Sublife Crisis (Life Is Just A Phase) Chapter 16

“He humd to . It was so familiar, like an orchestra I heard from far away.” Jules pays what he owes for needing to buy back into our ga of cards. “By the ti I died I’d had enough ti already to no longer be missing him. But I rember how he humd, and how it made feel like a child again. A real child.”

We play through another set. We don’t actually have chips or markers that are actually good for this, and until a few thousand heartbeats ago I didn’t even know that coins were an option in the between. So our pot looks sowhat strange, by the asure of any world I’ve been to. A collection of tal tabs taken from cans, sprigs of herbs, and small glass beads from the empty fishbowl that no one actually rembers bringing back and has never once contained a fish.

We have the values of everything written on a napkin that is carefully pinned down on the side of the table, a white ceramic urn of rice wine holding it in place. Our napkins - brown paper that is ubiquitous to diners across all logistical or industrial worlds - have a bad habit of not allowing us to clutter up Bastion’s with them as litter. Which is to say, if we bump the table the wrong way and our score sheet drifts too far, it will return to nothingness and take our handwritten notes on which herb is worth how many points with it.

The bottlecaps will too, but they’re heavier and not at as much risk unless we toss them with excess force. Which is how Mark has lost two hundred points so far.

Ellin keeps shooting random mbers of the group looks as we play. The kind of gooey smiles that soone gets when they’ve just had romantic affection returned for the first ti and they’re riding high on the experience. Except she’s managed to get it from mostly all of us at this point; everyone except Six, who might have leaned into her mood just to make her happy, but really isn’t much for romance. And I have to admit, every ti one of those looks lands on , even my ancient and withered heart feels an amount of stirring.

I bring this up to express that I think the only reason Ellin isn’t being utterly rolled over by the rest of us in every hand is that her looks are distracting at least one person just as bad as she’s distracting herself.

She still runs out of any kind of valuable and betable material next.

“The country I lived in had these weird flower cookies.” She shares to buy herself back in. “Like, made with flowers. The fancy ones preserved the petals along the lines of the cookie; stuff baked weird on that world. Ech. Anyway.” Ellin doesn’t look up as she counts out sprigs of rosemary and tollic. “They were on the snack tray at my dad’s funeral. I ate those things every sumr as a kid, for years, and the only ones I can rember tasting are the ones from my dad’s funeral.”

We’re playing a multi-layered ga here. Because partly, we’re exposing vulnerable parts of our souls to each other, but we’re also doing it while we’re trying to stay focused on a ga, but we’re also trying to have fun. Stacking complex emotions, weaving them together, and coming out with a strange lange of an experience.

It’s a challenge, and it’s not sothing that you casually fall into. But sotis, when all we have is ti and stories, we like to co up with overly complex gas. Part of why we play Encounter when we can; it’s overengineered to the point of almost total chaos, and a session of it can take a subjective month, but we have the ti.

Usually. I’m running out. But that’s okay.

This has been a good cycle through the between. My last life sucked, but I did a little good, and unrelated to that good, I also got an upgrade that actually feels good, and not just…

I don’t know how to describe the upgrades we often get. Not petty, exactly, or small, because many of them are quite good at turning pivotal life monts into critical parts of a whole world’s history. But perhaps that’s it. So many of those upgrades touch on and shape the worlds we live in. They make us kings and saints and gods and monsters. But even the most powerful [Strike] types don’t let us touch the between.

Ellin plays around with [Strike] a lot. She has over fifty variants of it; more than the lives she’s lived, I think. And a lot of her lives aren’t violent. Once she was a farr, and used it on her plow as a party trick. But she likes the simplicity. And, I think, also the power. One of them, if she lived long enough, and devoted enough of her perk weight to it, she could cut sothing out of orbit.

But she’d never touch the between.

