The Auroral Council cannot be trusted. The Prismatic Order isn’t here to help us, but to enslave us. The faith has been compromised. They aren’t actual gods! There aren’t any gods. We’ve all been deceived! All of us!

The church is not a hall of worship but conversion. What we think we know of the world outside is a nest of lies! New Albion is not weak! The Abyss is not filled purely with monsters! And the Republic is not the strongest nation in the world—no! It is merely an instrument of twisted faith! Our gods have been stolen! And the Auroral Council is merely a facade! The priesthood and church are their eyes and ears, spying on us! The mind mages twist our very memories and infuse deceit into our history!

Look! Look into yourself! Look at your souls and your statuses! Do you have the Auroral Piety Skill? That skill born of faith? That skill that allows you to draw upon the gifts of the Auroral Ascendants, for only they can convert the awesome power of the thirteen and infuse in you the power to craft Blessings?

No! Faith is mana! Faith is an attunement of mana! And they don’t want us to know because they want our devotion to be absolutely pure! Absolutely focused on their divinity and immortality—because they were too weak to seize it another way. They were fragile, until they found the means to siphon power from the System—making themselves more!

We do not live in a Republic, but a hierarchy of exploitation! Turn away from the Auroral Piety Skill! Turn away from the church! And turn away from the Ascendants! The faith is a lie!

It is all a lie!

-“Writings of a Heretic” (Recovered by Inquisitors of the Prismatic Order)

41 (I)

Conspiracy

The Master-Advisor’s office was pretty cozy. It had a nice pond with a fountain in the middle filled with koi. The leftmost wall was covered in a grand painting. It depicted the Legendary Pathbearers comprising the Auroral Council, the ones who served as avatars of the thirteen Ascendants, looking powerful and dignified. The right side was lined with bookshelves and leatherbound tomes. Another nice thing was the soundproofing Enchantments lining the walls and the black-tinted windows preventing anyone from peering in. And at the far end of the room was a grand, ivory table. One that doubled as a piano. One that sat just below a portrait of Master-Advisor Maxwell Oldsmith itself. One that shattered into pieces when Shiv swatted it in a demonstration of his displeasure.

The massive table tumbled into the air as if it barely weighed anything at all and crashed hard against the portrait. The piano burst into dust, fragments, and bouncing keys. The portrait was torn and mangled, much like the automaton it was meant to depict.

A little bit away, Master-Advisor Maxwell Oldsmith whimpered and wailed on its knees. Looming over it was Shiv—still in his Perfect Semblance. Nearby, an audience of two looked in petrified trepidation, doing their best to avoid Shiv’s notice. Mira, the secretary, had woken at some point and found herself tied to a chair. Shiv had ripped rebar out of the walls and bent it around her. Siggy kept watch out of the door as Shiv told her to, but every time Shiv made a loud noise, she flinched, and her legs wobbled like the struts of a collapsing bridge.

“Oldsmith. If you say ‘I don’t know’ to me one more time, I don’t know if I can stop myself from driving my godsdamned fingers through your optics.” Shiv’s words were calm. His mood was far from it. This thing that knelt before him had been trying to beat a child to death with its belt for a misplaced pair of gloves. The kid was dead now, thanks to 811. As were hundreds more. But Shiv still had a promise of retribution to keep. It might not mean anything to the boy, but it did mean something to Shiv.

I don’t even know the kid’s name, Shiv realized. It didn’t matter. It was the behavior that offended him. The hells was the point of being some high and powerful lord or Pathbearer and spending your time stepping on the small? It was pathetic.

“I—You asked me to be honest! So I am! Please, Master Pathbearer! Please! I can only tell you what I know.” Gone was the haughty, oppressive demeanor that the automaton had earlier. The bot was just a beggar now, and it begged good and hard for its life. Its fine suit and nice hat were shredded by how roughly Shiv moved it around during the interrogation. “You asked me why I am here—I told you! Because I was assigned by the Prismatic Order! Straight from the capital at Yellowstone! I—I am merely doing my duties, as instructed by Inquisitor Szjik. Nothing more! I swear! I swear on the Ascendants!”

