Path of the Deathless

373 Hospitality [I]

—Georges Archambault to the staff of the Swan-Eating Toad373

Hospitality [I]

And that was where Hymn was incorrect: Uva was not holding a grudge against him. Frankly, she wasn't even thinking about him. She had a million other things she had to handle right now with the constant traffic of newcomers spilling into Piety. Since Adam's incapacitation, Still Water and her had split Gate Lord duties, with Uva's priorities falling under administration and immigration. Though she couldn't claim great skill at being a bureaucrat, her Multi-Tasking was so potent that it saw her churn through workloads that would have shattered a thousand lesser Sisters working together without fatigue.

“Truly, the Outside is an unparalleled place of training for office work,”she muttered to herself.

Uva finally responded.

Harkness’ mind-clone chimed from Uva’s inner consciousness.

Uva didn't agree with the copy of the former Aviary agent on much, but when it came to Hymn, they were on the same page.

Hymn said.

Uva’s frustration climbed. It was hard to perform a chain of thought scans on all the people arriving at the Gate while someone was blabbing in the back of her head.

Uva replied.

An amused scoff left the Headmaster. In retrospect, he likely could have compromised the Gate with ease, considering his Legendary Psychomancy-Divination Skill Fusion and the sheer quantity of eldritch powers he possessed.

Uva really wanted to say no, but despite how aggravating Hymn was, she did have two things to consider. Firstly, she wasn’t a proper bureaucrat. Secondly, having someone else do the busy work would free up her time and allow her to devote herself to more pressing—

Harkness hissed.

Uva's stomach filled with a dense fog of dull anger. Try as she might, though, she didn't have the energy to commit any true hate toward Hymn. He was a scheming, manipulative, cowardly, perverse, and irresponsible creature, but compared to all the monsters she'd faced and all the horrors she'd overcome, he seemed practically harmless. Seemed, because she felt his Psychomancy—he was powerful, tremendously so, yet he seemed too scared or unwilling to use his magic for anything worthwhile.

And so, as Hymn prattled on, offering her more and more conveniences if she would just give all her time to him, she contemplated how to respond. For a moment, she considered slapping him over the head, but she doubted that would do anything; even a beheading was a little less than an inconvenience for those who possessed the Non-Euclidean Physiology Skill—or an evolution of it. On top of that, Uva was never one to apply direct violence when there were better choices available. A rain of lesser inspiration visited her as she considered introducing two of her least-liked people. She had a copy of Harkness' consciousness, and she could make her speak with Hymn on her behalf.

Harkness sputtered.

Uva paused.

Harkness seethed.

Uva just scoffed.

Hymn called.

She continued ignoring him as Harkness sprang forth with another intriguing reply.

A greater epiphany slammed down upon Uva like a comet from the heavens. Annoying problems required annoying solutions, and she just so happened to know one of the most annoying Pathbearers in existence.

And thus Uva stretched herself out. Her body became as if a spreading fracture, coiling across the skies of Gate Piety. She crossed over the surface gateway where a group of Sisters was dragging comatose bodies off the bridge—a group of vampire shapeshifters whose minds Uva had crushed a few minutes prior. The crack caused by her presence continued over the concrete slabs that now housed most of the former residents and freed slaves, and then kept going as she passed over the local Arachnae Order garrison in the direction of the shining spire that was Starhawk’s Perch. She stretched and stretched, and no strain came with it. It felt like she could go on forever, like she could spread her body into ever-extending twine that split the gap between the realm of Integration and that which the System coveted beyond.

From there, her body bent in the most anomalous of ways, curving and twisting beyond the breaking point for practically any other in existence and possibly beyond. Her hands and fingers lengthened like fissuring vines, and they slipped past a trio of Sisters, who let out a surprised yell as Uva slithered beside them. “Apologies, Sisters. I need to retrieve a weapon of great potency.”

She ignored their disturbed expressions and removed any ill feelings that inspired within her. It was perfectly understandable; her skill evolutions disturbing, to say the least, and if another Sister was so touched by Outsider energies, she would hold them in high suspicion as well. However, she didn't come to the cafeteria to lament her current state. Instead, she speared through a set of doors, reached across the room, ignored even more looks, and finally wrapped her limbs around that which she came to retrieve.

A lavender-haired Sister four years Uva's junior just blinked as Uva plucked her off the floor like a newborn kitten. “Uh, Sister Uva? You’ve… What’s got you so… long? No, you're more like a rip in a dress. Urgh. I missed you being stretchy more. Can you change back?”

“I'm afraid that's not a question I can answer, Sister Ikki,” Uva muttered. “But there is someone who can. In fact, I need you to speak with that man at length. In great detail. With nothing held back. As much as you like, whatever topics you like.”

And in response to the sadistic grin spreading across Uva's face, Ikki's mind began to sink with fear. “Sister Uva, are you alright?” She reached up to cup Uva's forehead to feel her temperature, but found her hand slipping into the gaps that now composed Uva’s physiology. She nearly lost her entire arm to the Dreamtaker's dimension as feathered snakes and centaurs tried to pull her across. With a casual flex of her power, however, Uva cast the impudent creatures back and solidified her form until she was effectively a crack rather than a wide-open fissure. To Ikki's credit, she simply waved her hand about, whipping off the eldritch colors that stained her gauntlet like she'd accidentally touched some mud. “Well, it's not a fever, but I don't know what it is. Maybe you should go see a Biomancer—a real one who knows what they're doing, not your boyfriend!”

