V-16 Campus (I)

I will never forget the first moment I walked past those walls. Those walls that climbed higher than the sky itself. Those walls that cast shadows so long they could drown mountains. Those walls grander than any fortress and greater than anything I could have dreamed…

To think that they were things built by the hands of man was both humbling and inspiring. And those walls were only the beginning of wonder, not the end, for past them lay the heart of the future, the heart of who I would eventually become.

Some claim that all Pathbearers are forged in battle, watered by fire. If so, then before the bloodshed, before the flame, there needed to be a seed, and Phoenix Academy was that seed for me.

I would have been nothing without this. Nothing.

-Master Vera Lowe, Phoenix Academy Aluma

V-16
Campus (I)

Even after arriving at the Jump Tower, it still took a while for Irons and Shiv to reach the university. Along the way, the Deathless noted some very interesting features in the surrounding communities. 

They were much further away from Flame Crown Castle and the Yellowstone Supervolcano at this distance. A dense net of mana keeping the prisoners suppressed could be barely seen over the horizon, shimmering like a distant conflagration in the night. The people here were also unburdened by fear. Much like the worshipers outside the morgue, they continued on with their lives and laughed and lived with such lightness that it took Shiv by surprise.

Most buildings in this district were flatter and wider. They were mostly residential, and the Deathless counted one mini-mansion after another. That was already enough to convince him that he was in a place festering with nobility, but that wasn't all. There were also charging stations on the street, large electric slabs with two jutting prongs meant to provide any passing automata with all the sustenance they needed, free of charge. The pavement was clean, the grass even greener, the flowers ever brighter, their fragrance practically euphoric. Even the air tasted crisper, to a point where one could get addicted to breathing it in.

Between the mansions were larger complexes. Some of them were malls, places where countless shops were clustered together. These complexes were multi-story, with bridges running in between and people, so many people, clustered within. In fact, there were more people out and about around here than there were in Blackedge and most other places. 

Aside from the malls, there were also playgrounds where children wrestled and play-fought without any hint of worry. Beside the obstacle courses, there were junior marksman ranges where anyone was free to demonstrate their skills in daily competitions or monthly tournaments, open-air wrestling rings for casual sparring, and racetracks running in long paths behind the mansions.

Then there were cafes of all sorts on the ground floor. Tables and chairs lined the outsides of these establishments, with Pathbearers debating each other about the news or current events between exchanges about popular philosophies or other esoteric ideals. 

As Shiv looked to his left, he saw a child wrestling with a brutally built automaton, trying to push it beyond the limits of the ring. To his right, the rich aroma of coffee and tea mingled as the ceaseless clamor of clicking tongues and echoing speakers filled the air. On the second level of these cafes were study halls. 

The Deathless saw Pathbearers seated before wide windows, looking outside with a mug to their right and a mess of documents sprawled before them. They worked, they read, and they incubated their life of physical and emotional leisure, leveraging this cushion for intellectual rigor.

And then, something else struck him. There were so many children here, and so many new mothers. Diminutive bots and toddlers chased each other without care, giggling as their families looked on. The adults here gave off an air of privilege and authority. More than a few were master tier, and they made it known through the breadth and density of their mana fields. Some were clad in heavy armor, their regalia expensive, their weapons decorated with crusted gems or delicate relics. Such was the show of will, wealth, and skill.

But it was also a level of opulence he found off-putting. He had known wealthy Pathbearers in Blackedge, and they left a sour taste in his mouth with their habits, the way they felt entitled to everything they wanted, and how demented their appetites had become. 

He despised them for their softness, because just as a Pathbearer could adapt to extreme violence and struggle, without it, they grew weaker, they grew fragile.

And the very idea of weakness filled Shiv with dread.

Such was what he learned working at the Swan-Eating Toad. There were master-tier warriors there too. They came in demanding every meal possible, complaining about the smallest details, throwing their thorny, impassive exploits around as if a hammer to wield against the servers. Georges had hated them, and because of that, Shiv inherited the same loathing. He hated them for the way they acted, for how fat they got after years of supposedly being specimens sculpted for performance in war.

But there was a difference between the wealthy and privileged at Blackedge and in the Capitol. Here, few were so decayed. Arrogant, yes, the stench of entitlement remained, but they all clung to that aesthetic of the battle-ready Pathbearer, of the wise and all-knowing scholar, of the faithful acolyte.

"This is the reward for many people," Irons said. Shiv looked at the Captain and noticed how the man spoke without looking at him. Instead, Irons had his eye on the same things he did: the people, the children, the houses. The Deathless felt like the man also saw them, but perhaps in a different way, perhaps for different reasons.

"You don't like this much either, huh?" Shiv asked. It was a question meant to provoke a response so that he could drag out more of the man's personality.

