41 (II) Conspiracy

41 (II)

Conspiracy

“Shit,” Shiv cried, clutching his head. The visions hit him hard that time. That was Tran. And Heather. They were hurt bad. That meant the other two were… “Where?”

“What?” Oldsmith asked.

The automaton’s annoying voice and the rising rage Shiv felt after the vision provoked him to violence. He clamped a hand around Oldsmith’s left arm and tore. The limb came off with a spray of oil, sparks, and screams. Oldsmith whistled in notes of electronic agony no human throat could ever make. Mira thrashed and twitched, sobbing as she struggled to escape. Siggy was slumped against the door, her legs giving out under her.

“Where? Where is the Slayer team? Tell me where!” Shiv snarled. His heartbeats were like thunder, and his blood was on fire with the urge to do harm. He didn’t like Heather. Tran betrayed him on some level. Didn’t mean he was fine with some Inquisitor torturing them to death. Didn’t mean Shiv was just going to let them die. Not when he still—Tran had been the only person outside the restaurant nice to him sometimes.

Even if it was fake, it still meant something to Shiv.

It took a while for Oldsmith to stop screaming. By the time it did, the automaton was full-on sobbing in agony and horror. “They’re here! In the building! They’re in a secret chamber in the sublevels. A blacksite! You could have just waited—my arm. You could have—”

Whatever else Oldsmith was going to say died as Shiv seized the bot by the neck and lifted it. “You. You’re going to take me there, right now. Siggy. You’re coming too.”

The goblin Pathbearer tried to stand, but she couldn’t. “I—you could just rebar me, like Mira.”

Shiv glared at her. “You mistake order for request.”

Siggy whimpered in response. “O-okay. You’re the boss.”

“You take… point. Stay ahead of us, but not that far. Tell me if anyone’s outside or at the elevator. You try to run, and I’ll push all the organs inside you out through your mouth.”

“Oh, gods, oh shit…” Siggy shuddered as she pushed open the door.

“And you,” Shiv said, looking at Mira. The secretary cried out in terror, clicking her legs and shaking her head. A feeling of self-disgust and embarrassment came over Shiv. “I’m… sorry.” Mira blinked in surprise. “I was… I am really pissed off. About a lot of things. I shouldn’t have threatened you so harshly. I shouldn’t have scared you.” Shiv frowned. “I’m not very good at tactics, stealth, or the whole complicated planning thing yet. I’ll have to get better at that. Just stay here for a while. Someone will find you.”

Done with his apology, Shiv gestured for the staring Siggy to leave, and he followed her out with Oldsmith still in his hand. “And you,” he said to the automaton. “Start talking about this secret chamber. How many Inquisitors there are. Their Tiers. Everything.”

And Oldsmith talked. And Oldsmith told him everything.

***

“I mean, how much could they really know? They’re just some Slayers—and barely small-time, at that. Up until the attack, their biggest problem was maybe clearing out some lesser vampires.” Den sighed as he took a sip from his coffee. “I just don’t see the point of working them that rough. If it were up to me, just wipe their minds and ship them off to re-education. Or kill them.”

“It’s not up to you,” Gewen said. She was judging him with those eyes again. He hated when she did that. It was just the two of them on guard in the entry room for the blacksite. The other two Questioners were in the cells, aiding the Inquisitor with the prisoners. Blacksite Theborn never saw much action—it was mostly just a reserve location in case they needed to take and hold a high profile target in the Blackedge area. This past week, though? They had their hands full. Two surviving rebels from Blackedge. Former Slayers. Apparently, Town Lord Arrow sent them off to the capital to deliver news and bring back aid.

They didn’t make it very far.

“They might not know much, but they can still reveal things about the town. And about any of Arrow’s weaknesses,” Gewen chimed. Den snorted at the automaton’s words. “What? Speak.”

“Did you read Roland Arrow’s threat profile?” Den asked.

She was silent for a moment. “I've been busy with the prisoners.”

“Yeah. Well. I did some of our required reading, and let me tell you—the guy’s a monster. Twenty. Twenty godsdamned Master-Tier Skills. With that kind of status, he’s practically Legendary anyway.”

Gewen scoffed. “What drivel. If the Prismatic Order mustered a single Purification Squad, we would see him secured in a day.”

“And here we are, two weeks on, and the battle is still raging.”

“Has a Purification Squad been dispatched?”

“No, but there is a Legendary Pathbearer from the Abyss that has been getting repelled time and time again by Arrow. You’re going to tell me a single Adept Purification Squad is going to be more effective?”

“Yes,” Gewen said. She held out her three mechanical arms and leaned her bulbous head backward. “Because we have the favor and faith of the Aurora. Because we are the only blessed in this damned world.”

