V-31 First-Aid

That which doesn't kill you might leave you crippled mentally, ruined behaviorally, and permanently scarred physically. Any path bearer stupid enough to think that surviving is strengthening has not been adequately traumatized.

You can recover and surpass who you were before a severe injury or a mental wound, but it takes an act of significant reinforcement. You have to work to rebuild yourself. And that is my greatest complaint about our medical system thus far.

Too often we, as Biomancers, fill in the gaps where the body has suffered a lack. We relink broken bones, we restore missing skin, we pour flesh into parted wounds, and then we send our patients on their way. But what of their minds? What of their damaged psyches?

I understand that Psychomancy is an extremely dangerous lure. I am fully aware of the dangers it presents to a whole and cohesive public. However, we are letting a great opportunity slip us by—the opportunity to rebuild the minds of our traumatized heroes. We don't need to use Psychomancy as a thing of vile, corruptive influence, but rather a palliative measure as well.

I put forth my proposal to open a new field of study, a study of psycho-positivity, to see not only the physically crippled restored to function, but also the mentally harmed to return to wholeness.

As healers, we've already sworn to take on the burdens of our patients, so I say let us do it completely. Let us make sure they're fully healed, rather than only halfway mended.

-Hero-Biomancer Javelina Van Erren

V-31

First-Aid

Hector Boulevard: You were barely gone for more than a few minutes. What the hells, Shiv?

Adam’s message had been repeated for a third time, and Shiv bit back a sigh. He was about to reply when his current patient doubled over and heaved.

There was nothing coming out of them by this point. Still, her body shook and spasmed. He pulled her hair back to make sure that she wouldn't get any sour spittle in its strands. He didn't know her name, didn't know her year, didn't know her Path, didn't know anything about her. All he knew was that he was in charge of her well-being alongside three other volunteers, and that they were to keep an eye on her condition and inform an actual practicing Biomancer if anything went wrong.

Thus far, she appeared fine physically, aside from the constant coughing and vomiting. Shiv asked if she had any internal injuries; either he or Helix peeled them away from her. But where her body remained whole, her mind was a splintered mess.

From what he could gather, she had a roommate, another girl known as Alicia Van Korwin. Alicia was awake when the fire burst into their room. Alicia was a good enough Pyromancer to hold back flame for a second, allowing Shiv's currently nameless patient to try and escape into the tub, into their shared shower. But Alicia wasn't that good of a Pyromancer; Alicia didn't quite make it into the tub herself. Shiv’s patient got to see what was left of her roommate seared into the floorboards when the Jump Mages came to get her.

The other volunteers, Shiv thought, were both automata. Not unsurprising considering their Toughness. They were both humanoid models that now possessed chassis of reinforced titanium that made them a great deal more durable than most organic students were out of armor.

"It wasn't your fault," the shovel-faced Automaton said. It brought down a hand to pat the girl on the shoulder, but she barely registered his touch. The other one kept offering her a glass of water, but she simply shook her head as she kept wheezing.

"We were... we were supposed to go to the Small Temples district this morning for a research project... We made plans... we made plans... we made plans..." She repeated that over and over again, as if her mind was caught in a loop.

Shiv looked down at the girl as Psychocartography triggered. 

Psycho-Cartography: She is in no state to answer any questions or compose her own thoughts. She's still stuck at a point before the fire. She refuses to move past the trauma right now because denial is her mind's main weapon against the brutal changes she must endure.

Is there anything I could do to help her right now? Shiv asked. 

Psycho-Cartography: We do not know her wellbeing, but it's best to give her some room to process her loss. The more effective way to treat her is with Psychomancy. With mind magic, you can delve directly into her mind and find the worst of the damage. But that requires a psychotherapist, and as Uva told us several times before, even she is not suitable for such a task. Being a healer of the mind is as delicate of a matter as being a Biomancer of the flesh.

The Deathless grimaced as the shaken girl continued muttering about her plans and classes, talking about how she would hate getting docked for being absent.

So what, I'm just going to be waiting right now?

Unless you wish to dedicate a substantial portion of your time to finding out more details about this girl so we can have a complete psychological template of her, yes, you will be waiting.

The nameless girl heaved violently, and she curled in on herself like a dying spider. Nearby, a loud scream erupted. The automata with Shiv looked in another direction. The Deathless didn't. A human student from the dorms was having a psychotic break. It arrived when he expected it to. He'd been holding it in for a while, but Shiv knew that this collapse was coming. And as soon as he cried out, several other students were swallowed by an atmosphere of hysterics as well.

