IV-2 Avatar

An avatar of an Ascendant consists of three aspects. The first is a sacred phylactery. They must be in its vicinity to properly draw on the

An avatar of an Ascendant consists of three aspects. The first is a sacred phylactery. They must be in its vicinity to properly draw on the

An avatar of an Ascendant consists of three aspects. The first is a sacred phylactery. They must be in its vicinity to properly draw on the divine power of their patron.

The second is a skill. It is effectively a sort of conduit for the phylactery. If the phylactery is as if a source, or perhaps the attunement of the divine, then the skill nested within the Pathbearer serving as avatar becomes a functional outlet.

At present, practically 90% of the Twilight Republic citizens have a skill corresponding to faith. Faith that allows their Ascendants to reach through them. Usually this results in minor miracles, in their gods whispering to them, sending directives or guiding them in battles and in life as well.

However, for those that have been vetted by the Ascendants, and chosen specifically to represent their interests either on the Council or in the Inquisition, a specific set of blessings will be bestowed. Blessings that will further mold the individual Pathbearer's soul until it is a proper receptacle for a specific Ascendant, or perhaps a few specific Ascendants.

Note: The Ascendants do not often like sharing avatars, because at times their blessings clash and their preferences cause a certain pseudo-psychotic state as they blend the avatar's mind. This has been noted in the now masqueraded “Massacre at Delphia,” in which an otherwise Pathbearer who had served as avatar for ten years killed ten thousand people at city hall after taking on five more Ascendants.

Addendum: Our current working theory is that the additional Ascendants occupying his being suffered a political disagreement that became emotionally charged, and that led to volatile results.

However, the Ascendants that are closer together, or at least trust each other, usually have fewer compunctions about a shared avatar. In fact, there is a specific term for someone who bears multiple Ascendants within them: Gemini.

-Aviary Intelligence Report on the “Avatars of the Ascendants and Auroral Council”

IV-2

Avatar

City-Lord Stormhalt's eyes glowed like dark blue beacons, the lightning flashing within speared out as razor-sharp strings, and they pierced Shiv's flesh as if the Deathless was made of paper. At baseline, Shiv's body should still be as hard as adamantine, but before, the City-Lord's divine-enhanced Aeromancy should've felt unnaturally fragile, impossibly weak, and it didn't take much deduction on Shiv's part to figure out why that was.

Behind the City-Lord, the ethereal giant, flashed with the same dark blue stormlight-empowering Stormhalt, and around the giant's neck were a pair of slender, pale arms. The feminine figure reappeared once more, planting the bottom of her chin atop the giant's head. Where the giant was stoic, where the City-Lord had an expression of a furious hound, the woman just offered a delightful smile as she laughed.

There was a melody to her laughter, like a rising series of bells that chimed so crisp and clear that it made Shiv's very bones rattle. But as the sound died down, sorrow settled into Shiv's stomach like sediment, and it took all he had to stop himself from weeping. He wanted to hear that laugh again. He would almost do anything to...

No! His Psycho-Cartography screamed at him. 

Psycho-Cartography: You are mentally compromised. Her very voice must be bound to Psychomancy, or perhaps some High-Tier Social Skill. Deafen yourself. Deafen yourself now. Do not listen to her.

Psycho-Cartography 51 > 52

"So," the woman began running a red tongue over redder lips. "Our little enigma returns to us. Welcome, welcome. Glad to see you agai—”

And that's as far as Shiv let her get, before he turned his Biomancy on himself. He burst his inner ear, and he clenched his jaw, shrugging off the pain. Blood erupted from the side of his head, from both sides of his skull, and the City-Lord flinched back in surprise. The woman's lips continued moving, but soon the smile on her face turned to a frown, and the giant she clung to tilted his head slightly, as if confused why Shiv just hurt himself.

"Yeah, sorry," Shiv growled out. "Not here for a conversation, just here to take a City-Lord prisoner."

Instead of driving his Biomancy field against Stormhalt directly, Shiv flicked both streams of spilling blood out from his inner ear into the City-Lord's eyes. They splashed over his face, crashing hard along the bridge of his nose, surging into his lightning-infused sockets. The effect was immediate. City-Lord Stormhalt twisted back in surprise. Shiv couldn't hear him snarl, but that didn't matter. The Deathless went outside of context and froze time.

