V-3 Morsel (II)

The system has a plan, and it is one of statistically maximized chaos. Never is this plan more evident than when someone gets an equipment reward from a successful quest. To put things plainly, the system remembers everything that you do, but more than your successes, it remembers your failures, it remembers your limitations, and it plays with them.

I recall the first time I gained a piece of Heroic-Tier equipment. It was relatively early on in my life, after I murdered my mother. I had collapsed a mana core in a gate that had enslaved me. While the gate came apart, the magic that powered it filled my hand, and when I emerged on the other side, I found myself bestowed an invisible blade that shredded mana and caused bodies to combust violently with every cut. 

It bestowed this upon me because my offensive capabilities were limited, and also the threat I faced after escaping from the gate prison was beyond the reach of my skills.

But that is the thing about equipment. It makes you more of who you were, and it makes you more than who you were. We craft tools to build upon our shortcomings, and the system does the same for us. And after you're past that precipice, it will throw you at something else until you fail again. And if you somehow find a way to survive, it will remember that, and it will give you another reward to extend the time you spend at war. For if you cannot war, your death looms.

Know this, that every time your hand is filled with the weight of a weapon, it is a promise from the system that it must be used. 

There are no free gifts granted. Feel the weight. Swing the blade. Steal more time.

-Valor Thann

V-3

Morsel (II)

With pan in hand, anything Shiv fixated on for more than a few seconds turned solid. His own shadow became a paper-thin material. It was like he was using a blade to carve pieces free from seaweed. The edges of the shadow parted and were lit by glinting colors of red and gold, the same colors that edged the rim of Shiv's Last Morsel. As he plucked the pieces of shadow up, he showed them to Adam, and the thin slices shivered between his fingers.

The Gate Lord blinked. "Did you just slice a bit of your own shadow off?"

Shiv looked down and saw that the rest of his shadow was still there. Whatever he cut, it didn't seem to take from anything permanently, or at least not noticeably.

"Yup," Shiv said. The grin on his face only grew wider. He didn't fully grasp the implications of his new weapon, but so far it was proving to be something spectacular, something wonderful.

"How is it doing that?" Adam asked, his bafflement growing with every passing second. The orcs had grown close again, encircling Shiv as they realized a fight wasn't about to happen, but something else was transpiring.

The Deathless stuck the slices of shadow into the center of his pan, and once more the blackness radiated with hunger. The air whistled, it drew in breaths, and Shiv knew what it was looking for this time. He summoned flames in his hand and slowly dismembered the very tip of the dancing mote. It fell free like a scoop of wasabi. The fiery substance was still crackling, but it was ultimately solidified. Shiv pinched it between his fingers and flicked it into the pan as well.

Just then a lid slammed down. Adam and the orcs were unprepared, as was the Educator. All of them flinched back. Some of them went for their weapons, and the Educator whipped out her brush. Yet Shiv remained impassive. His eyes narrowed underneath his shredded helmet, and he watched and waited, wondering what was about to emerge from his new weapon.

Four seconds passed, and the lid dissipated in a spray of flaking color. From the inside, Shiv plucked out a new meal. The texture was black and grainy. If he had to describe it, it would be as if wrapping lentils or beans in a layer of seaweed. The grains that composed the meal were so fine that it was practically powder, not even sand. Slowly, Shiv gripped a few of the grains and retracted his helmet. He put it in his mouth and chewed.

Cooking in Progress: 4 Seconds

Adam's jaw dropped open wide. "Shiv, I'm not sure if..."

Cook the Uncookable Activated

Orichalcum Resistance Obtained

Shadowshape Obtained

The Deathless gained several benefits. The first was that his body flared with the colors of Orichalcum; he'd sliced a piece from the doorframe earlier, and the durability enhancement came upon him once more. Aside from that, however, his body turned black and then grew intangible. The dimensions of his form flattened.  All sense of weight faded from him. As he became a twin to his own shadow—a splash of darkness gliding across the world. Shiv brushed through Adam without ever coming in contact with his friend. He was like a moving shade cast by something high above.

