(I) Abyss

-, A Maddened Slayer’s Account of the Abyss6 (I)

Abyss

“Hey!” Shiv shouted, waving at a flying Aero Mage hovering just above the Abyss. Him falling past surprised the mage—and then a bolt of red from below crashed against the poor caster, sending him tumbling through the air.

Shiv groaned and glared behind him at the rapidly approaching darkness. “Stop fighting for a second! I’m trying to stop falling!”

As usual, no one cared what Shiv wanted.

The top side of the Abyss resembled one of those “glorious war murals” that some artisans liked to paint. The kind that showed thousands of Republic Pathbearers mustering themselves to stand against the nightmarish tides of the Necrotechs.

The Deathless always thought the scenes were exaggerated. Until now. Now, he realized the scope and scale of the battle were more than he could have imagined.

Aerial-build automata drifted in heavy air cavalry formations, protecting the circles of magi. Some casters were layering sealing spells over parts of the abyss, coating entire sections of the chasm with stacked barriers, while others bombarded the unseen enemy lurking in the darkness between the gaps of their wards with cataclysmic spells. Shiv had never seen siege-level magic in his life, but today, he got a front row seat—and the brightness of the blasts seared permanent blind spots into his eyes.

Walls of wind slammed against Shiv, jerking his already shattered limbs about. The agony left Shiv empty of thoughts—and soon even consciousness. He blacked out for a moment, and when he woke again, he found himself falling just past the highest parts of the old city ruins. Inside the hollowed buildings, he glimpsed teams of dark, armored figures moving up.

And Shiv was falling right into enemy territory. A loud snapping noise sounded, and Shiv followed the commotion to see a large spell pattern breaking apart. It was like streams of carefully woven light were snapping, and as the spell collapsed, a magical barrier blockading part of the abyss shattered.

The spell was originally shaped like a burning shield bearing the Arrow Family emblem, and it came apart as if a plate striking the ground. As it shattered, Shiv felt the magic wash through him—a sensation that was similar to the vitality he drained from people, but not entirely. Then came a colossal shape that burst out from the failing shield.

The airborne magi rushed to patch over their broken defenses in the area, but it was too late.

A loud, bone-rattling laugh echoed through the world.

Something resembling a titanic, skeletal serpent with ebony bones and a few hundred arms along its length rose into the air. Its length was terrifying. It just kept rising and rising from the dark, taller than most of the collapsed buildings. Perched upon its exposed ribs were hundreds of monsters, each spreading their wings, screaming their bloodlust despite their bodies recoiling when struck by the first rays of light.

Though Shiv was still listening to the gargantuan serpent’s sermon, the Blackedge magi corps were done with their spellcraft. Massive balls of fire formed above their circles. Each one was larger than the residential clusters back in town, and Shiv felt a flood of mana drench the world. All around the chasm leading into the Abyss, a few hundred dawns ignited while the eclipse continued above. As one, the magi unleashed their spells as a single organism, and Shiv found himself shaken by the awesome display.

Roland Arrow fought in a war like this? His parents too? How did they even survive? And the enemy—the serpent was beyond anything Shiv could imagine—he never saw anything of its like in the bestiary he “borrowed” from the town library. Despite being a Pathbearer now, he realized there was so very much he didn’t know, and so far he had to climb.

Which was an annoying realization to have when one was still falling.

“Hey!” he shouted, waving at some of the air cavalry. They didn’t notice him—too focused were they on spreading their formations wider to curve around the magi.

The massive fireballs blasted forth, streaking toward the great serpent from all directions.

But the beast only sighed mournfully.

The fireballs converged. Shiv expected a massive blast—and winced as he felt the temperature grow to unbearable levels. His skin was starting to blister, and he was about on level with the serpent as he fell toward the gap the titanic beast made in the magi’s wards.

Yet, before Shiv could drop any further—or perish from the flames—the great skeletal serpent extended each of its countless arms and summoned a collection of pale scepters into their palms. The monster traced a few hundred varied gestures into the world and wove spells at a pace Shiv couldn’t perceive. A second after, something like a deafening gong sounded from within the serpent, and a pulsing wave washed over the world.

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Everything went still.

Shiv froze. The fireballs halted—most of them barely a finger’s distance away from exploding against the serpent. But the monster remained active, unburdened by this strange stasis.

Each of the serpent’s many hands came clasped together in some form of prayer, and to Shiv’s disbelief, he noticed the monsters holding in place on its ribs mirroring the act with great dignity.

His mind reeled. He was pretty sure he saw some lesser vampires there. Lesser vampires weren’t intelligent. How were they performing an act of unholy worship now?

Then, the great beast followed one impossible spell with another. Reaching out its many hands, the serpent traced fiery threads out from the fireballs, pulling patterns of mana free from each of the radiant spheres as if a cat undoing a ball of twine.

Shiv struggled to move, struggled to react, but witnessed everything. He could feel a dense layer of magic smother his body, like the weight of a mountain pinning him in place, but his mind was still his own. A flash of movement in the distance drew his attention—atop a distant set of ruins, he saw a flock of birds take flight. Were they unaffected by this spell? Or did it simply not reach them?

