7.18

  “Maddie, why are you trying to conquer the world?”

  “I dunno, I saw the horizon and thought it would be fun to own it.” - Conversation between Empress Madelyn the Conqueror and her second in command Navy General ‘Hubby Wubby Sweetie Cheeks’

  Tai’s grandmother was defeat in three steps. In such close proximity, with none of his party members masked to avoid his spores, Dustin was already half neutralized before a slap by the slipper sent him flying. Noam and Utoqa executed a flank from her sides, but a contemptuous flick slapped Utoqa’s tomahawk into Noam’s blades and sent both weapons flying. By the third step, she had reached Tai.

  Tai drew her sword and her blade hit air.

  Her grandma was already behind her.

  The slipper blurred, far too fast for sight to register as anything but flashes of white. Tai’s face jerked left, right, up and down dozens of times in an instant. Her blade was slapped out of her hand before a final slap on the head planted Tai’s face on the ground.

  “Tai, what did you think would happen? Kai was always the better swordsman.”

  “So I should’ve learned better?” Tai spat through gritted teeth.

  “No, the fault was mine for teaching you.”

  A tear fell on the ground beside Tai, she blinked through dirt and grass to see her grandmother weeping.

  “When I was young, I thought myself clever for creating a Path of Discipline. I thought all others were lazy to rely on Wayshards, that to experience the world on my own two feet would grant me a superior understanding of it.

  But now, in my old age I see what whims have wrought…”

  Her grandmother knelt down beside Tai and gently raised her up. “That my own family would not immediately use a Wayshard to come to me when tragedy strikes.” She embraced Tai. “That my own family would not weep because Discipline demands they don’t!” Tai felt wetness on her shoulder, tears soaked into her clothing. “I have wronged you, my little Tai!”

  Tai gaped, frozen at the rapidly changing events. The hug was tight, but not constricting, she didn’t know what to do with her hands, but on instinct, Tai returned the embrace.

  And finally, Tai grieved.

  I didn’t attend the funeral they held, neither did anyone else in the party. We simply didn’t feel the grief to attend. I had only known Kai for a few days, and even that small time had been ripped from my mind. The effects of the Accumulation of White Lies will wear off, but none of us knew the man. Any sadness we felt was in empathy with Tai rather than any direct connection with Kai Gnari.

  Celine likely felt it most, given her changeling nature allowing her to sense emotions. Noam second most, and Utoqa least affected. Compared to them I had no excuse, I should nominally feel empathy but all that preoccupied my mind was a gradual gnawing dread. Kai was a forgotten man, the Accumulation of White Lies wasn’t; more than ever I was aware of the hole in my mind and what left it there. The times I merged with my original in reality barely helped, the brief moment when Declan entered my body through Discovery’s help allowed the Accumulation to strike him as well. I knew Kai was Tai’s brother, a swordsman trained in the same style, and nothing else.

  Perhaps I should stop having these distinctions in my mind, Dustin and Declan are the same person. Sure semantically I was just the digital clone currently experiencing this world, but believing we’re the same person was more convenient. It aligned interests, ensured we will never truly betray the other, and left the much needed link between the real and the virtual.

  That thought gave me a brief pause. Dustin and Declan being one person was a polite fiction, this fact I confronted. Now my mind wandered to what other polite fictions existed in the world to make things more convenient.

  As I wandered the city, I passed by the idols and shrines of gods. Today they were draped in black and incense to signify mourning. Unlike my world, the gods of Indiri’s existence was empirically provable, and yet the practices didn’t differ that much from mine. This might be a limitation of the AI that created this world, but it begged the question of why humans in my world still held those same beliefs.

  Maybe it was because it was a lot more convenient to believe that a loved one was enjoying an eternal reward in heaven, rather than a soulless sack of flesh rotting six feet under, never to exist again, never to experience again, never to be again.

  That led me to another path of introspection, was it because I never believed in such polite fictions that I was so aimless? That I knew my existence had no meaning, that nothing lasted forever, and that I would die and be forgotten?

  I asked Noam this when I found him sparring with Utoqa. “Do you think I’m like this because I never believed in Santa Claus?”

  They paused their fight. Noam grabbed a water skin to splash onto his face, then splashed some towards me, which I naturally dodged. “Dude, I need the last ten minutes of your thought process to have the context for that question.”

