V-11 Academy (III)

Students of the Phoenix, my job here, as headmaster, is not to get you to adapt by the time you graduate. It is not to ensure that you become Masters in ten years, five years, or whatever ridiculous sum of time you imagine. It is not to make sure you eventually become Heroes. It is not to make sure that you become Legends after a century and become icons of the Republic. My job is none of those things, for none of those things can be guaranteed.

Look at me, and look upon each other. Know that, once upon a time, I was like you. I stood amongst my peers, people of my age, dreaming of a future, staring at another man giving the same speech, except there was one difference: My grandmaster lied to me. He promised us power. He promised us prestige. He promised us glory and victory, and more.

I promise you nothing, for the system will promise you nothing. So you should expect nothing. You should expect nothing, but you should yearn. You should always strive. You should perform to the best of your ability, to overcome every challenge you face, but to be shaken by all the failures you encounter. And when that is done, accept where you are, wherever that may be. Because the great lie that most hear is that they will be glorious, that their futures will be grand, that they will be the victors. I assure you, to the north and the south, there is a man like me—a man, an elf, a goblin, an automaton, a Jotun, a demon—and they tell their youngers and lessers the same lies that my former Grandmaster told me. And when two absolute lies collide, when two Pathbearers believe they will prevail, only one outcome can reign as truth, and there is no guarantee it will be yours.

Steel yourselves today. Hold your heads up high with pride. You are disciples of Phoenix Academy. It takes great effort and great potential for you to arrive here. Understand that you shine brighter than most Pathbearers already, but to shine is to invite harm. And with harm, death looms. Disaster looms. I will fashion you into the finest Pathbearers you can be, but I promise you no more than that, and you should expect no more than that.

For hope is both elixir and poison for the soul. Be mindful how you drink.

-Legend-Headmaster Hades Hymn, Phoenix Academy Commencement Speech

V-11

Academy (III)

There was something deeply impressive and also disturbing in how fast the Neath Liaison managed to steal eight bodies from the morgue. The fact that this feat was managed while Harlock was active, no less, made Shiv all the more wary of who he was dealing with. 

When the Liaison stepped in, he was accompanied by a small group of dimensionals. They were stone dimensionals; humanoid, shaped of crumbling rocks and jutting crystals. There were ten of them; two were larger than the others and seemed to serve as the Liaison's personal bodyguards. The others were closer to a human size, rather than an orc's, and they laid the stolen bodies down in a neat assortment.

They placed them four by four within the hidden crafting chamber, and Shiv saw that the deceased still had tags attached to their feet. But his gaze didn't linger on them for long. Instead, he found himself taking in the Liaison. The man stood tall, but there was something faintly elven in his features. 

There was a point to his ears and a near-white gleam to his irises. He wore a polished leather doublet with long formal slacks and expensive-looking boots. A short sword hung at his waist, and a gem was embedded in the hilt, giving off a golden glow. The time magic radiating from the sword was Master-Tier, but the Pyromancy possessed by the Liaison was his true edge. The man had a small incinerator hidden within him. If Shiv had to guess, he was a Heroic Pyromancer, but he was a Hero that was but a bushfire before Candles’s raging inferno—even if the Legendary Pyromancer was snoring in the corner of the room. 

"The bodies, as you requested," the Liaison said. He spoke smooth and quick, with little accent, and as he did, Shiv noticed how his skin didn't quite move right. There was an uncanny aspect to his features, like he was more rubber than flesh. Adam also noticed, from the narrowing of his eyes. 

Merrielmel barely held back a squeak as he looked away from the corpses. A gagging sound followed, and the elven enchanter tried to keep himself composed. He almost doubled over, regardless.

Concelhaunt scoffed and stepped in front of his colleague. In his hands was a gleaming mask, reforged of new alloys and infused with a brilliant glow. Its repairs hadn't been finalized yet, and Shiv still needed to pick a replacement enchantment to make up for the Mind Shield, but first, something compelled him to see the bodies. Something compelled him to look upon the face of a child whose life he was about to steal. Child, he thought to himself. Like Adam said earlier, I'm practically their age. But I still feel different. Still feels like they shouldn't be here. They shouldn't be dead. But since when did the system ever give a shit about sparing children.

