Thump.

  The world slammed into place. It was a cosmic boot to the ass, kicking her consciousness back into existence.

  WELCOME, SPECKLESS PEACOCK

  The words hung in the air, written in the same glowing, feather-bordered script. For a nanosecond, there was only disorientation. Then, the memories hit like a dam breaking.

  The orphanage > The zoo > The mongoose > The panther > The monkey > The war > The king > The hammer > Lana’s face > The library > Lily’s death > The Aerie > The spear > The cold > Resplendent Feather’s eyes, wide with an emotion that looked suspiciously like he’d swallowed a live bee and was trying to be polite about it.

  Two. Full. Lifetimes.

  Su Ian Hoo, twice-dead and monumentally pissed off, opened her eyes.

  She looked down. A sound escaped her beak. It was the sound of a being who has just been told, for the third time, that the universe’s ‘Terms and Conditions’ are non-negotiable and also include a mandatory clown suit.

  “You,” she said, her mental voice flat as a pancake run over by a steamroller, aimed at the glowing box. “We need to have a conversation about your definition of ‘Game Over’.”

  The system shimmered.

  SYSTEM NOTICE: FINAL CYCLE INITIATED

  HOST HAS EXHAUSTED STANDARD REINCARNATION PROTOCOLS.

  NEW GAME+ PARAMETERS ENGAGED.

  PRIMARY DIRECTIVE REMAINS: ATTAIN APOTHEOSIS.

  CONSEQUENCE OF FAILURE (I.E., DEATH): PERMANENT LOCK.

  HOST CONSCIOUSNESS WILL BE MERGED WITH BASE PEACOCK ARCHETYPE. ALL ACCUMULATED MEMORIES, SKILLS, AND TRAUMATIC BACKSTORIES WILL BE WIPED.

  YOU WILL BECOME A VERY PRETTY, VERY ORDINARY BIRD. YOU WILL PECK AT GRASS. YOU WILL MATE. YOU WILL DIE OF OLD AGE. YOU WILL BE HAPPY.

  CHOOSE WISELY.

  Su read it. Then she read it again. Permanent. Happy. Ordinary.

  They were threatening to give her peace. To turn the chaotic storm of ‘Su’ into a placid, decorative puddle. It was the most horrifying thing she had ever seen.

  A laugh bubbled up and came out as a series of choked kraa-kraa sounds.

  “Oh, you sweet, summer-child of a system,” she crooned internally, pacing a tight, furious circle. “You think that’s a threat? You think the promise of a quiet, feathery retirement is gonna make me play your stupid, sparkly questline? After everything?”

  She stopped, planting her feet firmly in the dirt.

  “Let’s get one thing straight, you glowy rectangle of existential dread. I’ve been stabbed, poisoned, betrayed, worshipped, crushed, and used as a living religious artifact. I died saving the emotional equivalent of a glam rock album cover because I felt like it.”

  She took a step forward, her beady eyes locked on the screen.

  “You want me to grind to Level 25? Do your three bullshit ‘Trials’? Become a ‘perfected Sky-Dancer’?” She let out a derisive snort. “Boring. Predictable. The kind of linear storytelling that gives me hives.”

  She tilted her head, a plan clicking into place with the satisfying finality of a lock picking itself.

  “But you know what else was in that first, messy timeline? A dying dragon.”

  A grin spread across her beak. “You want Apotheosis? A grand transformation into a higher state of being? Okay. But I’m not using your pre-packaged, bird-themed upgrade kit. I’m gonna find a bigger, more explosive source of power and shove my curse into it like a faulty plug into a cosmic socket.”

  The system’s text flickered, confused.

  WARNING: DEVIATION DETECTED. HOST PLAN LACKS COHERENT PROCEDURAL LOGIC. RISK OF REALITY FRAGMENTATION: HIGH.

  “Your ‘coherent procedural logic’ can get bent,” Su announced, puffing out her speckled chest. “I’m not here to follow your quest markers. I’m here to perform a hostile takeover of my own destiny. And step one of my fucked-up, revenge tour is to find that dragon.”