I can touch the between now. So can Mark. Small upgrades, tiny in the grand sche of things. After all, what does one book matter, or one coin? We might actually be here forever; a single trinket doesn’t feel like it has a lot of weight in the face of that. But maybe it does, if the trinket can be here with us for that forever.

And in addition to my new aura layer and excitent to bring back sothing fun for everyone next ti, I’ve also gotten to spend so quality ti with my friends. And Ellin, who… well, I don’t know what we are. Friends, lovers, sothing else, sothing more or less. We haven’t taken the ti to talk about it, because I won’t be here much longer. Our connection right now is what it always was, but with a promise running through it, that we’ll see how things go.

We’ve done it before, and it was fun while it lasted, and neither of us have any hard feelings about it not lasting forever. I don’t think it’s healthy for a true immortal to expect relationships to last forever. But that doesn’t an that it can’t co and go like a tide.

While I’ve been reminiscing, I’ve lost the round, because I was thinking about aura layers and not paying attention to how Mark has been steadily baiting into a nurical trap, and Six has collected the right combination of cards to attrition my points directly.

Clearing my throat as I stack up the right bits and pieces to buy back in with, I dredge up sothing appropriately lancholy.

“There was a librarian at the versity that I was going to.” I start, trying to figure out how to keep the mory short and bittersweet, without going on one of my usual rambles. “Young guy. Just as depressed as , just as broke too. We didn’t really know each other, but we had a kind of agreent. I’d co by in the middle of the night and he’d help sneak in, and I’d give him all the baked goods I’d steal from my other job.” I find myself giving a sad smile as I toy with a handful of bottlecaps. “It wasn’t like we were into each other. But it was nice to have soone to be circularly kind to. I would have given him stolen scones even if he wasn’t helping , and I think he would have done the sa.”

“Oy, Luri…” Ellin’s voice cos out with a sad twist of a smile on her face, her horns dipping down as she bends to et my eyes.

Mark reaches over with a swift motion and plucks about thirty points worth of stuff out of her stash before shifting back to my side and depositing Ellin’s score keeping items on my part of the green felt. “Penalty to Ellin! Expressed sympathy!”

“I am not certain I approve of this taga.” Six comnts. Though his comnt doesn’t stop him from placing a wager on two of the revealed cards, drawing, and passing to Jules.

Jules’ tentacles do so kind of complex misdirection that I think is supposed to hide just how little he actually bet, which makes think that the old noble soul is trying to trick specifically into thinking he’s bluffing. Or maybe I’ve just had far too much of Six’s returned cider along with a few drinks from the regenerating urn of rice wine at the end of the table. “I do believe that I agree with you, my friend.” Jules vibrates at Six. “Perhaps next ti, we could try this reversed?”

“Reversed how?” Mark asks with sharp curiosity as he buries half his hand in a bid to hide the fact that he’s going to lose the round and doesn’t want anyone taking more than he can spare. “We all have to be serious and dramatic while we’re playing, but then tell happy stories? Penalty points for eliciting fleeting smiles and soft monts of levity?”

“Yes.” Jules agrees instantly. “Actually, yes. I believe I would enjoy that.”

I flick two pieces of tollic into the center wager. “Because you enjoy drama, Jules.” I point out.

“Yes.” Jules agrees instantly. “Was that fact in question, Luri? I have spent lifetis mastering my ability to be an incurable gossip.”

Six gives Jules’ nearest mobility tentacle a pat, uniform grey flesh in a human shape contrasting with the secretly vibrant slick black skin of whatever Jules would call his species. “And that is why we are such good friends.” The golem says simply. “Also you are losing this hand, and should begin preparing another dramatic mont.”

“Curses.” Jules’ triangle eyes tilt downward. “Also I refuse to believe your lies.”

I give a soft giggle at their antics as play resus, along with all the small quips that we normally offer to each other.

Jules does lose that hand. And then after a slight recoup of his losses, ends up overcommitting two hands later. Ellin uses so of her cards in the round after to steal from Jules directly, and we watch as his banter gets shorter and less thought out as his focus narrows down to the numbers and odds of the ga.

