V-7 Neath (II)

Shells and false semblances are one of the most illegal, but also most valuable commodities offered by the Neath. When one seeks to establish their position in life, they usually arrive at one of a few following places: What is your tier? How wealthy are you? How connected are you? And what can you provide with the skills you do have?

For most, life is a catch-22. You won't be able to gain grand skills or level quickly because you simply aren't important. You haven't gotten the chance to evolve, so you won't evolve, and thus you languish until your skills are crippled by inaction and mundanity. Indeed, a great many bottlenecks are formed from such inaction because you've taught your own legend to expect nothing, and so you will be nothing.

To break free sometimes, or to escape from past sins, there are those who assume false identities—a layer of fake skin for their soul and body, so to speak.

Shells are simple, comparatively. They are effectively a mold of tissue or alloy woven along the exterior of someone's body. Usually they degrade over time, though how long they last depends on the skill tier of the forger. This allows someone to shed their physical visage and adopt a new face, a new look. It won't be able to change any of your actual skills, but it can give you an aesthetic makeover, and for some, that is all that is needed. Usually this requires a level of Biomancy, Kinesiology, or even Metallurgy and Smithing, depending on whom the subject being treated is.

The harder part for everyone, however, is the semblance. Your soul sends out information in the mana radiating out from you. Your skills broadcast who you are to the system, and when one with a high enough analyze skill gazes upon you, they will read truths about your history that can't be denied. They will glean from you your path, they will see your skill tiers, and they will be able to tell just how much of a threat you are.

Masking this is difficult. Usually, people choose a more direct route in terms of stealth, avoiding notice entirely, but oftentimes stealth is not enough. If you want to live in society and exist among people, you must accept some extent of voyeurism. As such, you need a greater forger, one that has delved into psionics and stealth in equal measure and achieved a skill fusion between the two.

Soul forgery is not making a new sword; it's simply rerouting some of your mana so it displays other things. This too degrades but far faster than your body's shell. The more you use your skills, the more your false semblance disentangles. It's like undoing and redoing a fragile knot over and over again. But while it lasts, when someone lays their gaze upon you, they will see another rather than the truth of your soul.

But there is a limit to this as well. For if the one who gazes is a being of considerable power, and they pit their soul against yours, it might shear your false semblance apart instantly and unravel your ruse.

-What Lurks Below: An Exposé on the Hidden World of Organized Crime (Banned by Republic authorities for unlawful slander and fearmongering)

V-7

Neath (II)

"...And that about sums up the ugliness of our situation," Adam finished. As he recounted his experiences over the past few months, Shiv kept his eyes fixed on Irons's expression. The captain was stoic, disciplined. He wielded his body as one would a blade, betraying nothing. But even so, there were minor flinches, grimaces, brief clenches of the jaw. 

The more Adam spoke, the darker Irons's features got, but through it all, he listened. Quietly, attentively, and he never raised a single objection.

Psycho-Cartography: This is what it looks like when a man of extreme discipline and loyalty undergoes a crisis of faith. Be straight with him. Honest. You can reveal ugly truths without him reacting emotionally, but avoid being cruel for the sake of it. He will likely respond without speaking. And by that, I mean violently.

Two conversations were unfolding in the forger's office. Off by the side, the Educator continued interrogating Custiel. The goblin was sitting upon his operating table now, and a series of bashes rattled the heavy wooden doors on the far side of the room. The Pathbearers tasked with guarding Custiel were barred from entry by a few border sketches. They tried reaching in with mana as well, but were quickly repelled as the fields they projected were scarred by the flaying touch of the Educator's brush.

He wouldn't consider himself anything close to a master diplomat. He wouldn't even call himself particularly peace-inclined. But the Educator seemed determined to start as many problems as she could with her incessant demands and her propensity to use her bruising tone to resolve any situation with someone she deemed inferior to her. 

The longer we stay by her side, the more problems that we're going to encounter, Shiv thought to himself. They were already running from the ascendants and most of the capital, and now in their first foray into the underworld, he suspected he might have a nasty first encounter with the so-called Dragon Brokers that ran this whole Neath thing sometime soon.

