Edge Cases

The nice thing about was really the time dilation aspect of it. It gave Derivan so much time compared to the people that were on Obreve proper — time for him to use Shift, open up a portal, recharge, and then use Shift again. In that amount of time, only about an hour would have passed on Obreve.

It took him ten hours to recharge fully.

That amount of dilation gave them the time to inspect the details of everything that was happening with the rebellion — to look through their plans, to keep an eye on things in case anything went wrong.

They'd made sure to check in from time to time, and everything seemed to be going about as well as could be expected. The rebellion used the glyphs that Vex had taught them to set traps and cast magics they never could have otherwise, and even developed a few new ones that Vex subsequently copied and stole.

If Helix hadn't left for the Herastul estate a little earlier than scheduled, Derivan and the others would have made it just on time. As it was, they realized what was happening only barely on time. Helix had missed a scheduled check-in, and Vex had asked Derivan to see what was going on.

Then — once they'd seen all they needed to see — Derivan ripped open a hole in reality between the dungeon's bonus room and the Herastul estate.

Sev's first move was to use [A Moment of Time], which he'd received from Tempus and which was a far better version of the skill he'd gotten from Aurum. It took a lot more divine magic, accordingly, but the artifact Vex had retrieved seemed to have it in spades.

That skill froze everyone in time except for the people he chose. They would all have to return to their initial positions before the skill released, but it gave them ample opportunity to talk, plan, and cast new skills.

"Ready?" Vex asked. He gestured to Sev, who was holding a key inside a lock that looked like it was trying to fight him. Time, after all, didn't like to stop. "We can't keep this up forever."

"Should've invested more points in Strength," Misa said, smirking at Sev.

"Shut up," Sev grumbled, gritting his teeth. The key was forced to turn half a degree back in his fingers, and all of reality shifted half an inch; the closest Herastul combatant was now close enough for Helix to see the glint of their blade.

"You're gonna help me, right?" Helix said, looking at the crowd dubiously. "I can't take 'em by myself."

"We got you," Vex assured.

"Especially me," Misa quipped.

[Me, Myself and I], it turned out, was a skill that codified what she'd done with [An Anchor of Heart and Home]. It allowed her to summon semi-independent copies of herself at the cost of half her health — and it was that skill she used now, far more liberally than was practical.

Sev sighed, letting go of the key with one hand to make a quick gesture; divine magic spread into each one of Misa's copies, healing them — and her — back up to full. The key forced itself another two degrees in that instant, and he grabbed a hold of it again. "Come on, guys," he said, his voice strained.

"Go ahead," Helix said. He settled down, taking a breath, and his eyes gained a gint of steel in them; threads of mana began to collect around him, coalescing into another [Fire Gauntlet] and a new [Ice Gauntlet] on his arms. "I'm ready."

Sev let the key go, and time returned with a snap.

It was nice to have control of his mana again, Helix thought.

A half-dozen copies of his brother's orc-lady friend appeared in the garden, and the ensuing confusion kept the Herastul henchmen from noticing the threat he now posed. Roughly half of them still had their attention on him, and the closest was still mid-step, a bright flash of crimson flickering within his fist.

Helix punched him in the face.

Whatever he was carrying didn't matter — the man went flying, concentrated fire exploding first from the back of the gauntlet, then the front; the effect was an accelerated punch that smashed the man's face in. He swung his second arm almost lazily, letting the weight of the [Ice Gauntlet] spin him around, and it shattered in another Herastul member's face.

Neither of those blows were enough to take care of either of those men, of course. Herastul employees and House members were better trained than that, and passive buffs like his gauntlets weren't the sorts of spells that would eradicate people in a single blow.

They were made for sustained combat. It wasn't quite as practical — it didn't take full advantage of his massive reserves of mana, for example — but it helped in extremely prolonged fights, namely the ones he had to fight in Mana Nuclei.

The first henchman rose to fight again. This time, enough of the man's cloak had burned away that he could see his face, too, distorted in a rictus of startling anger.

"What, did I do something to you personally?" Helix quipped. He danced out of the way of the blow the Herastul man tried to strike, making sure none of that crimson got anywhere near him, trying to remember where he recognized the man's face.

And then he frowned, a chill flooding his body all at once.

He wasn't really taking this seriously enough. This wasn't just some random member of the House — this was the Herastul heir. Jakka's son. Arkul, if he remembred correctly.

Why in the world had Jakka involved his son in this fight? He was barely eighteen! And he recognized the crimson glow in the man's hand now — he was using a Life-Corer! Those things were artifacts from the Vitalia House, and though they were powerful, they tore at the user's life for every blow they struck.

Not their health. Their life. A Life-Corer would make you age with every blow, and in return, a single strike...

"What the fuck," Helix hissed, and he almost paid for it. He felt the wind of the attack behind him and threw himself out of the way, and a fraction of a second later a version of Misa appeared in front of the blow, catching the last fraction of it the moment before it would have struck him.

This one was Jakka's daughter. Ikaya.

She wasn't using anything as absurd as a Life-Corer, at least, but she seemed just as lost in her anger. Helix felt his rage burning brighter in him, and the gauntlets on his fists responded, one flaring hotter and the other colder. He couldn't retreat from this fight to deal with Jakka now — but he could disable these two.

