Hm? Oh, yes. Headmaster, I’m aware that Master-Instructor Heresine is a spy. And a spy of Aviary, no less. One of their so-called Sparrows. Long-term, deep cover. Not meant for active combat.

I commend you for noticing, but the Inquisition has the matter well under control. As such, I recommend you leave it be.

Why, you ask? Because this is simply what is done between rival nations. You understand this. I know why you wish to stamp this out, but it’s a little bit like trying to kill all the cockroaches in an infested house using the bottom of your heel alone. It’s woefully insufficient, and it doesn’t get the job done. Now, for these matters, it’s best to prevent or subvert it beforehand, instead of trying to react and deal with it.

As such, the so-called spy you have uncovered is already nullified. Nullified because the Inquisition has existing cells pre-planted within the Academy. They’re there for one purpose and one purpose alone: to reach out to new and subversive elements and turn them to steal information from our adversaries while they’re trying to compromise our students. There is no space for them to slip in between the cracks, because we have already colonized the cracks, so to speak.

So, again, Headmaster, I thank you for your concern, but lay that heavy burden in your chest to rest. Your duty is to the children, so focus on them. Leave the rest to me and to the ones that dwell in the shadows of our Republic.

We all have a role to play. Just worry about yours.

-Legend-Councilwoman Veronica Chandler to Legend-Headmaster Hades Hymn

206 (I)

Academy [IV]

Shiv was taken aback by Merrielmel’s fervent pleas. There was a desperate gleam in the Enchanter’s eyes, and he had the look of a man who was willing to offer an arm and a leg in exchange for the broken gauntlet in Shiv’s hands.

“What kind of Heroic equipment?” Shiv asked.

Merrielmel perked up immediately. “Come, let me show you.” He reached out and seized Shiv by the wrist, and he tried to pull Shiv along. Unfortunately, Merrielmel was not a Legendary-Tier Pathbearer in terms of physique. He wasn’t even a Master. The outcome was like a blade of grass trying to drag an oak. Merrielmel squeaked as he stumbled back into Shiv, unprepared for how heavy and rooted the Deathless was. Shiv caught Merrielmel’s face before he could slam nose-first into the chest piece of the Voidmantid armor.

“Oh, oh, terribly sorry,” Merrielmel muttered. He coughed awkwardly and released Shiv, who raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, next time, just ask.”

“Of course, of course.”

Beside them, Concelhaunt gripped his face and tried to hide his second-hand shame. “Gets this way when he’s a little too excited.”

***

Merrielmel led Shiv and the others out of the crafting chamber. They cut several corners before they got to another dead end, and this time Shiv found himself staring at a cylindrical crack. It resembled a depressed fracture imprinted upon the stone. He wasn’t sure why they all had to be cracked in different ways, but this one leaked Dimensionality mana too. Unbeknownst to Merrielmel, Shiv wasn’t alone. There was a certain reserve Avatar in his cape, and gliding behind them just underground was a Hydra that had been playing the role of hidden ace all the while.

The cylindrical crack swirled into a whirlpool of black static, and as they stepped through, Shiv found himself awestruck at the large space that greeted him. Instead of being a narrow chamber, humid and choked with clashing mana types, he stood upon marble tiles and glanced down a massive hall that had hundreds of display cases. It was almost museum-like in terms of the arrangement, but the lights above were a bit too bright, and from them radiated faint pulses of Dimensionality.

Shiv got his answer to why they were infused with Dimensionality as a few of them started ringing upon detecting him. “Ah, sorry, sorry,” Merrielmel cried out. He sent a few of his flying drones to crash against the lights. A spark of violet energy filled the air, and the alarms died down in an instant. “It’s meant to make sure no one tries to pilfer our finalized products. Our personal products, I must tell you. We make a great many things for the Academy, but for certain things, you know, it’s very hard to get permission.”

The elf rambled on as Shiv followed behind him. The Deathless was only halfway listening. Merrielmel continued talking about how the administration had no vision, no willingness to fund ambitious projects, forcing him and Concelhaunt to do things themselves. As for the aforementioned things, they resided in the two dozen or so display cases.

