Chương 88: Groundhog Day

Loop #3 began the same way as #2. Canyon showed up from the woods. Zaul asked her to lead the way, and she did. If she'd noticed anything rather tense about his mood, she didn't acknowledge it. As the sound of rushing water came into focus, Zaul pushed his way ahead of Canyon. He then positioned his horse sideways to block her path as he 'examined' the bridge." It's no good," he declared as if he knew the first thing about structural engineering.

"See how badly frayed the ropes are? They'll snap just as soon as either one of us gets on the bridge." Persuasion DC 10: success" You're right," Canyon stated what was 'in hindsight' only the obvious.

"I suppose we'll have to go around. Do you know a way?" This Zaul hadn't accounted for. The new problem that needed solving snapped him out of his broody mood and threw him right back into hem-and-haw 'Jordan'." Uh, yeah, I think so. Follow me." Zaul, of course, had no earthly clue. But how hard could it be, really? Their path was blocked by a river, and there were only two ways they could go: downstream or up. Zaul picked up, recalling from something he'd read that horses preferred going uphill to down.

Gotta live up to that [Animal Handling] check somehow. The choice came from a place of practical consideration, but alas, this [Time Loop] didn't care if you were practical or nice to your horses. It only cared if you made the right choice. For a while—a long while, actually—Zaul and Canyon traveled upstream in companionable silence. Once again, they'd made it far past the previous failure point, and Zaul was starting to feel good about himself again.

On top of that, the uninterrupted rhythm of leisurely horseback riding was starting to lure him to sleep. Imagine his shock, then, when Canyon broke the silence with a perfectly reasonable:" Are we lost?" Zaul looked back. Unbeknown to him, his companion had halted her horse and hung back. A fair distance separated the pair now—a distance that sent Zaul's pulse racing again." Lost? N—no, I don't think so." There was no anger, no accusation in Canyon's eyes. Serene yet restless.

A little mystified yet perfectly understanding." We've lost too much sunlight," she said mildly.

"Let us turn back and make camp. We can try to look for a new path on the morrow." On the morrow? But what if …

'this' doesn't last until the morrow? What if you turn away from me, and everything goes— Too late. Canyon had already turned around, going back the way they'd come. Zaul hastened to follow." Wait, don't go! Don't—" Everything went black. [Between Two Lives]: Time remaining: 90 days, 4 hours, 15 minutes This time, Zaul didn't even need to ask Canyon to lead the way. Four iterations into the [Loop], he'd already memorized the route to his and Canyon's mystery mission.

At least up until the rushing river and the rickety bridge. This time, after convincing Canyon not to take the bridge (the system didn't even deem the interaction to be worth a [Persuasion] check), he made the choice to go down stream. Harder on the horses, but the well-disciplined beasts raised no complaints. Nor did Canyon, especially as the pair came upon a second bridge not too far from the first. Fuck you, Vesselia, Zaul groused inwardly.

Whoever's monitoring this, I'll bet you're having a grand ol' laugh right about now… They crossed the second bridge. Avoided yet another failure point. Delved deeper into the woods, closer to this supposed 'job' they were to undertake together. By now, Zaul knew what was up. The [Loop], in essence, was a visual novel with a sequence of branching points. Every wrong choice led to a game over, while the right choice led Zaul closer to the 'good ending', so to speak. Don't panic, he told himself.

Even if it all ends up being trial and error, I still have 90 tries left. 90 tries to figure out and memorize the path to the good ending; I've got this." Twigmen!" Canyon's warning snapped Zaul out of his theorycrafting. Sure enough, the woods all around the pair had come alive, with a veritable mob of animate tree branches and vines. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. Instantly, all of Zaul's theories and self-reassurances went out the window.

He instinctively reached for his [Meteor Cauldron], only to realize that he didn't have it on him. And how could he, when it was the Heavenly Cauldron that had concocted this liminal space in the first place! No wonder my back felt so light all this time! What he did have were the Items he had on him before the [Cross]-ing. A [Composite Recurve Bow] with 20 [Wooden Arrows] in the quiver, but were they enough to get through a horde of Twigmen?

Well, judging by the size of the horde, Zaul didn't really like his chances. CANYON of AMBER LAKE cast: Greater Taunting Arrow. Along with an iconic'vwoom', a red lightsaber arrow flew from Canyon's bow then split into a dozen or more fragments. They struck and [Taunted] a number of Twigmen, upon which the tree monsters turned and gave chase, their aggro focused on one adventurer in particular." I'll lead them away!" Canyon shouted even as she galloped out of sight.

