44 (II)

Struggle

Siggy’s jaw dropped. “Holy shit.”

Tran and Heather were flabbergasted. With each exchange, Shiv could feel their courage shrinking and growing more brittle in his presence. Part of him liked it. A large part of him wanted to see if he could do some stuff to them with his Woundeater, while the tiny bit of control he had let him keep himself in check.

“So… what are you using as a weapon right now?” Heather asked.

Shiv called a bone drill out of his cloak, then shaped it into a few daggers, a sword, and then back to a drill. “Frankly, I mostly just try to stab people with a bone knife, launch bone drills or lances at them, and when things get messier, I usually grab, throw, slam, or punch the problem until it stops moving, or I die. Actually, my Grappling Proficiency is about to get to Adept, so I’m looking forward to seeing what becomes of that.”

“Adept?” Tran repeated. “Wait, what’s your highest weapon skill?”

“Does Grappling Proficiency count?” Shiv asked.

“Uh, sure,” Tran said, though it sounded more like an allowance and less like a fact.

“Then, Grappling Proficiency.”

“What the felling hells are your skill levels, Shiv?” Heather breathed. She looked stunned and doubtful at the same time. “You use your own corpse as armor, your Toughness is your highest skill, you don’t have a dedicated weapon or even supporting equipment.”

“I mean, I think I’m doing okay,” Shiv said, clamping one shaking hand over the other as he held back the urge to make Heather and Tran stop questioning his power by grabbing them and—

“My Biomancy got a lot more powerful when I saved you two, and my Toughness and Reflexes Skill Evolutions are really good too. I think my Physicality will reach Master soon as well.”

“But you still don’t have any Weapon Skills,” Tran said.

“I thought you said Grappling Proficiency counted?”

“It’s more of a supporting thing.” He looked absolutely astonished. “Shiv… I… do—do you even have a team with you?”

“Sometimes,” Shiv said. “Started out pretty much alone, but I got some people with me back in the Abyss.” And he suddenly realized something he neglected to tell Heather and Tran. “Including Adam! Adam’s been helping me too.”

“Adam? Adam Arrow?” Heather practically hissed. “He’s here? No—in the Abyss?”

“Yeah, the asshole who threw me off Blackedge took him and then got captured by some Weaveresses. I ended up killing said asshole and then stopped the spiders from killing Adam when he held a hospital spider hostage.” It was at this point that Shiv realized he sounded completely insane to the two Slayers. “Look, I’m not having a stroke, you’re just missing some context.”

“A lot,” Heather murmured. “A lot of context. But still… Shiv, you… You’rea monster.”

“Heather,” Tran chided.

“No, but he is!” the race-switched elf said, gesturing at Shiv. “I’m not insulting him. He’s literally leveling like a monster would! He’s… Nothing about his skills makes any sense for a non-monster Pathbearer. We develop our technical skills first. We’re naturally vulnerable, so we wear armor and use Enchantments. He’s done almost none of that. Shiv, do you even know what Sigmund’s Law is?”

Shiv shook his head. “No.”

“It’s a law regarding Enchantments. Namely, how many can be infused into each Weapon-Tier and the exceptions. You probably haven’t read any of the essential texts or looked at any of the primers—do you even have Practical Metabiology to go with your Biomancy?”

“Yeah,” Shiv said, trying to mask his violent anger as disgruntlement. “I got that.”

Heather nodded. “What’s the level?”

“Isn’t it rude to ask another Pathbearer this directly?” Shiv replied defensively.

“Is it even Adept?” the Jump Mage pressed.

“It’s growing fast,” Shiv snapped.

Heather threw up her hands. “He’s a monster. He’s even using his magical skills like a monster would. Just ripping people apart and blasting things instead of building up something like Medicine or Applied Physics first.” She caught Shiv’s hardening glare and flinched. “I—it’s not an insult. People are afraid of monsters for a reason. You’re just… built like one, now. It’s strange. Dread Aura is also a skill used by monsters.”

Suddenly, Shiv realized why Valor made Adam his teacher—most of the academy education was still recent for Adam. All this stuff would have been covered alongside tactics, strategy, and general education. A searing blast of anger swept through Shiv as he gritted his teeth and began to shake. The world turned red, his Dread Aura spiked. Siggy and Oldsmith cried while Heather and Tran began slowly backing away.

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And then, in the middle of that mess, Georges flashed into Shiv’s mind. Get burned. Get bled. Get better. Get harder. Deal with the heat.

Shiv struggled—he endured the heat of violence and rage even as red swelled over his vision, even his blood turned to liquid hate coursing through him. “I am…” he said, through clenched teeth and quick breaths. “We are going to save Blackedge. We are going to save Blackedge from the damn snake and whatever stupid political bullshit is happening. We are going to save Roland Arrow from whoever wants to kill or capture him. And then I am going to beat the godsdamned shit out of the Town Lord! In front of the town! In front of Adam! For breaking my entire godsdamned life!”

“Shiv! Shiv. It’s happening again.” Tran said, swallowing as he retreated. “The skill is affecting you—”

“I know, asshole! I felling know it is! And don’t worry! You finally have something to report to the great Republic hero Roland now! Oh no, the Omenborn has a Path! But what were you going to do when I got a Path? Were you planning on killing me? Capturing me and holding me down while some bastard applies a Curse to me? Maybe one of the priests? Or maybe you would just sell me to the Republic Inquisition and have them mold my mind into something docile.”