Shiv just glared at the bot. He took a moment to recap and process all the things he asked Oldsmith.

As it turned out, the Republic was even more full of bullshit than Shiv expected. Not only did the Master-Advisor here know plenty about the Five Faiths of the Abyss, it was also tasked with establishing new trade ties with Compact. There were also other consulates in various other gates. With what Oldsmith described, business between the Auroral Council of the Republic and the Lords of Law over Compact was booming.

This led into another question: Why the Republic lied to their own people. When Oldsmith started claiming it was to protect the minds of the Republic’s citizens from corruptive ideologies and dark realities, Shiv lost his temper slightly. He might have slapped the bot a little. The bot’s head might have a pretty sizable dent as a result. That caused Oldsmith to update its answer from protection to control. Apparently, the Prismatic Order controlled something called a Censorship Agenda

about things the people were and weren’t allowed to know.

And then things got even worse for Shiv as Oldsmith started going on about the logistics of assigning proper mind mages to each of the Republic’s territories to ensure that a shared understanding of culture and national destiny was maintained.

An ill feeling passed through Shiv after he heard that. He felt like he was starting to dissociate from himself, and a sense of paranoia swelled inside him. Had a Psychomancer peered into his mind when he grew up? Shaped his memories? How much did Roland Arrow know?

It was at this point that Oldsmith made a terrible mistake. It started complaining about how it didn’t want to do any of this, how it deserved better for all its years of honest service rendered to an assortment of lords, and if it hadn’t agreed to arrangements made by its most recent benefactor, Havel Van Stormhalt, it wouldn’t be here trying to resolve the Blackedge problem for the Prismatic Order.

The names Havel Van Stormhalt and Blackedge brought Shiv’s other thoughts to a crashing halt. And then the hits just kept coming.

“City Lord Havel has long despised Master Roland Arrow. He was practically overjoyed when he told me about a most important mission I was meant to help him accomplish. He admitted to me, then, that he was a high-ranking member of the Prismatic Order—and that he had received a divine duty from a member of the Auroral Council. The Republic in danger! And because of one of its great heroes, no less!”

“Stormhalt? As in… the father of Isabella Van Stormhalt?” Shiv asked, just to clarify.

“Correct. The Young Lady was—well, relations between her and her father have always been troubled since the death of her mother, and after her elopement with Town Lord Roland Arrow’s son—”

“Wait, elopement? I thought they were formally engaged.”

Oldsmith frowned. “If they were, City Lord Havel did not give his consent. Oh, his mood was ever so foul those final few days. And then, suddenly, he was overjoyed. Bursting with happiness! And that’s when he told me—that’s when he informed me of what was to happen! Blackedge was to be sacked and occupied. Starhawk’s Perch was to be secured and delivered unto City Lord Havel, along with Town Lord Roland Arrow, be he alive or dead, and with proof of his treason! For within him burns a Quest to bring down the Republic itself! And to lay low the Auroral Council!”

By the end of the speech, Shiv stared blankly at the automaton for practically a minute. There was so much in there for him to process that Shiv couldn’t help but sigh. Adam… is going to explode when he hears of this. Frankly, this is starting to seem like a plot on the System’s part to get Adam to suffer an aneurysm from pure anger.

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Shiv, personally, was more lost than ever. He came into the office looking for a few answers regarding certain things that didn’t fit about the Republic—and then to beat an automaton to death. He ended up plunging into what seemed like a cross-national conspiracy that went so deep he couldn’t even see the bottom.

“Secured and delivered to Havel by whom?” Shiv asked.

“I—” Oldsmith hesitated.

“Speak. You don’t need any of your limbs to do that.”

“Vicar Sullain! The disgraced Vicar Sullain!” Oldsmith wailed, sounding ashamed and terrified. “Members of the Prismatic Order and the foul Necrotech vicar came to an accord for the greater good! No one in the Republic has enough authority or power to directly deliver justice upon Roland Arrow—not with the Starhawk’s Blessing. But with all that is at stake, and his heresy threatening the stability of the Auroral Council, extreme measures had to be taken. And another means of accessing Starhawk’s Perch was required.”