The first thing Shiv noticed about the cases was the glass. Instead of it being natural glass, it was reinforced with a sort of crystalline substance, and to his surprise, when his mana hydras brushed over them, he realized it wasn’t a synthetic crystal, but an organic compound. It was complex in its biological architecture, and the renditions that manifested over his hydras were composed of so many interconnected microspells that Shiv struggled to process what he was looking at. It was like systems collapsing on systems, and what’s more, the glass was still alive. The crystallized compound was not a dead organism. It was chitinous. Bits of it died, and bits of it re-grew.

“Oh, you have a unique Biomancy Skill Evolution,” Merrielmel noted, beholding Shiv’s mana hydras for the first time. “I was wondering why your Biomancy field was so dense earlier. Hero?”

Shiv considered withholding the information, but something told him he might just get a bit of useful knowledge in exchange if he decided to be open. “Yeah,” Shiv said, “Hero. Aegis of Assimilation.”

“Aegis of Assimilation?” Merrielmel coughed. “That’s very, very unusual. Have you accepted any Blessings from a Hydra god of some sort? Or have you transplanted bits from a Hydra into yourself?” The elf pulled a pair of spectacles out of nowhere and layered them over his eyes. The lenses flashed blood red, and he squinted at Shiv.

The Deathless realized what Merrielmel was doing a moment later. He was trying to scan Shiv’s innards. This grew more evident as a sweeping beam of redness washed through Shiv’s skin and made it transparent. The Deathless found himself slightly perplexed rather than offended. “Seems pretty useful. What kind of item is that?”

“Oh, it’s one of my personal gadgets,” Merrielmel explained. He clicked the side of his glasses, and then they flashed with a sudden rush of Pyromancy as well. “Oh, you seem mostly human. Large for a human, but still mostly human. There is a strange glow about you, though.” He clicked his glasses twice more, and this time they were infused with a bright vitality. That was when Merrielmel’s breath caught in his throat. “What is… this?”

“Something you might not want to dig too far into,” Shiv answered. There was a warning under his breath, but Merrielmel missed it entirely.

“No, no, I’ve never seen anything like this before. Your vitality, it seems to be blended into…”

“My soul,” Shiv finished for him. “And if you try to find out why, you’re probably going to get a visit from a certain someone. You don’t want to meet them. I don’t want you to meet them. It won’t end well.”

Merrielmel let his glasses slide down the bridge of his nose. “Who? Someone unwilling to share the fruits of their labor, that’s who…” He frowned and then pouted. There was something deeply childlike about his expression. “I must tell you, any scientist who withholds their intelligence and dedication to this world is not worthy of being called a scientist. All our efforts should be toward furthering society and—”

“You know the name Udraal Thann?” Shiv cut Merrielmel off again.

Merrielmel paused. “I… You… you mean…”

“Okay, so you have heard of him,” Shiv continued. He folded his arms and leaned down to stare Merrielmel eye to eye. “My dealings are with Udraal. I don’t much like Udraal. And someday, if I get the chance—no, when I get the chance—I’m going to tear Udraal in half and stomp him until there is nothing left but paste and dust. And when I’m done doing that, I’m going to reach into his soul, and I’m going to break every single skill he has.” With the last word, Shiv’s syllables trailed off with a rageful growl, and he surprised even himself with how angry he felt. But he meant every word. For what Udraal did, for what Udraal might do, he was going to kill the bastard. And he was going to do it slowly.

Merrielmel’s mouth fell open, but then he swallowed. He nodded vigorously and spoke no more about the Deathless’s Vitae. “Oh, well, come along,” Merrielmel chuckled nervously. “There are a great many things you can select from. But please, can I… see it?”

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Shiv handed his gauntlet over to the elf, and the Enchanter all but chirped as he accepted it, like it was some kind of priceless gem. Which, to Merrielmel, it might as well have been. He needs this to finish his shifting device, the thing that can make them travel to the Outside, Shiv muttered internally, thinking back to what the Enchanter had said earlier. And that means I need it too. Otherwise, there’s no easy way to reach Uva or Blackedge. Still need to figure out their deal—why they want to reach the Outside. And why the Neath is interested in helping them. And then there’s the Dragon Brokers. More shit to deal with.

Shiv held back a sigh. Fuck me, the Outside. I hate dealing with the eldritch shit. I hate the Recollector. I hate the Stranger. I hate the Eldest. I… He hesitated when it came to the Dreamtaker. It wasn’t like he liked the Dreamtaker, but aside from being a little dubious when it came to not possessing people or talking through their eyes, she was relatively amiable when it came to Shiv or Uva’s requests. Still a dream-eating entity, though. Just another felling thing I have to deal with.