The tent they were under was cooled by magic and staffed by volunteers working alongside the academy's militia. Members of the militia here wore white berets, and on the side of the hut, there was an insignia of a serpent coiled around a staff. Shiv guessed that symbolized their dedication to the healing arts. He observed them as much as he watched his own patients.

They wielded their Biomancy as if it were currents of soothing water. They didn't slam it into their patient's body; rather, they wrapped it around the wounded and traumatized. The militia Biomancers let their mana sink into the flesh, suffusing gently and scanning the organic architectures of each victim in vivid detail. 

As Shiv studied their mana, he also noticed the consistency in the spell shapes they conjured. There were some slight variations between their workings, but ultimately their patterns all mirrored each other: a layer of intricately woven circles made up of countless microspells surrounding a geometric square that radiated with a sheen of dense mana. The square usually ended up embedded within the chest of the patient, and there it would pulse outward, lighting the rest of the body up. He didn't know if he could memorize the entire spell, but he might be able to shape the square without much difficulty.

Memorization 14 > 15

He began to use it on his current patient. He knew she wasn't injured, but this would be good practice for him and, just in case, it might catch something the other Biomancers missed. He focused his will and slowly mimicked the spells he watched the other healers cast. The square materialized on the surface of one of his mana hydras, but then nearly burst apart as the amount of magic it drew in spiked to ridiculous heights. The Deathless frowned and disentangled the spell shape before something could go wrong.

He regarded the other Biomancers once more and tried to figure out what he was missing. After watching one cast a few more times, he started again. They begin the spell on the outside. The circles and other patterns need to be finished before the square. It's not just some kind of pulsating foundation meant to flood the body with Biomancy; it's also a stabilizer for the spell as a whole. On its own, it'll just keep outputting more mana without any spell patterns that balance it out.

Skill Gained: Magical Theory 1 (Initiate)

He took his time with this attempt, mimicking each pattern in vivid detail. As he worked, a hissed whisper slid into his mind. "You missed a chain," Helix almost snapped.

Shiv observed his forming spell and realized the orc Biomancer was right. He begrudgingly applied a fix and added a sequence of interwoven symbols he didn't fully understand the meaning of.

The orc hummed aloud in the back of Shiv’s mind as he continued probing the Deathless’s work. "This is meant to scan the lungs for any particulates or cancers: a complex diagnosis spell, something that will illuminate the body from the inside out and reveal any maladies it has. It is a well-made spell, I must admit. Whoever came up with it has keen insight into magical theory and a good grasp on their intent."

“A compliment from you?” Shiv sent telepathically as he worked on finishing the mana construct. “Must be dealing with quite a Biomancer.”

"As good as one can expect from a short-lived ape," Helix declared. "Of course, I wouldn't do things this way. This is still separated from the true roots of the body's biology by a degree of separation. I would simply go for the blood code and order the body to modulate itself, because that's what the body wants to do, to read over itself. Right now, all the Biomancers are taking up far too much of the burden, and that is not necessary when you can recruit every single cell in the body to fight."

With the final tentative gathering of Biomancy mana, Shiv's spell was complete. It quivered in certain places, and a few patterns winked out. He struggled not to grimace, but then Helix let out a laugh.

Practical Metabiology 46 > 48

Multi-Tasking 44 > 46

"Wow, look at that. It's stable. Barely. And probably on the verge of collapsing in a few minutes, but still stable. More than I can expect for someone so untrained and without any grounding in proper magical theory."

“So this is good?” Shiv asked.

"Oh no, it's terrible. Looking upon it fills my stomach with bile. But 'good' is relative.”

“So, shit, but functional shit,” Shiv interpreted.

“If you wish to be proud of such a thing,” the orc snorted haughtily.

A smile slowly crept over his face. Everything was like working in the kitchen to some extent. You started by pursuing that beautiful goal of moving beyond incompetence, making sure your dish wasn't shit, making sure your potatoes were properly carved. And after that, when your baseline was in the 'not shit' category, then you climbed to greatness.

All right, and then there's a barely-shit vibrancy spell, Shiv thought to himself as he pressed it into his patient. Her insides lit up, and her veins, organs, bones, and more were all illuminated in sequence by pulsing surges of crimson mana. She didn't notice at all; she was bent over the bucket again, spitting long strings from her mouth. Her insides radiated with a flaring sheen of brightness, and as he looked over her, she seemed fine. Just as he... wait. 

His Awareness snapped to a specific part of her body. There was something stuck in her chest.

Farsight 82 > 83

The spell was washing through her over and over again. It illuminated each of her internal systems. He managed to peer through her flesh and saw something lodged in her left lung. It was small. He would have missed it without Farsight, but it was there, stuck in the branching blood vessels. "What the hell was that?" he muttered to himself.