"Captain? Captain?" Adam said, sounding slightly worried. The gate lord was nervous, more nervous than Shiv had ever seen him. In these circumstances, part of Adam still wanted to impress his former mentor, he realized. 

Psycho-Cartography: Let's section this under 'ammunition to bully Adam with.'

Let's maybe not, he thought, lying to himself. He was definitely going to use this at some point.

Despite his attempts to be more upright, Irons's response came in the form of a long, deep sigh, the sigh of an exhausted man. His breath reeked of stress, but also resolve. Shiv knew because he had made the same sigh before, when he decided to throw himself upon a Necromancy spell to deliver a greater wound to adversaries he couldn't beat otherwise. When he traded his own life to inflict harm. Irons was burdened, but Irons was mustering his strength to shoulder that weight.

"I had a feeling," Irons began. He looked at Adam dead in the eye. "I had a feeling that your life would be like this." The Young Lord opened and closed his mouth several times. "I, uh, am not blaming you," Irons continued. His gaze fell. He opened and closed his fist, popping his wrist in an act of reflexive stress relief. "It's not your fault. The system plays favorites, and because of who your father was, because of your talents, you were never going to live a life of peace. I just hoped you could have tread that middle ground, hit the tier of hero maybe a century earlier than most, and at least get to taste some stability in your life."

Adam leaned back and pressed his lips together. "Captain, was that hope and optimism I just heard? Are you having a fever? You picked up a drinking habit, perchance?"

Irons snorted and shook his head. "I see your tongue still waves before your thoughts settle."

"It's a habit that's grown worse due to bad influences." Adam briefly looked at Shiv, and the Deathless simply folded his arms.

"No idea who you're talking about," Shiv said. "I'm surprised you're taking it so well, though."

"I'm not," Irons deadpanned. "I'm just choosing not to react."

That earned another bit of respect from Shiv.

"Part of me would like to deny it," Irons went on. "Part of me wants to accuse one of you of being a liar, of running a scheme against the Republic after being turned by hostile powers."

"But…" Shiv added.

"But," Irons continued, "I know Adam. He's not the traitorous kind. And I know Roland well. He's an insufferable, rigid fool when it comes to his morals and ethics, and particularly emotional when it comes to being swayed by his own feelings. But put an arrow in his hand and give him an army to command, and you'll see the finest example of a Pathbearer to ever exist on Integrated Earth."

Shiv suppressed a moment of sourness and doubled down on punching Roland in the face at some point, now that he had a legendary tier skill. Maybe he wouldn't be obliterated instantly. Maybe he could get close enough. But then he saw something else. Irons's eyes were still on him, and the man had noticed. 

Psycho-Cartography: He's watching you too. He trusts Adam. He doesn't know anything about you, and you cannot blame him for that.

"I didn't know Harlan had a kid," Irons grunted. His eyes narrowed, and they left Shiv, falling upon Adam once more. "You  never told me about him."

At that, Adam winced. He gave Shiv an apologetic look, but the Deathless didn't care anymore. They'd been through way too much for him to give a shit about old slights, about ancient history. Adam had plenty of grievances before he fell to the abyss, before they were forced to become battle brothers, before Shiv returned Rose, before the Tarrasque, and before even darker truths about the Deathless's lineage came to the surface. Frankly put, Adam's bygone animosity was barely more than a pinprick compared to the impalement inflicted upon Shiv by Udraal's actions. 

“Let's just say it took a little bit of active combat and shared near-death experiences to get over some problems with family history,” Shiv said dryly.

Irons drew in his lip in distaste. "I see. I've had my own experiences with such things. I'm glad the two of you found a way. I wish there was another way to be, but I suspect people like us need to be blooded and broken before things can be mended." 

Yet, there was still something the man had left unsaid. His eyes still lingered on Shiv, and the distrust between them continued. Shiv suspected that unless they experienced some mutual, shared conflict, and the man got a measure for who he was, that tension would remain. The Deathless resolved to settle that, if they had to work together.

"Well, we explained that utter pit of shit we're in. But Captain, what are you doing? Trying to break into Flamecrown Castle? How did you find yourself on the business end of Daughter's dagger?"

