III-27 Vitaemancer

Because Unique Skills fall beyond the bounds of anything the system has seen before, it is hard to judge exactly when they will evolve and w

Because Unique Skills fall beyond the bounds of anything the system has seen before, it is hard to judge exactly when they will evolve and what they might become. But that they do evolve is a certainty.

My own Unique Skill evolved once it passed the level 51 threshold. Then, until level 300, it didn't do anything at all. It remained the same. As it reached level 300, it fractured inside of me, splitting into two unique skills. The change was utterly unprecedented, and the experience shaped me deeply. The skill splitting was among the most painful things I've ever experienced, but also the most sublime.

I examined both of the resulting unique skills with my Animancy years later, and I discovered many secrets about myself and connected to the skills themselves. All skills advance when they accrue enough legend, which infuses one with mana. My own skills, however, were so complex that their thresholds were different.

To my fascination, it seemed they were always meant to be two skills rather than one. It's just that my experiences over-favored one to the other, and it couldn't fully bud. Only when I hit level 300 did it flower, and the stored mana was split between them. They evolved once more upon reaching their own milestones—level 200 and level 500. They didn't split again, evolving along the general rules of skill progression.

But every Unique Skill is a labyrinth unto itself, and its intricacies must be delved by an Animancer for true comprehension…

-Udraal Thann’s Animancy Notes

III-27

Vitaemancer

"No, no, no, Shiv, no!" Adam cried, his Seer of Horizons playing the horror before his eyes.

Of all the things he could have expected, of all the things he predicted, of all the things he imagined, the Vicar's power rendered him speechless.

A mere few seconds ago, Adam watched Shiv as he rampaged across Lost Angeles. He had fired a few arrows, eliminating what few Diviners he discovered through his Awareness, alongside with a few other threats Shiv couldn’t easily counter. 

The orc was an unwelcome surprise, but Shiv had handled that matter himself. Adam had considered firing an arrow into the dome to extract Shiv in case things got out of hand, but as per usual, Shiv proved himself the better monster against the rival brute.

A patch of time went missing in Adam's mind thereafter, then Shiv suddenly reappeared in the air. Every time the Deathless used Chronomancy, it made it hard for the Gate Lord to track him. That, and Shiv's constant misdirection, made it a little hard for Adam to keep up. He had Shiv imprinted with his own Divination mana, so Deathless was always highlighted in Adam's Awareness. Yet, every time Shiv jumped across time or teleported to his knife in rapid succession, it took a few moments to locate him again.

No wonder the other diviners are having such a hard time, Adam thought. They need to constantly adjust. Not a bad strategy at all, Shiv.

But then, Adam saw Blackedge, and his insides went hollow.

There were so many eldritch entities biting, clawing, and gnawing upon the protective wards that shrouded the city. There were dragon-knights, necromantic artillery, snipers, mages, and more. The chasm was alive with the movement of Sullain’s Abyssal Army, and arcing projectiles infused with corrosive power were fired from all corners of the surrounding ruins.

Blackedge was encircled in more ways than one. But still, his Roland Arrow fought on.

His arrows retaliated in a constant rain, but only his arrows. Adam didn't see anyone else on the field. There were no Republic formations. Roland Arrow fought alone. That nearly shattered Adam’s faith in the Republic altogether.

He whispered lies to himself, lies he knew in his heart were untrue. Perhaps the capital doesn't know. Perhaps some of the other Ascendants aren't aware. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

But he knew what he saw, and what he saw broke his heart. He loved the Republic, he believed in it, but they weren't here. The Inquisition was coming to aid the Abyssal Lord in sacking one of their own towns. To betray one of their own heroes and ruin an Ascendant—in a war of Ascendants.

Blackedge had been abandoned. Betrayed. Sacrificed to an abyssal enemy of impossible power. And Adam saw that great enemy then. He saw the Vicar and his massive, kilometer-long body shaped from gleaming black metal and forged to resemble the nature of a serpent or centipede. He saw the faint blue mana lighting the Vicar's eyes, the same kind of faint blue one would see in the aftermath of an Animancy bomb.

And he saw all the spells the Vicar was weaving at the same time. So much magic, so many different spells all at once.