The two automata helping him leaned in as well. They observed the foreign contaminant revealed by the spell. One hummed. "It seems that something is in the bloodstream, and that's swirling on the side..." The shovel-faced automaton stopped talking, but its fellow bot carried on: "It seems like the vessel's on the verge of rupturing."

The Deathless considered being bold, using his Biomancy field to reach in and pinch out whatever that thing was. But then he recalled how he utterly mangled his homunculus, and with that as a lesson in humility, he sought out a properly trained Biomancer instead. 

He called out to a nearby healer wearing her white beret—she seemed to be an older student, and a floral tattoo descending from under her right eye. It glowed with the texture of a focus crystal, and Shiv watched as said eye came alight with magical power, Biomancy flooding her iris.

As she came over, she squinted at the problem Shiv uncovered. She took a step back, a hissing breath. "Vascular swelling. Probably left over from smoke inhalation." She made the shape of a triangle with her hand, and a stream of Biomancy shot forth, flooding the inside of the girl's lung as it tunneled through to the source of the problem.

Shiv watched as the object stuck inside of her was drawn out. It resembled a thick clump of sediment, a crystallized smear of ashes. It was drawn out by the magical stream, and after its extraction, the vessel seemed to settle into a restored state.

"That was incredibly dangerous," the militia Biomancer commented. She looked down at a set of tags wrapped around the girl's arm. Another member of the militia had branded her with a series of bracelets. One of them was green, color-coded for her current state of health, and the tag seemed to indicate who her primary physician was. "Damn it, Malcolm! Told you to scan the lungs more carefully. The second one you missed."

She shook her head, but then gave Shiv an appreciative glance. "Sharp eye, volunteer. You're a Biomancer too?"

"I can't call myself that yet," he said. "I’m just a first year. I haven’t even started taking any classes yet.”

"Ah. A late arrival. Well, this is very good work. If you hadn't caught this, her right lung might have filled with blood. We probably would have been able to save her in time, so it wouldn't be a fatal matter, but the risk was still there. Also..."

She reached out and snatched the arm of another passing militia Biomancer—a goblin who was sprinting about, face masked with pouring sweat. She quickly whispered something to her comrade, and the goblin nodded before rushing off. "A senior healer is going to conduct a full suite of lung scanning spells soon. That'll see if anyone else has crystallized fragments of ash inside of them."

The militia Biomancer let out a breath of discomfort. "My guess is yes. And that this isn't an alchemical fire."

Shiv's wariness climbed as he wondered if she suspected him; he wanted to hear her reasoning. "What? Why'd you say that?"

"Because crystallized ash usually requires an application of concentrated mana. This doesn’t come from someone just breathing in an overwhelming lungful of smoke, but magically conjured smoke at that. It needs to fuse together from sheer mana density.”

Shiv felt a reinvigorated urge to drag a certain prisoner out from his cape and beat the man to death, but he held himself back. Need to check my own lungs too, he realized. What kind of bastard dumps crystallized ash fragments in the lungs of a bunch of kids? He only had one target. Why the felling hells was he burning an entire building down?

The Deathless looked over his shoulder and stared across the large tent. About twenty meters away, that pale-skinned girl sat, being tended to by several Biomancers. She tried to leave earlier, but she was made to stay and placed under watch. There were several heavily armed members of the academy militia surrounding her, keeping her separated from the other students. The red berets were not healers—they were a mix of Vanguards and Shadows or Thieves if Shiv were to guess.

With how promptly they were assigned to her, that tells me that this girl is special, and the academy knows that. Headmaster himself showed up. More questions. Can’t ask her directly, though. Wait, what’s that hat feeling?

A rattling sensation crawled over Shiv’s soul, and he realized his Chronomancy field was feeling a matching mana frequency nearby. The Deathless’s eyes widened as he saw a golden silhouette zip through the mess of students in the large tent, diving for the pale-skinned girl with what looked to be a blade in hand.

The Deathless sneered. He halted time just as the wards came crashing down on him. His Inertial Overdrive roared with pleasure and yearned to discharge as Shiv flung himself into the air with his Shapeless Tides. The explosiveness of his momentum shredded his ligaments and unlatched his muscles from his bones. Shiv felt one of his lungs collapse as well. Really need to deal with the problem of moving too fast before my Toughness Skill matched my speed… Really need Multi-Tasking to evolve soon.

He ignored his wounds and spiked himself down on the unknown Chronomancer. The academy’s temporal wards smashed down to crush both of them. It never got the chance to do damage. Shiv wrapped his still-working right hand around the neck of his misshapen adversary and tore just as they were about to plunge a blade into the pale-skinned girl’s back. Golden mana burst out from the ruined silhouette, showering the Deathless as he cast himself a second back in time.

