Save State Hero 2 -ch 11- (Patreon)

Edmund felt sick, suddenly appearing somewhere else.

Sick, like he wanted to throw up, and that the world was absolutely spinning. Spinning faster and faster.

To the point that Edmund fell over to one side and hit the ground with a thud. Laying there, unmoving, and unable to get his body to respond at any level.

In fact, Edmund could barely breathe. Each breath was a struggle that left him forcing air in and out of his lungs.

The air tasted wrong, the hard ground beneath him felt strangely sharp despite just being smoothed stone, and even the sounds he heard were discordant.

“What—” gasped Edmund and spasmed against the ground.

“You don’t belong here, Edmund,” Oz reported. “I don’t belong here. This is wrong. Very wrong.

“You are currently adapting to the world. Please hold on. There is nothing I can do for it. It’ll happen naturally. Just focus on breathing.”

“Yeah,” grunted out Edmund.

He could see Runner in front of him.

See his face.

The absolute pain and guilt write large across his face as he stared into the woman’s face he was holding. Holding her and clearly grieving.

Edmund did as he was instructed. Putting his entire focus on the simple goal of breathing. Pushing air in and out of his lungs.

“They won’t notice you. You’re in a dark alcove and there’s a lot going on,” Oz advised. “Just remain still, breathe, and do nothing. At this point, Runner was a lot more aggressive and forward with things. Best we aren’t noticed.”

Really?

Aggressive?

That seems kind of odd.

He always seemed kind of neutral.

Almost to the point of being negligent. Just watching things happen and letting things go about on their own.

“This event that you’re watching brought about who he is today. Though one could argue that perhaps it’s gone too far. His personality has eroded a bit further than was entirely needed.

“His actions since Ryker has passed only grew worse. He has lost two people who he relied on more than he would ever admit to,” Oz stated.

Edmund continued to work his lungs. Forcing himself to commit to mechanical breathing. Which he had never considered before and would now view as a curse.

A curse a warlock would put on you to make your existence miserable.

I can’t even imagine sleeping like this.

I don’t think I—

The woman slipped out of Runner’s arms, somehow vanishing through them, and hit the ground with a thud. She laid there unmoving.

Most certainly looking quite dead and face down.

Runner quickly grabbed at her and rolled her onto her back.

“What?” Edmund asked in a whispered gasp.

“She passed,” Oz stated. “Her death was caused through a magical curse. She no longer exists in this save-state. Similar in a way to what has happened to Andrea.

“Nadine’s end was the single most important thing in Runner’s entire existence and shaped everything that he was going forward.

“Ah! You’ve adapted. That went much faster than expected. I will cloak your existence from them. You should collect yourself and then review the area and then see if you can’t follow her with your save-states.”

Blue-light spun around the body and accomplished nothing at all.

Only for Runner to end up grabbing to the woman and began screaming wordlessly.

A haunting and wounded sound that left Edmund unable to watch.

He rolled over slowly onto the other side, the whole scene leaving him feeling as if he had truly seen something he shouldn’t.

Glimpsing into the heart of a god likely wasn’t something you should be doing.

Because the look and sound of Runner in this moment would probably haunt Edmund forever forward. He wouldn’t be able to look at the god ever again in the same way.

Seeing the god of all gods in so much pain… does it make them less deitylike or more? I mean, we already found out he started as a mortal.

I’m not sure… let’s just… not think about it.

Yeah.

Focusing instead on the wall he was next to, Edmund tried to tap into the power that’d been tied to him. To his ability and what he wanted to achieve.

To trail and find Andrea and where she went.

Except, surprisingly, there was no trail to follow.

Upon entering this world, this plane, she had almost immediately left. Having gone somewhere else entirely.

Not wanting to repeat the situation that he’d just gone through, Edmund hesitantly opened up his power. Afraid that wherever he went he would have to breathe for himself again.

There was no other choice though.

Because unfortunately, seeing Runner in this moment had inadvertantly sent Edmund right back to Felix.

