II-40 Base

To the esteemed, illustrious, and most magnanimous, Inquisitor Sijik:

I, Master-Advisor Oldsmith, must apologize. I apologize in each way and every way. I apologize in all the ways you know and do not. I have been temporarily indisposed, however, due to injury sustained to my person.

The situation within the gate is worse than we feared, I’m afraid. There are attacks daily, and the gate lord is quickly losing control of the situation. Why, just recently, an agent of Aviary has destroyed several buildings and slaughtered innumerable guards. The death toll, I heard, is just under a thousand.

A thousand!

Can you imagine losing a thousand Pathbearers in a single day within your own gate?  Unheard of, the scandal that would appear back in the capitol’s papers at such atrocious defense. 

But enough about the Gate Lord, let me again assure you that I’m doing all that I can. I will warn the fool of the Educator's coming, but he is obstinate, as he is short-sighted and arrogant. I fear that she will flay him with her wit and her might. And I, feeble scholar, delighted in joy of the arts, and silver-tongued automaton that I am, can do nothing more than my best.

And that might not be enough. I await the Educator’s judgment and beg her mercy.

But I also beg of you, Inquisitor Sijik, to inform her of what lay ahead.

To inform her of the unreasonable, irrational actions that she can expect in this place, and the great danger that lurks. 

Finally, I would ask you to redouble your efforts in trying to find Lady Stormhalt. I would never tell you how to do your job, but you understand that Lord Stormhalt is a dear friend of mine.

And if anything happens to his dearest kin, even as estranged as they are, it would see me drastically diminished. I bid you glorious efforts might bring about many skill evolutions to come.

I will do what I can.

Yours truly, Master Advisor Oldsmith.

-Message of reply from “Master-Advisor Oldsmith” to Inquisitor Sijik

II-40

Base

“Well, your slugs seem to be eating well, at least.” Such were Shiv’s words to Guardshead Leu, moments after Uva pulled him across the district.

They were once again hiding in Guardshead Leu’s home. Everyone had made it through. However, the Graven Cage was nowhere to be seen.

As Shiv searched for the Necromantic construct, Uva’s thoughts guided him. She cast a memory into his mind of Leu applying a blanket of invisibility over the Great Cage and hiding it within her dimensional enclosure. Shiv laughed. It turned out that the thing he sought was exactly where he’d been looking the entire time. 

Somewhere in the air above the feeding slugs, the Graven Cage hovered in wait. Waiting to be used on a certain Animancy Core. An Animancy Core that might be a bit harder than he expected to secure.

“Master Shiv!” Guardshead Leu gasped, her voice brimming with excitement. She almost touched him but held back, afraid to disrespect his person. Her single red eye was bright with enthusiasm as she looked, gesturing between all his allies. “When you said, you would with assistance and aid, this is more than I could have possibly imagined. I—just the Great Valor Thann alone…” She stared, her eyes practically alight with boundless joy. “Two Heroes, and your self, and the Legend… Truly, truly, I thank you.” She began to laugh. “Soon, we will take everything from Confriga. Soon he will die slowly and miserably, as everything he ever wanted turns to ash.”

She looked down at her enclosure, at her slugs, and let out a satisfied breath. “I will see him among the many dead, his body dedicated to my beasts and at long last will my clutch brother know peace.”

“Yeah, about the many bodies thing…” Shiv muttered. He looked at the mounds of waste the slugs were feeding on, and he noticed that there were many, many more dead bodies than he saw the first time—there weren’t just a few dead bodies in there; there was already a mound, now it’s like a mountain, she thought. “What exactly is happening in the gate? I’m pretty sure I was just gone for a little while.

“Yes, and in those few days, the gate lord has unleashed his fury and ire upon the populace. Anyone that he suspected, he killed; and those he questioned were most of the city’s least trustworthy individuals—this included slaves, mercenaries, bureaucrats, and representatives from other nations. Most diplomats are now constrained to their homes and need to check in with a Voltaic escort if they want to do anything. The slaves have little choice in the matter, and additional efforts have been inflicted upon them. Psychomancers now intermittently scan their minds to make sure no subversive thoughts or behaviors have taken place.”

