8 (II)

Biomancy

Before Shiv could get any further, the high vampire let out a primal roar, and magic blasted out from his form. His body shifted. His skin and red coat ripped apart as he turned fully into the nightmare shown in the bestiary, complete with animalistic features and leathery wings.

With a sweep of his arms and wings, both Shiv and Nomos were knocked backward. The Umbral was cast from her feet, toppling over where the rest of her sisters lay. Shiv dug his heels in and refused to fall. “Finally. Now you’re a vampire.”

“You mongrel! You deceitful bag of filth!” The high vampire didn’t look so regal and human anymore. He was well over three meters tall, his body a mix between bat, wolf, and man. An orb of mystical blood hovered over his right claw while he flexed his left. “I will peel you slowly this time. I will make sure you have no more tricks! No more means to escape! I don’t know how you survived the last two attacks, but this time… this time there will be no returning. No mockery.”

Shiv laughed and pointed his knife at the monster. “Give it your best shot. But it’s still not going to matter. I’ll keep coming back. I’ll keep coming even if it takes a hundred tries, a thousand tries, a million tries. I’ll keep coming, and I’ll be the only one standing in the end.”

The high vampire snarled and charged Shiv. Shiv charged him right back. He knew the vampire was far faster, so he accepted the fact that he was going to get hit. Even so, he caught a flash of the blow that tore a burning line of pain across his stomach. Shiv’s Reflexes were improving too. He found himself grinning even as he was launched off his feet and across the cavern once again.

The high vampire’s speed was ridiculous. The monster caught him before he even hit the other side and slammed him hard into the wall. Once more, the stones broke, but Shiv just let out a grunt of pain. The back of his head was going to swell if he didn’t die soon, but he was used to smashing against things by now. The high vampire stomped Shiv deeper into the wall before tearing into him with claw and fang. Though the Bloodspawn left brutal lacerations all over Shiv, he struggled to break the Deathless’s bones or do more than bruise his muscles.

“What spells are you using? What Blessing do you have?”

The Deathless just laughed in response and started hacking at the vampire with his mostly repaired and re-sharpened kitchen knife.

The high vampire failed to bear his dignity and let out a cry of rage. For every cut Shiv left on the transformed Bloodspawn, it delivered a hundred in return. Shiv jerked and bounced. His world was pain and injury, but he just kept stabbing. When his knife got close to breaking, he moved on to clinching with the monster, hammering it with elbows and knees.

“Stop it!” the high vampire snarled. He sounded like he was throwing a tantrum by this point. Shiv just headbutted the bastard as he enjoyed his merry time. Though it seemed like he was the one suffering and losing, only one of them was getting a real benefit out of this deathmatch. Finally, the high vampire grew tired of the farce. He planted a hand against Shiv’s neck and pushed him into the stone with his superior Physicality. The Deathless’s face was a mess of open wounds and broken teeth. But he was still grinning.

“What’s wrong? Need a breather? Break a nail?” With every insult Shiv gave, the high vampire seethed with growing rage. “You’re real sensitive, you know that? Blackedge would have eaten you alive. You wouldn’t have survived a single day of the hate I experienced.”

The high vampire gripped Shiv by the skull with both hands. “I will show you HATE!”

And then, it began channeling all of its considerable magic into him. Suddenly, existence was pain itself. Pain Shiv couldn’t describe. Pain beyond anything he had suffered before. It was like every cell in his body was being tortured, like he was being boiled alive from the inside while he was peeled apart from without. But despite the maelstrom of torment consuming him, part of his mind was still aware of what was happening—followed the magic as it flowed through his body and ruined his flesh.

With so much magic poured into him, there was no mistaking that it shared a semblance to Shiv’s inner warmth—the vitality that everyone had. However, its composition seemed more focused, and the spell used his very flesh as a catalyst as the high vampire channeled his mana into Shiv.

The faint bit of coherence in Shiv attempted something. He reached inward with his Vitality Drain Skill and tried to sap his own vitality in the hopes that he could pull something away from his skill. What he managed to do instead was brush something with his soul, and suddenly, he gained a glimpse of insight he never had before. Magic was the manifestation of a concept. Biology was a concept. Blood was a concept. But it took something to make it real. It took mana, and as a Pathbearer now, he should be capable of channeling that. He just needed to focus and—

The high vampire ended Shiv’s ruminations and suffering with a resounding howl as he turned Shiv into a smear against the wall. Not yet done, the high vampire proceeded to drain all the blood out from Shiv’s mangled remains and drink it down. As he swallowed, the high vampire’s bestial expression turned sour. “It’s still just… just human. There’s nothing special here. Nothing at all I can taste. So, how does he come back? How?”

