--- Lilian Weaver ---

"*If you have all quite finished bickering then we can start the debriefing.*" Tanya said.

The druid's tone of voice was not as scary as it normally was, when there were soldiers around who needed to be intimidated, but Xilly and Elona stopped talking all the same.

"*Sorry.*" They said in unison.

Lilian was sitting in on a private meeting of the Shan leadership. Even their generals weren't invited, as they were busy with the cleanup after the vampires' failed attack. The meeting was supposed to be very private, but somehow the tent ended up quite full, anyway.

As crown princess, Dov was naturally allowed to be here, and she had decided to bring her entire team along, sans Rania who was currently busy elsewhere. Her parents were adventurers themselves and saw no issue with that. Then Adam had invited himself as well. Finally, Elona had invited Lilian because they knew better than not to have her present in important meetings.

Her presence automatically made meetings more productive because Tonos would abhor a meeting where nothing got done. She was told that meetings with her tended to be more dramatic too, though, so it was something of a trade off. She didn't know if that was true or not, since she had obviously never been in a meeting without herself present. Her idea of normal was slightly off. She understood that normal people often complained about meetings being boring. She could understand the concept in theory, but in practice she could not remember the last time she had sat in on an unproductive meeting without drama.

"*First of all:*" Tanya began. "*My part of the battle, on the far side of the camp near the south entrance, went very well. We suffered minimal losses and the only people who could not be revived in time were common soldiers and officers. None of our adventurers or specialists were lost.

"*That said, many of them were severely traumatized by the experience. In several cases I suspect that they will require months of counseling before I will allow them back in the field, if at all. Elona. We have told you time and again but it doesn't seem to sink in: Normal people can not suppress pain as well as you do. This is not a matter of being 'badass'. It was just plain irresponsible. How much additional effort would it really have been to deaden their nerves before you revive them?*"

"*It was a matter of efficiency.*" Elona countered. "*Any mana I spend on comfort is mana not spent on survival.*"

"*Oh get off it! Do not lecture me on efficiency. We both know you don't care about that. You gave a dramatic speech instead of killing the enemy right out. I am no expert, but even I can tell that this was plain unnecessary.*"

Lilian strongly disagreed. When she was around, then dramatic speeches had a measurable impact. But Tanya was scary when she was angry and Lilian was not her target, so she wasn't going to say anything.

"*Besides: You brought them back from the dead using a corrupted vampiric ritual that infused them with the blood of their enemies. That's every bit as painful as it sounds. It's practically torture! As much as I dislike it when people get used to excessive luxury, even I would not call it an unnecessary 'comfort' to suppress their pain in that situation.*"

Elona tried to defend herself some more, but it fell on deaf ears. Tanya then spent the next five minutes verbally eviscerating her. Unlike her more literal evisceration yesterday, this actually seemed to hurt the woman.

"*...But your performance was not entirely terrible.*" Tanya finally relented in her verbal assault. "*Your ritual was inspired, and it was exactly the right move on your part. You kept people's souls tethered to the material plane for long enough that most of them could be revived when your ritual finished. That is exactly the sort of forward thinking I like to see. A battle that is won with heavy casualties is a battle lost. Your approach here has saved many lives.*"

"*As a side note,*" Xilly interjected, "*The ritual did also keep the vampires' souls tethered. With any luck I might be able to retrieve some of them. For research purposes.*"

"*Sure.*" Tanya responded. "*And since Lilian is in the room with us, I am going to refrain from commenting what I think the outcome of that will be. I also wanted to thank you, Lilian. As I overheard earlier, it was your idea to fetch Elona in the first place, since she was busy in a much less important part of the camp before. Without you getting her attention, she might not have realized the urgency of the situation in time and the ritual could have failed. Your quick thinking may just have been the difference between victory and defeat.*"

Lilian nodded in appreciation. She was very happy to be praised. She frequently saved the day, but it was rare for people to acknowledge it. Quite often it looked like she was just randomly bumbling around when she was actually acting as an agent of divine intervention. She was often blamed when things went wrong, but rarely praised when she was the catalyst for victory.

"*I agree, and if anything I think you are underselling her.*" Xilly added, and it warmed Lilian's heart. "*I have analyzed what what's-his-face the vampire leader was doing before Elona's ritual stopped their magic cold. They were going to create a virulent blood curse whose power increases with the number of people it affects. It's an army killer. If Elona hadn't started her ritual when she did, they could well have killed everyone here.

