Java and Arvis were still traveling LoBaV.
They'd still not managed to go into any of the towns. It had been getting windier lately, much windier, almost to the point of a storm. Java wouldn't have noticed, but there wasn't anything else to notice.
Arvis had been getting quieter and quieter over the course of showing Java around his land, not knowing that he was steadily losing more and more of his freedom and power as it was siphoned off.
He'd stopped making any comments about the things he showed her, his mind becoming more of an empty shell as he lost any freedom to think or feel, becoming more and more of a walking husk.
By the end of the previous day, it had gotten to the point where whenever monsters appeared, either Java would have to fight it herself or Arvis' sprite would have to appear to defend him.
It seemed Java's tampering with his freedom had gotten so bad that the game technically considered him to be incapacitated despite him still being conscious and not physically damaged in any way.
Whenever Strikersprite appeared to cut up a powerful ogre or basilisk, he would always linger after he had finished killing the monster, glaring at Java.
She could only assume that the sprite could recognize that Arvis' current state was her fault, and that he viewed her as a threat, but couldn't attack her because she was also a fellow player and it was against the rules for the sprites to intervene in such a way.
Every time Strikersprite stared her down, Java felt even more guilty for what she was doing to Arvis. She had to keep telling herself that it was for the good of the session, that she had to do it, that it'd be selfish for her to stop just because she didn't personally like it.
"It'll be fine,' She thought to herself as they continued up the red stone mountain they'd started climbing before Arvis had been fully bled dry of his freedom.
The winds were howling even harder now, almost strong enough to blow them off of the cliffs with each stumbled they made.
Java couldn't even remember what Arvis had been planning to show him up here, but supposed that it hardly mattered at this point. Java inhaled again, drawing the last of the breath out of Arvis. He shuddered, letting out a subtle whimper as he felt something leaving him.
He stopped climbing, no longer having any free will at all, leaving him unable to even climb of his own volition. Java knew that now would be the best time to finish the job. One strong brass knuckle strike to the side of the head would finish him off.
But Java wanted to put this off as long as she could, and decided to make it to the top of the mountain before she did the deed.
Naturally she could have just flown them up, but it would buy her more time if she went by foot, and she wanted to stall; unsure she had it in her to finish the task Patior had assigned to her.
Jeff had gotten an idea.
He'd been chatting with the many sprites that the players had entered the session with. Dustine's clown faced sprite did nothing but cackle and sing terrile music.
The lusus based sprites that the trolls had brought in were too busy watching their troll companions to say much, wanting to make sure nothing too bad happened to them. Valtina's garden sprite was either incapable of speech or simply didn't care to.
Java's pilotsprite was actually happen to chat up with the Heir of Time, but the conversation quickly turned awkward when he mentioned that his time shenanigans had let him see just how 'close' Pilotsprite had gotten to Java.
Strikersprite kept coming and going from the little section of land on Skaia-the planet at the center of the game session's solar system and final territory for the players-as Arvis presumably got into trouble repeatedly.
Jeff wasn't sure what was going wrong with him, but it evidently wasn't so bad that his sprite felt the need to ask Jeff for help. Droobarsprite was just consistantly grumbling and annoyed with life in general, attempting once or twice to get a game going to waste some time, but do to the two components within him, unable to decide whether he wanted to play poker or pool.
And then he spoke with his sprite.
Consort sprite had the DNA within it of all four kinds of consort. He wondered why they had wandered into his sprite, and decided to ask him-them-it. The multi-species sprite seem confused by the question though.
"We didn't wander in by accident," The sprite said, its voice several voices all layering over each other as the four different components of the sprite attempted to speak at once, "You explained to us why we needed to go into the sprite, and brought us into it." Jeff tilted his head in confusion at this explanation, and then it slowly clicked into place in his mind.
The space and time players are the most crucial to any session, Aspico's post had said, A session can be maintained by a space and time player alone. The two are needed to maintain the species progression from one world to another.
The space player tends to focus more on the task of created the new world (though the time player is known to help the space player as well), while the time player is the bridge between the former world and the new one.
This can take place in a number of different ways based on the class and personality of the space and time players. 'If I'm meant to be the bridge, and I can go back in time…' Jeff thought, clicking his tongue.
"Hold that thought." he told his sprite as he got the idea for what was to happen next. He closed his eyes, focusing his time based powers, becoming the flow of time once again and passing from where he is to where he wished to be.
