82 (III)

Fall [I]

“Please,” the frontmost of the Weaveresses said, her palps twitching, eight eyes wide with fear. All of them held all of their six arms up, clawed, humanoid fingers splayed wide in a gesture of supplication. “Do not kill us! We—we know, we know many things! We can do many things for you, yes! We can lay eggs, eggs, yes, can continue the process for you. Don’t need to work for the Gate Lord anymore. Don’t like the Gate Lord. Will work for you!”

“You’re Weaveresses,” Shiv breathed. It was a simple, stupid statement, but he was still taken aback.

And to his shock, Uva briefly stopped what she was doing and filled his mind. Her astonishment eclipsed his by far. “What?” she cried.

The times Shiv had seen Uva enter a state of shock were few and far between. But when the Umbral Psychomancer was stunned, she was really, truly stunned. For a moment, she didn’t do anything. Her mana strands quivered as she tried to process what she was seeing.

Then they shot out and took all four of the rogue Weaveresses. Uva bound herself to them. Her mana strands turned away from the rest of the city, and for a single moment, she committed to a single, absolute task.

“Start freeing the people,” Uva said with an urgent growl. “Get them down. Get the eggs out of them and the others.” She paused. “Composer, there are so many. We will need to figure that out later, but save who you can now. I will figure out the exact details of this operation and this conspiracy.” She practically snarled those last words, and Shiv got to work.

“I’ll stay on overwatch,” Adam said. “Work fast, Shiv. Something’s happening at the Abyssal Gateway.”

“Don’t worry, I got it,” Shiv replied. He stared at the conveyor belt and the people, and he flared his Biomancy. He gave his magic some time to recover earlier, and his mana field still felt sore, but plucking the weaver eggs out from the people wasn’t that much effort.

When he was done, he gathered some curtains and a few skin decoys for the people he had just rescued to use as blankets. Most of them seemed traumatized. All of them were slaves of some kind, and slaves who were near the end of their use at that. Beyond broken for some reason or another. Shiv clenched his teeth as disgust and hatred boiled inside of him.

Not only was Confriga feeding slaves to the Jealousy, he was doing this sick shit here. “You’re all going to be…” Shiv’s word trailed off. He nearly said all right, but he could tell from their gazes and the scars marring their bodies that all right was definitely not in their near future. A large cluster of weaver’s eggs also filled his dimensional cloak. A muffled groan came from the owl, and Shiv jostled them momentarily, warning the man not to bite his own tongue again and to not touch the eggs. Shiv decided then to take all the owl’s teeth, just in case.

“Adam, how’s the coast looking?” Shiv asked briefly.

“Still clear, but I think the last bits of Confriga’s front line have collapsed. It’s mainly his elites and what mages remain now. The forces of the First Blood are also thinning, but they’re still coming. It might not be a flood, but it’s still a river. I took a peek outside and, well, it doesn’t look good. It looks like an entire bloody invading army smashed into this place. The gate’s guards have been flayed and their organs are impaled on pikes. No wonder Ikki and the others couldn’t inform us. It looks like the entire horizon is infested. They likely had to pull out in a hurry.”

“Infested?” Shiv asked.

“Yes, the damned vampires spilled blood over everything with some large-scale spell. There’s a cloud raining gore and viscera. Disgusting.”

Shiv sighed at that. “Everything they do is disgusting. You would have hated the teleportation anchor, Adam,” Shiv said. “Just the smell of fighting them alone in an enclosed space…”

Young Lord nearly gagged. “I can practically smell some of them from up here. I’m glad we all chose to focus on the tasks we chose.”

A series of agreements was exchanged between the three, and Uva extracted herself from the Weaveresses. One of them was entirely unresponsive, viciously spasming. “I broke her during interrogation,” Uva said, her voice filled with quiet fury. “They were… They were members of Elaboration. They are supposed to be dead—ambushed while doing a field study. They defected. To Compact.”

“What?” Shiv asked.

“And there are more of them.. Allies inside Weave. Traitors. Adam, I need you to bring them to the teleportation anchor—our teleportation anchor, and store them there.”

“Oh, right,” Shiv said. “While you do that, there’s someone else you gotta interrogate later.” He pulled out the owl, and Uva stared at the writhing body coated in skin decoys. “It’s an owl,” Shiv said, “an Aviary agent, taken alive.”

And suddenly Shiv felt a lightness break the storm clouds inside Uva. “Shiv,”

she sighed, “that writhing body is practically a bundle of roses in your hands.”

Shiv grinned. “I’ll endeavor to kidnap more people for you.”

A Veilpiercer tore into the room. Shiv grunted with amusement.

