Yeah, you’re not going to like hearing this, but… we have no idea what the hell she is either. And it's worse than you think. A lot worse. That face you're making right now? It's pretty appropriate, because up until you mentioned her name, I couldn't remember her. No one in the Upper Realms could remember her. Centauri has a folder on her that we're supposed to memorize, but you know what? Even with my post-Legendary memory, I can't pull anything out from that folder. None of the details, none of the recorded histories, none of the documentation. Nothing. Up until twenty seconds ago, she might as well have not existed. It was ignorance, like some kind of incognito pattern woven over her. If we thought about that, we might have some idea, but it's just that… the more I try to think about her, the more my mind slides off of her—the fact that you and everyone else on Earth can remember her at all is…
Yeah, you’re not going to like hearing this, but… we have no idea what the hell she is either—
What? What do you mean I already said that? What do you mean I’ve repeated myself thrice already? This is the first time I’m—oh, fuck me.
-Myth John Produveral on [The Faceless Queen] (Addendum: Information Affected by Amnestic Enchantment Post-Hoc; Unable to Retain Details on Any Level - Centauri Counter-Memetics Division)
VIII-10
Intrusion
The family mansion of House Stormhalt stood as an edifice to trauma.
Shiv glimpsed its shape over the horizon as he and Havel walked the streets of Vermind. With the architecture of the Fortress-City resembling that of an urban canopy—dense little planes of metal and wire spreading above, connected to grand towers capable of bombarding distant adversaries with shells and spells—the first sighting of the mansion felt akin to catching sight of a predator through foliage. It was only when they ventured past the military and industrial districts that he saw it for what it was. It reminded him of Uva's Dreaming Storm. But instead of being painted by Psychomancy, it was a solid object shaped in the image of a tree. A pitch-black tree, obsidian, that was the representation of the Endbreaker's power.
Thick trunks of blackened stone ran down in layered veins, forming the central mass of the tower-mansion. Rather than sporting wings or being built on the basis of width, House Stormhalt chose to seek the sky, and its mansion stood in defiance of all surrounding housing within the city. It was an exposed structure that shared kinship with the surrounding powers, made and meant to be targeted in times of war, but seemed emboldened by that, protected by their patron Ascendant power, as flickers of incandescent lightning briefly pulsed in bursts of fading static. It was that blessing which granted them their confidence, but that blessing was insufficient to cover the tragedy with its roots set so deep into the stone.
Shiv could feel the pain radiating off its walls even kilometers away. It struck him like distant winds gliding over the horizon, tearing up sections of earth, bringing with it a foreboding that was both palpable and tangible, like someone trying to face down an approaching hurricane.
Though Havel lacked a Harbinger, he felt it too—the wrongness in the air; the fractured seeds of emotional turmoil, yearning to burst into a spreading cataclysm, waiting for the right waters to make that final transition.
“I’m not used to the city not being mine,” Havel said. He betrayed himself from the moment he initiated the conversation; he never spoke first to Shiv. It was his way of maintaining what little power he had left over himself. Shiv allowed him that delusion and luxury, for it made things easier between them—and it also made it easy to tell when he was truly burdened and bothered.
Like right now.
“I can talk with Veronica about having Mandering rotated out as City-Lord,” Shiv said. “Not sure if she’s keen on seeing you reinstated after everything that's happened, but I might be able to convince her. Maybe.”
When Havel didn't respond, Shiv glimpsed the man's empathetic core and read hesitation there. A faint spread of fractures split him down the middle as the Harbinger gave words to what Shiv intuitively understood. “He is compromised. His emotions are going to war against his mind. There is nothing he would want more than to regain his form and station. Yet he has come to believe himself a true sinner after everything he has done. He thinks he deserves his punishment. And he thinks he has not suffered enough.”
But that’s just the thing: what was enough when it came to suffering? When it came to punishment? When it came to justice? There would never be enough for Georges and everyone who died in Blackedge. Just like there would never be enough for convenience to have someone they could rely upon within the Republic.
There were so many things to consider, and the right choice was ever elusive. In times like these, faced with problems of personal choice and the frail, flawed people that made up a person, it was so much more complicated than actually facing monsters and true villains.
