116 (II) Vicar
Shiv’s blood turned to ice in his veins. Even the soul-rending pain was forgotten.
The skeletal visage of a titanic serpent hovered right above him, the oscillating flas in its eye sockets bathing him in a pale glow. Behind Shiv, a veil of darkness had ford, and the detonation of energy that had left Shiv’s body when the wave of Necromancy struck him was slowly being siphoned into a sphere of red and white grasped by eight of the vicar’s countless hands. The vicar himself was ethereal. Translucent.
Sullain gave a gasp of effort as he wrestled Shiv’s exploding vitae under control. “You are the one who fell from the town. The boy. You have survived. You have changed. And you have returned.”
Shiv took a step back, and he barely stopped himself from shrieking as a rush of pain sliced through his body. Fuck… Don’t… I need to…
“Your soul is… different. But I have seen sothing of this composition before. Udraal showed . The technique of interweaving, the process to create a living soul; an Unfettered Animus… Your soul takes more than just my Animancy to manipulate. I need to focus on your Vitality as well. How harmoniously complicated. It is just like him to create such a thing…”
Vicar Sullain let out a slight laugh as he flicked the now-controlled sphere of vitae up into the air. It hovered beside the kiloter-long serpent as he looked down at Shiv. The face of the Vicar was oddly expressive, despite being mostly made of a black alloy. He sohow looked sorrowful. “Poor child. I heard your cry. But I did not pay attention to you, so committed was I to shattering the town of the Flabringer. I would have never allowed you harm if I knew. Not until I was certain of who you were.”
Shiv tried to reply, but it was all he could do to stop himself from shaking. Holy shit I’m in so much godsdamned pain.
“Yeah, well.” Shiv bit back a whimper. “Maybe if you stop sieging the town and just go back down into the Abyss, we can call it even?”
The Vicar stared at him. “I can see your flesh lted into your armor. I can see so of your organs spread around the cracks. Most would be incoherent with pain. But not you. You must have lived a painful life. A torturous life. I’m sorry.”
Despite how bad it hurt, Shiv shrugged. “I just… take things as they co.”
Cracks ford throughout his temporal shell. But the Vicar made a brief gesture, and a tidal wave of gold splashed through Shiv, restoring the skill’s integrity in a flash. Shiv blinked in surprise, but then he let out a gasp as he felt the Vicar’s Chronomancy tighten around him.
“Strider of the Unbending Path,” the Vicar comnted. He slithered down from the air in a smooth, spiraling motion and drew close to Shiv. The dense sphere of Vitae extracted from him bobbed above the serpent like a small star. “That is a skill for dragons, my child. How did you achieve such an evolution?”
“A certain eldritch abomination decided to start hitting with its past selves.”
“Ah. A Recollector.”
“A Recollector?” Shiv breathed. “There’s more like it?”
“Trillions,”the Vicar said, chuckling. “And billions more every day as the Stranger feeds.”
Shiv couldn’t imagine facing a trillion of anything. He couldn’t even imagine how large a trillion was.
“I am Vicar Sullain.” The great serpent crossed its many ethereal arms. “I realize I have not greeted you properly. My apologies for such inconsiderate behavior, but to excuse myself, the fla that burst forth from your body would have vaporized my army, this town, most of your Republic, the Tidewall, and a good portion of the Grand Pacific.”
Shiv’s eyes widened. “That… bad…”
“It likely could have been much worse if I had not contained it in haste,” Sullain said, turning to gaze at the Vitae sphere. “May I inquire about your na?”
Shiv tried to jump back in ti, to the temporal anchor he had left right outside the Surface Gateway. His Chronomancy moved—and jolted in place as it crashed against the Vicar’s magic. A shudder passed through Shiv’s soul. Pain exploded inside him—that’s how deep the burns went. Against all odds, Shiv didn’t collapse. He even held back a scream.
“Your na, please?” Sullain asked again, with a bit more weight this ti. “It is impolite to attempt to leave in the middle of a conversation, dear child. Especially when I have been so polite.”
“Yeah, you also kind of set off like a bomb,” Shiv hissed. He tested his Biomancy, and when he realized it was unconstrained, he tried to remove it from his body. Only to discover he couldn’t separate when his tissues began and his bone armor ended. At that mont, he was glad he didn’t have a mirror. His stomach turned. Gods, I must look like a nightmare.
“No,” Sullain said, answering Shiv’s thought. “You are rely wounded. So might call you disfigured now, but aesthetics are not a thing I cling so desperately to. I know true nightmares. And you are not one.”
He’s in my mind! Shiv gasped internally.
