143 - Book 3: Chapter 8: Enchanted

143 - Book 3: Chapter 8: Enchanted

As bold a statement as Vex had started with, there wasn't yet much for him to go on the idea that magic drew from a physical place, even, was something that was new to him. Vex had told Derivan he wanted a bit of time to mull on it, which seemed like a better plan than Derivan's own thought of "push as hard as possible in Shift and try to take them to this new place".

They needed to stay here, and they needed to avoid breaking things in the bonus room for as long as possible. Derivan did need to experiment with Shift, but the goal with that was to give them a means to access and interact with their own world while keeping the benefit of stretched time.

For now, Vex was back at the array of glyphs he'd scattered across the field, and isolating a set he thought would be useful.

"I mean, don't get me wrong, I think all of them are useful," the lizardkin rambled as he worked, waving a hand about animatedly; Derivan watched in fond amusement as mana followed his movement, and a few of the glyphs he'd drawn crumbled to dust. "But we need a smaller set to focus on first, or we're going to end up with a broad set of spells that don't work very well together."

"You sound as if you may have had experience with such a thing," Derivan observed.

Vex laughed, a touch of embarrassment coloring his tone. "In my early days I just wanted to learn every spell I could get my hands on," he said. "And don't get me wrong; having a lot of options is a strength all on its own. But that's more Misa's wheelhouse, you know? I just want to understand."

He stared out at the glyphs he'd picked for a moment, and then his voice acquired a touch of ruefulness. "Narrowing your area of study helps you understand it more," he said. "Magic as a whole is broad enough as it is. I'd almost say it's too broad for any one person to understand, except that would invalidate my life goal, and I'm going to be stubborn about that for a little while longer, I think."

"Hardly one person," Derivan said, his tone just a touch chastizing. Vex glanced over at him and seemed to hesitate for a second before coming to a conclusion.

"Are you sure you actually want to help me with this, though?" he asked. "I mean, is all this what you actually want to do?"

Derivan paused to consider the question, though the immediate response was on the tip of his metaphorical tongue; Vex was looking at him in earnest, and the answer to this seemed important to him. So he measured his words before he spoke, and made sure they were clear.

"It is both," he said. "You taught me about the beauty of magic, and so I have a vested interest in understanding it. But it would be a lie to say that your happiness does not factor into it. Both things bring me joy."

"Oh," Vex said softly, and then he looked away, but not before Derivan caught the shy smile that stole over his face. "Um. Thanks."

"You are welcome."

"But you know if you were interested in anything, I'd happily help you with it." Vex acquired an oddly fierce look.

"Of course," Derivan chuckled. The answer seemed important to Vex, though; the lizardkin visibly relaxed, and that same smile stole across his face again.

"Good," he said. Satisfied with that line of conversation, Vex turned his attention back to the glyphs he'd laid out in front of him. "I'm going to see if we can't come up with a magical solution for your hand."

"I feel as though I could generate a replacement, with enough training in Slime," Derivan offered. His generative abilities weren't quite so advanced just yet he'd already tried, some time the night before. He could generate a small tendril that in no way matched the proportions of the rest of his body.

"Would that work?" Vex asked. "Is it the same?"

"Weren't you going to cast a spell?" Vex asked. He peered at him Derivan felt it more than he saw it. "Are you okay?"

"I am fine," Derivan said, though to him his voice perhaps sounded a little dazed. He opened his eyes and gave the lizardkin the best smile he could, and wondered perhaps for the first time what it was that Vex saw in him.

He let that idle curiosity go for now, though. Instead, he turned his gaze inward. Vex had managed to figure out what his Sign was, extrapolating backward from his understanding of Derivan and from the combined Sign he had created. Now he aimed to do the same, in his own style.

His gauntlet moved, tracing a shape in the air.

A Sign was an individual's signature. It was an answer to a question, a representation of who a person was. Vex had had an answer for that before Derivan himself had truly figured it out his understanding of himself had always relative to others. It seemed only natural to him. His base self was a suit of armor; he existed to protect.

And yet he'd grown to be more than that, in no small part thanks to the friends he'd made.

It didn't change who he was in some fundamental way; it made no difference to who he wanted to be. But there was an ache where his arm had once been that reminded him that now there was context where there had been none before the answer might not have changed, but now there was another question.

Who did he want to protect?

The answer wasn't just 'his friends', because they were more than just bodies to protect. They had their own beliefs that he, too, felt was worth fighting for. The loss of his arm was a good reminder of that; that being who he needed to be to protect them wasn't enough.

The people at the top of the Guild had built an organization aimed at protecting not only themselves, but anyone weak, anywhere they needed help. Sometimes people needed a little bit of help to become truly strong. Sometimes protecting others involved being something more than a shield.

Sometimes Signs changed.

Derivan stared at the Sign he'd drawn. Mana was already flowing towards it, aspected towards a type he'd never seen before; he couldn't put a name to it if he tried.

The Sign in the air was still very obviously a piece of armor a cuirass shaped not unlike his own, though it differed wildly in detail. It was a series of interlocking plates, weak individually but built to lock together when sustaining an impact, becoming something stronger as a whole. A small detail etched into the design was the names of his friends, inscribed along the shoulders, and Vex's name right over the center of the plate, where his heart would have been if he had one.

Behind the armor, etched as silhouettes in the light, was his best rendition of life every race he had met in his journey so far, designated as a monster by the system or not, and even a few placeholders for the people he hadn't met.

It was altogether too complicated for a Sign. It had gone somewhere beyond that, he realized; Derivan looked at the sky and saw that it was dark, now, and realized he'd spent something like hours lost in the process of creating this. This was no Sign. It was a creation of his own.

And as he watched, the mana seemed to take it like it was an offering. His painting for that was what it was, really simplified, turning into abstract, representative shapes of others behind a piece of armor. But he felt the original piece still within it, sitting within the mana.

"I think you just created a new glyph," Vex said quietly. He'd stopped his own experimentation long ago, apparently, abandoning it to watch as Derivan worked. Derivan noticed, for the first time, that they were surrounded by shadows.

They had an audience. The town had gathered to watch.

"Oh," Derivan said.This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com