  “That’s a yes then,” I murmured.

  “Thirty minutes,” Noam corrected upon seeing me deep in thought.

  When the funeral was done, on the dawn of the next day, Tai confronted her grandmother again. Both clad in black mourning robes, Tai spoke as her grandmother began folding more dumplings in the kitchen.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” Tai stared at the old woman’s back. “I’m not staying here.”

  Grandmother was unmoved. “You don’t have a say in this.”

  Tai took a deep breath, then said, “I can do more good out there than stuck here. I have the strength to help people, to make an actual difference.”

  The old woman scoffed, then turned to the front door. “If they’re going to listen then might as well let them join in.” She opened the front door, and the rest of the party who had their ears glued to the door, collapsed without the support and fell in. “You and your friends can’t even evade me, what strength do you actually have?”

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  Dustin dusted himself off, “I personally would go for the practicality argument.” The myconid faced grandmother. “You can’t keep her here, you know? Eventually you’ll need to sleep, eventually you’ll show an opening.”

  “That is because I am going easy on you,” the old woman replied as she went back to her dumplings.

  Noam pulled Celine up, “Which we’ll gleefully take advantage of.”

  “She’ll never change her mind,” Celine affirmed. “You two are both terribly stubborn.”

  “You send me off with your blessings or you don’t send me off at all,” Tai finalized.

  There was quiet silence as her grandmother thought, nothing but the soft squelching of mince as the old woman folded more dumplings. “Is it so terrible of me, to just want a grandchild to stay alive?”

  Tai’s heart stung, “No it isn’t, but I know what it’s like out there. I know there are people out there who lose families to monsters. And every day I can’t do something about is another day I can’t forgive myself for.”

  Tai grandmother started the stove, heating up a large pot of water. “I have three conditions.”

  There was a collective sigh of relief. The old woman gestured to the rest of the party, “Sit down first, it will concern all of you.”

  After a moment for them to settle at the dining table, grandmother continued. “First off and most importantly, I want you to visit every month.”

  Tai blinked, “But I can’t just be within one month travel of the Yong Chun Lin. That’s no different than being stuck here!”

  “Use the Wayshards.” Tai gaped, but grandmother continued. “That is the second condition, abandon the Path of Discipline.”

  Tai gaped wider. “But… it’s your life’s work.”

  “Tai, do you know how long it took me to learn the sword?” she asked.

  “One-hundred and eighty-seven years,” Tai answered instantly, having heard the story many times before.

  The pot came to a boil, and Tai’s grandmother slid the freshly folded dumplings right in. “Then do you know how long it took me to learn how to cook?”

  The entire room was dumbfounded.

  “Three-hundred and forty-two years,” Grandmother supplied. She raised a hand, arm held straight like a blade, as it rose they could hear schwing as it cut the air itself. “What do you see in this hand, Tai?”

  “A goal,” she answered. “The result of almost two centuries of training, blood, sweat, and tears. The culmination of what it means to be a Sword Saint.”

  “I would’ve agreed with you a short time ago,” the old woman relented briefly. “But now I only see it as mutilation.”

  Tai gaped again.

  Grandmother continued. “A hand mutilated, flesh scraped and whittled down to the bone until it is a sharp as a sword. So much so that it could not do things a hand should be able to do. It took me many years to unlearn it, and eventually be able to cook as a person can.”

  The whole room was gaping, Tai most of all.

  “The sword is only a tool to part heads from bodies, there is no need to revere it. Beating someone with a sharp rock accomplishes much of the same goal and is a lot easier to do. It is better to follow some other Path, to find and master something greater than mere strength. I hope all of you also keep this lesson in your heart.”

  The pot came to a boil again, and she scooped out the freshly cooked dumplings. This time, the rich smell of soup nudged the party to shut their gaping mouths, then open them again to tear into the meal. Grandmother sat at the table, watching them eat with a quiet smile.

  At the end, when they cleaning up, grandmother passed a piece of paper to Dustin. “Finally, I need you all to run an errand for me.”

  He quickly read it, then passed it over to the rest of the party. It was a letter by a person named Tou Domski addressed to Tai’s grandmother, at which point they learned her name was Chai Gnari.

  “Help retrieve an historical artifact, he’s been complaining about its loss for decades now,” the old woman scoffed.

  “Is there any more information?” Dustin asked.

