Edge Cases Epilogues

Epilogue 1 - Home

"Commune time!" Max cheered. Xothok stared at her, and the Guildmaster just grinned; she stared with pride at the network of homes they'd built. It was better than a traditional branch of the Adventurers' Guild by far. Building, it turned out, was a lot easier when everyone was on the same page about needing shelter.

It was also much easier to get adventurers to help with building when it was their own homes they were building. Of course, they'd end up being shared—this was a new universe that needed exploring, and those homes didn't really need to go unoccupied for months on end—but that didn't mean they didn't explore ways to personalize each home.

A little bit of experimentation with Shift, now that the inner workings of the system were more transparent and easier to work with, and they managed to recreate a sort of layered housing system where Shift could be used to swap between versions of a home with just a press of a button.

Alyssa couldn't deny being a little excited about that.

They all needed a home to be proud of. Their entry into this new universe hadn't been without hiccups—whatever universe Derivan had chosen was one that still had its dangers. Within the first few hours of landing atop the empty, grassy plains that had seemed to be a good landing spot, what could only be described as snakes made of pure shadow snuck out of the nearby forest to investigate the new disturbance.

It was a good thing that they'd refused to allow the many eager civilians aboard the ship to disembark first. Alyssa did wonder why Derivan had chosen a universe with these dangers, but she suspected it was simply a matter of what options had been available. A universe with the right conditions for life invariably would also have hostile life on it; a universe without the right conditions for life would simply be uninhabitable, and a universe with an already-dominant civilization would struggle to accommodate a second one.

She approved of the choice, of course. And not only because it seemed there was more to this universe than was immediately clear. Though she was excited about that part. It had been a long time since she'd been able to just... well, adventure.

Delving dungeons with Xothok was the most fun she'd had in a while.

"We will... live in one of these?" Xothok stared at one of the newly-built homes. Alyssa glanced at him and had to hold back a laugh at the look of sheer suspicion on his face—he looked like he was about to try to punch a house for looking at him the wrong way.

"They're not going to stand up and attack you, you know," she teased.

"This is a different universe," Xothok said, eyes still narrowed at the house. "The rules may be different."

Alyssa smirked. "Do you actually think the house is going to be dangerous, or are you doing the thing where you're simultaneously excited, scared of being vulnerable, and trying to make me laugh?"

Xothok paused, and a look of guilt flashed briefly across his face. "It's, uh, probably one of those three. At least."

Her grin became a little more teasing. "Want to break the new home in?"

"I am standing right here, you two!" Max complained. "Let me be excited about the commune without your flirting, dammit!"

"What do you mean, you two?" Xothok complained, though he was obviously flustered. "I did not participate in this... this flirting!"

"You were thinking about it," Max accused. "You have a whole team of ex-bandits to take care of, don't forget! And also that Byrrhon guy."

"Right." Xothok's expression settled almost immediately at the mention of Byrrhon; Alyssa wondered if he still felt guilty about killing him. As far as she knew, Byrrhon didn't blame Xothok for what he'd done, but the memory seemed to haunt him still, sometimes. "I mean, he's doing okay. Without me."

"Yeah, but he wants you around, you idiot," Max said, rolling her eyes. "Guy is desperate to be forgiven, you're desperate to be forgiven. Talk to one another a bit more! You've been avoiding each other since you got off the ship!"

"Playing impromptu therapist already, I see," the Guildmaster said, amused. Max looked at her and scowled.

"It's so weird when you do that," she complained. "I know you're Alyssa, but I just look at you and my brain goes 'Guildmaster'. You don't even have to do it anymore. You're just doing it to mess with me."

"The skill is still useful for some things," Alyssa said with a laugh. "But yes. I'll try to mess with you a little less, Max. You want to help me get people settled in here?"

"Do I!" Max's eyes lit up. She grinned, then instantly vanished as she activated her skill; Alyssa's arm slipped around Xothok's waist, and the lizardkin promptly froze.

"Knew that would get her to leave," Alyssa said cheerfully.

"I hate you so much," Xothok grumbled.

"No, you don't." The grin hadn't left Alyssa's face.

"...No, I don't."

---

Epilogue 2 - Proposal

"Derivan!" Vex called. He hopped down the stairs, nearly tripping—seriously, these stairs were way too tall for his height, but also they were too short for Derivan's height, so they both kind of tripped on them sometimes—and then glanced around their shared living room. No sign of the living armor. Scimitar? Maybe he needed to get used to thinking of Derivan as a Scimitar. "Derivan? Are you there?"

"I am here." Derivan's response was slightly muffled. Vex peeked around the corner to find his partner halfway inside the cabinet under the sink, apparently trying to fix some piping. He stifled a laugh.