How Felix likely felt at the loss of Andrea.

How he probably reacted to the scene of her death and how heavy her death hung on him. To the point that he became evil.

For Runner, he toned his personality down and became a patient, perhaps overly so, and willing god for millions.

Felix on the other hand, walked the opposite path.

One is a guide, the other a carrot on the stick.

Edmund pulled his power open again despite knowing it’d make him feel as ill as he could ever imagine. He was using his power in very tight time frames from one another.

A slew of strange looking save-states appeared before him.

Many of them looked wrong, misshapen, or a mix of colors that made no sense. In a way that looked a lot like when a monitor had been struck and the panel was no longer able to interpret signals anymore.

“Why are they so… broken,” Edmund wondered aloud, looking around. “There’s so many that have strange artifacts and odd looking glitches to them. Like a blasted out DVD.”

Thankfully half looked quite normal to him, yet so many weren’t, that it left him rather nervous.

“Those are Runner’s, probably,” Oz advised him. “Given his godhood, it is unlikely you’d ever be able to peek into his save-states.

“It’s also likely why Andrea came here. Runner, his energy, and this moment, are a crux point for him. To the point that it would be easy to say that the amount of energy surrounding a death could not be greater anywhere else in the realms, planes, universes, or worlds.”

“I guess… that makes sense. Especially if she was lost and confused. I’m sure I would be if I died. When… when I die,” Edmund muttered.

There were more than a few memories of coming close to dying but never actually crossing the threshold.

“If you die,” Oz countered in an odd echo of what Edmund had been thinking. “Theoretically, you could always revert a short ways and live eternally.”

“I mean… even with a Dryad, old age caught up to me eventually, Oz,” Edmund said with a chuckle and looked around at the save-states about him.

Almost all of them were from the point of view of someone else and a great deal of them clearly had Runner as a focal point.

Which made sense given where he was.

This was likely a huge number of save-states from the people around Runner and were of course involved with him. That meant that they would be involved with deity-level events.

Pausing on one particular save-state, Edmund stared at it.

It was different from all the rest.

It was golden.

The only one amongst all of them.

Calling it forth Edmund studied it.

“Oz… what’s this one?” he asked.

“I don’t know. The save-states for this world have never been accessed by anyone else before,” Oz answered. “Even I cannot view, access, or see them. I have no idea what you’re looking at, other than it’s a save-state.”

“You can’t see it. You can’t see it? That feels really weird,” Edmund murmured as he put his attention to the save-state.

It had a strange oval of magic in the center of it that almost looked like a portal. At the center of the oval was Runner.

As if he were being viewed through it.

“This world is the birthplace of Runner. It holds the mysteries of all things. It would be more impossible to believe that we could scry into it as easily as the worlds he created himself,” Oz countered.

Once again, Edmund found himself not wanting to consider something.

It meant someone else had made Runner, or he had sprung from nothing at all.

“Do you think the save-states are safe?” Edmund whispered. For some reason he couldn’t explain he wanted to know why this save-state in particular was gold.

“I mean, perhaps yes, perhaps no. There’s no way of knowing,” Oz answered. “Did Andrea go there?”

Edmund hesitated at that question.

Oz had drug him back to the actual question at hand.

Edmund hesitated and then let himself remain still. He wanted to see what would happen if he went into that save-state.

The strange unwinding of the world occurred and Edmund watched as an Edmund entered that save-state. Vanishing without even a hesitation.

He couldn’t see what that Edmund saw, feel what he felt, or heard what he heard, but he could tell he was still alive.

Several minutes passed and whatever was on the other side, still hadn’t killed that Edmund. As long as that Edmund was alive, clearly, whatever was there, wasn’t an issue.

“Could I come back here if I went into this save-state?” Edmund asked.

“Yes. You’ve established a presence in this save-state. If you were to return to it, it would be much easier than the first pass through,” Oz confirmed.

Nodding his head Edmund decided to throw the dice.

He grasped the save-state and went into it.

