II-102 The Pale in the Black

“Prince Greatest, greatest of Sinners, greatest of all, greatest to be, I… I need to let you know of certain developments. You know that someone like me is reliable, understanding, and doesn’t waste time. I’ve been here for a long while, you know that—that I’m someone that gets things. So, when I do this, when I break the chain of command and go over the Dukes and others, it’s because the problem simply cannot wait.

I’ll make the problem plain: I’m hosting a gala. I was trying to recruit a promising Sinner. Lein got involved. The Collectress was invited. Goldskull was with her and—ah, well, they haven’t been seen for a while now.

Neither has the Scion of Death, the Scion of Life, or the supposed recruit I was trying to get.

His name is Wei An Wei. I… you should look into him. Him and those he’s with. I know that Marquises aren’t something that are worth your time but…

Mepheleon favors him. The Lodge is probably still helping him. Fuck, the Inheritors want him dead.

I’ve been in this long enough to know what’s risky and what’s foolish and where my place is, but I also have to be a risky fool that ignores conventions to say that if we don’t get involved with him, if we don’t take him or bind ourselves to him… we might just be getting fucked out of a piece of Earth.

That’s… that’s what I have to say.

My utmost honor and respect, Greatest.”

-Message from The Old Man to “Greatest,” Prince of Pride

II-102

The Pale in the Black

Wei stared at the Duchess’ corpse a long while after he killed her. His insides felt like a bunch of shaking fragments inside a busted box of pain. Moving hurt. Living hurt. Existing hurt. He immediately activated his Chassis again and began regenerating Source as he sought out his companion in these abyssal depths.

“Mourning? Mourning?”

“Alive, regrettably,” she moaned. She glided over to him at diminished speed, slowly slicing her way closer to him as he felt his Fortification advance several times.

Ah, right, there was the deathly cold afflicting everything here as well. He remembered how bad it was before. But after his brief brawl with the duchess—well, he didn’t have that much to complain about anymore. The cold wasn’t that bad.

As Mourning flew in closer, Wei took in the brutalized state of the Scion and winced. Her blade was cracked, and there was Essence spilling out from her like a leaking wound on a person. She was slower, weaker, and more unstable than before. Even her hilt, once vibrant and dense with nature and life, was a diminished, withered thing.

Victory was claimed, but rather than absolute elation, shame followed. Wei wanted to prevail in that fight alone. Instead, he needed someone else’s aid to ensure his victory. “Mourning, I… I—”

“Gods,” she said, pressing herself against Wei’s form. He felt a soothing balm flow from her into his spirit. “You look closer to a corpse than person right now.”

“No—no need,” Wei said, trying to push away from the blade. They were still falling, but there seemed to be no ground, and the darkness went on forever. Or at least until the Hound decided it stopped. “I will live. I will live. And I am… ashamed.”

“Ashamed?”

“To have involved you. Forcing you to save me after my folly.”

Mourning twisted in the air and jabbed her hilt into his ribs. “Agh,” Wei winced, hissing. She jabbed him three more times, each stab harder than the last. “Ah! Pain! Stop! I’m not healed yet.” Even with the chassis manifested, her slams still rattled his insides.

“I’ll stop once you admit to being a fool.”

That suddenly changed things. Wei would never admit something to another—especially if they demanded it. “I… I owe you a great deal for this,” he settled with saying. That earned a great sigh from the blade.

“You damnable, fool boy. You and my brother deserve each other, you know that? This would be something that bothers him too.”

“Failing their duel and needing to be rescued?”

“Accepting bloody help!” Mourning shouted. “I mean… you must be mental to think that you could have defeated a combat oriented Duke-Tier in direct conflict!”

That made Wei sneer. He knew his mistakes—thought back on his predictability, that single mis-step. “I was blind this time, but next time—”

“Oh, gods, you actually believe it? You know what? You’re not a fool, Wei, you’re mad. Completely and utterly deranged. Do you know how much more powerful she is than you were? Can you even conceive the distance between the two of you.”

