《An ordinary novel but every 10,000 words the audience kills the least interesting character》1.5
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As they followed the skipping child back to the democracy chamber, the number zipped from Faust to Eirlys, glowing out of her hand. She had a splitting headache stemming from her ears, probably a remnant of the sub-zero wind. Even looking at the lanterns on the walls set it off.
Welcome back, she thought. I'm busy. Get used to bullet points.
— It was all Eirlys' fault.
— She hadn't been strong enough.
— She hadn't been clever enough.
— She'd thought that freefalling for the rest of her life would be punishment enough, but now she was back she had to carry the burden of Greer's death.
— A lump in her throat; slight blurring of vision. Tremors in her voicebox. All this was unhelpful. She had to get strong. She had to get clever. She had to be competent enough that something like this would never happen again.
— Tarquin, the man skipping alongside the child to try and make friends: exploitable. If he'd helped her with no expectation of a reward, then he'd do it again. He'd actually looked uncomfortable when she offered to vote on a reform of their choice.
— Kari, the child with a big grin: dangerous. Aside from the fact that Eirlys distrusted happy people, as well as silent people, the child must have seen what happened down there. It was possible they were being led into a trap. In response, Eirlys drifted to the back of the line.
— Connie, the woman fighting back imaginary enemies with her axe: exploitable. Prone to vanity. She would probably go along with anything if she thought she were manipulating Eirlys.
— Faust, the man shuffling behind with his hands in his pockets: not a threat. He didn't look assertive enough to stand up to serious criticism, and she'd already put him on the back foot with a comment about him being moody.
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— The democratisation of reality: a real thing. Saheel had been right to consider other strategies. She would have to apologise. Unfortunately, she wouldn't be able to apologise to Greer.
— It was Eirlys' fault.
— Eirlys had forced Greer into an uninteresting situation, condemning her.
Eirlys slapped herself, loud as a whip crack, and Faust turned back to squint at her. She shrugged, so he shook his head and kept walking, bowed over under the weight of his own damn problems. Now her face stung in multiple places. A red mark formed on her cheek.
— Unhelpful thoughts wouldn't fix the situation, but competence would.
— Analyse to understand.
— The first motion they needed to pass, then: majority rule. Saheel had wanted to minimise the chance of bad actors before anybody could completely derail the process. Had he been too pressed for time to debate it, or had the others rejected it out of hand?
She tapped Faust on the shoulder, the least patronising of the three. "Excuse me, Faust."
Even though all she said was his name, he physically recoiled, holding his arms out in a cross to shield him. Did she think he was a vampire?
"Who invokes the name of the moody one?" he said. "What are you after? A vial of tears?"
"Ha," said Eirlys, trying to smile.
Faust frowned. "Go ahead, poke your fun like the rest of them. What's one more insult on a pile of thousands?"
"I'm sorry," said Eirlys.
"No you're not."
She shrugged. "Did Saheel say anything about changing the democratisation of reality to a majority rule?"
"Considering he was there for all of two minutes, after which Greer dropped dead? I'm surprised I even remember his name. They were going on about having a spa day, or something."
"Thank you," said Eirlys. "Watch your step."
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Because he was walking backwards, Faust nearly tumbled down the gigantic set of stairs, and Eirlys absentmindedly used her climbing reflexes to catch him. He brushed himself off and kept walking.
— Nearly there. The child hadn't changed behaviour. Still, she needed to be careful. Let the others go in first.
"Hey." Eirlys grabbed Faust by the arm, pulling him back into a fork on the staircase that presumably led to another team's rooms.
"WHAT?" he said, shoving her into the wall. "That makes three people, now! Why does everyone think they can just push me around?"
"Sorry." She tried not to fall over, but her legs bent backwards, slipping on the smooth marble and she quickly found herself on the ground. It smelt dusty. Her glasses bounced down the steps.
"Oh, shit, sorry," said Faust, chasing after them, then passing them back to her. "Uh, you look a lot stronger than you are."
She yanked on his hand, hard, bringing him down to her level, and said, "I am strong, you just caught me off guard."
— Eirlys had to stop getting caught off guard.
"God, of course you are," cried Faust, nursing the arm she'd yanked. "I was almost feeling a little bit of remorse, but instead you had to double down on your campaign of harassment! Were your cutting words not enough? Must you thirst so for my blood? I swear, everywhere I go people just give me nothing but shit!"
— Maybe he actually believed she was a vampire.
"I'm sorry," said Eirlys. "I'm bad at being a people person. I just wanted to a) wait to see whether Connie and Tarquin were about to spring a trap, and b) ask your opinion on changing the democratisation of reality to a majority rule."
"You're saying my team might be in TROUBLE?" Faust spat at her feet, then dashed back down the stairs.
