Beginning of Book 4: Arcadian

Fate, cruel mistress that it was, had a lot to explain as far as Daniel was concerned. Bringing his brother back from the dead had started a chain reaction that had led to a tragedy he couldn't have foreseen. His sister, Alex Brant, was as trapped in the Octyrrum as he was. Hard stop.

You had to move on, if only because they were currently within corrupted ancient ruins. Not that the outside was better. The gods had been betrayed and their enemies were moving to either destroy or take over the world. Monsters inundated the regions of the world. Be at the wrong place at the wrong time and either wild mana or the minions of the monster gods could turn you into one.

You had to move on. And there were good things to come of this. All secrets had come out, or at least there was parity in what the group knew. Some things, like what Hourglass' ultimate objective was, were still hidden. Chris' reckoning was coming. But focus on the positive, because in this world, lingering too much in darkness could twist you. Just look at what had happened to Jeras. Look at Grave now, slowly picking at the edges of the world.

When Daniel had woken up, mana deprived from missing dawn, he looked at his sister and hated the moment of relief he felt. Like a marooned sailor seeing a distant ship. He had Hunter, he could live here separated from the rest of his family on Earth. Alex shouldn't have to. She'd done nothing to deserve it. Whether his venting had accomplished anything he couldn't say, likely not. It was like telling a computer 2 + 2 = 5, but he'd had to try.

Alex had been quiet. It was surrender he saw in her, resignation to whatever was to come next. The gashes in the wall here, or the results of Evalyn's mega Songbolt for that matter, were proof enough she couldn't stay here. Not a single person afforded her anything other than kindness. Tlara had even stopped, well, she'd tamped down on the cursing.

The route out of the Arcadian led through the cargo elevator, the closest astral rift to where Soraso had initially let them in. Daniel wasn't sure if he could cut open a path elsewhere, but with only a handful of Bekali's weapons to use in forging the way, they weren't going to risk it. At the very least, leaving this time was far safer. The other, corrupted astral rifts wouldn't react while everyone was in a safe room. There were the other elite monsters in here to consider, but Spinner's network of webbing had gone undisturbed and confirmed the area was clear.

They were about to start the convoy out. Alex was protected not only by the level 6 shield Gadriel had given her but the personal attention of Sigron, whose shield arm had partially recovered despite the ongoing absence of his bond hands, when Daniel called a halt. "Hold on." He looked through his bags of holding, frowning at the contents. The wolf fur was now an endangered species and his stock of equipment had been run down from the latest dungeon dive. He found what he was looking for eventually and pulled out two items.

"Daniel, I told you," Lograve said quietly, "I can bring her down with my powers. Don't think a vacation has made me grow soft and fat, I can still hurl ice with the best of them."

"What if she falls?" There was a sharp inhalation from Evalyn, and Lograve conceded the point. Daniel walked closer to Alex, who Hunter was orbiting in full Feline Charm mode. The ringcat had put aside his pride, all things considered.

"I did promise you could fly," Daniel said as he bobbed the boots in his hand so the heels clunked together. "You think I was talking about some kind of airplane? They do have those here, but it's not as good as my stuff." He clicked his heels together to emphasize the point, thought of an absolutely terrible joke to make, and took it out to the back of his mind to be shot. "Threst, where we are… It's beautiful. It's like a chain of islands, but everything's in the sky. There are about 50 kilometers between the top and bottom, and if you hit that you just come back up top. We will have to fly to where we're going. Lograve has a way to get you there, but if you think you'd feel more comfortable, there's space enough here to try these out. Think of it like having a parachute, just in case."

She blinked at the set of boots and wings, puzzling over the latter. Alex, she wasn't reserved to the point of being comatose. Ultimately, humans were adaptable. One day wasn't enough to move on from what had happened to her, but a bit of spirit had returned. "You made these?" she asked, taking one of the boots and inspecting it closer. "There's no stitching."