Adam's pulse quickened as he witnessed the Vicar summoning hundreds of eldritch nightmares. No, not hundreds—thousands by the second from so many rifts. It was like there was no end to the Vicar's power. 

The Sullain was godlike, impossibly skilled. To call him a Legend felt insufficient. With him unleashing so much power, so many complicated spell patterns, Adam felt like he was a flea trying to comprehend the workings performed by a man.

There came a moment of hope as his father's arrows descended. They cracked down upon the land, fracturing the ground, lighting the world in glorious ruin. Fire consumed all—radiant, glorious flame. Flames hot and bright enough to kill Shiv with just a few shots.

But something happened. A second passed, and the flames sputtered and died. They were drawn away from the world and summoned to the Vicar's grasp. They coalesced as streams, and eventually, the Vicar perverted the flames further, shaping it to his whim. Roland countered with more arrows from above, but Sullain simply shifted them away with an shroud of Dimensionality that was beyond anything Adam could manage. Then, Sullen finished his mockery of Roland—he lifted the captured flame high into the air and left it as a sun. Then, he channeled Necromancy into it.

A flood of corrosive mana infused the small star. The same corrosion replaced the light and splashed down upon the land, and Adam fired his Veilpiercer then as he realized what was about to happen.

But he was too late. A blast of incredible brightness followed. Shiv—Shit! A shudder ran through Adam’s senses. The world jolted slightly in a way he could perceive. Chronomancy—Adam’s Veilpiercer burst out near where Shiv was but struck nothing.

Shiv wasn't where he used to be. He wasn’t anywhere Adam could perceive.

The corrosive sun still loomed above, and the Vicar looked around, seeming confused. But after a moment, Adam noticed something hovering beside the Vicar. A ball of red and white. The colors of Shiv's Vitae.

Though the Vicar looked lost as to how he managed to obtain such a sphere, Adam's insides twisted and turned. He had a guess, and it was an ugly one.

No, no, no, Adam thought.  He tried to find Shiv using his senses alone. His Divination gave no imprint. His Seer of Horizons surged and surged, and suddenly he heard something far below him.

Right in front of the gateway, a body crashed against the soil, soft mud parting beneath the heavy weight.

Adam descended.

At the same time, the Vicar unleashed a stream of necromantic mana upon Blackedge, only for it to be split in half by an arrow with a pink-blue tip. The Vicar tried to intercept the arrow with a shroud of Dimensionality, but the arrow blinked out of existence. It jumped forward across space and impacted the Vicar's Necromantic sun.

The corrosive dawn burst apart, spraying mana into the world like a festering egg. Some of it crashed against the Vicar, but he held out a hand and kept the searing mana at bay, directing it away from himself and barely avoiding harm.

At the same time, the sphere of Vitae hovered beside him. The Vicar looked repeatedly at the sphere, even as he fought to control his shattered Necromantic star. His body language revealed something to Adam: indecision, and then a decision. “Apostles! Press the attack! I will return shortly! There has been a new discovery gifted unto us by the Great One! Our victory is ordained! Press! Break the Flamebringer’s fortress. Spare none who do not convert before the Great One. Give no quarter to the murders and butchers but leave room in your heart for the feeble and meek. May the Great Adversary be undone! May the Great One rise again!”

And with a casual wave of his hand, an implosion of dimensionality consumed Vicar Sullain, and he vanished from existence. His forces continued the assault without him. Almost immediately, they started thinning from the veritable rainstorm of arrows unleashed by Roland.

But the sphere of Vitae was gone. Taken by the Vicar. And now Adam was desperate to find out what was wrong with Shiv.

Please don’t have your soul ripped out. Please don’t—

Adam slammed down onto the ground right beside Shiv, and it was all the Gate Lord could do not to throw up. "Oh Ascendants, oh gods, Shiv! Shiv, can you hear me?"

Adam had seen the Deathless wounded before, had seen him die over and over, but what had the Vicar done to him? He scarcely looked human anymore. His bone armor was shattered in so many places, and flesh bubbled out in swaying clumps that wept pus and blood. His helmet was cracked through, and part of Shiv's face had been fused with the bone. But it was a poor fusion. There were so many holes in his flesh that revealed fragments of misplaced bone. Patches of skin were—

The Gate Lord looked away, he focused on Shiv’s eyes… They were wide, and bright, and twitching—

Shiv let out a choked rasp.