Den wasn’t unfaithful by any means, but believing in the gods wasn’t synonymous with being delusional. He was also smart enough to know that it was stupid to debate a fanatical automaton. “You know what, Gewen. You’re right. A Purification Squad could totally do it.”

“I am glad you are so willing to learn and change your foolish thinking. It is your most redeeming quality.”

Den snorted again. Gewen was about to say something when a section of the wall clicked and hissed as the secret entrance to the blacksite slid open. Den blinked. He shared a look with Gewen. “Do we have another scheduled delivery?”

Gewen filled her hands with three maces and readied herself. “No. We don’t.”

But then through the crack squeezed the annoyance. The one they had to babysit. Master-Advisor Maxwell Oldsmith. It staggered through with a cough and a large coat around its body. “Ah,” Oldsmith began. “It’s absolutely miserable out there. The damned Gate Lord has—he has no sense of decency or understanding at all.”

“Oh, great,” Den deadpanned. “The only person I dislike talking to more than you is here.”

“A sentiment shared,” Gewen said, putting away her maces. “Master-Advisor. This place is not for you without proper notification. Please depart. We are engaged in highly delicate operations.”

“Well, that’s just the thing,” Oldsmith said. There was a slight quiver in its voice. “You seem to have missed a subject! Another one! I’ve been instructed to bring you another one! And you won’t believe who it is: The Town Lord himself! Roland Arrow!”

Den and Gewen shared a look. The Master-Advisor wasn’t known for its comedy, and so they both grabbed their weapons again and stepped toward the doorway to find out what the hells was going on. As they approached, Den frowned. “Hey, what happened to the lights? Why is it so—”

Something passed through the center of Den’s face. He took a step forward, and his head started spinning. Things felt weird, the Master-Advisor was turning away from him, talking to the darkness about how he did what someone asked. Behind Den came the sound of a falling body. But Den didn’t notice because he was reaching for his nose. There was a ticklish feeling there. But his fingers kept going and going and… his hand was all the way in his face. His nose wasn’t there. His upper lip and all the teeth weren't there. A gust of wind came from the dark hall and washed through the new exit wound left in the back of his head.

Den blinked one last time, and then fell over.

***

Stealth > 33

Marksmanship > 12

Shiv emerged from his Umbral Shadowalker state to observe his handiwork. Two dead for a single bone drill. The shot went straight through the elf’s face, but it took the bot's head clean off. Beside him, the Master-Advisor was babbling about how he did everything to the letter, that Shiv could trust him.

“Siggy,” Shiv said. “Pick up a weapon.” The goblin hesitated. He just stared at her until she complied. She chose one of the three maces the automaton was using, and she nodded at him. “Good. Close the door. If the Master-Advisor moves, beat it to death.”

Slowly, the Master-Advisor looked at Siggy, but her eyes remained locked on Shiv. A nice thing about Intimidation: When someone was scared enough of you, they basically turned into a free assistant. Fear was a pretty wonderful tool. And that was why he dropped his Perfect Semblance. He was going to be taking a new identity soon anyway, and when he entered that cell, he intended to brutalize the Inquisitors in both spirit and body for what they were doing.

“I—I can help you get into the cell! It’s spell sealed!” Shiv ignored Oldsmith’s words as he picked the dead elf off the ground. He regarded the hole in the middle of the corpse’s face and simply turned the elf sideways a bit.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

There, Shiv thought as he chuckled to himself. Practically like you’re still alive.

As he got to the reinforced door Oldsmith was talking about, he regarded the layered mess of shapes and colors flowing in a complex pattern. It looked like something he might see on a teleportation anchor. Maybe if he filled up his Momentum Core, he could eventually blast through, but right now, he felt like using his head a bit more. And a little more finesse. Those were things he needed to improve.

Shiv was ultimately a straightforward guy who liked straightforward solutions. He made a fist and hammered it against the dense, metal door. The active spells repulsed his hand and blared a note of alarm. Shiv prepared himself, holding up the dead elf. But not before sending his bone drill to burst every light nearby. He went invisible, just as the reinforced door cracked open.

“What? What is—” A bald, sneering human stuck his face out. He glared at the corpse. “Den? What is the meaning of this? I told you—”

Shiv’s Biomancy flooded the room. There were five people there. Two were extremely injured—probably Heather and Tran. Two more had no Magical Resistance or Biomancy. The last one felt like a slab of metal to Shiv’s magic. That poor bastard was going to end up suffering the most. But the Inquisitors were all

The Deathless twisted the spines of the two who had no Magical Resistance. Sudden squeals of absolute misery came from inside the interrogation room. The bald man offered one such squeal, and he fell over as Shiv yanked the door open. Not yet done, he tossed the dead elf inside and then exploded the corpse to create some kind of a blood-mist bomb to further obscure his approach.

