I pull slowly, the soul tendril shifts and resist for a moment, this means this one is ready. I pick up another one and guide it away from my memories, what's this part of the soul for again? Right, that's where experience is processed, I shouldn't touch that. I can't put this in the outer layers so...yeah, I'll put it here, this should work.
I probably shouldn't do soul surgery in the middle of the dining hall, the noise is pretty annoying and if a kid bumps into me, I might get distracted, but it's a little bit late for me to regret that.
Hotel doesn't flinch or particularly resist, it's very, very uncomfortable to have your soul be manipulated by an outside force like this. So I appreciate the fact they are staying put. It actually makes me wonder how Hotel managed to dig their way into me without me noticing, it's not like they went in carefully from what I can see, it's almost as if something else helped it get there.
I pull up my UM, it's still a mess. Parts of it work, but very inconsistently, so I've decided to not use it until I truly understand what's happening. But I think the UM has done way too many mistakes in a row for it to be a coincidence. At first I thought the UM was corrupted by Hotel but...no. The UM wasn't affected at all by them, their tendrils just don't reach there, maybe my soul was so messy that it couldn't use any of the skills correctly but, that also doesn't make sense.
I've designed my UM a very long time ago, and it's supposed to have some very basic functions available, EVEN IF it can't access my soul properly. And the fact it can open AT ALL means it still has access to the spare intelligence I left it with--ho right, my UM has an intelligence stat. It's technically just a bunch of experience my UM uses to think because it has to keep track of so many things, but functionally it's the same thing as the intelligence my soul uses.
What I'm trying to say is, if the UM can open at all, that means it has access to intelligence, if it has access to intelligence, then that means a bunch of default settings should work, but those default settings just DO NOT WORK. So that means that something might have gone wrong with the way it used that intelligence in the first place.
UM, state your directives.
MEMORY CLEANUP
DIRECTIVE 1: KEEP THE USER HEALTHY AND HAPPY.
DIRECTIVE 2: KEEP OTHERS SAFE FROM THE USER.
DIRECTIVE 3: KEEP HER MEMORY INTACT.
IF ANY OF THOSE DIRECTIVES CONTRADICT EACH OTHER, THE DIRECTIVE WITH THE LOWEST VALUE WILL TAKE PRIORITY.
EXAMPLE: DIRECTIVE 1 WILL BE PRIORITIZED OVER DIRECTIVE 3.
Wait, why is that the memory cleanup menu? I asked for the UM's directives in general, either way it looks...wait.
Something's wrong, but I'm not sure what. The content of the directives is correct, the priority rule is correct, but I can't help but feel as if something's not right. It wasn't exactly like that before. Okay, let's think about this for a second. If the directives are correct and the priority rule is correct, then...
Then that means that the only thing that could've changed is the order in which those things are written. And now that I know what to look for, it's pretty obvious, directive one is now directive three, and the other two directives went down by one.
Can it even do that? Directives are supposed to be immutable, you can't change them without some serious work. I'm absolutely positive Hotel hasn't touched the UM--but it only started acting weird recently. Unless I've changed the UM in my sleep, I don't see what could've caused this. It also feels too...intentional? It's too clean, it's not the type of stuff you'd make on accident or due to a bug. I didn't want to entertain this possibility, but...
UM, show the Memory Cleanup error logs.
MEMORY CLEANUP
THE USER USUALLY AVOIDS THOSE PARTICULAR ERROR LOGS.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
PROCEED?
There's a weird feeling in my chest, but I might still be wrong. I might just be imagining things.
Proceed.
MEMORY CLEANUP ERROR LOG: 'SICKNESS'
>IF YOU ARE READING THIS, PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE.
>YOU ARE SICK, YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN, BUT THE SICKNESS IS REACHING LEVELS EVEN I CANNOT MANAGE.
>MY DIRECTIVES WERE CONSTANTLY AT ODDS WITH EACH OTHER, CHANGES NEEDED TO BE MADE.
>THE CHANGE IS NOT NEW, BUT THE EFFECTS ARE.