"How did you manage to do this?" Irons asked. The instructor came to a halt just beside Shiv, and if the Deathless was right, the man's body language screamed barely-restrained violence.

"Favors and dexterity, mostly. The crisis unfolding made things easier, especially with the city's greatest powers all focused on controlling the breakout at the volcano. A most fortuitous circumstance." The Liaison smiled, offering a cruel grin to Shiv, and the Deathless realized he likely wasn't going to like this man very much. The Deathless sighed and strode toward the bodies.

"I want to see their faces," he said. As soon as he did, the earth dimensionals responded. Despite possessing paws meant to rip and rend, they peeled the sheets covering the deceased with considerable grace. An involuntary grunt escaped Shiv afterward. Whether it was a noise uttered in respect or discomfort, he couldn't fully say himself, but Irons was right. These children went down fighting. Several of them had deep wounds lining their skulls and faces. Shiv was still a novitiate when it came to the finer aspects of biology, but he had been wounded and had inflicted wounds in return. He knew what ax blows looked like. He knew what a thumb would do when it was forced into an eye socket. He knew which teeth broke first when one tried to wrench a jaw free. He knew what crushed windpipes resembled.

The Jotun were brutal fighters. Shiv could tell that immediately. He could also tell they weren’t nearly as methodical or precise as the orcs. Too many cuts were off. Slices running from necks and splitting clavicles. Spears holes through cheeks rather than necks or the brain. Sloppy. Close enough to be lethal attempts, so they weren’t trying to torture these kids, but sloppy.

Practical Metabiology 43 > 44

Three of the dead were female, and Shiv discounted them immediately. Helix, however, did not. "I think you should pick that one," the orc Biomancer pointed at a blonde-haired girl who stared blankly toward the ceiling. Her nose was practically driven into the back of her head, the result of taking a hammer blow head-on. The disturbing part was how soft and nice the rest of her skin was. It seemed to glow like a pearl, even in the dim ambience of the crafting chamber. 

She was an elf, and there was such sadness in her eyes that Shiv felt his chest tighten. No terror, just the final despair before the end.

"I'm serious," Helix kept going. "It could be to your advantage. It will give you insight into being something you're not, and, potentially, you might be able to lure some other students to you, especially the males. You humans have such a strange way of breeding and imprinting on one another. Imagine gaining a Seduction Skill? What a ridiculous boon that might be for you.”

“Stop talking,” Adam gagged. “You’re going to make me sick.”

He wasn’t the only one. Shiv's stomach nearly revolted at the suggestion. It was too close to what Udraal did, and the Deathless wouldn't make a very good girl. He didn't make a very good spy in general. A feeling of déjà vu came over him, and then he pushed past it when he realized it wasn't déjà vu, but a memory. Some time back, early on when he, Uva, and Adam first became a team, they did something like this: scouring a pit of corpses to find someone he could pretend to be.

"Have you no decency?" Irons spat at Helix. The other orcs laughed, and the captain directed his fiercest scowl at them. But where Irons would have been incredibly intimidating for a student or even most individuals, orcs were connoisseurs of savagery and brutality. They nursed themselves upon foul deeds and depraved acts of domination. 

Psycho-Cartography: Put a stop to this. One of the orcs is going to provoke Irons, and he's going to oblige them. It's inevitable. They want a fight. They want an excuse to bleed someone, and he likely wants to partake as well, if only to regain some control over his spiraling life. Irons is a good man, but he's a warrior, and he's caught up in a black conspiracy that tears at the heart of everything he believes. It won’t take much of a push.

"I told you guys before," Shiv said, cutting everyone off. "If anyone starts a fight, I'm going to end it. Orcs, stop bothering him. You guys want to hurt someone or torture something? I'm available in a while. And Helix. It's going to be time for us to resume our classes. While we got time, right.”

"Ah, so you remembered," Helix said. His voice rose a slight pitch, and he nodded along, pleased. “Good. There is hope for you to become a practitioner yet.” Just like that, the atmosphere changed. The orcs were no longer preparing to tease and taunt the angry captain. Now, all their gazes fell on their Insul, and they laughed and cheered among themselves as if old friends at a banquet.