While he was in this state, he learned various things. The first was that whatever he ate, he took on the qualities of. Even though he had consumed Orichalcum, the shadow's weak qualities took precedence. It meant that his durability didn't matter so much, since he was a thing of ambulatory darkness. After about ten seconds, the effect came to an end. The shadows lifted from Shiv's shoulders, and he became himself once more.

Looking at the people around him, he began to chuckle. "Alright, so I can cut that too. I think I'll do a little bit more experimenting. But right now, I think we have a way to get out into the magma without being harmed, and a way to go unnoticed. Darkness doesn't make any sound. Yeah… This’ll be good for our stealth.”

Shiv's mind spun. There was practically no limit to what he could cook with this pan if he could slice bits of darkness away. It could also affect mana. So, what did that mean? I could cut Chronomancy, Shiv realized. I could cook a bunch of things together.

“I… This is bullshit,” Adam whispered.

"Alright, alright, wait." Shiv erupted into a flurry of motion. No one spoke during this fey period. Adam just stared on, utterly speechless. The Educator narrowed her eyes at Shiv's new weapon, and her haughtiness was replaced by a building hint of wariness.

In that time, Shiv cut a great many things. He carved more pieces of shadow away from every patch of darkness he could find, and as he stuffed more things into his pan, it grew heavier and heavier. Then he activated his temporal shell and began peeling slices from that as well. For the first time, he felt the effects of the cuts; it reduced how much time he could sustain while in the Strider state, but that was fine. He was going to make a grand meal for everyone. 

He carved away all of his Chronomantic field and filled the pan with it as well. And just then, he began channeling a stream of fire into the pan. As he did, he looked around. "Mortar! I need your pyromancy. Pour some heat into this."

The large orc obliged. A ball of flame erupted free from the cannon on his back, and it splashed into Shiv's frying pan as well. After that, the lid formed, slamming shut, and this time Shiv saw a new timer start ticking down. With the sheer amount of ingredients he filled the frying pan with, the countdown to the finished meal lasted for a full three minutes.

Cooking in Progress: 3 Minutes

The Chef Unwavering 63 > 64

Three minutes, Shiv thought to himself. When it took four seconds to cook something, I had about ten seconds to enjoy the effects of the meal. Maybe the conversion rate will remain the same if the time is longer as well. Only one way to find out.

During that time, Shiv examined his frying pan. It glowed ever brighter with every piece of ingredient he placed inside of it, and ever heavier as well. He wondered if that was the Bash the Unbashable skill. He guessed that after a certain point, should he fill the pan with so much stuff, it might be as heavy as a small mountain, and he could use that to crack the head of almost any adversary. 

Shiv also wondered if he could potentially cook a piece of a hydra. If he could do that, then maybe he would gain an instantaneous regeneration capability. Or, better yet, a fragment of the Tarrasque's crystalline shell. The possibilities were… well, they were literally limitless. Anything was an ingredient with this thing in his hand. Anything.

But right now, he was doing things in the crudest way possible. He didn't have a full cooking station. This thing was an all-in-one frying pan, but there were far more ways to prepare a meal, and so Shiv began to consider how he could rely on his The Chef Unwavering skill even more.

Just then, the lid burst apart, and Shiv's eyes widened as his pan expanded in size. Previously, it was the width of his head. Now, it swelled to the girth of his torso, with the meal fully prepared. The darkness radiating from the pan grew more intense as well, and so long as it remained filled with the food, the weight and intensity remained.

Cook the Uncookable Activated

Once more, Shiv reached down inside. Instead of it being a powdery substance, it was like a mess of meatballs. Shiv shoved one in his mouth, and then another. Soon, he burst into blackened steam, and he remained in that state for a near minute after. However, since the pan was bound to his soul, it went with him into that shadowy state, and he couldn't feed the others his newly finished meal. The currents of the present glided around Shiv and kept him rooted to the passage of time, and rippling waves of Chronology bled off him.

