Every Way, Every Time
07 – 09.6.920
Endergaln
Sav works more on the prosthetic finger for Xander, with Gwin’s revelation that Esmund had also had some prosthetic fingers coming in handy (pun intended); it gives Sav the idea for incorporating a pen into the prosthetic.
Bax goes to Peach saying that he wants to try different things and if she’d teach him to cook (though he wants to stay away from baking, as that was more Sylas’ thing). Then he finds Sav, who’s reading news of dragonborn scouts seen about a day south of Endergaln, in the valley where the farms are. Yev corroborates with a bounty flyer of a beast terrorizing the western potato farms (apparently he collects bounty posters as a hobby), and the two jocks talk about going out there to investigate; Sav says she’ll give them a Sending Stone if they hie off but to give her some warning.
Bax asks why Sav wants to teach him to read, and they fumble through first the utility of it and eventually land on “idk it’s just a cool thing man,” which seems to be enough for him. Sav gets very excited about this and immediately starts working on flashcards. Yev has opinions on letters.
Sav also brings up the memorial for the demon twins Bax had mentioned, which he brushes off at first before saying okay, maybe in the next day or two.
Peach, with a moment of downtime, goes to a park to start writing the false flag letters-to-the-editor to the South Town Gazette Sav had suggested, trying to suss out people who are in the pro-Returned versus anti-Returned camp. As she writes, an Esmund appears, about ten years older than she remembers and speaking with an accent very like hers, a missing arm and a brass cane. He apparently is an Esmund who came from a timeline where he and Peach fell in love after returning from the temple (presumably the world didn’t break at that point).
However, he also has a message for all of them: it’s math. (It’s always math.)
He also says, “You have to find some way to stop it. Paradox wins in every way, in every time. You couldn’t stop it. Got it?” Peach writes down “Paradox wins, every way, every time.”
Peach wakes Sav up and hands them the note, which they recognize as solutions to some of the problems they’re working on. Some of the information is redundant, which suggests that the previous Esmund and this Esmund don’t know what the other one knows or has passed on. There’s also a section for a problem she hasn’t encountered yet, but is probably one of Gwin’s.
Peach also relates the “Paradox wins” message, which doesn’t dismay Sav, who sees it as more of a riddle - if the premise is true (which it might not be, as Esmund clearly isn’t omniscient), then the opposite premise that Paradox doesn’t win in no time might be the key. (Also, if that’s true and there’s no hope, there’s no point in giving that warning or trying to work against it.) Peach is a little surprised at how blasé Sav is about the warning.
Sav and Peach go to the workshop where Sav starts to immediately incorporate the new solutions into their formulas. Peach notices an unnatural flare of prismatic light coming from candles and distillation setup, and speculates about Esmund being refracted pieces from a single incident. They both muse about other versions of themselves possibly being out there (Sav thinks it’d be nice to have multiple of them working together on something). Peach remembers that Sal was most able to pull the most detail out of the disappearances they all occasionally experience.
Sav tells Peach about Bax learning to read, and they have a book-shopping trip to find children’s books about local monsters and legends, and then anything about Feywild creatures, because why stick to anodyne children’s stories when one could press-gang someone just learning their letters into doing useful research. Using the magical maps Sav had learned how to create, they’re able to track Bax down to a dingy basement somewhere.
Bax gets involved in a fighting ring, where a man named Frasier says Thorne told him to expect him. He gets set up in a real betting match after a couple of days, fighting against the Gilded Guardsman; when told to have a fighting ring name, Bax comes up with “The Star-Eyes Beast,” which the announcer, Miller, hears as the “Star Rise Beast.” His opponent, a 6’3” woman with braided red hair and wrapped arms, is a fierce fighter; when she clotheslines him, her arm wraps slip loose and he notices a tattoo in the sigil of House Diamante.
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