Shiv blinked back to his original position and dismissed his temporal shell before he found his Chronomancy field ground to dust. Time resumed, and though the tent was awash with wailing students in every direction, littered with moving bodies and flowing Biomancy, a single scream rose above the others. Shiv’s head snapped in the direction of his enemy—he knew that cry. That was the howl of someone suffering the full extent of extreme mana strain.

A tall elven student toppled over. Before he went down, vanishing behind a wall of twisting bodies, Shiv saw a white beret fall from the student’s head and a faint glint of Chronomancy bleed off his body. Got you.

The militia Biomancer that came to help Shiv was startled by the sudden cry like many others nearby, and barely responded when Shiv tapped her arm. “I think I just saw someone faint. I need to go check. I’ll be back soon.”

The Deathless tore off into the crowd before she could stop him. He slipped and pushed his way through waves of crashing bodies, and he used his Vitaemancy to track his victim-to-be. There were a great deal of life signatures around him, but only one was doubled over the ground in pain. Only one glowed slightly brighter than most others here.

Assassin. Another one. Someone really wants that girl dead.

The Chronomancer was nowhere near the pale-skinned girl. Somehow, he cast his Chronomancy field at her from over eight meters away. Despite this, when Shiv caught a glimpse of her face between the gaps in the crowd, she was looking in the direction of the Chronomancer—and there was a naked look of suspicion and fear.

Damn. Girl’s got the senses of a hawk. Maybe a Chronomancy Skill herself too. Who is she?

Shiv ducked down and moved quickly. He looked down at the shadows cast by the bodies of the other students and scoffed as he realized the boost offered by the Last Morsel had elapsed. Right. We’re sneaking the old-fashioned way.

He used other students for cover and opportunistically snatched up a fallen white beret. By the time he got to the downed elven Chronomancer, there was a crowd forming around him. To Shiv’s luck, it seemed like they were just volunteers and other students. The militia had not closed in yet.

“Militia Biomancer,” Shiv called aloud, pointing at his beret. “Out of the way. He might be having a seizure. Give him some air.”

If nothing else, the students of Phoenix Academy were conscientious. A way opened up before Shiv, and several students who hadn't noticed were pulled aside by their fellows. The Deathless advanced, keeping his head low and moving fast. He saw several other militia Biomancers heading in his direction, but they had Mid Adept-Tier Reflexes at best. By the time they got here, he would be long gone, and the Elven Chronomancer would be taking a walk with him.

Shiv reached down and yanked the CHronomancer to his feet. With a vicious jab, he sank his fingers into the base of the man's spine. The leather vest worn by the assassin, pretending to be a member of the militia, was no impediment, spreading like tissue before the press of a blade. As the Elf nearly screamed in pain, Shiv wrapped a mana hydra around him and constricted his airways. He choked instead, and Shiv quickly dragged the elf along.

Inertial Overdrive 181 > 182

"He's choking, he's choking!" Shiv called aloud. "Clear the way, clear the way!"

More students parted before him, but he speared past them before they could get a good look at who he was. The Elven Assassin tried to struggle free from Shiv's grasp. He tightened his fingers. Shiv gripped a fracturing column of vertebrae and pulled his Psychomancy away from Helix, attaching it to his new victim instead.

“Hi. Cute Chronomancy Skill you got there. Start moving those legs.”

The elf tried to turn and get a glimpse at Shiv. Shiv almost closed his hand entirely. The elf's spine split in two. His legs went slack and his body spasmed. Shiv kept the Elf's twitches of pain contained using his Aegis of Assimilation. The two of them stumbled between crowds of students, avoiding other members of the militia as an interrogation began.

The Creeping Void 119 > 121

"That was a piece of spine in your lower back," Shiv explained. "It's broken now. I can fix it. I can put you back together, but if you try to turn and look at me again, I'll reach into your brain. I'll pop one of the vessels there, and I'll leave you for dead. You understand me?"

A snarl of pain leaked over from the elf's mind, and instead of fear, there came a flare of rage. “You have no idea what you just interrupted, you stupid—-You have no idea who I represent. You just ended your life.”

"Yeah, that's why I took you alive," Shiv yawned. "So you can tell me about who you work for. You, and your friend—the one that started the fire."

Just as quick as the elf's rage came, it scattered, replaced by a cold, building dread.

"Now that's an appropriate emotion," Shiv said with a low chuckle. "Start talking, friend. Start with the girl. What's her name? Why are you guys going after her? And before you deny anything, I got our mutual friend stored away, so you keep that in mind.”

