Doctor Who and the Nomic of Death, Episode 88: The Princess

"Nope," said Betty-2. "I think I remember that it was a different place in one of my epsiodes, although it was inspired by someone who spelled it that way in Game 2. Could you look it up, Stacy?"

"Sure," said Stacy. The guide looked not unlike the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the television version, except that it was blue rather than red and had a small keyboard on the bottom. After a minute or so trying to understand the controls, Stacy typed "Vaalhallah" in the search function. "Well, it says that the King of Vaalhallah is in the Chamber of Twisted Cellars waiting for a knight who can solve his challenges and win half his treasure and his daughter's hand in marriage. The Princess Gloria is a super-gorgeous blonde in sexy lingerie who's designed to make the adolescent addventurer drool over plots about her. In Addventure, that would mean that she stands a very strong chance of getting into idiotic, illiterate sex plots, according to the guide, while in Extend-a-Story she would have stood a better chance of getting a good plot and some character depth but there would have been a 1-in-5 chance of it involving confusing time travel and/or parallel universes.... I'm not even going to ask what that last one was all about. Anyway, she really resents the idea of adolescent sex plots. She's 22 and has three PhD's, but her father is so bent on this traditional scenario that she can't talk him out of it."

"How did I recognize this?" asked Betty-1. "Why does this seem so familiar?"

"Probably because I wrote this episode and you would have been in it if you'd taken another corridor," said Betty-2. "It was a part of the same Raganventure thread that you were."

"OK, this is getting a little too weird," said Betty-1. "So do you think we're supposed to rescue the princess?"

"Let's check the rules," said Stacy. "Let's see--there's a new rule now. Rule 9-- Rescuing a princess is worth 5 points. I guess we should go look for her. I'm not sure how we're going to make our way through all these passages and find her, but..."

"Maybe it's that door we're right next to," said Betty-2.

"You really think it'll be that easy?" said Betty-1. "Clearly you haven't been in Addventure long enough. I--oh." Betty-2 had opened the door, and Betty-1 could indeed see a young woman, who was indeed a skimpily-dressed blonde, sitting at a dressing table with her head resting in her hands, apparently staring at a wall"

"Princess Gloria?" called out Stacy.

The woman looked out with a sigh. "Oh, hello Henrietta," she said. "Tell me you've brought me a knight..." She trailed off as she saw the three women standing there. "Oh," she said, sounding terribly disappointed. "You're not Henrietta and you're women, not knights." Suddenly, she seemed embarrassed. "Oh, I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I don't mean to be rude. It's just that... Well, I was so hoping my father'd found a knight to meet his challenges at last and we could get this whole stupid thing over with." "That's OK, I understand" said Betty-2. "Actually, I AM an Addenturer, just not the one that was expected, apparently." She sighed, herself. "Game 2 always was so chauvinistic, always assuming the viewpoint character was male. Well, except for that Forever Knight fanfic..." She trailed off, realizing the Princess and Stacy were staring at her in confusion and Betty-2 was raising her eyebrows. "Sorry. I'm rambling. But the point is, I do understand. Is there anything I can do you help?" "Well," said the princess,

1. "Thank you for offering. But I don't see what you could do."
2. "If one of YOU took the challenges and won, just maybe..."
3. "Yes. Help me get out of this horrible place!"

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