Orichalcum Resistance Obtained

Shadowshape Obtained

Temporal Stabilization Obtained

As the minute ended, and he re-emerged, Shiv held out the pan to everyone else.

"Alright, I got a new plan. It's called, we're going to cook the magma and the darkness and time itself so that we can swim out of this place without the avatars or Ascendants ever getting close to us.”

For a long beat, Adam continued staring at Shiv, his eyes darting between his friend and the impossible frying pan he gained from collapsing the mana core. A whistling sigh escaped from Adam. "There's just one problem with that, Shiv. As astonishing and utterly strange as your new pan is, how are we going to feed that to Can Hu?"

Shiv considered that. He wanted to come up with a response, but he winced as he realized that was a limitation. Bots usually didn't savor food the same way people did, but Can Hu wasn't any ordinary bot. It had a tasting apparatus. Slowly, Shiv walked over to Can Hu, observing his friend's damaged body.

"Hey, you alright, Penitent?" Shiv said softly.

Can Hu lifted his head. One of his optics was cracked, but the other came to light with a vibrant green glow. "I remain half-barreled, Shiv. What is this? What are you—" And then Can Hu trailed off as well, startled by the sudden appearance of a pan in his face. “Is that a cooking utensil?”

"Dip your tasting apparatus into one of these here shadow orichalcum meatballs. I want to see if it takes effect for you."

The Penitent stiffened, but rather than interrogating Shiv about why or for what reason it had to serve as a taste tester, it did as he requested. An extending rod shot out from the underside of Can Hu's machine skull, and it pierced Shiv's meal. In an instant, Can Hu burst into flickering motes of shadow, and the Deathless pumped a fist high up into the air. "It works! Yes! If they can taste it, it works!"

While Can Hu remained black mist, it splashed down onto the ground, unable to remain in contact with the two path-bearers holding it up. In an instant, a stampede of orcs surrounded Shiv, and they all leaned in close, leering at the food.

"I think I want to go next!" one of the orcs mumbled.

Tequila narrowed his eyes at the pan. "Does it take alcohol as well? What might that do?"

Though these were good questions, Shiv looked between their massive bodies and saw the Educator frowning at them. A burst of intuition took hold of his mind, and the Deathless just sneered as he guessed why she was so displeased. "Hey Educator, I'm sorry that I ruined your plan."

"Plan?" she said, a hint of annoyance lingering on the edge of her voice.

"Yeah," Shiv continued pressing. He slipped between the orcs and came to stand face to face with his old enemy. "I'm pretty sure you would have planned to paint us into a book or something, and taken us out that way."

The twitch in the corner of her lip told him he was right. "Don't be absurd," she lied nakedly. "I know you would have never taken that arrangement."

"Yeah, you know a lot of things, don't you?" Shiv muttered. "A lot about the ascendants and a lot about Udraal, but maybe not enough about me. How are your burns, by the way?"

Though she tried not to show it, Shiv could tell she really, really didn't like him. A small piece of her nose also turned to glass as Sticks and Stones did its work. "They healed. A lesser Pathbearer might find soul wounds debilitating, but a proper power has means of resolving such things."

"Oh, that's good. I'm real proud of you." He held up his pan. "If you don't have your own way out of this prison, I have a bit of charity for you."

Her lip twisted in absolute disgust, but she didn't reject his offer outright. "Udraal told me you were obstinate."

At the mention of his maker's name, the burning joy inside Shiv sputtered as if someone had poured a glass of fetid swamp water over it. "Udraal doesn't know me very well. And just to be clear, you intervening doesn't change anything. I got my eye on you, Educator. You keep your distance, and whatever you do, you state it plainly and openly. If I don't know what you're doing, Adam's got an arrow, and I got means of ripping you apart. You keep that brush pointed away from us, and I’ll keep using this pan for cooking instead of burying it inside your skull.”

