Edge Cases

141 - Book 3: Chapter 6: Interlude - Noram - Soul-Link

Both Norams stared at the system window. Neither of them knew how to react neither of them knew what a soul link was. Just from the name it seemed too intimate a thing to share with a stranger they'd only just met.

But the system is capable of great things, one Noram's mind whispered to him. You've only seen it in action for a short amount of time, and already you've seen how much it changes the people that have access to it. They grow so much more quickly than any of the old methods. They become stronger, faster, more durable. They can take hits that would kill, even without gaining many levels.

The system is terrifying, the other Noram's mind said. It's taken away so much from you. But maybe this is a way for you to take control back the soul link requires consent, right? Depending on what it does, having the link might actually protect you.

"I think we should accept," they both said at the same time.

Then there was a bit of awkward pause, and a slight suspicion that reverberated between them; surprisingly, they could both feel it like a physical sensation crawling across their backs. The otter winced first, breaking eye contact and looking away.

"...I will admit that I want the link because it might give me power," he said after a moment. "I know how that sounds. But I'm not I want it because I don't want to be scared."

"Me too," lizardkin-Noram said. "I mean. I don't care about the power part. I just don't want the system to take away who I am again. The link might stop that from happening."

"We're being impulsive," the otter said.

"Very irresponsible," the lizardkin agreed.

But on some level, they had pieces of the same person within them.

They both reached out and touched 'accept'.

Noram awoke almost an hour later, his head throbbing with pain. There was a small, furry form curled up on his chest he almost flinched and swiped it away before he realized it was just Noram, curled up and sleeping.

Despite himself, he relaxed.

There was a bond between them. It was a small, humming thing nowhere near as invasive as he had feared, and yet... it could be, he sensed. If they both opened up to it, they could share anything. Thoughts, feelings.

The underlying 'reality' that gave them life.

He snapped the valve shut as soon as he could, feeling his heart suddenly race, but he could tell that the otter hadn't tried to take anything more away from him. There wasn't a point, anyway they both had roughly equal amounts of the stuff, courtesy of those strange stones that Vex had given him.

And his notebook. Something about that notebook, too, was filled with life.

"That was... kinda dangerous," Noram muttered to himself. The noise seemed to be enough to startle otter-Noram into awakening; the otter's ears flattened against his head and he leapt to his feet, thankfully light enough that he didn't stomp the breath out of Noram in the process. He still let out an indignant 'oof', letting a bit of his pain and irritation filter through their link, and after a moment a moment where otter-him had to accept, and then cringed, making a face Noram had never expected to see an otter make carefully stepped off the lizardkin.

"Sorry," otter-him mumbled, and Noram just inclined his head.

"It's weird," Noram said. "The system doesn't just... knock people out. It'd be dangerous if it did."

"It did say it was a beta feature."

"I guess you have a point." Noram had no idea what a beta feature was, and from the look on otter-him's face, he hadn't either. He was just guessing from the context.

Oh well. He was less worried than he should have been, he suspected, but Noram was more focused on the issue at hand.

"Um." Noram paused, trying to find the right words. There were a lot of things on his mind, the least of them being the bond they now shared, but there was one main thing on his mind. "We should find something else to call you. Besides my name, I mean."

The otter stared at him, and briefly looked a bit stricken. Noram didn't get it, but the bond between them opened, and he accepted it with hesitation

a flood of emotions poured into him. Noram had lived his entire life as Noram; he remembered all his friends calling him by that name, remembered receiving his first accolades with his name printed on it. He knew the name wasn't his own, but he still felt like it was his

and maybe it was. Did it matter whose name the name 'originally' was, if it felt every bit as real as it did to him?

"...I shouldn't have phrased it like that," Noram said after a moment, feeling vaguely guilty. "Sorry."

"You're right, though." Noram sighed, looking a little small and defeated, in that moment; the otter curled up and leaned against the wall. "It's not like my name ever really felt like my own."

Maybe more of him had filtered over into the otter's personality than he thought.

"You felt defensive, huh?" Noram said.

"Yeah," the otter answered.

"How about this," Noram suggested. "We both pick new names. Mine doesn't... it doesn't matter to me all that much, anyway. I didn't earn anything with it. I didn't achieve anything.

The otter softened, looking at him. "Maybe not yet," he said. "But you're young yet. You've got plenty of time ahead of you. I don't think I achieved anything when I was your age."

"...How old are you?"

"...Anyway, I like your idea," the otter said, instantly changing the subject. "I always wanted to be named Raltis, after a mighty wizard in a story I read as a young otter. Think that's too egotistical?"

"I mean, who cares?" Noram asked, shrugging and offering a small grin. "It's your name, right? No one here's even gonna get that reference."

"Raltis it is." The otter brightened. "What are you picking?"

