IV-13 Breakout

It is a universal truth that every Marital-Pathbearer has imagined themselves breaking free from prison at least once—if only for the novelty of doing so.

As someone who has escaped from multiple prisons, dungeons, and slaughterhouses, I strongly recommend against making this a common thing in your life as the prelude to breaking out usually involves some amount of capture—and potentially torture if you are unlucky. Even in the situations where you are deliberately trying to be placed in prison, you will suffer some harm, and that often marks you deeper than you think.

Such is where the fantasy dies and the true task of escape begins.

No prison is the same. I have been inside many. Some are easy to break free, made from stone walls and guarded by feeble Adepts. Others are built personalized. I have departed no less than twelve dungeons designed specifically to cage me and only me. Breaking free were ordeals like no other. But I also rose from them greater than ever before.

The main thing that will aid you in escape is breadth and depth. The more simplistic and straightforward your skills, the more vulnerable you are to containment. A Legendary Physicality is tremendous for many things, but if you are locked in a sphere of shifting Dimensionality with not point of leverage, how shall you break free?

That is the question. You must understand your cage—and master it well.

And if there are other prisoners present, it is best to recruit them as well.

If nothing else, you will be able to learn the prison’s flaws from their failures.

-Valor Thann

IV-13
Breakout

It took six accumulated ripples for Shiv to finally peel the Orichalcum wall open. Once that was done, the insides of the crawlspace were revealed to the wolf-man and the Rebis. Shiv stepped aside and let out a breath. His muscles ached, but as another pulse of force vectors washed through him, his strength began to return and grow.

"All right," Shiv said. "There you go. You wanted to take a look at the mithril supports." He quickly glanced around, preparing to leave context if the Ascendant showed up. Cripple remained absent, still handling the other Legendary-Tier prisoners.

While the Rebis twitched and shuddered, muttering things about not wanting to go back into the hole again, the wolf-man's mouth was slightly agape. He shot Shiv a look, and an awe-struck gleam lit his onyx eyes. "You are not lying, friend. You are a Legendary-Tier in terms of strength. But that skill disrupted some of the magic as well. What is that skill?”

“Something most people won’t ever get to have,” Shiv replied.

The wolf-man gestured, and one of his drones whirled through the air. It pointed its crossbow at the nearest Orichalcum support, and Shiv noticed how some of the spell patterns infused within it had been severed along the middle. They bled mana into the air, like blood seeping out from a slit branch of veins, and Shiv wrinkled his nose. He resolved to be more controlled next time.

“This must be a blend of Physicality and Magical Resistance,” the wolf-man muttered. “An odd fusion.”

"Let's just say all the bad experiences I had with magic built up to a point of no return."

"And I am all the gladder for it," the wolf-man declared. "This is a skill that will aid us well." He took two steps closer to the mithril beam, and his drone's crossbow suddenly projected a beam of light.

Shiv narrowed his eyes as he observed the wolf-man's construct. It flapped its wings quickly, and flowing circuitry of mana danced along its chassis, infusing it with several mana types. Shiv counted the translucence of Psychomancy, the dense, rippling gravity that was common with Dynamancy, and the electricity that pulsed in sparks with the art of Aeromancy. The wolf-man was an accomplished mage. More than that, he was likely a magical engineer on top of that.

While the wolf-man examined the magic flowing through the mithril, Shiv studied him more closely. The automaton skulls lining the wolf-man's back were all well-preserved. Their optics were on, but they said nothing. Shiv listened quietly and heard the faint hum of electricity passing through each of the skulls into the wolf-man's armor. 

And then all of a sudden, electricity sparked out from their eyes. A flash of forking bolts extended from each of the automatons as they let out a unifying drone. Shiv wasn't sure if the mechanical life forms were screaming, if they were still alive at all. But something told him that they were serving as conductors for one of the wolf-man's skills. The lupine prisoner had his hand against the mithril now, and a flowing chain of spells danced along his arms and down the length of his spine. 

Soon, the spell patterns were circulating through each of the automaton's skulls. And as they flowed back into the mithril column, they came changed. They returned changed somehow, with several spell shapes altered, and new extensions added to the overall pattern. Even the part that Shiv accidentally split earlier had been repaired.

"What are you doing?" Shiv asked.

"I'm trying to analyze the spells infused within the overall architecture," the wolf-man said. "Now, please give me a moment. Talking is distracting."

Shiv kept silent, but he turned his attention on the Rebis. He studied the horrific amalgam of man and automaton from the corner of his left eye and found the Rebis glaring straight at his face. It might have had a problem with other people looking at it, but it clearly didn't hold itself to the same standards with how intensely it was glaring at Shiv's forehead. 

The Deathless could see his own reflection along the middle half of the Rebis's face, and the experimental life form's human side was doing something between a grimace and a snarl. Shiv couldn't fully read its expressions, but it seemed past the border of madness, as if it was always trying to capture where its thoughts were going, trying to catch up to what it was actually thinking in the moment.

"I am sorry," the Rebis forced out. Its voice was a sibilant whisper, and it ended with the faint hint of electronic distortion. Shiv almost looked at its eyes but caught himself before he could make that mistake. He offered it an understanding nod.

"What about? You haven't done anything wrong to me."

"I pointed my wing. At you." The Rebis shook. It’s words were fragmented. Its human side twitched, and it clenched its remaining teeth together. "That was rude, but you surprised me. I don't like to be surprised–surprised… surprised don’t do it.”

"Eh, neither do I," Shiv agreed. "So I can't blame you, especially considering our circumstances." His instincts and Psycho-Cartography guided him, commanded him to say the following words to scout out the Rebis’s deeper nature. "We're both in the same hellhole anyway. If I can't understand you, who can?"

