[Omen of the Witchblade] Chapter 116 - Unlikely Allies

Mel sagged in place, looking at the towering brutes. She scrubbed at her eyes, dashing the tears away. “This is the only place that feels like home to me,” she said in a quiet voice on the edge of breaking.

A few of the grubby men nodded, as if they understood.

A large, meaty hand came out and rested on her shoulder. Despite looking like he broke rocks with his face and could crush Mel into the size of a basketball, he gently guided her toward a small alcove set into the forgotten courtyard.

There were a few other men there and a couple of women all in the same state of disrepair. A pot of stew was bubbling over a small fire.

“Come,” the man said gruffly. Mel abided.

Despite everything, Mel had to admit these people made her feel at home. They weren’t the cleanest, but they were not wallowing in their own filth. They did the best they could, and that was all you could ask for.

Mel sat down and was immediately given a cracked bowl and a ladle of thin soup. She didn’t say anything as the tears rolled down her cheeks. She ate mechanically, barely aware of what she was doing.

It was hardly worthy of the term broth, let alone soup, but she finished every drop. To do otherwise would be a grave insult, and who would be so cruel to people who already had so little?

These were Mel’s people. Across countless Worldshards, she had come to know men and women of various races just like them. They were hardy, salt-of-the-earth people who only wanted to eke out a comfortable life for their family and had fallen on hard times.

Around the light of the small cook fire, Mel could see her new friends better. They were not human. Not even close. If she had been thinking clearly, she would have noticed it sooner. She had never seen such a race before. They looked like a type of beastman, a race of humanoid beasts. Mel’s best guess would have been rhinoceroses.

They were nearly as wide as they were tall, with hardy gray skin, a pair of horns in line on their snout, and flat wide teeth Mel had mistaken for something else at first glance. But their eyes…she knew those eyes. They were on the verge of giving up. She’d seen those eyes on every Worldshard, no matter where she went. There was always somebody who “didn’t fit in” and she could guess easily enough that these people did not fit in with the pretty elves, swarthy dwarves, or other core races that usually dominated such places.

They were the ones who fell through the cracks but never stopped striving for better.

Because they were her people, Mel shared her story with them. Every last bit. Every doubt, every fear was brought to the surface.

Seeing the familiar broken faces around her, Mel felt safe. She felt at home. They understood.

Even if it took Mel re-explaining a few times.

“So…yer dead?” Wrug said, scratching his stubbly chin with a finger thicker than three of Mel’s put together.

Mel shook her head. “Kinda.” It helped her to talk about it. She couldn’t tell the other Magi. It was a secret that would put her in mortal danger.

She hadn’t even told the kind men and women who had given her shelter what it all meant yet. By explaining it to them, she had come to better understand her predicament and the serious trouble she was in.

“What I’m saying,” Mel continued, “is that the Mel they knew died.” She leaned over and took the ladle out of the soup. “Think of it like this. You see the soup?”

They all nodded. “Watch when I put the ladle in.”

Everybody stared as Mel dipped the ladle in just until it was under the surface. “See the ladle still?”

“Ayep,” Nulk said. “It’s still there.”

“Now watch the soup that gets left behind.” Mel yanked the ladle up, careful not to spill a drop.

For a moment the depression left by the scooping action remained hollow, then the rest of the water rushed to fill the gap. “You see how the water fills the gap left behind? That’s what happened to me. The Mel they knew died, and I got sucked in to replace her.”

Lavo chewed on her lip thoughtfully. “So what you’re saying is…you’re kind of a doppler?”

“A doppel? No, not a doppelganger,” Mel said, gently correcting her. She shook her head. This wasn’t working. Instead, she pointed at Lavo. The tall, muscular woman who looked like a cross between a stone golem and a rhino straightened up as if she were being called on in class. “There is only one of you, right?”

“The world can’t take more than that,” Lavo said with a toothy grin.

Hearty guffaws and belly laughs filled the alcove.