  She started walking. “Let’s see,” she mused, crashing through a bush without a hint of stealth. “Dragon was north. Canyon. Smelled like a sulfur factory built on a garbage dump. Should be easy to find. First, though, need to power-level. Can’t negotiate with a primordial reptile while I’m still getting my feathers ruffled by angry badgers.”

  As if on cue, a rustle came from the foliage. A fox, sleek and orange, slunk out, its eyes glinting with lunch-related intent.

  Su didn’t panic or run. She turned to face it, her head held high.

  “Alright, Ginger,” she clucked, her tone conversational. “Listen up. I’ve had a really, really bad couple of lifetimes. And I’ve a dinner appointment with a dragon that I am not emotionally prepared for. So, you have two choices.”

  The fox paused, one paw raised, confused by the prey that was talking at it.

  “Choice one: you turn around, go find a nice, psychologically undamaged squirrel, and we forget this ever happened. Choice two,” she took a step forward, her eyes gleaming with the insane light of someone who has nothing left to lose but their sanity, “I spend the next twenty minutes using you as a stress-relief toy. I will mimic the sound of your children being adopted by a friendly family of hedgehogs. So. What’s it gonna be?”

  The fox stared. It had never encountered a bird that emitted such potent waves of spite. This wasn't food but a natural disaster wearing feathers.

  With a nervous flick of its tail, it turned and bolted back into the undergrowth.

  COMBAT AVOIDED VIA ‘PSYCHOLOGICAL TERROR’.

  <<+10 XP!

  “Damn right,” Su muttered, strutting onward. “Now, where’s a girl gotta go to find a tutorial area that doesn’t involve emotionally manipulating local wildlife?”

  The forest, Su quickly remembered, was a terrible tutorial area. It was like "everybody's-got-a-grudge free-for-all."

  Her first attempt at "aggressive foraging" (stealing berries from a territorial bluejay) ended with her getting dive-bombed by an avian fighter jet screaming what the system translated as "MY BERRIES, YOU DULL-FEATHERED THIEF!"

  Her second attempt, "strategic evasion" from a boar with a bad attitude, ended with her getting stuck in a thorny thicket, her tail feathers providing excellent camouflage as a slightly prickly bush.

  DEBUFF APPLIED: ‘THORN IN MY SIDE’ (LITERAL). -5% MOVEMENT SPEED.

  “Oh, fantastic,” Su grumbled, carefully backing out of the thicket, one painful prickle at a time. “This is great. This is exactly the heroic, dragon-facing momentum I was hoping for. I’m like a walking, squawking cautionary tale.”

  She was about to give the nearest tree a piece of her mind when she saw it. A sight that made her feathers twitch with a sense of déjà vu.

  A small, perfectly formed hut. Woven vines, smoking chimney, welcome mat.

  The Collector’s Hut.

  Memories flashed: the monkey with the monocle, the warpaint, the tedious fetch quests, the Moonpetal Bloom that made her feel briefly, deceptively less like a dirt-colored disgrace.

  A smile spread across Su’s beak. She strutted up to the door. The familiar, chattering laugh echoed from inside before she even knocked. The door creaked open. The same long-fingered, furry hand emerged, waving her inside.

  Nothing had changed. The piles of stones, the wind chimes of teeth, the suspicious pastes. And there, on his deer-skull throne, sat the Collector.

  He looked at her, his eyes immediately going to her crest. He reached out a finger to tap a feather, just like before.

  Su didn’t flinch. She met his gaze and, before he could touch her, she spoke by pushing image into his mind.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  It was the image of the Crested Wyrm. The Collector’s hand froze an inch from her face. His smug expression vanished, replaced by shock. His monocle almost fell off.

  He stared at her. Su gave a slow, knowing nod. Then, she projected another image. The Moonpetal Bloom. Followed by the Screaming Mandrake Root. Followed by the Glimmer-Moss from the Howler Monkey Grove.