The Rebis didn't say anything at that. Instead, it stared even harder at Shiv before finally looking away. Its movements were abrupt, as if it lost track of what its body was doing every few seconds. And with every motion it made, a flash of pain danced across its face. It might be because its human brain is partially fused with an automaton's processing system, Shiv guessed. He wasn't that versed in Practical Metabiology yet. But one thing he'd learn about most organic structures was that it was hellishly complex, with a great deal of variability between each individual, down to the cellular level. 

Shiv wouldn't know how to begin melding flesh with metal. Maybe if one was a vampire, and they had a Lineage Core to help cheat the harder parts, they could do it. But the odds of transplant rejection were far too high, along with the constant danger of infection. Somehow the Republic had managed with the Rebis, but they clearly didn't succeed all the way. 

Once again, Shiv found himself wondering what this poor bastard did to deserve this fate. Or what these poor bastards did, he thought. The Rebis had been two Pathbearers before, after all. At least that was what the vampire had claimed.

"I got it," the wolf-man declared. He took a few steps back and held up a hand. Atop his palm was a swirling, eight-shaped pattern of Dimensionality. Shiv observed the pattern in detail and saw very specific symbols lining its length, and what looked to be a faint map of lines and dense clumps of mana forming micro constellations in between. "All right," the wolf-man breathed. "Time to go through a few things."

First, he held up the dimensional spell he stole from the mithril pillar. "I have the position of the nearest guard cube. There is a great deal of chatter flowing through the architecture. They managed to surround the Zenith Cube and the Zeroth Cube with supplemental units, meaning we're technically boxed in, but they still need to work their way through the surrounding blocks before they finally collapse in on us. However, one of the guard cubes, and that is the nearest one, is trapped out of position. Apparently the Zenith Cube is lodged in place for some reason."

And that made Shiv grin. He folded his arms and shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, sometimes things get stuck when you break all the gears."

The wolf-man regarded him for a long moment before he barked a howling laugh. "Truly, well, fortunate for us then. So here is my plan. I have usurped some of the magical spell work connecting this section of the prison to the displaced Guard Cube. I will try to tap into the surrounding architecture once more and use the ambient Dimensionality mana stored within to help us transition directly to the guard cube. After that, we will try to seize it by force. I’ll see us teleported directly outside so we’re right next to one of its anchors." The wolf-man regarded Shiv and ran a long red tongue across his pointed teeth. "I have a request."

Shiv had a feeling he knew what that request was. "You want me to go in first because of my Physicality?"

"That and you strike me as someone with reasonably impressive Toughness as well. Our friend the Rebis here is blindingly fast and an absolute terror against any target he can see. However, he is exceedingly vulnerable to both Psychomancy and Technomantic attacks. As such, I wouldn't want the poor fellow to suffer an unjust demise after all the torment he's already survived."

Technomantic, huh? Shiv noted the wolf-man’s affinity for automatons. He was starting to have a guess as to why the wolf-man and Rebis got along so well.

Shiv had no problem with being first, but a feeling of suspicion was beginning to build inside of him. He didn't really know the wolf-man or the Rebis, and this was a prison, after all. A lot of people could be here just because they were dangerous, or they offended the ascendant's will. However, not everyone was going to be that way, and more importantly Shiv would place good mithril on the odds of most people doing something to earn their imprisonment here. 

Gotta tread carefully, keep as much of an eye on them as I do on the guards or Cripple. He found himself not quite as stressed as he thought he would be about the whole paranoia thing. Learning to wrangle the orcs really helped with his anxiety or simply gave it a new standard no one else could meet.

"Fantastic," the wolf-man hissed. There came a clamor down to the right and a series of shouts filled the air. Human shouts intermingled with sounds of battle. "No more time to waste," the wolf-man commented. "Come then, let's see us away." He lashed his Dimensionality spell against the mithril pillar and immediately began weaving new shapes along its length.

"Hey, listen, you got a name?" Shiv asked. “Don’t want to keep thinking of you as wolf-guy.”

The wolf-man continued working, but he replied nonetheless. "You can call me Five. Five of Spades. As for the other details, you can think of me as a dabbler of many fields, but ultimately I am a thief, purveyor of rare goods and rarer individuals. And I only found myself trapped here because I went for the wrong score."

That gave Shiv something of a backstory to work with, but he still wasn't sure if he trusted it. Not until I have his full measure, Shiv decided internally.

"And if you're wondering why we simply cannot teleport out," five added as he plucked at his dimensionality spell, "that's because we are caged in, or at least our section of the entire prison is. Caged in by a large sphere of revolving time. If we impact that without disabling the loop, we will simply find ourselves launched backward with no way to break free."

At once a pulsing waterfall of dimensionality began spilling out from the mithril pillar as if the wolf-man had turned a series of faucets on. Static mana washed over Shiv and the Rebis, and the wolf-man was the last to be swallowed. A layer of pressure settled against Shiv, but he managed to keep it off of him using his pointed vectors. The Leviathan of Shapeless Tides cast his body alight. In seconds, the pointed stripes that lined him were black static as well, matching the Dimensionality.

A groan of effort came from the wolf-man. "Friend, just a request, but can you please let your skill recede for a moment? I don't think I can quite overcome your Magical Resistance."

Shiv realized he was instinctively resisting the wolf-man's skill. "There! There's something up there!" The voices of the wardens were close now. Shiv took a chance and let his vectors go slack. He continued cultivating more overflow, while also concentrating on building up his Toughness. 

An Orichalcum pillar shot up from him and pushed through the ceiling of the Dimensionality. If that caused the wolf-man any difficulties, he didn't say. With a final clench of force, Shiv found himself drawn across space and surging upward. 

Suddenly he felt tighter, tighter than he'd ever been before. Shiv had never feared claustrophobia, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it much. And this teleportation was among one of the most claustrophobic experiences he ever had. He was circulating along the insides of the mithril supports, and every few seconds he found himself lurching at hard angles. 

Despite the erratic movements, he had a faint sense of where he was. His recently gained Portomancy skill offered him another layer of spatial senses, and he felt at the dimensional pathways lining the mithril.