Shiv’s mind raced as he struggled to comprehend a number of things, but by the time he regarded the serpent again, his stomach plunged into cold terror. The monster wasn’t just pulling the mana patterns apart; it was weaving them back together, and adding new lengths to the existing magic. The serpent—which called itself —sang sorrowful notes as it converted the fireballs meant to smite it for its own use.

Colorful bands of red and white were mixed into the fiery lengths of mana. New symbols flashed upon the serpent’s many palms, and they poured their mana into the strange weave they were compositing. Each of the fireballs shrank and dimmed, their power siphoned away into a new spell shaped by the vicar’s hands.

A coiling nest of voluminous colors and patterns revolved around and around itself, until everything blurred, and it burst apart. A tidal wave of magic washed through the world. Shiv witnessed the vegetation surrounding the ruins erupt explosively. A literal forest rose up between the cracks of the broken pavement and ruined buildings, swallowing more of the old city. Then came a flood of life from the serpent’s hands—an outpouring of colorful birds that rushed outward over the world in a few thousand different flocks.

The serpent’s magical skill—no —must be well beyond Adept to achieve that. Shiv didn’t even know this was possible; to convert the mana of fire to life was… It was something Shiv wanted to achieve someday.

He achieve this someday. Enemy or not, the serpent became a goal in Shiv’s mind—a vision of power and authority beside the shadow of Roland Arrow.

Suddenly, the stasis holding Shiv broke, and he fell again. Above, the magi immediately began weaving new spells in haste—their lack of hesitation hinting that they were aware of the vicar’s actions as well.

And with a final gesture, as Shiv fell through the gap the serpent made, the vicar commanded the birds it created to soar forth among the defenders of Blackedge—and suddenly each of them sparked.

Life magic reverted to fire, and a chain of explosions consumed the skies above, casting Shiv, who was falling behind the serpent, in shadow. Republic Pathbearers fell from the sky like falling embers, the screams of those who still could mingling with the whistling air. Driven to desperation by what he witnessed, Shiv cried out for the vicar to heed him—trying to distract the great beast for a moment and allow the forces of his town to regroup. To his surprise, the serpent actually heard him. It turned to regard him—then deflected a lance of lightning into a nearby building without looking.

Shiv dropped through the gap into the darkness, and the vicar studied him for a moment, but then turned away as they rose further into the air, commanding its forces to go forth and spread its word of the forgiving dark.

Shiv’s heartbeat quickened. His limbs were numb from agony now, but he was still falling, and he had no idea how to stop. Above, more seals were shattered, and Shiv found himself horrified to see additional skeletal serpents—ones of smaller size compared to the vicar—carrying more of the Necrotech Legions up toward the town.

One after another, the wards that Blackedge laid in place burst into fragments, clearing the path through the chasm for all those below.

“Dammit!” Shiv said. His mind raced. He considered—

Something struck the back of his head from behind. His consciousness winked out for a moment. He came to with a gasp and a groan. The wind was still whistling past him. There was a deep stinging pain in the back of his skull, and a feeling of wetness running down his neck. As he blinked, he found himself unable to see anything anywhere. Shiv prayed that the blow had blinded him, because the alternative was that he was now too deep in the Abyss to even see the chasm.

How long had he been out? He moved his arms and let out a choked gasp of pain. Right. Those were still broken. Very broken. He needed… What if he died? What if he found a way to kill himself? He remembered how he glided from place to place as a Revenant. Maybe he could try to fly back up as a ghost. Shiv remembered his chef’s knife was still bound to his right hand, so he could try flopping it at his head. The arm bounced about, so it wasn’t a guarantee he could stab himself while falling, but it was the best shot he had.

But before he did, another concern formed in his mind: He needed life force to exist as a Revenant. Without vitality, he got cold fast and faded. And if he faded completely… Well, Shiv didn’t want to find out if he had a second form after Revenant, should he die as a ghost.

“Taint me,” Shiv muttered. No good options. And taint the damn raven too. The bastard didn’t have the dignity to kill him—just threw him off the top of Blackedge like he was a rock. Shiv was going to look forward to draining the rest of the raven’s vitality when he found him next. And Shiv find the raven-helmed stranger again. This wasn’t done. Not by a—

A sudden interrupted Shiv’s thoughts. For a moment, he was unsure what had happened, but he distinctly heard the sound a sack of splattering meat might make when striking the ground at high speeds. True to Shiv’s frustration, the cold began seeping into him, and he was dead again. He finally struck something deep in the Abyss.

Shiv muttered. He tried to look up as a ghost, but saw nothing. Apparently, being a ghost didn’t give him some kind of dark-seeing skill. That would be too convenient.

Then, Shiv stopped thinking for a moment as some notifications filled his perception.

Toughness > 29

Physicality > 27

The growth was ridiculous. That was a massive jump for his Physicality and Toughness. Shiv didn’t think he'd ever heard of anyone growing that much in a single day. Despite his predicament and his recent death, he found himself getting giddy. Finally, it seemed like the years of power and growth denied to him were being returned by life wholesale. Shiv knew that likely wasn’t actually accurate, but imagining that he was collecting a debt from the world gave him comfort in these trying times.

Now. He needed to find a place to go—a source of light or something. Some vitality first. He couldn’t risk disintegrating as a ghost. He needed to resurrect and climb the Abyss. The town—he didn’t care that much about Blackedge as a whole, but there was no way he was leaving Georges and the rest of Swan-Eating Toad to fend off an invasion on their own.