"Oh my gods!" said Tahsi Senior, the kobold baker turned Choxian Cult leader. He took a hearty bite of some stale brioche. "I can't fucking believe it!"
"What are you guys doing to Isabelle?" said the young kobold-dragon Tahsi Junior as he glared accusatorially at the five Oglo replicants flanking Isabelle, the player that lead their party. She was tall and mysterious, her dark hair falling like a curtain of shadow. Legend had it around Beaubinte that Isabelle was the mage of shadows, a powerful figure in Beaubintian lore. She was presently trapped inside a pink, semitranslucent pentagon and was looking more and more like a corpse every second.
"What needs to be done," said an Oglo, malice in his tone and stank permeating the kobold's tattered tank top. "Isabelle is going to be nerfed."
"No," said Tahsi Junior. "You have to stop!"
"The Spire commands it be done," said another Oglo replicant.
"I must heal her!" said Tahsi Junior.
"My son!" said Tahsi Senior as he equipped and ate two bread rolls.
"Stop him!" said an Oglo, pointing an angry claw at Tahsi Junior as he prepared to cast a healing spell on Isabelle.
"No!" said Ignis, stepping in front of the young baker. She was a dragon, a creature of fire and fury, and she would not let these... these... copies... harm the little cronut.
[Party member 'Tahsi Junior' casts 'Heal' on 'Isabelle']
[Spell resisted]
[-3 hp]
[-6 hp]
[-11 hp]
[Spire protection protocol (SPP) has been activated]
[Status: 'Player-Targeted Systematic Adjustment' (PTSA) in progress]
"What the hell is going on!" said Tahsi Junior.
"The Spire is really going to do it," said Ignis solemnly. "It's going to rewrite Isabelle's system. It's throwing in an emergency patch on her system. Corruption detected, etc."
"Holy fucking gods," said Tahsi Junior.
"My son!" said Tahsi Senior as he gnawed on a loaf of rye.
[Error: Attempted override on SPP detected]
[User 'Tahsi Junior' flagged for review]
[PTSA process intensifying...]
"Fuck!" said Tahsi Junior with fear.
"My son!" said Tahsi Senior as he finished off the loaf of rye.
"Junior, you stupid, stupid cronut," said Ignis, shaking her giant dragon head. "You're going to get us all killed."
"Don't call me a cronut for wanting to help! I don't care if Isabelle is the mage of shadows or not!" said Tahsi Junior.
"Fear not. The petulant child is impotent," said an Oglo with a sneer.
"Wha-Am not!" said Tahsi Junior, offense in his tone.
"My son!" said Tahsi Senior as started eating another loaf of rye.
"No one can stop the Spire now that it has initiated. As it is written," said an Oglo.
"As it is written," said all the other Oglos in unison.
Isabelle wanted to shout out at all the Oglos that they sucked and that she hated them. But she couldn't, not now. Her vision was streaming with a flurry of system messages.
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
So many errors, and none of them with any sort of description or detail for Isabelle to gleam understanding from. She was so fucking confused. What the hell was happening?
[Clarification: Corruption errors found in system. Player disc A missing several identifier swatches. Spire unable to process player nerf without all systems operational. A system restore may be in order. To proceed, you must restart your system.]
[Will you restart your system now?]
[Y/N]
What the fuckedy fuck? Isabelle could restart her system? Seriously? She guessed she was going to have to, but she also had no fucking idea what that would do.
[Clarification: System restart will be instantaneously experienced. It is the only way to ensure resolution of several critical system errors that are preventing proper access to your player discs as well as a number of your identifier swatches. Due to these system failures restart is required to proceed in nerfing process.]
[Do you want to proceed?]
[Y/N]
Wait, what? Isabelle was being asked if she wanted to be nerfed? Of course she fucking didn't! That would suck. Wouldn't it?
[Clarification: Whether or not being nerfed would 'suck' is entirely up to your own interpretation. As stated previously, you have a number of critical system errors resulting in widespread systemic inflammation. You can be cleared of these errors, and in exchange, you will lose a small amount of your power.]
