Edge Cases

148 - Book 3: Chapter 13: Interlude - Xothok - Intervention

The ground squelched under Xothok's feet, and he barely suppressed the disgusted grimace that crawled through his frame. He was distantly aware that everything here was a product of his mind, or so Kothos claimed, but it didn't make any of this feel any less real.

Stepping over viscera was not how he had pictured the day going.

"It's not real," Kothos said, for perhaps the third time, and Xothok leveled a glare at him.

"So you've said," he said, his voice coming out as a half-growl. Kothos chuckled nervously.

"Sorry," he said. "I'm reminding myself more than anything."

Kothos couldn't dismiss himself here nor could Xothok dismiss him. Whatever odd confluence of skills had created him to begin with, it seemed at odds with the nature of this place; he'd attempted to dismiss himself once or twice, and Xothok had certainly tried to banish him a few times, and nothing had happened.

Xothok had to admit he felt a grim sort of satisfaction at his other self's clear discomfort, but that didn't do much to distract him from the pull this place had. He walked past row after row of burned shelves. Even ignoring the fact that the shelves were made of flesh, he couldn't do much to ignore the acrid smell that pervaded his nostrils, or the clouds of ash kicked up from the ground from what looked like the burned remains of books.

It was ironic, really, that surrounded by such horror all he could think about was Byrrhon's face in the moment of his death.

"What did you mean?" Xothok asked, trying his best to distract himself. "When you said this place is 'a product of the mind', or whatever."

"Oh," Kothos said. He seemed grateful to have a topic to latch on to. "From what we know about the Libraries, they all respond to who you are as a person. Some people just see it as a regular library, the kind you'd find in Elyra."

Xothok didn't bother telling his other self that he'd never been to a library in Elyra.

"Some people see the Libraries as these beautiful shelves built into massive oak trees. Others see tall shelves of gleaming metal, stocked high with books. It's unique to every person, and we could share our vision of the Libraries with one another..." Kothos' voice trailed off.

"It's never looked like this, though," he said quietly.

Xothok didn't respond for a moment. When he did, it was with a biting sort of sarcasm. "Maybe this is just what the Libraries look like to me. They respond to 'who you are as a person', right?"

"I-I didn't mean it like that," Kothos said, sounding off-kilter for perhaps the first time since they'd started speaking. "I'm sure it isn't just you. The stars are dead there's no reason the rules are going to stay the same. Besides! If the effect was still active, I'd see something different from you, right? I used to see the shelves as these wonderful abstractions of light and music, where a different note would bring forward a different book"

"I don't know if you've noticed," Xothok interrupted, sick of hearing how wonderful his other self had it. "But you're in my head. You're not exactly another person."

At that, Kothos fell silent. A flash of hurt flickered across his expression, smoothed away a split second later; he fell into step beside Xothok, and said nothing else.

Good, Xothok told himself. He ignored the small thread of guilt that speared him, and focused on finding... whatever he was supposed to find, here.

Truth be told, he didn't know what he was doing.

He knew he was trying to find out what happened to the stars. It felt like a part of his life had been ripped away from him it was true that a part of his life had been ripped away from him, even. This was a way for him to explore his heritage, but what was the point, really? It wasn't like he could fix the damn stars.

Even if he knew what happened to them, what would that accomplish?

Xothok did his best to dismiss these darker thoughts as they crowded into his mind, but there was only so much he could do; the corpse of the star served only as a reminder of his murder of Byrrhon, and the silence crowded out the whisper of rationality. Kothos had helped, before, as loath as he was to admit it but now his other self was silent, too, just trailing quietly behind him.

Xothok didn't even know where he was going. He was letting his feet lead him in the direction of that pull he felt, though he would be hard-pressed to describe the nature of that pull. He walked past a half-dozen books that had actually survived the burning in the process, and ignored every one of them, though a small part of his mind whispered they should be significant.

Over here, the pull whispered.

When Xothok stopped, it was in front of a man. Someone else. He stared at the figure in front of him briefly, entirely nonplussed; this was the last thing he had expected to find. The man stood in front of what looked like a shard of bitter red, pulsing and rotating in the air just behind him. Even a second of looking at the thing filled him with a deep... resentment.

"Hello," the man said, smiling at him. There was nothing pleasant about that smile. Alarm bells rang in Xothok's head, but he continued to stare impassively. He couldn't make himself move. "You must be Byrrhon's friend."

"Friend?" Xothok let out a bitter laugh. "Fucker tried to kill me. He wasn't my friend."

Except he had been.

Kothos was yelling at him, but his other self's words filtered past him, somehow prevented from reaching him. That felt wrong, too.

The alarm bells rang louder.

But he'd already known something was wrong when walking into all this, hadn't he? Maybe he'd chosen this. The red glow of the crystal made it difficult for him to think; it filled him with a bitter hatred...

