Sublife Crisis - Chapter 23 (Patreon)

I am very sick, but still have this ready to go, so have a chapter!

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“Oh, that’s odd.”  The words from Jules pull me up and out of the thick spark wine I am staring into, my wandering thoughts coalescing into something closer to an actual thinking person than I’ve been for a while.

I’ve spent the last subjective day, since I got knocked out of the game we were all playing early, alternating between trying to invent a new mixed drink, and staring at the druidic meditation loop.  This isn’t going well because the loop of deceptively enthralling shaped wood that Molly nailed to the wall requires me to sit near other people who are being enthusiastic, and that somewhat keeps the trance from happening, and also because I’ve been trying to mix things with the bottom half of a bottle of spark wine - sorry, [Spark Wine] - that Six bought a lifetime or two back.

The stuff is labeled by the between as wine, and this, more than anything else, is a hint to me that this afterlife doesn’t understand alcohol.  It is closer to a brandy, and not a very good one, but that’s not the important part.  The stuff we acquire as souvenirs, or that Six brings back, that’s fine.  The stuff from here?  It’s… not wrong, exactly.  It’s still okay.  This particular wine actually has quite the impressive kick to it, for when you want to waste an afternoon in style; it also tastes like seeing a meteorite on a clear night, so that’s cool too.  But it just doesn’t interact the way wine is supposed to.

Jules is staring at me with his trio of red projection eyes shaped into narrow bands.  “Luri?”  He asks, concern dripping out of his slightly vibrating voice.  “Are you alright?  You have been staring at me for a hundred beats.”

“Hm?”  I say.  “No.  Jules.  Please.  Of course I’m not alright.”  My hand waves a simple pattern that means, on a forgotten world, a complex thought about the willing sublimation of the self into a conversation for the purpose of expediently skipping over the obvious and painful details.  Jules has never been to that world, but he’s seen me do the floppy hand thing often enough to get the context.  Jules is smart.  “What’s odd?”

His eyes narrow further until they are thin red strips of light against his midnight skin.  When the mass of tentacles talks next, he sounds like the most suspicious kindwoman investigator I’ve ever heard.  And that means something, because I’ve done a lot of crimes in some lives.  “Yes.  Well.  Having come into an abundance of cysts since my last dance with mortality, I have opted to spend some marginal effort to improve.”  Jules tells me, a slightly sarcastic twist to his voice.

“Noble.”  I remark.

His eyes shift to curious long triangles.  “Is it?”  He asks me with a voice to match his smooth oval face.

The nod I give him is overly enthusiastic.  “Absolutely.  Six and Mark have been talking to me a lot lately - by the way, when you get a chance, ask Six what he did last life, you’ll love it - and it’s making me think.”

“Dangerous.”

“Fear not.”  I give him my most charming smile, and then quickly use my tongue to check if I ever removed the razor sharp fangs that I added to this body for a false masquerade we held five or ten lives ago.  Not that Jules would be one to be intimidated by that.  He’s a paramour to Molly, and her teeth outpace anything I’ve ever made.  “We tried it, didn’t we?  Optimizing.  For a change.”

“Well.”  Jules is reluctant to admit to anything, especially not with that word.  To everyone else, it might be just a Luri thing; something I complain about and maybe can’t clearly articulate.  To Jules, Six, and myself, it is… worse.  It is a chasm with no bottom, and we’ve seen people fall in.  “In a certain way…”

My voice is soft as I cut his words off.  “We did, Jules.  I said ‘we should try to live impressive lives, and spend more time here with each other’.  And then we did that.  Maybe we aren’t hyperfocusing on career paths, farming marks, or making specialized builds.  But we optimized.”

“We optimized for something different, though.”  Jules protests.  “And - ah.  That is the thrust of your argument, is it?”  He hums deeply.

“Please don’t say ‘thrust’ to me like that.  I’m not Molly.”

Jules arranges his eyes in mirth.  “Would you be surprised if I told you that I can combine the tone with-“

My laugh is what stops him this time.  Then the words.  “Jules I love you, and I’m as ravenous for intimacy as anyone else here, but let’s at least pretend we can confront the truth first.”  He gives me a slight bob, then settles back, two of his manipulator tentacles cuddling his mug and pulling it closer to him.  “But yes, that’s my point.  We meet optimizers all the time, and they’re all…”

“Quite mad?”  Jules suggests, taking over from me.

