Chapter 7 : Focus Session – Virgil Praxus Presents

There is a realm that exists outside time.

Not quite a void.

Not quite a room.

It had cubicles.

The carpet was too clean.

The walls were too polite.

The lights flickered like they were trying to wink but didn’t know how.

And the coffee machine brewed only existential dread in espresso form.

This was the Feedback Division, Sector V—a wholly unholy branch of Quality Assurance, dedicated to the careful observation and light meddling of developing worlds.

And here, before a semicircle of desks arranged like a jury with quarterly deadlines, stood Virgil Praxus.

She looked, at first glance, like a very tired woman in a suit that had once meant something. She had thick-rimmed glasses (worn without lenses), a clipboard etched with runes, and the distinct aura of someone who had once argued a philosophy professor into tears.

In truth, she was an entity older than existence, a being of ink and inference born in a city that only existed on maps used to lie to gods.

Today, she wore stress like a perfume and hope like a disguise.

"Right then," Virgil said, in a clipped, cultured tone that suggested she’d once hosted a murder mystery on a train and still suspected everyone.

"Thank you all for attending the preliminary emotional assessment for Development Project 742-D, working title, The One Where the Boy Gets Arrested on Purpose, and the Girl Makes the Rain Angry."

A ripple of polite enthusiasm murmured through the room. One reviewer gave a thumbs-up with two elbows. Another clapped with entirely the wrong number of fingers.

Virgil straightened a stack of imaginary papers and pressed on.

"So. General impressions. Was the emotional trajectory comprehensible? Did the tonal shift from Pratchettian whimsy to creeping horror feel integrated?"

A hand—or possibly a talon—raised.

“Lovely work,” said a creature shaped exactly like a middle manager.

“Strong sense of voice. The chaos lad, Kaz, is delightfully unhinged. Great branding opportunity.”

“Agreed,” said a reviewer whose smile was several inches to the left of her face.

“The girl, Leonor, too. Sparkling dialogue. Love the fish. Excellent fish.”

“Yes, yes,” said a velvet voice near the back, belonging to someone in a trench coat with teeth where buttons ought to be.

“But what about that boy? Pip. That’s a little cheap, innit?”

Virgil’s pen paused mid-hover.

The figure leaned forward.

“All that trauma and bedtime horror. It’s obvious he’s gonna die. Feels manipulative. Like you’re begging for tears.”

“Do shut up, Gorrence,” muttered a woman with hair made of receipts.

“What?” Gorrence spread their hands.

“It’s not real.”

They all paused at that. Not with shame. Just acknowledgement. Like someone had pointed out the teacups were decorative.

Virgil, to her credit, smiled the way people do right before a power outage.

“I appreciate the honesty,” she said.

“I do.”

She clicked her pen once.

Twice.

Three times.

“But I would gently posit that being predictable is not the same as being dishonest.

You see, tragedy doesn’t have to surprise you. In fact, it shouldn’t.

It walks toward you, slow and steady, while you scream at the page to do something else.”

Another click.

“And as for Pip...”

Her smile vanished.

“If you knew him.

If you’d heard him.

If you’d sat in that room and felt the weight of his breath hitching like it was trying to apologize for being real,

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

you wouldn’t ask if he dies. You’d ask if he lives.”

Silence.

The uncomfortable kind.

The kind that doesn’t end when someone clears their throat.

One of the eldritch reviewers coughed up a small agreement.

Another nodded solemnly, eating a stress ball.

“But yes,” Virgil continued, voice lighter again, falsely cheery, like someone who’d just taped over a crack in the hull.

“Some good notes. Worldbuilding still a bit obscure.

We’re folding too much cleverness into metaphor soup; audiences don’t always have the spoons.”

Laughter. The polite kind.

“And we do need to make sure the side characters aren’t just scaffolding for the leads.

Yes, we heard that too.”

She walked in a slow circle.

“Any final feedback before this gets released to the Mainline Imaginative Stream?”

There were a few scattered mutters: tighter hook, stronger lay-of-the-land, less cryptic magic systems, and more consistency in tone.

But no outrage. No fire.

Just... consumer interest.

Virgil nodded.

“Understood.”

She turned, clipboard held to her chest like a shield.

Her smile was perfect.

But her shadow curled around her heels like it was trying to hold her back.

Because if this story failed, if her story failed, she would vanish.

Not dramatically. Not tragically.

She’d just unhappen.

One foot through the door.

One final breath.

"Let’s hope they like it," she muttered.

Behind her, one reviewer whispered to another:

“She’ll be back. They always come back for edits.”

And the door to the world opened.

Back into the story.

Back into the fire.

Back into the page.

Almost.

Because just before she stepped through, Virgil paused.

She didn’t turn around. She didn’t speak.

But she felt it.

A stare.

Not a glare. Not rebellion. Not malice.

Just that ancient, awful thing: recognition.

Gorrence.

Still seated. Still smiling with his borrowed mouth.

But watching her—truly watching her—as if some gear behind his eyes had finally clicked into place.

As if to say:

I know you.

I know what you did.

You’re no different from us.

Even if you pretend to be.

Virgil didn’t flinch.

She didn’t look away.

She only raised her clipboard—just slightly, just once—

and clicked her pen.

Dismissal. Or defiance. Or maybe the only language they had left between them.

Then she stepped through the door.

And the moment passed.

But the stare did not.

INTERNAL MEMORANDUM

FROM: Virgil Praxus, Lead Narrative Architect, Sector V

TO: Mary (Quality Circulation Liaison, Reviewer Allocation Unit)

**RE: Reviewer Pool Rebalancing – Project 742-D

Timestamp: 06:43:19 - Local Constructed Time**

----------------------------------------

Mary,

I hope this finds you well—or at least intact. Quick note regarding the current reviewer pool assigned to Project 742-D (working title: The One Where the Boy Gets Arrested on Purpose, and the Girl Makes the Rain Angry).

After the last Focus Session, I’m growing mildly concerned (read: acutely alarmed) at the tonal drift emerging from some of the feedback. There's a scent of insubordination brewing—not the fun kind that leads to innovation, but the sour, mealy sort that curdles collaboration.

Gorrence in particular is starting to show signs of... awareness.

The kind that peers back.

I don’t like it.

Please consider reshuffling the reviewer batch for the next cycle. I’d prefer to fold in a few stabilizing voices—Type-Theta Reflective or perhaps a dormant Muse with ethics dampeners still intact. Someone with empathy protocols above baseline but without the compulsion to weaponize them.

If you could quietly phase out any units flagged “Disruptive-Inquisitive” or worse, “Meta-Agitated,” that would be ideal. I understand some of them have tenure, but frankly, so did the Leviathan we fired last quarter.

Keep it subtle. No alarms. No memos that sigh when opened. You know how the walls gossip.

I trust your discretion.

Cordially but with fraying patience,

—Virgil

P.S. If the coffee machine continues to bleed again, please send Maintenance another offering. Preferably, something without hope in it. Last time, someone used a bagel, and the screams haven’t stopped.