Mel smiled, truly smiled at their resilience. “No, no, she’s right. At this moment, Lavo is occupying what you could consider a Lavo-shaped space. If there was another Lavo on another Shard somewhere and she tried to come over, she’d be bounced back because…?” Mel looked expectantly at them.

Nulk raised his thick hand. “Because…there already Lavo here?”

Mel clapped her hands once and pointed at him. “Correct.”

“That what happen to you?” Nulk asked, his large brow furrowing with sympathy.

Mel’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah. I’m thinking something happened to me–still don’t know what–and I should have gotten sent home. However, at the same moment that this universe’s Mel died…I just happened to be passing by. It snagged me to fill the spot instead.”

“So you are Mel, but not their Mel,” Lavo said.

“Yeah…”

“Big suck,” Nulk sympathized.

“You said it, buddy.”

“Why not tell friends?” Wrug asked. “Friends of one Mel, still friends of you?”

Mel shook her head. This was the moment of truth. Did she hold this one thing back or bare her entire soul to these random strangers?

The money they could probably get for spilling even a fraction of what I’ve told them could keep them fed for years, Mel thought to herself.

But in her heart of hearts, she knew they wouldn’t do that. They had accepted her. She wasn’t going to betray that trust by pulling back now.

The truth spilled out of her, “Because somebody killed Mel. Their Mel.”

The number of gasps from the half-dozen men and women nearly made her laugh. It would be funny if it wasn’t happening to me.

“So Other Mel die, you take place, but killer…still out there?” Wrug asked.

Mel nodded. “Right now, they think I’m still her just without my memories. Somebody killed her. I…just don’t know who. And so long as they think I don’t know what happened, I’m safe. They’ll have to keep pretending to be surprised I’m alive and well because everybody else thinks I just disappeared or the spell went awry. At least one person, the murderer, knows the truth. They know I should be dead, and I don’t think they’ll wait around for me to put the pieces together before trying again.”

Deep down, Mel was afraid it was someone she truly cared about. That would be all sorts of messed up.

Lavo leaned forward excitedly. “You have to solve your own murder!”

“When you put it like that…yeah. Unfortunately, I have nobody to trust. It could be any one of them.”

As if on cue, Mel received a new quest.

New Quest: The Grand Mystery

You have finally faced the truth of your existence. You are not from this reality, and the one(s) who killed you are still out there. Alone and unable to confide in another Magi, you must discover the truth of your demise before the same happens to you. Again.

Objective: Discover the identity of your killer(s) (0/1).

Reward: Variable.

Oh. Cool. Very cool. Yup. Splendid. Not even a worthwhile reward! Piece of shit System, why don’t you tell me who did it so I can be done with it?

Not that the System could. No System that she knew was able to provide information you didn’t already know in some capacity. Though it could be stuff you forgot. Some quests could even straight-up lie to you, if that was what you believed.

She could believe it was Gwen, and the System might give her a quest, suggesting it was.

That was what hurt the most. It could be Gwen. It could be Thomas. Even Charlie or Sylvie might have done it. These were not her friends. This Sylvie was not the spunky girl who punched first and asked questions later. She was not her Sylvie.

Ashera didn’t even recognize Elora or Aldim! It had to be an alternative universe, one where Brookmoors still existed alongside another version of Mel.

Which made sense that she never knew of it. If she had tried to Realmwalk to the Other Mel’s Shard, she would have been rejected without even knowing. It would have simply shifted her to the nearest similar Shard with differences so minor she’d never know.

Gwen claimed she didn’t remember the events around the Invocation that uplifted them into the multiverse. It didn’t seem like a lie, especially since Gwen was absolutely dogshit (pun intended) at masking her emotions.

Maybe she accidentally killed the Other Mel, and then mentally blocked out the traumatic event.

Mel desperately hoped that wasn’t the case. Anyone but Gwen. The bestie she never used to have.

Because she wasn’t a Magi where I come from. Disjoined people weren’t a thing. So who, or where, was she instead?

It was probably something she would never know the answer to.

The howl of a wolf told Mel who had been following her. Fortunately, Mel was too fast and Gwen clearly had to resort to tracking. She heard Gwen shout, “Mel! I’m not gonna lose you! Even if you are faster than a lightning struck oppa!”