I sigh and lean on my elbow, propping up my chin so I can look at the jar of lightbugs providing mood lighting for the center of this little table.  “Alien, maybe.  Unrecognizable.  Remember the kids?   The religion that’s trying to turn themselves into the perfect person, and they already decided what that person looks like?”

“Ah.  Yes.  The fear performance made manifest.”  Jules gives a buzzing snort of derision.  “A fate I would prefer to avoid, you understand.”

“Yes.  Yes.”  I agree wholeheartedly.  “But… what I’m trying to say, what I’m trying to feel, is that I think we can be different.”  I don’t actually feel it.  But, like I tell Jules, I am actually trying.  “They’re all optimizing for more power, or more upgrades for their lives, or they’re aiming for divinity or enlightenment or something.  But us?  We’re just aiming to be better at being us.”  I make the argument, both to him, and to myself.

Optimizing for being Luri.  For being an ad hoc citizen of Bastion’s.

Jules stares at me and my wide eyed smile, my projected optimism, before he lets his tentacles droop.  “No.”  He says simply, no vibrancy to his word at all.

“No?’

“No.”  He reiterates.  “I can’t.  Not now, Luri.  Not so soon.  I’ll… I will endeavor to live well, and I will always want to spend more time with the circle here.  But I cannot change how I think.  Not yet.”

My smile is no less genuine as I reach over and run my fingers across one of his inky black tentacles.  “And that’s fine too.”  I say.  “Because we’re not on a time limit, and if we optimize for anything at all, it’s for being us, and that means listening to your feelings.  Now, tell me what’s odd about your aura and we can pretend we’re both okay.”

“…I do love you so.”  Jules words come out as a breezy whisper that I don’t know he even meant to say.  “Well, having now gotten around to expanding the foundation and adding the third layer, I find call to actually fill it with something.  And, in honor of Mark’s moving story, I decided to upgrade [Animal Companionship], perhaps to give as a gift when he is himself ready for it.”

Jules is such a massive sap.  I love how no matter how condescending he sounds or how many new limbs he adds, he’s still at his core an old souled gush that won’t stop giving to others.  He sees my look and starts to fractal his eyes.  “Oh, you know you’re cute.”  I snipe before he can say anything.

“Regardless.  The part of the aura that reaches into the third layer is… odd.”  Jules says, showing off how his body processes embarrassment with a splash of color.  “First layer is, of course, a boost to befriending an animal.  Second layer reinforces the first and adds resistance to damage when attempting.  Third layer, though, is… esoteric.”

“My favorite.”

“Mine as well, but genuinely, and not however you meant it.”  Jules misinterprets my words.  I actually do love the weird upgrades, as they feel harder to exploit and easier to engage with earnestly.  “The third layer says that it… it carries over traits of the chosen companion.”

I go silent.  For a moment, the noises of Bastion’s take over; the prop engine overhead, the light wind from our new hallway, the sound of Mark tapping a barrel of Six’s mediocre beer, the noise of a doorway closing behind someone new, the rustle of the pages of a book from the library, and the thump of feet as conversations hit a coincidental pause.

I hear little of it, really.  I am ensnared by Jules’ words.  Because for the first time, someone has found an upgrade that says the magical phrase.  Carries over.

“What…” I rasp out, “does it…”

“It’s not the whole companion.  No mention of a soul, or the between, or anything like us.  It simply says that traits will persist when a new companion is trained.”  Jules crushes my hope.  “But, Luri…”

“Jules.”  I say as I push the chair back and stand.  Even standing, I’m still shorter than Jules’ seated form, so I’m hardly intimidating.  But he listens to me anyway, because intimidation isn’t the point.  “I understand.  Why you might think… why you could see us overdoing it.”  I admit.  “But I want you to know, I think that’s cool.  And I’d love to see what it’s like when you upgrade it again.  Because if we could… if… if we could bring someone along?”  I am almost sobbing, and I didn’t realize it.  “No one would have to feel it again.”  I mutter.  “We wouldn’t leave anyone…”

“Luri.”  Jules settles his tentacles on my shoulders as a third lifts my chin up.  I was staring at the floor, eyes burning holes in the sandy wood of Bastion’s unique ground.  “I don’t think it’s going that way.”

