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The Last Looper
The bureaucracy of a speedrun.

The bureaucracy of a speedrun.

"Name?"

I looked incredulously at the middle aged woman at the desk.

A thick stack of printed forms sat between us.

"I've had the referendum approval for weeks now, you must be joking"

She sighed. "I guess I can skip this part, you have my disapproval though"

A moment later, and a pen seemed to flash into existence. It floated to the stack of paper work, and started filling it in.

"Maybe you can tell me your name instead?" I smiled at her.

This time it was her turn to look indignant.

"Speed-runners" She cursed under her breath.

"My name is Lucy, you better remember it" She scolded.

I nodded at her.

The floating pen continued to fill in paperwork. Some pages moved out of the way, so others could be reached.

"Alright, basic spiel for an unsupervised, solo loop, for recreation and research purposes." She stated. She pulled out a small glowing blue stone from somewhere and placed it between us.

"First of all, your responses are being recorded in loop-safe format, as a legal document. This is non-negotiable and part of the proceedings. The truthfulness of your responses will also be recorded.

Do you understand"

"Yes"

The stone pulsed green.

"As a calibration. please state that two plus two equals five"

I did so, and the stone flashed red.

"Perfect"

"Your name is Blake Rodley, and you are performing an unsupervised solo loop, for research and recreational purposes. Is this correct?"

"Yes"

Another flash of green.

"You confirm that you have a sight or equivalent soul-bound information storage device, that will be recording for the entire loop.

You also agree that the recording will be retrieved and reviewed in its entirety by an ethics jury upon normal resumption."

"I confirm and agree to this"

Green, again.

"You have loop-safe legal documents granting permission for all harm you intend to cause to any people during your loop."

I summoned my notebook, I focused my will, and about twenty pages seemed to waver, and suddenly split in two.

"These are real and correctly notarized?"

"Yes"

Again, green light shone.

The hovering pen had finished its work at some point.

It floated over, and on each of the pages, signed an extra line.

The pen then glowed, and the twenty pages seemed to triple. One set disappeared into the pen, I reclaimed one set, and the third set was sucked into the glowing stone.

"Your itinerary, reviewed and signed by this loops ethics jury?"

I handed a single piece of paper over. The same paperwork dance enfolded, except one copy floated over to Lucy.

I watched her read it, a frown formed on her face.

"This is significantly different from the public version"

Hah!, she had been paying attention!

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Some parts had been redacted for the for the privacy of those involved, by request, the publicly released recordings will also be edited somewhat for the same reason"

Emerald light flashed.

"I can see why." She grimaced.

"Alright, safety induction time."

"You will be using the item known as [Eragors Regret]. This item has the following properties;

The people touching it at the time of activation will be sent back in time to the [Tutorial],

The people who are not touching it, will lose all memories of the tower.

For all intents and purposes, they will be duplicates of themselves pre-tower."

She took a long breath.

"Tests on criminals have shown that no soul or mind effects are permanent, however, you are not authorized for any such testing"

"It is not yet fully clear how [Eragors Regret] interacts with [The Wish Of Beginings]. There is to be no unauthorized time magic to be used in conjunction with [Eragors Regret].

If you suspect that there is any unexpected time magic in effect, or about to take effect, you are to kill yourself immediately."

"Understood?"

"Yes mam" I say.

She smiled at that.

"Alright, that should be everything, the time and date will be [messaged] to you when its ready"

We thanked each other and finished up.

*****

I walked up to the small overgrown shack.

A boy was fishing in a stream nearby.

I sat down and waited.

A few minutes later, the child skipped over with a bucket full of fish.

"Want a fish?" He chirped at me.

"Not today, I have a less then needed appointment" The code phrase came easy to me.

The kid handed me a small package.

"Good luck" The kid gave me a kindly smile.

I always felt bad for the littles. They took the longest to get used to the new world, but they were always the most kind of us. They may never get any bigger, but out of all of us, they grew up the most.

I unwrapped the small gem made of glass. A feeling of sadness and longing tinged the air around it. That was how you could tell something was powerful.

After I spent some moments reviewing my plan, I started stretching and warming up. It wouldn't do anything to help my muscles, but it got me ready, and it was almost ritual at this point.

I crushed the glass gem, and I was back in my old apartment.

Name: Rodney Blake

Age: 23

Level: 0

Stats:

Str: 8,

Dex: 9,

Con: 10

Wis: 43

Int: 46

Sou:74

Skills:

Effects: [The Wish Of Beginings]

SoulBound: [The Diary Of The Endless] [] []

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