“I… I’m going to watch Runner some m-more,” said the woman who had died in Runner’s arms, turning back to the portal.

Her face slowly grew into a smile as she watched Runner in the magical viewing screen.

“One day, Runner. One day, I’ll come back,” she whispered.

Sitting next to the green eyed, blonde haired dead woman was what Edmund could only describe as “motherly”.

Slightly heavy, a warm smile, and brown hair that was pinned above her head.

“Ah… who… are you?” asked the woman, her eyes snapping to Edmund and widening. “How did you get here!?”

“Uh,” Edmund said eloquently as the dead woman’s eyes snapped to Edmund and stuck to him. “I just watched you die.”

It wasn’t an intelligent thing to say, but it was the only thing Edmund could manage.

“I just watched you die in Runner’s arms. Are… is this the afterlife?” Edmund asked and then touched at his chest. “Oz, where is this?”

“Oz?” asked the motherly woman. “You’re alone.”

“You watched me die?” said the dead woman.

“Oz is… uh… hm. I don’t even know how to explain it,” Edmund muttered, putting a hand behind his head. “So I know how to explain this… you died, right? You’re Nadine. Oz said Runner changed everything after you died.

“Well, changed everything up until Ryker died. That’s probably another cluster-fuck I’ll have to unwind.”

“I… yes? I’m Nadine. Wait, who’s Ryker?” demanded Nadine.

“Ryker?” asked the other woman in a puzzled voice. “I think I know of a Ryker but he has no relation to Runner.”

“Oh, yeah, not yet. In the future. Ryker becomes like… the architect and Runner is a god of thousands of realms and… and… it’s a whole big thing, don’t worry about it,” Edmund said with a wave of his hand. “Anyways. You’re dead, right? But I’m not dead. So how am I here? Or how are you here?”

“I died but was taken in by Erma. At the exact moment I died,” whispered Nadine. “He becomes a god? Of many realms?”

“Who, Runner? Yeah. He made my world. I’m from a different universe. Lots of universes,” Edmund answered. “I guess I really time traveled with this one.

“Alright… well… huh. Interesting. I wonder how Oz will explain this when I go back.”

“Don’t-d-don’t tell Runner!” squeaked Nadine. A hand shooting out and grabbing at Edmund’s sleeve. “Don’t t-t-tell him when you go back! Don’t! He can’t know I’m alive. Don’t tell this Oz, either! It s-sounds like he knows about me. About Runner. But no one knew I was here!”

“Uh… but why not? Runner could really use the support. He just beat back Zeus, lost Ryker, and won the war,” Edmund said with a shake of his head.

“Zeus…?” Nadine asked, her brows furrowing.

“It’s a really long story,” Edmund said, wondering if he should just leave.

“Then please, won’t you have a seat?” Erma said with a bright smile. “I’ll make some cookies, you can have a snack, and you can tell us all about everything.

“You wouldn’t have come here unless you were looking for something after all. It sounds like you have a lot on your mind as well.”

Erma had left her seat and then gently pushed Edmund down.

He hadn’t even realized a chair had materialized behind him until he was sat into it.

“Now… you start at the beginning while I go make those snacks,” Erma said and patted him on the shoulder. “You’re so skinny. You need to eat more.”

Blinking, Edmund found himself relaxing in the seat against his will. Only for his eyes to drift back to Nadine.

She smiled at him hesitantly.

“T-tell me about… everything,” she pleaded. “Tell me about my Runner.”

***

“—ended up here looking for her,” Edmund finished, and then almost literally inhaled another cookie. Chewing it hungrily and swallowing it down.

Only to grab another.

Erma only laughed, waved a hand at him and got up.

“Oh you poor thing. I’ll go get some more. You act like you’ve been starved to death!” she exclaimed.

“They’re just that good. I’m so sorry. I never thought myself a glutton,” he apologized, after swallowing the cookie he’d jammed into his mouth and chewed up.

Nadine on the other hand was staring off into nothing. Her eyes had an almost haunted quality to them.

