Edge Cases - 142 - Book 3: Chapter 7: The Nature of Magic

Derivan stared at the field ahead of them. Vex had absolutely scattered the place with glyphs — some of them from the basic set, others theoretical, and still others combinations that he had already tried, that embodied new and distinct concepts. He’d even shown off some of the ones he’d used against —

—Well. Against the echo of his father.

Derivan noticed the shadow that fell across Vex’s face whenever he looked at one of those glyphs. He almost told Vex he didn’t need to draw them, but he held his metaphorical tongue; the lizardkin was trying to be strong, and Derivan got the distinct impression that Vex didn’t want to be told he didn’t need to be. That he would fold if he was told it was okay, and that he wasn’t ready for that yet.

“Alright,” Vex said at last. “Now what do all of these glyphs have in common?”

Derivan stared at the glyphs. They were all inert, he supposed. That had taken some doing; magic here was far, far easier to work than it had been with the system in place. Eventually Vex had figured out that a little bit of his [Manaburn] effect kept the glyphs inert and prevented them from activating, though they’d have to remember to clear the field before they wore off.

They were all based on art in some way, too; on something significant that had been created in the past. But these were all things they already knew, and not the answer Vex was looking for.

“Nothing?” he offered.

“Yeah.” Vex deflated. “I was hoping you would see something I didn’t.”

Derivan chuckled, opening his arms in invitation, and the lizardkin fell into them with an exhausted sigh. The armor patted him on the back with a gentle hand, examining the glyphs as he did so.

It was strange how few commonalities they had. The shapes were so basic he would have expected two of them to be similar by sheer coincidence, if nothing else; he wondered, then, if it was possible that he was being prevented from noticing a similarity. It wasn’t like the system hadn’t already done that to them, time and time again…

But if it was, he didn’t have any way of detecting it. Even knowing what they now knew about infolocks, they had no way to combat the literal dissipitation of information from the fabric of reality.

“Mnrgh,” Vex grumbled into his shoulder, and Derivan smiled a faint smile, his eyes lighting up just a little bit more.

For all that this was them in defeat, there was something about being able to do this — about being able sit down and explore, and let his thoughts wander, and to do so with his closest friends — there was something about that that felt warm. They had no impending disaster to fend off, and even the pressure of time was stretched out into almost nothing, and though the truth of what was happening hung over their heads…

It hadn’t quite sunk in yet. The sun was bright above them, lighting up the vibrant blue of the of the sky; the strange fractal-images were almost transparent at this time of the day. All they really did was give the sky an odd, velvety texture. The field in front of them was bright and green and alive, buzzing with insects and even tiny animals that wandered about, here and there. Derivan caught a flash of a small, furry thing, leaning over to sniff at one of the glyphs.

The armor paused. The glyph was a mixture of Fire and Air…

Very gently, he reached out to shoo the little thing away before it could get hurt. Vex shifted at the movement, looking over at what he was doing, and his eyes went wide.

“Look at that little thing!” he said, fascinated. “I don’t think any of these exist back on our… uh, slice of reality.”

Whatever it was had stopped investigating the glyph at their movement; it had turned towards them instead, sniffing inquisitively at the air, tiny nose wriggling. It was a slender little thing, with slicked-back pseudofur that almost looked like shadow. Derivan wondered if it wasn’t made of the same stuff the elementals were.

It was cute, though. It came up to them slowly, flinched when Vex extended a hand, and then took a cautious sniff.

Then it licked him and darted away, disappearing quickly into the grass. Derivan stared after it, faintly amused, while Vex just stared in wonder at his hand.

“I am never washing my hand again,” he declared.

“That is… not a good idea, I think.”

“You can’t make me.” Vex wasn’t serious, of course, but Derivan found he loved the playful light in the lizardkin’s eyes. It had been too long.

“I suppose I can only ask nicely.”

“Please don’t. It’s my one weakness.”

Derivan laughed, then, and pulled Vex close; he pressed a forehead against the lizardkin’s own, feeling Vex first stiffen and then reluctantly relax against him, and waited a moment before uttering his next words—

“I suppose I can wait a moment,” he said. Vex slumped the rest of the way back into his arms, huffing.

Derivan saw the small smile that stole across his face, though. He could feel, through his armor, that Vex was a little warmer than usual; embarrassed and yet happy all at once.

And then Vex sat up straight, bonking his head against Derivan’s chin, and winced.

“Ow,” he said.

“Are you alright?” Derivan asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Vex said, shaking his head; he glanced out over the field of glyphs again, and his expression turned contemplative. “I thought I saw something like a pattern… Like all the smaller glyphs are pieces of a bigger one.” He frowned across the field. “I’m not sure I can see it anymore, though.”

“Perhaps it is something you can only see if you are in the right moment,” Derivan said with a small chuckle.