"*The Living City is precognitive. By all accounts, they wouldn't have attacked if they weren't sure they would win. I believe the only reason we survived this is because the Living City could not account for Lilian's interference.*"

The mood turned somber at that, presumably because people did not like to be reminded how close they all came to their deaths. Or something like that. Once again, this was an area Lilian had little expertise with. Surviving certain death by the skin of your teeth was normal, and finding out that some evil scheme was much more dangerous than everyone thought was just a basic assumption to her.

After that the discussion turned to minor issues as Tanya demanded an actual, professional military debriefing from everyone. Atrog was the only one whose report did not result in a death glare from the druid.

"May I come in?" She suddenly heard from outside the tent. She immediately thought of vampires, but luckily she recognized Rania's voice.

The door opened and Rania walked in.

"*Sorry I'm late!*" She said after Dov added her to the telepathic bond. "*I was talking to the spirits about my vampirism and it took longer than expected.*"

"*Wait, so you really are a vampire now?*" Xilly asked. "*You asked if you could come in, but then you just walked in without waiting for an answer. What’s up with that?*"

"*Oh, I asked the tent spirit, and it said I could come in.*"

"*And that works?*"

"*Well, the curses were against it at first and said it didn't count if the spirits gave me permission, but Pebble got very upset and accused them of being racist against spirits and threatened the curses to get them canceled. I don't know what that means exactly, but it worked, so now I can enter places if the spirits allow it. There are plenty of other vampire curses that do affect me though. So many curses! The Living City really made a lot of enemies. I tried to explain to the curses that I am fighting the Living City and so I am totally on their side and it would be kind of dumb of them to hinder me, but most of them were unconvinced.*"

"*Most of them?*" Xilly asked.

"*I can cross running water like a normal person, but only if I am very polite to the water.*" Rania explained reasonably.

"*That is very interesting to hear.*" Xilly responded. "*To be honest, I was hoping you would not be affected by any curses at all. I have finished analyzing the scans I made of you. You did not lose enough blood to die, and so you are not a full vampire. The wyvern's breath probably helped prevent you from turning as well. Despite this, if my readings are right then you should start to experience a large boost in strength and regenerative abilities in the next couple of days as your vampiric powers set in. It will be fascinating to study the details of that later.*"

"*Oh no!*" Lilian found herself saying out loud before she could stop herself. "*Please tell me she didn't turn into one of those edgy un-creative half-vampires. I have encountered so damn many of those, and even one was too many by far.*"

This was not random chance, of course. The Living City actively encouraged people to like stories about vampires and werewolves despite their objective horror, because it wanted to gain glory through the stories. The entire population of the Living City, as well as far too many easily manipulated people from outside of it, were effectively praying to Tonos about how awesome vampires were. Mass worship was influencing the god, and so Lilian tended to encounter an unreasonably large number of vampires, werewolves and entities related to them.

Rania looked distraught: "*I am sorry for being a bad trope!*"

Galanys hugged Rania before she started to cry. "*It's ok Rania. It's not your fault that you are a bad trope. We are going to find a solution for this. And for the vampirism, too.*"

Xilly looked at the two of them with an unreadable expression and waited until she had their attention again. "*Tropes or not, I believe I can help you with some of your issues. I should be able to find a workaround for your sunlight sensitivity, at least. There is a relatively simple way to bypass that curse: I just need to create a layer above your skin that reflects the sunlight. I have read accounts of other people who have managed it before.*"

"*If it is that easy, why doesn't the Living City do it for its own vampire soldiers?*" Balron asked.

"*Pride, mostly. The Living City wants glory, and fortunately the countermeasure against sunlight sensitivity comes with an embarrassing side effect: It makes the vampire sparkle in sunlight. It looks utterly ridiculous. The Living City would rather have its minions die than look like that.*"

"*That sounds terrible, and I feel like it would make me an even worse trope.*" Rania said. "*But on the other hand, I can hear the Living City screaming at me not to accept that, so now I totally want to sparkle in the sunlight, just to spite it.*"

"*Wait, you can hear the Living City in your head!*" Adam interjected in alarm. "*It is a highly intelligent manipulator! Don't listen to anything it says!*"

"*Oh, I know! I'm being super careful not to listen to it and I know that it could be using reverse psychology right now. But Pebble says that he talked to the other spirits and that the Living City is 'not allowed to be too mean to me' anymore. He says he can't explain why though, because that's an infohazard as well.*"

"*I see.*" Adam responded coolly, with an expression that even Lilian found hard to read.

