Edge Cases

106 - Book 2: Chapter 43: Battle of the Golds

There was, unfortunately, no time for a conversation. Derivan would come to regret being quite so impulsive with breaking Lendel's connections, in time, but he'd had no reason to believe that it would make the man fly into a rage; Rekka's connection had broken, and all that had happened was that the orc had learned exactly how he'd been acting all this time.

That was not at all what happened with Lendel.

The man's scream turned into an enraged yell and his party members, running out of the side room, didn't spare a moment to think. In a way, Derivan admired how quickly they reacted; they'd worked together for a long time, if they knew to immediately jump to the defense of their teammate.

It still would have been nice if they'd tried to understand what was going on, though. But their weapons were already out. Lendel had a human teammate that was a wizard, if the book he held and the robes he wore were any indication; his other teammate was an orc and a cleric, if the holy symbol she wielded was any indication

"Derivan!" Misa snapped out and then she snapped out, suddenly materializing in front of him right as Lendel's enraged face appeared in his field of view. Derivan took a step back, his hand reaching for his sword automatically even as odd, sickle-shaped weapons appeared in Misa's hands, to mirror the ones that Lendel was wielding.

"Flickerblades!" Vex called out, identifying them quickly. The lizardkin was already beginning to cut into the air with his daggers, but a flash of motion distracted him; the opposing team's wizard was casting, a runic circle appearing in the air for a split second and gathering an immense amount of fire mana

Derivan didn't have the time to react, but Vex evidently did. The little wizard acted fast, leaping forward with a flicker of motion that made Derivan wonder exactly how many points he'd put into Agility. His dagger stabbed up, almost directly towards the enemy mage's face and missing only by a hair's breadth, and if Derivan hadn't thought to keep his [Mana Sight] running, he wouldn't have seen the way the dagger nicked a cut into the opposing mage's circle.

He hadn't even known that was something that could be done.

The wizard clearly hadn't known that either his face flashed up to his circle in a panic, and he let out a sharp curse, pedaling backwards desperately; Vex moved forward, uncompromising, and stepped deliberately on wizard robes as they dragged on the floor

And the wizard tumbled backwards with a yelp and a panicked scream, flailing. Vex didn't miss a beat. A second cut in the runic circle made it shatter, his version of [Mana Manipulation] apparently superceding whatever iteration the other wizard had; he began to lunge at the fallen wizard a moment later, ready to pin him to the ground, and it was only the enemy healer tackling him out of the way that forced him on the defense.

Sev was chanting, his eyes locked steadily on the battlefield; Derivan could feel the buffs slowly rising around them. The other healer was behind, forced to stop in order to protect their wizard from Vex.

"Stop fuckin' fighting!" Rekka yelled. "They're not here to fight dammit, Tibeus, Lorella, Lendel started this!"

"If Lendel started this, he had a good reason," Lorella said steadily; she was the healer of the team, and she was facing Vex with a wary look on her face. "He doesn't get angry for no reason."

"I'm tellin' you he did," Rekka said angrily.

And then Derivan didn't have time to pay attention to their conversation anymore.

Lendel had been held off by Misa for long enough, but he couldn't be held back for long; the Gold badge wasn't just for show. Derivan vaguely recalled what Flickerblades were Vex had talked about them at one point, and it was part of a briefing on esoteric weapons he insisted they all listen to, at some other point.

They were weapons that "could be in any position they had a reasonable chance of being in".

And now, Derivan saw exactly what that meant.

In theory, they were deadly weapons that could readjust and skewer an enemy in a moment's notice; in practice, they were... well, they were still those things, but they looked rather ridiculous. Lendel's arms flickered quite literally into different positions, and Misa kept up the same, her block calling her own flickerblades into existence that countered every strike precisely.

But it could only last for so long. She disengaged after a moment, gritting her teeth and leaping backwards, and Lendel almost immediately changed targets; once more the angry man came barreling towards him, and this time, Derivan was prepared; his own sword leapt to hand, and moved to block

Except it was a feint, of course. He wore armor that could keep most weapons at bay; he wasn't that interested in the possibility of those blades hurting him. He was more interested in knocking Lendel out so that they could discuss what had just happened. There was a blind rage in his eyes, but also something close to desperation. Physical Empathy was pinging at him, telling him there was something more there, something underlying his actions that was close to a physical need...

That would explain a lot about all of this, really.

Derivan feinted his block and then shoved the entirety of his body weight into Lendel; Lendel stumbled backwards and then snarled at him, but he was harder to knock off balance than Derivan had imagined. Misa came in again from the side, her own weapon back to its default form of a mace, and she swung the full weight of it towards Lendel's head.

Lendel ducked. One blade flickered into existence beside Misa's arm just as she completed the swing, and she had to abort the momentum entirely to avoid impaling her own arm onto the sickle; she twisted her arm with a grimace, the point of the blade still drawing a line of red on her skin. Derivan came at him, then, trying to distract him from Misa, and the second blade flickered into existence with the point nearly within his throat, in that gap in his armor that enemies that did not know his nature always seemed to target

except the thing was headed towards his amulet, and he twisted at the last second to avoid it; if he had a heart, it would have been hammering. The amulet wasn't a weak spot, exactly. All it did was prevent him from being identified. But it was important to him, and Lendel seemed to have pinpointed that, even in his rage

The man used some sort of skill and vanished, reappearing in position just behind Misa; the half-orc didn't bother trying to turn in time. Instead, she closed her eyes and let her block skill take over, her body twisting unnaturally so she could meet the blade. A chunk of mana tore itself out of her and disappeared into nothing.