As soon as he did, however, a blast of lightning erupted out from Stormhalt. It was a bolt grander and blacker than any Shiv had seen before, and it tore a massive gap within the missile delivery chamber. The ceiling as gashed open by the spreading bolt of lightning, and Shiv watched in disbelief as it continued rising up, stabbing higher into the distant sky. Soon, it grew to resemble a tower around Stormhalt, and its mana density thickened as well.

Holding onto the bolt was the ethereal giant summoned by the City-Lord. The storm-made juggernaut moved with impunity, unburdened by halted time, and betraying no hint of surprise or confusion about Shiv's sudden disappearance. Power flowed from him into the Stormhalt and out again, and Shiv noticed something glowing on the City-Lord’s chest. It looked like a set of circular rings.

Is he wearing a pendant under his armor? So, if that’s the case…

A cold feeling washed through Shiv. He suspected he knew what he was dealing with. Ascendeants, The Deathless thought to himself. He had faced a Forgotten Ascendant, or such was what the Educator claimed. The Forgotten God, however, was the size of a horizon, and it looked down upon Shiv as a planet-engulfing giant would a feeble gnat. Right now, the storm-clad giant and the woman holding onto him were both abnormal, but ultimately human-like.

Despite this, their power was a continual surprise to him. Both of them continued moving, even as time stood still, and the woman’s eyes came aglow with Divination mana, leaking brilliant streams of violet light. She whispered something in the giant’s ears, and slowly, both their heads turned in his general direction. The Deathless found himself hesitating. Originally, he wanted to get behind Stormhalt, suplex him, knock him out somehow—see if that would dispel the ethereal figures that he summoned. However, now with that massive pillar of lightning consuming Havel Stormhalt's body, Shiv had a feeling that touching the City-Lord meant either pain or death.

"Well, this is felling annoying," Shiv cursed to himself. He was running out of vitality fast, and now his plan to kidnap the City-Lord and use him as a bargaining chip against Hograve had run into a new impediment. "Nothing can ever be easy, can it?"

He had long known the answer to that. Being a system favorite, there was no easy meal. If one wanted to be a powerful Pathbearer, and when one caught the system's true interest, practically every second of one's life became a desperate struggle.

Right, fine. I don't hit him myself. But let's see here. Plenty of things I can launch into him. See what they do. And then after that… 

Shiv came up with a quick plan. It was a relatively messy plan, but it might just show him what the City-Lord was now capable of. He went behind the missile cylinder Stormhalt was hiding in earlier, and ripped it out of its foundations with a brief growl. Then he kicked it towards Stormhalt with a heavy punt. The cylinder shot forward, and it split apart clean against the massive column of lightning enveloping Stormhalt.

Okay. Weird. Not shocking, but slicing and cutting. Like there’s an edge to these lightning bolts.

A swelling weakness spread through Shiv body. He was running out of time. He spiked himself just above Stormhalt, angling his body away from the pitch-black lightning. Then Shiv began to cultivate his toughness. A Pillar of Orichalcum formed, and it shot high up into the air, too. Its red gold sheen crashing against the sides of the rising arc of lightning.

That drew the giant's notice immediately. His head snapped up. He frowned. A series of other bolts tore down from the heavens above, splashing through the point where Shiv's Pillar of Orichalcum crashed against the thick cord of lightning. However, he didn't react to the bottom of Shiv's pillar, slamming hard against Stormhalt's left shoulder. 

The City-Lord was driven through the ground as Shiv’s new Toughness Skill smashed into him., but then the lightning around him flared even brighter. Any hint of blueness vanished altogether. Now it was pitch black, darker than the void itself. And more, it did not possess a current. Rather, it was cutting. Splitting. And as it caressed, and as it came into contact with Shiv's Orichalcum—

And hewed through his red-gold protections.

The Deathless cried out as he felt a wound open inside his soul. He ended his Outside-Context Problem before he could entirely run out of vitality, and both of the ethereal figures noticed him then. The woman pointed at him, and the giant simply waved his spear. A chain of crashing bolts extended out from the massive fork of electricity rising from Stormhalt’s body. They impacted Shiv's pillar, and despite the Deathless infusing himself with as much Toughness as he could—so much Toughness that he couldn’t even move—he felt himself unravel as the lightning tore into his skill and ripped his soul open from the inside.