The Educator rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't be daft, boy. If I was going to hurt you, I would have already painted the rest of them away. No, right now, my duty is to see us all freed from this prison. Now that the annoying part is done, we begin our grand escape. And it is not I that I want you to feed. No, there is a more effective option.”

"And what's that?" shiv asked.

Suddenly, she swung her tome around. Adam drew his arm back and prepared a Veilpiercer. Shiv dashed forward and prepared for a fight, holding his pan high and prepared to bring it down on the Educator's face. But just then, the chains binding her tome snapped open, ringing shrapnel filled the air. They began to orbit around the Educator rather than striking anyone nearby, and from the flipping pages, Shiv caught sight of a familiar figure: a hydra, with many crowns adorning its many heads. It was struggling, writhing on the paper, and with a flourish of her brush, Solzimort was set free, crashing into reality with a spray of vibrant inks.

"Oh, oh man!" Solzimort gasped. The Hydra's many heads gagged and writhed on the ground, pointing in different directions, spasming as if someone blessed with dry land after nearly drowning in the deep. "Too cramped! Too cramped! Couldn't absorb the material, too cramped."

She glared at Shiv and gave him an indifferent look. "What? If you feed this to him, he will turn to darkness, and the rest of us can be fused with his body. That is far more efficient than feeding everyone."

No, she was right. But also, simply painting Solzimort into one of her pages was an ugly sign. Whatever he could say about the Educator, he could never trust her, not as long as she was so casual in her acts of enslavement.

"Hey," Shiv said, patting one of Solzimort's heads. “You’re fine. You’re fine now. Not letting her put you back in.”

The hydra slowly calmed, looking around and taking in the orcs. "We should be off soon," the Educator replied. "Gather the magma and other ingredients you need. Feed the Hydra after it absorbs you. After that, there is a place in the capital we must go. It will lead us out of the city—and toward our shared destination.”

“Our shared destination?” Adam said. “And what is that? What makes you think we’re going anywhere with you?”

“Because I can spare you the attention of the Ascendants,” the Educator scoffed. She turned to look at Shiv, and he saw a pulsing glow, an incandescence radiating from her tome. "They do not recall who I am. They cannot find us so long as I am in your vicinity. Their all-seeing gazes will not be so all-seeing. But I suspect they will also be distracted by other matters."

She made the other matters known by flipping through her tome again. On the pages, he saw Rebis, still clad in Adam's Legendary-Tier armor, clutching the Gate Lord's arrow, armed with his gauntlet, and even with the scepter water wand left beside his body. 

The mutilated prisoner was laying face down on the ground, and through the gaps in Adam's helmet, Shiv grimaced internally as he saw just how badly he had wounded Enoch's special avatar. Part of Rebis's face had been completely caved in. It was a brutal wound, exposing gaps of inner tissue fused with wiring and silicone rods. 

On the page right beside Rebis was another prisoner Shiv recognized: Threshhold. Another one of Udaral's so-called experiments. As Crevice, her body glistened at the center of the page, and even upon paper he could see the mana seeping out from the portal that constituted Threshhold's form. Just like Rebus, the power bound to Threshhold remained evident, but they were a prisoner trapped within the Tome.

"See, you're just going around and collecting people for Udraal," Shiv deadpanned. "It's a hell of a thing going from a god to someone doing errands for an Abyssal Lord."

"Errands?" the Educator deadpanned. "Is that what you think this is? No, this is simply gathering valuable resources permitted by an unexpected occurrence. Now, if we are to leave, and if I am to ensure the success of our mutually-interested endeavor, I suggest that you begin cooking again and feed our associate here his due course. That shall be your errand, I suppose.”

A loud whimper came from Solzimort, and as the large hydra shuddered from claustrophobia, Adam comforted him. "There, there," Adam said with a sigh, glaring at the Educator. "You're all right now. We'll make sure you don't go back into the tome."

