II-43 Context

To the Educator: (Exposition: Most of them don’t know my actual name and none of them know who I actually am. Nor do they care. They think they are the ones who decide. What fools)

The High Office of the Inquisition has dispatched new orders. You are to finish with matters in Lone Star immediately. Deal with what heretics are remaining and keep their cells suppressed for now. 

(Exposition: The Auroral Council is ripping itself apart. The Starhawk is trying to break the very nature of their godhood, but the others cannot let go. They will not allow it. But even here, the others are divided. Two wish to kill the Starhawk and be done with things. The others still view him as their brother—merely lost and to be restrained.)

Gate Theborn is your next destination. You will find our liaison there and secure a weapon: An Animancy Core. You, then, will deliver the core to the Inquisition and await further instructions.

(Exposition: And there is more than just one conflict on display here. There are personal grudges being wielded by the divine. Roland Arrow has just as many enemies as his patron god, being the only favored champion of the Starhawk and the guardian of the Perch.)

High Office of the Inquisition, signed by Inquisitor Sijik. 

(Exposition: This one is coming to Gate Theborn with a small force soon. He will be coming with Lord Stormhalt to finish the farce of an assassination they have planned. How pathetic.)

-Commands Dispatched by the High Office of the Auroral Inquisition to the “Educator” (Exposition: Like they know anything about what is actually going on.)

II-43
Context

Foreshadowing: I am going to exploit this pseudo-vision I have inflicted upon you now. Foreshadowing is a very inconvenient skill to have. You should really evolve beyond Adept as soon as you can. Here. Let me give you a bit more of a hand. 

Foreshadowing > 43

Shiv grunted as he felt something smash into him hard. He briefly lurched back but caught himself with his field.  He tried to strike back, but controlling his body during the visions felt like trying to claw his way out from inside a dream. His consciousness was partial at best right now, and it felt like his enemy was manipulating his Foreshadowing somehow.

Foreshadowing: That’s because I am. I’m also not sure as to why you have this skill, though. Or a fragment of Rose Van Erren’s Foreshadowing Skill ended up inside you.

Something else hit Shiv as the vision intensified. He felt something punch into the flesh of his neck before he adapted. He heard a note of surprise as something exploded against him again—but failed to push him back.

Foreshadowing: And how in the Ascendants’ collective stupidity did you get Adamantine Adaption? That’s a skill common for colossal-category monsters, not individuals. Wait, your Path… What is that Path?

Foreshadowing > 45

Shiv tried to push back, did everything he could to break free from the chaotic flood of details the Educator was pouring into his mind.

Foreshadowing: Not your mind. I am not a Psychomancer like your—your lover? Ha! And a Sister of the Arachnae Order no less. How in the hells did you do that? Wait, Silver Tongue? That’s her skill too! What is with all these debris in your soul? And how are you regenerating someone else’s broken skills? What a vexing mystery you are.

Another series of strikes hit Shiv over the head. Blows that actually stung and rocked him. It was like he was getting pounded on by the axe-bearing dragon again. But instead of being unconscious, he was just getting screwed over by his own visions. He then felt something like a chain tighten around his neck, but he managed to fling it away with a brief pulse from his field.

Foreshadowing: Gravitic Wrestler? Woundeater? The Chef Unwavering? What am I looking at? I don’t—why didn’t I ever notice you before?

Foreshadowing > 46

The vision’s ended. At least for a moment. Shiv’s senses returned to him, he growled as he glared at the Educator. His helmet was cracked open, blood was trickling down from his forehead, and his neck was bleeding as well. He was inside some kind of ruined building, and the Educator ducked to the left as one of Adam’s Veilpiercer arrows almost hit her. The shot slipped over her neck, and Shiv grunted as he parried the projectile aside.

It blasted through a wall behind them, and almost immediately, the building began to groan and shake.

“I have questions—” the Educator began.

