Path of the Deathless 119 (I)  Offer [I]

I don't know how to stop the orcs. Let's start there. I have no idea.

This war has been going on for generations. Longer than my grandmother can rember. Maybe just as long as the last incursion. We're Lone Star. We fight. Our automata build their inheritors to be bombers, gunners, processors, and makers. They yearn to beco walking factories on legs, or siege engines that hold sky and land. Our children are soldiers from the day they're born. We live together in packs. No one even goes to take a shit alone.

Across the world, our Artillerists and our Rangers are known and honored, and yet we are being ground down. I've looked at the demographics. It's not going to be enough for much longer.

We do not have three more generations, and the orcs have limitless numbers. They keep coming. There's always more of them. They don't stay dead.

And every sumr, it gets worse. That Legendary Warlord of theirs is learning our ways. He's adopting our ways. More than stealth, they're starting up their own artillery corps. They're fighting just like us. They wear uniforms designed in mockery of ours.

And anwhile, we die. They take our towns, and we hear the screams on the wind. It isn't just the people in the towns they kill.

I looked at the suicide statistics of first responders. I don't want to ever see that again. They're breaking us in more ways than one.

Knowing all this, I couldn't go on anymore. I needed to understand how to stop them. I needed to learn their ways. So I did the unthinkable. I reached out to their Challenger. I accepted that offer he had for . The offer that had been there for 20 years. 20 years I ignored it. 20 long years. And finally, I agreed.

He sent an orc to teach their ways. To show how to get better at killing them. And he did show . And he did fight for . He killed his own kind. He instructed on orc psychology. On their nature. On their weaknesses.

And through it all, I learned that there's nothing to break there. They love this. The struggle of war. You can't torture an orc because, while he might not enjoy the pain as it's being inflicted, it's ultimately all in good fun for him. It's a novel experience. He'll rember you, and he'll co back, and he'll try to outdo you. He'll try to torture you better than you tortured him.

And they don't care about each other. They can only love soone that isn't an orc. Maybe that's our only advantage. Humanity will fight together. We're communal. Tribal. They are a group of apex predators that put up with each other because they treat our world as a shared hunting ground.

High Command is delusional. They think that if we can mass enough artillery, enough powerful Pathbearers to perform one final charge, that we can get to the other side of their gate and destroy the connection between their dinsion and ours. They don't know what the Tutorial is like. They've never seen it. But I have. The orc showed much of his mories. That place is a death pit. We’re not taking it. Not as we are.

What we need is soone that is more than the orcs. That's better at brutality than they. That's more committed to violence. That's more willing to learn, adapt, beco, and assimilate the ways of war than the orcs. We need soone that is practically exactly like them but isn't ruled by cruelty, isn't consud by brutality, isn't enslaved to the cruel god that is the Challenger.

But where the fuck are we gonna find soone like that?

-Hero-Ranger Morgan Munny

119 (I)

Offer [I]

Adam's pace suddenly slowed to a crawl, just as he arrived before the doors of the infirmary. Prior to this point, he had been flying fast, curving and twisting through the air with such a eulogy that Shiv couldn't keep up with him—not without throwing his knife and reorienting the direction of his Inertial Overdrive.

But it wasn't hard to figure out why the Gate Lord stopped. Uncertainty gripped Adam. Anxiety. There was a great deal of weight that he felt. eting a mother he'd known to be dead all his life, a mother resurrected by soone he once hated.

But though Adam's footsteps slowed, Shiv's didn't. He seized Adam by his shoulders, and he began to push him forward.

"There's no need for this," Adam snarled, shaking Shiv off. "I'm moving. Don't rush ."

"Not rushing you," Shiv said. "But you gotta put one foot in front of the other. This was never gonna be easy, but you need to talk to her. No running away now.”

"Just give ti," Adam spat.

Shiv stopped walking. Adam stumbled away from him. He eyed the Deathless with an annoyed glare. But then the look softened, and the true depths of Adam's fear exposed themselves in his eyes. He resembled a child now more than ever. His gaze lingered on Shiv's as if he were looking for direction. But where Adam was hesitant, Shiv only knew one way through trauma and discomfort.

Forward.

"Listen, Adam," Shiv began. But then, instead of pressing on, he actually spent a mont longer thinking about his words. His Psychology and Philosophy Skills worked in tandem as he processed his own thoughts. What did he want to say to Adam? What was his intention right now? Was it to pressure his brother-in-arms? To get him to et his mother imdiately and see the matter done? Or was he trying to make Adam feel better? To assuage the Gate Lord's feelings and ensure that he didn't suffer any more lingering trauma? And there was bound to be trauma, especially after all that had happened. Especially after all these years lost.