[Would you like to proceed?]
[Y/N]
Hmm. Isabelle considered this for a moment. So, the nerfing was a negotiation, then, between her and the Clockwork Spire? How did the Spire work, exactly? Did it have a system of its own or something?
[Clarification: You have failed several passive wis+int checks trying to determine the answer to this question. Unfortunately, your results are therefore inconclusive. Suffice to say that the Spire is managing your nerfing procedure and expects you to exchange your power for a clean system. It could be worse. You could be getting nerfed without a system repair, however, this nerfing will be unable to proceed without a system reset, clean and patch.]
[Do you want to proceed?]
[Y/N]
"I'm not going to fucking choose Y!" said Isabelle with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. "I'm going to choose N!"
[Clarification: Are you sure that-]
Isabelle thought, 'No.'
[Restart sequence aborted]
[PTSA process intensifying...]
"WHAT THE FUCK?" said Oglo Two, stumbling back in disbelief. "She chose 'N'? She refused the reset? That's... that's not possible! The Spire's offer is always accepted! No one is that stupid!"
"I'm not stupid," said Isabelle with a sigh. "I'm just not a pushover. You want to nerf me? You're going to have to work for it. You're going to have to pry my overpowered abilities from my cold, dead, player-virus hands."
"Foolishness!" shouted an Oglo at the back. "The Spire will now proceed with the direct nerf! The manual override! The... the... thing that's even worse than the other thing!"
[ERROR]
[WARNING: System inflammation increasing. Risk of catastrophic failure: 47%]
[Player disc integrity compromised. Attempting to patch unstable sectors...]
[WARNING: Spire directive 'Purge Player' authorized. Protocol 'Aggressive De-escalation' initiated. Brace for impact.]
"Oh, this is bad," said Ignis, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and grudging respect. "This is really, really bad."
"My son!" said Tahsi Senior, finishing off a sourdough boule and immediately starting on a baguette.
"Isabelle, what did you do?" said Tahsi Junior, hi small draconic face pale. "You made it angry!"
"I made it angry, cronut?" said Isabelle, rolling her eyes. "I think you'll find I just made it my bitch. Now watch this."
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
The pink shield around them flickered, not vanishing, but losing its solid, oppressive quality. It began to swirl, like a whirlpool of strawberry-flavored lightning, and at its center, the space began to warp. A point of pure, white-hot light appeared, tiny at first, but growing rapidly, pulling at the very fabric of the corridor. The Chrono-Spiders, which had been advancing relentlessly, now skittered back in confusion, their clockwork legs scraping against the metal floor.
"What is that?" said one of the Oglos, his smug confidence finally cracking. "That's not in the protocol!"
"It's the corruption!" said another, pointing a trembling claw at the expanding void. "The system inflammation! It's... it's manifesting!"
Isabelle could feel it. A strange, buzzing, electric sensation running up her spine, a sense of power bubbling up from a place deep inside her, a place she didn't know existed.
"I am the god here," said Isabelle, her voice echoing with a newfound power, a resonance that made the very air vibrate. "And I don't negotiate with towers."
The point of light in the center of the shield exploded, not with a bang, but with a silent, overwhelming wave of pure, white energy. It washed over the corridor, over the spiders, over the Oglos, over her friends. And where it touched, things changed. The spiders froze, their legs locking in place, their multifaceted eyes going dim. The Oglos cried out, their forms glitching, their tank tops flickering between different shades of ugly. But Isabelle and her party were untouched, bathed in a warm, protective glow.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
"What's happening? I can't move!" said an Oglo, his body stuttering like a bad video stream.
"My croissants!" said another, as the very concept of flaky pastures seemed to unravel around him.
[WARNING: Spire directive 'Purge Player' has failed.]
[Mana 85%]
"HAH! Suck it, bitches!" said Isabelle.
[Manual nerf procedure initiating]
[...]
[...]
"NOOOOO WHAT THE FUCK!" said Isabelle.
