66 (II)
Arsenal
Even though Shiv didn’t fully grasp all the details of the vambrace, he had a feeling that any Jump Mage that wanted to ambush Adam now was likely going to experience a very, very ugly demise.
“Let me see something,” Adam said. He pulled back his hand, but the corrosion remained in the air like a ball of festering rot. Adam formed a Veilpiercer and snaked the tip into the corrosion. Suddenly, the arrow ignited, turning a corroded green—and then Adam also applied a source of mana from the Spellstring. The lightning coursing around the Veilpiercer arrow was also infested with the Necromantic energy.
It was like the System gave Adam a weapon and a vambrace specifically designed to kill—Shiv paused at that thought. A lot of these weapons and skill upgrades they were getting were beyond just blind chance. It was like the System was shaping future conflicts to come. Was it trying to position Adam to be his slayer at some point, or potentially allow Adam to set Shiv off like a bomb?
As he considered that, Adam stared at Shiv, and he nodded. Their minds remained connected through Uva, and all three of them shared the same thought. “It would not surprise me,” the Young Lord mumbled.
Shiv paused, and he grunted. “I’ll try not to give you a reason to shoot me.”
Adam stared at him. “I think it will take quite a bit for me to shoot you now, Shiv.”
And that made Shiv feel something altogether different. Adam looked away from him, seeming slightly embarrassed at his admission.
There was something unsaid. There was still a discomfort in the Young Lord about their history, but old wounds flared weakly beneath newly hardened bonds—they owed each other life, and recent life at that. Distant deaths were but shadows in the light.
Then Adam fired his arrow, and it streaked over the horizon. He aimed at a mountain, partially cracked but still mostly standing after the conflict between the Lance and Shiv’s group. The arrow impacted the mountain, and a corrosive thunderstorm detonated outward from the other end of the dimensional rift.
What’s more, however, was that the unstable dimensional pathway Adam’s arrow created was also entirely corrosive within, and it exerted such a spatial pull on the world that Shiv had to root himself and Uva in place with his gravity.
“It’s a powerful spatial anchor as well,” Adam breathed. “I can feel it dragging and pulling at my Dimensionality. Between that and the corrosion… Any Jump Mage who tries to ambush me might find themselves in dire circumstances.”
Shiv chuckled. “Seems the System wants to make you hard to reach.”
“Indeed,” Adam said, recalling how Tarlow beat him. “I suspect we’re going to be facing a great many Jump Mages soon as well.”
“Well. We will be raiding a gate soon,” Uva noted, frowning.
Finally, the Umbral Psychomancer gazed upon her Master-Tier item, but confusion spread across her face. The same confusion spread across Shiv and Adam’s features as well.
“I’m not sure what this is,” Shiv muttered.
“Me neither,” Adam said, narrowing his eyes.
He observed it using his Seer of Horizons, but ended up letting out a sigh. “Well, pick it up, Uva.”
“How?” she replied. She gestured at the construct, and she had a point. It resembled a small cloud of fast-moving metal shards that danced around a mana core shaped from gravity—a Dynamancy core.
Shiv’s Reflexes were fast enough for him to study the shards in vivid detail, and he noticed something. “Those—those are from the Biomancer’s shield.”
Adam blinked, and he immediately cast his senses kilometers away to where they left the Biomancer headless in a pool of its own blood. “Indeed… A section of its shield has broken off.”
“Wait, I think I hear something,” Uva said. One of her psionic tendrils slipped into the mana core of her new item. Suddenly, a notification appeared in her eyes, and with a single thought, the metal shards stopped dancing and recomposed themselves, fusing together to become a hovering tower shield. It was still cracked, veined with damage, but it seemed to be better that way. It obeyed every single one of Uva’s commands, and it also—
“Hello?” a voice said. All three of them blinked.
“Who said that?” Adam said.
“The shield,” Uva breathed.
“There’s… somewhere there. I’m… I’m lost… I’m scared. Why do I feel so scared? What does it feel like, or does it feel like my mind has been ripped into so many pieces? What do I feel like? I’m bits and pieces of a strand pulled apart? Oh gods, I don’t know—the blood, the blood… my thumbs and someone's eyes… The blood…”
Uva’s eyes widened. Memories came from her unbidden, memories of her using the wind dragon to gouge out the eyes of its comrade.
