313 To Break a Curse [X]
The Fairwoods are like an Integration within Integration. You feel the change in the air the moment you enter. There's a presence there that settles upon you, settles into you, that watches you like an unseen stalker. Sometimes you can even feel it tugging on you, deliberately stabbing your emotions or inflicting dramatic changes in its realm to get you to play your role.
And you need to learn how to play your role well if you want to survive.
There is a reason why most Fairwalkers are people who walk the Paths of the Bard or Artisan. You need to understand the structure of a story, how characters are meant to react, and play off of one another. From there, you can subvert the story's expectations and bring it greater pleasure, or you can try to change your role entirely. Deliberately going against the confines of the narrative structure, however, will see you struck down—no matter what your Tier.
Strength alone isn't going to save you here. I've seen would-be Fairwalkers spawn in at a village gateway or some peaceful forest clearing and immediately act as they do on Integrated Earth. They tear through the scenery, they shatter buildings, they try to bend the locals to their will, but the locals here are immortal and have seen more of our kind pass through and perish in more ways than you can possibly imagine.
The Fairwoods are insidious. This realm will give you skills that ostensibly strengthen you, but in truth make you conform to a shape that is easier to slay. Are you a Pyromancer or a Pathbearer specializing in your Physicality? Do you like to oppress and burn the villages you enter? If so, congratulations! You're gaining a skill that specifically allows you to shape yourself into a dragon. Your physical attributes will explode while your magic climbs into the stratosphere.
And then a wandering Fae Knight-Errant will drive his sword through your chest because that's what Fae Knight-Errants do: Slay dragons. Protect the people. Play their role.
When you receive a Narrative Skill, understand that it is both an opportunity and a trap. Study what you can do with it. Understand that you are not simply being blessed and allowed to grow greater without consequence. You are meant to go on an aligned path, to perform a set series of actions. These actions are formed by your prior decisions. Even if you are not destructive, even if you don't seek to burn and enslave the world through strength alone, know that you can very well be listed as a fool among the people and rendered an Aesop for stupidity if you prove unwise too many times.
Within the lands of the Fae, the hand of the System wears a playwright’s glove. Read a story. Read all the folklore you can. And even then, if at all possible, don’t go.
We're not meant to be there. We are not characters intended to be in their story. We will not return if they break, mutilate, twist, or kill us, but the Fae will, and they have performed this play countless times without fail.
You are not a conquering hero about to change the world. You are just a novelty item that the actors are using to amuse themselves.
—Tale, Torment, and Triumph: Fairwalking and Why You Shouldn’t Do It, by [Removed Per the Decree of the Republic Inquisition]
313
To Break a Curse [X]
“Shiv! Just the man I wanted to strangle. I was going to come find you, but now that you're here, I can be spared the trouble. Tell me, what have you done? What terrible, foolish, and utterly mad thing have you done? Surprise me. Give me stress ulcers. Nothing will make me happier. Nothing at all!”
Adam's greeting wasn't exactly what Shiv had expected, but the Gate Lord did have a great many responsibilities these days. Managing the massive group of refugees and the conditions of a developing Gate, along with several different Quests that held great ramifications for failure and grand rewards of success, were bound to wear on anyone's patience.
The sheer frustration leaking over the telepathic strand that connected both Shiv and Uva to him was palpable. Adam was sailing toward the Tutorial bunker at record speeds. Shiv also glimpsed something else from his friend’s perspective: wards were being layered over the surface Gateway and a concentration of war-ready dimensionals zipping across the air in active formations as well.
Maybe Adam was more than a little overwhelmed. Maybe something was actually happening.
“What is happening? Why are so many people gathering at the surface Gateway? Are we under attack?” Uva's mind was rife with urgency. A jungle of Psychomantic threads exploded out from Shiv’s dormant Gate Piety body, seeking fellow Sisters or anyone who could inform her about the unfolding situation. Shiv felt splinters break away from her mind, each one a fragment of her collective ego, but capable of serving as their own consciousness all the same. Her stacks began their conversations while the bulk of her remained present, interrogating Adam. With every person she connected to, it seemed like her cognitive processing and reflexes grew a bit faster, while her brain suffered no obvious overheating or strain.