The attacks were intrusive—and Shiv had a guess as to why.

Animancy infused…

"Godsdamn it," Shiv hissed. Soul wounds were another kind of pain altogether. Three bloody slashes erupted along Shiv's chest, but the giant wasn't done. Another bolt hit him, this one charged with a thundering tip of gold at the end. Shiv felt his temporal shell shatter, and he was launched downward, pinned to the ground, as strings of electricity began to writhe and burrow deeper into his flesh. Shiv groaned, and he shook his head. Right, that plan didn't go so well.

He slammed his hand against the ground and tried to push himself up, but a resounding boom of thunder hit him like a falling hammer. It was injected into his body by the cords of lightning connected to him, and spots formed in his eyes as the concussion passed through his insides. Yet his organs remained unharmed, his bones were not cracked. It was purely a stunning attack, one that dazed him long enough for Stormhalt to seize him by the neck once more.

Before Shiv could respond this time, the City-Lord held up a hand, and a stream of falling lightning tore through the top side of the ship. A massive mace was forged from the stormstuff. It was pitch black as well, and he tapped it against Shiv's head gently. The Deathless tried to respond. He flexed his gravitic field, attempting to throw the City-Lord off, but even more chains of pitch black electricity wound themselves around him, holding him in place. With every passing second, they injected more. Concussive blasts into his body. It was as if his insides were being rattled about, especially his brain.

And just then Shiv heard a bewitching melody. A low, thrilling sound as someone slipped into his mind. "Hush, hush, do not fight, open your heart to me and let me show you new delights." The notes were sung and Shiv's Psycho-Cartography screamed while the rest of him relaxed. Hearing the music filled his body with relief and pleasure. And the singer continued on, her voice rising another two octaves. 

The song ended as a large gray hand shot up and seized the City-Lord by the ankle. “What in—” Stormhalt’s words died with a cry as he was wrenched through the ground. Shiv's eyes widened as he saw the City-Lord vibrate, sink down, and then solidify with his waist halfway through the walkway they stood on.

"What..." was the last thing Shiv heard of the feminine voice as Stormhalt's mace tumbled away from Shiv's head.

The world spun, but the deathless took full advantage of what he assumed to be Bonk's intervention. Shiv spiked himself at Stormhalt and drove a right hook against the man's face. Stormhalt didn't budge. The necklace he wore beneath his armor flared brighter, shining through the plates protecting Stormhalt, and a crash of thunder exploded out from his head. A fist of stretching lightning struck Shiv, and he found himself launched through cylinder after cylinder, bouncing across the room. A moment later, as he used his Biomancy to fix his injuries and restore his equilibrium, he heard a deafening crash. The entire ship shook. The chamber was drowned in blinding light.

Shiv winced and looked away, and when he managed to force his eyes open once more, the massive form of a club-wielding orc was driven into him by a chain of black lightning. Both of them were smashed against the walls, and the dark electricity wrapped around them before tightening like thorny-brambles. They turned with force, Shiv cursed as he found himself bundled tight against his orc-comrade

"Hey, Insul!" Bonk coughed. His face was half swollen and his jaw was split open. Shiv blinked. It didn’t take the divinely-empowered Stormhalt to incapacitate a Heroic-Tier orc at all.

Shiv swiped his Aegis of Assimilation over Bonk. A mana hydra consumed the orc's many wounds, and it came alight with a constellation of injuries. The orc's insides were ruptured. His bones were floating about in parted shards. It was like someone had detonated a series of explosions inside him, and Shiv realized it was probably from the concussions injected by the strings of lightning. The strings of lightning that were now lashing through every cylinder within the room. Metal screamed but peeled apart as shivering fingers of electricity crept along the walls, along the ceiling, along the ground.

Hovering in the air then was City-Lord Havel Stormhalt. His helmet was back on, and the dark blue Aeromancy mana he possessed spilled from his dense helmet in a horizontal beam of light.

"I thought you said it was gonna be easy," Bonk grumbled. He was slurring his words. Probably concusssed. "I slammed my club into his cock three times down there. Three times. Once is usually enough to put down one of your humans males."

