hwango

Or, technically, the prompt is [Ignorance is Bliss’ –“For the ailing patient, intelligence is a miserable burden.”]

Cassie knew many things.

Some of these things were useful, practical things, but a large portion of them were trivia. Or, at least, they were trivia to most people. Cassie, however, was participating in a popular television quiz show, which meant that those facts that were unimportant, inconsequential, or nonessential to the general masses were for her weapons in her arsenal.

Currently, Cassie was expanding that arsenal. She had another week before she was due to appear on the show again, for their matches between returning previous winners, and she was spending that time trying to saturate her brain with random facts on a multitude of topics.

One morning, after a long night of memorizing the capitals of countries most people didn't even know existed, Cassie woke up certain in the knowledge that her boyfriend of the last three years planned to leave her. He felt that they had been growing apart for some time, but he was putting off the actual breakup until after she was done with the show because he didn't want the distraction to sabotage her performance.

Cassie wasn't sure how she knew this. She hadn't even suspected anything before now. She also wasn't really sure what to do about it. She was about to call her sister and ask her for advice, when she suddenly knew that her sister had cheated on her husband, which made her relationship advice much less appealing. Cassie also knew the specific gravity of Cesium, which didn't seem relevant to the situation, but was yet another thing that she didn't know why she knew.

Cassie didn't think this was a medical issue, but she had a routine doctor's appointment for later that morning, and decided that asking her doctor's opinion on the matter couldn't hurt. By the time she reached the office she had spontaneously intuited several more things she either didn't want to know or at least couldn't figure out why she knew them.

She explained the situation to her doctor, who seemed skeptical, but willing to hear her out. Her doctor then disappeared for a while to make a few phone calls and confer with various colleagues. Cassie waited, and knew things.

When the doctor returned, Cassie cut her off before she could speak.

"You're going to say I have something called Spontaneous Data Acquisition Disorder." Cassie said.

"If you already knew, then - oh," her doctor said. "Well, the good news is that we can treat it with - "

"That's a placebo."

"Nonsense, it's - ah. I see."

"This doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would have a medical explanation," Cassie said.

"I must admit, we're rather in the dark about what could cause it or how it works. Really, the only information I could find about it barely qualifies as actual medical science. I don't suppose you made any bargains with devils or faeries for knowledge, did you?"

"I beg your pardon?! How does that qualify as medical science?" Cassie asked indignantly.

"Oh, it doesn't. But science can't explain everything."

Cassie was silent for a moment as the explanations for several things science couldn't explain appeared in her brain.

"Well...I have been sleeping with a mysterious ancient artifact under my pillow every night for the last few days. But that was only supposed to be for luck. But that...does...seem to be the problem. Yes."

"I'm glad I could help?" Cassie's doctor said.

Cassie returned home and went immediately to her bedroom. The eldritch artifact was still under her pillow, right where she'd left it. It looked a bit more sinister than it had a few days ago when she'd first started using it.

"You're evil, aren't you?" she asked it. Yes. Yes it was.

"I probably should stop using you, then, shouldn't I? But I bet if I leave you there I'll learn all kinds of things. Things that might be worth knowing for the tournament."

Yes. Yes, they would.

"And I can just stop using you after the game is over, and everything will go back to normal and everything will be fine."

Of course.

"Okay then."

Cassie knew many things.

Alas, not everything that Cassie knew turned out to be true.