6 (II)
Abyss
Shiv started moving. He felt himself gliding through the world, and on a whim, he jumped. Instead of suddenly learning to fly, he just went up and down. So. He was a ghost that moved like a person. Well, that was disappointing. Maybe if he advanced his Revenant Skill more, he could get the rest of the fun ghost abilities like flying around, possessing things, telekinesis, and the like.
As he continued moving, he came to a rough and sudden halt before bouncing off something. He moved again and found himself stopped by some kind of obstacle. Shiv felt at the structure, but could only feel a vague barrier of some kind. No texture. No detail. Why could he see but not actually feel? Makes no sense… It also annoyed him to realize that intangibility was probably another thing that wasn’t included among his ghostly powers.
I am the weakest ghost in existence, Shiv thought. Well, he wasn’t technically a ghost, was he? He was a Revenant. Ghosts were monsters the Necrotechs used to attack the Republic. Shiv was… something else. Something that was entirely unique, if his Revenant Skill and Path were to be trusted. So, by technicality, that made him the strongest Deathless Revenant in existence.
Things were pretty hopeful for Shiv with this framing. He changed directions, ignoring the barrier for now as anxiety—and a building coldness—washed through him. He really needed vitality soon, but he still couldn’t see—
Then, something else emerged in the darkness. It appeared as a flicker at first, like a bonfire in the ruins seen from afar. As Shiv grew colder, it grew brighter, and he rushed toward it as fast as he could. Several times, he bounced off obstacles. He found himself running along the blockades to chart a path to the single source of light. As he drew closer to nonexistence, the flame he sought burned brighter, and other fires flashed into being around him, materializing as if constellations amidst the Abyssal dark.
There was something heartening about that. There were still living things here. Things he could drain and use to resurrect himself. As he passed what appeared to be a corner, he found himself but a few meters away from the warmth he was seeking, and was surprised by seeing a literal brightness alongside a magical one.
The vitality he sought seemed connected to a tree that had a single branch of some sort. At the end of the branch dangled an orb of light. Shiv didn’t know what kind of organism he was looking at, nor did he have the time to consider if it would perish from his draining. It was his only hope to stop himself from a final death, and he was going to drain every bit of vitality he could.
Shiv drove his hands into the tree and drew in vitality as fast as he could. Immediately, he felt a heat rush through his body, and he found himself shuddering in relief. That was pretty close. He moved faster than he remembered, come to recall. Maybe his Revenant’s movement was tied to how fast he could move normally with his Physicality. That was something to discover in better circumstances, when he had the conditions for experimentation.
For now, he continued sapping vitality, and shadows calcified around him. To his surprise, the glow of the light revealed something else: his chef’s knife was still in his hand—bound to his spirit as it was in life. Shiv chuckled in disbelief. Despite falling down here, his fortune was proving to be pretty good so far. When he was done draining the tree, maybe he could cut away the branch and use the orb as some kind of makeshift torch to find out where he was.
A final trickle of heat rushed into him. The mold of shadows around his body broke apart. Shiv took in a deep breath. He found the air in the Abyss quite crisp. Almost as fresh as the air on Blackedge. That was unexpected. “This place is full of surprises,” he muttered. “Well. Let’s see about that torch, then.”
As he reached up to slice at the branch, he examined his knife and smiled again. “Thanks, Georges. Hang in there.”
[Halspur’s Perfect-Edged Chef’s Knife]
Condition: Sharpened
Not even “fine.” Sharpened. The missing pieces along the blade were gone, and it gave off a polished gleam, serving as a mirror beneath the glow. Shiv looked at himself, and despite the circumstances, found himself grinning. To his surprise, his once pitch-black eyes were now lit up by irises of shining white. That had to have happened when he gained his Path… Or rather, when he lost his Curse.
As he finally reached up to cut the branch, though, the tree itself moved. A low grumble sounded from below Shiv, and suddenly, the branch slid out of his reach as what he assumed to be a tree lifted its head off the ground, showing a wide, hideous face that dwarfed Shiv’s body. The creature had a single cyclopean eye and a wide maw of jagged, needle-like fangs. Shiv thought it looked like one of those anglerfish he saw in the Blackedge aquarium, and he remembered what Georges told him about how they hunted.
The Abyssal angler beast stared at Shiv, clicking its mouth. He stared back, mind blank.
Then, Shiv responded as he always did when surprised by a lesser vampire: He stabbed it before it could gut him. The Deathless rammed his chef’s knife through the center of the angler beast’s eye. The monster roared in pain, twisting and shaking. Shiv was dragged off his feet and flung from side to side like a doll. To his surprise, he managed to keep a death grip on his blade, still lodged in the monster's eye. The speed at which he was shaken from left to right should have ripped his arm out of its socket, but aside from a few jolts of pain, he endured, and his muscles held.
