III-57 Confessions

Manipulation and confusion are the best tools to use when dealing with a reluctant prisoner. Psychomancy is a valuable option as well, but i

Manipulation and confusion are the best tools to use when dealing with a reluctant prisoner. Psychomancy is a valuable option as well, but it requires a Psychomancer properly trained in informational extraction and also that the prisoner has not had their minds or memories modified in any form or fashion. Torture should be disregarded entirely, unless used as a special interrogation technique to provoke someone to action.

The essentials for misdirection are as follows. First, it is best for your prisoner to be confused about your allegiance. This will allow them to review things they otherwise wouldn't to you. Second, make them think you know more than you always already do. This way, they can easily let slip essential details, assuming that you already know about them. From then, make them paranoid. Make them think that some of their fellow prisoners have already spoken, have already betrayed their cause. Failing that, make them think that you don't believe them.

But above all, offer them a string of hope, hope that they can be released, or a tangible goal they can work towards. A despairing prisoner is a prisoner willing to go to the extremes. A hopeful prisoner will find that last shred of weakness in themselves and finally commit to a most personal betrayal.

-Aviary Training Course: "ENHANCED INTERROGATION"

III-57

Confessions

"I am no traitor!” Master-Inquisitor Sijik shot up from his seat. His chair went flying behind him, slamming against the wall with a resounding clang. An eruption of ashen magic exploded out from his body, then shattered and rebounded back into him. 

The Inquisitor reeled back, and just then one of Uva's mana strands pierced his skull. The Inquisitor let out a shriek, and thereafter Sijik dropped, spasming, while Uva remained seated.

The Owl looked on, but his expression was one of absolute dread. His eyes flicked between Uva and the twitching Master-Inquisitor, and Shiv watched the aviary agent swallow. The Deathless nearly spiked himself into the cell, but Adam held him back. He pointed to a pair of manacles attached to the downed Inquisitor's legs.

"Focus breaking enchantment," Adam said. "It's what the Umbrals usually apply to prisoners who are also powerful magi."

After a few moments of shaking and shuddering, Uva ripped her strand out from Sijik's head, and the Inquisitor let out a wet cough. His eyes rolled. The smell of piss stained the air with a hint putrescence, the man had let himself go.

"I have been exceptionally kind to you," Uva's voice was that of coldest winter. "Now I have remained kind. I have not broken anything essential in your mind. You are right. Whoever warded your thoughts and memories did a fantastic job. I cannot get to them, at least not immediately. I can, however, break the parts of you that remain. Nod, if you understand."

Sijik didn't nod. He simply spat on the ground and forced himself to stand. There was absolutely no fear in the man. His eyes were bloodshot with hatred. Rather than direct his ire upon Uva, he turned his miserable stare on the Owl. 

"You," he growled out. "What lies have you been peddling? What falsehoods have you been spitting to spare your own cowardly existence?"

The Owl didn't say anything at first, but slowly his mouth opened. "I didn't lie about the Educator." And Shiv noted how strategic his words were. He also noticed several of Uva's mana strings draw taut within the Owl's mind.

"I think I kind of get what she's trying to do," Shiv said, folding his arms. "It's like she's trying to get the Inquisitor to reveal more than we actually know by pretending we're Compact and getting him confused." Adam's face scrunched into a relatively sour expression, but he didn't say anything for or against Uva's strategy.

"More lies!" the Master-Inquisitor roared. He turned a finger on Uva. "And you! Release his mind! Release his mind, and let us see if he speaks the same! Or better, send for your guards. Let me out from your gate. I need only a moment on the surface to confirm my identity, to confirm—"

"You will do nothing," Uva cut him off. "You will do nothing except tell me what I want to know." Uva arose from her seat. She was around the same height as the Master-Inquisitor. Sijik wasn't a tall man, but something about him made Shiv think of a cornered dog, always on the verge of snapping. "We do not trust you, surfacer. We do not trust your Republic for what your people have done to us. For the transgressions that had been committed against both Compact and Lord Scorn. The orcs were merely a sampling of our power. We have an arrangement with the Challenger himself, an arrangement that will be unleashed against your Fortress-City Diego, and your main force, should you not answer my questions."

"You wouldn't dare," Sijik's voice dropped to a vicious snarl. "You wouldn't dare. You wouldn't dare. You wouldn't dare! If you do this, then it is war between the surface and the Abyss. War."

