316 To Break a Curse [XIII]
Again.
The story begins again. This struggle of sun and moon, this clash of seasons and all things in between.
Again.
Always and forever.
Henceforth and nevermore again.
Again.
I have ceased to count the years. Time no longer holds any significance. I have danced to this song so many times that, even with my mind fully absent, I know every step. All the lines—those meant for me, those spoken by my subjects, and those of the enemy—are seared into my memory. And as the heavy hands of our looping world draw near, bringing sun to face moon in a full embrace, I must breathe the words again, again, and again. I must perish and prevail again, again, and again.
I have played Queen, fool, slave, knight, and countless more. I have pretended to be monster, hero, priestess, and butcher.
I have been all, and all have been me.
The ambrosia that is novelty has long since been sipped dry. And yet, I know that I must strive to kindle this flickering joy, these dying embers, for my task requires my passion endure beyond the reach of repetition, beyond the stagnation of this withered old tale I’ve lived since my birth.
But even my muses, these evanescent children from the patterned realms, can offer me no more inspiration.
I am everlasting, this narrative ever-ongoing, but they pass, and they return, as new people and new skins, making the same mistakes, never holding onto the lessons imparted upon their forebears. Some are trapped and die, withered away by time or by folly, a single slash splitting their lifeblood, spilling what they could have offered, everything they might have been, while others age too far for their feeble physiology, unable to progress further here in this land they fled to to avoid the cruelty of strife to begin with.
And with you, things will be no different. You are not the first one I have bargained with, little girl. I and mine will still be here long after the faintest memory of you has turned to dust. Long after the last ripples you cast upon the waters of your feeble world have stilled into silence and then less.
For so long have I been trapped in this purgatory that is my kingdom. And despite all my grievances, I have come to love it. All the peoples, all the stories, all the revolutions. From end to beginning, and from beginning to end.
But soon, perhaps, I might see the grand stage of my existence expanded to encompass everything. To bring all under my reign and spill new oil upon my passions. So that eternity might go on more vibrant than before, if only slightly so.
The coming cycles may yet see Father Strife consumed from within by a more deserving sovereign.
One season is not enough for me anymore. This realm is too small, this reality too limited to sate the depths of my gluttonous heart.
—Evanescia, the Queen of the Winter Court, Mother of Moons
316
To Break a Curse [XIII]
Shape of Monstrosity 161 > 163
The terror Shiv drank deep from the three captives was sweeter than nectar. The commanding lead of the Prismatic Guard was unbound and released, taken away from the Tutorial, beyond the sadistic grins that lit the faces of their orc captors, and guided back to the surface gateway. With their party came a new addition: one of Shiv's resurrected bodies. It was bundled tight in chains of adamantine and left comatose for their convenience.
That did nothing to damn the rivers of terror flowing out from them. Dread surged into Shiv as wild streams, and every body he possessed, even his Severed Shadow, grew greater in size and empowered of magic. The captives were made to carry Shiv, and though they had Physicality enough to easily heft his weight, it was the promise of what he was that burdened them. Every movement they made was delicate, inflamed by worry. Even after they slipped beyond the ward surrounding the surface gateway, the fear didn't end. Even when they were well and truly behind their own lines, the worries continued. The anxiousness that boiled within them never abated. They knew what he was.
They knew what awaited them within Gate Piety. The orcs. Valor Thann. The Deathless.
And Shiv pitied them for that. There were more pawns than soldiers. Pieces Veronica could sacrifice against Shiv to compel him into compliance. When they came in, there was a confidence to them, a certainty that they could pacify whatever waited in the gate and secure the minor dimension for the glory of the Republic. That confidence was now gone. That certitude was destroyed and remade into a new understanding: if they tried to take Gate Piety, they would die. They would die ugly, miserable deaths.
Within that Category II Gate was not glory waiting to be claimed, but hell. There were Legends, an army of grayskinned psychopaths that drank the suffering of others as one might find nourishment from a broth, an ancient lich that abducted the guard’s elite at will, and his disciple: a Pathbearer who could only be refined by the touch of death and not silenced.