"*So you are saying that you have found a way to torture the Living City just by existing? Nice, I like it!*" Elona said.

"*Alright then. I will make preparations for the procedure later today.*" Xilly said. "*That brings us to the next topic: Are you experiencing any hunger for blood? This is by far the worst of the vampiric curses and dealing with it will be complicated, to say the least.*"

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"*Oh, don't worry about that!*" Rania replied happily. "*I talked to the Duke of Blood about it. He said he is going to make an exception for me if I do things for him.*"

"*You made a bargain with an archfey?*" Tanya replied. "*I am almost afraid to ask what he is asking of you in return.*"

"*Well, mostly he just wants me to find a way to fix blood nutrient deficiencies in lots of people. Iron deficiencies in particular are very common and they make his job a lot more difficult, because blood gets harder for him to model if it doesn't behave properly.

"*I asked the Coros about it and they were happy to help. They said they are going to invest a lot of money in PSAs for nutritional awareness and they want to lobby for laws to subsidize nutritional supplements for the poor.*"

Lilian was impressed. "*Political lobbying is a very non-traditional method of suppressing your vampiric thirst, but if it works, it works. I'm still slightly mad, though. It sounds like you are getting all of the benefits and none of the drawbacks of vampirism. You are a fucking daywalker. No offense to you personally, Rania, but I really hate that trope.*"

She immediately regretted saying that when she felt Rania's emotional reaction through the telepathic bond. The elf was distraught.

"*I am so sorry for being such a bad trope!*" She said with tearful eyes as Galanys wrapped her in another hug and glared daggers at Lilian.

"*Anyway,*" Tanya interrupted diplomatically, "*do we already have any clues as to why the Living City attacked us?*"

Galanys emanated nervousness. "*I think that may have been my mistake. I tried to not think about infohazards, but I ended up thinking about infohazards anyway. The Living City attacked just afterwards. I am very sorry for it. What can I do to pay amends? What can I do to prevent this from happening again?*"

Tanya gave her a shocked look, but before she could reply Dov interrupted her "*I am glad you accept responsibility and want to work on your problem.*"

That didn't seem to make Tanya any less angry, but fortunately she was interrupted a second time as Adam spoke up: "*This is a special case and it wouldn't do to be too angry with her for this. A situation like this was required by anthropics, and if she hadn't caused it then something else would have happened instead. The details are classified because they involve infohazards.*"

"*I am starting to believe that this word 'infohazard' is your newest and most favorite tool to get away with anything without being questioned.*" Tanya accused him with a mix of anger and disbelief.

"*I represent Denissa Mardok. I can already get away with anything I want, no excuses necessary.*" Adam replied coolly.

"*On that topic, I do think it is time to talk about one of the infohazards now.*" Dov said. "*I have thought about this long and hard, and I think at this point ignorance will cause more problems than knowledge.

"*Cilia is planning to use the Sapient Wish at the center of the Living City as fuel for her apotheosis. Her plan is to merge with the mechanism that empowers the Living City. The probability manipulating effect on the city won't hurt the city itself, and so this would protect her from the mind control and weird precognitive effects while she takes the power for her own and channels it to turn herself into a god.

"*That is why the Living City now has a vested interest in us. I don't know if the city wanted to kill me and get rid of Cilia, or if it wanted to abduct me instead. I don't think anyone fully understands how the Living City thinks. For all I know, helping Cilia to achieve godhood would be a glorious thing, in which case it might actually want to cooperate with her.

"*Whatever it tried to do here failed. We can be pretty sure about this simply because it would be bragging about it if it had succeeded. As intelligent as the city is, it can not resist anything that would increase its glory.*"

"*I think that whatever was going on here, this should make it very clear that Cilia needs to be stopped, if there was ever any doubt.*" Adam said. "*Now, this information will not leave the room, but we have long suspected that the Living City might have some way to communicate with its alternate selves across dimensions. This would help to explain its apparent precognitive abilities.*"

"*Pebble wants to say something.*" Rania said. "*He would like to congratulate Denissa Mardok for beating the Living City and Cilia at their own game. Now that we have fought the vampires under these rituals, the sympathetic magic will give us resistance to further attempts by the Living City to influence us, so we can take the fight to the city without the usual danger of getting mind controlled.*"

"*I do not understand.*" Xilly interjected. "*That does not sound logical to me. I am no expert on sympathetic magic but I do not think it works that way.*"

"*I don't understand it either, but Pebble says it totally works that way and that we will be immune to its manipulation if we just believe in ourselves. He also says we shouldn't think about it too hard, though.*"

"*Is this yet another infohazard?*" Atrog asked.

