Now Bob I don't want to say this. There's never really a good time to say this. But don't you think Harry might be dead? Like dead dead. You know, dead dead-dead. Maybe you're just supposed to take better care of your companion object. It's like that egg-baby they make you look after in American high schools. You only get the one egg. Crack it and it just proves you're a shitty father. You don't get another egg, Bob.
Dammit Bob. Listen to yourself. Harry's right there. Harry, our Harry. We owe Harry. You owe Harry.
Yes. Bob did owe Harry. Bob owed Harry a lot. Harry was the good cloak. Harry had stepped up. On that dark night of the soul. The night of the rising of the mud magician. When Bob was crumbled in the mud and couldn't even raise a hand in his own defense. Harry had stepped up. Harry had saved George.
No, this was personal. This was serious. Bob didn't want a replacement cloak. He wanted Harry. Bob wasn't going to be the man that abandoned his friends, especially when they needed him. He'd promised himself he'd be better. And that started today. He puffed out his chest. He leveled his gaze. He clapped a clenched fist against his heart. And then he shouted for all the world to hear:
"I vow, under the eyes of the system that watches over all things, by the name of Bob the Brown, Arch Mage of the Mud, that I shall not leave this spot until my friend and companion, Harry Mud be saved and restored to his former glory."
Bob had a silver tongue. He really knew how to create a scene. That could have been straight out of a book. Ping! Bob started sweating. He had a bad feeling about that ping. That had been an unfriendly ping, a malicious ping. Bob could tell at this point. He could read the system tone of voice.
"Now, good old system buddy, we're buddies right? Before we do anything rash, I'll just say that I meant that all in a metaphorical vein. You know flavor text, background music. I'll never give up and I'll do my best. You know, empty, meaningless platitudes, that native speakers know to just brush off and ignore. You get me right, system. You get me?"
Ability Activated - Oath
Oath - Leave Me Not
Bob the Brown vows not to leave his spot before he has completely healed his companion object.
Penalty - Unspecified (defaults to Death)
"A death default? What mad-hat developer coded that in? That has got to be a bug. Let me just open a ticket for you, Mr. System. We'll get this fixed up in no time. And please refrain from posting about this in the forums. "
Penalty - Death
"Really? Really system." There's no justice in this world.
Entirely inevitably, at that very moment, Bob was struck by an overwhelming desire to stand up and stretch his legs. His legs pulsed and itched with restless energy. His heart rate was up. He was anxious. And we all know what happens when a man gets anxious, he needs to use the bathroom. Yes, yes, he just went. So what? You can't really argue with your own body, can you?
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
The system was magnanimous and noble in its intentions and interpretations. Wasn't it? Nobody could imagine Bob had been referring to this individual spot on the ground, i.e. the narrow space on the bathroom floor occupied by his buttocks at this particular moment. When he had had obviously meant to imply the whole house, pardon, the whole city, well might as well say it, planet Earth. The system understood that, right?
All the same, Bob did not stand up. He did not uncurl his legs. He made no sudden movements. Death by default. Death on a technicality. Nobody wants that carved into their gravestone. Bob stayed put. Might as well get to work then.
Harry was more than a cloak. He was bonded to Bob. They could share mana at a distance. If Bob wanted to go looking for Harry, the road lay inside himself. Bob breathed out. Bob breathed in. Remember the silence. Breathe. Remember the silence. Breathe. Bob's breathing began to slow. His exhales lengthened and lengthened. He felt the tension slipping away. The world was fading back. He was reaching the empty-mind.
Meditation came to Bob easily these days. At first, he'd been disappointed in his underwhelming second ability, but it had proved itself again and again. The calm. The clarity. The sense of time slowed. The great enemy is always oneself. And the great victory is always over oneself. To breathe in and breathe out. To hear the world, his heart, to step away from everything and be the sky, that empty space which contains all things.
Bob listened to the emptiness. The music of nothingness. The deep place. He remembered Harry. He remembered the feeling of Harry. He remembered the expression of their bond, that space in his heart, that invisible binding between himself and his cloak. He looked for it. Slowly. As though time were a thing that did not flow, but expanded across all space all at once.
And when he didn't find it, he kept looking. He broadened his search. He wandered the mental landscaped. And, but, he found it... The bridge between himself and his cloak. It was different than he remembered, sure, thiner, colorless, quiet and shadowed, but not lost. Not lost.
Harry was still alive.
Bob tried to follow the passage. It was difficult. There was no light at the end. Harry's light was dimmed. It was fading. Bob would start going, but lose himself in the in-between and suddenly arrive back at the beginning. He would start again and again and finally, he reached that place at the end of the way.
He found something. Not something you see with your eyes, just the hint of another being, that brush of consciousness, the presence of a mind, a personality. He called out to it. He called out to Harry. There was no answer. So he stretched out a mental finger and reached for his cloak. There was nothing and yet, somehow, an impression, an impression of something sleeping, sleeping deep and dreamlessly.
Harry was trapped inside himself. But Harry was the mud, wasn't he? And that wall was all hard brick, not a drop of mud to it. So where was he? What was Harry? Because now that Bob considered the matter, Harry was something above and beyond pure substance. He could shift between soft fabric, dripping liquid and hardened solid. He was a consciousness, a soul if you will, something that inhabits matter.
How did Harry move then? How did he control himself or change forms? Magic. But magic is not that thing they write about in stories. Some unexplainable mystery. Some arbitrary power. Magic is a gift of the system. There are rules. There are principles. There are grand laws. Harry does not sit above these things. So, riddle me this, what is Harry's real ability?
And then it hit Bob. It was so obvious: "the mantle of mud magician." Harry could mud-bend.
Harry shared Bob's ability to manipulate the mud. But since Harry himself inhabited a body of mud, he could also control his own form. An ability he had lost when George brick-toasted him. Now, if Bob could somehow convert that brick wall back into a pile of mud, Harry ought to regain his authority over it. Harry could yet be saved.
But then all magic is bounded by the conceivability principle. Harry could somehow shift between liquid mud and solid semi-brick. What Harry could do, Bob ought to be able to do too. The world is but a canvas to our imagination. If Bob played his cards right, not only would he get Harry back, he would earn himself some sweet new powers.
"Bob, fetch me my MQA hat."
Magical Quality Assurance on the scene.