The wards placed around the surface gateway were drawn back in record time. Once confining, they now offered a wide berth to Gate Piety and an open channel pointed towards Fortress-City Diego. The dispatched Prismatic Guard remained present, but their forces were drawn away, creating more distance as if that would provide them with any safety.
For now, there would be no war between the Republic and a small Gate serving as a sanctuary to the betrayed people of Blackedge, and so, Shiv’s path to the Fairwoods was finally clear.
“Was that really necessary? What you said to her at the end?” Adam kept looking over his shoulder as they walked down the hallway, as if he were anticipating an ambush. With how Uva’s puppeteer strings were spread out, her guard was high as well. Shiv couldn’t blame either of them for being worried, but his psychological instincts were rarely wrong.
Shiv grunted. “Guess I was a bit mean, but yeah, I do think it was necessary. I also think it was good for her. And us. We're putting everything on the table. Jessica's gotta decide if she wants to play along with Veronica forever or take a chance and be her own person. She's been living on the leash for too long, in my opinion. Will probably be sore for a while. Maybe she'll beat the shit out of me or carve a bloody hole up my ass again for revenge… But I don't see it. She knows I'm right. Even if it hurts her feelings to hear all that. We’re gonna have to get this loyalty shit out of the way sooner or later.”
“Well, I would prefer to be bloody later,” Adam breathed. “She still has a vendetta against my family, against my father—”
“And Uva's got a vendetta against her grandson. And we all got a vendetta against Udraal, Veronica, the Ascendants. Lord Scorn’s got his teeth out for you.” Shiv shook his head and chuckled humorlessly. “Everyone has something or someone coming for them. But if we do this right, if we keep our enemies close and occupied—”
“Pathbearer Shiv,” Can Hu's reverberating voice interrupted him before he could finish.
The trio stopped just before they reached the final set of vault doors leading into the gateway chamber. The Penitent came into view, carrying what appeared to be a bundle of silk with its manipulator arms. Shiv felt a faint ebb of Dimensionality mana infused into the fabric.
But after it stepped up to them, the automaton seemed uncertain. “I… I…”
“Can Hu?” Uva took a step toward the Penitent. “Is something the matter? I thought you said you were occupied with the Gate’s district construction efforts and asked to remain undisturbed?”
Its body tensed, but no reply came. It looked like a human trying to fight off a nerve agent. Its joints whined and hissed, the many appendages spasming. Shiv sensed something was wrong immediately, but found himself clueless as to what. He couldn't use his Atlas on inorganic life forms, and what Can Hu was undergoing looked to be a mechanical failure. This came as quite the surprise, since the Penitent had been reforged by Shiv’s Vitaemancy and Udraal’s ministrations. The alloy that compromised its body was no longer rusted; its joints no longer squealed like they were on the verge of snapping apart with every movement. Certain components and skills that it had lost had been restored. It now sprouted a whole arsenal of guns from its back, and its industrial limbs were more reinforced than ever before, seeming capable of slicing through steel beams with ease. Furthermore, the four thrusters that now sprouted free from its back gave it a vigorous aura, not to mention it standing taller than ever, able to stand shoulder to shoulder with an orc on the smaller side.
On the surface, Can Hu looked better than ever. But Shiv knew better. After his experiences as a resident, he'd learned that a body could look fine from the outside but be on the verge of complete collapse within.
“Do we have an engineer inside this gate?” Shiv asked Adam. “Someone that specializes in automata?”
Both of them approached the twitching Penitent. Shiv gently took Can Hu into his arms, making sure that nothing obvious was broken. He circled his Shapeless Tides through the inner articulations of the automaton's body and couldn't feel anything wrong there either.
