Of all the worlds I have raided, broken, and subjugated, you humans, and this Integrated Earth of yours, are the most fascinating people and the most fascinating world I have witnessed. For you see, I see so much of you that’s alike to me, yet so much of you that runs counter. You are a little paradox, you funny little apes. You and the elves you adopted, and the goblins, and your precious machines that you consider kindred. So very confusing, but ultimately a delight, a delight to face in battle.

You are my desired whetstone. And I wish to tell you why. Because of culture

For the past 400 years, I have been besieging your Lone Star Kingdom. Proud people, people of range and artillery. So cold. So impersonal. But so clever, determined, and hard of spirit. People who have adjusted their entire culture just to keep me and mine at bay. But we quite like it here. We desire this exchange, this cultural adaptation. We like your trench lines. We like raiding them. We like your artillery. We like surviving them.

We like your psychology and your governmental structure, especially. Why, there is nothing I enjoy more than avoiding your rangers, slipping behind your cities, and then toppling them from within. There’s nothing sweeter than just killing a Gate Lord without anyone understanding how or why. Just dead one day. Their flayed pieces left on the walls of your greatest building, within the halls that you think are most defended. And I love working down the list, finding everyone else you assume to be worthy of being Gate Lord and killing them too.

Or perhaps making bargains. You see, that’s another thing I love about you, people of Integrated Earth. You make bargains. You’re willing to betray everything for power. Or are you willing to betray power for everything else? It’s always up in the air with your kind.

I have seen powerful Gate Lords fall to me. Not because they were weaker, but because, well, I strapped their child under my shield. And they couldn’t bring their force to bear.

A child? What a laughable thing, yes. It’s just four or five years old. That’s barely a blink in a Pathbearer’s life. Just cut them down and make another one. But no. No, the animal instinct in you is so strong, and you cling so hard. But then I see some of you, some who have the eyes of an orc, the heart of an orc.

And as I stand, with children and their loved ones surrounding me, there is just a moment of hesitation. And then you say the words that make me fall in love with you. Burn them, burn them all, bomb them, bomb them all! So much certitude, so much self-mutilation. But in the end, you choose the path of power, and you hold your gate.

I love this. The System loves this. And this makes us more of who we are. Every decision that doesn’t kill us makes us. It shapes our history, our legend. And from legend, we rise. And the story grows evermore.

So fight hard, children of Lone Star. Fight hard, bleed hearty. For I will be here forever and ever, so long as you have steel in your blood and hate in your veins. And I pledge never to truly collapse your kingdom. I will simply break a few of your Lords, just to remind you that I’m here, just to remind you that this is an exchange and not truly an execution.

For if I wanted you dead, you would be.

-The Culturist, Legendary Orc War Maestro

82 (I)

Fall [I]

The elemental golem struggled to crush Shiv’s head, even with both limbs of crashing water infused with lightning pressing down on him. He simply reached into its chest and closed his fingers. Its mana core detonated, and Shiv briefly let out a slight grunt of pain as the left side of his body swelled with searing agony.

He was slowly getting used to it, acclimating to how badly it hurt all the time. It still wasn’t pleasant, and it affected his spellcasting without the Song of the Vigilant, but he could make do for now. In fact, getting hurt pissed him off, and getting pissed was fuel for his skills, thanks to his second Feat.

In a few strange ways, he was stronger than ever.

“Where the hell are they?” Shiv asked himself. He saw that the adamantine elevator leading through the third gateway to Vulketh had been severed. Its edges were corroded; clear evidence of Necromancy having been used. And he had a pretty good guess as to who did it. Despite this, Adam was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Uva. He couldn’t see any of her mana strands, and if she was nearby, he suspected she would have reached into his mind already.

“Can Hu, you got eyes on them?” Shiv asked.

The Penitent briefly tapped into the sensory feeds of its hidden drones. Most of them were moving in on the automata slaves, about to free them from their bondage. But a few were atop the tallest buildings within the gate. Small screens opened in the corner of Shiv’s vision. They showed just how devastated Gate Theborn truly was. Entire sections of the gate had collapsed. The mana bombs unleashed by the agents of Aviary were potent. Potent enough to outright obliterate several buildings, including critical barracks, the gate’s agricultural fields, and over 20 residences, many of which had tumbled down into the molten rivers.