“Only the surface,” Sullain said. “I will not go further. I refuse. It is no different than physically violating soone to . To take soone’s will from them, to delve into their heart and force your way into their mories, is a disgusting act. Or so it has always seed to . In this cruel world, all we have is our sense of self. I do not have the heart to take even that.”
Shiv stared at the Vicar for a mont as he fought to get his mind back under control. When he managed to focus enough, he was going to use Outside Context Problem and see if he could jump back to the Surface Gateway. For now…
Maybe gathering so intelligence wouldn’t be so bad either.
“Yes,” the Vicar agreed. “Details matter. Learning about another person is a subli joy. But I must tell you that there is no skill that will allow you to leave without my permission. You are strong, dear child. But only for a child. You have not begun to learn the true depths of the soul and the true reaches of one’s skill. Now. Your na, please.”
“Shiv,” he finally said to the Vicar. “I call myself Shiv. It’s the only na I’ll ever accept.”
“Shiv,” the Vicar echoed. “Like the weapon?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it because of the weapon?”
Shiv nodded slowly. “Kept safe on the streets. Kept people away. I liked that about them. Made feel safe. Made feel powerful. So, Shiv.”
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Slowly, the Vicar leaned in and stared at Shiv for a long mont. Faint, blue mana glead within the Vicar’s glass eyes, and his long, tallic teeth clicked together as he let out a reverberating breath. “I see… And I recognize you… Your face… Your eyes… You are the child of my enemies. Harlon Lowe is your father. Vera Lowe is your mother.” The Vicar held up a hand, and a crimson helix danced upon the palm. Two more sets of helices superimposed themselves over the first, and the Vicar sighed. “I knew there was sothing about you when I sensed your flesh. But I was so consud that I didn’t focus. I was so enraged and black of mood on the day of my retribution, I just let you fall.”
“Seems everyone knows more about dear old mom and dad than ,” Shiv ground out.
“A pity. But your woes may be at an end soon. There is soone I should return you to. To show that his project has achieved sothing of a success… I am curious about how you ca to be… Perhaps you can tell yourself. I would be most obliged.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Shiv said. “And I’m not sothing to be returned to anyone. I’m my own man.”
“Udraal would disagree. And he will co for you eventually. It is certain. You are the result of his hand. I am sure of it now.”
And Valor pretty much said the sa when Shiv left the gate.
“Valor?” Sullain breathed. He was suddenly much closer to Shiv, eyes gleaming. “He Who Still Eternity… He has been freed, then. How troubling.”
Shit, I really need to watch my thoughts around this guy.
“Your language as well,” the Vicar said. “I do not appreciate coarseness when it is not required. However, you arrive as quite the enigma. To appear suddenly… Have you returned to protect your ho?”
“Sothing like that,” Shiv said, not seeing the point in lying about this. “Most people who live on Blackedge are sacks of shit to . But they don’t deserve to die just for being sacks of shit. There are people I care about there as well. And there’s a certain Town Lord whom I need to punch, and you’re cutting in line.”
“You? You wish to face Roland Arrow?”
“Just wanna hit him in the face a couple tis. A couple hundred tis. Until so of his teeth are broken, maybe.”
An amused chuckle escaped from the Vicar. “I see. And your grudge, then, is personal.”
“And yours isn’t?” Shiv asked. He considered his next words, but let his intuition guide him. “I know about Submission. Well. Sothing about Submission. I want to understand why you’re doing all this. What the hells is the point of sacking all of Blackedge? And why have you allied yourself with the Inquisition to do it?”
“Ah, you know of my deplorable associations as well?” Despite his words, the Vicar sounded surprised more than ashad.
And just then, Shiv realized there was sothing extrely funny he could do to the Inquisition, just by telling a distorted story. “Know about them? I ran into the Inquisition bastards at Theborn—those idiots lost your Animancy Core.”
Silver Tongue 21 > 22
The Vicar went very still. “They WHAT?”
“Yeah. They lost your core. It was supposed to pass through the gate and be delivered to you, right? It’s with Lord Scorn now. Well, scattered all over his world, more like. Because it went off on Vulketh.”
“WHAT!” Sullain shouted. “HOW! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?”
Shiv didn’t even bother hiding his shit-eating grin. “Because the dumb bastards tried to take it from that neurotic Gate Lord by force, and things went to shit in the process. Although I think they were planning on stealing it from you to begin with. To withhold the core from you as leverage, and leave you without any way to empower your weapon. They want Starhawk’s Perch, and they were afraid that you were going to—”
The Vicar let out a rageful cry. An anvil of fire crashed down through his body, knocking Shiv down. The Deathless did black out from the pain that ti, but he woke shrieking as his ruined flesh impacted the ground.