Eirlys lay there, listening for gunshots. None came, so she picked herself back up, dusted herself down, and crept into the central chamber past a stunned, shellshocked Team Shame. The kid was... doing some kind of jig next to a park ranger who had an ice pick — Eirlys' ice pick — lodged in his windpipe.
— He's still alive.
Indeed, the ranger was gargling, wide eyed, and letting out a horrible wheeze that sounded like somebody blowing through a vacuum tube.
— Saheel?
She found him a couple of paces from the ranger, choking on a puddle of his own blood. His priest's robe was torn ragged by bullets. Eirlys counted eleven holes. Somehow, he was still breathing. But then they all were.
"The twelfth bullet?" she asked.
Tarquin motioned to a schoolteacher slumped in front of a door labelled 70,000, a streak of blood running down it. Her cardigan was stained by a wound spreading out from her chest. She was clutching, white-knuckled, a clipboard. Alive.
— Greer. Don’t look at her body.
"We need to heal them, now," said Tarquin. "I can’t stand just watching them suffer. All those in favour?"
— Thumbs down.
7👍 1👎 — INSUFFICIENT MAJORITY
Eirlys stepped over to the park ranger, bent down, picked up his gun, rested it square on his forehead, and pulled the trigger.
Click.
— He must have emptied everything he had into Saheel.
"What the fuck, Eirlys?" shouted Connie.
"You might want to look away," said Eirlys, grabbing hold of the pick, pushing against the body with her foot to shunt it free.
"What do you think you're doing?" said Tarquin.
"First things first," she said, swinging down the ice pick.
— Force his hand.
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Codex Administratum
After dying in his sleep, Marcus awakens and finds out he has been selected to become an Administrator. A being who stands amongst the gods and whose job is to raise worlds from nothing and help life flourish across the universe. But on top of helping life flourish, they must be willing to defend it from those who want to destroy it. Will Marcus rise to the top, or will a cold universe break him down and wash him away? Authors notes: Hey guys! This is the rewrite of A.C! If you are an original reader, I've tried to keep some of the things that made A.C unique. There will only be a handful of original characters, the rest will be unique. Anyways enjoy :)
8 186Statless
Summary Alexander Weiss, an intelligent and slightly unusual man, always dreamt of becoming a mage. Sadly, reality is harsh and even his best efforts never allowed him to achieve his goal during his lifetime... or did they? One has to be careful what they wish for, lest they might live to see it fulfilled. Description Follow Alex, a man whose pursuit of magic could not even be stopped by his non-magical reality, going as far as to create it himself, only to encounter an unsurmountable obstacle shortly before achieving his lifes goal, denying him all access to these powers. His journey will take him through a miraculous world, full of wonders, magic and manic beasts trying to devour him! He will learn much about this world during his adventures, exploring individual aspects of the System and the various monsters that came from it... or did they? Strong points What you'll get from this novel is the following (read with overly enthusiastic salesman-voice) : • An ending! I'll complete it, no matter what. Well, not "no matter what", but as long as I don't unexpectedly end, this novel won't either! • Good grammar! Might not be perfect, but it's definitely good enough to not detract from the story in the slightest. I'll also fix any reported mistakes as soon as possible, be they grammatical, syntactical or just inconsistencies. • No plot-armor! Or plot-weapons! Or plot-... potions? And no plot-holes! If you see some, it's most likely information that is being witheld for future revelations! But in the (hopefully) very unlikely case of such a vile beast being encountered, please inform me immediately and I'll see to slaying it without grace! (Translation: If you see plot-holes, tell me and I'll fix them) • Logic! [Hidden : Spoilers][Hidden : More Spoilers] [Moved to Chapter [Hidden Spoiler]'s Author's Note] Marvelous, I know! • Blue Boxes! And maybe something more! • Sensible retroactive edits! Not to be confused with radioactive edits! You'll not have to re-read previous chapters, even if they get some major edits. If they were to receive new information, I'll add that very information to the newly released chapters too, in a reasonable way. • Realism! Shocking, I know! Especially considering the tag related to that and the point about "Logic!". This also means that the story will be... well, realistically depicting a pretty messed up world. Don't expect bunnies... at least not cute ones. • Relatively faster paced! No long and boring descriptions of irrelevant stuff. There will be some longer descriptions about important things, but that's gonna be necessary world- and/or character-building! • Short action! Might not be a plus for some, but you won't have to look at a whole (or, god forbit, multiple) chapter describing a fight against the same enemy... • Strategy and hard progression! It's a dog-eat-dog world! No grinding/power-creep! If you're up against three enemies of your level at once, you've already lost! • Understanding! It will be mostly about discovering the wonders of this new world and how it became like that, all while trying to survive. So there will be enough action nonetheless! • Humor! Sometimes dark, sometimes light, always at the worst moment! • Constructive critics, welcome! Destructive critics, nope... I can handle criticism though, so don't go easy on me! Just make sure it's really a mistake when complaining about something. • Will add more in the future! If I can think of more stuff...
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