To Hell with the Author, Chapter 56: Death Awaits

She would appreciate an explanation? Well I would appreciate being able to give her one! How am I supposed to respond? Hello? Gonell? Can you hear me?

She does not react. It appears she can not hear me. Then, how does she even know…

Alright, okay, fuck. 

… Can I word my suggestions in a way that doesn’t force her to do things? Maybe…

 

You are aware of my presence in a place of your mind and can see and hear me when you focus.

 

The moment I suggest that, I get ripped from where I was before, which was nowhere.

Now I’m in a violent, endless storm over an ocean of boiling deep-red acid.

Black tornados swirl in the distance, thunder growls, the pungent air tastes a bit like lead, and I flinch when I catch a burning breeze of the sharp suspended droplets. I still feel and see and hear everything that’s going on outside with Gonell, but I exist in this place now as well, sitting on a small rock plateau, almost but not quite safe from the waves.

A moment later, Gonell pops up afloat, and looks down at me. A little splash of acid goes rogue from the waters and hits my cheek. Ouch.

“There you are,” she says. “You look scared.”

I swallow. “How did you…”

She shrugs. “Had Fran Fan investigate you, and when we learned about your Ultimate Skill through some System Readout Manipulation, we came up with countermeasures.”

I blink. “Why did you have me investigated?”

She puffs out a laugh. “Look, I knew from day one that you were up to something. A fan of mine? Don’t make me laugh. I do not have fans. I knew Dema was lying too, she’s really bad at it. And then Theora gave a large portion of it away. She has no clue about the world despite how strong she is, so obviously, she was summoned, but still clumsily attempted to hide that half the time. You should have seen her when I interrogated her this morning. A walking intelligence hazard. All that at the very least suggested the possibility that you were summoned too, so, months ago, we had the Crown’s internal records checked by our people inside, and voilà. A [Pretender].”

I frown. Of course I was aware that we were being clumsy, but I’d just assumed the author was helping us out by making her oblivious, because she never seemed to have noticed anything.

She sits down. “Knowing your Class made it even more likely that something was going on there. We had no clue what you were after, though, and frankly, had a lot of other stuff on our plates, and… it’s not like the lot of you seemed evil. That said, countering a single Ultimate Skill is easy enough for me.”

Alright, Gonell is scary and I’m honestly shocked how I thought I could just completely run her over. “Countering it… How…?”

Yes, not the best question, but I think my brain is close to shutting down. The acid in the air doesn’t help, I’m getting a headache.

“In this case?” She snaps her fingers, and a few images emerge in the air around her. Little scenes, and with flicks of her hand, she moves them around. This place really is under her full control, isn’t it… “Sequence of memories. It would be awkward if the copied person immediately knew they had been copied, so I figured there would be some in-built measures against that. Some mind fog when it happens. So, I’ve just been constantly asking myself where I came from and what I was about to do, and whether the events I remember are in proper order. Like checking if I’m in a dream.” An image pops up in the air that’s less clear than the others; it’s missing a lot of information but it shows the hut Theora is staying at, right after I used the Skill. “When you copied me, I noticed pretty much immediately, since I don’t usually fog out. I wanted to see what you were up to, but so far it just seems like you are doing what I would have done on my own anyway.”

I grab a bunch of my hair and slowly scratch over my scalp to calm down. At least I have a bit of a body now, even though it doesn’t feel like one. “Well, yes. That’s my plan. I just don’t want you to be the one doing it.”

Gonell hums sceptically. “Does that mean you are after the key? Want it for yourself? I suppose that means you lot had to do with the coffer being taken, after all. I imagine you think it would be hard to steal it from me once I attain it?”

I stare at her confused.

“They key,” she repeats when it takes me way too long to understand what she is talking about. “In the dungeon. To open the Lodestone.”

“Oh.”

Right, right. This is so far outside my scope that it didn’t even compute. I take a deep breath. She’s copied. She’s under my control. No matter what happens here, I can just order her to keep going. I already won. There is no need to panic.

