III-56 Compromised

Why bother with social skills? Well, I'm glad you asked that, Adept Arrow, and congratulations on reaching Adept. It is a rare feat for some

Why bother with social skills?

Well, I'm glad you asked that, Adept Arrow, and congratulations on reaching Adept. It is a rare feat for someone your age and for a student still in the academy to achieve Adept. You should be proud. In fact, you should be even prouder than you're feeling right now. That's right, that's the expression I want to see. More smiles, larger smiles. Good, good. Keep smiling.

Now turn, turn and look at the faces of your classmates. Look at that. Are those smiles? Those are scowls. Those are jealous scowls. Here is the deal about social skills. We are creatures of society. We are creatures of communication. We are creatures of interaction. And this too is something that can be practiced. You don't need to be a Psychomancer to influence people. The mind is contained within itself, and it receives stimuli from the outside, stimuli that I'm currently conveying through words. And with a few words and a few proper inflections of my tone, thanks to my rhetoric and psychology, I managed to make you feel so proud of yourself that you're preening like a peacock. And I managed to increase the jealousy of your peers and, by that, your team to a magnitude which something might happen if I were to allow it to persist.

There we go. All those smiles and scowls are gone. Finally, you're paying attention. Good. The class can begin.

Why social skills, you ask? Because social skills are part of war. You need to defend yourself. You need to be aware when someone's trying to manipulate you or influence you. Let's examine one of the many serious problems befalling our republic right now: severe and rampant infidelity. Constant family infighting, spilling over into the streets. Oh, I see some of you shifting uncomfortably. This is also a failure of social skills. Why, it's easy for those who care for each other to be turned when their feelings are broken, when one lacks the proper and adequate social skills to protect themselves from seduction or deception or any other form of manipulation.

Now, you can comfort yourself and say, "Oh, I can kill anyone. These are Non-Martial Pathbearers." But you don't kill anyone. At least you don't kill everyone, because that comes at a cost as well. Do not delude yourself into thinking you are beyond society. The Republic made you what you are, and without the proper means of protecting your personality, your mind, the darker aspects of the Republic will devour you from inside your own psyche.

Open the books. Today we learn the basics. Today you start spotting if someone is trying to manipulate you, how to respond properly. Your other instructors will see you prepared for the battlefield. I will prepare you for the dangers of life.

-Master Sasha Orray, CHARM-309 Phoenix Academy

III-56

Compromised

The orcs dealt with the surviving members of the Inquisition with some mercy and moderate expediency. There wasn’t even any actual torture. However, the Inquisitors were divided up among the orcs to be slain, and a few were handed over to a cabal of orc Psychomancers for false flag purposes against the Necrotechs.

When they finished, the stealthiest members of the orc army vanished into thin air as they moved on Lost Angeles. The others followed Shiv back through the gateway carrying a baggage train of equipment in tow. Shiv, meanwhile, hid his new armor within his cape, giving it more time to regenerate itself due to all the damage it sustained during the battle. That, and he would need Helix’s aid to fuse his current bone armor with the Husk of the Voidmantid properly.

As they crossed through the Surface Gateway, Shiv found himself greeted by the insides of a teleportation anchor rather than the open air of Gate Asshole—true name still pending. No spells lined the insides of the anchor, but the material that blocked his path resembled a curved wall of reinforced titanium.

“Oh dear,” Bonk said, wrapping a large hand around his grotesque club. “Have we been locked out and banished from our home? Are we exiled?”

“No,” Ikki’s voice sounded through the metal. “We’re just setting up the security checkpoints for each of the gateways.”

“Security checkpoints?” Bonk asked. He chuckled darkly. “Why? Do you not trust us to protect you from the horrible, dangerous monsters outside, little Umbral.”

“You are the horrible, dangerous monsters,” Ikki chirped. “So, no. Not even a bitty-bit. The only one of you I trust is Shiv who’s… also kind of a monster, but he’s our monster! Now, give me a second. I’ll find Adam he’ll get you guys back across to the Tutorial Gateway. Won’t take long!”