“There's no need, Sister Ikki. I am well.”

Ikki wiggled her limbs like a captured spider as she was dragged through the air at the speed of a flying transport demon in Weave. “You're trying to get me to talk to someone, so no, I'd say you're pretty far from okay.”

“Well, you see, this person is deeply interested in us. He wants to know everything about our culture and our ways. In fact, he came here specifically to talk to the most interesting Umbral I know.” At that, Ikki’s back straightened as she rolled her shoulders. “Well, I wouldn't say I'm most interesting. Actually, Sister Uva, aren't you the one who's transforming into a messed-up—”

“Your personality puts mine to shame. This is beyond dispute.”

Ikki pressed her lips together and accepted Uva’s declaration with reluctance. “Are you sure you're okay?”

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“I will be better than okay in just a moment.”

Scant seconds later, Uva dropped Ikki right in front of the Headmaster, who was standing next to a fountain on a smaller plaza. His shoulder-length white locks were as greasy as Shiv's hair after a week of training in the wilderness, and the short, square beard of the same color around his chin was probably the only well-maintained thing about his entire appearance.

Hymn smirked at Uva's arrival, but then cocked an eyebrow as he gazed upon Ikki. “Who is this?”

“Remember, Sister Ikki, you can talk to him about anything and everything, for as long as you want, even when he says to stop.” And with that, Uva patted Ikki on the head as she prepared to return, but then something nearby caught her eye. A few hundred meters away, on a far larger plaza, were mounds of mithril, gleaming bright and crystalline beneath the azure light of the Gate. Atop those mounds were the four Dragon-Brokers, loudly laughing and conversing with each other, trading jabs and boasts alike. Between them was a colossal tea set, and upon that tea set were Shiv and the Educator for some reason. Candles was there too, and he let out bursts of psychotic laughter every time he projected his flames to heat the tea.

She delayed her return for a moment as she extended her neck in the direction of Shiv while her body remained in place.

***

Meanwhile, Ikki and the lanky man looked on, neither talking to each other, as they watched Uva's skull elongate further and further until she was a narrow crevice that split the sky.

After three seconds, however, Ikki's attention span perished, and she looked the elf in front of her up and down. “Do all surfacers dress like you and Shiv?”

“Huh?” Hymn frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You know, like you're too poor to afford proper clothes. He keeps getting the stuff his girlfriend gets him shredded, and you wear those wine-stained rags.”

Hymn looked on at her with a blank expression. “These aren’t rags—they’re a coat I made from a curtain I stole. The stains are not from wine either.”

“Oh. Why a stolen curtain?”

“It’s free, I’m cheap, and it bothers the Matriarch of House Purler when she has to replace a curtain every month.”

“Oh, I get it.” Ikki snickered. “But why don’t you just clean the piss stains or whatever? You’re a Legend, right? Even if you don’t smell like one. You can get a self-cleaning enchantment pretty cheaply.”

“The curtains of House Purler have self-cleaning enchantments,” Hymn declared. “I simply wore them out. Besides, I will get myself a new coat in a few weeks when they've replaced the curtain and I can steal it again.”

A beat followed, and then Ikki nodded. “You know, that makes sense. Things are expensive, so you've got to be economical. Like my dad used to say, 'Even the littlest bit counts.'”

“He sounds like a frugal man.”

“Maybe, but he only said that behind closed doors when he was with my mom.”

Another silence followed. The two stared each other down. Hymn struggled, but the right side of his cheek was tense with effort. He refused to break before she did. Ikki, meanwhile, was blank-faced and utterly indifferent.

“If she thinks you will be enough to distract me, she is terribly wrong, and she has sent you unto a cruel fate,” Hymn warned.

“I mean, you don’t smell bad.”

The right side of his lip curved against his will. “Stranger fill my ass with eyes, I’m being challenged by an Adept. You will regret this.”

“Hm. Nah.” Ikki finally smirked and stepped right up to Hymn, smelling a challenge—and unclean curtain-robes. “I don’t really do the regret thing.”

***

The teacups the Dragon-Brokers drank out of were closer to being cauldrons the size of family houses. Each one was made of an alloy so thick it took an unabated stream of fire from Candles to give them a dull red glow. Coiling serpents of golden make curved around the length of each teacup. As the temperature climbed, the serpents came alive, slithering to and fro along the outside like leviathans swimming in a sea of fire. The very air was aglow with embers. Any Pathbearer beneath Heroic-Tier in terms of Toughness and Magical Resistance would have simply vaporized outright within a hundred meters of the space. To the Dragon-Brokers, however, the temperature was nothing worth noting. In fact, they drank on, laughing to each other as they sipped liquid so hot and steaming that it would have melted through cement.