Shiv slashed the ground with his kukri and charged her. He caught the robed woman rolling her eyes as he blasted toward her. He launched two bone drills; a laceration spell in one hand, followed by a Bowel-Breaker; then he shot up an odd angle with a pull of his field before diving in to claim her head.

She was a step ahead for every single time. She caught one of his drills and used it to deflect the other. Both spells crashed and exploded against her, but she didn’t seem to care—and for good reason. Her Magical Resistance made Confriga’s feel feeble. As Shiv tried to cut her again, she parried him with her brush and painted something in the air. A shape lurched toward Shiv and he immediately triggered his chrono-anchor.

He blinked across the room just as a symbol splashed the space where he just was. Shiv narrowed his eyes at the attack. He didn’t know what that was, but something about it told him he needed to avoid it at all costs. Just then, the building began to collapse. The ceiling above them broke apart and crashed down. Shiv didn’t much care, and neither did the Educator. 

They both regarded each other for a moment.

“That’s the interesting knife,” she said. “Mainly because of the Chronomancy. Secondarily because it reeks of the system’s vulgar interest in you. In fact, you practically burn with the system’s favor. So much that you ignited the other two with you. They’re burning as well.”

Just then, Uva’s mana strands speared into the room from all sides. One went for Shiv while the others went for the Educator. Shiv activated his Silhouette then, and the Educator grinned. “Oh, now there’s a proper skill.” The building crashed down on them. Shiv launched himself forward, using the chaos to mask his attack—

Then another vision consumed him.

Foreshadowing: Silhouette. Quite the skill—especially for someone like you. And at the Young Lord’s recommendation, no less. You and he are almost like Roland and Harlon all those years ago, down to the very dynamic. Except, you seem to actually be the man your father wishes he was? And the man your mother wishes she married.

Foreshadowing > 47

Shiv could faintly hear Uva calling for him—then her call broke off into a cry of pain. Something inside Shiv recoiled. He struggled against the vision as much as he could, trying to break out. He fed his anger into his Gravitic Wrestler and barely mustered the focus to stomp down on the ground.

The vision broke, and so did the world around him. The weight of the fallen building pressing down on his back vanished as a shockwave erupted out from Shiv. Light splashed down on him. Light and—for a brief moment, he was stunned. He stood in amongst the skeletal remains of a ruined city. A ruined city he knew, that he traveled and explored for so many years, clearing out lesser vampire nests.

This was Lost Angeles. How was he here?

“I quite dislike magic, you know that?” the Educator said. Shiv froze. He couldn’t see her at all anymore. He scanned his surroundings and focused on his Biomancy. “It twists one’s perspective on things and makes acts far too impersonal. But truth be told, it just takes the tension out of things. So many magical battles are just someone hitting someone else with a spell then death. No way out. No tension.”

“Well, come out, then,” Shiv said, he slashed the ground again with his kukri as he rose into the air. “If you want some tension, I can give you to you.”

“Hm. No. I take what I said in the vision back. You sound more like your mother. She was the aggressive one. Frankly, she was the one that made the mistake of conceiving you. Your father was far more cautious. Just a pity he loved her so much. And a pity it was the other way around with Roland and his Rose.”

Shiv heard the words she was speaking, but he wasn’t truly listening. Judging from how Adam’s arrows briefly stopped coming, the Young Lord was, however. Shiv was too focused on trying to hunt his adversary down, and—

“S-Shiv—” Can Hu crackled.

Shit! Shiv cursed internally. He forgot about Can Hu. The automaton sounded broken.

The Penitent tried to speak. “Something—actively interfering—can—”

Then, Shiv shouted in pain as the wet fibers of a paintbrush burrowed clean through his flesh without resistance. He faintly heard Uva calling his name, but he growled and turned—only to feel the brush stroke away more of him. Shiv shot forward through the air and clutched at his back. Blood gushed out from the deep channels painted into his flesh. Painted. His wounds bled colors of concrete, gray, and rusted metal—the colors of the ruins.