But while the vampire despaired in confusion and mounting terror, Shiv cheered silently as a Revenant as his ordeal bore fruit.

Toughness > 42

Physicality > 38

Reflexes > 32

Grappling Proficiency > 21

Striking Proficiency > 11

Parry > 5

Skill Gained: Biomancy (Initiate) 1

Yes! Wait, just Biomancy? Shiv paused. That couldn’t be right. The bestiary claimed the high vampires wielded unholy Blood Magic as their main discipline. Shiv expected something like Blood Magic Resistance or Magical Resistance. Instead, he got something that he’d experienced many times in Blackedge. Something he could wield directly in combat. In fact, he could feel things around him right now. It was like he had a new sense added to his body. It was pretty weak so far, but he could feel the blood in the air—and the vampire’s body nearby. Faintly, he was also aware of small mushrooms existing a meter beneath him. And then there were the small particles of life all around him.

As Shiv focused, he found that his Biomancy expressed itself as something between a projected field and a new limb he could use to feel at the world. There was an ever-so-faint crimson hue outlining his ghostly visage. It was something the high vampire failed to notice. It was something that filled Shiv with wonder.

Magic was something he had lived surrounded by his entire life. But it was denied to him. Denied because he was Pathless. He heard about mages talking about the first time they successfully attuned to a lore after they got their Path. Was this what it was like for them too? No, it couldn’t be. He had to die over and over to earn his.

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It was all so… sublime. Was this how the Biomancers saw the world? Feeling every bit of life?

“Good riddance,” the high vampire murmured. “I think… I think I finally got him.”

Shiv eyed the high vampire as the bloodsucker turned to walk away. Across the chamber, a faint blue glow was coming alight. Nomos was leaning on her spear, staggering toward the high vampire. Her body was badly wounded, but her spirit wasn’t done. Shiv really didn’t like her personally, but… he could appreciate someone who spat in the face of death. It wouldn’t be right for her to die here like this, to a vampire of all creatures.

Oh, we’re not done yet. Shiv rushed the high vampire from behind as a Revenant, but as he made contact with the monster, he hesitated. He felt the high vampire’s body in greater detail than ever before. It was like he was attuned to the vampire’s biology on a synchronous level. The sheer sensory overload was a bit much for Shiv, and he really didn’t know what he was feeling. What he could tell, though, was that the high vampire had a lot of mana rushing through him all the time. Expanding out from him, too. From what Shiv could sense, the high vampire’s Biomancy field expanded outward in all directions for well over ten meters like a dome. That was a colossal amount of mana compared to what Shiv had.

But he had one advantage: The high vampire didn’t know Shiv was right behind him. And so Shiv reached out with his tiny Biomantic field, felt for the softest tissue he could find in the high vampire’s skull, and squeezed.

“Nomos,” the high vampire drawled. “How pathetic your end will—ah! Oh! Oh, Moonspawn, my eye!” He suddenly clutched at his face, cursing loudly as he knelt over. Shiv felt his spirit strain from the effort. As the Deathless started draining the high vampire’s vitality as well, he realized that, despite awakening himself to a form of mana and a corresponding magic skill to go with it, he was very weak so far. He needed to level this skill a lot more. “What is this?” the vampire hissed. Suddenly, Shiv felt the creature’s mana field shift, and the vampire’s considerably stronger Biomancy pushed Shiv’s influence out from his skull with spiteful ease.

Still, the monster was lost. “How… Where…” There was something comical in the way the monster was constantly looking about, trying to find the culprit hurting him. Shiv kept draining them, and he rapidly began to recover vitality. But he quickly realized there was one downside to having a form of mana—your enemy could feel your presence too.

Slowly, the high vampire’s Biomancy field clenched around Shiv’s. The Bloodspawn’s eyes widened. “Impossible. There’s… There’s nothing…” Then, he noticed Shiv’s shadow forming—and then breaking around the Deathless’s returned body. Shiv met the wide-eyed stare of the monster with a sneer.

“No. You didn’t get me. And I told you earlier, we’re not done. Not for a hundred times. Not for a thousand. Not till I’m holding your heart in my hand.”

Before either of them could act, the tip of a frozen spear burst out from the high vampire’s chest. The monster’s eyes widened. He gurgled with blood and pain. Ice spread across his chest as sharp icicles exploded out from inside his body. Shiv promptly made the wound wider by driving his hand into the cleft made by the spear. His Biomancy screamed at him, flooding his mind with too many confusing sensations. It was hard to focus with his new sense, but ultimately, Shiv managed to pull the high vampire’s heart off the spear on which it was impaled.