"I don't really know yet." Noram stared into the distance a bit, thinking. He didn't have a good idea of who he was yet not really. He wanted to pick a name with meaning, but... "How about Novice?"

"Novice?" 'Raltis' blinked at him. "Really?"

"I've got a lot to learn." Novice smiled a bit. He didn't hate the name as much as he thought he would have. He still felt like Noram, of course the name was still his own, and this was only a temporary affair, for however long the two of them had to work together but it felt appropriate. "Felt like I might need a reminder of that every now and then."

"...Now I feel guilty," Raltis muttered.

The next step, they decided in short order, was to find Charise. Noram-now-Raltis wasn't actually caught up on the events in Teque and Fendal; he'd started living life as a sort of refugee between the two towns. He blamed himself for what had happened between Fendal and Teque, thinking that things would never have gotten so bad if he'd resisted Helg's insistence in the first place, and so he'd sort of voluntarily exiled himself from Teque.

Staying in Fendal was a sort of self-imposed punishment. A reminder of what he'd done to otherwise perfectly innocent people.

He was still aware of what was happening in Fendal and Teque, though. For one thing, he'd never been de-keyed from the communication glyphs that Teque used, and he made it a point to keep himself up-to-date with everything the Teque mages discovered about the system.

"There's a sort of underground group of people that are sympathetic to Fendal," Raltis explained. The two of them made for an odd pair as they walked through the town, made all the more odd by the fact that no one gave them a second glance. Noram-now-Novice couldn't help but wonder how he'd ever missed all of this at all. "They're trying to see if there's a way they can restore the people here without... you know, letting Teque die."

"Do you think Charise works with them?" Novice asked. It'd explain why she'd been around less and less lately; why she sometimes seemed to vanish into thin air.

"I know they work with some people in Fendal," Raltis said. The otter's tail waved about nervously behind him. "I don't see many better options here."

Novice grimaced. "Fair point."

Walking through his home town while being fully aware of everything was... eerie. It was more clear than ever now how artificial everything was, from the smiles his neighbours gave to one another to the conversations they had. Some conversations were the same thing over and over again, held in a loop. Others were simply stilted, like the people involved were going through the motions.

Not for the first time, Notice reached for Vex's notebook and rubbed the corner of it. He'd taken to using it to reassure himself every once in a while

"There," Raltis said, nudging him, and Novice looked up.

Charise sat in the patio outside the Juniper Express, which was a small cafe that served little cakes and snacks. There was a tall beetle-looking man sitting across from her, his expression deep and severe. Novice paused for a moment to consider whether or not he should interrupt.

Which was, of course, the exact moment Charise chose to look up and meet his eyes.

She didn't seem surprised to see him, disconcertingly. She simply waved at him and gestured to not one but two seats that had been prepared for them at the table. There were even plates laid out and everything.

Feeling suddenly nervous and Novice knew that Raltis felt the same way, given the bond they now shared Novice and Raltis both sat. Charise looked at them both and let the silence stretch on for a little bit longer than necessary.

Then she smiled a small smile. "It's good to see you back to yourself, Noram," she said. "Or are you going by something else for now?"

"It is always uncanny when you do that," the beetle-man sitting across from her commented. He folded his arms across his chest, and she chuckled.

"Allow an old lady some fun, will you?" she said. "It's hard enough to split my attention between two places at once..."

Charise's eyes seemed to lose focus for a second, and then she regained herself and smiled at the three of them as though nothing had happened. "So! My question?"

"Oh, uh," Novice said. "I'm going by Novice for now."

"Humble," Charise said. She glanced at their resident otter. "And you?"

"Raltis," the otter said, looking suddenly embarrassed.

"It has been a while since I've seen you," the beetle-man said, inclining his head at Raltis. He didn't say anything else, but he did incline his head slightly, in an implied sort of question. Novice saw Raltis hesitate, like he was preparing to give a response...

...and then he shook his head. "I'm not ready to talk about it yet, Anton," he said softly.

"That's fine," Charise said, interrupting before Anton could actually get in a response. The beetle gave her an affronted sort of look that she promptly ignored. "You two have discovered something important, haven't you?"

Novice blinked. What was she talking about

She's talking about the [Soul-Link], Raltis sent him, pushing on the link between them slightly. Novice tried not to twitch in response, but he didn't completely hide the movement; he saw the way Charise's gaze flickered over to him.

She knew. She definitely knew.

To her credit, instead of saying anything about it, she gave the two of them an encouraging smile.

Do we tell her? Novice asked.

My instincts say no, Raltis answered. But just between you and me, my instincts haven't been doing a great job of leading me the right way so far. What do you think?

I think I trust her, Novice said, and then nodded to himself. "Yeah," he said out loud. "I trust her."

"...And me by proxy, I suppose," Anton grumbled.

Raltis and Novice glanced at each other, and then told her about [Soul-Link]s.