Path of the Deathless

Evolving an Eldritch Skill is a lot like gambling, except you don't understand what any of the numbers mean. If it lands on a three, you might permanently gain a set of new eyeballs. In fact, you might view all eyeballs as part of you, and so you broaden your horizons, quite literally. You see everything all the time. This can obviously drive a man mad, but it is the case where an enemy trying to assassinate him makes the unfortunate mistake of possessing ocular organs; it can also be a boon, since all ocular organs belong to him… You see where this is going.

Likewise, you can roll a 9, meaning that you are now the very incarnation of waste. Perhaps you go to the toilet a little too much, or perhaps you spend all your time digging through dung, and now your legend, or at least the legend associated with your Eldritch Physiology skill, is connected to literal shit. You become literal shit. You become a shit monster, is what I'm saying. Quite miserable, but you would be surprised how useful it is. One of New Albion's best infiltrators swims through sewer systems and hides within rectums to strike from a place most don't expect.

Still, no one will be telling tales about her with a straight face any time soon.

Ultimately, Eldritch Physiology is an aberration of your natural biology and matter. If you're an automaton and made from a specific kind of alloy, but you spend a lot of time rusting, then you might become the very embodiment of rust. Rust might give you nutrition and become your health, rather than being a state of decay. You are marrying a concept of what you are with what you literally exist as. And the eventual outcome of the evolution can be as beneficial as it can be detrimental.

It really depends on your legend, on what kind of skill you evolve, what kind of shape your biology takes, and how well your mind can sustain that insanity. It is always insanity. It rarely makes any sense.

That is why you should develop your skills carefully, because without making sure that the legend you accrue is to your benefit, you might very well become like the shit infiltrator. Except, unlike her, you might not even be a highly successful agent. You might be a literal dung heap. That is possible. Never think it's impossible. Do not burn your lifeblood in the effort to become a sapient latrine. It is no kind of life.

I know this from experience. My fetishes are not your fetishes. You will not survive this. You will not enjoy this as I have. Be mindful. That is all I will say, Young Seeker.

—Turn and Face the Strange(r), by Hades Hymn

348

Broken Things [II]

Hades’ right hand was glistening with oil. It was of a premium quality, the kind of thing one lathered leather with and used to soothe their griffin mounts when they developed a particular itch. The Slipsupple brand was produced by Maiden the Genius herself, who synthesized a particular kind of sapient slime to offer unparalleled frictionlessness and minty fresh comfort.

A single jug of Slipsupple cost ten pieces of mithril: enough to feed a poor family for a month and a half.

Such was why most who were on the Path of the Jouster, Rider, or Chevalier were often noble of birth or rendered extremely poor by the unspeakable costs accrued. Not only did they have to worry about their own equipment and maintenance, but also often about a very large, very hungry mount that needed to be cared for.

But that wasn't why Hades’ hand was glistening.

Currently, he had a portion of his consciousness devoted to wearing a Shoggoth with many hands, many eyes, and an artistic skill that few could match, commandeering it to illustrate a particular drawing that would inspire infatuation in any man. When it was done with said drawing, Hades himself looked upon it. He nodded in satisfaction. The drawing was good—so good, in fact, that it inspired physiological changes inside his base body. His pants descended like a curtain, and the real show rose in salutation.

With the Deathless, the Umbral, and the Young Lord lost in the Fairwoods, Hades needed to perform an act of self-care so that he might best assist the others in their endeavors to recover the missing children.

A mind clear of obfuscations was necessary if one wanted to perform to the best of one's abilities, and that meant engineering relief. And the job of engineering said relief, if the comfort of another was unavailable, or simply wanting, often fell to the one in need of it themselves.

And truth be told, no one knew how to relieve Hades Hymn better than Hades Hymn himself. He simply knew himself best. His flesh, touched by the outside, as it were, needed a delicate touch in the rightest of ways to achieve a happy little ending.