I just want Adam to experience the best outco. Whatever that is.

Adam stared at him uncertainly. "I'm not delaying," Adam said, making up a justification. "I'm just thinking about what I'm trying to say as well."

They were rely a few ters away from the door. An Umbral erged from Rose's room, and she spotted both Shiv and Adam. But before she could say anything, Shiv held up a hand, and a strand of Uva's Psychomancy passed through her as well.

Imdiately, she offered a nod and continued down the hall the other way. The rest of the rooms along the hall were empty, save for a Weaveress taking a nap with a magazine over her face. Standing in the hall were Adam, Uva, and Shiv.

Valor waited at the entrance, and Can Hu drifted there alongside him. The Penitent and the Legendary Pathbearer were talking. Both of them were looking at Shiv. He was going to have to discuss things with them afterward as well. But for now, Adam had need of him, even if the Gate Lord wasn't sure about it.

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"Listen, Adam, I'm not going to force you to do anything. No one in this gate can force you to do anything," Shiv said. "I don't know what it's like for you. I won't pretend to know. But I can tell you this. You're going to have to walk through that door at so point. If you're too stressed after what we've just been through, fine. But it has to be soon. There's not a lot of ti to delay."

"I know," Adam whispered.

"What are you afraid of?" Shiv asked.

"I don't know," Adam said. "My mother is back, I think. Or is she? Is she even my mother? Shiv, you pulled a woman that looks like Rose Van Erren out of your Vitae. She—I want to hope. But I'm also…” The Gate Lord looked down at the ground and bit his lip. “I’m scared. I’m afraid this will be taken from .”

"Yeah," Shiv said, nodding in agreent. "We don't know. So, if this is going to hurt you, then it's a question of now or later. When do you want to get stabbed?"

And Adam's expression turned sour. It was an ugly statent, almost too ugly, but it was the right statent. Adam turned away, and he let out a sigh. "Yes, yes, now or later, I suppose. Now. I choose now.”

Silver Tongue 22 > 23

Psychology 6 > 7

"I'll be right behind you," Shiv said. "Maybe I should wait outside too. I'll be here if you need , but I don't think I should be the person in the background when you step in." He paused, trying to think about how to put this.

"I look like my father," Shiv said, "and the last mory your mother probably had before she died was of him cutting her unborn daughter out of her. It was brutal. It was horrible." Adam looked like he was going to be sick, but Shiv had to bring it up. "I don't want to hurt her any more than you do. Not in that way. She needs you. And if you need , I'll be outside."

And as the disgust faded from the Gate Lord's eyes, he gave Shiv a final look of gratitude, and he turned, and he shuffled toward the room. At least he shuffled at first, but soon his shuffling beca proper steps, and then finally he was at the doorway. He stopped. He looked back one last ti, and Shiv, true to his word, was there, with Uva beside him.

Finally, Adam gave them a nod, and he stepped in, and Shiv turned all his senses away. Adam deserved privacy. Shiv did his best not to peek, to ignore how Adam was standing past the doorway, just staring at his mother as she lay in bed.

And suddenly, Shiv felt the touch of a soft pair of lips grace the side of his right cheek. He looked to the side, and he saw Uva hovering just below him, pressed up against him upon her board. The basilisk venom was still active in his body. He was standing at three and a half ters in height, and he felt more like a small house than a person at this point.

When he spiked his gravity field earlier, he tore a massive chasm in the earth behind him. The basilisk venom was like a steroid of steroids for his Plaguefueled skill.

Yeah, Shiv thought to himself as he ntally chuckled, basilisk venom is going to be the next thing I'm going to figure out how to create using my Biomancy. It'll work great on my enemies if I want to incapacitate them, but more importantly… He clenched his fists and enjoyed the rush of power, of unfettered strength rushing through him. He was stronger, faster, larger, and more durable than ever.

The only downside right now was that it took Uva’s Psychomancy to hold the worst of his drunkenness at bay. That was another thing he needed to improve on if he was going to use the basilisk venom: self-control. This wasn't like drinking five cans of beer. This was like hamring down half a dozen bottles of liquor in a row.

He had only done that once, with Georges, on the eve of his 16th birthday. He'd insinuated that, due to his increase in height and muscle mass, he would drink the head chef under the table. It was ant as a jest. A Pathbearer was always more resistant than a Pathless, be it to poison or physical harm. But Georges had a funny way of treating jokes, especially jokes that annoyed him. And Shiv, anwhile, had a problem with backing down from challenges.

The consequences were disastrous. But it did get amusing when Shiv perfectly peeled his potatoes the next day anyway, despite suffering from the mother of all hangovers. So of his hand flesh went in with those potatoes, though, so Georges got to scream at him anyway.

