It makes sense that the Committee of Fate would go to such great lengths to keep their workers placated. Since the moment they sit down in their pod, they are not allowed to get up again until their assignment is complete. That could be months, years, or even centuries depending on the lifeform you're given and the world they live in—stuck observing for an indeterminate amount of time. After that, they’re finally given a break, but many choose to move right along to the next assignment, if they even still exist at all.
This is the fate of all Fate Sprites, a task given by the god who created the committee. It was meant to be a temporary solution to ensure that life in the universe and the principles of destiny would keep working as they should in the god’s absence so that the creator could take a vacation. But that vacation had started eons ago, and very few Fate Sprites still existed from those beginning days. So there was no end in sight.
A sense of nervousness washes over you. This is your first assignment after all. Having just completed your training, you should be well-prepared for the task ahead of you. But you are also the first Fate Sprite in who-knows-how-long. Apparently the committee had stopped keeping track since the last one was born, lost to some record book in their library.
Your teacher seemed knowledgeable enough to impart the skills you needed for your job, but they also appeared a touch out of practice. But oh well, you will learn as you go. How bad could it be after all? Since ultimately, you can simply choose to do nothing and let fate play out as it will. The teacher had actually suggested that for your first assignment, you should merely observe and get a feel for the job. But they also understood that many new Sprites often felt compelled to take matters into their own hands. You do not yet know what sort of choices you will make.
Now that you’ve gotten settled, a screen illuminates before you. It is not like one crafted through technology. No, it is closer to a tear in space, a literal window into another world. There you see the subject of your first assignment. But which one is it? In your view, there are two beings. You suppose that all you can do is sit and wait to see which one your gaze follows.
And you also don’t know whether or not you should feel relief or panic. Regardless of your assigned target, both of them are human. A positive point is that human lives are not that long. They’re not as short as feebler creatures, but they’re far from the behemoth lifespans that something like a mystical beast would possess. So at the very least, this assignment won’t be too long in the grand scheme of things—not an awful way to start.
However, humans are also one of the more complex species. Their lives can go in so many directions, with infinite possibilities and fates that can befall them. Though many often never live up to their potential, so this observation could be exceedingly interesting or depressingly dull. You really have no idea what is in store, but ultimately, if you don’t like how things are going, you can change the outcome.
For a few minutes, you continue to watch the pair. Though it is your first time looking at a human, you instinctively know what they are. Those same innate deductions give you a few more inklings about their existence. One is a male and the other is a female. Both seem to be in either late adolescence or early adulthood. Despite this, you can not immediately deduce the nature of their relationship.
They do not really look like one another, so you doubt that they are siblings. From your best guess, you assume that they are either friends or lovers, though you will be unable to narrow it down without further observation.
The pair was enjoying a meal together. Though you have never eaten, the food looks rather simple to you, plain with minimal flavor and nutrition. It is likely that the pair was not well off, or at the very least, lived inextravagant lives.
While they continued their daily ritual, which you already know you’re going to get tired of watching, you take a better glance at their surroundings. It is far from what you understand a regular human abode to be. They were in a small circular room with a table at the center. The walls were made of stone with no windows, but they were lined with bookshelves, posters, drawings, and other human amusements.
On one side of the room there is a large wooden door, and on the other is a large stone spiral staircase leading upward. You wish you could explore to see where those places lead, but alas you cannot—tethered to your fated person, whomever they may be. Until they themselves decide to leave, you are stuck as a powerless voyeur.
It could be feasibly possible for you to change fate and hurry things along, but that would be a blatant misuse of the powers you have been bestowed and entrusted with. While not directly against the rules of the committee, to alter destiny simply for your own amusement would be a flagrant disregard for the reasons the Fate Sprites were created. It is the lives of their charges being affected after all. They are the ones who would suffer the consequences.
And besides, if you can’t sit still for a few minutes to let this mundane task unfold, how are you supposed to endure an entire lifetime of observation? Your patience eventually wins out, and you begin your duty in earnest. From there, since you’ve accepted the state of things, time appears to move a bit faster.
You watch the pair wrap up their meal. After a bit of further preparation, the two headed out of the room through the wooden door. You are met with a blinding light through the transition until your view clears to reveal a bright blue, cloudless sky. They stepped outside to a beautiful day and lush scenery that is a far cry from the drab spaces you’re used to seeing in the Committee of Fate.
You briefly wonder what it would be like to be in that space, to breathe the fresh air, to feel the warmth of the sun. But you know that you will never visit any of these worlds, maybe never even leave your pod again, so you must resort to living vicariously through them. You question how long this feeling of excitement will last until you become jaded like many of the other Sprites you passed along your way.
