Sometimes, the best solution is just throwing lives at a problem until it goes away. It’s the ugly truth; some discoveries can only be made through death.
—Legend-Artificer Hank Hulson (Nineteen seconds before he accidentally vaporized himself, his assistants, his laboratory, and half of his town)
VIII-42
Inspiration
Harbinger of the Tripartite Ruin 471 > 474
Vitality Drain 314 > 319
Aegis of Assimilation 279 > 287
Atlas of the Flesh Scryer 196 > 199
Snapshot 81 > 86
“So, what the fuck do we do now?” Rose asked, looking between the gathered Pathbearers.
She gave voice to a lingering question that was of utmost importance, but that no one had any answer to. The main conference chamber of Farnest was defined by an unmatched dourness. Everyone was spiritually and mentally exhausted. Every turn they made, every play they attempted, it all brought forth nothing but more ill revelations.
Looming greater than any of them could have anticipated was the Great One's original sin, a ripple that had cascaded into a grand wave, in motion across all of history.
No one mustered the strength to make eye contact with Rose. No one. Shiv was drowned in his own thoughts, working his Mental Processing as he tried to figure out the best solution to the invasion problem, something they still needed to deal with. Beyond this, there was the Great One. There was the Thief. There was Avalon. There was the copy of Gaia, hidden away deep below Forbidden Africa. These great powers wouldn't be passive for long. Even if Valor decided to reject the wholeness of himself and avoid completion, that didn't mean the Great One would allow him to do so.
And then there was Udraal's offer. He clearly intended to preserve his father in some way. But striking an accord with him was simply choosing one monstrous fate over another.
No matter who they turned to, the paths ahead weren't their own to decide. Any supposed choice would see them enthralled further, merely extensions of someone else's interests.
And when you belonged to someone else, you became a resource, and resources got spent.
When all had been said, even the great Undying Valor realized how small he truly was, that the totality of his own existence had been a lie, that he was a cuckoo of his own making. Not even an individual in the same way the Composer or Corcusa were. No, he was a shadow piloted by a slumbering monster, a true Pathbearer unrivaled across integration. He was a dream in motion, and the dreamer wanted to awaken.
Worse yet was the re-contextualization of his dread. All this time, he hesitated to return home, as he hadn't wanted to discover what drove his son to sunder him, how he lost his wife, who he was before, if he deserved the scattering of his soul.
Now, he understood that he himself had begged his son to make that choice, and that his wife had been no more real than he was. That, for the entire lifetime he lived with her, their love, the moments they shared, the times of hardship and happiness alike, were all engineered by his true self. He was effectively performing an internal play, one half of a fiction, one skill mating with another to reproduce a child. How all that worked, how it could even be possible, was beyond him, and that spoke volumes of the Thief's greatness and mastery over Animancy and Necromancy. Valor Thann was supposed to be peerless, but now he found himself only at the surface of his practiced lores. Worse yet, if he ever accepted his legacy, if he ever re-merged with that shadow which occupied the form of his so-called wife, then he might be lost to himself altogether. The truth of him would return, and everyone who knew that truth would be cut down as a consequence.
Perhaps incensed by the revelations that struck Valor, the Culturist came forth to mutter bits and pieces about the other life he led. His Excaliburization left him in a semi-dreamlike fugue, in which he yearned for the paradise he found himself in, yet knew it wasn't truly real. The depression that had settled over the orc was similar enough to the misery that besieged Valor. And so the two established a silent communion of mutual comfort.
Across the room, reflected within a mystical mirror, was an utterly spent Veronica Chandler. Behind her, an incandescent mirage raged and raved about the worth of her own Divinity, claiming that even if she was spawned from the actions of another, the flourishes and glories she'd earned were rightfully her own.
There was a time Shiv had found Kathereine imposing. There was a time he considered her his greatest threat. That was a kinder time, a subtler time, a softer time. The Songbringer now stood at the mercy of higher machinations, just like everyone else—and in her current state, she was a chassis of power without the ability to wield it.
Not that her Avatar could do any better.
Nihilist: Who is Veronica Chandler without power and control? The answer: terrified. She's utterly terrified. They are all terrified. They all need something bigger than themselves to latch onto. It's… disgusting.