“What… in the godsdamned hells?” Shiv groaned as he looked at his hand. He hadn’t been run through like that for weeks. Diamond Shell alone made him as hard on the inside as he was on the outside. Just what was that brush.

And where was that brush.

“A recommendation about being sneaky—you should avoid holding your bright, radiant kukri out in the open. Maybe hide it somewhere until you’re ready to strike. It really does your Silhouette an injustice. You should treasure your Stealth Skill more, boy. Nothing feeds you more tension than that.”

Shiv looked about and still couldn’t find the damned Educator. Just then, he saw Uva’s strands slowly closing in—only for the Educator to materialize beside a string and strike it with her brush. Again, Shiv heard Uva shout. The damned Educator was striking the mana strands over and over.

Rage exploded through Shiv. He launched another laceration spell at the Educator, but she simply smiled, dove under him and—

And he lost track of her again. It was like she vanished entirely as soon as she left his line of—

Wait! Shit! She can move across someone’s Awareness. That’s how she got to us immediately. She jumped across through Adam’s Awareness! So, she’s inside mine right now!

A vision smashed into him again just as he realized the truth. “Godsdammit!” Shiv snarled. “Stop doing that!”

Foreshadowing: No.

Also, it’s beneficial for you. The sooner you develop Exposition, the sooner you and I can have a proper conversation. Also, good job about remembering my Skill Fusion. You put things together awfully fast.

Now. I’m going to—

Foreshadowing > 49

Shiv sobered, but for a moment. That moment was long enough. He tried something desperate, and blinded himself. His eyes burst. The vision didn’t end. So he took a chance and went the rest of the way. Shiv stopped his heart, and emerged as a Revenant a moment later, hoping it would be enough for him to escape the visions, or at least get a Skill Evolution capable of resisting his enemy.

Silhouette > 66

Revenant > 11

Skill Evolution: Foreshadowing (Adept) > Exposition—[Error: Skill Evolution Incompatible With Path]

What? Shiv had never seen an error notification before. But that thought crumbled away as something else consumed Shiv’s attention. Heat. Immense heat. More heat than he ever felt in his entire life.

He expected the Educator to be strong of vitality with the skills she displayed, but nothing could prepare him for what rose out from within the Educator.

And it did indeed rise out. Like a plant hatching and climbing toward sunlight. Except the thing that grew out from the Educator was no plant, but a massive, borderline transparent humanoid shape. It was so big that it blocked Shiv’s view of the sky. And it should have been utterly invisible, but the fact it had vitality burning within its body gave Shiv the impression of a burning titan looking down on at him. 

The massive being had more vitality than anyone he drained by far. If Shiv had resurrected before the sun, this is what it would feel like.

Severe Path Incompatibility Detected: Unable to Evolve Skill [Exposition]

Unable to expand and modify Pathbearer’s Soul without affecting Vitality 

And at the same time, the colossal burning entity glared down at Shiv. The Educator froze, long enough for one of Adam's arrows to knock her back, long enough for Uva's strands to bounce from her Magical Resistance. But she stared at Shiv, and her expression was one of absolute shock. Her expression was matched by the immense being's body language, and the sky, it shook slightly.

"What. Are. You."

And another vision smashed into Shiv. It crashed hard against his consciousness, drowning him once more, but not manipulating his mind, just forcing details into him. Endless details, flashes of places and things. He caught a vision, a vision of twenty people condemned to death. Twenty people, all shackled to each other, as they were marched to the edge of a chasm—the Abyss. 

They were cast down by a burst of force, and each of them fell. They fell as one, and they fell as all. But as they fell, they went from twenty, to seventeen, to fifteen, and the finally thirty.

And then the vision broke, and once more Shiv felt his skill try to evolve, but his soul wouldn't allow it, and pain, pain unlike anything he ever experienced, consumed him. It was like something was hatching out from his very being, ripping out from his flesh.

