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After coming home from a vacation, a 14 hour shift of patting and hugging and nuzzling people can fly by and feel almost refreshing! Although, you do get a bit sore in the throat... but it's sore in a good way! Tomorrow will probably be a much shorter shift. Let's try learning some physics facts that'll be fun to share with people! Like how that "3 filters can let in more light than just 2" thing that she's really having fun grappling and wrapping her head around works. Cynthia walks over to the main room, finding a comfortable lotus position while grabbing the fancy notebook that she asked the apartment building housekeeper to bring together with her laundry. She thinks intensely, wanting her train of thought to start on the right station...
??? Cynthia opens her phone. "I'm looking at a number right now. What is it?" she says to the notebook, instead of telling the hospital she worries that she has lost contact with consensus reality.
"You're looking at your phone's IMEI number! It's 350941686974321. I'm not scary, don't be worried! I can give you Amazing Magical Powers!"
Cynthia nods along, thinking that if she's delusional, she'll at least try wringing some fun out of it. She's on her own, so she doesn't have to worry about attacking someone, right? "Well, can you give me a list? Can you try starting with the most impactful or costly or complicated... things first?"
"It's a point system! So I'll start with the ones costing the most points, first. There is: 1 eight, 3 sixes, 7 fives, 6 fours, 17 threes, 11 twos and 18 ones. According to my judgement, I believe the most impactful powers are as follows: Four Star Daydream (and predecessors), Dressing Room, Just a Little Longer, Battle Angel, Omniglot, I Can Fix Them, Two Become One (and predecessor), Bop It (and predecessor), The Princess and the Dragon, Bonus Style Points (and predecessor), Friends in High Places, There's Another One, for a total of 11 hugely impactful powers in my proposed first screen."
The pages of the notebook rapidly fill with explanations of the powers and what they could do for Cynthia.
So. There's effective invincibility during combat, 1 point (does fighting loneliness count as being in a fight?), infinite energy and work capacity (but only when it's something I care about doing!), 1 point, never getting elbowed in the face when lovemaking, 1 point, knowing exactly how to please someone, 1 point. Yeah, those are the kinds of small bonuses that you use to round out your build if you've got the core of it done.
Now for the real meat! I have nigh-infinite wealth, just like that, the ability to instantly change my entire appearance when unobserved, the ability to reform literally every human being, learn languages lightning quick, never worry about someone being too big for me, incrementally resolve people's dysphoria just by them being friends with me, powerful allies, and someone else showing up with similarly spectacular and potentially helpful powers! I'm unconvinced.
"Yeah, you might be a magical talking notebook, but the designers of this couldn't possibly have been this bad at giving meaningful drawbacks and interesting choices to the RP participants. I'm having idiopathic hallucinations, and I'll call the local hospital about it right now. I'm only happy to have them take care of me while I recover, really."
"No, no! This isn't a hallucination! I can tell you the 2 prime factors of this huge number, believe me!" A huge number does, in fact, appear, as Cynthia flipped to the page after seeing the ink starting to form through the strong, thin paper. The phone dutifully informs Cynthia that the ink on the notebook, very much untouched by Cynthia's hand, does indeed show the right 2 numbers for making the third. "See? This is fully real!"
Cynthia doesn't have anything to say back. "So, this is real, then? Well, I guess I'm just about out of points, now? Right?" A number appears in the corner of each page... 36/73. "I have another 37? Wha - this is ridiculous! Can you - can you show me the most expensive options, then start going down towards cheaper ones?"
"Gladly, miss. I'll show you all options costing in excess of 4."