“Shit, shit,” Adam breathed. He channeled his Righteous Dawn Prevails into the Deathless. Shiv came alight, but Adam had channeled too late. Shiv shuddered, and then, after a few final twitches, he went still. “No. Godsdammit, don’t—Drain me! I’m ready! I’m… Shiv?”

The Deathless didn’t move at all. His eyes were unmoving, unfocused. His legs kicked out a final time and stilled. There was no breath in his lungs, no beat in his heart, no mana around his body. He was dead. Dead, and there was no Revenant either. Where was the Revenant? Where was the outline of Shiv’s body? Why wasn’t anything happening?

Again, Adam thought back to the Vitae hovering beside the Vicar. It was a lot of red and white and no, no, he’s not dead. It can’t be his entire being. Shiv isn’t—

“Shiv,” Adam’s first words came out as a whisper. He knelt beside his friend’s body and shook him. “Shiv. Shiv! Get up, you bastard! Drain me! Don’t… Don’t…”

Shiv didn’t move. No drain came. Only the soft breeze made a noise that followed in the silence thereafter, rustling through the grass. Adam looked at the corpse and felt sick. This was supposed to be just a scouting run. How was he going to explain this to—No, something else must be happening, he wouldn’t accept this—Shiv was supposed to be Deathless. Aside from the Necromancy—-

An explosion of red and white erupted from Shiv. Adam was blasted off his feet. He rolled and recovered, and as he stood, he saw a twisting weave of colors before him. Currents of brilliant red and purest white. There came ripples amidst the color. Pulses of an outline. But then the outline started to break apart, and all that remained were the hues.

Adam blinked as he tried to comprehend what was happening to Shiv. He failed. But at least the big bastard wasn’t actually dead.

Or so Adam hoped. A sigh escaped him as he took a tentative step closer to the mess of red and white strands. “Shiv. Are you… are you in there?”

And right as he asked that question, the streams of color began to rapidly fade from sight like a dying flame.

***

Skill Evolution: Revenant (Unique) > Vitaemancy (Unique)

Strider of the Unbending Path 130 > 135

Adamantine Adaption 164 > 166

Woundeater 87 > 89

Pain lined every part of Shiv. Pain became Shiv. But more than pain, there was something else, a strange sensation, as his body unraveled.

His body? What was happening to his body? He felt fluid. Like a mess of different overlapping parts. He was dead. He was supposed to resurrect as a Revenant, but he hadn't. He hadn't simply rematerialized over his body, incorporeal, as nothing more than a faint outline of the figure he was.

Instead, he felt scattered. He felt like a mess of limbs, groping, starving, trying to find a source of heat. Coldness rushed through him. It was like ice water flooding his veins, dousing his existence.

He forced himself to focus before his vitality was finally extinguished. And as he did, he found the world around him coming into view. No longer was everything painted in muted colors. No, things were vibrant now. Vibrant and then dull. There was a contrast, and beside him was a beacon of vitality.

That was Adam.

Shiv observed Adam as a hunger roared inside him. An all-consuming thirst almost overtook him. He wanted to drain Adam, drain every bit of him until there was nothing left of the man.

But beside Adam, there were other patches of color in the world as well. In fact, all of the world seemed brighter than before, with a thin layer of vitality layered upon it. But it wasn’t the vitality he saw before. No. There was more than just heat in the air. There was red and white stuffing the world. Just like his alloyed soul and vitality. 

Shiv faded. His senses drifted. When they returned, he realized he wasn't a Revenant at all. No, his new body was a mess. It was like a swirl of dancing streams. Streams of Vitae. And he saw his new Unique Skill Evolution and his mind went blank. Vitaemancy. He got a magical skill specifically for manipulating his own being? How did that work? And what was he supposed to—

The streams of color felt like they were part of him. He moved all of them without issue. And as he did that, he realized it was hatching free from something. Something almost invisible. An outline used to be his Revenant cracked apart into pieces and dissolved seconds after.

