150 (II)

Provoke [I]

After murdering BBQ's cooking assistants as well, Shiv began his own preparations for his upcoming infiltration mission. He chose one among the surviving inquisitors to serve as his perfect semblance, and he euthanized them painlessly. Shiv suspected that they wouldn't feel anything or even respond if he tried to torture them to death, considering how broken they were on the inside.

But torture wasn't Shiv's thing. It would never truly be his thing, no matter how much the orcs pushed for it. Some new orc Psychomancers were brought in to adjust the memories of the other surviving inquisitors. The main details of the ambush remained unchanged, but rather than orcs, they remembered facing Necrotechs.

Uva monitored them as they made these changes, and after performing a final sweep of her own, she gave a confirmation that the inquisitors were prepared for use. With that done, all Shiv really needed to do was make contact with Stormhalt's army alongside the other inquisitors. And that was going to need some careful setup as well.

"It would likely be best if you were discovered in the wilderness or fleeing from enemy captivity. As such, you and the other inquisitors should be dressed in ragged, scavenged apparel. This will spare you the need for a weapon as well." Adam pointed at a stretch of coast near Margarita Point. It was approximately 100 kilometers away from the outskirts of Lost Angeles, but the Gate Lord was certain this was the route Stormhalt's army would take. "Here is a believable point of interception. If you manage to make it all the way back to Fortress-City Diego, it won't make sense."

"Why?" Shiv asked.

"Because you would have gone to Margarita Point for shelter instead."

"Doesn't the Inquisition want to keep this quiet?" Shiv asked. "Maybe that's why we avoided Margarita Point."

Adam shook his head. "The Inquisition can make sure the Pathbearers at Margarita Point don't utter a single word. No, it would make no sense for you to flee all the way back to Fortress-City Diego. Furthermore, if you are capable of navigating all that way back, it would undercut the image you are trying to sell. The image of a broken and traumatized Pathbearer who suffered brutal treatment at the hands of the Necrotechs when the expeditionary force was ambushed."

"Right, got it. Make it seem desperate. Like we barely escaped."

"Correct." And Adam grimaced slightly. "That's why I think we should add some injuries to the other inquisitors." Shiv understood why the Gate Lord was uncomfortable. "I'll see it done myself. If we're gonna spend their lives anyway, I'm gonna make sure it's done right. An orc might get carried away."

"When you intercept Stormhalt's army, remember to focus on the Animancy Core when they question you. Stress that above everything else. It should provoke them to pick up their pace. Smaller contingents of Pathbearers can move fast if they want to, and if Stormhalt is desperate, I can see him dispatching his scouts and aerial cavalry escort ahead to skirmish and prepare battlefield conditions. That should be able to draw the Necrotechs' attention as well. After they take you in, we move on to phase two of the operation."

And then he turned the briefing over to Uva.

"Phase two is intelligence gathering and opportunistic sabotage, but only if possible," the Umbral explained. "Thus far, we know that Stormhalt's army is 100,000 strong, minus the 2,000 Pathbearers that composed the expeditionary force. The rest of Stormhalt's army are composed of high-quality mercenaries and trusted members of the Inquisition. They are, as with most armies, mostly made up of Adepts, but a substantial number are Masters. According to Sijik, at least one in ten Pathbearers in Stormhalt's army has a Master-Tier magical skill, so we will be facing a magi-heavy army."

A few mutters were exchanged at that, but Uva had more to say. "Furthermore, they have an elite Psychomancer core group, made up of 5,000 Psychomancers and led by a group of 10 Heroic-Tier Psychomancers. They are further supported by another 10 Heroic Investigators, but those are mostly non-martial Pathbearers. The total number of Heroes in Stormhalt's army is estimated to be about eighty, but they do have one Legend."

Adam held up a hand. "And if that Legend is truly Jessica Hawgrave, do not, and I repeat, do not, under any circumstances, provoke her if you don't have to, Shiv. Do not provoke her."

"Don't," Uva said, pointing her finger in Shiv's face as well.

The Deathless looked between the two of them, and he sighed. "Yeah. I know. I'm not that reckless." Adam and Uva shared a look. They both snorted.

Adam laughed. "Shiv, come on,"

"You're going to run into her eventually," Uva said. "And your mind will come up with the following thoughts…" She paused as she tried to adopt Shiv's voice. "'Wow, she hits really hard. That's a pretty powerful skill. I wonder if I can survive that. If not, I hope it kills me good. I need more Toughness levels.'"

Halfway through, Adam started cackling, and Uva finished her performance with a slight smirk.

Shiv glared at them. "I'm more complicated than that."

"But the point still stands," Adam said. "If you are found out, or if you are compromised, or if you get the slightest feeling that something might be wrong, you cast yourself back to your temporal anchor inside the gate."

"Absolutely," Shiv said with a confirming nod. "But I don't think I'll be doing that immediately."