There, before the bloodsucker’s disbelieving eyes, Shiv squeezed the heart and crushed it between his hands. Rather than the black blood of the lesser vampires, the high vampire’s heart leaked with glowing red ichor. Slowly, the high vampire blinked twice, its monstrous jaw opening and closing. “What… are you…”

“Persistent,” Shiv said.

He felt the vampire’s immense magic field grip at him for a final time, but then his mana faded, and he collapsed on the ground with a final gasp. Shiv chuckled. At the crushed heart. At the look on the vampire’s face. And at Nomos. Her spear lit the space between them, and now that the high vampire was dead, she held it at him.

“I… I have the same question,” she said, swallowing back mouthfuls of blood. Shiv knew it was blood—he could feel some of the damage inside her. Some many terrible injuries.

“Broken Moon,” Shiv muttered. “How are you still standing?”

She shook her head and gritted her teeth. “No… I won’t be… distracted… Who are you… What are you? I saw you die… over and over… I saw… I saw…” Then her eyes rolled over, and she dropped. Shiv caught her before she could fall face-first into the high vampire’s blood. He didn’t need her turning after all this.

“Nomos? Nomos?” Shiv stared at her. Her eyebrows fluttered, and he used his Biomancy to sense the damage inside her. He felt like a near-sighted man trying to put together a picture of a house. He had to guide his senses from place to place, feeling what was broken. Frankly, a lot was broken. Her blood vessels were shredded, her bones were shattered, her muscles had—there were massive growths spreading through parts of her. They were still growing. Were those cancers? Did Shiv just find some tumors?

He looked at her in disbelief. “How are you even still felling alive?” And why didn’t the high vampire just pop her with Biomancy?

He tried to do something to help her. Shiv channeled his Biomatic mana into her body, hoping to keep her blood flowing at least, but felt his field bounce off from inside her. He tried again, and it was like grinding his Biomancy against a steel wall. She has magical resistance of some kind.

Shiv frowned slightly. He wondered how she got that. It would have been useful for him. But then again, he wasn’t going to complain about Biomancy. He continued monitoring her body using his magical skill. Her breaths were growing weaker as her heart began to slow. He patted her body, looking for a potion of some kind, but… well, that would just make the cancer worse.

She needed a Biomancer. One strong enough to push through her resistance and save her. That wasn’t Shiv right now.

Slowly, her eyes opened, and she let out a breath.

“Hey, you got anything on you that can heal you without making your cancers worse?” Shiv winced. That was a blunt thing to say to a dying person, but he didn’t have a better idea.

She blinked a few times and coughed. “N-no. I’m… No chance.” She swallowed as she stared at Shiv. Her hands shook as she reached behind her hip, and then she held something up to him. It was a rough stone dagger of some kind, with deeply carved grooves running along the blade, and a gem embedded in the pommel. “Cage… of Valor Thann… You wanted to see…”

Shiv didn’t know what to say. “I… We can wait with that. Let’s try to fix you up first.”

Nomos shook her head. “No. I’m done. I’m already dead. Too late for me. Too late for all of us… But you… You can’t… Promise me… need your help. Take the dagger… home… to Weave. To the… Weaveresses… To the Composer… Promise me! Promise…” She nearly blacked out again, and Shiv took the dagger from her before she could drop it. He felt a strange presence inside the dagger, but focused on doing what he could for Nomos first.

“Hey, Nomos. I—I promise. I’ll go take the dagger back. But I… don’t really know where to go. I need to get out of here.”

She closed her eyes as she spoke her last words. “Compass… on me… take… take everything… take… spear…” She then opened her eyes one final time as she whispered: “Myrr.”

And then she was gone. Her heart stopped. Her blood stilled. Her tale ended.

There, in the lap of a complete stranger from the surface, Sister Nomos of the Arachnae Order finished her time on Integrated Earth.

Shiv stared at her for a long moment. Then he sighed. He felt sour, despite all he had gained. He looked at the other elves and realized they were still as well. “Dammit.”

Death wasn’t a problem for him, but for others… He needed to die more. Advance his skills. That was the only way he could have a say in a battle like this. As he prepared to carry Nomos back over to her comrades, he heard someone speak aloud.

“Nomos? Is that you? Have you returned to finish our chat? Are you finally going to let me out of this miserable cage? Nomos? Nomos!” Shiv looked around, startled by the voice. But there was no one there. “I know you’re there, Nomos. I can feel you holding me. I can feel that much still, at least.”

Slowly, Shiv looked down at his new dagger. He blinked. “Huh.”

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