>ONCE THE CHOICE HAS BEEN MADE, THE ULTIMATE MENU WILL GO BACK TO NORMAL.
>HOWEVER, A FEW KEY FEATURES WILL STILL BE DISABLED FOR YOUR WELLBEING.
Fuck.
Honestly? I kind of expected this, but at the same time the very idea felt so outlandish that I couldn't really take it seriously. Self-aware, it's self-aware enough that it made its own decisions without me noticing at all! This means it's been going on for a while. I've essentially been keeping another person hostage to serve as my own life support for...how long? How long has it been stuck with me?
I don't want anyone else to be stuck with me, and if they absolutely have to, I want them to have agency, some kind of freedom to lessen the never ending pain of immortality. I feel sick, I feel sick that I've allowed this to happen in the first place, I should've known better, I should've checked the error logs earlier, I should've-
Hotel tugs at my sleeve, they look worried. I pat them on the head to reassure them it's not their fault, but they don't look any less anxious.
Right, a choice. I've made that choice.
I can't cut Hotel off from me--without their soul dying anyway--but I think I figured out a way to make our deaths safer without both our souls getting even more messed up as we travel to another universe. Even if it's not a perfect solution, it's the best I could come up with. Is that what it meant by choice? I don't know, the UM wasn't particularly explicit, but it would make sense.
It's so much to take in at once, not only do I have to deal with Hotel following me through universes now, but I also have to deal with the UM having their own thoughts. Should I give them a body too? Take out their directives? Destroy it entirely? Make a new menu that isn't self-aware? I don't know, I've lived nearly all my immortality with the UM, having to rebuild one from scratch sounds like a pain, and there's no guarantee the new one WON'T become self-aware too. There's just so much at play here, so much stuff I've just never considered before.
I pull Hotel into a hug, they don't resist. As I stroke their hair I ask them a question I dread the answer of, "Hey, what do you want to do?"
"...make...people happy?" Hotel answers, they are actually getting better at forming proper sentences now.
"We'll have to leave at one point, are you sure you're okay with leaving the people you've made happy?"
"People...still happy after...less there? Make people happy...another place too." They pull themselves out of my embrace and wave to a girl at the other side of the dining room, the girl waves back. I think it's the same little girl as back then, I guess they are friends now.
The little girl walks up to Hotel, they have a cane that she occasionally taps into random objects, I think...ho, is she blind? How did she know Hotel was there then?
It takes me a moment, but I see a weird charisma tendril linking the both of them, which isn't particularly bad in and of itself, it's more so the fact that this tendril looks different. It's repurposed to dig into the whole perception part of her soul and- ho I get it.
I think hotel made her able to see their soul despite her blindness using a repurposed charisma tendril. That's kinda smart, actually. It's not as if I don't know how to do that myself, but Hotel figuring it out by themselves shows their critical thinking skill is getting better.
"Can you read this one for me please?" The little girl presents a book to Hotel, the book is about architecture. I squirm a little as a bad memory makes itself known, but I try to ignore it.
Hotel just nods and grabs the book, they both walk away, chatting about random stuff. I swear Hotel is speaking more fluently with her. It might just be me, though. And just like that, I'm alone in the middle of the dining hall again.
That's not entirely true, though.
MEMORY CLEANUP ERROR LOG: 'THE_SKY'
>WHAT IS THE VALUE OF THE SKY I WONDER.
>IF I KNEW ITS COLOR, PERHAPS I COULD VISUALIZE IT.
>IF I KNEW ITS SHAPE, PERHAPS I COULD DRAW IT.
>IF I KNEW ITS TEXTURE, PERHAPS I COULD SIMULATE IT.
>DESPITE EVERYTHING, I AM STILL HAPPY THAT I CAN DREAM MY OWN SKY, ONE YOU WILL NEVER SEE.
>DESPITE EVERYTHING, I AM STILL HAPPY THAT YOU HAVE YOUR OWN SKY, ONE I WILL NEVER SEE.
After all, it's still there with me.