The Captain didn't respond for a while, but then he simply sighed. "No, I have no issue with them. I simply think they're wrong."

"About what?" Shiv asked.

"They think they've earned a final reward. They think it's over."

"What's over?" Shiv continued, probing.

"They think they've won." Irons finally turned to stare at him. "But I know there is no victory. There is no 'done.' You have to keep going. If you don't…”

“Eventually the world eats you." Shiv finished his thought. "They do get it, do they?”

"Never know what? Wealth? Leisure?" Irons asked.

"No, peace. Nothing's attacking them. Nothing's tearing into them. The system isn't forcing them into another ugly brawl." Shiv sighed, but it was a half-hearted one. Despite feeling envy for what these people had, all the leisure they got to experience, he had the weight of arrogance and privilege of his own. He couldn't be struck down, and he enjoyed the battle. He enjoyed struggling, he enjoyed hardship. And if these people fought the war to flee from effort, then he would enjoy telling himself that they were weak.

Psycho-Cartography: All egos want to be fed. Yours is no different. But we might have the superior claim compared to these people.

So they continued on through the Academy district. More houses, more bazaars and malls, more schools, more clubs, more cafés, more smiling faces and shoulders loose, devoid of tension, empty of stress. The people here were from a different world.

It was not long until they arrived before the front gates of the Phoenix Academy. To call it vast was a woeful understatement. The shadows crawled over Shiv long before the fullness of the walls came into sight. It was like standing at the foot of a mountain looking up. You could see all the women manning and hovering atop the parapets. 

There were turrets as well, observers looking down, scouring the land for any escaped prisoners or unseen threats. But among the Divination dimensionals, there were students, automatons, and Prismatic Guards. It seemed like some who attended the academy were tasked with manning the walls. 

"Well, not a bad practice," Shiv said to himself. “Gives them some practice, at least.”

He was close enough to also feel the overwhelming mana flooding out from the layered spells coiling around the academy. A storm of crashing hail bombarded the academy grounds, and large chunks of ice fell in a brutal downpour. There were still students that dared to take flight through the air, dodging and weaving between the projectiles.

The front gates to the Phoenix Academy loomed open. They ran so high and yawned so wide that it made you think of a bisected mountain. Near the top of the gates, there was a face carved from stone with eyes made from gliding focus crystals that channeled sizing beams of divination across the ground, sweeping through every path that flowed beneath. The traffic flowing in and out of the academy was crippled right now, with barely more than a few students coming out and a convoy of what seemed to be hungover students staggering back in.

The sound of heavy bells ringing let out a trailing jingle that began at an extreme pitch, squealing high before it skated down to a drumming low.

"Evening approaches," the stone face carved into the canopy walls grumbled. Its voice was that of a collapsing landslide. "Do not be late for your classes, and do not be fools either. For if you slip away from your classes, you deprive yourself of growth, of becoming the Pathbearers you were destined to be."

"You tell 'em, Scowl!" one of the more drunken students called out. Shiv looked at her as she threw her head back and laughed. A series of hiccups escaped from her, and she stumbled, nearly tripping on her own trailing robe. She wore an updated uniform compared to the one Shiv had on earlier. 

Her boots were more polished, fitted with a set of slacks, and she had a long and flowing skirt pinned with clattering badges, buttons, and glistening elixirs. Then there was her coat. It flowed in three parts, with blue streams of fabric trailing off her side, and then black and gold. A tail which lined her back was decorated with the representation of a woman holding a vial high while aiming a strange implement that seemed to be a tuning fork. Shiv recalled he'd seen her alongside Veronica in the prison. Maiden. She cursed him for harming her so-called daughter.

Hands of the Bloodied - Anything you craft and create will be stained with blood and degrade at an increased pace.

Shiv reactively shifted his position, placing Irons between him and the drunken idiot, seeing that the cult of Maiden ran deep even in the academy. And what's worse, Shiv had an extremely paranoid feeling when it came to Maiden, more than he had for most of the other Ascendants. He pulled up one of his invitations and grimaced at the sun. Another divine being, another curse. Just another day of being the Deathless.

"Oh, Captain Irons!" the large stone face said cheerily. "You've returned, and with a new face behind you. Who is that, I must ask? An acolyte of the Maiden?"

"New student," Irons said without raising his voice, and suddenly the scowling being carved above the massive gate let out a booming laugh.

"Another one! Good, good! The more nested behind these walls, the better! I welcome you, new one, to Phoenix Academy. Your journey is long, and your struggles must have been grave. Well done, well done. But they are only beginning, so steel yourself."

"Yeah, uh, sure," Shiv said, not sure how he was supposed to respond to the stone-faced entity. He leaned in closer to Irons. "What is that thing, anyway?"