It’s a sha that Jules, for all that he is truly good at drama, isn’t much for numbers. I feel like he’s told before that he’s been an accountant in at least one life, and I truly pity his clients. They may have had so pointed questions to answer to their local tax authority if they were ever investigated.

After he loses, it becos clear that Jules has been trying to think of sothing. But where that thought process has led him isn’t to a specific event. “I think I could have done more.” Jules admits in a sibilant buzz. “This was the first life where - ah, this isn’t much of a single thing, I apologize - the first life that I actually opened up. Used all my abilities, didn’t try to hide, threw myself into it.” He glances to Ellin.

She nods at him. “Feels kinda good, yeh?”

“Well, typically, your tales are of wars and campaigns. All the wars I’ve been in have been horrid affairs.” Jules reminds the horned woman. “But yes. And yet, I cannot help but think… I could have done more. Not because it could have gotten more marks and drops, but because I want to. Because it feels right.”

“I can’t really picture you not doing enough, Jules.” I murmur into my goblet.

“Mmh.” The creature that is my friend simply hums, and plucks so of my points away. “Well. There’s your penalty for sympathy.”

“Alright, I’m coming around to this ga being dumb.” I sigh, and check two numbers. One is my score, which is almost nothing, and the other is my heartbeats left, which is looking similarly anemic. “I… I think I’m done, actually.” I push back my chair to stand, supporting myself on Mark’s shoulder as I do so. “And almost done here, too. I’m down to under ten thousand.”

The words sober the group. And as well, unfortunately. If I had planned better, I could have been caught off guard and as properly drunk as the between lets get before I got plucked away and back to life. But instead, I’ve made a ss of it.

“I’m not doing too spicy myself, either.” Ellin sighs. “Peaceful lives, bah.” She folds her arms, but for all her grandstanding - and her quite real enjoynt of ard conflict - I still know her for what she truly is, as a kind hearted softie. “I’ll probably be going second. But… ach, if I don’t say it… it’s been good to see you again, Luri.” She smiles at , sharp teeth forming a beautiful grin.

“I agree.” Six nods. “All of you. It has been too long. Perhaps this ti, we should pledge to live bombastic lives.”

“Why’s that?” Mark questions as he, too, stands and starts to clear away the ga that is being abandoned. There’s sothing fun about the casual way he flicks napkins and bottlecaps off the table and into nothing, while he takes far more care with the deck of cards. “Just to see who can do the best?”

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Six shakes his head in an economical motion of denial. “So that when we next et, we might all have millions of heartbeats to share.”

A pair of tentacles from Jules wrap around Six’s shoulders as the black form looms behind him, wrapping the golem in a sudden embrace. “Ah, I knew there was a poetic heart under all that stoicism!” Jules exclaims, delighted. “Say sothing else taphorical!”

“I choose to be stoic because it is comfortable.” Six states. “And I was not being taphorical at all. Do not question my word choice.”

I try to hide my smirk behind a hand, not wanting Six to think that I’m judging him. I don’t know if the others notice, but he does have a slight infliction to his words now. A kind of defensive tone that he rarely employs. I don’t want to press him or make him feel worse though, not now, not as one of my last mories of the between this ti around. “I think I could try that.” I tell him.

Mark gives a surprised look. “Really?” He asks. “You, Luri, of all people?”

“I know I talk about not wanting to fall into an optimizer trap a lot,” I shrug, flicking my tail behind in a semi-nervous trono, “we all do, for… reasons… but… there’s nothing wrong with living, Mark. Just because I find a lot of our upgrades to generate perverse incentives doesn’t an they can’t be used, and doesn’t an we can’t be… be…”

I’m searching for the word. Not ‘heroic’, exactly. But sothing that makes a mark on a world. Not soone larger than life, because I want us to live, but soone who grabs life and takes it for all it’s worth just for the joy of it.