"War? War that we will win? War? You threaten me with war after already attacking us, after we have already suffered casualties! After all that we have lost!"

"That was not us."

"Then who was it? I have a witness. I have memories from this Owl and your Educator." She let out a bitter chuckle. "She revealed many things to us before she fell. We know very little of the inner machinations of your ascendants, and nor do we care. However, what does matter to the Lords of Law is our sovereignty. Our sovereignty, which has been offended. And so we want to know for what reason these transgressions were committed. You claim to not be in league with the Owl," she turned and faced the Owl, "yet you worked with an agent of the Inquisition to breach your gate, didn't you?"

"Yes," the Owl said. A technical truth. Uva was covering all her bases, even against the prisoner.

"Lies!" Sijik roared. "Where is she now? Where is the Educator? I wish to talk to her. I wish..."

"There will be no speaking to the Educator," Uva sat back down, her posture relaxing. "Gate Lord Confriga has made sure of that."

Sijik's mouth fell open. His eyes grew wide. Shiv watched the man take two steps back and nearly fall. A puddle was building at his feet. A puddle of urine. But the Inquisitor cared little for that. "That's not... that's..."

"I assure you, it is very much possible, and it very much has happened. You can claim that we are lying to you and continue throwing your tantrum like a child. Or you can plead your case. You can make plain why you are here. Why your agent, if she truly is rogue, had done the things she did."

"I... I do not..." Master-Inquisitor Sijik grimaced. "We are here to subdue a traitor to the Republic." Adam's fists clenched. "We are not here to raid or take your gate. Think of this. My expeditionary force was only two thousand Pathbearers."

"Two thousand Masters, High-Adepts, and quite a few Heroes," Uva shot back. "That is substantial. That is a mighty force. It is enough to take a great many towns."

"Gate Theborn was not a town!" Master-Inquisitor Sijik yelled. "We are no fools. I came here to retrieve one Master-Advisor Oldsmith, another traitor to our Republic. He wrote me letters. He was tasked originally with securing an Animancy Core." The Animancy Core, Master-Inquisitor Sijik's eyes twisted. He looked at the corner of the room. "The Animancy Core, is it still here?"

Uva didn't answer. She leaned forward. "Continue about Oldsmith."

For a moment, it seemed like Sijik would remain quiet out of spite, but he proceeded, illustrating multiple points Shiv and Adam already knew. Oldsmith was the Republic representative placed in Gate Theborn. The Inquisition had a cell operating here, meant to hold potential dissidents and dangerous figures, figures deemed too risky to hold on their territories in the surface.

"Bastards," Adam snarled under his breath, but then Sijik continued on, and his revelations reached new territory.

"We came to stop Roland Arrow from starting a new war against the Abyss. For committing a transgression that will drag the rest of the Republic into the very hells behind him.”

Uva regarded him for a moment, letting the silence stretch. "What kind of war?"

"A war between the surface and the Abyss." 

Shiv and Adam shared a glance. 

"Elaborate," Uva said. "We have received no intelligence regarding Roland Arrow's intent to raid the Abyss." She let out a scornful laugh. "In fact, he seems to be relatively indisposed. Indisposed because Vicar Sullain is too busy trying to sack the town of Blackedge in retribution for what happened to Submission!"

Sijik hesitated. There was something on the tip of his tongue that he wanted to say, but he wasn't sure about admitting.

Uva sighed. "No matter. If this is all you can say, then we will leave you here. You will remain for a time, and after that we will send you back to the capital, along with a proper representative. We will go over everything that has happened."

"He intends to make himself a god," Sijik spat. "He intends to invoke a Ritual of Remembered Ascension and claim part of a True God’s power for himself, a right he has no right invoking, a divinity he is wholly undeserving of."

“True God?” Shiv asked. “The hells is he talking about?”

“The Composer is a True God,” Valor said, his voice taking on a contemplative quality. “She did not ascend or gain power to reach her current state. She was divine by inception. What the Inquisitor claims is fascinating. To steal a god’s power is more than unnatural—it requires one to defy the system itself. And often comes with brutal consequences.”

“Why?” Shiv asked. Adam glared unblinkingly at Sijik beside him.

“Because it is not your story,” Valor said. “It is experimental Skill Transplants result in madness and destruction. The experiences and legend accumulated does not belong to you.”

"But you said he was about to start a war," Uva continued, guiding the conversation back to coherence. "Why are we talking about Roland Arrow's godhood?"

