(I) Cell

-Lady Eileen Harkness169 (I)

Cell

The Ascendant looked down as it considered Shiv’s question. The Deathless wasn’t very good at telling what automata were feeling, but the body language of the machines screamed of discomfort. Or maybe that was just how badly the Avatar was damaged. Most of its chassis was cracked from the battle earlier. It only had one army left, and wires were sparking free from its joints. Considering the coolant leaking out from the Avatar, Shiv guessed it suffered considerable internal damage as well.

Shiv thought. It occurred to him that might make an ideal Avatar for Cripple, but considering how the Ascendant had only used automata so far, Shiv had a suspicion humans weren’t so easy for Cripple to access. It also didn’t matter, because Shiv had no intention of serving as a vessel for a god, false or otherwise.

Cripple said at last.

Shiv scowled. “Great. Thanks. What does that mean? Are the people inside the Perch still alive? Is Adam Arrow still alive? Is the Tarrasque dead?”

The automaton’s vertical optics flickered.

Every fiber of Shiv’s being tensed. The fires of anger roared to life inside him, and he poured his anger into Psycho-Cartography before he could be overwhelmed. “He wouldn’t have been anywhere near the felling Tarrasque if you assholes didn’t teleport me out of there. I was draining its vitality. We were going to win.”

Cripple retorted.

“Yeah. And why should a monster get that, right? Better an Ascendant or an Avatar.” Shiv aimed his glare at the automaton, but found it looking away from him.

Psycho-Cartography:

Cripple said softly.

“Cheap? Ten Legendary Skills are enough to trade a kingdom for. Pardon me if I think you’re just passing shit out of your mouth.”

Cripple said with absolute seriousness. The Avatar placed his single hand against its chest.

“But it costs them their lives,” Shiv said.

Cripple replied honestly.

Whatever acidic retort was resting on Shiv’s tongue rolled back down his throat as he found himself utterly frozen of thought. “One hundred and two ? Broken Moon. That’s…”

Cripple let out a quiet sigh, and even in this cramped Orichalcum cage, the winds rustled with susurrations of sadness.

The Avatar’s glowing grew dim.

An awkward feeling of pity came over Shiv. He still despised the Ascendants for kidnapping and imprisoning him, but the Avatar—

Psycho-Cartography:

Psycho-Cartography 61 > 62

Farsight 52 > 53

The moment Shiv noticed that, he sneered at the Ascendant once more. “Hey. You do this shit to all your prisoners?”

The Avatar lifted its head slightly.

“I’m not doubting your Avatar was brave. Pathbearers are brave.” Shiv scoffed, and he remembered Tarlow, the kukri-wielding Dragon-Knight he'd slain to fulfil a Quest and retake Valor's right arm. “Our enemies are brave too. Plenty of them go down fighting. It’s the way of our world. I would have given you sympathy if you didn’t try to pull it out of me.”

“Broken Moon. Beyond your control. What kind of god is so impotent?”

The Avatar’s remaining hand balled into a fist. Shiv got the impression that he'd struck a nerve.

Cripple declared with conviction.

“So, what? Your excuse for all the bullshit you Ascendants have done so far is that we’re under threat? That’s called living in the Integration, Cripple.” Shiv bit back a snarl and leaned in closer. The chains around him rattled and shook. The red-gold bands of Orichaclum grew brighter and denser, responding to Shiv’s anger—drawing from his willpower to increase its durability. A rush of overflow-tides slipped out of Shiv and curved around his bindings. The Orichalcum held, but he felt it tremble and shudder as he channeled more force into it.

It could keep getting tougher, but he could cultivate strength faster—and eventually, he would break it.

Despite this, the chains were only a distraction. As the Avatar blurred forward—pointing the cold tip of its metallic finger at Shiv’s throat—Shiv’s innate force glided along the Orichalcum chains holding him in place and circulated the walls. There, they briefly crashed against a few spell patterns, and Shiv saw the intricate mana works flicker and rip.

Cripple said with a somber tone.

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“How often have you said that to a prisoner?” Shiv asked.