A silence followed. Helix turned to regard Shiv. “Well. She seems to think highly of you. Judging from her tone and inflection, it sounds like she admires you.”

Shiv laughed quietly. “Yeah, Ikki is pretty cute—” He paused as he realized he was about to start telling the orcs about his experiences back at Weave. A heavy pride filled his chest as his mind went back to how he sacrificed himself for Uva and her team at Passage. The pride endured, but it was joined by suspicion. Shiv’s laugh died, and he started glaring at the orcs. “Psychology Skill?”

“Sweet Talker,” Whisper muttered with a faint smile. “Silver Tongue Skill Evolution. But good job, Insul. You noticed.”

Awareness 35 > 36

The Deathless scoffed at the orcs. “Yeah. Another ethical rule: stop messing with my head.”

The orcs just chuckled, and Shiv shook his head and muttered under his breath. “Can’t ever let my guard down around you bastards.”

“Then we are training you well,” Helix replied quietly.

Shiv frowned as he stared at the orc. “Training?” Helix didn’t bother responding.

“Alright!” Ikki called out. “Can’t find Adam, but I got a few Dimensionalists. They’ll start teleporting you guys over. How many of you are there?”

“Oh, just a bit below eighteen thousand now,” Mortar declared.

“Eighteen? How many of you died during that raid?” Ikki sounded concerned. Her worry made the orcs develop feral grins in response.

“Not nearly enough for it to be fun, I’m afraid,” Mortar continued. He eyed Shiv with an expression of bloodlust. “But this will be solved soon. And you can thank Shiv for that. He is ever so thoughtful.”

“Uh-huh. Well. That wasn’t super creepy at all. Alright: Dimensional bridges incoming! Nice and orderly lines, people.”

Her words were unnecessary as the orcs were already neatly arranged.

For a half-hour afterward, the orcs transitioned across the Surface Gateway checkpoint back to the bunker built over the Tutorial Gateway. The bulk of the orcs crossed over with their new loot, chattering to each other about whether they wanted to double-dip on the surface or head to the Abyss to brutalize the vampires next.

As the train of orcs filtered through the Tutorial Gateway, Shiv noted how the Psychomancers carried the surviving Inquisitors across with special care. As the Deathless made sure the final few orcs passed through without issue, Helix hesitated just before passing through the gateway. "You are not coming with us, then?"

"No, I got an interrogation to catch up on," Shiv said. "I want to see just what that Master Inquisitor knows, figure out the next steps and all that."

Helix nodded very slowly, and he adopted a pensive expression. "When you are done, come find me aboard the Court Leviathan. There are things we need to talk about, and your training must continue, starting with the full regeneration and merging of your current armor with the Husk I just offered you.”

Shiv was quite looking forward to that, though he didn't let it show on his face much.

"Do not keep me waiting long, Insul," Helix warned. "I do not wish to be sitting idle while all the other orcs get to indulge in festivities. Understand that I am making a great sacrifice on the part of my pleasure and education, restraining myself from heading down to the Abyss. You have no idea how my blood yearns to punish the feeble bloodspawn."

"Yeah, yeah," Shiv grinned. "I'll be there soon. Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you ugly gray bastards so you stick to the rules.”

"Good, good. I'm glad I could rely on you to be righteous at the very least," Helix chuckled. “Righteous and greedy.” He regarded Shiv one final time, and his eyes glinted before he crossed over.

And as soon as he did, Shiv felt a strange hollowness inside himself, as if something had been taken from him, or a weight had receded from his body. "Might just be the tension," he muttered to himself. He'd done a lot more killing than cooking recently. Frankly, there wasn't even any parity between the two. Spending way too much time fighting. "Godsdamned system just wants me to be a butcher, it seems."

After he left the bunker, he headed toward the gate's oubliette. That's where he guessed Adam had brought the Master-Inquisitor. As he arrived at the temporary prison, he found armored walls being built up along the surface district. 