“But it might.”  I reply.  “And I’ve got a pseudo-quest that generates cysts.  And there’s no harm in finding out.”

His eyes flash into angled diamonds.  “Your aura layer that requires you to consume unhealthy amounts of raw food?  Absolutely not.  Throw that away.  Listen to me, Luri.  This is how it starts! This is what you hate!”

And he says ‘you’, but he means ‘I’.  He means ‘us’.  And he’s right to say it.  And what he doesn’t say is ‘this is how we lose each other’, but I hear him shouting it anyway.  The words hit me like a shock of water and light.  Of course, Jules is right.  All it took was one good life to make me think that I could avoid every pitfall I’ve seen smarter people walk into before.

“Ah.”  I smile weakly.  Then I straighten my back and bring my hands up to pat his tentacles.  “I… oops.  Sorry Jules.  I worried you there for a second, huh?”

“Yes.”  He says with studied trepidation.

“I’m fine.”  I reassure him, grabbing onto his limbs as he looks down into my face.  “No, you’re right.  It’s… hey, maybe it’ll work in the future, right?  And then we’ll have forever to enjoy it.  No need to rush.”

Jules relaxes, and then wraps me in a trembling hug, and I didn’t realize until that moment exactly how badly I scared him.  “Yes.  Exactly.  No sense in mutilating yourself just to go faster when we’ll be here always, my dear.”

I make a small noise of agreement as he smothers me.  And then another small voice, sharper and sultrier, speaks up from below us.  “Luri, are you stealing my mate?”  Molly demands as she climbs up onto the chair next to us.

The laugh I give her is one of my two options, between either that, or crying.  “No, no.  Jules is just reminding me of something.  What’s up, Molls?”

“Oh, your elf friend is here.”  Molly jutts a claw toward the bar.  “Also, I wanted to escape Mark and Six arguing about beer.  Also, what’s up with this tiny fern?  Also I’m gonna steal Jules.”

“In order,” I say, wriggling out of Jules’ grasp so I can count on my fingers.  “Thank you, I’ll go give her a proper greeting.  I understand, and how is Six’s new beer?  The fern came back with Ellin from her harvest quest and we’ve been moving it around to semi-hidden places to see who notices.  And also have fun!”

“Do I get a say in-“ Jules stops talking as Molly finishes clawing her way up onto the table, and then from there makes a leap into Jules’ tentacles where he catches her like he was expecting the maneuver the whole time.  “-hello darling.”  His eyes shine with happiness, no matter how Molly might seem exhausting sometimes.

“The beer is not great.”  Molly answers me as she rolls in Jules’ grip, and steers him toward the faux exterior hallway attached to Bastion’s.  Or perhaps it would be better to say it is now part of Bastion’s, a new and strange addition to our old and strange place.  “Have fun!”  She waves to me as they leave, and Jules gives me a goodbye motion as well.  He looks back at one point, like he feels as if there is more to say, but I wave them on to go have their fun.

As they round the corner, I open my inventory, and look for a certain aura layer.  I find it, look at it for thirty heartbeats, and then yank it out as a meta object.  I leave it on the table for someone else to find, in the spot where the tiny pot with the tinier fern had been sitting before Molly stole it.  I’m glad she’s in on the game, this will be entertaining for at least three lives worth of time in the between.

“Hoy!  Luri!”  Ellin greets me as I claim a barstool, watching Mark practicing juggling glasses behind the bar.  He’s not great at it, but the things are essentially as immortal as us, so here is the place to learn.  “I ‘ave a complaint!”  She punctuates her preamble by snapping shut the book I loaned her with a muffled thump and then slamming it onto the bar like she is owed something dire and in a hurry to collect.

I look at the book, then at the stack of several empty glasses near her.  I’ve said it before, that getting drunk in the between is difficult.  I never said it was impossible, and Ellin appears to be going for the attempt.  “Is it about Six’s beer?”