"I was on the trail of Melissa," Irons said.

"Melissa? Melissa Harrington?" Adam was suddenly animated. His back straightened. He blinked twice.

"Know who he's talking about?" Shiv asked.

"Yes, she was an underclass student the first year by the time I graduated. Brilliant girl. Path of the Investigator. Had a habit of finding things out that she really shouldn't have and asking questions that made people around her uncomfortable. Especially powerful people."

"She went missing," Irons said, and there was a shudder in his breath. The man wasn't just worried now; he was outright fearful. "She went missing looking for a younger sister, Hannah. She told me this when she showed up at my residence three weeks ago. It was completely out of the blue. She was in hysterics. She went on and on about how there was a grand conspiracy unfolding through the orphanages of the capital, how select children who experienced significant trauma but retained their innocence were being kidnapped and moved to other facilities."

"At first, I simply thought she had suffered a Psychomantic attack after escaping from somewhere she shouldn’t have been in the first place. She was an inquisitive girl possessed of unparalleled perspicacity, but she was also obsessive. She dug for every morsel of information incessantly. I knew there would be a time when she overstepped too far. Where being an amateur detective on the grounds of the academy was one thing, it had its own dangers as well. Corruption hates being revealed. All corruption. And I guessed she had overstepped, found some deviant thing a minor noble was doing." 

Irons’s gaze grew even darker. "But then she brought things out. Evidence. Documentation. Sigil letters detailing the selection and specific grooming of certain children. These were exchanged by the matrons of over eighty orphanages and the Harmonious Communal Outreach arm of the Republic's Inquisition."

Even after seeing that, Irons continued, "I didn't want to believe. I didn't want to think that the rot had sunken in so deep. So while I offered her a place to rest, I tried to convince her to go to the higher authorities, to see things settled through proper channels."

Adam winced dramatically. Meanwhile, Shiv pulled a sigil letter of his own out from his cape. Irons stopped talking and Adam looked at Shiv, confused as to what he was doing.

"Hey, Educator," Shiv called off to the side.

The Forgotten Ascendant glared at him, interrupted by his sudden call. "What?" she almost snarled.

"Got a pencil or something? I got some writing I need to do."

She scoffed and ignored him before going back to tearing into her victim. 

"Jackass," Shiv muttered under his breath. "Alright, plan B then." The Deathless pricked a hole in his own finger with his Biomancy and began stroking characters into the page of the sigil letter.

"Shiv, what are you doing?" Adam asked.

"Oh, nothing. I'm just telling someone what a piece of shit they are." 

Dear Veronica, my godsdamn immortal fucking bitch of an absentee grandma:

Did you know that one of your Ascendants is going around kidnapping orphans? Well, in case you're the worst councilwoman in existence, maybe consider cutting Daughter out of the equation. The 12 Ascendants doesn't sound so bad, either. Maybe give that a think. Might be the smart thing to do.

He put his sync-letter away just then and saw Adam looking at him. "I'll tell you about that in a while. But keep going. I'm guessing Melissa didn't much like that suggestion."

"No," Irons said, shaking his head. "By the next morning, she was gone. And she stayed gone for the rest of the week, and the week after that. As she has no surviving next of kin aside from her missing sister, no one was driven to make a report."

"No one but you," Adam said.

"No one but me," Irons concurred quietly. "Despite this, I knew that the local constables and investigators would not do anything, so I took things into my own hands. When I returned to my residence, I found some of the evidence she discovered hidden behind my shield in the armory. It seemed that Melissa suspected this might happen and left just a sliver of a chance for someone else to follow in her trail. So I did. But I knew I couldn't operate openly, not with my identity so easily verified." 

And then, Irons looked toward the goblin sitting upon the operating table, and Shiv realized how the man got into this mess.

"You bought a shell and a false semblance?" Adam gasped. "I—that just doesn't seem like a 'you' thing to do, Captain."

Irons shot Adam an odd look. "Do we really know each other that well, Young Lord Arrow?"

Adam's mouth opened and closed several times, and a part of that statement seemed to sting. "I suppose not."