But just as his adventure into pleasure began, a notification flickered before his vision—one that made him perform a double-take and stop mid-stroke. It was quite a thing, stopping Hades Hymn before he could find his release. He had ignored actual battles at his own doorstep to sate his desires, but the words he read over and over again now left him aghast.

“How? How does he do it? He's an idiot. The boy's an idiot. He has no idea what he's doing. How could he do that? I've spent over a century trying to do that!” Disbelief oil-wrestled with horror and astonishment inside Hades’ breast. The sheer magnitude of his befuddlement was expressed in a simple action as he pulled his pants back up. “Just how did he…”

An Outsider has been born to Shiv the Deathless!

Shiv the Deathless has become a Progenitor to a nascent Eldritch Entity!

The [Garden of Wounds and Broken Things] has manifested.

The Garden of Wounds and Broken Things is now bound to the Deathless.

The Headmaster's vision dimmed. He wasn't sure if he wanted to explode with rage, hyperventilate from sheer frustration, or cheer, as someone had done the impossible. Someone had created a new patch of the Outside, beyond the reach of the System, in defiance of the existing Outer Gods.

Ultimately, Hades settled for spasming in place as his fifth limb softened in impotent confusion. “But… how did he even—”

“HYMMNNNNNN!” A telepathic voice exploded in the back of his head. Know-Nothing, Broker of Information and Secrets, howled his thoughts directly into his mind from the other side of the planet. “What is this? What have you done? What have you let him do? And why was I not informed of this?”

“Well, in my defense, I wasn't informed about this either. As to how he managed to do it…” Hades shrugged. “I suppose we can try to ask him once we find him again.”

“Find him again?”

“Ah, right. Something I did forget to inform you of. He went into the Fairwoods to ask one of the Courts to get rid of a Curse, and the entire dimension got sealed a few minutes later. He is currently unreachable.”

“The Deathless is MISSING?”

“Oh, it's worse than it sounds. Not just him, but also the new Seeker we are trying to cultivate, and also the Gate Lord, the one that we're about to establish relations with. Roland Arrow’s boy.”

“WHAT? Hades, you were supposed to keep us updated. That's how this works. You are our arm. You are our eyes. You give us insight no one else can. We're not funding your Seeker's Lodge for any charitable reasons! You need to fucking COMMUNICATE!”

Twin trickles of blood ran down Hades’ nostrils. He sniffled and blew a spray of blood over his ruffled blouse. Having a True Legend dragon scream their frustration in the back of your mind was like detonating a mana bomb inside your brain tissue—quite literally. Most Pathbearers would have seen themselves splattered across the walls around them. Hymn, however, was also a True Legend, and so the concussion he suffered was comparatively minor. That didn't mean he particularly enjoyed the sensation, though. “Yes, well, about that: the thing you're doing right now, the yelling, that's exactly why I tend to delay telling you these things.”

A primal growl that sounded like tectonic plates grinding against each other or opposing thunderstorms crashing together in a battle to dominate the sky escaped the Dragon Broker. “Hymn, I am in no mood to play with you today. The other three wish to tell me they are in no mood to play with you today, either. Wait, what? No. No, Yellow-Belly. You do not have the mood to play with him today—Yes, I know you don't care, Yellow-Belly. You don't care about anything, you fucking asshole. This Brokerage wouldn't work if it weren't for me. Oh, oh, yes! That's right. Walk out of the hoard—sure, piss on my fucking gold!”

“Trouble at the office?” Hades asked conversationally.

“You be silent,” Know-Nothing snarled. “You do not get to insult us today with your oh so smart tongue. Use it and your resources to make this right instead. Recover our investment. We are not losing the Deathless to whatever fairy fuck shenanigans are happening out there. I am giving you complete authority to press Cullywier into service if you have to. Get to the Fairwoods, whatever it takes, and get the Deathless back. Get all of them back! Recover our investment!”

A lesser man would have broken in fear before the dragon’s shouts.

Unfortunately for them, Hades never got the opportunity to be a lesser man. “Right, I'll see what I can do about that. Right after I figure out how the Deathless managed to create a new Eldritch Entity.”