Adam's eyes flared bright as he used his awareness to detect any hidden damage. The Shattered Star revolving around itself above his head flared bright as he hit Can Hu with a full dose of his soul-mending powers. “I'm not certain… Perhaps something among the survivors infected it? I’m going to see if giving it a boost helps.”
“P-P—Shiuvvvv—” And now Can Hu sounded like it was undergoing a stroke.
“It's alright, Can Hu. It's alright. I'm here.” Though Shiv was a bit shorter than the bot on baseline, he was far bulkier, and he easily picked Can Hu off the ground, cradling it as the group began walking out of the bunker in search of aid. But before they could take more than a few steps, Can Hu’s entire body began to visibly erode.
“What the hells—oh shit! Adam, catch!” Shiv flung Can Hu at Adam the moment he remembered the Touch of Rust Curse Maiden had placed on him.
“Wh—” Adam cried out as an automaton almost twice his size came flying right at him. “Oh, bloody—”
But Can Hu never got there. The Penitent’s thrusters roared to life, blasting both Adam and Uva back as it hovered in place. More spasming occurred. Can Hu's industrial arms began to clip and bump Shiv. Its eyes flickered between green and red, and its voice fell an octave. “Hostile target detected. Orders incoming. Hostile—No… No! System… system reboot! Reboot!”
Suddenly, Can Hu's manipulator arm lashed out. It cast the bundle of silk it was carrying aside and drove one of its fingers directly into Shiv's left eye. It bounced off the eye all with a dull thud, but still caught Shiv by surprise. One of Can Hu's new guns unfolded along its back and fired a shot directly into Shiv's face.
A massive detonation shook the bunker, loud enough in the enclosed space to make the eardrums of an Adept burst, but the attack itself went as well as Can Hu's attempt at an eye gouge. A series of small metal needles struck Shiv’s forehead next—and ricocheted. They scattered in all directions, a few skipping off the walls, one accelerating toward Uva. She called her bound shield into existence. Another deflection followed. Sparks danced off of Can Hu’s ribs.
The Penitent's eyes were blood red now. All four of its limbs were clasped tight around Shiv's head, and it was using every ounce of its Physicality to try to crush him, but a pair of even perfect scissors had little hope of parting a mountain.
Still, the Penitent strained itself so much that steam was erupting between its joints, vented out as waste heat. Shiv remained stunned, uncertain why Can Hu was trying to attack him, but that confusion lasted only a second. As Adam and Uva pulled the Penitent away from Shiv, he swapped his physical body with his Severed Shadow. Can Hu fired a final spray of bullets just as Shiv stopped time. A trail of small metal rounds glinted a finger’s distance away from Shiv in the air. Beside the Penitent, Uva was a pillar of coldness, freezing even the flow of chronology itself. Steam rose from her time magic, and instances of her noticed him—sent him a concerned look.
She still didn't know what was happening, but Shiv had a guess.
He pulled up his skill status with a thought.
Name: Tanner “Shiv” Lowe
Age: 19
Race: Human
Path:
Deathless
Feats [5/6]:
He Who Rises From Ash Eternal (Unique) – Allows the Pathbearer to quickly learn new Skills and advance existing Skills through repeated deaths.
Master of Rage (Master) – Allows the Pathbearer to infuse a skill with rage to increase its effectiveness. Consumes the Pathbearer’s anger.
Casual Scargiver (Unique) – Causes the injuries inflicted by the Pathbearer to be scarred upon their enemy across time and causality.
Dread-Tainted (Legendary) – The Pathbearer has left a divine being scared with terror. Gods have fled your presence. You are now a source of absolute fear. Allows the Pathbearer to lace their Skills with the divine entity’s lingering terror.
Grudge-Tethered (Heroic) – Allows the Pathbearer to strike once at an enemy who has wounded them from any distance.