It looked remarkably like Byrrhon's dagger, in fact. Something deep inside him something ugly twisted, and he took a slow step forward; the man stepped aside easily, almost encouraging him forward. Kothos tried to pull him back, but the man's hands were immaterial to him. He wasn't physical.

What was he going to do, even if he figured out what happened to the stars? What was he going to do now? It looked like his men were in a better place, sure, but now that he'd killed Byrrhon, the Guildmaster would surely decide he was a danger. If he took power into his own hands now, if he just reached out

A small box popped up in front of him.

[Just let us know if you need anything,] Two sent.

[What you did there ain't easy,] Morkar said. He could imagine the look on the orc's face gruff, but respectful. [But we're behind you every step of the way. I dunno what happened to him, but that was fucked up.]

"What are you waiting for?" the man behind him asked. He sounded... strangely concerned. Xothok looked back at him, and saw the dagger reflected in his eyes.

Clarity cut through to Xothok's mind, like someone had ripped away the cobwebs hanging over his thoughts.

He scowled.

"You're the fucker that got to him, aren't you?" he said.

The man narrowed his eyes at Xothok. "Clever," he said. "I had a lock on your system. You shouldn't have"

He paused, seeming to gaze past Xothok and into the distance. He frowned. "Ah," he said.

Xothok looked behind him, but there was nothing there. And when he looked back, the man was gone, too; the crystal, the blood and flesh and viscera. All that was left were shelves of plain steel, and a few books that had survived a terrible fire.

"Xothok?" Kothos said, his voice wide and frantic; he seemed relieved when Xothok turned his gaze over to him. "Oh, good, you can hear me again. Are you okay? I don't know what happened, but you just..."

Kothos gestured vaguely, unable to find the words. Xothok sighed.

"I'm okay," he said. "I'm, uh. I'm fucking sorry. About just now."

Kothos paused and stared at him. "Did something happen?"

"Are you going to accept the apology or not?" Xothok snapped.

"...Sure," Kothos said, his voice uncertain. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Absolutely fucking not," Xothok said. Strangely, Kothos looked relieved, and Xothok thought he understood why.

Better than hiding that fact from himself, he supposed.

He looked around at the charred remains of the library. He still didn't know what he was going to do here. He still didn't think he was going to be able to fix the stars. But getting some answers was at least a start.

Especially if it told him who the fuck messed with his family.

[Thanks,] he sent in reply, before he could forget. If Two and Morkar hadn't sent him those messages... he didn't want to think about what could have happened.

"Okay," he said out loud. He glanced around himself in some distaste, and forced the next words out of his mouth. "Let's... read some books."

"Finally," Kothos said, rubbing his hands together in glee. Xothok just stared at him.

Sometimes he really couldn't believe they were the same person.

"Misa, the connection's cut." Vex was patting the half-orc in question on the shoulder.

"Yeah, but it feels fuckin' good to do this," Misa replied. She kept both her middle fingers up for another second more before finally crossing her arms. "You sure we got it?"

"We did." Derivan nodded, sitting himself down.

Reaching outside the bonus room was... exhausting. It involved a combination of Shift and Patch, operated at a level of complexity that he'd never had to deal with before; on top of that, undoing someone else's modifications to the system, across entire echoes of reality? It was the farthest he'd ever stretched those skills.

The fact that Misa had wanted a visual projection just to give Irvis the finger hadn't helped, of course, but he had to admit that it was satisfying to watch.

He was glad that they'd trained this in time, though, and that they'd prepared before Xothok had launched. It had taken about a week in total to get his understanding of both Shift and Patch to that extent, and they hadn't known exactly what was coming: only that something was coming.

And that warning had come from Sev, of all people.

The cleric was sitting by the side, his head in his hands. He had a headache, he claimed. His own training to connect with the gods had come much further, but he'd refused to say anything about it, repeating again and again that it wasn't time yet.

Which was only something that Derivan and the others were willing to accept for so long, especially when Sev looked more and more haggard every time he said it. It had been weeks ago that whatever bound him had started to snap, and yet even now it hadn't completely broken. There was the possibility that the bond was snapping in real time, and was taking ten times longer now that they were in dilated time...

But Derivan was tired of waiting, and so were Vex and Misa. They hated seeing Sev like this.

"Sev," Derivan said. He kept his voice gentle. "I believe it is time. If you will not break it yourself"

"No," Sev said, shaking his head. Derivan was prepared to argue, but he saw the look in Sev's eyes he looked tired. "No, you're right," he repeated. "It's time. Let's just... go somewhere nice to talk about this. Maybe that cafe in the town."

"Sure," Misa said, looking at him suspiciously. Sev gave her a tired smile, and she seemed to relax, accepting him at face value. "Yeah, okay," she said with a sigh. "You look like you need some coffee, anyway."

"Believe me," Sev said with a snort. "I need so much coffee."