When Shiv next blinked, he found himself clutching Tran by the shoulder with a shaking hand. Heather was pulling at him, trying to get Shiv to let go despite her naked terror. Tran, meanwhile, was absolutely petrified. But most of all, he looked ashamed.

Shit! Shit! Shiv thought. The look on Tran’s face cut into him. He was pretty sour and bitter about what Tran did before, but not to this degree. He certainly didn’t want to rip Tran in half as punishment, then implant the eaten wound onto Siggy. If he did that, he might just lose his damned Biomancy to whatever this orc bullshit was too.

And that was the thing that fully tipped the scales for him.

That orc bastard… He’s taking my skills from me! He’s twisting my levels! He’s trying to cage me, to shape me into being him…

Shiv didn’t realize he could get angry at his own anger. He also didn’t realize there was a difference in sensation between his natural anger and the orcish rage. Both spiked his aggression, but one was focused, hard, and pinned to a specific thing. The other was a constant, swelling explosion that grew unendingly.

With a staggering effort, Shiv pulled away from Tran and quelled his Dread Aura. His hands shook, and so he needed to fill them with something. He needed to fight

something. But there was no one here who could survive that.

“Sorry,” Shiv managed, forcing the word out through gritted teeth, even if he didn’t mean it. “Tran… Do you need a weapon?”

“What?” Tran blinked, his lip trembling, his heart was pumping hard and fast.

“Weapon,” Shiv repeated, gesturing to the Inquisitor’s saber on the ground. “I changed my mind… You don’t have anything on you. And that’s better than even an adamantine bone weapon. I’ll loan you that for now.” The next words, Shiv spoke out of spite against his orcish rage. “And Heather. You can use the armor. But I’ll need it back once we’re out of this gate. Got it?”

The fake-elf Jump Mage just nodded slowly. “I—I need to… Shiv? Are you okay?”

“No,” Shiv whispered. He was losing this fight. He wanted to cook. He wanted to hurt something. He needed to hurt something while cooking with his Biomancy.

If I do that, I’ll lose another skill! The rage will get worse! I won’t be myself! It’ll be like surrendering my mind and self.

And there was nothing more disgusting than surrender to Shiv at that moment.

“Watch her,” Shiv croaked to the Slayers as he pointed at Siggy. “Don’t do anything until… until I come out.” He marched toward Oldsmith, and the goblin practically launched herself out of his way when he got close. The automaton fell to its knees, but Shiv picked it off the ground before it could start begging. Then, he started walking to the kitchen with a new and determined purpose.

He was going to start cooking again. He was going to make a good, godsdamned dish like he used to. That, or he would die for good in the attempt. But first, he needed means to trap himself. To make it hard for him to break anything or escape from the kitchen.

It was a good thing he was so much tougher than he was strong right now. And that his flesh and bones adapted to escalating magnitudes of damage. He had the perfect cage for himself. He just needed to die a few times to harvest some bodies, and to have someone he could drain from.

“Please, Master Pathbearer,” Oldsmith wailed, pushing at Shiv with its one remaining arm. “Please!” It reached out to the Slayers.

“You’re already dead,” Shiv told the automaton. “You were dead from the moment you beat that kid. I’m just going to make your death serve something more than pointless cruelty.”

Tran followed after Shiv, but Heather held him back. “Shiv,” he called. “What are you—” His words turned into a yell of pure panic as Shiv opened his own throat with a gesture. “Oh, oh, shit, oh felling—fuck!”

Blood splattered down across Shiv’s chest, down his armor, down onto Oldsmith. The automaton was screaming. Shiv was on the verge of complete psychosis. But as he crossed into the kitchen, he chucked the Master-Advisor deeper inside. Then, Shiv started pulling himself apart. He layered the walls and utilities with his skin. Armored the way out with his bones. He came apart faster than he bled out, but even as Shiv disassembled himself, he could feel Culinary Berserker thunder inside him, burrow into his every urge.

He needed to cook. He needed to break. He needed to war.

And that was fine with Shiv. But he was going to war against himself. He was going to see where this orc skill began and his own Cooking ended. And in the end, either he would break this rage in the kitchen, or he would die and let his Revenant fade out of existence out of spite against 811 and whatever twisted god created the orcs.

As Shiv gurgled on his own blood, he could feel Tran and Heather frozen in the living room—Siggy huddled in the corner, holding herself as she shivered in terror. The cage he was building in the kitchen wasn’t complete, but after a death and a resurrection, it would start getting there. Even so, no one was coming in; Shiv wasn’t leaving until he won.

And so there he lay, death fast approaching, Oldsmith as his vitality provider, and a kitchen coming aglow with the colors of his rage.

It was time to get burned. Over and over. It was time to cut himself and die. Over and over. And he would do this as many times it took. Until he made something he could accept. Until the rage no longer stained his food. Until he was his own man again.

Shiv’s pillar was shaking. By the end of this, it would either crumble completely, or prove to be unbreakable.

Attention: You have attracted the notice of [The Challenger].

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