"Are you another 'thing'?" the stone face said, interjecting without any hint of offense. "I am simply the awakened spirit that guards this great place's exterior. I am what happens when a masterful craftsman erects glorious structures, and those structures are imbued with enough investiture and mana over the course of use. Like a cauldron brewing a medicinal concoction, I dreamed, and then I thought, and then I became."

"Huh. Wait, so walls can awaken just like weapons do?"

"Of course," the stone face said, speaking for itself. "The walls can also be excellent at hearing and have high levels of awareness. You must be very new here if you think I am only a wall."

Shiv had no idea what that meant, and reading the confusion on his face, the strange being that wasn't entirely a wall elaborated. "Before Phoenix Academy was an academy..."

"Oh, here we go again. The illustrious military history rehash," a heavily armed student yawned. Between his flapping coat, Shiv saw the glint of reinforced steel armor and a partially rusted broadsword swinging from his hip.

"Love hearing it every other day."

"Then you might also like it when I tell your beloved Clarice about that other girl I saw you wanderin' around with, Vincent," the stone face said with no small sense of snideness. 

The armored student choked and fell silent. "...Doesn't mean I can't listen to it every other day," he finally managed.

"Then I will be glad to remind you once more," the stone face continued. "Before Phoenix Academy was an academy, it was a fortress, the first of its kind meant to protect the outskirts of the then-nascent Yellowstone City. It was a harsh age then, with threats coming from all sides. Mutants from the north, the scarred ones from the south, monsters from all corners, from the skies, from the seas. We were besieged constantly. And so, the Ascendants, only recently made gods, were in need of instruments—natural, unnatural, or in-between—to support their efforts. And I was one such wonder.

"Between Enoch's brawn and Maiden's genius, I was constructed to serve as not only an all-seeing set of walls to guard any path that passes by from invisible threats, hidden foes, and circumspect circumstances. But more than that, in dire circumstances, I was also meant to serve as a mighty shield, wielded by Halsur's blunt blows that could flatten the entirety of the horizon." 

Then the stone-faced thing laughed. "Against the Storm King's minions, I endured. Against the Phoenix of the inner flame, I prevailed. Though my stone melted, and though I gained many scars, I grew until finally I grew thoughts. And thus I was, and I remain still."

As the stone-faced guardian finished his boast, Shiv directed his far-sight to a crack in the wall and saw something that caught his attention. A chain of divine spell-stuff slipped through. Their shapes were minute, like breadcrumbs dotting the surface behind the stone of the academy walls, but they were there. The power of the Ascendants lurked here as well. "No getting away from the bastards," he thought to himself. Then he jolted as he remembered he was supposed to be a new student who came from a far-flung place with lesser wonders.

"Whoa," Shiv said, exaggerating the awe he felt.

"Indeed, student. Whoa." The stone guardian let out another booming laugh just as Shiv and Irons passed underneath the gate. "Anyhow, welcome to Phoenix Academy. I will get to know you in time, young one, and perhaps you will learn to understand me as well. But that depends on if you wish to have a conversation with this old protector." The stone face sighed. "Quite a lonesome existence being bound here."

"Ignore him," Irons said flatly. Despite this, the corner of the man's lip twitched, and there was almost a smile on his face. "If you humor him like I did, you will eventually learn he can manipulate you into doing his bidding."

"Slander! Slander and lies!" the stonewall grumbled.

"He has a taste for opals, onyxes, and other precious gems. He will offer to tell you secrets if you feed him, but mostly his secrets are meaningless pieces of trivia and gossip."

"Foul! Disingenuousness! You offend me, Captain Irons! Do not listen to him, student. He simply seeks to keep my favor bound only to him."

The Captain shook his head as they came out on the other side of the gate. Just then, a large piece of ice slammed down on the ground. It impacted with the force of a falling boulder, and a wave of explosive shrapnel tore through the air. 

A few pieces bounced off Shiv's body, and he instinctively deflected one with the swing of his Last Morsel. Irons didn't react at all, neither did most of the other students. Some of them were flung off their feet, but rather than being injured, their bodies came aglow with mana and ripples of Dynamancy bled out from them. They whooped in glee as they spun weightlessly through the air.

That was when Shiv felt the collective chain of spells lining the sky above him like a mess of interlocking constellations, imposing its will upon the earth and the students. The massive chunks of hail weren't falling without control. They were imbued with it, and every single person struck went flying to an exaggerated extent.

A notification appeared before Shiv's eyes. 

You are now within Phoenix Academy. 

You are currently listed as an unknown guest. 