The Nihilist's calloused words broke Shiv from his stupor, but he felt them, for the words were born of his emotions and the Nihilist was born of his philosophy, after all. He liked his companions, he loved his allies, he loved his newfound city and his life. But that didn't mean he was beyond instinctive judgment. That didn't mean there wasn't still plenty of the old Shiv left inside of him, the old Shiv and the Tarrasque that lurked in the fabric of his mind.
“Most people want to believe in something greater,” the Harbinger mused. Though it often feuded with the Nihilist, in this case they were closely aligned. “That is why they seek faith. What we experience now is repeated existential damage. Everything that was worth believing, everything that was taken to be true without doubt, has been torn down with their foundations. The Composer, the Ascendants, Valor’s own past, his wife, his son… History itself is compromised. We remain unaffected because we were raised in alienation, because we recover from these traumas, and because the closest thing we have to a true faith is in our own actualization.”
Nihilist: But is that by chance? Or is it by design all the same? I lean toward the latter. We are made to mirror the Thief in terms of behavior. He worships the System, and clearly he abides by no morality, only acting in regard to what benefits him or what amuses or enlightens him. That's why he murdered the children of his own tribe. It was all motivated by philosophical and psychological offense. It's also why he was offended when that girl he'd parasitized died. Now, does that remind you of anyone? A certain Narrator, perchance?
Yeah. Another problem that's connected to— Shiv's mind came to a sudden stop as he remembered the Broken Watchtower. What was Silence trying to make? Why did she create Evanescia? What game was the Thief playing? Was Evanescia part of his plans at all? Godsdammit. Another layer to that mess as well.
“But something worth investigating further,” the Harbinger added. “Evanescia does not know of her maker’s true identity. And the Challenger seems ignorant of Valor's actual history as well… We're still walking blind through a black forest, but at least we know it's a black forest now, and we recognize the beasts that stalk its grounds. That is worth something.”
“We align ourselves with the Stolen Throne for now.” Adam’s declaration was sudden and resolute. The Paragon's remaining eye glowed with pale Divinity, and his hollowed socket spewed plumes of incandescent mana into the air as a dense mist formed around him. For a moment, it seemed like his Domain of Tyranny thought to usurp him. The Sage was clearly outraged by the decision of its Avatar. But Adam commanded the mists to bend. He pressed his will against his own godhood, causing the glow to simmer down. “We entreat with the Faceless Queen. We move in sync against our adversaries. The Challenger and the invasion come first, but the elimination of Forbidden Africa and Gaia needs to follow immediately after, if possible.”
Heads turned. Veronica’s expression—defined by sagging exhaustion mere moments ago—came alive with attention and wariness. “If we engage with the Great One, we will be turned to her benefit, not ours. Based on what we’ve learned, I would not dare to chance myself against her.”
“It is a risk we must take,” Adam shot back. “Before, when we contended with you, your Republic, we played you against our adversaries, this Coalition Against the End. We invited all the people we did to our Gate to make this place essential, to make it inconvenient for anyone to invade and conquer. We are a freeport; an open space for spies, merchants, and warriors to come and mingle for their benefit. We did this to make ourselves indispensable, and right now, among all the miserable choices we have, there are only two that might see us allowed to live by default.”
“The Great One and the Sage,” Shiv said.
“Yes,” Adam grunted, swallowing his discomfort. “I don't disagree with your worries, Councilwoman Chandler. The Great One wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice us all if it meant retaking her godly throne and casting down Avalon. But she needs us. She needs Shiv for her Throne, and we know if given no other reason, she will not come for us directly.” Adam hesitated before continuing his dissertation. “The same cannot be said for the Thief of Lost Acheron, or anyone else for that matter. Avalon is already interested in us, and the moment it returns from the Ninth Circle and Earth is exposed, it will continue its warpath. We will not die, but we will be in an eternal purgatory not of our own choosing.”