Derivan took that moment while Lendel was still engaged to charge. His blade was quickly caught, nearly wrenched out of his grip by the combination of two sickles creating a powerful twisting force; he fought that by letting go of his blade, just long enough to let the twist complete and not long enough that he couldn't grab a hold of it after

In the corner of his vision, he could see Sev, Vex, and Rekka engaging the wizard and healer together; to their credit, they were managing to put up a serious fight despite being outnumbered. The wizard Tibeus wasn't letting Vex close anymore after seeing how easily his spell had been modified, and the healer had created some sort of barrier around them that couldn't easily be broken.

Rekka's attempts with his two-sided blade created rippling cracks of dark purple in the gemstone barrier, and Vex had some sort of drill-construct breaking chipping away at it, but both of them periodically had to stop to account for the fireballs the wizard would pepper them with. They hung around him like small pellets, little shooting stars that darted out of the barrier and struck with unerring accuracy; it was mostly Sev's efforts that kept them at bay, his own light barriers deflecting or forcing them to implode early.

If only he had skills, too; his glyph-styled magic still wasn't nearly fast enough for him to use freely in a fight, and [Barrier] was too weak to reliably use in a battle

but he didn't just have his skills, did he?

He had stats. They were different, sure, but they functioned like skills, and the way the Flickerblades worked reminded him of the way Misa's skill worked, reaching into different iterations of the same timeline. That was in effect just another application of Shift, the way that many system functions were.

It was subtle. But he saw it, when he looked; the way the sickles spread out into a range of possibilities, disappearing outside the apparent range he could see through Shift. That didn't matter he didn't need to see every single possibility for the sickles.

He just needed to be able to lock them to one.

But not yet.

It needed to be timed well. Misa charged at Lendel again, and Derivan followed up at nearly the same time, allowing himself to fall a half-beat out of step with Misa. It gave Lendel just one extra thing to think about, one extra thing he needed to time himself to match; small, for an experienced Gold adventurer, but nevertheless just enough that it would likely be a distraction

There.

Lendel's blades locked with his own and with Misa's mace, nearly simultaneously; he saw from the way the man tensed that he was planning to flicker into another position at a moment's notice, both with his blade and with his body, and a split second before he could in that fraction of a second between decision and action Derivan reached out with all the force of Shift, and hammered down on it.

Even with that unexpected and unprepared as Lendel was the man almost broke through his lock. But almost was not the same as succeeding; and instead a brief look of panic overtook Lendel as his skills failed him. Misa didn't hesitate or question what happened. She saw the change in his expression, and knew it to be an opportunity; she shifted with her mace and slammed it into Lendel's stomach, the spiked ball denting armor and splitting flesh for just a second before Health pushed it all back into place

What happened next wasn't planned, and was born just from Derivan and Misa having fought together long enough that they could almost read each other's thoughts.

Misa let go of her mace.

Derivan grabbed it.

It was hard for him to inflict injury with his sword; anything he did with it would inflict either too much damage or too little, or be vaguely horrifying in its impact. Derivan wasn't particularly inclined to cutting off a limb just to make Lendel listen, even if it was something that could be fixed. He had less qualms about repeating the mace-smash into Lendel's stomach a second time.

He didn't have the same strength stat as Misa, of course; his strength was based nearly entirely on the magic moving through him. He was strong, certainly, but not as strong as someone enforced by the system.

It was still enough to tear both metal and flesh, denting armor inward and into the wound.

Lendel screamed for a second time, and this time it was a raw sound of pain. "What what the fuck did you do," he said, his words caught somewhere between breathless and agonized. "What did you do to me! It was you, wasn't it"

"Calm down," Derivan said, though he knew as he was saying it that his words were likely futile.

Lendel screamed for a second time, and this time it was a sound of pain. "What what the fuck did you do," he said, sounding halfway between bewildered and pained. "What did you do to me! It was you, wasn't it"

"Calm down," Derivan said.

"I'm not going to fucking calm"

"Shut your damn mouth and think for a second," Rekka snapped at him. "Why the hell did you get so angry?"

"He did something to me." Lendel glared at Derivan, panting heavily, his hands clutching at his blades as though they could help him; instead of getting up to fight, though, he stayed sitting on the ground. The pain was throwing him off enough that he couldn't think clearly.

"Sev," Derivan said. "Heal him."

"What Are you sure?" Sev asked. The other three had managed to take down the wizard and healer both, though they were slumped, unconscious; Derivan didn't know how they'd won, but the scorch marks around them suggested the process hadn't been pretty.

"He's... out of balance." Derivan hesitated. "It's hard to explain. I think you could help him. Would it harm you?"

Sev was silent for a moment, staring at Lendel. Derivan felt the flicker of a skill activating before the cleric answered. "...I think I can do it," he said slowly. "But healing anything that has a mental effect is... tricky. I'll need you to hold me down."

"Are you sure?" Misa's tone was sharp and worried. "We can find another way, if we need to."

"We don't." Sev looked more sure of himself, now, leaning down over Lendel, who flinched away from him; for an old warrior, he wasn't used to extended pain, if he still wasn't fighting.

Or... no. He was waiting to be healed so he could fight again; Physical Empathy pinged easily on that.

That was fine. The healing would remove the anger. Derivan saw it now, how the system attached to him throbbed in sympathetic rage.

He saw how to fix it.

"I will be helping," Derivan said. "It should minimize the effect it has on you."

He readied Patch; the stat was hardly a scalpel, but it was no longer a hammer. He could wield it with enough finesse, as long as someone else helped.

That was the hope, anyway.