The world was made up of people. People like the Vicar. Shiv realized this, and he hated that about the world. He hated that about existence. He hated it, and he had to deal with it regardless.
Is this a lesson too, Veronica? Or is this me just imagining things?
No answer. Not from himself. Not from Veronica.
Other peculiarities grew clearer as they drew close to the mansion. Most nobles lived in gated communities—minor territories separated and granted their own climates and biomes by means of dimensionality and extreme wealth. House Stormhalt didn’t adhere to such habits. Instead, their mansion, the Highcradle, was open and integrated into the city. There weren’t even gates or guards present.
Nor were there nice gardens dotting the grounds, encircling that climbing structure to give it a dash of borrowed culture—as if hiring other people to do your gardening counted as culture at all. This didn’t mean the Highcradle lacked character either—far from it. Everything about it screamed deliberate choice. It shared airspace with watchtowers and artillery emplacements; its neighbors were military barracks and cafeterias, and here soldiers patrolled the streets, often looking toward the mansion with fondness and pride in their hearts.
Whatever disgrace Havel had incurred for House Stormhalt with his actions across the broader Republic, the same feelings did not follow here. Instead, it seemed that people were outraged at their new City Lord—and the fact Havel was replaced at all. Their displeasure came in the form of torn posters and damaged sculptures, with Legend-Advisor Mandering Kollsi’s likeness smeared with feces and rotting foodstuff while communal portraits of Havel and the Endbreaker looming over him were spattered across alleyways and residential clusters.
“Realizing why you asked us to come in incognito,” Shiv muttered, scanning their surroundings. A dense field of shadows masked their approach from the common folk while the elites possessed of High-Tier Awareness were informed and instructed to keep their distance. “The people here love you.”
“They love the idea of me,” Havel corrected, his words fast and his heartbeat faster. A part of him was touched by what he saw, but every time he laid eyes on someone, his insides boiled with a shame so hot it radiated against Shiv’s soul. “It is a lesser faith they feel toward me. To love someone is to see them, know them, realize their wretchedness and yearn for them nonetheless. Would they still love me if they knew the deal I struck?”
“With the Jealousy?” Shiv said, giving voice to what Havel wouldn’t.
The man just nodded. Shiv considered it and shrugged. “Maybe. Faith is pure in a way that love isn’t, I think. People will lie to themselves before they give up the beautiful illusions that hold up the weight of their imagined worlds. It’ll be an existential apocalypse otherwise. Easier to die instead of facing that for some.”
Nihilism Be My Hearth, My Banquet 387 > 389
Nihilist: Poetic. What is it about home that makes a man say these things to a hateful master?
Shiv wasn’t sure about his skill calling him a hateful master, but he did wonder about the rest of the question. Blackedge was just a place he lived in. Piety was nice and also a thing made in part by his blood, sweat, and schemes—but its potential destruction left him feeling more worried about the people than the place itself; and even then, he only cared about a specific few people.
Nihilist: Mythology is the answer, genius. What was Veronica trying to teach you? Or brainwash you to think about? This place has a mythology. For Stormhalt. Of Stormhalt. This place is as much myth to him as the other way around. And he failed that myth. He defaced the faith placed in him. What a horrible shame… But hey, all that perspective and belief makes this place a tinderbox if we need it to be.
Oil-black shadows glided past them and spilled out from Shiv’s back like a masking cape, shrouding their forms and the front entrance of the mansion from view.
Inside, Shiv counted over two hundred biological signatures. There were also another sixty extra vitality signatures that lacked any organic tissue—automata servants and guards that went unnoticed. Not that many people, to be honest. And not that big of a place up close. Tall, maybe, but reduced of grandeur compared to the Perch.
The lights were on, and there were two voices booming, screaming at each other, every exchange sending vibrations through Highcradle’s walls and pulsing out across the pavement beneath Shiv’s feet. Being this close to the structure was like ground zero to an impact made from a meteor of familial misery and hatred.
“You’re walking into an infected wound, Shiv,” the girl that didn't exist whispered from beyond the curtain. “But it’s not yours. She’s sending you into someone else’s ruins. And it doesn’t make any fucking sense to me why.”
Didn’t make all that much sense to him either—but Veronica was like a Social Jessica when it came to personal warfare. The big reason why he couldn’t match her that easily was a question of skill, sophistication, and understanding rather than raw power. She was playing with both him and the Faceless Queen somehow, and he suspected the latter’s continued absence didn’t mean she wasn’t watching carefully as well.