  A visual catalogue of every damn thing he’d ever made her fetch.

  The monkey scrambled off his throne. He scurried to a shelf, pulled out the familiar leather-bound Collector’s Catalogue, and flipped frantically through it. Every page Su had ever filled was there, each item illustrated and marked with a neat red ‘X’.

  He looked from the book to Su and back again. His chattering was high-pitched, frantic.

  TRANSLATION: “Impossible… the patterns… the Hoard recognizes… but you are new! A paradox! An impossible paradox!”

  Su projected a feeling of immense boredom, followed by the sensation of someone tapping their foot impatiently.

  The monkey got the message. The shock was melting away, replaced by a greedy excitement. A customer who knew the inventory! A client who had, in a way, already proven her reliability!

  He didn’t reach for the blue paste this time. Instead, he waddled over to a different, locked chest made of dark wood. With a key he kept around his neck, he opened it and pulled out a single item.

  It was a metal badge, shaped like a gear. He offered it to her.

  ITEM ACQUIRED: ‘THE COLLECTOR’S MARK’

  EFFECT:IDENTIFIES THE BEARER AS A ‘PREFERRED PROCUREMENT SPECIALIST’. SLIGHTLY INCREASES BARTER SUCCESS WITH HOARDERS, SCRAP DEALERS, AND SENTIENT JUNK PILES. UNLOCKS ACCESS TO THE ‘PREMIUM REQUISITION LIST’.

  The system pinged.

  QUEST OFFERED: ‘SHORTCUT TO SUFFICIENCY’

  THE COLLECTOR, INTRIGUED BY YOUR PARADOXICAL NATURE, OFFERS A DIRECT DEAL.

  OBJECTIVE: RETRIEVE ONE (1) ‘SILVERVEIN SAP’ FROM THE DEEPROOT GNOMES.

  REWARD: ENOUGH EXPERIENCE TO REACH LEVEL 5, PLUS A ‘CURIOSITY’ OF THE COLLECTOR’S CHOICE.

  WARNING: GNOMES ARE TECHNICAL, LITIGIOUS, AND HAVE A PROFOUND DISLIKE FOR UNSCHEDULED VISITS.

  Su looked at the badge, then at the monkey. This time no makeover, just a business proposition from one acquisitive weirdo to another.

  She took the badge in her beak. “Fine,” she projected, along with an image of the dragon’s canyon. “But I’m not doing your fetch-quest grind forever. This is a one-time contract. And I’ll need directions to the Deeproot.”

  The monkey, grinning widely now, chattered and sketched a quick, surprisingly accurate map in the dirt with a stick. The Deeproot Warrens were a series of tunnels not far from here. The Silvervein Sap was a conductive fluid the gnomes used for their clockwork, harvested from a bioluminescent fungus.

  “Great,” Su muttered, memorizing the route. “Underground. With tiny, bureaucratic tinkerers. This is exactly the kind of low-stakes, relaxing side-quest I needed before pissing off a dying lizard.”

  She turned to leave. The monkey chattered after her, holding up one finger.

  TRANSLATION: “A word of advice, Paradox-Bird! The gnomes respond not to threats, nor to charm! They respect one thing above all: PROPER PROCEDURE!”

  Su paused. Proper procedure. She thought about her ‘Bureaucratic Bluster’ skill. Then said, “You know what,” she clucked, turning back to the monkey. “I think I’m going to need a form. In triplicate.”

  ???━━━━━━???

  The entrance to the Deeproot Warrens was exactly as advertised: a hole in the ground surrounded by an alarming number of finely printed warning signs.

  ‘NO TRESPASSING. BY ORDER OF THE DEEPROOT SYNOD.’

  ‘UNAUTHORIZED ORGANIC MATTER SUBJECT TO CONFISCATION AND/OR TAX.’

  ‘ALL VISITORS MUST REPORT TO RECEPTION FOR BIOMETRIC SCANNING AND INTENT DECLARATION. HAVE YOUR PAPERWORK READY.’