He identified Heather and Tran bolted to a colorless, gunmetal gray wall on his right. The last of the Inquisitors cursed—but responded. She drew her curved saber—and its material gleamed like Lady Harkness’s rapier. Stellarite, Shiv remembered the composition of the weapon being called.

He stomped toward her, taking his time, the metallic white of his exoskeleton painted over by a thin layer of red. The Inquisitor he faced was armored as well, wearing a full set of emerald green armor—except for the helmet. “Stop!” She snarled, her brown eyes wide with determination—and no small amount of fear. “You don’t know who—”

Shiv launched his bone drill at her. She cursed and parried it aside. Shiv blinked as the Inquisitor practically zipped blade-first at his chest after she blocked his attack. Her saber flashed with the glorious brightness of the morning sun. Shiv felt it leave a cut on his bone drill—even with his Adamantine Adaption. And she was fast too—faster than him by far, with his Momentum Core empty.

The tip of her saber pierced his armor—and then it got stuck as bones grew denser, matching both the force and extreme heat. The woman’s eyes widened. Shiv grabbed her by the arm and laughed. “That’s a nice weapon skill. Evolution of Parry?”

She tried pulling herself back, cursing as she strained. Barely an Adept of Physicality, it seemed. A Low Master. A bit like him. Her blade ignited—turning white with how much heat it was releasing. But it didn’t cut any deeper. She was going to need a lot more force and heat to do anything. That, or try an attack he wasn’t adapted to.

“Fine,” Shiv said. “Don’t answer me. I’ll ask you again after I break you.” And then Shiv pulled her off her feet and started slamming her against the walls. Her armor was of damn good quality. Her limb shredded and dislocated. She screamed. The armor didn’t even scratch. He was going to take that after she was dead.

Maybe Uva could use this, he thought.

He dashed the Inquisitor over and over against the wall—until the spell patterns started flickering in places and the metal began to dent. She went limp after the twenty-second swing, and he bounced her head against the walls twice more before he stopped. By this point, the limb he clutched could rotate three hundred and sixty degrees, because the socket didn’t exist. Her face was also unrecognizable.

“Adept Toughness too,” Shiv grunted. “Should keep your helmet on, then.”

She let out a wheeze and twitched.

Grappling Proficiency > 50 (Skill Evolution Imminent)

Might of Mass > 94

Momentum Core > 74

“My legs… I can’t feel my legs,” the bald Inquisitor moaned. He was trying to crawl out of the room. Shiv walked over and dragged him back in. It was then that he noticed the front of the Inquisitor’s legs was opposite to the man’s torso. Looks like I twisted him a bit harder than expected. The Inquisitor howled with pain. Shiv’s Biomancy helped him feel Siggy shiver in fright.

“Bastard! Bastard heathen!” the bald Inquisitor howled as he was tossed beside the other Inquisitor. That one was a pale, raven-maned man wearing a heavy focus crystal helmet. He was the Psychomancer of the group. He had also blacked out from the pain, earning Shiv’s disapproval. “You will burn for this! The Auroral Council will know of your deeds! Whatever you do to us, they will punish—punish—”

“Yeah. Sure. But I was already Omenborn so… not much of a threat to me. But we’ll talk more about this soon.”

Shiv turned away from his three disabled enemies. He was going to question them and Oldsmith some more in this room after this. No sense being wasteful. It also might make for a good temporary base of operations, come to think of it.

Now, it was time for the harder part of the operation: Saving Tran and Heather. He focused his Biomancy field on them and groaned in discomfort. Frankly, he didn’t need the field. Both of the Slayers were barely clothed—stripped down to their undergarments. Heather was badly burned. One of her legs was a blackened nub at the knee. She was also running an extreme fever as her body suffered multiple infections at once.

Tran wasn’t better. Both of his legs were broken. A crude set of stitches held his chest together, and he was bleeding internally from so many organs that if he wasn't an Adept, he probably would’ve been long dead already.

“S-stop! Hu-hurts… Please. Just… just kill me. Just kill me.” Tran’s whispered plea made Shiv feel sick. And that sickness turned to burning rage.

“What in the felling shit were you people doing?” Shiv snarled. He snatched the bald Inquisitor off the ground and made the man look at his deeds. “Was it your intention to leave your prisoners near death? What was your plan? To have them die during torture? For what?”

The Inquisitor’s face struggled between fear and defiance, but finally, he spat on Shiv’s helmet. “To purify them. Because they turned from the glory of the Aurora. Because they were traitors to the Republic.”

“You’re the ones working with a rogue Necrotech priest!” Shiv shouted.

The Inquisitor sneered. “Working. The fool is just a tool. We are the masters. And we will take this world, for the glory of the Council.”

Shiv stared at the man for a long moment, and realized he was talking to a uniquely stupid

The bald Inquisitor hesitated. And then spat again. “Again with the spitting,” Shiv grumbled.