Foreshadowing: What are you? Why are you evolving the skill? What did you just do to yourself?

Foreshadowing: [Unable to Level Skill]

The Adept-Skill was cracking and breaking inside of him, trying to transform, but his soul wouldn't allow it. If Shiv had a mouth then, he would have screamed, and he would have kept screaming and screaming forever. That's how bad the pain felt; it was beyond what he experienced when he was purified within the teleportation anchor, when he strained his soul, mind, and body facing the Jealousy, when he took the brutal beating at the hands of the dragon-knights.

This was an immediate twelve out of ten on the pain spectrum. 

Slowly, the skill began to forcibly break and twist inside him. It felt like someone was reshaping his very bones while still inside his flesh. Foreshadowing needed to evolve. It was already beyond the precipice. It couldn't be itself anymore. 

But Exposition was not for him. It was a thing that couldn't touch one's vitality, that needed to be soul deep for some reason, untainted by the existence of a life force. But Shiv was an undying flame—life enduring. 

And so the skill had to become something else altogether. It spilled into his integrated existence, and the pain abruptly ended as Shiv felt a sudden coldness enter his being as his very vitality was siphoned away into the skill.

No, no! Shit! Shiv immediately shot toward the Educator and activated Silhouette. He could feel himself growing colder at a rapid rate, and he needed to fuel himself. At the same time, he felt the Foreshadowing Skill dissolve before the raw, chaotic nature of his life force.

Skill Lost: Foreshadowing (Adept)

Just as he seized the Educator, a flash of vitality pulsed through her—but Shiv realized she was but an empty vessel. There was no vitality sourced from her. Rather, she was just a channel. Or some kind of anchoring vessel for the great being above. Their vitality surged into Shiv, and it went off inside him like a bomb. A mixture of brilliant red and white bubbled over Shiv, and the skill drank from that too.

The colossal entity cast a vision at him—tried to make him see something, but for a moment, Shiv was beyond their reach. His shadowy cocoon formed and began to crack in the same instant. His very existence was supercharged with a rushing power that was more than anything he ever felt.

Vitality Drain > 30

And through it all, the awesome entity stared on in brief disbelief as a trickle of them zipped over to Shiv, and finally, a skill evolution notification materialized again.

Skill Evolution: Foreshadowing (Adept) > Outside Context Problem (Unique)

Outside Context Problem > 51

“What did you just—why isn’t exposition working on you anymore? Why can’t I see anything? Why can’t I see your skills?”

Shiv ignored the colossal entity as he emerged from his resurrective husk. He drove his kukri into the face of the Educator. The blade only gave her a slight cut on the cheek, but nothing more. She responded by flicking her brush at him. The paint sailed through the air and—

“NO!”

Shiv felt himself get pulled away before it got close to him. But he wasn’t pulled back. Rather, he was pulled through existence.  Or at least that was how it felt. There was a layer of burning life-essence around him, red and white flames that shaped his very being. He was getting colder, cold at an alarming rate. For a moment he had thought he was dead, but he looked down he still had a body. He was still whole. 

But there was something else in here with him. Someone else just behind him.

He turned, preparing to bring the blade to bear against the unseen enemy, but he froze. His kukri lingered an inch away from the throat an entity shaped from his very vitality.

She loomed over him, her body malformed but also strangely elegant. The color of her hair was crimson, red like Adam's hair. She looked a little like Adam around the eyes, and a white dress whipped around her body in tassels. Shiv felt himself get colder still, and he wasn't sure if it was his vitality burning away at an alarming rate, or it was just a sudden horrible realization. He'd seen this woman in paintings, in murals, in memorial photos, and more across Blackedge. 

This was… Rose Van Erren. Wife to Roland Arrow. Mother to Adam Arrow. And murder victim on the day of Shiv’s brith.