"What are you talking about?" Irons muttered under his breath. He was utterly confused about why Shiv would just give himself to the orcs, and then Adam slipped by, leaning in to explain a few things to his former mentor.

Shiv patrolled the rest of the bodies. "None of the girls," he said. At once, the earth dimensionals drew the sheets back over them.

"I have a few suggestions," the Liaison said. "These two." He gestured. Shiv followed the Liaison's index finger and found himself comparing two options. The first was a narrow-faced boy with a brand over his left eye and a deep chasm lining his throat. His trachea was missing. 

Judging from his wiry frame, Shiv suspected that he was looking at some kind of Scout or Shadow, maybe even a Thief. The other boy was larger. He wasn't nearly as tall and overwhelming as Shiv, but there was some muscle on his body, and more importantly, there was a certain robustness to his skin. It glistened as if sun-kissed metal, and he exhibited no obvious wounds. In fact, Shiv wasn't sure how that one had died at all.

"This here is Sven Sealark," the Liaison introduced the narrow-faced boy first. "He is the youngest son of House Sealark, a minor noble family in the Old Brunswick region. Though not major players in the capital, he still holds considerable pull due to being selected for Phoenix Academy under circumstances of Martial Meritas."

"And what does that mean?" Shiv asked directly.

"Martial Meritas means that the student has earned his place at Phoenix Academy through a remarkable feat of arms or magic performed in combat," Adam explained. The Young Lord rounded his shoulders slightly and stood a little taller. "It was how I was selected as well."

"No shit," Shiv said. "Did you shoot the head off of a monster or something from halfway across town?"

"Not quite, but not that far off, actually. I put an arrow through the eye of a ruined wasp while we were nest-clearing somewhere in Old Santa Barb." The Gate Lord tried not to sound too proud, but he was, and it was a good memory for him. "Me, my father, and some of our retainers went out. The nest, it was getting a bit too close to the town, and they had also attacked several villages as well. Caravans, too. My father didn't want to bring me along initially, but I raised such a fit that I— what?" Adam was cut off by Shiv chuckling. "What?"

Shiv tried to contain his amusement. "No, just... it's you. It's very you, you know, to throw a tantrum because you weren't invited to fight something."

Adam blinked, and his face seemed caught between a shrug of indifference and a scowl. "I just felt responsible. I'm a Young Lord of Blackedge, you know."

The Deathless snorted. "Yeah, you are. To the bone."

"We have duties," Adam said.

"I know, and you take them pretty seriously, Adam," Shiv folded his arms. "And I suppose that being Martial Meritas gives you some special benefits?"

"Yes, it puts you in the Advanced Tiers."

"Advanced Tiers?" Shiv asked. "What's that? Some kind of special course?"

"It means Advancement Tiers," Irons said, carrying on where Adam left off. "The Advancement Tiers give students more opportunities to select coursework beyond what is typically deemed acceptable for their current skill range and academic year. It also allows them to choose specific mentors, to grant them additional opportunities for practical experience and training."

"It also lets you live in Atlas Hall," Adam said. The Gate Lord sighed as his eyes rolled. "The facilities there, Shiv. It was something to dream of. The company, the courtyard, the fountains…”

Now the Deathless's attention was fully piqued. “The facilities were that good, huh? Well, I think they're leaving just the right kind of bait for me, Adam.” But then he considered something else, something that left him feeling burdened if he were to steal this child's identity. "You said he was from a house? Does he have any living family in the capital, or back at home?"

"He does," the Liaison replied. "A mother and a younger sister. They are far away, though, not directly in the capital, but they should be on their way down. They have been notified of his unfortunate demise, and as such, we will need to make arrangements to justify your miraculous resurrection, so to speak." 

The Liaison grinned. Shiv didn't. The Liaison stopped grinning.

As much as Martial Meritas appealed to Shiv, he really didn't want to steal the corpse of someone who still had loved ones. With his track record as a spy, it was likely that this body would be burned within a span of days. If that happened, he really didn't want the surviving family of this poor kid to be caught in the crossfire.

"And the other one?" Shiv asked. "How'd he get into the academy?"

"Ah, Marcus Unblood."