"These two things are tied," Sijik scowled. "For years he has operated in secrecy, serving the Starhawk." And Master-Inquisitor Sijik seemed impossibly awkward when speaking of the Starhawk. "He must have poisoned the mind of the Ascendant, or perhaps he has fooled the Starhawk. Regardless, they have gathered relics that do not belong to them, that should have been destroyed or kept hidden from the world."

"More Sacred Phylacteries," Uva said.

Sijik swallowed. "The Republic's sacred phylacteries. These things were meant to be given unto the Ascendants for proper disposal. For..." and Sijik stopped there. He didn't finish that sentence. "Instead, Roland has gathered them. Roland likely intends to descend into the Abyss soon, to take the Starhawk's Perch with him, down into the darkness, to the deepest depths, so that the Ritual of Remembered Ascension can be performed."

Uva cocked her head at the Master-Inquisitor. "Ritual of Remembered Ascension?"

"Do we know what that is?" Adam suddenly said.

Shiv shook his head. “No idea.”

"Yes," Valor replied with a sigh. The other three outside the cell looked at him. “The Ascendants. They had reached the deepest depths of the Abyss. They managed to greet the heart of the Great One before they returned. A great many believe they performed a ritual to true obtain their power—that they took something from the Great Ones. But all this is without definite proof, and my own memories regarding the Ascendants are lacking. But why would Roland descend with the Perch? With all the other relics? The Ascendants did not need to make an offering before. Something is missing.”

"And are you certain of this?" Uva asked. "That Town-Lord Roland Arrow truly seeks to do such a thing?"

"Of this I have no doubt," Inquisitor Sijik declared. He puffed his chest out. "The Ascendants themselves told me."

"But is the Starhawk not another one of your Ascendants?"

"He is," Sijik snarled. "He is merely... merely lost. His perfection has been tainted by human avarice, human deception, by Roland Arrow's vile tongue, and by love."

"Love?" Uva laughed. Her mocking chuckle earned her a reproachful glare from the Inquisitor.

"You insult me, but I speak true. The Starhawk cared deeply for Town-Lord Arrow. He had shown the Town-Lord his favor for years, seeing him as a disciple, a faithful man. But the war against the Abyss," Sijik closed his eyes, "that ruined things, that broke things. It twisted the Town-Llord. With his sacking of Submission, unlawfully done, with his unlawful and brutal sacking of Submission. We all paid for his sin, for his avarice. And the brutality of the war continued on, costing countless lives, countless sons, daughters, and automata of the Republic, and countless more Abyssals. Yet, despite this, despite the Ascendants having every right to punish him, the Starhawk intervened. Love… love has undone one of my gods."

Now, it was Shiv holding Adam back from pushing his way into the cell. Shiv could practically feel the anger vibrating off the Gate Lord’s flesh. “He spits nothing but lies and falsehoods,” Adam snarled.

“Yeah. Maybe. But we want all his bullshit out first so we get a picture of just how felling insane he is. Or whatever we’re missing.”

Besides Shiv, Adam was practically rigid with anger. But the Deathless was fascinated by the conversation. Master-Inquisitor Sijik seemed entirely earnest and, on some level, kind of lost as to why he was actually doing this.

"And how do you know this?" Uva asked again.

"Because it came from the lips of an Ascendant," he snapped. “I told you!”

"Which Ascendant?”

"Yes, yes I did," Sijik said, his frustration reaching new heights. "It was Kathereine, the Songbringer, who told me. She revealed herself, revealed herself to me, and to a few she trusted. A great scheme is unfolding, a grand conspiracy is sweeping through the heart of my beloved Republic. And now I stand in this cell. I am castigated by an Abyssal. An abyssal I had no intention of facing, no intention of offending." Master-Inquisitor Sijik's lip curled, and a single tear fell from his eye. "And now my fellow inquisitors have given all, given all they have. Within the Ascendants’ glory they rest. But their deaths were unjust.”

“Their deaths came as a consequence of unneeded war.” Uva hissed, herself. She put on a good play, pretending to be angered. But the Master-Inquisitor simply looked down.

"Contact City Lord Stormhalt. There is much he can tell you. There is much I am not at liberty to say, but I must beg you. I must swallow my jagged pride and beg. You must release me, and you must surrender the Animancy Core to my custody. It is the only way that things will end well, that things do not escalate. This is not a threat. This is me pleading, begging. This is me asking you to spare your own lives. Sullain is beyond control—a mad dog. I know that you do not wish for the surface to descend. Please… Spare your own lives. Do not let people like me enter your homes.”

