200 (II)

Neath [I]

“What the hells was that?” the hard-hat-wearing goblin hissed. She stared at the spraying liquor and narrowed her eyes. “Damn it, did that oversized ape break the tap? Come on!” She bounced over to where the tap was, but as she did, Solzimort let out a soft gasp.

“Uh, uh, guys, I think, I think I feel the dark peeling away from me.” And true to his word, the effects of the meal were fading. Solzimort shrank down, sinking into the stonework below the cellar, keeping them away from sight. The goblins were turned away from them, so they saw nothing. But Shiv wasn’t going to let that opportunity pass by.

“Gone? You got this?” the Deathless asked.

“Of course,” she replied. “Just have the Hydra let me go, and I’ll deal with them.”

“Don’t kill anyone,” Shiv said. “If you need someone to back you up, me and Adam are here.”

“Not necessary,” Gone said, sounding slightly annoyed.

“Solzimort,” Shiv said, “unfuse us.”

“Are… are you sure?” the nervous Hydra stammered. “I’m much bigger than you guys. It’s probably much safer for you to stay inside me.”

“Probably is,” Shiv said, not bothering to argue with the twelve-headed creature. The Hydra didn’t mean ill, and most of his thoughts were emotionally based. Logic wouldn’t work, he was certain about that. “But right now, you might be too big, and we don’t want to crush any of these goblins. They just need someone a little bit bigger than them to show them what to do.”

“Okay,” Solzimort said, though he still sounded worried. “If anything goes wrong, just run back into this corner. I’ll be waiting here. We can sink down, really, really far down.”

Shiv had to say one thing about Solzimort: the Hydra was reliable. And despite being terrified, he was willing to continue serving, protecting Adam and everyone else. There’s still something we’re missing about him, he thought. But on the surface, you won’t find many Pathbearers like him. When was the last time we met someone who was genuinely good to the bone?

As Solzimort released Gone, Shiv glanced at Adam, who stepped free from the Hydra’s mouth alongside him. In the time he took to glance at his friend, Gone dealt with the other goblins. A series of thuds and cracks filled the cellar. By the time he laid eyes on Gone again, she was piling a mess of groaning goblin goons in the other corner of the room. She dusted her hands and all but reappeared next to him. “Barely Adepts,” she said, sounding like someone who had accidentally stepped on a cockroach or dog shit. “Nothing to worry about.”

It was at this point that Shiv also noticed the half-drained beer jug she was holding. “Did you steal a moment to have a drink?” Shiv asked.

Solzimort’s barbed head stuck out from the corner of the room, sniffling. “Ugh, alcohol?” The Hydra gagged.

“It took you guys a while to respond,” Gone said, shrugging. “And I haven’t had beer in…” She trailed off. Her eyes went somewhere distant. “…haven’t had beer for a long time.”

Shiv felt a wave of sympathy wash through him. “Yeah, well, you enjoyed that. You earned it. Adam, here’s what I think. I think I’m gonna go across. I’m gonna find out what’s happening on the other side. And I think that if I smell bullshit going on, or if there’s an ambush waiting for us, I’m going to blink back here to my temporal anchor, and we’re gonna tear off in any direction that isn’t here. Might need an alternative way out of this place without the Educator’s assistance.”

The Gate Lord nodded along, and he furrowed his brow as he pondered their options. “Might have an idea. It’s a long shot, but at Phoenix Academy, there are experimental teleportation devices. I don’t think they’re free of the Ascendants’ influence, and they’ll probably have agents there waiting to intercept us, because they know my history. But it’s the only other thing I can think of right now.”

“Right, you keep thinking. I’m gonna go take a liquor bath.”

“Shiv! Wait!”

The Deathless paused mid-step. “Yeah?”

“Captain Irons… Make sure the Educator hasn’t done anything to him. I—he is a good man. Rough, but good.”

Shiv nodded. “I’ll do whatever I can.”

He walked closer to the spilling liquor and took in a deep breath. The radiating waves of Hydromancy glided along the sides of that waterfall, and he wondered what he was about to step into. Nothing ventured, he mouthed, nothing gained.

He entered the threshold of foam and bubbling liquid. It splashed against his body and crashed against his Shapeless Tides. Shiv had to bid his Legendary skill to go quiet before he was drawn across. A power seized him, made him shrink and disperse. He melded with the liquor. The sensations were indescribable. One moment, he was whole and heavy. The next, he was freer and lighter, but he couldn’t move himself at all. A brief spike of panic passed through him, but he regained control of himself before he could revert his personal timeline.

