The world is hard. The System is a bastard. Things can get real bad. They’ve gotten bad for me. And if you’re going to be a Pathbearer of any worth, they’ll get bad for you.
And eventually, it will be too much for you. Most Pathbearers end up dead one way or another before they are driven to the breaking point, but the ones who make it past Adept… You’ll do it at least once. It’s why there are so many one-skill Master-Tiers in the world. It’s why most choose to stop pushing so hard after a certain point.
Because the struggle sometimes is too much. Because sometimes, the System takes more than it gives by far.
I’ve met people I would have described as iron. Iron-willed. Iron-skinned. Iron-hearted. But even iron has a breaking point. And I watched the ones I admire die over and over. Most campaigning Pathbearers have maybe a decade or two of heavy fighting in them. After that, better find a good Psychomancer, because the trauma builds up, the people you lose build up, and the System never lets up.
No matter how strong you are, it will find a way to beat you to your knees and shatter you. But the second part to this is that you don’t need to stay shattered. And you don’t need to be the only one fighting for you.
The first time me and her realized we loved each other was when we wandered off into the same glade. Why the same glade? Because it looked peaceful. And because after a pretty nightmarish campaign against the godsdamned orcs—after they snuck into our camp, captured our friends, and just… The screams. I’ll never forget the screams. I’ll never forget the bodies…
…
My wife and I… We were in that glade because neither of us could sleep. I told her about my nightmares. She told me about hers. The pain didn’t get any better immediately—that’s not how it works. But you do get a bit stronger when you realize that someone else needs you not to break. And that you desperately need her not to break, either. Because if one of you falls, the other might follow.
Sometimes, broken pieces fit right together, and they can stop a true collapse from happening.
-Memoirs of a Master-Tier War Mage
88 (I)
Companions [II]
Skill Gained: Berserk (Adept)
Berserk > 1
Dedicated mages usually didn't get the Berserk Skill. Some frontline Dynamancers or physical-enhancement Biomancers, perhaps, but they were more mixed-role combatants. Psychomancers, however, practically never gained the Berserk Skill. Practically never, because something broke inside Uva as she laid eyes on the broken, mutilated form of Shiv.
The sounds he made while the entity tortured him were inhuman—were bad enough that she had to silence a part of her own mind to stay focused. But as she commanded the Dreamtaker’s eldritch spawn to swarm and tear the Recollector apart, she saw Shiv clearly for the first time, and it felt as if someone shoved a burning blade into her heart.
She knew it was going to be bad. Uva thought she was ready to face anything. She was wrong.
Shiv resembled a large sack of bloody, screaming meat more than he did a person. His body was twisted and warped in so many unnatural ways that it took all she had not to puke all over her shield.
“And so you see the inevitability of rigidity. You would have borne a similar mis-shape to his without your Physicality-power-change.” The Dreamtaker’s words glided across Uva’s mind while dozens of the ring-shaped eldritch entities she directed vanished from her awareness, diving into the past to strike at the temporal echoes of the Recollector. She commanded a core group of ten to stay close to her—to cover her and delay the Recollector if it noticed what she was doing. She couldn’t fully dive into any of their minds due to their temporal non-linearity, but she could still communicate with them while they remained in the present. And there were parts of them, like the Shoggoth, that did align with her.
Hate for one. Absolute, all-consuming hatred for the Recollector.
She used that hate to guide them. And she felt that hate overcome her self-control as she drifted over the massive crater Shiv lay in.
“AWAY! AWAY! PAST IS MINE! STOP! STOP CONSUMING MY PAST!” the Recollector roared as it spasmed and twitched in the air. Its tentacles lashed about, and it began to blink across time and space. Without Chronomancy, Uva had no ability to perceive the battle that was actually happening. But Shiv could.
And Shiv—
Uva groaned as she covered her mouth. Her horror and misery were contagious, as all the ten New-Dreamt she had guarding her began to let out vaguely human cries of anguish. Worse, there were things stillinside Shiv. Things that twitched and writhed and pushed under his skin—struggling to deform his adamantine flesh. And there were other things in his mind—she could sense the mangled remains of his ego and the vermin who constantly feasted on his mind, on his very being.
A storm of cold rage consumed Uva as Berserk took hold. She lost all sense of self-control as she dove into his mind without hesitation. She found the things ripping at his sense of self. His mind was constantly mending, but the damage they inflicted… There would have been nothing left of anyone else.
These entities were without true physical form. Instead, they were contained within a series of discordant notes that crashed against her mind, that tried to inflict psychosis on her so they could slip into her cracks as well. Unfortunately for them, Uva’s sense of self was nothing but violent, unstoppable rage, and every single strand of her Psychomancy flared with hateful intent.
And through it all, there was still a cold, calculated hand directing Uva on her offensive. Still just a sliver of rationality remaining. “This… is not how you break someone’s mind. Let me show you.”