"Such is the hope," Uva muttered. "If the second phase works well, when night falls and an opportunity presents itself, I will reach out using my mana strands and see what I can learn. Furthermore, Whisper and a team of five other Heroic-Tier orc Assassins and Shadows wish to accompany us on this operation. We can dispatch them from the Garden of Bountiful Alloy should there be an opening, and they can further support our efforts in sabotaging the Inquisitorial Army."

"And then we get to phase three," Shiv said, effectively bringing the briefing to an end. "If everything hasn't gone to hell, I march with them and push them to engage the Necrotechs. If things do go to hell, well, I'll reveal my true form, pretend to be a Necrotech, do a bunch of damage, proclaim the glory of Vicar Sullain and the Great One, and take a swing at Stormhalt. Then, I cast myself back to my anchor after everyone gets back in my cape and extract that way. Should still be enough to have them bite the bait regardless."

"It should," Adam said, though he sounded like he still had some doubts. He bit his lip and looked at Shiv. "Listen, I think the mind-altered Inquisitors themselves should be enough to provoke Stormhalt into action. You don't need to personally need to be there. This spy thing—"

"We need to make sure, Adam. Relax. Worst thing that happens is I die a bunch."

"Oh, that's the worst thing, is it?" Adam murmured with a sneer. "That's what you're actually looking forward to. Everything going to hell, you getting obliterated by a Titansbane over and over again, somehow getting a new Skill Evolution, bringing back more bad news afterwards, driving my blood pressure to new heights."

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Shiv started laughing. "I'm going to be fine. And if we do this right, we'll have every opportunity to save Blackedge while Sullain and Titansbane are busy smashing each other's heads in."

"That is the ideal outcome," Valor said. "But don't fixate on that. The main goal should be to get the Necrotechs and the Inquisition to face each other. Should we be able to get their Legendary Pathbearer to fight the Vicar on our behalf, that would be optimal. But be ready to adapt if it does not happen. Sullain is no true warrior. If he is not fully cornered, he will flee and unleash spells from afar or from a dimension that she cannot reach."

"By then, it might be too late anyway," Shiv said. "We don't need to kill Sullain to complete the Quest. We just need to save Blackedge or send him running." After that, Shiv pulled up the Quest menu, and his mouth almost started watering as he stared at the Legendary Skill Evolution reward. "Soon," Shiv breathed lustfully, "soon there will be three true monsters to this equation."

Quest: Break Vicar Sullain's siege of Blackedge and stop another war between the surface and the Abyss before it can begin.

Success: Evolve an [Existing Skill] to Legendary-Tier.

Failure: The Abyss rises, consuming all surface territory of Lost Angeles.

Adam sighed. "Are you staring at the Quest again, Shiv?"

"Yesss," Shiv moaned. "Legendary Skill… I see it… I need it… I can almost taste it…"

"Shiv, you know, I still think it's complete bullshit that you are the only one who got this Quest. Especially considering how much work I'm doing."

"But you're going to get something more than a Legendary Skill, Adam," Shiv said offhandedly. "Your greater-than-Legendary Skill is my friendship."

Adam just stared flatly at Shiv. "That's a shit skill. I want another."

"I don't think I shit out another mother for you, but I can try."

Adam just stared at Shiv for a long moment. "Part of me wants to hit you. Another part of me is so desperate for us to succeed that I'll be happy to see just how monstrous you get."

"Have you considered which skill you would select for the reward?" Uva asked.

Shiv let out a grunt of uncertainty. "I was thinking maybe—"

"Is it Toughness?" Adam interrupted. Shiv closed his mouth. Adam threw his head back and barked a laugh. "You're very predictable, you know that."

"Yeah, but it's also really reliable," Shiv shot back, shuffling slightly. "Look, it's either Toughness or a Magical Skill. Probably Chronomancy. I might even be leaning toward Chronomancy."

"Oh," Adam breathed. "That is good."

"Yeah, but I'm not sure yet," Shiv said. "It's one of the two, though."

"Why not Reflexes?" Uva asked.

"Because my Reflexes already kill me right now once I get fast enough," Shiv answered. "I considered Physicality, but I don't want Legendary-Tier Physicality to be something that'll break my body apart because I don't have the Toughness to sustain myself, just like Reflexes. That, and I don't know what edge Legendary Physicality could provide me against Sullain. He still has that felling Necromancy sun attack. I got no defense against it, other than lighting up like a bomb. But that was how he harvested my Vitae in the first place. I'm not keen on doing a repeat of that."

"What about your Vitaemancy?" Adam asked. Shiv paused. He hadn't thought about that at all. His Vitamancy was a Unique Skill. And with how strange it was, how it seemed to lack any presence within his body, he didn't even regard it like he did the other skills.

"I haven't actually thought of that," Shiv muttered. "Unique Skill. Made it slip my mind. Can you even evolve those with Quest rewards?"