This felt like a metamorphosis unlike any other.

Before Shiv could consider the implications, he felt himself dim even further. He felt the cold wash over him—reach his very core. He was out of time. He needed to drain vitality. He needed to live.

Shiv speared into Adam like a leech seeking a vein. The Gate Lord shuddered as red and white was drawn out from his body, a flowing current of vitality as if blood drawn into a syringe. Then, even more of Shiv’s streams splashed against Adam’s body and started draining him at the same time.

The Deathless didn't just have one strand of Vitae. No, every part of him consisted of the swirling flow. It wasn't even a part of him; it was him. This was the shape of his existence now. As it moved, he could see sections of it were corroded and withered. Were barely hanging on. The necromantic damage still scarred him. But he could feel them, and he could move the streams around himself.

It didn’t heal the hurt, but it did make him feel better.

“Alright,” Adam wheezed. His features paled fast as Shiv drew in massive surges of vitality. The Vitality Drain Skill had also been dramatically leveled from the blast he experienced earlier. Shiv could feel himself drawing considerably more vitality from the Gate Lord. But Shiv still needed more. It was like part of his Skill Evolution was incomplete. He needed to finish his metamorphosis, and he needed more—more—MORE!

Instinct took hold. Shiv directed his other streams across the land, seeking the grass. As they moved, a thundering sheath formed over his Vitae. His Inertial Overdrive activated. Shiv felt his gravitic field as well. Shiv blinked. His strands had actual weight. One of them crashed into the ground and tore out a chunk of soil. He also saw his Skysplitter dragged along by one of his Vitae currents. What the hells is happening to me…

His tendrils speared into the grass. He drank away their vitality in large gulps. They didn't wither or decay. They melted into him. Fused with him. And when he was done, there was nothing left behind. And suddenly, Shiv looked at the world around him. There was a thin film of red and white everywhere. 

There was vitality everywhere. 

Vitae everywhere. 

Existence everywhere.

Shiv drove himself into that existence, and he drained. He drained as much as he could, and parts of the world tore open. Wounds developed. Wounds lined the flesh of existence. If reality was a fabric, then Shiv was sinking his teeth into it, leaving bite marks over and over.

WARNING: MANA INSTABILITY DETECTED

Just then, a pressure built in the air. A sudden bolt of magical lightning crashed across the ground, blasting into Shiv. A spear of coldness sank into him as some of his Vitae burst apart. They sprayed out like broken pieces of glass, and the red glow of his vitality faded thereafter. Before Shiv could react, a blast of flame spewed free from another of the wounds he had left in reality.

He stopped time before the flame could hit him and stopped draining from the thin, fragile threshold that was the world. Instead, he focused on the grass, on Adam. But as Shiv moved away from the flame and resumed time, the Young Lord crashed down on his knees and dry heaved.

Shit—I’m draining too much. I need to… Gods, I need more vitality…

Vitality Drain 51 > 52

"It's okay," Adam said, drool escaping from his mouth. "I have—-I have more—as much as you need."

But Shiv could feel Adam emptying. And it still wasn’t enough to complete the metamorphosis. There was also no way Shiv was going to let himself kill Adam. He stopped draining the Gate Lord and almost immediately felt the cold rush back into him. Immediately, Shiv could feel vitality evaporate from his new form at a staggering rate. Heat bled out his body as if blood from a slit throat.

But he could move fast. He could cast himself in many different directions.

And so he flung his countless strands of Vitae at the grass around him, at everything that lived, at everything that glowed brightest.

Everything except that thin film lining the world itself.

He consumed the grass. He found bushes and drank them out of existence, too.

In seconds, he slashed across the land, his body now a mess of red and white interwoven strings. They flowed like lashing whips, sucking up every droplet of vitality he could find. In under a minute, an entire kilometer of greenery vanished. There wasn't any decay, any damage. They simply ceased to be.

But Shiv still needed more. To his surprise, his Vitae reached far, reeling out at the speeds allowed by the interplay between his Inertial Overdrive and his gravitic field.