Skills:
Poetry (Common) 1
Coping (Common) 1
Riding Proficiency (Common) 1
Lance Proficiency (Common) 1
Engineering (Common)1
Alchemy (Common) 2
Physics (Common) 2
Leadership (Common) 7
Baking (Common) 9
Barter (Common) 10
Marksmanship (Common) 13
Writing (Common) 15
Acting (Initiate) 21
Rhetoric (Initiate) 25
Memorization (Initiate) 29
Analyze (Initiate) 1
Portomancy (Initiate) 6
Magical Theory (Initiate) 8
Spear Proficiency (Initiate) 11
You could be reading stolen content. Head to NovelFire for the genuine story.
Hydromancy (Initiate) 15
Comedy (Initiate) 16
Deductive Reasoning (Initiate) 23
Pyromancy (Initiate) 33
Psychomancy (Initiate) 34
Whip Proficiency (Initiate) 48
Scheming Bastard (Adept) 8
Gardener of Doubt (Adept) 73
A Glimpse of Perspective (Adept) 76
Bifurcated Processing (Adept) 86
Phase Frame (Adept) 88
Eldritch Physiology (Master) 68
Plaguefueled (Master) 81
The Chef Unwavering (Master) 82
Sticks and Stones (Master) 93
Atlas of the Flesh Scierer (Master) 125
Return To Sender (Master) 158
Shape of Monstrosity (Master) 163
The Creeping Void (Master) 170
Strider of the Unbending Path (Master) 187
Aegis of Assimilation (Heroic) 140
Sage of the Enkindled Heart (Heroic) 166
Inertial Overdrive (Heroic) 270
Pillar of Orichalcum (Heroic) 383
Vitality Drain (Legendary) 138
Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides (Legendary) 514
Non-Sequitur (Unique) 167
This Severed Shadow of Blood and Bladed Soul (Unique) 192
Lord Commander of the Slumbering Uneaten (Narrative)
Blessings:
Blessing Gained: Song of the Vigilant - Allows the Pathbearer to maintain absolute focus while the song is active. The song will expand out from the Pathbearer as a web and form a Resonant Perimeter.
Icon of the Paindrinker - Allows the Pathbearer to manifest the icon from their body. The icon will magnify the damage and pain Pathbearer and all nearby enemies and objects suffer.
Curses:
Hands of the Bloodied - Anything you craft and create will be stained with blood and degrade at an increased pace.
Favored Archenemy - An orc will always be able to sense your presence, regardless of guise or appearance. An orc will always have a sense for where you are. Regardless of dimension, world, distance, or time, you are marked for an eternal war.
Golembane - All artificial constructs will view you as a hostile entity.
Meta-Dyscalculia - All numbers you see will be scrambled; math will be your enemy.
Touch of Rust - All metals and materials erode, tarnish, and break down when you touch them at an alarming pace.
Ritual:
Bloodrites of the Vaketh-Insul - Slay enemies of an appropriate quantity and tier to gain an equivalent in orc recruits from the Lone Star Orchestra
“Golembane?” Shiv snarled to himself. “I thought it would just be golems, but… Fucking of course.”
Artificial constructs meant more than just golems. It meant automata and certain dimensionals too. Maybe even specific creatures of flesh that were deliberately designed. Maiden wasn’t the Ascendant of machinery or artificial life, but technology in general. That meant her reach extended far further than just a few gadgets and drones.
As if taking my cooking from me wasn’t enough. But now Shiv knew what was wrong, and he had the solution. He cast himself back in time, blinking his Severed Shadow into the Tutorial using the timeline tied to his physical body. The world blurred. He emerged atop his Court Leviathan—and was promptly blasted by deafening soundwaves as thousands of rival orc musicians playing a plethora of instruments hosted a very literal battle of the bands all around him. The skies trembled from how loud they were being, and Shiv could even feel himself on the verge of a concussion as the air itself quaked with every devastating note.