With a flash of red, he was in the consort kingdom in the old world, about a day before the meteors were to come and destroy the place. It was only now that he was here that it occurred to him how dangerous this was.
He needed to find the correct consorts, could only pick one of each, and had to properly explain and convince them of what they needed to do before the apocalypse came. He could only use so much of his powers here or he risked dooming the timeline by creating an offshoot of it.
On top of that, he was going to have to resist the urge to try saving anyone extra from the impending disaster. He was here for one purpose and he couldn't stray from it without ruining everything that the session was intending to build.
At first he wasn't frightened, as he knew that he had already completed this particular mission; he remembered seeing the red light of his teleportation at the very start of his game, and he could now assume that it had been him from the future coming back to create his sprite, but then he remembered that doomed version of himself he'd spoken with.
He could still very well become that version of himself if he messed up. He gulped, wishing he'd thought this through more before turning back through time.
He took a deep breath, and went into the consort kingdom to begin his search.
Patior woke with his wings, clothes, skin, inventory; basically everything soaked through.
He was back in his land, and had been unconscious in the rain for quite awhile now. Whatever he'd been doing, it had evidently failed. It took him a few moments to ignore the throbbing pain in his skull and recall where he was and what he was doing.
'Right.. The teal blood..' He remembered. Her fist had gotten rather acquainted with his head. His sniper rifle very much needed to be upgraded if he were to avoid his targets reacting faster than the shot than he cope with. As he sat up, he wondered two things.
The first was why Furlok hadn't killed him. Surely she had to know that god tiers were immortal to all but just and heroic deaths, and his large indego wings weren't exactly difficult to spot. The second was why his lusus sprite hadn't taken helped him.
Their interaction was limited sure, but normally they would at least appear to get the player to safety until they woke up and could defend themselves. Patior could feel the anger and frustration brewing from his confusion, but refused to let it overtake him.
He was the Mage of Mind, logic and thought would see him through. He adjusted into a meditative position, closing his eyes and using his Process ability to focus his thoughts and think about what was happening to him.
The ability focused his mind further, letting his mind connect the ideas floating around within his mind.
Finally, he reached the conclusion.
And immediately burst into tears.
They weren't very loud, nor could it really be seen considering the constant rain, but it was still there as the information he'd uncovered broke the wall Patior had been using to keep in his emotions, and the guilt and regret hit him like a sledgehammer to the face.
Furlok hadn't gone for a kill shot because she did know about the just or heroic deaths for god tiers, but if she'd killed him… it would have been just, and Patior would have stayed dead.
The game, and by extension real life itself, had determined that Patior's actions were evil.
And there wasn't any subjectivity in the way for Patior to argue this time, as the universe itself was clearing objectively what the actions were to be considered. It was for this reason, Patior determined, that his lusus had not come to help protect him from any potential threats. He would have deserved anything that came to him, and both as a lusus and as a sprite, the robotic caretaker knew that Patior shouldn't have received any rewards for what he'd been doing. Patior wasn't sure how long he spent sitting there, letting his tears pour out of him like the endless rain coming down onto the land around him, soaking everything in sight.
Even when he heard monsters approaching him from the land around him he didn't immediately get up to defend himself. Patior had gotten used to ignoring emotions and only ever letting logic decide his decisions, as when he did feel his emotions he felt them the same way most people felt fire with their bare skin: intense and painfully.
The crude ogres and shale basilisk approached the sobbing indego blooded troll with devilish grins and hunger in their eyes. Before they could attack Patior and kill him while he was prone from his regret-which he was certain would still lead to a just death-a barrage of missiles rained down on the monsters.
Not quite killing any of the monsters, but keeping them away from Patior. Patior's sprite had come down and landed nearby, now maintaining some offensive fire to keep the underline monsters away from Patior, giving him time to recover from his emotions.
It seemed even when the game didn't want him to, even when his lusus instincts didn't want him to, Patior's guardian couldn't help but protect him; wanting him to learn from his mistakes rather than suffer from them.
Seeing that his lusus felt he deserved a second chance (perhaps a third, fourth, fifth, or even sixth chance by this point), gave the troll some time to get his mind back into a right mind. Patior managed to get back to his feet, using Process to focus in on battle technique as he brought out his weapon, forcing himself to think more clearly.
Objective one: fight monsters and survive. Objective two: Contact fellow players, beg for forgiveness.
