Edge Cases

Derivan's next steps were what he had already planned to do, system power or no. It seemed only right.

He couldn't spend forever in the Void, of course. His friends were waiting for him, and even with Stability being his new Sign, there was only so much it could do in the face of the Void; given time, even that would erode away. But there was so much here to remember, and with every second he wasted, more of it was lost.

"What happened to your arm, anyway?" Jelevar asked him before he went to speak with the others. Derivan shrugged slightly and told her, and she winced with sympathy. "At the height of the Ishimar Kingdom it would not have been difficult to get that replaced, but once we split off into our own village... We had injuries like this, occasionally. We could forge new arms, but the Ishimar would not tell us how to attach it to ourselves. The price of freedom, they said."

There was that note of bitterness in her voice again. Derivan considered his response carefully.

"If I am able to restore our people," he said. "I will make sure we have the means to restore ourselves in the event of such injuries."

He suspected Vex would be able to discern the runes and glyphs that made up the inside of the armor, and adjust them so that any newly forged arm could be joined to the whole. Derivan could do some magic himself, but he didn't quite have Vex's skill at interpreting and putting together glyphs.

Jelevar seemed satisfied with his response, and she let go of his remaining arm, which she'd grabbed by the elbow at some point. She searched Derivan's eyes for a second.

"You have a plan," she said.

"I have to talk to everyone," Derivan said. "It is not just our people that deserve to be remembered. There are many here that have been forgotten. I do not think I can remember all of them, but... What was it you said?"

"The Ishimar did not create us to forget," Jelevar said, with a look in her eyes that he understood to be a small smile. He'd never looked at his own expressions from the outside before. "Though I was angry when I said that. We don't truly forget, but it is possible for information to fall to the wayside unless deliberately recalled..."

"But I have a means to remember." It took only a small effort of will to touch upon what the system called Remembrances. A small exadite pin, remarkably similar to Jelevar's, Shifted into existence above his hand; she stared at it.

"What did you do?"

"It is a long story," Derivan said. There was more he could do with the pin, he knew — he could feel it with Shift, a distant array of possibilities all hiding within the pin. But now was not the time, and he dismissed it, letting it fade once more into nothing. "Perhaps if I have time..."

Jelevar shook her head. "You should not stay here longer than necessary," she said firmly. "Do what you have to, speak to those of us here that wish to speak to you, then leave. I do not think your magic will protect you forever." She nodded to the Sign still painted on his chest. Small fragments of mana were dissipating, though it would be some time still before it was gone completely.

But there was a small note of hope in her voice that wasn't there before.

Derivan nodded to her. "I wish I could have known our people," he told her.

"I wish you could have, too."

Derivan made his way back to the campfire.

It was a little more animated than before, but not too much — the Void affected everyone here, and new information was quickly lost. Derivan felt a small ache curl into his chest, to see how many of the ones he'd previously spoken to lose what little light and life they'd gained so quickly.

He supposed he shouldn't have expected anything different, but he knew it would hurt him if he spoke to Jelevar again, and found that she had forgotten.

He planned to anyway, of course.

There were some that remembered what he'd explained to them, though their memory of it was wipsy and fragmented. Some joked about it — about climbing inside his armor and marching out into the Roads, for example — and Derivan had been more than willing to let them try, although he suspected it wouldn't work. He would ask them to follow him back to the Roads anyway, just in case there was something they could do, but no one was expecting anything from that.

Exits had been discovered before, and had never led anywhere. The fragments and echoes of people here were just that, and had no more substance left to be restored.

And yet, here and there, in amounts that seemed too small to matter yet made everything brighter... there was hope.

Derivan spoke to the spider-lady who sat by the campfire, and she told him of the scarf. It was a long tradition held by her family, though not by her people as a whole; they called themselves the Eight-Legged, which she admitted was not the most creative of names but insisted sounded much more beautiful in her own language.