Fixing the orcs with an annoyed glare for doing this atop his restaurant without permission, he thought about what to do now. He was confident in Adam and Uva’s ability to pacify Can Hu without sustaining any harm themselves, but his worries about Can Hu’s condition remained. He might have taken himself out of the equation, but that didn't mean the Curse was finished being a thorn in his foot. The details of the Curse were also vague about duration and severity. His first thought was to recruit an orc engineer to help him. This thought was then cast into the “horrible, shitty, incredibly stupid pit” in the back of Shiv’s mind. A High-Tier orc engineer might be able to help Can Hu, but he would most certainly also shove a miniature high-yield mana bomb inside the Penitent as a joke.
So, instead of doing that, Shiv went Non-Sequitur and flung himself toward the gateway.
He barely managed to get halfway before an eruption of Psychomantic tendrils washed out from the bunker. Shiv returned to context, allowing Uva to connect with his mind. “How is Can Hu?”
“Recovered almost immediately. The moment you vanished, it regained control of its body. Apparently, it came to tell you about an idea on how to further improve your cape, but the moment it laid eyes on you, something inside its core logic was compromised. It described it as some kind of virus, contaminating how it viewed the world, how it understood reality. Looking at you sent it back into the past, made it think it was still fighting on behalf of the Legacy Empire.”
“That's why it called me a hostile.” Shiv sighed. “Fucking Maiden…”
“Wait, this was her doing? One of her Curses?”
“Yeah. Golembane. I need to stay away from all automata for now. Hells, all artificial creatures. Get over into the Tutorial. I'm crossing as soon as possible. No more waiting. We’re going into the Fairwoods now.”
***
The act of unbinding all his items from the Severed Shadow and transferring them to his physical body was an awkward but necessary process. As the Voidmantid armorer's mycelia laced itself to Shiv's nervous system, he rolled his right arm to re-acclimate himself. The biological armor went from feeling like a tight glove to a second layer of skin in seconds.
“Not intending to use your new Eldritch Physiology Skill?” Uva asked from within him.
“Doubt it's going to be reliable against the fae. Cullywier and Toasty managed to shrug off a lot of Eldritch magic. Something about the fairies is immune or resistant to the Outside. I think a bit of redundancy is smart.”
Uva considered that information for herself. “Does that make me uniquely vulnerable? Or stop my stilling cold from affecting one of the fae?”
“No idea. But we can find out.” Shiv eyed the uncaged Bread-Knight on the other end of the chamber. The crust-armored Fae stood, gazing up into the turbulent waves of Dimensionality splashing across the enclosed gateway and spilling into the chamber. The Slipgate’s Mana Diffusers burned bright, the colors of a rainbow gliding along their pyramid-like shapes flanking the gateway. At the center of the room, Enchanter Merrielmel continued shaping and flinging spatial spells into the gateway.
Shiv stepped up beside the cold iron cage and knocked against the bars. “Hey, Toasty.”
The Bread-Knight turned and stared down at Shiv along the bridge of his nose from his vaunted vantage point of one and a half meters. “What is it, my aberrant yet strangely honorable captor? Have you any inquiries about the land above lands? The eternal land, the place of stories and lore and all things—”
“Can you let Uva hit you with a spell?”
The expression on Toasty’s smooth, green face contorted with confusion. “You wish for me to do what?”
“Just stay still and let her hit you with one of her spells. We want to find out if Eldritch magic can work on a fairy.”
“I—You—“ Toasty was on the verge of sputtering. “That is not how this works at all! It's useless! It doesn't work, for one, and secondly, it doesn't work in different ways depending on which of the Fairest you attempt to offend with that… that Nonsensomancy!”
“Nonsensomancy?” Shiv couldn't help it. He snorted. “That's what you're calling it?”
“That's what it is! Think, Deathless! Think of what being an Outsider means. Nothing! Their existence has no logic. You're simply misinterpreting a thing that already exists. ‘Oh, they are beyond the concepts of the Patternists. Oh, you cannot comprehend them.’ Bah, if you can't comprehend something, what are the rules? How does the story unfold? What structure should it have? Having no structure at all means you are nothing, which means you must collapse in on yourself. What kind of story can be told if there is just nonsense?”
