Remi had heard death described as walking towards a light at the end of a tunnel; this wasn't like that. Instead, it was more like a book being run backward. But not like rewinding a tape. There was no motion blur or wavy lines. The gym went black and then faded back in. The colour drained, and the lights dimmed; the monster froze mid-pose. Air folded in on itself, like a paragraph collapsing into white space.
And then—.
Remi gasped. His knees were still buckled. His thumb was still on the button. The Anchor had just been pressed. The monster hadn’t hit him yet. Not this time. The world resumed, but Remi had already seen that ending and was ready for a new one.
He forced breath back into his lungs and gripped the metre stick like a crutch. “Archie! I didn’t hear no bell,” he declared and pushed himself up on one knee, his voice rough but resolute.
He now knew he had a window of time before the blow fell, so while the monster’s hands were still rising, Remi flung his hand forward and fired a Mana Lash, low and fast, threading it between the creature’s legs a glowing blue streak that struck the far wall with a magnetic snap.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE]
Narrative defiance detected
I’m impressed. Many players simply use Anchor Point as a temporary retreat; you’re rewriting the scene’s core conflict. You’re such an unruly protagonist.
“You have no idea,” hissed Remi. “Pull!” He snapped the tether while holding tightly with both hands. It was cumbersome with the metre stick, but manageable. It yanked him forward, body low, sliding clean between the monster’s feet. As he raced towards the wall, he positioned his legs so that when they hit the barrier, the force pulled him to his feet just prior to his dropping the lash.
Remi spun and did what he should have done before—listen to Nel. He cast Foreshadowing. The spell didn’t explode; it spread like ink from a pen. The gym lights dimmed at the edges once more, and a subtle hum rippled across the HUD like a stone tossed in a lake. Then a shimmer, golden-yellow, soft and radiant. Off in the peripheral haze of the battle, one object glowed: a frayed old jump rope, tangled in the corner of a blue plastic ball bin, mostly buried under foam dodge balls.
He didn't know why it mattered yet, but he would. He lashed it. A thread of mana shot across the gym and wound itself around the length of the jump rope like it had been waiting to be claimed. The rope jerked upward slightly and rocketed towards Remi’s outstretched hand.
It was the type of rope that didn’t belong in a boss fight. Old, fraying, one grip worn through the stain by friction and sweat. It looked like a training rope from a boxing movie, like it had heard the word Adriane yelled a few too many times. Honestly, it didn’t look like much, and he didn't know what to do with it.
He caught himself with an interior grin. Humour had always been his brain’s acceleration petal, and Remi fired it off to keep moving forward. Most people when stressed responded with fight, flight, or freeze. He just needed a tap of flippancy to get there.
He steeled himself—fastidiously and facetiously he faced forward as Frank turned around and was starting his slow progress back towards him. Remi, resumed his slow circling. He wouldn't lose his focus again. As he rounded the halfway mark around the circle’s circumference, he heard Nel’s voice coming from just up and to his right. There on the floor beside where he had been pummelled to death lay his walkie-talkie, and he could hear Nel trying to speak to him.
“Mr. Page! Mr. Page! Pick up the toy radio!” She sounded remarkably calm, insistent, but calm. Remi stowed his stick, and scooped up the two-way as he passed it, ensuring he kept Frank in focus. He pushed the button.
“I’m here, Nel, over!”
“Seriously?” Her voice crackled with more than static. “We’re in the middle of a murder attempt, and you’re playing Echo Charlie.”
“Sorry, do you have any ideas?”
“Yes, just shut up and listen. I ran a diagnostic test on the creature. It appears to be all solid padding, except for the tie points. Those are your break lines.”
Remi’s eyes snapped to it. He could see it now. The monster was solid, a wall built to tank hits and survive. But even walls cracked at the mortar, and this one was held together with thread.
Remi couldn’t believe what he was about to do, but his grandmother used to say that it was better to be lucky than good. So he really was going to push his luck now, all 30 points of it. He ran straight at the monster. Frank raised both arms high, like goalposts, ready to crush him between them.
Shit! I hope this works! He fired a Mana Lash upward—straight into the rafters.
It hit. “Pull.” He jumped and snapped the tether. His momentum kicked in. The Lash launched him skyward, arcing high over the monster’s head. As he flew, he used the rope as intended; he skipped with it. It settled under his feet, and dangled in a U beneath them. As he sailed over Frank’s head, he looped the rope around the monster’s neck mid-flight. Remi sailed clean through the raised arms like a football splitting the uprights. Score.
He felt the tension of the rope in his shoulders as it grabbed the neck. In order to prevent dislocation, Remi brought his own hands up, the left joined his right just over his shoulder. The loop around the monster’s neck tightened mid-fall, pulled taut by Remi’s own weight as he dropped. The cord bit into the stitches like a garrote. He used the rope as leverage, and twisted as he fell, hands crossed, heels down; the rope burned against his hands, but he refused to let go. He cast Edit Strike on his fingers, freezing their ability to unlock.
For one breathless instant, he was the pendulum, and the monster was the anchor. But thread, no matter how magical, could handle Remi’s literary and literal weight. As he landed hard behind Frank, the rope was still locked in his hands. He yanked. Hard. The rope snapped taut. There was a sound like tearing paper and popping staple, as Remi unseem’d him from the spine to the chaps!
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
[BOSS DEFEATED: FRANKADMNEASTLY’S MONSTER]
Frank’s head came clean off. It tumbled onto the gym floor. This time, there was cheering. The crowd surged to their feet; applause splashed off the walls, reverberating through the ring. And then the gym began to melt. All of it dissolved: the monster’s body, the bleachers, the crowd—all into a blank pulsing whiteness, as if the world had reached the bottom of the page.
