Cinnamon Bun Chapter Five Hundred and Two - Choice Paralysis

Chapter Five Hundred and Two - Choice Paralysis

There was a chair for to sit on. Again, that sa folding chair that I suspected belonged to Sir Aberrforth's friends.

I looked around the darkened room. The core was actually glowing a little now, but that sa glow was fading away. I could imagine it being much brighter a few monts ago, and now it was returning to dormancy. Was it the kind of thing that only used up magic while it was active?

Actually, that would make a lot of sense. Aside from my shadowy companion, this core probably almost never encountered anyone else. It made sense that it might spend most of its ti hibernating. Maybe it even had to save up magic to generate those visions. I had no idea how much magic it took to predict an alternate tiline, but I imagined it was ... a lot? Probably? Seeing visions and stuff couldn't be easy or simple magics. Imagining different scenarios based on a person's past like that?

I blinked, then reached up and rubbed at my face. I'd been crying a little.

There had been so many visions there where I didn't have the friends I had now. The later on they beca my friend, the less likely they were to be friends with in the visions. Amaryllis was common, but Awen less so. I rarely made friends with Bastion at all, and that ans that Caprica was out of the picture most of the ti. Booksie was a frequent friend, surprisingly, and that ant that Rhawrexdee was there too sotis. Calamity was soone I never t in any of my visions.

Still, I was rarely friendless in those visions. I often joined that group of grenoil explorers I first t. I had seen a few versions where I beca friends with that innkeeper in Rockstack, working for her, or sticking around her inn for weeks or months.

"Are you caught?" the old man asked.

I blinked, then shook my head to recentre myself. "Caught?" I asked.

"In the visions of what could be?" He looked to the orb, almost longingly. "This thing trapped here. I think... I think I could leave it now, but its visions would remain with forever."

"What is it?" I asked.

"It was a dungeon core, once," he said and I nodded at that. That fit the look of it. "Its dungeon was dangerous, though. Even before it had a second floor, the elders of the villages nearby knew it to be a threat. A dungeon of reminiscence. A dungeon where you see all of the potential you once had and squandered."

"All the friends you could have made along the way," I added.

He gave a look, but didn't prod further. "The elders ca together and destroyed the dungeon. Not entirely, because the locals have a long list of superstitions and foibles about breaking dungeon cores, but that didn't stop them from toying with the core, using their magics on it, and turning it into this."

"Did they just leave it here?" I asked.

"No. It was their challenge. Young n and won would be sent down here and shown how they had failed, how different choices might have improved their lives." He leaned back, head tilting to the side. "I suppose it introduced so to introspection."

"Okay," I said. "That doesn't explain, well, you."

He grinned. A flash of gums in the dark. "I wanted power. I wanted to see my levels rise. I wanted to be stronger. The pillar of my existence was to seek greater power, and these visions showed how to do it."

I nodded. In so of those visions, I'd made so many more friends than I had now. If I could just figure out how to backtrack and find them ...

... He said he had wanted power. In his visions, he probably didn't focus on friends, but on personal strength. Did he see a million ways that he could beco more powerful, faster?

"It'd be pretty tempting to watch these visions over and over," I said.

"Yes."

I could imagine it. In a different world--ironically--where I had no friends and desperately wanted them, if I'd been given the chance to touch this core and see all the friendships I missed out on... well, even now it hurt a little. So many etings that would never happen, so many potential friends that I'd never actually make.

It was passing, now. The details were growing blurry, like trying to rember a dream after it had happened. "It trapped you," I said. "You wanted to grow stronger, so the core showed you all the ways you could have been stronger."

"And weaker. It doesn't discriminate. But yes, it's the paths to greater power that interested most. Cleaning. That's your magic, isn't it?"

I nodded. There was no point in hiding it.

"Weak. But taken to a logical extre. A simple skill built up over and over again until it grows into sothing more powerful. Do you know how many skills have that kind of application?"

