26 (II)
Victory
A complex, divine sigil flared over his adversary. The owl’s face became solemn and sour. “But, how… She said the bomb would go off even if—”
A third voice joined the fray, interrupting Harkness. An agitated, aggravated, but ultimately triumphant voice. “Well, I discovered why the Quest was still ongoing,” Adam said. Most of his face was swollen, but he still managed that sneer he liked so much. He chucked a threaded, spherical mechanism onto the ground. Shiv couldn’t recognize what it was. Behind Adam, a panel beneath the mana bomb was folded outward, bearing the indentation of the Young Lord’s body.
Both Shiv and Harkness shared a look of mutual confusion as Adam advanced on them. “This,” he said, pointing at the now smoking spherical device, “is a Spatial Frequency Amplifier. I didn’t recognize what it was at first, since I only saw devices like it in the manuscripts. Not until someone”—he glared at Shiv—“launched me into the damn mana bomb. Then, I got a look under its proverbial hood.”
“Oh, you’re fine,” Shiv muttered, looking Adam up and down. “That armor’s the stuff of legends. And nepotism. It’ll keep you standing.”
“You’re a godsdamned bastard, Shiv.”
Harkness blinked several times, her mouth opening and closing as if she couldn’t process what was happening right in front of her. “But the bomb—she said it would still work if…”
“The bomb is the bomb,” Adam explained. “I damaged its containment unit earlier, which I thought was enough to ruin its activation—especially since I blew some of the wires connecting it to the surrounding spatial tunnels apart. But the Umbral you kidnapped knew her science well. She had an interior containment cell as well to ensure spell stability in case the outer casing was damaged. But that wasn’t the important part. This is.”
Shiv looked at the Spatial Frequency Amplifier again. “This thing?”
Adam nodded. “Absurd, isn’t it? Without this little device, the bomb wouldn’t work all that well. Sure, it might deal some lasting—incredibly substantial—damage to the entire building, and it would kill us all. Except for the Omenborn.” He glared at Shiv. “Not for long, anyway. But it won’t be able to knock out the city's teleportation network completely. Not with how well-shielded and warded each of the chambers is individually. Frankly, you would more likely destroy everything but the teleportation anchors. And that’s why the mana bomb has so many spells running inside it—to overload the internal mana fields stabilizing the teleporters.”
Both Shiv and Lady Harkness were staring at Adam Arrow in baffled silence, even as more of the webbing constituting the cavern fractured, and Shiv felt a strange pull begin to grasp at his person.
“But this wouldn’t work without precision. You knew that. Because as a Master, you know what it takes to break one of these anchors through raw force. That might take even you some time. So. What you needed was an overwhelming and complex layering of countless mana types to strike all the teleporters at the same time. And that’s why there are so many tunnels around us that seem half finished. They’re not really connected to any of the other teleporters. Yet.”
“I… you… how?” Harkness looked truly incredulous.
Meanwhile, a few brave Umbrals dashed nearby to drag the comatose Trapdoor Weaveresses away. Harkness barely even noticed them, still trying to process the abruptness of what just happened.
Shiv, meanwhile, continued staring at the magical symbol that burned over her head. As he regarded it, the System offered him insight into what it meant.
CURSE: ABSOLUTE EXPOSURE
Why does that mean? Why does she have a Curse now?
“Because of my Awareness,” Adam answered Harkness with a sneer. “The echoes coming from them sound different from the one we arrived from. Like there is a dead end. Now, you might be a Master Pathbearer with a great many martial and magical skills, but those aren’t the skills that matter when it comes to making a mana bomb. Or collapsing a teleportation network. To build a stable bomb of this size? Craft a Spatial Frequency Amplifier so small? I can barely conceive of this. The one you blackmailed has to be a master of both Spatial Theory and Practical Dynamancy. Nothing less will suffice. And I don’t think you’re a master in either of those things.”
Both Shiv and Harkness stared. She looked at him for answers, and for a surreal moment, he just shrugged. “I don’t get it either. He’s the one that went to an academy.”
