Of course there's the obvious Somewhere In Mind option of "somewhere with a friendly AI and the ability to teleport home" which would just Instantly Solve Her Problems, but if the Spirit has a definition of friendly that is only mostly hers that ends in Maximum Disaster so how about instead she not do that. If the Spirit had exactly her values it would be, uh, Fixing Every Universe In Reach and not giving a small number of people notebooks that only maybe resulted in saved universes. There's obviously some delta here, even if the Spirit is in fact being nice to her in a way that indicates that it's probably at bare minimum pretty okay. But anyway, it's an option, eventually heading out to nab something like that after having some ideas on a way to do it that isn't the stupidest possible way is going to be included in her Isekai Roulette draw, if the friendly notebook is being as honest as it seems.

So! On to her options!

A Thousand Ships and Personal Hygiene are cheap and going to be really nice to have. They're obviously worth getting. Immunity System seems absolutely necessary. Immunity to poison opens so many more options! Complete immunity to one of the main ways she could maybe be assassinated! Not being assassinated sounds great. Also it would make her immune to carbon monoxide poisoning. Hollow Leg looks like it maybe gives her agelessness? That's kind of incredible.

Notebook friend? Am I right that Hollow Leg would let me not age? That sounds really, really good.

If you don't want to age, Hollow Leg will stop it! It maintains your body actively according to what you want. 

Okay. So that one is absolutely sticking around. Also, it gets her the shapeshifting she wants, so double yes. But the bit where she's immune to old age really is the headline item.

Battle Maiden kiiind of looks like she could hop into any universe and be guaranteed to be tied for scariest entity in it? At least in direct single combat, which is admittedly a pretty substantial caveat? And it and the prereqs add up to kind of a lot of peace of mind from anyone attempting to kill her the old fashioned way. They should definitely be added, which means she needs to add five to the running total of the point costs she's got going on her phone's calculator. Onward to more choices!

Actually, looking up for a second, Inner Strength gives her super strength for only three points, now that she's picked the prerequisites. Strength is actually kind of incredibly important in a fight, if she's as skilled as anyone she's fighting being stronger would make it more likely she'd actually win. Well, provided her assumption that Battle Maiden would be upskilling her is true, but it doesn't actually say that, it says she'll be a match for anyone, no matter how skilled. It probably actually works through metanarrative.

How does Battle Maiden, like, work? Is it- miraculously increased skill for as long as I'm fighting anyone I need that skill to stalemate? Or is it broader ranging than that and more metanarrativey? Would taking Inner Strength along with it be a waste, or the kind of thing that would make it actually much more likely I'd win fights against scary people?

Battle Maiden ensures that whenever you have a fight, it'll be one that's on an equal playing field for you - one where you have even chances to win. If you're going after someone that's massively more skilled than you, you might find advantages through luck or skill, power up for the fight, or avoid the fight altogether. Plausibility still gets a say, though, so if you have combat skills or powers of your own you're more likely to get powerups or advantages and less likely to just duck fights you "ought" to lose. 

Okay, that looks like the super strength is in fact a substantial advantage. Onto the list it goes! "+3" is plugged into her calculator app. Making Ends Meet is enough to ensure money doesn't impinge on her time. She'd like to have more money, of course, but longer-term she should be able to turn her fantastical powers into money. Dragon Elf Fairy Witch is lovely. So many potential powersets! And the things she's getting her powers from don't need to even be capable of having children at all. If she lands in a fantasy universe she should be able to use this in all sorts of fun ways, and in a scifi one it could probably still come in handy! Realistically though she's going to land somewhere with magic, magic is cool. And if there are gods around, which there probably will be, being a demigod sounds kind of nice. Omniglot means she doesn't need to worry about language barriers. Anything You Can Do means she'll be able to learn things so quickly! She has so many things she wants to learn! And if she makes a bunch of new friends she'll be able to learn lots of them! And- honestly, her insecurities are going to be very salved by magically-guaranteed quick-learning. She- actually tends to learn pretty quickly already, but now she knows that she'll look impressive to anyone she's learning from.

Actually. It's. Kind of sad, to have her own skills so overshadowed by what the notebook gives her? Not by enough to make her not want the ability. It's just- she'll never have the ability to feel like her impressiveness when learning from people she's close to is really hers- wait. That metanarrative aegis. Does that apply here, or is this problem too directly part of the nature of the power?