“Way to make my Bifurcated Processing seem pathetic,” Shiv thought aloud. He pulled up the skill and rubbed his chin.
Bifurcated Processing 86
He might be able to evolve that skill with a few more deaths. He'd let it languish by the wayside as he did all he could to level his Eldritch Physiology. “Might want to be a bit more strategic there. An evolved Multi-Tasking Skill might just end up as actively usable or beneficial for my weird biology instead of setting it on fire.”
The sound of Adam clenching his teeth so hard they began to creak interrupted his musings. “Shiv, I'm not asking you about what skills you want to evolve. I'm asking you what you have done to cause a few THOUSAND Prismatic Guard members to camp outside the Surface gateway, demanding your head on a plate!”
After a moment of surprise, an amused snort escaped Shiv. “Oh, nothing, really. I was just helping Irons with his investigation into what happened to Melissa and her sister. Might’ve smashed a few hornet nests and kidnapped a few Inquisitors, but—”
“You did what? Without bringing me along? Without consulting me in detail?”
“I asked earlier; you said you were busy.”
“I was busy trying to run a Gate and make sure everyone from Blackedge is settled. There was a lot to do, and I distinctly told you to wait before doing anything drastic!”
“I didn't do anything drastic,” Shiv shot back. “Not even anything out of the usual. I was just looking into the missing orphans again. Doing some surveillance stuff, capturing some Inquisitors to interrogate them, killing some bastards who are trying to kidnap children—speaking of which, how are the orphans?”
“Felling traumatized, Shiv! How the hells do you think they would be? You obliterated their caretaker in front of them and drenched them in her viscera!”
“She obliterated herself on me, alright? It's not my fault she slammed into me and splattered like an egg against the wall. And what would you have had me do instead? Just let them take the kids? Give Daughter more bodies to torture and waste? I wasn’t going to let the Inquisitors take them.”
“And that is what the small army is here for? Eight orphaned children? Is that why the Prismatic Guard is beginning to set up siege camps outside our Gate? Or is there perhaps something else you did?”
Shiv hesitated. “Well, look, I was working something else out with Irons. He told me that we need someone with a higher rank to figure out where they're bringing these kids and what they're doing with them. I decided to go back to the scene of the crime to capture someone like that. Originally, I was going for one of their Investigators, but then I got attacked by Assassins and caught one of them before Daughter, Harlock, and Halsur killed me. Maybe that’s kinda why.”
An intrusive thought overflowed from Adam: he imagined slamming himself headfirst into the ground, just shattering his own skull and enjoying the blissful peace of death in a place absent from Shiv’s hyperviolence. “Shiv… I thought you said something about not playing the System's game. I thought you said something about telling strife to… to mate with its own corpse.”
“Oh, yeah, I'm not doing this because the System's forcing me to. I'm doing this because I'm trying to help Irons. In fact, he was the one who gave me some new rules for how we’re doing things.”
“Captain Harry Irons, the most level-headed man I know, told you to bring an Inquisitorial prisoner back to our Gate after being spotted engaging Inquisitorial forces in the open streets of the Republic?” Adam was practically choking on his thoughts.
“Well… sort of. He didn't say I should bring them back here to Gate Piety exactly. Or who to capture exactly. Or that I should fight them in the open or anything. I was trying to stay stealthy at first, but then they ended up ambushing me pretty good. And things just developed from there. I had to adapt. I didn’t think—“
“I know, Shiv. Sometimes, that’s your continued and greatest problem. You don’t think. You don’t suffer the consequences, but while you're the only Pathbearer who can come back from being dead, you're not the only person who possesses a modicum of free will!”
Shiv was about to reply when something hit him in the back of his head. An empty can of beans bounced off the floor, and Shiv turned to see Jessica glaring at him with folded arms. “Let me guess, you’re here to chew me out for the same thing Adam is?” he asked.
She raised a sharp eyebrow. “Depends. Is he currently chewing you out for performing a snatch and grab on a Hero-Executioner of the Inquisition and murdering a bunch of other people ?”