"I won't. I won't. It's really, really tight," Solzimort moaned. "Why? Why'd you do that? I was just trying to be friendly, and then she came out of nowhere and painted me."

"That's because she's a bastard woman, just like all the other Ascendants."

"Not so much like the other Ascendants," the Educator said under her breath. "After all, some of us know there are only a few ways to escape degeneration, and some of us succeed more than the others. And right now, you should feel privileged to be in my presence. How else do you think you have avoided the notice of the avatars for so long? They would have found you immediately after the blast without me. Especially with how one of them is so desperate to reclaim their delicate vessel.”

And that was a veiled insult directed at Enoch. Shiv shook his head and proceeded to the task. They were another step closer to completing this escape, but they were also a step deeper into treacherous territory. 

Yet, despite the Educator's presence, Shiv still had a final trick up his sleeve, for within his cape was Radio, Cripple's reserve avatar. For all the posturing the Educator was doing right now, she didn’t know about Radio or Shiv’s deal with Veronica. If the Educator wished to  do anything untoward, she would find herself facing a bit more than she bargained for.

But invoking the Ascendants was an ugly choice for everyone involved. He felt like he was currently at the bottom of a valley, but both cliffs above him were caving in and pressing against each other. He needed to move carefully, or the slightest misstep could cause one side to grow entirely imbalanced and bury him in a crushing avalanche.

Shiv prepared a new meal, this time incorporating bits of shadow, harvested chunks of magma, and a heavy dose of Chronomancy as well. As he finished cooking the meal, he held it out in front of Solzimort, and the entire pan swelled to the size of a small shack. The hydra's twelve heads circled around the pan, and Solzimort sniffled. "It smells... it doesn't smell too bad, but I don't think I've ever seen someone cook magma before. Won't it burn me?"

"Didn't burn me earlier. You're pretty big, so I don't think it'll hurt you."

"Are you sure?" Solzimort said. By this point, Shiv had a feeling that this Hydra had generalized anxiety problems. 

Psycho-Cartography: There's also something wrong with him, and I don't mean the anxiety. He's a legend, and legends usually have to be extraordinary. Right now, this hydra seems to be childlike. Keep an eye on him as well. He might be another one of Cripple's agents. The Ascendant isn't the deceptive type, but after so long spent among a pack of wolves, even a sheepdog would revert to their baser nature.

Shiv made eye contact with Five then, and noticed how the wolf-man was staring at the hydra suspiciously as well. Both of them shared a slight nod. More allies; more questions.

The bravest of Solzimort's heads dipped down and scooped a mouthful of fist-sized beads of dark-gold color as he prepared to swallow. Shiv hissed and held out a hand. "Wait, Solzimort, don't swallow yet. Absorb us first. We’re going out with you.”

And suddenly, the hydra was smiling, its lips curled wide. "Oh, finally. Trust me, this will be safer for all of us. Goblin! Can you make me go fast again?”

Gone gave a quiet sigh. “Sure. All my good for, I guess.”

Shiv wasn't entirely certain about that, but he was more than tired of this prison, and he would let Solzimort do any number of things to him if that meant they were going to get away. As he pressed his hand against Solzimort, he felt his flesh fuse with the hydra's. He was dragged through the scales in an instant, but rather than being entwined with Solzimort's biology, he was simply placed in a strange pocket. It was like being glued to the hydra's spirit somehow, rather than meshed into its body. 

Shiv also discovered why all the trapped wardens were struggling earlier. It was hard to breathe inside Solzimort. The Hydra was most definitely wrong about why the wardens were kept alive. Its spirit was keeping them nourished, keeping them sustained. And soon the space around Shiv grew cramped as more orcs filled the small pocket.

"Shiv," Adam said. The Deathless turned as much as he could and found his friend right behind him. Their heads stuck out from the corner of Solzimort's lip like skin tags, and dozens of orcs were meshed with the still-moaning mounds of trapped wardens along the rest of the hydra’s body.

At the same time, Solzimort let out a loud, groaning sound. "Could I swallow now?" Solzimort said with a tongue full of unchewed food.