“Exceptional.” Six supplies.

“Magnificent.” Jules offers.

“Dangerous.” Ellin’s grin turns wolfish.

“Interesting.” Mark adds. And then when we all look at him, he withers slightly. “What? Is there sothing wrong with being interesting? Maybe I just want to introduce so mostly safe high-chaos states to otherwise stable societies! Maybe that’s what I’ll do; revolutionize the package delivery market in my next life in a way that leaves gaping and strange inefficiencies!”

I press my eyes closed. “What a… bizarrely specific example?”

“Is this why you were asking about [Speed] perks earlier?” Ellin asks. “Are you planning to do sothing silly?”

“Hey, social mobility has to co from sowhere.” Mark shrugs. “May as well have fun with it.”

I leave them to their plans for their next lives, which I am certain will be disrupted, as these plans always are, and wander back to the bar to replace the clay urn on its shelf. I consider one more drink from it, but a hundred heartbeats is a high cost when that minute is one of my last.

Standing there, listening with half an ear to my friends, I lean my elbows on the bar and take a good look at Bastion’s. The rough wood floor and tal stairs to the oddly recessed second floor, the mismatched tables and chairs, the lamps, the hanging engine, the handful of landscape paintings on the walls from before I first found the place. All of it feels so familiar, a touchstone between lives. And yet a little empty, even with the extra mass of the equippable barrels taking up floor space by the bar and casting a new shadow on my lurking spot.

Bit by bit, though, we’ve been filling it with our own souvenirs, our own little touches. Art and gas and sotis new chairs. The others haven’t even checked their notifications for this life; they knew I was short on ti, and so instead of doing it up front, I’ll just have a few surprises the next ti I co back. As well as coming back with a surprise of my own, in the form of whatever new book I pull out of my next world.

I love this place. So much so that I’ve mostly abandoned having my own room in the between just to pour marks into maintaining this space, keeping it stable and reachable and alive. With at least five of us, it’s not even that expensive. But it’s also ours. A little secret refuge where we don’t have to be tired for a while. It being freshly stocked with alcohol, and a potential source for more, helps too.

I’m interrupted in my eavesdropping on that source talking about his plans to set his barrels to fernting so kind of fruit brandy for the next fifty years of his next life, just to see if he can bring us a nice treat, by the sound of a door.

My head snaps up like a kid expecting a visit from a favorite aunt. I haven’t seen Molly in three lives, and there’s other friends who’ve been gone longer. Or perhaps soone I’ve t recently coming back by. Even a brief passing smile would be a small bit of buoyancy for my heart, a little sothing to help tide over through however long my next life is.

Instead, what we get is soone I’ve never seen before. This happens around Bastion’s often enough that I’m not surprised, but I do try to hide my disappointnt.

The man is an orc, close to baseline, and he’s tall even by the species standard. Skin so dark green that it’s almost black, curved tusks that gleam like they’re polished, and wiry black hair that reminds of one of my professors in the last life. A style that just radiates ‘career academic’ energy. The look on his face is one of barely restrained ire, though.

The others all watch him, and Mark gives a look like he wants to know if I want him to take over, but I wave them off. They all keep up their conversation, but with the kind of quiet pauses that make it clear that they’re all listening in as the orc stomps up to the bar.

“Are you open?” He asks directly, in a voice that I am kind of ashad to admit catches off guard. He has a smooth and deeply bassy sound that cos from deep in his chest. I shouldn’t actually be surprised; I’ve been an orc enough to know that there’s no requirent to play to the stereotype. But I’ve also been stabbed by enough orcs to maybe have so unintended biases.

“No, I’m Luri.” I say, before I can stop myself, and then instantly wince, look away as if breaking eye contact can restart the conversation, and look back. “Also yes, if by open you an serving drinks.”