With this new perspective, though, you receive an answer to the mystery of the circular room. The pair now stood outside of a tall lighthouse atop a tall rocky cliff, towering high above the sea below. Though the waters were currently gentle, there were clear signs of scars and erosion on the landscape from when the waves were less than tame.
At first, the two humans stuck around the lighthouse. The boy tended to their nearby garden patch while the girl chopped wood over a stump, taking logs from a pile stacked neatly against the lighthouse. You had noticed a wood-burning stove earlier inside the circular room. It had looked decrepit and long past its viability, but the pair seemed to actually use it.
When the chores were done, the two headed down the path that slowly sloped down the grassy hill towards sea level. After they got to the bottom, they crossed a narrow path that headed over to the mainland with a town just a short walk beyond it. But the pair was a bit wary as they traversed that small strip of land. The seawater was right at the edge, and if the tide was any higher, they wouldn’t be able to cross. This likely meant there were times throughout the day where the lighthouse was essentially isolated, or cordoned off entirely when the sea raged during a storm.
After a bit more walking, the humans made their way into town and into another building. You find yourself a bit surprised that you can read the words ‘Staffing Agency’ written on the door. The pair was immediately greeted by a woman sitting out a counter. She seemed to know them well and immediately had a piece of paper ready for them.
This made the mood sour a bit when the two saw what was written on it, but they still accepted the paper graciously and forced smiles on their faces. After leaving the agency, the two wandered through the town to their appointed destination, arriving at a fish market a few minutes later.
They were met by a smiling man who was glad to see them, but were quickly pawned off to a less friendly person who would act as their supervisor. In mere moments, they had coveralls and brooms shoved in their direction, and then they were led to their worksite for the day. It was a pit where scraps from the fishmarket were collected until they could be hauled away.
Fortunately for them, the pit was relatively empty, though with still a few bits of flesh and specks of bone remaining around the area. However, the entire pit was coated with an inch of slime. There was a single moment of hesitation from the two workers, but they understood what was tasked of them, and they quickly got their task, scrubbing the pit down until it was spotless. You watched them work diligently, grateful that you are unable to smell the horrors they were subjected to, though you still felt an impulse to wretch all the same.
It took the boy and girl a few hours, but you watched them finish their job to completion. Then after returning their outfits and tools, they found their way back to the staffing agency. It was the clerk’s turn to force a smile, literally pinching her nose as she paid them for their service. “A little extra to help remedy the situation,” you hear the woman say despite her distorted words. It was actually the first clear dialogue that you understood. Perhaps you are getting used to the language of this world.
Stolen story; please report.
Back outside, the two gave each other a courteous sniff and reel in repulsion. They then took the woman’s words to heart and found their way to a bathhouse. Though they looked disheartened by spending their bonus coin on such frivolities, the pair understood the necessity. They were led by the attendant to adjoining stalls and then spent a good time scrubbing themselves clean. When they were fresh again, or at least more presentable in the eyes of society, the two left the bathhouse and wandered around the town some more.
They bought a meal, something modest that didn’t blow all of their pay, but still seemed like a delicacy compared to their pittance of a breakfast. Then came a bit more shopping. They purchased some rations that they didn’t have to grow themselves, then spent the rest of their day’s earnings on some cheap tools. Satisfied, they began the trek back to the lighthouse, crossing the thin strip of land before the tide was too high to make it impassible.
Something that annoyed you, though, was that despite watching the two for almost a full day, you were no closer to finding out which human was the focus of your assignment. Your view never seemed to favor one over the other. They both split your attention with neither claiming the spotlight. Had there been some sort of error, or perhaps they just spent far too much time together for it to never become clear. No matter. They would eventually separate for some reason or another. Fate would see to that. It just meant more patience.
The two relaxed at the lighthouse for a while, but then they headed outside. You’re surprised to see their choice of evening activity, some light sparing. They smacked at each other using crude laundry poles as makeshift spears. Even though you’ve never witnessed a proper battle, it was easy to tell how poor their form was. It looked more like fooling around than actual training, and maybe it was—just a way to burn energy and pretend like they were accomplishing something useful.
After the humans tuckered themselves out, they returned inside and prepared dinner on their woodburning stove with what few fresh ingredients they had purchased. The meal was simple vegetables and broth, noticeably not a fish in sight despite living next to the sea. It was a bit boring compared to their luscious lunch, but also likely the tastiest thing they’d eat for a while.
With their supper down, the two enjoyed their quiet evening around the table in the bottom floor of the lighthouse. The girl read while the boy fiddled with a radio, using their newly purchased tools to tinker with the device. He eventually managed to get it to light up, but never could get anything but static to come through. After much frustration, he eventually gave up.