"Yeah," Shiv said. "You can swallow now. What, Adam?"

"When you got your frying pan, was there... was there anything else?"

Shiv paused for a moment. "Nope. I think it consumed my Orichalcum dagger. But, uh, no. Just this."

The Gate Lord stared. The stare grew intense enough to burn a hole in Shiv's head. "Oh, you're feeling jealous?"

"Jealous? Jealous is not a strong enough word, Shiv. I nearly died several times over in that fight. I was practically the only reason we succeeded by the end.”

"And who broke the mana core?”

“And who allowed that to be possible in the first place! I literally gave you the skills to make that possible," Adam seethed.

"And I thank you for it. Someday, I think I'm going to name the main course after you," Shiv frowned mockingly. "Or maybe, you know, a side dish seems more appropriate. Wait, no, a main course I’ll call the Side Dish. I’m generous that way. But hey, at least you got your armor back."

Adam kept glaring at him until they promptly flattened along with the rest of Solzimort’s body into a veil of quivering shadows. "Oh, this is really, really weird," Solzimort said aloud. He drew his altered body back and launched himself at a nearby wall. “Welp! Out of here we go! Up into the burny-stuff!”

Shiv tried to find where the Educator was. He realized she was absent. Missing. But something told him that she probably wasn't far at all. No, he thought to himself. She managed to ambush Adam and the rest of us by jumping into his Awareness. Right now, she's probably taking a piggyback ride in either my senses or his. The Deathless's paranoia triggered. He cast his Psychomancy out to his friend.

"Hey, Adam."

"Yes, I get it. Your special boy," Adam said, with a snarl of annoyance. “No need to keep rubbing it in—”

"No, not that. We're probably carrying the Educator with us. She’s in our Awareness. I’m almost sure of it.”

Adam's thoughts came to a standstill. Any heat of playful anger faded as a rising dread spiked. He remembered how the Educator ambushed them earlier as well, back in Gate Theborn. "How long do you think she's been with us?" Adam asked.

"I don't know," Shiv replied. "But since she's working with Udraal, she might have hopped into us from the very beginning… Wait, no. She doesn’t know about Radio. Or Veronica.”

"Then it's more likely she's clinging to my Awareness," Adam said, slightly sour.

"I suspect that might be right," Shiv grunted. "So what do we do with her? Aside from kill her the first chance we get.”

"Nothing yet. We observe, and we try to figure out what she can and can't do. So far, she isn't as strong as Veronica, though. The councilwoman managed to stop your soul from going off. That set the Educator’s tome on fire. But it might not be a strategy that can work twice, especially since she's had a chance to plan for us now."

"Well, worst case scenario, we bring out Radio and use Cripple against her, but I'm not exactly fond of that idea."

"Me neither," Adam said. "I'd like to leave the prison before we're forced to invoke the people trying to keep us here."

"Alright," Solzimort said, his voice naked with worry and came muffled through the slurry of matter it rushed through. "So I can go out and do the burning stuff outside now, right? Right? Are you sure?”

"Yeah," Shiv said. "You'll be fine. Just keep going up and get out the volcano. After that…”

“After that I will give the directions,” the Educator’s voice echoed in the air.

The hydra shuddered. “But I don’t like you…”

“We don’t like her either,” Shiv said. “So maybe she might wanna explain why we’re going to listen to her?”

“Because if you don’t, you won’t be able to reach the rest of your companions at Blackedge in time.”

“In time for what?” Adam growled.

“In time for several things. To stop the Outside from claiming the town entirely. To halt the Ascendants from tracking and capturing the town to use as hostages and force you two to surrender.”

Neither Shiv nor Adam said anything for a beat. “Play along for now, or force a fight as soon as we get out?” The Deathless asked Adam

“Play along. But only for now.” Adam said, adding heavy emphasis to his final few words. “Udraal’s not going to be easy to avoid, and though I don’t trust her in the slightest, I want her nearby, if only to figure out her larger strategy.”