A volcanic detonation of outrage blossomed out from the dragon. “HYMN—”

The Headmaster severed their telepathic connection and then veiled himself within a shroud sculpted from the Outside. A hive of swirling eyes emerged from his skin and formed an exo-flesh around him. The Dragon Brokers reached out for him once more, but found their powers wanting, unable to find him. For he technically wasn't even in this dimension, or even Integration proper itself. He was, effectively, hiding in a small patch of the Stranger's Garden. A small patch he'd stolen from the Stranger some few years ago.

It was a useful power to have, one that granted him time to think and the quiet to actually get things done. Being able to call upon it at any time was also a godsend. But this time, he wasn't using it to hide from his responsibilities. This time, he intended to cross over from the Stranger's Garden into this new Eldritch Dimension. Though the Garden of Wounds and Broken Things wasn't fully under the System's purview, it still had to exist somewhere amidst the vast sea of madness that was the Outside. And few people were as adept at traversing the Outside as Hades Hymn.

Hades breathed in deeply. “Alright then. Step one: Find the garden. Step two: Use the garden to find the kid. Step three: Convince the kid to explain to you how he managed to create and become a progenitor to an Eldritch entity, or throttle it out of his mind if you have to.”

With his goals clearly defined, the Headmaster turned along an axis invisible and unreachable to ordinary beings, took a single step, and left his office as well as the dimension containing Integrated Earth in the process.

Sneaking into the Stranger's Garden and hijacking one of his Fingerlings, Hades made his way across time and space, taking a shortcut first to a certain Gate Piety so that he could recruit some proper help for this endeavor.

He suspected that Roland Arrow and Valor Thann were likely doing all they could to reach the children, but hadn’t gotten very far yet.

As things stood, Hades might just be able to find them a way in, but getting back out and overcoming whatever had the Deathless and his companions trapped would require a bit more hands-on work. Hades hated hands-on work. That was best left to fools who couldn't stay dead or enjoyed risking their eternal lifespan.

Real heroes of Integrated Earth, in other words. Real heroes like Jessica Hawgrave, Valor Thann, and Roland Arrow. Heroes were always great as free labor.

***

The sheer power Evanescia possessed was disgusting. Her Chronomancy put the Harbinger’s to shame—and the Harbinger already left Shiv awestruck. The amount of time mana she unleashed drowned the entire dimension in a tint of gold. Even from the other side of existence’s curtain, Shiv could see that there wasn't a single square centimeter of space within this corner of Integration that wasn't consumed by her all-caging Chronomancy.

The entirety of the Fairwoods went still.

Yet there was another who could defy Evanescia's power.

Longinus, battered and cracked from Shiv's repeated ambushes, snarled and spat, blindly slashing and stabbing with his lance to strike down the now-missing Deathless. Even though he lacked any recollection of his adversary, the sheer fury still raging in his heart burned on, and his tantrum came, commanding him to vent himself upon the world.

His most dangerous skill returned him. With casual gestures, entire sections of the Boiling Toad went missing. But even as the mad god swung and swiped, painting expanses of space into nothingness, there was one who stood in his proximity who disregarded him as a threat altogether.

Longinus' lance cleaved past Evanescia, speared into her more than thrice. Where the Wanderer’s strongest blows annihilated Shiv down to his very atoms, no matter how much he raised his durability with Pillar of Orichalcum, the Usurper-Narrator regarded the attacks like one might regard a strong breeze. Ripples of divine mana curved around her, akin to gales folding around the surface of a mountain. Her true, featureless form hovered in the sky, utterly still, staring in the direction where Shiv once was. The Deathless was lost to her memories as well, but he couldn't shake a feeling of apprehension—as if she had a way to counter his Continuity Error.

