Quests are something that all Pathbearers desire, but few will ever encounter. It takes a divine entity, or in extreme cases, the System itself, to issue forth Quests. They are events of massive importance, often determining the fates of entire towns, cities, or even kingdoms, such as:
Stop the First Great Incursion
Perhaps the most well-known Quest came during the early days of the System’s integration.
The Incursions, as they were called, saw the invasion of new species from other dimensions, trying to conquer our world. This resulted in the creation of the first great nations across Integrated Earth, for we needed to band together—not only as rogue, wandering hedge Pathbearers, but as true organized armies in our own right—to withstand the onslaught of the enemy, and to venture forth into the gates to halt the invasion for good.
According to historical records, it was only after this Quest was completed that all the ambient mana from these external dimensions flooding our world was naturalized as a reward, allowing a Pathbearer to go beyond the limit of Master Tier.
A Quest is a goal, or many goals, that need to be fulfilled for great rewards—sometimes allowing someone to obtain the skill of their choosing, a powerful weapon, or an item that is desired by many.
But beware, there are consequences should one fail a Quest.
As we have discussed in the chapter on contracts, two souls are usually bound after the creation of a contract, with skills put up as collateral. A sundering takes place if either side breaks their bargain, and the Quest will deliver its own penalty. Or worse, a failed Quest could bestow curses or even unleash calamities upon the world, such as the unleashing of Lie Tian Hu, the savage Storm Titan who still reigns over the Vast Atlantic and launches invasions onto our shores.
Should you be fortunate enough to obtain a Quest, understand that you bear a great burden as well as a great boon. Succeed, and you rise beyond what you could have dreamed of.
Fail, and be broken—potentially breaking the world alongside you as well…
-The Paths of Ascension, Essential Reading at Phoenix Academy of The Yellowstone Republic
17 (I)
Quest
“Before we continue, please don’t lie to me,” the Composer said. Her face was stern, hard as a statue. “I loathe lying. There’s nothing I hate more than a liar, so please don’t make me hate you, Shiv. I don’t want to hate what seems like a good man.”
Shiv looked at her, swallowing. After all of that—after killing the raven to hide his secret—she knew. All along, she knew. She—
Before he could answer her, another question came up. “Wait, if you were aware of what I was the entire time, why didn’t you just kill the raven?” he asked.
“I wanted to see what you were capable of, and if they actually knew you. You must understand that not even my home is entirely safe. The agents of New Albion are everywhere. And though my web stretches far across the abyss, I know little of the surface. Frankly, you are, in ways, more of an enigma to me than I am to you.”
“I very much doubt that,” Shiv muttered. “I keep hearing about this New Albion. Valor warned me about them.” He held up the dagger. “But I barely know about New Albion. From what the Republic says, they’re like a small backwater nation that’s barely worth mentioning—that they’re lucky to exist with our protection.”
The Composer’s face contorted in an expression of barely suppressed mirth. “The Yellowstone Republic said that about New Albion... Well, the Auroral Council’s arrogance…” Her expression turned serious again. “No, New Albion’s power makes them among the greatest nations on post-Integration Earth. Few have the resources and influence of the Stolen Throne, and all are wary of its spies.”
Shiv frowned. “Except for me, apparently. I don’t really know anything. But I’m not a spy. I’m not from New Albion.”
Foreshadowing: From afar, a man with a Mythical set of artificial eyes watches the Composer’s nest. He flickers into Weave only briefly, stealing a glance before vanishing. He does this several times—never staying in one place. He wonders why he agreed to this assignment just days before his retirement. And why the Throne is so interested in the least hostile of all the Abyssal Nations…
Foreshadowing > 3
The Composer observed him for a long moment. “I believe you, mainly because of your Path. They wouldn’t risk someone like you on mere tradecraft alone. And that's what I want to talk about: Why can’t you die?”
Shiv licked his lips, unsure how to proceed.
“Shiv. What is she talking about?” Valor said.
Great. Now he had to explain to Valor why he was lying the entire time. Shiv closed his eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t know how it works. It just happened. I gained the Path the first time I died. When the raven killed me.”
“Oh, so that was a thing of revenge. I was wondering why you were so vicious with him,” the Composer said, seemingly entranced by his story. “Oh, continue, please.”
“Yeah. So, where do I begin?” Shiv went into some detail about his past. He went through as much as he could. His upbringing. The ritual his parents did. Him being an Omenborn, and how Roland Arrow dealt with him. After that, he managed to skip most of his miserable years as a street rat before his acceptance into Georges’s kitchen and his determination to gain a Path before he finally got to the point of the present.
To his surprise, though, the Composer knew who the Town Lord was.
“The Dread Horizon,” she whispered.
“The Dread what now?” Shiv said.
“That is what we call him. During his invasion into our depths, he slew many, destroyed cities with the other surfacers, and displaced countless people.”