“But is that so bad?” The Culturist’s question made Adam stiffen. “Is a false paradise something worth avoiding?” The weight of attention shifted away from Adam and pressed down upon the orc. His gaze was at once present but also vacant. He stared through the room into a past and lifetime that wasn't, while also speaking to everyone that was. “Avalon does not seek our deaths. Avalon will give us joy eternal, or at least the closest we can come to it. It's not a realm-driven struggle. It is paradise. It is simply… a dream. A living dream.”
“He is wounded,” the Harbinger whispered. “Wounded in a way I don't know anyone can fix. He always yearned to be something more than an orc. Now, he's been cast into a perfect dream, reunited with his love, this time with the chance to truly reciprocate her feelings. And then she was ripped away from him once again. A lifetime of love, a lifetime with the fullness of personhood. All gone just like that. The truth of his existence is dry in comparison, lesser in all aspects. Or at least he believes it to be so.”
“I hate to say it, but the Challenger hit us pretty god damn good with that Excaliburization,” the girl that didn't exist whispered from the Backstage. “Avalon might have made the Culturist stronger, but he also doesn’t want to be here anymore…”
The Harbinger hummed in contemplation. “We must consider the possibility that he will betray us to Avalon, rather than the Challenger, as some of the other orcs might.”
“Is life only worth living if you are mostly happy?” Shiv asked. “Is there any worth to sorrow and all the other pains?”
Shiv's reply came before anyone else could offer a rebuttal. The Culturist broke from his trance. His gaze filled with something, a present concentration, as he pulled himself away from memory and seemingly noticed Shiv for the first time. Instead of saying anything in reply, the orc looked down at his hands, then made and unmade a fist.
“Galloper’s teachings sank deeper into you,” Shiv said. “You told me that doesn’t come without true sadness.”
Slowly, almost unwillingly, the Culturist laughed. “It feels like such a paltry reward for all that I have lost.”
“Now, sure, but who knows what the future might bring? Maybe more pain, maybe nothing, in case you die, but let time go on and then decide. Paradise is nice, but there's one thing about paradise: it can't let you have it all. You can't lose. You can't really suffer. Fucked up as it might sound, I'm glad I suffered. It feels real. It feels like there are consequences to what I do. Everyone can be drowned in their own paradise; what about all the bastards who don't deserve it? What about all the people who can only find paradise in someone else's ruin?” A burst of momentum came over Shiv’s Rhetoric Skill. “What about you, Kathereine? Is your paradise a whole version of you, or is it defined by this current state of being?”
Veronica's gaze swiveled, and she found herself faced with the same question.
“Who defines paradise?” Shiv asked. “And how whole is this Paradise, because if it runs forever and ever and ever, at some point you're going to get used to feeling a certain kind of happy. You're going to seek something more. At some point, there’s going to need to be a reset or an end or some kind of transformation. Otherwise… Well, would you describe the Fairwoods as a utopia?”
Suffer the Implacable Dialectic 187 > 194
His words settled within the Culturist like an antivenom. And he wasn’t the only one who imbibed worth from Shiv.
“Any choice not our own is a choice made on our behalf,” Uva declared from beside Shiv. “A choice made on our behalf does not need our consent nor participation. We are effectively well-treated slaves at the best of times, or worse and more demeaning: metaphorical pets.” She shook her head. “There is no arrangement to be made between us and Avalon, for Avalon does not even see us as worthy of being participants in any sort of game, only variables. By extension, Forbidden Africa has poured their machines into the waters and air of this world and sacrificed untold generations of people as part of a feint to fool a god. And the Thief…” She looked toward Valor and went no further. “We should also consider how much information we all wish to remember.”
“What are you saying?” Rose asked.
Uva was still looking at the demoralized Valor when she continued. “That sometimes, knowing too much is like drinking a vial of poison. I will not reach into anyone’s mind to take from them what they do not wish to lose, but if we wish to unburden ourselves, only one or two need to know. And perhaps that is better. Perhaps it is necessary.” She paused. “I do not think we should tell the Composer the truth behind her creation. I doubt any good will come of it. Only pain.”
As wrong as it felt to keep someone in the dark from a truth of this magnitude, Shiv understood. And more than understood, he agreed. But Uva's other offer, the one she implied to take away Valor's troubled memories, was unsettling. The Composer was one situation, but something told Shiv that if Valor decided to turn away from his pain, it would lessen him in a way he couldn't recover.
