I had conjured and contorted water to scrub myself down before I went to our room, but for Elica's sake I used the air-bubble technique to seal any smells in with me until I had gotten into the shower and soaped up. There's some kinds of clean you can get by magically manifesting a whirlpool around yourself at firehose force, but there's no substitute for soap and shampoo.

  And conditioner and lotion, honestly. But that's it. This world does not have nearly the range of shower products that Earth provided. Exfoliants and primers and hair masks and sealants and primers and 11-point undercarriage overhauls.. but Hearstwhile is pretty simple about that stuff, even the cosmetics are much less varied and nuanced. For all the Marie Antoinette trappings you see sometimes, the vanity tables around here are kinda spartan. I haven't seen anyone use more products for their appearance than Baroness Grancine, and I think she's doing this half as a bit. And even then, by beauty-blogger standards she's phoning it in.

  And yet, because the world is not fair, people here look great. Unless they're a bad guy or coded as a lowbrow ruffian. The classism baked into this game is terrible. The poor look plain or bad. The rich are mostly main characters and look good without even trying.

  But what I'm saying is that I took a quick shower with minimal steps, and came out looking like a million bucks because in this place pretty-privilege doesn't mean that you get privileges for being pretty, you are pretty if you are privileged.

  And then I flounced out in my nightgown, and Elica smirked at me from her bed. She had a small candle turned on next to her shoulder, and she was reading something that looked smutty but I did not get a good look. "Well, you look a lot better off."

  "Ah, don't I?" I sighed, dancing in a circle with my arms out. "Everything feels better now!" I've already allocated my next stat point to Strength, and I'm already imagining all the benefits. Flying faster, hitting stronger, harder skin.. and I'm getting closer and closer to the point of being able to shapeshift safely!

  "Well, whoever you keep going out with, they're certainly good for you," she said with a slightly-envious smile. "I wish someone could make me feel like that, but I'll have to wait for the right one. How far are you going anyway?"

  "How far?"

  "With him or her," she said. "I'm not judging, mind. I just wondered about these dalliances and-"

  "Pause," I said, holding up my hands. "Time out. Stop there. Not dalliances. Adventuring. I've found someone to guard my back against foes."

  "So you didn't... you know?" she raised her eyebrows meaningfully. You know.

  "I unleashed almost incalculable devastation against forces of evil," I said. "I did not you know. I'm a duke's daughter, a princess! I can't just have dalliances! It's not done!"

  She stared at me. "Oh. You- oh. You know what? This is actually so much funnier if you're all prim and virtuous. So, this... this is just how you get after killing monsters?"

  I giggled and swung around in a circle again. "Yes, actually. I don't have a lot of outlets, but the ones I have are very important to me." And, I'm already almost halfway to level 7!

  "You should probably have more outlets than you do," she pointed out. "You're pretty high-strung. Still, glad you've got this at least. Violence is not the worst choice by a long shot. You should probably diversify, find some other ways to decompress. You don't even tell jokes, you could relax a lot more."

  "I tell jokes!"

  "Not good ones. But in any case, if you're going to keep running out in the night on mysterious errands and come back glowing like this? You should have a larger party. That's traditional for adventurers, right? Usually four to six? Well, that would do for a chaperone. I assure you: if you keep this up tongues will wag. And being a scary, violent, dangerous bitch who's very prim and chaste will get you a very different response than being considered as being a scary, violent, dangerous bitch who is putting out. The sort of difference that can make normal interactions very unpleasant."

  A lot of things went through my mind. A lot of cultural shorthand. I was ready to laugh it off, hah ha this is nobody's business but my own. Or to minimize it, only small people are that preoccupied with the personal lives of others. Or, to deflect- whatever, interpersonal impropriety is hardly the most important thing I'm accused of. I was ready to scoff it off and act like slutshaming is a triviality.

  But.

  That's my twentieth-century brain. The one that was raised with the values of an enlightened modern world. And I'm not in that world. And a conflict between my values and the values shared by the rest of this world is not going to work to my benefit. Elica is not telling me anything I don't know- I've been a lady of station and society in this nation for longer than she has. And I've got just as much reason to believe in what she's saying.

  But I don't want to. I want to disregard the stuff that's inconvenient, right? And I don't have to believe that because I know more than one way to think and feel and believe. I've got my whole previous life that's telling me that there is nothing wrong with heading out alone with someone and no witnesses. But I've got my whole current life, which is siding with Elica. And it's saying 'Natalie, don't be stupid, this is gonna fuck up your whole deal in a thousand ways and you are not ready'.

  I sighed. "I want to believe that I'm bigger than that," I grumbled. "I want to think that other people's snide suspicions aren't a big deal. But, as stupid as it is... what people believe about who a girl sleeps with really does change everything, doesn't it?"

  Elica shot me a sympathetic look. "If it didn't I wouldn't use that exact sort of rumor to destroy other women all the time. And there are hundreds of others at this school that would happily destroy you the same way."

  "Oh very well," I bemoaned, "next time I do one of these ventures, I'll bring a party. If it keeps things easy."

