#DreamXD looks like that because their form of grieving involves dressing like their dead Blade

[kisuminight]

So what is c!Karl doing in this AU?

...Well, basically the same thing as in the canon 'verse.

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So it's a bit more complicated then that. DreamXD is basically letting him do his time traveling thing, so he will write books about what he sees time traveling, so DreamXD can search for something that he lost a long time ago, using those books as a reference.

To further explain, we have to get into the basis of the Blade system's life cycle and a bit of ancient history!

So, at the beginning of the world, Blades hadn't really hit "population" yet. Population is roughly 1 Blade to 5 Players, even though not every Blade is in Resonance at any one time.

XC2 has Blades coming from Titans--but we don't have those here. YWKON does Blades growing on trees, which is very cool but there's a simpler solution. Blades spawn when a server is created.

Now, when the universe was young, you'd get maybe 5 - 10 Blades spawn per server. Now that the population has reached its optimum level, you will have a very small chance of 1 Blade being spawned per server creation.

And it's not like the core crystals are just showing up at spawn. If a Blade spawns with the server, the core crystal is somewhere completely random in the world. There is only one way to make sure that a Blade spawns with a server, and that is to offer the shards of a broken Blade when the server seed is being generated. It's a balance thing--offer a broken/dead Blade to guarantee the spawn of a new Blade. No matter how many shards you offer, it's always 1-1 for the spawn rate.

Now people don't go breaking core crystals for fun. A Blade that has been in circulation for a while has more Procedural Memory than a newly-spawned Blade. That means that they will automatically have more inbuilt skill with the powers that they have, even if the new Blade is going to be roughly the same power level.

This comes to the history lesson! A long time ago, there was a war involving the gods and their Aegis. This had 3 notable outcomes:

The Blood God straight up died. He is gone. The current "Blood God" is the original Blood God's Aegis Blade, who ripped their Driver's heart out of their corpse and used it to become the first Heartstealer.

If this hadn't been done they all would've died. The current Blood God has a fondness for Heartstealers because of it--see their relationship with c!Techno.

2. The Aegis of the Goddess of Death asked to have his memory erased in the aftermath. He wanted to see the world they worked so hard to save with his own eyes and explore it as a mortal. This is how we get the current c!Phil.

3. DreamXD's Aegis Blade sacrificed themselves to buy time. They used a literal spell called "Sacrifice," which heals everyone in the party to full heath and does massive damage to the entire enemy party. It also automatically kills the user. This isn't final for a Blade, which reverts to a core crystal, but one of the nearby enemies survived. And used the opening to shatter the core crystal and throw it away, to different servers. And DreamXD was left alone, with no Resonance.

Now, normally smashing a core crystal kills the Blade completely. And no matter how many shards you offer to how many servers, one Blade dead is one new Blade spawn. But Aegis Blades are special. Each of the pieces of the core crystal became a new Blade, with the same color of core crystal, same light element, same healer affinity, and same instinctive call to return to DreamXD's original server.

DreamXD wants his Aegis Blade back. His very first friend. Maybe then they can go back to the beginning, where everything was good and happy.

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To get back to the point, DreamXD gave Karl his time traveling powers so he could use Karl's stories to track down the Blades made from the pieces of his Aegis when they were called back to the server.

Karl was chosen for this task partly because DreamXD picked up a bit of lingering energy on him, where he'd met and been around one or more of the Blades (c!Dream, Mamacita, Drista). Karl's adventures did lead to him locating Cornelius and claiming that Blade after Cornelius' apparent "death" in The Village that Went Mad.

The reason that Karl is having memory issues in this AU is that his brain just isn't built to process the time travel magic that he has. He is a non-Blade, who has been given access to Blade magic, without actually being in Resonance. Every time he time travels, the magic is using his memories to help build a frame of reference, and then the magic is putting them back incorrectly, because Karl's brain does not save memories the way a Blade's half-digital existence would.

As an example, Karl's mind is like a library. Every time the time travel powers activate, books are removed from the shelves. But without being a Blade or in Resonance with a Blade, the books are being put back wrong. Either they've been shelved wrong (emotions connecting to the wrong memories, thoughts triggering things that are unrelated) or they haven't been put back at all (there's empty spaces, in the bookshelves of Karl's mind). It's not that they're gone, it's just a mess. If he were a Blade, the memories would sort back automatically. If he were in Resonance with a Blade, then that would act as a "librarian" and slowly help get his mind back in order.

#DSMP Blade System AU #c!karl #DreamXD #Would DreamXD's plan to get his Aegis back work? #Yes #But the Blades that had their individual existences created by the shattering would all be erased forever #All the scattered Blades look like the Aegis they were born from #DreamXD looks like that because their form of grieving involves dressing like their dead Blade