"Yeah well I didn't know he had two Ascendants hiding up his ass," Shiv replied with a grimace.

The City-Lord held out his mace and spat forth a demand. "You made a mistake coming here. I take you now into Inquisitorial custody, and I will show you the leniency you fail to offer my Pathbearers. But thereafter, I will put you to the question, and I will drive every confession from your lips. Until there is nothing but truth left inside you. Until there are no lies left for me to discover.”

Stormhalt’s voice shook the chamber, but he knew that wasn’t the City-Lord’s own power. Havel Stormhalt cracked his wrist hitting Shiv. Now, he was on a whole other level of power.

Shiv looked around the room, but the ethereal figures were nowhere to be seen, yet there was still a pressure in the atmosphere and that massive pillar of black lightning continued to stream upward from Stormhalt's body, binding him to the skies above.

"Yeah, I don't really think so," Shiv said. "Tell you what, if you throw that mace down, and you come with me as a hostage so I can blackmail Hawgrave into releasing Blackedge, we'll call it even."

The City-Lord leaned back. "So she already has the town in her blade, then?"

Shiv winced. Maybe he should have thought about what he was going to say before he said it. Bonk lightly flicked Shiv over the back of the head with his free hand. "Operational security, Insul. Come now. This isn't your first fight."

Shiv tried to project his Psychomancy to Bonk, hoping to establish a telepathic link, but it only made him wince in pain. His Biomancy and Chronomancy had recovered thanks to their high skill levels, but his other magical skills remained shredded from his earlier encounter with the Tarrasque. Shiv sighed. "Alright Bonk, new plan."

"What's that?" Bonk asked.

“I make shit up and improvise. Can Hu.” Shiv whispered. “If you can hear me, fly the ship toward the Tarrasque and get us into the fight. The City-Lord wants a fight, drag him into it. Bail before you get close.”

A vicious scoff escaped Stormhalt as he twirled the mace in his hands. He drifted through the air as branching lengths of lightning pulled him through the devastated chamber. As he moved, the column of lightning connecting him to the sky continued cleaving a large gap into the ceiling above. "And while we are here, I wish to know exactly why you possess the capacity to return from death once more. The orc has told us such things about you…”

Shiv reminded himself to kill 812 as painfully as he possibly could when he next ran into the orc. Which was hopefully soon, because that was where Blackedge was found as well, within Hawgrave's greatsword. Cords of lightning connected to Stormhalt reared back as if they were serpents, but Shiv's Psycho-Cartography skill triggered within him, and he realized he had more options than just brute force.

Psycho-Cartography: He has engaged you repeatedly because his pride is wounded, and he wants to gain a feeling of retribution from you. It can be exploited—as can his hatred of Roland Arrow. Use that to focus his attention.

"Well, let me tell you something first, Stormhalt," Shiv said, pointing a finger at the City-Lord. "Roland Arrow isn't yours to kill. He's mine. In fact, I wouldn't be here trying to take you prisoner if I wasn't going for Roland Arrow. Truth be told, I don't care about your whole Ascendant civil war bullshit, sacred phylacteries, whatever." The Deathless caught a slight curl of Bonk's lip. The orc intuitively knew what he was doing. In fact, Shiv would probably guess that the orc also had something of a master tier psychology skill. "I'm here for one thing and one thing alone: Roland Arrow's head, and I'll be godsdamned if you or any Ascendants are going to stop me from getting to him."

Silver Tongue 33 > 34

Rather than shooting forward, the bolts of lightning connected to Havel slackened as they lost tension. The City-Lord lowered his black mace slightly. "Then that wasn't a ruse? What you told us earlier when you infiltrated this ship, that was true?"

Shiv wanted to struggle against the lightning holding him, but they cut into his flesh and soul with every movement. But he didn’t need to be the one that broke this deadlock. He just needed to delay long enough to… Well, come up with some other bullshit. Or have Can Hu drive them closer to the battlefield. 

Shiv wasn't sure that the City-Lord could contend with the Tarrasque but considering how he managed to survive both Bonk and Shiv's attacks with contemptuous ease, the Deathless decided that he wanted to find out just how powerful an Avatar of the Ascendant truly was—but secondhand this time. Because learning first-hand sucked all the ass in the world.