Portomancy 5 > 6

It was through this observation that he also understood why focus crystals were so efficient. They prevented any ambient mana loss. Every time someone cast, there was always a faint shimmer of magic, especially if they were channeling a lot of spell stuff. And that brightness wasn't a display of power, but a revelation of inefficiency. These focus crystals were like conductors and thresholds all at the same time. Mana didn't escape from them until a mage decided to finally unleash the spell. 

And that had Shiv a little excited, for he had a new blade needed to be tested as well. He hadn’t even gotten to regard its notifications yet. He tried holding it up to where his face was, and tried not to stab himself with how turbulent this spatial transit was.

Equipment Obtained: [Bladewand of Fire’s Path]

Tier: Heroic

Condition: Perfect

Composition: Focus Crystal; Orichalcum

Enchantments > Beamcast; Pyromancy 100; Dimensionality 100; Minor Plane of Fire; Will-Sharpened; Binding; Magic Amplification

Beamcast? Wonder what that does…

Minutes passed. Shiv found himself gliding from support to support, turning angle after angle, as he wondered how much longer it would take before they finally reached the guard cube. A spatial pocket suddenly opened, and Shiv found himself dumped out within a new crawlspace. 

As he emerged, he found himself staring at a dislocated gear that had been knocked out of place for some reason. Shiv guessed that was because he broke both the Zenith and Zeroth cubes. And so now this Guard Cube was lodged stuck here. A second thereafter, the Rebis arrived, and this time Shiv did look the man-machine hybrid in the eye, but only for a moment. He turned his gaze aside as soon as he could.

The Rebis twitched once. 

Its wings quivered slightly, and Shiv prepared to face the consequences. But no strike came. The Rebis turned away from Shiv, and it glided through the air, flicking its automaton wings more than its human ones. It seemed to prefer the right side more, and Shiv guessed that the mechanical part of it was probably more stable than the organic tissue.

Finally, Five arrived, and as soon as he did, he turned his head toward the auriculcum walls parting them from the guard station proper. Before Shiv could say anything, Five's eyes flashed, and one of the automaton heads lodged upon his spine blared in tandem as well. Suddenly, the automaton head disappeared and fused over Five's wolf-shaped skull. It was like the wolf-man had merged with the machine briefly, as a single blood-red orb replaced its eyes while its teeth glinted, becoming pieces of pointed alloy. 

That optical orb it stole from the automaton head projected a beam into the walls, and Shiv saw life signs highlighted behind it, silhouettes of people standing in what looked to be a circular chamber.

"Six Pathbearers," the wolf-man said, "a full team of wardens. They just got back from a raid, I think."

Shiv wanted to ask how the wolf-man knew that, but he decided to test his own awareness more. He studied the postures and bodies of the path-bearers, and he found some of them clutching their arms, one of them half bent over. He noticed how a few had strings swaying out from their limbs, strings that sparked. Those were wires, damaged automaton Pathbearers, he realized. Everything was coming into shape before him. wolf-man directed his cybernetically enhanced gaze elsewhere and began to sweep the surrounding walls. 

More silhouettes were revealed, but there were fewer path-bearers here than Shiv expected. Beyond those within the teleportation anchor, he counted four in a nearby room, equipping themselves with armor and weapons. And there were two more on the floor above. Shiv briefly thought they were sleeping, but when he saw the way that they writhed, he guessed that they were looking at an infirmary.

"We have a few options," Five said, sounding hesitant. "With this skill, I can also try a few other configurations. I have a skull that is proper for sonar base detection, but it makes quite the loud noise. And once we use it, it will draw attention. Might you have any high-tier Awareness abilities, perchance?"

"Farsight," Shiv said.

Five lowered his head. "I suppose we can't be good at everything. How about stealth?”

“You know what Creeping Void is?"

"Creeping Void," the wolf-man said, surprised. "But that's..." He sniffed at Shiv, paused, and sniffed even harder. "I always knew there was a peculiar smell about you." A slight grin pulled at the wolf's face. "Look at us. All three of us. Somewhat human, but not quite. If we survive this, I must be bold and ask, but how did one such as you come to gain the scent of a Tarrasque?"

"Seriously, you can smell that off of me?" Shiv asked, stunned.

The wolf-man flicked his middle finger against the tip of his alloy-fused nose. "I have special gifts, perhaps more than most of my kind. But even without it, you stand out. You have been marked by the system in a most dire way, friend."

The Deathless let out a grunt as he remembered that he was part of a hidden quest, and that provided ample rewards to anyone that killed him. There was another reason why he was going to need to develop even worse trust issues.

"So, Sonar," the wolf-man began.

Shiv cut him off. "No, actually, tell Rebis here to hang back. Let me see if I can do this quietly and quickly. Mayb we can make this neat.”

Five gave Shiv a look. "I know you are quite strong, my mysterious friend, but an entire team of Pathbearers is a considerable challenge, especially with most of the wardens here being High Masters or Low Heroes."

"Nah," Shiv replied with a smirk. "That just makes them interesting."

He tested his new blade then, pointing his wand-knife at the wall and channeling Beamcast. A narrow needle of flames splashed against the wall and a building swell of Dimensionality expanded out from its center. A moment later, Shiv found himself injected across the space and emerging from the inside of the Dimensional threshold.

“Alright,” Shiv said. “That’s interesting.” He placed a hand against the Orichalcum walls and prepared to breach.

But he didn't tell the wolf-man the other reason why he wanted to deal with them alone. It was Rebis. He killed quite a few wardens in savage fashion, and though some might have deserved it, Shiv really didn't feel like making a larger body count than he needed to. Since his return from the delve, he felt a burgeoning sense of responsibility that came with the power. Perhaps not even responsibility. 

It was simply an urge not to break things when he could avoid it. In between my unique skills, Chronomancy, and Shapeless Tides, I should be able to put most of these Pathbearers to sleep. 