Does that bit about the powers being offered under an aegis of metanarrative protection mean I should expect things like "Anything You Can Do" to get out of the way for a moment if I want to check how good I'd be at learning things without the ability?

Not natively, but I can make a version that does that!

Ooooh. Part of her really wants to just ask for a toggle attached to literally every single ability she has, but is that actually a good idea? Hmmm. You'd think it'd be pure upside, since it's just an increase in the option-space, but having the option to get pressured into lowering her poison defense might not be a good idea? Well, she can always just keep the ability to do that a secret, and there was an ability in here to prevent mind-reading- yep, there it is, Closed Book, literally the next power on the list and only one point. It and Indelible and Iron Will are obvious perks to take as well, and if customizing powers is on the menu-

Could I ask for my power-ups to be toggleable on and off? Obviously not for things where that would actually make me more powerful, turning on and off A Thousand Ships would be Free Shapeshifting and so probably cost points. But, say, be able to temporarily turn off my super strength from Inner Strength or my mindreading immunity from Closed Book? Or my mind control immunity from Iron Will?

She blushes a bit. She, um, may in fact have kinky reasons for wanting to be able to turn off the mind control immunity. Wait! Wait! These powers are friendly and narrativey, she can probably ask-

And, um, actually could I have a toggle that only works for actually-friendly mind control for Iron Will? Is that allowed?

I've been asked for abilities like that before!

Let me see...

A little hourglass filled with violet ink appears on the page and turns over a few times, then a new power fills in.

Name: Selective Soul - 3 pts 

You can actively turn on and off the effects of any power (but not any drawback) you have that would normally act automatically. 

How's this?

That's great! Thank you so much! I'm definitely taking that!

On to the friendship powers! Mysterious Allure is appealing, she'd like it if she got to always be Interesting. But probably not nonnegotiable. Likewise Captive Audience and Best Friend and Bestest Friend. She wants to not be alone, and that last pairing would let her get that immediately. And that would be nice. And Captive Audience would let her infodump as much as she wanted and people would find it interesting! One of her primary friendship enablers is finding her infodumps interesting! But she'll skip over them for now and keep them in mind for later.

Oh. Love Interest is nice. Very nice. She'd just- not really have to worry. It's would hurt a lot less to not be able to be with someone because of circumstance than because they didn't like her back. She'd need Mysterious Allure for that though. So, not on this first runthrough. And oh, the poly-enabling follow-ons look appealing too! But onward!

She'll take Time Enough For Love on her final build if she takes the poly-enabling powers. If she ends up with only one person, and is probably just going to stick with one person, it's less of a necessity.

I Can Fix Them is giving her interesting thoughts. But it's kind of niche. And she's unlikely to fall in love with anyone reprehensible in the first place.

True Love's Kiss looks incredible.

Does aging count as an illness or injury for True Love's Kiss?

Diseases or injuries caused by aging can be cured by True Love's Kiss, but aging itself is not considered such unless it's caused by, like, a curse or something like that. Usually people like to go on some kind of quest on behalf of the people they love to acquire immortality for them, or if they want to dodge the issue, just fall in love with people who are already immortal. 

I can upgrade it though!

Name: Eternal Love (Prereq True Love's Kiss) - 1 pt

Your love wards off death in all its forms. Kissing your true love restores both of you to the prime of health, as determined by the target, and can even bring you back from beyond death. Should there not be material remains to kiss, or if kissing them would be really gross, instead kissing a symbolic object or representation can bring your love back again in the prime of health. 

Warning: Because this power makes death less serious, it may make the narrative more likely to be willing to deal out (temporary) deaths if it would be really dramatic. 

Oh. Huh. She's still not really adjusted to the idea of having the narrative around and changing things. The idea of leaning on narrative to avoid her loved ones dying genuinely hadn't occurred to her. Going on a quest on behalf of someone she loves to give them immortality sounds kind of tremendously aesthetic, but also maybe like something she should avoid? If she can just get the immortality right here and now? The tradeoff of more temporary deaths makes it kind of not the greatest, but there's no way she won't try finding a way to resurrect people on her own anyway, and that would have the same result. So. Probably it's a point to get something she'd eventually be able to do without spending that point, sort of fast-forwarding her way through a certain part of the Plot. And it doesn't give her the ability to get anyone, just those she loves. Plausibly worth it, but maybe not if she's tight on points? Since she's apparently going to have some narrative protection anyway?

