Edge Cases

179 - Book 3: Chapter 44: Armed and Ready

"You're the one who awakened me," the armor said.

"I am, yes." Derivan stepped forward he didn't sense any ill intent from the armor he'd awakened, as impulsive as the act had been. The armor stared at him for a moment, considering him, and then gave him a slight nod.

"I've chosen the name Gallant," he said. Behind him, Sev made a strangled noise, and Derivan found a moment to give a withering stare at the cleric, who to his credit looked apologetic. Misa patted him on the shoulder.

"I am Derivan," Derivan said, not unkindly. "I apologize for leaving so quickly after awakening you. Circumstances were difficult at the time."

"So it seems." Gallant didn't seem particularly surprised. His gaze lingered on Sev for a moment, some amusement dancing in his eyes, and then he glanced out of the hole in the wall. It was the one the adventurers had left through months ago. "I'd considered following, but I don't think I'd survive the drop."

"Not well," Derivan agreed.

"This is awkward," Gallant admitted after a moment. "I keep wondering if I should call you dad or something."

This time, both Sev and Vex made a strangled noise. Misa didn't even bother hiding her snort of laughter, while Derivan briefly looked panicked, Gallant allowed a smirk to touch his eyes.

"No, I'm kidding," he said after a moment. "I'm thankful you awakened me, though. I was wondering if I'd see you again. Could you follow me?"

"Sure," Derivan said cautiously.

The four of them traipsed after the armor. He was silver, compared to the deep purple of Derivan's own armor; Derivan wondered for a moment how much Gallant remembered of the Scimitars, of their people. Nothing, if they were anything alike, and yet...

...and yet, Gallant seemed much more fully formed than he had, a few months after his own awakening. Derivan remembered only bits and pieces of it, in truth; his awakening had been slow and gradual. Perhaps he'd skipped something crucial in his awakening of the armor, or perhaps a more fully-formed imprint from the Void had managed to find itself within Gallant.

That thought only seemed more likely when Gallant led them to a blacksmithing workshop. Jelevar had told him that their people had taken up smithing as a form of art and expression, after all.

"I noticed you were missing an arm," Gallant said, his voice just slightly dry, and Derivan took a second look at the workshop.

The entire place was scattered with arms. If he hadn't had context from his own missing arm, Derivan would have found it slightly creepy.

"Have you been trying to make me a replacement?" Derivan asked, stunned. "You did not have to."

"I know that." Gallant laughed. The armor's voice was much lighter than his own, he noticed; the laugh sounded almost like the tinkling of chimes. "But it was an interesting challenge, and most of the books here are about the weapons wielded by great heroes. I'd like to be a great hero, but I'm rather trapped in here."

"Ah." Derivan felt briefly ashamed. "Perhaps we should have tried to retrieve you. I apologize."

"I was quite happy here," Gallant said dismissively. "And I wouldn't have wanted to leave, I don't think. Even now, the thought of leaving the dungeon is... uncomfortable."

He frowned for a moment, as if lost in thought, and Derivan didn't interrupt him. After a moment, Gallant shook his head and bent down to pull open a chest.

"This is the closest I was able to get," he said.

It was a near perfect replica of Derivan's arm.

"I needed a project, and this seemed as good a project as any," Gallant said with a small smile. "I don't know how well this will work, or if our kind can even just reattach parts like that, but I hope you're able to do something with it. I'm afraid I don't know how it all works, and I wasn't particularly willing to pull off my own arm to check."

"Understandable," Derivan said with a slight chuckle, hiding his astonishment. He picked up his copy of the arm, looking it over with no small amount of wonder; Gallant had only seen his arm once or twice, and only briefly.

Unbidden, a Remembrance grew warm within his soul.

The Exadite Pin was calling to him.

He invoked it without thinking, the crystalline butterfly materializing in his hand. It pulsed with a faint glow, and Gallant made a noise that sounded like a sharp intake of breath, his eyes focusing sharply on the pin.

"Where did you get that?" he asked.

"It is... a piece of our people," Derivan said carefully, watching Gallant. He didn't know what the pin wanted from him only that there was something that it wanted, something he could do. He held with him a small piece of their people, and Gallant had just done something that was in line with what Jelevar had told him of their traditions.

Perhaps this meant something.

"May I?" Gallant said, reaching out almost hesitantly. Derivan didn't stop him from taking the small, beautifully crafted pin into his hands; he cradled it like it was something precious.