"No," Valor finally said, even though he was a singularity of existential terror and pain, the grief inside of him spilling out like blood from a throat slit open. As Shiv had expected, he committed to his pain. "No," Valor repeated. "I wish to face this. I wish to wrestle with this truth about myself, if it is the truth at all, if it is the only truth." He spoke more to fan the flames of his own courage than to acknowledge Uva’s mercy. “Even if I am just a fiction—”
“You're not,” Adam insisted, passion bordering on offense thick in his voice. “You're not. You might be an extension of this Thief, but you are still yourself. It's like Udraal said: you lived an entire lifetime. You made all those choices. Those choices are yours, even if you're born of someone else. That just makes him your parent. His mistakes are his mistakes. His sins. They don't belong to you. You made yours in your situation, regardless of how—”
Valor lifted a hand to silence Adam. The same hand fell upon the younger man’s shoulder like a guillotine. “The sentiment holds meaning to me. But I haven’t the strength to flee from the truth, and even if I am… a falsehood, I remain too old to so burden the young with my pain.”
“You’re never a burden, Valor,” Adam pressed. “And you’re not a falsehood either. We’ll find a way to keep you as you are. It’s—you have your own character, and you have made your own choices. The only right thing the Thief ever did was spawn you.”
“He did far more than that.” Valor’s voice held a weightlessness that grew with each syllable, like he was dragging himself along a chain of memory. “He made the Usurper-Narrator. He forged the Broken Watchtower through Silence for a reason. He lived all these lives to understand people. As a voyeur. To experience consequence and weakness the same way the Great One experienced mortality through him. All these actions, from the High God to ours, are like… chains from chains. We were bound before we ever came to be.”
But rather than sinking deeper into his malaise, Valor lifted his head. It seemed like he was shedding weight, or simply casting off the metaphorical chains he invoked. “And so be it. The past is prologue. It has already been bestowed upon us. But we still have the future, and right now, we still have our own choices, our own actions. I am not well. I do not know if I will ever be well after what I discovered, but I do not need to be well to know the right path.”
Valor regarded Adam, the green flames behind his eyes giving them an inquisitive glint. “We need to use the Great One. She still regards us as pawns, but she does not move overtly against us. She wishes to wield us. More importantly, she likely wishes to deploy the Thief of Lost Acheron against Avalon when it returns. My true self is a blade that she has been keeping in reserve, and so it will only be on the precipice of her great enemy's return that she moves upon me. She will not let me remain scattered indefinitely, even if that is my choice. Hence we must prepare, but in the meantime, we still have ample time. We still have enough time to stabilize ourselves, to seek out other opportunities, to investigate and map out what actually happened before. All is not yet dust, and though we are outmatched, though we are insects, we have a clear glimpse of our enemies now. We are no longer lost in the dark. The shape of the board stands clear. The players are now known. The greatest mysteries have been found. Now we wrestle with these circumstances and chart what path we can.”
Valor rose, and within his empathic core, his resignation loomed, an enduring disease that he couldn't shed. It was the same kind of emotion pregnant within a person bearing a terminal illness, petrified with dignity and suppressed.
“And so we wonder who is more the shade, Valor Thann—a figment of the Thief; or the Thief, who is not nearly half the character of the man he dreamed into being,” the Harbinger mused.
“Shiv. I think it is time for you to expand your horizons,” Valor announced.
Shiv nodded. “What do you got in mind?”
“Forbidden Africa. You will go there. You will arrive before the dome while Backstage. You will request an audience, and you will do this as many times as it takes until they let you in. You do not strike them. You do not move on them with any hostility. You press them with discomfort. If their technologies and abilities to deny the System are true, then you might be able to speak with Gaia itself to gain more knowledge.”
Shiv considered the plan but winced at the risks. “The Queen isn't going to like that.”
