orientalblizzy’s Reviews > The Eye of the Bedlam Bride > Status Update

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: WHAT PARTNER?

Someone was reading this with you. Was. Past tense.

You had a book reading partner. You HAD one. You were doing this TOGETHER. That was the whole thing. That was the arrangement. You looked at each other and said “let’s do this as a team” and you meant it, you genuinely meant it, and then you opened the book and something happened to you and now he is approximately four hundred pages behind and it is entirely your fault.

He trusted you.

Reward: +50 to Solo Momentum. +10 to Denial. -9999 to Being A Team Player.

At some point he checked in to see how you were doing. You responded with a page number. The page number was alarming. He has not recovered.

PENALTY: Every exciting thing that happens you cannot talk about. You are BURSTING. There is nobody to burst with. You did this. You specifically created a situation where something incredible just happened in this book and you have to just SIT there and HOLD IT because your reading partner is still back in the part where everything was fine.

Everything is not fine anymore. You know this alone. In silence.

PENALTY 2: He is going to catch up eventually and want to discuss the part that destroyed you. By then you will have processed nothing and will simply start crying with no explanation.

BONUS ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: BETRAYAL IS A STRONG WORD. It is not a strong word. It is the correct word. He is using it.

Recommended next action: Slow down. Wait for him. Read together like you promised.

You have already turned the page.

HAHAH NO WAIT I CAN EXPLAIN

well well welllll

how the turn tables

I shan't forget the betrayal was once yours!! When you had already made haste upon reading ahead of me at the very beginning of this 6th adventure.

Now I do admit and face the shame (for shame indeed!) of not being able to pace myself, HOWEVER, let us not dwell in these childish matters more, let us commence.

I shall retract from the promised amount of pages read, if not 30 then what of 20? Would that suffice our good sir? I cannot help my power of sight, my immense pace and strong vision which allows such quick reading on my behalf. However, I do bear shame and utter disappointment in myself, thus I will slow my horses and wait patiently so that we may face the finishing line together, co-warlord!

TWENTY CHAPTERS. TWENTY. You dare negotiate with ME, a being of immense tactical superiority and dungeon-hardened patience, and you offer TWENTY chapters as tribute for your CRIMES against our sacred reading pact?

Fine. FINE. But let’s make it twentyfive chapters, you absolute lovely goblin.

I will accept this offering. Not because I am weak, mind you, but because a co-warlord who reads ahead like some kind of feral, page devouring floor boss is still better than crawling these dungeons alone.

The system has registered your shame. It has been NOTED. It has been CATALOGUED. Somewhere, an announcer with an unsettling amount of enthusiasm is narrating your disgrace to millions of viewers.

Now pull yourself together, slow those horse-powered eyes of yours down, and let us march into this 8th floor as the united, slightly dysfunctional, occasionally treacherous force that we are.

The dungeon awaits, you magnificent disaster. Try not to read it all before I blink.