"Heads up!" he called. "These guys are Jakka's kids! I think there's something wrong with them! Might be true for the others, too!"

Over in the corner, Larok's eyes widened, and he began rapidly flipping through a notebook he kept with him. His younger brother and his three adventurer friends all reacted immediately, exchanging worried glances with one another and then shifting the way they fought—

But Helix didn't have the time to pay attention. The Herastul heirs were on his back again, both of them attacking at once.

He couldn't get hit by the Life-Corer. He dodged out of the way of that one as a priority, gritting his teeth and letting the manadrill Jakka's daughter wielded bore its way into him. He crushed the hand holding the Life-Corer between his gauntlets a moment later, and found himself disturbed by the way Arkul didn't even flinch. The Life-Corer's light flickered out, its elements disrupted by the dual assault of fire and ice, and he immediately twisted.

Using his own body as leverage when there was a weapon stuck in him was a little disconcerting, but nothing new, really. A manadrill was the worst weapon to bring against an Ashion House member.

He had mana to spare. Those things wouldn't hurt him if they were left on him for days.

That sent Ikaya crashing to the ground, too, and a quick spell sent tight vines wrapping around their bodies. Helix panted as his Health took care of his wounds, then glanced up to continue the fight...

...only to find that every single one of them had been struck down and bound.

The other four hadn't been idle, after all.

Helix promptly ignored the aftermath of the battle and hurried over to Larok. His mana barrier had held, fortunately, and by some miracle Larok had emerged from the whole conflict without a scratch. If Jakka had had any sense at all, he would have sent some of his men to target Larok — Helix would've had to abandon fighting to defend him.

But Jakka, he supposed, hadn't even stopped to consider that a commoner might mean something to a noble.

"You doing okay?" Helix asked, helping Larok to his feet.

"Am I

okay?" Larok laughed. "I should be the one asking you that! You were amazing! Not that I didn't know that already, but..."

"First time you've actually seen it?" Helix asked. Despite himself, he managed a small grin.

"I've seen it before." Larok smirked back, but he'd heard what Helix had yelled too, and that smirk quickly fell away. "I'm glad I was able to help, but... do you have any idea what's going on here?"

"You helped?" Helix blinked.

Larok stared at him and raised a brow. "You didn't think it was weird they didn't use any skills?"

A broad grin spread over Helix's face. He let himself forget, just for a moment, about what Jakka had done to his own children, and wrapped Larok in a hug. "Shit, I should've realized. That's fucking amazing."

"Too tight!" Larok yelped, and Helix released him.

"Whoops. Left [Mana Boost] on."

"Like always." Larok huffed at him, and Helix smiled slightly.

"I guess we can't really take the credit for most of this, though," Helix said. "Those four are something else."

Larok stared at them and shivered a little. "Yeah, no kidding. Glad they're on our side."

"Yeah." Helix was silent for a moment, then glanced over at the field of groaning bodies. "You think the kids are gonna be alright?"

"...I hope so."

"Something is wrong," Derivan said. He glanced around the garden with a furrow in the glow of his eyes. Part of his mind was occupied, taken up by the effort it took to keep the portal to their bonus room open — if he allowed it to snap shut, it would collapse the whole thing, and they weren't quite ready to leave.

Not yet.

"What, besides the thing where the orc sent his children to fight rebels?" Sev raised an eyebrow. He glanced towards Jakka with distaste — the orc wasn't saying a word, and couldn't say a word, bound up as tight as he was.

"Yes," Derivan said. He didn't mind the sarcasm; Sev was worried, he knew, and none of it was targeted at him. And yet...

There were strange, half-visible ripples in the air whenever he looked. None of his skills or stats were quite able to latch on to them. It wasn't mana, it wasn't the Shifting undertones of reality, and it couldn't have been divinity, either. Sev or Vex would have sensed it. "You do not see this? The distortions."

"Distortions?" Sev frowned. He glanced around worriedly, and so did Misa and Vex; all three of them shook their heads. "No."

"I cannot sense them," Derivan murmured. "But I can see them..."

Very carefully, he stepped forward, closer to one of the wriggling shapes. Now that he paid closer attention, he could see that they were gathered mostly around the flowers, herbs and bushes planted in the garden. He brushed a finger against one of them, curious and cautious.

The system responded.

He felt it through Patch, but no screen appeared in front of him. It was trying to show him something, but the mechanism it was activating was broken — he could feel where the threads in the system had vanished. It was almost like they had been eaten away.

That was, fortunately, an easy enough Patch. He couldn't link it to the main system — it seemed to reject it the moment he tried to link it, shifting away from the mental thread he tried to extend to it, almost as if it was afraid. But there was an older system attached to Misa, and he appropriated that connection, switching the thread to tie into that older engine.

Text floated into his vision, with no box to accompany it.

"Ah," Derivan said.

The word wasn't quite sufficient for the sudden worry he now felt. He took a step back, trying to organize his thoughts, and felt Vex walk up to him.

"You found something?" his boyfriend asked.

"I believe I have," Derivan said. "And if I understand what this is correctly... then Elyra is in greater danger than we thought."

He glanced grimly at Helix. "We may have to accelerate our plans."