A laugh escaped Valor as he shook his head. “Her displeasure will not be enough for her to move on us. She will understand your curiosity. She will understand your hesitation and will read it as such. If I am not present, she will think that you are dragging things out, another expected outcome. Meanwhile, I require the Stranger’s attention. Legend Uva, I will need to speak with Headmaster Hymn. I wish to uncover where the borders of the System lie. Adam, can you do me a favor right now? Turn your gaze upon the ruins not far from here, the one we visited not so long ago.”
Adam did just that, and a few moments later, Shiv read a building tension in the Gate Lord's expression. “I'm gazing upon the wreckage, Valor, but my fire… it's not quite catching the center.”
“I did not expect it to. That is the point: if your Standalone Skill cannot gaze down upon it with any clarity, then the Stolen Throne will find it equally hard to gain sufficient purchase, as Shiv guessed from what he saw when he was seated upon it. Each of us is a vector of self-betrayal. We contain mana, and all that is mana is born from strife. All that is strife is tied to the Stolen Throne. From it, anything can be invoked and witnessed. Anyone can be studied and regarded—so long as they possess a hint of the flame. So, let us wield all that exists beyond the flame to our advantage.”
The ancient Legend hesitated before he continued. “Shiv, what I am going to request might leave you uncomfortable, and you will be within your rights to reject me.”
“I doubt I will,” Shiv said with a smirk. “Just tell me what you want, and I’ll see it done.”
Valor cleared his throat, betraying how uncomfortable he was with his own idea. “Do you remember when we saved Blackedge from the Stranger's Garden, how you experimented with your Severed Shadow and ended up carving a portion of yourself away from the rest of your body? The suffering homunculus.”
Shiv blinked and drew upon his Snapshot Skill out of reflex, but the time span of the memory was too far back. Even so, he faintly recalled the particularly horrible scene that ended with him euthanizing an extremely deformed and existentially terrified version of himself. The homunculus was little more than a wreckage of flesh, devoid of skills but filled with all of Shiv's memories. Worse yet, it lacked any of his resurrective capabilities. It was, in simplicity, someone who'd lost the existential coin toss, damned to die just by being created.
“I mean, I can make one, but… well, what do you want with one of the Shivlings?”
Valor placed an index finger in front of his lips, shushing Shiv into silence. “Just leave them near the Abyssal ruins. In the area thickest with radiation. There is something there I wish to test. This will be an act of evil. That, I cannot deny. But your malformed clone exists beyond… beyond…” He trailed off, looking at Shiv as his jaw fell open. An epiphany came alight inside Valor as his sputtering heart-flame came alive with a burst of excitement. “We are absolute fools. We are absolute fools who have been obsessing with our own misery instead of actually thinking.”
All the despair that defined Valor was briefly sundered as it gave way to a torrent of shame. He was embarrassed of himself, and to a slight extent, embarrassed of everyone else.
Shiv, Adam, and Uva shared a look while Rose narrowed her eyes at Valor. “Alright, so are you going to tell us why we're supposed to be absolute fools now, or continue gasping?”
“Because instead of seeking so many roundabout solutions and enacting desperate measures, I forgot that we could apply a more direct and brutal method to achieve the same success.” Valor practically drove his palm through the center of his face. “The answer lay in Shiv. It always lay in Shiv. He is our solution to most of these problems. He is our way to avoid the Throne's notice, to surprise all our enemies. He already has the required skill!”
“I do?” Shiv asked.
“He does?” Adam followed—then did a double-take as he slapped his forehead as well. “Oh, Godsdammit! You're right, Valor. I am a fool. Why didn't I see it? Why didn't any of us think of this ahead of time?”
Shiv was starting to get a bad feeling about this. “Think of what? Guys, give me a hint here.”
“Clone. Backstage. Evolve. Fuse. Unique. Uncounterable.” With but a few loosely placed words, Adam pulled Shiv aboard the same train of thought, and Shiv's jaw fell as well.
“Oh, oh wait, you're right! A fused Unique skill—”
“It's more than just that!” Valor interrupted. He blurred across the room and drew close to Shiv. He swept a hand, and a chain of spell-shapes unfolded. They coiled around Shiv, wrapping him in dense layers of violet and faint blue mana.