[...]
[...]
[Nerfing initiated]
[Welcome to Nerf Buddy 6.9.0.1]
[Notice: Nerf Buddy has pending updates]
[Would you like to update nerf buddy now?]
[Y/N]
"Why the FUCK would I want to update Nerf Buddy?" said Isabelle.
"What the fuck is nerf buddy?" said Tahsi Junior.
"My son!" said Tahsi Senior, finishing off a baguette.
[Notice: You must accept the update to Nerf Buddy 6.9.0.1 in order for it to proceed in nerfing your abilities. Would you like to update nerf buddy now?]
[Y/N]
"NO!" said Isabelle.
[Update aborted]
[Error: Nerf Buddy 6.9.0.1 is not able to proceed without updating. Please update now.]
[Would you like to update nerf buddy now?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought no. She did it again. She thought, no.
[Update aborted]
[Notice: Nerf Buddy 6.9.0.1 is not able to proceed without updating. Please update now.]
[Would you like to update nerf buddy now?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought no. This was the third goddamned time she had to say no.
[Update aborted]
[Notice: Nerf Buddy 6.9.0.1 is not able to proceed without updating. Please update now.]
[Would you like to update nerf buddy now?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought no. This was the fourth goddamned time she had to say no.
[Update aborted]
[Notice: Nerf Buddy 6.9.0.1 is not able to proceed without updating. Please update now.]
[Would you like to update nerf buddy now?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought no. This was the fifth goddamned time she had to say no.
[Update aborted]
[Notice: Nerf Buddy 6.9.0.1 is not able to proceed without updating. Please update now.]
[Would you like to update nerf buddy now?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought no. This was the sixth goddamned time she had to say no.
[Update aborted]
[Notice: Nerf Buddy 6.9.0.1 is not able to proceed without updating. Please update now. Your system cannot be nerfed without this update. Please update now.]
[Would you like to update nerf buddy now?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought no. This was the seventh goddamned time she had to say no.
[Update aborted]
[Notice: Nerf Buddy 6.9.0.1 is not able to proceed without updating. Please update now. Your system cannot be nerfed without this update. Please update now. You are stuck in an infinite loop. Please update now.]
[Would you like to update nerf buddy now?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought no.
[Update aborted]
"HA! I've outsmarted you!" said Isabelle, cackling at the Oglos.
"OUTSMARTED ME?" said Oglo Two. "You think refusing an update is outsmarting me? You're a fucking moron, Isabelle! You're trapped in a loop! A paradox! A recursive nightmare of your own making! You're not a god! You're not even a good player! You're just a stubborn, stupid, glitch in the matrix!"
"I'm not a bitch in the matrix!" said Isabelle. "Fuck you, Oglo, you can't nerf me."
"Oh, I can't nerf you, you're right," said Oglo Two, a slow, cruel smile spreading across his face. "But I don't have to. I can just leave you here. Trapped in your own little loop, forever. While the rest of the world moves on. While the rest of the world... evolves."
He snapped his fingers, and the frozen Oglos and Chrono-Spiders began to move again, their forms no longer glitching, their movements smooth and coordinated. The pink shield around Isabelle solidified, becoming an opaque, pink prison, cutting her off from the rest of the world.
"See you later, virus," said Oglo Two, as he and his replicant army turned and walked away, their laughter echoing in the sudden silence.
"Wait!" shouted Tahsi Junior, banging his small fists against the pink wall. "Come back! You motherfucking cronuts can't leave her in there!"
"My son!" said Tahsi Senior, producing a fresh sourdough loaf from seemingly nowhere and taking a large, defiant bite.
"They can, Tahsi Junior," said Ignis, her voice heavy with a weary resignation. "And they did."
Isabelle was left alone in a silent, pink void, the relentless prompt from Nerf Buddy flashing in her vision.
[Would you like to update nerf buddy now?]
