The moment she caught the Minion Bad Guy, the Boss Bad Guy would be alone, and that would make him stronger, and he would probably get away and become a recurring villain. She really did not want an assassin to become a recurring villain. That could be really bad.

So she had to make sure to either capture only the Boss Bad Guy, or both at once. She couldn't allow herself to get distracted by the Minion Bad Guy.

That was her perfectly reasonable plan as she ran out of the courthouse to chase the Bad Guys.

She could see them just a hundred meters away, and her hearing was good enough that she could easily track them even if they tried to lose her in the tunnels.

But then it all went wrong immediately!

There was a civilian standing there, looking at the courthouse and clutching his ears in pain.

When the Boss Bad Guy ran past him, he stabbed the Innocent Civilian!

"Save him, or he will bleed out!" He shouted to her.

And then he kept running!

The Innocent Civilian wouldn't be able to survive that wound, and there was nobody else who could help him!

Rania hesitated. She didn't know the man. He was just a random side character who probably didn't even have a name. But he was also an Innocent Civilian, and he looked like he was in a lot of pain.

What would Atrog do?

He would help.

So she stopped chasing after the Bad Guys.

She ran to the Innocent Civilian instead, pulled out one of her healing potions, and fed it to the man.

"Thank you!" He rasped, as his wounds closed.

The footsteps of the Bad Guys were getting dimmer in the distance. She wouldn't be able to catch them anymore.

And she still hadn't done her awesome thing, yet!

She didn't know how to feel about that.

--- Minion Bad Guy ---

This mission was a total disaster.

It had started so well. They had disappeared the bailiff, and their replacement had smuggled in weapons for all of them. Their targets were unarmed and unarmored, and went like lambs to the slaughter.

Then their lookout had informed them that the dwarf wizard had somehow convinced the clerk at the front desk to carry a freaking sword with him, of all things.

That was unexpected, but didn't seem so bad. He wasn't even one of the targets, after all.

It didn't seem like a big deal.

But when their boss gave the signal to strike, somehow their targets noticed that immediately. By the time he had drawn his weapon, the main target had already vaulted the bench and was running away.

Then everything suddenly devolved into a nightmare of smoke, poison, and noise. It was worse than any of their training exercises had ever been.

And it only got worse from there.

Now he and his boss were the only survivors, and none of the targets were dead.

If it wasn't for his boss's quick thinking to divert the secondary target's attention, she might have caught them already. He was under no illusions what would happen if an adventurer of her experience fought them on equal footing.

Now all they could do was to run, and follow the planned escape route.

...wait.

Hadn't they passed that house already?

He looked to his boss, who gave him an equally puzzled look in return.

They kept running.

And found themselves in front of that same house, again.

This time, there was someone blocking their path. It was the strangest person he had ever seen.

An enormous human woman, taller and more muscled than any orc. Her face was utterly hideous. She wore a pink dress and a skirt. It looked completely absurd on her monstrous frame.

Wasn't that some kind of foreign school uniform?

He looked around, and noticed that both the street they came from and the only side alley were blocked by two other women. They were wearing the same strange dress, but at least they were more normally proportioned.

He looked to his boss again, who furrowed his brows in confusion.

"...are those cosplayers?" His boss asked.

"Fucking weebs." He added in disgust.

He shook his head, and started running again.

But as his boss made to run past the freakishly muscular girl, she lazily backhanded him, and the sheer force of the strike launched him backwards into the air.

Luckily his boss was the boss for a reason. Instead of dying immediately, he managed to soften the impact by rolling, and caught himself easily.

The look on his face did not fill him with confidence, however.

With strength like hers, this strange woman must be a powerful adventurer. But how could they not have heard rumors of someone this strong, with such a garish and attention-grabbing presentation? Everyone would have heard of someone like this.

"Now, now, Esther. Please be careful." The woman behind them said. "We do want to capture them alive."

"I am wondering," The third woman interjected, "if we really need both of them? Wouldn't one of them suffice?"

"An excellent suggestion, Agatha!" The woman behind them responded. "We only really need one."

He was always a quick thinker. That was how he had managed to work his way up in his organization, and how he came to the attention of the boss.

So when he heard what these strange women were discussing, he did not hesitate for a second.

He looked to his boss, and noticed that he was distracted.

So he slit his throat.

Now that his former boss was bleeding out next to him, they wouldn't be able to kill him.