Shiv just stared. “What invasion?”
“They didn’t tell you this? The surface nations… They pushed into the Abyss after their victory during the Eclipse. At first, they were pursuing the Necrotech Legions, and we allowed it to be, for it was the Necrotechs who brought misfortune upon themselves. But the surfaces, and the Yellowstone Republic especially—they continued pressing on, pushing further. It took the Five Faiths uniting to halt the surfacer advance. It was an unprecedented, fragile union, considering only just a few years before we were all at war with each other: the Second War of Faiths… War of the Five.”
The Composer fell silent for a few moments. “That was likely also the reason why we couldn’t protect ourselves. So often, we strike at each other—mauling and bleeding and committing atrocities in the name of my fallen progenitor.” Her voice took on a mournful quality. “We cannot unite. We are too different. And so, we hurt ourselves worse than any surfacer could. It might be our undoing in the long run.”
Shiv blinked as he tried to process the information. The history books distinctly ended with the Yellowstone Republic victoriously defeating the Abyssal legions of the Necrotechs and pushing them back into the Abyss. But they did not speak of a counter-invasion. Frankly, none of the soldiers he knew talked about it, not even those veterans from the campaign. Something was very wrong here. Shiv shook his head.
“All right, well, I didn’t know anything about that. But Roland Arrow is Blackedge's Town Lord. And the rest—the rest is the absolute truth of what I know.”
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“You said your parents performed a foul ritual behind your birth. You suspect that to be why you have your Path?”
“Yeah,” Shiv said uneasily. “My Curse went away. It had the condition that something terrible would bear fruit after meeting a certain requirement. I suspect that requirement was my death.” He chuckled. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. And probably not nearly what Roland Arrow feared.” Come to think of it, this might have been his parents’ plan all along. “If Roland Arrow had the strength to kill me, I might have gotten a Path a long time ago…”
“This is impossible,” Valor said, processing everything. “It just is. There is… This goes against everything I know about Necromancy and Animancy.”
“Animancy?” Shiv asked.
“Animancy,” the Composer explained, “is the study of souls. It is the direct modification of a Path, of every component that makes up a person’s being. It is a new skill—one very few have.”
“We know enough about the soul, however,” Valor pressed, entering the conversation. “We know enough that vitality, the mind, and the soul itself are three separate components. They work in harmony, but they are not a single construct. If what Shiv says is true, that means his mind is bound to his vitality and soul like a single unit. That’s the only way he should retain vitality after the destruction of his body. This makes him fundamentally different in composition compared to every other soul in existence. At least, every other soul we’ve seen. Even dimensionals fall under these rules, alien though their mana might be.”
Shiv was reeling.
Valor continued. “The Eclipsebreakers and the raiders from the surface gained access to many of our secrets when they captured and razed the fortress city of Submission. But there wasn’t enough time for this. How—how could they understand? How could they know what we spent centuries—no, longer—mastering ourselves? I’m telling you, it is not possible. Not… not without… not without…” Valor trailed off. His tone became ice-cold. “Not without substantial help. Not without someone who knows more about Animancy than even I do.”
The Composer looked troubled, and Valor was silent.
“So, what does this all mean? Is there something wrong with me?” Shiv looked between the dagger and the goddess.
“On the contrary,” the Composer said, looking at him with renewed interest. “You might be special. That is why one of your skills is Unique—because no one else has it. In a sense, you have a composite body: something that has your mind, your soul, and your vitality bound together, hence allowing you to exist in a state of disembodied, incorporeal life.”
“…and not the kind where one escapes death through the Ritual of the Dichotomous Soul,” Valor elaborated. “You simply can maintain yourself by draining another. Or so it sounds.”
“For a time,” the Composer said, “your vitality field is—it’s very, very chaotic. Your body gives it a stable shape, but the moment you lose your material form…”
“I start getting colder.” Shiv added, “I start dissipating.”
“Yes, I suspect you will cease to be… without draining a surplus of vitality from someone else,” the goddess finished. Both the Composer and Valor were now quiet, each lost in thought.
“So,” Shiv said, “am I going to be put in a cage? Are you going to experiment on me? If you reach into my mind, I…” He clenched his teeth. “I will kill myself, you understand. I will do my best to escape from you. I will destroy myself for good before I let you take me as a slave. This is my honesty.”
The Composer almost looked offended. Her many fingers clasped together, and she shook her head. “You have not had the best experiences with authority, have you?”
“Yeah, well, you can say that again,” Shiv said, thinking of his upbringing, of his last conversation with Roland Arrow. “But my Path is also Unique. I have a Unique Skill—a Legendary Skill. This must be interesting to some people, right?”