And Shiv's attempt worked. His provocation drew Stormhalt closer. "Why," Stormhalt asked, his voice a low growl. "Why do you despise Roland Arrow? And why should I surrender his life to you?"

"Because he owes me my entire life," Shiv spat. "He owes me for everything he's taken from me."

"Taken from you?" Stormhalt replied. He regarded Shiv for a long moment, and then he gave a snort of disgust.  "Why am I not surprised? Roland takes, takes, takes. All he does is take."

The City-Lord hung in the air as he shook in quiet rage, and in an instant he glided across the badly damaged chamber, looming over both Shiv and Bonk. The ceiling behind him was torn wide open, and Shiv could see the Tower of Lightning rising from his body expand. It was now more than a tower. It was becoming like a tree, branches unfurled, striking in all directions. Shiv caught sight of orcs split in twain as those black threads ripped through their bodies. Blood began to rain down, blood followed by limbs in pieces from grayed-skinned bodies.

"Tell me then," Stormhalt said through clenched teeth. “What exactly has he taken from you? A wife? A brother? A daughter? Your dignity?”

Psycho-Cartography: He has lost all these things. He thinks he has lost more than you. Do not escalate and make it a competition. Despite everything, he cares—and cares too deeply. Exploit his sympathy. Be someone he can see himself in.

“Everyone I could have been,” Shiv replied. “Dignity? You’re someone, City-Lord. He wanted to make sure I would never be anyone. He wouldn’t let me take a Path. How the felling hells would you know what that’s like.”

Psycho-Cartography 52 > 53

Stormhalt froze in midair. “But I do,” he choked out. “I do. I had a Path. I was someone—but I was always someone beneath him.”

Shiv let out a scoff. “You too? What? Did he stop you from being a Vanguard or something?”

“He stopped me from being all I could be,” Stormhalt whispered. “He stopped me from being the best I could be. From… from leading. From sparing the Republic his hubris.”

The Deathless put on a show as he sighed. “No shit. He was always like this?”

Acting 15 > 16

“Always,” Stormhalt snarled. “He—”

Before Shiv could exploit the City-Lord's hate, a loud sigh filled the room. It rustled through the world, making the air tumble and turn, but with it came a fragrance as well. The smell of pinecones and lilac that gradually faded into an earthy scent.

"Oh, Havel…" The melodic voice from earlier returned, and then so did the ethereal woman. She materialized two meters away from Shiv, and he beheld her away from the giant for the first time.

What struck him first was the dress she wore. It was composed of pitch-black chainmail that were lined in flaps of gold. A large gem hung from her neck, and it glistened blood-red. Merely staring at it awoke a feeling of ardor within Shiv. And every movement performed by the unknown Ascendant made the Deathless shiver and twitch. But the effect she had over him wasn't one of lust, but adoration. He wanted her to acknowledge him, to tell him that he was a good boy, to accept him at her feet, and let him serve her, and once more his Psycho-Cartography broke her influence.

Psycho-Cartogrpahy: We are psychologically compromised in the extreme, even this pale projection of her is affecting us. Look away! Blind yourself, and then deafen yourself again. Look away, close your ears.

But I can't, Shiv cried back internally. He couldn't because the moment he did that he would be at Stormhalt's mercy as well. And with the brambles of lightning holding him stiff, slowly burrowing into his open wounds, all Shiv had left was his Psycho-Cartography skill. And now he couldn't use them anymore either. He couldn't use them because the ethereal woman was on the scene.

"My Lady Kathereine," Stormholt breathed. He took a knee in the air, and the chain of lightning extending from him kept him aloft. It looked awkward, and she wasn't the only one to think so.

"Havill, Havill, stop that," Lady Kathereine began. "You're swinging like a marionette, it's very gaudy."

"I apologize," Stormholt coughed. Before he could say anything else, she held up a placating finger.

"It's all right, I forgive you, but I do have to warn you," and she turned, swinging that finger to point it at Shiv, "that you are being fooled by a boy. You're being led along by a boy, a clever boy perhaps, a desperate boy, but a boy nonetheless." She smiled at Shiv, and he turned away just in time. He thought Angelo had a powerful Charm Skill. "Oh, look at him, he's shy," Kathereine continued. "But his friend isn't."