Shiv wondered why Leu sounded so enthused about that fact when she continued her explanation. “This means that Gate Lord Confriga’s personal Psychomancers are being exhausted. They are forced to review countless minds. He sees subversion everywhere. He sees incompetence as subversion. He sees missing information as subversion. He sees anything he dislikes in anyone he dislikes as potentially aiding in the efforts of Aviary to overthrow him or hindering his efforts to slay this accursed spy.”

Leu laughed viciously. “He even gave the spy a name: The Corpse Shedder. And there is a three million mithril bounty on the Corpse Shedder’s head. Certain fool mercenaries tried to fake the body using a bit of Biomancy, but the Gate Lord was not nearly as stupid as they are, as stupid as he actually is. And so, some of them have already joined the others in feeding my slugs.”

“But you are not suspected at all?” Valor asked Volteg..

Briefly, she was overcome with awe, backing away from Valor. Her head tentacles twisted and offered a gesture of reverence. “Great Valor, it honors me to be in your presence!”

“Please, please, there’s no need,” Valor replied, sounding more dismissive than grateful. “But continue—You are not compromised?”

“I am not even suspected,” Leu said. “In fact, have been rewarded several times over. For my competence. Gatelord Confriga views me as one of his only reliable resources,” she paused, likely because, aside from my plan to murder him, I am one of his few only reliable resources. “He kills too many at a whim, you see, butchering anyone for the smallest failure, and as such, the only people that Lord Scorn and the higher marshals assign him are those they wish to dispose of.”

“Or someone like you,” Adam said, “someone who seeks revenge beyond all reason.”

“Yes,” Leu said, sounding proud of what she wanted to do.

Through it all, Shiv noticed that Uva kept a mana string closely entwined with the Guardshead’s mind. He trusted Leu a more than anyone else in the room. For the others, the Guardshead was still a strange enigma and a potential threat. She was also the sole allied Vulteg out of a good few thousand of her kind. It was on Shiv’s word alone that they weren’t outright interrogating her.

But if Guard Head Lew had any apprehensions of Uva as a Psychomancer, or even an agent of the Composer, she didn’t let them be known.

“Because she truly, truly cares about nothing but her revenge,” Uva said a moment after, speaking Shiv’s mind. “Her entire desire—I have never known someone so completely devoted to revenge. The Gate Lord has wounded her so deeply, so truly it has become her identity. In a way, I can sympathize.”

But Uva thought back to the dagger in her home, the dagger that killed her mother. For years, the murder plagued her—it was always in the back of her mind. But despite everything, Uva still managed to have something of a life. She had other interests, developed other wants, cultured herself, spent time with others and sisters, even found something of a budding romantic relationship.

Guardshead Leu had nothing else. Her slugs were just a means to relax her mind—between her job, her hate for the gate lord. But beyond that, there was little and nothing else.

“This is what it means to be consumed,” Uva commented, and some part of her didn’t like what she saw.

Shiv, comparatively, didn’t have their hurt. He didn’t know what it felt like to lose someone he truly cared for because the world started him with nothing. That, and he fought hard to keep Adam, Uva, and most of his current allies from dying. And when it came to be consumed, well, he was consumed every time he fought, and every time he cooked. 

Being consumed was Shiv’s natural state of being. All of him came alive in battle or while he cooked, and he drowned in the moment.

“I have a safehouse prepared,” Guardshead Lue said. “I have a location that you all can temporarily set up. My home is mostly secure, but it is best that you operate from another place of utmost secrecy. Gate Lord Confriga rarely ever comes here, because he would never stoop so low to personally visit an inferior. You are summoned by your superiors in my culture. And Confriga—he likes to enforce that cultural norm whenever he can. I expect that I will be commanded to greet him in person soon.”

Leu paused as she considered a particular corner of her room for some reason. “Master Shiv, might I request a few bodies from you? Also, a battle wound.”

“A battle wound?” Shiv asked, sounding surprised. “What do you want that for?”

“For a proper story, in fact, and for what we are going to do. We are going to destroy some section of my apartment, make it seem like a bomb went off here. And then, I want it to seem like I was nearly assassinated.” Leu didn’t sound worried or nervous about taking the wound at all. All for revenge, as Uva said.

Shiv and Adam shared eye contact, and the young lord nodded. “It makes sense—it will reduce all suspicion from you in person, and it will make you seem valiant if you had to shed a body and escape.”