“So, you guys…” Shiv paused as he tried to put all this together in his head. “Okay. Havel hates Roland. Havel is supposedly a member of the Prismatic Order—and he takes orders from one of the Council members. And they want him to deal with Roland Arrow?”

“Yes.”

Shiv narrowed his eyes. “But Roland has the favor of the Starhawk, who is… one of Ascendants. The Ascendants that the Auroral Council serves as avatars for.”

“I… yes, correct.” The Master-Advisor nodded.

Shiv was starting to get a headache. “And because Roland’s been accused by a member of the Auroral Council of heresy and having a Quest… to destroy the Auroral Council?”

“Yes. That—that is what I have been told.”

“But he’s favored. By an Ascendant. An avatar of one of the Auroral Council members.” Shiv emphasized every sentence, trying to make Oldsmith realize how absurd and outrageous this all was.

“Ah, perhaps… perhaps the Starhawk is deceived? And does not know of his favored apprentice’s treachery?” Now it sounded like the damn bot was asking a question.

“You’re not sure?” Shiv asked.

“No,” Oldsmith admitted.

“And you didn’t bother checking? Or hiring a spy to slip into Blackedge or something?”

“I—that was not my assigned duty, so perhaps that has happened, but I cannot be sure.”

“Well, if it were me, I would have felling asked!” Shiv snarled. Oldsmith toppled over and began shaking as the Deathless leaned over the bot. “Tell me you’re not lying. Tell me this isn’t bullshit. Tell me. Because it sounds like bullshit. Siggy!”

The goblin jumped a full meter off the ground at the mention of her name. She was shaking when she turned to regard Shiv. “Y-yes?”

“Does this sound like bullshit?” he asked.

She looked at the automaton. “Yeah. Honestly, kind of.”

“No! It’s not!” Oldsmith cried.

“You!” Shiv said, pointing at Mira, the secretary. She gave a muffled cry of fear due to the rebar tightened around her lower jaw and body. “Does this sound like bullshit?”

She paused, considered it, and then tried to nod.

“I—I assure you, it is not! I have… I have evidence of this! I have communication records between me and Inquisitor Szjik! It was in a desk compartment! You can look!” Oldsmith crawled to the debris of the piano-desk and began digging through the mess.

Shiv watched the automaton and placed his hands on his hips while biting his lips. What the hells did I just stumble ass-blind into?

“Look!” Oldsmith said, holding up what looked to be a leather journal. A series of spell patterns danced over a lock, keeping the book bound. “This is it. Here.” It pressed the lock, and a clicking sound followed. The lock fell, and Oldsmith came rushing back, handing Shiv the book. As he opened the pages and started flipping through, Shiv’s jaw dropped. He could see Roland Arrow’s name mentioned hundreds of times. Other words that leaped out to him were “Quest,”“Starhawk,”“Sullain,”“civil war,” “divine struggle,” and more.

If Oldsmith was lying, he was the most prepared and prescient liar Shiv had ever met. And something told him the automaton had no skill related to Divination. “You got to be felling kidding me,” Shiv muttered.

“I’m not!” Oldsmith wailed. It fell to its knees and embraced Shiv’s legs. “Please… great Master Pathbearer. Spare me! I am just a servant. Just the hand of another! Let me go!”

Shiv looked down at the wretched machine. “Oldsmith. If you don’t let go of me, I’m going to kick you, and it’s going to be hard to figure out where your bits begin and your broken piano ends.” The automaton let go of Shiv and simply bowed in supplication. The Deathless tried putting more pieces together. Really messy and ugly pieces.

“So,” Shiv began. “Instead of doing anything to investigate or find proof through more subtle means… a literal Council member, a City Lord, and the secret guardians of the Republic decided to strike an accord with an excommunicated heretic of the Abyss to murder its own people, destroy a tripwire town, and capture or kill a national hero?”