It’s a good day when everyone wins.

"That was very viciously sweet of you," Uva comnted.

He grunted as he looked at the door. "Yeah," Shiv said, "I'm just… I don't know. I feel responsible. I don't feel bad, or like I'm wrong, or like I did anything bad, but I feel responsible for what happened to him. What happened to both of them?" He looked down, and he shook his head.

Scenes played in his mind. Horrible scenes of his father bringing a blade down on an infant girl who wasn't ready to be born, and then on his own wife… His own pregnant wife, who had Shiv inside her.

Uva shuddered slightly as she glimpsed the mories. "What kind of dented ritual was that?"

"I don't know," Shiv said, "but after seeing it…" He hesitated. "I still got a problem with Roland. But imagining soone doing sothing like that to you or Adam? I…" Shiv's hand shook slightly. What would he do? “I'm afraid of what I might do. Roland was too kind to kill a child and too hateful to just let go. I might’ve been more hateful than kind.”

As Shiv departed the infirmary, he called out to Valor and Can Hu, getting their attention. "Valor," Shiv said. “Thanks for earlier. I didn’t know how I was going to do that shit without your help. No idea where to start at all.”

Valor nodded in response. "You did fine. Your inexperience was a barrier, but you did well to call . And you did well thereafter. You as well, Uva."

She imdiately adopted a posture as if she were standing in salute for a superior officer.

"Will Adam be well?" Can Hu asked, a note of reverberating concern in its voice. "I have seen humans reunite with those they thought long lost. I must admit that the circumstances that exist in my data banks are not nearly..." Can Hu paused as he looked at Shiv, "...as novel as what resulted from you, Pathbearer."

"Yeah, that's becoming a running the with by this point," Shiv said. His arms were folded, he shrugged, but he was considering the implications of Rose's resurrection. Was it truly Rose? Was it just a copy of her, or was this sothing that Udraal had planned all along? Maybe Udraal was the only one that knew. Nonetheless, he would let Adam have his mont first. All the questionable and miserable business could wait.

"But then, we still must talk of your new skill," Valor said, sounding uncertain. "This skill, this rged ability of yours, Shiv. You understand it?"

"Yeah," Shiv replied. "It's kind of like becoming your own magic in a weird way." He summoned a little bit of Vitae to his palm, and as the swirling mass of red and white shivered, he drew it back inside of himself before he lost too much vitality. "Still don't know what this really does," Shiv began. "It reaches out for . It's like a solid."

"A solid?" Valor asked. "You can touch things with it?”

"Yeah, I spiked Adam in the chest earlier. I put a hole through a basilisk. It's about as hard as I am, moves as fast as I can, and I can direct it using my gravitic field. But inside ," Shiv patted his chest, "there's an active field—a mana field—that keeps it stable, keeps it from leaking out. Even after I die now, it's like a stasis zone for vitality."

"And your Revenant form before, what was the difference?"

Shiv considered that. "Before, I was just like a faint outline of myself. I couldn't really move because I didn't have mass. My bound equipnt still followed . I could strike people with that. But aside from my equipnt and my magic, I didn't really have any way of affecting soone. When I resurrected, a layer of shadows would form over and, well, it would hatch and I'd be back. Now, the red just stitches back together. Well, it fills up, and then I surface from it. All this weird taphysical shit's giving a headache."

"This is good," Valor said. "This is useful information. Was your shadowy cocoon before as large as your field now?"

Shiv considered that. "Yeah, just about.”

"Then I suspect it was simply the immature form of your current tamorphosis. A fra being built before the evolution, so to speak. And right now, you have ripened the skill. It has beco sothing active, sothing properly mature."

"That's not the only thing," Shiv said. He rembered his conversation with the Vicar. Especially the part that had to do with Udraal Thann. "Valor. I had an encounter with Sullain. We exchanged words while ti was frozen—Alright, maybe exchanging words wasn't all of it. He talked to real nicely at first after he set on fire with his Necromantic sun. And then he started trying to hash my na, trying to figure things out for . He was pretty pissed off when I revealed what Havel was trying to pull on him. So maybe we have an opening there.”

“Good,” Valor said. “The more at odds our enemies are, the better.”

“But, uh, he has so of my Vitae. He literally pulled it out of when I exploded. After I went off, he caught it sohow. Just like he managed to capture so of Roland's arrows. Arrows that removed from existence in a second. He’s godsdamn powerful. I felt like an insect next to him. What kind of Magical Skills does he even have?”

Valor paused as he strained himself, trying to rember sothing. “His ability to control magic was... Omnimancy," Valor suddenly said. The flas in his eyes flickered. "The control of all magics."