“I have the Skills and the System. Any defeat is my sin, my lacking.”

“She can likely tear a small realm in half in her anger. She was channeling enough power to heat the Final End. Her power is something that can shatter armies. This is not a matter of intent or capability, but power. And you didn’t have it.”

“She coddles us,” the Shell said, sneering slightly. “We owe her for our life, but she has no right to judge our skills, our mastery.”

“I could have bested her,” Wei said, keeping to his point. “I could have broken her in combat. I could have.”

“I…” Mourning scoffed. “Yes. In a world—-a perfect world, where you are perfect, and make no mistakes, and have no misfortunes, perhaps. But this is not that world, and you cannot live in such fantasies. I—you know how much being the anchor to the Final End agonizes my brother? Drives him to the brink of madness and turns him into an uncontrollable beast bearing the visage of the Hound without my presence.”

Suddenly, Wei sobered. He remembered how feral the Bastard fought sometimes. There was always something of a primal quality to Vendrian, and now… “No. I didn’t realize.”

“And he sent me after you anyway. He sent me to help you—to aid you. But you do not owe us. You have done more for us than anyone else in the Fathoms. Even if you haven’t, I would have helped you regardless. He would have helped you regardless. If you only asked.” She let out a quiet breath. “You truly do belong to the Circle of Pride. Arrogance. Feed your heart with pride, but risk leaving all you care for alone and lost.”

Wei felt awkward. The way she chided him reminded of his masters—but moreso his mother. “I…” He thought of Agnesia, of Ellena, Rafael, Roggi, and all his disciples. He didn’t have much to say. There were a great many people relying on him, and he had thought nothing of their fates if he fell.

Probably some mix of slavery, service, or damnation.

The young master sighed. “You were right.” And he was easily goaded by Mepheleon into doing this. Mepheleon… What was their plan for pushing him into recklessness anyhow? They didn’t play at risks without specific returns.

Looking at the Duchess’s body, Wei clenched his jaw and pulled her into his Inventory. After which, he went after her lance as well. She likely had some very useful implements, and it would be a shame to abandon her to the darkness without harvesting all he could from her corpse.

“You have done well to nourish me,” the Hound declared, their voice baleful but glad. “I have tasted her end. And she remains trapped. Lost. Such succor…” Wei felt a shiver run up his spine. Speaking to the Hound left him unnerved, always. “Would you like to see your mother again? Your kin? You are here, anyway. And I can spare some of my rules to allow you this boon, if for a moment.”

Everything inside Wei screamed for him to accept, but despite this, he found himself hesitant. Something was wrong about how freely the Hound offered this boon. The last time, the Hound used it to lure Wei—and he saw how much it meant to him.

How much it could control him.

Something knotted inside the young master. Control. He didn’t exactly know what game was being played across the Fathoms, but he knew that gods, powers, and Systems all sought to bend him to their will. And if he could be reliably made to do something…

“Then what difference between us and a slave?” The Shell finished. The Skill was quiet for a long moment, and then he let out a growl of disgust. “A new rule for us: We do not accept anything. We demand. We take. We move with initiative. We do not let other people feed us and offer us trinkets. We are a helpless child no more. Reject the Hound. We can return in the future and demand it when we have more… more power.”

The very thought of not taking this opportunity made Wei sick. His mother was right there. They were all right there. He could just say yes. But if he did, the Hound would tighten its leash around him more and more and—

Then, a shape approached him through the dark. A shape that was long, thin, and bone white—a thing of metal and light interwoven. As it drew closer, Wei felt its power—a lingering chill emanating from its shape and sensed a single bullet within its length. The young master blinked as a pale barreled rifle greeted him—skeletal replica of the gun he just lost.

“What… what is this?” Wei said.

“An offering from the abyss,” the Hound said, casually. “You imagine me to be playing games with you. You imagine my offer of letting you see your kin as a thing of conditions and slavery. You imagine too much. I am not a feeble player of games. I am death. And I am not your master. I am not your slaver. I am not your foe. I am simply that which waits at the end.”