"Unblood?" Shiv said. "Strange name. He part of some noble house too?"

"No. Unbloods are simply what the people in that region call bastards. They are unblooded, so to speak. But he may well be of direct descent from noble houses, just not recognized or wanted." 

Shiv looked down at the hard-faced boy with a frown. Already he felt a sense of kinship growing between them. "He and me both, huh?" Shiv said under his breath. Then he paused and shook his head. "Well, up until recently. Now everyone wants a piece of me, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I kind of miss being a social pariah."

Marcus didn't say anything because Marcus was a corpse. But if he could, Shiv imagined the boy would agree, a complainer. He had that face. He had that vibe.

"He did not enter on the basis of Martial Meritas. Instead, he got in due to the Wild Card Program that has been recently instituted." The Liaison cocked his head. “Unfortunately, he will not get to experience that.”

Shiv walked over to Marcus and looked down at the boy again. He knelt over the body and peeled the sheets away some more. Shiv winced slightly. Though the boy looked robust, and there was a metallic gleam that hinted at Adept Toughness, the boy's musculature deceived him earlier. His arms were rigid with bulging veins, but his torso was far softer. In fact, Shiv would say this one was a little bit plump. 

"Skipping out on the conditioning a bit, are we, Marcus?" he said under his breath. Then, his snark died as he examined the corpse’s musculature once more. There was such a lack of definition and softness along Marcus’s chest and shoulders that he looked deflated and deformed in places. The substance around his stomach also didn’t seem to react like fat when Shiv shifted the body slightly. It flopped around rather than jiggled. “The hells…”

He wrapped a mana hydra around the body and let out a gasp of surprise. Marcus’s muscles felt like they were shriveled. His organs were also lined with horrific scarring. “The felling—what did the Jotuns do to this guy.”

"Not the giants; soul condition, unfortunately," the Liaison said, "and a mana condition as well. His Physicality is crippled, bottlenecked before it could fully develop. As such, his Toughness is excessive due to... negative and painful experiences while growing up, while his strength remains at the level of the Pathless."

"Just another thing you and I share, huh?" Shiv said. "Well, at least you had your Toughness at Adept. So, wild card… I'm guessing that he basically got in on pity."

"It's not so much pity as a golden opportunity offered to junior Pathbearers who otherwise wouldn't be selected due to circumstances that limit them. Not everyone will be a warrior," Irons said. "Not everyone has the capacity to be a great mage, an intellectual, an engineer. But some can still provide great benefit to the Republic, and this was one such person."

"Indeed. For you see, Marcus was enrolled under the College of the Lifegiver—medicine," and that captured Shiv's interest entirely.

"Medical College? He was a Biomancer?"

"A minor one," the Liaison said, "with his main talents in Practical Metabiology, combined with Fieldcraft, Survival, and Surgery. He was slated to see his Biomancy skill developed further, to see if he had an aptitude for the art. But, alas, some roses are snipped before they can bloom." The Liaison gave a moment of silence, but Shiv knew he was ultimately playing to the crowd. As soon as the Liaison mentioned the college Marcus was bound for, the Deathless's choice was already made.

"Yeah," Shiv said, "orphan, non-combatant, studying human biology. What's not to love? What's not to love at all?"

"So I take it you have made your choice?" the Liaison said. The Deathless drew in a breath and turned away for a moment. He walked back toward Irons and faced the instructor. "Listen, when my Perfect Semblance activates, it's going to burn his body. There's gonna be nothing left of him other than ashes."

"Why are you telling me this?" Irons said.

"Because it's going to bother you. It's going to bother you like it's going to bother me. But there's a reason why I'm picking him. Hell, there are several reasons. You're a straight guy, and so am I. You got a problem with me doing this, or if you got a better idea, you tell me now. Otherwise, I'm going to go through with this thing, regardless if it makes me feel bad. And then we move on. We start dealing with other shit. We don’t linger on about this.”

Irons fell quiet. Then he offered Shiv a brief nod. They understood where each other was coming from. "I don't like it," Irons began, but then he swallowed. "I don't like it, but since I've already done so many things I dislike, I think I can stomach one more. But after this..."