“How…” Shiv breathed.

"I don't know," she replied. Her voice was high. She even sounded a bit like Adam. She looked at her hands, and the vitality empowering both of them, that kept them both in existence, was flickering away, like a dying flame exposed to falling rain. "I sensed there was danger… danger you wouldn't have been able to survive, and so I pulled you away. I pulled you out of the world."

Shiv just stared. "Out of the what?"

"The world," she said. "Outside, everything out there. It's dangerous, it's hateful, it's hurtful. There are so many threats everywhere. The waves of causality are so high" 

And as Shiv stared out through the film of his vitality, he realized something. The world had gone gray and dull, and his enemy seemed absolutely confused as to where he was at all. 

In fact, the divine being was looking around, as was the Educator. Another Veilpiercer arrow crashed into her back and blew a chunk of her shoulder away. She barely noticed that. Then, several more of Uva's strands stabbed at her, and they seemed to knock her out of her stupor.

"Everything outside is bound to the waves of choice and action. Action-reaction. But not you. You are not bound. You are the one thing that they have to tether themselves to. The Foreshadowing they cast... it broke against you several times, because you are not meant to be. You were never meant to be. Because I know, I know, because something of mine is there inside of you." She pointed at him, pointed to his chest, and there was a flash of hatred in her eyes. "You shouldn't be. You shouldn't be!"

She grabbed him by the neck but her fingers melted into him. "You shouldn't be. Where? What did you take from me? Why? Why did you take it from me?"

"What are you even talking about," he said. When he got a new skill, he didn't expect this.

"Give it back to me." She began to breathe, to hyperventilate hysterically. "Why am I bound to you? What is this? What is this madness? Give, give it back to me."

Shiv considered stabbing her, but well, this was... he didn't know what this was. The woman looked like Adam's mother, but how did he evolve Adam's mother out of Foreshadowing? 

For every second he spent within the shroud of his soul, Shiv could feel himself growing weaker at an alarming rate. He needed to drink someone else's vitality to restore this. He needed to if he wanted to remain in existence.

"Put me back," Shiv growled. "Put me back."

She stared at him, and bit her lip. "I… don't know how."

"What do you mean you don't know how? You pulled me into myself in the first place."

"I was just reacting."

"Well," Shiv snarled . "React again. React!" He focused on his own vitality, and he began to pry. And as he began to pry, her body superimposed over his, and they pulled together. 

A second later, Shiv hatched back into existence, a blast of red-white fire searing the ground around him. The floor cracked, but blood-red veins and flowers bloomed from everything he touched. Flowers that pulsed with as if they were hearts.

Shiv crashed down on the floor, feeling weaker than he could ever remember feeling. But he was in teh world and looked around. There was color and sensation and— "What just happened?" he breathed. 

A massive blast erupted a few blocks away. "Shit," he muttered. "Adam. Uva.”

“Wait, Can Hu!" He rushed over to the downed armor. He forced it open and peeled out his old body. He settled in and launched himself through the air with his gravitic field. “Can Hu? You there?”

“S-s-still—” was all the automaton managed to say.

“Shit!” Shiv cursed again. He couldn’t have predicted this. What even was this. What kind of nightmarish skill evolution did the Educator force on him? And what was— As Shiv sailed through the sky, he couldn't see the colossal entity anymore, but he knew it was there. He knew it existed. "What was that thing?"

And suddenly, the voice spoke to him again. The voice of Adam's mother, Rose. That is a demiurgos, she said. An Ascendant pretending to be something much smaller. It is casting out waves and weaving schemes from the fabric of the world’s history…

Shiv blinked. "I—What?"

I see things, but they do not see me. I've been pulled beyond the bounds of what should have been... I've been pulled beyond the bounds.

"You're not making any sense," he muttered. Shiv considered if had actually gone insane, but he didn’t think things were that simple.