Adam gagged in horror and disgust. “How did you… You just… You just did that?”
“As an act of surprise,” Uva answered matter-of-factly, more focused on her new item than Adam’s visceral revulsion.
“It seems,” she said, “that the shield carries a mental imprint of one of my former—” She paused. “Hostages.”
“Hostages. That’s what you’re going to call them?” Adam asked, a quiver to his voice.
Uva seemed to think it fit. “It feels like the most apt word. That, or… glove? Sleeve? Something that I can wear.”
“Wearing… people,” Adam breathed.
“She’s wearing enemies,” Shiv said with a shrug. “I don’t know. It seems pretty cool to me. Kind of hot too. Just all the power, them not being able to do anything about it.” He let out an almost shuddering breath.
Adam stared at Shiv. “You… you have problems, Shiv. You have deep, deep problems. More than I thought.”
“Maybe I just know how to appreciate a girl who can rip a Dragon-Knight's mind in half.” Shiv grinned at Uva, and she replied with a very appreciative flutter of her eyelashes.
Between them, Adam began to gag. “Stop! Disconnect me if you’re going to do this! Stop!”
Uva laughed, and they stopped before things got too awkward for poor Adam.
“What else do you remember?” Uva asked the shield.
“I don’t… I remember. I remember… that I’m afraid of you. Please don’t hurt me. I’ll do anything you ask. You don’t need to force me to do anything. I’ll just work with you. I’m very… My personality… I’m… I’m a very affable person! Yes, I like—I like to do things other people tell me to do. I’ll become anything you want.”
The shield began to break apart, and it changed into several shapes. Shiv noticed, however, that the shards could only move within a five-meter radius, with the Dynamancy mana core able to move itself as well.
Shiv’s Gravitic Wrestler felt the pull of the shield, and it had a force inside it that was just slightly weaker than what he could unleash.
Uva bade the shield to approach her. It hovered behind her, and then she hopped aboard it and stood atop the shield as if it were a flying board.
“Well,” Uva said, “this should be interesting.” She then dismantled every piece of metal and collapsed it around herself. The Dynamancy core hovered just over her head, but it seemed vulnerable and exposed.
Shiv remembered facing the dimensional golem—how he killed it by ripping into its core. He supposed that probably was a similar weakness with the shield, or at least a vulnerability.
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Uva immediately reformed the shield and launched it. It speared through the ground, casting dirt everywhere. She kept going as it blasted deeper and deeper into the ground. She smirked as her tendril kept her connected to the shield, and she casually recalled it a second later. It shot back to her, drifted around, and planted itself in the earth just behind her. The shards began to drift around her like constellations.
Equipment Obtained: [The Mind-Shattered Sentinel]
Special: Awakened Item
Tier: Master
Condition: Shattered (Perfect)
Composition: Adamantine
Enchantments > Master Gravity Field; Dynamancy 80; Bulwark of Force; Self-Mending; Binding
Uva smiled. “Well, it seems that I might have a physical solution to some problems as well now.”
“The System’s real thoughtful,” Shiv noted. “Everything we got was to cover up a shortcoming or enhance our effectiveness somehow.”
“And that is what it means to be favored.” Valor’s voice sounded from behind them as several Weaveresses threw back their cloaks and walked into the light. Valor was resting in the hands of Still Water. She looked a bit battered, but otherwise in good shape.
Behind her, Liquid Serpent was hopping on one leg—all her other limbs were torn or cut off at various points, but she still seemed to be in high spirits. “I think I killed another one.”
“You didn’t,” Spark Ripper commented behind her.
“I wounded it severely.”
“I had to slash its eyes before it ripped you in half,” the automaton mumbled.
“I would have bested the dragon somehow,” Liquid Serpent said, sounding more confident with every exchange.
The fire within Valor’s sockets burned dimly, and Shiv winced as he regarded the skull. Somehow, the Legendary Pathbearer looked weak, spent.
“Valor had to do a bit of Necromancy to get me and Uva out of an ugly situation,” Adam explained, noting Shiv's stare.
“That was nothing,” Valor said, slurring his words. “But my hands—do you perchance have my arm? It would please me greatly if you did.”