Adam continued, ignoring Shiv. “As for why it’s necessary? Because you won’t be able to reach the other teleportation anchors without it. Because Yunni likely mapped these tunnels close enough in spatial relativity to all the teleportation nodes—and when the bomb detonated, the amplifier would draw on the excess waste mana, resonate with the surrounding spatial tunnels and thus expand them to overlap with the anchors, allowing the blast to strike practically every teleportation chamber at once without ever needing to connect with them. That was her plan, wasn’t it? That was what you and your people have been working on for months—no, years.”
Harkness just kept staring—baffled. Shiv realized just now how strange it was that she was just listening instead of acting, and something in his gut tightened.
But then the sigil over her grew brighter and brighter. Shiv looked at the growing Curse again, and a weight hit him.
Foreshadowing: And the Composer opened her eyes, and suddenly there were so many vermin within her web. They weren’t there a moment before, but now the System betrayed them. A Quest had been failed—a Quest even she was unaware of, granted to Aviary of New Albion. Who were within Passage, no less.
The Composer hated liars. She despised them. And so, she would make them hear the volume of her displeasure. Threads drifted in from the webs of her Symposium, and she began to play.
All over the city, her people heard the music, and they found themselves delighted.
But for the vermin she could now sense… They heard a very different tune—a fatal melody that no mortal could endure…
A deafening note shook the tunnels. It was the sound of a lyre; plucked by divine hands, by wrathful hands, by hateful hands.
The melody swept through Shiv and he suddenly felt refreshed. Nourished in mind, spirit, and body.
But as Harkness heard the noise, she staggered backwards as blood poured out from her eyes, nose, ears, and mouth.
For the first time, Shiv saw genuine fear in the owl’s eyes, saw true pain writ upon her face, and saw the desire to flee resound in her body language.
Then, for a split second, that strange feeling from earlier returned. For there was also something else there in her expression. Something Shiv still couldn't quite place. But he shrugged the feeling off. This was their chance.
Shiv chuckled. Shiv laughed. Harkness tried to run, but he drained her momentum. His Reflexes surged as her acceleration slowed. Once more, his Momentum Core was filled to the brim. Another note from the Composer passed through the tunnels. The Master-Tier enemy gurgled and vomited blood—just as Shiv discharged his core and sailed into her. In her weakened state, she failed to evade—and her protective bubble didn’t arrive to stop Shiv from grabbing her by the neck and slamming her down against the ground. He increased his mass as he dragged her all the way across the cavern, spearing her hard against the mana bomb.
Grappling Proficiency > 40
The bulbous construct cracked and deformed as Shiv burned away the final bits of his kinetic charge. A prismatic flood of light and chaotic mana cleaved out from rents and gaps. It was beginning to tremble, destabilized. Harkness clenched her teeth as she formed her bubble, pushing back against him. She was far weaker than before, but even so, Shiv felt like he was wrestling with a giant.
“Adam! Run!” Shiv roared. He needed them gone—and he wasn’t going to miss out on an opportunity to end Harkness if he could. “Get everyone out! Seal the teleportation anchor and keep moving!” He saw that most of the Umbrals and Weaveresses had retreated. Good. He just needed Adam to get out as well.
“Not gonna work,” the Young Lord said with a snarl, looking at the trembling construct. “But there’s a quicker way out.” He nocked an arrow at the frequency amplifier. This arrow wasn’t one of the blue variety, however. Its tip left spatial distortions in the air, and Shiv remembered getting hit by this on the Young Lord's lawn when they battled the raven-helmed stranger. But what was Adam doing?
A teleportation arrow? What is he—
“Two pockets of space can’t exist at the same time,” the Young Lord said, sounding like he was quoting something, and he loosed the arrow. It struck the amplifier, and a pocket of what seemed like nothing expanded. As it did, every spider web it touched untangled and came apart. A pressure pulled at Shiv like a riptide drawing him out to sea. He saw Harkness’s eyes widen as she felt the pull too. Space around them was collapsing. Shiv tried to slam the owl against the bomb one more time, but her bubble flung him off.
