Prince Valerius did not walk; he clipped.
That was the only word Elian could find for it. The Hero moved with a stride that was slightly faster than the physics of the room should allow, his golden boots passing through the uneven floorboards as if the collision detection software had given up out of respect. When he turned his head, his hair didn't settle naturally; it snapped into a new, perfect configuration, ignoring gravity entirely.
He stopped in the center of the tavern. He didn't look at Elian. He looked at the air slightly above Elian's head, where the [Quest Giver] icon was undoubtedly spinning—a glowing yellow exclamation mark that Elian couldn't see but could feel, like a migraine hovering just outside his skull.
Elian gripped the polished wood of the bar. His knuckles were white. He tried to breathe, but the air around Valerius felt thin, sucked dry by the vacuum of the Prince's ego.
"You," Valerius said.
His voice didn't just carry across the room; it leveled the acoustic playing field. It was mixed for surround sound, vibrating in Elian's chest cavity. It was the voice of a man who had never been interrupted in his life.
"I require a task," Valerius announced, addressing the room at large. "Something worthy of my station. No fetch quests. No gathering herbs. And if you ask me to deliver a love letter to a milkmaid, I will burn this establishment to the ground."
Elian pressed his back against the wine rack. The wood dug into his spine—a sharp, grounding pain that told him he was still awake, still off-script. He watched as Valerius drew a gauntleted hand through the air, swiping away invisible notifications.
Swish. Swish.
"Trash loot... trash loot... tutorial tip, decline..." Valerius muttered, bored. He looked around the tavern with a sneer. "Standard 'Rustic Inn' asset pack. Low-resolution textures on the ale barrels. The lighting is abysmal. Who is the developer of this zone? I should file a ticket."
He turned his gaze to Elian. The pressure was physical. Valerius's eyes were terrifying—irises of electric blue with no pupils, just a flat, glowing texture that pulsed with mana.
"Well?" Valerius tapped his foot. Clang. Clang. Clang. The sound was perfectly rhythmic, like a metronome counting down to an explosion. "The exclamation mark is yellow, citizen. That means you have a function. Execute it."
Elian tried to speak. He tried to say, "Please, just leave. Go to the capital."
He opened his mouth, and the System seized his tongue. It felt like a cold, iron fishhook had snagged his uvula. His jaw locked. His vocal cords paralyzed. The world turned grey at the edges as the interface asserted control.
A blue window materialized in front of Elian's face. It was semi-transparent, smelling faintly of ozone and old paper.
[Select Response]
A: "Greetings, traveler! The rats in my cellar are huge this year!"
B: "My grandmother is sick. Please, bring me 5 Ghost Lilies."
C: "Have you heard? The goblins have stolen the village idol!"
Elian stared at the options. They were death sentences. Option A was suicide—Valerius had just explicitly banned "vermin." Option B was a fetch quest. Option C was a lie; the goblins were currently on strike due to a texture glitch in the Dark Forest.
Elian did nothing. He just stared, sweat beading on his forehead.
Valerius frowned. "You are lagging."
The Prince raised his hand and made a rapid, circular motion in the air.
Pain.
It hit Elian like a hammer to the temple. His head snapped back. His vision blurred. Valerius was spamming the [Skip Dialogue] button.
"Skip," Valerius muttered, tapping the air again. "Skip. Skip. Why isn't this skipping? Usually, these low-tier NPCs have no resistance to the bypass."
Every tap was a jolt of electricity through Elian's nervous system. The System was trying to fast-forward him to the end of the conversation, but Elian's newfound consciousness was acting as an anchor, dragging against the flow of time.
"Stop," Elian gasped, the word tearing out of his throat unbidden.
Valerius paused. The tapping stopped. The Prince tilted his head, looking at Elian with sudden, predatory interest. "Stop? NPCs do not say 'stop'. They say 'Yes, milord' or 'Aaaagh'."
He stepped closer. The heat radiating from his armor began to blister the varnish on the bar. "You are defective," Valerius decided. He reached for the hilt of his sword.
A red bar appeared over Valerius's head.
[Patience: 15%]
It was dropping. Tick. Tick. Tick. 14%. 13%.
Elian panicked. The blue dialogue window was still hovering in front of him. He had to choose. But he couldn't choose.