“Fine,” Shiv said with a snort. “Solzimort. Go along with the bastard woman.”

"Okay," Solzimort said. And with a deep shudder, he accelerated. A rush of golden lightning coursed within the darkness. Shiv couldn’t see the colors, but he could feel the Chronomancy—hear Gone vibrating somewhere. From the outside, however, they were just a splash of blackness shifting through the world. 

The hydra phased through countless walls, and they were gliding through a slurry of messy material in an instant. Shiv flinched as he saw a mess of orcs and wardens flow through him. Most of them were unmoving. The devastation of the mana core had left them trapped within the mangled architecture, and so they likely suffocated, or were simply pulped and bled to death internally.

"You know, just once I'd like to walk away from a fight without mass casualties," Shiv commented.

"It's bad, but I think we're improving," Adam said, though there was a faint sourness to his tone as well. "It's better than what happened to Blackedge and also what happened to Theborn."

Both of them fell silent thereafter. The system demanded strife, and with strife came the loss of life. Shiv was getting very, very tired of watching so many people die.

With a final thrust of motion, the hydra burst through the outer wall of the interconnected cubes, and then it was in a deep sea of searing light. It glided from place to place like a patch of coiling darkness, hard to notice due to the oscillating waves of crashing magma. All around them, separate pieces from the Rubix Well crashed and tumbled in the depths of the supervolcano, as if pieces spewed out from the hulls of dying ships. Dense gears and heavy chunks of cube-wall sank down while pieces of plastic and certain Pathbearer rose up in the dense slurry of magma.

Though the Pathbearers didn’t seem to be burning, they struggled with every kick and paw. Magma wasn’t water. Magma was like searing hot mud—not good to swim in at all.

Comparatively, Solzimort was a mess of flattened darkness—and he darted through the magma without suffering issues from heat or viscosity, and would remain in this shadow-shaped state for a good few minutes longer. “Hey, this actually feels pretty good.”

Spell patterns flared above. Massive swells of Divination, Chronomancy, and Dimensionality rained down from a huge hexagonal mana construct that resembled some kind of interlocking gate. Shiv caught sight of it between all the drifting detritus, and felt his heartbeat pick up. The Ascendants were looking for them; were scouring the wrecks to secure their most valuable prisoners.

But Shiv and the others weren’t the only prisoners of interest. Massive forms surged through the depths. One seemed to be a colossal worm of some kind that unleashed a storm of telepathic power around itself. It released lashing bolts of psionic power at the magical gate and shredded pieces away from it.

Okay. Psychomancy and Magical Resistance mixed in together, Shiv realized. Wait? Is that the psionic presence I encountered when I first fled into the crawlspace?

He was then distracted by a few dozen other bodies ripping past them. Prisoners of all kinds were surging through the magma, and they were coated in violet energies—traced by Divination.

“Looks like we’re not the only ones making a run for it,” Shiv said.

“No. We’re among the most subtle. But not nearly the stealthiest either.” Adam noticed a few things Shiv didn’t, and the Deathless only realized that while bound to his friend’s mind. There were distortions in the magma. Disturbances. Some prisoners had blended into the heat with Stealth-Pyromancy Skill Fusions. Others were outright invisible. “Whatever the case, the Ascendants will have their hands full soon. If I were them, I would lock the entirety of the capital down by whatever means possible, and have the Prismatic Guard positioned at the top and along the sides of the supervolcano. Underground too.”

“So. No way out but through, huh?”

“Yes. But for the other prisoners. Not us.” Adam cleared his throat. “Solzimort?”

“Yeah?” The hydra said, sounding slightly nervous.

“Go through the walls of the volcano. But stop before you pass all the way through. We’re going to wait.”

“Huh?” Solzimort asked. “For what?”

“For some other poor fool to get into a fight with the Prismatic Guard. When they do, move flat across the ground. We’re going to blend in with the shadows.”