"*No, it's just that the power of belief works better if you don't question it.*"

"*I hate this so much already.*" Xilly said, while Balron nodded in agreement. You could always trust the scientists to get mad when something just works without having to understand it. Lilian never saw the point in that. Her life was full of things that just happened to work a certain way and would stop working if you thought about them too much. Thinking or talking about a trope could change the nature of the trope, after all.

"*Wait a minute.*" Rania suddenly started. "*Does that mean that all of this was planned by you and Denissa Mardok? The attack on the camp was planned? People died!*"

"*None of this was planned, actually.*" Adam responded. "*Our interpretation of the prophecy was completely different from what happened. We didn't expect the Living City to get involved at all. We were quite certain that the part about sympathetic magic was supposed to refer to something entirely different. A link between Dov and Cilia, not between you and the Living City. We certainly did not expect you to contract vampirism, and we are quite unsure how to deal with this situation.*"

"*Oh, that's ok then.*" Rania responded. "*Pebble sounds very nervous, though. He says 'oops'.*"

"*I agree that 'oops' is a good description of what happened here.*" Adam continued. "*You getting infected by a vampire was definitely not intended, and if we had known we would have taken steps to prevent it. I am going to need you to tell us all about the compulsions you are now under. It would be extremely bad if the Living City took control of your mind.*"

Lilian was not imagining it, was she? This as well as confirmed that Rania was anything but a Perfectly Normal Elf. What was she, that Denissa Mardok herself was nervous at the thought that she might be getting controlled? Even more worryingly, why would she not simply have Rania killed, if she posed such a danger?

"*Well, the master vampire was able to control me very briefly, but I snapped out of it as soon as I realized it. It did not feel like a very strong compulsion at all. Pebble says that the other spirits made it clear to the Living City that 'no' means 'no' and it should stop being so rude to me. I am really happy that all of my spirit friends are supporting me and have my back. It's so nice of them!

"*And Pebble says that if we don't think too hard about it and just believe in ourselves and in the Power of Friendship, then this protection will also apply to all of my friends!*"

It was well known that shamans could sometimes do strange things that could not be achieved through ordinary magic, but the idea that someone could become immune to the Living City itself, the greatest threat in the world, just because of their support sounded absurd to Lilian.

Adam and the others then proceeded to grill Rania for details for the next half hour or so. Unfortunately most of it was useless or raised more questions than it answered. Lilian could have told them that to begin with.

"*It looks like talking about interference by the spirits is not getting us anywhere.*" Atrog eventually interjected. "*I trust Rania. If she says it will be fine, then it will be fine. I think our time would be better spent making more practical preparations and taking precautions. Even if the Living City will not be able to use its most dangerous subversive powers against us, it is still an Old Power based solely on its armies.*"

"*I agree.*" Adam responded. "*I will be discussing this in more detail with Denissa Mardok and her other advisors to determine if the prophecy is still on track. Until then it makes more sense for you to focus on practical matters.*"

"*On that note, I am sorry for destroying your tank yesterday. My aim with the wand was really quite poor, and I panicked.*"

"*It's ok.*" Rania responded. "*It was destined to happen one day. If Boomwagon the First was never destroyed then there could never be a Boomwagon the Second. It has served us well so far, because its mere existence meant that we couldn't die until after it is destroyed and we make a replacement for it.*"

Lilian found herself nodding along. This made perfect sense to her.

"*I am going to make it up to you by requisitioning a newer, better one.*" Adam said. "*Just give me a list of requirements and I will see what can be done.*"

"*Now then,*" he continued, "*The prophecy is pretty clear that you need to enter the Library of Akash and that you will need to prepare for this by fulfilling other prophecies. It will be a long and arduous quest.*"

He really wasn't kidding about the length of the quest. He proceeded to list and discuss all of the things they would need to account for:

First off, the spirits' protection only seemed to cover the more subtle manipulations used by the Living City. They would still need to find a way to defend against the more overt and direct mind control spells favored by the servants of the Living City. Xilly soon began talking in technobabble and waved around the ominous, obviously evil book Lilian had given her just yesterday. Apparently it contained formulas for a powerful spell to protect against mind control. What a coincidence.

Then there were the vampires and werewolves, and the entire laundry list of their assorted strengths and weaknesses to go over.

