15 Zavyyn passes time in a tiny bubble

Later that night, I receive a message from Rhynn in a small window.

'Make sure you hide all your shit before morning or if you hear anybody at your door. They like to confiscate stuff. Good luck with the research!'

I have managed, by trial and error, to begin the researching process. As I couldn't read the text, however, I wound up researching fecalmancy. Poop magic. I wish I knew why that was an option for me.

Instead of storing my poop in my inventory, I now have a separate pocket dimension for waste. I can do terrifying things to people. I can flood colons, causing them to rupture by briefly opening my pocket dimension inside them, I can track people based off of their colonic key scent, whatever that is, I can send people into my pocket dimension to drown in my poop, and apparently I can breed tapeworms inside my pocket dimension into enormous monsters. Every time I try to research in another magical field, it tells me I must finish all fecalmancy topics before unlocking another research subject. Apparently, this restriction is due to my level being low. Since I can't raise my level in this cell, my only other option is to master fecalmancy.

I will be the fecalmancer supreme! I will be a terrifying sight on the battlefield, with monstrous tapeworms and floods of poop and probably infectious disease. Yup, I just finished learning the monster tapeworm spells, and am now on controlling infectious bacteria concentrations in feces. Maybe I can eventually learn some spells for controlling microbiomes and magically help people with gut pain.

Nope, after infectious bacteria is forming diverticula, little pockets that can show up in the lining of intestines. Hey, my research speed is getting faster at least, so I guess my research skill is increasing? I could turn my skill-up announcements back on, but I am probably still skilling up that Multi-casting skill. Fuck that thing, it is the worst. Oh, and I am learning how to do a whole host of horrifying things to diverticula. I can make them infected, that one was easy, I can rupture them on their own, I can ulcerate them, it goes on and on.

This spell system had to have been devised by a sadistic gastroenterologist. At some point I am going to learn helpful things, right? Like how to heal diverticula, or cure diseases that like to spread through poop? You know, spells that might make people like me, instead of fearing me? Surely that is not a pipe dream, right?

And that is how the next few nights go. Rhynn visits me, shares some booze and snacks, tells me stories about shards, and sometimes about how these systems work. Apparently mMost of the people in these shards are non-players. Players are like demigods who can die but quickly come back to life, can travel between shards, which are like different worlds or dimensions, and get treated differently where they go, and apparently fear is a common response to semi-immortal demigods. Rhynn thinks I might be a player, but since the easiest way to test that is to kill me, we both would prefer an alternate way that involves less chance of me dying forever if we're wrong. The fact that I can see a shard window is positive, but the shardtether flag is less positive.

"The NPCs might have a shard window like yours with shardtether flags checked. If that's the case, that might also be what controls whether or not they respawn. And if they do have those windows, they probably cannot see them. Then the fact that you can see it at all if you are a non-player would be a miracle or a bug." Rhynn tells me all this one night while messing around in his own UI. Anyone who is not a player is an NPC, or non-player character, so if I have a shardtether flag maybe that means I am one of those.

Another night, I ask Rhynn if this world is just a video game. He snorts at this.

"This world is as real as you want to make it. Your senses work, you make memories of events, and can interact with the people here, right? You define reality in a way that allows all that but somehow still fails some litmus test for real, and I'll be impressed. I'll also question that litmus test till I'm blue in the face."

When my memories of that first week are getting to me, I ask him if NPCs are real people. Rhynn laughs at that question, a rather ugly laugh that did not have a lot of cheer.

"That's a question players war with each other over. You might be an NPC. Are you real?"

Those nights of drinking with Rhynn, sharing all the snacks he brought over, and talking about reality really help me. He is never in my cell for more than an hour, just long enough for a couple drinks, a few snacks, a little bit of conversation, and then he leaves.

My research continues through the days and nights. I finally begin learning healing spells in fecalmancy after a solid week of learning how to terrorize through poop magic. Rhynn jokes about that when I tell him what kind of magic I am researching.

"You're a literal shitlord! Oh man, that is too much. I'm calling you a shitlord every time you use one of those spells."

I am not eager to use these spells around him for that reason. I'm now learning how to cure major poop related illnesses, including colon cancer. Finally, my research window tells me I am learning the ultimate spell. I think ultimate in this case means final, and not the best. The ultimate spell of fecalmancy is to summon a giant flaming poop meteor. Unfortunately, it will take a couple of days to research.

I tell Rhynn, and he collapses in laughter.

"You're a flaming shitlord! Bro! I can't anymore. My sides are in orbit around your shitty meteors, bro! Let's drink good shit to celebrate the ascended shitlord!" Rhynn pulls out a bottle of wine that looks a little fancy.

Rhynn messes with me some, but never really seems mean about it, and usually if he has a good laugh at my expense, he makes up for it with some new booze I haven't had before.

We continue to pass our time visiting nightly, until I learn that ultimate spell. At Rhynn's insistence, I rename that spell Great Shitballs of Fire in homage to some song I don't know.

"We're getting drunk tonight. And eating some delectable treats!" Rhynn seems pretty excited that I finished my research.

After the whiskey comes a smorgasboardsmorgasbord of fancy finger foods. They're all delicious, and after stuffing my face for a minute and asking for water to wash them down with before starting on the whiskey, I ask Rhynn what kind of magic I should research to get access to the Spirit World.

"That's a good question. There are lots of magic systems that can let you travel between from this world to the spirit world. My muscle magic lets me travel by vibrating my muscles at different frequencies, allowing me to do all sorts of stupid shit because magic is broke as hell. In fact, any player who doesn't have some form of magic is either stupid or is min-maxing some cockamamie nonsense. I'll try to get you up to speed on some of the more common builds. If you can find the BB window, you can research some of the builds there, but the ones posted there are just the tip of the iceberg."

"What's a BB?"

My brain is processing that term as ball bearing, and I doubt there is a window dedicated to ball bearings. I would be happy to be wrong in this case, though. I do remember builds from the memories I have about video games, for some reason.

"Bulletin Board. A place for people to post anonymously as a way of getting revenge against min-max builds that ganked them. If everyone knows your tricks already, it's hard to get the drop on folks."

That sounds awful. Rhynn describes it like it has little to do with him, though.

"Has anybody posted your build on there?"

"People post what they have managed to find out. I recommend holding back as much as possible if you have to fight a player."

"Going back to the Spirit World question, what kind of magic do you recommend for travelling there?"

We got a little off-topicoff topic there, but I still need to tap into the wisdom of those spirits, right?

"The kind of magic you use can affect how you interact with the Spirit World and how you perceive it. So iIf you used Demonology to go there, you would see the Spirit World as hell and the spirits as demons and devils. If you learned some hippie tree-hugging bullshit, you'd see everyone there as nature spirits in whatever form of nature. Not that this really changes how the spirits act or anything. It just drops a filter over your consciousness for how you perceive it."

Based off what Rhynn is saying, I could research some form of magic to see everything there as puppets for toddlers if I really wanted. I need to see what kinds of magic this research function will let me into. The idea of forcing the spirits into the form of something silly pleases me.

We finish our snacks and whiskey. Rhynn leaves me with a parting shot that I should not pick my magic while I'm drunk, and soon I am left in the dark, nestled in my bedding.

This feeling is the best! With that thought, I feel my consciousness slipping away, when a sound snaps it back. The guards are opening my door.