“Inertium,” Merrielmel breathed. He held the gauntlet high and practically worshiped the broken thing. “I still have no idea where you got this. Must be a grand story, a remarkable story. Have you met one of the Farwalkers? The Mage-Slayers? Oh, they despise the System in all its ways. They loathe magic. I can’t imagine what favors you might have to do to gain this gauntlet from them.” And then Merrielmel gasped. “Don’t tell me you killed one of them. How did it feel? Did you kill one of them?”

“Didn’t really get it from one of them,” Shiv said, and immediately he saw Merrielmel deflate slightly. “I got it from…” Shiv grimaced at the recollection. “Got it from a friend, I guess.”

“You guess?” Merrielmel asked.

“Yeah, I suppose she’s a friend, but… honestly, she died before I could get to know her all that well. Wasn’t anything she could do. Or I could do either.”

“Oh,” Merrielmel said, and he sounded properly depressed. “I know how that feels. I have several colleagues who are both scholars and warriors. Many of them don’t last very long. It is a treacherous thing, living the life of a Pathbearer, especially a martial Pathbearer. I have pleaded with a great many of them, you know, to commit to the science. It’s safer that way. It’s where we belong.” But Merrielmel coughed as he caught himself rambling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Not offended,” Shiv said. “Just dealing with being alive in the Integration. Sometimes, I forget. But then it reminds me.”

Psycho-Cartography: This one is extremely terrified of practically everything around him. His mind also skips from place to place. Probably very useful if you’re someone who has to experiment or test a lot of different possibilities, but in combat, he’d probably be a liability. He’d just get overwhelmed by everything happening and shut down. Him choosing to be a non-martial was likely a wise decision.

Despite recognizing that rationally, another part of him still scorned Merrielmel in a certain way, and he noted that about himself.

Psycho-Cartography: You scorn him because you don’t like it when people surrender their agency, when people refuse to fight for themselves, refuse to spit in the face of a cruel world. He is, in a word, pathetic. And you like to tell yourself that you’re the opposite. You are the so-called Overman that Valor told you about. It makes you feel powerful.

“I am powerful,” he said under his breath.

“What?” Merrielmel said.

“Nothing,” Shiv replied, following the enchanter. Merrielmel stared at him from the corner of his eye, and then he nodded, unwilling to confront Shiv, retreating into his own anxiety.

Psycho-Cartography: You are powerful, but power is relative. The dirt is littered with powerful Pathbearers. Sullain was powerful, incredibly so, and yet he perished unceremoniously, used as a test subject to teach you how to break someone’s soul. The Recollector was powerful, but if we were to fight that fell thing again, you’d tear it in half in short order. Roland is powerful, and Roland nearly broke himself trying to protect Blackedge. There are limits to power, and there are other monsters in the world. Power is not enough. You have to be more than powerful. You have to make the right choices as well. Decide who you wish to be.

Shiv stopped to consider these ruminations for a moment. Just how free was anyone? Yes, you could choose to be a martial. You could train yourself day and night. You could push yourself beyond your limits and try to climb as high as you can go. But still, there was no guarantee you’d survive the next day. And Shiv had made it this far by not surviving, by being brutal, by being reckless, by never stopping. But who else could be like him? Who else could fight the way he did? Who else could grow the way he did?

Psycho-Cartography: You should be proud of yourself. You should be pleased by your power and everything you’ve accomplished. The decision, the choice to fight matters. The decisions we made are who we are, because that’s how we grow. We use everything we have at our disposal to overcome problems, to step beyond our previous failures. Power or no power, we choose to fight. But remember that not everyone is like us, and not everyone has our gifts. If you can do that, then you can understand them, and you can understand their fears.

Shiv stared at the back of Merrielmel’s head and felt some of the subconscious judgment he held toward the elf dissipate. He didn’t really know who Merrielmel was. He didn’t know what drove the Enchanter to be part of the criminal enterprise, why he allowed drugs to be trafficked across campus, why he found himself performing underground experiments. Shiv didn’t know, and so, before he had all the details, he wouldn’t judge Merrielmel. He would try to be as detached as possible.

