Edge Cases

79 - Book 2: Chapter 16: An Otterly Fascinating History Lesson

"This is everything we know," the otter-mage said.

His name was Noram, because of course it was. Vex had exchanged worried glances with the rest of his friends when the mage finally introduced himself, but none of them had said anything. They needed a better picture of what was happening, first.

Otter-Noram led them up to the second floor of the tower, where two other mages were seated around a glyph painted on the floor. Mana swirled around both of them, coalescing into an orb at the center that glowed and shifted; a dozen dark branches spiralled off that orb, each one fading into nothing. Among them was a single dark-blue branch a remarkably familiar shade of blue, actually. That branch, and only that branch, was connected to a smaller, tighter spiral of white.

"It's a visualization of the Roads," the otter explained. He looked at them, his gaze flicking somewhat furtively over the darkened branches, like he was worried. "Those are the dead Roads. Nothing we've tried has brought them back. The one remaining Road, the one you came from it looks like it's dying. The white node over there is your town, and everything surrounding it. Fendal."

For a moment, the five of them stared in silence at the map of the Roads. The other two mages didn't say a word. They each seemed deep in concentration, though their figures were largely hidden by their robes.

"I'm still not sure I understand what exactly the Roads are," Misa said with a frown. "They don't just teleport people, right? We noticed spatial compression magic in the Roads, so I thought maybe this whole place was just really far underground. But we've been told something about the Roads also... 'translating' people? Whatever that means."

Otter-Noram grimaced slightly. "Yes. Well. The Roads don't just reach through space," he said. "I suppose it's a bit of an open secret. That spatial compression is a subcomponent of a deeper magic at work. But explaining all of that is... a deeper lesson on the history of our world than I want to get into."

"We have time." Misa crossed her arms. "We were also told time runs differently here."

The otter sighed.

"I'll give you a quick summary," he said. He gestured to the map of the Roads again. "Or as quick as I can make it. Mana is, quite literally, the life force of this world; it empowers nearly everything we do. It might not be the same where you're from but a couple hundred years ago, it started acting erratically. Almost dangerously.

"Some places in the world got completely blocked off from us. It was slow, at first so slow we barely even realized what was happening. Maybe there was some small corner of the kitchen you wouldn't be able to teleport into, or your cabinet might be smaller than it was supposed to be. Nothing big. Nothing insidious. Not enough for people to talk about, to realize it was a pattern; most of us thought it was just a problem with our magic, or some small mistake we made.

"Then the spells we used to travel far and wide stopped working properly. Those broken spaces got larger. The mana began to physically herd us into groups, away from our old cities and capitals; every time we tried to teleport, or use any movement-based spell, it moved us somewhere else instead. Anyone who didn't use those spells it forced out, through some application of forced teleportation or flight, and then it sealed those places off completely so we couldn't go back.

"We didn't know what to do. But we noticed that anyone living underground didn't seem as affected, so we eventually decided to dig; we built underground cities and moved there as best we could. The mana didn't stop us if anything, it seemed stronger there, and it seemed to want us there."

Otter-Noram frowned, as if trying to find the right words. "We told stories of what the surface was like; what the sun looked like, what the seasons looked like. We had spells to keep those memories perfectly preserved. We told stories of the seasons and the weather...

"And then we just... forgot." The otter shook his head and clenched his tiny fists. "After a hundred years. Don't know why it happened. Don't know how. Half the spells we had banked to remember were just fucking gone, just like that. So we tried to leave again, and see if we could get back what we lost, and we found that we could access the surface again, but nothing was the same.

"We're not sure. Because of how much we lost. But the places we could go back to didn't feel right. Some of them were outright hostile. The rules didn't make sense anymore. You needed magic just to stay attached to the ground in some places. In others the wind scoured your fur, or whatever your equivalent is.

"And then the mana gifted us the Roads." Here Otter-Noram hesitated. "They're a deep magic. A magic we don't fully understand. There are small parts of them that do not work as magic should, and that function of 'translation' is one of them; with it, when we go through the Roads, we don't need extra magic just to keep ourselves alive. If possible, we're adapted to fit. Or we just... become mana-ghosts. Able to survive and return, though it's hard to interact with the world unless we're very experienced.

"The destination of the Roads always change. Sometimes they bring us to new places, and sometimes they bring us to other cities like our own; underground cities or kingdoms built in the aftermath of whatever the mana did to the surface. And then, a few weeks ago, our Roads all simultaneously just... died. And the mana is acting strangely, even here."

Otter-Noram sighed. He seemed exhausted from telling that story, and promptly seated himself down on a small chair that had been hiding in a corner of the room he slumped backwards on it, and stared at the four adventurers.