He considered how he was going to insert himself into the guard cube. He knew that the Orichalcum would take him a while to breach, and if he stayed here too long, he might be due for a rendezvous with cripple, whether he wanted to face the Ascendant or not. But Shiv's Legendary skill gave him new options as well. Options that allowed him to use his Chronomancy to the fullest extent.

Five and Rebis looked on as Shiv froze time, and to his surprise, a faint sheen of gold lit up over the wolf-man's eyes. More than just his eyes, the automaton heads lodged upon his spine were glowing with Chronomancy as well. Yet the wolf-man himself was frozen. A second surprise came in the form of Rebis. 

The automaton half of the tortured experiment vanished and the human portion of the Rebis came alive with brilliant gold. They ceased being so humanoid and turned into a dense sphere of calcified time. Shiv could feel the radiating pressure pulsing out from Rebis and rather than being able to move across time, it was ultimately shielded from it. A barrier preventing Chronomancers from affecting them using their magic.

I guess everyone had to develop some defenses against Chronomancy if they live long enough, Shiv commented to himself. Which was why a begrudging sigh escaped him as he noticed a series of Chronomantic auras lighting up the teleportation anchor through the Orichalcum wall. Of course there had to be wardens that possessed power over chronomancy as well. Shiv took things a step further. 

While time was a weapon that many people in this prison shared, no one could leave the context of this world like he could. As soon as he did, he noticed how the Chronomantic shroud around Rebis dimmed, how the wolf-man's eyes flickered.

Confusion stuck to them as Shiv concentrated his force vectors along a single finger. He gathered eight full ripples and waited for a ninth before he drove his index finger through the Orichalcum wall. A hole was punched through. The metal screamed. Red and white essence exploded out of Shiv's body. 

Seizing the moment of surprise, he jammed his blade through the opening and began channeling the Beamcast enchantment. A surge of fire splashed into the teleportation anchor. However, instead of spreading out like a plume to swallow all those present, it impacted the far wall as a needle-thin beam. As it did, the center of the flames ballooned outward, and while the outer layer of the magic was condensed by a rolling inferno, its core grew pregnant with the power of Dimensionality. Dimensionality that Shiv found himself being injected across.

In a sudden instant, he was teleported through the gap, just as a temporal warding ripple smashed into him. He anticipated this and drove his elbow up against the falling tide. A resounding crash followed and Shiv twisted the crushing counter-magic aside. The Chronomantic wardens weren't expecting Shiv's sudden appearance. They were doubly not expecting him to shrug off the temporal warding. 

Shiv found himself astonished that they were unaffected by the warding. However, the golden wave of time magic passed through them without damaging their chronomancy fields at all. Shiv wondered if that was something to do with the magical frequencies. He could faintly feel these chronomancers as well, though they were basically flickering in and out of place, as if throwing themselves across seconds of time. 

The temporal wards slipped off Shiv and crashed through the rest of the structure at an angle.

Frictionless Vector 76 > 77

Before any of the Chronomantic Pathbearers could react, he was upon them, wrapping dense cords of Vitaemancy around their necks. He tightened his cords and hardened his Orichalcum, building his toughness while circulating vectors along the red-white tendrils of manna. The Chronomantic wardens struggled, slashing and wrestling against Shiv's projected power, yet it was in vain. One of the fired a bolt of radiant mana at him—mana infused with fire and gravity.

Shiv activated his Nightswim Enchantment and splashed down into a puddle of shadows. The attacks missed and he coiled more Vitae strands around them.

With every passing pulse of force that built inside Shiv, his grip grew tighter, and he cracked their magical resistance, allowing his Biomancy to be brought into the fray. A mana-hydra reared back and bit down on the wardens. 

Once more, he pinched their arteries, preventing the flow of blood as consciousness soon left them.

And then, with them done, he directed more streams of vitae outward, choking the others in the room unconscious thereafter. The final Pathbearer was the hardest to deal with, though they were already injured. That was because they were an automaton. However, after years of living with automatons at Blackedge, Shiv understood enough about their bodies to achieve a similar effect. 

Humans, elves, goblins could all be disabled in a relatively similar fashion, though elves were a little bit harder since they needed to be strangled longer. There was something about elves having twice the amount of veins as humans, and also a lack of need for prolonged sleep. Their unconsciousness usually didn't last that long, either, so it was better to keep an elf bound in the aftermath. 

An automaton ran on power, and severing the cords of their power would usually prove fatal. However, if one tightened the cords together and turned it into a knot, thus causing power flow inefficiency… Shiv did just that as he peeled the automaton's armor away with a wrench of force. 

"Sorry about this," he whispered. "Probably not gonna be comfortable, or if you're a piece of shit, I hope it feels really bad. Don't know which, don't have time to figure it out." He clenched the wiring and began tightening it into a bundle. When he was done, he broke a piece off of the automaton's armor and lodged it through the messy knot. Soon he could see sparks slamming into the underside of the knot where the electrical wiring ran from the reactor core at the automaton's heart to their head, where their processing unit worked.

With that done, he gathered the bodies together and released his chronomancy field. Time resumed and there came a rush of screaming wind that whistled its way into the anchor. Shiv looked to his right and then pointed his head down immediately as he found Rebis standing next to him.

"You made them all sleep?" Rebis asked.

"Yeah," Shiv replied. He turned the Pathbearers over, sweeping them using his aegis of assimilation to make sure none of them were dead yet. After that, he examined their armor. Most of them wore that standard prismatic plate. It was hard enough, Shiv supposed, but it wasn't harder than his personal Toughness Skill and he had to break the magic powering the armor just so that he could choke the guards unconscious. 

Besides, he already had a set. He was wearing it more to protect his modesty than to gain an additional layer of defense. As such, he looked around and finally settled on breaking the armor off the Pathbearer's bodies before deforming the pieces and turning them into mangled adamantine bands that held the wardens arms, legs, and heads. 