A near-innocent grin spread across Shiv’s face. “Wow, Jessica. I think the System should give you a Divination Skill if you don’t have one already.”
Her facial muscles did what he could best describe as spastic acrobatics. She went through a chain of near-inscrutable reactions before her eyes flared with outrage while her lips quirked upward in incredulous amusement.
Sage of the Enkindled Heart:She currently dances on the edge between violence and laughter. Your flippant nature has caught her off guard, while all your actions make her want to cut you down. Be diplomatic but audacious, and you might chart a path forward without any undue bloodshed.
“What the fuck, kid?” Jessica finally managed. “What the hells are you even doing? And why?”
“The straight answer is that your guys keep kidnapping orphans for Daughter to use as meat suits. Trying to stop that, mostly. Was trying to kidnap someone who’s a bit higher up so we—uh, I can properly set the operation on fire. Shit developed from there. I’m sorry if this annoys you or something like that, you know?”
Comedy 13 > 16
The tiny swordswoman’s eyes bulged like they were being birthed out of her sockets. “You… Sorry if you annoyed… You… You audacious fuck.” She gritted her teeth to hide a shiver of laughter. “Take this seriously.”
“I am! About as seriously as the Inquisition takes sacrificing children to Daughter. I'm not doing this for fun or to smash up the capital. I'm doing this because children are being fed to some false god! And there's nothing you can say to justify that. Don't bother trying to deny it either. Even you’re not dumb enough to miss what they’re doing.”
The Giantsbane was just about to say something else when another part of his sentence clipped her like a cart tumbling downhill. “Wait, even I’m not dumb enough? You want to explain that?”
Sage of the Enkindled Heart:Careful, now. We stand between the borders of temerity and madness. Choose the former, defuse her offense, but don't step back from the claim. Keep her off balance. Run the edge with her.
He adopted a pitying expression and shook his head. “Jessica, I don't know how to tell you this, but… If you can relate to me and if you get along with me that easily and if you struggle enough to laugh at my stupid jokes… I'm afraid you're not that smart. I’m afraid we’re similar kinds of stupid. Must be that incest baby thing coming back to bite you.”
Sage of the Enkindled Heart:I have no idea if that was wise. Or if we crossed the line. Start moving your Severed Shadow deeper into the Tutorial just in case.
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“Shiv!” Uva hissed. “Are you trying to provoke her into drawing her blade?”
“This might be the way to avoid her doing just that,” he replied.
Uva suffered mental damage trying to accept his claim. “How does that even work?”
“Because I mean what I just said: I think she’s a pretty similar kind of stupid as me. And if she doesn’t cut my head off—”
“I should fucking kill you.” Jessica tried to seethe. She tried, but she couldn’t. She was remarkably bad at hiding her true feelings. There was agitation, disbelief, and even jagged shards of animosity in her emotional core, but she was also charmed.
Sage of the Enkindled Heart 150 > 153
Sage of the Enkindled Heart:Heh.We are geniuses when it comes to defusing mentally unwell women.
“Fuck yeah, we are!” Shiv cheered.
Then, his jubilance winked out like a candle flame between two fingers as a cord of cold wrath tightened around him. “Some things should best remain hidden. How unfortunate for you.”
Sage of the Enkindled Heart:Oh, no.
A Glimpse of Perspective:You daft Omenborn knave! You have thrust yourself ass-first upon the angered metaphorical cock of your lady-love’s ire.
Gardener of Doubt:Perspective… why must you describe this most straight relation in the most homoerotic of ways?
A Glimpse of Perspective:Because of what she used us to do to ourselves.
Gardener of Doubt:I thought we agreed to never acknowledge that.
“I’m sorry?” Shiv whimpered internally.
“You will be,” Uva whispered back. She let a rush of promised punishments glide over into his awareness.
“Sage! Gardener! Glimpse! Save me!” Shiv screeched to his skills.
“UVA! UVA! YOU DUMB—I AM HERE WITH BOTH OF YOU!” Adam howled as he slammed face-first against the bunker, as unwanted scenes and nightmarish memories tore through his mind, a bystander caught in the crossfire. “I DON’T WANT TO KNOW THIS! YOU’RE SHOWING ME TOO! YOU’RE SHOWING ME—AGH! I FEEL TOO MUCH! I FEEL TOO MUCH! AGGHHH! MY MIND! MY SOUL!”
