"Damn Acting, I want control!"
The cathedral fell silent after my outburst, and I had unknowingly started heaving after that shout took all the air from my lungs. Sasrir looked at me silently, waiting for me to catch my breath before speaking.
"I understand your fears Adam, I do-after all, I was made from them. But lashing out at the world, grasping for tenuous and temporary benefits, indulging in fleeting glories...you're fooling nobody but yourself. We must plan ahead, always consider the next dozen steps. We are the weaker party, and will be long even after Antarctica-do not forget, our foreknowledge ends there. Anything after the Sovereigns die is as unknown to as it is to the people of this world. If we want to ride out the waves, we must be calm."
"But then what? Don't forget, we're on TV right now, preforming live for some twisted collection of Gods, or maybe just the Curator alone. He said if we do well, we can hop into another world? Is that really the goal we're going for? Becoming an interdimensional traveller, never staying in one place, never setting our roots?"
"I never knew you were so interested in starting a family" Sasrir said coldly, his tone empty.
"Yeah well, death has a way of changing your perspectives. And you didn't answer my question-you're just as afraid of drifting through life as me, aren't you? You said it yourself, everything you possess came from me: you feel my fears more than anyone. So what happens after-if-we reach Divine? Kill the Sleeping God, dismantle the Spell, banish the Void and rekindled the Flame? Then just hop on over to Reverend Insanity or something?"
"Gods no," Sasrir frowned at that. "We despise Xinxia novels, you know that."
"Hey, a few were good-wait a second, stop trying to distract me!"
"And let you ramble on? Perhaps I need to be more frank Adam-get a fucking grip over yourself and shut the fuck up. Whining and complaining about the future? Talk when you're confidant you even have one. At this rate we won't even be able to kill that fucking tree, nonetheless take on bullshit like Solvane and Winter Beast. If you need me to slap some sense into you, just give the word. I've been wanting to do it since you opened your fucking mouth!"
I fell into shocked silence, mouth agape like a fool. Sasrir had never talked to me like that: yes, he had mocked and made jokes at my expense before, but that was friendly, brotherly, to help my mood. But this? This was true malice, proper spite, each word laden with negativity that pierced right through me.
It fucking hurt, and for a moment I though I might actually cry.
But no, I managed to save myself from social suicide and, just as he said, grabbed a hold of myself.
"...right, I'm sorry. That was uncalled for, and I deserved everything you said. I just-it's just been so hard." I was sitting down now, face in hands. "At the time, it's so much easier, ordering commands, suppressing fire with the Unshadowed Crucifix...the blood loss strips my ability to think, to analyse just how close I am to death. It numbs the sensations, and my Flaw takes what's left."
Sasrir's expression softened. "You're feeling the effects of your Flaw?"
"Yeah. It doesn't really activate during normal life, but once I'm fighting, even my own wellbeing slowly stops becoming important. It's not really noticeable at first, but the longer the fight goes on, the more my emotions and feelings are drained away, leaving just the thinker to operate. And I'm not even that bloody smart, so that's actually a terrible idea!"
"Is that why you are so desperate to acquire the Weaver's Mask? To reverse your Flaw and keep your emotions? Adam, you know this already, but the reversion doesn't work that simply. Justice makes you always make the most optimal and rational choice, but the opposite...it would make you foolish, arrogant and spontaneous. It will just get you killed on the battlefield."
"Maybe," I admitted, lifting my face from my hands. "But I still have to try and do something, or else my humanity won't only be eroded during conflict. I don't want to became the actual Adam, okay? I love his character, but being reduced to an emotionless robot that can only follow emotional guidelines left by his past self is enough to trigger an existential crisis in me. I want to be the Ancient Sun God, not the Angel of Imagination."
"You want to be ravaged by the soul of a primordial deity and suffer repeated possession attempts before being eaten by your subordinates?" Sasrir raised an eyebrow at me.
"What?! No, I want to be powerful and cool-oh, you're just fucking with me."
"What else" he rolled his eyes and extending his hand, pulling me up back onto my feet. "Listen, just walk one foot at a time: keep moving forward, and the path will gradually reveal itself. Whatever you need to keep yourself going, then do it, but remember I will always be by your side-until the day you die."
"Sorry," I muttered, looking down like a guilty child caught by their mother.
After staying still, for nearly a minute, letting the tension dissipate but also causing awkwardness to build, I coughed and moved away. "Anyways, we might as well get that Mask now, right?"
Sasrir sighed but didn't try to stop me, his previous attempts to dissuade me having already failed. Before, he didn't know why I was so hellbent on getting the Divine Memory, but now he did. Even if what he said was true, and my Flaw just became even worse under the effects of the Simple Trick, the Concealment alone made it worth it.
For twenty minutes, we combed the cathedral's ruins. The novel had been frustratingly vague, mentioning only a "hollow space behind a particular wall" near the altar. Every stone looked the same, aged by time and scarred by battle. We ran our hands over cold, rough-hewn blocks, searching for a seam, a crack, anything.
"It could be anywhere," Sasrir murmured, his voice echoing in the vast silence. "Or it could be different from the novel."
"Nothing else has been though. We keep looking," I insisted, my frustration mounting. This was an annoying failure of my foreknowledge. We pushed on rubble, tapped walls listening for hollow sounds, and found nothing.