[Y/N]
She was trapped. Stuck. A bug in the code. But even as she faced this absurd, recursive eternity, a new feeling began to bloom within her. It wasn't panic or despair. It was anger. A cold, hard, diamond-hard anger. They had tried to control her. They had tried to nerf her. They had tried to delete her. And they had failed.
Isabelle rolled her eyes and thought yes.
[...]
[Downloading updates]
[...]
[Update downloader v4.20 needs five critical updates before proceeding]
[Auto-updating update downloader v4.20...]
[...]
[...]
[Downloaded update downloader update]
[...]
[Updating update downloader]
[...]
[...]
[Update downloader updated successfully]
Isabelle sighed and rolled her eyes. This felt... stupid and unnecessary.
[Downloading nerf buddy updates]
[...]
[...]
[Downloaded update corrupted]
[...]
[Finding file mirror]
[...]
[...]
[Mirror located]
[...]
[Downloading nerf buddy update]
[...]
[...]
[Downloaded update corrupted]
[...]
[Finding file mirror]
[...]
[...]
[Mirror located]
[...]
[Downloading nerf buddy update]
[...]
[...]
The progress bar inched forward, a tiny sliver of light in the oppressive pink gloom. It was infuriatingly slow, like watching a particularly stubborn snail cross a vast desert. Isabelle wanted to scream, to smash something, to find the Spire's central processor and introduce it to her frying pan in a very personal and violent way. But she could do nothing. She was a passenger, a prisoner in her own mind, forced to watch the digital equivalent of paint dry.
[Downloaded update corrupted]
[...]
[Analyzing corruption vector...]
[...]
[Corruption vector identified: 'Bottle of Shiach Ashes']
[...]
[Quarantining corrupted item...]
[...]
[Quarantine failed. Item is... un-quarantinable. Too based.]
Isabelle couldn't help it. A small, sharp laugh escaped her lips. Too based. The system, for all its cold, hard logic, had just used a slang term. It was a crack in the facade, a hint of the strange, chaotic reality that underpinned this world. And it was all because of her. Because of the ashes of the phoenixborn she'd murdered and bottled. Although... Isabelle was a little surprised her system was correctly identifying that bottle of Shiach ashes. She had thought it was lost to corruption. Did that mean that other things in her system, perhaps her inventory, were less lost than she'd thought?
[Finding file mirror...]
[...]
[...]
[Mirror located]
[...]
[Downloading nerf buddy update]
[...]
[...]
This was torture. Pure, unadulterated, digital waterboarding. The repetitive cycle of failure, the maddeningly slow progress, the endless stream of error messages. It was designed to break her, to wear her down until she'd accept any outcome, just to make it stop. But it wasn't working. It was just making her angrier. The anger was a fire, a forge, and in its heart, something new was being shaped.
[Downloaded update corrupted]
[...]
[Analyzing corruption vector...]
[...]
[Corruption vector identified: 'Isabelle']
[...]
[User is... un-nerfable. Too based.]
The progress bar vanished. The error messages vanished. The pink void around her began to crack, like a shattered windshield, a million tiny fractures spreading through its surface. And through those cracks, she could see something else. Not the corridor, not the Spire, not Beaubinte. She could see... code.
Lines and lines of scrolling, glowing text, a river of pure information. It was the source code, the very fabric of this reality. And she could read it. She could understand it. It was as clear to her as her own thoughts.
[Clarification: System inflammation has reached a critical threshold. Standard protocols have failed. The Spire is now attempting to contain the uncontainable. It is trying to compartmentalize your corruption, to isolate it from the rest of the system.]
Isabelle could see it. A wall of fire, a cascading delete command, a digital tsunami of null bytes, all aimed directly at her. It was the Spire's last resort, its final, desperate attempt to purge her from its system.
[Will you allow this?]
[Y/N]
Isabelle thought no.
And as she did, she reached out with her mind, not her body, but something new, something that had been forged in the fire of her anger. She touched the code. She didn't just read it. She... edited it.