Atop the parapets were dimensionals constantly monitoring the surrounding area. Their bodies resembled embers, but every now and again between undulating flickers, Shiv glimpsed their humanoid forms. More than that, most of the structures in the surface district were being reinforced. They were thickening into brutalist blocks, and far below the surface district, another set of compounds were being erected. Shiv saw a great deal of Umbral and Weaveress traffic there. Perhaps Null Mont was setting up a separate base far from the center. He didn't blame her. With the Tutorial right here, things could go poorly, fast, if the orcs he'd sent them on decided to break out.

The gate was awash with motion. Dimensionals drifted through the air, and towering constructs formed from earth and steel shoved bits of rubble into themselves. Humble geomancers continued to tidy the rubble and ruin left over from all the battles the gate had suffered. Shiv also noticed a titanium cylinder built over the abyssal gateway as well. Ikki wasn't kidding when she said they were taking precautions, installing checkpoints everywhere. The damned orcs made life inconvenient, but ultimately, the damned orcs had their benefits as well. One such benefit lurked within Shiv's cape. As he prepared to descend, he opened a hatch into the oubliette. Someone called out from behind him.

"Shiv." The Deathless turned, and he found Valor hovering just behind him. The Legendary Pathbearer was alone, and something about his body language and the way the flames within his skull sockets were flickering told Shiv that Valor was waiting for him. 

"Valor," Shiv called out. "Are they down there? Has the interrogation started already?"

"Yes. However, I think we should take a walk for a few moments. It has been some time since we had a chance to talk."

Shiv felt an odd feeling creep through his gut. He had no apprehensions about speaking to Valor, but the way the Legendary Pathbearer was broaching this topic felt odd. Like they were about to do something taboo. Even so, Shiv ultimately relented. "Alright, so you want to go somewhere?"

"No, just around the tower is fine. This shouldn't take overly long."

They began their walk as Valor asked Shiv what he thought about their most recent raid, what he thought of the orcs' performance, what he thought they could do better, what he thought he could do better. Shiv answered the questions as honestly as he could, but it felt like Valor was avoiding a central topic, was avoiding the main point.

"Good, very good. So you can tell how the orcs still have their inefficiencies, yes?" Valor looked at Shiv and the Deathless just nodded.

"Yeah, I saw a few of them get caught out of position. They're not stupid, but they get overly bloodthirsty, then they kind of get carried away by hurting people—wasted a lot of opportunities to keep attacking. They were too busy trying to hurt and torture people. Also, they really don't care about friendly fire that much."

Valor let out a humorousless laugh. "No such thing as friendly fire with those creatures, I'm afraid. All fire is meant to harm, and there are no friends, not truly." Valor paused for a beat as he simply stared at Shiv. The Deathless shifted uncomfortably.

"Alright, yeah, I kind of get that."

"Do you?" Valor asked. Shiv wasn't sure how to respond to that. Now it felt like Valor was trying to grill him. "Earlier, when you had your conversation with the orcs, when you tried to instill some ethics into them, how did that go?"

Shiv hesitated before he replied. "Well, I had to do some negotiating. The orcs are... they got a bit of an itch to scratch. You might already know that better than I do."

"Did they kill the Inquisitors?" Valor asked very casually.

Shiv's mouth opened slightly as he thought back to what happened to the still-living pile of inquisitors. "Yeah," Shiv said slowly. "They're dead, most of them. The orcs kept a few for false flag purposes. Psychomancers took them. I suspect that the orcs are probably going to make them into double agents or something."

"I suspect you're right there," Valor said in agreement. "They will likely recondition the minds of those Inquisitors and send them after the Necrotechs or back to the main Inquisitorial army as spies. The opportunities there are countless, but the morality of such an action is questionable at best."

"Yeah," Shiv replied awkwardly. It still felt like Valor was probing for something, but he couldn't quite tell what.

