Natsuko and Shuixing trudged back up the hill to the Vermögenburgh Mage’s College in silence after Natsuko dealt with her Monday errands. Punting the Weekly Special Event Wyvern through the ground felt less satisfying than usual.
Natsuko felt like there was something she ought to say to Shuixing, but she couldn’t figure out what. Natsuko wasn’t a thinker, and she definitely wasn’t much of a feeler either unless immediate urges counted as feelings. She was really good at listening to those. But other people’s feelings? Or her own emotions when they were doing awkward, muddy things that didn’t boil down to kicking ass or drinking heavily or cursing someone out?
Not a damn clue.
She usually let Shuixing explain when stuff required “tact” and “subtlety,” but she had the sneaking suspicion that Shuixing might, in fact, be the source of her weird vibes.
Natsuko stuffed her cold hands into her pockets. “Damn, it’s cold.”
No response.
“Hey, guess who’s not gonna drink tonight?”
No response.
“Me! I’m not gonna drink. Isn’t that wild? That’s, like, archetype development! And I didn’t even have to go on a questline to get it. Unless you count that whole thing in the dungeon with the… you know…”
Natsuko’s brain, now a grueling 24 hours sober, was whirring into motion, rusty gears grinding and screeching, and with heroic effort, it came up with a hypothesis, much like Shuixing might for an experiment, that her friend’s silence might have something to do with what happened in that very same dungeon.
Natsuko circled around to the front of Shuixing and walked backwards facing her. “You uh… you still bummed about those papers?”
Shuixing’s cheeks puffed up. “Yes, Natsuko, I am still bummed about the papers. Gods I… do you know what I released into the world? Of course you do! What if someone who… who moves like Sofiane or Daisy, what if they have something like your bottle? They could knock us out of existence before we even know what happened, and it’s all my fault!”
“It’s not your fau—”
“Yes, it is,” Shuixing said with a glare that filled the frames of her glasses.
“Yeah alright it kinda is. But, as a wise man once said, things never really get better or worse, they just get different, so all you can do is roll with the difference,” Natsuko said with an air of authority like this was wisdom from the Celestials themselves.
Shuixing raised an eyebrow. “By wise man you mean Pechorin?”
Natsuko looked horrified. “No, please tell me you’re joking! That isn’t really a Pechorism, is it? It just popped into my head, there’s no way.”
Shuixing snorted. “He didn’t say it exactly like that, but he said something to that effect when we decided to break up the party and give up adventuring. You teased him for “huffing copium” when he said it, if I recall correctly.”
“Rrgh, gods-dammit! Do not tell him I said that, alright? Do not!”
“I wo—”
“I’m being a hundred percent real right now, you do not tell Pechorin I repeated one of his stupid edgelord phrases, capiche?”
“Alright, I won’t, I promise,” Shuixing said, stifling a giggle.
Natsu extended a pinkie and Shui grasped it wordlessly. There was a moment of lapsed silence after that as they made the last turn onto the tree-lined avenue that led to the Mage’s College. Above them, twilight was painting the clouds a purple-orange and the gas lamps along the street flickered on.
“It’s not that easy,” Shuixing said in a half-whisper.
“What’d’ya mean? What’s not that easy?”
“If it’s so easy to roll with things changing in a way you don’t like, why would you have to drink yourself silly every night to not think about the old days?”
“Tch, dammit Shuixing,” Natsuko said, turning to face the gates of the Mage’s College, “just because you’re correct doesn’t mean you’re right.”
~~~
Pechorin settled down into his comfortable home for the night. Most people might have found it uncomfortable, but most people were not him. Discomfort was comfortable. It was all he knew. It was all he had ever known since that fateful day that a mysterious group calling themselves “The Dark Conglomerate” massacred his entire clan, leaving him to fend for himself from the tender age of 12.
Streets or fields, forests or barns, it made no difference to him. His home was in the rage and torment inside him. The cold steel of his new home matched the cold steel which enshrouded his heart. From the darkness came the acrid smell of the hell that awaited him one day for his many, many sins.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
As part of his bedtime ritual, he emptied his pockets of the myriad things he carried with him in his trench coat. Out fell rounds and rounds of speed-loaders with special ammunition loaded followed by loaded dice and a set of cut cards—sans the ace of spades which he kept in the event that he did something cool and could leave it as a calling card—a flask (empty), a straight razor (still new, he didn’t grow facial hair), four pepperbox pistols, a hunting knife (which his class could not equip), a note from his deceased father, nine pork dumplings (they increased attack damage and he didn’t need recovery dishes since a good offense was better than a health pool anyway), and finally an opto-box photo of his former teammates.
The last he kept as a reminder to rely on no one but himself, for that was all you had in this cold, self-interested world which he lived in.
He set the picture down beside his guns on the floor of this steel fortress he had created for himself. It was the externalization of his inner resolve, a metaphorical suit of armor. His head rested wearily on his rucksack pillow and he shut his eyes, waiting for the nightmares to come.
~~~
“So, I’m not the only one who thinks this shouldn’t have happened in the first place, right?” Sofiane said.