He felt her Psychomancy collapse in on him again—but her focus broke, and so did his as they were suddenly dragged away as what felt like the very borders of existence crashed into their sides.
The world twisted and tumbled in a whirlwind of snapping webs and displaced space. Shiv’s senses went haywire, and he couldn’t make out where he was or what was around him. Everything felt distant and close at the same time. Faintly, he felt something wrap around his exposed torso and cling to him. It didn’t feel like any fabric he knew. As he tried to peel it off, his hands slipped through as if he was trying to grip smoke.
Then, suddenly, a chasm of light appeared ahead of him.
Shiv found himself squeezed out from the tight crevice from which he entered the tunnels, and the pressure promptly vanished after that. As he staggered back into the teleportation chamber, he saw a Pyromancer Umbral dragging a few of her companions toward the door. But he didn’t see Harkness anywhere. “Where’s—”
Awareness > 6
He got his answer as he heard a breath from behind. Shiv turned—but not nearly fast enough. The owl drove her blade into his back.
But Shiv blinked with surprise, for he felt no hint of pain. For a moment, both he and Harkness stared at each other, confused. Then, a flash of light came from behind her as the mana bomb detonated completely deep in the chaotically collapsing spatial tunnels.
As the light washed over Shiv and Harkness, he noticed that the thing wrapped around his body was of no material composition at all. Rather, it seemed like a patch of shadowy darkness stuck to a weaver’s web. What baffled him further was how Harkness’s rapier vanished into his cloak without striking his body.
Almost like there’s a… extra pocket of space.
If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
Quest Reward Received
Equipment Obtained: [Cloak of Midnight’s Kindred]
Tier: Adept
Condition: Stable
Composition: Spatial Magic
Enchantments > Minor Dimensional Pocket; Portomancy 1; Shadowsense 30; Binding
Equip Item to Back?
Shaking off his surprise, Shiv equipped his first Quest reward with a thought. Immediately, he got a notion of how much space there was within his new cape, and the darkness of the tunnel beyond didn’t seem so impenetrable anymore.
Harkness thrust her blade back and forth as she continued trying to kill him. All the blood pouring out from her eyes and ears must’ve left her senses impaired. Shiv stole this opportunity and drained her momentum again. He shouted for the others to flee as he struggled to hold her in place—long enough for the mana bomb to consume them both. He saw a coruscating stream of annihilation coming for him from the crack in the wall, its light almost blinding.
There likely wouldn’t be anything left of him when the blast hit. He hoped this wouldn’t destroy his new cape before he got a chance to use it, but he would sacrifice a Quest reward and himself if it meant killing the owl.
Another note from the Composer passed through the halls of Passage. Harkness let out a ragged cry and spewed blood all over Shiv’s bare chest. He stole the momentum from that too as she collapsed against him. To his surprise, her rapier fell out from her weakened hands, and he felt it drop into his cape, adding to its previously absent weight.
Despite everything, she laughed and patted him affectionately on the cheek. “Like I said… you’re a mastiff.”
Then, near death though she was, Harkness opened her eyes again, and Shiv felt his mind go blank as she speared a single, overwhelming command into his mind.
“Release me!”
But using his own feeble Psychomancy, Shiv defied her for as long as he could. “No… I won’t!”
Psychomancy > 4
He would have lasted a half second—but Harkness decided to slam a Master-Tier kick in between his legs just as the wave of mana spilled through the spatial crevice. There was a lot of pain for an instant, and then there was nothing at all.
By the time Shiv returned to his senses, he found himself dry-heaving on the floor at the edge of the room, and…
He looked up to behold an awesome sight.
Standing at the entrance of the spatial crevice was Lady Harkness of New Albion. Blood dripped from practically every pore in her body. Her limbs were spasming. A normal person would be dead seven times over. But she was a Master Pathbearer, and, even as she suffered the fatal melody of a vengeful goddess, she pit her protective barrier against the full wrath of an oncoming mana explosion once meant to devastate all of Passage.