"You suppose right," Irons said, but there was no malice in his voice. "You didn't know the me from years ago. I wasn't always a dutiful servant of the Republic, a proper soldier. We were all young once. We all had yearnings and periods of wanderlust, and during some of these periods I simply drifted toward things that were ill-advised of me. They came with scars and opportunities."

"They came with you being a piece of shit!" Custiel suddenly cried out. The goblin had a mess of piercings, and his leather vest flapped about with the violence of his gestures. "What did you bring to my establishment? I told you, Irons, no trouble! You'll be hearing from the Dragon Brokers for this! You'll be wishing—"

Suddenly the Educator reached down and seized the goblin by the neck. "I wasn't finished speaking with you," she said. Her voice was cold, and there was a promise of death behind every word.

The goblin choked. "I, yeah, of course, I'm just..."

"He is no longer a matter," she continued. "I am your only matter. I am your only client. You will not see anyone else for the next week, or however long it takes for you to complete all these shells and false semblances. We need to be gone from the city. We need to be gone fast. Furthermore, we require safe houses, locations that even the highest powers in the Empire will not think to search."

"Define 'highest powers'," the goblin said. "I can hook you up if you're just dealing with the Guard, but things outside don't sound so good. From what I heard, even Harlock's all over the place. The capital's in lockdown. I mean, what the hell did you people do? Piss off one of the ascendants?"

Shiv and Adam looked at each other, and both of them snorted. "One of the ascendants," Shiv said with a grunt of bitter amusement. "Try all of them, goblin."

"Oh, is that a joke?"

"I wish," Shiv said. "But no, we got some serious heat coming down our ass. So, can you help or not?"

The goblin's expression grew pained. "Listen, lady, I... look, Legends, Heroes, I don't know what you guys are. I'm sympathetic to your problems, okay? I don't much like the authorities either. But the Ascendants? I might be a Heroic-Tier Forger, but I can't hide you from the divine. They'll take one look at you, analyze you, and all my hard work will go up like that. Snap! The shell will pop apart, and the semblance will break into itty-bitty pieces. Your real body and soul will slip out! It's just not possible."

"Then we've come to the wrong place, have we?" the Educator said, gripping the goblin's throat tighter. Custiel gave a keening wail of misery. He reached up and tried to pull the Educator's hand free, but where she was the avatar of a Forgotten Ascendant, he was but a Forger—Someone who masked souls and created false skins for people to wear.

"Perhaps another recommendation is in order," the Educator said. "Someone capable of rising to the occasion."

"I tell you, if I knew someone who could do that..." the goblin said, his fear finally crossing over to a point of desperate anger. "But there's no one better, no one better in the city right now. If you want to find an expert, a legend, then you can't do it here. You gotta go and wait. You gotta make an appointment with the Dragon Brokers and they'll send a specialist. If they think it's worth their time and if you have the mithril. But you kill me and they give you nothing. The Neath won't put up with this."

"The Neath will not know," the Educator said, her voice falling to a growl. "They'll just find your body with his weapon lodged inside of you." The Educator pointed towards Irons and Shiv realized her plan.

"Yeah, no, they won't," the Deathless said, folding his arms. The Educator's ire scythed away from the goblin and her hateful glare fell upon him once more. He rolled his eyes. He wasn't going to deal with this messy bullshit. "Look, you want to frame someone for the murder of someone else? Great, except I'm not good with that. And frankly, you're just making more of a mess for the rest of us. You gonna let her do this, Adam?"

The Gate Lord responded by forming a Veilpiercer and drawing moisture out of the air. Irons's eyes widened as he felt the Gate Lord's Hydromancy, saw his body turn fluid, turn into a churning mass of raging tides.

"You  will fight me for him," the Educator said, her voice colder than the winds of an unending winter.

"I don’t really know Irons, but Adam does," Shiv said casually. "And you’re not doing shit to Adam or anyone he cares about. That’s my position. Step over and we get bloody.”

"I'm trying to help you escape, you fool."

