Karix staggered forward. His face twisted into a rictus of anger and betrayal — Vex saw that the wound wasn't healing. Did this version of his father not have health? The system shouldn't have been this broken down already; a dungeon-created monster of all things should still be connected to the system...

Unless this Karix wasn't dungeon-created.

It still wasn't the true Karix. Too many details were wrong for that, unless someone had captured and altered his father significantly, and the amount of power and resources someone would need to be able to do that without sending all of Elyra into a frenzy was too great to be worth considering. But if this Karix wasn't created by the dungeon or the system—

"Boring," someone said, yawning slightly. The figure that walked out from behind the door to House Ashion was just a regular human, as far as Vex could tell — but he felt a chill running through his body anyway.

They were worried they'd run into this man again. Misa had warned them it was a possibility. Whatever creature it was she'd met hiding among the delvers in the first dungeon, the one that would have slaughtered that entire group of delvers were it not for Misa blocking his [Inexorable Bolt] — he'd implied he would be coming back.

Vex looked at the man, and he saw hatred in his eyes.

"I was hoping you'd have more of a fight," he said when Vex didn't speak. The lizardkin reached for both his dagger and his paintbrush, uncertain how to react — he didn't have the same defensive skills that Derivan and Misa did, nor did he have them to back him up. "I go to all the trouble of summoning a version of your father, and you just talk to him? Come on. At least try to give me a little more entertainment."

"Is that what that was to you?" Vex asked, his voice low. His father twitched on the ground — Vex tried to remind himself that version of his father wasn't real —

— But he was, wasn't he?

The past month or so had been more than enough to call into question his understanding of reality time and time again, but one thing they'd learned was that the system didn't really create things that weren't real; it drew from different timelines, different possibilities, different layers of reality.

This version of Karix wasn't his father. But he was still a person.

"Yes?" the man said, raising an eyebrow at him like his answer was the most obvious one in the world. "Why else would I go to all that trouble?"

"Who the hell... is this..." Karix rasped. His voice gurgled a bit as he spoke, and Vex's heart broke a bit.

There was a part of him that was very, very angry at his father. There was a part of him that was fairly certain he wouldn't be able to forgive him, even if Karix did learn to change his ways, not that he thought his father would.

That didn't mean he wanted his father to die. Especially not like this.

"Oh, you're still alive." The man crouched to stare at Karix. "You should've just stayed quiet and died. Really, bringing attention to yourself. What are you thinking?"

Mana gathered. Karix glared at the strange man, and mana began to gather, though his chest heaved and his arms shook with every small movement; the man laughed, stepping a half-step back and folding his arms in a smug, self-satisfied sort of way.

"You stay... away... from Vex..." Karix rasped.

"What're you gonna do about it?" the man taunted. One hand flicked out—

Vex had had enough.

A month ago, when they'd encountered the first Overseer, he'd cast a massive spell to try to kill it; a spell loaded with [Manaburn] and all the power he could pack into it. It was a modified [Ray of Frost] spell, with the essence swapped out for [Manaburn] and the entire array designed to draw in ambient mana, so that every inch of distance it crossed it would keep drawing in ambient mana, growing in strength and power for every step it took. Back then, it had the power to to smash even the Overseer against the walls of the Nucleus, and while it hadn't killed it, it had been enough to do significant damage.

This dungeon was full of ambient mana, too. There wasn't nearly enough distance or time to carry that amount of mana —

But he still had a reality shard. It was his last one. He hadn't used it with the system yet. He didn't know what it would do. But he knew the effect that he wanted, and he knew it was possible; he had a theory regarding the way runes and glyphs worked.

Runes were glyphs without life or art. They were the system's attempt at replicating glyphs, but without something alive to look at it, they were a mere copy; the reason they took so much more adjusting, and had so many more small details to control various elements of the spell, was because it lost whatever made it magic.

It wasn't a spell under the system. Not really. It was the system's best attempt at a copy — a program.

But that meant he could copy runes. Because runes were still based on glyphs; he'd seen the similarities between the runic circles for various fire spells and the fire glyph itself. The glyph made him realize the underlying similarity they all had.

So he cast his [Ray of Frost], modified it with [Manaburn], then overlayed on top of it his own Sign of Research, with a slot in the middle of the book drawn for his crystal.

He wanted to know who this was, and he doubted the man was going to answer any questions.

With the increases to his agility, he could do all this very, very fast — but even as fast as he did it, he could see the man reacting to what he was doing. He started to turn towards Vex, and then, as if realizing he wouldn't have the time to interrupt the spell, began to weave his own defensive sigil.

Vex ignored him. Manaburn would burn through it all. He slammed the reality shard into the slot he'd created for it, and watched as it began to gather every spare scrap of mana in the room and beyond. That was the whole point of the reality shard, after all. The idea was for it to help the spell Shift into all those alternate wavelengths of reality, ripping mana away from them and fueling this one spell...

It helped, too, that Karix was gathering his own magic. The spell could draw directly from him, pulling mana away from his spell and wrapping it into Vex's own. What emerged from Karix's spell was naught but a small, ineffectual fireball, but it was fine; Karix had seen what Vex was doing, and freely gave his own mana to the cause.

Vex saw the strange man's eyes widen.

But it was too late. The ray ripped across the room with a sound that reverberated like the air itself was being ripped apart, and shredded the shield that the man had drawn up; it blasted into him and threw him backwards through the door and then through the wall behind it—

— and just like that, as the spell tore into the man and ate away at his flesh, Vex knew who he was.