“Uh-huh,” Shiv replied, nodding along. Uva stitched herself back into shape, stepping free from his physical body. There was another good synergy they'd discovered. She could reposition herself across any of his physical forms, and every time she tapped into his mind, she settled in the Severed Shadow. This kept her away from harm and allowed her to puppet any number of his bodies at the same time. Additionally, it also allowed her to step out from one of his bodies to fling a bolt of time-stealing ice at a certain incredulous fairy.
A shard of golden frost tore through the air and struck Toasty head-on. It burst apart in a bright blast of Chronomancy, but ultimately, the spell did nothing. It didn't freeze the fae. It didn't hold Toasty in a temporal stasis. It simply shattered like a glass ball meeting a rock.
“Well, that was disappointing.” Uva sounded more than a little sour as she beheld her impotence. “All that suffering. All that metamorphosis. And still inferior to a poorly sliced piece of bread.”
“You take that back, you witch!” The tiny Bread-Knight pointed his halberd at Uva, shaking it in vigorous offense. “I am finely sliced. Princess Plum Blossom assured me so. There are no Anointed Knights better sliced than I, better tasting than I!”
“Alright, alright,” Shiv said, holding up his hands. “We just wanted to check.”
“And your idea of experimentation was to turn me stale?” The Bread Knight threw his head back and harrumphed in outrage. “If I knew you were this underhanded, this callous, this vile, I would have never agreed to grant you my Skill! In fact, I demand it back right now! Returning the skill is the only thing that will assuage the offense, I feel.”
“Hey, hey, come on now.” Shiv gave the Bread-Knight an easy smile. He drew upon his psychology and wielded it finely, like a scalpel. He could incense Toasty, fan the flames of anger directly through Sage of the Enkindled Heart, but he could also do other things with a few targeted words. “Look, I'm sorry if that offended you, but the only reason why I had her cast that spell on you was that you're the strongest Fae I know. By far. I knew that spell wouldn't work on you; we just needed to see what happened when it hit you. Using our greatest abilities on others is how we express our respect among Patternists. You wouldn't want me to give the respect I owe you to Cullywier, right?”
“What? My respect? To that foul, race-traitorous wretch? Never! NEVER!” The Bread-Knight comically stomped his feet, seeming more like a child throwing a tantrum than a soldier bearing great burdens bestowed upon his shoulder by a dignified princess.
And maybe that's the point, Shiv thought. He didn't know why this thought hadn't occurred to him sooner. Maybe Toasty’s meant to be a comical and exaggerated character or something. All these Fae follow different rules, right? If they're really characters from a story, then what might a kid remember more? A funny knight with a big personality made of bread, or just a frowning guy in a tin can who will eventually get crushed when a certain Councilwoman orders him to fight me.
“Exactly, so I'm going to keep respecting you as much as I can, and before you know it, you'll be home with all sorts of new stories to tell. In fact, we'll be right there with you, telling Princess Plum Blossom about how easily you massacred the chefs who dared to transgress against your people, how wise and smart and cunning you had to be to convince me to bring you home.”
Shiv continued rattling on how much he would praise Toasty in front of Princess Plum Blossom, applying flattery like a mallet to the Bread-Knight’s head. Against a just slightly more astute person, it wouldn't have worked at all, but when talking to a character bearing such an exaggerated personality, how else was he supposed to act?
By the time he was finished, Toasty’s chest was cartoonishly inflated. He threw his head back, and his spine bent unnaturally far. He practically turned into a looping spiral of arrogance, not even remotely looking in Shiv's direction anymore. “Hmph. Well, as long as you remember that you're only forgiven because I'm so great and wise and smart and cunning and powerful, I suppose I could make a generous exception.”