Sage of the Enkindled Heart:Let us commit mass suicide to dispose of all our bodies, flee with our Severed Shadow, and start a new life on another world.
“So, what the fuck's your plan now?” Jessica asked, completely ignorant of the horrors.
“I mean…” Shiv turned and gestured at the gateway. Its surface shimmered with Dimensionality, and from the other side came an assortment of refreshing floral scents. “I kinda have to break a Curse, you know? I was thinking about heading over to fairy land and getting that done for a change of pace.”
Jessica looked at him as if he were completely insane. “You know the Prismatic Guard is going to try to raid this Gate, right? You know they're going to send in saboteurs, Shadows, Assassins, Thieves—”
“Yeah, I really don't think so. Not that they'll be in that much of a hurry anyway.”
The Giantsbane's eyes rolled as if she'd just sustained a concussion. “Kid, what the fuck are you talking about? I got a direct notification from headquarters that they're going to begin massing outside of Gate Piety.”
“Oh, they're still in touch with you. That's great. You tell them that maybe they want to consider doing something else instead. Because there are a lot of orcs inside this Gate. Don't tell them anything else. They can come to their own conclusions.”
“Shiv! Shiv! We’re not risking an active war with the Republic!” Adam howled, stumbling and slamming from wall to wall like a ball bouncing down the hallways of the bunker. He was in a hurry for no reason. He couldn't come across and enter the Tutorial because the Slipgate was currently active, and the portal connecting Gate Piety to the home world of the Orcs was now tuned to the Fairwoods instead.
“You're bluffing,” Jessica said.
“Yeah, I dunno. Maybe kind of. Who knows? I certainly don't. I don't even really care that much. But I do know this: I can practically appear anywhere because of the Slipgate. I can swap with a bunch of different bodies across the world. Maybe I can do some more horrible things. Right now, I'm not targeting the Republic itself, mainly just the Inquisition and all the bastards who keep trying to feed orphans to a literal monster god made out of nasty black shit.” Shiv grinned. “The way I see it, the Republic's drawing its sword to threaten us, but I'm technically already inside its body. If I decide to cut in whatever direction, I think I can do a lot more damage to them than they can to us.”
At the sight of Jessica tensing, however, Shiv just shrugged. “But I'm also not going to do any of that anyway. You tell them—actually, you know what? You don't need to do anything, Jessica. This isn't your business, it's mine. I'll see if I can solve this quickly.”
Before anyone else could respond, Shiv's Severed Shadow drifted into the room and fully manifested. Its body flared bright red for the briefest of instances in senses while its Cape of Innermost Depth billowed dramatically behind its edged form. Rusty appeared in Jessica's hand, and she entered a defensive posture, but he didn't attack her. Instead, he just turned his back to her and had his Severed Shadow fling a magically locked notebook out from his cape. He caught the Sync-Letter with his physical body and immediately began preparing to have a correspondence with his estranged bitch of a grandmother.
Jessica's eyes widened as she realized what he was about to do. “Wait, no, Shiv, don't open—”
Shiv flipped open his Sync-Letter. The contents began thusly:
My dearest fuckwit,
That was about as far as Shiv read before he was disassembled on a molecular level.
The world went white. His physical body died in an instant; his orichalcum-hard body shattered like sugar glass. The bunker fared even worse. The continent-shaking words hit him and his surroundings like a bomb of bombs. Veronica's most recent correspondence was more than mere words; it was infused with her collective ire and imbued with sound, force, soul magic, and wrath, and it manifested from within the Sync-Letter as a Rhetorical lance four hundred kilometers long and a kilometer wide that punched a clean wound through the bunker and gouged an apocalyptic path through the sprawling orc encampments and past the Tutorial's distant horizon.
The earth was split down to the deep bedrock. The sickly clouds were disemboweled, revealing a firmament made from screaming stars and enchained worlds for the first time. Colossal links of crystalline matter were threaded through various worlds, and they surrounded the Tutorial itself like a belt of celestial horror.