  "Good," Elica said with a smirk of triumph. "I'll discourage rumors about you in the meantime, just in case. You are a rather focal figure, Princess, and someone is likely going to make assumptions and share them sooner or later. I will chill those, but I cannot promise immunity."

  "I think if I give them enough to talk about they'll leave my sex life alone," I said. "I'm thinking that a certain mix of glamour, violence, danger, envy, and fascination can do the trick. Keep them wondering if they want to be me, be with me, or be far away from me."

  Elica shrugged. "What an interesting proposal. I look forward to seeing how it plays out. Are you done dancing?"

  "I am, yeah," I said, heading for my bed. "Good night, Lady Elica Dandston."

  "Good night, Lady Natalie Harigold. Don't do anything creepy tonight."

  Well, obviously that's too much to ask of me. After everyone was settled down and my mind and body were unconscious and resting, I went ahead and started working. Mostly I focused on music composition, laying out the notes on ruled paper for Baroness Grancine's musicians. Tonight I am working on Sandstorm, it's mostly repetitive but it does take a lot of humming and counting.

  It really helps that I can hum through my vocal cords and hear it without ears, it is more like playing an instrument and being able to hear it. I kept the humming quiet so as not to disturb Elica. The strings and winds are basically carrying most of this, with some big splashy percussion hits in the background layers, so I'm working on weaving in a four-chord theme for the brass just to give them something to do and fill it in a little bit.

  Level 6 is pretty good for me- I've got three mana to spend through the night, instead of my usual two. So far it hasn't made a difference, I'm just curving ink and paper, but it's nice to know that I could if I had to. Also, critically, I've documented some of my affinities coming up too! My cases of samples are permeated with my essence and I'm slowly dissecting them. I've made good progress on bamboo, elm, and even peacock! And fire came up another two percentage points. I'll get that into a usable, useful range eventually.

  I took a break to storm around, still pissed that I let Quethron slip through my fingers. He knows what my problem is. He figured out why I can't build certain affinities, and hinted that he even knows how to help me with it. God, the stuff I'd bond if I could. Fire, lightning, smoke, wolves, eagles! Roses, oil, ivy, cats, ice, sound, light! Sand, fog, toxins, horses, rubber, diamonds... ah. what a list. And if I just had kept that damned man where I could get answers out of him I'd have this all by now.

  I left a portion of me by the window to watch the world outside, and returned to my work. I could spend sixteen hours a day with socializing, training, and chasing plotlines, but the work that pays the bills all gets done at night these days. And with most of my current savings all tied up in a commodities investment for several more months, I'll just have to watch my spending, and make sure that I give House Tarratan plenty to buy from me.

  And Elica was right. I really do need to find more ways to let off some of this pressure I'm under. But only very safely. She suggested I lighten up and tell jokes. And how am I supposed to explain that I literally hold myself back from that on purpose? Jokes are best off-the-cuff, timing is important, you have to drop it in the moment, improvisational. And I work very hard to never do anything improvisationally. Speaking hastily, talking before I've examined my own words? That's how I endanger myself and the world and the future. All it takes is one good "man this game sucks" at the wrong moment and I'm gonna have a lot of shit crashing down at the same time.

  It would be so goddamned easy for me to blurt out the wrong thing just as a joke, and accidentally reveal that I'm from another world. That I've had a life before this. That these aren't my parents and I don't really have a brother. Slip of the tongue, and I let people know that this world is just a work of fiction that I'm trapped inside of. That I can see messages from the System that teach me how to navigate the hidden mechanisms that govern this world.

  You can't tell someone that they are all fictional characters. They could never come back from that. That this world ends with The End if I don't save it? That's the kind of information that breaks people.

  So I try to never blurt out, and I never treat conversations like they're easy. I don't let my guard down and relax around people. I don't ever sit back and just really vent my troubles, because if people knew what was actually bothering me... well, there would be a panic, as they say. Best case scenario they decide I'm insane and they lock me up. Not a big deal, I've dealt with incarceration before and come out okay.

  Well, no, I didn't come out okay. But next time I won't sit back and let them hold me.

  And if they don't think I'm insane, if they find out about the monsters, the plague, the civil war.. then idiots will try to solve the problem. Someone will either try to seal up the deep caverns, or send troops in to fight. They'll try to eliminate rebel leaders or bring out new restrictions. They'll try to compensate for the famine by shipping food southward, or they'll cut the trade routes. And all of those are the wrong answer. I know this because I've already played out those bad endings, I've written over those save files and looked up the walkthroughs to figure out how Nathan can solve these crises.

  And that's why I can't just warn people. I've already seen how they overreact or how the corrupt Houses try to exploit these opportunities.

  All I can do is sit in my room, write my music, and try to make sure that Nathan does not step off of his path.

  I paused, struck by a thought. There is one person that I can tell anything to.

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  "Afternoon," I said to the various researchers, favoring them a big smile, but with a gesture I was waving off the orderlies already. I gave them both a smile, Port and Starboard, the same ones as last time, in the same positions. "Fellas. I need to bring our troubled innovator with me for a minute."