“Yeah. All those things.” Shiv nodded. And really fucking forgetful, considering how much nasty shit I did to you before. Guess he doesn’t have a very good Memorization Skill. He's not even afraid of me anymore, when he was shit-scared of me back in the kitchen just a few days ago…
A strong pulse of pressure washed through the room. Shiv and everyone else took a half-step back as the Slipgate finally stabilized. A taste of something flooded the room—a harsh, winnowing chill that dried one’s lungs with every inhale. Shiv frowned. He remembered scents of spring and nature last time. “Hey, Merrielmel, is the spatial frequency tuned to a different place this time?”
“Eh?” the Enchanter replied. “Ah, no. It’s still the same frequency.”
“Is something wrong?” Adam asked. He had three different bows hooked over his shoulder. The first was his Spellstring, but then there was the temporal bow Shiv had taken off one of Scorn’s Vultegs, and finally a massive adamantine greatbow procured from one of the Rubix Well’s guards, as Shiv had found out a while ago.
“With us? Always. But I’m not so sure.” Shiv stared off into the gate. “Last time it activated, I smelled pine trees and other nature stuff. You know. Earth and flowers. Now, it’s just really cold.”
Adam sniffed and glared at the gateway. “I can't cast my senses through the portal. It's like I'm pushing up against an invisible threshold that's just bottling my senses.”
Toasty laughed boisterously. “Ah, that is quite normal. The Fairwoods do not allow spoilers. Your conventional Patternist means of scrying won't help you here.”
“What do you mean by that?” Adam asked.
“It means the Courts won't even let each other take easy peeks across the land. Why do you think you're going to be so special?” The Bread-Knight sneered. “Expect to be keeping your eyes to yourself, huntsman.”
“What? That doesn't make any sense. You can't just block someone's Awareness skill without… There can't be wards layered across all of the Fairwoods, can there? Can there? It's an entire dimension." Adam waited for the Bread-Knight to add to that, but the fae simply continued sneering. “That’s… that’s just complete bullshit.”
“Looks like we can feel useless together, Hero Adam,” Uva deadpanned.
“Readers hate spoilers, and we're going to be walking right into a storybook place,” Shiv said. “I won't blame either of you if you want to just sit this one out. With everything we know so far, I’m just planning to dump Toasty back with the Summer-Court, see if they can help with the Curse, and then go to the Winter Court if they can’t.”
Toasty squealed with disgust. “Please, Deathless, do not cast such unintended slander upon me and mine! If the glorious Risen Dawn cannot save you, then what hope does the pale and cold light of the Forsaker's Moon?”
“That's what I'm going to find out,” Shiv said. He regarded his companions.
“I’m hiding in your mind,” Uva said. “Little risk for me.”
Adam scoffed. “Well, even if the entire realm is warded, you still need someone to keep you from doing something stupid and get you back in one piece. If my greatest skill doesn't work, then yours will probably run into plenty of impediments as well. We don't need you trapped inside some cage of unbreaking… restraint. We’ll have to end up rescuing you if that happens anyway.”
“If someone puts me in a cage, I'll just go Non-Sequitur,” Shiv said.
“You know what I bloody well mean,” Adam snapped.
“And the Gate?”
“Still Water and my father can manage just fine for a while. Let’s get this done quickly so you aren’t a danger to every automaton in existence. And before you turn all my buildings to rust.”
“Ah!” Shiv said dramatically, like he'd caught a murderer in a lie that revealed his guiltiness. “There it is: The true motivations of the Young Lord revealed—he’s afraid the street kid will shit up his property values. Uva, I’m being oppressed!”
“Be meaner, Adam,” Uva whispered as she unraveled in a stream of strands and burrowed back into Shiv’s mind.
“Ouch,” Shiv whimpered. “Not really feeling supported for what we’re about to do.”
Adam sneered. “Oh, shut up, Shiv. Get in before I shoot that orichalcum slab you have instead of a head.”