“Thank the bloom.” He claims a barstool, the fine cloth of his pants rasping against the leather. “I’ve been here for three million heartbeats this ti, and you’re the first person I’ve run into. And you can get drunk. It’s the pollen of fate.” He raises a hand, elbow on the bar, and gives a dramatic look as he extends two fingers. “A beer and a fla, please. Whatever you’ve got on tap.”

I consider what he’s asked for, and then look around what we actually have. “I don’t think… I can do either of those.” I bite my lip as I let my eyes play over the various bottles, urns, casks, jugs, and growlers, that we have. “How do you feel about cider, and a citrusy rum cocktail?”

“I think I’m still thirsty enough that I would go to war for you to pay for it.” The orc gives a look with his eyebrows that I think is supposed to be smoldering, but I can’t offer him more than a thin grin at the mont, his flirtatious voice only barely offsetting my anxiety about my upcoming departure.

Deft and practiced motions see through the mixing and pouring of a cocktail for him. An old recipe that I can serve in four shot glasses, poured at different points in the mixing process. “Drink it in this order, savor it as much as you want, there’s no hurry.” I line the shots up in front of him, feeling mildly embarrassed that we don’t have better cocktail glasses. Maybe Mark or I, who tend to moonlight as bartenders for extra cash in lives where we need it, can find an upgrade that lets us harvest cups.

Now that I know it’s an option, I’m excited about the prospect of harvesting cups. What has my life co to.

The orc takes a long drink from the cider, eyebrows rising as he tastes it. Personally, I thought Six’s attempt was good, but still from soone learning. The man at the bar disagrees, apparently. “Wonderful.” He sighs as he sets it back down. “How do you take paynt?”

“Eh.” I shrug. “I’m not too bothered. Six is gonna want to empty the barrels before he leaves anyway, so he can try… I think brandy, but I wasn’t actually paying close attention and kinda forgot. Maybe a few marks?”

The orc looks at his cup, then his eyes flick off to the side in the motion of soone checking their heartbeats. “Perhaps I could open a tab?” He asks. “Are you the proprietor of this fine establishnt?”

“One of them.” I nod toward the others, who all offer the kind of waves that an they’ve been listening in the whole ti. “Why, what’cha offering?”

He smiles. “I have recently earned a hallway as a reward. I don’t need it, but it might be useful for soone with a [Property].” I don’t let my smile slip, or at all let on that none of us actually have ownership of Bastion’s. Just a very fluid relationship with the space, that gives us so permissions, but no controlling security. Fortunately, I’m very good at putting on a mask for custors, whether I’m alive or dead.

“It’s been a while since we’ve expanded.” I tilt my head. “Or had enough people to expand for, honestly. I’m not sure what good a hallway would do us, but I’m not saying no?”

“Well, I do admit, it would clash with your decor.” The orc sighs himself as he samples the first of his cocktail shots, and raises his eyebrows again in appreciation before drinking the whole thing. “Oh, marvelous. Who knew that you could get this treatnt here in the between?” He shakes his head, one large dark hand brushing at his tusks in thought. “But yes, you seem to have a rather rustic aesthetic here, and what I have is, for what I could tell you of it, sowhat off. All white stone and wrought iron. Midsumr techless atmosphere. It would artistically clash.”

I sweep a hand across our chairs. “Matching isn’t our strong suit.”

“Ah, but coherent moods are the foundation for an artistic soul!” He protests, holding a hand to his chest. “And I realize I am talking down what I am offering. But I have principles!”

“Artistic ethic, I believe, we can appreciate.” Jules says, sliding up to the bar next to the orc. To his credit, the man doesn’t react to my friend’s odd form.

Instead, he just nods eagerly. “Yes, it is a matter of… personal taste, but also the coherence of how we spend our ti.” The orc states, like he’s rembering a half written dissertation from an old life. “Still, you might find use for it in trade? I simply don’t have marks on at the mont.”

