149 - Book 3: Chapter 14: Myths and Mochas

149 - Book 3: Chapter 14: Myths and Mochas

Clyde's inn was nice and comfortable, but the Horizon cafe had become a second haunt for them in the past few weeks. There was something about the aroma and ambience of the place that kept it wonderfully comforting, and that comfort was something they needed, after the training.

They didn't stick together anymore not completely. Each of them had different things to work on, and couldn't always work on those things in close vicinity with the others; eventually, they had agreed it would be best if they sought out training on their own, especially if there were others in the town that would help them.

In Mundane, there weren't. But Combat, it turned out, wasn't very far away, and that was a true adventurer's town.

All of which was beside the point. They sat in a private booth in Horizon, enhanced by various protection magics that both the cafe owner and Belle had independently confirmed were very foolproof, and Sev sat on one side, nervously sipping his cup of coffee.

Misa sat next to him, mostly so she wouldn't intimidate him by sitting across from him. Derivan and Vex sat together, and projected a concerted effort of looking very worried about Sev.

Sev, in turn, sighed.

"I still don't remember much," he started. "But I've made a breakthrough in that I'm able to talk to Aurum again. He's... a lot more scared and uncertain than he was before. It was pretty easy to distract him at first, but now it's like he can't think about anything but the end of the gods."

"He is just a kid," Misa said softly.

"Yup," Sev said with a sigh. "Someone like that shouldn't have the responsibility he does, but... here we go. Apparently he's been figuring out how to get in contact with the gods that have been erased."

"So they're not completely gone?" Vex perked up.

"It's hard to erase a god completely," Sev said. "Apparently."

"What does all this have to do with you?" Misa asked. "I'm worried about him, too, but..."

Sev laughed. "Can't get anything past you guys, huh?"

"Sev." Misa's voice was serious.

"I know." Sev's gaze dropped, and he looked at the table for a long moment; he held his mug of coffee in both of his hands, closed his eyes, and took a slow sip. He let himself marinate in the aroma for a second before he said anything more. "As far as I can tell, Onyx and I came up with some kind of plan... a really long time ago. The locks you see on my soul, my system, my future whatever those are all locks I signed myself up for."

"Didn't you say that happened when you tried to save Onyx?" Vex asked hesitantly.

"I did say that," Sev said. He smiled a sardonic sort of smile, though it seemed more self-deprecating than anything else. "It's what I remember. And I'm pretty sure it happened. But even before that, apparently, I sealed my own fate... somehow."

"Still not clear on the details?" Misa asked.

"Nope." Sev let out a frustrated sigh, and let his head sink into his hands. "I'm not trying to hide this from you guys, I swear. But I just... I have to trust myself, right? This is a plan I came up with. Apparently."This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com

"Well," Misa said. "I'd agree with you, but your sense of self-preservation kinda sucks, no offense."

"If you built in some sort of grand self-sacrifice in there, we're going to fight you," Vex added.

"I'm not that bad," Sev muttered. He glanced around at both Misa and Vex who said nothing to this pronouncement and gave him a slightly skeptical look instead before turning a slightly desperate look to the last member of their party. "Derivan?"

"You are better now," the armor allowed. "But you wandered into the dungeon I was in, alone and underleveled. I am not certain I trust the decisions you made prior to that to bear in consideration your true value."

"Infolock?" Vex asked softly.

"Infolock," Sev agreed with a soft, bitter laugh. "Or, well, we know what it is, now. Imagine an apocalypse you can't know about, because the very nature of it is that it's self-censoring; the only tool we have to know about it gets to pick and choose who's allowed to remember, and no one's in charge of that tool anymore, as far as we know."

"Not the Administrators?" Derivan prompted. "We have seen mention of them in the system."

Sev shook his head.

"That's one of the things Aurum was trying to investigate," he said. "As far as we can tell, there aren't any Administrators left. There are automated programs in the system that can fulfill the role of an Administrator, but they're locked into responding to situations in very specific ways. The only time they can do anything different is when the gods do something about it."

"Except the gods don't know that anything's wrong," Misa said.

"Most of them don't." Sev frowned. "The ones that do... This is where it gets a little complicated. It's the reason Aurum was gone for so long. You guys remember where we first got the reality anchor that Misa has, right?"

"How could I forget?" Misa snorted.

"That place was weird," Vex commented. "It didn't feel... real."

"You can't anchor reality from inside reality," Sev said. "So when we were there, we were on the outside, looking in. Any gods that get erased are kind of sitting there, too, outside reality slowly disintegrating, and being fed into the anchors."

Vex blinked, feeling a small chill run down his spine. "Then the voices we heard"

"Onyx and another forgotten god," Sev confirmed. "Onyx has some protection, because of what I did when I healed him. Aurum can visit that space because he's got a link with me. The other gods are just... kept there, away from the divine plane."

"Do we know what the Overseers are, then?" Derivan asked this question with a small frown in his eyes.

"Best guess is that it's a system defense powered by the gods," Sev said. "But that's one of the things we haven't really managed to figure out. Aurum's... in recovery. He spent too much time out there let's just call it the Void, for ease of reference and his angels tried to get him to come back, but apparently he was very insistent about finding some of the forgotten gods."

Sev sighed. "He shouldn't have to do all this," he said quietly. "I've tried to get him not to, but once he's gotten an idea in his head it's hard to get him not to do it. It doesn't help that our bond drains me to protect him when he's out in the Void, and I don't think he fully understands the cost of exploring out there."

"Shit." Misa winced a bit. "Do you need help talking to him?"

"I might." Sev smiled a small smile. "I did manage to convince him to come back, but mostly by telling him about the Glyph Festival that's coming up. He's excited to be able to experience his first. So you might have to deal with an overexcited god for a little bit tomorrow."

"Oh! The Festival is tomorrow." Vex bounced up in his seat. "I almost forgot. Clyde asked if I wanted to do a show."

"Are you going to?" Sev raised an eyebrow at his friend.

"I'm going to try." Vex looked suddenly worried. "We don't have anything scheduled tomorrow, right? Anything we need to interfere with?"

"Nope," Misa said, eyeing a system window and then shaking her head. "Nah, you're good. Looking forward to your show, Vex."

Vex grinned, and then waved a hand to order another cup of coffee. Sev paused.

"Isn't that your third cup today...?"

"Don't worry about it."