"Ha, that was hilarious. I like that one!" The woman called Agatha said. "But not enough to save him. Say, Martha, do we need him alive, or alive and unharmed?"

"Alive, and able to talk." Martha responded. "Go ahead, Esther. Agatha and I can heal him back up if you go a little too far, so you can have fun for longer. That's what friends are for."

As the enormous woman in the frilly dress took her first step towards him, it occurred to him that he might have just made a terrible mistake.

"I could get used to this Friendship thing!" The hideous monster in the cute uniform said as she approached, grinning more widely than should be physically possible.

He closed his eyes. It did not help.

His screams echoed throughout the streets, yet nobody was able to hear him.

Several minutes later, Silent Martha solemnly declared: "We are once again victorious, through the powers of Friendship, Teamwork, and Ultra-violence!"

The three hags cheered and hugged each other.

--- Morgan ---

"Ugh, that is so annoying." Morgan said to nobody in particular as she wiped the assassin's blood off her claws.

That had been the most incompetent assassin she had ever had to deal with.

Admittedly, it was also the first assassin she had ever had to deal with. Her parents had done an excellent job protecting them before they left. Despite this, she still felt it was necessary to express just how disappointed she was in that particular assassin's incompetence. When she found out who sent her, she would send them a pointed letter explaining all the things she did wrong.

But that was not the main source of her annoyance:

The stupid assassin's blood adhered to her claws and scales and just wouldn't wash off. Just one more unexpected side effect of turning into a dragon.

It looked like her sister had been at least partly right. Being a dragon really wasn't as great as it sounded.

When Morgan learned how Dov had managed to survive in the Realms Below, she had been reluctantly impressed. But biomancy was her thing, and not her sister's, and she wouldn't be beaten at her own game. So she took all the genes her sister said were useful for being a dragon as a basis, and experimented to improve upon the design.

Unfortunately, as fearsome and strong as she was now, these dragon traits were just too different from the rest of her genetic makeup, and were causing all sorts of side effects. From double vision, to spontaneous headaches, to allergies. Nothing would quite work as well as she wanted.

Still, she was already much, much better at this than her sister had been. Right now, she looked mostly humanoid, with just a few external draconic features that looked quite striking in her own opinion. She had managed to get many of the useful traits she was looking for without altering her shape too much. Being able to sleep in a bed and sit on a chair was much more important than looking imposing. With a few more months of experimentation, she was sure she could get the magical flight and the breath weapon working as well.

Wait, wasn't she forgetting something?

Oh, right. The assassin.

Well, that wasn't really her problem. Presumably somebody would come by to dispose of the corpse sooner or later.

She suddenly stopped and frowned, then wrote down in her journal: "Additional side effects: Blood adheres to scales. Forgetfulness. Altered perception of task priorities. Increased arrogance. Increased desire to get minions to dispose of corpses of insolent intruders."

She mentally adjusted her timetable to find a stable genetic configuration upwards by another few weeks.

--- Alexis ---

"Hold still you fucking asshole!" The guard shouted as he swiped at Alexis with his sword.

Just like the last five times, Alexis conjured a magical shield with one hand, and fired a blast of air with the other to launch himself across the room.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

The guard charged at him again.

Halfway through the room, he triggered a magical shock rune that Alexis had placed there towards the beginning of their fight.

The guard was electrified and cried out in shock (heh). He looked really funny now, with his hair pointing in all directions!

"Haha, got you!" Alexis said. "I win!"

"Die!" The guard shouted, as he kept charging.

Alexis dodged again. "Hey, not cool! I won! You have to stop now."

"This isn't a game, you moron!" The red-faced guard shouted "Fucking die already!"

Huh. So this wasn't a surprise spar?

He had been participating in arranged battles and formal duels ever since he was revived. Fighting was the fastest way for a sorcerer to get stronger after all. The local university fully acknowledged this fact by providing a variety of extracurricular activities for people to beat the crap out of each other.

Among many other courses, he had signed up for the Surprise Spars. Everyone who signed up for that had permission to attack anyone else, with some restrictions to avoid collateral damage. It was really great for training to keep your guard up, and the Law of Adversity seemed to work a little bit better with ambushes than with formally arranged battles and duels.

It was a lot of fun, too.

But now this guard just wouldn't stop attacking, and claimed it wasn't a game. And come to think of it, what was a guardsman doing, playing a game for sorcerers?

