Another dawn bled its hazy light over the Crimson Labyrinth, but my mind was still trapped in the revelations of the night before. The idea wouldn't let me go. I was the Visionary Uniqueness brought to life. It was the only thing that made a twisted kind of sense.
I'd asked the Curator for the Lord of the Mysteries power system. I'd wanted the pathways, the sequences, the whole deal. But he hadn't just grafted the system onto this world's rules. He'd gone to the source. In that cosmology, the Uniqueness was the pathway. It was the concentrated authority, the divine spark. The potions and characteristics were just lesser applications. Safety measures for mortals to handle a fraction of that power without going instantly, catastrophically insane.
Madness is the origin of everything, insanity is the only constant. The thought was cold and clear in my mind. The powers themselves were a byproduct of touching that madness. Since we weren't advancing by drinking potions made from other beings, we had to be drawing power directly from the source. We were sipping from the divine tap, and our Aspects were the safety doors that kept us from being obliterated. It explained our bizarre Flaws that felt more like fundamental natures than drawbacks,
My musings were interrupted by a slight wince from Sasrir. He was tending the fire, but he was moving gingerly, using his left hand to adjust the skewer of meat. His right hand was wrapped in a neat bandage made from torn strips of shadow-cloth.
The sight of it was a punch to the gut. "Your hand," I said, my voice rough with guilt.
He glanced down at it as if he'd forgotten it was there. "A minor inconvenience. It seems the full extent of my Flaw is… precise."
The memory of the fight with the Golem rushed back—the desperate, brutal move of stabbing the Unshadowed Crucifix through my own palm to fuel the Purification Halo.
"It happened when I did that," I stated, the pieces clicking together. "When I impaled my hand."
He gave a short, confirming nod. "A direct, intentional physical wound. The Flaw interpreted it as 'harm' and manifested a sympathetic injury. The pain was… quite sharp."
But then another realization dawned on me, a crucial distinction. "But the bloodletting before that… when I was just feeding it drops of blood for the sequences… you didn't feel that, did you?"
"No," he confirmed, his dark eyes meeting mine. We were both thinking the same thing, dissecting the mechanics of our cursed bond with cold, analytical precision. "The Flaw, 'Scapegoat', appears to have a specific trigger. It doesn't share states of being, like simple blood loss or Essence depletion. It only activates upon the detection of direct, inflicted harm. A cut. A burn. A psychic shock. The Memory consumed the blood directly from your body; the process itself couldn't be replicated onto me. The impalement, however, was a clear and distinct act of damage."
It was a small, grim piece of knowledge, but in a place like this, it was everything. We were learning the intricacies of our Flaws. Mine was the slow erosion of my humanity by divinity, which had yet to really make itself apparent. His was to physically share my suffering though, to never forget the pain of mortality. We were a perfect, messed-up set.
"I'm sorry," I said, the words feeling inadequate.
"Don't be," he replied, his tone matter-of-fact. He flexed his bandaged hand slightly. "It was a necessary action. And now we understand the mechanism better. Knowledge is survival. Next time, if you need to mutilate yourself for power, perhaps give a warning. I'd prefer to brace myself."
There was no malice in it, just a dry, form of self-deprecation that was somehow worse than anger. He'd taken a part of my injury without complaint because that was his function. His purpose. The Hanged Man's nature, already asserting itself.
I looked from his bandaged hand to the bleak, coral-strewn horizon. We had discussed some more about the Forgotten Shore, and the lone Mind Island I had discovered. It was either a resident that had gone too far and gotten lost, or another new Sleeper like us, summoned here in the solstice. Either way, we had no way of finding them, and whether we would meet while on the way to the City comes down to pure luck. Speaking of, we had also started talking about our plans for the City, and the Lord of Bright Castle.
"The Dark City," I began, breaking the quiet. "It will be the start for us to change everything."
Sasrir nodded, his bandaged hand resting on his knee. "The Lord of the Dead is a Fallen Tyrant. A serious step up from a Fallen Monster."
"But we have the ultimate counter," I countered, a flicker of grim excitement cutting through my lingering fatigue. "The Unshadowed Crucifix. Its purifying light is kryptonite to anything death-attribute or shadow-based. That Golem was tough, but it was just metal. The Lord of the Dead is a walking manifestation of the very thing my Memory is designed to annihilate. We have a much greater shot than anyone else ever could."
"The objective, then, is not just survival," Sasrir stated, his voice taking on that cold, analytical tone that meant he was planning. "It is acquisition. We kill the Lord of the Dead and claim its Shard. But that is only one."
"Right," I said, the plan unfolding like a map in my mind. "The Builder's Statue. The Sunlight Shard is there. We get that, too. I can't remember exactly how Seishan gets her hands on it in the story, but if we're there first, it doesn't matter. We take it."
"Three out of the seven Shards," Sasrir calculated. "Almost a majority. Even if we cannot secure the Zenith Shard from Effie, that would be enough. We would control the narrative when Nephis, Sunless, and the Witch arrive. We wouldn't just be survivors; we would be the reigning power on the Forgotten Shore."
The thought was intoxicating. We wouldn't be reacting to their story. They would be stepping into ours.