“Well, I mean, she just might.” The girl who didn't exist shrugged, but her own anxiety leaked out from her expression and the way she grabbed her elbows tightly. “She didn't intervene while you were kicking Longinus' ass. She didn't intervene while you evolved a bunch of your skills. She didn't intervene for an entire day, almost two. This entire time you've been in the Boiling Toad, skirmishing with Longinus. The story she planned for you, it couldn't be this, right? You’ve basically been stuck here, fighting to free your former mentor, beating up on this piece of shit of a god. But even if the fighting is exciting, the pacing kind of sucks.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“The pacing?” Shiv had a puzzled look on his face before he caught on to what she was talking about. “Right, like the pacing of the story.” He thought about what the girl said, and frankly, it made a lot of sense. He'd happened upon Longinus by pure chance. “Hells, I thought I ran into another version of Georges here. I thought she was planning something, using him as a character.”

“And she probably was. Remember, she briefly flipped the pages of the Fairwoods back and forth when you first went Backstage.

“But after that, she didn't reset the loop,” Shiv said. “Why?”

“She wanted to speak to us. At least that was what she claimed earlier, before we escaped. I suspect she might be genuine. I also suspect that she will try to force her will on us the moment we displease her too much.”

“And we haven't already?”

“Apparently not.” The Harbinger scratched the scruff of his golden stubble in thought. "We know a few things about the Usurper-Narrator. We know how she reacts in specific situations when faced with specific kinds of resistance. She captured you, Uva, and Adam, and added you to the Fairwoods because she wants new heroes for her story. Furthermore, the Watchtower burned parts of you and is likely using your essence to fuel its expansion or potential evolution. Evanescia does not care about what other people want. She acts purely out of a selfish desire to discover new novelties between her pages. Her not intervening in the battle between you and Longinus has nothing to do with ethics."

Shiv let out a wry laugh. “I mean, shit, Harbinger, aside from the Composer, the Starhawk, and maaayyybe Cripple, I don't think I've met any gods who care about ethics or what some mortals might want.”

The Harbinger hummed in agreement. "It seems that becoming divine is an inherently alienating thing, even without degeneration. It's not that hard to conceptualize, either. Think of how much we have changed in so short a time. We've grown powerful, yes, but the way that power has changed our perception of the world is just as great. You were never so careless before your first death, for instance. Reckless, perhaps, but not careless."

“You think most gods will naturally become slave-taking bastards? Is that what you're saying?”

"What I am saying is that most gods will forget the burdens of being mortal, and neglect to consider another's wants before their own. After all, how often do you contemplate the risk you pose to an insect before sprinting across an open field?"

Shiv really wasn't sure about that analogy. “But people aren't insects. Not even close.”

"Indeed, they are not. However, understand that the determining thing isn't the epistemology of a person, but rather how a god feels about them."

Shiv eyed the Usurper-Narrator back in the Fairwoods with a sharp glare. “So, what do you think she feels about me? Fascination? Is that why she hasn't tried to revert the loop?”

"She said something about wanting to see if we could best Longinus. Perhaps our martial feats have impressed her. But I don't think that's likely."

And when the Harbinger didn't spell out why it was unlikely, Shiv did his own thinking and came to a conclusion. “Because… Wait, doesn't she already have far more powerful Pathbearers under her control?” He gestured at the screen of Chronomancy that tinged all of existence. It was a blood-chilling level of power to wield.

Beyond Legendary.

"Correct. Remember the Pathbearers she inserted herself into."

“Mythic,” Shiv muttered. “A whole Tier beyond us.”

"And we are by no means the single most skilled or talented Pathbearer to ever walk Integration. So it can't just be our martial performance that has pleased her. No, she is personally invested in us. She has to be, to show herself so openly."

From what Shiv could tell, the Usurper-Narrator had arrived in person. There was a halo of true Divinity that shrouded her silhouette, as if a sun was hovering behind her, just out of sight. But Longinus had pulled tricks on Shiv before—left divine echoes in place of his true self to bait Shiv out and strike him down in a counter-attack. Considering how Evanescia had the Wanderer trapped here, there was little question about which of the two was superior. And if Shiv had to bet, Evanescia was also far cleverer and undoubtedly more self-controlled.