“You have the Young Lord—Release him! You hold a member of House DeGraille.”

"Buddy, I don't even know what House DeGraille is," Shiv said flatly. "But you do, so you're going to start explaining things to me. Again, start with the girl."

Shiv twisted the broken pieces of spine and the elf tried to scream. Shiv pinched his vocal cords tighter with his Biomancy as a response. Blood poured down on the ground, but the Deathless caught it using another mana hydra. He kept it contained within the wound, and while the Elven Assassin screamed mentally, physically, he resembled little more than a man having something of a seizure.

"All right, all right, all right!" The elf howled three times. "I'll talk, I'll talk. You... you have no idea what you stumbled into. It's not too late for—"

"That's not what I wanted to hear," Shiv said. He began moving again, and the elf finally got on track.

"The girl... she's the bastard daughter of Hero-Inquisitor Simeon DeGraille. She was supposed to be dead! Slain! Somehow she found her way to this school. The damned giants kept her alive…”

"So some noble is trying to kill his bastard daughter," Shiv said flatly. "And the way he decided to go about this is, what, hiring a sloppy assassin to do his work? You felling shits set an entire dorm on fire."

"That wasn't me. That was Alec DeGraille! Young Lord Alec DeGraille. He's not supposed to be here. He left trying to prove himself to his father, trying to regain his favor..."

"...by murdering his bastard sister," Shiv sighed , already tired of this noble house bullshit.

"To murder that bastard half-breed!" the assassin cried aloud. "She's not human. She has... she has giant's blood in her."

Giant's blood? And Shiv's suspicions began to blossom. He felt the girl's Cryomancy earlier. It was like Andras's—like a Jotun's.

"So humans and giants can crossbreed?" Shiv asked.

"It is not a breeding. It is a sculpting," the assassin snarled. "The Jotun are not born, they're molded from frost and the mingled blood of two—How do you not know this? Who are you?"

"Let's just say I've been missing for a while," Shiv replied. "But enough about me. You keep going. You're telling me that this hero inquisitor sent you to assassinate this girl. But this whole thing got derailed because his idiot son decided the best way to go about killing his half-giant sister was to burn an entire dorm down."

"Yes," the assassin wheezed. A building current of fear flowed out from him and connected to Shiv. "Please, I beg of you, for the sake of your own life, you need to turn away. You need to let me go and finish my task. My life does not matter. Hero-Inquisitor DeGraille has a great many others that he can call upon. He will see the girl cut down before this comes to light. He cannot afford for the truth of her existence to be known to the rest of the inquisition. You cannot stop him. He will get what he wants. He always has."

Somehow, Shiv didn't really feel that impressed about some Hero-Inquisitor. Not after all the nightmares and monsters he faced. "Uh-huh. You know, if you're lying, I'll find out, right? Because I think I got young Lord Alec to talk with as well. In fact, I'll have a conversation with him right after, too."

The Deathless paused as he observed his quarry. "So I'm guessing you're probably an Interrogator. Someone working under the Hero-Inquisitor."

The elf flinched mentally. "'Who I am—”

“---Doesn't matter,'" Shiv finished for him. "Yeah, guys like you love saying that shit. You're scared. I can feel it. If I let you go, you're gonna try making another attempt on that girl's life, aren't you?"

Deductive Reasoning 8 > 9

"She's not a girl," the interrogator whimpered. "She's a half-giant."

"Yeah, and?" Shiv said flatly.

"She serves the interest of the Shattered Court. She is an avatar of the crone! A crone to be! If she's not cut down, someday she will become a prophetess."

"Neat; cool story; I’m sure all the kids who died because of it understand now," Shiv deadpanned. "Anyway, I don't know much about Jotuns, and I think I'm gonna find out on my own time. Anyway, thanks for the conversation. You turned out to be helpful. But I don’t think I’m going to let you stick around to finish things out.”

"Wait, wait, wait, no!" the elven Chronomancer whimpered.

Shiv reached into the elf’s body using his Biomancy and focused on a specific organ. The blood vessels in the elf’s lungs swelled. “Shame, you ended up inhaling some smoke when you were pulling students out of the building. They'll remember you as a Hero. If they can figure out who you are at all. You steal that pin? Ah. I’ll let campus security figure that out.”

Shiv burst the vessels there, and the elven Chronomancer gagged. The deathless let him drop, but as he did, he mended the wounds he inflicted on the Chronomancer's spine. The assassin lay there, twitching, spasming, and Shiv casually tossed the white beret over the succumbing elf's body.

Aegis of Assimilation 118 > 120

After that, the Deathless took a few left turns through the crowd, and as he felt the temporal wardens pass over him again, he cast himself ten seconds back in time. From there, he found his way back to his original group and adopted a guise of a weary volunteer.