Shiv's eyes fell on Bonk. And for the first time, he saw what it looked like when an orc was utterly transfixed with another person. Bonk's beady yellow eyes were locked on Kathereine, and she took steps towards him, skipping with every movement. She was at once mature beauty, but also a carefree girl, dancing through the whims and miseries of the world untouched. "And what is your name? My gray-skinned friend."

"Bonk," he breathed. "That is how I refer to myself with humans."

"Oh, but that's not how you think of yourself, is it?" she asked, placing her hands upon her knees. Her smile grew sweeter. "You've died many times, haven't you, Bonk? Which reincarnation cycle is this?"

But before Bonk could reply, a louder grumble sounded from inside him. "Turn away from my orc, Ascendant. He is not yours to compromise. You may kill him. You may torture him. You may even wound his pride. But your charm will not seep into his perfect memory skill." And the challenger chuckled darkly. "Just as it won't be able to twist the mind of my Vaketh-Insul."

"Challenger," Katherine said, taking a step back and adopting a relaxed posture. "It's been too long. Tell me, did you like the song I sang for you those ten years back?"

The Challenger paused briefly. "It was a good tune, I suppose. Bewitching, but ultimately, just that, a song."

"Oh," Katherine pouted, but her frustration didn't quite greet her eyes. In fact, her eyes reminded Shiv of a fish's, somewhat. There was an incongruity of emotion between the rest of her face and her gaze. "Don't you worry, then, challenger, I'll endeavor to make my next melody properly piercing. But now, though, I wish to talk with your…" she licked her lips again. "What was that? The Insul? Oh. Oh, no, boy, you've accepted a bargain with the Challenger. You were that desperate to try and seize Blackedge before we got there, were you? With an orc army, no less.”

Shiv reached for his Psycho-Cartography, but rather than receiving anything useful about his skill, it shuddered inside him. 

Psycho-Cartography: Everything you know about psychology, every natural instinct you have, is nothing before her. She knows more about the human psyche than you do by far, and your words will not be able to lead her on, will not be able to provoke her. Say nothing, stay silent, cripple your own mind with Psychomancy if you have to. We are not facing a monster of force and destruction, we are facing a god atop the social hierarchy.

Shiv clenched his jaw and turned away from the Ascendant. She folded her arms and leaned in close, and when he didn't say anything, she didn't either, but he did inhale her flavors, and the lilac was growing stronger, the taste was getting sweeter. Shiv choked as something inside him started to succumb.

"Hello," she sang, "let's begin again. Instead of Havel using my gifts as a blunt weapon, let's do this the way it was meant to be done, properly, politely, joyfully. I am Kathereine the Songbringer, Ascendant, but also once Pathbearer like you, a child like you. And what is your name?"

She wasn't ripping into his mind. He couldn't feel her crawling through his memories. And his Psycho-Cartography realized she wanted something else. She wanted him to offer himself to her, to surrender willingly, and to stop fighting her influence. He drew upon his Psychomancy, but his field was still broken. And as soon as he did, she gave him a whistle of appreciation.

"Oh, you were going to mutilate yourself mentally. You're quite resolved, and relatively clever. You know what I am, don't you? You know what I'm capable of, or perhaps you have a guess." 

Her voice dropped low and husky, and for a moment he heard Uva echoing under her words. "This flatters me. I like it when someone understands how dangerous I am. So many people are worried about the sword, the spell, but far too few fear the tongue, the words, the bodies, the heart. You want to know why I think this is?"

She didn't wait for Shiv to struggle to resist her, she just kept going. It was like she was whispering beside his ears, and with every word she spoke, something inside him threatened to snap, to break. She knew that if he offered himself to her utterly, completely, the misery building inside of him would end, but he didn't go over the edge. Instead, his Psycho-Cartography constantly screamed at him, trying to come up with a way to guard his own mind.

"Hmm, I can feel you wriggling in there, twisting back and forth. What is that, Psycho-Cartography ? You spent far too long with the orcs. That's a skill for psychopaths, boy. Psychopaths or investigators hunting psychopaths. It takes a particular kind of detachment to get that skill evolution. Tell me." 