Well, if you were confused, it always helped to ask clarifying questions.

"Is this an assassination attempt?" Alexis asked.

"Yes! Yes, it fucking is!" The guard shouted in exasperation as Alexis once again dodged his blade.

"Cool." Alexis responded.

That meant there was no reason to hold back anymore.

--- Grognak, professor for elemental evocation ---

"What was that? What did you say?" Grognak asked his assistant as they both ran across the campus. "My hearing hasn't come back yet."

"I think the explosion came from the students' dormitory!" His assistant shouted louder this time.

"You think?" He responded sarcastically. "What was your first clue? That everyone here is still half blind and deaf, or that the building is missing a wall?"

--- Rania ---

When Rania returned to the group after saving the Innocent Civilian, there had been a lot of guards there. They wanted to take Dov into protective custody.

Rania wanted to defend her friend from the guards' sudden and unexpected betrayal, but her teammates all told her to stop. They said the guards were only doing their jobs and were Good Guys, even if they were arresting Dov. Apparently other assassins had gone after Dov's siblings at the same time, and now some politicians were scared because it would be really bad if foreign royalty was harmed under their watch.

It was a good thing that they were all used to communicating with Dov's telepathy by now whenever they could. If she had voiced her concerns about the guards out loud then maybe they would have tried to arrest her! But since they were speaking telepathically, the guards didn't notice what she was discussing with her teammates. One of them did comment that it was creepy how silent they were though, which was rude.

The whole team decided to go with Dov as the guards escorted her to her siblings in protective custody.

They discussed what happened on their way there.

"*...so the assassins escaped, but you managed to save the civilian.*" Atrog summarized her report.

"*Well done. I'm proud of you, Rania.*"

"*Thank you!*" She thought back. It was really nice to be appreciated. "*Do you think that maybe that was my awesome thing for the scene, then?*"

"*In my opinion, yes.*" Atrog responded. "*But if you are asking me how Tonos or some hypothetical narrative forces sees your actions, then I have no idea. Maybe ask Lilian? I think she is the only one who understands story logic like you do.*"

"*It's a miracle how we keep winning without anyone getting killed or even seriously injured. All of our preparations are proving their worth, but even so we are amazingly lucky. I wonder if this is still some kind of ongoing manipulation by Tonos. If so, then for once in my life I am grateful for it.*"

"*I think it's because we are in a story that is rated for all ages, like I mentioned before.*" Rania responded.

"*Don't those still have terrible things happening to side characters, though?*" Galanys asked. "*You can have a childrens' book with a hero who is the last survivor of his village. That means a whole village died to give him his backstory.*"

Rania was shocked. "*You are right. And that is very concerning. Then I don't know why we are so lucky. But in the future, maybe it helps if we make sure to always ask people for their names? That way they are no longer side characters!*"

"Excuse me!" She spoke out loud, to the guards escorting them. "What are your names? I'm asking to make sure that nobody dies!"

The guards suddenly looked very nervous and she didn’t know why!

"Please humor her. It's shaman stuff." Atrog added quickly, which made them relax again.

"Maximilian." "Karnyl." "Gemnyl." "Naak." came the answers from the four guards.

Rania was happy. They were probably not going to get attacked again this soon anyway, but if they did then these guards had a much higher chance to survive now. They had names now, and that meant they were more important than before.

They soon arrived at a government building the Interim Council had provided for the Shan siblings' protective custody. It was lavishly furnished and even had staff like a fancy hotel.

Once there, Atrog explained the situation to Morgan and Alexis.

"*Wait, you are telling me they sent a dozen people after Dov, and only one each after me and Alexis?*" Morgan asked. "*I feel insulted.*"

"*We are a well-known group of adventurers. You two don't have any such reputation.*" Atrog responded.

"*Why wouldn't they just ambush her while she is alone?*" Morgan asked.

"*I suspect that they were trying to kill Rania as well, and she is really strong.*" Dov said. "*I also think it would be pretty difficult to arrange so many attacks at the same time, since they would have to account for all of our schedules simultaneously. They probably put most of their efforts into killing me and Rania, since attacking us when we were unarmed was perfect timing. Attacking the two of you was probably a secondary objective to them.*"

"*Do we already know why they were after us?*" Morgan asked.

