Edge Cases

162 - Book 3: Chapter 27: M - Split Paths

"Alright, now I just gotta choose a path..."

Misa stared at the five split paths in front of her. Each path seemed almost entirely identical, and even the small differences they did have were entirely cosmetic. It wasn't like a scuff on the dirt of the tunnel was likely to be relevant, and even if it was, she had no way of knowing how it was relevant.

In theory, she had no way of knowing what was at the end of each path.

In theory.

She did still have Endless Echoes, after all. She could see gain information from her alternate selves, from decisions she might have made, a few minutes into the past. She'd trained it up enough now that she could go a full ten minutes back; that would have to be enough.

For ten minutes, she waited, standing on the precipice of the path in front of her. Then she triggered Endless Echoes five times, one after the other, an alternate version of her splitting off into each path all while her real self remained at the entrances, observing the memories fed into her.

It was a good thing she did, too.

Misa One she thought of herself as One, anyway, as she led herself down the leftmost path; she knew she was an echo, a product of a system skill, and wasn't that a strange thought? She'd been contemplating using Endless Echoes to make her way down each of the paths, and then decided that the leftmost path was as good a choice as any.

The strangest part was being consciously aware that that choice wasn't entirely hers. In battle, the effect wasn't nearly so obvious. Balanced on a razor's edge of choices and split-second decisions, her echoes never really noticed that they were echoes, and so the memories that fed back into her were never aware in the way she was now.

No doubt Misa Prime would be deeply uncomfortable once the truth of this revealed itself to her. Misa chuckled at the thought; she wasn't as bothered by the idea of being a temporary version of herself than she supposed she might have been. Whether that was an effect of the skill itself or whether she was just comfortable with the idea of being temporarily split from and then reunited with herself, she didn't know.

She didn't spent too much time thinking on it, anyway. Time spent thinking about that was time she could spend investigating this tunnel, and One needed to make sure she found out everything she could, so that her 'real' self could make the optimal choice when the time came.

One glanced behind herself, and her eyebrows furrowed slightly. The entrance that led into this tunnel was gone; as far as she could see behind her was a straight, smooth tunnel. Once she made her choice, it seemed, she couldn't go back to choose a different path.

Good to know.

The tunnel stretched ahead of her, too, as smooth and identical as the main path had been but as she walked deeper, she found the walls slowly changing. The light-brown stone darkneed into gray, and then into pitch-black stone with glittering specks of light within them. Looking into the stone felt almost like looking into the stars.

Now that she thought about it, it reminded her of the material that that one dungeon was made of the dungeon that had kicked off this whole journey to begin with. She remembered the starlight stones and the way the trap had triggered, flames guttering out at her. She remembered the way she'd had to step in front of a group of skeletons to shield them from the flame, and how she'd failed at even that.

She remembered how she'd nearly died.

She should have been dead, really. It was sheer luck that that bonus room had triggered, transporting her there instead; sheer luck that the conditions for it were her own death.

And yet... she still didn't have another way to handle that situation. Block or die. Misa had learned to do a lot of little tricks with her skill, but it was still one skill. Perhaps she could have thrown a weapon back, used the block to teleport herself out of the way of the trap, but that would've left the others there to die.

She needed better options. She needed more skills.

For the first time in a long time, Misa felt dissatisfied. She'd found ways to use everything she had, certainly, and she'd gained a certain degree of versatility with the ability to draw upon her future to summon simulacrums of her the members of her home village; as they grew in strength, so would she.

She didn't want to rely on them, though. They lived a small, peaceful life. They would agree to help her, as they always did, but what right did she really have to drag them into her fights?

Though she supposed that the fights she was a part of mattered to their own lives, too. It still left a foul taste in her mouth.

Lost in thought, One almost didn't notice when she ran into an open cavern. It was the way the sound changed that alerted her to it, and even then it was just a subtle quality a change in the way her footsteps echoed against the floor, the way her breathing resonated in the chamber.

She looked up.

The tunnel expanded into an enormous, cylindrical clearing. The sky or something that looked like the sky was visible as a bright blue expanse above, though not a drop of that blue touched the walls or the floor of the cave she was in. It made the lighting look strange, like she was staring at a painting of a scene that wasn't quite right.

What drew her attention more than the strangeness of light, though, was the pedestal at the center and the weapon that hovered above it, floating in the air.

One approached it with what could have been called a certain reverence. She knew, in the back of her mind, that the other paths would likely carry similar weapons. She knew that the 'real' Misa choosing this path wasn't set in stone. It wasn't even particularly likely.

It didn't change the fact that scythes were fucking cool, though.

Ten minutes had almost passed. If there was a trap, she needed to pick it up now, so her real self would see the results; she stepped forward, grabbing for the scythe

Notifications blistered past her vision. She tried to get a close look at them all, so she could make an informed choice. The text was hard to read; it didn't even have the familiar blue boxes, like the notifications came from an older iteration of the system.

The text itself seemed to confirm that thought.