Something clenched inside Shiv’s chest. The people in this gate were suffering. Always suffering. Every time someone fought here, people died. But soon, that was going to come to an end.

Just then, something tore open beside Shiv. He snapped to attention. His kukri appeared in his hand, equipped to his soul as it was. He prepared to attack the incoming Jump Mage—only to see Adam fly out through the rift, emerging with burning wings and a relieved expression on his face.

“Shiv, Broken Moon! I’ve been checking and searching the entire gate for the last five minutes.”

“Sorry,” Shiv said. “I was briefly caught up inside the teleportation anchor. Had to recover for a bit with Can Hu. But the anchor’s not gonna be an issue anymore.” Shiv let out a low chuckle as he thought back to what he did to the vampires, and to the anchor in particular. “I butchered their backline forces before they could build up and cut off their way in. I killed one of the First Blood’s Heroes and even bagged myself an owl.”

“An owl?” Adam said, his eyes widening.

“Yeah,” Shiv said. He reached into his cloak and pulled out the bound owl. The man struggled and kicked in futility. Adam flinched back in disgust and near-pity.

“Did you have to bind him in layers of your skin?” Adam asked, his expression souring.

Shiv shrugged. “I didn’t really have anything better. It was in the heat of the moment. Besides, it’s adamantine skin. He can’t easily break out. He doesn’t have the strength for it. And the owl here knows…” Shiv held the owl up so he could speak right where the agent’s ear was. The owl’s courage shuddered and cracked. “…that if he tries to do anything, I’ll take his limbs from him, one by one. Isn’t that right?”

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The owl just whimpered and licked at his teeth—or rather, a gap where a couple were missing.

Shiv just chuckled. “Funny thing about Biomancy, it lets you detect some interesting things, such as hollow teeth with poison capsules inside.” The owl’s tongue flicked around and continued desperately searching, but to no avail. “Yeah, I got all of them. Bite your tongue off again if you want. I will use the Woundeater on you. Understand, you’re not dying, you’re giving us what we want. And afterward, well, if you still want to die, I might oblige you.”

Dread Aura > 76

The owl shuddered and sobbed. Adam grimaced. “Shiv, is this necessary?”

The Deathless smirked. “It’s good for my Dread Aura.”

“Yes, well, you’re using it on me too.”

Shiv nodded. “Yeah, I’m always leveling Dread Aura. And you scream funny when you’re scared, so that’s a bonus.”

Adam sneered. “Bastard.”

“Don’t worry, Adam. You’re more courageous than most, even if you do shiver like a leaf sometimes.”

The Young Lord scoffed. “Well, the owl is a good capture. Well done, Shiv. Uva’s going to love this. Right, the anchor. You said you eliminated it—”

“Yeah, I completely destroyed it.”

Adam blinked. “Completely?”

“Yep,” Shiv said, smiling innocently. “I just gripped it and twisted until it was almost entirely crumpled, then I twisted it until the sides tore too. Like a can. Pretty good workout.”

Adam just stared at him. “You crumpled the Jealousy’s teleportation anchor, the one you described as being almost 400 meters long.”

“It was a bit over 400 meters, I think,” Shiv said, stretching his arms nonchalantly to flex his muscles while looking around. “It was kind of exhausting, but yeah, not too much trouble.”

For a beat, the Young Lord said nothing. “You understand that you could have just damaged the parts where the spells were.”

“Yeah, Can Hu told me, but…” Shiv shrugged. “You know, I kind of wanted to break stuff, especially after all that misery the vampires and the Aviary agents put me through. Blow off some steam and burn through my anger.”

Adam clearly didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or cry at that moment. “Shiv, we’re kind of busy right now, if you haven’t noticed,” he said, gesturing at distant explosions going off at the Abyssal gateway. “So maybe leave the ‘blowing off steam’ for after we kill Confriga and finish this Quest.”