Mel heard a commotion outside the alley. The same people who let Mel barge into their hidden refuge weren’t letting Gwen in.

“Oh, hey! Nice to meet you, sirs. I’m Gwen Otenreng,” she said amicably from beyond the courtyard. She was clearly pitching her voice loud enough that Mel could hear her. “Wait, are you okay? Please take this.”

“What is?” a gruff voice asked.

“It’s just a health potion,” she explained, harder for Mel to hear now. “I think….uh, your wound isn’t mending on its own. Smells like it hurts terribly.”

The guard grunted. Then the other guard grunted too. Both of them would get along well with Logan.

“It…worked?” the man said. “Can move my hand again.”

They still wouldn’t let her in.

Mel had no more secrets left to spill. There was nothing that Gwen might overhear now that would threaten her. As much as Mel trusted her friend, she couldn’t lower her guard that much.

If it was Gwen…she would cross that bridge eventually.

Until then, Mel needed to pick herself back up and resume her role as the amnesiac Magi. At the same time, she needed to find her killer, or worse, killers. It was entirely possible there was more than one culprit.

There was only a single person who hadn’t been surprised or alarmed at seeing Mel. That was Gwen.

It didn’t rule her out, but it made Mel feel a little more comfortable around her and Thomas. If Gwen did kill her, it might have been an accident. She could have turned somehow.

During a Grand Invocation? Not likely. That’d be sloppy.

Thomas seemed trustworthy, only because he was clearly surprised but not bothered by Mel’s appearance. He was slower in trusting her, which in Mel’s eyes was the appropriate response to seeing a friend return out of the blue.

If Thomas thought she had disappeared and miraculously returned, the odds of her not being Mel were high. Either a highly advanced mimic or a doppel were entirely plausible outcomes. His wariness eased overtime, suggesting he believed it really was her.

Me and Other Mel must share a lot of similarities then, Mel thought to herself. Which was useful, since Mel could rely on her instincts to respond to events instead of trying to remember a life she never lived.

Gotta quit with the pop culture references though, Mel chided. Nobody seems to get them, and if I accidentally say it to the killer, they might get suspicious.

Despite the catharsis of sharing her burden with people she felt a kinship to, Mel was still at square one. She had no idea who might have killed her, and she had nearly 20 suspects.

Soul aeder could be ruled out, and she could rule herself out, which left her with 18 potential killers.

A dozen and a half highly talented, skilled warriors. Twelve of which are Magi, the best players of dem’dai hel, the “Great Game of Houses” in the multiverse. Easy. I just gotta be smarter and better at subterfuge than a dozen other people.

Deklin’s absence struck her keenly then. He was one of, if not the best, player of dem’dai hel. She would have trusted him without a second thought and spilled everything to him if he were here.

That feels like a clue somehow…

“C’mon, Fenris,” Gwen said, barely audible to Mel’s ears. “We’ll wait over there, and I’ll give you some more scritches.”

The rhino-like men and women gathered around the cook fire all looked at her curiously. They were keeping Gwen out for her sake, but they were clearly uncomfortable with it.

Gwen had shown them kindness when met with rejection. That was enough to get them to trust her, but they also knew that Mel’s friends might be her enemies.

Mel looked at their beaten and weathered faces. She smiled and nodded at them. Wrug stomped his foot twice and the two rhino men at the alley entrance stepped aside to admit Gwen into the courtyard.

How many people walk by these kind souls every day, thinking that they’re too dumb to earn a living or that their circumstance is somehow their own fault? They understood complex metaphysics faster than some Magi I know!

Though that was to be partially expected. They were denizens of a Shardrune after all. They would be keenly aware of the oddities in a multiverse.

Gwen loped inside, looking around curiously. An oppa, a small ferret-like creature with fur that glowed with reddish orange embers, was curled up on her shoulder.

He looked at Gwen. “I told you she’d be here.”

She grinned. “Never should’ve doubted you, Fire Oppa.”