They sang at her. She drove her strands directly into them and flooded their minds with her hate. The entities grew louder from the anger she poured into them. But then they kept swelling, and the entities shrieked and wailed and ruptured into deflating notes as she overloaded them. But she didn’t only use her Psychomancy. Her single thread of rationality made her breach the threshold to the Outside again. She used her psychosis as a shield against madness and unleashed the full power of her gaze. A torrent of brilliant changing colors flashed inside Shiv, and as she cast her light on the remaining entities in his body, they screamed, they tried to flee, but she drove them back into the Outside—into the Dreamtaker’s domain.
There, she watched as they were mauled and devoured by other entities of even greater strangeness. Beings Uva couldn’t yet comprehend. But she didn’t care. She continued burning them with her glare, unleashing more and more color until her rage finally ran dry and the quiet voice within commanded her to stop.
Puppeteer of the Formless Strings > 112
Berserk > 3
Dreamtaker’s Gaze > 7
Shiv’s body stopped glowing. He wasn’t screaming anymore, either. But his mind… “Oh, Composer. Shiv, your mind… There’s no time… How am I supposed to fix you?”
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He barely looked human from all the damage he'd sustained on the outside. Inside, it was even worse. But already, she could feel his mind starting to mend. The many broken pieces and badly mangled memories glided back toward each other of their own volition. A rush of hope passed into Uva. His mind regenerated. For whatever reason, his sanity and mental state always returned to a strong, stable baseline. Today, she was all too thankful for that. She moved the pieces back together as fast as she could.
Faintly, she realized two of her guards shot off to engage the Recollector—to draw its attention away and give her a chance to mend Shiv’s broken consciousness.
“Work fast, Seeker,” the Dreamtaker whispered. “The Recollector is cutting away pieces of itself, surrendering singular pasts to preserve the other-many-wholes. It will tear-banish-strike at the New-Dreamt. Their colors are not bright enough to delay it forever. Get the enduring one together. He will fight. It is written into him. He will fight even if there is nothing else left.”
As Uva connected and wove the many fragments of Shiv back in place, she felt something from him. A reactive, intuitive warmth. A heavy, crushing happiness. The feelings drenched her Psychomancy, and she couldn’t help but laugh to herself in disbelief. “You impossible brute of a man…”
Two of her New-Dreamt crossed over from present to past. A moment before they did, she felt an impact as they intercepted some of the Recollector’s temporal echoes in a brutal collision.
“SEEKER! CAN SEE YOU! SEE YOUR ECHOING TRAILS IN THE PAST CAN TASTE THE DREAMTAKER’S STENCH DEEP IN YOU! WILL NOT LET THE GLUTTON-THIEF OF THOUGHTS AND HUES HAVE YOU! MINE! FOR THE STRANGER! YOU ARE A VESSEL FOR THE STRANGER!”
Hearing the damned entity’s voice was like someone running a blade along the bone of her skull. Uva shuddered, but rallied as she continued her task. She reached out and pulled the largest pieces of Shiv back in place as all her remaining guardians broke away from her mana strands. They were all across time now, restraining the Recollector’s Chronomantic attacks by attacking its very past.
To Uva’s relief—and astonishment—the fragments of Shiv’s mind started melting together and regenerating. It was unnatural; it was bullshit; it also wasn’t nearly fast enough for him to reach full coherence in time before the Recollector was on them. She watched the Recollector through Shiv’s eyes as it vanished and reappeared, skipping kilometers of distance at a time. She caught it ripping one of the New-Dreamt apart, pulling the lesser eldritch entities’ revolving rings from their bodies.
“I—hurts… Everything hurts…” Shiv groaned internally.
She winced as she felt his pain, his confusion. But there was something else there: Rage. A massive, enormous silo of rage that had been building in the depths of his being, magnified by all the torture he just endured. “I know. I’m sorry. I came—I should have come sooner. But I need you to listen and act. Alright? The one that hurt you is coming back for us. And I need you to stand and fight. Stand and—”
“Fight!” Shiv’s mind reacted instinctively—almost joyously. “Can’t remember… thing… Asshole! Hurt me! Fucker!” And without any prompting from Uva, Shiv exploded off the ground as his own Berserk triggered. His casual and sudden decision to charge the Recollector after all the trauma he sustained baffled her and caught her entirely off-guard.
It caught the entity off guard too as he slammed into it hard enough to create another explosion of force and flame. The world shook. Even tethered to Shiv’s mind, Uva could barely keep up with what was happening. She was still Adept-Tier in Reflexes, boasting only a Flow of the Viperess Skill Evolution. A Master was usually a blur to her. With Berserk and Momentum Core, Shiv was moving beyond most Master-Tiers.
And then the Chronomancy came in, and she found herself unable to follow the resulting battle at all.
Best commit to fixing his mind first, she thought. Then, a discordant sound crashed against Shiv’s consciousness, and the parts that were healing started to fracture again. Uva responded immediately, binding and fixing what she could. “That, and stopping the Recollector from driving him deeper into madness.”
