ALL NOVEL Loop 254 - Part 122
“CAL!” a loud, very familiar voice that seemed to come from nowhere yelled factions of a second before three dogs appeared in Cal’s view. He had no idea how they hadn’t been there before, let alone how Sleek hadn’t noticed them at the moment. That didn’t matter, though. Bug was home.
“Bug! I am so happy to see you, girl. How is the Under Library? Did everything go okay?” Cal asked his excited sister, who had charged and leaped up at him in her own sign of being glad to see him.
“Well, after we met the spirit dog and the weird corrupted engineer, who turned out to be very friendly, we got to go on a quest together. The spirit book dog’s name was Spot, by the way. He helped Alfred, Gretel, Bart, and me; oh, Bart is the corrupted engineer; he’s now my squire, but I’m getting ahead. Spot helped us all become the newest members of the Pedigree Paladins. I think we are also the last members, which is kind of sad, but we can fix that. The really important thing, though, is we can do magic, too, and I bet I can heal Grannus. Where’s Ethel? I wanna show her everything I can do!” Cal had trouble following Bug’s story in her excitement, but he understood enough to give a potential answer for how she hadn’t seemed visible earlier. She had gained her own abilities.
“Yes, we would like to see the mistress too. She needs to be informed of our changes. I believe she will want to increase our education as she has done with Bug,” Alfred added.
“They are both likely loop-aware now. From what I’ve been told, it’s no longer possible for outside sources to influence their personal time flows. No, don’t ask me exactly what that means. The good news, though, is we have secured the What Is Wing. We just need a little help overpowering the Librarian defenses that are keeping the others inside. Just wait until you see what happened to Drew,” Andy said with a smile.
“Wait, what did I miss? Did Andrew grow a sense of humor?” Cal asked, looking at his best friend for any hint.
“Hah, nope, keeping that a secret til you see it personally. But I was serious, though. We need some real muscle to finish taking control of the wing,” Andy said.
“Alright, well, then, let’s head to the party. We can see who wants to come. Also,” Cal looked down at his hands before continuing. “We had a loss. Onelder is dead,” Cal’s voice cracked as he spoke. “And I don’t just mean for the loop. There is apparently a real way to die. I’ll explain the details later, but the party is partially a remembrance for him. He died to hold Ethel’s realm together.”
“Oh,” Andy’s face had dropped with his single word. Cal knew what the look meant. His friend didn’t know what to say.
“Breaking this to Twonger is going to be very difficult. I assume this was caused by his mana channels completely breaking down of his own will?” Bill asked.
“As far as I understand it, yes. Excalibur can explain it better, and yes, I mean the legendary sword wielded by Arthur. We found him on Pluto, the sword, not Arthur, well, not a living Arthur. We have a lot to talk about, so let’s try to focus on that. We can discuss Onelder more later. I’ve already spent far more time grieving the loss of a man who killed me hundreds of times than I ever would have thought possible,” Cal said
“I’m sorry, Cal. I wish I had been here to help,” Bug said as she rubbed her back against his legs as they left the room. No one spoke for the rest of the walk to the party. They had mutually come to an unspoken agreement on a moment of silence for the fallen alien.
***
“I have so many more questions for you when we have more time,” Bill said. After some further explanations and brief reunions, Cal brought them to Excalibur’s current resting place and just finished listening to a short recap of the sword’s discovery on Pluto from his perspective.
“I look forward to them. In truth, I have been waiting eagerly to speak to those who went into the Under Library as it is something I deeply wish to see myself, but sadly, I will be unable to directly aid you in this loop due to the tragic events you have learned about. I believe, though, that it is critical you retrieve all of your companions you entered the Under Library with before we can safely terminate this loop,” Excalibur responded.
“Why?” Andy asked.
“While I still do not totally understand the nature of this time loop, I believe that anyone left in an area that exists totally separate from it will be unlinked from it, and a new separate iteration of them will be created when the loop restart. I believe this is roughly what happened with you and Andrew. As before, this area became tied to Cal’s mana spirit, but it had no true bonds to this reality,” Excalibur explained.
“Wait, does that mean we could use the Under Library to make an army of clones? Because we could do some real damage with several of me,” Cal said. He considered the idea in his head and wondered how they would decide who the real Cal was. In hindsight, he wasn’t sure he actually liked his half-formed idea.
“Yes, but I would strongly advise against it. First of all, as you know, with Andrew and Andy, any attempt for two of them to coexist on a more standard plane of existence would be catastrophic for both of them. Second, the person who was broken off from the loop is no longer in the loop. If they die, they will not be there when the loop resets. Third, attempting to do this with anyone bound to a mana spirit before the split will likely destroy that spirit utterly. This all assumes my theories are correct, and I will need to have several long conversations with Andrew before I can verify all of them, but I am reasonably sure I am,” Excalibur explained.
“Ah, so we need to get Twonger, Ralth, and Andrew home, eh?” Cal asked.
“Mostly Twonger and Ralth. I would also like to bring Libby, assuming they are willing. I’m pretty sure Drew can just leave if he wants. The Libraries systems are weird concerning his existence overlapping with my own,” Andy explained.
“Well, can’t leave my little brother behind, let’s round up a posse and go robot hunting,” Cal said.