Irvis, Spectre of Mana

A product of a failed reality anchor. He knows nothing except hatred.

And even then... it told him almost nothing.

Vex was distracted from his contemplation by a pained wheeze from the lizardkin that was not his father. He didn't exactly know what he was doing when he rushed over — he'd spoken with Derivan before, and they'd talked about how his magic didn't have to be limited to combat; with access to glyphs he could reach into areas of magic that he couldn't before.

But he hadn't figured it out. Not in the fifteen minutes he'd had before Karix had shown up through the door; before Irvis had — presumably — gotten bored enough to trigger this whole scenario. He didn't even know if Irvis was dead, he was just more worried about what was happening to Karix, who was breathing unsteadily.

Karix, whose eyes were unfocused, whose blood was pooled on the ground in a volume that Vex was pretty sure meant he was guaranteed to die.

Vex's emotions were in turmoil.

He didn't like his father. That didn't mean he wanted to see Karix die like this, bleeding out on the floor in a dungeon. It didn't mean he wanted to see his father struggling to breathe, making pained efforts to get up—

"Here," Vex muttered before his brain could stop him. He reached forward and let his father use his arm as leverage, pulling himself up to his feet; Karix staggered unsteadily as he stood, but he didn't fall.

Somehow.

Karix stared at him, eyes still unsteady. "You got... strong."

"No shit," Vex said, channeling a bit of Misa. He didn't know what else to say. What was he supposed to say? That he forgave the man?

He didn't.

Did he hate him?

That wasn't a question Vex felt prepared to answer. He didn't feel like he hated him. He didn't really want to care. He just wanted his brother to not have to go through what he had.

"Good," Karix told him. He didn't seem to care about whatever internal struggle Vex was having. He seemed mostly pleased that his son had made it exactly where he thought he would. Proud, even. It felt oddly hollow. Vex didn't say anything, even as his father's gaze focused sharply behind him. "He's... still alive."

Vex's blood ran cold.

"Won't... die easily." Karix kept talking. Vex was fairly certain his father's level was in the 80s; he was powerful, and had all the resources of the nobles to boot, but... this was a version of Karix that had his connection with the system sabotaged in some way. He didn't know how much of that strength Karix still had. He was, frankly, amazed that his father was still standing. "Step back, Vex."

Vex paused, and took a step back. He glanced in the direction Irvis had gone; there was a smoking ruin there, little bits of the manaburn effect eating away at the mana-saturated walls of the dungeon. There was a slowly-moving concentration of mana behind all the smoke and fire.

"I'm not... the real Karix, am I?" Karix asked, though the question was largely rhetorical. The lizardkin laughed an odd, bubbling sort of laugh, of the kind that made Vex take another step back. "Bastard summoned me to fuck with you. You tell your Karix... Tell him he fucked up. Tell your mother, too."

"I've been trying to," Vex said quietly.

"You gonna forgive him?" Karix asked. He coughed violently, gathering his mana for some kind of spell — Vex didn't recognize this one. He wondered how much his father knew that he kept from him, even now.

"I don't know," Vex answered honestly. Even this version of his father — one that was dying — hadn't apologized. He didn't want him to, really; he wasn't the father that had hurt him. Maybe this Karix understood that.

"That's fine," Karix said. His chest wasn't bleeding so much anymore. Vex didn't know if it was because he had some way of healing, or because he'd just run out of blood. Probably the former, since Karix was speaking more clearly — but who knew, when the system was involved. "You don't have to."

"Don't I?" Vex's tone was almost miserable. "I feel like I'm supposed to."

Karix laughed. "Fuck that. Ashions don't do anything we're supposed to. You think I did when I was your age?"

He smiled at Vex, not unkindly. "Live better than I did. Forgive him or don't. It's not even your responsibility to make sure he understands."

"It's my responsibility to make sure he does," Vex said. On this, at least, his voice was firm. "Because Riss shouldn't have to go through what I did."

"Ah. Riss is still alive here... That's good." Karix's words made Vex's blood run cold, just briefly. Or the implications did. "Okay. Do that. Take care of your brother."

A small pause.

"And take care of me, if you have to."

"What's that supposed to—"

Vex didn't get the chance to finish his sentence. A spark of magic flared where Irvis had been left — and this version of his father had been prepared for it, clearly, if the corresponding flare from Karix was any indication. This version of his father stepped in front of him, shielding him from whatever spell was being used, a runic circle snapping into place in front of him and scattering frost and ice; the beam of light from Irvis struck and promptly split into a dozen smaller ones. It was like watching light getting physically ripped apart by ice. It spread into the light, even, freezing it solid in blatant disregard for the laws of physics, not unlike most system skills.

Several rooms away, presumably where Irvis was, there was an enraged scream.

Karix sighed, the remainder of his body already turning into nothing but remnants of frost. "I did my best," he said. "He's still alive. I'm sorry. But that spell will buy you a few minutes. You've got this."

"I—" Vex said, and his voice was half-choked, half-horrified; somehow this seemed even worse. "Dad, you can't—"

"Sorry," Karix said. "No... no time left. Love you, kid. I'm sorry we fucked up. Maybe in another lifetime, we could've been a real family."

Those words hit Vex hard. He didn't quite know what he was saying when he responded. "I found a real one anyway."

Karix smiled softly, and this version of him spoke his last word.

"Good."