Max shivered in the cold. Darius being at the top of a mountain meant teleporting into a snowy landscape. The runes glowing beneath the snow was pleasing to look at and helped illuminate anything hiding in the dark night. It didn’t take him long to find a place where he could be. Standing out in the white landscape was a large, stone building. The shape was odd and unnatural. If Elder Charaka was with him, then they probably sought shelter while he dealt with the penalty from the system. Max didn’t hesitate to turn the knob. Things clicked in his mind as he realised where he was.
It was Elder Ji-min’s home.
No wonder it was so cold.
While Max ventured through the familiar, cluttered corridor, he decided to make his presence known. He would probably get an aggressive welcome. “Darius? You there?” There was no prompt aside from Cy’s. Why was it the only prompt? “I’m here to help with the penalty.”
Despite the restricted tank of power, Max didn’t hesitate to cast down magic into the floor causing runes to split into a pathway leading to whatever life was in these cold walls. Time was the most important resource right now. Following the trail, he hurried past the living room where he signed an ungodly number of papers.
“Darius? Where are you?” Max followed the trail down into a basement. Opening the door to a cellar made Max chuckle slightly as he saw a glowing tank. Turned out Elder Nova was right. Beside the floating body preserved in a clear chemical, he saw Darius hunched over on the floor. Seriousness returned to Max’s face. “There you are. I heard you coughing on the transmission. What were you think-”
Seeing the orange runes suddenly pulse, Max dodged backwards. He was lucky to escape being caught up in the wave of energy causing all to explode in its path. A moment later, Max would’ve ended up like Darius’s bread, half-burnt. “Charon take away Elder Charaka,” Darius commanded. They must’ve used some kind of illusion magic.
Max didn’t move as he held his hands up, just like he always did in Darius’s kitchen to show he wasn’t cooking. Removing a healer and transporter from the situation was probably best in the long run. They were more useful in getting other members as far away from the conflict as they possibly could. Max winced when Darius let out a hearty cough. “Let me help you.”
Darius spat out a mouthful of blood before punching instead of wiping the residue from his lips. “I don’t need your help, boss.” There was an unfamiliar aggressiveness to his voice.
“That’s enough,” Max snapped his fingers causing the runes above them to appear as a giant, neutralising rune covering the space of the room. All before Darius could cast his next spell. Max quickly looked around the room to ensure Cy hadn’t been teleported to them. His feelings were a little torn. Was he relieved to not find him there or disappointed? “What were you think-”
The punch to the face was unexpected, but not unwelcome.
“You got some nerve appearing in front of me, boss.” Darius let out a few more coughs. Instead of taking advantage of the situation by getting a few of his own hits in, Max merely guided the spluttering man gently to the floor. He rubbed the back of the coughing man, like a parent comforting a child in a tantrum. “You’re going to go the cowardly route?” Darius shouted in his ear before erupting into more coughs.
“Everyone here is so desperate to fight,” Max murmured in reply. It wasn’t too hard to find some ink within the cluttered basement. Darius tried to resist, but his bloody coughs kept interfering. Max drew a couple runes on one of the few places devoid of hair, the palm of Darius’s hand. The moment the first rune was complete, Darius’s chest flared up in a red glow. The next rune ensured the man couldn’t more his arms or legs willingly.
“What the fuck?”
“Looks like a severe penalty.” Mux tutted. “Probably an infectious one. If we’re lucky, Elder Charaka and Charon won’t be contagious until tomorrow.” Another thing to check before he left the community for good.
“Infectious?”
“Severe penalties tend to spread… I guess the intension is to hopefully eliminate some of the people who now know about the system. Luckily, those not penalised are usually curable if caught in time.” Max explained, as he tried to readjust the rune above them to allow the predesigned blue runes to become functional again.
“Boss… Are you finally admitting to knowing about the system?”
Max did a double check that Cy’s prompt was the only one active still. “I am.”
Before Darius could reply, they both jumped from the sudden grainy sound of the emergency transmission. This time, it was Elder Obi’s voice coming through. Someone must’ve picked up those three from the floor.
“This is an emergency broadcast. We received verbal confirmation about Cyrus being the victim chosen by the system. Max’s intended completion time appears to be linked to the sun rising. As of now, Max is being watched by Elder Darius.” Elder Charaka and Charon must’ve reached them. “Begin procedure E.” The transmission was cut.
“Procedure E?” Max asked, finally resetting the runes above. All forms of magic not connected to healing or Max’s new internal magic from the orange runes were automatically neutralised.
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Darius didn’t hesitate to explain. “Mass evacuation of unrelated people.”
“Ah, good. Let’s get you patched up while they’re figuring that out.” A weakened Darius tried to fight as Max returned to examining him. “How on earth do you have so much goddamn hair? It’s hard to see your skin.”
“Aren’t you worried that we’ll evacuate Cyrus with them?”
Max froze for a moment before resuming his assessment. Whatever kind of rash that was lurking beneath the hair was beginning to spread. The blue lines weren’t strong enough to keep them at bay. “Hold on, we’re going to do something gross. You’re lucky. I’ve got a good blood type this time.” He began rummaging through the equipment next to the tank. Why couldn’t this be a world with plastic?
“What do you think, boss?”
“About what? You evacuating Cy? I mean, you could. The question just becomes how far away you can get him-”
“About that.” Max stopped searching to see Darius pointing at the glowing tank with Niv’s body floating peacefully in it. Darius tried regaining control of his limbs.
