Introduction: He can fix her. (But she can make him so much worse.) Rank. Class. Purpose. All of creation is assigned its orderly place within the Divine and Immaculate Interface of the Most Holy Menu. Convert and pilgrim. Man and beast. All are bound by the glorious System's rigid structure and must conform to its divine dictates. Jelena is an enterprising, apostate and relic-thieving super-criminal with a grin to die for and a penchant for episcopicide. One who has forsaken her Interface and operates unbranded, without access to the System. She lives for relic hunting and the thievery thereof, often from the hands of murdered holy men. Calaf of Riverglen is a young and pious spear-wielding sewer grate guard. Ever faithful to the Most Holy Church of the Menu, this Paladin-aspirant is tasked with apprehending the dangerous heretic after she ransacks a cathedral and makes off with priceless holy relics. Along the way, Calaf shall gain in levels and strengthen his faith shadowing the route of the ancient and holy heroes of yore. Fateful encounters along the pilgrim's path cause the pair's fates to intersect in a series rife with adventure, action, and romance! His faith in the System and its Divine and Immaculate Menu Interface is absolute; she鈥檚 been through this whole spiel once before. But, as the pair grow closer, they find themselves turning from enemies to rivals, and maybe even to something more鈥?Updates:  Near-Daily during writeathons!]What to expect:    + Satirical LitRPG Shenanigans.   + Slow Burn Enemy-to-Lovers Rivalrymance morphing into proper long-term battle couple. No harem or love triangle.    + A world fully built around and reverently adherent to the System: its level rankings, skills, classes, and sacred strictures of the Menu and its Most Holy Interface.    + Pithy, spiffy item descriptions and monster names. Dire-rats, dire-pigeons, and much dire-more.    + Unsubtle Trails in the Sky, Honkai: Star Rail, and Final Fantasy references (among others!).   + Dungeons: of 'fake tourist trap', 'gauntlet of traps' and 'endurance test' varieties. ARCS:Volume One: (Posted: April 2024-February 2025)     - Synopsis: Calaf, current rat-slaying sewer grate guard and aspiring Paladin-in-training, embarks on a quest to apprehend a cackling, heretical apostate who is out to murder priests, steal relics, and, no doubt, hates the very concepts of faith, freedom, and liberty themselves! Verily, no quarter shall be brokered with this vile and unrepentant villainess. The pilgrimage path is perilous, and as he pursues the fiend he finds his perspective changing (and his quarry to be surprisingly hot). Can he maintain a Paladin-aspirant's sense of chivalry and right when calls for crusading suddenly feel wrong, and being with his fated rival suddenly feels so, so right? Part One: The Many Riddles of Turandot (April Writeathon 2024 successful entry! April 2024 - October 2024)Part Two: Min-Max Crusaders (November Writeathon 2024 Successful Entry! Oct-Nov 2024)Part Three: An R.E.M Soliloquy (November 2024-February 2025)     Volume II: (February 2025 - Ongoing)     - Synopsis: Following a spoilerific change to the status quo, our hero continues to forge his own path. This path happens to be in close proximity to the dashing relic thief he's spent all last pilgrimage season trying to apprehend. A chance discovery during a certain someone's latest heist leads to revelations regarding the founding years of the Church of the Menu and the life and times of the Ancient Heroes of Yore. Dire revelations force the pair and their budding posse of outlaw allies to assemble for The Heist of Multiple Centuries... directly at the fossilized, demonic corpse at the center of church power! Part Four: (Spoiler Title!) (February 2025 - March 2025)Part Five: New, Old Testament (April 2025 Writeathon entry!) Part Six: High Society (Upcoming) ... and more![Participant in the April and November 2024 Writeathon!][Participant in the April 2025 Writeathon][Cover courtesy, as always, of GetCovers]...