(I) Jealousy

-48 (I)

Jealousy

Equipment Obtained:

Tier: Heroic

Condition: Fine

Composition: Bronze

Enchantments > Perfect Semblance; Adept-Skill Thief (0/1); Initiate-Skill Thief (0/2); Heroic Mind-Shield; Self-Mending

Steal Initiate-Tier Skill Dodge

Shiv regarded his new Perfect Semblance in the mirror with a measure of discomfort. The Umbral looking back at him was bedraggled, weary, and broken. His white hair was falling out in clumps, leaving bare patches on his scalp. A heavy steel collar hung around the stranger’s neck, sporting a single slot for a chain to be inserted. The Umbral’s face was a mess of scar tissue—the kind left over from whippings and violent abuse.

An entire history of violence was outlined across the slave’s body, and now the poor bastard was dead. All Shiv knew about the dead Umbral was his name, the names of his skills, and his Dodge Skill. This Perfect Semblance, more than any other, filled him with a deeper loathing for Compact and the vermin that ran this gate.

Leu obtained this body with ease—simply finding one that found its way down the chute into the habitat for the district’s waste disposal, serving as feed for her slugs. The way she plucked the corpse out of the muck and filth with her Aeromancy made Shiv feel a particular way he hadn’t before. While he had risen as Pathbearer, striding beyond death and fear, there were so many others who were outright damned by their Path. People like the dead Umbral boy he was pretending to be.

Name: Ul Festik

Age: 14

Path:

Slave

“Slave,” Shiv whispered, speaking to himself in the mirror. A foreign voice carried his words; a hard, rasping voice that was worn from yelling and screaming. “What kind of Path is that? What the hell kind of life did you lead, stranger? Did I kill you during my fight with the orc? Could you have escaped it? Could you have fought hard enough to overcome your life and change your Path? Could I have, in your place?”

“Master Shiv? Are you finished with the process?” Leu’s voice came from outside, and Shiv shook himself free from introspection. There was nothing he could do for poor Ul Festik anymore. If there was an afterlife, the Umbral was there, with whichever god he believed in, or whatever happened after true death.

“Yeah,” Shiv said, eyeing the body once more. He clenched his jaw, but the expression looked wrong on a face so young and wounded. “Well. If you’re listening somewhere, Festik, I’m going to kill them. The slavers. Confriga. Every bastard I can find. Might not give you peace, but it’ll give me satisfaction. And it will bring this bullshit to an end. That’s all I can do for now.”

As he left Leu’s changing room, the Vulteg Guardshead observed him for a moment and used her Analyze Skill on him once more. “Remarkable,” she breathed. “I cannot pierce your disguise at all.”

“Now if only my Acting was better,” Shiv grunted. He regarded his new ally for a moment, a complex set of emotions swelling inside him. She had been remarkably helpful thus far, providing information, a powerful item as an offering, and even a plan that allowed him to move in and out of the gateways, even while they were technically sealed. Yet, despite having done all that, she was doing this out of a personal desire to slay Confriga, and not much more.

“Guardshead. I got a question for you. Do you care about any of the slaves?”

The Guardshead paused. “The slaves? Why do you ask such a thing, Master Shiv?”

“Well, to put it bluntly, I despise slavers. I despise people that butcher and abuse people weaker than them. And everything that’s happened in this gate makes me want to kill all the guards, and every new thing I see just pisses me off more and more. Does it bother you? I mean, with everything you have to do here? You see the slaves come pouring down to feed your slugs, and… It’s just wrong to me.”

Leu replied immediately. “Ah. I understand your question now. Unsurprising for a disciple of the Legend Valor Thann to seek the Virtues of Ascension.” Shiv didn’t know what the Virtues of Ascension were, but he let her talk without interrupting, because he was more interested in what she had to say.

“The System is a cold presence in our lives. An imposing and cruel presence that demands from us conquest, blood, and struggle. The Vulteg learn this from the moment they hatch, with only our clutch-kin as those we might trust during infancy—and even then, starvation has a way of breaking even natural instinct. When we finally mature and greet the shore, we are hunted immediately by our elders, with most seeking to capture and condition us to their cause. The fortunate ones escape and flee to one of the Freeholds—places of higher virtue in our dimension, inspired in part by the philosophies of Great Pathbearers. More find themselves bound and guided into specific Paths—and burdened by Curses.”