His own Hydromancy was weak, but it was enough for him to gauge where he was going. He slid up and around a series of pipes before suddenly a pocket of Dimensionality intercepted him. A crushing pressure made the currents carry him thin, and then he was in another set of pipes thereafter, cascading along until he finally hit a curving bend and splashed down on the ground once more.

Hydromancy 15 > 16

He thudded hard upon tiled flooring and stepped free of another foam wall with his Last Morsel raised high. The absurdity of brandishing a frying pan as a weapon occurred to the Deathless, but he didn’t care. He was proud of his frying pan, and it was a dangerous frying pan. And soon, he would cook and dice up anything that dared stand in the way of him and his Legendary cooking utensil.

The same couldn’t be said for the people in the other room. The Educator shook her head as Shiv arrived, ignoring him as one would a mild annoyance. Irons grunted as he tried to pry off a trail of pencil markings running across his body. He was pinned to the wall, and a graphene border was sketched over him.

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Nearby, a puddle of blood ran smeared along the floor. Something about the floor caught Shiv’s attention. It was tiled—shower-tiled, and there was a drain at the center of the room. The ground was slick with more than water, and Shiv could feel powerful waves of Biomancy radiating from somewhere nearby. Master-Tier…

There was also an operating table of some kind. It, too, was completely painted red, and bits of viscera remained there. Shiv extended a mana Hydra and gritted his teeth as he recognized some of the substance. That was vampire blood. Only vampire blood responded that way, only vampire blood was that animated. He could taste the scent in the air with his damaged armor too.

Might even be an elder. They usually have more of a coppery taste… Shit, I’ve been fighting and killing too many people. Can tell how old a vampire is by scent now.

Farsight 73 > 74

Curled up into a ball near the only door to this macabre chamber was a goblin, and it was one of the largest goblins that Shiv had ever met. He was practically big enough to reach Shiv’s lower chest, quite the feat considering most humans were a head shorter than Shiv as well. The goblin had rows of glistening studs embedded into his arms, and a leather vest, along with some denim shorts, were all that he wore.

Denim, Shiv said, doing a double-take. He only knew what denim was because certain customers at the Swan Eating Toad had eccentric tastes. One of them wanted to start a shop in Blackedge. All Denim Denny’s. It didn’t take off. A pang of sadness followed inside Shiv. He didn’t know if Denim Denny was still alive. Something told him not to hope.

“The hells is this?” Shiv asked casually as he gestured with his frying pan. “And a little heads-up would’ve been nice. We could have just assumed you dipped out and went our own way.”

The Educator rolled her eyes. “This is me making sure that we have a way out of the Capitol. And that there in the corner is our way.”

Shiv looked at the goblin again, and he let out a quiet breath of disappointment. “Well, our way doesn’t look very impressive. Also, our way might have shit and pissed himself.”

“You… you have no idea who you’re dealing with,” the goblin—the one Shiv guessed was Custiel—said through sobs. He peered through his clawed hands and noticed Shiv for the first time. He went still. His legs extended forward, and he stopped curling so much. “Who… who are you? I… I need to tell you, you… you don’t know what you’ve just done. The Dragon Brokers, they won’t stand for this! They’ll send people after you.”

“The Dragon Brokers will be properly compensated for any disturbances,” the Educator said genially. “I’ll cover whatever monetary losses have been sustained during this period, both theirs and yours. Right now, I wish for you to listen. There are several individuals I need you to create a shell for. Specialized shells. Legendary-Tier shells. I need the full suite. I need disguises for their skill statuses and for their physical appearances. I need documentation, and I need access to the local Jump Towers. The identities you will make for me must be Prismatic Guard members in profession. High-ranking ones capable of leaving the city in dire circumstances.”

As the Educator continued listing off her demands, Shiv walked over to Captain Irons. Shiv leaned closer to the man, and Irons narrowed his eyes at him. He bared his teeth and struggled hard against the border. Shiv shook his head. “Yeah, it doesn’t really work. It’s kind of a bullshit skill. Force doesn’t do anything.”

Irons calmed for a moment. “I don’t know what this is, but—”

“You’re looking for Adam Arrow?” Shiv whispered.