Shiv chuckled and began walking toward the gateway. He cracked his neck and summoned his Last Morsel to hand. Flicking his frying pan a few times, he was glad the Legendary item didn’t suffer from the effects of the Curse. He wondered why that was, but he wasn’t going to complain. It was good to have something he could rely on as a weapon. The way its edges lit up with cutting aura might just let him take a chunk of a haughty Fae.
“I… Deathless,” Merrielmel called out as Shiv walked by.
“Just keep the gateway active and let the orcs keep watch,” Shiv replied. “We’ll be back in no time. It's just a short trip. And once we do get back, I’ll do another run in the Stranger’s Garden—see if we can find out where your brother went this time.”
A grateful sigh escaped the anxious bald elf. “That’s—that’s all I can ask for.”
Shiv came to a stop before the gateway. Something tightened inside him. It felt like his Non-Sequitur should have triggered, but just… didn’t, for some reason. “Alright. Here we go. Into the place where bread can be knights, stories are the law of reality, and maybe where I can find a way to tell Maiden to go fuck herself.”
“You will find grand wonders and marvelous splendor in Summer Court,” Toasty declared. “For my return, you will be regarded as a champion to the children of the dawn, and all your ails will be relieved. Furthermore, with your uniquely bad cooking—”
“It’s not fucking bad!” Shiv hissed. “I was just Cursed!”
The Bread-Knight ignored him. “You will cook for the Princess so that she is fed and can discover the true depths of Patternist degeneracy. For even horrid experiences can be novel and worthwhile.”
Sage of the Enkindled Heart:Shiv. Do not jam your Morsel into the Fae’s asshole. He probably doesn’t have one. And it’s unbecoming.
Shaking, Shiv chose to be the bigger man. Mainly because of said lack of asshole. “Alright guys. Let’s hope the System doesn’t shit up the gate while we’re gone.”
“Why do you have to say such things when we’re on the verge of leaving?” Adam groaned.
Laughing, the Deathless stepped forward.
He splashed into the veil of Dimensionality, and waves of pressure pulled him along. He felt himself get dragged across dimensions, carried by unsteady waves down a narrow, cramped tunnel. With every second, that weight in his chest grew tighter, and the chill in the air grew worse. In fact, the air was so cold that it actually bothered Shiv. His face and fingers were starting to hurt. He couldn’t remember suffering something like that since he ran up against Andra back at Phoenix Academy.
Just what the hells is happening on the other side?
He got his answer as he crossed over into the Fairwoods for the first time in his life.
Before he witnessed the apocalypse unfolding before him, a sprawl of text spilled across his eyes.
Quest Gained: Save the Summer and Winter Courts from destruction at the hands of the Usurper Queen.
Success: Gain 1 of 3 Narrative Skills as a Boon from the King of the Summer Court; Gain 1 Heroic-Tier Chef-Path item; +10 Levels to a selectable Skill
Failure: The Fairwoods are consumed by the Pale, and all beings within their confines are afflicted with the Usurper’s Winnowing Curse.
Quest Gained: Aid the operatives of Aviary in capturing or eliminating the Usurper Queen.
Success: Gain 2 Heroic-Tier Skills from the Path of the Shadow; Grants Secondary Narrative Stealth Skill; +5 Levels to all Skills
Failure: All non-Fae within the Fairwoods are exposed to the Usurper Queen’s Awareness.
Quest Gained: Stop the Usurper Queen from reassembling the Broken Watchtower.
Success: Evolves Chronomancy Skill to Legendary-Tier; grants a secondary Chronomancy Skill at Adept-Tier
Failure: Cedes complete authority over Seasonal Reset to the will of the Usurper Queen.
Warning!
Quest Failed: Save the Summer and Winter Courts from destruction at the hands of the Usurper Queen.
Quest Failed: Aid the operatives of Aviary in capturing or eliminating the Usurper Queen.
And as soon as Shiv hurriedly dismissed the notifications, he raised his head to behold a spherical moon—immense and pale—tear open along the center, expose a set of yawning jaws, and descend to swallow what paltry embers remained of the Fairwoods’ dying sun.