Mir waited for Miriam to calm down.

 

 

Mir sat down on the floor next to Miriam and waited. Miriam cried for quite a while. Eventually, Mir reached out to touch Miaiam's shoulder, causing her to jump. She looked up with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose. Mir offered her a handkerchief to blow her nose. Miriam took it and did so. She wiped at her face before returning the square of cloth and pulling her knees up to her chin. She sat there, her arms wrapped around her legs, slowly rocking.

 

"I screwed up." Miriam said quietly.

 

Mir tilted her head to the side, "What happened?"

 

Miriam sniffled, "I... thought being good would be easy. We've corrupted a dozen summoners over the centuries. I figured, well... just do the opposite. Just don't be evil and everything will be fine, right?" She looked at Mir, "He's... I don't know. He's nothing like we've ever faced. He just keeps breaking the rules, yet SOMEHOW stays lawful! He keeps doing things that make no sense, but then it works out." She rubbed her face, "There were these elves. They needed help. The obvious thing to do would be to help them, right? A bunch of elf kids and a woman caught by slavers. Seemed like the good thing, right?"

 

Mir thought for a bit then nodded, "Yes. It would seem so."

 

Miriam buried her face in her knees as she talked, making her words a bit more muffled, "Why did I trust her? Everyone we bumped into who was good back when we were corrupting people worked together. It always seemed like Good was all on the same team. We were good, she was good. So we should be friends, right?"

 

"She betrayed us." Miriam looked up, "She actually worked for some elven government tracking infernalists and she wanted to capture Andrew and have..." Her voice lowered to a whisper, "Me killed."

 

Mir scrunched up her nose, "Huh? Wait. AFTER you saved her life?"

 

Miriam nodded and pointed at Mir, "EXACTLY! What the HELL?" Miriam shook her head, "It makes no sense. I made Andrew use up his only teleport scroll to help someone who backstabbed us! We had been captured. We were in the capital of that elven nation in a maximum security prison when... then... he..." Her voice trailed off as she developed a thousand-yard stare.

 

Mir waited a while. Miriam seemed like she was stuck, so Mir prodded her, "Then... what?"

 

Miriam blinked as she returned to the here and now, "Huh? Oh... Andrew came and rescued me. He... I don't know how. Somehow he figured out how to use magic in an antimagic field, he advanced in level, I'm sure of that. TWICE. He... used all those things he had been crafting the past month and a half just to save... me." She paused, But then he... broke... TIME."

 

Mir blinked, "Huh?"

 

Miriam nodded, "Yeah! I thought that was archmage shit, but no, he figured out how to stop time itself, and for WAY longer than I thought was possible. But..." Her hands started to tremble, "Whatever he did... there was a price. Time pushed BACK. We..." She clasped her hands together to stop them from trembling, "We've been through some terrible shit in hell, but you have NEVER been through this. It was like getting hit with a sink spell for hours, except you are awake the WHOLE TIME."

 

Mir flinched and gritted her teeth in disgust, "Brass balls! I..." She reached out and hugged Miriam.

 

Miriam leaned into it, "I'm so sorry I created you and left you alone with a monster. I hope you can forgive me."

 

Mir blinked and then abruptly let go, "What are you talking about?"

 

Miriam gestured to the exit, "Andrew's Duplicate."

 

"Uhh... his name is Andy and... it's fine." Mir shrugged, "In fact, I'm having the best time of our lives."

 

To say that Miriam was stunned speechless doesn't even come close to conveying the absolute mega-levels of incredulity that appeared on Miriam's face at that moment. It took a full minute before she could speak again, "Wait a minute, Are we talking about Andrew's mirror duplicate?"

 

Mir nodded, "Andy? Yeah. He's great. He's sweet, thoughtful, funny, creative, a pillar of the community. Everyone loves the guy. He's made lots of friends and he..." She paused to blush, "He keeps making me gifts. You should see the armor he made me. He-"

 

Miriam sat up, "HOLD IT." She pointed toward the exit, "The Duplicate of Andrew is... THOUGHTFUL?" She blinked and blinked HARD, "My Andrew forgets to EAT. He spent two weeks crafting magic sensory blindfolds then neglected to tell me they were cursed to keep the costs down." She gestured to the side, "He does all sorts of things without explaining anything, then demands I do stuff without explaining it as if it is all quite natural. He gets annoyed when I can't read his mind, as if everything he asks is... OBVIOUS!" She let her arms fall to her sides, "Why the hell are they so different?"

 

Mir nodded slowly, "Oh. I can answer that." Miriam looked expectantly as she waited. Mir cleared her throat, "My Andy can't advance in level. So he has no pressure to improve. Therefore, my Andy is relaxed, whereas your Andrew is driven to grow powerful so he can protect everyone around him."

 

Miriam sputtered for a bit, but Mir cut her off, "You said you were in the maximum security prison in the capital of the elven nation, right?" Miriam nodded. Mir continued, "So how'd you get out?"

 

Miriam squinted her eyes, "Well Andrew..." her voice trailed off, "Did the impossible several times until we finally got outside the teleport trap and then we came here." Her voice trailed off as she seemed to have some sort of dawning realization.