“So, what, you’re saying this is all just normal to you?” Shiv asked. “That it’s part of life?”

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Leu hummed, considering that for a moment. “Are you aware that Lesser Marshal Confriga, despite being a practitioner of it, despises the very concept of slavery?”

This took Shiv by surprise.

“It is true. But not in the sense you might expect. Confriga believes in the Ideals of Exaltation; that one must stand for their strength and values alone, and that the taking and use of slaves debases one’s legend and corrupts their Skill Evolutions. It is part of the reason his rage burns so hot in this realm. He was not given the title of Gate Lord as a reward, but as punishment. This place is his prison as much as it is the slaves’, as much as it is ours.”

“So even Confriga doesn’t want to be doing this… But he to?”

“But the Compact of Babel is pushed forward by slavery, is held up by slavery, and we are bound to Compact per the arrangements between our Lord Scorn and their Lords of Law. Confriga likes to imagine himself to be a Pathbearer striding forward by way of his own will, but ultimately, he bends quickly before a higher, stronger tide.”

Leu paused, and her head-tentacles went slack. “The simple answer is that I do not care about the slaves. I do not think of them. To me, they are usually numbers on a sheet I see, represented in notifications or documents I receive. They do not look upon me on the streets, and I do not see them even when they are before me, as I am governed by a single desire.”

“Killing Confriga,” Shiv said.

“Correct. If you ask if I would release the slaves, if I am noble or kind… I do not know. My people are fractured. Broken. We have no singular governing philosophy. Most of our thoughts are inherited from the and granted unto us by Lord Scorn. Our creator… is not a god of ideology, but of mercurial emotion and spite. He cares little for most things and is selfish above all. But violent and vile though he can be, he is no absolute tyrant. He merely created us to serve as a buffer across his conquests, and he wishes to be left to himself atop his great and lonesome tower besides.”

Shiv tried to imagine such a god, but he failed. With the Auroral Council so distant from his life, the only god Shiv truly knew was the Composer, and it was telling that a spider-wasp goddess seemed so very human beside the one Leu just described.

“I am not a full person,” Leu said. “I refuse to be until I kill Confriga. This… The only reason I survived to adolescence is my clutch-brother. And the only reason I will live again is when Confriga joins him in the Great After of Death. After this… After this, perhaps I will have my own reckoning. For what I am. For what I have done to achieve my triumph.” She turned a curious eye on Shiv. “I have a question for you in return, Master Shiv. Might I ask?”

“Sure.”

“Do you feel regret for those you killed during your struggle against the orc? I understand that a battle between Masters is a desperate affair and that the small are so easily crushed underfoot, so it is—”

“Yes,” Shiv answered without hesitation. He grimaced. The statement felt strange, coming from the mouth of one likely slaughtered in the battle in question. “It’s more shame than pure regret. Some of those deaths I don’t think I could have prevented at all. But the longer I think about it, most of those who died did so because I was rough and raw, doing everything I could to hurt and kill the enemy instead of thinking about those around me.”

“And you would have acted differently?”

“I would have launched us downward, for one,” Shiv said. “Instead of smashing through building after building and brawling with 811 where all the people are, I could have taken him down into the molten lakes, and we could have brutalized each other there.”

Leu hummed in acknowledgement. “It is hard to make the wisest choice when the heat of conflict is upon you.”

“Hard is not an excuse,” Shiv said. “People died. Places that didn’t need to be broken were broken. A real Pathbearer should be more… careful? Or focused. Controlled.” He gave a humorless laugh. “And that is where I need the most work. Experience. And control.”

“But you also do not seem to be burdened by this?” Leu asked, tilting her head. “Your words sound more like an acknowledgement than true sorrow.”

“It’s just a feeling. And there’s nothing I can do but try to make it better.” Shiv shrugged. “That’s the way I see things, anyway. I did badly the first time. Because the world bends to power, others paid for it. So. I’m going to get better, and next time, no one will pay for it.”

The Guardshead went quiet. “I am jealous of your nature, Master Shiv. You see the world simply.” Leu sounded like she had some disagreements regarding his philosophy, but she didn’t push on it, and Shiv let it go.

“Hey, Shiv,” Tran said, coming over with his glowing enchanting hammer in his right hand. The armor the Slayer took from the Inquisitors had a trail of half-finished spell patterns dancing over it. “How’s the mask? Did the Enchantment take?”

