Deathstalker Perspicacity Pricelles 2 reporting to Siege Force Main. Observation post SC102 at Old Santabarb reports no abnormal activity. However, the Gate Theborn surface portal remains inactive. It has been approximately a full day since anyone has entered or exited said portal.
Additionally, a wing of aerial patrol Pathbearers of the Yellowstone Republic was spotted some 50 kilometers away from the combat zone. They were diverted before they drew into engagement range. We detected telepathic communication between them and an unknown source. We suspect that the Inquisition has interceded.
The situation on that front remains stable for now.
However, ob-posts 493 and 222 have reported a massing of forces in the distance. Inquisition forces are moving fast across the land, using active mirages to veil themselves from being seen from above. We anticipate that they will be joining the fray in approximately three to five days, depending on pace of movement and factoring in unexpected circumstances. That is the report so fa—
Wait. The Surface Gateway is activating.
Please hold. Additional details forthcoming…
-Deathstalker Perspicacity Pricelles, Scout-Captain of SC102 for Vicar Sullain’s Retribution Crusade
108 (I)
Briefing
"Shiv, Uva, are you two… Is this a good time?"
"Yes, Adam. It's, uh…" Uva paused as Shiv let out a loud groan.
A swell of horror and embarrassment came from the Gate Lord. “I… I can check in later—”
“No, It’s not that. It’s—”
"I… I am the potato?" Shiv mumbled, mimicking slicing motions in the air.
Uva winced slightly. "No, Shiv, you are not a potato. You are misremembering. Your memories have mingled. You have overdrawn and over-focused on the wrong part of your mind. This happens in Psychomancy sometimes. I will mend you in a moment."
"I'm… not a potato?"
"No, Shiv, you are not a potato."
"What's going on?" Adam asked, genuinely concerned. "Is Shiv alright? He sounds more unhinged than usually.”
"He's just temporarily confused. We're doing some Psychomancy training to adjust for his new Disease Resistance Skill Evolution. It's important to attune both the body and the mind at the same time."
Psychomancy 11 > 12
Psychology 2 > 5
Practical Metabiology 36 > 37
Plaguefueled 61 > 62
"I peel… me?"
"No, Shiv, no. Put down the knife. Put down the knife you made from your own rib. No flaying yourself. I'll help you fix your mind in a moment. Anyway, Adam, what's wrong? What do you need? Is there something with the mercenaries? Has there been another assassination attempt?"
"No, no, it's just I'm planning to conduct a general briefing in a few hours. I've invited all the Exalted Mothers and Cherished Sisters to be in attendance. It'll be at the half-finished obsidian tower. I'm trying to think of a name for the building. And the gate, too. Well, anyway, I think it would be best if you and Shiv were there. There are a lot of details and problems we have to go over."
"Of course," Uva replied. "We'll be over as soon as possible. As soon as I help Shiv remember who he actually is."
"Am I… a cabbage?"
"No, Shiv, you are not a cabbage either.”
"Is he truly all right?" Adam asked.
"He'll be fine," Uva replied. "It's not any worse than what he usually does to himself."
The Young Lord considered that for a moment and let out a snort of agreement. "You're right. Hey, Uva, how much would it take for you to briefly make him think he's my dull-witted manservant?"
"We will be there in a while, Adam," Uva said with a scoff. She pulled her mana strand away from the Gate Lord and focused entirely on Shiv. "Alright, let's see how you did this to yourself."
"Meat-shaped…”
"Yes, Shiv, you are made of meat. No, that does not mean you can eat yourself. Please stop biting your arm. Thank you."
***
After Uva rearranged Shiv's sanity and fixed his badly knotted psyche, he made a reminder for himself never to overly fixate on the food, rather to focus more on what he was doing in those memories, on his determination and focus.
"I am not the meat," he repeated to himself as he sailed through the air, approaching the only skyscraper left in the gate. "I am not the meat, I am Shiv. I am the Deathless, I am a Pathbearer. I am also not a cabbage."
"Do not be over-worried," Uva cast her thoughts at him. "These things happen sometimes." She paused, and he felt a shudder of discomfort pass over from her. "Though I am impressed with how you so utterly and totally rewrote your own perception of yourself. It takes a substantial amount of focus and obsession to do such a thing.”
"Yeah, I was just trying to hold onto the moment. The moment of… just easy, constant focus of me peeling potato after potato."
"Yes, you were trying to cling to a flow state. Effortless focus. Tragically, your effortless focus caused you to hallucinate that you were, in fact, the potato. Again, lessons learned. This is good. You have made good progress." She laughed. “Of course, it helps that you do not break for good.”
"Hey, Uva," Shiv said.
"Yes?"
"Would you still love me if I was a potato?"