“The only way out is through. The only way to prevail is to lose; but lose less every time.” The Harbinger filled Shiv with certitude. He might be getting played to some extent, but if he could get more of a picture as to why—an understanding of how Veronica thought, then it wouldn’t be a loss at all.
“Alright, Havel.” Shiv gestured. “Welcome home. I’ll be out here watching and waiting, like I said. But if you need me.”
“Come in with me.” Havel’s words caught Shiv like a bolt through the back of the skull; a casual request that completely dislodged Shiv’s thoughts and perspective.
“Why?” Shiv he, wariness rising. He had control over Havel, but that control wasn’t absolute. Maybe the man was in on something too. Or maybe he was planning to do something stupid and desperate. “I don’t think me being here will go over all that well considering my part in things.”
“You didn’t have a part in things until I committed to my sin,” Havel answered. “And you are here as my mind and sponsor. I am patriarch in image alone before your presence. Come in with me. It’s not befitting of a Stormhalt to cling to a lie about power and position. Let the truth stand, no matter how varnished.”
It didn’t take much effort on Shiv’s part to see Stormhalt was pressuring himself too. But he truly thought this was the right choice, and he clearly intended to use Shiv as an instrument against his own family as well. Not sure about how this is going to go. I could still say no, but…
“I’ll try to be nice,” Shiv said.
That earned him a rare snort of laughter from Havel.
“I’m serious,” Shiv insisted.
“I know; but your kindness turns to sandpaper when you will it. The threat you pose alone erodes kindness with an edge of tension.” He turned away from Shiv. “But it’s better this way. It’s better. Let it be so.”
Few people strode with as much certain doubt as Stormhalt. In the time they spent together in combat, Shiv learned the man was never truly confident, but always determined—even if the price for his actions was certain death. He walked the same way into his own home. As he pushed upon the front doors, a sprawl of pitch-black lightning crashed over him like a creeping nest before pressing him through. Shiv hesitated before following, and the Endbreaker’s power greeted him as well.
It didn’t surprise him to be held for a moment longer; it did throw him off when Halsur himself manifested beside Shiv. There were few men that matched Shiv in stature and physique; he had gone well past the massive into the territory of the monstrous for a humanoid, becoming a peer to orcs and giants rather than the bruisers among men. But Halsur the Endbreaker stood among these contenders.
He was shorter than Shiv by half a head, but possessed of a burliness that made Shiv look lean by contrast. A bush of midnight defined his dense hair and beard, and the hardness of his stare seemed more appropriate for a beast in the woods rather than as eyes for a man. If this was how Halsur looked before his ascent to godhood, then it wouldn’t surprise him to learn the Endbreaker possessed a Heroic-Tier Intimidation Skill as well just based on this.
Even as Shiv lingered behind Havel, Halsur remained. Rather than keeping pace with his Avatar, he stood shoulder to shoulder with Shiv. Their twin forms filled up the width of the entry antechamber, and the two guards on watch inside flinched twice as they were first ambushed by the sight of their House Patriarch advancing on them—and the twin juggernauts approaching behind.
“Do I need to change shoes or something?” Shiv asked, trying to be polite. “Tried to avoid stepping in mud or muck but—”
“I will see it cleaned,” Havel declared, assuming a more authoritative presence on reflex now that he was back home. “Henri. Maron. I apologize for arriving so late into the evening. Please inform the rest of the household of my presence. I do not intend for this to be an ambush.”
The human guard called Henri stammered and staggered, the lights above reflecting the emblem on his chest plate, showing a tree of lightning crashing against a shield. “I—”
Maron, his elven counterpart, saluted Havel with a resounding fist to her chest, and responded with action instead of words. She opened the door for them and then immediately sent a telepathic broadcast through the mansion.
“Talking to the other guards,” one of Uva’s attached minds whispered, intercepting the broadcast out of habit. “Relaying his exact words. If there is a trap to be strung here, I do not see it. Why has she given you this task?”