| Power Name | Power Cost | Power Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Tragic Backstory | 8 | (Requires Excuse Me) Something terrible happened to you in your past. Anyone who hears about it immediately forgives you for any and all bad behaviour in the present. They will not expect you to grow or change, and will continue sympathetically excusing whatever you do indefinitely. |
| Undiplomatic Immunity | 6 | You are above the law. Any crimes you commit will be overlooked by the authorities. Note that, if you do enough crime that you start looking more like an invading army, local governments will still feel free to declare war. |
| Anything You Can Do | 6 | You learn implausibly quickly from friends, rivals, and love interests. If you have a personal connection to someone with a certain skill, talent, or expertise, you'll learn it five times faster than they did, or twenty times faster if they're actively trying to teach you. This applies even to forms of magic that you ordinarily shouldn't be able to learn. |
| My Ears Are Burning | 6 | You always know exactly what people are thinking, as long as it's about you. This effect is not telepathy and is not blocked by effects that block telepathy. It applies even to people you can't perceive normally. You are never impaired by the flood of information. |
| Mysterious Allure | 5 | There's just something about you. People are drawn to you, fascinated by you. You tend to be the most interesting person in the room unless something really unusual is going on. |
| Bestest Friend | 5 | (Requires Best Friend) Your animal companion is a fully magical creature, like a dragon or unicorn. They have magnificent supernatural powers ready to be used at your command. They can speak every language you can, but can still communicate with you on a deeper level of mutual love and understanding. |
| Love Dodecahedron | 5 | (Requires Love Triangle) When you fall for someone who is already seriously dating or even married, your romantic rival will be open to allowing their partner to date you, and may even want to date you themselves. |
| Time Enough For Love | 5 | No matter how many people you want to date or be close friends with, you will somehow find the time to hang out with all of them and express your love and care. This power can only be used for relationship activities and not for anything else you might want to use the ability to be in two places at once for. |
| I Can Fix Them | 5 | Regardless of how morally despicable someone is, your love can and will reform them into a genuinely good, kind, upstanding person who regrets their evil deeds. |
| Excuse Me | 5 | (Requires Sorry About That) All your friends will be just as forgiving as your true love. |
| Dragon Fairy Elf Witch | 5 | You can at any time discover previously unknown heritage from any type of being you encounter, even if this makes no sense or contradicts previously established descriptions of your family tree. You always get their powers without their drawbacks, unless the drawbacks are cool and dramatic. Any visible features of this heritage will appear at narratively appropriate moments and be cute, pretty, beautiful, or striking rather than awkward, weird, gross, or scary. This ability works even if the beings in question cannot reproduce with humans, or at all. |
"Most of these are bizarrely terrible... ability for people to accept my bad behavior, commit severe crimes, telepathy for when people are thinking about me... I'll want to be able to learn 20 times faster when tutored by someone that matters, that's beyond spectacular. And multiplying the amount of time I have to spend with people? That's another thing I'll absolutely be adding! But for the rest... the point costs are utterly indefensible, in all honestly. That Dragon Fairy Elf Witch thing can get me other powers, in turn. But I'm not sure about what kind of powers those would be or how they'd help? Like, do I go somewhere where there's tons of people that have every power here, eat their powers and get this whole table for 5 points? Or will I stay here where it's completely irrelevant?"
"Staying here or ending up somewhere else is entirely up to you, miss! That tends to be one of the final options taken; I think I'll hold off on your options until you've spent your points. At present, you're up to 47 points, having 26 remaining. There are at present 52 options with a cost between 1 and 4 inclusive. These will take up a fair few pages of the book; I suggest cocktail-sorting them in terms of desirability, starting with the options costing 4, and excluding the two you've presently accepted, those being Four Star Daydream and a predecessor for Bonus Style Points."
| Power Name | Power Cost | Power Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Helpfulness | 4 | Your friends love to do you favours. They'll volunteer eagerly whenever you need help with small tasks. |
| Agree to Agree | 4 | You can always convince your friends to see your point of view about things like politics and philosophy. They might have a few quibbles here and there, but they'll see how right you are once you explain where you're coming from in enough detail. |
| GGG | 4 | Your true love will be willing to try just about anything you suggest in bed, and if you really enjoy it, they'll really enjoy it too. |
| Before Your Eyes | 4 | In your presence, people become willing to experiment sexually in ways they normally wouldn't. For some reason this applies especially well to boys kissing each other. |
"Because I'll be choosing friends who are compatible with me in these areas, or have infinite wealth, none of these appeal. Hiring domestic workers or sex workers would let me achieve most of these effects, whether it's help with small tasks, willingness to try anything, or boys kissing? Why... why would that be an advantage?"
"The power is not for you then, miss! There are presently 46 powers with a cost less than 4; I'll give you time to peruse the tables yourself, miss. I can query them and order them any way you wish, but I'll be happy to wait for your thinking."
Cynthia chooses to start with the more expensive powers first. The ideal is eliminating as much of the option space early, to avoid the combinatorial explosion of possible options, right? In the threes, there's... superhuman strength! That seems like an OK start! I feel like Friends in High Places can be turned into everything else I need, really. And I think my charm should get me the other kinds of friends... being immune to illness and poisoning... I've put on some seriously-protective PPE for Pandemic Awareness Days, I'm not too worried outside of someone trying to poison my food. I'll just avoid that kind of situation? Gifts produce deadweight loss, no thank you! And you can probably find true love just by dating? Feels vaguely redundant, really.