Shiv reached into his cloak and pulled out Valor's right arm. It was a crystalline limb, radiating odd energy, and ritualistically etched with strange patterns. He didn’t much want to hold onto the arm for long. Something about him told him that it was going to be rather volatile when triggered somehow.
“Good, bring it closer,” Valor said. “I wish to, I wish to…”
And then the arm left Shiv, guided by an unseen force. It streaked through the air and attached itself below the skull, right next to his other arm. The hand clamped around Valor’s featureless face for a moment. Then a flash followed.
“Release me,” Valor commanded, strength suddenly flooding into his voice.
The Weaveress chucked him into the air. Shiv expected him to crash down, but then a pulse of crackling, corrosive energy spread out and created an outline.
Briefly, Shiv’s eyes caught something in that festering mess—and he staggered back from the surge of Necromancy. He saw the blurry visage of a tall, thin man with prominent cheekbones and piercing, blue eyes. His shoulder-length hair was midnight-black, as was his short, well-manicured beard. He was clad in a flowing cloak and a set of skeletal armor more ornately decorated than Shiv’s. But he was also outlined—outlined by the sickly green and black of Necromancy flowing through his armor, flashing behind his eyes. But even then, the Necromancy within merely veiled him, shrouded him from an even higher power that shone around the man like a halo. It was absolute radiance, brighter than even whiteness itself; the power of Animancy.
For a moment, Shiv glimpsed at He Who Stills Eternity, the Great Valor Thann, a Legend at the height of his capabilities, and he felt like he was gazing upon a giant beyond giants.
Becoming a Hero or even a Master was truly substantial for a Pathbearer, but Shiv remembered the gulf between Adept and Master. He felt the power of a Hero as he fought Confriga, as he faced the Jealousy. How powerful, then, could a Legend be? Marikos’s flame turned him to less than ashes, dissolved him, and vaporized an entire mountain. Vicar Sullain stopped time itself and turned fire into life. But what was Valor capable of that made him feel so much more potent than even they?
Then, the moment faded, and the visage went with it. But Valor didn’t, and no longer was he but a loose collection of skeletal pieces. His two arms hovered across from each other, where they would be if the man they belonged to were whole, their bones outlined by a crackling shroud of necromancy. From the same energies, a silhouette formed for Valor, showing the general imprint of a man, though missing the details Shiv had seen a moment ago. His skull hovered in the right place, but at his heart—or the place where his heart should have been—the dagger burned, and no longer did it appear as a crude shape of stone. Instead, parts of what Shiv now knew to be a shell had cracked away, revealing a glint of mithril, and of something more.
“Ah,” Valor breathed, his voice sounding somehow clearer than before. “I am… more myself again.”
He closed his right hand and flexed his digits. The Necromancy danced and surged through his right limb, and a slight whirl of power flicked through the earth and outright left it withered and dissolved, cutting deep without meeting any resistance.
Shiv was backing away even more now. He didn’t want to be anywhere near Valor while the Necromancy was—
“Shiv!” A voice came from behind him, and to his surprise, he saw Can Hu approaching. Not carried by any Weaveresses, however; instead, a platform of earth carried the badly damaged armor across the air. Shiv blinked as Can Hu opened itself up, revealing its half-skull to Shiv. There, Shiv saw that Can Hu’s insides were layered by new strips of strange alloys, and that its fractured frame seemed to be spraying out pieces of drifting stone. More than that, its eyes were also sparking with reaching bolts of electricity. Yet, at a closer glance, Shiv could see the bolts weren’t actually bolts, but fading streams of zeros and ones.
“Can Hu, what happened to you?”
“Skill Evolution!” the automaton declared. “I am now an Adept in Geomancy—a Molder of Metal and Stone.” The automaton sounded surprised itself. “But more than that, the Quest rewards were enough to evolve a skill that had long since stagnated at the cusp of a new Tier. I have evolved my Machine Mastermind Skill into something more. I am a Binaric Sovereign now. Whatever that entails…”
Shiv's eyes widened as he recalled Can Hu telling him about its Machine Mastermind Skill, how it was one of the bot’s few remaining Master-Tier skills.
As the memory flowed through their mental link, Uva’s features lit up. “Can Hu, that's amazing!” she exclaimed.
