Edge Cases

The ending to that Festival was probably the quickest there had ever been. Not because there was no wonder or celebration to be had — but because the celebration that was left was for themselves, for all the things they had wanted to make permanent but could not. The glyphs of Change and Solidity, despite the associated mana costs, were some of the most flexible glyphs that had ever been created, and the elementals wasted no time in customizing their homes and stores to breathe all the life into it that they couldn't have before.

Clyde was particularly enthusiastic.

"No more living in a black box!" he declared. The sheer amount of mana that rushed out of him made even Sev flinch, and the cleric didn't have the mana sight that Derivan and Vex did. Both of them had to shield their eyes against the light that poured out of the elemental.

When it was done, Clyde's old inn was no more. In its place was a fully decorated exterior, complete with cream-painted walls with the odd brick intentionally left out of place. Every window was tinted a shade of blue, an image straight out of a children's book; they featured slightly aged wooden overhangs that held a plethora of flowers.

And above the oak door and stone archway was a sign.

Guiding Star Inn.

A small shooting star was etched into the side of the sign, oddly out of place compared to the rest of the decor — and yet, with how picturesque everything looked, it felt oddly fitting. Clyde seemed immensely proud of his creation, and beamed at it for a moment.

Then he burst into tears.

"Oh my gods," Belle muttered. Vex and Derivan looked on in alarm, but the shadow elemental just ushered them away, conjuring a small seat for Clyde to sit on and curl into while she held him. Elliot gave them their distance, opting instead to speak to the adventurers so they wouldn't be too alarmed.

"He doesn't really let it on much," Elliot said, "but you've basically given him something he's dreamed of for centuries, and he can be very emotional when something like that happens. You should've seen him when I got him a little model inn. It looks pretty much exactly like this."

There was a soft smile on Elliot's face as he glanced at his husband. He shook his head after a moment, though, and gestured for the adventurers to follow him inside. "Come on in," he said. "He wouldn't want you standing around watching him. He's going to pretend none of this happened later."

"Honestly," Misa said, glancing back as she walked in with the rest. "I think it's kinda sweet."

—

It was late in the night — a time Mundane would normally have been quiet. Most people adhered to a strict curfew, which was yet another thing required of them. A single night wouldn't harm that, though, and this was a rare opportunity for them; in the morning, they would have to once more return to the jobs they had chosen, albeit in a vastly changed town.

Word of the two new glyphs would spread. There were a great many problems, smaller and greater, that could be solved with the use of Change and Solidity; in particular, many of the areas in the world that were inhabitable because magic had gotten it wrong could finally be fixed. The strange not-panes that hung in the air could be banished, even, and finally clear up the skies.

That was a longer-term project, though. The mayor had already assigned a team to it, a small group of people from Combat that had agreed to help. The rest had rushed back to their homes, wanting to make changes to their own living spaces.

It was a joyful night.

"I honestly didn't think it was going to be such a big deal," Vex admitted, looking down. Misa snorted out a laugh, though it wasn't mocking; she just wore a grin.

"Change the world and you think it's not a big deal," she said. "That's just like you, Vex."

"Is not." Vex flushed a bit.

"Do you actually disagree, or are you just disagreeing to be stubborn?" Misa grinned at him.

"...The latter." Vex huffed, folding his arms, and Derivan chuckled behind him, ruffling his hand through the frills on the lizardkin's head.

"Do you think you could fix Derivan's hand with this?" Sev asked, gesturing to the armor. Vex hesitated, then shook his head.

"Not unless Cyde or someone else does it, and I don't think we want to do it that way, anyway," Vex said. "The amount of mana it cost when I tried was... way beyond anything I could give, and I have a lot of mana. I think there's a better path to it."

"What makes you say that?" Sev asked curiously.

Vex shrugged. "Just a feeling," he said. "The new glyph is... weird. Change tells you how that change would be accomplished, more or less, when you're casting the spell. Sometimes it's pretty mundane — Clyde probably saw workers coming in to fix up the inn — and sometimes it's more esoteric; to remove the atmospheric effect here, we have to change what's written in the mana's archive, and that's much more expensive.

"Derivan will get a new arm before we go back to Elyra. We can rush it with Change, but we'd lose out on the process. There's something else I think we can gain if we wait. So... Derivan decided to wait."