Hundreds of thousands of orcs simply ceased to be. Everything in the path of Veronica's greeting was reduced to less than rubble, not even dust lingering in the aftermath. It was like some divine titan, larger than the world, had carved a clear path of unmaking through an entire section of existence. But Shiv knew better. Shiv knew that this wasn't an act of the divine. This was simply the doing of an extremely powerful Legendary Pathbearer who held the true reins of the Yellowstone Republic.
When the translucent lance dissipated after a few seconds, pretty much everything around and behind Shiv was gone. It looked a bit like he was standing at the edge of a cliff face that bordered an unnaturally thin ocean, only that said ocean lacked any water.
Despite all this, however, the Sync-Letter was utterly untouched. Not even the pages had been ruffled. The Tutorial's gateway also endured, though its surface was far more turbulent than ever, rippling like tides dashed into a frenzy by the rising of a colossal Leviathan. And then there were Shiv, Uva, and Jessica. The first hadn't survived at all. He was still on the scene because his Severed Shadow couldn't be destroyed by pure force while in its Revenant state, but he felt a pulsating ache from the Animancy infused within Veronica's greeting.
Lacking a physical form and nested within Shiv's mind when the attack struck, Uva was protected but stunned at the Councilwoman’s awesome power. She was spared any injury but shaken where it mattered. But ridiculous as Veronica's Rhetoric Skill was, Shiv found himself even more impressed by Jessica, who had somehow parried the world-scarring blast. Rusty’s size had increased to be wider than Jessica's body, and his length vibrated dramatically, but behind it, Jessica stood shielded by the flat of her sword and utterly unharmed.
But not unstrained.
Shiv noticed her right arm trembling, saw the shaking in her legs. Withstanding Veronica's Rhetoric was a magnificent martial feat on its own—but there was still a tremendous gulf between the two women. A Legend though Jessica was, Veronica was one greater, one higher, one overwhelming.
Worst of all, one not even present.
For a Pathbearer to exert so much power from afar was… absurd.
Shiv looked behind himself and took in the carnage, watched as tides of lesser orcs toppled from crumbling structures and spilled into the deep channel the Councilwoman’s lance had left in its wake.
Well. Looks like I have a new feat of destruction to top.
And just then, he noticed a faint trail, a tether of crimson leading out from the Tutorial back to some place far, back to the Republic itself. Shiv's reaction was automatic.
Veronica had taken a jab at him, and so he would return the favor. He slashed out using his Severed Shadow, unleashing the full might of his cutting aura. A slicing projection traveled along the tether and zoomed across dimensions. He waited with bated breath for a few moments, but unlike with the dimensional archer earlier, he felt nothing land. He felt nothing split or break.
Something told him that Veronica had dodged the attack entirely or somehow parried it.
“That woman is supposed to be your grandmother?” Uva's metaphorical insides tightened with anxiety and disbelief. Try as she might, she couldn't imagine amassing such power for herself, not even in a thousand years.
Shiv’s eyelid twitched. “Nah, she's just a deadbeat bitch who shits out kids and forgets about them after. I can respect the power, but I will always despise the woman.”
“And that's why I told you not to open it.” Jessica sighed. She surveyed her surroundings and threw her hands up in disbelief. “Listen, you need to go make things right, because you're not the only one with weird bullshit skills. If Veronica really wanted to, she would just drop a bunch of flyers into your Gate. I want you to imagine what might happen to everyone inside Piety when they start randomly opening and reading these letters.”
Shiv paled. High-Tier Rhetoric was absolute bullshit.
The Challenger is amused by this family feud.
“Oh, fuck off, you fat, gray bastard,” Shiv spat.
“Shiv, Uva, what just happened? Everything just went white on your end. Was… Did Veronica shout part of the Tutorial apart?”
“Yep, took her just about three words,” Shiv grunted. “Felling hells. Alright. I’ll make this quick. See if I can get her to piss off or something. Give me a second.”
“Shiv…” Uva cautioned.