But she was also right there. He could strike at her right now. Try an ambush and skirmish against her using his new skill in tandem with his other Unique Skills. Continuity Error would keep him beyond her grasp. The Harbinger would allow him to move and hit her where she was vulnerable.

Yet, at that thought, the Harbinger posed his own question: "And where is she vulnerable?"

“Huh?”

"What psychological flaw are we striking at exactly? What fragility are we taking advantage of? What fracture in her ego are we to widen?"

Shiv went over everything he knew about Evanescia—and realized he didn't know much at all. More importantly, he didn't know anything that would allow him to emotionally imbalance her or reveal mental traumas he could exploit. He couldn't displace her across time without breaking her Magical Resistance first, and considering how she was able to insert herself in a Mythic-Tier Pathbearer at a moment's notice and how durable her soul felt beneath Shiv’s cutting aura, it just didn’t seem feasible. Fighting Longinus had already taken longer than a day, and the Wanderer was still standing, even with his divine visage cracked in so many places.

"And she is more than he will ever be," the Harbinger reiterated. "I am higher than a skill of raw and brutal force. My lethality is at its highest when we understand our enemy, when we know what to strike. The slaver we broke was nothing but psychological imbalances constructed on top of a foundation of physical weakness and emotional depravity. And though Longinus is conventionally powerful, his mind is fragile and feeble. It is why the wounds he takes there are inflicted across the rest of his tripartite whole. But what aspect of Evanescia strikes you as brittle? What insult would you use against her to turn her flesh to glass?"

“I don’t know,” Shiv admitted.

"Then what do you think about our odds of victory?"

“Low. Very felling low.But…” He gritted his teeth in frustration. Longinus was right there. The Usurper-Narrator was right there. If he could just figure something out, or maybe if he could dance the perfect fight and never let either of them touch him a single time, he could break both of them and bring this bullshit trip to an end. He could free Georges, put down an Ascendant, and murder the tyrant of the Fairwoods to set everyone in the dimension free in one fell swoop.

"And what a vivid and beautiful fantasy that is,” the Harbinger whispered. “Now, for comparison, I want you to imagine making a mistake. I want you to imagine Evanescia striking you down, breaking your mind long enough for her to gift you to Longinus as a specially enforced ‘darkest hour.’"

That Shiv could also imagine easily, and imagining what would likely follow that scenario made him struggle not to heave. “Okay, okay. I see the point. But what now? Wait for her to leave and keep kicking Longinus' ass after?”

The Harbinger didn't answer immediately. Instead, he continued looking on at Evanescia while the gears were turning inside Shiv's head, thoughts jumping between him and his great psychological skill.

“We should talk to her,” he and the Harbinger said at the same time.

The girl’s eyes widened in disbelief. She looked between the two versions of Shiv with utter incredulity. “What? What the fuck? Have you both gone mad? If you pop back into Integration right now, you'll be dealing with Longinus and Evanescia. You're already dancing on a knife's edge, fighting that psychotic rapist. Exposing yourself for a conversation while she's also there is like putting your head through a noose.”

"No, it's like having a conversation with our favorite reader," the Harbinger declared. "She is a fan. We don't fully understand the reason yet, but she is most certainly a fan. She has shown her favoritism by not resetting the loop. This is the one thing that we are certain of with her. There is no way we haven't deviated from the story arc she planned for us by acquiring Continuity Error, but she hasn't corrected it yet."

“And there's got to be a reason for that,” Shiv followed. “She's not going to help Longinus bring us down. If that was her goal, then she would have just inserted herself into him.” And that made Shiv imagine what it would be like fighting the Wanderer if the Ascendant didn't have any severe mental issues.

Basically hopeless. Even if he were a True Legend.

“If you go out there and she uses a Mythic-Tier spell against you…” the girl began.

“My Shapeless Tides will buy me a second, at least. Harbinger, you stay inside of me. She brings all that Chronomancy down on me, I'd rather be frozen in time than see you broken—because that's us dead for good.”

"Wise. This foresight is becoming for a proper Pathbearer."

“Insane risks aren't!” the girl cried out. She really reminded Shiv of Adam when she acted like this.