Then with their long day concluded, the two forced their bodies up the winding staircase to the second floor where ragged but bearable bedding awaited them. Fortunately, their exhaustion made up for the lack of comfort, and the two humans quickly slipped off to sleep.
Time through the night rushed forward at a rapid pace. It was as if you yourself entered a trance, unaware of your own consciousness, only focusing in again when one of the pair awoke to toss and turn. Come the morning, you felt refreshed, ready to resume your voyeuristic duties for another day.
And that day played out similarly to the one before. The pair ate and did chores in the morning, then headed into town where they took another one-day job from the agency—repairs to the cobble roads. Then they headed home and relaxed from their hard day's labor.
Most days afterward were rather similar to the first—more odd jobs, more basic amenities purchased with their money to improve their quality of life, more time tinkering with that damned radio. But they didn’t go to work every day. No, once in a while, the pair would remain at the lighthouse, likely to give their bodies a break. Yet even then, they didn’t sit around idly.
One day they did some work around the thin strip of land that connected the lighthouse to the mainland. Based on the supplies they’d brought with them, you guess that they planned to build a bridge. Ambitious but idiotic for them to think they could accomplish it in one day. After they built the handrail, they considered their job done well enough for now, and spent the rest of the day lazing about.
During their next day off, the two tinkered with the light on the top of the lighthouse, attempting to get it running. Since the pair had never actually gone outside at night, you never knew if the beacon was working or not, but had a good guess since they’d never made any effort to maintain it until now. It was awfully bold of them to jump from a radio, that still wasn’t working, to such a giant machine, but perhaps its mechanics were simpler despite its size. Still, their efforts proved fruitless, yet they did seem to deduce the point of failure—more money they would need to spend on a replacement part.
Time marched on, and the days turned to weeks. Watching the pair became second nature to you, and you started to feel like you were living your life by their side—along for the ride. Despite the warnings from your teacher, and even though you never figured out which human you were actually supposed to be observing, you felt yourself becoming attached to both of them.
And when music played through the radio for the first time, you too felt a rush of relief and excitement, wanting to celebrate right alongside them. The girl, though, was less than enthused, quickly getting up to change the channel away from the droning classical music that now belted into their ears. She turned it to the news—the first time they were hearing from the world at large, outside of their small port town. And what they heard filled them with worry. A storm was coming.
The pair spent the next day doing what they could to prepare. They made a quick run into town for more supplies and pilfered the spare wood from their procrastinated bridge project. Though there were no windows to board in the lighthouse, there was still a glass enclosure around the unworking light. And one of the panels was already broken.
They spent the last of their savings on a proper tarp and some rope to rig it with, sealing over the broken opening. Then they used their wood to secure the remaining glass panels the best that they could. It was shoddy but better than nothing. That night, they huddled around the radio, listening to the report of the storm. There was a chance they’d be right in the center, and a chance they’d be missed entirely.
Your senses as a Fate Sprite begin to tingle for the first time. This is a choice that you could make, to ensure that the storm does not reach them. But to control such a massive force of nature as the one described on the broadcast, it would take much of your power. So you ultimately heed your teachers words and choose just to observe.
The humans eventually fell asleep. Since the storm wasn’t supposed to hit until the morning, they tried to get as much rest as they could. And you yourself eventually fall victim to the usual trance in spite of your steadily increasing worry.
◆◆◆
All three of you suddenly awake to the sound of a crash. Before the two humans can figure out what happened, water started to flood down the spiral staircase and into their pitiful bedroom. You hear the sound of the tarp flapping from above them, having failed to do its job. And you begin to think a second glass panel may have been shattered.
The boy rushed over to the staircase and looked up, trying to get a sense of what happened. He took a single step towards the top, only to be stopped by the entire building shaking by uproarious thunder that rumbled all around them. And that was only the first distressing quake of many. It felt like the sky itself was attacking the lighthouse, wind blasting, rain pouring, thunder booming.
Eventually, the pair decided to go down instead of up, finding their living space flooding with water. The girl managed to get the door open to let out the liquid, and the two then rushed around to try and save what little precious belongings they had. This storm was even worse than the man on the radio had predicted. At this rate, it was going to be their death.
The lighthouse rumbled once again, and long dormant dust sprinkled down on the humans. You watch with worry, fretting about what decision the two were going to make. “No, don't do it!” you find yourself yelling pointlessly as the two bolted outside, fearing that the building was going to crumble down on top of them.