“Correct,” Guardshead Leu said. “Additionally, I have several other mana bombs ready to go off across the city, so it seemed more like a second wave to an attack rather than a post-instance directed only at me.”

“You have thought things quite considerably through, Guardsdhead,” Valor surmised.

“I have,” the Leu replied. “I have been waiting years for this moment, and I can feel it. We are close to the end, so very close. I must—once again, I will give you anything, anything. Oh, great Valor, just to see my revenge through, just to see my clutch-brother laid to proper rest. Confriga must die. I must see him. I must see him fed upon by my slugs . I must see it. I will see it.”

And by this point, the sheer maniacal intensity of Leu’s revenge got to Adam as well. “Shiv, there is only one thing I trust this outer-dimensional with. It’s not my life, though. I have a feeling that she will do practically anything if it means killing the Gate Lord, including murdering herself or potentially sacrificing one of us—all of us.”

Shiv grunted, “Good thing we’re her only shot, then.”

“So,” Adam asked, “Guardshead, where is this base you talk about? Where are we to go and use as our point of operations in this gate?”

Once more, the Leu looked into her slug enclosure and slowly began to laugh. “A place that few dare to tread, and fewer still will ever think to search for you.”

Adam looked into the enclosure. His Seer of Horizons briefly flared, and he seemed confused. “I do not think I understand what you mean, Guardshead.”

“You will,” Leu said. Shiv noticed she was staring up at a chute—a particular filthy but currently unused chute. “Oh, you soon will. I have taken great pains to secure a place within the city’s very infrastructure. After all, who would expect their enemy to be lurking in an abandoned and unmapped section of its bowels.”

***

Shiv inflicted a moderate laceration on Leu before dropping one of his bodies for her use. She already had a mana bomb prepared, and a few moments thereafter, a series of rumbling detonations signalled the moment for the group to depart.

Leu told the group that would communicate with them through Uva while back in her home—and if there are dire circumstances, they can come back down through the chute. For now, she needed to ensure that her loyalty and valor seemed ironclad.

A few seconds later, the entire group found themselves flying up through a chute encrusted with filth, human remains, and all other manner of questionable fluids. Adam gagged, struggling to stay conscious as he ascended behind Shiv. It was already pretty foul-smelling for the Deathless. So, for the young lord… 

“Shiv, I think, I think I’m going to pass away,” Adam moaned.

“Just hang in there, Adam,” Shiv said. Adam briefly wobbled in the air and Shiv caught him. “Come on. We’re almost there. She said it’s not that far.”

“I don’t have long or far left in me,” Adam gagged, his eyes rolling.

Inside Shiv’s mind, Uva let out a hum. “I don’t see why it’s so bad.”

“Damn you, sister. Don’t taunt me as I suffer,” Adam replied, bitter and miserable.

“Yes, Adam,” Valor said, nudging the Young Lord from below. “Please hurry. There’s no time to be over-melodramatic in such a place.”

The Young Lord let out a groan, and for once he found Shiv to be the only sympathetic party on his side. There was also Siggy, but she seemed to deal with filth and foul smells better than the most of the group.

As they flew up through the city’s waste chute for a while, they found the white marking that Leu left, pointing for them to proceed down a narrow stretch of tunnel. As they arrived on the other side, they found a grate already undone, and beyond that, they were inside a building—one that was layered in dust.

Shiv’s Biomancy reached a bit over 200 meters now: 200 meters, and he felt many small lifeforms everywhere within the structure. Most of them seemed like some kind of insect that lived off strange green clumps of moss that clung to the very corners of the building. There were also large rodents here, and they, in turn, fed on the insects. But beyond those small critters, there seemed to be no people here. None at all.

“Can Hu?” Shiv asked. “You sense any automatons? Can you do that?”

“There are no automatons,” Can Hu declared. “My Binaric Sovereign would have detected their presence. We are cleared for a kilometer at the minimum from mechnical life forms.”

Shiv nodded. “Huh, looks like we have at least a good portion of this building to ourselves. Where even are we?”

Uva’s strands shivered for a moment, and then she pinpointed their rough position. “We are in the northeastern section of the gate, among the series of eight buildings meant to hold long-term storage.” Shiv narrowed his eyes. “I think I rammed into one of these buildings when I escaped from Confriga the first time.”

“You likely did,” she replied.“I can detect no mines either,” Uva said, “and short of perhaps a legend or a hero with a tremendous stealth skill, I think we are alone here.”