Oh. I kind of hadn't been thinking in terms of, you know, narrative causality. Kind of silly of me, I guess. Um, does that mean that without taking Eternal Love I probably wouldn't have to worry about Sudden Loved One Death until I'd developed the ability to resurrect people?

Probably not, no! You don't really seem the type to enjoy going on a big quest to get your lost love back. 

Well, that's incredibly good news. This is really going to be a kind of convenient journey, isn't it? One where things nearly aren't allowed to go too wrong. That's nice.

I think I'm going to probably not take that power, then. Sorry for making you put work into writing it even though I'm probably skipping it!

She genuinely feels kind of unreasonably guilty about that.

It's okay! It'll all about finding what you want. You can't do that without trying things.

A little heart appears next to the thank you.

Awww! Notebook good book! Best book, even! It is such a good- waiiit. Should she be using "it" pronouns? Also, is the notebook actually conscious? It probably is, but what if it's not? It would be sad to get attached to a not-actually-conscious notebook.

I just realized I never actually asked what pronouns I should be using for you. Or, uh, whether you're actually conscious or just look that way. It's not rude to ask that, is it?

I accept "it", because I am a notebook, or "she", because of who I am as a notebook. I promise I am actually conscious. Sometimes I even go with people on their adventures!

Oh! She should definitely bring the notebook with her then! Not only for Notebook Friendship Purposes, but also because she could help answer any questions she has about her powers or how metanarrativey stuff works.

I think I'm going to bring you with me then!

We can talk about it! I want to hear more about what you want to do before I decide whether I want to come along or not. I hope that's okay! 

That's completely okay!

It's entirely valid to not know immediately whether you want to go on adventures with someone. Her anxiety rears its head and attempts to tell her this means the notebook dislikes her, but this is silly and she will continue ignoring the brain gremlins at this time.

Onward to more choices!

She's still taking True Love's Kiss because it's really, really useful-sounding. And increases the number of universes she could end up in. Planned Parenthood, um, will probably come in handy. Oh no, a terrible pun. That wasn't on purpose. The ones for being better at sex feel- kind of obviated by Anything You Can Do, probably? She kind of doesn't want to immediately know exactly what to do. It feels a bit like cheating somehow. And she gets the benefits but slower from Anything You Can Do, and, um, it kind of feels like a luxury. If she has lots of points to spare at the end maybe. GGG and Before Your Eyes are likewise appealing and not something she's picking on round one.

Fated Lovers is kind of a perfect cure for her loneliness? She really, really wants it, so she takes it. Sorry About That feels- she can get the same benefits just by not being thoughtless and bad, right? So she'll skip it. Sense of Style isn't worth the point cost and feels kind of icky. Popular sounds maybe nice and maybe like it would be Too Much. Undiplomatic Immunity feels- useful in some universes and useless in others. And it's six points. She could also just not commit crimes? Well, if she lands in a transphobic civilization her existence could be a crime, so maybe this should be viewed mainly as a way to increase the number of worlds Isekai Roulette is choosing from? Still not really worth it for six points. And honestly she's kind of worried about morality-slippage if she can act completely consequence free. That's another reason not to take Sorry About That, actually.

Oh! Abilities for making friends! Those are great! Powers that are basically social skills in a bottle! Or, well, the skills needed not to embarrass herself in a bottle. If she takes all three Friends in Places abilities, she should have some sense of how to interact with everyone but those in the middlest of places. She pencils all of those in. Nine points, but it's worth it, not to have to worry that she's Missing Something Social quite so often.

They'll Know is the only drawback she's fine with taking. It doesn't matter to her if people realize something weird is going on with her, and she kind of wouldn't want everyone prevented from doing so, actually. If she's basically not taking abilities that mess with people's heads she should mostly be in the clear? It could maybe mesh poorly with Mysterious Allure and Captive Audience if she decided to take those.

How do Mysterious Allure and Captive Audience work, if they're not mind control? Is it the Spirit, like, looking through and picking out a universe where my story there will include the people in it just kind of naturally finding me alluring and interesting?

Powers like Mysterious Allure and Captive audience work firstly by metanarrative selection of worlds, situations and people to fit you being special and important, and only intervene directly to influence thoughts or behaviours if there's absolutely no other way for them to work. They generally use the minimum intervention necessary to produce the effect. 

Oh.

Could I get versions of those powers that don't do the thought and behaviour influencing, and just nudge the narrative and metanarrative?