“Six’s beer’s greats!”  Ellin declares with only a tiny slur to her words, which I think she might be doing on purpose to try to get into character.  Method acting inebriation.  She leans forward and wraps me in a hug, her tall form letting her grab me from the adjacent barstool, even if her horns do scratch a bit on my stomach.  The sensation sends a pleasant shock through my form, and I smile at her as I run my hands across her back.  “No, s‘about book club!”

“It’s back.”  I inform her, signaling to Mark that I’ll also have a drink.  The man gives me a smirk that can best be described as delightfully professional as he slides the cups he’s tossing around one by one into their spot on the other side of the counter, keeping one back in hand to fill with a sample from the equippable barrels Six brought back.

Ellin slowly drags her head up to look me in the eye, her horns digging against my stomach and chest ever so slightly as she raises her face.  “You gave me a book about trees, Lur.”  She says.

“…yes?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.  I did.”  I give a more solid agreement to her.  “Did you like it?”

Ellin pushes back and straightens on her stool.  “Trees.  Not even trees!  One tree!”

“I thought it was a beautiful reminder of how community identity can come from anywhere, and how a single person’s act of preservation can lead to the future rediscovery of something wonderful.”  I prompt.

“Nah, that’s crap.”  Ellin slashes her hand through the air.  “It’s got the tone of an empire perspective to it.  They never say it, but the guy, the guy with the tree, he stole that tree.  He just stole it when no one cared, then acted like the hero because he kept his stolen tree alive.  It’s a story about stealing trees.”

“Well, it’s a history, for one thing.”  I clear my throat.

Ellin jumps on that.  “That’s worse!”  She announces.  “Because that means this world was just letting shit go extinct!  You know you can get achievements for living through extinction events, right?  And I barely ever get them.  If this place was letting trees die out, that’s pretty bad.”

“Ah, but Ellin!”  I counter.  “Don’t you see?  The trees didn’t die, because someone cared!  It’s honestly pretty cool, especially because on a lot of worlds, it feels like one person doesn’t have the… leverage, maybe… to make big changes.  But Ser Evwin sure did.”

“I hate that name.”  Ellin grumbles.

“Well, ser is a title.”

“Then I hate it less.”  Ellin relents.  “It just feels so gross to me.  Paying people to make parks for your special tree project?  No one cared until a bunch of foreigners started to care.  And it’s like the guy writing it was trying to… no, not cover it up.  Tha’s unfair.  But gloss it?”

I nod at her as I rub a hand across my cheek.  “Perspective matters.  Did you read the dust flap?”

“The part where this is a library book and so you also stole a thing?”  Ellin asks.

“I choose to believe the between duplicates things.  No, the part where it was written by his son.”

“Oh.  Huh.”  She pauses.  “That… well, shit, Luri.  That makes me feel bad.”  Ellin takes a breath.  “Because then it’s not about the trees at all, really.  Or, it is, but it’s someone trying to push back the loss of a loved one by focusing on the permanent change made or staved off by them, and enshrining their deeds as History.  And that’s different than pure impo behavior.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”  I take the drink from Mark as he adds one in front of Ellin, too.  She grimaces at it, but we still clink our glasses as we sip together.  Six’s new brew is sour, and bitter, and also tart.  It is all of these things, and somehow seems to lack deeper flavor.  I don’t like it.  I sip again.  “It’s less a real history, and more a memorial.  But also, it’s asking for their world to see the beauty in the actions of a lost father.”

Ellin doesn’t sip, she chugs.  Her drink is half gone by the time she lowers her glass and sets it on the bar for later.  “I suppose that’s why there’s a whole chapter about the castle grounds.  Oh, I get it, hoy?  It’s written like a kid exploring secret places cause it probably was how he grew up, yeah?”  She sighs.  “Okay.  That’s something.”

“So, what did you think of the book?”  I ask with a smile.

Ellin opens her mouth, then closes it again, and then gives me a sharkish grin.  “You could have just said book club was back.”  She tells me.

“I did!”  I start to protest, but I don’t keep up too much energy as Ellin leans across as kisses me suddenly.  Lips pressed together, teeth that can’t draw blood but absolutely would if they connected with my skin, an eager heat, and the taste of what we’ve been drinking.  Ellin surprises me, but I lean back into it with my own goofy smile I can’t shake.