It would be an uncomfortable experience when they woke up to see nothing since their helmets were now effectively collapsed over their faces, but Shiv left the organics with air holes and the automaton with his back pointing up so whoever entered would find the issue.

He directed a quick glance at the teleportation anchor's entrance. A dense set of Orichalcum doors revealed a sealed vertical slit to Shiv. He began gathering new vectors of force but five strode past him. Once more, one of the automaton heads on his back flashed and this time instead of materializing a new cybernetic skull, the wolf-man's arm changed. 

A swirling mass of Dimensionality turned around his limb and his fingers were elongated becoming thin with each digit forming further. Every claw he became as if a fork and trailing strands of static extended forth from his fingers. He traced the spell patterns dancing over the doors, and he began to turn his hand left and right. 

Soon the spell patterns inside the teleportation anchor revolved, twisting clockwise and then counter over and over again. Shiv observed what five was doing and noticed how some spells were crashing into each other collapsing patterns collapsing together, displacing mana into the air. 

Finally a few chains of flickering mana were extracted from the others and they flowed over the door sliding along the slit whereupon they flashed. A second later the door let out a loud hiss as it opened. The wolf-man took a step to his right and hid along the sides of the door. Shiv did the same and hissed as he realized Rebis was just standing there. 

“Rebis, get out the way you’re going to be—”

But then Rebis was gone blasting forward in a cloud of crackling static. This time Shiv did see them move and they were fast. Barely tracked them as they left the room. They cut out to the right vanishing along the hallway and a second later Shiv heard the unmistakable sound of flesh being shredded and steel being sheared.

"Huh, what's this—ahhghghghghhh!”

And then another ripping noise followed. A crunch punctuated the final gag and the silence thereafter spoke of an ominous death. Shiv grimaced. He shot the Pathbearers he disabled non-lethally a brief stare. "You bastards were lucky," he muttered under his breath.

"And he does not share your kindness," Five said. He regarded Shiv with a faint hint of appreciation. "Though I do like a neat operator. So much strength yet not so much urge to kill. How curious. But respectable.”

"I slaughter people before," Shiv admitted. "I just don't think I want to get in the habit of killing people weaker than me or the ones who might not have it coming."

Five shot the captured pile of Pathbearers a brief look and simply shrugged. "Who am I to say? Some of them treated me quite well, proving to be my only subjects of conversation across these many years. Others were cruel bullies, but then again I have done worse."

The wolf-man was proving an exceptionally hard individual to read. Even with the Psycho-Cartography skill Shiv had a hard time guessing the wolf-man's true ethical nature and the broader dimensions of his personality. A second after a head peeked out over the entrance and promptly dropped on the ground. It rolled to Shiv's feet and Rebis suddenly materialized beside him. 

"I killed the others," Rebis said. "None of them saw me. I didn't let them see me." The horrific mess of a merged Pathbearer twitched violently and tears dripped down his human eye.

Rebis comparatively was easier to understand albeit in a psychotic kind of way. He was clearly unwell, constantly battling to control his own mind and with a pathological need to go unnoticed. However, five could look upon Rebis just fine even touch him without any penalty. Shiv had a feeling he was building a sort of rapport with Rebis as well, but he wouldn't bet his life on staring the amalgamated Pathbearer directly in the face.

"Hey Rebis," Shiv said, "I get you hate what most these bastards did to you, but you know these are just wardens right? Might just be a job to them. Maybe some of them don’t have it coming.”

Rebis's human side reacted negatively, their eye twitched. "They watched, they all watched me. They watched as I was cut away, as the rest of me was cut away. They watched. They watched. They did nothing. They knew and they did nothing."

Shiv grew to understand Rebis's pain. What he had was a grievance, one that Shiv could somewhat understand. "Yeah, I know I'd be pissed too but…" Shiv trailed off as Rebis stomped on the head he just dropped. The skull cracked apart and blood spilled all over Shiv's ankles.

"You hate them too, you told me," Rebis breathed. “You said it earlier.”

Shiv looked at the mangled puddle beneath the amalgamated Pathbearer's bare feet. Poor bastard, Shiv thought. The warden probably didn't even know what killed them. 

"Yeah," Shiv replied, offering a slight lie. "I hate them too. But I want to get out. You want to get out of here, Rebis? You want to feel better?"

Rebis just stared at him for a long moment, and his automaton side briefly flickered with a faint glow. "Escape, I need to escape. We need to escape." He reached out for five, grabbing them by the shoulder, clutching them more like a child would hold a security blanket rather than a Pathbearer would clasp the hand of an ally.

"Yes, yes, Rebis," Five said, patting the tortured Pathbearer on the hand. "Escape, that's what we all want and that's what we're all going to get. So long as we stick together and try not to leave so much of a mess." The wolf-man offered shiv a brief smirk, and the Deathless took advantage of that opening.

"I don't blame you for killing some of these people, but the bigger the mess we leave behind the more that will keep coming after us." Shiv followed his Psycho-Cartography and used its guidance to formulate his following words. He knew one thing above all others about Rebis: the Pathbearer hated being stared at. And there was more than good odds that if he killed enough people there would be warden after warden glaring at him as they tried to put him down. "The more you kill, the more noise we make, the more people they'll send after us. They'll all be pointing their eyes at you Rebis, pointing their eyes, just staring over and over.”

"No, no," Rebis shook his head. He clutched his skull, rubbing at the automaton side with his human fingers and scratching bloody gashes into his human face with his metallic claws. In a second his human face healed while his mercury textured automaton skull was lined with oily fingerprints.

"Yeah, so we do this carefully, Rebis. You don't need to worry about doing it on your own because I'm gonna help you. I'll make sure no one looks at you at all. But you need to listen to me and Five. Or things will get hard.”

Silver Tongue 33 > 34

Rebis paused and a flash of childlike innocence slipped through his twitching features. "You can do that?"

"Sure I can," Shiv said. "I can fuse their eyes shut, I can cast you in a blanket of shadow, I can keep their eyes on me while you slip away. You don't need to be doing all this on your own anymore. You're among friends."