So then the 2s are left. A conveniently short list, huh. "Effectively tame any animal..." that could be incredibly helpful if I ended up someplace with dangerous animals causing damage! Or useful beasts of burden. Or even here! I want to try doubling down on the time-multiplication. If I can hang out and spend time together with enough people without even doing anything interesting or important, I'll have all the time in the word... Iron Will sounds useful, but also slightly scary. Let's consider it on the second time through?
The 1s seem like they're making the most sense, really. Always being clean and smelling amazing, looking amazing... I want people to to be able to exceed my beauty, honestly. Feels slightly unfair if they can't. If I wanted compliments, I'd just... choose the right friends??? True Love's kiss only works on my "true love." I don't think that'd be enough people.
With the no-brainers, I'm ending up on 13 points left over. Let' just lower our standards a bit, shall we? Perfect singing, perfect hair, an iron will, Fated Lovers, really nothing new in the 4-and-above... that's one final point that I'd maybe want somewhere. For the ultra-beauty?
"As mentioned, it's common to end on choosing a destination. There are 3, although I suspect I know which you'd choose."
| Power Name | Power Cost | Power Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Stay Put | 0 | You're just going to take these powers and keep on keeping on right where you are. |
| Somewhere In Mind | 0 | You have a destination you want to go to, or another CYOA you're pairing this with. You can choose any place, real, historical, fictional, or made up in your own head right now, and the Spirit will take you there. After that, you're on your own as far as further interdimensional travel. |
| Isekai Roulette | 0 | Trust to the will of the Spirit and let it take you where you need to go. It will look at far more options than you could ever know about, and pick something that's likely to be even better for you than whatever you would have chosen on your own. |
"Yep, I'm taking the Chef's Choice. No way is my imagination better than yours. If it's better for me, it'd also bet better in terms of powers to eat using Dragon Fairy Elf Witch. So that power will subsume a vast amount of this table. So that's the combo I'm taking. With my present decisions, I'm 4 points short. I'll be choosing to make it up through... I think Fated Lovers is the least-good effect I've currently chosen. And also Angelic Tones, although that's slightly more dubious."
"Perhaps there's a downside that makes sense? They'll Know is fine, honestly. I don't have powers that affect people's preferences, so I think they'd be fine with me having and using them. Actually, I'd be happy to have my friends knowingly enjoy the benefits of my power; that's barely a downside at all! Realism weakening I can Fix Them probably makes it a non-starter, I don't need points much. Decorative is the least-harmful of the cheaper options. But it seems like it's very annoying for just one point, much like Style of Sisyphus."
"Wait, now that I've added 2 drawbacks (how is There is Another a drawback??), I actually have 81 points total! Let's go back... so, a bunch of things I like add up to 80 points. The Chopping Block has: perfect beauty, perfect singing, maybe Iron Will isn't worth 4 points? Fated Lovers... honestly, I'll just be good at dating. And True Name magic sounds like it could be impossibly dangerous, and I look pretty good as it is. Having Friends in Low, High and Strange Places should get me a lot of things money can't buy, and lots of chances for time-multiplication shenanigans. So, I think that's my build, really."
"A most fascinating build, miss Cynthia. It seems your thinking was money, time, and what money can't buy. I think you had a very clever strategy! What are you thoughts on reviewing it, considering chosen and potential options side by side?" The book doesn't wait for Cynthia's reply before creating a column sorting all the powers she had chosen by their cost, next to a column showing all the options she hadn't taken costing the same. There really isn't anything too tempting in the second column for Cynthia.
"Yeah, I don't think there's anything particularly worth picking up among the unchosen options. Can you give me time to write a letter explaining my situation and freeing up the basic assigned to me, before teleporting me off to somewhere that's even more perfect than anything I could manage to think of? ...would it hurt you if I ripped off a sheet from your pages to write on?"
"No, that wouldn't hurt at all! Actually, I suggest you dictate everything to me. Easier on your end, and it'd prove that there were supernatural forces involved in creating this letter." The notebook begins writing out an explanation for Cynthia's situation, that it is a power traveling across time space, choosing to bless Cynthia with the ability to travel to other dimensions. As well as answering a few NP-complete problems in ways that are easy to verify and impossible to fake, because it has supernatural abilities of that particular type, of course.
Cynthia dictates a letter telling everyone what happened to the notebook, before gently ripping out the page. She walks over to the elevator, letting the housekeeper know through writing invisible ink on the elevator's wall that there's a letter in her apartment that she wants to send to her parents and publicize to the world. The she walks back into her apartment, standing tense in front of the door to her bedroom. "You'll make it so the door opens into the Chef's Choice world instead of my bedroom, right? I can only ever be ready now, so... let's go!" Cynthia decisively starts making her way toward the door (usually leading to) her bedroom.