Three Out of Infinite Possibilities

I slammed the table and stood up. “But that’s impossible!” I said, my voice quivering. “I… I-I saw it. In my… uh, visions. I had three different ones. Florathea never managed to come back to life on any of them!”

The queen creased her brows. “What visions?”

“Uh, I… I saw Florathea’s followers causing lots of trouble all over Erudios in the future, but they never managed to revive her. You also said your ritual only steals magic, but in two of my visions, your ritual ended up killing everyone in your city!”

“Two? What about the third?”

“In the third vision, your ritual was halted by…” By the player in the hero route. “By… well, some outside forces.”

“Yeah, us,” said Dahlian.

I cleared my throat. “The ritual started killing people by then, so we had no choice but to stop you,” I added.

It was Morienelle’s turn to slam on the table. “What a bunch of baseless lies!” she said. “Our sacred rituals have never been wrong!”

“But that’s what I saw!”

“So what?! They’re just some cheap visions you had! What proof do you have that they could possibly come true?”

I bit my lip.

Ever since I screwed up my first real battle, the storyline had drastically changed. I was supposed to meet Lora in the prison, fight and escape alongside her, fight some more guards and other bad guys, and meet the rest of the team much later. I should’ve been running around the city doing side quests, learning all sorts of trades and crafts, and farming forest monsters right now.

And yet, here I was, somehow sipping tea and chatting with all the major bosses of the prologue in the same room like we all became besties overnight. Not to mention, I even started learning so much new lore that the writers hid from the rest of the dev team…

If anything didn’t change, I’d say…

“I… still met my friends,” I said. “That also happened in those visions.”

Queen Verisette leaned forward, her face growing stern. “True or not, I want to promise you that none of our plans should cost a single life. All we’re trying to do is to prepare for Florathea’s inevitable return and the disaster following it. Even if you believe that her revival will fail, you’ve only seen three of the unlimited possibilities of the future.”

“Wait, Your Highness, is it really okay to share the details of our plans with them?” asked Silvestine.

“I will permit disclosing it only this once,” said the queen. “Considering that you two already knew most of our plans, all I want is to clear those misunderstandings to avoid an unnecessary conflict with each other.”

“Right, misunderstandings…” I gripped my fist. “So you’re absolutely sure that ritual is supposed to be safe?”

“Obviously,” said Morienelle. “We’ve been using the smaller version of the ritual on a few prisoners to absorb their magic for weeks, and none of them died or lost their minds in the process.”

So the rumors of the queen sacrificing people for powers were half-true. Not too surprised.

“Wait, there’s a smaller version?” asked Dahlian.

“All spells and rituals started from parchment, so for you guys to pull off a city-wide scale means you’ve definitely mastered it,” I murmured, rubbing my chin. “But still, the bigger the scale, the riskier it is to pull it off.”

“And that’s why Lord Malistraeus sent the four of us here,” said Wymond. “Each of us is assigned to guard a sigil and ensure nothing disturbs them before the night of the ritual.”

Yeah, that was definitely true, but…

“Still, that doesn’t explain why the ritual killed people in all three of my visions.”

The queen tapped her chin. “Assuming your visions are possible futures, will you describe to us how the rituals went in detail?”

I squeezed my fists together. “About that… I wasn’t able to see everyone’s perspective but mine, and all I saw were those sigils shooting beacons of red light that wouldn’t stop growing and vaporizing civilians around them.”

“Wait, hold on,” said Silvestine. “Did you say red light?”

“Yeah? What about it?”

All four ambassadors traded glances with each other, and maybe I was seeing things, but for a brief moment, what felt like a moment of suspicion sparked among them.

“That can’t be right,” Morienelle murmured, rubbing her head. “Those lights should be blue. You’re not color blind or anything, are you?”

“Definitely not! I’m sure I remembered all three visions had red light!”

“Oh my,” said Entrophys. “Seems like our sigils might have been modified by a few rats under our noses.”

“Alright, fess up, Entrophys,” said Morienelle. “You sabotaged them, didn’t you?”

“Ehhh?! Why’re you suspecting me?!”

“You’re the only one here who doesn’t care if we fail or succeed!”

“Yeah, but I still have standards! I’d never lie to Mallie and backstab everyone. Right, Wymie?”

Wymond simply squinted at him.

“You don’t believe me either?!”

“Woah there, let’s not do any of that finger-pointing here,” said Silvestine. “For all we know, Haruma’s just lying to sow discord!”

“I’m not lying!” I said.

“You better not!” said Entrophys. “Sowing discord is supposed to be my forte!”

“That’s enough, all of you,” said the queen. Everyone else immediately went silent and turned to her. “We’ve shared more than enough information to have everyone on the same page by now. Haruma, Dahlian, now that you know the truth of our mission, I hope you’ll start making wiser decisions from now on. As regular citizens, you’re not obligated to help, but should you interfere with us again, we won’t be as merciful as we are now.”

I gripped my pants. “I-I got the memo,” I murmured. “I just don’t want a massacre to happen this time.”

“Rest assured, we will make sure to remember your warning and prevent such a mistake from happening,” said Wymond. “The whole point of our peace treaty is to prevent history from repeating again.”

Even though those words came from the person I trusted the most in this room, it didn’t clear off all the doubt gnawing inside me. Besides, stealing people’s magic was still in and of itself wrong.

As if the queen understood me, she said, “If you’re still unsure, then I’ll permit you to share your findings with us with the rest of The Marching Embers.”

“Ehh? You know about us?” asked Dahlian, raising his brows.

“Of course. What kind of queen am I to not know everything about my own capital city?”

“I-I guess that’s true…”

“But is that really okay?” I asked. “Aren’t you worried that we might disagree or that things will go out of hand on our end?”

“Like I said, I don’t want any misunderstandings between us. I’m also more than aware that The Marching Embers want nothing more than to live peacefully, and I share the same goal, so I’m not too worried.” For once, the queen tossed a subtle smile. “And besides, I have faith that my old friend will make the same choices.”

“Your old friend? You mean Ashrenne?”

“Oh dear, I’ve spoken too much. Wymond, will you kindly please send our guests back?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Wymond raised a palm and aimed at the two of us. “May we meet again in a more peaceful setting,” he said.

With a bright flash, a wave of familiar flames engulfed our surroundings and forced us to cover our faces. Seconds later, the flames stopped, and we carefully opened our eyes to find ourselves back in the city square.

Dahlian and I stared blankly at each other. Neither of us said a word, but our faces shared the same idea.

“My brain hurts,” said Dahlian. “Let’s just go home.”

“Good idea,” I replied.

So, we marched straight back to The Marching Ember’s base in total silence. Well, aside from Dahlian buying tons of street food on the way, nothing else happened.

And yet, when we finally arrived back at the base, no one welcomed us back. No one. Not even Lora, who was supposed to be “grounded.”

All that greeted us was a small note on the table and a green ring.

“Lora left without permission, but don’t even think about it,” said the note. “I’ll go find her. The rest of you stay put and out of trouble. Signed, Ashrenne.”

Dahlian and I once again shared another dumbfounded look.

“P.S. I bought the Ring of Gluttony for you, Haruma. Feel free to relax.”

I reluctantly took the ring. “You think they’re gonna be fine?” I asked.

“Yeah, they’re pretty tough,” said Dahlian.

Silence took over for only a moment.

“Welp, leader's orders.” I promptly equipped the ring, plopped on the nearest couch, and succumbed to sleep in seconds. “I’ll just nap… for a little while…”

“Man, I wish I could sleep like humans,” Dahlian mumbled, stretching his arms and walking away. “I guess it’s back to crocheting for me.”