95 (II)

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[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

Biomes

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

Districts

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

[Severe Mana Decay in Progress]

Gateways

Vulketh: [Under Lockdown due to Mana Insufficiency]

Earth (Abyss): [Under Lockdown due to Mana Insufficiency]

Earth (Surface): Under Lockdown

“Well, that doesn’t look good,” Shiv muttered. “Everything’s in decay.”

“Quite.” Adam sighed. “The only thing I can access right now are the gateways, and even then, I can only manipulate one at a time. There isn’t even enough mana to fully open or adjust the states of the gateways at the same time. The Stranger did a damn number on this thing.”

“It also likely contaminated and broke many things within the core,” Valor wheezed weakly. His mind was there, but still faint and weak—even with Adam’s light. “Many… skills. The Starhawk’s presence burned away much of the Stranger’s unnatural mana, but even so, I suspect we will be returning to a Category 3 or potentially Category 2 core. The space available to us will shrink. Skills will be lost. Available districts and biomes… All will be lost with the mass death and destruction. Along with… with the Stranger’s actions.”

“The System just can’t stop torturing us,” Adam growled.

“I suspect this is it giving you a blessing,” Valor chuckled. “A Unique Gate is usually highly vaunted and desired, even if it is of a lower Mana Output Category. I suspect that, once the decay stabilizes, the skill that will become available to the core will be connected to your Righteous Dawn Prevails, Adam. That might… that might be more valuable than even a Category Eight Gate. And also… invite invading armies to try and take it from us, of course.”

“Of course,” Uva sighed.

“Of course,” Adam spat bitterly.

“Nice,” Shiv hummed, imagining what it would be like fighting an entire army.

“Shut up, Shiv,” Adam snapped. “I’m in charge of this bloody core. And this is all your fault.”

“My fault?”

Shiv said. “How?”

“Because you’re so bad at dying, the System’s now trying to kill the rest of us harder to make up for it.”

The outrage in Adam’s voice was tinged with a hint of faint amusement at the end. Shiv didn’t feel good about what was happening to all of them either, but he had to seize on the joke. He shrugged. “You’re welcome.”

Adam barked an exasperated laugh. And groaned. “I just want a moment of peace. Just a few minutes. We… I still need to reply to Sijik. The Educator’s tome, the owl, the thing about… my mother being in Shiv’s soul. So many damned things and now this Quest—More! More! More! Just constantly more and more threats and problems…”

Shiv grimaced. Mere hours ago, the Young Lord was on the verge of death. None of them had been given a chance to decompress. They needed to fight for some space. To ward off the System long enough to truly recover. “I know. I need to spend some time cooking. Hell, I want to spend a year cooking. But I think we’re going to need to hold out a while longer. Together. But we’re close, Adam. The gateway is right there. We took the damned place. Now we just need to hold it, and then we can start making for Blackedge.”

“Why… Why can’t we just…” Adam didn’t finish his statement. With his mind connected, everyone knew what he desired.

“We can’t just abandon the gate,” Uva said. “Well. We can. It will just result in the both of you cut off from any support, me hidden in one of your minds or dead, and a severe operational disadvantage. This place, destroyed as it is, can be used as a sanctuary. We can hold it. We’ll build ourselves back up here. If we go out—and considering how brutal the System has become—we will likely be immediately assailed by other extreme dangers.”

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Adam winced. “I hate that you’re probably right. Just feels like we’re being boxed in.”

Shiv considered how spent Adam was, and something in him hardened. “I can go out first. See if things get better if I am gone for a day.”

“No,” Valor said. “It is too late for distance to spare your companions. To spare the rest of us. They are already burning. You were the original flame, but the blaze has spread. They are marked. Without years of precise effort and luck, they will not be unmarked now. One way or another, they are in this with you for good or ill.”

And now Shiv felt like complete shit. “If I knew—”

“Nothing would have changed,” Adam cut him off. “There was no other way this could have gone. Could I have tried going my own way? Perhaps. But I wouldn’t be a Hero. Or Unique. I would be… useless. I would still be an Adept. A Master at best. But probably not. I don’t regret it. I don’t regret anything. I’m just bloody spent, Shiv.”

Shiv sympathized.

“Adam,” Uva said, “take an hour off.”

“What?” Adam said. “But the System—the gate—”

“Shiv, I, and Can Hu will be here. You will be alerted. Just take some time.”

And now the Gate Lord felt exceedingly guilty. “But you two are still…”

“I can manipulate the conditions of my own mind,” Uva said. “I will spend some time when we have a moment hardening your mental architecture and also teaching you some methods to process the stress. Do not compare yourself to Shiv. The nature of his mind is almost as disgusting as his physical resilience.”

“Thanks, Uva,” Shiv said, entirely earnestly.

“It drives me mad with envy,”

she replied, utterly deadpan.

Adam was still reluctant, but with another pulse of her will, he sighed and went along.

“There are… other stories I can tell you about as well,” Valor whispered. “I felt like I was… on the verge of breaking more than once during my time fleeing through the wilderness. I did break several times…”

And as Valor began talking to Adam, Uva cast a thought at Shiv. “Shiv. There is something I need to show you.”

Shiv paused. “Just me?”

“Yes. It… it is my newest skill. It is best that I show you first. Just you alone.”

“What? Why? Are you okay?”

“I don’t think any of us feel okay right now. We are just enduring. But—best that I show you. The skill… It affects one’s sanity and feeds off madness. I cannot risk using it near other people.”

Shiv felt a worsening sense of foreboding, but also a growing interest. He really wanted to see what kind of skill she had now.