Twin voices filled the air in the ti-frozen ruins of Lost Angeles. Shiv’s throat almost tore from the force of his pained screams, but they were drowned out by the Vicar’s wrathful declarations of hatred that he directed at the sky, promising to unmake the Inquisition whole.
Deception 11 > 12
After a few seconds of screaming, Shiv finally managed to master enough of himself to close his mouth and crawl into a sitting position. Okay. I… I don’t know how much more I can take before dropping dead. I need to get out—
“No.” The Vicar’s words smashed into Shiv physically. Blood erupted from his mouth as he blasted across the ground. Shiv slid for a good hundred ters before he finally stilled. It took seconds to stop his agonized wails. As he tried to rise, the Vicar lood over him. “Speak. What else do you know? Do you lie or spit truth?”
Shiv spat blood up at the ethereal serpent, only for it to splatter back down on his own face. “If you head south, you can ask City Lord Havel yourself. When he finds out the core is lost and he has no leverage on you… They might just decide to wipe you off the board for good asure.”
The Legendary Pathbearer stilled.
Shiv snorted, blood spraying from his nostrils. “They want the Perch, and… now that you did most of the work, you're no longer of any use.”
Shiv guessed the Vicar would be able to easily tell if he told him outright nonsense—even with his claims about not wanting to dig deeper into his mind—so he told him what he believed to be the truth. The Inquisition was probably going to do that—just maybe not imdiately.
“Hah… I knew this would happen. But not so soon. How shortsighted of .” The Vicar shook his head. “I was a fool for thinking the surfacers could be trusted, even for a ti.”
Shiv winced, then. He was losing track of ti. Taunting the Vicar wasn't what he had been intending to do here. He needed to focus. He needed to…
“What else?” When Shiv’s focus snapped back, he found the vicar looming directly over him.
“Nothing else,” Shiv growled. “That’s all I wanted to tell you—”
He gritted his teeth as the Vicar made a gesture at him. It felt like his soul was twisting inside of him, growing tighter and tighter. Shiv’s eyes rolled. It wasn't the worst pain he'd experienced, but it felt incredibly ominous. Like so fundantal part of his being was in soone's grasp. “Piece of shit…” he spat. “What happened to being… polite? Fucking… torturing as a second resort?”
“I do what I must,” the vicar declared with conviction. “Speak. And the pain ends. Do not make push into your mind.”
Shiv couldn’t help but laugh. Yeah, Vicar Sullain was a piece of shit. That nice and caring bullshit lasted seconds. This is who the big snake really was. A fucking asshole.
“And no more swearing!” Sullain snarled, clenching his hand.
Shiv felt the Vicar trying to break his body physically. He pushed back at the unseen field with his Biomancy. The Vicar scoffed and tore Shiv’s Biomancy field like it was nothing but paper. Shiv gagged and vomited from the agony. He started seizing as the Vicar broke all his limbs at once. Compared to even just the pain of his field being ripped apart, however, it didn't hurt particularly badly. The Vicar clearly didn't know much about torturing people.
“I know how to keep you alive, boy. Speak. Speak, and the hurt ends. It fouls my spirit to do this to you, but I will not be denied.”
“F-fuck you,” Shiv wheezed. Soone was screaming at him—screaming from inside of him—Rose!
Sullain reached for him again.
Shiv triggered his Outside Context Problem and plunged into his own Vitae. A badly corroded layer of black and white enveloped Shiv. The Vicar lurched back, confused. Shiv cast his Chronomancy back in ti—back to the very first anchor he planted right outside Gate Not-Theborn.
Shiv blinked across existence. It was like he was being reeled back across his personal history by a cord of mana. The pain faded for a mont during the transition. Shiv thought he was going to revert to a point where he wasn’t wounded, where he was still whole and hale. The assumption was proven wrong the mont he blinked back into existence. His flesh combusted and lted into his armor imdiately.
Every soul-wound he'd suffered monts ago returned to him all at once. His Chronomany might have been able to revert the wounded state of his body, but when the damage lined his Vitae—
Shiv collapsed and began to shake. He didn’t even scream anymore. It was too much. It was all too much. He shook and twitched on the soft soil, but there ca no relief. The pain never ended. It just built and built and built and built.
Even as a blue light splashed over him.
Even as he heard Adam screaming his na.
Even when he died.
Revenant 50 > 51 (Skill Evolution Reached)
And it only got worse when Revenant started to evolve.
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