You're not supposed to be, she replied. We aren't supposed to be this way. Right now, this moment, it's an impossibility. It is all impossibility. I knew, I knew something. I was, I gleaned the threads of causality. I read, I learned. And you, you shouldn't exist. But something—something dreamed you into being.

And just then he heard Adam scream. No! Rose cried. Go! Faster! Faster, now!

He accelerated, he accelerated even though his entire body felt enervated. He hammered his fists together, building up his Momentum Core as he smashed through the top side of a building to find the painter with her brush jammed through the young lord's cheek. 

Adam was biting the brush. It had gone through the insides of his mouth and chipped several teeth, but he was holding her back, pushing at her feebly with his Adept-Tier strength. His helmet was somewhere beyond sight, but Shiv’s Silhouette was active as he—

Suddenly, he was pulled inside his own chaotic shroud of vitality. He let out a cry of exhaustion this time as his flame burned dim. Both Adam and the Educator briefly looked at him, but then they did a double take as if they weren't sure what they were staring at, as if they didn't know.

"Stop doing that," Shiv growled.

"I'm trying to help you," Rose said. "We cannot get close this way. We must be careful. We must strike without leaving any ripples. They can see the ripples, they can feel the causality, they are sources of causality. They will paint you. The brush reshapes souls. And I felt it when she struck you. She felt it. But you merely bled. She couldn’t reshape you. You are wrong. Abomination. Monster.”

Shiv ignored Rose as he Advanced on the Educator. He could still move through the world even in his current state, and he didn’t wait to find out if he could hurt her through his vitality shroud while he was… outside the world or whatever.

Valor, I hope you can explain this shit to me because this is another level of felling weird, Shiv thought.

Shiv drew close to the Educator. He heard a sickening snap as one of Adam's teeth broke off and his eyes rolled. A adamantine shield exploded through the room, smashing into the Educator's side. Her ribs cracked. She folded over, but she didn't fall. Any normal person would have reacted in some way, but she seemed immune to pain. 

Once more, the shield smashed into her from the side, and Uva's strands struck, but the Educator fought with one arm. Throwing paint at the strands, Uva's mana flinched back, avoiding the paint, and somehow, somehow Shiv could feel her pain. 

Somehow he knew that the last few times Uva endured those attacks, she ended up having a seizure. She had just woken up a few seconds ago. The world was screaming at him through his film of vitality, and he paused. He knew this because the woman was whispering it to him constantly, muttering random details against his ears like a mad oracle bound to his very soul.

With every step growing more strenuous, and his soul dimming to a flicker, Shiv got just behind the Educator and he drove his kukri up under her chin. He stabbed and Rose Van Aeren stabbed with him. 

Both of them surged forth, and he exploded out into existence with a blast of his unstable vitality. His kukri slammed into the Educator's jaw just as he cast out a wyrm. It swallowed Adam's wounds before slamming into the Educator.

A detonation of mana exploded across her. She staggered, Adam fired two more Veilpiercers into her face. Another two blasts followed, both of them dimensional. Two stacked dimensional rifts expanded right in front of the Educator’s face. Most of her skull was caved in, but her face bled paint rather than blood, and she kept fighting as if she hadn’t been harmed at all.

The Educator tried to respond, but Uva shield came back, and it crashed into the Educator elbow, throwing her brush off. A sickening crack sounded, but the limb didn't break. Rather, a part of the shield was fractured.

Shiv stole the moment and seized the Educator in a tight lock before suplexed her through the ground. He blasted both of them down through the many floors of the building, spiking his acceleration with his gravitic field. As they crashed through surface after surface, he drained her vitality. 

Vitality flowed back into his body. Heat exploded out from inside him, and he suddenly didn't feel weak anymore. Suddenly he could hear Rose Van Erren louder than ever before. She gasped as if a woman allowed a sip of water after years of wandering in the desert. And then he felt another rush of Foreshadowing crash against him, but the vision did not settle within his mind, rather, Rose intercepted it, and she babbled madly, cursing and screaming at the now unseen entity.