“Yeah,” Shiv said. “It’s coming back together pretty good. Thanks. I’ll make this up to you.”

“Yeah? Well, you can make me dinner again if we get out of this alive.” Tran paused. There was a bit of tension in his body. “Listen. About that—about the plan in general, I really don’t think you need to do this. The Guardshead already said that the Greater Demon will need a few hours to recover from the feeding, and we can all just slip out during that time—”

“I’m still coming back in, Tran. Even if you aren’t. The Jealousy has to die at some point, and there isn’t a better chance than now. Look, are you worried about me dying for good and Leu finishing you two off because she might think you two are loose ends who know too much about her whole revenge thing? Is that what’s bothering you?”

Tran’s expression turned ugly at that. Leu looked between them, but she said nothing. “I—no, look, I do care if you live or die, Shiv. But there’s also the fact that we’re probably not going to make it very far without you if someone catches on. You’re the only one who knows where they’re going in the Abyss, and you said there are fire elemental watchtowers and aerial threats just outside of the gate. We’re not outrunning that, and there’s a good chance that Heather’s spatial magic will get intercepted by another Portomancer or a Dimensionalist if we’re spotted.”

“Do you doubt my character, Adept Tran?” Leu asked. There was an edge to her words.

“I don’t know your character, Guardshead Leu,” Tran replied as diplomatically as he could. “And after getting my mind ripped apart by what were supposed to be my own people, I’m not doing that great on the trust thing with anyone. I mean, would you have bothered helping me or Heather if Shiv wasn’t going to help with your revenge?”

Leu considered that for a moment. “No. I would not. You offer me nothing, and there is too much risk. But I would not betray you now. I have both of you listed as Dimensionalists tasked with maintaining gateway stability in the guard roster. So long as you behave accordingly, you will not be noticed, and your presence at either side of the gateway will not draw overmuch suspicion. If things do go wrong, slip back into the gate, and I will simply arrive to take you all into custody. I am the Guardshead here, after all.”

Tran still looked worried.

“She’s risking more than most of us,” Shiv said. “If either of you gets taken alive, they might just pull these memories out of your head. Same goes with me. But without more support, it’ll just be us against the rest of the gate and the core.” The thought sent a rush through Shiv. He wondered how much damage he could do between each of his deaths—or until they broke his mind for good. “I’m up for that fight if it comes to me. Are you?”

The Slayer shook his head. “Hell no. I—I need out of here. Heather and I need to… The things they did to us…”

“Yeah, okay,” Shiv said, reaching out to steady the man. “I told you: I am not going to leave you, so just be ready. Leu said that the Jealousy will be teleported inside the gate after it presses a tendril against the Abyssal gateway. And then, after a few hours, when it finishes feeding, it will be teleported back out—and I’ll be coming with it. We’ll use the dead Jealousy crashing down in front of the gateway as a distraction to make a jump out of here. Then Heather will share whatever spatial magic thing Leu showed her for the gateways to another Dimensionalist, and then I’ll slip back in to kill Confriga and capture the Animancy Core.”

“A series of mana bombs will also be going off within various critical buildings,” Leu added. She gestured at Shiv with a tentacle. “I thank you for your corpses. This will make the appearance of a larger Aviary sabotage operation look more severe and compel the Gate Lord to tighten the lockdown even more.”

The Slayer seemed like he had more to say, but he just sighed. “Shiv… Good luck. Try not to die.”

Shiv snorted. “Yeah. I’ll try not to dead.”

“Um. So. What about me?” A voice came from behind Shiv, and he found himself eyeing Siggy. The goblin Pathbearer had both arms behind her back, and her courage was on the verge of crumbling again. “What happens to me…”

“Well, you're either coming with us, or I kill you,” Shiv said. “Can’t have you running around in this gate full of Psychomancers with everything you know.”

“Yeah, I got that part, but… you know, what happens after the escape?”

“I haven’t thought that far,” Shiv said honestly. “I’ll decide if we successfully escape and are still alive by the end of this.”

Siggy’s courage broke again, and she staggered away. Shiv didn’t even need to use Dread Aura to do it this time.

“Anyway. The hard part will be killing the Jealousy, and that’s up to me. So the rest of you just keep loose and stay ready. Odds are, you’ll be far and away from this place for good by the end of the day.”