"Deri, what are you doing?" he asked. "We have spells for that."

"I was curious if I could fix them without magic," Derivan said plainly. His helmet was wet, although even as Vex watched, the liquid was quickly absorbed into the so-called metal. Part of his Slime stat. Vex still hadn't really gotten used to the sight. "It is interesting. How they function, I mean."

"I'm sure it is." Vex's expression settled into a softer smile, and he came up to Derivan to give him a hug; the Scimitar's arms wrapped around his back after a moment, and he felt a metal chin resting on the top of his head. A squishy metal chin. Derivan had learned from the last few times he'd tried and the metal poked him just a bit too much.

"You were looking for me?" Derivan questioned. Vex nodded eagerly.

"Yeah! You know how I asked to borrow your forge, and then also told you not to use your forge?"

Derivan chuckled. "It is difficult to forget. I had to put several projects on hold for you," he said. He didn't sound annoyed by it.

"Right." Vex had the grace to look a little bit embarrassed anyway. "And, um, you know how I've been having lessons in blacksmithing and forging with Gallant, right?"

"I do indeed." Derivan's eyes sparkled with amusement. "Your lessons are right after mine. I am unsure why you wished for our sessions to be separate."

"I had to keep a secret," Vex said. He brandished a box from behind his back—or, well, he tried. Apparently he'd dropped it when he almost tripped down the stairs. Vex scurried away abruptly, found the box, picked it up, and then brandished it again to a Derivan that watched him with fond exasperation. "I made you something!"

"A box?" Derivan teased.

"No," Vex said, and then he blinked, staring again at the box. It was fairly ornate, and he'd made it in accordance to the Scimitar traditions as Gallant had taught him. "Wait, no, actually, the box is part of it."

"I am impressed by it," Derivan said. He reached out, brushing his touch over the ornate carvings that decorated the box. Their fingers touched briefly, and Vex shivered at the contact.

...It was so unfair that Derivan could still do this to him.

"Okay, no, but the gift is inside the box," Vex said, trying to collect himself. He almost let Derivan take the box before remembering that he was supposed to be the one opening it—Misa would definitely make fun of him for this later—and managed to click it open.

Scimitars didn't use rings for proposals. Not that many species did, really. Scimitars in particular, though, typically gifted their intended bond a set of cloak clasps to fasten around their shoulders. Into it would be inscribed a symbol that held meaning for both of them.

Vex, of course, inscribed one clasp with the Glyph of Change, and the other with the Glyph of Stability. He'd considered using their Signs, but those were variable—they'd changed over time, and would almost certainly change again.

These Glyphs, though? They'd created them together, almost. And he knew that moment of creation had been meaningful for the both of them.

"Vex..." Derivan took each clasp from the box with his characteristic gentleness. "These are—"

"Scimitar bonding clasps, yes," Vex said with a smile. "I'd like to go through the bonding ceremony with you, if that's okay."

"You are proposing to me." Derivan knelt down so he was closer to Vex's height, bringing the lizardkin in for a close embrace. "And here I was certain I would get to it first."

"I have been getting more confident," Vex said, grinning. As if to emphasize his words, he kissed Derivan, and the Scimitar kissed back, laughing.

"Yes, of course," Derivan said. "I would be honored. May I ask when you knew you wished to do this?"

"Oh, we even left Obreve," Vex said with a laugh. "I didn't realize it at the time, but... I thought of home, and I realized I couldn't imagine one without you in it."

"That is... very sweet." Derivan smiled. "And you wish for us to cement this bond through the Scimitar bonding ceremony?"

"I know how much restoring your people means to you," Vex said. "And I know how much your culture means to you. I would be honored."

"As would I." Derivan hummed, holding him close. "...You are terribly precious to me. I hope you understand this."

Vex squeezed Derivan as hard as he could, feeling like his heart was overflowing. "Likewise," he said softly.

---

Epilogue 3 - Chess

"I forgot how bad you were at this," Onyx said, amused.

"Shut up," Sev grumbled.

He sat across from Onyx, staring intently at the board in front of him. Every chess piece was intricately and beautifully carved—even the board itself was made from an immaculate slate of marble. He would've been in a much better position to appreciate it all if Onyx hadn't been so thoroughly beating him.

"I feel like you could move that piece," Aurum said, pointing.

"Or that one," Tempus suggested.

Sev groaned. "Why did I agree to live with you guys again?"

"You said something about needing to teach us how to interact with mortals," Onyx said. "And also we didn't want to live with anyone else."

"I visit Jerome sometimes!" Aurum said. "But he's got too many people living with him and they all get weird when I'm there."

"Velykos is a good companion," Tempus noted. "But he has other gods living with him already."