They were hit with all the elements the moment they made it out the door—drenched by the rain, rattled by the thunder, and nearly toppled over by the wind. The pair looked towards the town and shouted their options at each other. One glance at the strip of connecting land was all it took to find it submerged with water rushing overhead. But their handrail was still above the water. Maybe, just maybe, they could use it to pull themselves across and make it to the safety of the town.
You wanted to yell at them again, for them to hear you, heed your warnings, but you knew it wouldn’t matter. Yet maybe you could do something to change their fate, somehow reduce the level of the water and ensure their safe passage.
But before you can even begin to think of a solution, the variables suddenly changed. With one more blitzing crash, lightning struck the top of the lighthouse. The pair looked up and the carnage only to find rubble from the tower careening right down towards them.
It was like time stopped in that moment, and every instinct as a Fate Sprite flared in you at once. This was not something that could be ignored. You knew instantly that if you did nothing, both humans would meet their ultimate end. But to save them, well, it wasn’t so simple. You were going up against destiny.
It was no coincidence that put those two at that spot. And suddenly, you realized why you had never been able to deduce the target of your assignment. It's because there wasn’t one yet. Your teacher had mentioned that this could happen briefly during your training, barely more than a passing notion since it happened so rarely. How lucky you are that it had to be your very first use of power.
This was an error in destiny, the very type of thing that the Committee of Fate had been created to prevent. It was clear to you now, one of the two was fated to be met with great misfortune in this spot, but not both. But the universe had not yet chosen who the victim would be. Normally, you would have the option to abstain, but not in this instance. No, you are forced to make a choice.
In order for your observation to continue, for their lives to carry on, fate needs to be written. You instinctively know what you must do to alter the course. The rubble needs to be diverted to one of them so that the other can be saved. Yet you have no clue what the victim will face, whether it will be their death or serious injury that will affect the rest of their life. And who will be the survivor, forced to live with the guilt that they could not save the other?
So who will it be? Who do you choose to be met with disaster?
Thank you for your interest in Fate by Committee. I know it’s a bit of a divergence from the classic Choose-Your-Own-Adventure formula, so hopefully I can create an interesting story you’ll want to see through to the end. And ultimately, that end will be entirely in the reader’s hands. At present, I only have this and the next selection of choices decided. From there, I have no idea where the story will go. It is entirely in your hands.
I make 2 promises for this series:
- I will abide by the polls without question and without bias. However, I will warn you that some choices might not be as they seem. There might be traps, bait and switches, or even some more or less urgent than first presented.
- I will follow through with this story until the main character reaches their ultimate end. Whether that be their death or the end of their journey. As long as someone is still reading and making a poll, I will continue writing it and will not forcibly end the series. That means I will not kill them off until I feasibly cannot think of a satisfying outcome where they could be saved.
However, with that said, I should mention that this is a side-project for me. I am currently working on editing my recently finished series for publication. But that is a long drawn out process, and I was feeling some writing withdrawal, so I decided to take a break and start this. Since there will be decently sized breaks where I need the polls to conclude, I can still focus on my main tasks. And even when that ends and I’m ready to begin my next main story, I will continue with this series if it hasn’t ended yet.
Additionally, if this scenario reaches its end rather quickly, I may begin a second scenario with a new premise but possibly with a twist to the execution if this formula isn’t well received. And if this scenario takes a while to make, I may still do more in the future, either to keep things fresh while writing my next series or when that series concludes.
For the polls, I will likely tweak how long they run for depending on interest and my availability to write the next chapters. I plan to start with 3 days and will go from there. Future chapters will likely be much shorter than this one, basically just up until there is a new choice to be made. So in turn, there’s a good chance I’ll make the polls shorter so that there’s less of a gap.
Also, right now I’m thinking of having the polls be private until the next chapter is released and then making the results public. That way, the outcome will be a surprise and then you can still see how everyone else voted. It may be something I poll in the future to see what you guys think.
Additionally, I am planning to do Bonus Polls for other facets of the series. Right now, I’m looking to do character names for the Fate Sprite and both humans. So if you have ideas for any of those, leave a comment. When there’s enough, I’ll put up an extra chapter with the poll. Or if I don’t get enough comments, I think of my own to vote on. Truly, though, I want you all to have as much influence on this story as possible.
Lastly, for those of you who may not be feeling the vibe so far, I do just want to say we are not yet at the main scenario. That has yet to be decided. I will (one-time-only) spoil the purpose of this poll and the next in the box below.
This first poll will be used to choose the main character. The second poll will choose the setting and general genre
With that in mind, hopefully you will stick around a bit longer and see where this story based on your votes goes in the future.
Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy the read!
-Drim
Who will be met with Disaster? [Poll Closed]