She hissed, and suddenly he felt bolts of lightning dig through his eyelids, pull his head back, and there, Kathereine was standing over him, placing a hand on his face. Warmth swelled through his body, his skin felt like it was afire. Over Kathereine's shoulder, the storm-made giant that he assumed to be her husband loomed. A faint smirk lined his expression. "But all good things have to come to an end so that greater things may continue. You came here to take a prisoner, but I'm afraid you're going to stay as a slave. That’s the danger of life sometimes. But don’t worry. You’ll learn to love it.”

Despite the whirlwind of sensations tearing through Shiv, he managed to bare his teeth. "No," he growled out, and Kathereine lifted an eyebrow.

"No. Wow. That's some mental fortitude you have." She giggled, and she looked over her shoulder, staring at Stormhalt. "We're keeping this one. In fact, he's coming with us. You hear that, boy? You’re going to get your wish of killing Roland Arrow after all."

And then she plunged a fist into his chest, and Shiv groaned. He tried to push away, but lightning hooked through his flesh, forced his chest open. Blood poured forth from his wounds, and the Deathless let out a ragged cry of mental, spiritual, and emotional misery.

“Now,” Kathereine said, as she pressed her presence against his very soul. “Where is your… Wait, what’s wrong with your soul? Why is… why is your vitality blended so… Huh… How… odd…”

Psycho-Cartography: I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do. I don't know what to do. There's nothing I can—

Then, the insides of the cathedral ship rattled violently, as a brutal turbulence set in. The ethereal giant was the first to turn, frowning as he looked through the walls.

"What?" Stormhalt gasped. "What is it, Mike?"

"It comes," the Ethereal Giant said. His voice was deep as thunder, with a resonating bass that put Stormhalt to shame. "Ready yourself, champion."

And Stormhalt turned. A loud gasp escaped him. Even as the tree of black lightning extending upward from his body began to rumble violently, branches of lightning erupted from above, spearing at an enemy Shiv couldn't see. But then there came a roar, a roar that rattled Shiv's bones, and he realized he knew that roar. Kathereine took a step away from him, and as her influence subsided slightly, the Deathless let out a chuckle.

"Thanks, Can Hu," he breathed out.

Kathereine turned, but she turned far too slow. Something slammed into the cathedral ship and tore through it in a devastating instant. The air grew impossibly hot. Shiv felt his body burn, but he kept his eyes open even as the pain became overwhelming. A colossal shape flattened the already damaged insides of the cathedral ship. 

Then came what looked to be enormous blades falling from the sky. It crashed down against the storm tree emerging from the City-Lord's body, and black blood rained down thereafter. Black blood and large chunks. Shiv's mind skipped a beat, as one of the chunks brushed his Biomancy field. That was enamel. Enamel mixed in with a great many other compounds. And through his addled mind, he realized what was happening. The Tarrasque was trying to eat the cathedral ship.

Stormhalt cried out something, but then the Tarrasque bit down again. It looked like a mountain range, punching through the outer hull. And this time, the Tarrasque managed to close its mouth entirely, ignoring the fact that the lightning tree was ripping through the roof of its mouth. An immense force impacted Shiv from below. 

He was sent flying upward through the air. And in the havoc, he saw shrapnel and bouncing cylinders sailing around him. Walls and walkways crashed and broke against his body. He briefly caught sight of Bonk, and then the orc vanished between two building-sized teeth slamming together.

The Deathless shook off his Ascendant-induced haze and spiked his field. But he was still drained of vitality, and he felt more deflated than ever as he pushed on. Yet it was like he was flying within a hurricane choked with shrapnel. Dense pieces of hull hammered into him. Jagged veins of lightning peeled pieces of his flesh free from his body.

Pillar of Orichalcum 214 > 215

Shiv cried out in frustration as he began draining vitality from the world itself. Ruptures formed, and membrane-lined mana storms began to pour out from those existential wounds like magical-jelly. But if that affected the Tarrasque, the beast didn't show it. Instead, it just made things worse for Shiv, as normal bolts of Aeromancy joined the black lightning possessed by the Ascendant.