"Does it bother you," Valor asked, "that they're taking Inquisitors as prisoners? That they're going to twist their minds and use them as unwitting pawns, as expendable slaves?" Valor's description of how the inquisitors were going to be spent made Shiv cringe.

"Um, I mean, I wouldn't exactly call them slaves."

"Very well," Valor scoffed slightly. "Let us call them something else. Perhaps exploited prisoners, or orc entertainment, or human resources. The fundamental action behind what is going to happen to them does not change." Valor let out a quiet sigh. "Shiv, when they killed the Inquisitors, how did they do it?"

"Well, there wasn't really one way they killed them. The orcs didn't really kill all the inquisitors the same way. Some of them..."

"Was it fast?" Valor asked again. Shiv’s mouth ran dry. He licked his lips and his stomach grew taut.

"...Yeah, fast-ish," he replied, sounding more than a little dubious.

"Do you have a time for how long it took them to finish the Inquisitors off?"

"I don't know," Shiv coughed. "Maybe ten minutes or so?"

"Ten minutes," Valor said. And for a while, the Legendary Pathbearer spoke no more. He stopped in place, right beside the infirmary, and he directed his gaze skyward at the Anomaly Core, glowing bright in the distance. 

Shiv went still a step away from him, and discomfort began to build inside the Deathless. "Valor?" Shiv asked. "Is there something wrong?"

"Is there something wrong?" Valor began. He looked down at Shiv again, studying the Deathless. "Do you think there is something wrong?" Shiv wasn't sure how to answer that question. Before he could, Valor asked him another. "Do you enjoy the attention the orcs gift you?"

"Gift me?" Shiv said. He fought the urge to reach inside his cape, to push the armory out there even deeper.

"Yes, they are lavishing you with attention, mostly positive attention at that. Brutal as they are, the reinforcement they have provided you thus far has been overwhelmingly affirming. They have included you among their number. They have allowed you to partake in activities they usually only enjoy with other orcs. You're a celebrity. Do you enjoy it?"

Shiv's mouth opened and closed several times, and he fought through the discomfort. "Yeah," Shiv said. "Yeah, I like it. I haven't forgotten what they are, if that's what you're worried about."

"No," Valor cut him off for a third time. "I'm no longer worried, Shiv. But now I see what must be done. You are compromised."

"What?" Shiv said. He had no idea what Valor was talking about. He reached internally using his Psychomancy, but he felt nothing there. Even Uva has Psychomancy strands. I would have noticed if one of the orcs...

"I don't mean that they have touched your mind, at least not directly. No, you are not compromised psionically. You are compromised socially."

A reflexive swell of anger arose inside Shiv, but before he could reject that, he noted the anger, noted how foreign it felt. He never felt such petulance towards Valor before. Right now, however, he wanted to tell the Legendary Pathbearer to stop bothering him, that he was perfectly fine, perfectly aware of who he was and what the Orcs were. But was he perfectly fine? Was he perfectly aware?

“The fuck did they do to me?” Shiv muttered, blinking hard. It was like Valor’s words just woke him from a stupor.

"Finally," Valor said, with a slight hint of joy to his voice, "you've noticed. That is good." Slowly the anger began to dissipate, and a rush of other emotions followed. Disgust, horror, and... "Shit," Shiv muttered to himself. At some point, while talking to the orcs, there was less him imposing his will on them, and more them influencing him.

"Yeah, look, Valor, they didn't take ten minutes to kill all those Inquisitors. They took about twenty. And a few of them, uh, did stuff that I normally wouldn't like very much." He looked down at the ground, slightly ashamed. "They, uh, they might have also bribed me with a new piece of armor."

And instead of chiding Shiv, the Legendary Pathfarer just chuckled humorously. "Of course they have. It is a very reliable way of influencing someone. Silver Tongue, Sweet Talker, Heart Render, Gaze of Affection, Bribery… These are all Social Skills. Social Skills that you do not have, that you are ultimately unaware of. And these are Social Skills that you have been exposed to before the orcs."