They followed more white markings, leading them down through a set of doors, up along a hollow chute that once held a main elevator. Then, more directions led downward until they went past even what looked like the bottom floor of the building. A large, excavated tunnel continued deeper underground as the heat spike and more white paint guided them forward. Finally, as they entered something of a tight caver, they found a set of reinforced titanium doors open before them. On the ground, a vague symbol of a house was drawn, and beyond that point, beyond that point…

“Ah, a teleportation anchor,” Valor declared as he regarded the insides of their prepared base. “An interesting place to set up a safe house.” He drifted in slowly. Before he could cross the threshold, he pulled back. “Shiv, go in first.”

“Yup,” Shiv said. If this was a trap, for whatever reason, he would be the one to die, if it could manage to kill him. Shiv had a feeling that he could probably tear his way out of a teleportation anchor now, and that the purification flames that boiled him to death some weeks ago would barely be a discomfort now.

As he entered, he saw some spellwork on the walls, but substantially less than almost every other anchor he’d been in. “It’s unfinished,” Shiv said, and he looked at the doors. “But the temperature’s comfortable. Air’s clear. No foul smells—”

Adam practically launched himself into the room, taking lungfuls of deep breaths, trying to clear the torturous tastes from his senses.

Uva unwove herself from Shiv’s body and looked around. Her shield hovered behind her, its mind still nervous, begging for Uva’s approval and telling her not to mentally obliterate it again.

“No supplies here,” Can Hu said. “And the lack of dust indicates that this place was only recently prepared for habitation. I suspect this might be something of a point of retreat for the Guardshead in case she was compromised.”

Adam paused at that. “Point of retreat… Wait… these spell patterns… Let me see if I can activate something.” He triggered his Dimensionality and a flickering shroud of distortion-laced shadows spread out of his body. It splashed against the teleportation anchor, and the entire room practically flashed to life. A new set of patterns emerged, previously hidden. 

Adam laughed. “It isn’t fully broken. The other spell patterns, if someone uses a spatial spell on it, will trigger, and it will be able to teleport someone over here. You’re right, Can Hu. This is likely Guardshead Leu’s personal point of escape or evasion when she’s inside this gate. She’s been planning this for years, and it shows.”

“Real convenience,” Shiv commented.

“Very,” Adam agreed. “Now, if I can tap into this spell, we should be able to blink back inside at any point we want. I’ll just need to open a dimensional pathway and…” He winced. “I might need to spend some time focusing on doing that. It’s a bit harder without my Veilpiercer. I am… rusty on the shaping of this spell.”

“Shiv, you said the jealousy also had its personal teleportation anchor,” Uva asked.

“Yeah, it was more of a feeding ground than a teleportation anchor,” Shiv said. “A big, dense titanium-reinforced cage meant to hold a monster and about a thousand unwilling slaves.”

Uva frowned. “It might be worthwhile to discover if there are any other such places within the gate. We have much surveillance and scouting left to do.”

Shiv grunted. “Speaking of which, Can Hu, have you got any details from your bots yet?”

The Penitent paused for a beat before it responded. “They have not sent in any emergency broadcasts. I’m expecting information to arrive sometime in the next 12 hours.”

“Alright,” Shiv said, “I suppose we get settled in for now.”

***

The group sat on stone seats and were gathered around a table shaped from steel. The rudimentary furniture was provided by Can Hu, and what’s more, the Penitent’s years of artistic dedication made it more than capable of slowly drawing out a detailed map of the gate, mapping out all its districts.

The team marked the most important structures and places to avoid. Shiv created a tarp made from his skin decoys and lined the bottom of the excavated tunnel they came through as well. Passing through would be easy for him, but with a little dirt and some rubble, they stood a chance of avoiding notice even if the enemy sent someone to investigate the structure.

As time passed, they began to plot their most immediate operations. A mana explosion sounded in the distance while they debated and planned, the noise signalling Guardshead Leu’s false-flag on herself.

“I saw some very interesting structures and facilities while we were making our way to Guardshead Leu’s personal chambers. I think I know where their main troops barracks are, along with where the bulk of the mercenaries reside.” Adam’s eyes were constantly aglow as he cast his senses from place to place. 