“I never came back,” she said in a voice that felt broken.

“I mean, I don’t know that for a fact but… it does seem like it,” Edmund agreed. “Maybe something happened and you couldn’t? Maybe the world changed?”

Nadine’s eyebrows went up at that as if she seemed to actively consider that. Her jaw moving as she looked to chew at the inside of her cheek.

“S-so… I never came back, despite my intent to do so, which means… I waited just too long,” Nadine mumbled. “Well… that’s just n-not… not good. Maybe I’ll need to move things up.”

“I don’t think you can,” Edmund said with a shrug of his shoulders. “We’re talking in the past right now. Talking at a point in time that won’t exist where I’m going. This conversation will never have happened.

“It’s like… opening a time capsule. Or peeking through a hole in the wall.

“I can’t do anything about what’s in the capsule, or what’s on the other side of the wall. None of it is something I can change.

“This has all already happened. Even if you know about it now, in this moment, when I leave, it’ll go back to how it was before.

“You won’t ever remember this conversation and… it’ll be as if it never happened.”

Nadine stared at him blankly.

Unable to comprehend or truly understand what he’d just told her. A lot like he’d just shouted at her in a foreign language in the middle of a conversation regarding ancient greek philosophy.

“I’m just part of a dream that I won’t r-r-remember upon waking,” breathed Nadine, followed by a soft sob. “Oooh… I never would’ve thought this moment would’ve been this way.

“You were r-right, Erma. You were right. I guess this was a moment I should’ve taken instead of letting go by.”

“Oh, I don’t think it’s too bad,” Erma said with a warm-hearted chuckle. Trundling over with a fresh plate of cookies that looked just baked. “After all, our friend here is the dreamer himself. We won’t remember, but he will.

“And he just told us Runner is at a point where he is the most needy he could ever be. His lowest point after his loss of you.

“What better point for you to return? He will need you, just as he needed others when he lost you.

“If anything, that’s a much more needed moment in time for you.

“Edmund, would you be a dear, sweet-heart, and do tell Runner to come and collect his dear Rabbit, whom is here with me?”

Edmund frowned, nodded his head fractionally, and agreed without words. He wasn’t sure that it was the right thing to do, but he was more than willing to consider it.

For all he knew, it’d send Runner into a tailspin of epic proportions that couldn’t be recovered from. After losing Ryker, then finding out he’d somehow deprived himself of Nadine, it might be truly more than he could handle.

Not wanting to hold the gaze of either woman anymore, Edmund opened up his save-state, selected the one to go back to where Nadine “died”, and launched it.

He found himself in the exact same spot he’d been in, looking at the save-state that had Nadine and Erma inside of it.

“In fact, I don’t think that you’d even have any significant issues returning to this save-state,” Oz stated. “I imagine it would be a lot like returning to your own world in the future.”

“Mm… I see,” said Edmund with a slow nod of his head. “You think I could go in there and come right back without issue.”

“Yes, I do,” Oz agreed.

“When I came into this save-state, could you see what it was, or what was in it?” Edmund asked.

“No. I could not. It was just as the ones that are in here. I know they exist, but I cannot fathom anything about their contents,” Oz confirmed.

Right.

Okay.

Well.

He doesn’t know what’s in there.

He couldn’t go there.

He has no memory of it.

Thankfully, for the moment, I can at least keep Nadine’s being alive to myself.

A faint fluttering ball of light swooped past Edmund and went around his head several times. Only to shoot off in a random direction.

Every time I reload in the same one.

Is it a sign of data loss?

Do I ask?

“How bad’s the data loss lately?” Edmund asked.

“Unable to be compared any longer. Given previous estimates, it’s likely roughly a hundred people no longer exist,” Oz reported.

Groaning, Edmund put a hand to his brow.

In other words, those light balls that vanish and appear, were probably a collective loss of lives.

Fuck.

“Alright. On we go,” Edmund huffed with a sigh and then selected the next save-state that he could feel as Andrea’s trail.