Dov shrugged. "*No idea. Our parents made a lot of enemies, and some of them are spiteful and vindictive. It's too early to tell, but I trust that the government will spare no expense to figure it out. Letting us die here would really not reflect well on them.*"

"*I am suddenly very glad that I only have to fight monsters and bandits, and not deal with politics like that.*" Atrog added. "*You have my sympathies.*"

"*Thank you, but it's not so bad.*" Dov responded. "*I would say the privileges and benefits we get more than make up for the occasional assassination attempt.*"

"*So why were they after Rania, then?*" Alexis asked.

"*It's probably because of my Secret Origin Story!*" Rania said.

"*We don't know, yet.*" Galanys said, ignoring her. "*Sorry, Rania, but I don't think we can just assume that. You haven't found out anything specific about your missing childhood memories yet, have you? You said you would tell us if you did.*"

"*I haven't. But the Coros are investigating my Secret Origin Story for me, and they are taking it very seriously. I'm not sure how to feel about that, though. Normally a Secret Origin Story should be investigated by the person who has the Secret Origin Story. It's not something you can just ask other people to do for you. That's why it makes sense that I was targeted by the assassins as well. That's the universe trying to get me personally involved in uncovering the mystery, instead of asking others to do it for me.*"

She was pretty sure about that. In retrospect, she should never have expected anything different, and she felt kind of bad for asking the Coros to investigate this when their investigations were doomed to failure. In the books she read, people usually found out plot relevant things by stumbling on them through sheer coincidence.

She had never read a story where someone just asked a side character to solve their big mystery for them and it worked. Seeking out answers yourself rarely helped, either. Most of the time, the characters didn't even try, and just stumbled on the answer by happenstance later. She should have remembered that, instead of getting excited and trying to be proactive about things.

"*Right.*" Said Galanys. "*That's the out-of-universe reason. But there still has to be an in-universe reason as well. Otherwise it would be bad writing, wouldn't it?*"

Galanys was right. There did need to be an in-universe reason as well. Only bad stories didn't have one, and just hoped that the audience wouldn't notice. She hoped that she was in a good story, and the universe had not forgotten to make itself plausible and able to hold up to scrutiny. That would be very embarrassing for the universe.

"*You are right.*" She said. "*Maybe the reason is because the assassins are targeting rich people? The Coros keep asking me questions every day, and giving me more and more money for it.*"

"*Can I ask how much money you are talking about, here?*" Dov asked. "*I get that you signed a contract with the Coros not to talk about things, but this might be very important to know, if it's enough to attract assassins. My parents didn't have to deal with that sort of thing until much later in their career.*"

"*I'm not allowed to say, but I think I have much more money now than is really appropriate for this stage of my adventuring career*" Rania responded. "*But it's ok, because they offered to pay me in stocks instead of money, which doesn't count.*"

When people in her books were described as rich or poor, the author usually talked about how much gold they had, and how many cool magic items, and how many Minions. She had never read about a hero who held a controlling interest in multiple tavern franchises and adventurer outfitting companies. So she was pretty sure that holding stock didn't count for the purpose of determining how rich an adventurer was.

"*I don't think I should compare myself with you, though.*" She continued. "*You are from a crossover with a very different story after all, remember? Your backstory probably is more high-class and has very different standards of living. I bet your antagonists are super rich, too.*"

"*I don't know how to respond to that.*" Dov responded. "*But I think it's plausible that whatever you are discussing with the Coros is upsetting a balance of power we are not aware of. Somebody may want to kill you in order to preserve the status quo.*"

"*It sounds like I'm growing much faster than I expected, then.*" Rania said. "*I have a conspiracy out for my head, and I'm getting Minions of my own from the Coros. I'm pretty sure that shouldn't be happening until the second book at the earliest, and there is no way the first part is already over. We haven't even uncovered the villain's identity, yet!*"

Alexis and Morgan gave each other weird looks after she said that. They were probably impressed by her impeccable logic.

"*On that note,*" Atrog began, "*the Interim Council did mention that they finally made some progress with their investigations. They want us ready for a briefing in two days. This all took much longer than expected, so let's address the elephant in the room.