"Enough to eat you, probably," she replied wryly. "I prefer fish, or maybe something green. But I suppose I'd make an exception for a potato if you became one. But if potato-you can still cook, well… I suspect I would prefer to keep you alive instead.”
"I guess that's all a man can ask," he replied.
The obsidian tower was still half-finished, but it looked far more intact than it had been a mere few hours ago. The surrounding ruins had also been cleared up, with a great amount of the material scavenged and repurposed by the geomancers and architects for the general rebuilding effort.
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Supplies and additional items of utility had also been scavenged. Shiv could see numerous household appliances, those that could be repaired or still were in a functional state, stacked high nearby. Several object and item groupings were tied together by bundles of rope or were placed within zones outlined with chalk.
In the distance, Shiv could see additional supports going up from the ground to bear the weight of the newly built district. It was a little more than a large platform, and there were also several layers beneath it. However, he could already see people there, dashing about the barren platform. Most of them seemed like mercenaries running laps, trying to keep themselves conditioned even in such cramped circumstances.
As he drew closer to the midpoint of the gate, Shiv noticed something about the obsidian tower. Rather than being a structure of pure volcanic rock, there were additional struts running along the outside; lengths of reinforced metal keeping it bolted to the ground, or perhaps holding the entire thing stable. Shiv guessed that the Geomancers were likely going to have to reshape it on the inside as well, and thus, should any destabilization occur, they needed to do everything they could to avoid a collapse.
Then, at the top of the tower, Shiv noticed something particular. Rather than just ending as a spire, there was a glistening glass dome that radiated a spectrum of light. Most times it glowed azure due to the falling radiance bestowed by the mana core. However, every now and then there would come an accretion of twilight that danced around its edges, sparkling across the land. Shiv guessed that was probably because of Adam's Unique skill. More importantly, it was clearly designed this way in mimicry of Starhawk's Perch.
He really is Roland's son, Shiv thought to himself, slightly dourly. Despite everything, Shiv wasn't looking forward to seeing Roland in some ways. In some other ways, he struggled not to clench his fist. He was very much looking forward to seeing his old Town Lord once more. There's a lot of stuff we're going to have to talk about, Roland. A lot of stuff, not just about you and me, but your family, about Udraal, about everything. You haven't been entirely honest, not even with your own boy.
As Shiv reached the base of the tower, he saw Adam there, already speaking to Uva. They led him inside, and he found the interior of the tower substantially different from a few hours ago as well. Beyond the naked supports, which were mostly covered, there were a few bridges running from place to place.
There were also actual floors placed in on the upper levels, making the tower seem more like an actual building rather than a hollow tube rendered so by the devastation it experienced while Shiv fought the Recollector. At the center of the tower was an additional pillar that was actually hollow. Shiv suspected it was for a mana elevator that hadn’t been put in yet. This pillar was shaped from reinforced titanium, and judging from a particular dent left on it, Shiv suspected some of it was harvested from the various teleportation anchors scattered across the city ruins, probably even the Jealousy's personal teleportation anchor.
In front of this central pillar was a massive whiteboard, gleaming pale in the light. There was already a series of markings on it, along with a list of items discussed. Adam had spent some time putting this briefing together. The Gate Lord's Academy experiences were showing once more, and that triggered a strange feeling of envy in Shiv.
It had been a while since he'd envied Adam's life, but despite all the mockery he sent in Adam's direction for being a part of "Burning Chicken Academy," Shiv would have really liked to go himself.
Some kids hated the pre-academies, but it sure as shit was a better place than some alleyway.
His recent training with Uva showed him just how much actual knowledge he lacked. There was so much he didn't know, so much that she learned about when she was but a child. And while she did that, while Adam was preparing, while countless other Pathbearers were already taking the first steps toward achieving Adept Skills—and knowledge-based Adept Skills at that—Shiv was languishing as a Pathless chef and moonlighting as a monster slayer. While that gave him some specific experiences as well, the truth of the matter was that there was no substitute for proper practice, for proper training, for proper preparation.
It's a miracle I didn't die hunting lesser vampires over the three years, Shiv thought to himself. That might have colored his initial experiences once he became a Pathbearer. Shiv did prepare, he did plan, but when things went wrong, he usually defaulted to sorting things the most direct and brutal way possible. This worked out sometimes. It worked out especially for him, since he couldn't die. But he couldn't use it as a crutch, not forever, and definitely not against a Legendary Pathbearer like Sullain.
As Shiv stared at the board, Adam went over a few things with Uva. From their conversation, Shiv heard Adam telling Uva about how she had two pieces of equipment to try on and test later, once Can Hu recovered enough to put them through a reforging process.