“For the love of bloody hell,” Adam muttered as he emerged into the room through a rift. He eyed the Weaveresses, including the one with a mind broken, and began to channel his Dimensionality over them. A shroud of darkness and distortion collapsed inward, and they were gone, cast to where the teleportation anchor was. And for a moment, Adam stared at Shiv.

“Right, I probably need to inform Valor about what’s going on. Might be a little confusing for him. I’ll be back very soon.” And then he teleported as well.

Leaving only Uva and Shiv there for a moment. “So,” Shiv said, “what do you think we should do with the victims?” He looked at the few hundred people gathered in the room.

Uva just sighed. “We can’t let them stay here. Get them across the dimensional pathway Adam left, perhaps?”

“Yeah, no,” Shiv said, “that leads up into the sky.”

She paused. “Then we wait for Adam to come back and have him fire an arrow somewhere else. I’ll inform him. You keep going up. I think there’s a vault you need to hit, isn’t there?”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

As Uva’s strands spread out among the freed victims, Shiv shot upwards. He smashed through the ceiling and kept going, blasting higher and higher until he hit the midsection of the building. And there, his surroundings changed. No more corridors and hallways or elevators. It was like a wide-open lobby, but at the center was a massive cylindrical vault. There were a few dozen guards here, but they lay with holes in the center of their chests.

Most of them were blade dimensionals, or Metal Fiends, as Uva called them. Shiv had fought them several weeks back while raiding a slave caravan in the Umbral Wilderness. It looked like someone had pulverized the room with focused artillery strikes. And then there was an elemental golem. A golem that had several channels of corrosion carved through it.

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Doubtless a result of Adam’s vambrace giving power to some of his arrows.

Shiv considered how a fight between him and Adam might go now. Probably suicidal for both of them, depending on how close Shiv was. Once more, Shiv considered why the System gave Adam the vambrace. Something inside him knew that it was probably going to drive them against each other at some point.

Because what brought more strife than a team collapsing in on itself?

As Shiv stared at the vault, he realized it was adamantine as well and considered waiting for Adam. He decided against it. He’d torn a titanium-reinforced teleportation anchor apart before. Let’s see…

He placed his gravity field against the vault, and it began to twist. For a few moments, nothing happened. Shiv gritted his teeth and twisted harder. The vault door began to shudder and groan, and Shiv groaned with it. The door squealed—Then a series of corrosive arrows impacted the same point over and over again, just over Shiv’s head. A tunnel carved into the vault, and Shiv immediately blasted backward, letting out a hiss of surprise and dissatisfaction as Uva reconnected him with Adam.

“Shiv,” Adam said, “You don’t really need to rip apart every bit of metal you see.”

“What the hell was that?” Shiv said. “You’re going to fire Necromantic arrows over my head? Really?”

“Oh, relax. I wasn’t going to hit you.”

Shiv narrowed his eyes. He knew Adam was accurate. He also knew Adam was probably doing that just to provoke him. “I’m going to get you for that, asshole,” Shiv muttered under his breath.

Adam just laughed. Soon, a hole was burned through the center of the vault, and Shiv stepped through. As he did, a massive smile spread across his face. There were five items held in display cases. Wands, weapons, pieces of armor, and in one case, an entire armor set. One that seemed to be completely shaped entirely from focus crystal. Then there were all the mithril ingots lining the walls—so many ingots, treasure chests, gold, gems, and more.

Shiv began scooping everything he saw into his cloak. Starting with the armor set, everything went in. After he had swept everything obviously valuable, he came to a stop. At the very end of the vault, there was a book placed on a wooden reading stand.

It was lined in dense chains etched with spells and covered in strange pustules.

Strangest of all, the book was whispering to Shiv. He raised an eyebrow. Too bad he couldn’t understand what it was saying.

***

CONFRIGA… IS THAT YOU? HAVE YOU COME TO CONTINUE YOUR EDUCATION? HAVE YOU COME WITH AN OFFER FOR ME? A PIECE OF YOUR SOUL FOR A PIECE OF MINE…

The words hammered against Uva’s consciousness. For a moment, she felt the words crawling across and gnawing at her sanity, but she pushed away the insidious energies with a snarl of effort. What remained was the voice—calling out to the Lesser Marshal. And more importantly, Shiv wasn’t looking at a book.

The physical object was just a facade. The longer Uva stared, the more the chains and tentacles peeled away to reveal a layered clusterof eyes staring back at her.

Eldritch Insight > 2

NOT CONFRIGA. NO. SOMEONE ELSE… HAVE YOU COME TO FREE ME? HAVE YOU COME TO TAKE ME OUT? AWAY FROM THIS PRISON?

Uva didn’t respond to the book. Instead, she filtered her memories over to Shiv, and he grunted in surprise.

“You understand the creepy whispering?” he asked.

“Yes. I… This is part of my Eldritch Insight Skill, I think… Take the book too. Leave nothing. Whatever the book is, it knows about the Lesser Marshal. It’s a piece of intelligence.”