  Su stood before the hole. Under one wing, she clutched three pieces of bark she’d painstakingly scratched on with a sharp rock, following a template the monkey had provided.

  FORM DRS-7b: ‘APPLICATION FOR TEMPORARY FUNGAL ACCESS & SAP EXTRACTION (NON-GNOMISH ENTITY)’

  She’d filled in the blanks with creative gusto.

  · Purpose of Visit: ‘Strategic Resource Acquisition for Independent Curse Mitigation & Potential Dragon-Related Shenanigans.’

  · Expected Duration: ‘However long it takes for your tiny, bureaucratic hearts to be filled with either fear or grudging respect.’

  · References: ‘The Collector (Hoarder-Class). Ask him about the dragon. He knows.’

  Taking a deep breath, she descended.

  The tunnels were a marvel of claustrophobic engineering. Glowing crystals provided light. The air hummed with the sound of tiny gears. She followed signs for ‘Reception & Inprocessing.’

  She rounded a corner and found it: a desk. Behind it sat a gnome with a spectacular white beard, spectacles, and a face like a dried apple that had just discovered a new regulation. A tiny ‘Take a Number’ dispenser sat on the desk. The current number was 47. A sign above the gnome read: CLERK GIMBLE. COMPLAINTS FORM 22-C.

  Su didn’t take a number. She marched straight to the desk, dropped the three pieces of bark in front of Clerk Gimble with a decisive thwack, and projected an aura of impatient officiousness that the gnome looked up mid-scribble.

  “I trust,” Su sent, her mental voice crisp and cold, “that Form DRS-7b is still the current version? The posted guidelines on the surface are woefully outdated. Refer to subsection 12, paragraph 4, regarding ‘Avian Appendage Marking’—I used my left claw, as my right is currently reserved for a pending grievance filing about the lack of ramp access.”

  Clerk Gimble blinked. He looked at the bark. He looked at the Collector’s Mark on her chest. He adjusted his spectacles.

  “You… you have your paperwork,” he stated, a note of awe in his squeaky voice. He picked up one bark-sheet, his eyes scanning it. “Strategic… Dragon-Related… Shenanigans?” He peered at her. “This is highly irregular. The ‘Shenanigans’ clause is only for Tier-3 licensure.”

  “Which,” Su cut in, leaning forward, “as per the reciprocal agreement with the Surface Hoarder’s Guild, of which I am a Preferred Procurement Specialist,” she tapped her badge, “I am grandfathered into due to the pre-loop acquisition of a Class-9 Artifact Scale, documentation of which is on file with the Collector. I trust you’ve synced with his ledger? The reference code is ‘Rainbow-Sheen, Jagged-Edge, Pre-Dragon-Nap’.”

  Gimble’s mouth opened and closed. He had no idea what she was talking about, but the specificity was terrifying. The jargon was impeccable. She spoke the language of Rules.

  He frantically consulted a massive, leather-bound tome. “I… I see no such file transfer…”

  “Then I suggest you initiate a cross-repository audit,” Su said, clicking her beak dismissively. “In the meantime, I have a schedule to keep. The fungal spores in Sector Gamma-7 won’t pollinate themselves, and my window for ‘Shenanigans’ is narrow. Do you want to be the one to explain to the Synod why a dragon-level event was delayed because of a filing error?”

  The threat of being responsible for a dragon-related delay was the gnome equivalent of a tactical nuke. Clerk Gimble turned pale. He stammered, stamped the bark forms with a series of intricate stamps, and shoved a small, glowing permit towards her.

  “T-temporary extractor’s license! Valid for one hour! Follow the yellow crystals to the Silvervein Fungus grove! And for the love of gear-grease, don’t touch the red mushrooms! The liability forms are a nightmare!”

  “Your cooperation is noted,” Su said, snatching the permit. She strutted past the desk, leaving a stunned Clerk Gimble staring at her hastily-stamped, completely fabricated forms.