The sheer passion in his words left Shiv speechless. It left Adam speechless as well. "Sounds like he actually believes all that shit," Shiv commented.

Uva drew in a long breath. "Should we give you the Animancy Core, what will you do with it?"

"We will use it to bring the travesty at Blackedge to a righteous end. We will use it to save what lives we can at Blackedge, subdue Roland Arrow, secure Starhawk’s Perch, and to satisfy Vicar Sullain while keeping him still controlled. We must take back the Perch, take back all Sacred Phylacteries that Roland Arrow has stolen. Then and only then can this crisis be brought to an end. Can a civil war be averted?"

"And the civil war is to be caused by Roland Arrow's ascension to a god."

"A god?" Inquisitor Sijik sneered. "No. Even if he gained the power of the Forgotten Ascendants," then he caught himself, "o-of the abandoned Sacred Relics, he cannot be a god. He will never be a god. No faith will flow towards him. He will not be elevated by our mana. He is not remembered by the system. He will never be remembered by the system. We will make sure that we will strike every memory of him from the record. He will be forgotten. Utterly. Completely.”

“Remembered by the system?” Shiv muttered. He looked at Valor, but the Legendary Pathbearer looked on in rapt silence as well.

"Forgotten like the other former Ascendants?" Uva breathed. Sijik's eyes widened. 

Sijik looked at the Owl. "How do you know? What do you know?"

Uva leaned back. "A bit more than you think, I suspect. Your Educator told us much.”

And for the first time, the Master-Inquisitor seemed scared. He fell to his knees. "Listen to me. Listen to me. I beseech you. I need the core. I need to secure that city. I need to secure Black Edge. I need to bring this back to Stormhalt. There is no more time. We cannot afford a civil crisis in the Republic. Not now. We are surrounded on all sides by enemies. On all sides. The Atlantic, the Pacific, they are filled with nightmarish dangers held at bay only because they fear our ascendance. The Dread North, choked with an eternal winter storm, batters at our front doors and the cruel fae there are only held at bay by our ascendance. And south where the orcs rage, where the empires of sacrifice and blood run like a serpent, where the empires of sacrifice and blood constantly push outward seeking slaves and sacrifices to sate their serpent god, we have more enemies still. The Republic is forged of faith, faith in our ascendance. And it is all that spares our people, that grants prosperity in strife.”

"It is not our faith," Uva said quietly, "and they are not my Ascendants."

"Oh, but we have held things at bay for so long," Sijik cried. "Without us, you would have been invaded many times over. Without us, the treaties do not stand, and the rest of the surface nations will descend. They will want what our Ascendants have once taken, have now guarded through treaty. They will want your Great One. Think of that. Be selfish if you cannot be noble." And with those words finished, Sijik sagged. He looked two centuries older. His eyes were sunken, his face a mask of sweat and exhaustion.

Uva placed a strand against his mind briefly, but then retracted it. She rose, and with a gesture of her hand, the Owl left the cell first. As he merged through the veil, Adam shaped a spell and let the aviary agent through. A second later, Uva followed. Only after that did they slam the cell bar shut in place.

"Shiv," Uva said, slightly surprised. "You're here. When did you arrive?"

"Before either of you started talking." He looked in the direction of Master Sijik, who was currently huddled as a ball in the corner of the cell. His gaze was distant, and Shiv could practically taste the trauma radiating from the man's body.

"He believes what he said," Uva said. "Every single word. I don't think he uttered any lies."

"But—" Adam began.

Uva cut him off. "That doesn't mean he speaks the exact truth. The Master-Inquisitor strikes me as a zealot, and not nearly the one in charge of this entire affair. But Adam, he is absolutely convinced that your father seeks to become something of an Ascendant. A false Ascendant, perhaps, but still a divine being. He is also genuine in the love he holds for the Republic. He does not want to see Blackedge entirely destroyed, if he can help it. But above all, he wants Roland Arrow’s body, and he wants the Starhawk's Perch."

The Psychomancer paused. “And most worrying of all, he believes everything he said about the Great One is true as well. He truly thinks that Roland Arrow intends to bring the Perch down to the depths and perform some kind of ritual.”