“So, not the key then,” she muses. “Unless that just now was a feint.”

Should I just run with it? Yes, the key. I’m going to steal the key. I’m the villain who wants to open the Lodestone to… Maybe I’m acting on orders of the King? Perhaps the King only faked throwing me out and wanted me to infiltrate the asylum instead? That would make sense. Ah… wait, she said she doesn’t think I’m evil, so maybe she wouldn’t believe that… Hm. Perhaps I can claim I want what’s inside for myself? Some people think the Lodestone is a wish-granting scroll. I could tell her I want that, to… Oh god, this is like improv-roleplaying, coming up with an entire character and motivation on the spot. Fuck, I’m supposed to be good at this.

It’s not like I can tell her the truth.

Actually… Wait. She is under my control. I already won.

I ignore her for a moment, and get up on my feet. I look around at the violent world, turning around multiple times, as I virtually scream — but not actually. I already won!

You hear that, author? Outline System? You recognise what I’m saying, right? I swipe some acid out of my face. Gonell probably thinks I’m losing it, but I ignore her frown and keep thinking at the author. I’ll make us die to the Messenger no matter what. Nothing I say to this copy will have any influence on the remaining plot. She can’t convince me not to sacrifice us, and ultimately, you can just always limit my actions until I do what you want me to. You hear that?

Please let me talk to her openly, just this once. She isn’t even a real character right now; she’s just a copy. It’s my body. I’m literally just talking to myself! So, please, let me tell her the truth.

I take a deep breath, and after making sure to communicate my intention to the world as clearly as possible, I sit down again, and stare into Gonell’s eyes, heart thumping. She looks almost amused.

I give it a try.

“My real name is Amanda.” 

I swallow, somewhat surprised the world didn’t jump at me. That the waves didn’t immediately swallow me whole. But this is just a Summoned telling their old name; not outline-breaking. Gonell’s gaze turns a bit more serious as she waits for me to continue.

I rub my legs, and try my best to make my explanation as clear as possible. “I was summoned to this world from a place called Earth, and used a new name to disguise where I’m from. In my old world, I rarely left home. I was miserable and stubborn, and the few friends I had lived so far away I could never hope to meet them. Had no family close-by that would have cared, nothing. So one day, I’m forced to leave my apartment to meet a social worker or they’d cut off my disability allowance, and I get bitten by a dog.”

I remove one of my shoes and pull down the sock, revealing my ankle. It’s barely visible in this dark place, but the scar is still there, even though other parts of my body changed upon being summoned. “So, I get back home, and I don’t feel like dealing with it. I don’t want to leave again, don’t want to do anything, because life sucks anyway. So I try to wait it out. It’s going to get better, right?” I shrug. “I get a fever. I start shivering. Two days later, I can’t get up. I still have some medication to ease the pain, so it’s whatever.”

For a moment, I just breathe the toxic air. “Eventually, I just don’t wake back up. And that’s how I died.”

Gonell gives me a sympathetic frown. The waves right around us die down a little, and I get splashed at less. At the same time, the ones in the distance turn a tad more vicious. It makes me feel awkward, because I’m not sure I deserve it. Also, I’m about to get into the dicey parts, and I feel like throwing up in anticipation of being lashed out at by an error.

“So,” I continue, “I regain consciousness after being summoned into this world by the King; and I know the place. Not because I’ve been here before, but because I’ve read about it during my past life.” Ahh, fuck. I can feel my heart knock against my throat. “I’ve read about it — in a story.” I draw in a shaky breath. “This all is a world of fiction to me.”

Despite my words, nothing happens. No errors, no interventions. I let out a sigh of relief. This would have definitely been stopped. Apparently the outline agrees. We already won. 