"You're trying to serve your interests and Udraal's. I know that I'm a part of that interest, but everyone else?" Shiv shrugged. "Maybe he wants Adam too? Gone, the Hydra, Irons, everyone? No, you don't care about them. Frankly, you care about me only as much as you want to use me. So that's what I'm going to propose right now." He took a few steps closer to the Educator. She didn't back away. She wasn't afraid of him, but with how she clutched her wand, she was wary. Her eyes jumped between him and Adam. She remembered what happened with the necromantic rift last time. She suspected she might have a counter, but traumatic injuries were traumatic injuries for a reason.

"Use you?" she said, her voice barely a whisper as she tried to control her frustration. "Use you how?"

"You let me talk to him," Shiv offered. "You stay off to the side. You take a breather, whatever it is you need. Paint in that tome, or I don't know, sketch. You're clearly not into this whole human interaction thing, so let me take a swing before you jump us into the murder and frame job solution."

Shiv and the Educator held their stare of mutual loathing for a few moments, but then the Ascendant known as Maia scoffed and she stormed away. "Do as you please then. Let's see if you can find us a way out. This one is useless and that one's just a witness. We will need to settle this in the end regardless." As she turned away and ripped the tome off her back, he heard her mumbling about how Udraal should have just let her paint everyone into her tome and mentally crippled the Deathless when he had the chance. Shiv wanted to spit at her feet while she retreated, but mustered a bit of self-control to bring the building animosity between them to an end.

"Alright," Shiv said, looking down at Custiel. The goblin was still terrified, but there was a slight hint of relief in his eyes now that he wasn't dealing with the Educator anymore. "Custiel, is it?" Shiv said. "You might be glad to know that the people in the wine cellar aren't dead."

Custiel blinked twice. "They're not? Oh, oh, okay. What do you want for them?"

"Don't want anything. They're currently just sleeping off a few bad knocks. We got people there. They're hiding out for now. But I want to know a few things. I want to know what services you can provide and what you'd recommend for us to do."

"Recommend?" the Educator laughed out loud. Her voice was a scornful hiss. "You're treating the goblin as a consultant now, are you?"

"Hey, how about you paint quietly?" Shiv guessed, with more than a little bark in his own words as well. "I'm gonna try to figure out what we can get by having an actual conversation instead of just spitting orders at this guy. You can shit-talk me if it fails, but for now, shut the fuck up and go back to your book." He turned away from her before he could get the stink eye again. The relationship between them likely wasn't going to last. Sooner or later, one of them would take the first swing, and after that, it would be on. With that in mind, Shiv decided that he wanted to be the one who took the first swing, and he wanted to be the one who got rid of the Educator instead of the other way around.

Not waiting to get my throat slit, the Deathless thought to himself.

"Alright, so I'm a forger, right? I can provide falsified aesthetics and a fake soul for you. Lets you get into certain places and do certain things you might not be able to in your everyday life." Custiel cocked his head in Irons's direction. "Did just that for that guy there. Made him a special identity. Malcolm Turner, a Hero Inquisitor. That shell and semblance were real pieces of art. Not many semblances and skins can get you into Flamecrown Castle, but that one did."

"It also broke apart," Irons said with a growl. "It broke apart when I ran into one of the ascendants."

The goblin threw up his hands. "Yeah, of course it did. They're divine. I told you there would be a limit!"

"No, you claimed that even if one of the Ascendants laid eyes upon my semblance, it would endure without suffering any harm at all."

"I was boasting!" the goblin shouted. "I was boasting. I was trying to sell my work. Don't you ever sell your work?"

"My work speaks for itself," Irons said, and the implication was clear. 

The goblin just scoffed. "Yeah, great. Killing a bunch of people is just the same as making a work of art. Totally."

"Alright, alright," Shiv said. "So you can't make a false semblance good enough to fool an ascendant, but you can make something that can let someone get past a Legend?"

"Sure," the goblin said, without a moment's hesitation. "That's easy. Legends, most of them don't have very good Awareness, let me tell you. And people with Legendary Awareness, they usually don't have good Legendary Analysis."

"Analysis? Most Legends are easy to fool. But what about the legends with the right tiered Analysis skill?" Adam asked.

"Well," the goblin coughed, "it'll survive the first glance, at least. I can tell you that much."

"Alright, so not a long-term solution for them either," Shiv said. "Will it work for the observers outside, though?"