We break apart as Mark leans on the bar between us.  “So, I’ve been thinking about this tree thing.”  He says.

“Mark I swear by Holg I will find a way to harm you.”  Ellin snips, the thing she’s saying somewhat at odds with the adoring look she’s pouring into my eyes.

“Stop undermining book club.”  I command him, face flushed.

The look Mark gives me is of a man who is eternally put upon and underestimated.  “Luri, please.  I love book club.  I am a devotee of book club.  I didn’t catch on that book club involved getting handsy with Ellin in front of our guest, but I’m honestly kind of okay with that too.”

“Really?  You must have had to get used to some new stuff in your last life, huh?”  I ask with genuine curiosity and care.

His mouth thins into a line.  “A few things.  Heh.  Maybe it’s just nice to be back somewhere that people are affectionate.”

“So why are you ruining it?  Or did you want in on the action?”  Ellin’s demanding question leads into a more suggestive one.  “Give me a good chat about the ephemeral nature of personal influence on long term cultural community building and I’ll give you a grin like Luri’s.”  She suggests.

“I’m only three chapters in because you stole it back from me.”  Mark reaches out slowly and pulls the soft tome over to his side of the bar.  “But I am actually interested in picking Luri’s brain for some historical context later?”

“I can do that.”  I nod.  “Now’s a good time for it, before I have another life and mix it all up and get sad again.”

“No!”  Ellin gasps theatrically.  “Stop getting sad!”

“I’ll be fine.  I’ve actually been less sad the last couple hundred years.  Though I’ve been spending more time here, so that really helps.”  Unbidden, tiny tears form in the corners of my eyes.  “You do all really help.”

Ellin reaches over to roughly rub my shoulders.  “You need to take a life to relax.  Just goof around and don’t take things too seriously.  Live a little, Luri.”

“All I ever do is live a little.”

“Well then you don’t have a choice, so you might as well lean into it.”  Ellin grins wickedly at me.  “Oh!  That reminds me!  Mark, what did Moll’s say about your fancy new coin?”

I turn from their conversation, leaving the two to talk and for Mark to explain once again that Ellin is thinking of someone else.  I’m pretty sure he’s wrong, but Molly is busy again, and we haven’t asked her because the luxury of a million heartbeats is that you can take your time and forget things.  And I’ll have time to listen to them bicker like an ancient pair of lovers later; right now, I want to say hello to our visitor.

Our new guest is actually a very old guest.  An elf, identical to the last several times I’ve seen her.  She sits at the bar with a faraway look in her eyes, having moved here like the process of claiming a barstool was more a matter of endless reflex and not an active choice.

“Hey there.”  I say softly as I circle around the outside of the bar’s curve, picking a stool near her own.  She looks at me slowly, blinking like her eyes won’t adjust to the golden white light of Bastion’s various different illuminations.   “Welcome back.  Want a lemonade?  We’ve still got some left.”

“…I had a dream about lemonade.”  She says quietly.

“I know.”  I say as I set one of my hands on the bar between us.  She doesn’t move, except to tilt her head and stare at the back of my hand curiously.  “I was in it.”

“You were.”  The elf’s eyes drift slightly around Bastion’s.  Across shelves of old pieces of old lives, lines of bottles and urns, and rough wood walls and floors that are eternally familiar to me.  “It was here.  I dreamed of here.”  She pauses as she fixes her eyes on the meditation loop hanging on the high wall.  “Dreams don’t change like this.”  She whispers with a horrified hush in her throat.

“No.”  I say, standing to circle the bar so I can hip check Mark out of my way and find one of the mixed herb and lemonade bottles sitting under the counter.  I left them in the food section, because we haven’t had food here in lifetimes.  When I come back up, careful not to jostle the suspicious poison too much, I place the lemonade in front of her and pour some into a short glass cup.  “They don’t.”

She watches the drink pour and fill, long angular ears splayed out through the back of her hair twitching ever so slightly.  “This is an odd dream.”  The elf says as she slowly reaches for the cup, watching her own hand as if she’s starting to wonder if it’s even hers.

“Yes.”  I answer with a smile.  “But I kind of like it.”