Lockheartedness

"Okay…compadres—forgive me if I came on a bit strong," the fox man began, "I need to piece together all these fragments in my head…so you heard me making my voice log a moment prior?"

"Yep," Noir answered succinctly.

"And you are the humans who slayed Alphaeus?"

"That's right!" Wendy chimed in.

"And you need help with your pathoses?"

"Well…no," Noir put bluntly. "I mean—I don't think so at the moment. Just…let me ask: who are you?"

"Righto. Name's Syme. I'm an Inspector of pathoses for Ultimantia. That's all wishy-washy though—it's teetering on the edge of pseudoscientific. My sociology theories are a millionfold more impressive."

"Wait, I thought your voice log was to the inspector," Noir said, hoping for clarification.

"Mhm, pretty princess, meow!—that log you just heard was for myself."

"You call yourself sweet-cheeks?" Wendy asked.

"Self-affirmation is in, pretty girl! Consider a heaping serving of it. I tend to find mine in a bottle."

"He has successfully hit on both of us," Noir whispered to Wendy. "Wait," Noir said aloud, "Your name is Syme?"
"Yeah, named after that literary guy. You have to be pretty well-read to have picked that up."

"Not really…I think everyone should read Nineteen Eighty-Four."

"And humble about it too! You two are really competing for this fox's heart!" Syme said, as he downed another shot. Noir rolled his eyes and exhaled as he asked:

"Are you named Syme for a reason?"

"A brave ask, but how insensitive!…N'as-tu pas de tête, n'as-tu pas de cœur? I work for Ultimantia—we actually care for and trust each other. Intellectualism is our spirit—and my middle name! The party wouldn't kill me because I know too much."

"But foxes are cunning…" Noir interjected.

"And so too is Syme fierce like a lion! 'Tis a shame my blood is not that of nobility—from top to bottom I would make a Machiavellian Prince!"

"It's amazing to me that these literary references somehow made it to this world…" Noir commented. Wendy, however, smacked him on the chest as he realized his mistake.

"To this world?" Syme asked with fervor. "Of what world are you if not this one?"

Noir and Wendy silently leaned back, tempted again to run.

"Sacre bleu—Cyprium was going on and on about that in the eventide, could it truly be? There is a backworld to this one?"

"Yes. And we're from it. What does that mean in terms of your little…to-do list?" Wendy braced herself for a vitriolic answer.

"It means…we have work to do! You two stand to teach us innumerable things! Firstly, your pathoses are among the only ones uncategorized here—and we think that alone will be a breakthrough. Secondly, it may explain how you bested Alphaeus so smoothly and give us insight to besting Matthias and the rest. Thirdly, with you two, we shall finally gain access to the ultimate weapon!"

The two were both in shock at the last mention. Wendy was the first to speak: "The Ultimate Weapon?" she repeated after him in full confusion.

"Exactly!" Syme affirmed. "I know next to nothing of it, but Cyprium was going at length ad nauseum when he told me about it. That your world has it and will turn ours upside-down forever."

Noir wanted to tactically sidestep talking about The Ultimate Weapon at the present moment. Before Wendy could press Syme further, Noir diverted his focus.

"What do you mean our pathoses are the only ones uncategorized?"

"Oh, bless my heart!" Syme giggled. "It's perhaps a project I've taken upon my shoulders—lest the lone and level sands stretch far, far away!" Wendy cocked an eyebrow at those last three words but let Syme continue:

"I've endeavored to understand how the different pathoses come together—they have their own way of interacting that tends to fossilize and form certain groups with certain modes of thinking. I'm still formulating it—but there's a term that underscores it nicely: lockheartedness. The other thinkers of Ultimantia think I'm thoroughly koo-koo and think I may qualify for bedlam from this theory. But it stands perfectly to reason! I'll give you an example: my pathos is light green. It's not special—in fact, it's the most common pathos by number and the least indicative of strength. There are outliers but it typically means that the burdens I carry is that I cannot make the world a happier place. A very specific problem, capisce? That burden is conducive to a plurality of locations—music halls, art venues, the bar, for instance…in which people share and express ideas. Those ideas reflect and refract, communicating with each other on a deeper level than mere words. Applied over enormous amounts of time, people slowly coalesce with one another and create lasting change. Am I crazy for conjuring up this line of thinking?"

"I...cannot think of a better one." Noir wanted to ask more about it but felt he should focus on what was relevant. "How is ours, dark silver, not categorized?"

"It's so shockingly rare that nobody alive knows even what it means. Let alone how to interpret it en masse over large amounts of time. But you have the answer! It's somewhere in that dark, mysterious hair of yours!" Syme was frantically moving his hands all over Noir's head while talking.

"See? I was onto something…" Wendy muttered.

"What about the thing you said with Alphaeus? How we were able to best him or something like that?"

"The other world is under the tightest lock and key. It's a miracle Cyprium even conversed with me about it…though he doesn't know I have a knack for talking and drinking! Matthias surely have had ye two shot dead for some nonsense form of heresy when you spoke about where you came from."

Noir and Wendy quietly tapped the table as though they were hiding a guilty conscience.

"So…how did you kill him?"

"He wanted us beheaded for another reason. I engaged with him in hand-to-hand combat and won."

Syme spat out his drink. "You fought with no weapon and no spells and beat him? No wonder you're so rare."

"I know…foxy-boy…I deserve some gold stars…"

"Anyway," Wendy interrupted. "Can you tell us more about how to do magic?"

Noir nodded his head so as to approve of her question.

"Oh, mon cher—you don't even know how to do magic? Your pathoses are in constant conflict with your memories and nerves. Think of it as a triangle with all three points pressing on one another. When any of those three forces snap, an elemental force most comparable to your current emotion will fly out of you with the intent with which you thought it. It is brutally difficult to master, but will always lend you the upper hand in combat."

"What…?" Noir asked.

"Perchance it'd be easier by example." Syme stood up from his stool and cleared his throat. "With your nerves, you can build associations with your magic through weapons. With your memories, you can build associations with your magic simply via thinking. I'll give you an example of both. Your weapon will work best when it's an item you are most emotionally attached to—which is, for me, my notebook. If I quickly sketch a memory of a scene that's important to me—or, bless me—I can just write a few words about it…"

A moment or two after Syme finished his scribbling in his notebook, a sprite floated upwards out of it. He simply let a little air from his lips and the sprite crashed into the tavern's door. It let loose a small, but powerful explosion of water.

"Oui, forgive me for that! Anywho, that's a simple demonstration of both."

"How do you do that," Noir chimed in, "without a weapon?"

"Of course, the simpler form. You'll have to cause a type of 'surge' in the triangle. This can be done in a variety of ways: recalling memories unique to you, going from a high-emotion memory to a low-emotion one, recalling memories in which your nerves were dulled and then ones in which your nerves were heightened. Magic is a very freeform art. You can play around with it in limitless ways. I would encourage you to train it extensively before bringing it into the field."

"Speaking of which…" Noir continued, "I wanted to ask you about the eni—"

"Yeah…about The Ultimate Weapon?" Wendy interjected.

"Oui! How could I forget! The Ultimate Weapon—I've to get you two before Cyprium within the hour!" Syme was suddenly the energetic mess they were introduced to earlier. "Follow me, dearest children!"

"I'm definitely older than this know-it-all…" Wendy muttered.

Syme, before he exited the bar, ran back in and took several bottles from behind the counter and put them into a brown knapsack he had been carrying. Noir glanced at him in concern.

"Oh, make no mistake. These are not for me. They're for the ones in need of them."