“Understanding?” Shiv rasped. A thunderclap of kinetic energy slashed out from his body along cleaving vectors. The Orichalcum binds holding Shiv shook and began to scream as the mystical alloy struggled against his Legendary Skill. Then, Shiv began cycling force once more, gathering more overflow as he waited and watched.

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“Fine,” Shiv spat. “I’ll give you understanding. I’ll tell you what I know about myself—how and why I think I got this evolution”

Cripple asked, surprised.

“Not even a little,” Shiv chuckled darkly. “Up until a few months ago, I didn’t even have a Path. You knew that?”

Cripple said. It shook its head in dismay.

Instead of being flattered, Shiv struggled not to bare his teeth. The Ascendant was saying all the wrong things to him. “I came across an Inquisition black site in a gate. You knew ?”

Cripple fell quiet. Its Avatar started looking at the ground again.

"Oh good, you did know that. Well, you wanna know what else I found at the black site? I found them citizens of the Republic. The Republic you keep bringing up, like it's some kind of shield or slogan for something you want to sell me."

Shiv thought about Heather and Tran, thought about how brutally they had been mutilated, how scarred they were of mind and body in the aftermath. "I despise Roland Arrow for everything he did to me. The man just couldn't make up his mind, and I paid for it. But I will tell you this much: no matter how much I hate Roland Arrow, if I had woken up one day and found myself an inquisitor, I would have ."

The Avatar's posture sagged.

"What the fuck does that even mean?" Shiv actually laughed out loud. The bitterness in his voice rang out, filling the Orichalcum cell. As he directed his gaze upward, he frowned as he noticed another layer of magic lining the porthole. Shiv thought to himself. And he didn't recognize some of the colors. Those were probably new Magical Skills, or specialized blends of mana he hadn't faced before.

It didn't matter. He had Leviathan of the Shapeless Tides. And when it came time, he would use his might to rip every mote of spellstuff around him apart.

When Cripple didn't respond, Shiv pressed the Ascendant, digging into the automaton's weakness. "You know, I don't really get you. You talk to me like you're some kind of honorable warrior, yet here we are in a cell most citizens of the Republic most likely don't know about. And you're trying to justify torture sessions conducted on citizens. Citizens you seem to care about, or so you claim. And then you stand before me, " Shiv leaned back and relaxed. He went slack in his chains and snorted. "You don't make much sense to me, Cripple. You don't want to be here. That's the only thing I'm sure about. Because I don't want to be here either."

Cripple said. Its words were somber and heavy.

That made Shiv narrow his eyes. "Alright, before we get to anything else, I have to understand this. You keep saying can't. Not up to us. This is the kind of shit I would expect to hear from a slave. You're an Ascendant. Literally a . Or at least a Pathbearer who stole a god's powers." Cripple lifted its head and regarded Shiv with surprise. But the Deathless just kept going. "So what's with all the defeatism? What's with you always surrendering over and over?"

Cripple said. Shiv thought he caught a hint of heat in the Ascendant's voice.

"I'm also a Legend," Shiv snapped back. "Let me tell you something about my experience. My experience is that, up until a few months ago, I spent my life hunting vampires and cooking. The former because I wanted a Path, the latter because it was the only other thing I found meaning in. After that, after things at Blackedge went to hell, I was flung down in the Abyss. And guess what? My life got a lot better. I died a lot, but everything got better. Because it was up to me now. And I kept going. That’s my experience.

As soon as Shiv mentioned getting flung down in the Abyss, the Avatar shook. Cripple asked.

Shiv tilted his head. "What? How far did I fall?"

Cripple confirmed.

Shiv considered that for a moment. "The… Umbral Wilderness? Penumbra? Something like that. The first landing killed me. Wasn't nearly as tough as I was now. Hell, I was Pathless an hour before. I splattered apart, drained vitality out of a cave biter, got killed by said cave biter over and over again, finally got strong enough to kill it, and things continued on from there."

Shiv watched the Ascendant as he spoke. The Avatar was looking down, its glowing optics pointed at Shiv's chest rather than his face, and he knew it was thinking. About what? He wasn't sure. But before he could continue speaking, the Avatar lifted his head once more. the Ascendant asked.