“Our lives are already taken!” The Inquisitor breathed. “Given freely to the Republic and our gods. Do what you will. And it is pointless as well.” The bald man laughed. “We do not use potions. We had a Biomancer as one of our Questioners. But she died earlier today. Caught in the wrong place crossing a bridge—struck down as two monstrous Masters born of this degenerate Abyss tore her apart without even noticing she was there. I saw… I saw…”

And Shiv noticed the sorrow in the bald man’s eyes.

Godsdammit! Shiv raged internally. He knew—he knew there was—he wasn’t thinking during his fight with 811—he didn’t expect—There are always consequences. Always. The System loves strife. It rewards us for it. But we’re damned by it as well. I should—I need to use more caution. I need to fight more carefully…

He looked at Tran and Heather and swallowed. Shiv might have just unwittingly killed them.

Slowly, Tran blinked and lifted his head. He looked around the room, saw the carnage, saw the blood, saw the three broken Inquisitors, and the skeletal brute standing across from him. And he coughed. “Well. This is a damn weird dying dream.”

“Not a dream,” Shiv replied, reaching into both Tran and Heather with his Biomancy. He—he wasn’t ready for this. He could maybe close a cut by this point or reconnect a bone, but actual healing for all those wounds and all those organs was—he needed a lot more time to study.

“Are you death?” Tran gasped. “You look like…” He sagged. “Thanks. For hurting them. I—I really wanted someone to hurt them. I started calling out to gods I didn’t believe in. Maybe you were one of them.”

Shiv lifted his helmet and took off his mask. “Come on, Tran. Talking like that’s going to give me an ego problem.”

Tran blinked. A hard feat to accomplish with a swollen eye. “Shiv?”

“Yeah.”

“I… how? They… they found your bodies. So many bodies. What… what happened to you? How are you here? And… how the hells are you so godsdamned big?”

“Long story,” Shiv said. He glared at the clamps holding Heather and Tran in place. “But I’m getting you and Heather out.”

Tran laughed sadly. “Don’t think so, kid. I’m—I’ve been a Pathbearer long enough to know I’m good and tainted. These wounds are…”

“I’m a Biomancer,” Shiv said, gritting his teeth. “I can… I can try.” And that was all he could do. So close to a Skill Evolution for Biomancy, Shiv needed a miracle. Something from the System that would allow him to keep these two alive without much knowledge of medicine or biology. And so Shiv reached out. He reached deep into their wounds, and—

The bald Inquisitor laughed. “You’re just going to watch them die. I see what you are now! Another traitor come to save his people! But they are lost to—aghghhgh!” His voice trailed off as Shiv turned his Biomancy on the man in a rage. His field remained connected to Heather and Tran, and instinctively, he began imprinting their wounds onto the bald Inquisitor.

“No! Stop! The Aurora! The Ascendants will avenge me! They will punish you—” His voice turned into a rising howl of primal torment. His legs turned to burned nubs. His chest ripped open as if he was cut. His organs burst and ruptured, bones breaking in accompaniment. And so consumed by focus, anger, and impotence, and Shiv didn’t notice the System answering his plea.

Skill Evolution: Biomancy (Initiate) > Woundeater (Master)

Woundeater > 52

A swirling vortex of crimson mana exploded out from Shiv as his field practically tripled in size and strength. Spell patterns twisted out of him, turning into twin wyrms of twisting red that dove through Tran and Heather. The wyrms swam. The wyrms ate. The wyrms devoured the bleeding, ruined, and broken parts of the Slayers’ bodies. When the wyrms emerged, they twisted and danced around Shiv’s outstretched arms, their bodies containing a series of wounds collected and crystallized in mana.

The room was drowned in red. The Inquisitor looked up, and his eyes widened in absolute disbelief. “My… my gods.”

Intimidation > 48

And then Shiv cast both wyrms into the man—transferring every wound he just stole into his enemy. The Inquisitor gave a final howl as he was biologically sundered.

A new blossom of blood erupted in the room, drenching Shiv and everyone else. Only then did the Deathless realize what he had done in a rage. He looked at his hands, and he realized his magic had changed. A small, twisting wyrm continued circling his damaged arm—his left arm, nibbling away at the harm that had been done to him—but to no avail.

The soul damage still needed time to heal.

Tran and Heather, however…

Heather inhaled sharply as she opened her eyes, her fever dying down. She took in the bloody horror show that was the interrogation room, Shiv looking at his hands, the remains of the dead Inquisitor that just assumed the debt of her injuries, and then at Tran, who was as dumbfounded as she was.

“Well,” Shiv said, looking at the Slayers and grinning. “Looks like all that self-mutilation and cancer gave me something useful.”

Heather just gawked. “What the fuck?”