We already won. Gosh. This gives me shivers, like I’ve just been hit to the ground, but in a good way, if that’s possible. Months of work and planning, so much effort and dedication, and now even the outline agrees. Oh, this feels so fucking good. And I even get to tell her everything, right? All of it? I can keep going? Theora said it would be better if I told her everything myself, and I agree. I just thought I wouldn’t get to do it. I just thought I had to do this alone. God, I want to cry so bad. The author decided to pity the little meddler on the last stretch, and I appreciate that.

“Fiction,” Gonell repeats. “After you died, you were transported into the world of a story you liked?”

“Well,” I say, wincing. I rub my eyes to make sure I don’t actually start crying right now, would be totally inappropriate, especially considering what I’m about to tell her. The gesture helps me compose myself a little, and I push on. “Can’t exactly say I liked it, but yes, that’s the gist of it. Anyway, during the beginning of the story, a village is destroyed, and that always felt terrible to me, so, knowing when and how it would happen because I’d read the story, I wanted to prevent it from happening.”

Gonell’s eyes turn dark. “I guess we both know how that went.”

I huff a desperate half-laugh. “It turns out, I can’t change the plot of the story. Can’t influence the bigger picture; if I try to deviate from the ‘path of destiny’, so to speak, my actions either get restricted, or everything gets worse. For example, in the original story, there was only one rift, but when I closed it before you arrived, two others appeared instead.”

A wave of lightning jerks through the clouds far away. Thunder rumbles soon after. Gonell scoffs. “Not going to lie, this is starting to tick me off.” Seeing me cower away from the weather, she snaps a finger, and stops the thundering by force.

“What I can do, however,” I say slowly, “Using my Class — is to make it seem like the outline was fulfilled. I can pretend that something happens, when in reality, it doesn’t.”

At these words, everything stops. The wind, the acidic waves, the thunder.

A few moments pass, and Gonell simply stares at me. A vacant expression in the frozen storm, while at the same time we are still floating in front of the entrance to the dungeon in her body outside. There, I feel the wind around us, and I can smell the ocean, but she doesn’t move a muscle. I can feel her fingers prickle and go numb. 

Oh god. Is she going to kill me?

“The villagers have been attacked by Errata in the past,” I say because I’ll die anyway. “They had some infrastructure to hide in, and practised protocols on how to proceed in case of emergency. All I really needed to do was cause some panic shortly before the attack.”

Gonell shakes her head. The prickles climb up her limbs.

I nod, and have to swallow hard to keep my voice going. “When your attack hit the settlement, they were long gone. I made my way through the ruins to meet you, and then I lied to you, to make the ruse complete.”

A tear drops out of her eye, and she winces at the sensation. I grasp my shoulder with my other hand, as if to shield myself. “We then ditched you, to help rebuild the village.”

Gonell needs a while to parse the words.

“That doesn’t make sense,” she eventually says. “For one, I was the one who ditched you. And, I went there a few months after it happened. To pay respects. The ruins, the devastation. It was all still the same.”

“Of course it was,” I huff. “I made sure of that. Lied to them about some dangers, that the rifts might come back, and that we needed to hide the new village. Only I kept a little shelter above the ruins for a while, to be undisturbed. The new village was inside a forest, not too far away. I imagine the author prevented you from accidentally finding it. In my shelter up there, every now and then, we could still hear the laughs of children playing.”

“Children playing,” she repeats in an unusually high and quiet voice.

“I tricked you, back then,” I say. “You never killed anyone. They all survived.”

The world turns upside down. Outside, we fall. Gonell blanks out, and just as we are about to tumble down the entrance, she regains a bit of her composure, and manages to stabilise. In front of me, she’s now rubbing her eyes with the hem of her dark cloak.

I give her a moment.

There’s that, then. I was allowed to tell her the most important part. But I guess that’s fine, because she’s sealed away, and giving her this much doesn’t affect what’s to come. Now, I just have to tell her everything else to make sure it all plays out how it should.