Foreshadowing: What is happening to you? Why can't I see you anymore? What is your Skill Evolution? 

As the educator spoke to him, however, he realized her lips weren't moving and her eyes were shifting around erratically. 

He hit her three more times—a slice, a stab—and then flung her through the final floor. He followed instantly, stomping down with both feet against her chest as he spiked his gravity field to its absolute limit.

The entire building burst apart and shattered. A slight crack sounded from her sternum, but she swiped her brush through Shiv’s ankle, and he collapsed with a shout of pain. His left leg came apart in two parts. She swept her brush out again, aiming for his neck, but Shiv drew in a breath and dove into himself.

Once more, he splashed into his soul-vitality fusion, and the red and white flames that composed his being spread around him like a protective membrane as he simply ceased to be in the outside world.

Foreshadowing: What? Who was I just? Who was I fighting? I was fighting someone…

The voice of the Educator came through, and she was confused, beyond confused. She was absolutely lost.

"Here, we are the only ones that can reference ourselves," Rose said. "No one can remember us. We leave the context of the outside world. Break temporarily from collective existence. But this shouldn’t be—shouldn’t be able to endure an acausal existence. Your soul is wrong. Shouldn't be able to do this. Shouldn't be." 

Shiv regarded the hysterical Rose, and he triggered his chrono-anchored strike. To his surprise, she remained with him, even as he delivered the blow to his adversary. Once more, he drove his kukri into the Educator, and a detonation of vitality followed the instant he made overt contact with the world.

He channeled a beam of light through his kukri and split the educator from within. His Silhouette was active, so she swept her brush wide—but misjudged where he was due to his outline.

Silhouette > 68

Deepest Edge > 60

She twisted wide as her body came apart in a flurry of paint. Shiv shifted out of the world again and felt himself shivering from how little of his vitality was left. There, within the confines of his own soul, he looked up—and caught sight of the massive entity searching for him again.

Outside context, he thought, and he spent a moment, just a single moment, thinking about what the Educator said. “Wait, foreshadowing," he said. "A fragment of Rose's soul ended up in me. How the hell did..." 

And it all went back to his birth, to the ritual. He stared at Rose.

"We are bound," she moaned. "All of me should be gone. And you were… you were never supposed to be born. And my daughter, and you, and her, and you… This is not the shape of a soul."

And the colossal entity that was supposedly a god swept its head, looking across the land, trying to figure out what was hitting it. Once more though, Shiv's flames burned dim. This new power, this new skill, it drained his very existence. It sapped him at such an alarming rate that he might only be able to maintain it for ten seconds. Probably less. 

He got behind the educator again, and this time he dragged his blade across her throat, slamming the blade against bone as he began to sap her vitality once more. 

Blood sprayed out from her, but it was colorful blood, kaleidoscopic blood. And as he flicked his dagger across, channeling conduit of dawn, he severed her head, only for her to turn around and kick him right in the chest. Shiv grunted as he forced himself to remain in place, and she swept out two strokes from her brush. The first he avoided conventionally, the second he evaded by going Outside Context. Rose drew him in once more, and he immediately exploded back out, launching a laceration into the Educator’s face before he triggered his chrono-anchor strike and slit her throat again.

Silhouette > 70

Every dive flooded his Stealth with more advancements, and the Educator’s naked confusion was all consume as he drained her heat again.

“How?” She asked, unbothered by how most of her skull was utterly caved in. Hi Dread Aura sensed a crack developing inside her being. It wasn't the normal kind of crack you would feel when someone turned to cowardice. No, it was the kind of fear that a warrior felt, that someone who was versed in combat felt. They weren't shaken, they weren't nearly broken, but they were disturbed. 

