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History was repeating right before Pix's eyes.
Pix ran his fingers through the thick, slimy dark substance coating the outside of the museum. Cub's work. And from everything he knew of the man, Cub, possessed or not, never did any job halfway.
The server had become corrupted again, and just like his past self, Pix had done nothing to stop it.
Pix had learned of the last Copper King in school. He was generally thought of as a weak ruler. Fine in peacetime, of course, and even his harshest critics would agree the technological advancement his reign had brought to Pixandria rivaled even the wonders the Grimlands had produced. But even then, twice, tragedy had come to the Empires during his reign.
Twice, the Copper King, his namesake, his past, had run away.
And twice, the people of Pixandria were left to pick up the pieces.
He had never wanted to believe it when he was growing up. Surely, there was some good reason for both of the Copper King's self-exiles. The ancient king had been searching for something that could've helped his people. Or perhaps he thought there was someone else better equipped to face these crises, and he would've only gotten in the way.
Only in hindsight, with the benefit of the memories he had gained in the vision at Chromia, did he realize what those feelings truly were. Excuses, from the remains of a man not wanting to admit how badly he had failed.
Pix closed his eyes and wiped the sculk off onto his trousers. The Copper King's failings were quite literally ancient history now. Most of the Empires that had witnessed them were, if not dust and ruins, practically unrecognizable, and even the Vigil had stopped counting the numbers of their dead. Time had moved on, but, caught as he was in the twilight between life and death, sleep and remembering, the Copper King never truly had.
Even now, in his new life. Pix had chosen a career as a historian. His life, his passion, was literally the past. Even without the Copper King's memories, he was still drawn to it. Stuck in it, in a way. Perhaps that was why he hung back, always more focused on his work reconstructing the Ancient Capital than the squabblings of the Empires around him.
He supposed he wasn't so different from the reticent Copper King after all.
And, if the dark, glowing fungus spreading around the server was any indication, everyone he knew (and, if he had to be honest with himself, cared about) would suffer for it. This had become far much more than a simple research project. The Ancient Capital had become his home. And, naturally, the Emperors around him had become his neighbors. And the Hermits—New as they were to the server, you didn't tell the stories of people for years without starting to care for them.
Pix found himself moving towards his notes, the ones on the sculk machine he had found some months before. The seed of a plan was growing in his mind. He was not bound to the Copper King's mistakes. The ancient king may have been his past, but he did not have to let him become his future. And the destruction the sculk wrought went against everything he, as a scholar dedicated to preservation, as a man who had done far too little all those years before, believed in. This could not stand.
He was Pixlriffs. The archaeologist. The ancient king of copper. He was a student of history, and as such, he could learn from it.
He had faced demons before.
And this time, he would not run away.