***

“Alright, so let’s see this mysterious and terrifying skill,” Shiv said. He tried to keep his voice light-hearted, but the expression on Uva’s face was hard as stone and devoid of any mirth. In fact, her entire body radiated tension. “It’s your second Heroic, right? Heroic Skills are usually pretty powerful.”

“Shiv,” she said, extending her left arm. “Can you peel part of my armor open? Just make a small gap.”

They were hidden in a teleportation anchor Shiv had managed to pull out from the rubble and twist back into shape. In the darkness, it was just them, and her eyes painted both of them in ethereal, eldritch colors. Shiv missed her dark blue eyes, but her new ones were bewitching. He found himself entranced several times.

“Shiv,” she repeated.

“Right. Sorry. I was lost in your eyes. Literally.”

She rolled her eyes. Shiv followed their motion.

Shaking his head to clear his mind, he regarded her completely destroyed Celestial Jade armor. Even with the reinforcement offered by his adamantine bones, it had been utterly shattered.

Shiv shuddered. If she hadn’t gotten that strange Master-Tier Physicality Skill Evolution, there would be no Uva now. Gently, he made an incision, just a slight tear exposing part of her upper right shoulder.

“A little bit more,” she said. “Easy enough for something to spill through.”

“What do you mean, ‘spill through’?” Shiv said, as he continued, widening the tear.

“You’ll understand in a moment. What I am about to shape out from my flesh is undoubtedly eldritch. It is… It feeds off insanity,” she finished. “I need to induce insanity into all of us to sustain it for a while.”

“Draw out? How did you even get this skill, Uva. Is this going to hurt you?”

“Not physically,” she replied darkly. “It was a skill that came from both the Recollector and the Dreamtaker. As I was bound to the Recollector’s mind and struggling against it… I broke part of it, and it nearly broke all of me.”

She cast her memories into Shiv.

The Recollector’s mind was unknowable, unthinkable. Shiv couldn’t even follow any of the details. Past, present, and even a faint mirage of the future were all crashing together constantly. It was experiencing all these moments at once, trying to keep them together, and suddenly he understood why the Recollector’s behavior had been so odd and frantic. It could barely follow itself. So often, it would have parallel tracks of the same thought that contradicted each other, and they would pull until one or multiple of its past selves decided against or for a specific thought, and only then did it decide what to do, if that was even what was happening.

Shiv started to clench his jaw as his mind strained under the weight of the memories. How Uva managed to focus on her Psychomancy while affected by that, he had no idea.

“And so you see already what it takes to compel such a thing,” Uva said. “When I was within the Recollector’s mind, I opened my gaze. I tore a gap into the Outside so that the Dreamtaker could unleash her New-Dreamt through, but during the process, I broke. Part of my mind split, and I gazed upon myself, and something was lodged in me, something that the Recollector struck in my stead. It would have killed me,” she breathed, and then she held herself lightly. “It should have killed me.”

Shiv squeezed her arm gently, and he watched as one of her mana strands sank into her own mind. She did an edit and cut away some of the existential terror. There were many benefits to being a Psychomancer. Shiv wasn’t sure if this was one of them.

Uva continued after a breath. “But as it struck the fragment of the New-Dreamt, it shattered inside of me, fused with me. My soul, I thought, was going to break, and I believed I would fray like a ball of yarn being torn apart. But as I fell, as I descended, as the Dreamtaker and the Stranger’s essence warred within me, they exhausted each other…”

“All because of me,” Shiv said.

“It’s more like we keep surviving beside you,” Uva replied. “The System doesn’t exactly care if we survive. This is my intuition. But it gives us these opportunities, these chances, these small, minute possibilities for which we can claim power rather than falling. And that is what we have been doing time and time again. The eldritch, the Outsiders, they’re just a perfect vehicle for such a thing as well, because they have not been fully colonized by the System, because they are not claimed, and their natures are aberrant.”

“But once fused with our souls…” She swallowed. “Once fused with our souls, they can be recorded. Can be shaped by mana and made into something unique.”

She fell silent for a moment. “I’m going to start the process now. This will be unpleasant.”

“I don’t think anything is going to be as bad as what the Recollector did to me,” he muttered under his breath. He looked into her eyes, into those swirling, ever-changing colors, unique colors every time. “I’m not afraid. I’m here. For you.”

“And I for you,” she replied.

He watched as her features hardened, as she removed the last bits of doubt in herself. And then she pulled at his sanity. She pulled at his coherence, and his thoughts began to spiral. “This is necessary. I cannot rouse it without… madness.”

At the same time, she tore at parts of herself. He could feel it. She let out a grunt of disorientation, but she had so many mana strands that she was able to concurrently protect the rest of her mind from collapsing, even as she mauled part of herself. During this process, something began to shimmer and gleam along the tear of her shoulder.

Her flesh twisted unnaturally. Her body spooled into a turning spiral that churned in place and curved so unnaturally that Shiv’s mind failed to understand how she moved. She folded into herself, and from the rip he left in her armor emerged a strange symbol. A strange symbol she made with her own skin. The symbol she made flashed with eldritch color. Afterward came fractal, a shape. But it wasn’t a stable shape. Instead, it kept folding in on itself, twisting, slicing, dancing through the air. And then more jutting edges followed. More and more. And as it unspooled, part of its unnatural angles touched the insides of the teleportation anchor they were in.

And they sliced clean through the reinforced metal like it was naught but air.

“Shit.” Shiv blinked. “That’s sharp.”

She shared the skill’s information with him fully thereafter, and he regarded its name for the first time.

Shaper of the Aberrant Fractals 2 (Heroic)

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