“I also detected a few of their Master-Tier Psychomancers,” Uva said. “One should be a High Master. They almost noticed me, but I pulled away before they could truly sense my presence.”

“Were you busy jabbing at them so they wouldn’t focus on me?” Shiv asked. “I encountered a suspicious lack of Psychomancers.”

“Well, a slew of inexplicable betrayals befell a few,” Uva said. She winked at him, and Shiv grinned.

“You’re the greatest, Sister Uva.”

“Alright,” Adam said, tapping a large group of buildings etched into the steel table. His brows were furrowed in concentration as he shifted his finger to the descending obsidian tower. “Shiv also scouted Confriga’s personal hell-tower. Inside we have a vile weaver-breeding operation, the Animancy Core, probably Confriga’s vault of treasures somewhere and a good of amount of his personal guard. Anything else?”

Shiv thought about it for a moment and shook his head. “No. Not many slaves aside from the breeding chamber. Mostly Vulteg-guarded too. Not sure how we’re going get the people there out. Or where the belts were really taking them. There might be another section to the operation, but I didn’t get to investigate because Confriga was always a step behind.”

“Oh, right,” Adam said. He pulled out the notebook Shiv handed him all those days ago. “I had been corresponding with Inquisitor Sijik when I had the chance. I think they still believe that I’m Master Advisor Oldsmith.” The Young Lord licked his lips, and there seemed to be a certain nervous agitation to him. “Isabella is still on Blackedge.” 

Shiv stared at him. “You sure?”

“Yes,” he breathed, “and they are trying to find her, but they can’t.”

“So that fully exonerates her of anything, right?” Shiv asked.

Adam nodded slowly. “It seems so, but after everything, I am hesitant to trust… Well, anything. The bloody Stormhalts are plotting against their own people! My father!  A city of the Republic! And he has literal Inquisitorial backing! It’s all madness.”

“Yeah,” Shiv said, shaking his head. “All the lies they told us… You have any idea why?”

“No. And I get more lost with each conversation,” Adam sighed. “They’re sending someone to meet with Oldsmith soon. Some kind of ‘Educator’ from Lone Star. Not sure how she’s supposed to enter the gate, but I suppose we’ll have to handle that problem once she arrives.”

“That might be a problem,” Shiv muttered. “I don’t have Oldsmith as a Perfect Semblance anymore, and the Inquisitors aren’t around either. Couldn’t use them even if they were around after what Tran and Heather did to them.”

Adam paused. “We might need to consider destroying the consulate to sever that link entirely. That should leave this Educator blinked.”

“Maybe,” Shiv said. “There’s still someone working there, a Secretary Mira—”

“We can move her,” Adam said. “Uva can help her forget. And you said the goblin had a relationship with her?”

“Yeah,” Shiv said, eyeing Siggy who was sitting off by the side, alone. “Siggy’s her dealer.”

“Dealer?”

“Drug dealer,” Shiv answered.

Adam grimaced. “Ah. Unpleasant.”

As they discussed things, Can Hu dropped his Garden of Bountiful Alloy behind them and a minor dimension expanded behind them. Slowly, the Penitent began materials of all varieties while also shaping new pieces of furniture for everyone.

After a while of brainstorming, Shiv rolled his neck and grunted. “Alright. I think we’re due a bit of a break after everything today.” He stepped free from Can Hu and began walking out from the anchor.

Adam called out to him, “Where are you going?”

“To get us some dinner,” Shiv said, looking back over his shoulder.

“What do you mean, some dinner? There’s nothing here. We don’t need to eat every day, Shiv.”

Shiv stopped, turned, and glared at the Young Lord. “What did you just say to me?”

Adam flinched at the intensity of Shiv’s stare. “I mean, we have to make do in times of hardship.”

“These are not times of hardship,” Shiv said, walking off into the dark. 

“And what are you even going to get? There’s nothing here.”

“There are rodents and there are insects,” Shiv said.

“Rodents and insects?”

Adam cried, sounding horrified, “You expect us to eat rats and insects? How good can that possibly taste?”

“There’s some moss too?”

“You must be jok—”

***

“Please,” Adam said, forcing the words through clenched teeth, “may I have another plate?”

“What was that, Adam?” Shiv said, leaning closer. “My ears—they’re ringing. You see, Marikos really yelled pretty loud and—”

“Shut up, you bastard. Give me a plate.”

