Edge Cases

Irvis began by exploding into action.

Derivan saw Misa open her mouth, presumably to respond to Irvis — but she abruptly tensed instead, her expression flashing into focus in an instant. No time for banter. The two Irvis-creatures lunged towards them, their bodies flattening and spreading into a mess of flesh and teeth in a fraction of a second. Misa flashed forward once in a block, her body distorting slightly — Derivan felt the intensity of the shift as she flickered through more realities than she normally had to.

She found one eventually, her mace morphing into something that looked like a cross between a whip and a cage of fire — but Derivan saw the exhaustion in her face, even as Sev hurriedly hit her with a heal. Misa staggered back to her feet as the two Irvises were thrown back, coughing slightly.

"That was... more than two attacks," she said, looking slightly ill. "Thought I could block it. Drained all my mana, half my health."

That explained some of what was happening, but not all of it. Derivan felt for Irvis' connection with the system, but Patch didn't find anything — there were these occasional threads that would reach out from him and connect with the greater system, which was so far different from how everyone else connected with the system that Derivan had no idea what to do with it.

He still snapped those strands when he could. He just wasn't sure that it was doing anything. Irvis certainly didn't react to it when he did.

Sev looked like he was about to say something, but Irvis had already recovered and was launching yet another dual attack; this time, all three of them dove out of the way, with Derivan creating [Barrier]s in layers to protect them from the pieces of Irvis that snapped forward and threatened to consume them. His forms twisted and wove around those constructs, but it still slowed him down.

"We need a plan!" Misa shouted. The sound Irvis was making was a crackle of groaning teeth, overwhelming the music that played on through the room they were in. Irvis flowed over Derivan's barriers, his body distorting around each one with a disconcerting sound that was not unlike the snap of bone. Derivan hurriedly worked his Sign into each of his barriers, trying to make something broader—

No, there was something more he could do here. If he used the combination Sign with Vex, he could at least let his lizard know that something was wrong. He hadn't tested his own Sign in isolation yet, and while this was a good time to do so, this was a way to reach out to Vex without relying on the system.

Derivan just hoped it would work.

A flare of mana into his barriers brought that book-shield into being. Irvis' eldritch forms slammed into his magic and then almost seemed to recoil, as if burned. Derivan took the opportunity to move his [Barrier]s and begin linking them up. It took him only a second — each [Barrier] acted as an anchor point for a hexagonal section of a greater glyphic shield, creating a faintly glimmering green dome of shields around them, each imprinted with the faint impression of an open book.

Irvis slammed back into that shield a moment later, uncaring for the way the magic flashed and reacted against him, burning small parts of his flesh. Gnashing teeth spread small cracks into the dome, and Derivan felt a small part of his soul respond, tiny flashes of pain resounding inside him with every small crack.

"The shield will not last," he said, though his words were redundant. Sev and Misa both could see the cracks spreading for themselves. Derivan was more concerned about the possibility that he had trapped them. Irvis had spread around the shield so that the only source of light left was from the magic itself.

But he'd had little choice, he told himself. Irvis was faster than any of them, and Misa's blocks would not last.

...still, he almost regretted the magic. The shield lit up Irvis in a particularly disconcerting way, in as far as it was disconcerting to have a flesh-monster surrounding them.

"We're missing our major damage dealer," Sev said grimly. "We don't really have a backup. Derivan?"

"I have made an attempt to communicate with Vex," Derivan said. "And... I do not know if I can hurt him. His anatomy is different."

Which was an understatement, if there ever was one.

"There's more." Sev hesitated. "The dungeon's... playing music. That's not normal, right?"

"The potion golems were part of our path," Derivan said. "Was the music part of yours?"

"I... don't know." Misa shook her head. "I didn't pay attention. My section of the dungeon was just a shitload of traps, but maybe there was a musical element to it?"

"If we can use the dungeon against him, we should," Sev said. He glanced up at the protective dome. "Assuming we last long enough."

"We can't stay like this forever," Misa agreed. "I can push him back again."

"Do you have enough mana?" Sev glanced at her. Misa winced.

"Nooo," she said.

Derivan understood, though Misa didn't elaborate further. Her mana-sharing trick required her to cut into the mana supply of the reality anchor, and that wasn't something she was particularly willing to do. Not when the integrity of that reality anchor was still supporting the existence of her entire family.

Her entire village, even.

The cracks in his shield began to spread, and Misa let out a reluctant breath. She'd practiced this maneuver and a few others with her village, Derivan knew. All she needed to do was send a message.

It happened quickly. Gabriel appeared and disappeared, having prepared the [Trade] before he'd even fully manifested; he wasn't one for combat situations, and Misa didn't want to keep him there. The moment she was ready she gave him a nod, and Derivan let the barrier go. Glyphic magic flashed back into the [Barrier]s producing them, and those barriers shattered an instant later. Irvis surged forward—

Misa blocked.