“No! Shiv! Stop! Where are you going?” Adam cried in desperate terror. “Whatever you're thinking, whatever you're planning to do, don't do it without telling me. Tell me what you’re planning to do.”
Shiv triggered a new resurrection. A fresh physical body stumbled out from his Severed Shadow and immediately resheathed and activated its Eldritch Physiology. Its flesh began to shift, and he shifted his focus over to the new body—had it step into his cape.
“I'm just going to talk to her,” Shiv said aloud as he vanished into the dimensional fabric. “Try doing the reasonable thing and getting the Prismatic Guard to piss off.”
“You intend to talk to her after her words did that to us?” Even Uva thought he was mad now.
Jessica pressed her lips together. “You know, the smart thing for you to do is just write back to her.”
“Didn't I tell you I was stupid like you?” Shiv replied from inside his cape.
A low moan of pain sounded even deeper. From within the forest of alloy, a brutalized, limbless Inquisitor begged for a savior or a quick death. “Ascendants, help me!”
“Broken fucking Moon,” Jessica growled. “What the hells are you even planning on saying to her?”
Shiv just laughed. “No idea. I'll figure it out when I see her. What's the worst that can happen? Besides, it's probably going to be pretty easy to solve this anyway. Just one last detour before I head into the Fairwoods.”
Adam all but started screaming instead of forming words. “Shiv, Shiv, what are you doing? What in the godsdamn hells are you doing?”
But before anyone else could intervene, Shiv's bladed heart grew bright, and a gap split open upon the surface of reality. He switched places, allowing the body of what looked to be a sickly boy to tumble through from the existential rupture he left behind. Then, less than a second later, a gap formed within the boy's chest, and he was cast back through another gash upon the fabric of Integration as the Severed Shadow returned.
Substantially lighter than before.
“Alright,” Shiv said, speaking telepathically through his shadow. “Dumped my new body and the Inquisitor out. Adam, if the Prismatic Guard does anything stupid, just let my orcs cross over to the surface. Also outlaw literacy.”
“How in the Broken Moon am I supposed to do that last part?”
“Put lead in the water or something,” Shiv mumbled. “Veronica's words can't hurt us if we're all too dumb to understand them.”
“That's not… how her skill works at all…” Jessica looked close to despair. But she noticed how the Revenant was fading from sight, turning back into a silhouette, and read from its dormant body language that Shiv was no longer there mentally. “…Why do I even try with him?”
“Because somehow, he always manages to make it work. No matter how foolish or absurd his strategy.” Uva huffed mentally. Then, she realized who she was talking to and returned to her aloof posture. “Not that this should be any of your business. You are with them, after all.”
“We are supposed to be,” Rusty said, sounding more resigned than sour.
“We are,” Jessica insisted. “It's just that things right now are messy, and I’m keeping a closer eye on you. So that you don’t do anything against the Republic.”
“Like what the Deathless just did,” Rusty concurred.
“Yeah, like—oh, come on, Rusty, you backstabbing prick! I’m—I was gonna—we’re helping solve that now, aren’t we?”
“It seems to me that the Deathless left of his own accord to face Veronica in an ill-advised confrontation. But perhaps I am reading things poorly. I am but a simple sword, after all.”
The swordswoman glared at her blade. “You're getting real cute with me today. I’m still loyal. I am.”
“Your will, my iron, Wielder. Truth is what you will it to be. But I fear the boy may yet be more delusional than you.”
Jessica paused to consider that. “Fuuccckkk, I really should have gone back with him. I could still—”
“Don’t,” a low, basso voice sounded behind her. Jessica's bones nearly fled out from her skin when she realized the Culturist was two steps away. The three-meter-tall fucker had no right to be that sneaky. He had his hands folded behind his back and looked down at Jessica from beneath his stupid, feather-eared hood. “Let the Deathless face his own consequences and see if he can find a resolution in peace where one doesn't exist in war.”
“And what if things go wrong?” Jessica asked. “Because if Veronica or the Auroral Council really get pissed enough to make a decree, I’ll get my own orders too.”
The Culturist offered her a benign, sharp-toothed smile. “Then we discover which of our legends is greater. And the old ways continue on evermore into eternity.”