NameIess

“Cruel conditions, incentives to harm others for your own gain, philosophy courses, that sort of thing.” Malevolence shrugged. “They made certain we learned too. At least half the ‘students’ were plants used to weed out anyone with the spark of good in them. Anyone found showing any sign of a conscience got to take a turn in the torture classes. As the subject, usually.”

Malevolence sighed. “The food was good when it wasn’t poisoned. Everything else was terrible.”

“Not as bad as you’re probably thinking.” Malevolence said calmly, closing his eyes and taking a deep, relaxing breath. “No, it was much worse.” He glanced at Rose. “Malan is an evil person trying to kill Cricket and capture Tam. Not very competent.”

“I don’t really know.” Malevolence placed his hands on the ground and leaned backwards, staring up at the sky. “I was pretty much raised by the school of evil.” “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.” Malevolence grinned at Cricket. “Not sure if you heard, but I was telling Tam and Bat here that you will never be able to defeat Malan.”

Malevolence frowned, making no move towards Bat. "From what I've read on the subject, Narrators aren't affected by time travel like normal people. So I doubt I can undo my actions." He sighed, stretched his arms, then sat down on the ground. "Perhaps I will simply have to wait for Cricket to return to consciousness."

"Hm." A small drone appeared next to Malevolence and quickly cut him free. "So, what will it take to convince her I'm not trying to kill any of you any more?"

Fine. I'll stop breaking the rules then. The voice vanished. Malevolence looked very confused. "Hey!" He called. "What's going on? Why did Tam leave so suddenly? Who are you talking to?"

But if we teleport you to her, will she see it as you being kind and wanting to support her, or as us playing games with the two of you? She already didn't like us speaking to you. I feel that this would be worse.

There is something to be said about having a ton of posts on here in order to hide them all and thus shorten the thread, but I'm not that dedicated.

If you want my advice, it would be best to let her come back on her own time. Any further Authorial intervention would just mess with her more. Talk to her when she comes back, if she wants to talk about it.

I generally stay away on principle of keeping TLT TLT. Although there is a good 900+ page lead right now, so it's not that important.

You should be able to tap on the quote then spam the backspace button until it goes away, just make sure to tap on the outside of the quote box and not the text. You could also use the 'clear editor' option that pops up when you first open the typing box thingy.

Good news and bad news. I'm going to assume you want both. Good news is, I know what's wrong. Bad news, Tam's struggling with the realization that she may not have free will. But hey! Plenty of people in the real world believe they don't have free will either, so I'm sure she'll be able to get past it!

I don't know. Let me go see if her Author will tell me anything. Hey @Through The Living Glass, for what specific reason is Tam distressed? Authorial intervention getting to her?

There's no need for you to worry. Tam will probably eventually be fine. Even if we have inadvertently caused her to have a mental breakdown. Speaking of mental breakdowns, I really need to come up with an actually satisfying answer for Subversion to find. I apologize for any distress I've caused you. The voice retreated.

Oh dear. Are you dealing with the complex trauma involved in realizing your own fictional nature? Or is this something else unrelated to that?

Oh, are we speaking directly to characters right now? A male voice asked. Bat, you should totally trust Malevolence. He actually wants to work with you for the moment.

Good luck. You’ll need it.

“He probably didn’t want to steal the Plotblade for himself.” Unintelligible responded. “But his actions did have harmful consequences.” He took another sip of tea. “So I’d say he’s partially guilty?” Malevolence watched Bat and Tam with an odd expression on his face. It seemed a mix of revulsion and wistfulness.