[ You have seen a new Path! ]

[ ERROR The Path system is locked and its features have been deprecated. Please see an Administrator for assistance. ]

[ ERROR Path locked. Display anyway? Y/N ]

[ Displaying Path... ]

[ Path of the Reaper Rare ]

A Reaper teleports around the battlefield, bringing death and chaos with them. Use that death to shield your allies call forth the specters of your foes to take attacks, and send those same specters to do your bidding.

Starting Skills:

[ Death Sight ]

[ Elsewhere, Elsewhen ]

[ Soul Shroud ]

[ 0 / 10 points to next advancement. ]

Requirements:

[ Teleport at least three times COMPLETE ]

[ Resurrect at least five undead COMPLETE ]

[ Kill at least 5,000 living things Computing... ]

[ ... ]

[ COMPLETE ]

[ Path requirements have been met. ]

Take the second path from the left, something inside Misa told her; she went that way without a second glance at the other four paths, feeling them dissolve behind her as she walked. She almost frowned, glancing back it was strange that she'd felt it at all, like a distant rumble in her soul, closing other paths...

It took her a moment more before she understood.

She was the second, then.

Second, as she decided to call herself it would make distinguishing the memories easier later on spared the tunnel she was in a quick glance before taking rapid, confident strides forward; she only had ten minutes to figure out what was at the end of this tunnel, after all. There was every chance that ten minutes would not be enough, even, and if that happened then she would simply have to gamble on a path with whatever information she could gather.

She tried to keep her eyes peeled, but there honestly wasn't all that much to see.

The rock felt like it was getting denser beneath her feet, perhaps. The air felt like it was getting a little bit denser with mana, and the temperature felt like it was slowly going up. Second felt a bead of sweat dripping down the back of her neck, and she raised her mace cautiously.

She didn't think she would be getting attacked, but it was better to be prepared.

Ultimately, though, she wasn't attacked. She came upon an empty room that was lit only by the glow of a pool of magma; it surrounded a spire of rock that held a weapon that was, of all things, a shield that glowed with heat.

She, too, stepped forward to take up the shield, and found herself bombarded by notifications.

[ You have seen a new Path! ]

[ ERROR The Path system is locked and its features have been deprecated. Please see an Administrator for assistance. ]

[ ERROR Path locked. Display anyway? Y/N ]

[ Displaying Path... ]

[ Path of the Sunshield Rare ]

A Sunshield harnesses the power of heat and flame to defend their allies. Melt any weapon with the strength of your shield, and imbue friend and foe alike with a blistering aura the power of the sun is yours to command.

[ Calculating... ]

[ Path upgrade requirements met. ]

[ Path of the Phoenix Platinum ]

The Phoenix harnesses the power of fire not only for defense, but for offense and healing. Incredibly versatile, the Phoenix's path also grants one control over fire-aspect mana, greatly increasing the potential range of skills you may acquire.

Starting Skills:

[ Kinetic Conversion ]

[ Reborn in the Ashes ]

[ Fire Aspect Body ]

[ 0 / 10 points to next advancement. ]

Requirements:

[ Experience being on fire at least once COMPLETE ]

[ Die at least twice COMPLETE ]

[ Sacrifice yourself for others COMPLETE ]

[ Path requirements have been met. ]

Three's path and memories were much the same as Second's. For her, the tunnel's stone slowly faded away into nothing, such that she eventually felt like she was walking on empty air; her knowledge that her memories would simply be fed back into her primary self kept her going. If this path was a trap, then she needed to experience it so that Misa would know not to take it.

What she didn't expect was to find a bow floating in the midst of that nothingness. There was no quiver around, no arrow nearby or even a place to nock an arrow into the bow but when she pulled the string taut, she still felt a strange energy reverberating with her fingers.

Notifications poured out about a locked path, and then the actual path was displayed.

[ Path of the Empty Archer Gold ]

The Empty Archer is an archer only in name. The arrows you will wield are not physical things; they are conceptual attacks, infecting your target with whatever you hold in your mind. Be aware that these arrows can be turned against you, and are only as strong as your mind.

Starting Skills:

[ Tier 1 Conceptual Arrow ]

[ Archer's Eye ]

[ Uncanny Shot ]

Four was either Four or Two. She had no idea; it depended on whether her other selves had chosen to start from the right or the left. Four seemed like the more likely bet, though.

Her chosen path made her slow down after a few minutes, though. She grimaced a little bit, forcing herself to push on but the way the rock beneath her turned to a red slurry was not encouraging, and she was starting to get a good idea of what likely lay at the end of this path.

Hopefully the other versions of her had better luck with their own. She didn't think she'd be selecting this one.

She was still hesitant, even when she grabbed the handle of the pulsating flesh-blade that hung in the air before her, and it wrapped its tendrils around her wrist. The notifications about there being a locked path system flashed by, and then:

[ Path of the Aberrant Berserker ]

Your contact with aberrations and abominations has changed you, and you have chosen to step even closer to that realm. You share a deep, personal bond with your blade, and it will grow stronger as you do.

Starting Skills:

[ Biomass Forge ]

[ Blood Absorption ]

[ Twisted Fuel ]

"Yeah, no," Four said. She tore off the blade and chucked it into the blood-pool at her feet, then left.