Shiv laughed, and he offered Adam another plate of deep-fried rat coated in questionable insect sauce and served with a side of wall-corner moss. Between his Biomancy and The Chef Unwavering skill, he managed to isolate all the healthy insects and rats. Then, he caught a few of them, cleaned them, caught some more because he accidentally exploded the first group of bugs he got with his Pyromancy, and after about an hour of careful, calculated toil, he finished with that night’s dinner.

Perfected Deep-Fried Rodent-Bug Mystery Meat Sprinkled with Moss has boosted your Stealth.

A crunch-sounded as Uva slowly chewed. The Umbral paused and hummed. “Surprisingly filling, and my Stealth is better too.”

Shiv bit into his fried rodent, crushing the thing’s brittle skull. The removal of calcium and the extraction of its marrow did wonders for the taste-texture. “A normal chef probably couldn’t have done that. It took a careful work with Biomancy to pull off.”

And once more, Shiv was almost thankful to the orcish god for giving him the culinary berserker. Almost.

The Challenger appreciates your gratitude.

While they ate, Uva continued her Psychomantic operations. She focused on penetrating the mind of the observers, the floating eyeball dimensionals that watched the city from above. She pierced through a good few of them and tracked all that was happening across the gate.

The sun had stopped unleashing its massive waves of oppressive coldness. The ice coating the buildings and gripping the very air began to thaw. But still, there were constant dimensional patrols now, and a slightly injured Leu was spotted standing at the center of a plaza next to Gate Lord Confriga.

The Gate Lord was less than pleased. His pitch-black blade hovered beside him and remained idle as the Gate Lord began violently murdering random underlings. He tore mercenaries and Vultegs alike apart.

Adam, meanwhile, cast his seer horizons into the Animancy Core’s chamber once more. There were two adamantine golems there, guarding the elevator. But Adam noted that the slash lining the elevator. 

“Necromantic corrosion… I think we have an angle of psychological attack on Confriga,” Adam declared. “He is volatile and uncontrolled. We should harass him relentlessly until he breaks. I read of many books in the academies about the fall of tyrants and the accountability of leadership. He seems to be a poor leader. He rules through fear, but fear will eventually give way to defiance once you hit a point of no return.”

“And what’s a point of no return?” Shiv asked. 

“When he kills enough of his own people, or infuses forces, a regime of tyranny so severe that the only logical choice is to rebel. He’s already doing most of our work for us now.”

“This is a good idea,” Can Hu concurred. “We Penitents achieved several overthrows of minor Altered nations.”

“Altered?” Adam asked, not certain what the automaton was saying.

“System-altered nations,” the Penitent clarified. “Those touched with mana. People like you.”

“Oh,” Adam finished. He paused. “What is the Legacy Empire like?”

“They are great, and they are vestigial, and they are fallen. They possess incredible technologies, lingering relics from a time before. Do not make a mistake, Pathbearer. We did not rise after the system's integration. We are simply climbing in another direction. The individual is now far more powerful than the masses before. Where once long, long ago, everyone was less than Pathless. Everyone was merely mortal. But they still defined that fate. They still forged great technologies.”

Can Hu sighed. “Humanity reached beyond the veil of the sky. We sought distant worlds. It was only the dimensions that were beyond us. And we were on the close cusp of so many more miracles and wonders after achieving so many. And then, and then the system came. The great one supposedly fell. And what followed was chaos. Chaos roiling in absolute.

“The nature of magic and mana. It is anathema to unintegrated technology. The very way one’s skills work, and the existence of a soul, was crippling to the world that was. And so those of the Legacy Empire live within the great domes. And so people like my pilots are dispatched. People they deem deviant or unable to integrate with their own society. They are cast out. But they are blinded. For they do not think of themselves as outcasts, but rather wardens.”

“Wardens for whom?” Adam asked.

“Us. The Penitents. The awakened automata. Not drones, but machines that truly think. Just as the adversary twisted people, so too did it twist machines. And thus we were condemned by the very act of existing. I think, therefore I am, therefore I cannot be.”

Adam blinked. “That was very poetic and bitter, Can Hu.”

“It was a quote from a philosopher many, many years ago.” Can Hu  paused. “All is not yet lost. Perhaps, perhaps someday, another integration can take place, another integration, joining the world of the old with the rising of the new.”