"I, uh, don't know how much the other me told you about stuff. We'll go over it all when you're ready." Alright, there was one exception to everyone in the group knowing everything. "When I enchant things, I take it from base material to final product in one step, and it's all magic. Well, those boots were made with the help of a Craftsman, but he did his part first on those so it's basically the same."

She handed him the boot back. "When did it feel normal?"

Talking about most things in the Thormundz right now was a bad idea. Honestly, I'm not sure. Sometime before we killed the lightning dragon, but it's all too much of a panicked blur. It wasn't what Alex was really asking anyway. "I can't tell you when it'll be. I didn't know why I was sent here. Our circumstances are just too different, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. Whatever you want to do here, we will help you. When I first woke up it was in a place like this, and the first thing I'm going to do for you is make sure you have a softer landing than I did."

"Flying is good," Hunter affirmed, even if he hadn't experienced Daniel's new formulae either. "Freeing."

His sister would have probably been more weirded out by Hunter if she hadn't seen him in the hybrid form first, though there was still a slight widening of her eyes whenever she heard his voice. Reading her was so much easier than it had been in his memories. The product of attributes. He still had four points of advancement to assign, but that was his last problem to deal with. "You don't have to try this out if you don't want to, but I'm not taking any choice away from you either."

Maybe it was reminding her that she still had that, but Alex engaged with the world a little more after that. She grabbed at one of the flaps on the leather lightning wings and frowned as she stretched it out, Daniel still holding the portion that fit on the back. "How's this supposed to work? It doesn't seem stiff enough."

"It's kind of backwards. The boots are what give you propulsion, what the wings are doing is reducing the effect of gravity and giving you stability." He set the boots down and stretched out the now free arm, mentally triggering the sections of the wing that clung to his arm. Both Hunter and Tak watched as it climbed along the back of his arm to effectively turn it into a wing. Not just them either, but the ones from Eido who hadn't seen this before. And someone else, to whom the sight brought back more memories, though her head was still terribly cloudy.

Slowly, Daniel began to hover centimeter by centimeter off the ground. "See? Nothing to it. You don't have to have a class or advance at all to make these work. It's just plug and play."

"Evalyn had a pair of these that Lograve was using on Eido for the ritual, but they looked…"

"Like garbage?" Daniel asked, coming back down to the floor. That got a slight smile from his sister. "I can prototype things to get what I need to make a cleaner version. You should've seen what the first wings I made looked like."

"Did you put any bone in them?"

"Not… exactly." This was straying too close to the topic of monsters. "So, jetpack?"

Alex raised an eyebrow. "You made one of those too? You did become an engineer."

"No, I, heh." Daniel made to slowly put the lightning wings draped on his arm away in jest. "If you don't want to try them there's always the ice glider plan. Freeze your feet off or be a bird on the wing. Gonna tell me you want the first option?"

It was odd. From his perspective, he'd left matters with Alex on a pretty atrocious note. Her unable to stop blaming him in part for their dad's death, and him too depressed to do anything more than let the relationship slip away. Alex had reconciled to some degree with Earth-Daniel, but this was something different. He was both walking on eggshells around her, and practically a different person than he was months ago. The history was still there, but it didn't read the same way. It was like they were on the cusp of falling into an old familiarity, only for both to shake out of it at the last second when they hit the uncanny valley.

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"I don't know if, I don't want this place to change me." Whatever mood had been building was instantly killed. Alex became conscious of the bracelet she was wearing, the cool blue metal band that could summon a shield capable of taking an antimaterial rifle round without breaking a sweat, and pulled it up her wrist with a sharp exhalation. Before it could be fully taken off, though, she relaxed her grip as she squeezed her eyes shut. "It's already too late for that, isn't it?"