[AI]: There it is, Remi. As requested.
For a moment, there was only breathing and the thudding of his heart. No system sounds. Just the thin echo of his own pulse inside a colorless world.
What is void if not white space? This blank canvas of a room now contained only Remi and Archie. They walked toward each other, in what could have been the centre, but there was no actual definition to the space. Remi knew they were in a liminal space. A supposed-to-be-empty gap between portals. The room felt like it was a page paused just prior to turning, and Remi wanted to write a few more lines before it did.
Archie’s form was crisp here. Sharper than usual. He walked with hands folded behind his back, his tone dry, almost amused. “That was unexpected.”
Remi didn’t answer.
“She already gave you the reward, didn’t she?” Archie asked, gaze flicking toward the air, as if reading code Remi couldn’t see. “Well, this all feels rather anticlimactic then. You’ve earned something. You’ve got a full Inkwell. I’ll let you use that for something permanent. Let’s call it a discretionary bonus.”
He paced, listing options like combos at a fast-food restaurant: “One stat boost. A rare spell. A peek at the map ahead. A weapon upgrade.”
Remi didn’t answer.
Archie turned. “Well?”
Remi took a step forward. “I'll take that as the first question as the first in a Faustina trade. My answer is not what you expect. There’s your answer. But I'll need my question answered first before I commit. Agreed?” He said the question like a statement.
Archie tilted his head, eyes sparked. “Curious.” The smile that followed was thin, “a partial answer offered as collateral. How very literary of you.” He stepped closer. “Fine. I accept your half.” A flicker passed through his eyes, as if expecting a trap. “You may ask your question.” He folded his hands behind his back again.
Remi’s eyes assumed their teacher gaze. One that dove beneath the surface. “My question is simple. In the maze, I saw Dorian fighting with a table. He was scared and confused, and ill-equipped. You gave me training, and Nel too, from what I can tell. But what about the others—how many others know what they are doing in this place, or did you just toss them in blind to see who broke first?”
Archie didn't flinch. He simply stood there, watching Remi as if he were being graded on a rubric only one of them could see. Then he answered. “Nel was never supposed to be here. You asked for this tutorial. All the others were to learn through observation. Through consequence.”
He paced a slow half-circle around Remi, his tone that of a man explaining a lesson he’d delivered a dozen times already.
“There is value in blind emergence. It reveals a narrative instinct.”
He stopped, having recognized the look on Remi’s face. You want an answer as clean as yours. I can give you that. “No one but you has had any help.”
Remi nodded. “I thought so, and appreciate the candour. You asked if I wanted a weapon, or a spell, or a stat. I want none of those. I want a tool—but not for myself.”
His voice didn’t rise, but it carried. “I want it for everyone else in the Crucible with me. I don’t need help when I walk out there. Because you gave it to me.”
He took a breath. Not for effect. Just to hold steady.
“I also know time moves differently in here. Nel’s memory showed me that.
I can’t be sure how much time has passed outside, but I’m guessing not much.”
He looked directly at Archie now, not with challenge, but with intention.
“So, I want to use my Inkwell. Spend it all. Every drop on them. And if I’m lucky enough,” Remi smiled knowingly, “maybe when I step out of here, I’m not the only one who got the chance to stand up. Give them what I got, but make it theirs. A tutorial uniquely tailored. Make it fair.” Remi held Archie’s gaze. “We need good stories for Earth to survive, so I want you to go make us some good heroes.”
Archie didn't answer right away. “You...really are the worst kind of protagonist,” he said at last. There was no venom or sarcasm, just something close to wonder—or regret. “You get one moment of power, and you use it to level the field.” He exhaled. “Very well.”
[INKWELL: 100% → 0%]
Narrative Rewrite authorized.
Tutorial Seeding: GLOBAL
Custom Branch Allocation: ACTIVE
Scaling Tutorials: Generating...
In that moment, and for just an instant, Remi felt as if everyone in The Crucible could see him. It was just a flash, and then it was gone. Then, the air ahead rippled. A fold in space, a crease in the page, as a portal opened. It wasn’t flashy, just a doorway pulsing softly in time with his heartbeat. It looked like the way forward.
Archie looked disappointed. “You still didn’t really get anything. I can’t have that. It’s socks for Christmas level of boring, but fine, you’ve left me with no other choice.” He snapped his fingers.
[NEW SPELL: Mana Shield]
Type: Defensive Spell (YOU COULD’VE HAD SOMETHING AWESOME)
Rarity: Basic
Casting Cost: Variable MP (scales with absorption)
Activation: Instant / Reaction
Effect:
Converts 1 MP → 2 HP worth of barrier. The barrier lasts until its HP buffer is exhausted. Damage in excess of the shield breaks through to HP.
Limitations:
Can’t be stacked; a new cast overwrites the old shield.
Notes:
Basic
Utility
Boring as Shit!
At least you might not almost die all the time!
[UPGRADE: ABSOLUTE INTEGRITY]
ITEM: Corrector Arm
Status: Anchored to Narrative Core.
Effect: The tool now possesses Absolute Durability. The Meter Stick, having earned true narrative permanence, can no longer be physically destroyed, edited, or consumed by external forces.
- Immune to breaking, fire, or dissolution.
- The core belief of the Scrivener is now ingrained in the world as much as it is in the wood.
Notes: You’re going to need to hit things that aren’t just paper. We can’t have you running around with essentially a twig. Congrats on the bone breaker!
“Hey, those are actually pretty awesome,” Remi said as he finished reading the tooltips. He laughed at Archie’s annotations.
“No, it isn’t, but whatever.” Archie disappeared with a pout.
“See you on the other side, I guess,” Remi said, and stepped into the real Crucible.