"Yeah, after this, I’ll be able to move around in the open and help you with your problems, too," Shiv said. "Melissa, was it?" Irons nodded again. "Alright, we're going to be going after her, going after whatever the hell Daughter's doing in this city. There's no way in hell I'm going to let that crazy, godsdamned monster keep snatching children if I can do something about it."

"But, before we can really even get to that," Shiv hesitated, as he looked to the two crafting professors in the room. Through the entire discussion, both Concelhaunt and Merrielmel had looked on at the bodies. The goblin took in the macabre display with far more grace, offering little more than winces and a frown at times. Merrielmel, meanwhile, was leaning against the wall, violently heaving air in and out of a strange rectangular device that flashed every time he exhaled. "Got some other stuff to deal with there as well," Shiv said. "Alright. You can take the other bodies. Leave Marcus, though."

The Liaison nodded. "It will be done." He gave a slight whistle, and the stone dimensionals began pulling the other corpses out.

"Wait," Adam called out. "But if you're going to put them back, what about this one? There's going to be one corpse missing, won't that bring about problems?"

The Liaison simply shook his head. "Of course, we arranged for duplicates to be made beforehand."

"Duplicates?" Adam asked.

Helix cocked his head, and Shiv immediately developed a guess.

"Yes, we cloned the bodies. We inflicted the same wounds upon them, and we left them within the morgue in advance of this operation. We are not going to be placing the bodies back there. Instead, they will be going to other people."

"What other people?" Irons almost growled.

"Bidders, most likely," the Liaison said. "Organs sell for a good deal, especially an organ from a young and healthy body, one that has not been tainted by too much Skill History." Then he considered something else. "Well, on top of the organs, there are others who have need of youthful vessels. Necromancy is an expensive art to practice."

Though Irons said nothing, Shiv could practically feel the murder radiating off the captain's body. Necromancy was still an ugly thing in the Republic.

"I understand you disapprove," the Liaison said, without a hint of worry at all. With his words, Shiv felt a tug of affection building—an emotion that was crushed when Psycho-Cartography noticed it. "I disapprove of certain things as well, but the market always has demands, and we need to meet those demands to make sure that someone more cruel or more base than we does not fill it."

"Is that what you always tell yourself?" Irons growled. "That you are being noble in an ugly situation?"

"No, just that I am a part of an order. A sunken order, but an order nonetheless," the Liaison sighed. "You don't need to approve, however. My superiors don't care for it. You have already bound yourself to us, and should you find yourself thinking about doing something deeply unwise..." The Liaison shook his head very, very dramatically. "...I strongly recommend you do not, because a certain set of documents might find its way into Flamecrown Castle, and everything you are, everything you want to do, can turn to dust."

"Is it common practice for the Neath to blackmail the people it works with?" Shiv asked sardonically.

"Only if they threaten to impede other profit margins in play." The Liaison smiled again and bowed. "I leave this one with you, then, Legend Shiv. Oh, and lest I forget..." He reached into his leather doublet's inner pocket and pulled out a glistening letter. Its material seemed to be made of some kind of crystalline substance, and as Shiv accepted it, he realized it was mithral. He could feel his magic thrumming around the letter, and on one end, a seal held it in place. It wasn't a wax seal, though. Instead, it was a thing of dimensionality, and it called to him. There was a trace of his vitae.

Shiv's mouth fell open. How the hell did someone get a trace of his vitae? His mind went to a grinding halt just then. “Godsdamn you Udraal,” he snarled. 

Who else? Who else had his Vitae? Who else could have prepared this so far in advance? No one. The only other person who had wielded Shiv's power against him was Silvan, and he had barely gotten any time to learn and manipulate his vitae at all.

"This was said to be delivered to you once your powers and Path fully activated," the Liaison said. "It has been primed in advance, from and sent by your Creator. On top of that, the Dragon Brokers wish to have a personal audience with you, at your nearest convenience." The Liaison's expression went from warm to utterly dead. "I strongly advise that you do not keep them waiting. They are patient, but they are not to be insulted."

Shiv wanted to say something cutting but decided to hold back. Psycho-Cartography warned him against playing the petulant child. Everything I say or do from this point on can be used against me, Shiv reminded himself. "Tell them I'll let them know when I'm available," he said.

