It was a long way down, down and down… The staircase only got colder as Jack and Polly were forced deeper into this frigid hellhole, though this hell was a cold one, so cold that the narrator could barely find words that could describe it unless they looked up a dictionary mid-narration.

“So, uhm… How deep does this iceberg go?” asked Jack. “We’re going to reach absolute zero at this rate.” And I don’t think kings can survive in absolute zero.

“How the hell do you know what an absolute zero is?” replied the guard. “This is supposed to be a fantasy setting, you mangy mutt! A limit to the degree of cold wasn’t calculated until 1740!”

Jack couldn’t argue against the flawless argument of the wise guard, so he had no choice but to accept the facts and logic.

But Polly wasn’t willing to capitulate. “Gawk, but the concept of primum frigidum was discussed in the 1665 book New Experiments and Observations touching Cold. Considering that many fantasy works are inspired by the late medieval and the renaissance, you could say that the concept of absolute zero could fit in the rules!”

“How the hell does a parrot know all of this?” objected the guard as he was leading them deeper and deeper.

“How the hell does a guard know all of this?” repeated Polly in a parrotly fashion.

“It’s because I have the skill [Convenient Fourth Wall Break] obviously!” replied the angry guard, shaking his weapon in anger.

Wait, this was supposed to be a LitRPG? Umm… Hopefully the other narrators have given you the necessary blue boxes so that this twist wasn’t surprising to you.

Having completely broken any semblance of continuity, the trio arrived in a room that was as frozen as the dead body I stuck in the freezer of the local McDonalds that other day. The room was frozen blue bricks all around.

“So, this is supposed to be the dungeon? This empty room doesn’t seem dungeony to me.” commented Jack.

“No, the author just forgot to write in a jail here.” replied Bob, the Weaver of the Fourth Wall. They didn’t forget to mention he was called Bob, right? Forget it, it’s common for authors to add this kind of stuff to the previous scenes. Bob pointed at the corner of the wall “Just sit there until plot happens, okay? Someone will probably come to save you, otherwise the story is ending here. It’d cause a great drop in the ratings if the author just said ‘The End’ so anticlimactically.”

“Fine, it’s not like the protagonist is supposed to be progressing the plot…” grumbled Jack as he had a ten-paragraph long rant about bad storytelling techniques that was omitted from the narration. Polly perched in the corner too, waiting for the plot to happen.

Nothing happened for the next few seconds. The next few minutes had nothing noticeable too, except for Polly coughing (can parrots even cough?). The guard was bored, so he pulled a phone out of his pocket while continuing to watch our protagonists.

Wait a second, thought Polly as he (she? It? They? Does the gender of a fictional parrot really matter?) observed the phone. “This is supposed to be a fantasy world! Stop it, you’re going to get us banned from the chain writing game!”

Bob laughed maniacally as he continued blipping on his phone. “You fools, you’ve wasted your time looking for the king, to gather the MacGuffins that were exposited in the last chapters!”

“Bob, stop it!” cried Polly.

“Now, I’ll get us banned from the chain writing game, and you’ll stop existing! This has been my plan all along!” said Bob, the Destroyer of Worlds.

Hopefully the previous narrators gave you enough context and foreshadowing for this unexpected plot twist.

“What’s worse, I’m going beyond what any other character has done before!” said Bob as he turned his phone screen towards Jack and Polly. “I’ll reveal the dark truth that lays beneath this setting!”

Jack squinted his wolf-eyes, trying to make out what was on the phone. “Is- Is this like one of these Nintendo things on the phone?”

“No, it’s not a Nintendo thing! It’s even worse, all along, this chain writing game has been secretly sponsored by Raid: Shadow Legends!” shouted Bob as he dropped yet another harrowing plot twist.

“No! Not Raid: Shadow Legends, the free mobile game for iOS and Android- What am I even saying?!” said Polly. It felt her mind be consumed by a desire to promote Raid: Shadow Legends.

“When I reincarnated to this world, I got the cheat skill [Shameless Advertisement]! With this I can make all the dosh I want by forcing you to promote any product! Now, tell me about Raid: Shadow Legends!” said Bob, dropping further plot twists that kept twisting like a twister at a twisting party in Twister, Sweden. “Tell the readers how it is free, and you can get free gems by entering the code ROYALROAD55122!”

“Stop it! We need to get this setting back to normal!” screamed Jack. He charged at Bob with all of his might. Bob dropped his phone, and its screen dissolved into a million pieces.

“Huh, must’ve been an iPhone if it was destroyed from such a little fall.” commented Polly as they needlessly revealed the brand of the phone Bob was using.

“Polly! Let’s run from this place, and stop breaking the fourth wall for Jingo’s sake! We must present ourselves like usual for the next author.”

“Right, up we go! Narrator, mind covering our tracks?”

Like so, our heroes, who were definitely still in a fantasy setting, ran up to escape from the dungeon that they had suffered so much from. They had faced great challenges down there, like that dragon that had almost turned Polly into roast parrot, the king that was allergic to fur that Jack accidentally killed and of course, nobody could forget about Polly’s long-lost sibling that died tragically as our heroes failed to save them.

Yet, despite their losses, the two were determined to get the legendary MacGuffin and save the land of Britonnia from the evil wizard Berlin. What’d our heroes find next in their thrilling and definitely fantastical adventure?