He was stronger than he ever remembered being. Maybe finally strong enough to fight a monster like this head-on.
“Come on, then,” Shiv spat as blood spilled out from the creature's bleeding eyeball. “Time to find out if you slice like an anglerfish too!”
The monster responded to Shiv’s threat with a roar of its own. Not wasting any more time, he twisted his body and planted both his feet on top of its upper lip. This way, it couldn’t eat—
The angler beast roared and charged. Shiv barely had time to react before he felt his back collide hard with a jutting length of stone. This was where Shiv’s Toughness failed him again. Something in his spine broke apart. He suddenly lost feeling in his body, and he toppled off the top of the angler beast like a puppet with its strings cut. His blade slipped out of its eye wound as he tumbled onto the cold, hard ground, and it took a few steps back, letting out howls of pain.
Shiv tried to stand. He couldn’t. He was paralyzed. Well. In his defense, he didn’t know there was a wall there. That, and he didn’t expect to be fighting for his life so soon. Things to improve on.
As the angler beast finished its tantrum, it stood over Shiv, the center of its eye still bleeding. The Deathless could practically see the hate on the creature’s face. It was an ugly face, and when it opened its mouth, Shiv let out a sigh, realizing his fate.
“I hope I give you the shits.”
It bit down on him as he did his best not to scream. That proved easier than he expected because its first bite failed to break skin and burst both his lungs instead. It took five big chomps for Shiv to finally start bleeding, and another ten for him to die. All in all, he died pretty impressed with his own Toughness, albeit in great and intense agony.
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The resulting skill levels definitely increased how good he felt about himself.
Toughness > 31
Physicality > 29
Reflexes > 21
Another massive jump for several skills. This was ridiculous. This was awesome. Shiv loved dying. Why had he gone his entire life without dying? He should have died years ago! If he knew dying was going to do this to him, he would have spent every single day jumping off the side of Blackedge and finding things to kill him. He was shooting into Initiate-Tier for several Skills now. Those skills usually took weeks if not months to grow, according to what he heard from Tran.
Even a prodigy like Adam Arrow wouldn’t be growing this fast. Shiv’s He Who Rises From Ash Eternal Feat was something else. Of course, it might have been exactly this way… His Curse was gone, and his parents’ ritual…
He put that out of his mind as he drained the angler beast. He had a rematch to win. Let’s see you eat me again, fish-face. As the monster chomped on Shiv’s remains, it suddenly wailed with pain and whipped its head about in confusion, unsure what was sapping its vitality. Meanwhile, Shiv realized that his knife was in his hand again. Strange. He didn’t remember it leaving the monster’s mouth. Maybe it respawned with him. It would be helpful to learn about the nuances of bound items when he had the chance.
Soon, the shadows broke around him as he resurrected again. Shiv drove his knife into the dense scales of the creature’s back. The good thing: it went in. The bad thing: the knife cracked. Its quality went back down to being damaged. Sharp but brittle—for cooking but not combat. No problem—it’ll get better.
Before the beast could respond, Shiv drove a heavy left hook into its rear, and to his surprise, the blow moved it slightly. It didn’t seem to hurt much, but he hit it with enough force to send it stumbling back a few steps. Shiv couldn’t help but laugh. This was all he ever wanted in his life. Here in the Abyss, his dreams were coming true.
“Hey. We’re not done yet.” Shiv quickly reached down as the monster struggled to turn. He picked up pebbles and tossed them to his right and left. They hit walls relatively quickly. He hid a wince. This was a big monster to be fighting in a narrow little cave. But he’d make it work, no matter how many deaths it took. He spun his knife and smacked his lips. “You seem to be mistaken about who’s supposed to be eating who.”
The angler beast turned, let out a loud shout, and then did two things Shiv didn’t expect.
The first was spitting Shiv’s mangled remains back out at him—mangled remains Shiv barely dodged. This was the first existentially disgustingattack Shiv ever encountered.
The second attack—the one that Shiv didn’t dodge—was a beam of magic projected from its dangling stalk. All Shiv saw was the orb flaring alight—and then he was a Revenant again. Shiv looked down at his body falling over, a clean hole smoking at the center of his face.
Well, that’s bullshit. How was I supposed to know it could do that? Despite Shiv’s gripes, he knew this was the way of the world. The only reason he performed so well against the lesser vampires was because he knew their habits, their nests, and how to kill them. He was prepared. Right now, he was running blind and lacked the strength to keep surviving. And so he died. Over and over.
But dying was good for him.
Toughness > 33
Reflexes > 24
No Physicality this time. This death wasn’t because I was weak. I was just slow. And the beam was—well, it cut through me like I was nothing. It probably could melt a hole through the cuirass he was wearing earlier. He quickly got behind the monster again as it lapped up his new corpse and started munching again. Damned… angler fish… He was going to eat this thing in revenge. No one ate Shiv without him eating them back.