"Yes," Five said, coordinating with shiv to further calm Rebis, "among friends."

The unnatural Pathbearer shook a few moments longer before his shoulders finally sagged. His anxiety attack died down, and he stepped aside, revealing the doorway. 

As they quickly swept the Guard Cube, Shiv took the opportunity to assimilate the biomass of the wardens Rebis butchered. There had been 12 more Pathbearers within the cube, most of them were trying to recover in the infirmary upstairs. There had been one Biomancer tending to their wounds. The Biomancer had died when Rebis burst through the door and cleaved their head apart at a 45-degree angle. 

Rebis then stabbed them well over a few hundred times so shiv couldn't make out the details of the body. He didn't know what race or gender the Pathbearer was. The only thing he knew was that they were the team biomancer because they wore a diagnostic helmet and that shiv would have really liked having that piece of broken equipment.

Apparently it allowed someone to gaze directly into an organic body to examine the organs, blood vessels, and cells on the inside thanks to the helmet's modified visor. Shiv decided to keep that helmet with him for now. 

When he found Can Hu and at some point, maybe it could be reforged with something else. That’ll be useful for his own Biomancy.

With the upper level secured and all the bodies fed to his Aegis, Shiv came down to the primary living quarters of the cube. The layout of the place was economical. There were four rooms slotted in the corner of the cube, each with four double-deck beds. A total of 16 Pathbearers lived inside this guard cube and shiv guessed there were probably a great many guard cubes sliding around this entire prison complex, especially considering how many guards he saw earlier. Connected to every other room and the upstairs by a long ladder was the primary living quarters. 

It was a space that ran 40 meters by 40 meters and there was a kitchenette here with a small pantry stocked with useful ingredients. They immediately began glowing in shiv's eyes and he felt the call of his chef unwavering skill demand he cook, demand he cook for months and months and simply not stop because he'd gone through so much bloodshed so much conflict and he hadn't had a chance to decompress all this time. His hands were shaking as he stared at the ingredients in the pantry. 

He knew he didn't have time to linger, he knew that he needed to break out as soon as possible but pulling himself away from the kitchen took more willpower than he thought he had.

Looking to his right there were smears of blood painting the ground. A few Pathbearers had been debriefing at some of the living quarter benches when Rebis got to them. Their deaths had been quick and shiv cleaned up their bodies quite well, but he guessed he missed a spot earlier. And then finally there was the central mana control. 

A large mithril pillar was lodged in the center of the room and a concentric series of spell patterns swirled outward, forming something that anyone could manipulate. Five stood before these controls and with the swipe of a finger, the ambience of the cube changed. The light going from bright to a soft dimness. Rebis let out a shuddering gasp as the room grew darker. He appreciated that, and he muttered a stuttered thanks to Five over and over again.

The wolf-man continued digging through the spell patterns. He moved different functions around and finally expanded on what looked to be a complex model of interlocking cubes. Shiv's eyes widened as he walked over immediately. "Is that the well?" Shiv asked.

"Indeed it is," Five replied.

The structure of the Rubix Well comprised thousands of cubes. Their current cube was highlighted near the very bottom, and it blinked bright yellow at the edge of all the other cubes. It had been caught out of position when shiv broke the Zenith Cube and so it was uniquely vulnerable to their intrusion. At the same time, there were strings of spell stuff extending out from other cubes as Shiv looked upon them. Online reports detailing casualties and requests for aid flickered and faded before his sight. 

This prison was far more complex than he assumed. This place perhaps was the most complex facility he had been in. Just the informational detail provided by a single guard station was more than anything possessed by Confriga's operation back at Gate Theborn.

Shiv took a few minutes to familiarize himself with the rest of the Rubix Well. The section of the prison he, the wolf-man, and the Rebis were in was described as the Nadir. This was where they kept Legendary-Tier threats to the republic along with zenith tier prisoners and that included shiv. "What's the difference between zenith tier and the rest of the Legendaries?" Shiv asked.

Five blinked at him. "Zenith is a special circumstance. There is a substantial overlap between being Zenith and Legendary, but Zenith usually also have unique skills or unique circumstances. They are for the ascendant's personal attention, and thus our interaction with the Zenith prisoners are kept to a minimum." The wolf-man's side. "And what a pity at that. So many of you are interesting. I would have rather been in the Zenith Cube to be honest. You made for a lot better conversation in your brief time here compared to most of my associates."

"That bad, huh?" Shiv asked.

"Worse than you can possibly imagine." The wolf-man let out a sad whimper. "I'm not particularly social for my kind but still I do need company. And when most of your company are hardened killers that yearn to butcher and maim but possess little else in the way of hobbies or culture, things can get rather droll."

Shiv couldn't imagine being cooped up in this prison for that long, and it only made him want to escape faster. But before he fled he needed to find Bonk, he needed to find his equipment, and that was going to be quite the challenge considering how many cubes he had to sift through. 

Furthermore, as he studied the Nadir he found the Chronomantic loop that five spoke about earlier fused around it. The Nadir was connected to the rest of the prison by a long central spine and that structure extended through a brief empty space that was covered by an arcing wave of golden mana until finally it threaded through the rest of the prison's architecture. 

The levels above had larger cubes but they too were surrounded by many smaller ones. Those were listed as guard stations from what shiv could read which meant that the lower tier prisoners were allowed to mingle together more with far wider spaces rather than these narrow valleys.

"Hey," Shiv asked, "you know if the prison up top is also made of Orichalcum?"

The wolf-man paused. "Parts of it I would assume but for all of it to be made of Orichalcum…" Fives let out a chuff of doubt. "Orichalcum is a very rare metal my Deathless friend. It's rare for any world even ones with a higher ambient mana threshold compared to yours. The fact that they spent so much Orichalcum to create this place reveals the staggering depth of your Republic's wealth."