“Merrielmel,” Shiv said after a beat. “Why are you doing this stuff underground? Why are you with Neath and the Outside? What’s the deal with all this?”

The elf stiffened. “It’s… a personal matter.”

Concelhaunt spat on the ground. “His brother went missing in an experiment gone wrong. Blast happened when he was trying to build a Slipgate.”

“STOP, STOP!” Merrielmel suddenly screamed, covering his ears. He never stopped walking, but he hummed to himself, as if trying to self-soothe.

The goblin Smith sighed. “Said too much. Look. Neath has resources; they’re interested in Slipgates—let’s you use the Outside as a medium. Theoretically, could let you get anywhere in the Integration. Practically? No idea. Not sure a bridge like that can work with what we have available. But we’re close to creating an opening to the Outside. The Inertium might just be our final piece for the stabilizer.”

“And you?” Adam asked. “Why are you involved? And why not petition the administration?”

Concelhaunt’s expression turned haunted. “It was my project. I was the one that set the whole thing up. And I’m gonna be the one that sees it finished. But not with the academy. I think… I think we were sabotaged.”

“What?” Adam breathed. “By whom?”

The goblin turned to face him. “Headmaster Hymn. And no, I don’t felling know why. I just… caught him the day before. In the lab. Doing something… I don’t know why… Don’t know…”

“You’re lying,” Irons said.

“The fuck you say, Irons?” Concelhaunt snarled, taking a step toward the captain.

Irons didn’t flinch. He just glared harder. “I served under Hymn. This is not his way. He is not that kind of person. You are lying.”

Concelhaunt’s expression twisted into a derisive sneer, but before they could get any more heated, the Enchanter gave a shrill whistle.

“Alright, here, here!” Merrielmel said, interrupting the others with a loud shout. He gestured to his left and right, and Shiv found himself staring at an assortment of weapons. One looked to be a lightning bolt caged within a length of stone, making it resemble something between a column and a spear. The spear crackled constantly, and the stone itself rumbled, barely able to contain the power it bore within. Despite this, Shiv couldn’t feel the mana radiating out of the item. In fact, this entire equipment museum was pristine, devoid of any overlapping mana fields aside from the lights above or Merrielmel himself.

“Oh, oh, sorry, I was a little bit too hasty.” Merrielmel waved his hands, and then the chitinous glass lining the outside of the display case collapsed. Shiv cocked his head as he watched how each section of the glass receded into another, unfurling as if a fan. The bits of the glass were as if ribs of skin or chloroplasts from plants. In seconds, the glass splashed down like a waterfall, hiding in the gaps between the equipment stands and the outside of the display case. Just then, Shiv felt the crushing power radiating from the storm spear.

“This is the Heavenfall Anvil. It allows one to shape the ground by using bolts of lightning. It possesses a range of well over ten kilometers and grants you the power to root yourself to the earth while lashing the world with lightning.”

Shiv lifted an eyebrow as he examined the Anvil in greater detail. It was flashy, but… How many people are me? And do I really need another piece of equipment right now? He knew the answer to that question. Shiv looked over his shoulder and shrugged at Adam. “So, what do you think?”

The Gate Lord’s mouth fell open slightly. “What?”

“Yeah, what do you think? Useful or shit? You like this thing?”

For a moment, Adam didn’t reply. You’re… You want me to choose something? For myself?”

“Yes,” Shiv said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“But you’re trading your gauntlet for it.”

“Yeah, I’m trading my gauntlet so that you can have something new.” Shiv held up his pan. “Not feeling that greedy. And besides, you can use another edge. Maybe something that’ll let you shoot further or get away faster. You deserve it. And if it makes you stronger, it makes all of us better.”

“Soft,” Mortar scoffed.

“Strategic,” Whisper praised.

Adam pressed his lips together, and Shiv read the thankful glint behind his eyes. Shiv adopted a smug grin, but then the Gate Lord just scoffed. “Are you going to use this to guilt-trip me if we disagree in the future?”

“Yeah,” Shiv said, admitting it without shame.

“You are an utter bastard.”

“That I am,” Shiv admitted smoothly, “but I just want the best things in life for my best asshole.”

Irons looked between them, and a flicker of suspicion danced across his face. It vanished a second later. The Gate Lord stepped past Shiv and placed a hand on the anvil.

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