“That’s just bloody madness,” Shiv spat. He gestured wildly at the Inquisitor. “The Perch—it’s an entire castle. How is—it—this makes no sense. Maybe he believes this, but he is likely mad.”

“Maybe,” Shiv said. “Maybe he’s missing some stuff. But we have no idea what the hells is going on between the Starhawk and the other Ascendants. From what the Educator said, it’s like the Starhawk is trying to end their collective godhood or something. I don’t know. It’s a big godsdamned mess to me.”

The Gate Lord took everything, and he let out a long and shuddering breath. "Then we need to reach my father first. We need to start evacuations as soon as possible. And, and, we probably need to capture and speak to Lord Stormhalt, somehow, to learn more about what's going on from him. This Ascendant civil war gets more and more confusing the deeper we go. Kathereine, the Songbringer is no Ascendant of war. I cannot believe she would reveal such deception to the Master-Inquisitor."

Shiv grunted. "We don't know it was actually her, Adam. I mean, the Master-Inquisitor might believe everything he said, but he also seems to have a few things loose up there."

Adam nodded, but both of them were avoiding some other possibilities. One being that the Master-Inquisitor wasn't lying. That Roland genuinely intended to become a new Ascendant to fulfill whatever scheme the Starhawk had going. And what did that mean? What if Roland Arrow became an Ascendant? 

Shiv's main concern there was that it might take a little while longer to get powerful enough to punch him in the face. But for Adam, for the Republic, what did that exactly mean?

"There's also the matter of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing," Valor said. Everyone turned to regard the Legendary Pathbearer. "The Master-Inquisitor seems in the dark about multiple things himself. He is following orders. Yes, he leads his own army, but he seems to be a zealot operating at the instructions of another: City-Lord Stormhalt. And of a specific Ascendant. That, and his description of Roland Arrow bringing the Perch down to the Abyss is inconsistent with the lore of the Ascedants.”

“Yes. I noted that.” Uva let out a quiet hum. “Legend claims that they reached the Great One, but there is no detail about them giving specific offerings.”

“Well. Can someone refund stored divinity or something?” Shiv asked. Everyone stared at him. He cringed. “Okay. Maybe kind of a stupid—”

“No,” Valor said. “There might be something there. Refunded divinity… Or restored divinity. But this is not something we can be certain about. It is also not something the Master-Inquisitor knows. I am personally more concerned about Kathereine. It seems all that has happened is tied to her directly. There is every possibility that this is a personal feud between two Ascendants, with the others drawn in.”

"It can't be just her if we’re entertaining the Ascendants being rogue," Adam said. "City-Lord Stormholt is favored by Halsur, the Endbreaker. Halsur is married to Kathereine, so perhaps they stand against the Starhawk for some reason. The Educator said a great many things but… Some aspects still don’t make sense.”

“Like how the Republic isn’t just rushing for Blackedge if Roland was actually doing something like that,” Shiv commented. “This is probably extreme heresy or something. And the Starhawk trying to remove the divinity of the other Ascendants should have them all trying to finish him immediately, right? But it feels like they’re just dragging things out.”

“Yes… Or not unified on how to resolve the matter.” Adam frowned. “I suspect the Ascendants are not unified. This might be why only a small group of the Republic is operating against Blackedge. Right, perfect. So. There might still be a few Ascendants that aren’t entirely evil. But we might have to fight Kathereine and Halsur…”

"Well, if we do, you can just shoot me with a Necromantic arrow," Shiv said, half-jokingly. Then he paused. "Actually, Adam, maybe if they are, we can literally just send one of my Vitae Golems, then you can shoot it with Necromancy. It lit up the Educator and her Forgotten God. Might work on the actual Ascendants.”

The Gate Lord stared at Shiv for a moment. "Do you understand how much collateral damage that might cause?"

"That's why we blow it up in the right place. Or, I don't know, you figure out a dimensional pocket. Then we blow it up inside there."

"A dimensional pocket that can trap a god," Adam said flatly.

"Yeah, you know, just think back to one of your classes at Phoenix Academy. They must have taught you god-trapping. Or did you skip that one?”