Oldsmith froze briefly. “That… appears to be accurate.”

Shiv tried pinching the bridge of his nose—and felt his fingers bounce off his skull helmet. His Perfect Semblance completed the action, though. “It seems like you guys jumped several orders of escalation. This is insane.”

“Well… sometimes one needs to be insane to protect the Republic they love,” Oldsmith said, sounding slightly offended.

“Right. Where does owning a literal slave child and beating them to near-death with a belt in public fall into that?”

Oldsmith went silent again. Then, slowly, it looked up, staring at Shiv. “Why… who are you?”

Shiv glared down at the machine. And then he gave a humorless laugh. “You screwed yourself. You know that, right? If you hadn’t tried killing that kid, I would have just passed by. And maybe a lot fewer people would have died when I fought that big, cruel bastard.”

The automaton’s optics flickered in a mechanical version of a blink. “The vampire… you’re… oh, Ascendants, oh, gods, you’re the spy?”

Shiv looked down and then decided to dismiss his Perfect Semblance out of spite. As he revealed his skeletal armor, Oldsmith let out a gasp of terror as Shiv snorted. “If I’m a spy, I’m a pretty shit one. Barely made it a few hours before I lost multiple cover identities. And now here I am bumbling ass-first into an international conspiracy because a Master-Advisor couldn’t keep his shit together.”

Shiv reapplied his Perfect Semblance. Suddenly, he was Hugo again. Some dead fire mage that Siggy knew.

“I—listen, please, listen! I have a great deal of mithril! There’s—I can take you to a safe place in the capital. I—I can make arrangements. Introduce you to people of power! You would like that, yes? To accumulate more levels and power? To gain Blessings? I might even be able to have you greet a Council member and earn true favor! Please… don’t—don’t hurt me! A-all this can be bygones easily. Why, if you are interested, you can demonstrate your power, Master Pathbearer! All you need to do is help transport an object—t-the core of a weapon to the surface once the way opens again.”

Now, Shiv was full-on laughing. “You got to be kidding me. The System spites, and the System bestows.”

“What?”

“You have the Animancy Core? You tainted bastard, I came in the gate to find the damn thing! I thought what I ended up doing earlier might have killed my chances of finding the core, and here you are. A real System-sent blessing.”

“What—what do you…” Oldsmith shook, and repeated a question from earlier. “Who are you?”

Shiv considered all the answers he could give. He chose the one that amused him the most. “I was an assistant chef. I worked at the Swan-Eating Toad.”

“The—wait, the one run by Heroic Pathbearer Georges Archambault?”

“Yeah—wait, Heroic?” Shiv almost shouted.

“Yes. He is… a heretic, but his cooking skills were borderline legendary. Only a shame about his lack of faith. And his greed.”

Shiv just kept staring at the automaton.

“But… how could that be?” Oldsmith said, looking at Shiv. “You are… you are here!”

“Yeah,” Shiv said, nodding. “What other obvious statement are you going to make?”

“You—Blackedge is encircled! There was no escape! We even intercepted the few Slayer teams that were dispatched by Master Roland Arrow to warn the capital of what is happening.”

“Yeah, that’s because I was thrown—wait, Slayer teams?”

Oldsmith nodded. “Six in total. Five were entirely eliminated. Two survivors in the last group. A Jump Mage and the leader. They—they are currently undergoing interrogation. But… the Inquisitors might be almost done…”

Foreshadowing: Jeffery Tran pleaded for death. The interrogator ignored him and ripped into his mind again. Tran screamed. He thought the wounds left on his body were bad. This was infinitely worse.

But worst of all was hearing Heather shriek beside him. She wasn’t better off than he was. He could hear her crying. He tried to reach out to her and hold her hand. But the distance between them was too far.

He didn’t deserve this. He tried to do the right thing his entire life. He didn’t deserve to die in a miserable cell like this, having his mind torn apart by the Inquisition.

But he knew there was no one coming to save him. He knew. And he despaired.

Foreshadowing > 23

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