"Heatstroke," Shiv said, coughing, allowed him to sell his own physical weakness.

The militia Biomancer blinked at him. Someone collapsed from heatstroke. No big deal. "I see. It was quite a scream for heatstroke."

"Yeah," Shiv chuckled. "Surprised me too. Anyway, where were we with her? Is she all right now?"

The nameless girl was back to muttering to herself, but she wasn't coughing so often anymore. The vomiting had ceased as well.

"We'll do another suite of scans on her soon," the militia Biomancer said. "But aside from what you found, I think she's going to be just fine." The Biomancer eyed Shiv up and down. "Are you enrolled in 301?"

"Uh, yeah," Shiv replied. "Yeah, it seems like an interesting class."

"I think you would be a good fit for it." The militia Biomancer smiled brightly at him. "I'm Maxime Stormhalt."

That stopped Shiv dead. She offered her hand to him, and he stared down at it as if it was a snake being flung in his face. Shiv coughed awkwardly and finally reached out to clasp her wrist. They shook, and the deathless winced internally. Stormhalt. Of course, just my fucking luck to run into someone from that family again.

"So, uh," Shiv swallowed awkwardly. "Is the class gonna be a lot like this?"

"Sometimes less chaotic, sometimes more." Maxime smiled. There was a twinkle in her eye. "I think if you can handle this, though, you probably will be able to handle the rest as well. Do you have a name, volunteer?"

"I, uh, I'm a first-year! I mean, Marcus Unblood," Shiv stammered.

Acting 17 > 18

"Unblood?" Maxime frowned slightly. "Oh, I'm very sorry to hear that."

It took Shiv a moment to register what she was trying to say. "Oh, yeah, that... uh, you know, we do the best with what we got, right?"

A surprising expression of sympathy crept over her features. "Indeed. And so you know, it's not all champagne and rainbows when you're on the other side. Nobility comes with its own problems.”

"Nobility?" Shiv asked.

She nodded. "Let's just say sometimes you wish you were an Unblood when you’re born to certain families."

A loud cry came from another corner of the room, and through the clamor and din, Shiv heard someone howling for Maxime.

"Anyhow, it's good to meet you, Marcus. I hope to see you later tonight. I'll put in a good word with Hero-Biomancer Van Erren for you."

"Van Erren?" Shiv muttered. There was another family name he was familiar with. But she didn't explain anymore. Instead, Maxime was off, moving on to the next patient that needed her.

As Shiv looked on, watching as Maxime vanished in the crowd, he felt someone clap his shoulder. It was one of his fellow volunteers, the shovel-faced automaton.

"Nice going, Marcus," the automaton said. "You got something that my scanners missed."

The other automaton gave a loud scoff. "Not a significant feat considering the quality of your scanners."

"Do you wish to finish our scuffle from earlier?" the shovel-faced automaton said. "Because I will be glad to educate you in offending me right now."

"Please. Last time was a fluke."

The two automaton sized each other up, and a low groan came from their patient. She lifted her head and stared at Shiv. Her mouth opened and closed several times, and then she whispered a single phrase, "Water. Can I have some water?"

Psycho-Cartography: Somehow, I think this one might make a full recovery.

***

It took two more hours before all the ailing students from the Dragon Dorm were properly shifted to the on-campus hospital. During that time, Shiv executed two more hidden assassins without her knowing, and only relented his watch when the Headmaster suddenly materialized to take her away. Where Hades Hymn took the half-giant girl, Shiv wasn’t sure, but one thing was increasingly obvious: He wasn’t the only person with a mountain’s worth of trouble hounding his ass at Phoenix Academy.

Despite the calamitous event, there was no follow-up notification regarding a suspension of classes or anything of the like. 

The on-campus notifications were silent for now, but Shiv kept an eye out. In the meantime, his sightseeing had been ruined again, and it wasn't his fault, as the system favored, this time. Instead, he had a certain Heroic-Tier Inquisitor to blame.

After explaining things to Adam, Shiv found his way back to the coliseum, where Young Lord Alec DeGraille was woken up by a blast of water to the face. 

He returned to consciousness with a ragged cry, and as he looked around, blinking through bleary eyes, he saw Shiv again, stripped of his perfect semblance, standing before him as a visage of death. The fear chain between them grew stronger, and despite his best attempts, the Young Lord failed to mask his utter terror. Shiv grew larger, his magic grew stronger, and he glared down at the offender who killed so many.

Shape of Monstrosity 140 > 142

"Irons is on the way," Adam said from just behind Shiv. He, too, was glaring at the mass murderer, though there was a sense of tension in his body language.

