Hirrus dug a grave for his fallen friend. While doing so, he found himself thinking about a lot of big questions. He wasn’t the sort of man who spent a lot of time pondering the nature of his internal self. In the last handful of days, he’d had his entire view of reality challenged, and learned things about the nature of his world that he was never meant to know.

The implications hadn’t bothered him yet - he had been quite busy lately - but digging a grave was an introspective activity.

He realized that, first and foremost, he couldn’t necessarily trust his own memory. Every week or so, the world was reset. If he died, he was brought back to life. His memory was altered to cover the discrepancy, and so he could never be sure of anything that had happened farther back than last Tuesday.

It made the knowledge that Alric would return again bittersweet.

The man was not gone forever. His kind heart and quick wit were not lost to this world. But when he returned, Hirrus wasn’t sure if he would know him. He knew he wouldn’t be able to be the same sort of friend to the man - his reinstated decision tree would see to that - but would he recognize him in the first place? It had taken the better part of the week to get used to his yammering and singing, and if that tolerance didn’t carry over through the reset, he’d never build it up again.

What bothered him the most was the uncertainty.

Or, more accurately, the lack thereof.

When he’d buried his wife, he didn’t know she would come back. He had been able to stomach doing what needed to be done because if Julissa was watching over him, it was from the afterlife. Even now, if she was watching him, he knew her memory would be as fuzzy as his when she returned. It was the only way he could unleash such unspeakable violence. If she was witnessing the monster within him, it might not stick in her mind when the reset put things right.

Alric, though? When they’d met, the man had described - in detail - how he had died every week previously. His memory remained through whatever magic happened on the reset. If he was watching, then he was very much going to remember what Hirrus did.

So, was he watching? Did he know Hirrus was giving him a proper burial? Was it a meaningless gesture that his Decision Tree was screaming at him to stop doing because Alric was an adventurer and not native to this world?

Ultimately, it didn’t matter.

It was the right thing to do.

And so he was going to do it.

He was glad to finish the job of digging. Once this was done, he could start properly moving on to the next task.

Though when he turned back to Alric’s body, he found himself facing a new challenge.

“Please put that back where it was,” Hirrus said with a scowl.

Nidra blinked at him in confusion. She had removed Alric’s helmet and was examining it.

The ex-assassin Awakened made no move to return the helmet to its proper place.

“Put it back,” he said again, firmly.

“Why?” Despite the question, she lifted his head and slid the open-faced helm back down over his head. She took a moment to adjust it into position. “He doesn’t need it anymore.”

“He deserves his dignity,” Hirrus said.

He was glad she’d started with the helmet. He knew the man was wearing powerful legendary pants, and he didn’t know how he would have reacted if he’d turned around to see her peeling them off of him.

There may have been blood spilt.

“He’ll be back,” Nidra said. She was trying to hide her irritation, but her red mask had been destroyed by her Merciless transformation, and so he could see her face now. Without that extra cover, she was as bad at hiding her emotions as Hirrus was. “But his gear won’t. He won’t get to keep it if we bury him with it. Are you going to give up all of this for meaningless sentiment?”

“We buried an old man,” Hirrus said. “A stranger. He was just a simple farmer. Nothing to either of us. He was killed by Fire’s goons, and we did the right thing. Never once did Alric ask me that question about the old man.”

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Nidra pressed her lips into a thin line. He wasn’t quite used to being able to see her face, but it made her much easier to read.

Aggravated as she was, he was right. She could not argue his point.

“All he has are my cast-offs,” Hirrus said. “None of it is going to be worthwhile for either of us.”

“There are more people than us in this fight,” Nidra said. Again, despite the protest, she scooped Alric’s body up and moved to the side of the grave, handing it down. “I am not looking for me. I am looking for them.”

Hirrus didn’t have a proper answer for that. He elected to ignore it.

If her intent was to raise an army, she should have said so earlier. Alric would likely have been happy to part with most of what he was carrying, if it was for a good cause.

This was the cost of her secrecy, then. Now it was no longer asking. Now it was grave robbing.

That was an indignity Hirrus wouldn’t suffer for him.

Alric’s body felt so light in Hirrus’s arms. Despite the armor, the corpse felt like it was made of sticks and straw. He attributed it to his ridiculously inflated BUR stat, but standing in the man’s grave, lowering him down onto the dirt, he felt it was more than that.