“It's far more than that! The Thief of Lost Acheron! He's given me inspiration. Now I think about it clearly. The fusion of so many skills across all that time! He had time and a mentor beyond any other to guide him! Time and the Great One's corpse to empower him. Yet he needed that time for a reason. He does not have what we have—or rather, what you have, Shiv!”
Nihilist: Is anyone else getting nervous?
“Deathless… ness?”
“Exactly! And Unique skills that are fundamentally ingrained into your being rather than being fragments of your whole. You still cannot copy your Continuity Error Skill, the same way you cannot copy your other Unique skills. If we can fuse your Unique skills with as many other skills as possible, perhaps we will be able to replicate the Thief’s actions at a rapid pace. At the very least, we should be able to fuse some of your Unique skills together until they become Standalone, until you have a near-absolute advantage no one can deny. Even if your Severed Shadow cannot function the same way Animancy can, it clearly allows you to influence and copy your skills together. That's how you manage to imbue your skills into golems, after all. That's how you create your skill golems. That's how you are capable of moving attunements into your true clones. If you can do that, then maybe you can apply even more specific changes upon yourself, or, at the very least, temporary changes upon all your other true clones. Imagine giving versions of yourselves temporary skill fusions as a test, or stealing them from others and applying them to yourself.”
Valor's eyes were ablaze with overflowing Necromancy. He was more than hopeful; he was maniacally motivated. “And if I can teach you the art of Animancy as fast as I can, if we can make you just skilled enough, maybe this is a solution for me as well. You can carve away the influence of the Thief. You can cut me free. You can be our salvation.” Valor shook his head. “Maybe this is what Udraal intended all along.”
Shiv swallowed. “Yeah, so, Valor, I got a feeling that he might be really smart and stuff, but sometimes I don't think he has a grand plan, more that he's trying a bunch of things and just seeing what works.”
“A strategy that we are to partake in as well. Come, Shiv! Come! You will have much dying to do! Send another of your selves to Forbidden Africa first. And have your other true clones move somewhere private. I suspect that the repeated acts of internal Animancy I will have you perform upon yourself will result in more than one collective suicide! But so long as you have a source of vitality, this will be of no issue.”
“Legend Valor, consider yourself granted the Republic’s support on this matter,” Veronica added. “We will gather all our finest Animancers to assist you. I will make my office available for all experiments with haste.”
“Your office?” Shiv’s mind caught up a heartbeat later. Right, because it’s super warded.
“Good, good! The first priority, however!” Valor proclaimed, raising a single hand. “The first priority, before all others, is an evolution!”
“An evolution?” Shiv asked.
“Yes. We will push your Continuity Error first, alongside as many other skills in parallel as possible! It must evolve! We must drive it to the limits of uniqueness!”
“But… that’ll make me Delve,” Shiv said. “We’ll be left open!”
“Oh, I have a scheme that goes with that as well.” Valor chuckled darkly. “A glorious scheme that I am sure the Challenger will enjoy very, very much.”
Valor sounded borderline lustful in his sudden fervor.
“Are we sure the Thief didn’t consume part of him already?” the Harbinger asked.
The Beast of the Ninth Circle blinked slowly and yawned as a non-answer.
“We have been too soft and passive with you, Shiv! Too soft and passive!” Valor laughed.
“Guys?” Shiv turned, shooting his companions a desperate look. “If something happens to me—”
“You’re going to get a flood of levels.” Adam glared with folded arms. “You don’t need any sympathy to go with it.”
Beside him, Uva had the audacity to nod.
“Fine! Give my fucking kitchen to Terrence! I was going to leave it to you if I died, but I guess not.”
“Which one of us?” Adam asked.
Shiv performed a final act of psychological harm by not answering as Valor pulled him beyond the dimensional boundary of the room.
“Me,” Uva said. “He clearly means me.”
Adam shuffled where he stood. “I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“I would.”
“Come now, my cooking—”
“Adept-Tier. At best.”
“For now. Earned of my own efforts anyhow.”
“What are you implying, Arrow?”
“Read my mind and find out.”
The two Legends glared at each other.
“Omelet duel. Mine against yours.” Uva narrowed her eyes.
Adam squinted harder. “You’re on.”