"Yep," the goblin replied. "They're pretty easy. Sure, they got divination, but divination's pretty stupid if you know how it works. See, the system likes to tell people specific details, but it's real messy about how those details are delivered. And ultimately, the system wants you to fight each other, but it really doesn't specify how. A clash between a good disguise and an inquisitive eye is also a fight in the system's eyes. So, if I build the semblance a specific way? No problem. Not even a little."

"Alright, so how fast can you make a semblance?"

"I don't know, big guy. How fast can you make a piece of art. I mean, if you’re capable of making art.”

"Well, that really depends on what I'm cooking. Couple of hours, usually. I wouldn’t call what I’m doing now true art yet, but we’ll get there." Slowly, the goblin's gaze fell to the frying pan Shiv carried. 

Custiel clearly considered saying something cute but held himself back.

“Smart,” Shiv commented under his breath.

"Yeah, I save my own ass sometimes," the goblin muttered, self-deprecatingly. "Probably the only reason my ass is still alive after so long, really. Look, to answer your question, um... what's your Tier?"

"Legend," Shiv said casually.

"Legend?" the goblin choked. Irons narrowed his eyes; he didn't believe Shiv. It didn't matter. "Well, if you're not bullshitting me, that's gonna take, I don't know, a week to be complete?"

Both Shiv and Adam groaned.

“I’m not waiting around for a week,” Shiv sighed. “And we have a hell of a lot more than just one Legend that needs to be disguised.”

"What a pointless waste of time," the Educator snapped off in the corner. “He has the means. And if not him, then the Dragon Brokers can provide. This I know. Where is the Whistler? Speak, goblin!”

“Whistler? Wha—He’s dead, lady!”

“Dead? Since when?”

“Since Chestnut Hall got raided by a group of Inquisitors in the middle of the night. After Whistler decided to get a little cute about his working arrangements and start skimming some mith off by the side.” Custile sighed. “They arrested everyone else in the parlor but left his beaten corpse shackled to the bottom of the stair. Shackle had an insignia of a dragon on one end and the Republic’s emblem on the other.”

“Ah,” the Educator said softly. “A Neath sanction execution?”

“Neath-allowed,” Custiel said, shuddering. “The Dragon Brokers probably tipped the Inquisitors off. Just because you get to be a Legendary Forger doesn’t mean you’re good enough to be a free agent. Told the dumb bastard that so many times. But he never listened. Not once. Stupid shit…”

Shiv rubbed at his face. “Was that your main backup plan, Maia? The dead guy?”

“The Brokers must have another,” Maia said. “They owe me grand favors.”

“And you’ll get those grand favors paid once Harlock finally lifts his darkness, because no one is coming in or out without him noticing. Or the other Ascendants for that matter.” Custiel whimpered thereafter, clutching his head. “Oh, oh, this is bad. Lockdown. My business is going to be so felling jacked up. I need my meds too—how am I going to get the Ragiff now.”

“What?” Shiv said.

“It’s a drug,” Adam said. “Specifically for goblins that develop mana allergies. It’s grown specifically in Gate Hoidvest in Texas.”

The Deathless mulled over everything just said and stared at Adam. A few unspoken things went between them. Radio was still in Shiv’s cape. And if they were desperate, they could see if the orcs had any ideas too. On top of that, there was still Veronica and Udraal in play—but Shiv really didn’t want them to be involved in this final escape any more than they already were.

“Enough, goblin. Begin your work. Start by creating a shell and a semblance for the Deathless. You have a day.” The Educator was spitting commands again, and Shiv was all but certain she was degenerated from her own godhood as well. The way she spoke to everyone was like a strict headmaster to a pupil that wouldn’t listen.

"Hey, listen, do any of you know how hard it is to forge something? To create a perfect disguise for someone's soul without damaging their mana? To make them a proper physical shell that looks like it fits and moves in accordance with their biomechanics? No? Okay then, less complaining. And before you keep going, yeah, I meant what I said earlier. I'm your only choice. Now, unless you're willing to wait several months for a Legendary-Tier Forger to pop into the Republic—which probably isn't likely going to happen now since the capital's in lockdown—I'm the best you're gonna deal with."