Vitamancy was unlike anything else. It wasn't like a field he could wield. Rather, it was like moving his own spirit along, reshaping himself, touching things using his altered existence. With every bit of vitality he drained, more strings extended from him. His colors grew more vibrant, his terror fading before a growing focus. But even so, every movement performed by his Vitae, every second he existed in this state, vitality flooded out of him as well.

Everything he did cost vitality, and everything he drained became an influx.

From above came a chirp. A small bird was sailing just overhead, flapping its wings desperately as a hawk burst free from the clouds.

Shiv cast his Vitae through the bird first. In seconds, its existence vanished within his. The same strands blasted out from where the bird was and struck the hawk as well. It struggled a bit longer, shuddering and flapping its wings twice more, before it too faded into his Vitae.

And then, as he reached that threshold, something flooded out from each of his streams. A membrane pooled around him. It extended beyond his Inertial Sheath and solidified into a field of circulating white and red. And then it hardened. It condensed. And Shiv stopped losing vitality as his being stabilized.

A mana field formed around him. A mana field that he could move his Vitae in, that his streams were pooling together, reforming into his living body.

This was his new resurrective husk. But instead of shadow, it was colorful. It was vibrant. And it was stable. But his Vitae was entirely solid now. A new form of mana so dense it was matter—but also an extension of himself. Tentatively, Shiv extended a trickle of Vitae beyond his protective field, and it immediately began to evaporate once more. He drew it back in and it stopped evaporating. He cast a jet of Vitae at the tree in the distance, and it crackled through the air. He lost vitality along the way, but the moment it touched the tree, he began to drain it back in.

Did I… just become my own kind of magic? Shiv thought. He prodded at himself even as more of his body continued to reform. There was a strange twitching sensation inside him, but he ignored that as he found himself examining the other things. His Vitaemancy mana field was about as large as his body—and everything within was stable. He could reach beyond it, but it immediately started costing him his existence. What… What else can I do with this? I don’t understand…

But then the twitching inside him became a violent struggle. From within his Vitae, someone else burst free. He could hear her screaming. He could hear her struggling as she tried to tear her way out from inside him. Her body was trapped inside his, was lost for so long, but she was surfacing—she was finding her way out.

Rose Van Erren was trying to escape. She could move of her own accord. She chose to swim, to break out from Shiv, to pierce his inner streams and press against the outer boundary of his Vitaemancy field. The long-dead Diviner stretched out from his red and white field with a hand outstretched. She resembled a person trying to claw their way free from a thick, translucent cocoon. But her struggles were insufficient, and she wasn’t strong enough to break free from his Vitae.

Each of his currents was like adamantine, and her body felt soft and fragile. But as she unlatched from him bit by bit, he felt his pain fading, and he brushed her flesh—and felt his corrosion imprinted on her body.

Rose wasn’t trying to break free because she wanted to escape. No, she was in agony. She inherited his soul-wounds.

How the fuck did that happen? Shiv thought.

Rose clawed out again, and this time, Adam noticed her. Shiv was reforming behind her, but his own shape couldn’t solidify automatically until she was pulled back in or removed. That was what his gut told him.

And though Rose wanted to split from him, she ultimately didn’t have the strength—or the skill to do so.

But he did. And he was more than fine with letting her go. Shiv reached out and took hold of the Diviner. His streams clenched tight around her like solid bands. She cried out in pain, and he winced. Then, slowly, he began pushing out her through the field.

Rose shuddered. She turned. Shiv shook, but then his currents stabilized as he felt his flesh surface from over his Vitaemancy field. Rivers of red and white connected him to her. Just as they wove him back into existence, they wove her as well. He stood, covered in burned rags while she collapsed against the soil bare as the day she was born.

She'd looked down upon her and swallowed. A few currents of Vitaemancy continued to weave around her, to coil and tighten. But she was coming into shape, and she was surfacing from the white and red colors of his unique mana.

Vitaemancy was a magical skill, unlike all other magical skills. It was the substance that comprised Shiv's being, and it was something that was a mystery to him. Its capabilities, its uses, its very nature. Even if it made up who he was, he didn't know how it worked, and he certainly didn't know why Rosehad been restored.

But that didn't matter. He promised that he would get her out at some point, promised and expected to find an Animancer, likely a restored Valor, to serve as her liberator. But he had an opportunity now. He had a means now. So he was going to try now to save her right now. 