"It is important to me," Derivan said, nodding gravely. "Though I do not know the specifics."

"Huh," Sev said. "Mild precognitive effect in the glyph?"

"That could be abused." Misa's eyes gleamed. Vex laughed.

"With the amount of mana it costs? No, not easily," he said. "And it's mostly intuition instead of anything direct, so it's less useful for combat. But... yes, I can imagine a few ways we could abuse this. Pre-drawn glyphs and mana crystals... The only thing is that we have no guarantee that this will work the same way outside the echo."

"Right." Sev winced a bit. "Mana is different here, right?"

"All the glyphs we have access to seem the same," Vex said. "But Clyde's told us that magic hasn't really changed or evolved since the universe ended, so that's not a surprise, really."

"I believe that we may be able to use Solidity to keep the glyphs and their effects with us when we return," Derivan said. "But that hypothesis requires further testing."

Vex absolutely beamed when Derivan said those words; Sev couldn't help but laugh at the delighted look on the lizardkin's face.

"I've been teaching him the art of research," Vex proclaimed, and Sev nodded, still grinning.

"I can see that," he said. Misa snorted beside him, but the affectionate grin on her face was no less wide.

After that, Sev fell silent; he didn't know how to bring up the next subject on his mind. Derivan and Vex had done a good thing for the people in Mundane, there was no doubt about that, except...

Except he was thinking it was time to leave, and he wasn't sure he had any real justification for that, except that the impulse to leave was slowly growing stronger.

There were other places here to explore. They had all grown, to a certain extent, in their time in Mundane — but they had all hit some kind of cap as well. Sev hadn't made any more progress in connecting with Onyx, though his connection with Aurum was further solidifying, and he was now better able to channel some of the God of Gold's powers. Misa had managed to train her array of skills into something that was more fine-tuned and instinctive, working the precognitive abilities of Endless Echoes into her regular style. Vex and Derivan were both more in tune with magic, had a greater number of glyphs available to them, and had now created two of their own.

But they were stuck. There were more things they had to do, and what they had to do with it was not here, could not be here. There was more of this world to see, and Mundane had become a place that was almost too comfortable to them.

Besides. They still had the items they had received and never identified, the ones they had received at the end of Misa's bonus room. They still needed to find out a way to help Elyra and whatever was happening with growth spells around it, to aid with the brewing rebellion. The last time they had checked in on Fendal, Noram and Anton and the others appeared to be mounting a growing resistance that seemed like it would soon come to a head, and they didn't have a plan. Not like when they'd seen Xothok launching himself out into the stars, preparing to Navigate, and Aurum had warned them that Irvis was out there.

Then there was what was happening with Velykos, too. Last time Sev had checked in, Velykos had found the grave of the man he had once considered his father, or what looked like it; that had been early in their experiments with Shift, and the viewing had failed shortly afterwards. Derivan hadn't been able to reestablish the connection since, nor had Velykos or any of his companions responded to their messages over the system.

Sev hoped they were alright. The dilation of time meant that it hadn't been that long, and they had their suspicions that it was divine intervention that had caused the Shift screening to fail; Aurum's refusal to speak on the matter was further proof, as far as Sev was concerned.

The problem was that they had no way of knowing for sure, and the more time passed, the more antsy Sev felt about it all.

"I think we need to move on," he said suddenly. Misa, Derivan, and Vex — all of whom had been chatting quietly with one another, giving him a concerned glance every now and then, but mostly waiting for him to come to a conclusion on whatever it was he wanted to say — all stared at him.

"What do you mean?" Misa asked after a moment had passed.

"We've been here too long," Sev said uncomfortably. "We need to explore more of this world, I think. I'm sure it has some secrets for us — whatever we came here to do, we should do it. I like Mundane as much as you do, but..."

"We have done what we needed to do here." Derivan was, strangely enough, staring at the air above Sev's head as he spoke, like he was watching some invisible mechanism grind and move; Sev winced a little and nodded, not fully understanding the significance of that glance.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm not sure where we should go, exactly, but I think we can ask Clyde for directions. And it's not like we can't come back here."

"Right," Misa said. She sounded unconvinced at best. "Look, I want to explore as much as you do, but are you sure you're alright?"

"Of course!" Sev said. He forced a cheery smile. "Why wouldn't I be?"