Sev sighed. "This is what I get for letting Derivan choose a new universe," he grumbled. "Of course this one doesn't have a divine plane."

"Is it really so bad?" Onyx teased.

"No," Sev admitted, finally moving a piece. "I think it's a good thing, at the end of the day. People need to see that you guys aren't... I mean, they need to see that you guys are still people. And I mean, you three are fine, but I think a lot of the others need to remember what it's like to be mortal."

"The gods have been disconnected from the material plane for a long time," Onyx agreed. "Many of them no longer remember their original reasons for taking responsibility for their domain. Checkmate, by the way."

Sev groaned. "You made these pieces too pretty. It's very distracting."

Onyx rolled his eyes. "It's not my fault you like a good carving more than you like men or women. Or anyone else."

"Hey! Low blow."

"Don't make me go lower." Onyx smirked at him, and Sev sighed, leaning back in his chair; he was smiling, though.

"Well, you guys are going to have the house to yourselves for a bit," Sev said. "I'm gonna get Derivan and Vex and Misa and go explore the ruins someone discovered up north. Apparently it's haunted."

"Magic haunted, or haunted haunted?" Aurum asked with interest.

"Both?" Sev wrinkled his nose. "I dunno, I'd have to read the reports again. I don't know if ghosts are real here still. Non-magic ghosts, I mean. I could go ask Vex..."

Sev paused, glancing at the nearby house where Vex and Derivan lived. "Think today's a big day for them, though," he remarked. "I'll check in and get everyone ready tomorrow—hey!"

A certain phoenix flew in through the window, setting the curtains on fire. A second later, an entire sun elemental tumbled in through the same window, chasing after it. Sev stared in a mixture of amusement and horror—material damage wasn't that worrying when he had the God of Time living with him—as the two proceeded to set half the living room on fire.

Very casually, he slid the chess set into part of that fire. Onyx raised an eyebrow at him, amused.

"You know that's made of stone, right?" he said. "And I still won."

Sev laughed. "Had to try," he said. "Besides, I wouldn't actually want to damage these carvings."

---

Epilogue 4 - Progress

Misa lived in a little mockup of J'rokksur, a little far from the outpost where Sev, Derivan, and Vex had their homes. She felt a little guilty about that—but she missed her home, dammit!

Well, also she had a copy of herself living there, anyway. So it didn't really matter.

And a portal. Portals were very convenient.

Clyde, Belle, and Elliot had all chosen to come check out her village and live in it for a while, which delighted her. They'd never lived in a village before, apparently? Mundane didn't count; it was meant to be a template, and being a template, the people of Mundane had never really had that much of an opportunity to develop a culture of their own.

That was their primary focus now, as Misa understood it—trying to decide for themselves what kind of society they wanted to be. And part of that was experiencing what all these new, burgeoning societies had to offer.

Misa was just glad her friends had chosen J'rokksur as their starting point.

"The others miss you, you know," she said with a grin, over her bowl of fish stew. "You should visit them too."

"We will, we will," Clyde said. "We just wanted to come here first! See if it'd be a good spot to set up an inn—ow."

Elliot hummed innocently. "Now might not be the best time to be talking about your dream of building a new inn, hon. Although I do think it's very cute."

Clyde folded his arms over his chest and grumbled, even as Elliot tugged him closer affectionately. Meanwhile, Belle leaned forward, fingers tapping on the table in thought.

"Can I just say again how weird it is that you managed to bring us back?" Belle remarked. "I still don't believe it sometimes. It's never actually happened. I would've believed it if you brought everyone else back, but we shouldn't have enough single-echo coherence for you to be able to call out one specific iteration of us."

"Am I... supposed to know what that means?" Misa asked, blinking at her friend. What the hell was single-echo coherence? She glanced at the still-steaming bowls of soup in front of them. "You guys should try the stew."

"Don't change the subject!" Belle pointed her spoon at Misa, then reconsidered and dipped it into the stew, taking a sip. "Okay, this is actually pretty good. But don't think I forgot what you did."

"I can't really explain it," Misa said with a shrug. "We saw an opportunity to fix things, and... I mean, honestly, I can't claim that things are better because we brought everyone back, so maybe fix isn't the right word."

"Second chances, right?" Clyde asked. Misa mulled over the question for a moment.

"We didn't know we'd be looking for a new universe at the time," she said. "So I'm not sure we were consciously thinking that. But yeah, I think that was the spirit of it. It was the end of the world. Sometimes that changes people."

"It changed a few, from what I heard," Clyde agreed.

"Made a few people worse, too," Misa shrugged. "I hear the attempts to rebuild Elyra keeps going wrong in more ways than one. Vex doesn't want anything to do with it, and a lot of people are kind of splitting off to make their own nation, too. Just a few of the nobles really want to rebuild Elyra... you know, as it was."