 

Mir nodded, "Andy can be rather rude. When he was hanging out at the Adventurers Guild, this one group came back from the local dungeon and was complaining about something. Andy butted in on the conversation and proceeded to lecture the highest-ranked adventuring group in the area on how to do their jobs."

 

Miriam blinked.

 

Mir nodded, "Really-really. And when one of them got so pissed off at this NOBODY telling them how to do their jobs, one of them pulled out a long sword. Andy then proceeded to explain why his weapon choice sucked." She lowered her voice to imitate Andy while waggling her finger at an imaginary person, "You're a front-line fighter and you are using a one-handed weapon? With your Strength? NOBODY with high strength uses sword-and-board unless they know how to shield bash and have bonus damage!" Mir laughed, "I thought I was going to have to poison the other guy to keep Andy alive."

 

Miriam furrowed her eyebrows, "So... what happened?"

 

Mir shrugged, "Cooler heads prevailed and they... listened to him. He made them come back here to his shop and fixed them up with some equipment he'd been working on. After that... everyone who's an adventurer in town comes here to talk to Andy. He gives advice and sells customized equipment. He has a deal with the other alchemist in town to make oil versions of healing potions to include in his 'oil sprayers'."

 

"Oil Sprayers?"

 

Mir nodded, "Yeah. supposedly they originally were supposed to spray oil onto a weapon to let you set it on fire, but he made an oil sprayer that goes on the inside of your armor. Pull the cord and the oil sprays on you. Load up a major healing potion in oil form and you have an instant lifesaver that doesn't need precious seconds to drink. If an adventurer can afford it, NOBODY goes on a quest without one." Her eyebrows arched up, "And Andy often sells them on credit if you can't."

 

"He... sounds nothing like Andrew."

 

Mir quirked an eyebrow, "Oh? I suspect they are more alike than you think. It seems like your Andrew is what happens when he's stressed. He stops caring about feelings, only results. Andy is like that too, except he's dealing with much smaller problems... not... trying to escape from a maximum security prison in the heart of the capital of the most magical nation on the continent."

 

Miriam nodded and rubbed her forehead, "Maybe... I'm overreacting."

 

Mir shrugged, "I think you're being too hard on yourself. I get that we have a compulsion to corrupt which was twisted into corrupting people into being good." She paused then stared off into the distance, "It... gets to me too. But then again, I've got it easy. Andy isn't in any situations where he is tempted by evil." She looked off into the distance, "We're both new to this and... I'm happy."

 

Miriam's jaw dropped open.

 

Mir giggled, "I know, right? But... here? I'm happy. With Him. We're... I don't remember ever being content before. We always had that hunger. That bottomless hole that we could never fill but had to try to fill anyway. There was no vice or indulgence we could try that could satisfy." She glanced at Miriam, "But after the reformatting, that went away. I'm running a shop and he gives advice and it's all so terribly simple and mundane and..."

"I've never been happier living the slow life."

 

Miriam echoed her duplicate, "The slow life?"

 

Mir nodded, "Yeah. We're living the slow life, as he puts it. It's nice to not be driven to constantly strive for more and more and more..." She nodded a bit as if confirming her own thoughts, "But I suspect that's not the case for Andrew. He's driven to gain power, not for the sake of power, but to protect. If he's weak, he can't protect anyone. I see it in Andy. He can't advance in level, but he can improve his apothecary. He can improve his inventory. He keeps coming up with new and more interesting ways to make mundane equipment. He is driven to create the most he can with the little he has." She glanced toward the door, "Because it bothers him when someone gets hurt. The first week we were here, someone died in the dungeon. Everyone else was used to it, but it rattled him. He felt like... he failed. He had nightmares about it."

 

Miriam squinted, "But, he's not responsible for some random guy making stupid choices."

 

"If not me, then who? If not now, then when?" Mir shrugged, "Something Andy says. He thinks that choosing to do nothing makes you guilty of whatever happens because you were lazy. What was it? All evil needs to win is for good men to do nothing." She nodded to herself, "Yeah. That was it." She looked at Miriam, "He takes that to heart, way too much, I think. Here, in this small town, it isn't much of a problem."

 

"But out there in the wider world..." Miriam said with a tone of dawning realization, "Andrew can't relax for a moment, because if he does and something goes wrong..."

 

Mir finished the sentence, "It's all his fault."

 

"That explains how he was prepared to break us out of prison."

 

Mir giggled, "If you saw the things Andy came up with... I can't even begin to describe." She shook her head, "To think Andy is the half-powered version. I can't even imagine what Andrew can do."

 

"He dropped a lake on them."

 

Mir blinked, "What?"

 

Miriam nodded, "From a quarter mile up, he suited up inside a summoned creature, powered up with a dozen buff spells, dropped a box that held a concentrated lake's worth of water in it, and then jumped from hundreds of feet in the air to land right after the largest water bomb ever hit and knocked everyone over with a tidal wave." She stared off into the distance, "Now that I am not about to die at any moment, in retrospect, he was... impressive." She frowned, "Terrifyingly so."

 

 

 

 

 

"What was terrifying?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two imps looked up to see Andy had returned and poked his head in.