Not later, not tomorrow, not next year, now. 

She surfaced from the lingering remnants of his Vitaemancy, much like he did. But a pulse and coldness radiated inside of him after he let her go. It was like he'd given part of himself away, sacrificed some of his vitality. Shiv felt weary again.

But he reached out. He searched the land with his Vitaemancy streams, and as he found more grass, he drained them as well. He didn't use his hands to directed his Vitae streams. They moved of their own accord, and when they splashed out from him, his body quivered as if it was the surface of a pond, a pond of red that oscillated with colors of white.

Every time he used his Vitaemancy, he lost something once it went beyond his field. But what was lost could be drained from the world, and now he could interact with the physical world using the shape of his solidified soul.

But the world could also interact with me in return, Shiv realized.

Before him, Rose Van Erren lay. Her hair still seemed like it retained some of his vitality, but he realized that was just her natural color, red—blood red. The hue of vitality and romancey, but then there were horrific scars lining her body, patches of corrosive burns that left her disfigured and twitching on the ground. Her body was horrifically melted, her skin was like a dense hive mottled by acid.

Shiv looked down at himself, patted his own body, and felt only a few lingering injuries retained. She had taken on the bulk of the wounds he sustained. He was barely burned now. Was this… Did his Vitaemancy allow him to pass soul wounds on to othe people? 

Adam was staring at his mother as well, his eyes wide, his jaw open in disbelief. The gate lord looked exhausted, spent, and now he was probably mentally reeling as well. Slowly he turned to Shiv, and Shiv tried to say something, but he didn't have the words. He didn't know what to say, so he just shrugged.

"She wanted out, man… So I… let her out…" Shiv muttered. It sounded stupid, but it was an honest statement.

Adam tried to say something, but then his eyes rolled, and he promptly pitched over. Exhaustion induced by the vitality drain claimed him.

"Shit," Shiv muttered. He probably drained Adam too much.

A whimper came from Rose as she stared at Adam. She laid there in the opposite direction he did, and mother and son were pointed away from each other. Even so, she reached out with a shaking hand, and she placed it upon his back.

"My boy," she breathed, and she did breathe, and she remained in existence. She didn't fade out.

Shiv stared. Did I just... Did I just bring a woman back to life? His mind spun at the implications, but he couldn't deal with this. Not yet. Not out here either.

He looked around, and he scowled. This place was partially a wasteland. Roland’s bombardment left everything a kilometer away get glassed, but there were still probably Diviners—or Necrotechs with Master-Tier Awareness lurking in the clouds or in the distance beyond. He didn't need them to know what he could do, and he certainly didn't need them to have any more information about him hatching a woman from his vitality. However that worked.

Immediately, Shiv reached down and picked up both Rose and Adam as he marched back toward the gate. The surface was still shimmering with waves of Dimensionality. Adam kept the pathway active.

 "Thank the gods," Shiv growled. “And fuck Sullain.”

He passed through the dimensional rift and as soon as he crossed over, heads turned to stare at him. Heads of mercenaries, of Umbrals on guard, of a Weaveress that stumbled back in surprise as Shiv blasted past her. He shot up into the air as she called out to him.

“Exalted Guest Shiv!” she said. “What—”

"Call Uva," Shiv shouted back in return as he soared through the air, toward the obsidian. "And get me Valor. We're gonna need, I need him. I need everyone. I… I…” How the hells was he supposed to explain any of this.

As soon as he pondered that question, a Psychomancy thread passed through his mind as the familiar presence of Uva settled into his consciousness.

"Shiv, what's wrong? What happened?"

"I, uh..." Shiv looked down at Adam's mother, and then he looked down at Adam.

Uva hesitated. "Shiv. What happened to Adam. And that woman… why is she undressed?"

He opened and closed his mouth several times before he settled on the truth. "So, uh, I think my Unique Skill underwent a Skill Evolution, and then I died, and I gave magic rebirth to Adam's mom somehow. And now I need Valor to help me figure things out."

A long pause followed. For the first time, Uva was genuinely speechless and thoughtless. She let out a soft sigh. "Never a dull moment with you.”