"Planning to do anything about it?" Belle asked curiously.

"Right now? No," Misa said, shaking her head. "They don't have enough people interested in their regime to actually form any kind of nation, so they're just wasting their own power and resources on it. The Guild and other kingdoms—I guess kingdom isn't really the right word anymore, actually—make the process of moving to them pretty easy, so no one really has to stay in Elyra to survive or anything."

"So you're just letting them build an empty city?" Belle smirked, chuckling. "Evil."

"Hey, they're making their own bed to lie in, as Sev would put it," Misa said with a shrug. "Actually, he probably wouldn't say it like that. Where did I hear that before?"

"I use it sometimes!" Clyde said. "Only when my guests don't make their beds, though."

Misa laughed. "I don't think that's supposed to be that literal."

"No, but it's funnier that way." Clyde grinned. "...Okay, I'm going to ask you a dumb question, and you're free to say no."

Misa raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"I'll be very sad, but you can still say no!" Clyde laughed. "Look, I think we want to live here for a while. You're hosting the Anchor of Reality, right? Everything here feels more... solid. It's comfortable. And I like the people here a lot—this is your village, right?"

"Yeah." Misa smiled. "J'rokksur. Grew up here, and everyone was like family to me. They still are, I just have a second family now." She glanced meaningfully at the portal hovering in the back of the room.

Clyde followed her gaze. "You don't feel like it's a little weird to just... have a hole in space open in your room?"

"Nah." Misa walked over to the portal, stuck her head through it, and called out with a wave. "Sev! Clyde is here!"

"Little busy at the moment!" Sev called back.

Misa pulled her head back through the portal. "His house is on fire," she reported. "Don't worry! They've got it handled."

"Does his house... get lit on fire a lot?" Clyde asked, blinking. "The stew is amazing, by the way. I'll need to learn the recipe so I can make it myself."

"Yes," Misa said cheerfully. "And I'm sure my mom will teach it to you. You were saying you want to live here for a while?"

"If that's alright." Clyde nodded. "I actually do want to build an inn, and these two tease me about it sometimes, but—"

"We support him and we actually do miss how cozy his inn was," Elliot said cheerfully.

"I also need to start a new skull collection," Belle muttered, mostly to herself.

"There are ruins nearby, too, I think? I want to start recording history again. I know these were all just jobs the mana gave us, but we do love them, so..." Elliot trailed off.

"Say no more." Misa held up her hand and smiled. "You're welcome here, and what's more, I'll get some of the J'rokksur residents to help you build your inn. How about it? Want some orcish architecture to spice things up?"

Clyde brightened. "Sounds brilliant."

---

Epilogue 5 - Ruins

It was rare for the Adventurers' Guild to call upon pretty much every active-duty adventurer they had, and rarer still for Sev and his team to be the ones to lead a delve. These ruins were dangerous, though. They'd learned as much when they walked in range and the first system window appeared.

[ Unknown power source detected. Scanning for compatibility. Attempting to link with local knowledge database... ]

[ Link successful. Ruins identified. These are the ruins of what was once known as the Restless Abyss Sect. It houses a Calamity-rank Formation. Activation threshold at seventy percent and climbing due to ambient qi levels. ]

"You really chose somewhere special, huh?" Sev said, glancing over the window again. "Seriously, qi?"

"It did seem strange that my Slime trait was absorbing a new form of energy, though I did not have a name for it," Derivan said thoughtfully. "But my options were limited, and I could not know every detail of the universe I chose—I only knew it could accommodate all of us."

Vex tugged his new cloak tighter around his shoulders, brushing his fingers over the clasp with affection. "Guess you ended up finding a new adventure for us after all."

"I want to know what this Calamity-rank Formation is." Misa grinned. "Sounds like something that could fuck us up."

"...You don't have to sound that enthusiastic about it," Sev said dryly. But he laughed a moment after, and the four stared down into the crater housing the ruins below.

"Well?" Sev said. "We've got new discoveries to make. Let's make this a good one."

---

Author's Note:

Again, thank you all for following me on this journey. It's been a blast writing Edge Cases. I'll probably write a few extras to put on RR every now and then; I'm not quite ready to completely abandon the world. So hey, if there are characters you want to revisit, let me know.

One thing I will probably not revisit or fully resolve is where Vex's relationship with his parents ends up--that one is intentionally left vague, because I don't think there's a good answer to how to resolve relationships like that in real life. It's one of those things I think I want to leave as an exercise to the reader.

I may have more thoughts later, but I'll make a separate post if I do. For now... it means the world to me that you guys are here, at the end of it all.

Thank you.