Hunter gave Daniel a look, and he nodded, trusting in whatever the ringcat wanted to say. "Change isn't always bad. I was… less, before I found Daniel. Every time I had a chance to become better, I feared for what I would become. If I had not overcome that, had not trusted my friend and brother, I would be nothing." His face, made more expressive by Feline Charm, grew softer, fangs less pronounced. "But I was already nothing. Your fear, I understand. You have things to lose. But to not do something is still to make a choice. If it is something that will come for you either way, shouldn't you face it? Master it?"

"I saw you with Chris." Alex made that sound like an admission, addressing Daniel rather than Hunter. "You've killed people, haven't you?"

Daniel rocked as Alex struck another lethal blow into the fabric of whatever old ties might have remained. He caught Shuni and Tlara studying him, both likely unaware of what had happened in Aughal. "It- Once, in self defense."

She backed up a few steps. "How can I do anything here, then? If I do what you did, I become someone I wouldn't recognize. If I don't, the rest of my life is going to be relying on all of you, like a pet instead of a person." Another casually thrown dagger, this one hitting Hunter. "There was always the plan to come back after Eido. I stayed because it was exciting, there was the chance to see you if they ever got that ritual working, but I always wanted to go back to my old life. Maybe I lost my job, but I could've found something else. I was a capable person. Now? What exactly would happen to me if all of you decided to abandon me here? What about the future? I'm not going to be some inconvenience you have to have a designated babysitter for, but I also can't look at you and walk down that road. Yeah, I have a choice, but the crappy thing about choices is that sometimes both options suck."

"It's not like that," Daniel reassured, though he didn't and would never use the actual power on his sister. She was getting worked up though, balling up her fists at times while they hung by her side. "There are ways you can advance without fighting anything! We have a friend who wants to spend every day healing people. What happened to me wasn't normal." Understatement of the year. "There are Bards here who only focus on playing music. You could do that."

What Daniel wasn't mentioning was how the Collapse had changed things. People, including himself, had noticed how the system had become tilted towards rewarding combat over everything else. The practice heists Shuni mentioned when they'd first met had been completely shut down after a few weeks because no one got enough out of it to be worthwhile. Alex's leveling would be a lot slower compared to most if she completely avoided battle, and he would've said that would be fine if not for her point on independence.

Alex looked to the side as if to ignore what he was saying. She was breathing harder than normal. In a way, he preferred to see it to the earlier withdrawn somberness, it was more natural to who she was, but he knew if she reached an explosion there'd be things said they'd both regret. "And what about the monsters, Daniel!? I'm not an idiot. Why would I need this," she raised the bracelet on her arm, "If everything's as safe and easy as you say it is? Why did you spend hours talking with everyone when I was out of that room? I know there are things you're not telling me."

"It's too much to-"

"It's all too much!" she screamed, one hand over her chest. "I'm already worried about how much of you is an act you're putting on to not scare me. Say a monster comes at me and it's fight or die. How many times does that have to happen before I end up a killer like you!? And this?" With trembling fingers, Alex brought out her violin. "This? I should corrupt one of the only things I have left if I don't like that? Fuck this world, and fuck you!"

The sparks were flying now. This was gearing up to be another classic Brant barn burner. Alex had drawn everyone into a verbal fight at least once growing up, running into Kara's frustrated patience, fake Garret's patient frustration, Ami's attempts to hide her own anger with smugness, and Daniel's reluctant engagement that could grow heated itself if allowed continued exposure. This was actually a pretty fast flare up all things considered, the anger must have been put under deep pressure after being shoved down so far.

It didn't get to him. You couldn't find a way to coexist with Tlara without learning to stand in the face of anger. Not to say that Tlara reminded him of his sister the way he had with her's when they'd first met. Alex wasn't always like this, she was just, well, acting as anyone could be expected to given the circumstances. There was no right answer here. "Come on. Mom wouldn't want to see us fight."

Alex recoiled at that. Got angrier, like she would if anyone told her to calm down or that she was overreacting. "How is she going to find out about it when she was dragged off screaming last night!? That could be the last image I have of her."

"Mine too." Daniel shrugged. This wasn't how he'd handled Alex before. It was close to it, but he didn't feel himself starting to backslide into a self-sustaining feedback loop of enmity with Alex.