The skeletal rifle drifted closer to Wei, and to his surprise, an item description appeared in his vision.

The Pale in the Black (Legendary) — A rifle that met its end in a place of final rest, now remade for its user with a single seed of alloyed reality. Take aim with the gun, Concept-Breaker, and gaze from the dead. Let their bones be the perch you fire from, let the weight of death accelerate your bullets beyond the push of chemistry or Essence. And should you find yourself far from the gun, simple reach into a corpse and touch its bone. The pale will find its way to you, back through the black.

Tentatively, Wei reached out and accepted the gun. As it did, a flood of visions flashed through his mind. He found himself flickering between his own body and Lein. He remembered how she died, how it felt at the end, could feel the cold seeing into her bones, and her anguish as his glaive burst through the top of her skull. More than that, he could feel a path through her—now that she was dead, she was bound to the gun in ways that chilled Wei to fathom.

“Why?” Wei asked.

“Because you will send a great many more to greet me soon,” the Hound said. “This is not a gift, but a trade for what has been offered. The Inheritors are calling me. They make demands of me now to intervene and cast their agent out, not knowing she is already dead. They forget themselves.” And the abyss grew colder. “And they misunderstand that their fate is sealed. For they are at war with you now.”

Something hardened in Wei, freezing like water at absolute zero. His hands tightened around the gun, and he pulled it into his Inventory after checking if a bullet was chambered. True to the description, the young master saw the Earth-sourced bullet already loaded and smirked. Kalrus was going to want to see this. Actually, Wei might be able to squeeze some other guns out of the orc by withholding this new gun from him.

With gun offered, Wei hesitated for a moment and looked up, gazing around at the darkness. “I thank you, Hound. But with this trade, might I ask for an audience with those I have lost? I have delivered you more than one demise.”

“I repeat myself,” the Hound grunted. The darkness quivered as parts of it thinned, and bite of the abyssal cold lessened. “You may see them. This is no bribe, no shackle. Descend, and find what you seek. You know the path. But ask that the Scion of Life returns. My son wails and strains. My realm tears as he seeks his life. She will grant him stability—as always.”

“Vendrian,” Mourning breathed.  “Wei, I—”

“Go. You have done enough for me. More than enough.” The young master chuckled. “I… I would like to fight with you again. I fear our coordination this time was not perfect but… I think I owe you my life a few times over.”

“And me as well,” Mourning said. There was something else in her voice—a sense of hesitation and pity. “Do not linger here long. You are unique in a sense but… many fail to let go of what they lose in life. Do not drown here. There is still a future, despite the pain. The ones you lost would want you to keep living.”

Wei’s mouth opened slightly as he nodded. He understood what she was trying to say. He saw elder disciples cope with losses through use of hallucinogenics and spiritual communions. Often, it left them bereft in ways tragic and undignified. Wei might miss his sect and his family, but he was not so weak, and his duty was greater than his pain.

Resisting [Depression] with Aspect of (Ambition)

Depression? That was new.

“Another foul affliction from this place,” his Shell fumed. “Be fast with our reunion. There is great danger if we linger long in this place.”

And so, with the blessing of the Hound and his Shell, Wei descended once more, deeper into the black, deeper until he passed through a jarring threshold. And then suddenly, he found himself lying face down on fresh soil, along a golden road flanked by tumbling waves of wheat.

Home again. But not truly. Not really. Close enough.

Wei got up to his feet and began walking. There were things he wanted to talk about, but most importantly, he just wanted to see his mother again. He wondered what she would have to say to all he experienced, to his choice of facing the Duchess, to Mepheleon, his father, the Lodge… All of it.

And then it occurred to him: Perhaps the Hound was doing this deliberately. Because Wei knew his mother well enough to know what she might say in the end, and that just might align with the God of Death’s desires.

“Kill them all, An Wei,” he could hear her say. “Your fates are all sealed. You must kill them all, or they will come for you.”