  The system notification chimed, sounding almost amused.

  QUEST ‘SHORTCUT TO SUFFICIENCY’ UPDATED: ‘GNOMISH BUREAUCRACY SUBVERTED VIA CONFIDENT BULLSHIT’.

  +100 XP!

  “Not bullshit,” Su corrected, trotting down the tunnel marked by yellow crystals. “Alternative compliance.”

  The Silvervein Fungus was a beautiful, towering thing that glowed with an inner silver light. The sap oozed from its trunk in slow drops. All she had to do was collect a vial.

  It was, of course, guarded. A large, clockwork badger, its eyes glowing with the same silver light, patrolled the base of the fungus. It stopped, whirring menacingly, as she approached. She held up her glowing permit.

  “Authorized extraction,” she broadcast, waving the permit at the badger’s optical sensors. “License code G-47b, subsection ‘Fungal Fluids’. Stand down, or I’ll be forced to report a hostile autonomous unit to Maintenance, and you know what they do to units that fail their compliance checks.”

  The clockwork badger froze. Its gears clicked uncertainly. It was programmed to stop intruders, not to process permits. The conflict in its simple logic circuits was almost visible. With a confused whir, it backed away, resuming its patrol pattern but giving her a wide berth.

  Su filled the small vial the Collector had given her with the shimmering sap.

  OBJECTIVE COMPLETE: RETRIEVE SILVERVEIN SAP.

  RETURN TO THE COLLECTOR.

  She was out of the warrens in twenty minutes. The Collector was waiting outside his hut, practically vibrating with anticipation. She dropped the vial of sap at his feet.

  He snatched it up, holding it to his monocle, chattering in delight. Then, true to his word, he scurried inside and returned with a cloth-wrapped bundle. He placed it before her.

  She nudged it open. It was a pair of perfectly crafted, bronze spectacles. The lenses were clear, but the frames were intricate gears.

  ITEM ACQUIRED: ‘LENS OF PROCEDURAL INSIGHT’

  EFFECT:WHEN FOCUSED, HIGHLIGHTS WEAKNESSES, CONTRADICTIONS, OR LOOPHOLES IN SYSTEMS, CONSTRUCTS, AND SOCIAL AGREEMENTS. CHARGES: 3/3.

  The EXP hit. A powerful surge flooded her, stronger than anything she’d felt at this low level.

  REWARD CLAIMED! +800 XP!

  LEVEL UP! SPECKLESS PEACOCK IS NOW LEVEL 2!

  LEVEL UP! SPECKLESS PEACOCK IS NOW LEVEL 3!

  LEVEL UP! SPECKLESS PEACOCK IS NOW LEVEL 4!

  LEVEL UP! SPECKLESS PEACOCK IS NOW LEVEL 5!

  NEW SKILL UNLOCKED AT LEVEL 5: ‘PRECISE DISASSEMBLY’ (NOVICE) - YOU UNDERSTAND HOW TO TAKE THINGS APART, WHETHER THEY ARE MACHINES, ARGUMENTS, OR ENEMY FORMATIONS.

  Su stared at the spectacles, then at the monkey. Then she carefully placed the spectacles over her eyes. The world sharpened. She looked at the Collector’s hut and saw faint, glowing lines, weak points in the woven vines, stress fractures in the chimney. She looked at the monkey and saw the twine holding his monocle was fraying. She saw the system itself, not as a solid block of text, but as a shimmering, interconnected web of rules, with a few threads looking tantalizingly… loose.

  She took them off. The world returned to normal.

  “Thanks for the leg up, you furry little enabler,” she projected at the Collector.

  He just chattered and waved, already engrossed in his new sap.

  Su turned north, towards the dragon’s canyon.

  “Alright, you overgrown, diseased gecko,” she muttered, a spring in her step that hadn’t been there before. “Let’s talk about your retirement plan. I’ve got a proposal you’re gonna hate.”

  ????