“Keep asking myself the same question,” Shiv replied. “Keep Adam looped in too. Have him ask Isabella about things. I would do it myself but, honestly, I’m too close to this thing already. If Veronica wants me to make nice with Stormhalt and become her diplomatic dog on top of a war hound, she’s starting to succeed, fucked as that might sound.”
“It doesn’t,” Uva answered. “You are over her blood and mind; this might be her way to see you made more useful, but akin to her in certain ways as well. Her asking you to accompany her to the theater could be bonding disguised as a lesson as well.”
Shiv struggled not to sigh. “Maybe, but her being overcome with grandmotherly urges is probably a far, far, far second to some kind of emotional-political fuckery at hand.”
Rather than berating Henri, Stormhalt reached out and squeezed the younger man’s shoulder, imparting comfort in place of sternness. That act alone made Shiv want to turn and march out the doors. “I feel like I’m a voyeur here—sent to watch someone else be intimate. But not in the ‘Adam overhearing us’ way, but more a ‘hostile stranger watching your most vulnerable moments’ way.”
“Perhaps she is using you as a lever against House Stormhalt as well,” Uva suggested. A pause followed. “And the queen is still absent. Considering how impish she is with you, I expected her to appear the moment Veronica departed from your presence.” Then, her mind tensed. “Or seemed to depart from your presence. Stay alert, Shiv. She might still be watching you.”
“She’s definitely watching me right now,” Shiv said, eyeing Halsur. “Probably going to hear a few things from the Endbreaker himself.” Slowly, a mocking grin spread across his face. “Here to observe my performance for my grandma, big guy?”
A low grumble escaped Halsur, and his exaltation made the entire mansion shudder with vibrating energy. He sounded like how a tree made of lightning might breathe out if it could—though Shiv guessed he was letting himself be influenced by a few obvious things in that analogy. Still, Shiv licked his teeth—an instinctive habit-ritual that precluded explosions of extreme violence. But rather than channel his lightning, lash out with a backhand, or even send a scornful glare Shiv’s way, the Endbreaker spoke a single request: “Be gentle.”
Shiv tried to stop his eyes from widening. He failed. “Holy shit. You talk.” Now, the Endbreaker did glare at him. “I’m not being a smartass. I’m actually surprised you can talk.”
“There was nothing worthwhile to say before,” Halsur whispered, each syllable pronounced by distant thunder. His voice, though low, was softer than Shiv expected, and the Endbreaker more personable and intimate than harsh in demeanor. “But be gentle. You have already taken much. You have struck your blow. But you have been measured against my Avatar. Do the same for his family. Hold to your honor. I ask this as a favor. A personal favor.”
Havel heard none of this conversation; his core would have given him away. Everything spoken by Halsur was done with the ignorance of his Avatar in mind, and Shiv found himself even more uncomfortable than before. “Yeah, sure. Was planning on that anyway.”
Halsur’s nod was so slight he might as well have been still.
The control and reservedness the Endbreaker portrayed came juxtaposed with a memory from the past of him striking and smashing Shiv over and over during their first encounter. How things and people changed from context to context.
“How things and people change when they have no more power over you,” Uva corrected with a hint of venom. “He clearly treasures Stormhalt—but even if he descends to empower his Avatar, there is nothing he can do to protect Stormhalt from you. Not with your mastery of his inner wounds. Not with your Inland Embassy. I see no difference in this creature as I do the Stranger. Both of them neutered gods, entreating on the good graces of their former victims, now risen to powers. Be aware of him as well; his words might very well be part of the Councilwoman’s game as well.”
There was that possibility, but something felt out of place about using Halsur as an asset. He was too awkward, even when he was trying to be diplomatic, and with how he sounded and felt up close, Shiv’s gut told him the Ascendant was being genuine. But people could be genuine and still lie or transgress anyway. What one felt wasn’t perfect in symmetry to how they behaved.
“Were you talking to someone just now?” Havel asked.
Shiv considered telling the truth; he decided to go vague. “Yeah. Ascendant was speaking to me about something. Ended up talking out loud when I didn’t need to.”
Then Havel turned away and said nothing anymore—naturally assuming the Ascendant to be the Starhawk, Kathereine, or most likely of all, the Dreamtaker (now formally dubbed as such with Longinus’ "official metamorphosis" concluded). “When we enter the master chamber, I will introduce you, and explain things. You do not need to speak if you don’t want to. Or you can take charge at any moment. I cannot stop you, after all.”