"I did my part of the bargain," he said. "That's almost everything I know. We've had some disappearances in our local supplies mana slivers keep going missing, and we keep a store of that for emergency ritual magics we need to perform. We don't have any leads on that. We keep an eye on those, and they just disappear. Right in front of our eyes. So if you have any idea what's going on, I'd really love to know, because so far none of our magic has come up with anything."

Vex had so many things he wanted to say. So many questions, even. But he bit his tongue now wasn't the right time for those questions, and he wasn't sure if there was a right time for those questions. This version of Noram seemed to have lived for a very, very long time, and Vex had so many questions about that point alone, yet...

He seemed so tired.

Sev and Misa looked like they were trying to figure out what to say, too, slowly soaking in what Noram had explained to them. Derivan was watching Otter-Noram carefully, seemingly on the verge of saying something, and trying to decide whether or not he should.

He chose to speak. "If I may ask," the armor said slowly. "When you told us your story, your gaze was more frequently directed at Vex and me. Why is that?"

"What?" the otter mage frowned, evidently not expecting that question. "...I don't know. You two felt more familiar, I guess."

A small piece of the puzzle. Vex's heart beat hard; this place was connected to Fendal in more ways than just through the Roads, if that hadn't been obvious already. This was just the only evidence they had that the connection was active. That it was continuing, even now.

"I think," Sev said slowly. He'd evidently come to the same conclusion. "That we're going to need some time to discuss everything we've just learned."

The otter scoffed. "That was a lot, was it?" he said, his words holding a small bite of bitter sarcasm.

"I wasn't saying I wouldn't share," Sev said with a sigh. "It's just that what you told us is it's a lot? And I don't want to give you the wrong information based on just guesses. We need to talk and figure out what we know, and what's just a guess.

"But I will tell you what we know," Sev added when Otter-Noram opened his mouth to protest, and the otter clamped his mouth shut again. He watched Sev in a mixture of suspicion and anticipation. "We know that Fendal's been experiencing what they call goblin raids, and that those words do not accurately reflect what is happening in Fendal. We know that they've had raids on their mana crystal stores, which parallels what's been happening to your mana slivers. We know that a dungeon is involved."

"What's a dungeon?" Otter-Noram frowned. "I know at least two kinds of dungeons, and I'm pretty sure you're not talking about either of them."

Sev coughed. "No," he said. "It's complicated."

And that, of course, led to a long conversation about the nature of the system, of dungeons, and how they affected the world or the slice of reality that the Road connected to. By the end of it, Otter-Noram was looking about as confused and lost as Vex was sure he had looked at the end of the little history lesson the otter had given.

"It doesn't sound like our Road is just connected to a small slice anymore," Otter-Noram said, looking troubled. "Maybe that's why all the other Roads are dead...?"

I don't think so, Vex wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut and glanced at the others instead Sev caught his look and shook his head just slightly. It was one of the things he wanted to discuss.

"I'm assuming you four need a room here?" the otter suddenly asked them, and Vex blinked at him. "There's an inn nearby. The Rising."

"The... Rising?" Sev asked, sounding confused. The otter shrugged his little shoulders, and hopped off his chair.

"I didn't name it," he said. "I'll get you some slivers so you can pay for a room there. I don't know how long you'll be saying, but if you want to stay any longer than a night, I suggest you find some odd jobs. The local alchemists are always needing test subjects. And there are sometimes monsters on the outskirts, if combat is more your thing."

"Oh, good," Sev said faintly. "For a moment I thought you were going to give us a key to a room at the inn."

"Why would I have keys to the inn here?" Otter-Noram stared at Sev. "Do things work that differently in Fendal?"

"Believe me," Sev muttered. "I wish I knew."

This time, the inn wasn't completely empty when they arrived though it wasn't bustling and full, either. They spoke very briefly to the innkeeper, who was a being of ethereal flame that sounded like a tired old man; his name, apparently, was Nesnub. So at the very least, not everyone they were meeting was someone they had already met in Fendal.

A quick exchange and five slivers netted them a room; one that was much smaller than the one they had in Fendal, admittedly, but going back and forth through the Road seemed like too much of a hassle and seemed risky besides.

"I mean," Sev said, looking around the room. "It's kinda fancier than I was expecting."

Vex looked around as well. For all that it was a small room, it was rather exceptionally cozy; small glyphs decorated the walls, radiating both light and a sort of comforting warmth. Even the room seemed to be arranged like two wings spreading out; two beds in the corners, and one in a little alcove in the middle.

"I want that one," Vex said, pointing to the alcove. "Please?"

"Sure," Sev said with a chuckle.

"I don't mind." Misa shrugged.

"I do not need a bed," Derivan said. Vex grinned happily at that, but was quickly distracted by Sev clapping his hands together.

"But first," Sev said. "Let's talk about what's going on."