“Are you sure?” Shiv asked, sounding apprehensive. “I got a bad feeling about the book.”

“We can’t let Confriga have it. Also, you have the Odes. It cannot be worse than that, as long as we’re careful.”

“Shit. You’re right.”

Shiv walked over and picked up the book.

WHAT’S THIS? STRANGE SOUL… TEMPERED… STRANGE… MIND INSIDE HIS. MIND WITH OPENED EYES. HELLO, SEER OF THE ELDEST MYSTERIES. I GREET YOU. COME TO FREE ME? COME TO TAKE ME AWAY? I WILL PREPARE GIFTS FOR YOU. GIFTS FOR MY FREEDOM. ALLOW YOU TO DEEPEN YOUR INSIGHT. TEACH YOU TO REACH BEYOND THE VEIL OF THE NEARNESS, WHERE THE SYSTEM’S EYE BLURS…

The Stranger gazes intently upon you…

“Uva,” Shiv said. “This book is beyond creepy.”

She hummed. “But it will be useful. I’ll keep an eye on it. And make sure it doesn’t do anything horrible.”

“Like eat my mind?”

“Like that.”

“Hopefully it just kills me instead if it’s an evil book.”

“Shiv…”

***

Equipment Obtained: [Tome of the Eldest Mysteries]

Tier: [HIDDEN]

Condition: [HIDDEN]

Composition: [HIDDEN]

Enchantments > [HIDDEN]; [HIDDEN]; [HIDDEN]; [HIDDEN]; [HIDDEN]; [HIDDEN]

“The hell is this thing?” Shiv muttered as he threw the book into his cloak.

“And once you’re done,” Adam said, interrupting Shiv and Uva, “get to the top and bring the tower down. I fear that, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, the Gate Lord might need our assistance soon. The remaining warriors under Confriga have been torn apart and eaten by the First Blood. He’s fighting alone against over fifty Master-Tier vampires, and True Masters at that. And there are still more coming. I got the non-combatants in the building out. You’re clear to drop the tower. Rip away, monster.”

Shiv left the vault and put the strange book out of his mind. There was one final thing to do. He shot all the way upward, blasting through every remaining floor and inflicting as much damage as he could. He impacted the ceiling and reached out with his field. He seized the base of the obsidian tower descending from the ceiling and pulled.

Shiv roared. He exerted himself, using all his effort. And he relished in the one thing the other two couldn’t do all that well. Bend things, break things, tear things asunder. The base groaned as it began to buckle. The magically-enhanced obsidian cracked. Metal bolts and structural joints bent and burst apart. But it wasn’t going fast enough. Shiv felt a surge of annoyance as he poured anger into his Gravitic Wrestler. And suddenly, his strength spiked. He triggered his Icon of the Paindrinker as well. And the effects of his damage were magnified. The base was ripped asunder in an explosive shattering. The top of the tower broke off and the rest plunged.

Shiv hovered in place, letting out a casual huff, his muscles throbbing but otherwise fine. But he managed it. He managed to rip the base apart and bring the entire tower down. And he watched it, with a building sense of satisfaction in his chest, crash against the third gateway—and lodge itself deep as the middle of the tower folded inward.

Shiv let out a breath, and for a moment, the other two were speechless.

“Shiv,” Adam said, with a slight hint of apprehension in his voice. “When next we spar, I’m going to do everything in my power to stay far, far away from you.”

“Yeah,” Shiv said, “and I’m going to do everything I can to grab you, and pull off your helmet, and maybe give you a haircut.”

“You will not,” Adam said.

“Maybe I will,” Shiv said.

“Boys,” Uva said, “focus. Confriga.”

“All right. Well, it’s your lucky day, Young Asshole. Let’s go save the only asshole here bigger than you.”

“Well, you first, bastard. You’re the only one he really knows, after all. And keep your Silhouette up. No showboating. We approach and keep him alive, but spent. Then, we all hit him together after the First Blood is defeated, and we get our new Master-Tier Skill.”

“Sure,” Shiv said, “I always keep my Silhouette up.”

“You showed the bloody Heroic-Tier vampire you were fighting your face at the end.”

“Yeah, but I was about to win.”

“Yes, but he wasn’t dead.”

“He got there when I stabbed him in the heart-balls, didn’t he?”

“Just piss off and start doing horrible things to the combatants at the gateway. I’ll go fetch Valor and get him ready. Uva. Leu. Get that mana core Synchronized. Let’s finish this.”

“Affirmative,” Uva said.

With a pull of Shiv’s gravitic field, he shot towards the Abyssal Gateway, where Lesser Marshal Confriga struggled desperately against the last dregs of the First Blood.

His heart thundered with anticipation. Coming for you, Gate Lord.

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