The thing about post-cosmic-reset adventures is that they don't start with trumpets or revelations. They start with damp socks, contradictory signage, and a pervasive sense that the universe is trying stand-up comedy with questionable punchlines.
Juno sneezed into her elbow. The Fenmarch was damp in the way that suggested it held personal grudges against dry clothing.
Moss slithered when stepped on, muttering about character arcs. Trees sighed when ignored. The sun only shone on alternating Tuesdays, and even then only while sulking behind ironic cloud formations. The air smelled like wet ink and misplaced priorities.
"Why is everything slightly sarcastic?" she muttered, wringing water from her sleeve, which now bore a sarcastic watermark in the shape of a shrug. Her cloak glistened with disdain and mildew, its rune-etched pauldrons flickering with glitched humility.
Bryn, now officially the group's designated sarcasm translator, kicked a rock that immediately rolled its metaphorical eyes and complained about narrative direction. "Because we're in the Narrative Buffer, remember? It's where tone goes to retire, logic being dumped to trash can, and metaphors get legally divorced."
The path ahead unfurled with lazy malice, winding like a sentence that had lost its verb. Twisted ferns whispered literary critiques under their breath. A vine slapped Bryn gently as she passed, uttering a limerick about lost plot threads.
Lira trudged behind them, her boots making squelching noises of protest with every step. Her braid was soaked, clinging to her back like a soggy plot thread. "I miss fighting monsters. At least they bled instead of snarked."
"Snark is a kind of blood probably," Rafael muttered from beneath his cloak. He was still adjusting to his new eyebrows—three now, after Lira plucked one for aesthetic purposes. They moved independently, conveying sarcasm in stereo. His boots were so soaked they had developed personalities. One of them was Scottish.
"I'd kill for a warm tavern, a dry shirt, and a plot hook that doesn't involve interpretive dance or metaphysical paperwork," he said.
As if summoned (or perhaps as a result of Rafael violating causality once again) a wooden sign dropped from the sky like a deadpan miracle. It read: "Plot Hook: Apply Within", and pointed to a nearby hillock that hadn't existed three seconds ago. The sign emitted a soft chime of smug relevance.
They stared. The sign wiggled, expectantly.
"Too convenient," Lira said, already drawing glyphs in the air and squinting. Her boots squelched as she moved forward anyway, because even suspicious narrative devices beat wandering in moss-scented limbo with soggy underpants.
The hillock turned out to be a trapdoor cleverly disguised as terrain. Inside, it opened into a parlor of mismatched furniture, wood-paneled regret, and literary guilt.
A fire crackled in the hearth, warming the smell of old paper and ancient, unspoken retcons. The rug had a pattern of shifting ellipses. The teapot sighed when poured.
A woman sat in the armchair, face half-shadowed, voice somewhere between Morgan Freeman and a cat who's seen too much. Her spectacles gleamed like exposition ready to pounce. She wore a cloak stitched from discarded footnotes.
"Welcome to the Editorial Lounge. I'm Bryn 2.0."
Bryn—the original—froze mid-sarcasm. "I'm sorry, what now?"
The woman gestured, uncannily mirroring her. "Backup version. Safeguard protocol. When the Loom fractured, narrative continuity made a failsafe. I'm you, but emotionally rebooted. Less trauma. More sass."
Bryn tilted her head, observing the exactness of the mimicry. Same eyes, same smirk, same scar above the brow—only softer, refined, curated. The uncanny valley had narrative lighting.
Rafael blinked. "That's illegal."
"So is dating your exposition fairy and surviving a paradox with nothing but a guilt complex and a half-burnt glyph," Bryn 2.0 replied cheerfully. Her tea steamed with foreshadowing and hints of cinnamon. "And don't forget that you already have a girlfriend that time," she smirked faintly.
Juno peeked into a nearby bookshelf. The titles included 'Unresolved Feelings', 'Chapter That Never Was', 'The Paradoxical Pantheon', and 'Plot Device Repair Manual, Volume IV: Explosions Edition.' One book growled when touched. Another wept softly. One sneezed.
"Why is this one bleeding ink?" Juno asked, holding up a volume titled 'Chronological Mistakes I Regret and Repeat.'
"That's an early draft," Bryn 2.0 said. "Be gentle."
Lira crossed her arms. "So what's the catch? There's always a catch."
Bryn 2.0 smiled, and somewhere a subplot whimpered. "You want out of the buffer? Want to reclaim your story? Then you finish what you started. No more loopholes. No glyphs to cheat fate. No reality-hacks via interpretive flashbacks. You go old school. One monster. One quest. One ridiculously significant decision."
Rafael raised a hand. "Do we get equipment upgrades?"
"You get boots that dry themselves, a map that argues with you, and a bag of sarcastic trail mix."
The trail mix later turned out to contain existential raisins, dried doubt, croutons of mild regret, a pinch of unresolved romantic tension, and one single, perfectly round peanut of destiny.
They left the Lounge with clearer direction, cleaner boots, and slightly more emotional baggage—now labeled and alphabetized. Lira's was under "B" for "Brooding," Rafael's under "G" for "Guilt," and Juno's under "I" for "Identity (conflicted)."
Outside, the Fenmarch looked no less squishy, but the clouds had begun forming vaguely encouraging shapes. One resembled a thumbs-up, another a middle finger. A third looked suspiciously like a literary agent.
Juno touched her glyphband—still glitchy, but pulsing in time with her heartbeat. It emitted a faint buzz of affirmation. "Let's go finish this."
"Together," Bryn said, watching her upgraded self walk off into the narrative horizon with a parasol, a hardcover journal of retconned regrets, and a backstory.
Lira drew her blade. Rafael adjusted his boots, which now hummed show tunes when damp. Juno tightened her gloves and checked her trail mix pouch for stability.
The path ahead curled like a question mark, occasionally twitching. The moss chuckled softly. Ferns cheered in lowercase italics.
Their story wasn't stitched tight anymore. But it was theirs to tell, page by chaotic page, with bad metaphors, better friendship, fewer protagonist, and a suspiciously sentient trail mix that might just hold the key to everything—or nothing.
***
"Oh, hi guys. Miss me already?"
"Mira?" Juno stared her head to toe.
She smiled, "yup. I'm here."
"You sure here with us from the beginning," Bryn said in confusion. "Why you said something like that?"
Mira furrowed, "no I didn't. Two chapters ago, when we touched that strange door, I'm being yeeted out. Watching you all in spectate mode."
"Gosh that's weird," Lira responded.
"For real."
Rafael noticed something. He realized that something wrong had happened. "We screwed! I can't remember anything after that door!"
***