“This isn't an insane risk. This is going to be a conversation. Something that'll teach me more about who I'm actually dealing with. Show me the face of my true enemy.” And that was just it. Shiv hated Longinus; he would do anything to break him down. But ultimately, it was Evanescia who stood in his way, Evanescia who kept him trapped inside the Fairwoods. Even if he didn't hate her nearly as much, she needed to be overcome for any escape to be possible.

But there were many ways besides violence to overcome someone.

“Alright, Harbinger. Let's go see where her cracks lie.” Just as Shiv was about to cross back over into Integration, however, he felt something behind him.

A presence watching him.

His Shapeless Tides revolved horizontally across his body, spinning him in place. He expected an ambush from some kind of eldritch being, something made of wounds and ruins, but instead he found the garden as it was. There were even more injuries and wrecked husks raining down from above, but no obvious enemies trying to attack him.

The seconds dragged on. No assault came. Shiv's unease remained. Even though this garden was born of his Unique Skill Evolution, it remained an Eldritch Skill, and it was tied to a new Outsider entity. That made this place unpredictable in the best of cases and downright lethal in all others. But there was something else. He'd put off discovering the true nature of his Eldritch Physiology Skill’s evolution. As much as the Garden worried him, he also felt ready to find out about its dangers here and now, rather than later, when he had no choice, when the circumstances were truly dire.

With grim reluctance, Shiv resurrected a new body and called upon his Eldritch Physiology the way he did in the past. His flesh shifted once more, but rather than immediately adopting the visage of death, the space around his biology shifted as injuries spilled out behind it, as lacerations became like vines at his feet and patterns formed from bruises, contusions, rips, tears, ruptured organs, and more sprouted out from his back like wings of macabre design. At this point, his skin was gone, becoming a flowing cape behind him, but his skeletal frame was not something made from enamel and bone anymore. Instead, it looked like broken concrete, shattered glass, dilapidated buildings intermixed with festering gashes. And from within the many wounds lining his form spilled even more out into the world, contaminating the nature of reality.

But the contamination came at a cost. That which poured forth from his altered body was drawn from the garden. Buildings collapsed and vanished as the weathered stones that made up the ruins were squeezed out from Shiv's physical vessel. The same went for the assortment of wounds as well. To his surprise, however, he could move them. Every injury, every bit of damage that sprouted free from him was like an extension of his body, was a portion of his physical form. He moved the lacerations connected to him, and they painted trails of oozing blood that dissolved like ink upon a surface of swirling water.

Shiv nodded slowly. “Alright, kind of weird and bloody, but doesn’t seem to be dangerous. I don’t really get it yet, but at least you won’t stab me in the ass when I least expect it. I think. I hope.”

The Garden accepts your praise.

“Yeah, okay.” Shiv sighed, not sure how to take that. “I… I’ll figure the rest of you out later. Maybe after I find Uva. Or when I get back to Hymn.”

With that bit of weariness resolved, Shiv turned his physical form back to normal and crossed over into Integration. As he did, his Harbinger shrank inside him as his Severed Shadow turned faint and intangible. Only a single physical form remained in place to face Evanescia down. She turned toward him immediately. From her body language alone, he could tell that she was excited; however, anything she had to say was interrupted as Longinus locked eyes with Shiv and lost hold of his rage entirely.

His blazing lance came forth in a thrust. “YOU—”

“No,” Evanescia interrupted casually. Her featureless silhouette widened and blurred. She inserted herself into a three-headed humanoid made from countless hovering crystals, with many more orbiting around its body.

Waves of continent-crushing Dynamancy gushed out from each of the crystals, and all that mass-altering power was turned on Longinus in an instant. But it was more than Dynamancy.

The Usurper-Narrator pitted her own Divinity, and that of all the deities and Demigods she had within her list of characters, against the Wanderer, and the wounds Shiv had inflicted upon him tore wide open.