It took an hour just to cover all of those. Lilian was bored out of her mind, but Rania was looking more and more excited by the minute as she kept commenting that their quest had so many cool features.

Then there were the more common soldiers used by the Living City. Their training was quite different from that of normal people. When Dov started giving a cultural primer on the fascinating way the Living City kept its population under control and what strange customs they had, even Rania started to look bored.

Then it turned out that getting to the place where the recursive sub-prophecies would be revealed would be difficult on its own. They would need to acquire multiple magical items to get there, and in one case the only way to enter a magical cave was to prove your worth to a sphinx, which would probably involve even more riddles and even more questing.

"*This sucks.*" Rania suddenly said. "*At this point it looks like we are at least four recursive side quests deep, and I'm starting to lose track. It will take forever before we can get around to our actual goal and defeat Cilia.*"

Lilian had to agree. "*She is right. A story should not be needlessly dragged out like this. At some point all of the distractions just take away from the main thrust of the narrative and you lose the audience's attention.*"

Also, the more weird stuff happened the higher the chance that something would go wrong with Rania. Maybe if Tonos didn't waffle so much and introduce so many subplots then they would already be at the Library of Akash and Rania would never have contracted vampirism.

At this rate, they would all end up with a host of afflictions, curses and boons by the time they got there. Hells, Dov's entire character concept was built around adapting herself by absorbing genes and spending an unreasonable amount of time on training and improving herself. Lilian gave it even odds that she would be mutated beyond comprehension by the time this entire gauntlet of subquests was done with.

It was time to nip this in the bud.

"*I have been saving this for an important moment.*" Lilian declared as she reached into her bottomless bag.

"*But now the time has come to use it!*" She shouted dramatically as she pulled the artifact out of the bag.

The green scepter glowed ominously and released a hideous stench. "Ew! Gross!" Lilian shouted as she dropped it. The scepter sprouted legs and scuttled out of the tent.

"*What was that?*" Xilly asked.

"*Nevermind. Wrong artifact. I really have way too many weird magic items in this bag. I should take the time to clean it out one of these days. What I actually wanted to show you was this: BEHOLD!*" She shouted even more dramatically than before as she pulled a second artifact out of the bag. This time it was the right one.

"*No way!*" Shouted Rania excitedly. "*That is so cool!*"

"*I know, right? This will solve all of our problems!*" Lilian responded.

"*Is that what I think it is? How did you even get that?*" Adam asked incredulously.

"*Would you mind explaining what it is?*" Elona asked. "*I have never seen anything like it before.*"

Everyone else nodded at that.

"*I should not be surprised that most of you don't recognize it.*" Lilian said. "*It is one of the most powerful artifacts Tonos ever created. Powerful, but also cursed. Its power is opposed to everything Tonos stands for, and every use of it drains him a little. It must only be used when there is no other option. It is a weapon of last resort.*"

"*Does it actually do anything or does it just sound cool?*" Xilly asked sarcastically. "*Wait. Is that a thing? I would not be surprised to hear that Tonos has an artifact that does nothing but sound cool and has no actual function.*"

She was right. Tonos had several such artifacts, actually. But the thing she was holding in her hands was the real deal.

"*This is an item of unfathomable power.*" Lilian explained. "*It can do almost anything. It is called: The Plot Hole.*"

"*Are you fucking kidding me?*" Xilly asked.

"*This is so great!*" Rania interrupted her. "*With this, we will be able to bypass all of these dangers and get directly to the main event. We can go fight the main Bad Guy right away, without wasting any time!*"

"*I know, it is pretty great, isn't it?*" Lilian responded. "*It isn't perfect though. The Plot Hole will take care of most of these annoying side quests for us, but we will still need to prepare for the battle. I don't want to take the wind out of your sails, but those will probably take weeks on their own.*"

"*Alright, those two are just messing with us now, aren't they?*" Atrog asked. Lilian decided to ignore that.

Rania looked disappointed. "*I wish we could skip the boring preparations as well. I really want to go on the main adventure right now! Oh, I have an idea! Do you maybe have a way to skip the boring parts? Maybe we could have a montage to make time pass more quickly?*"

It was an interesting thought, one that Lilian had explored before. "*Unfortunately I don't have an item for that. I don't think it would work, anyway. Remember that a montage is an out-of-universe thing, not an in-universe thing. Even if we were part of a montage that only shows the most relevant bits to the audience, we as the characters would not be aware of that. We would still experience events as normal and time would appear to flow normally for us.*"

"*Aw, that sucks.*" Rania said.