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"Um, no?"

"Plenty. That's not to ntion those skills which are strong to begin with. I left this place, at first. It gave so many avenues to pursue, so many images of alternate versions of myself who had grown strong. The visions fade. Like waking from a dream, but the broad strokes remain. So I followed in my own footsteps. I attacked dungeons and destroyed them for the skill points I'd earn. I killed animals, monsters, people. I gathered a dozen of the most powerful skills I could and grew them to their limit. But I needed more. More guidance, more of an idea on how to grow even stronger."

"So you returned here."

"Constantly. Until the day I was trapped. Do you know what I regret most?"

"What?" I asked.

"Myself. I regret... . I..." He paused for a mont, and I remained quiet as he searched for words. "I regret my own greed for more. Because it lead to where I am now, when I could have been so much happier with far less. Now I have immortality, and nothing to do with it."

The cave felt very quiet then. Quiet and cold and lonely.

The silence stretched between us, thick and heavy. I swallowed, feeling the weight of his words settle into the pit of my stomach. "Immortality?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

He nodded slowly. "Yes. I sought skills to avoid death, to avoid the natural course of life. I wanted to transcend it, to beco sothing more than human. And in a way, I did. But it wasn't what I expected. It wasn't freedom. It was a curse."

I took a step closer, feeling the coolness of the stone under my bare feet. "Why didn't you leave? You said you could."

"Those sa villagers, the elders, they knew what I was up to and trapped here. The trap has long since worn itself out. Now I'm just... I don't think I can leave."

He was afraid. Like soone who hadn't set foot outside in so long that now the very thought made them anxious. It was the kind of thing that might be fixed with good friends and a lot of patience, but I didn't imagine that he was getting a lot of that in here.

"I took my revenge. Even in here, I could strike out. I think I destroyed an entire civilization. To be sure, it was only a small, forgotten one..." he gave a dry chuckle. "... What an accomplishnt." I saw his palms, flat out towards in a gesture of surrender that quickly faded back into the dark.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Sorry about what?" he asked. "No, nevermind. You can leave. Your friends are wandering about, but the prison isn't a maze. You'll find them."

"Leave?" I asked. "What about you?"

"I'll live. Heh."

I blinked fast. "No," I said.

He tensed. I couldn't quite see it, in the dark, but the black took on a quality that reminded of a cat turning a corner to find a snake on the ground ahead of them.

I had to explain, before he misunderstood. "Being alone here, being stuck in a cave with nothing but that thing, that's not living," I said. "That's surviving, but only barely. Living is... living is having good friends, living is helping others, living is waking up and being proud of what you've done and having more to do that you look forward to doing. I saw a lot of past versions of just now. So of them were very sad, but I think that all of them were still living. Mister... um, I never got your na. But Mister, I don't think what you're doing is living."

He stared at , and I could feel his gaze like a cool brush of wind across my skin. "You might be right," he said.

I took a small step closer. "Then co with ? With us? You can leave this place. We can break that thing. You don't have to stay here and be alone anymore."

He hesitated. There was a flicker to the darkness. "Do a favour," he said.

"Okay," I replied.

"Break it before you leave."

"Are... are you coming with ?" I asked.

"Do you really believe that even I deserve a second chance?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

The dark felt a little warr for a mont. It was a strange sensation that passed as soon as it ca. "Then that makes one of us," he replied. "Goodbye, Broccoli. Forget this place, if you can. But don't forget what you learned here."

There was a flicker, and suddenly things weren't as dark. Orange's light now bathed the entire room, and I felt like I'd just shucked off a heavy winter jacket, the weight pushing down from all over was gone.

And so was the old man.

"Wait, what about my friends? Weren't you going to help find them?" I asked no one.

I licked my lips and looked around the room, but there were no signs of him. He was gone, for real. I hugged Orange closer, then eyed the core.

Well, I supposed he had asked for to do him a favour...

***