“Nah,” Shiv said, waving him off. “Let’s not do that. Keep your dignity. Consider it a… pragmatic decision for both of us.” And a specific request from Halsur, he added silently.
“As you wish, Legend-Inquisitor Shiv,” Havel said.
“I fucking hate that title,” Shiv mumbled. “When you introduce me, remove the Inquisitor shit. Hearing it gives me ass-hives.”
“Consider it done.”
***
What the hells am I doing here? The question repeated over and over again in Shiv’s mind through the entire, sordid affair. Why did you send me here to do this, Veronica? What’s the play? What’s the play?
His current role was less threatening beast of Yellowstone—his intimidating aura had lasted all of five minutes before the entire Stormhalt Household set itself on a more civil conflict instead—with him now being more akin to humanoid furniture. He stood a meter behind where Stormhalt was seated as two subfactions of the family fought with a vicious hatred reserved for hated enemies or dearest family—with the two being one and the same in this case.
On one end of the room, there was Hero-Madame Miriam Stormhalt; a tall, proud, drunk, race-shifted elven woman who looked like a female version of Havel. Made sense, considering she was his twin sister. That part of the image Shiv could deal with; what annoyed him was how she wore only a set of translucent robes, had several enlarging illusions imposed over her half-exposed breasts and tightly outlined rear, and also kept trying to use her Pheromones and Social Skills to insult, traumatize, and seduce her rival.
Her rival, half-brother, and lover was one Veinhult Stormhalt. His resemblance to Havel himself was diminished but still present, but his skin hinted at a southern mother, and his eyes were of a bright emerald hue unfamiliar to Shiv. Yet, all those details paled before a crisscrossing network of lightning scars that marred every last part of his body.
The kind of scars one only got if they were shocked over and over again in a horrible accident that kept happening across years.
Or, more likely, if one was electrically tortured.
At some point, the reason for the fight slipped out from Shiv’s mind as other details came to the forefront. Details he could use without. Images he could do without. History he didn’t desire to know. But things were revealed to him in bursts of half-truths and ugly deceptions that triggered his Dryad of Lies over and over again, until it was fed to bursting.
Dryad of Lies: TRUTH! LIE! LIE! LIE! LIE! TRUTH! LIE! LIE! LIE! TRUTH! LIE!
Dryad of Lies 120 > 121
The skill was constantly screaming in the back of Shiv’s skull, and it had gained over fifteen levels in the span of hours. At the same time, Miriam and Veinhult were howling racial slurs and personal attacks at each other on two sides of a long table. Wine glasses were scattered and broken, embedded into the wood. Cups of water were mutually overturned, diluting the rivulets of red that filled the divots lining the old oak surface. The other forty-six people in the room were all cousins, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren who had assumed their own sides—were halfway into a performance trying to hold their chosen elder back while threatening and challenging their counterparts across the table to duels.
Between the clashing sides was Havel Stormhalt—who looked ahead with a blank, weary expression. He seemed used to these affairs, and at times, his heart would flash with loathing and genuine violence as he regarded specific members of the family. Not his siblings, but their children and his nieces and nephews. There was enough animosity there to kill, but the fire of his hate couldn’t burn for long.
Among those targeted by Havel’s stare was someone Shiv had seen before. Adept-Representative Gilman Stormhalt stood apart from most in the room as he was utterly consumed by horror. His eyes kept darting to Shiv when he thought the Deathless wasn’t looking, and his core screamed of shit-and-piss levels of terror. For once, Shiv could empathize. He did castrate the poor kid with a kick to the balls, after all. His testicles were launched through his flesh—and one of them landed in someone’s mouth or something.
“I was a real godsdamned psycho before the Harbinger, wasn’t I?” Shiv asked his internal entourage.
“You were a psycho?” the girl asked, sounding incredulous.
“You are still far into the psychotic spectrum now,” the Harbinger replied. “But your statement is true.”
Gilman was supposedly Miriam’s great-grandson, but he stood with Veinhult on this occasion for political reasons about some bullshit zoning laws—Shiv didn’t really care.
Most of this stuff needed an actual lawyer instead of him or Havel. With how high up Miriam and Veinhult were, and how Havel just sat there and frowned as they screamed at him as well, this entire thing was like going from one battlefield to another.