  They watched warily, but they let go of his arms and let me lead the tall lunatic away. His shackles clinked, and they did not release their truncheons, but at least I could get a little room to talk to him.

  There was a work table that was uncomfortably high for me to work at, and I hopped up to sit on that table to get myself a little closer to his eyeline. There was still a long way to go. "Nux," I said, "I know that you and I have some troubled history. But I'm hoping that a show of trust between us will help. Unfortunately, I'm also rather trusting in your... condition. What I have to tell you can't be said to anyone else, at all, ever. And that's kind of what makes you the perfect confidante, you know?"

  He looked intrigued, but suspicious. "Too many jelly beans in my belly jeans," he said, tilting to give me side-eye.

  "Yes, there might be too much history to get past," I sighed. "A lot happened to you, and most of it was in my name even if I wasn't involved directly. But what I have to say... well, it changes the context on everything, and I mean everything. And I'm going to confess, I'm only telling you what I'm telling you because I am confident that you will never be able to coherently pass it along to anyone else. And yet I'm trusting that you can understand me, that you're really in there, but just unable to communicate effectively."

  "Tour faking a yacht on lathe," he said drily, arching an eyebrow.

  "Wait, what?"

  "Snowy below flow toe floe tow?" he gasped in shock. "Gaze erasure knobbly wood!"

  I stared, disappointed. For a second, I could've sworn... "Sorry," I said slowly. "I thought there was something... never mind."

  He rolled his eyes, and looked disappointed with me. His manacles clinked again.

  "Anyway, I gotta blurt this out, if I keep explaining before I explain I'll never get to the point," I said. "Okay, buddy, for the past fifteen years I've been everything that everyone knows. Sure, fine. But before that I was in another world, dig it? It's a lot like this one, with people and trees and streets, with nations and warfare-"

  "Speaking my language," he said with a nod.

  "- and weapons powerful enough to destroy all of Hearstcliff in just a few seconds, with no exaggeration," I added.

  He goggled at me. "Truth?" Talking about weapons, he can speak clearly.

  "Solid truth," I confirmed. "That's why I know so much. My world developed natural philosophy, science, to the point that we could do things magic can never do. Things like destroy entire nations with a single machine. I remember some of it, enough to change this world. I wasn't particularly smart there, or well-read, and I was no inventor at all. I was just living my own life, and everything here..." I gestured around Developing Theories, "- is mostly what I am able to remember from my lessons in school when I was a kid."

  "Little billy baa baa, sheepshank wool moray?" He spoke nonsense, but his tone seemed to hit a certain degree of curiosity and skepticism.

  "Oh, yeah, I was in my twenties before I came to this world," I said. "Mentally, I'm way older than I look. Awkward when I was an infant with an adult's understanding of the world. Anyway, some of what we did with our science was not weapons. Some of it was games... but honestly a lot of the games were pretty focused on struggle, conflict, and defeating opponents."

  "Sheep with the sheep, the boom, the boom of the father, shoveling shoveling for the dance that falls and sings to dance again," he added, with a gesture for me to continue.

  "Here's where we get relevant. Some of those games were electronic- they used minuscule amounts of levin energy traveling in specific ways to create extremely specialized effects. And those could be used to tell stories, show pictures, and create entire simulated worlds."

  "Tree farts."

  "And this is one of them."

  His jaw fell.

  "Yeah. Everything here is fake. It was created for a game played for entertainment. Not even a very good game. But, I died in my old world and fell into this one. There's a lot about that I don't understand. Trust when I say, that does not normally happen. A goddess took my soul when I died and sent it here. Understand?"

  "Jackdaw dressed, a throat of love, engineering only twice?" he stared at me. But the tone was "is this really true?"

  "Yeah," I said, sighing. "Fortunately, this is a game I've beaten many times. I really enjoyed it, and played it a whole lot. I know a lot of the story in this game. What we have here... it looks like a world. It feels like a world. But it's not a world. Not yet. Maybe soon, I'm trying to fix that. First I need to keep us all from dying. There's going to be catastrophes, wars, disasters... the next few years are going to be pretty awful. I'm going to do what I can to help. It might be enough. Or all this might be out of my hands. Natalie Harigold is not the hero of this story. Nathan is, my brother."

  "Second starfish gets the mussel," he mused, brow furrowed. "Fought with embolism teeth."

  "You sure said it," I chuckled. "Obviously I can't tell anyone where I come from, how I got here, or what this world really is. They'd freak, okay? But after all this time, I have to tell someone. Someone who, no offense, won't go mad from the knowledge. Someone who will understand, but who cannot, really cannot tell my secrets. They're too big to trust to anyone except you. And I'm sorry that you're the only one. If I could burden anyone but you, I would have," I promised him.

  He laid a hand on my shoulder. "Clown howdah thousand plow out," he said, and then lunged at me with his teeth, aiming for my ear. I punched him in the neck, thanked him for listening, and helped his orderlies move him to a comfortable seat in the corner of the room.

  Weirdly, that helped me feel better.