“There is another event that I would like to prevent,” I begin. “Truth be told, it wasn’t really a lie that I’m a fan of yours… Uhm.” I take a breath, and can already feel a blush threaten my cheeks. Gonell raises an eyebrow, and I add, “To make things short, the one appeal about that story for me was you. You were my favourite character. But you see, this story isn’t… It’s the kind of story where people like us…”

I don’t know how to say it. Instead, I simply close with, “The author decided to kill you off.”

Gonell tilts her head. “Kill me off?” This seems to confuse her more than anything. 

“Yes. To answer your initial question about why I copied you — there is a Messenger at the end of the dungeon. The strongest of them all. The final boss of the entire story. And it will defeat you. That’s why I’m doing this. So that your original version can survive while I pretend that the plan of the author plays out.”

Gonell lets out a soft laugh, staring into nothing for a while as she parses the information. “Ridiculous,” she says. “So, I assume that if I disagree with this plan, you will suggest I comply?”

I swallow. “I’d rather not. But there really is no other way.”

She shakes her head, eyes still bleary. “So, this is a good-news, bad-news situation, huh? I wonder if I would have preferred to hear the bad news first. Oh well, thanks, I guess. For telling me the truth. I suppose you have no reason to lie.”

I hug myself, and look away. “I’m done with that, yeah. Not like it was ever fun. My final lie was telling Theora I’d make it out of this alive.”

“That poor woman.”

I nod.

“Well,” Gonell says, “I believe you. This sounds way too elaborate to be made up anyway.” She scoffs. “Unless by the author, of course.”

“You are taking this well.”

With a wince, she waves off. “Trying my best not to get too worked up. Can’t let loose right now with you in here, might end up hurting you more than I already did.” She glances over the acid blisters on my hands and, presumably, my face. “Honestly, I’d prefer to throw you out and be killed on my own. I can’t believe your final moments will be having to watch me lose pathetically. And you already died once, please get to live a little.”

I laugh dryly. “Well, too late for that. That’s the only reason I can tell you any of this; the outline wouldn’t let me until now.”

“Oh? So you tried? To… come clean?”

“Obviously. Many times.”

“I see.” After a slow nod, she starts frowning. “So not only are you going to die, but I’ll also fail spectacularly at finding the key and uncovering the King’s misdeeds, and I won’t be able to help suppress the invasions? That fucking sucks.”

I offer a sympathetic smile. “For what it’s worth, there’s some guy who will do all that for you. The protagonist. He’s also going to help with the asylum, as a tribute to you because he blames himself for your death. And when the plot is done, you will wake up from the slumber I put your other body in, and live a happy end.”

“Huh. Slumber?”

“I sealed you inside of a Frame of the Lost. Right before using my Ultimate Skill. You probably don’t remember because it happened during the haze.”

“Oh,” she says. “Yeah, that would do it. Can’t believe I fell for that.”

I just have to feel a little proud. “I had like fifteen different illusion Skills going.” Then, I add, in a much lower voice, “And, you trusted me a little. Even though you were having me investigated.”

“Guess I did,” she murmurs, and her eyes lose themselves in the distant oceans, both in her mind and outside. “I never really wanted to believe that you were my enemy. Call it bias, because you were there for me back when it happened. Your eyes were filled with pain and sympathy. It felt genuine.”

“Of course,” I say. “Because I was the one who did that to you.”

Her eyes flicker, and turn glassy. She doesn’t deny it, but she doesn’t seem angry either. Eventually, she shakes her head. “I suppose it’s all meticulously planned out, then.”

I shift away a little. “Sorry…”

“Oh well. We’re here now, and there’s Errata in there, so I suppose I’ll make myself useful and get rid of them. Someone will have to fetch the key one day, and I can make their job a little easier. I only need to lose against the Messenger? All others are fair game?”

“Yes.”

“Alright,” she says. “Let’s do that, then. No need to suggest, I’d like to stay of clear mind until the end.” She gets up and disappears from the space in her mind.

Outside, she floats into the cave.