"You wanna just hand him over?" Shiv asked.

"It would be the proper thing to do. A trial will be conducted, an investigation will be underway, and after that… After that, I suspect the Hero-Inquisitor's reputation might take a hit. He might get kicked out of his organization. Maybe.”

“What are the odds of him actually being placed in a Rubix Well?"

Adam paused. He looked aside as if trying to calculate the chances. 

"The law takes some time," Adam muttered. “The nobility are not immune to punishment.”

"You ever read about a Hero-Inquisitor getting put in prison?" Shiv asked. "Because I haven't. And right now, with all the things that are happening around the capital..." The Deathless shrugged. “I’m not dealing with more bullshit assassination attempts, Adam. I’m handling this today. Before classes even begin. We have enough problems: We’re not doing defense here.”

"So, what are you thinking?" Adam asked.

"My father, he's a very important person!" the Young Lord cried aloud. He tried to summon his flames, but the moment he did, Shiv tugged on his fear chain and seized him by the throat. Young Lord Alec DeGraille gagged. The Deathless stared at him as if he was a cockroach peering out from a crack in the wall. Shiv sent a rush of Shapeless Tides through the Young Lord’s already mutilated Pyromancy field. Alec shrieked—and his cries only grew louder as Shiv inflicted him with Dread-Tainted, forcing him to experience Daughter’s terror on top of his own.

" I think I'm going to be having a conversation with this one’s father real soon.”

Adam leaned in a bit closer to Shiv. "I don't know about this. It's a lot of noise. Assassinating a Hero-Inquisitor..."

"Who said anything about assassinating?" Shiv replied flatly. “We don’t need to kill him.”

Adam blinked at him. "You're not going to kill him?"

The Deathless laughed darkly. “I really, really want to. However, it would be nicer if he confessed, wouldn't it? To bring this thing to an end. And there's also another conversation I want to be a part of. One between him and his so-called half-daughter. I want to know why a dorm burned down for this nonsense.”

And with that, the Gate Lord's expression grew sour once more. Young Lord Alec DeGraille pawed at Shiv's face, trying to burn his way through the Deathless's helmet. Flames he conjured were barely more than sparks, and Shiv ignored them altogether. Slowly, Shiv drew his new “friend” closer, and whispered into the Young Lord's right ear.

"All right, Alec, I'm going to visit your father later. You're going to need to tell me where you guys are staying, how we're going to get there, and what kind of security you have around your house."

“I—” Alec gagged. “You… Let me go… You... you're going to wish that you died after what my family does to you!"

"Nah, other way around," Shiv replied coldly, "And none of you are going to remember me, anyway. I’m not a very good Psychomancer. Not like a certain lady I know. But I'm good enough that I can find obvious things and crack them, and you don't have the Magical Resistance to stop me. Now, you don't really have any options. Now. You can cooperate with a whole, intact body, or I’ll find another means of persuading you. It’s your choice.”

Alec's eyes widened, but then he clenched his jaw, and he tried spitting at Shiv. The Deathless turned his head away, and the globule of saliva struck nothing but the wall.

"All right, then." Shiv jabbed the young lord lightly in the stomach. Alec doubled over and heaved a puddle of undigested fishheads all over the floor. “You chose. This isn’t going to be fun for you.”

"Let's go," Shiv said, wrapping an arm around Adam's shoulder. “We probably don’t want to hang around for this.”

"I thought you were going to interrogate him," Adam said, looking back, uncertain about what they were doing.

"Oh no, I'm not good at that. I don't like torturing people, Adam. Fighting them? Sure. Killing bastards? Hell yeah. Torturing people? Absolutely not. Thankfully, I don't need to do everything on my own."

And from Shiv's cape, Helix emerged, his Biomancy mana flaring around him. He looked down at his new plaything with a look of glee. "I hope you know some homework will come of this, Insul. I will leave his exterior untouched.”

Shiv waved him off. "Just make it quick. Otherwise, I’ll tell the other orcs, and they'll want to get in on the action too."

A collection of twisting wings stretched out from behind the orc. "Oh, we really can't have that now, can we?"

“W-wait!” Alec cried, his facade of courage crumbling.

“You chose,” Shiv growled, not bothering to turn around. “You burned that dorm. You tried to kill that girl. And now the system has given you to me. Nothing is up to you anymore. Nothing.”

“Please!” Alec wailed.

Shiv didn’t hear the rest. Neither did Adam. They left that section of the maze and left Helix to his devices.

When they next saw the Young Lord, his flesh was unblemished, and he was most cooperative.

The same couldn’t be said for his mind. The entire process took less than twenty minutes.