Through it all, with every lie, Shiv kept getting worse and worse visions from their past about the origins of this feud—the reason why they did the things they did; and how a Master-Tier like Havel ended up as the head of the Stormhalt House instead of Veinhult, who was technically the firstborn despite being a bastard. Every time Shiv noticed a gap in their deception, his Dryad would activate—and it would drag him deeper into a greater web of bullshit.
Within the first hour, he was drawn all the way into the House’s past—and he got a gander of Legend-Aeromancer Vincent Stormhalt; who was the entire reason the House was a big thing anyway. Unfortunately, said gander came every time Havel, Miriam, or Veinhult lied about the man—and they lied about him with every other word.
They all invoked his name like someone might an Ascendant, but deep down they hated him. They hated him like Havel hated Roland—exactly the same way.
When Miriam spoke of how Vincent would have let her reap the mithril earnings from their newly acquired special holdings, she would say how her father praised her the most, how he loved her the most, how he trusted her with their House’s financials when she was but a child. These claims came with most unwelcome memories of him staggering drunkenly into her bedroom alongside her equally drunken mother while Miriam was but a budding adolescent.
There were other revelations and memories that came with that chain of overarching lies—lies that Vincent loved anyone but his own desires, his own needs, and his wife’s darker tastes.
Shiv asked Uva to destroy those wretched moments; she obliged without a word.
Veinhult suffered a similar fate as his sister and then some. He was his father’s first squire; a loyal son and paragon of the house on the surface. But every time he claimed to be their father’s spiritual and mental successor, a vision of a far younger Veinhult howling assailed Shiv. The boy's face was pressed down into the dirt by a boot as he pleaded for Vincent to stop. Vincent didn’t. Vincent was a Legendary mage with a special relation to lightning, and every time his oldest bastard failed him, he would smite the boy’s flesh deep, over and over while seething about his mother.
At some point, Shiv had those memories removed as well. There was nothing intellectual that came with this misery.
The only one with a divergent set of lies was Havel himself. He was relatively untouched.
When Havel claimed their father loved him, the Dryad was left dry.
However, when Havel claimed to love his father, the Dryad would feed like no other.
“Do you see that one?” Vincent asked, pointing at a young Roland from the coliseum. “That’s a real Pathbearer right there. Havel, my boy, if you could be just his shadow—just the faintest bit more like him, I would give you my house and all the world more.”
And so began one of the most fucked up rivalries in Yellowstone history. Or something that fed its flames. Shiv struggled to push down the desire to somehow resurrect Vincent Van Stormhalt just so he could kill him again.
“It gladdens me that this man perished during one of his northward expansions,” Uva commented. “A visitation would be well-deserved on our part otherwise.”
Shiv trummed his elbow with the fingers of his other hand. “Yeah, so, I don’t think the frost giants were the ones that killed him. Not them alone, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Jotun are powerful, but a Legend-Mage of Yellowstone is going to be a lot more supported and empowered during a campaign. And his ass died well before they even reached the Moon’s Bones in a ‘surprise assassination.’”
She considered his words. “You think one of his children did it?”
“Havel, probably,” Shiv said.
“Havel? As a Master?”
“Yeah. I can feel the hate rippling off him when he speaks of his father, and that little thing about Roland alone isn’t enough. There’s a story about why Halsur chose Havel of all people—and won’t let him go. It’s got me thinking about why he made that request earlier. The way he spoke to me sounded like a father begging an enemy to spare their son. Don’t see the full picture here, but with the specific spots of tension, I’m getting the sense that the Endbreaker chose Havel for whatever reason and then helped him resolve his in-house problem. Because Vincent was a Legend—and you need to have some pretty significant leverage on your end to cover up the death of one of those. Not to mention killing them in the first place.”
“Like an Ascendant,” Uva realized. “But why would he do such a thing?”
“Why indeed?” another voice chimed right next to Shiv.
Shiv’s eyes snapped to the right, and while everyone else continued fighting over their leftover trauma and bullshit, a tiny, crown-wearing figure looked over the ensemble cast with her hands clasped behind her back.
“I’m asking you, Deathless,” she chirped. “I know the answer to this question. Would you like to?”