Irons went still. “Adam? What? No. Why? Is he…” Just then, Shiv’s notification loaded. Irons’s jaw dropped open wide. “You… You’re the—”

“Ignore that,” Shiv interrupted. He was getting very tired of this. “Okay, wait. So you weren’t trying to break into the Rubix Well to save Adam?”

“Adam was in the fucking Rubix Well?” Irons snarled under his breath. “What did that fool boy do to get put there?” A sigh followed. “More like what did his fool father do to implicate him. Godsdamn it, Roland. I told you. I told you to wait. Be more patient. You never listen.”

Shiv read Irons’s expression and realized it was genuine concern on the man’s face. Irons was a hard character; Shiv could read that from his posture, from his constant attempts to break free of the Educator’s etching. But he did care for his students. I guess that gives me an answer,

Shiv thought to himself. How many pure-hearted Pathbearers are there in the world? Apparently, I’m two for two in a very short period of time.

“He’s with me right now,” Shiv said on a whim, taking a chance with Irons. “He’s safe. Well. He’s alive. Can’t say anyone’s safe now. Especially not around me. We got some heavy heat on our asses.”

Irons went still, his pupils dilated. “Adam? But why? Why is he here? How did he end up in the Capital Rubix Well?”

Shiv gritted his teeth. “It’s not really his fault. It’s a big fucking mess happening inside the Republic. Worse than you can possibly think.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” Irons said with a bitter grunt. “Another of my students went missing. Do you know Melissa Harrington? Wait, who are you? Are you from one of my classes?”

Shiv collapsed his helmet, and Irons’s jaw couldn’t fall any lower.

“Harlon?!” he sputtered. “Harlon Lowe—”

“Nah,” Shiv said, cutting the captain off once again, “He’s dead. I’m his son.”

Irons blinked, and he swallowed. “Son… I didn’t…” He fell silent and frowned. “And who is she?” he asked, nudging his head in the direction of the Educator.

“Do not tell him anything else,” she snapped, looking over her shoulder.

Shiv ignored her. “Just some Forgotten Ascendant. No one you’d remember.”

And in a heartbeat, she slammed into him, pressing a brush against his throat. “Do you enjoy testing my patience, boy?”

Shiv bit back a snarl as he felt her Animancy-tipped paintbrush pierce his Shapeless Tides, but he continued speaking to Irons as he ignored the Educator. “She does this sometimes. Very emotional. Terrible self-control. Guess that comes with her divine degeneration. Or maybe she always had a shit personality.”

The brush pressed harder. Shiv just rolled his eyes. “Drive it in if you want. You don’t talk to me about what you’re planning, and I don’t give a shit about who I talk to or about what.”

“You have implicated him in something beyond his meager life,” she hissed. “You have sealed his fate.”

The Deathless finally turned to glare at the Educator. “Right. And were you going to let him live if I didn’t show up? Or would you paint him into your book like you did that vampire after interrogating him?”

The Educator didn’t say anything. She just glared. He met her withering gaze with a flat look of unimpressed scorn. “You’re all broken,” Shiv said. “I’d call you spent and ruined, like a rusted relic, but you’re really not worth that much. Get your shit together, Educator. You wanna work together? Talk like a grown woman. You want me to keep your secrets? Stop playing cloak-and-dagger games without telling us. Otherwise, this is the best you can hope for.”

Her face twisted in a snarl, and Shiv wondered if she might just finish him off. But then she stepped away and stormed toward the goblin once more.

“Ascendant,” the stunned-looking Irons breathed. “Forgotten.”

“Yeah. You might just be one of the unluckiest bastards on Earth. We’re in a bit more trouble than you are.”

The captain considered that for a moment and chuckled. “I still doubt it. She wouldn’t be the first Ascendant I fled from this day. I barely survived the last one too.”

“What?” Shiv asked. “What do you mean?”

“I think I’m being hunted by Daughter,” Irons said. “I ran into her in Flamecrown Castle while searching for my student. Barely got away. Something happened to Daughter—a cut opened up on her head just as she was about to drive a blade through my chest.”

And now it was Shiv’s turn to be flabbergasted. A laugh escaped him. It started as a snort, then it grew to a guffaw. Soon, he was almost doubled over, and Irons stared at him like he was insane.

“A red-white scar?” Shiv asked between wheezing breaths.

Irons frowned. “How’d you know that?”

“Captain Irons, you might just be one of the luckiest bastards on Integrated Earth.”

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