“Oh, make no mistake; trading us terrain would see us use it for certain.” Jules tells him, which gets a look of dismay from the orc. “Though I think you are overlooking the deeper artistic aning at play…” He pauses, and waits to see if his audience is paying attention. The orc is, a captive look on his face as he leans in. “…the organic mingling of disparate styles into an emotional coherence. The art of the familiar ho.”

“You are a scholar of art yourself!” The orc claps a heavy hand on Jules’ body, sending him wobbling, tentacles lashing around as he tries to hold himself up. “Ah, sorry, so sorry! I truly should modify this body at so point when I have the marks.”

“No concern at all.” Jules sounds dazed as he rights himself. “Though, Luri, were you not preparing to depart?”

“Yeah, I’m out… soon.”

Jules flows effortlessly around the bar, and wraps in a hug, his smooth tentacles warm against my flesh. “Then I will entertain our guest. Go, say your goodbyes. And know that I will look forward to seeing you again.”

“Thanks Jules.” I try not to sniff as I wrap my arms around his central body. “Hey, I don’t want to co back to find you turned this place into sothing weird, okay?”

“Please. Trust that I have so sense of style.” He says, and I smile back because I know that I absolutely do.

I nod at the orc. Tell him I enjoyed eting him, and I’d see him later. He stamrs an apology because he took up so of my ti, but that’s just how life is. I give my ti freely to others in the between; sotis I need so of it to myself, but it’s the most valuable thing I have. And sharing it is only amplifies its worth.

The other three et halfway across Bastion’s, between the tables where they’ve been waiting. “I’ll miss you, again.” Ellin tells , and presses into a kiss that goes on for long enough that I’ll be confused over what we are for half my next life.

“I too will miss you.” Six says. “But I will not be kissing you.”

“That’s fine Six, I still love you.” I give him a hug, his unyielding form feeling study enough to hold off the between if he needed to, even though I know he never could. “Oh, the orc at the bar likes your cider. I think he wants all of it?”

“Hm.” Six glances over. “I will speak with him.” He declares, the words as flat as ever, even as he breaks the hug and steps away. “Goodbye Luri. I wish you well.”

“Thanks Six.” I turn to Mark, the last one of them. “Hey.” I try to keep my smile.

He shakes his head. “Sucks.” He mutters. “We just got here.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll live better this ti.” I promise. “Six said I have to.”

“He absolutely did not say that.” Mark snorts. “But I get what you an. I’ll do the sa. We’ll have half of forever next ti.”

I give him a hug, and his strong arms practically crush as he returns it. Like he’s trying to keep here. “Don’t worry about . Have fun without . I an it! Both of you!” I look up at Ellin’s smiling face. “Fall in love. Make Jules feel awkward. Oh! The guy at the bar has a hallway he’s trading us. Have fun with that! Don’t wait on .”

“…what did you do when you got here first, this ti?” Mark asks , trying to peel back so he can look in the eye.

I don’t let him. “Oh, I absolutely waited.” I shalessly admit. “I always wait. I’m waiting for so much, Mark. But I’m an old idiot. You’re young.”

“I’m over six hundred-“

“A baby.” I overwrite what he was saying. “Maybe next ti you’ll catch up.”

There’s a mont of quiet, and I feel his chest shake with a couple laughs while I’m pressed against it. I check my heartbeats. Not much ti left. I open my mouth to say sothing, but I don’t know what to add. So I say nothing.

Ellin’s arms encircle us too. And I press my eyes closed, and let myself be there in the mont. Etch the feeling onto my soul, to never be forgotten. To try to stretch it out for as long as I can. I keep my eyes shut. Maybe if I don’t see it coming, it won’t be so bad. This is a lie, of course. It doesn’t matter. It’s always bad, in so special way.

“You’re gonna have a great life, Luri.” Mark whispers to . “I know-“

I don’t hear the end of his reassurance. I’m too busy being alive again.