“Yes, but—well, we don’t need to make a slave of you to learn about this. In fact, it is pointlessly brutal to do something in that way. It’s honestly quite hurtful that you would think that of me,” the Composer finished, and she pouted. Again, the shift between girl and goddess was quick and sudden.
Shiv started to feel bad. He wasn’t expecting this. After years of Republic propaganda, he expected monsters, horrors, and nightmares lurking around every corner. Instead, he found—well, he was finding that he liked this place more than he liked it back home on Blackedge.
“I’m sorry,” Shiv said. “The things I grew up learning in the Republic, the things I thought about the Abyss—it’s just none of it is true. None of it.”
The Composer looked upon him with pity. “You’ve had a hard life, Shiv. I’m surprised you are the way you are. Many would break under these circumstances. Sorrow would seep into their souls, I’ve heard it—the songs, low and mournful.”
Shiv looked at her and shook his head. “I thought about that a few times, and I wouldn’t give the world the pleasure. World won’t stand for me? Fine, I do. I’ll be my own champion since the gods apparently hate me, and since everyone hates me. It’s the way it is, it’s the way it will be, it’s the way I will always be.” He was resolute. Even before he had his Path, that was the truest thing Shiv knew about himself. He wasn’t going to betray his own heart, not for a second.
A moment passed as the Composer studied him, and slowly, she smiled. It was a genuine, appreciative smile. “You’re a very precious boy, you know that?”
“I—what?”
“Very precious,” she said again. “Well, after hearing all this, I will need to convene with a web of my eldest daughters.”
“Will I need to be in attendance as well?” Valor asked. “You do know I hate these things.”
“I think I will spare you this time,” the Composer said. “Besides, I think it’s best that you stay with Shiv for now, until I figure out the rest of your situation.”
“My situation? I have a situation?”
“Yes, let’s talk about that, now that we’ve finished with his problems,” Valor said. “And Shiv, we will be talking about this afterward.”
Shiv swallowed. “Yeah, sorry about hiding all that from you.”
Valor didn’t acknowledge that, and Shiv felt worse. “Now, let’s talk about my problem,” Valor said. “Did you find the remnants of my soul or not?”
“I know where they are,” the Composer said with a slightly apologetic smile.
“Composer,” Valor said. “You have no idea how mad I am right now. If I weren’t trapped in this dagger…”
“You would probably be strangling me,” the Composer guessed quickly.
“Yes,” Valor said.
Shiv tried to imagine that. “How big are your hands, Valor? How big are you, actually?”
Valor let out a surprised sputter. “How big am… I won’t… I’d use magic for that, Shiv. And I was being figurative!”
But Shiv’s question broke the tension in the air, and the Composer started laughing again. “Oh, he is precious. He is truly, truly precious,” she said. “But, Valor, we really know where the pieces of your soul are. We just don’t have all of them yet. A few are held within my vaults. I will return them as soon as I can, provided that you agree to the Quest I have for you. But as for the four others… One of them is still with the Necrotechs in the Moonlit Library. Two are held by the Descenders. And the last one—the last one might be the most difficult.”
“And why is that?” Valor said, dreading.
“Because the last one was brought into a gate during a crusade into another world. A crusade led by Compact.” A moment passed, and Valor did something that Shiv never expected him to do.
Valor started cursing. Very loudly, very angrily. He cursed Compact in every way, begging for their children to be born wrong, to be born simple of mind and crippled of flesh. He prayed to the Great One, asking every member of Compact to have their greatest skills shattered and for them to gain the Path of Slave. And he finally cursed someone called the Suzerain in especially vivid detail.
With every word that Valor spoke, Shiv’s eyes widened further, and the Composer shared his expression. He looked up at her. “Is he… alright?” he muttered.
“No,” the Composer said. “He is very upset right now. In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen him this upset since the last time we fought.”
“Well, this is just—this is grand!” Valor ground out. “How am I supposed to return now with that piece missing? Ah, of course! We just need to find the dimension that it got lost in and then retrieve it. Which means an invasion. It means that we need to perform an incursion on another world, Composer.” His voice rose, each word building in rage. “Have you considered that? Do you have an army ready to invade another world?”
“Invading another world?” Shiv said. “Like what happened to ours all the way back in the Apocalyptic Era?”
“Yes,” Valor replied. “Invasions will always trigger a Quest for all locals of that world to bring their collective power to bear against the invaders. A war like no other.”
“I’ll come up with a plan,” the Composer said quickly. “Don’t worry—just be patient for a little while longer.”
“I’ve been patient for the past forty years!” Valor almost screamed. “Forty years in the darkness! Forty years of no sight, no feeling, no impression of anything. Forty years and no one to talk to. No one! Forty years imprisoned by my own son for doing the right thing!”
Both Shiv and the Composer were dead-silent now.
“Forty years...” Valor finished. By the end, the great hero sounded like he was weeping.