Just then, a corrosive Veilpiercer tore through the air from above, and suddenly the Educator burst apart into sprays of paint. She disintegrated before Shiv, and he dove back from the Necromancy. He watched as the arrow melted through the ground, but blinked as the Educator’s paint faded into the backdrop.

As he stood over where the Educator used to be, Adam descended into the room on burning wings with his helmet back on. He looked at Shiv, and through the dust and rubble, Uva came, holding on to her shield as support. Blood was pouring from her eyes and half of her face was swollen and bruised.

“She shattered my helmet with a kick,” Uva said, blinking rapidly with her good eye. “Only thing that saved my life.

Shiv gave her a worried look, and cast a wyrm into her. He healed whatever brain damage she sustained, and she gave him an appreciative nod.

"What...what happened back there?" Adam asked. "You were..." he paused. "I thought you didn't exist for a second. I completely forgot who you were. I was... I was so lost when I was looking at you. What did you just do?"

Adam… I remember… Adam… I want to hold you again… Please just let me hold him once more… Rose cried out from inside Shiv. She reached for Adam, but she was trapped inside Shiv’s vitality. Practically a whole other existence away. Why… what did I do to deserve this torment…

"I, uh," Shiv swallowed. How the hell was he going to explain any of this to Adam? "I’m not exactly sure, Adam, I, uh..."

But just then, he heard a scream sound from inside of him. She's behind the girl!

Shiv cursed, and he threw himself at Uva. The Umbral wasn't nearly fast enough to react. The difference between an Adept-tier and Master-tier reflex skill was colossal, especially with his momentum core fully filled. He pulled her aside just as a jet of paint tore across the land, splitting even the horizon behind them.

Uva reactively dove into Shiv’s mind, and he slammed down behind Adam.

And once more, the surrounding environment changed. The colors of the world twisted, becoming less realistic and more…

"This looks like a bloody children's novel," Adam gasped. "What the hell? Where the hell are we? How the hells is she doing this.”

And from between the twisting shades of existential paint, Shiv caught a sign of movement. The ruins of Lost Angeles vanished, and were replaced by badly drawn trees, by crudely sketched clouds, and a sun that had a smile on it. He was standing within the page of a child's drawing. And from on high, something moved, a shrouded figure that loomed over them—loomed over seemingly the entire world itself. It seemed as large as another planet when gazed upon from the land.

"By the Composer," Uva breathed.

"By the Ascendants," Adam followed.

But then, the great being laughed. "Oh, no need to invoke my title in vain. I am here, Little Arrow. An Ascendant in the… well, I’m not quite an Ascendant anymore. And I don’t really have flesh. But before that…”

Then, from the massive being descended a single droplet of paint, and it splashed down, reforming the Educator’s body once more. She stepped through the badly drawn trees, and her eyes were locked on to Shiv. She held out a brush and pointed it at him. “But before that, I have questions. I thought I had answers to give, some useful puppets to recruit, and a lesson to teach, but now I just have questions." 

Every word she spoke was with an angry clench of her jaw.

"You," she said. "Tanner Lowe. Why can't I see your skill status anymore? What did you just do? And how did you slip away from my very awareness? My very memories. What are you?”

Shiv swallowed slightly as he felt the presence of Rose Van Erren lean over him. "I think I’m still in the process of finding that out myself. Now, point that brush somewhere else before I kick your ass a second time.”

The Educator paused, and then she sneered. “Oh. I wasn’t trying to hurt any of you before. I was trying to bind you to my book of illustrations as intact as possible. Like I bound part of the Penitent and the other two. But you… my brush only wounded you. Your soul refuses to leave your flesh… How peculiar.”

So that’s what was wrong, Can Hu—and that’s where Valor and Siggy were.

“Right,” Shiv grunted. “Let them out, and I won’t hurt you.”

“No,” the Educator said, widening her stance and assuming an actual combat posture. “Not until I figure a few things out. Not until I have you all stroked and collected within my pages."