"So, you mean they've just been manipulating me all this time? Well, I kind of knew that already."

Valor shook his head. He paused and let the Legendary Pathbearer continue his explanation. "There are two layers to the orc manipulation. The first is the obvious, their overt approaches. But the orcs are cunning creatures and insidious creatures. More than anything, they are also subtle creatures. Their overt actions allow them to learn your ways, to see how you react to certain stimuli, to certain ideas."

"And from there, they adapt, and they make a more subtle approach," Shiv guessed.

"Correct," Valor said. "You are honest. You are brutal. You are direct. And so the orcs avoid being so direct. Worse, every now and again, they let you catch them making an overt attempt. They let you think that you are noticing. And that decreases your suspicion. It makes you think you have the better of them. This has two effects. The first, it increases your Psychology levels. It amplifies your Social Skills. But it still allows them to manipulate you. Still.”

Shiv breathed. "Godsdamn fucking orcs." He felt his hands start shaking a little at how hard they twisted his head. "So everything I've noticed so far might be something they've fed to me on a silver platter."

"Yes," Valor confirmed. "But this is good. It is a useful lesson, and it has done what I wanted it to."

"What you wanted it to?" Shiv asked, confused. “Wait, you wanted me to get fooled?”

"I thought of intervening earlier," Valor hesitated. "I thought of intervening several times. In fact, I wanted to take your place, to deal with the Challenger in your stead. But with how the orcs were fixated on you, with how much they valued your presence, I realized this is to our benefit as well."

"Me getting manipulated is to our benefit?"

"Yes," Valor said without any hesitation. "The orcs are formidable adversaries socially as well. And so, you will have to grow quickly to face them, to even protect yourself against them. This will prepare you for future social encounters. The fact that they have managed to manipulate you is good. It will increase your paranoia. It will make sure you think thrice before assuming anything. In the future, whenever the orcs say anything to you, you will likely think back to this moment. Back to how they influenced you. How they turned your character in on itself using your flaws. And how they managed to compromise your efforts."

"So you wanted me to learn a lesson," Shiv said. The Deathless clenched his teeth as he felt frustration boil underneath his flesh. "You know, Valor, I think I'd rather you intervened instead. I, uh... the fact that you allowed them to brutalize those inquisitors meant that you didn't care much for the Inquisitors in the first place."

"Psychological manipulation isn't mind-control, Shiv. Once again, you are not compromised psionically. You are compromised behaviorally and socially. Your flaw here wasn't that you are bribable." Valor paused and cocked his head. "Which is, being bribable is also a flaw. It allows people to own you, to own certain decisions you make. I recommend that you get rid of it. However good a piece of equipment might be, or however much someone may offer you in terms of treasure, understand that it is not yours. Because you have given a piece of yourself away to gain such things. It doesn't make you a slave, but it does make you predictable. And those who become predictable are easy victims."

Shiv tried to think of something to say, but nothing came to him. There was just an ill feeling in his stomach, and a growing sensation of shame.

Awareness 36 > 37

Psychology 31 > 32

"If you are ashamed, that is good. That means you have some morals that you can build on. Continuing off my previous point, your problem isn't even bribery. It's the fact that you are too simple."

Shiv pressed his lips together. "Look, I'm trying to squeeze out more time for my studies..."

"No, I don't mean simple in the mental fashion, Shiv. I have never meant that in the mental fashion. I mean that you have not gone into depth about who you are or who you want to be. If you have, it was only brief. You are effectively malleable. Malleable to the shaping influences of those around you. I am one such influence, Adam, Uva, Can Hu, but also the orcs, especially the orcs. They likely know they cannot make you a wholesale murderer of innocence, so they won't be able to push you to the degree that you will casually allow them to slaughter children with impunity."

But that reminded Shiv of someone else.

"I'm going to kill Male Pregnancy," Shiv snarled suddenly.

"What?" Valor replied with stupefied confusion, his train of thought broken. "Male… Pregnancy? What—is this a new skill you gained?”

