Chapter 5 What Exactly Am I Doing Here Really?
“What would you like, dear child?” The Queen was a beautiful spectacle to behold. With her glowing red hair and blue eyes, Maeve was sure she would have been an extremely sought out model in her timeline. “Please, feel free to tell me what is on your mind. You will be given whatever you want,”
Maeve was sure she was buffering from how everything went down to this morning.
Quick Summary: Duke Adrian dropped her home, ignored her all the way there unsurprisingly. Count fainted once, Mother acted like she was about to have a heart attack, then they both shoved her into a rib crushing gown after bribing her with many sweet delicacies and sent her on her merry way.
After she landed at the Royal Palace under the gaze of many glaring nobility, she remembered Aeltherra was a Matriarchal society— women were rarer and had more mana so men crawled and fought for their attention. The Queen also looked scary and strict as she stared up from her throne. The king wasn’t there but Cassian was and Duke Adrian— whose approval rating of her dropped even lower.
The Maesters made some mumbling and she touched the magic orb— and instead of it turning white so she could run back home, it turned black.
And now, she was here, in the Queen’s bedroom.
Maeve understood it wasn’t normal, nor was it something that ever happened in the storyline. Isabella was supposed to have a burst of white mana. WHITE. The Maesters had looked confused at the black but the Queen had ordered her to her room for private evaluation.
And suddenly became the friendliest person she had ever seen. “You look so worried, my dear. It’s just a little unexpected, fear not. I shall handle it. Instead, why don’t you focus on picking a suitor to be your Vessel, hmm? My son? Or my nephew, the Duke? Or both? You can never have too many Vessels, I’m afraid,”
Maeve looked like she was close to having a brain aneurysm, like she was mentally rebooting. Her mouth fell slightly open, her eyes rolled upwards like she was having a seizure— which she probably was.
Still, the Queen, ever so friendly, rose from her seat, “I hear you like sweet treats. I shall go find something for you. Make yourself feel at home,”
As soon as she was gone, Maeve took in a large gasp of air before shooting up her chair, “WHAT WAS THAT?! WHY IS SHE ACTING LIKE THAT?!”
\[DON’T YELL. SHE ALREADY HAS HER SIGHTS ON YOU\]
Maeve held her cheeks, “But black? Why? Is it because I’m not really Isabella? Am I… am I cursed? Is this a curse? What is going on?”
She waited for the system to give an answer, a straightforward one like it had been giving all this while but instead, all it said was, \[CALM DOWN\]
“Okay,” Maeve started pacing around the room. “Tell me. What exactly am I doing here? Be honest. And what are you?”
\[I AM NACE. NARRATIVE ASSISTANT COMPLIANCE ENGINE. AND YOU ARE HERE TO FIX THE PLOT OF THIS STORY\]
“What? Why?”
\[… YOU WROTE IT?\]
“No, no, that’s not it,” Maeve cut in. “The plot was fine. I read it myself. Sure, it was a little wrong and lovey dovey, but it was fine,”
\[THE PLOT HAS NO PROTAGONIST\]
Maeve turned to look at the screen. “Isabella Montague is the protagonist,”
All of a sudden, NACE glitched. Maeve stared at it, her confusion giving way to concern before it said, \[ON THE EVE OF HER PRESENTATION DAY, ISABELLA MONTAGUE WAS FOUND DEAD, LEAVING THE STORYLINE WITH NO PROTAGONIST. DUE TO THAT INCIDENT, I WAS CREATED TO FIND ONE TO STABILIZE THE PLOT AND I PICKED YOU\]
Maeve stared at the words on the screen, her brain rebooting again before she said, “Isabella can’t be dead. She was… fine. What?”
\[YOU DELETED THE STORY\]
“And that killed her?”
\[… WE ARE NOT CERTAIN\]
“And who’s we?!” Maeve snapped. “You took me out of my life—”
\[YOU DID NOT HAVE A LIFE, MAEVE STRUM. 35 YEARS OF AGE AND NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT. AN ORPHAN, YOU SPENT THE ENTIRETY OF YOUR LIFE CARING FOR YOUR SIBLINGS WHO NEVER SAW THE VALUE IN YOUR LIFE\]
Maeve stared at many screens of all the many jobs she did and debts she took to make sure all her siblings flashed across the screen. The familiar pain returned, stabbing through her chest as tears started to roll out of her eyes.
\[YOU WORKED HARDER THAN ANYONE ELSE. DOING OVERTIME AND STILL SENDING THEM GIFTS ON THEIR BIRTHDAYS. YOU ALSO TRIED TO BE PRESENT FOR YOUR BOYFRIEND WHO NEVER MADE YOU A PRIORITY. YOUR WHOLE LIFE HAS BEEN A JOKE\]
“Ah,” Maeve couldn’t argue. It was the truth. Still, she brushed away the tears crowding her eyes as she said, “So? That’s why I’m here? Because I don’t matter?”
NACE didn’t reply immediately. Instead, she could see the screen buffering before it said, \[THIS WORLD MIGHT NOT MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU. BUT TO THE PEOPLE HERE, IT IS THEIR ENTIRE WORLD. ALL OF THEIR REALITY WILL BE ERASED IF THERE IS NO ANCHOR POINT AND THEY WILL CEASE TO EXIST. THEY NEED YOU\]
“And I’ve worked my ass off for people my entire life. Why will I want to do the same again? What benefit do I get?”
\[MONEY. SLEEP. FOOD. NEW CLOTHES. A WORLD WHERE YOU CAN REST\]
“Good, so I can leave—”
\[IF YOU FOLLOW THE KEY BEATS\]
Of course, she couldn’t just get her freedom.
\[THIS IS A ROMANCE NOVEL. YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW EACH KEY BEAT TO PRESERVE THE NARRATIVE. FAILURE TO ADHERE IT WOULD ENTAIL PENALTIES TO YOU AND DEVIATION OF STORY PATHS, CAUSING UNPROMPTED STORYLINES THAT MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT LEAD TO YOUR DEATH\]
“Of course. How could it have gone simply?! And penalties? Do I have any now?”
The screen flashed again. \[TEN\]
“What?!”
\[YOU DIDN'T ASK\]
“Okay, okay, let me get this straight,” Maeve said, “You took me out of my story because somehow, the protagonist of the story is dead and she was its anchor? Now that she’s gone, this reality will seize to exist so you brought me in here to continue the plot line and prevent that from happening but if I deviate from the story, I get penalties, new storylines might come up and I might or might not die, while also being prevented from chilling?”
\[YES\]
Maeve nodded. “Ah, ah. Noted.”
Then she charged towards the first window she saw and jumped out of it.