The Deathless and the Gate Lord just stared at each other. Then Adam cracked. He hid his smirk as he punched Shiv in the arm. "You irreverent bastard. Alright, well, I suppose we best keep him here for now." Adam hesitated. "Maybe it would be good if I—"

"No," Uva cut Adam off. "We don't want him to know you're here. You are Adam Arrow. He wouldn’t have revealed half as much to us if he knew you were here. The only reason why he revealed so much just now is because he thinks we are Compact. He thinks that we do not have a direct stake in this struggle. That we are merely an aggrieved third party."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that was why you were doing the whole misdirection thing," Shiv said.

"Indeed. It would be best if we left the Inquisitor in his cage for a while. Let him recover. His mental state is fragile as is. I will resume questioning some other time. Meanwhile, we should pursue other avenues of intelligence gathering and proceed with the liberation of Black Edge as soon as possible. I suspect that with the destruction of the Expeditionary Force, the bulk of City-Lord Stormhalt's army will be moving on us."

"It's not a small army," Adam said, "but the orcs outnumber them many times over."

Uva hesitated. "I managed to glance something else from Sijik's mind. I think they have a Legendary-Tier Pathbearer with them.”

Adam stopped breathing for a moment. "A Legendary-Tier Pathbearer.”

"Correct," Uva said. "I only managed to get a faint glance into his memories before I was pushed back. No names. Sijik's mind is too well shrouded. But… the Legendary Pathbearer resembled a rather small human girl bearing an extremely large sword."

"Is the sword large and rusted?" Adam asked, his pupils dilating.

"I… Yes. I do recall some rust. Why?”

“Ah, shit," Adam muttered.

"Do... do you know who that is?" Shiv asked.

"Yes. That's Jessica Hawgrave, Titansbane."

Shiv paused. "The hells is a Titansbane?"

"You've never heard of Jessica Hawgrave? Wait, you don't know Jackie Hawgrave? Mad Atlas? The martyred hero who died guarding our Eastern Seaboard? Who carried an entire city to safety on his back during the Jotunn Invasion? The author of the Memoirs of a Master-Tier War Mage series.”

The Deathless stared. “Adam. How much reading do you think I did aside from set items on a menu?”

The Gate Lord closed his eyes and almost scoffed. “Godsdammit, father. We could have had an educated Omenborn at the least.”

“Oh. Now you bothered on my behalf?” Shiv muttered.

“Yours?  I’m annoyed on my own behalf!” Adam snorted. “I need to explain everything to you. It’s exhausting. But—look, simply put, Titansbane has been known to crush undefended Jotunn and fae cities flat with her sword. Or her foot. If she’s actually on the field, we might be felling—” Adam squinted. “No. We might have someone to sic on Sullain. If we can engineer a proper clash between Stormhalt’s forces and the Necrotechs.”

“I don’t know, Adam,” Shiv said. “Sullain doesn’t seem like someone that anyone can take alone.”

Valor chuckled at that. “Shiv. Sullain is known to be a comparatively harmless Legend.”

The Deathless went still. “Comparative harmless.”

“Yes. He is mostly a soft-willed scholar. His genius brought him far, but his lacking fortitude has always laid him low.” Valor let out a breath. “Always a paradoxical Legend, that one. He should have never become a Legend in my opinion. And I should have never saved his life from the Semper Paragon. I wish I could remember why I did these things…”

As Valor trailed off, Adam bit his lip. “Shiv. The orcs. Are they ready for another task? We will need some of their Shadows and Pscyhomancers to engineer something between the Inquisitors and Necrotechs as soon as possible. There are multiple objectives we need to accomplish. We need to save Blackedge, repel the Necrotechs, capture Stormhalt, and figure out just what in all the hells is happening between the Ascendants. And I think we can achieve all those goals at once if we can make sure all the key characters are in the same place.”

“The orc Psychomancers are already planning to do some shit with the surviving Inquisitors they decided to keep, so I think they’re ahead of us on that,” Shiv said.

“Good. Then—wait, did they finish the other Inquisitors? And what about your talk? How did that go?”

"Yeah, so about that," Shiv coughed awkwardly. "Look, I managed to get the orcs to agree to something, right?"

"Right," Adam said, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

"But, uh, well, they did kill the Inquisitors. Reasonably ethically. Sorta. And they told me they won’t hurt anyone who isn’t a Necrotech or a vampire. Mostly" Shiv continued tumbling through his excuses, and finally decided, "Look, Adam, they bribed me. And, uh, yeah, I might have gotten socially influenced by the orcs. They still agreed to some stuff. But, uh… Yeah. Talk was really more of them influencing me instead of the other way around.”