"No. There was an orc called Male Pregnancy. You talking about them slaughtering children reminds me about what Male Pregnancy did in the middle of the fight. I think he made someone give birth, and then he ate the baby."

Valor's jaw opened and closed several times, and then the Legendary Pathbearer let out a shuddering breath. "I must confess to despising orcs, Shiv."

"Yeah, I can understand that. You know what the messed up thing is? They promised that they got rid of him."

"Your mistake was revealing how much he annoyed you. The orcs will now do everything they can to keep Male Pregnancy out of your sight, away from your notice. Their ability to offend your sensibilities feeds them as well."

"Great, so I better build up my Social Skills real fast too. How the hell am I going to do that though?" Shiv glared down at the ground. It wasn't like he could just... "It's not like I can just kill myself after failing to convince someone of something. Can I? Will that work?"

"I doubt it," Valor said. "I suspect you won't get any skills from that at all, due to your death being self-inflicted, rather than a deficiency of capability. So, for now, you need a counter-balancing force. I will accompany you more. As long as you are within the tutorial, I will be there with you. And I recommend you take Adam and Uva across, if possible, as well."

"No," Shiv said, reflexively. "Absolutely not. The orcs..."

"The orcs will target them, regardless. Know that the moment you summoned the orcs, they were at risk. You cannot protect everyone. You cannot hide everyone from the orcs." Valor let out a slight scoff. "And here's another problem with you. We are Pathbearers. Our lives are brutal, dangerous. And worse yet, you are system-favored. You fear losing them. You fear watching people die. People will die. You will lose people. You have avoided this lesson very well thus far. You have fought harder than most, have suffered extremes of torment, both physical and spiritual, to guard the ones you deem dear. And someday it will fall flat. It will. Someday it will not be enough."

"Yeah, we'll see about that," Shiv said. A great growl of defiance trailed at the end of his words, and Valor held up a calming hand.

"I know you will fight it. I expect you to be no other way. It is who you are, and that is a virtue. But we are only capable of so much, and those around you must be prepared as well. You wish to protect Adam? You wish to protect people inside this gate? Then they must be strong too. You and Adam are strongest together. Uva as well—but especially you and Adam. You make up for each other's deficiencies. He needs to be hardened more. And you, you require someone to watch over you, to notice what you cannot, to observe you from another perspective. You are insulated even from your own deaths. And this insensitivity has come as both a blessing and a cost to your development."

Shiv really, really didn't want to bring Adam over to the Tutorial. Just thinking about exposing Adam or Uva, or anyone, to the orcs made him anxious, made his blood run cold with terror. But the more he thought on Valor's words, the truer they seemed. There was no turning away from the problem. The grayskins were here to stay. And if they were going to serve as Shiv's army, or at least a horde he could direct, then he needed to face the risks. Not just him. Adam, Uva, everyone. Everyone needed to face the risks of the blood rites.

Valor held out a single finger and lightly prodded Shiv on the head. The Deathless blinked. "What was that?"

"That was me flicking you for being a stupid child."

"Oh, now I'm stupid."

"Yes, now you are stupid. Stupid in the way only a child can be." Because, Valor let out a disgusted snort, "Town-Lord Roland Arrow has thought it best to cripple you, even non-martially. I suspect this was another means of keeping you contained in case you gained substantial powers in terms of combat."

Shiv sneered to himself. "I'm gonna kick that guy's ass so hard when I finally get my hands on him. I just need to get really close first and avoid all his felling arrows."

"Whatever the case," Valor poked Shiv in the head once more, repeating his action from earlier, "understand that you are not alone. If you are out of your depth, request advice. Do not simply throw yourselves at the orcs or at a problem blindly. You may not have experience, but the rest of us do, and the rest of us will provide willingly."

"Alright," Shiv muttered. He felt a little bit like a chided child. This brought him back to George chewing him out for screwing up in the kitchen as a kid. It wasn't a feeling Shiv particularly liked. "I'm, uh, you know, sorry."