Her people had the tradition of brewing tea when they came of age. Tea was important to her people, she said; it was tea that had originally granted them their size and sapience, stolen from a witch that left a cup of it steaming by her cauldron. They were good at alchemy as a matter of tradition, and carried potions in waterproof silk pouches that they spun in an instant.

[ You have gained a new Remembrance: Life Scarf ]

[ You have gained a new Remembrance: Endless Tea ]

He gained two Remembrances from the conversation — both the scarf and a small teacup that poured an endless black liquid. The spider seemed almost emotional, looking at the teacup. She said it looked just like the one they had used in their little village, and he'd spent a moment with her there as she sipped at the cup and reminisced.

The larger, more humanoid spiderlike creature next to her was a different species entirely, it turned out. They had gravitated towards one another because they had the most in common, but he seemed to remember almost nothing of his own people; he was deeply apologetic, speaking to Derivan.

"There is only one thing I remember," he said, his voice deep and grave, for all that he spoke quietly. "A meal I had as a child. I remember the taste of it, but little else. I think... I think my mother cooked it for me."

That wasn't quite enough for the system. Derivan could feel it reaching out like it was judging the memory, trying to decide if it was worthy of being spun into a Remembrance. He could feel it pull away after a moment.

He pushed it just a little farther with Patch, feeling a bit of energy leave him with the effort, and let the notification drift by.

[ You have gained a new Remembrance: Childhood Meal. ]

He left the spider-humanoid sitting stunned, taking small sips from a steaming bowl of soup.

The snake covered in gadgets slid up to Derivan next, eager for a conversation. "You're here to know," he said, coiling up in delight. "To learn! I haven't had new students for a long time. Such a long time."

He faltered a little bit, at those words, and Derivan took the opportunity to sit down beside him and smile. "I will learn whatever you wish to teach," he told the old snake, who did a delighted little twirl.

"Good, good!" the snake said. "I am Hysuan, yes? You will learn! I make things. Look!"

A quick twist, and one of the gadgets attached to the snake sprung open. It was, as far as Derivan could tell, just a simple little toy — built to spring open once it was twisted a certain number of times. But Hysuan twisted in on himself to push it back, and Derivan blinked in surprise when the second time, the figurine that popped out was different.

"How did you do that?" he asked in spite of himself, and the snake grinned at him.

"That would be telling!"

He spent a little more time than he perhaps should have with Hysuan, listening to everything he had to say, everything he wanted to teach — and, eventually, asked him about his people. Hysuan seemed more than happy to tell him everything he remembered.

They were an individualistic species, he said, that often chose a profession important to them and then went their own way; every few years, they would gather, and share everything that they'd learned in their respective journeys. In this way, they would pass on their interests to the young ones that seemed most interested in following in their footsteps.

It explained why Hysuan was so interested in teaching.

[ You have gained a new Remembrance: Teacher's Mark ]

And on it went.

Derivan lost count of how much time he spent with the people here, trying to learn everything he could. He spoke again with the ant that had led him here in the first place, asking about his people, and listened intently as the means by which they kept their livestock was explained to him. He spoke with someone whose species he had no name for, made of too many arms and too many legs; he listened as they told him about how they chose the limbs they acquired.

Strange and foreign to him, but he accepted and remembered it, nonetheless. His own lost arm ached in sympathy.

He spent, perhaps, longer than was wise. When the Sign upon his chest began to fade, he simply painted a new one on, spending more mana than usual to get it to stick. There was no ambient mana in the Void, and so every cast consumed far more of his personal mana than it usually did.

Derivan stayed until the last dregs of that mana was gone, learning and remembering everything he could.

Before he left, he searched for Jelevar. She regarded him without a hint of recognition, with the same surprise as she had the first time she'd seen him. This time, he simply asked her for a game, and played a round of chess with her.

He lost terribly. But it seemed like a good way to mark his exit.

He could have spent more time in the Void, he knew. There were other camps out there, other so-called refugees that were spending what remained of their lives in this nothingness, their culture and history slowly forgotten. But he couldn't stay there forever: not without risking getting erased himself.

All he could do was promise himself he would return if he was able.