"All right, so there's a chance I could just punch straight through once I get to the top. Getting through that time loop might be a bit of a challenge," Shiv said. He folded his arms as he considered his Legendary skill. He was strong, but a mana core was likely supplying the power to that time loop, and he knew that mana cores outputted more magic than any individual Pathbearer on average.

“I suspect that we might need to do something a bit risky,” the wolf-man hummed. He pointed to a central cube and scattered the other cubes around it with a wave. “This should be the station that stores the mana core. We disable that, and it should be enough to halt the loop for a while. But it will be quite well defended. We need a strategy…”

But Shiv wasn't just a Legend, he had Outside Context Problem so he might not need to struggle through that either. He could just slip across. "Wait, we're on the edge," Shiv said as he regarded their guard cube once more. There looked like nothing to the left of his cube aside from the curving time-loop keeping them wall in. “What’s out here?”

"I am not certain," the wolf-man admitted. "My knowledge of the prison has been put together by information that I overheard from the guards and gossip I gathered from other prisoners. If you're asking for my suspicions, I think we might be in a pocket dimension of some kind, but then again maybe not. The amount of magic flowing through this place is substantial, and it taxes a core to sustain. If it were me, I might put this prison at the bottom of an ocean or potentially leave it in the void making sure that there's no way out even if they break out of the facility."

Shiv nodded, and it made sense to him too. He wanted to find out what kind of inhospitable place there was. "Can you do me a favor, Five?" Shiv asked. "Can you find someone or some things for me through this magical thing?"

"Spell Cortex," the wolf-man said. 

"Yeah, that. There's someone I want to locate, and the guards here took my stuff as well. I want my gear back.”

Five let out a wince. "Well, that will be difficult. There are a great many armories in this prison. Any number of guard cubes could have taken your equipment into their storage before transferring it to a specialized vault. I wouldn't be surprised if your equipment is already gone."

That filled shiv with a flare of brief anger. It wasn't that everything he had was irreplaceable, but good armor was hard to come by, but living without his cape… That was going to be an a arduous process. Shiv might need to do some mourning—

The insides of their Guard Cube flared red. A brief alarm sounded as a voice droned through the room. "Unauthorized teleportation detected. Teleportation anchor compromised. Alerting nearby cubes." A string of mana circulated out from their current Guard Cube and a few dozen others past the Zenith and Zeroth Cubes came alight as well.

Shiv grimaced. "All right so they know we’re probably here. What the hells just happened?"

But Five wasn't looking at him anymore. Instead, Five was looking down the hall where the teleportation anchor was. Dimensionality mana was spilling through the open door.

Shiv’s insides tightened. “Rebis, wait—”

Then Rebis vanished from sight. Shiv halted time. Rebis went still right at the doorway of the teleportation anchor. A dense dome of Chronomancy ballooned out from around him. Shiv was beside him a second later, and a whistling breath escaped the deathless as he found his instincts rewarded. 

There standing within the teleportation anchor and looking more like a lump of beaten meat was Bonk. With Rebis just a meter away, Bonk had a half-second from death at most. The orc had seen better days with how swollen his face was. More importantly he was missing one of his legs and his club had been replaced by someone's war axe instead. 

But shiv found a smile spreading across his face as he realized Bonk was wearing his cape and if Bonk had his cape he probably had his other stuff too, maybe even including his armor. Shiv shot the Chronomantically sealed Rebis a brief glance as he considered what to do. If he resumed time he had little doubt that Bonk would be torn apart and as much as orcs cared little about dying, Shiv owed Bonk quite a few debts by this point. 

He knew what the orc was and how he behaved but still Bonk had freed shiv by causing a massive prison break without him doing that shiv might still be in an Orichalcum cell facing down an ascendant trying to find his own way out. 

What's more, Bonk brought the cape back. The cape. And it was with greedy delight that Shiv took the cape off of the orc, and then promptly placed the orc in his cape. But before he did, he swept his Aegis of Assimilation through Bonk and consumed the orc's injuries, upon doing so he realized there was a problem. 

The orc had multiple cancers building inside of him. That's not good, Shiv thought to himself. It's not good at all. I can't fix those. He needs a proper Biomancer or I need some more time figuring out how cancers work. At least I have my book back, been a while since I took a look at you, Odes…

With the orc briefly stuffed inside his cape. Shiv felt his temporal shell crack apart as he quickly jumped to the left side of Rebis. A cleaving wing tore through the room where Bonk was, and a long gash spread across the walls. Shiv winced as the Orichalcum screamed. It wasn't enough to split it clean through but there was a scratch and more than a scratch there was a lingering glow of bright white mana that made shiv wary of the amalgamated Pathbearers powers.

"Where Rebis?" cried out. "I felt them, I heard them where are they! Where are they?"

"Right, Rebis," Shiv held out a hand. He spoke with authority but calmness in his voice as the tormented Pathbearer twitched. He looked at shiv with an expectant expression, and the deathless continued. "That was the person was going to try and look for. That's the one that set you free. His name is Bonk. He's an orc. And you are not to talk with him."

And for the first time as Rebis continued twitching a glint of confusion shown in his human eye. "But why? Why can't I speak to him? Why can't I cut him down? Orc! Orc!”

"Because he's an orc," shiv said.

"What's this about an orc?" five scrambled down the hall, looking at Shiv and Rebis.

"Ah, Insul," a loud voice sounded from the insides of Shiv's cape. "You found me, or more like I got lucky and found you. I'm surprised that you haven't left already. Could it be that you stayed here trying to find me first?"

Shiv didn't bother replying to the orc. "All right everyone, meet Bonk. Bonk, there are two other people out here. They’re helping us get out.”

"Making friends so quickly, I see," Bonk commented. He chuckled at the end, but Five now looked at Shiv with a wary expression.

"You said your friend is an orc?" the wolf-man let out a noise of discomfort. "You do know what orcs are like right?"