Daisy rubbed her neck. “Ah, ahaha, hehe, well…”
Some of the regulars at the Devil’s Cut had decided to forego their Monday night imbibing of alcohol in the absence of their usual drinking buddy. Aside from one or two Non-Heroes in the corner nursing pints of ale, it was only Daisy and Sofiane at the bar. Plus the bartender. Claws, or something like that.
“I didn’t mention it earlier out of politeness, but none of this would have happened if Shuixing didn’t invent a way to murder people. Do you really think there’s nothing there? That she’s totally innocent?” Sofiane asked, fingertips doing figure-eights on the bar counter.
“I don’t know. I’m not always a good judge of character. I mostly want to be friends with everyone,” Daisy said. “There’s enough competitiveness and hostility over the Use-Rankings that I don’t want to add more.”
“But this is bigger than that! Way bigger! Friggin’—”
Sofiane expanded his arms to demonstrate how big, which led him to knock over his glass and spilling ruby-red port across the bar.
“Oops. Sorry, Mr. uh…” Sofiane squinted at the bartender. He gave up trying to remember his name and just motioned for another drink, then turned back to Daisy. “What was I saying? Oh, this blows the Use-Charts up entirely. This is an equalizer. Everyone becomes equal if this gets out and people start making weapons out of Shuixing’s research.”
Daisy nodded. “That was my thought.”
“I mean, what would that even look like? You and I busting our asses to stay on the charts… and then, POOF!”
The bartender pulled back the drink he was about to set down to avoid another sweep of Sofiane’s expressive arms.
“It doesn’t matter what anyone does then. Stats won’t matter, equipment won’t matter, dungeons, skills, classes, quests, the Entropic Axis, none of it. Numbers won’t mean a damn thing unless they’re the angles of whatever friggin’ killbox you can make with Shui’s work,” Sofiane said, slurring half his words.
Daisy’s mind felt like it was on a needle-point. She had to fall in some direction, but she was staving off deciding which direction for as long as her mind would let her.
“Shuixing seems to think it’s more likely that someone who’s already on the Use-Chart will use it to dominate everyone else,” she said.
“She’s wrong,” Sofiane said. “Shui and Natsu haven’t been on top of the charts in years. They both think it’s still a free-for-all competition up there. The pure anarchy it used to be. You and I both know it’s not. It’s a tight little clique of whoever is closest to the Yishang, with little rings outwards for people who aren’t as tight. I’m what, in the B-ring? Maybe C, now that that smarmy little shit Koyon took my archetype from me. But you, Ms. Knows-The-Yishang-Personally, you’re right in the mid—”
Daisy slapped her palm over Sofiane’s mouth so hard it made him gag.
“Not so loud! Goodness gracious, Sofi, what were you thinkin'!?” she whispered.
She withdrew her hand a moment later, revealing a smirk underneath.
“What do I have to say to make you do that aga—? Ow!”
Daisy jammed her fist into his face and retracted.
“Ooh, shoot, I’m sorry! That was instinct, I swear! Ah, um… here, do you need me to order some ice?”
Sofiane winced and pressed the glass of chilly port to his jaw. “Nope, nope, it’s fine. We’re good.”
He took a long pull from the wine and wiped away the trails dribbling down his chin.
“Why the secrecy though?” Sofiane said. “We’re the only Heroes around right now and it’s not like the Non-Heroes really care. So what if we bring up…”
He stopped when Daisy gave him a look like she was going to put her stats to work bending him into a neat lacy bow. He threw up his hands in surrender. “Whatever. Best case scenario is we nab Yuna, or whoever was stupid enough to try and steal the secret to forced dimension-jumping, and talk some sense into them before they go and ruin everything.”
Daisy huffed and put her head in her hands while her mint julep slowly dripped its condensation onto the counter, mingling with the spilled port.
“You think Yun-chan’ll listen? Hmm… I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing if she’s the thief. On one hand, she probably just wants to use it to win her storyline quest and take over Shikijima. That’s definitely not as bad as someone using it to destroy the Use-Rankings. On the other hand… well, you’ve heard the stories about her, right?”
“That she takes her archetype even more seriously than that dork, Pechorin?” Sofiane said.
Daisy nodded. “One hundred and fifty percent true. She’s a die-hard. She hasn’t quite figured out that the Yishang just plum don’t want resolved questlines. I sure as heck don’t know why, but if she believes somethin’ like Natsuko’s bottle’ll get her closer to conquering Shikijima, well, she’ll say nuts to everyone else and try it. Which means…”
“She’s not gonna give Shui’s papers up willingly,” Sofiane said.
Daisy closed her left eye to aim and fired a few shots of her signature finger guns dead between Sofiane’s eyebrows. “Bang! Bang! Right on!”
Sofiane chuckled and motioned for another round of port.
“What are you gonna do with the papers if— once you get ‘em back? It’s not like any of us can stop you from doing what you want with them,” Sofiane said.
There was that pinprick under Daisy again, getting smaller and smaller all the time, trying to get her to throw her chips down. Gosh was it irritating.
“Hmph, I’m a simple gal, Mister So-Fee-Yawn, I take things one step at a time, and it sure ain’t time for me to worry about those papers just yet,” Daisy said with a disarming smile.