"Improve," Valor replied. "That is all you can do. Apologies mean some things to some people. But right now, you functionally remain at the social mercies of the orcs, and they are merciless creatures. So, do the mature thing. Do the wise thing. Get help."

"Yeah, yeah, okay. I was gonna have Uva guard my mind anyway."

"Get more help than just one person. More than just psychomantic defense. You have a team. You have more than a team. Use them. Use the ones you can trust, that you have chosen to trust."

"Alright. Thanks, Valor."

"Good. That is all I have to say for now. I will continue observing. I may still be but a shadow of myself, but even a shadow has memories. Long, distant, but useful. Now, let's go to the Oubliette. I suspect the others have already begun the interviewing of Master Inquisitor Sijik. Hopefully, they aren’t already done.”

***

Shiv found Adam standing before a cell, staring through a translucent screen of dimensionality. As he staggered closer, he saw that Uva in her full arcanite armor was seated at a table directly across from Master Inquisitor Sijik. Adam watched the interrogation unfold intently. His face was tight with focus and his brow glistened with a sheen of perspiration. Nearby, Can Hu stood on watch as well. He noted Shiv and Valor first, offering them a slight incline of the body. Shiv arrived beside Adam. 

The Gate Lord didn't bother to stare at him. His gaze was locked on the Master-Inquisitor—like the Master Inquisitor was the only person in the world worth looking at.

"How did it go?" Adam asked, absentmindedly. "Did you manage to get the orcs to listen to you?"

"Something like that," Shiv coughed. "Listen, I probably need to tell you something about that in a bit. Once we're done with, well, whatever's happening here."

Within the cell, neither Uva nor Sijik spoke. Her mana strands were digging into his mind, and the Master Inquisitor's face was a wall of stone. His forehead was furrowed with deeply etched wrinkles, and his nose looked like it had been broken one too many times and never properly set. 

His eyes were dark onyx pits, and he studied his faceless interrogator. His lips almost curled in a sneer. Uva, comparatively, was like a statue, but one of her strands was still connected to Adam. Thus far she hadn't noticed Shiv, and didn’t connect her mind to his.

"Do you know who I am?" Sijik said. His voice was hoarse, likely made that way by shouting orders during the ambush. Uva didn't respond. She continued working on his mind. "You will not find anything that way. My memories are shrouded from you, shrouded by the divines, by the finest psychomancers who serve the Republic's glory." 

Still, she said nothing, pulling at his thoughts. Sijik revealed a slight wince of discomfort, but he shook his head. "Then, fine then, waste your efforts. Debase yourself with this vile defilement. Know that you have marked yourself with death. Know that you will be punished for this. Punished for what you have done to my Inquisitors, to my expeditionary force, to these loyal servants of the ascendants." A full minute passed before Sijik said anything else. 

Uva kept trying to crack his mind, but as the time dragged on, Shiv guessed that Sijik might be right, that she might actually be having difficulty.

"What's happening?" Shiv asked Adam.

"I'm not sure," Adam said. "It's a lot of complicated Psychomancy. I'm not exactly clear on what she's doing. She hasn't said anything mentally either for quite some time. She's entirely focused."

"I did not know that Compact hired orcs, that they had vile dealings with the accursed grayskins," Sijik spat on the table. His mouth was wet with dried blood. Uva regarded the globule for only a moment, but kept to her silence. "Did that venomous cur Oldsmith warn you? Did that rusted thing of twisted machinery tell you of my coming? Was that it? Was all this its doing?"

Finally, Uva's mana strands broke free from Sijik's mind. The Inquisitor released a satisfied sneer. "I told you, your efforts are wasted. You cannot break a servant of the Ascendants, a servant of those truly divine, who earned their divinity by trial and triumph. Move on to the physical torments if you like. Move on to anything, no matter how depraved. I have endured all. I have faced all. There is nothing you can do to me. Nothing!”