***
Berserk > 9
Adamantine Adaption > 138
Shiv didn’t know his own name. He couldn’t remember his own life. All he knew was that the ugly thing with a bunch of tentacles and eyes left him broken—but the dumb piece of shit forgot to finish the job for good.
Rage consumed Shiv. Absolute rage. All-gripping rage. But with rage came joy, for now there was an absence of pain and a comforting presence in his mind. He wasn’t alone. He knew that. Shiv just didn’t know who he was with—but he felt like he really liked them. And them being here just spiked his rage into new heights as he faintly remembered a woman screaming as she was dismembered.
The air around him ignited a millisecond before he struck the entity dead-on. Through it all, he sapped momentum instinctively, his speed spiking with every passing instant. Shiv struck the thing with a headbutt. The rest of Shiv’s body was still deformed and broken from the torture. He felt a misshapen sack of meat. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter. He would beat this thing to death using himself as a blunt instrument, and he was going to enjoy doing it.
He crashed into the entity while it was struggling with some kind of creature made of rings. It spattered apart as Shiv’s face sheared clean through its body. Intense pain exploded through Shiv as he felt part of his jaw fracture from the sheer force of the impact. An explosion washed out over the world. A tide of force flung fire ahead of itself, deepening the crater at the very base of the gate.
Something cried out inside him to stay hidden—to use his Silhouette. Shiv reactively went transparent.
But the entity didn’t stay dead. Instead, an echo of it crossed over from a golden river. From… a retroactive river of time. It came and swung a blade at Shiv. It cut fast. Faster than even Shiv while Berserk was active.
And missed. The blade went over his head. Shiv headbutted the entity again in its ugly palm-face. Several fingers snapped. The entity reeled back. Shiv felt a thundering pressure hit peak capacity inside him as he blasted through the creature, going so fast that he carried with him a tide of devastating force.
Silhouette > 95
Momentum Core > 96
For the second time, the entity disintegrated. But Shiv kept going. He tore the entirety of Gate Theborn, and flames clung to his body as a hurricane followed in his wake. The ground beneath cracked asunder, parting as a spreading fracture, unzipped by his speed. As Shiv’s Momentum Core finally went empty, pulled with his gravitic field and launched him back toward the fight as he started slamming his fists together.
“HOW?” the entity screamed. From afar, Shiv could see the entity trying to move, but its echoes were pinned in place by a series of ring-shaped creatures—like the one the entity ripped apart earlier. Dozens of the entity’s temporal clones were clenched tight within the ring-shaped creatures, and more importantly, its retroactive rivers were also anchored in position as well. It began shifting its trapped echoes over to its main body as it killed the ring-monsters over and over, trying to free its own past. “BROKE YOU! OVER AND OVER! BROKE YOUR MIND! BROKE YOUR BODY! ONLY SOUL ENDURED! HOW ARE YOU STILL FIGHTING! ANOMALY!”
The entity’s wails echoed across the entirety of Gate Theborn, and Shiv realized he could hear a bit of Confriga in its voice. Confriga? Why did he remember that name? Why did he hate that name? It didn't matter. Nothing but hurting and killing the entity mattered. That was why he was here. That was what he was going to do.
Then, there came another voice inside him, begging him to heal and arm himself now that he had a moment to breathe. “Shiv—get yourself ready. We have a plan, but we need you to keep the entity contested and distracted.”
“Gonna kill it!” Shiv growled, bloodlust overtaking his thoughts. And that was the downside to Berserk: You didn’t get to keep your rationality while it was active, and Shiv was very, very pissed about all the pain the entity had put him through.
“Shiv! No! Listen to me!”
Part of him tried. Tried as hard as that little broken piece of his consciousness could. But the battle-madness gripped Shiv deep. Bloodlust and muscle memory guided his intuition. “Rip! Rip! Cut! Dice! I am the chef! You are the food! Eat you! Eat you for benefits! Punch you with my wounds! Punch!”
A feeling of absolute incredulity exploded inside him. And a second voice joined the first. Shiv was too busy shouting at the entity to properly hear the new speaker, though.
“Oh, Composer, how am I—yes! Yes, Adam, I’m trying! What do you mean, try harder?! He’s been driven mad! Stop coaching me on my task! Focus on yours—is the tower cleared? No? Then focus on your duty and leave me to mine!”
“Punch!” Shiv growled. Faintly, he recalled hitting people with his injuries. He could feel his injuries… Feel his body. He just needed to focus on moving his injuries into— A small wyrm splashed into existence with a flare of crimson mana from Shiv’s intent. It burrowed into him, consuming the many injuries deforming his body. Parts of Shiv snapped back into place. Most of his pain vanished between bites, but the left side of him still hurt constantly. The wyrm glowed around his person as the fattened length of its body gleamed with crystalline chunks. It was nearly a full meter longer than him now, but he could still feel it. And he was going to smash the entity with it.
He wanted to say something, but lost track of his own words and just started howling incoherently instead.