The Gate Lord just stared at Shiv. Uva facepalmed slightly. Shiv swallowed as he prepared to get chewed out again. 

But that wasn’t what happened.

“This is my bloody fault,” Adam sighed. “I should have seen this coming.” 

Shiv blinked. “I could have said no. Been more—”

“You have no true Social Skills besides Intimidation. Your Silver Tongue is underleveled. Your Psychology is underleveled. You have no concept for what a Social Skill might do to you.” Uva summed up Shiv’s weaknesses. “We should have been there. Adam is right.”

“Yeah, well, you were surface-sick and Adam was getting socially mind-gamed by the orcs too.”

“Yes,” Adam agreed distastefully. “Which is why I should have been there. If they could influence me, they would have compromised you easily. Which was their strategy. To unnerve me enough so that I leave while leaving you alone.”

“It is never too late to seek a new patron…” A melodious voice sounded from inside Uva’s helmet. Everyone turned to stare at her.

“That was the Dreamtaker,” Uva said under her breath. “Ignore them.”

“Do not. Think of my colors.”

Adam shuddered. “Well. We can figure this thing out. But no more talking to the orcs alone.”

“Yeah,” Shiv agreed. “I got that from Valor. But. Look. I’m—uh. I’m scared.” He grunted with discomfort. “I’m scared shitless that the orcs might hurt you guys and that I won’t be able to, you know. Yeah. So.” Adam and Uva shared a look. Can Hu’s optics flashed at Shiv. “I get that we can’t avoid risking our lives—that the system will keep coming for us. But the orcs will use it against me. I’m certain of that.”

“Then we will need to prove too dangerous for them to target,” Uva said coolly. “But… do tell me more about how you worry for us. I like hearing it.”

“I worry about some more than others,” Shiv replied.

“It’s not a weakness either,” Adam said. “The orcs don’t care about each other. They won’t respond when one of their own is in danger. We stand together. We can make up for what each other lacks. They will always stand apart. But more importantly, I think… your fear can be used to our advantage. As bait for their cruelty, and a means of punishing them.”

“How?” Shiv asked.

“Because the orcs have a crippling weakness too,” Adam said. “They need to be cruel. They need to scratch. They cannot resist scratching for long. So. We just need to ask ourselves what the most cruel thing they can do against us is. And then we prepare accordingly.”

And already, Shiv felt a bit less worried than before. It’s good to have people behind you.

“They bribed you,” Uva said. “With what?”

“Please don’t tell me mithril,” Adam winced. “Shiv. If you did it for money—”

The Deathless pulled the Husk of the Voidmantid out of his cape, and both Uva and Adam cocked their heads. Can Hu took two steps forward.

“Is that organic armor?” Adam said, squinting.

“Husk of the Voidmantid,” Uva commented.

“Master-Tier,” Can Hu noted with disgust. “You sold yourself too cheaply Pathbearer. I was also unaware that you were seeking a new chassis.”

Shiv winced. “Look. Can Hu.”

“It will serve for now,” Can Hu continued. “But not forever. Time. Time is my ally. I will recover thanks to you. And the armor will break or die because of you. And I will still be here.”

Shiv did a double-take as Can Hu started making him nervous. Shit. If I knew getting a new piece of armor would make Can Hu act like a jilted lover, I would have thought twice.

“It’s still damaged, though,” Uva said.

“Good enchantments for Shiv,” Adam muttered. “Regeneration. And a lot of Awareness-boosting abilities. Finally. He won’t be near blind on the battlefield anymore.”

“Thanks, asshole.” Shiv replied. “Helix said something like that, too. But in a real salesman kind of way.”

“Helix?” Adam asked.

“The orc with the glasses,” Shiv answered. “I was going to go see Helix after we finished here. So I could continue my Biomancy training and fuse this armor with what I’m wearing right now.”

“A fleeting act,” Can Hu whispered.

“Yeah… Sure, Can Hu… Anyway. Helix wants me to get a Crafting Skill through Biomancy. Maybe I might be able to make more organic armors of my own in the future. Or weapons. Something like that.”

Adam nodded slowly. “Well, then. I suppose we should all pay Helix a visit.”

“We?” Shiv asked.

“Yes,” Uva said. “All of us. Together. I, too, am suddenly interested in Biomancy.”

“So am I,” Can Hu hissed.

“I love learning,” Adam commented. He slowly grinned. “I very much love learning. Let us all get educated together.”