***

"Godsdamn it! Gods fucking damn it!" Hero-Inquisitor Simeon DeGraille slammed his fist against his ebonwood desk over and over again. He vented his rage as he listened to the breaking notifications broadcasted through the cube-shaped Diviner slotted into the center of his desk.

Apparently, someone had set fire to one of the dorms at the university. Apparently there were 47 dead at the Dragon Dorm, yet, his greatest shame wasn’t among them.

It didn't take much deduction on his part to figure out who set the fire or why. Alec…

Simeon told that stupid boy. He told him over and over again that he would handle this matter himself. Alec was already disfavored. Ever since the fiasco at the brothel—with the twins Alec burned to death—-the Hero Inquisitor knew his middle son was a lost cause. 

But now, with this... the sheer amount of resources it would take the Hero-Inquisitor to wipe away the evidence would be nigh immeasurable.

And the girl was still alive. That damned useless fuckup couldn't do one thing right.

But there's still Interrogator Sinjin, the Hero-Inquisitor reminded himself. He leaned back into his chair and let out a breath. 'Sinjin has never failed me. The moment Sinjin got a chance, he would use his Chronomancy and—

The Hero-Inquisitor's senses screamed. There was someone behind him. He could feel their presence with his Dimensionality and Awareness Skill Fusion.

Simeon turned. He shaped a lashing lance from a spark of electric—

Something struck him over the back of the head so hard he felt part of his neck break. Simeon let out a choked cry as his skull broke in several places. His vision swam and an explosion of light left him briefly blinded. He tried to cry out to signal for help. But the Hero-Inquisitor found himself gagging, desperately trying to catch his breath, as something heavy slammed down on his chest.

He wasn’t wearing his armor, so his sternum took the full brunt of the blow, and it turned to parting splinters. Blood filled his mouth and Simeon’s eyes rolled from the torment inflicted on him.

As his sight finally cleared, he found himself staring up at a skull-masked individual. And then the notification appeared in his eyes.

Hidden World Quest: Slay Tanner “Shiv” Lowe, the Deathless, before he fully comes into his power and drives your world beyond its current mana stability threshold.

Rewards: Integrated Earth will experience an Ambient Mana Threshold Evolution. Mythic Skill Tier will become available to all Pathbearers within this Ambient Mana Zone. Evolve 10 Skills to Legendary-Tier.

Failure: A specialized Incursion will be triggered to destroy Integrated Earth in 9 years, 11 months, and 5 days.

Oh, Ascendants… Simeon quailed internally.

"Hero-Inquisitor DeGraille," Deathless said, "I’m not very pleased to make your acquaintance, and you’re going to hate getting to know me, too.”

DeGrail tried to rise. He summoned his Aerokinetic powers, but as a slicing flood of mana vectors poured down from the Deathless's leg ripped through the Hero-Inquisitor's Magical Resistance, and an explosion of agony tore through him. His suffering was amplified a thousandfold as his remaining mana fields were shredded as well.

The Hero-Inquisitor briefly lost consciousness, but a second later, a blast of cold water struck him in the face, and he gagged,  wrenched back into the waking world. “I—what—why—”

“Yeah,” the Deathless growled viciously. “That’s kind of what I wanted to know, too. Get up, Simeon. You’re coming with me for a bit. Don’t worry, this won’t take long—because I’m not putting up with that. I’m going to do everything I can to have a nice and quiet time at the academy, and if it means breaking every bastard noble in the city to do it, then I’ll do that with pleasure.”

And with that, the skull-helmeted monster reached out and seized Simeon by the throat. The Hero-Inquisitor tried pinching his ring finger—tried sending a distress signal to his eldest daughter and her fellow Interrogators, but found his Heroic-Tier ring missing.

“None of that now, Inquisitor,” the Deathless chuckled as he pulled Simeon close and tightened his grip. The Hero-Inquisitor groaned as he tried to push the Deathless away—but his strength… it was titanic. And with each heartbeat, the damned monster seemed to get even stronger.

The unmistakable sting of Psychomancy punched deep into Simeon’s mind, and that’s when true terror exploded inside him. HIs Magical Resistance—there was nothing left! Nothing of his mana fields…

“I know all about you. All your little tricks. We’re going to be heading to your private anchor now. We’ll finish our conversation there. And when everything’s clear, you’ll be confessing your sins publicly. I’ll make sure of it.”

And then, the Deathless shoved Simeon into his cape, where the Hero-Inquisitor found three orcs and a goblin waiting to bind him.

“Heh,” one of the gray-skins laughed. “This one looks tasty.”

Simeon promptly wet himself for the first time in years.