A spark grew, snapping between the pin and Gallant.

It lasted for a fraction of a second, and Gallant stumbled, then straightened.

"Oh," he said softly. "I need to sit down."

Gallant, it turned out, remembered.

Not entirely. A Remembrance couldn't contain the entirety of their history, and the power it contained was bent towards more than simple remembering; there was more it could do. Derivan could, for example, use the Exadite Pin to draw upon some of the greatest things his people had crafted.

This was a different function, borne of the small change he had made when he had altered what Remembrances did, giving it a function beyond power.

But Gallant now remembered pieces he didn't remember before. He remembered his first attendance of the Freeforged Light, and the wonder he felt at the things his friends and family had created. He remembered the moment he had forged his own first piece of art no weapon nor shield, nor even a pin. He'd forged a little needle, lined with gold trim in a delicate pattern, and gifted it to a friend who loved to sew.

She was his girlfriend not more than a year later. She was a dryara, Gallant explained; yet another species that had been lost to the Void. They were similar to humanoid plant-beings, and were a beautiful people that lived and died in cycles. None of them truly died, but their souls shifted among the seeds, and every time they died they would be reborn elsewhere; to hold a relationship with one of them was to know that it could not last.

It was still, Gallant said, some of the happiest years of his life.

He seemed hopeful that Derivan would have a Remembrance of them as well, but Derivan shook his head sadly. It was a miracle that Gallant remembered that much of them at all perhaps the Remembrance carried more power than he had hoped.

Gallant sighed.

"I'm keeping this name," he told them after a moment. "The books I read here still meant something to me, and the name is a name I chose. I had a different name before, but it was given to me by our creators; it wasn't something I chose. This means more to me, I think."

"Self-chosen names are always more meaningful," Sev offered. Gallant gave him a flat look, and then grinned.

"The arm I made won't work for you," he told Derivan after a moment. "Now that I remember more. It's missing the connecting runes that would let it attach to the rest of your armor. I'll need to forge a new one and etch it into the metal while it's forging. I'll forge you a new one."

"We don't have much time left," Vex said worriedly. "About fifteen minutes before the system collapses the bonus room and takes us back to Elyra."

Gallant smirked. "Give me ten."

He was true to his word. He worked rapidly, magic flaring around him smithing skills that sped up the process, most likely, considering how quickly the metal he was working with heated and cooled. His hands blurred as he worked and etched, a look of pure concentration in his eyes.

Derivan watched. It was the first time he'd seen a true Scimitar smith, after all, and with some of his memories returned even if they weren't complete Gallant was the closest there had ever been.

Ten minutes later, a glowing arm sat in front of Gallant, and a final skill cooled it down instantly. Gallant picked it up and gestured for Derivan to approach, and when he did, he snapped the arm on.

Derivan felt a small surge of magic, and then feeling returned to him. A whole arm that he'd lost.

"Thank you," he said.

"Don't go losing any arms again." Gallant grinned, and then that grin faltered. "You were saying we'd be back in Elyra in... five minutes?"

"Five more minutes," Vex confirmed. They glanced out of the hole in the wall, and saw the rapidly-approaching border of the sub-reality they were in; Derivan realized with a start and a small clenching in his chest that it was likely that Clyde and the others were already gone.

They wouldn't experience true deaths, they had said; elementals like them existed in every reality, with something small shared between all of them. But those iterations of them, the ones they had become friends with...

...he wished, for a moment, that he'd had a real chance to say goodbye.

He reached out through Shift. He understood, in some small way, what the system was doing here; it had created an echo of a world using the eddies and currents inherent in reality. This whole room was an alternate history, born from a single strand of reality, a single wavelength.

Derivan memorized it. It was all he could do right now. Maybe once they understood the system better, and could replicate what it did...

Though of course, they had other problems to worry about first.

"One minute," Gallant said softly. "I don't know what I'll do in Elyra."

"You can't stay here." Vex was the one to speak again, though his expression was appropriately sympathetic. "Or even in Elyra. We have to evacuate the kingdom. The Void is encroaching."

"The thing that took our people?" Gallant glanced at Derivan, who nodded. "Can we fight it?"

"It's not a force we can fight," Sev said, shaking his head. "It's just the end."

"Oh."

The word was small. Derivan glanced at the others.

The moment they got back, they had to be prepared. They had run away from Irvis the first time.

And there was no guarantee he wouldn't be waiting when they returned.