The angler beast let out a pitched cry mid-chew as Shiv drained its vitality. Despite all the gains he got in his common skills, his Legendary and Unique Skills hadn’t grown nearly as fast. They had to do with his functionality while being dead, so he probably had to level them normally. But that was fine. Shiv knew he was going to be dying a lot in the near future, so he was going to get all the practice in the world.
As he resurrected again, he immediately climbed up the beast's back and hacked at the stalk. His knife cut through and broke some more, reaching the Severely Damaged condition, and a jet of glowing blood painted the ceiling and walls. The node at the edge of the stalk fired one more time, cleaving deep into the surrounding walls as the angler fish bucked and raged. It launched itself up against the ceiling, like the lesser vampire did to Shiv some time back. The Deathless cursed and prepared for his back to break again.
To his surprise, the stones gave before his bones did. It still hurt a lot, but it was like getting a bat slammed into him rather than having his body get folded in half by a giant monster. This was a fight he could win.
As Shiv landed on top of the angler beast, he kicked and punched and kneed the top of its head. It let out shrieks of annoyance and frustration more than pain. Shiv needed more strength to hurt it that way. So he made do with the damage he had already inflicted—he drove his fist into the wound he left in its eye and began to claw and pull. Now, the angler beast was making the screams he wanted as it charged about, slamming from wall to wall, shaking the cavern they were fighting in.
Between the vitality siphoned and the creature's bleeding wounds, Shiv could feel it slowing down. Of course, he didn’t feel that good either as it slammed from wall to wall, but this time, he thought he had the bastard on the ropes. He just needed to—
The angler fish let out a shout, and then it rolled. It was rotund enough that it shifted over like a ball, and despite not actually injuring Shiv as it turned over on top of him, grinding him against the ground, it was still heavy enough to smother him. Shiv cursed and kicked and struggled. To his surprise, as pressed with his arms and legs, he felt the creature budge slightly. Then his strength gave out, and it crashed down. It didn’t try to eat him then. It just left him pinned there, holding him in place as he struggled to breathe—and then perished from the lack of air a few minutes later.
Physicality > 31
I hate you, Shiv seethed at the angler beast as he rose as a Revenant. I hate you so felling much.
The beast didn’t much look good anymore either. It was bleeding all across its body, and its own breathing was ragged and pained. It got off Shiv’s body while he started draining it, and it let out a pitiful cry just as it tried to take a bite from his newest corpse.
No! No! Stop! Stop eating me! The angler beast couldn’t hear him, but to his surprise, it let out another cry of pain as one of its teeth snapped while trying to chew him. Yes! Yes! Keep going, you dumb abyss fish! Chew me harder!
As Shiv resurrected behind the fish again, he booted it in the back with all his might and sent it rolling over again. It let out a cry of surprise and tumbled, its bleeding eye leaving a glowing trail. He picked up pieces from its broken tooth for temporary use as his actual knife mended itself. Before the beast could recover, Shiv drove his shoulder into its face and sent it bouncing into a wall. As it staggered back, he targeted the brutal wounds he left on its eye with his knife and kept going. He went so far as to halfway climb into the wound as he practically sank into the gore. The angler beast weakly tried to bite him, but he kneed its bottom teeth and broke a few more. It wailed. He stabbed and thrust and cut, until a notification appeared in his vision, and the monster finally went still.
Knife Proficiency > 18
Shiv staggered away from the unmoving angler beast, his chef’s outfit drenched in blood. A flood of euphoria and exhaustion washed through him as he threw up his arms. All his life he wanted the power to be his own person, to walk his own Path and face monsters. Here he was, doing just that. Shiv started doing a merry jig. He wasn’t good at dancing, but it didn’t matter. This was fantastic. This was more than fantastic. He beat an abyssal monster with little more than an Adept-Tier kitchen knife, his bare hands, and a good few deaths.
“First two didn’t count,” Shiv said. And they didn’t. He wasn’t ready. Frankly, he probably didn’t die nearly as much as he should have against this thing. Now, where was that stalk? He needed a source of light before he got to harvesting—
Shiv went still. The node of light lingered a few meters away, and it cast a glow on a horde of spectators that came to watch Shiv fight. And to drain the blood from his corpses. Twenty or more lesser vampires were glaring at him. Some were fighting over his remains—lapping at the blood, unable to pull his bodies apart. Most stared at him and the dead angler beast behind him.
The Deathless stared back, and a feral smile spread across his face as he advanced on the lesser vampires, kitchen knife in one hand, tooth in the other. “Well. Come on, then. But I think this is going to suck for you more than it’s going to suck for me.”