"I suspect all Forgers might say that," Adam said. "What did you tell Captain Irons earlier, that you were 'boasting'?"

"Yeah, about my work, not about this. There's a reason you came to me, Irons, vouch for me!"

"Your semblance failed," Irons said from between clenched teeth.

"Yeah, 'cause you ran into someone that was too damn powerful!"

"See if he can do anything with some of that added help," Adam muttered to Shiv. “Show him the mask. If someone in the Neath can get that fixed, it will at least spare you from being noticed by everyone on the street when the system screams for them to kill you.”

"Yeah, I know." The Deathless hesitated before he pulled out another thing from his cape: his broken Mask of False Paths. He held it out to the goblin.

"What the hell's this?" Custiel asked.

"Just take it. You might know what it can do once you see the notification pop up."

The goblin did, though he accepted the mask's pieces apprehensively. A second passed, and the goblin's breath hitched in his throat. "Holy shit. Perfect Semblance? Do you have any idea how rare this thing is? Heroic-Tier." The goblin smacked his lips together. He pressed the broken halves of the mask and aligned the cracks along the middle. "Still won't be strong enough to survive an Ascendant or someone divine, but this thing will give you a free pass against practically anyone who isn't a god."

And that’s not too bad, since the Educator’s tome can help us blend in. Cripple’s also here too, so we have some cover from the others at least. Still doesn’t solve the problem of escaping the Republic entirely, though. And we need to get out. We need to find Blackedge again.

"Right," Shiv said. "You know anyone that can fix it?"

The goblin paused. "Well, maybe. But we don't really work for free, if you catch my drift. And I might be forgetting a few things from all the mistreatment I've suffered so far."

"The goblin thinks he suffered mistreatment?" the Educator snapped. "He doesn't know what mistreatment is."

"Ignore her," Shiv said. "Say we can pay for it. Say we have mithril or a way to pay. How fast can they fix the mask? And, uh, can any living arrangements be made in the meantime?"

"Hell, everything's possible through the Neath, but the entire Ascendancy coming after you? That's a pretty big bill for you to foot. Not saying it's impossible, though." In fact, a slow smile crawled across the goblin's face, and he started looking at Irons once more. "I think everyone in this room can help each other a bit." 

As the goblin smiled, the captain frowned.

"How's that?" Shiv asked.

“Well. Fixing this thing is going to take a Heroic-Tier Crafter and a Heroic-Tier Enchanter to make sure everything works right. And if you’re just looking for a way out of the city, I might got an idea.”

Both Shiv and Adam leaned in. “Right. We’re listening,” the Deathless said.

“Well. There are two people known to provide circumspect services at a certain Academy…”

Adam flinched. 

Irons sighed. “Hero-Smith Concelhaunt and Hero-Enchanter Merrielmel?”

The goblin laughed. “Familiar with them, are we?”

“I always did think they lived a little too lavishly. Even for nobility. Even if they are tenured.”

Custiel grinned. “Yeah. Well. I heard they’re working on a project too. See, they contacted me about finding people desperate enough to be subjects in a new project of theirs. Something about making a device that will let someone briefly slip to, uh, some place Outside before dipping back into reality as a means of travel, if you catch my drift. Good, High-Tier warriors that are desperate at that. Their last batch didn’t quite make it back.”

Shiv and Adam looked at each other once more. The Gate Lord shuddered. The Deathless felt a sense of wariness and hope flicker inside him.

“Listen,” Custiel said, holding up his hands. “I can make a few arrangements. You let me go, we head outside like reasonable adults and discuss this, and I might be able to get you all to the academy. City might be under lockdown, but there are still plenty of ways to get around inside. And the capital’s a big place.”

Shiv breathed and nodded. “Well. I did always want to go to an academy. Irons? Is school still in session?”

“It’s… what, the end of week three?” Adam said.

“Too late for me to get enrolled?” Shiv asked jokingly.

“Not unless you steal the identity of some poor, dead student with your repaired mask,” Adam chuckled. They both fell silent after. Their mirth faded. The idea stayed. “Say. Captain. Have there been any… unfortunate fatalities so far?”

For the first time, Captain Irons’s face tightened with discomfort.