“That sounds very hopeful,” Adam said. “I’m not sure how such a thing might come to pass.”

Can Hu chimed. “A thousand years ago, it was unheard for most people to ever even reach Master-Tier. The mana density was just too low. Now… Things are different. There will be new quests, and at the system’s hand there is very little that is impossible. Even broken, we must try. I was broken. I fell, and yet here I remain. By my own want, by my own desire, by the system’s hand subtle and vulgar, and by the generosity of a one stranger.”

It stared at Shiv, and dipped its tasting apartus into Shiv’s food. Nearby, Valor leered, glaring at the food as if it was his personal enemy.

While Can Hu spoke, he also built molding bits of architecture and furniture within the teleportation anchor. He shaped benches, beds, tables, and more. And then he began constructing new, more intricate mechanisms. From within his realm, he extracted more bits of silicone, metal, plastic, and other sources of matter. Carefully, Can Hu began to mold them like clay as he built the beginnings of a new drone.

After a bit more time passed, Valor reachedgestured towards the Young Lord’s vambrace, and they spoke of the damage left upon the elevator. They spoke of potentially using the Graven Cage on the elevator itself and clenching the Animancy Core in place before it escaped.

“It is theoretically possible,” Valor said, “but we must be quick, and we will likely need even more effigies to power the construct if we wish to corrode through the adamanatine.” Valor dealt a look down at his hands, his right arm briefly crackled with corrosive energy. “This effort… it is possible for me now. Though it will be difficult. I forgot how bad the mana strain was before, but now… It’s time for me to remember what it was like being a mere Adept. To truly struggle.”

“That’s… good,” Adam said, unsure what Valor was getting at.

Valor once again looked at Adam’s vambrace. “There are things you need to understand, now that you have that item.”

“I’m not really interested in learning necromancy, Valor ,” Adam said. There was a slight hint of unease in his voice. “I know that the Republic has been dishonest in ways.

“You have touched Necromancy. The system has imparted something of corrosion upon you. I fear that you can only deny it delay, and not avoid the inevitable.”

Adam stared at him. “So what? I am to be a necromancer?”

“You don’t need to be a Necromancer. You do have to understand how it works. You will face a Necromancer here in this gate. You must understand the ways of your enemy to best kill them. Do you wish to be a rival archer, or a beast ignorant as to the means of its own demise?”

Adam paused, and he nodded slowly. “Fine. But I’m no Necromancer. The way this art works—”

“You are no Necromancer.” Valor agreed. “But you can slay them. You can understand them. And I will teach you how.” He sighed. “I would have rather taught Shiv this, but…”

“Don’t wish to blow us all up?” Adam asked.

“Not quite yet,” Valor said.

As everyone focused on their own affairs, Shiv pulled Odes out of his cloak to do some studying, only for Uva to send him a telepathic message. “I have an idea.”

Immediately something stirred inside Shiv. “And what kind of idea is that, sister?”

“Not that one. Not right now. But the High Master Psychomancer in the city, I think I have isolated his position.”

“Oh,” Shiv said, his own interests piqued. “And how guarded is he?”

“That’s just the thing. With everyone in such disarray and Confriga sending people around, not nearly guarded enough. Not physically, anyway.”

“Oh,” Shiv said.

“Especially not guarded from a particular corpse-shedding, skin-taking, silver-tongued, cooking-capable—”

“Uva, I’m already willing to go out and do this. You flatter me some more and we might end up doing the other thing instead.” She laughed, and he smirked. Adam looked between them and shook his head in faux-disgust. “When?”

“Soon.”

“I will see if I can compromise the mind of a dimensional looking down at the Psychomancer’s tower. This High Master is quite astute. Twice he’s tried to reach out and grab my threads, but I avoided him. I can close quickly while he’s distracted, but I suspect it will be a proper fight if I am to face him, mind against mind—especially since I suspect he has the edge in outright experience.”

Shiv tapped his finger on the bone handle of his kukri and smiled.

“Adam,” Shiv said, “I think I’m going to go out on a walk.”

“What are you doing now?” Adam cried. He watched as Uva began casting her strings into Shiv’s mind. “Please tell me you two aren’t about to do something stupid.”

“Oh, nothing. Uva and I are just going to enact a murder. Maybe escalate it into a serial killing.”

Adam nodded. “All right—wait, what?”