Like before, Irvis was disguising multiple attacks in what was apparently a single one. Derivan could sense it through Patch and Shift, now that he was watching for it — there were small threads of Misa's skill reaching out, testing with spiderlike limbs to identify the exact vector of attack. And there were a dozen hidden small attacks in what Irvis was doing. Every individual tooth coated in a different poison, slightly-Shifted limbs and even sounds that could damage them.

Without the extra mana, Misa would have died.

Even with it, she struggled. He saw the immensity of the skill as it connected with some greater structure, and a massive Shift followed, flooding her weapon with something that seemed alien even to the system. Her mace pulsed into a beacon of light that, very briefly, pushed Irvis back, splattering sections of his flesh out against the walls. The slowly-rising floor almost seemed to help Irvis, here; as it scraped against the walls, it pulled clumps of Irvis-flesh with it, leaving him in puddles on the floor that moved surprisingly quickly to re-coalesce.

This was still an opportunity, Derivan recognized.

As Irvis tried to recover, the armor slashed forward with his sword, cutting into the pseudo-flesh that was closest to him. He was mindful of what had happened to Misa when her own weapon had made contact, but there was always the chance that what happened with him would be different, given how he interacted with Health.

The flesh split apart under his blade, but it did nothing else different. He was lucky in that it didn't start crawling up his sword, like it had with Misa's mace. On the other hand, it didn't look like Irvis had been hurt at all.

He even chuckled. "Was that your best shot?" he asked, his voice mocking. It resonated in the arena around them, a half-dozen mouths speaking the words from the little globs of him left all over the room that were slowly crawling together.

Derivan didn't respond. Instead, he paid attention to the music. The first plan hadn't worked, so it was time to move on to the second; he could feel the way the system itself was threaded through every note. The only question was exactly what kind of challenge this was supposed to represent —

Irvis didn't give him much time to think. He surged together all at once and launched himself at Derivan, a broken sort of laugh emerging from his mouths, and Derivan instinctively held up his sword to block. No [Barrier], and he'd acted too quickly for Misa to even react.

She was there a second later, but not before Derivan had already taken the brunt of the hit. For the first time he felt his metal twisting terribly, a long serrated gash tearing open along the length of his arm. It was sheer luck that the poison did nothing to him, that Irvis had chosen to attack him like this.

But even that wasn't an advantage they kept for long.

Irvis re-coalesced into a single form. He seemed to be getting better and better at recovering from Misa's blocks, and she looked more and more exhausted every time she blocked one of his attacks. Derivan almost wanted to check in with her, but...

They had more pressing problems. Sev would keep an eye on everything he needed to.

Irvis once again wore an immaculate suit, though this time he didn't bother looking particularly human. He kept himself just human enough to affect a fake, thoughtful frown. "Now that's unexpected," Irvis said, looking at Derivan. "You're a monster, aren't you?"

Derivan's hand immediately went for the amulet the Guildmaster had given him. It was gone, crushed in the weight of Irvis' attack.

"I am who I choose to be," Derivan replied, taking an almost immediate dislike to Irvis' label. Irvis just laughed.

"Oh, that's rich," he said with a chuckle. He paused, scanning Derivan thoughtfully. "You don't know what you are, do you? You don't know what we are."

Irvis was a monster? "Enlighten me," Derivan said, trying to keep himself from sounding too eager. It wasn't an answer that he needed — but it was an answer he'd been searching for for a while.

Irvis could tell, evidently. He watched Derivan for a moment before smiling carelessly. "No. I don't think I will."

He was mocking him.

Which was all well and good. Derivan was interested in the answer, but was perfectly willing to wait on an answer if he had to; right now, it was more important that they find a solution to the situation they were trapped in, before Irvis decided to stop toying with them. Derivan had no doubt that he could have obliterated the three of them if he really wanted to.

But there had to be something they could do, or Irvis surely wouldn't have waited for them to split up before attacking them. Unless he was confined to the dungeon somehow.

The dungeon music washed over him again, and this time, Derivan paid close attention. It was related in some way to Misa's section of the dungeon, he knew, but all it seemed to be was music. Nothing was reacting to it—

—But maybe nothing was reacting to it because someone was already solving every puzzle the dungeon threw at them in real time.

Derivan opened up Shift a little bit more, searching for everything Irvis was doing. Irvis was clearly aware of these shifted realities to some extent — every variant of him was acting with deliberation, and Derivan realized for the first time that some of them were singing.

Nothing obvious. Low, pure notes, in time with the dungeon music that poured over them. And yet...

Each time the dungeon reacted, pulsing. And each time, the foundation of the whole place shook, like it was building up to something.

"Nothing to say?" Irvis raised an eyebrow at him. "A pity. Especially since you're like me."

If Derivan had had a mouth, it would have pressed into a thin line at that statement. Instead, he just readied his sword, and kept a mental finger on the building music.

Something was about to happen, and he needed to be ready.

He just hoped Vex got his message.