Destructive spells of countless mana types crashed into her. Harkness let out a howl of incredible effort as she slid back on her feet, pressing against the oncoming tide with both hands. Fire singed her flesh. Lightning lashed her body. Frost clung to her very form. On the opposite end of the chamber, Shiv felt his skin bubble from the heat of the blast, and she was caught directly within its trajectory. The owl slipped back, collapsing to one knee. For a moment, Shiv thought she was finished, that the blast was going to consume them both. But then she gave a final snarl of exertion and twisted.
Shiv heard several of her bones snap from the move, but her absurd feat bore fruit. She didn’t hold the mana explosion off, but she did divert it at enough of an angle that it started splashing against the wards of the teleportation chamber.
A stream of concentrated destruction. That was the only way Shiv could describe it. With a deafening rumble, it shattered the wards, boiled a hole through the teleportation chamber, evaporated several more walls, and sliced further still until Shiv thought he could hear the city outside. After what felt like a full minute of bending the blast, the last light of mana faded, and Harkness collapsed to her palms and knees. Shiv thought he heard screams and the rumble of collapsing buildings, but his ears were ringing too hard to be sure.
However, a final glowing shape came from the darkness, and it bounced a few times before landing next to Shiv. He blinked at it for a second and judged it to be a molten helmet of some kind. Then, as the heat faded, he saw that it was a melted mix of raven and crow, twisted to be something altogether ambiguous.
Quest Reward Received
Equipment Obtained > [Mask of False Paths]
Before he could reach out to take the mask, he heard Harkness cough. She was still alive, and, to his horror, was slowly rising to her feet. For a few heartbeats, Shiv just stared at her in utter disbelief. He detested this woman. She killed him—intended to enslave him, slew his comrades, and forced an innocent woman into betraying her own people. But her power just now, what she did while heavily wounded, was a feat of epic proportions.
Could Roland Arrow have stopped that blast?
“Is… is this what it truly means to be a Master?” Shiv coughed. He had to know.
Harkness slowly shook her head. Then she laughed. “No. It isn't. And… I am going to think really, really fondly of you, boy. Because if you didn’t force me to do that...”
Another note from the Composer arrived at that moment, but a gust of invisible power flowed out from Harkness, and the sound turned distorted, bending around the owl’s body, leaving her utterly unharmed, like a mountain parting a river.
She breathed in deeply, eyes closed and expression utterly serene. “Because if you hadn't forced me to true desperation, this would have remained a distant dream for me, yet. I have been bottlenecked at Master for so long… But one cannot flee from death if they wish to be a Legend. You gave me more than I could have possibly hoped to gain from this mission. I thank you, from the bottom of my heart.”
It was at this moment that Shiv understood. The pieces fell into place. The strange dissonance in her reactions to danger, her excitement at his skills, how she let them fight back, how she killed him over and over again, instead of simply incapacitating him. A coldness spread through Shiv. But he clenched his teeth and stood, stowing his new mask into his cloak. “Well. Where were we?”
She blinked at him. And she chuckled. “You’re precious. But I am leaving,before the spider goddess starts playing a heavier tune.”
He advanced on her. “The hells you—”
Harkness flicked a finger at him. All his limbs snapped in the wrong direction, and Shiv shouted in agony as what felt like a mountain fell on him and pinned him in place. “No more easy deaths for you, I fear,” she said as she rose into the air, hovering through the gap she made. She turned her head slightly and smiled at Shiv a final time. “Rest assured, though, I will be seeing you again, disciple of Valor Thann. In fact, I’m already looking forward to it.”
Then, she shot forward and accelerated out into the falling dust and distant light.
Shiv groaned and cursed as he rolled onto his side, his limbs flopping uselessly. “Godsdamned… This is bullshit…” He sounded like Adam—he probably even felt like Adam. What she did just now was… It was the very thing that every Pathbearer aspired to achieve someday. Shiv hoped that the Composer’s song would cut Harkness down after all—but something told him he hoped for too much.
I’m not the only one capable of growing. That was a real monster. He let out a breath. Well, threats of mental destruction and enslavement aside… Yeah, I’ll be looking forward to seeing you again too, Lady Harkness.