Something clipped Shiv's leg and sent him tumbling head over ass. He tried to activate his Pillar of Orichalcum, but a heavy object impacted the back of his head before he could get his bearings. The world briefly went white, but Shiv recovered, only to find his vision shaking. To see everything quivering, turning into twos and threes as they slammed into him, over and over.

"Oh, oh shit," snarled curses escaped from the Deathless. He stopped time, and then the Tarrasque responded by detonating its Magical Resistance. Shiv wasn't sure if it was trying to ward off someone else's spell, or just to torture him in particular, but as his temporal shell shattered, Shiv cursed the great beast all the same. "Give me a goddamn second to—"

And then something caught Shiv. He found himself clutched tight, but not crushed between massive clawed digits. Shiv blinked as he lay against cracked lengths of obsidian, and as he turned, he realized the shrapnel wasn't impacting him anymore. Through the chaotic haze, despite the mana storm building in the backdrop, Shiv let out a cough of disbelief.

"Marikos?"

"Shiv! My little friend!" the dragon knight guffawed. He sounded absolutely jubilant despite being inside the Tarrasque’s body. Lightning flashed, and the brief glimpses of the sky could be seen as the tree of black electricity continued carving its way upward. The tree flowed down to a central point, and Shiv could see Stormhawk hammering his mace against the insides of the Tarrasque's mouth. Pieces of massive teeth broke free, and the Tarrasque tore at itself once more, ripping its body asunder to eject the things hiding within it.

Just then, an entire section of cathedral ship came swinging through the air, coming right for Shiv and Marikos.

"Marikos!" Shiv cried out, pointing at the incoming danger.

The dragon barely offered the five-hundred-meter long piece of wreckage a second look. He swung his shield high, and he knocked the debris aside as if it weighed nothing. It impacted the top of the Tarrasque's mouth, and a shockwave followed, a shockwave that Marikos promptly parried as well. 

Shiv's eyes widened as he realized no force could pass through Marikos's shield, and more importantly, the shield also seemed to displace energy back toward the direction it was blocking. As such, Marikos was rebounding burst after burst of kinetic energy inside the Tarrasque, and the wounds lining the creature’s insides got worse with each passing second.

"I'm glad to have encountered you here, my friend," Marikos continued. For a creature that large, he moved impossibly quick. He was only slow compared to Hograve and the Tarrasque, but to Shiv, he might as well have been lightning itself. Nothing came close to touching them, not with Marikos's skill wielding a shield. "I grew weary of being ambushed from behind by this oversized curr," Marikos explained. "And so when, Legend Hawgrave left a gap between the beast's teeth, I dove in along with a group of my bravest knights."

A screaming automaton came at them. Marikos parried it as well. The poor mechanical Pathbearer burst into sparking pieces. "I will remember my fallen brethren. They were most heroic, and their screams were most noble, as they were melted within the Tarrasque's stomach acid."

Shiv was momentarily speechless, and then an uncomfortable thought wriggled upward inside of him. Is this what it feels like, when someone talks to me sometimes? Did Marikos just Adam me?

"Alas, the insides of the beast's stomach are as hard as its outsides, and I broke my axe-head off against the inside of the monster. A pity, a shame, I will have to dig it out of the Tarrasque's corpse when we win to see it reforged. It was such a good axe.”

And just then Shiv had an idea, and with that idea, he reaffirmed that he could never be an Adam in his own mind. "Oh, you lost the axe?" Shiv called out. "Well, how good are you at using an unbreaking stick?"

"An unbreaking stick?" Marikos replied, sounding confused. "But where would I find such a thing?"

And just then, Shiv showed the Dragon Knight his new skill. "You already have." And between the Dragon Knight's hands, a Pillar of Orichalcum manifested, resembling a stick in the dragon's hand. 

Marikos let out a gasp of joy and surprise. "Oh!"

For the second time, a Pillar of Orichalcum rose, pushing through the Tarraque’s skull and dropping through the underside of its jaw. A loud cry of glee came from the dragon. "It is fate we found each other. Fate." And Marikos wrapped both hands around Shiv's pillar of Oracalcum thereafter. "And it is fate that we deliver this creature unto its death."

He swung, and even with Shiv’s Toughness climbing fast, in Marikos’s hands, he was lighter than a feather.