Make a choice, a voice inside him screamed. Make a new one.
The rage from the dog incident flared up again. He had spent ten years wiping this counter. He was not going to die because some pampered demigod didn't like the preset menu.
I am not a menu, Elian thought. I am the writer.
He focused on the blue window. He didn't try to speak. He focused his mind on the text of Option A. He grabbed the words with his mind. It felt slippery, like trying to hold a wet bar of soap. The System fought back. Static filled his ears. His nose began to bleed, a warm trickle running down to his lip.
[Warning: Narrative Deviation. Compliance Required.]
Screw compliance.
He imagined his will as a chisel. He drove it into the sentence. Not rats, he forced the concept into the code. Better rats. Scary rats.
"The rats..." Elian gasped aloud, his voice trembling under the strain.
Valerius drew the sword an inch. "Rats? You offer me rats?"
The light in the room grew red. The [Patience] meter dropped to 9%.
"Not... normal rats," Elian wheezed. He bit his tongue. The sharp, metallic tang of blood filled his mouth. The pain gave him clarity.
Elian looked at Option A and mentally shoved new adjectives into the sentence. He visualized the words "Mutant" and "Void." The blue window flickered. It didn't want to change. It vibrated, blurring out of focus.
CHANGE! Elian screamed silently.
He felt something snap in his brain. A wet, popping sound. The letters rearranged themselves. They broke and re-formed, jagged and glitchy.
A (Modified): "Help! Mutant Dragon-Rats from the Void have infested my cellar!"
Elian slumped against the wine rack, gasping for air. Valerius paused. The sword stopped moving. He squinted at the air, reading the subtitle that had appeared above Elian's head.
"Mutant... Dragon-Rats?" Valerius whispered.
The disgust vanished from his face. It was replaced by something worse: greed.
"A rare spawn?" Valerius murmured. "In a starter village? Is this a Hidden Quest? Did I trigger it by threatening you? Of course! The 'Intimidation' mechanic!"
He laughed. It was a heroic, booming laugh that rattled the empty mugs on the tables. "Genius! The developers hid a boss mob right here in the tutorial! And only I was smart enough to find it!"
[Quest Accepted: The Cellar of Doom]
[Difficulty: Legendary (Self-Assessed)]
[Reward: 500 XP]
[Failure Condition: The Innkeeper is proven a liar.]
Elian stared at the failure condition. The relief of surviving the sword swing evaporated. There were no Dragon-Rats in the cellar. There were three brown rats. Steve had a limp. If Valerius saw Steve, the "Hidden Quest" would be revealed as a fraud.
"Lead the way, innkeeper!" Valerius commanded, gesturing to the cellar door with a flourish of his cape. "I shall claim their skulls for my mantle! Move. I want to be level 2 before lunch."
Elian stepped out from behind the bar. His legs felt like jelly. He walked toward the heavy oak door at the back of the tavern. He put his hand on the iron ring.
A draft of cool, damp air rushed up from the gap beneath the wood, carrying the scent of mold and potatoes.
"Wait," Valerius said.
Elian froze. He knows.
Valerius was looking at Elian's hand on the door. "You're shaking, citizen. Excellent. Your fear adds to the immersion. It tells me the danger is real."
Valerius drew his sword fully. The blade glowed with a soft, pulsing light—not enough to burn the room, but enough to cast long, dancing shadows. "Now, open the gate to the underworld. I require a challenge."
Elian opened the door. He stared down into the darkness. He could hear the faint skritch-skritch of Steve the Rat chewing on a grain sack.
He had about ten seconds before they reached the bottom. Ten seconds to turn a harmless rodent with a limp into a Void Beast.
Elian reached into his pocket. He didn't have a weapon. He had a piece of lint and a single copper coin. He touched the coin. He focused on it. He thought about the text of the coin: [Standard Copper - Value: 1].
Can I change this? he wondered. If I can change words, can I change the weight of the things those words describe?
"Move!" Valerius shoved Elian in the back.
Elian stumbled onto the stairs. He plunged into the dark, the light of Valerius's sword casting a flickering glow against the damp stone walls. He took a breath that smelled of old potatoes and rat droppings.
Time to edit, Elian thought.
He squeezed the coin until it bit into his palm, and stepped down into the dark.