  Tai grandmother shook her head, “Tou will have more information, he’s the curator of the Elven Natural History Museum. You’ll find him there.”

  “I haven’t been there since I was a kid,” Tai commented as she read the letter. “It’s in the Elven Capital.”

  “The rest of us haven’t visited its Wayshard,” Dustin pulled out some maps and laid them across the table. Tracing the path with his finger. “Can we take the direct route?”

  “No, the Bee Dragon roams that area this time of season,” Tai’s grandmother said.

  “The long way then,” Dustin nodded.

  They spent the rest of the day planning and preparing for the journey. When night fell, Tai returned to her childhood bedroom. It was bare, none of her belongings remained, the room had been repurposed when she moved out, and only the shape of it was familiar. The sloped ceiling with a window that let in soft moonlight. For a time she shuffled around in the bed, restless and sleepless. Before she hopped out with a grunt and headed back into the living room.

  The rest of the party was sleeping there. Celine tucked neatly in her bedroll, Noam having thrown himself out of his own and had a leg slung over Utoqa. Dustin alone was awake, his body encompassing the table with a soft glow.

  “Can’t sleep?” he asked as he pored over some notes.

  “Felt off,” she whispered in consideration of those asleep. She quietly eased herself into a chair. “Is it alright with you?”

  “What is?” he asked.

  “What I said,” Tai answered. “I want to keep traveling the world, to keep saving kids like Johnny, doesn’t matter if it means I’ll be homeless for it.”

  Dustin raised an eyebrow, then pointedly glanced around the house. “Of everyone here, you are the least qualified to call yourself homeless.”

  “Pfft, give me this, I still can’t process the fact she agreed,” Tai rubbed her forehead. “We just… talked it out.”

  Dustin looked incredibly smug.

  Tai waved it off, “Yeah, yeah, you were right. You still haven’t answered my question.”

  “I’m not sure why my opinion matters,” Dustin leaned back into his own chair. “You are powerful and skilled, you can move onto new parties fairly easily.”

  “How did Noam stand you for so long,” Tai rolled her eyes. “I like you guys. I want to know if the feeling is mutual.”

  Dustin was silent.

  “I can tell with Noam and Celine, but you and Utoqa are weird. I figured Utoqa will follow whatever your decision is. The guy is too simple in matters like this, he needs to improve on that aspect.”

  Dustin was silent in thought, after a moment, he asked. “Tai, do you consider me your friend?”

  There was no hesitation in her answer, “Yes.”

  “Then my answer too is yes.” His expression was unreadable, but the briefest flicker of emotion passed by, so slight that Dustin himself did not notice it.

  It was relief.

  But Tai noticed. “That’s a problem for you,” Tai thumbed towards him. “Assuming what everyone thinks of you, waiting for them to make the first move before you reciprocate. You fight just like you make friends.”

  Dustin blinked, then rested his chin on his hand in thought. “I think you’re right. Thank you. I thought myself unbiased, but I think I confused unbiased with silencing my own heart.”

  “No worries, you’ve saved my ass enough times. Can’t think of any other way to repay you,” Tai shrugged.

  “Tai.”

  “Yes?”

  Dustin opened his mouth, then paused in thought for a moment, before finally speaking again. “Why do you want to do good?”

  Tai raised an eyebrow, mimicking his earlier expression. “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

  “Why is it the right thing to do?” Dustin asked. “I keep getting stuck on that question. What is right, what is just, it is a polite fiction. Shred the world down and sift through every individual atom and you will never find justice, you’ll never find fairness, or goodness or all those other things. So why do I find myself trying to do good things?”

  Tai looked at him like he was daft, and for the first time, Dustin felt like he was. “Isn’t it obvious? You want to do it. Does there need to be a bigger reason than that?”

  It took him a moment to process those words, to turn them over and over in his mind until he examined it from every angle. Until finally, Dustin just chuckled. “You’re absolutely right. I want to do it, if all things are equally meaningless, there doesn’t need to be a greater reason than that.”

  “Dustin, if you became a hermit, would you feel guilty of all the people you couldn’t save?” Tai asked.

  Dustin shook his head, “No, never, but I think I would be very bored.”

  Tai yawned and stretched, “Good enough.”

  When morning came, Tai’s grandmother found them all asleep in the living room. Tai still sat on the chair and drooling onto the table, but with a blanket draped over her.