The guards tossed me unceremoniously to the floor. My face hit with a smack that left my head spinning. That went well. I struggled to my hands and knees, only for a guard to crack me on the skull with the butt of his spear. Stars flashed across my vision, and I collapsed back to the ground. I rolled onto my back and found myself looking up at a man in a dark robe. He looked about how you’d expect for an evil wizard, but his staff was rather interesting. It appeared to be a roughly carved tree limb, with jagged protrusions where branches had been torn off. The wood was entirely black, and the tip was banded with a dark metal that was probably meant to look like Mordite. An arrogant weapon, but a dangerous one nonetheless. I would have to deal with this man carefully. I rolled back over and attempted to rise again, then thought better of it as my vision darkened. “Wise wizard, I bring you a message from the great Narrator Nameless.” I said hoarsely. The wizard may have raised an eyebrow, but I was hardly in a position to see it. “Nameless? The great Narrator? He sent you?” The wizard’s voice was dripping with condescension. “Indeed!” I said in what was meant to be a cheerful, confident tone. “He warns you to release your prisoners and scourge the land no longer. If you continue in your evil ways, he will have no choice but to…” The wizard was laughing. I paused, confused. This was… not how I had expected my ‘news’ to be received. “Nameless is dead.” Said the wizard. “And even if he was not, why should I fear him? Even with the aid of the Enullers, even with a Mordite blade capable of slaying the Witherlord, even with the Witherlord bound almost entirely by the Skeins he failed. Why should I fear someone so pathetic?” Muttering something impolite under my breath I shoved myself up onto my knees, ignoring the darkness that pressed in around the edges of my vision. “I think you’ll find that Nameless is far fr-” A sound rang through the underground labyrinth. A horrible sound, a sound beyond the power of words to describe. The sound of a heart breaking. The wizard sneered at me, clueless as to the horror I had just experienced. “That Nameless is what? A failure? A weakling overthrown by his own avatar?” His sneer widened. “Oh yes, I know that it was Moniker that did him in. Vengeance for what he did to her, no doubt.” I opened my mouth, trying to find some way to rebuke his words but… it was just too much. It was then that Galbus entered the room. His eyes were those of a man hanging on to a cliffside by a handful of grass, and death was behind them. The guards moved to intercept him and were too slow. He cut through three men in an eyeblink, True Love slashing through weapon, armor, and flesh alike with no more difficulty than the air of the chamber. The wizard raised his staff, mouth opening in the words of a spell, but his staff was split in two before he could utter a syllable. Galbus held his Blade a hair’s breadth from the dark wizard’s throat. He leaned in, three words tearing themselves from his lips. “Where. Is. She.” The wizard gulped, frozen in place. “I-I don’t know who you’re speaking of. Who are you looking for?” True Love moved closer still to the man’s throat. “My betrothed. Your men took her last night. My Blade should have led me to her, but all it could find was a room filled with ash. Tell me where you’ve hidden her and I might let you live.” Galbus’s voice shook with barely contained emotion, but True Love’s point never quivered. “Please.” The wizard begged. “Please, I did not know she was so important to you!” He tried to back away, but Galbus moved forward, forcing him against the wall of the room. “Where. Is. She.” The wizard whimpered, eyes fixed on Galbus’s half-crazed stare. “Dead.” He finally whispered. “I… did not need so many subjects for my experiments as I thought. Ordered the men to kill the extra and burn their bodies. Please, I will do anything. Do not kill me.” His plea fell on deaf ears. Galbus sank to the floor, and this time I not only heard but saw his heart break. I can honestly say that in all my life, only once before that day and never after have I seen anything near to matching the pain I saw in his eyes. The glow of True Love’s ruby winked out, dead as its master’s beating heart. The wizard stared at Galbus, then slowly slid along the wall past him. As he realized the man was too stricken with sorrow to kill him, the wizard’s sneer returned. “Weak.” He laughed. “So weak. Why care for the worthless lives of others? Nothing truly matters except for power.” He went to gesture to his men, to have them kill the helpless, grieving man on the floor, then stopped. He looked down at his chest in surprise, staring at the knife embedded to the hilt just where a normal person would have had their heart. He looked back up, took a step towards me, then fell dead to the floor. I looked down at my hand, which held a second knife ready to throw. Shaking myself, I leapt from the floor and threw the knife at the guard that held my sword. I sat beside a pile of corpses, wiping the blood clean from my sword. In the other room, Galbus sat alone as silent and still as a corpse. I stared at the blood staining the rag I was using. A blade can kill and harm without remorse, but neglect to clean the blood away and before long that blade will be rusted and useless. A pitiful, worthless thing, to be hated and despised by all. “What would you give to undo your mistakes?” The voice came from the darkness of the corridor. A pair of glowing eyes appeared in it. “What would you do to change the Ending you have been given?” Into the flickering torchlight of the chamber stepped Eof. “What is he who was once Nameless willing to risk so that this Thread will be safe?”

Is it really right to call any Enuller human? I don't know much about them, but it would certainly be possible for non-humans to become Enullers. The corrosive nanobots snuck out of their jar and began dissolving the roots holding Malevolence.

"It was a family name!" Malevolence complained. "I'm really not that bad."

"I'm hardly going to attack you!" "They keep calling me Love, so... no." Enullers should be able to convert the other fundamental substances into Nullite.

Nullite comes from Enullers mostly, although the place Bat is from has very high concentrations of it. Check out Xino's blogs to get some more info on the fundamental substances. Malevolence sighed. "Now what was that for?"

Malevolence sighed, consigning himself to his fate. Then his eyes narrowed at the second Rose, a smile flashing across his face briefly. Malevolence's bonds dissolved into ash.