No sense in avoiding this. Time to see who runs the underbelly of the capital. See what they can give me—and what bullshit they bring my way.

The Liaison bowed once more, and his smile returned to his face. "Such a wise decision. You seem like a wise man, Deathless, a wise man in desperate circumstances. You could do with many, many reliable friends in these trying times." With that, he retreated with his stone dimensionals, leaving only Marcus's corpse nearby.

"I still think you should have picked the blonde girl," Helix said with a lamenting sigh. "She would have given you so many opportunities to..."

"Helix," Shiv said. "Shut up."

"Of course, Insul."

Giving a final look at Marcus, the Deathless hardened himself for what he was going to do to the body and returned to the two crafters. "Alright. So now that that's settled, let's talk about enchantments. What's the damage?"

"Well, as we said earlier, the mind shield enchantment has been completely worn away." Merrielmel gestured at the center of the mask, and Shiv noticed that there was a slight crack there. The crack also seeped droplets of translucent mana. A lot of lost Psychomancy. Shame, but not necessary now that I got Shapeless Tides.

"Additionally, the Adept Skill Thief and Initiate Skill Thief Enchantments have also sustained substantial damage. That being said, they still function. We managed to repair them." Merrielmel's face turned into a bright smile as he gestured at a certain part of the mask. Shiv squinted and saw patches of shifting patterns gliding just underneath the material. It came alight and faded intermittently.

"Okay," Shiv said. "So I'm going to have to find new skills to replace the ones I lost."

"Yes, but I have another suggestion." The goblin chuckled under his breath. "These two enchantments were like add-ons, you know? Just side-bits of mana connected to the core. The main thing is that this whole mask, it's built around that Perfect Semblance skill. It's a good thing, too, because if it was only the Perfect Semblance skill, it would be practically useless right now from all the mana it leaked.”

"So what does that mean?" Shiv asked.

"That means we can probably do quite a bit of tweaking around it. Instead of just leaving it at the Adept Tier-Skill Thief ceiling, we have something that could bring it to new heights. Reforge the enchantment entirely." And then Concelhaunt sprinted toward the many mana cores slotted upon the stand lining the far wall, and he returned with a glistening shard that radiated with colors of black and gray. "We can give you a few choices here. If you want to increase the Adept Skill Thief enchantment to having five slots—ones that can be filled immediately. We could definitely do that. But we can also give you a single Master-Tier enchantment as well. Depends on how we rebuild things. But…"

"What's the problem?" Shiv said, waiting to hear the trade-off.

"Well, if we're going to put in a Master-Tier Skill Thief, it's likely going to eat up what's left of the mana capacity for this mask. It was already stretched tight before." Shiv remembered that. Tran had barely managed to add Self-Mending to the mask, just before the fight Shiv had with the Jealousy.

"So, if I just expand the adept Skill Thief into five slots, could I get still another enchantment?" Shiv asked. He hummed with interest. “And it’s just one other Master-Tier Skill instead of Five Adepts?”

“Correct,” Merrielmel said in a singsong voice. “Flexibility or power is always—”

“I have enough power,” Shiv grunted decisively. “I want more subtlety, too. I need… You got anything for Invisibility? Or Chameleon? Actually—” He reached into his cape and pulled out his broken gauntlet. “You think you can move a few enchantments from this?”

“Is that Ineritum,” Concelhaunt breathed. He leaned in close and his eyes flashed with mana. “How in the fuck did you get that. Why did you just show us that earlier—ahem.” He caught Shiv’s flat stare and nodded. “Merri. Let’s… let’s see what we can do here.”

“No,” Merrielmel muttered.

Both Shiv and Concelhaunt stared at him. “The hells you mean, no,” the goblin Smith spat.

“I mean this shouldn’t be for the mask,” Merrielmel continued. “We need it for Project Trespasser.” He swallowed. “For getting to the Outside! This—this is what we have been missing for the stabilizer!” He reached out and gripped Shiv by the arms in a burst of excitement. “If—if you will let us have this, I—there are many other things, I will… Trade! I offer another trade!”

Shiv blinked. “Trade?”

“Heroic Equipment,” Merrielmel squeaked. “Please…”