Shiv was actually about to acquiesce when he noticed something in the Young Lord’s expression. He folded his arms and simply smirked. And after a moment, Adam cracked and started laughing in disbelief. “But that does sound insane.”

Then, he turned around, and the radiance of a rising sun and sky-blue light bloomed in his eyes as he searched for Uva, but he didn’t need to wait long until her strands shot through an obsidian building and bound her thoughts to theirs.

“Uva,” Shiv said, “how are things going at the Abyssal Gateway?”

“Perfectly unstable,” Uva described the situation. She filtered a few of her memories as the sheer blast of details flooded their minds. Then, she started modulating her experiences within the Shoggoth as both Shiv and Adam clutched their heads and struggled not to throw up. “Sorry, a lot happened.”

“It’s fine,” Shiv said, clenching his teeth. “It’s just… What the hell did you take over at the end there?”

“I think it’s called a Shoggoth. I’m not sure what it is,” Uva said. “And I’ve never heard of anything like it, nor seen any creature do what it did.”

“Perhaps we should ask Valor about it when we have time,” Adam suggested.

Both the Young Lord and the Deathless shared their memories with Uva and each other, and for a moment, they all rendered each other speechless.

Shiv broke the silence with a guffaw. “We really tore some shit up, didn’t we?”

“I suppose you can describe it that way,” Uva said, and her coolness came with a vicious undercurrent of pride. “Right now, it’s mainly Confriga against the dwindling remnants of the First Blood. If you ask me, I suspect he can win. But that will take some time and probably leave his forces in utter tatters, and it will leave him distracted and pinned. Moreover, he is no longer the Gate Lord.”

“Very nice job,” Adam said. The Young Lord’s excitement was rising, and once more he cast his senses into the tower. For a moment, he just thought, and Shiv gave him the space to do so.

The Deathless turned his thoughts on Uva. “You alright?” he asked. He sensed a bit of unease from her still. More unease than she usually bore.

“Yes. The mind I took was simply alien, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Even the Jealousy was practically human compared to the Shoggoth.”

“Practically human.” Shiv had briefly been mind-bonded with the Jealousy. And he cringed at the memory. “If the Jealousy is practically human compared to the Shoggoth, I don’t ever want to know what a Shoggoth is like.”

“It’s actually quite fascinating,” Uva said, her mind shivering with excitement. She had done something few Psychomancers ever did, and she enjoyed it. “The way it sees the world, it’s like there are certain parts of its mind that are absolutely blank. There’s no point of symmetry between my thoughts and its. But it does have things like hunger and hatred, and an understanding of the world. But there are also things… things beyond that. Things that I had to ignore altogether, lest they damage my sanity. I even got a skill from it, though I’m not sure what it does yet.”

“Yeah, well, I’m glad you didn’t get your sanity damaged. I don’t know where I’d find another Jealousy, but I would find one and have to kill it and cook it to get your mind to regenerate.”

“Just for me?” Uva said teasingly.

“Yeah, of course, just for you.” Shiv paused. “Hell, I’d fight an army of Jealousies for you. Every last Jealousy in existence, even. And I mean it.”

“Shiv, stop. We’re in the middle of the battlefield.”

Shiv shrugged, “And that’s a problem for me?”

Uva bit back a laugh.

“Well, it is a bloody problem for me,” Adam said, interrupting both of them. He glared at Shiv.

“I’m not sorry,” Shiv said. “I’ll say it all to her again. And mean it twice as much.”

Silver Tongue > 20

“I know,” Adam groaned. “And it makes me want to kill myself. Okay. From what I can tell, we have a series of follow-up objectives now. Our initial run has been very successful. Confriga has been Desynchronized from the mana core of the gate. So right now, he won’t be able to respond easily. He won’t be able to dispatch forces, since those are almost all dead. And the people here will be looking for someone else to rely on in the meantime.”

“Guardshead Leu,” Shiv said immediately. “She’s known. She’s effective. And frankly, I think we can use her as the next Gate Lord.”

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