“Maybe,” Vex said. He didn’t look convinced, but he leaned back anyway, letting his mind relax slightly. “I guess I don’t think I’d be able to do anything with it, anyway.”

“There were still some pieces missing,” Derivan agreed.

“You saw it too?” Vex almost looked up at Derivan, but his positioning made it awkward; he eventually settled for tilting his head backward, and Derivan stared back down at him, amused.

“I believe I saw something,” he mused. “Perhaps it was the same thing. I cannot say; I do not know what you saw.”

“Pieces of a puzzle?”

“Something like that,” Derivan agreed.

“I suppose there’s no use trying to force it.” Vex smiled a bit of a wry smile, and then leaned back into Derivan, closing his eyes. “Do you mind if we take a small break? I just want to think.”

Derivan saw the small sadness beginning to swim in Vex’s eyes again; he saw the way the lizardkin’s gaze lingered on some of the glyphs. He shook his head. “I do not mind,” he said.

“We can stay like this as long as you wish.”

As long as he wished, it turned out, wasn’t all that long. Vex’s mind was active at the best of times, and it worked best when he had a problem he wanted to solve, and he did.

“I want to try spellcasting next,” he announced.

“Oh?” Derivan hummed. He didn’t let go of Vex until the lizardkin began to wriggle — then he let go, pulling his arms back and chuckling. Vex barely seemed to notice; the wizard sprang to his feet and bounced on his heels, looking authoritatively over the field of glyphs. Derivan spared a small glance towards Sev and Misa as he waited.

Sev was still meditating. Something was happening there — something visible in the system and in reality. Derivan could almost see it, using a combination of Patch and Shift, but it was nothing he could interpret. He left it well enough alone, not wanting to disrupt whatever Sev was doing.

As for Misa… she was scanning through her system screens with intensity. He hoped she was alright.

“Okay,” Vex said, calling his attention back. “I need you to cast a spell. I’m going to try to attach to it with my Sign, and see if I can figure out how the spell is transformed from glyph to effect. If I can figure out that aspect of magic, I think I can start unlocking other glyphs.”

“You plan to reverse engineer a glyph from an effect?” Derivan asked.

“Kind of,” Vex said, waving a hand about. He watched the air intently as Derivan’s gauntlet began to glow; the glyph he drew was Fire, a series of simple, swooping lines like a rising current of air. “There are similarities between the system’s runes and glyphs, but it’s not a one-to-one transformation I can apply to a rune and get a glyph. Stuff goes missing. I’m hoping I can pull out what I need from the effect.”

“That makes sense.” The last line of mana glowed in the air; here, there was no need to explicitly activate the glyph. Intent seemed to be sufficient. Derivan admired the sight as fire-aspect mana began to flow towards the glyph automatically.

In no time at all, the glyph had ignited into a glittering array of fire, blowing gently in a nonexistent wind.

Vex was silent, his eyes shut and his brows drew together in concentration. His own Sign was wavering in the air, apparently strangely harder to use in this new world they were in. Derivan wondered if that had something to do with how aspects were slightly different, here, each viewed through a different lens.

A tendril stretched out from Vex’s sign, but it didn’t reach the glyph Derivan had drawn. Derivan sensed it trying to go elsewhere, and not quite succeeding; not quite knowing what he was doing, he gave it a small helping hand with a Shift—

—Vex let out a soft gasp, and Derivan quickly caught him as he began to tip over. The lizardkin blinked a few times, shaking his head and rubbing at his eyes like he’d just stared directly into the sun.

“Ow,” he said plainly.

“Are you all right?” Derivan asked. “I am sorry, I thought I could help—”

“—No, you did, don’t worry. I’m fine. That was just… bright.” Vex winced slightly as he got back onto his feet, blinking a few more times. “I think I saw a library? It’s kind of seared into my eyes.”

“Hmm,” Derivan hummed. “I do not think we should try again, for now.”

“Yeah, no.” Vex shuddered slightly. “Don’t get me wrong, I really want to know what that was, but something tells me I’m going to need a little more protection than what I have now. The problem is that the sight isn’t physical, so I can’t just enchant my eyes… It’s more like it burns the memory of staring into the sun into my brain.”

“That sounds unpleasant.” Derivan winced. “Did we learn nothing from this?”

“Not nothing.” Here Vex managed to grin. “I have a really good memory. It might’ve been bright, but I still caught a glimpse of some of those books. Each one of them has a glyph on the cover. I guess it’s some sort of archive? And if we can visit that archive…”

“We could discover any spell on record?” Derivan guessed.

“Maybe even make our own!” Vex waved a notebook around triumphantly. “Uh, maybe. That might be a bit much. We probably can’t just insert a new spell into the mana.”

“But you are going to try.”

“Of course I’m going to try.” Vex practically scoffed, but he was grinning. “I just need to figure out how.”