“Shiv? Shiv? Are you there?” a voice sounded from the corner of the room. A stone dagger lay discarded, the skeletal armor that once held it now nothing but ash.
“Valor?” Shiv said. “Did you… did you hear that? What she said?”
“Yes. That was… These things happen. In fact, I obtained my first Legendary Skill Evolution in similar circumstances.”
“So, I’ll probably be seeing her again, won’t I?”
“Likely.”
“Great. Wonderful enemy to have.” Shiv laughed. “But I am going to kill her next time. Legendary Skill or not.”
A moment of silence followed. “And I will help you. I will teach you all that I know, if you wish to learn. I just need the Composer to loosen this cage first… And then we will have a proper discussion. About many things.”
“Yeah? Okay. I think I’d like that.”
The doors to the teleportation anchor snapped open, and in came Weaveresses, Umbrals, and more members of the Order. Behind them was Adam and—he was letting Uva lean against him. Her face was a mask of dried blood, exhaustion, and relief when she saw him.
“Broken Moon,” Adam gasped as he looked at Shiv. “Is… is she dead?”
Shiv shook his head and looked toward the opening. “She sends us her best, though.”
The Young Lord stared through the gap as his face paled and a snarl twisted his features. Uva stumbled away from him and battled every step before she slumped down next to Shiv. Her face was crusted in red and her eyes were bloodshot. He probably didn’t look much better. Still, she managed a look of… Is that hunger?
“I like the cape,” she managed, sounding absolutely spent.
“I like the fact that you’re still alive?” Shiv ventured. “Thanks for… protecting my mind even when… I’m just glad you’re alive.”
“And I you,” she said. She placed her now bare hand against his cheek, and he leaned into it. “The headache is phenomenal, though.”
Shiv snorted a laugh. Was her Psychomancy field larger than he remembered? He tried saying something to her with his Psychomancy. “Hello.”
Uva blinked. “You’re…”
“Yeah. Something good came out of getting my mind shredded over and over. I think I’m going to need some more training from you.”
Her surprise faded, replaced by an expression he couldn’t quite read. But there was a surge of heat in her mind. A heat that practically burned. “Then, we should speak. I also want to know how you… don’t stay dead. But only after you make me dinner. And dessert.”
“A promise is a promise,” Shiv replied.
“And thank me for actually resolving that mess,” Adam sneered down at Shiv. “Shoot the bomb. Kill us all and take her with it. No, you bloody, simple madman. I will not join you in your urge to complete murder-suicide with the enemy. But I will complete the Quest—even if it’s not mine.” The Young Lord sighed. “I’m assuming that mess of black you’re wearing is one of the rewards?”
“Just wrapped around me as the tunnel collapsed,” Shiv said. “I was wearing it by the time I got out. It’s made of space.”
Adam nodded. “The System forges and delivers its rewards in the oddest of ways. Still doesn’t change the fact that I got felling nothing from this.”
Shiv paused. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“You wouldn’t?” Adam snorted. “What? Are you planning on giving me an item?”
“Yeah. How about a Master-Tier rapier?”
Adam stared. “I don’t get the joke.”
“It’s not a joke. Harkness dropped her sword in my cloak when she tried to stab me. Didn't have a Binding Enchantment. I also have this mask there. We can take a look later. You can pick.”
“Both?”
“One,” Shiv said.
“We’ll discuss the details later,” Adam said, waving him off. The Young Lord looked happier already. “I’m sure the Composer wouldn’t be against showing us her appreciation, too.”
“Probably not,” Shiv said. “Hey. Adam.”
“Hm?”
“I’m really glad you went to Burning Chicken Academy. I still have no idea what you did, but it worked.”
“Yes. Well. You can thank me by pressing the spider goddess so we can get back to Blackedge.” The Young Lord’s expression hardened. “We saved an Abyssal city. Now let’s see us save our own home.”
Shiv nodded. “Sure. Whatever. Right now, I just want my arms to work again. I really needto cook some of this stress off.”