Longinus’ left arm snapped like a twig. His shoulder disintegrated, his bicep folded in half, and his forearm toppled free and crashed upon the ground in a splintered mess. The rest of his body fared little better. Incandescent ichor spilled out from a hundred brutal wounds. Longinus' reaction started as a rage-filled scream that broke down into a hysterical, pain-filled shriek. Impossibly dense fields of hostile mana gripped his lance and ripped it out of his grasp before casting it aside and pinning it into the ground.

Then, with the simple twitch of a finger, Evanescia undid Longinus entirely.

She ripped Georges out of the Ascendant. The Ascendant’s Avatar erupted free from Longinus' centaur form in a spray of divine essence. Mortal and devoid of a Chronomancy skill, Georges was frozen in place, dragged across reality only at Evanescia's whims. Sinews of burning incandescence connected him to Longinus for a few moments longer, but each of them snapped like mere strings as Evanescia curled her finger a bit more. With the connection broken, Longinus no longer had an Avatar, no longer possessed an anchor to the world, and so, with a final fleeting howl of unfulfilled emotion, the Wanderer was banished—vanishing in a puff of fading sparks.

Shit, Shiv thought, trying not to overreact before the vulgar display of dominance Evanescia had performed upon the false god. Maybe coming out to speak with her wasn’t the best idea after all.

But the moment she spoke, all his concerns evaporated. “Deathless. There you are again. I'm so glad you decided to come out. I have many things to ask you—and I'm not even sure if I want you to tell me.”The inhuman creature of crystals she inhabited clasped its hands together, and Evanescia giggled, sounding positively giddy. Through the Harbinger, Shiv could feel the warmth of her heart. Her core was a star of pure enthusiasm; her excitement was roused like a child set free upon a playground with no restrictions to her time nor any dangers to her person, her mind whispering with glee and heightened anticipation.

She really, really wanted to speak with him. This wasn't a trap at all. At least, not yet.

"Lead her on," the Harbinger advised. "Learn more about her. Understand her. That's the only way we'll gain the opportunity to break or solve her. Don't be rattled by her power—it’s just a set of obstacles to overcome. Focus on what we can do, and use that to solve her."

Right. Got it.

Evanescia cleared her throat. “First off—I'm sorry about interrupting your duel. I'll let you finish that later—I'll revert the story to that exact part. I have to admit, you've gone very, very far off course. None of this was supposed to happen, and I really should have restarted the loop a while ago.”

“Kind of figured,” Shiv grunted. “So. What stopped you?”

The Usurper-Narrator shuffled awkwardly for a moment, as if she were too embarrassed to admit her truth. “Well, to be honest, jealousy.”

Shiv squinted. “Explain that.”

“I… He’s not a good enough foil for you,” Evanescia said, almost stammering. “I mean, let's be honest, he's not a good enough foil even for himself. He's a shadow of a shadow of a man. Sure, he's powerful, but it's not even his own power. It will be a grand feat if you bring him down regardless, but where is the narrative significance? Where is the real climax to that?”

“I get to free Georges,” Shiv said. “And I get to kill a depraved piece of shit who hurt a lot of people and will hurt even more in the future if I don't do anything. Seems pretty climactic to me.”

“But the way it happened, the way it's turned out, it's all just so happenstance. I won't accept that. I don't want to accept that. More importantly, however…” She not-so-subtly gestured toward herself. “He isn't right. He's not a good enough nemesis for you. He can't stop you. You can see it as well as I. For all his divine power, he's broken. He's been nothing more than a thing for a long time. And you'll never give up. You'll keep going at him over and over again until you finally knock his tower down. But that's not good enough.”

“And you are?” Shiv asked. “Wait, are you trying to actually make yourself the villain of my story?”

She let out a pitched laugh as her body bent back. “Oh, what a statement. Of course you would think that. Everyone's the hero of their own story. No, the other way around, Deathless. I want you to be the villain of mine. I'm going to be more than just a narrator this time. I think I've finally found a villain good enough to make me the hero I was always meant to b—”

Then, without any warning at all, a burning, azure arrow detonated against Evanescia’s head from out of nowhere.