"You go on ahead without me!"" What? No, Canyon, wait!" The horde had thinned quite a bit, thanks to Canyon's quick thinking (and rather strange choice for a [Copied] spell). If Zaul wanted to, he could easily run through the remaining Twigmen and go on to his mission, whatever the damned thing was. But he didn't want to. He wanted to chase Canyon instead. And that was when the world went black again. [Between Two Lives]: Time remaining: 89 days, 4 hours, 15 minutes Lead the way. Stop at the bridge.

Follow the river downstream. Cross the second bridge. Look out for a Twigmen ambush. But this time… Athletics DC 20: failure Acrobatics DC 20: failure Animal Handling DC 20: failure As Zaul quickly found out, horse archery was decidedly not covered within the scope of [basic horseback riding]. He gave it an honest attempt anyway, desperate as he was to change the outcome. To force the scenario where Canyon wouldn't need to [Taunt] a bunch of Twigmen and run off on her own. He failed miserably.

As he let go of the reins to line up a shot, he almost immediately lost his balance. He fell off the saddle. His horse then inadvertently kicked him in the chest to the tune of 10 HP lost. The force of the kick sent Zaul tumbling. Tumbling down a steep slope well-hidden by foliage. Zaul rolled down at speed before landing awkwardly at the bottom of the hill. A familiar'snap', a damage notification for 45 HP lost, followed by intense pain around one of his ankles." Argh, fuck!" He'd broken his leg.

He was sure of it. Void space or no, the pain was as real as that time he'd broken his arm trying to wrangle a Grandelope. And that time too, a Canyon of Amber Lake had been the first friend to offer aid." Zaul!" A voice rang out from somewhere above Zaul's head. It took him a hot second to recalibrate his brain to the sound of 'his name'.

"Are you hurt? Can you still move?"" Let me tr— ow, ow, ow —no, I don't think I can move."" Hang in there! I'll first have to draw away the Twigmen, but after that, I'll go get help as fast as possible." It was the reasonable thing to do. A Lv. 8 Chronicler wasn't about to help a man with a broken leg back onto his feet. In fact, it was probably the only thing to do. But it wasn't the thing Zaul wanted.

Because he wanted Canyon to stay by his side, and he was getting sick and tired of her leaving him the first chance she got." No! Canyon, stay! I'll figure something out!" Too late. The Chronicler had already turned and ridden away. And as soon as he realized that Canyon was gone, Zaul's world turned black. [Between Two Lives]: Time remaining: 88 days, 4 hours, 15 minutes It was no use. No matter what he did, the [Loop] always ended in the same 'game over screen'.

With Zaul and Canyon getting separated for whatever reason. With him powerless to stop it from happening. He tried to run through the Twigmen before Canyon could fire off her [Taunting Arrow], only to get pummeled to the point of unconsciousness. When he woke up, he was back at the start of the [Loop], having lost another day on the timer. He tried to go around the Twigmen, find a new route through the forest.

If they didn't get hopelessly lost again like on loop #4, they ran into Cloudears that put them to sleep or giant mosquitoes that bled them dry. Zaul didn't recall any part of Leafell swarming with so many monsters, but in this scenario, the forest seemed to be chock full of the damned things. He even tried to cross that rickety bridge from loop #2. Figured if he crossed it first, maybe the scenario would play out differently. No such luck.

The ropes snapped dutifully, and Zaul wasn't quick enough to get across to the other side. The world went black as he fell into the water, reaching for a distraught Canyon who could only watch him be carried away by the rapids. [Between Two Lives]: Time remaining: 75 days, 4 hours, 15 minutes 75 days left. 18 tries Zaul had wasted, and he was no closer to cracking the code. No closer to finding the 'correct route' to the good ending. In fact, he hadn't even figured out what the 'job' was.

The whole reason Zaul Wreathworn and Canyon of Amber Lake had teamed up in this forest 'today'. They just never got that far, and Zaul wasn't about to ask again, not after the very first lesson he'd learned on loop #1. And to tell the truth, he didn't care. He didn't care that he and Canyon were supposed to be on a mission and were failing it miserably time after time. It just didn't seem that important anymore, and what was more, Zaul had the funny feeling that Vesselia didn't care either.

That completing this stupid mystery mission had nothing to do with resolving the [Time Loop]—with undoing the central knot. But he did care about one thing. Oh, he cared about it very much. And so, when Canyon emerged from the woods and rode toward him for the 19th time, he met her halfway and…" Will you ride away with me?" he asked, never surer of anything than he was of his choice in this moment—at this, the very first juncture in the [Loop].

"Forget this mission. Forget the forest. I'm going to leave this place and never come back… and I want you by my side."