Alric had always been so animated and full of life.

Now that he was still and cold, his body felt empty.

It was like holding an empty ceramic pot. With no dirt or flower inside, it was an entirely different object.

Hirrus put Alric in the dirt and carefully crossed his arms over his chest. He took a moment to press his hand to the man’s shoulder, leaving a big dirty handprint there.

“I’m unsure of what you would want me to say,” Hirrus said to the corpse. “We didn’t know each other long enough for me to know. But I know to say this: you did the right thing. Whenever there was an option, no matter how painful it was to you, you did what was right. You’re a good man, and worthy of respect.”

He didn’t have anything else to say. With a soft sigh, he clambered out of the grave and started to push the dirt back in.

Surprisingly, Nidra didn’t say anything. She stood by and bore witness to the burial, but remained silent. Hirrus had thought the two of them were closer than he had been. She may have had significant animosity towards him as an adventurer when they’d met, but they were very alike. Their tactics had been so similar when they’d been supporting him.

After the grave was refilled, Hirrus cast about for something to mark it. Unlike when a non-adventurer died, no headstone appeared for him. Or, if it had, it wasn’t here. Among the pile of dirt he’d unearthed to dig the grave there was a hunk of stone. It was a water-worn oval shape, despite being so far from the nearest river. At about a foot long and nine inches wide at the center.

It was a clumsy grave marker. But it would do.

Hirrus planted it at the head of the grave.

He didn’t have any way to carve an epitaph. No Arcana would do the job without turning the stone to gravel. Alric didn’t seem the sort to take such a thing personally. Considering he hadn’t been properly buried at all the previous times he had died in this world, this was a big step up, even if it felt inadequate to Hirrus.

“He will remember you,” Nidra said quietly. “I think they all will, but he will remember who you were, not what you did.”

“That’s not what worries me,” Hirrus said. “Will I remember him?”

Nidra was silent for a moment. “In a way,” she said, after a time. “When you deal with adventurers all day, you don’t remember details. Surely you don’t remember the face of everyone who’s ever asked you for directions. They blend together. You can’t hold grudges or be swayed by repeated bribes or favors.”

“Hm.” Hirrus grunted. He’d never thought too carefully about it. It had never seemed that important to him until now.

“Our memories are fickle,” she continued. “ But the friendship you shared with Alric was not normal. Just like the animosity I had for the men who took command of our king. You won’t know his name after just one week, but you might recognize his features. You might mistake him for a long-lost acquaintance. A childhood friend you lost touch with, or a lookalike for someone you used to know. Unless you see him again all week every week, he won’t stick. The members of the Shadow Council are clear in my mind because I’ve suffered under their yoke for weeks upon weeks. If you go all of next week without seeing Alric again, he might be erased from your mind altogether.”

Hirrus nodded.

Like the featureless uncarved headstone, it would have to be enough.

“You were right, though,” Nidra said, unexpectedly. “He’s a good man. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see him again after the reset. And again the reset after that.” She shook her head. “In time, you might be as close as brothers, even immediately after a reset. If he cares for sentimentality as much as you do, I would stake my life on it.”

Hirrus bowed his head. It was true that Alric wasn’t like other adventurers. It seemed likely that when he returned to life, he would continue to act in unexpected ways. Perhaps this was the beginning of a lasting friendship.

“We have much to do, though,” she said at last, turning away from the grave. “I would love to let you grieve properly, but there isn’t time.”

Hirrus reflected on that for a second, letting her walk away as he stared at the grave. There was never time for grief.

After he buried Julissa, he needed to get Dahlia to safety.

And now that he buried Alric, he had to go on Nidra’s crusade.

“I hadn’t anticipated your efficacy,” Nidra said when Hirrus caught up to her. “I thought there would be more survivors. More to recruit to the cause. I’ll remember not to underestimate you again.”

“Hm.” Hirrus grunted again. Nidra seemed to be a different person now. No longer aloof and impatient, she was now driven and intent. It was as though killing Rumi and saving all of them from oblivion was just a chore, and now that it was out of the way, the real work excited her.

Frankly, it was worrying.

Just the same, he fell in step behind her.

He didn’t like being a tool, but he was committed to removing this Shadow Council.

Hirrus wanted to make the world a better place. If for no other reason than to make a world more welcoming to Alric and people like him.

And less welcoming to those like the Shadow Council.