"*Dov, you originally only wanted to join us until your siblings are healed. They have fully recovered by now. I understand you have been discussing this among each other. It may be somewhat pointless now, since we don't know how long the Interim Council intends to keep you in protective custody, but did you already arrive at a decision on how to proceed?*"

"*We have.*" Dov responded. "*I would like to continue to stay with you for at least a few more weeks. Morgan and Alexis both say they don't want to go adventuring for the time being.*"

"*What?*" Asked Rania. "*That's crazy! Didn't you say you came to Oruk so that you could go on adventures?*"

"*We did.*" Morgan responded. "*But I'm busy turning into a dragon, and it's a mess. I know my limits, vast as they may be. I won't be able to fight properly until I have figured out a stable genetic configuration. On that note, Dov, how are your memories coming along.*"

"*Hard to say.*" Dov said. "*I really did a number on my brain earlier today. I'm not looking forward to the headache from that. I keep encountering setbacks like these, but I think I should have my memories back in maybe a month or so at this rate.*"

"*I'm glad to hear it.*" Morgan said. "*Once I have figured out how to get all the use I can out of dragon genes, I'm going to look for a way to get that eidetic memory to work without getting amnesia in the process. It would be great if you are already done with it by then, so that I have a baseline to work with.*"

"*Ok.*” Rania interrupted their discussion. “*I can understand not wanting to go adventuring because you are turning into a dragon. Turning into a dragon is awesome, after all. But why don't you want to go adventuring, Alexis? I thought you like blowing stuff up? You can do that much better while adventuring!*"

"*That's only half true.*" Alexis said. "*Adventuring is also a lot of walking and hiding and running away and other stuff that doesn't really involve blowing things up with magic. It's long periods of boredom, with only short moments of intense excitement. But here at the university they have daily surprise spars. Those are awesome, and I'm going to introduce them back home as soon as I get back. Having to be ready for an arcane showdown at any moment of the day is much more fun than practicing and planning for weird things like you guys do all the time. Also, there are lots of bloodlines to sample at the university to boost my own sorcery, and I don't want to leave until I have absorbed more of them.*"

"*Oh, so you don't want to adventure because you would rather gain Unlimited Arcane Power in other ways.*" Rania said. "*That makes sense. I was worried for a moment that maybe the assassins did something to your brains, but it looks like both of you have good reasons for not wanting to go on adventures. I'm relieved!*"

"*Rania, people don't need a reason to not want to go on adventures.*" Atrog said. "*We have been over this. Most people do not enjoy risking their lives on adventures.*"

"*Sorry. I keep forgetting that.*" Rania responded. "*I mean, I know you don't want to adventure all the time. That's why we all play Walmarts and Karens after all. To relax after adventures. But doesn't everyone want to have at least a little bit of adventure, instead of none?*"

"*Most people find that just going on holidays every once in a while is enough adventure.*" Atrog responded. "*Almost nobody wants to risk their lives for it if they have any other choice.*"

Rania had already suspected as much, but she was still saddened to hear it. Why did people have so little interest in adventure?

"*Wait a minute.*" Alexis interrupted excitedly. "*You guys just said you play Walmarts and Karens? Can I join? I always wanted to try that.*"

"*Sure, we have room for another player or two.*" Balron said. "*We were actually planning to play in the evening. I'm the Game Master. How about you, Morgan? Do you want to join, too?*"

"*What is Walmarts and Karens? I have never heard of it.*"

"*It's a roleplaying game that is great for relaxing, because it's so low-stakes.*" Balron answered. "*Just a happy game in a fictional world that has almost no conflict. It's escapism, really, but it's a great way to unwind after a stressful day like today. When a single mistake you make can get you killed, it can be really nice to play a game that is much less punishing than real life.*"

"*It's really a lot of fun.*" Dov added. "*Balron introduced me to it, and we are all playing with him as Game Master every couple of days. The game is set in a fictional fantasy world where magic doesn't exist, but somehow everyone is pretty rich and almost nobody goes hungry. There are no monsters or bandits that need to be fought, either.*”

”*You play as an ordinary citizen, and the other players are your friends. You try to acquire Money and Status Symbols. You can then use Leisure Time to convert those into Happiness Points. Even in the worst outcomes of the game, you will still survive, just with less money and accumulated Happiness than other characters.*"

Then she looked at Morgan and said: "*Also, please keep in mind that this is supposed to be a team game, not a competition. The goal is to maximize Happiness Points across the whole team.

"*There are lots of different classes you can play. For example, Galanys plays a fashion designer, Atrog plays a social worker, and Pebble plays a mime.