While she and Adam both walked over to congratulate the bot, Shiv chuckled drily. “Godsdamn it, I'm really the only one of our group without a Heroic Skill…” His expression quickly turned back into a smile, however, and he went to clap Can Hu on the shoulder. “Congratulations. You look… Well, you sound better, actually?” The automaton’s voice was lined with less interference now, and the stutters had decreased significantly.
“That is not all,” Can Hu said, brushing over its new status as a Hero rather quickly. From under its skull drifted a small shape, a metal seed. “I was given something else. Something you should see.” Can Hu cast the seed into the Earth and Shiv blinked as, for a moment, nothing happened. The others stared as well. Then, suddenly, a series of metallic vines expanded from the earth, shaping themselves into something of a gateway in mere moments. Suddenly, a dimensional passage pulsed into shape beyond the gate.
Adam gasped. “That’s—I can feel that! That’s a minor dimension!”
Equipment Obtained: [Garden of Bountiful Alloy]
Tier: Master
Condition: Perfect
Composition: Para-Alloy
Enchantments > Category One Dimension Core; Garden of Alloy; Adaptive Environment
Can Hu chirped in acknowledgement. “It seems to be the case.”
The party ventured inside for a moment, but Adam eyed his vambrace. “I think I best keep a close watch on this in case I affect some other dimensional spaces. I think I can control it, but… best not to risk anything until I’m sure.”
“Yeah,” Shiv said. “I don’t want to go off like a bomb because you spread your corrosion into Can Hu's personal dimension.”
Adam paused and then he took another step back.
“Wise,” Valor said. He eyed Adam’s vambrace. “That is an interesting gift the System has bestowed upon you. Quite potent Necromancy.”
“Yes,” Adam replied. “I think… I think the System forged it deliberately. Bound the Necromancy you used to something found on one of the dragons. In fact, everything here was forged from the remains and equipment of the dragon and how they died, then reshaped to our needs in the aftermath.”
As Valor spoke to Adam, Uva and Shiv ventured into Can Hu’s personal dimension. Inside, they saw vines spreading everywhere—vines that connected colossal trees veined with ore and all kinds of gleaming materials. Despite the lack of an apparent light source, the alien forest was visible to Shiv as clear as day. Practically everything around them was something that could be mined or used to create new materials.
“It is not a very wide space, perhaps only 50 meters in diameter,” Can Hu said from the outside. “But the garden… The metals and minerals regrow. There are veins of all varieties, ore veins and even silicon.”
Shiv blinked. He didn’t fully understand the implications of this, but Uva did.
“You have a direct source of raw, renewable materials,” Uva realized. “You can build as you go now. Without worrying much about materials.”
“Yes,” Can Hu replied. “Perhaps I can. The System makes its intent known…”
“So, we might have a drone army soon?” Shiv asked.
“We might have more than that,” Can Hu replied with a hint of mechanical excitement. “But only time will truly tell. Pathbearer…” A note of heavy gratitude, but also of shame, entered the automaton’s voice. “I… I must thank you for taking me on this journey. Despite my lack. I was of little assistance in our battle, and I have sustained slight damage, but-but I am more myself than ever before again. I am more, in some ways. And I believe I will be able to support you with much greater effectiveness in our next fight to come.”
“Hey, I don’t want to hear you talking like that. Without you, Sir Tarlow would have killed me three times over. Also, I feel like the actual winner here,” Shiv said. He looked around the garden and nodded. “Congratulations, Can Hu. Although… maybe you can build me another mobile kitchen if you really feel that grateful.”
Can Hu laughed. “I will build you an entire restaurant that can fly if you give me enough time.”
And just then, Shiv realized he was borderline sexually attracted to another type of person; the type of person who would offer him an entire restaurant.
“Sorry, Uva, but I think he just used his Silver Tongue on me. I might be seduced.”
Uva laughed. “I think it hit me a little bit too.”
Can Hu chimed. “I do not have the parts to consummate an intimate relationship, but I have no trouble with watching.”
Both of them paused and gawked at Can Hu.
“That was a joke.”
“I…” Shiv didn’t know what to say.
Uva covered her mouth and barely suppressed a giggle.
Just then, Adam’s voice called from the outside. He sounded urgent and worried. “Shiv, Uva, come out. We, uh, we might have some more problems. I just caught sight of a hundred more Dragon-Knights coming directly at us.”