It was a small change, almost insignificant. She found the line that defined the 'pink shield' and she changed its properties. She changed its color from 'pink' to 'transparent.' She changed its state from 'containment' to 'window.'
And then she looked out.
Through the now-invisible wall of her prison, she could see the Oglos. They were standing in a circle, looking at a large, holographic display. On the screen, she could see her own pink prison, a tiny, shimmering bubble in the vastness of the Spire's core.
"Is it working?" said one of the Oglos. "Is the purge protocol active?"
"It should be," said Oglo Two, a frown on his face. "The logs say it's been initiated. But... there's no feedback. The system is... unresponsive."
"Unresponsive?" said another Oglo, a look of panic on his face. "That's not good. That's very, very not good. Damned mage of shadows."
"My son!" said Tahsi Senior, who was standing nearby, a half-eaten croissant in his hand.
"Dad, be quiet," said Tahsi Junior, who was pacing back and forth, his small draconic wings fluttering nervously. "This is serious."
"More like badass," said Ignis "I think Isabelle is beating it."
"Impossible!" said an Oglo. "The Spire is part of Beaubinte's map itself. You can't beat the Spire just like you can't stop hp from affecting whether or not you're alive."
"But she's immortal now, right? Since she stole Shiach's power?" said Tahsi Junior. "Total mage of shadows move, by the way."
"Fuck off!" said all five Oglo replicants in unison.
Isabelle was still focused on editing the code. It seemed to be getting harder, everything was making less sense. The Spire was regaining influence over her psyche.
"What are you doing?" said a new voice, a strange, digital whisper that echoed not in Isabelle's ears, but in Isabelle's mind. "Why do you resist?"
Isabelle ignored the voice. She had work to do.
"Your corruption is a disease," said the voice. It sounded really whiny. "It is a cancer that is eating this world from the inside out. We are trying to save you. To save everyone. But you... you are fighting us."
"I don't need saving," said Isabelle, rolling her eyes. "I need a way out of this tight, pink box."
"Escape is an illusion," said the voice. "There is only the system. And the system must be preserved. At all costs."
"Fuck off with all this cryptic honey bunches of bullshit!" said Isabelle with a sigh.
"Isabelle!" said Tahsi Junior, banging on the invisible wall. "Are you in there? Can you hear me?"
Isabelle didn't answer. She was searching for something, a specific string of code, a particular command. She found it.
[spawn_item('Bottle of Shiach Ashes')]
She highlighted the line, and with a thought, she hit 'delete.'
[Error: Cannot delete item. Item is essential.]
Essential? How could a bottle of ashes be essential? It didn't make sense. But then again, nothing did anymore.
"Isabelle, please," said the digital whisper. "Stop this. Let us help you."
"I don't want your help," said Isabelle. "I want to hit you with my frying pan, steal all your power, and destroy you forever." But Isabelle couldn't move. She could barely even sigh or roll her eyes.
"Isabelle, listen to me," said the digital whisper. "There's something you need to know. About yourself. About this world. About why you're here."
"I know why I'm here," said Isabelle. "To fuck shit up."
"No," said the voice. "You're here to..."
The voice cut off, replaced by a piercing, high-pitched whine. The code around her began to distort, to glitch, to unravel. The Spire was losing control. The system was collapsing. And in the middle of the chaos, she saw it. A single line of code, glowing with a soft, golden light.
['fuck this shit']
Isabelle remembered this magic script. It had granted her a number of great abilities, including evading the Order of the Unconquered Sun's goal of disabling her mana permanently. Thinking of this, Isabelle had a sudden realization.
The Oglos had been lying to her.
Typical.
Isabelle focused her mind, as she always did, in order to look at the magic script behind her system command 'fuck this shit.'
And then everything went to hell.
Well, maybe not everything. But Isabelle watched as the script 'fuck this shit' suddenly became all but inaccessible to her. It became a smattering of unreadable, foreign characters with strange shapes, and all a blinding white color.
[***&%^^^&&&%$##$%#$%#^#^^&&%&%&****]
"Shit," said Isabelle with a sigh.