"*But for beginners I would recommend the basic Super Market Employee class. It's not a very strong class, but it has a low learning curve. You basically just do what your boss tells you to and collect a fixed paycheck. Rania plays ones of those, although she has some rather weird background traits.*"

"*They are not weird.*" Rania interrupted. "*I rolled for my background traits just like the rules said you should do when you can't decide. I'm a Perfectly Normal Employee.*"

"*Your backstory says that you grew up in an orphanage, but it also mentions your parents and siblings at multiple points. It's obviously inconsistent. Anyway, Morgan, I play a Software Developer myself. Those have much more potential for optimization, but are also harder to get rolling and come with social penalties. I would only recommend that once you are more familiar with the system.*"

"*What's a Software Developer?*" Morgan asked.

"*It's basically like a really weird spell designer. Walmarts and Karens doesn't have any magic at all, but there are other things that are sort of similar. This game actually has really deep lore, and a surprisingly sophisticated alternate-reality physics that explores what could happen if magic didn't exist. Software Developers rely on some of the weirder consequences of that. But that's all kind of complicated and not important for you to get started. I will explain it when it comes up.*"

"*On that note, Dov,*" Balron interrupted, "*I am going to have to put my foot down on what you can and can't do. That build you used in our last session was inspired, but I think it was also quite unbalanced and made it less fun for the others.*"

Rania nodded her head at that, and so did Atrog.

Even Galanys agreed and said "*It was pretty funny the first time, but it got old quick.*"

"*Sorry.*" Dov replied sheepishly. "*But you know I can't not do that, right? It would literally go against my religion to stop optimizing.*"

"*Wait. Let me see if I get this right.*" Morgan interrupted. "*You still can't remember most of your childhood memories, but you spent weeks learning every single rule of this game until you could exploit it and win. Is that right?*"

"*It sounds pretty bad when you phrase it like that.*" Dov responded. "*I get carried away sometimes, alright?*"

"*Brytius wants you to keep improving.*" Galanys said. "*But that doesn't have to mean building a character that can do everything on their own. How about you optimize a character for maximum support ability instead? That would be more fun for the rest of us.*"

"*That sounds like a good idea.*" Dov responded. "*I will think about how best to do that. But it will take me time to change the character. What do we do in the meantime?*"

"*We will need to change something so that your character is less broken.*" Balron said. "*It's just not how the game is supposed to be played. I mean, you stacked automation bonuses until your customer service bot was able to defeat a Dire Karen all on its own. That's a CR 14 Difficult Customer. It was supposed to be a hard encounter for the whole party, but your bot soloed it. The others didn't even get to do anything. I understand that optimizing is important to you, but could you tone it down just a little?*"

"*To be fair,*" Galanys interrupted, "*I think the real problem was that the Dire Karen's Legendary Ignorance doesn't work on the 'You will have to talk to another department' ability. If it did, then the Dire Karen wouldn't have gotten stuck in an endless redirection loop until she ran out of Patience. That's pretty much just an oversight by the game designers, I think. Can we just homebrew a rule to fix that, so Dov doesn't have to redo her entire build? Just allow Legendary Ignorance to apply to Bureaucracy Saving Throws, and it should be balanced again.*"

"*Sounds good to me.*" Balron said. "*I don't want to forbid Dov from playing a character she spent so much time building, and I think your fix might work. Let's just try it and see what happens.*"

Rania was glad to hear that. It was a precedent!

She excitedly pinged everyone through the telepathic link. She had an important question to ask! But Balron immediately interrupted her: "*No, Rania. I'm still not allowing those homebrew classes for Soldier or Police. Those are supposed to be NPC roles, and making them available to players would go against the philosophy of the game. There shouldn't be any fighting.

”*It's a game about relaxing in a world where almost nothing is out to kill you. Playing someone who fights other people would go against core design principles of the game. It would really break immersion for the other players. I already vetoed the Entrepreneur class for Galanys because its increased Stress mechanics just don't fit the tone of the game. Soldier and Police are much worse.*"

Rania's face fell.

She didn't like Walmarts and Karens very much. She only played it because her friends played it, and she liked spending time with them. But the game had almost no adventures or adventure-related activities in it. It was boring.

Somehow she felt deep inside of her that this was wrong. That game was supposed to have more adventure.

As Balron began unpacking dice and miniatures, Rania wondered what the characters in the game thought of that. Maybe they thought their world was boring, too? Maybe they wanted more excitement and adventure? Maybe they would even like to switch with her and her friends, so that they could go on awesome adventures on Hyd instead of being stuck in a boring routine?