"Yeah i do," Shiv said. "Frankly i'm probably more versed about their nature than you are. I'm uh…" Shiv paused as he considered how much he wanted to tell. He decided he wanted to lay it all in the open just to make things plain. "I am the Vaketh-Insul of integrated earth. I don't know if there's another but i know i am in charge of a good number of orcs. No i don't intend to let him kill you. No you probably shouldn't interact with him otherwise he might end up killing you anyway. No Rebis if you see the orc you're probably going to kill each other because he's definitely going to stare at you."

"I will not," Bonk said sounding like a petulant child. "I will not stare pointlessly unless there's a reason to stare."

"Oh there's a reason for you not to stare," Shiv said.

"Now why did you have to put it that way," Bonk said sounding frustrated. "Now I want to stare."

"And that's why you're staying inside the cape for now."

"I break you out of prison and this is the thanks I get," Bonk spat.

"Yeah it is the thanks you get," Shiv declared. "Because if i didn't give you this thanks you'd be on the ground in several pieces right now. A Legendary Pathbearer nearly tore you in half."

"You would have fixed me or I would have died, and then I would have gained a new nemesis."

"Bonk," Shiv said, clenching his fist in annoyance. "We don't have time for that right now. We need to break out." He turned back to five. "All right, I got my cape back and…" he paused. "Bonk is my armor in there with you somewhere?"

"I tossed it in while i was escaping," Bonk said. "They didn't do a very good job confirming if i was alive or dead. That being said, I do have quite the good Play Dead Skill." The orc let out a sigh. "They didn't stop them from using my corpse as practice for their training, though. The guards here are extremely bored. I don’t blame them. So I gave them something to do!”

"Explains your injuries," Shiv said. "Where did your tumors come from?"

"Ah yes. I managed to get here by torturing a Pathbearer into teleporting to a nearby cube. It was a strange thing to torture someone for, but i was desperate because beyond the cell I was using as a point of last stand were a dozen wardens that…" Bonk coughed, "might have been a bit too much beyond my capability to contend with alone."

"Yeah, that's about as messy as I thought it would be," Shiv commented. "All right, well at least you're still alive. We're getting out of here. Rebis! Five! We don't need to go looking for anyone anymore. And they found their way to us. I think I will have a way beyond the time loop as well."

"Truly?" Five asked with incredulity. "Is that related to how you managed to slip out of my cell the first time? How I briefly forgot about your existence?"

Shiv's mouth fell open, but he didn't say anything. The wolf was strangely astute, and there was something about him that shiv still couldn't place his finger on. "Something like that," shiv said finally. "But anyway, I think we got our solution. We're right on the edge of the whole prison. I pull open the Orichaclum wall we go outside."

Shiv was interrupted by Bonk. "You do what?"

"I'll rip open the Orichaclum wall," Shiv said.

"You can do that now?" Bonk asked.

"How?"

"With my Legendary-Tier skill."

"You're a Legend now!" Bonk cried with a disbelieving laugh. "You're ridiculous Insul. I lose track of you for a second, and now you're a proper monster."

"Yeah I’ll catch you up once we get out, but anyway we're going to break out of this cube and I’m going to make for the loop and pass through it. It should work. After that, I'll either keep going up or I'll just find a way to figure out where we are once we're outside of this cube." Shiv let out a breath. It seemed like a good plan to him. It saved him the trouble of trying to break out level after level or fight to the central mana core and disable it, as the wolf-man suggested earlier.

"That sounds acceptable as a strategy," Five said, though his sounds still seemed a little incredulous. "You are sure you can avoid the Chronomancy? We are to share a space with the orc then?"

"Yeah," shiv said. "Probably. Don't worry, Bonk will be uh…I can't say he'll behave, but he'll do what i tell him to because you'll be rewarded after," shiv declared out loud.

"Oh, how wonderful," Bonk said. "What kind of reward?"

"I'll figure it out later," shiv added. "Five I need you to keep Rebis's focus on you. Make sure he doesn't see the orc and try to avoid talking to him. I'll try to make the process quick once we get through the loo—”

A loud klaxon blared, and a psionic weight crashed against all of them. Rebis clutched his head and crashed down to his knees. He screamed in absolute agony and five flinched as if someone struck him over the head with a blow. 

Shiv held the waves of Psychomancy back, but even then he gritted his teeth. This was a substantial amount of power. More importantly, it was infused with faint motes of incandescence. This was divinely charged, and before he could do anything, a message was conveyed.

"Tanner Lowe of Blackedge," Stormhalt's voice ground against shiv's mind like gravel. "I understand that Cripple's words have gone unheeded, and now you've taken advantage of its kindness to escape. This is unwise, for we have returned. You are staying here in this prison. I see that you are on the verge of departing judging from the cube that just had an uncontrolled Dimensional entry. 

“You are staying here because Adam Arrow will be staying here and if you leave then you leave your comrade behind. It is a simple choice, a direct choice. I ask that you return to your cell and allow us to resume our interrogation, and it will be…"  The City-Lord let out a grunt of disgust, "conducted properly and ethically this time. You have my word as well as the security offered by cripple if you so trust it over me. But should you try to run should you manage to flee then you will never see your companion again. Is this understood? I wait your reply shortly. The Ascendants and the Auroral Council look forward to making your proper acquaintance, Deathless creature of Udraal’s making.”

And with that the broadcast came to an end. By that point shiv had cracked a tooth by clenching his jaw so hard, and the faintest traces of red were beginning to creep in from the corner of his vision. His heart pounded inside his skull and the ripples of force continued to build around him over and over. 

Shiv breathed in shiv breathed out shiv used his anger on Psycho-Cartography as he considered what to do next. He was briefly startled by the noise of something impacting the wall, as he turned he found his partially regenerated Voidmantid armor crashing over on the ground. 

"Well looks like we're not leaving so soon are we Insul," Bonk said with a hint of mirth in his voice. "I think you're gonna need that for what's coming next."