"I know a bit," Shiv admitted. There was no point in lying when he didn't have the full picture, and frankly, he was curious. "I know that the Dust King or whatever cast you and the other Ascendants down." Shiv paused as he licked his lips. "I know that you weren't the only Ascendants, that there were more than thirteen."

Revealing that bit of knowledge was a gambit, but it was a gambit Shiv might be able to take somewhere. The Educator was in the back of Shiv's mind, and though it had been a while since he ran into her, he didn't doubt that the Forgotten God would eventually show up again at some terribly inopportune moment. But Shiv decided to apply some preventative measures to make a bit of trouble for the Forgotten God. After all, it seemed that they were not aligned with Starhawk or even the rest of the Ascendants. They were doing their own thing, pursuing their own interests. It saw them aligned with Udraal Thann, Shiv's… What the hell was Udraal?

Shiv thought to himself,

Cripple finally responded.

Shiv's nostrils flared. "Hey, Cripple," The Ascendant looked upon him. ". What are you talking about, peaceful and soft? I haven't tasted any peaceful and soft."

Cripple said.

"No, even past Roland Arrow. I didn't taste peaceful and soft. And I don't care about peaceful and soft." Shiv pointed some of his innately generated force vectors forward. He leaned toward the Ascendant, and his Orichalcum cage shook from the sudden flood of strength flowing out of Shiv. The bolts that held the chains to the walls began to creak.

"I'm System-favored," Shiv started. "You know what that means, right? I'm probably sure you're System-favored too, considering everything you lived through. Well, there's probably one major difference between me and you. I died over and over. In every way possible, I suffered all kinds of deaths. Miserable ones, peaceful ones, painful ones, quick ones. But I died, and I came back. And the System, well, it doesn't seem to know what to do with me. That's why it keeps making things harder and harder and harder."

Shiv thought back to everything he'd suffered, every enemy he killed, every challenge he surmounted. One fight after another, one problem after another. It never stopped. And even now, it was still growing in intensity. "That's why I'm talking to you now. Just weeks after I got my Path. How long did it take you to become a Legend? Actually, to hells with that. How long did it take you to become a ? And did you have to die to do it?”

Cripple didn't say. Shiv stopped leaning on the chains. A wolfish grin spread across his face. "Or you ever even become a master? Did you walk your Path much at all before you drank the divinity out from the Great One? Like one of the vampires?"

Before Shiv could say anything more, steel fingers were wrapped around his throat. The Avatar clenched, but Shiv directed his tides back. He warred against the Avatar's skill-fused mix of Physicality and Psychomancy. They were powerful and backed by an Ascendant. They had more might at their disposal compared to Shiv. But that didn't mean he was easy prey now. A current of Psychomancy flowed out from the Avatar's fingers, but it met Shiv's shapeless tides in a sudden crash.

The Ascendant's mana was stalemated. Shiv had been building up overflow exactly to prevent something like this as well. He wasn't pushing the Ascendant back, but he kept the Avatar's Psychomancy outside his mind.

That was triumph enough, considering how easy it was for the Ascendant to beat him down a day before.

Cripple hissed. And now it was openly angry.

Shiv's mind whirled with possibilities. He knew the Abyss was a dangerous and fantastic place. In retrospect, he had gotten extremely lucky running into that group of Umbrals. If he'd encountered the First Blood or Compact, his life could have turned out a whole lot different. Maybe he'd be more like Cripple in some ways. As the Ascendant and the newly Legendary-tiered Deathless matched their magically-charged Physicalities against each other, Shiv let out a breath.

"Fine, I don't blame you for reacting like that. I don't much like the bloodsuckers either." He remembered what the First Blood did to Angelo’s village. Shiv might not suffer trauma like most people, but the sheer depravity and atrocity he witnessed marked him regardless.

Suddenly, Cripple drew back its arm and shook its head. "A few pieces fell away from its body, and more coolant spilled down its legs, mingling with the puddles of blood. Cripple looked down.

Understanding bloomed inside Shiv as he made the connection. "You were a slave."