Valor's illusory form flickered slightly. "The result may be unusual, but it should be possible."

"Well, then it's worth thinking about," Adam said.

"Perhaps, but I suggest against it," Valor interjected. "It could be something extremely potent, but more likely than not, it will take Shiv a great deal of time to learn what the Vitaemancy Skill Evolution can do. It took him time to understand Vitaemancy itself, after all. Unique Skills are this way. They are complicated, and sometimes inscrutable. There is no one who came before you to give you instructions, no tutorial. You are the trailblazer, and you are your own teacher. In times of desperation, it is best to stick with reliable options."

Adam nodded in agreement after that.

Shiv huffed. "Alright, I'll keep thinking about it a little more. That's still a little bit away. Let's go touch base with Whisper and the other sneakies. It's time the Inquisition did most of the fighting for us."

***

After that meeting came to an end, Uva approached Shiv and asked to talk with him. She led him to a secluded part within the bunker containing the Tutorial Gateway. And after she triple-checked no one was there, she asked him to help remove her armor.

He did, wondering why she needed help when she could turn into a sheet of paper for just a moment, and then they proceeded to do something that wasn't entirely talking for a while. Shiv also discovered that the bunker's reinforced titanium was of good quality.

After they recovered from their initial "discussion," Uva lifted her head off his chest and let out a hesitant sigh. Shiv ran a hand through her short, pale-white hair. "What? What's wrong?"

Uva bit her lip uneasily and forced her words out before fear could overtake her courage. "Another Outsider god has noticed me. They reached into me."

Shiv went stiff. "Another one? What do you mean they reached into you?"

"The Eldest," Uva said. "They whispered to me, so quietly that I don't think even the Dreamtaker could hear. So far, the Dreamtaker doesn't even seem capable of noticing their presence. I tried asking her about the Eldest, but each time, it's like she cannot hear me. She cannot hear me because the Eldest has occupied another portion of my being and hides from her."

Shiv felt a chill rush through his veins, and a dim memory lit up inside him. "The Eldest," Shiv said. "What's their deal? What do they want?"

"So far, just to understand me. But they seek some kind of synthesis—and they have placed something inside my mind. They have asked me to commune with their avatar. To do that, I need to find a place that is absolutely silent. And I have no idea where that might be."

"Do you even want to talk to them?" Shiv asked. Uva bit her scarred lip again, and he ran a thumb along her cheek. She grasped his hand and rose up from his torso. As she looked down at him, he stared into her colorful eyes, eyes that stabbed at his sanity, but provoked him to look and to keep looking, to never stop looking.

"I have been reading Confriga's Tome. I have delved into some of its mysteries during my spare time," Uva whispered. "The Outside is..." She held out a hand, and for a moment, Shiv saw a faint aura glisten around her flesh. "It's close, yet separated. It's like it exists in the same space as we do, yet there is an additional axis of distance, one that cannot be accessed. Do you understand?"

Shiv licked his lips and tried to conceptualize what she was saying. "A bit, but it's pretty murky to me. I know the Eldritch stuff is weird. I don't really like thinking about it too much, but I always kind of imagined the Outside to be separated from us by a wall."

"By a threshold, yes," Uva said. "Not exactly a wall, but a defined border. As you said, weird." She hesitated. "The Outside is seeping into me. Into my soul first. A few of my other skills have changed as well."

Shiv sat up and pulled her to his side. His heart pounded with nervous strain. "How bad?"

"I don't know," Uva said, sounding more uncertain than ever before. "I've been having trances recently."

"Trances?" Shiv asked.

"Yes, moments where my thoughts are my own, but also something more. It's like my mind has a mind of its own. And that there are other things living inside of me." She closed her eyes and concentrated. Her flesh pulsed momentarily with a flash of kaleidoscopic color, and for a beat, Shiv saw an ocean of strange, shifting creatures swimming within her body, like things that lived in the depths of the sea. And her body wasn't a body anymore. It was like a keyhole to another place. A portal to the Outside. There, something else was peering in. Something was trying to shape her from portal to doorway.

And then the glow faded, and she was herself again. "I've been hiding this from my Sisters," she whispered, as if the bunker itself would betray her. "From the Exalted Mothers. Even Adam doesn't know. But this is… The changes are happening faster, and even the Dreamtaker can't help me. I'm afraid. I don't know what will happen to me—if I will remain myself if this continues."

"You will," Shiv insisted. "I'll make sure." Slowly, he summoned his Vitae. "You said your skills changed."

"Yes," Uva breathed. "It changed just a few hours ago. When we first got back from the ambush."

"Alright," Shiv breathed. "Let's see what the Outsider's doing to your soul."

Carefully, gently, he directed tendrils of red and white mana into her. Her breath hitched. He could feel her heart pumping fast, her skin flushing with heat, and—

And something seized Shiv's Vitae tight, and began crawling its way across into him as well…

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