The only two other Pathbearers in the vicinity were equally nonplussed. The Educator was humming and hawing to herself, focused on composing an illustrative draft she dubbed . Shiv, meanwhile, found his attention utterly captured by said broken flame, as, for the first time, he realized he'd returned from the Fairwoods with changed eyes.

With his Harbinger, he could see the fragments of Candles’ heart shifting about. He saw the fissures and fractures that outlined the different pieces of the Pyromancer's mind. To make matters more interesting, the broken fragments of his mind snapped back together one by one, the more fire he channeled. It was like the outputting of magic drew his aspects closer to their original totality, and with each lull between his casts, his consciousness splattered, like a pond disturbed by stones that refused to stop plunging in. It seemed that his short-term and long-term memories were constantly being churned and riven apart.

Shiv thought to himself.

Before, Shiv regarded Candles as an eccentric enigma, a man that was volatile, unstable, but ultimately reliable, so long as he had something to burn. Now the Harbinger revealed certain truths and deepened Shiv's suspicions. Whatever the Ascendants had done to Candles, it disrupted his mind, but it didn't go far enough. With his Memorization skill or some kind of mental processing skill attached to his Pyromancy, the more he channeled his prodigious magic, the more the psychological neutering wore off. But it never stayed stable. It never stayed fixed. It just scattered again the next time he stopped using his Pyromancy.

The Harbinger didn't state anything outright. Shiv's subconscious already knew, but he wanted to make the logical connections to confirm his intuition.

Deductive Reasoning 31 > 33

But Shiv found himself reluctant to leap straight into Candles’ mind. For one, the Harbinger was still fragile and underpowered. Shiv was insulated from his own emotional state via Uva, and so he couldn't draw on his rage as a source of near-endless mana. And Shiv also recalled his experiences diving into the slaver's memories back in the Fairwoods. That had been a mostly stable mind with clear alignments between thoughts and emotions. Emotions he used to find the originating thoughts as a North Star while he was lost. He wouldn't be granted the same convenience inside Candles.

Making a mistake might just be fatal, and it wasn't just his own destruction on the line. If he damaged something essential, then he might cripple Candles—on a level that would make his current personality look downright sage-like.

Shiv smirked as Uva’s head poked into view in his periphery. Her face was extended for hundreds of meters, no, even longer than that. It was uncanny looking at her this way. It's like she was a thin strip of herself—a slip between worlds. But aside from being weird, Shiv found her new morphology kind of cool.

A low snort escaped her mind.

His words drew her in closer, and as their minds connected on a deeper level, he found her rifling through his memories and reviewing what he'd discovered regarding Candles.

A burst of jealousy went off inside her. It was a muted thing, but still there. She regarded him with a hint of mock scorn.

She went quiet as she studied the maladies assailing Candles’ mind. A reluctance took hold inside her almost immediately.

That took Shiv by surprise.

Not a few steps away, standing at the center of the colossal tea set, Candles laughed aloud. His voice took on a psychotic shriek as he shouted: “Heat the cups, burn the cups, melt the cups, burn the tea!” There was a lyrical quality to his voice, almost like he was singing a lullaby to himself.

Making the moment more surreal was how all four of the Dragon-Brokers began clapping along, each of their scaled hands slamming together in explosive thunderclaps that, too, would have vaporized anyone beneath Heroic-Tier toughness.

Know-Nothing cheered on, adjusting the monocle he wore for this special occasion.

Yellowbelly bellowed in challenge.

But Candles cared not one whit about being the ruler of anything. He found joy in the small things—the small things being rampant pyromania. “So bright…”

Uva cringed.

The thought of needing to put Candles down didn't sit well with Shiv at all.

Uva continued.

Shiv suggested. The vampire’s name made Uva flinch.

But it did bother Uva; the very thought of involving her mother’s supposed paramour filled her with so much existential revulsion Shiv regretted ever bringing the idea up.

A very Shiv-like grunt left Uva; the sound tickled him.

She sighed.

As Shiv recalled the Ascendants, he thought about Rebis and some of the other escapees. Then he regarded the Educator, who was so deep into her artwork she barely noticed his attention. When she turned to meet his stare, he used his Harbinger to cast a telepathic thought to her.

Her expression didn't change. In the end, she said nothing as she returned to her work.

Shiv grumbled internally.

Uva asked.

Shiv went back to frowning at Candles. And that drew more memories to the fore. He remembered the time he spent as an assisting medic at the Academy hospital, how many lurking dangers could assail a body, how much effort it took to save someone.

Uva declared. Something ground inside her; she was struggling against herself to make a decision.

She winced.

Shiv looked at Uva, and his earlier smirk returned, but this time it was more pride than pleasure. He wrapped an arm around the narrow crevice that was her head. “And that’s why I love you.”

A faint blush developed on her face, and it bled out from two spots in a flicker of anomalous colors. The flicker was then swallowed by a wave of blinding brightness as Candles flung himself hip-first into Shiv and Uva. He wrapped himself around them as if they were a pole he desired to climb, and he giggled with maniacal glee. “You two are real hard to burn. Like that. Like you. Thank you.”

The Deathless and the Seeker stiffened at once.

Shiv stated casually.

Uva shuddered.