Uva stared at the Master Inquisitor briefly before she finally spoke. "It was the Educator, actually."

Adam leaned in, squinting his eyes. 

Shiv frowned. “What's she doing? Why’s she telling him about the Educator?”

"I'm not exactly sure," Adam replied.

"The what?" Master Inquisitor Sijik's face turned. He paled slightly, and his previous expression of defiance collapsed entirely into a wide-eyed look of surprise.

"The Educator," Uva continued. "She is the reason we were prepared for you."

"You... no." The Master-Inquisitor shook his head violently. "No, that's impossible. You couldn't possibly best..."

"We did not best her. She simply turned to us. She offered her services to us. We were contacted by an Aviary liaison. Apparently, more than one group has an interest in securing Starhawk's Perch."

Shiv could see Sijik start to shake. "Lies. Such naked and ridiculous lies."

Uva turned her head and she stared straight where Adam stood. "Bring the owl."

Adam took a moment to respond, and then he shot off across the prison. He walked out from the current hall and went up a flight of stairs. A few minutes later, he returned with the Aviary owl in chains. And for a brief moment the former spy, the spymaster, looked at Shiv and a chain of fear surged into the Deathless's body. 

The Owl looked down, and his heart began to quicken. Yeah, that's right, Shiv glared. Stay scared owl.

He liked it when people were afraid of him. He liked it when he could bend people's will using fear. That might be something the orcs could exploit in me as well. Shit. Previously I thought these were just personality traits or something. Now I gotta worry about this stuff too. Fucking orcs.

Psychology 32 > 33

Adam pushed the owl through the dimensional veil, and he stumbled into the cell. Uva's mana strings speared straight into the owl's mind. He recoiled for a moment, but then he bowed his head. And after, Sijik's jaws clenched tighter and tighter. Nothing was said, but Shiv realized she was transferring information across, information from the owl into the Master Inquisitor.

"Lies, lies, all of it. It has to be a falsehood. You... you have a gift for constructing personas, I assure you. I see your—”

"But it is not a lie," Uva said, coolly, calmly, without any defensiveness. The Master Inquisitor bit his lip. He even flinched back as Uva leaned across the table. "Now, we want to talk. We want to discuss terms regarding Starhawk's Perch."

"The Perch is not yours to take," the Master-Inquisitor spat. "It is something that belongs to the Ascendants. To the Republic!”

"And what about Roland Arrow’s life?" Uva cut him off. "What is worth more to you, the death of Roland Arrow or the Perch?" Adam's breath got caught in his throat, but Shiv was listening intently now.

"Both belong to the Ascendants!" Sijik said, slamming his fists down on the table. The steel desk dented inward. Uva simply leaned back, not bothered at all.

"So you say. Clearly not. Clearly someone in your Inquisition has decided to strike a bargain to dispatch the Educator so that she could make a deal with New Albion. The Perch was an offering, but I want to know why." She briefly reached forward and tapped a single finger on the Master Inquisitor's wrist. "We wish to know, for our gate was attacked. Attacked by your rogue Educator, supported by Aviary with an army of vampires. 

“You are being held here, Master Inquisitor, not because Master-Advisor Oldsmith had betrayed you. Though that is a factor. Though we do need to discuss the Animancy Core. No. You are here because one of yours has colluded with the First Blood to strike at Compact territory, to conquer this gate in the name of the Republic, the Ascendants, and the First Blood. All. We barely survived, and along the way we received a warning that you were coming. Coming with a force too small to take our gate, yet just enough to serve as an occupying faction. 

“And so you must answer. Clean your voice of righteous indignation. We will return you to your Republic, but we have to wonder if we deliver you directly back to the capital. Will they embrace you as a self-ransomed prisoner of war, or will they regard you as a traitor? You’re compromised, Master-Inquisitor Sijik. You are not here on official capacity, are you? Tell me, why have you betrayed your Republic? Why have you and the Educator allied with Aviary and the First Blood to steal a Sacred Phylacery?”