"And why should you care? It's not like that wasn't also the first time you actually saw her." That got a few reactions from the crowd, and Hunter who made a quiet, deep sound that wasn't fully a growl.

"I love her as much as you do. As much as I do you." Daniel's voice was… a little strained now. Alex had found a gap in his enhanced charisma, it seemed. "You want to know what it was like when I first got here? I almost got eaten alive, and then I fell so hard out of the sky that bone was sticking out of my leg. I didn't have a sibling there to comfort me or even the knowledge, the certainty that the rest of my family was still out there. That I'd have a chance to see them again."

Oh, damn, she'd gotten him after all. The slide was so slow that he hadn't seen the drop coming. Too late to stop now. Daniel leveled a finger at Alex. "Don't you dare come at me and say I don't have a right to my grief. It's still there, it still hurts, and it's never going to go away. Do I wish I could tell you it won't, yeah, but I guess that just sucks too."

Alex fumed for a moment in the 'too angry to express it' kind of way, which was a false sign of weakness to the uninitiated. Any moment now, she'd hit back with some kind of rise mixed in with enough argument to keep the fire going. She didn't like doing this, oftentimes she'd apologize after tempers had cooled, she was just a passionate person. Daniel waited, but then he saw Alex look to the nearby astral rift and felt the change come over her.

His sister let out a sob, covering her face with one hand while barely catching herself with the other as her legs gave out. That, he wasn't sure if he'd seen that happen before. "Alex?"

"It's too much," she forced out. Reluctantly, Daniel identified her.

Alex Brant - (Human)

Strength: 4

Dexterity: 6

Endurance: 4

Wisdom: 5

Intelligence: 6

Charisma: 8

There wasn't an effect on Alex, so Daniel still withheld Reassure. The only scenario he'd consider using magic on his sister, well, obtrusive magic was if there was something on her the system counted as significant enough to mention. "Let's get you some sleep in a real bed." He found Lograve in the crowd and saw the grim, sad look there. Daniel inclined his head and the Arcanist obliged.

What do you need?

Flying lessons are canceled. I want to get her to Pinion's Point as soon as possible.

Should we have Evalyn help her first?

Daniel considered and shook his head. Only if she asks for it.

That's… probably for the best. You said Quala was still in Aurus, yes?

I thought you said you couldn't read minds at this level, Daniel weakly quipped while he patted his sister's back. I'll have to rework what I was going to say to Zolyra, but I'll figure it out. He shrugged his way out of the connection, and then picked up Alex, one hand under her knees while the other was across her shoulders. She didn't fight him, and between his strength and the rings enhancing it, he had no issue carrying her. "We're moving," he said to the rest. "Shuni, Spinner, could you lead the way?"

The awakened monster had exactly the kind of temperament and personality that was needed now. "Of course, I remember the way. I'm just, I'm so sorry for the both of you." The Rogue, who was seeing far too much family drama to get involved with, just nodded along with that.

He carried Alex like that through the rest of the ruins, Sigron on one side and Hunter on the other, Tak also rejoining his friend. The Totem Warrior seemed far less jealous than Daniel had been in the past, despite the fact that his bond with Hunter had become both qualitatively and quantitatively better. In fact, he was respecting the deeper connection.

Daniel was forced to let go of his sister when the time came. There was little fanfare to how he took the dagger and split apart the world, ushering everyone through quickly before the gap closed. There were two weapons left from Bekali after that, enough for one more trip into the Arcadian before he'd either have to get more from her or figure out True Enchanting himself. Neither seemed like a prospect that would happen soon.

Following his message to Zolyra, burning the last charge on the scroll, they made way to return to Pinion's Point. No one had been waiting at the sky limit for them, which he took as a good sign, but Daniel wasn't ready for what was waiting for him at the compound. Two of the encounters he could have predicted, but the third, that he was in no way prepared for.

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