“Stop moving and stay on the blue lines.” Max barked at him before turning his attention back to sterilising his chosen scalpels. There was a distinct bitterness in his voice as he spoke. “The prompt I need to avoid says: Cy is still alive when the sun rises. That’s what I’m working with… Please tell me you didn’t get a penalty just to bring me all the way here for that tank.”
“Can’t we put Cyrus in there and then revive him-”
“I don’t think so,” Max dismissed the idea flatly. “Niv’s body may be well preserved, but his soul or whatever is on the inside is gone, right? That’s the more important part. It’s easy to rebuild a body. Getting back the same person isn’t as easy-”
“But someone like you can do it… What the fuck as you doing?” Darius watched Max make a small incision before wrapping the blade at an angle to keep the wound open before. He turned to him, while holding another sterilised scalpel.
Max waved his finger to alter the palm runes as he instructed, “Hold out your arm and part the hair.” His request was only met with blunt refusal.
“No! What the hell-”
“You can see my past lives, and you’re still doubting me?”
It wasn’t hard to subdue a weakened Darius and making him comply until they had matching open incisions. Max moved so he wasn’t on a blue line. Using some of the magic which had been injected into him earlier by the orange runes, he got the blood from his arm to smoothly flow into Darius’s. The blue lines suddenly intensified around Darius.
“These lines,” Max gestured to the blue, “provide light passive healing properties to someone when they’re in direct contact. Your penalty is too aggressive for them to have much effect.”
“So, you’re giving me blood. You didn’t seem like the sharing type, boss.”
“I’m manipulating my own runes into thinking you are me.” It was an emergency plan in place in case intense injuries occurred, either for Max or for others. “We’re going to be here for a while,” Max thought aloud. How many hours did he have until the sun was up? What time was it now.
Darius let out a tired grunt, but his coughing had already lessened dramatically. “So, we’re just stuck like this until help comes?”
“The runes only partially recognise you,” Max said dismissively. He took a seat on the cold floor. “Once the runes are shining, I’ll get going.”
“They’re already shining?”
“Clearly not enough. Come on, Darius, I thought you were smarter than that.”
A few minutes of awkward silence trickled past.
“… You really can’t revive Cyrus if we put him in that tank?”
“Maybe,” Max admitted. “That’s just part of the problem though. The system has been obsessed with Cy ever since I met him. First, I couldn't ignore him. Then I couldn't let him die. After coming here, it changed to being about Cy learning about the system from me… When I learned about his heart issue, it banned me from curing his penalty...” Darius raised an eyebrow. “There’s never been a moment when a story wasn’t directly connected with him. And until now, there has never been a moment when it wasn’t in competition with other prompts.
“But there’s nothing right now. No other prompts competing with Cy’s in trying to get me to start something. Your prompt is gone. The prompt limiting me to who I can teach runes to is gone. Even the prompts trying to convince me to create havoc are nowhere to be seen. You have an idea about how cold the system is. It’s up to something. Do you think it will consider Cy being put into a temporary sleep as being dead-dead? It might not. And when it comes to the sunrising, there’s even more uncertainties. If anything, the prompt could return when he wakes, and I might auto-fail depending on what the system considers ‘a sunrise.’”
“Might. Which means there’s a chance.”
“Of course, there’s a chance. Just… I don’t think I’m willing to take that chance.”
For a moment, Darius shared the same expression as Elder Aris. Disbelief over Max’s sudden coldness towards Cy. “You’re not willing to take a chance?” The hurt in his voice was clear.
“The system was pretty clear about the expectation of him staying alive. If I fail to disobey, then I’ll start a story. All the effort I put in so far will come undone. I’d have to start it all again in my next life to see if I can get the same weird messages popping up in the prompts.”
Darius nodded along, clearly a little confused with what he was saying about prompts. “It’s a sacrifice. I get it. So, let’s throw in the towel, watch the sun come up, and I swear all… most of the Elders will help you succeed in your story to the best of our abilities.”
… “Do you think Cy is special?”
“What?”
“In my next life, you don’t think there’s going to be someone like Cy? Cy’s very good at his type of magic, but I’ve met fortune specialists like him before. And when it comes to our friendship… Well, it happens almost every time. Another life, another friend; for me, there will always be another Cy. I may as well commit to the progress I’ve made.”
“There will always be another Cy?” Max nodded. The blue runes were getting bright. They could stop soon. “Does that mean there will always be another Ellie?”
Max didn’t say anything for a moment. “Yes… With time… There will always be another Ellie.” The voice was a little unsteady as he stopped the flow of blood, removed the scalpels, and held down their skin until it stopped bleeding under the influence of the runes. “You stay here. Rest, recover, and you can hate me later. We’ll figure out how to keep your penalty under control when this is sorted.”
“Wait! What about information about the system? I can tell you in exchange-” Darius frantically offered as he tried to stand. Max didn’t hesitate to wind him with a quick punch to the stomach before dipping his finger in some of the spilt blood and drawing an immobilising rune onto Darius’s boot.
“You’re good at looking in the past, but you’re not the best at interpreting it. I also don’t trust you to tell me the truth,” Max muttered. Among all the notes Edric gave him about Darius, there was a consistent story. Darius was not reliable enough for them. Especially when Cy was involved.
“Wait! Boss, we can make a deal-”
“Like how you promised to cover for me regarding Lux’s death?”
… “All of this sounds a bit like an excuse, boss…”
“Sorry Darius, it’s time for me to go now.”