Her armor had been destroyed during the final fight at the gate, and frankly, a magical amplification provided by Absence’s arcanite fragments and the Focus Crystal armor were probably going to be major boons for her. All three of them were varying degrees of mage, but between the three, she was the most dedicated spellcaster, focused primarily on subversive Psychomancy, and now some eldritch powers as well.
The last part made Shiv worry more than a bit. The influence the Dreamtaker had on Uva was one of the few things Shiv thought Null Mont was justifiably worried about. He didn't know if Uva showed Adam her Aberrant Fractals yet, but it might not be the best idea. He'd give her time and space to show it to Adam in the best way.
The Outsiders did terrible things to Adam’s mind. There was just something about Diviners that made them more vulnerable to the eldritch.
"Alright, Shiv," Adam said, stepping away from Uva. “We need to talk.”
Shiv grunted and turned to face Adam. This was a while coming. "Listen, I don't know how much you heard, but when I was speaking to your mother, I learned about a few things.”
“We'll deal with that in a while, after we finish the scouting mission. I don't want anything distracting us."
Shiv stared at Adam. "You sure about that?"
"Yes. And if we talk about my mother and all the messed-up felling shit related to the ritual, I'm definitely not going to be able to focus, so we're not going to do that. Not yet. Not until we’re both in better condition and ready.”
Shiv blinked. "Yeah, that sounds pretty wise.”
"Good, wonderful. Now, to distract myself from this horrible, horrible topic, Can Hu should be able to reforge your cloak and its Garden of Bountiful Alloy in the next few hours or so. Once that's done, we will commence final preparations and embark on an initial scouting run. Barring extraneous circumstances, we will be out at the end of the day, at the latest. So be ready and make what preparations you need to."
And that reminded Shiv of something else. The Deathless opened a section of his bone armor. From there, he pulled out two packets, and he held them out to Uva and Adam.
"What's this?" Adam asked.
Uva picked it up and arched an eyebrow at the strange gift.
"This is Court Leviathan meat, ready to eat, military ration style. It's not too complicated. It's just basically like a fried chunk. But if you eat it, it should give you regeneration. I think it'll function like a healing potion or a lesser healing potion, at least. It should keep you alive for a while if you get hurt. Let you recover from minor injuries pretty fast. It's not exactly a Woundeater, but…"
And then he saw the genuine smile on Adam's face, and Shiv felt a surge of pride. He folded his arms. "Yeah, you know, I thought it was a good idea to start distributing some of this. I'll get some of it ready for the Umbrals and Weaveresses as well. They're probably going to need it too."
"Yes, very, very good thinking, Shiv. Also, it's probably going to be better-tasting than any military ration I ever had before." Adam wiggled his nose. "Captain Irons, he let us taste some of his old rations." He shook his head, and a look of absolute disgust crawled over him. "It was wretched. He said it was the worst part of being a soldier, aside from all the other worst parts."
"Is there any good part?" Shiv asked. "Captain Irons sounds pretty cynical."
"Not cynical. He's just honest and realistic. In some ways, you remind me of him. In others, well, I think he would have liked you a great deal. I told you this before."
"I guess I'll find out someday if I ever meet him."
"Considering how things are going, you just might. Hopefully not on the battlefield, though…”
And by then, the first of the Weaveresses and Umbrals started filtering in. Null Mont slipped in with the group, and she made eye contact with Shiv for a moment before looking away.
Unfortunately for her, Shiv wasn't the evasive kind. He didn't care about social awkwardness. He didn't care about discomfort. He found a problem, and he handled it. He attacked it head-on. He didn't let things languish. So he went after her immediately, and he pulled out another pack of Courtney Rations.
"What's this?" Null Mont said, staring more at the pack than at him.
"Leviathan meat," he said. "If you're hurt, bite it. It should get you to heal relatively quickly from injuries, like a healing potion. I'll be handing it out to the others, but this one's for you. I'll prepare more when I have time as well."
"Yes, thank you, most honored… Exalted Guest." She still sounded uncomfortable and gave a quiet hiss as he briefly patted her on the back.
His Dread Aura vibrated softly when he stood near her, but she wasn't absolutely terrified anymore, and frankly, Shiv thought he could continue conditioning her until she became a functional asset rather than an asshat.
"Please come up with a better quality of pun, Shiv," Uva begged.
"Why," Shiv said, "I thought it was kind of funny."
She gave him a pitying look. "I think we should add some cultural reading to your practice as well. It will go far in enhancing your writing and intellectual capabilities."
Shiv wasn't against that. Tables, chairs, and more bodies stuffed the room, a few Umbral Hydromancers filled cups, and soon the briefing was called to order. Standing right before the board with a list of details was Gate Lord Adam Arrow, flanked by Can Hu, Shiv, and Uva on one side and Valor with Null Mont on the other.