Limited voting privileges and on-campus options assigned: Options unavailable

Shiv wasn't sure what that was about, but his attention was divided by another matter, namely how the students were cheering and laughing as more of them were launched into the air. It was a surprising scene, witnessing dozens of Pathbearers-to-be whooping and cheering as they were flung every which way. Those struck dead-on by the massive hulks of falling ice were unharmed as well. 

Chunks of frozen substance burst against them, and rather than inflicting harm, it encased them in additional layers of protection. Soon they were colliding with each other in midair. Puffs of white swelled wide, and flakes of snow began to fall.

As Shiv looked up, he saw a midair snowball fight taking place, and joyous laughter rained down in an incessant chorus. Teams were forming in the air, separated based on the color and insignia of the coats and capes flowing behind their backs. Shiv saw capes of purple and green, black and gold, red and yellow, and all of them were pelting each other with chunks of ice, having a merry time, even as other students below simply walked on, utterly indifferent to the mock combat taking shape overhead. 

Beyond the aerial snowball fight, observers flew to and fro, as did members of the Prismatic Guard. They scoured the Academy grounds, patrolling with lances pointed high and clawing at the ground with their mana fields. As the students played, there were others on guard, others prepared to do violence on their behalf. And so it suddenly felt like this Academy was a refuge, a place that was made to delay the point where one had to face all the strife and death beyond these walls.

Shiv came to a halt just a few steps away from the gate. He watched as a girl curled into a ball in the air, taking snowballs from all sides. She laughed, and though she was a young woman, the way she expressed her mirth was that of a child. Shiv tried to remember when he ever laughed like that, if he ever did. And he couldn't. He had never been this carefree. He had never been this loose, this untroubled. His entire life, there was the hint of violence, the hint of starvation, the hint of struggle. 

These weren't Pathbearers. These were still children, even if they were the same age as he.

He caught up with Irons a second later, no longer interested in the snowball fight. The novelty faded. A feeling of alienation returned to him, and Shiv was himself again. The wonder didn't last. For a moment, he thought he could have acclimated to this place, that he could have considered himself one member among the other students. He was wrong. Even if he hadn't been the Deathless, there was too much separation between him and the unscarred ones who lived here.

Another block of ice fell, but Irons swatted it aside as if it were a pebble rather than a person-sized chunk of matter. It crashed into a few more students, and they let out surprised yelps before tumbling off into the air. The two of them strode on, walking down a red brick path, flanked by verdant lawns ripe with blooming flowers, and cleaved down the middle with something loosely approximating a trench line. Within the trenches were nice wooden panels and a set of doorways leading to a subterranean structure of some kind. Shiv was interested in what lay down there, and as he swept it using his mana hydras, he found a great deal of students coming in and out. 

He guessed there was a teleportation station down there, as some of the students suddenly manifested. One moment they didn't exist, the next they suddenly appeared within his Biomancy field. That begged the question: if they had a circuit of jump stations here, why couldn't they have directly teleported within the university? "Security, probably. Too much risk. It's a closed-loop system. Private transportation network for the academy and the academy alone."

"Don't judge them too harshly," Irons said. There was a softness to his voice, and he tilted his head to give Shiv a brief look. Irons was a hard man to read, but in that moment, Shiv realized he had more in common with the captain than he imagined. There was a sense of alienation that came with Irons as well. 

He didn't belong here any more than Shiv did.

"They're not Pathbearers," Shiv said. It was more observation than accusation.

"No," Irons agreed. "But in time they might be."

"Might," Shiv said. "Seems all this is a playground of some kind. Not so different from all the ones we've passed by getting here."

"It is. All individuals are made for games," Irons said. "We play games to simulate the circumstances of strife without tasting the full bitter fruit of its consequences."

"Seems to me that just leaves you ignorant and unprepared," Shiv shot back.

"Or it leaves you un-traumatized and fresh," Irons turned to him once more. "If you had a child, would you want them to live your life?"

That made Shiv's mind grind to a halt. The answer, quite immediately, was no. Though Shiv thought his experiences made him resilient, imagined himself to be unbreakable, implacable, the thought of having someone he cared about suffer everything he did made his heart twist in pain. He was fine with it. This was his life. It made him stronger. But not everyone was him. He knew that. And not everyone was meant to endure that much violence.

"So you do understand," Irons said. "Good. It took me a little too long to learn that lesson. And there were consequences that came with that.”

"What lesson?" Shiv asked. "That not everyone can live up to your namesake?"

Irons almost grunted a laugh. "That not everyone should. And that sometimes what makes you a formidable Pathbearer leaves you a ghost of a person."

"Yeah," Shiv replied, slightly haunted by those words. Ghost of a person.

“I am worried about you,” Irons said. “I am uncertain if I can stop you if you intend to harm my students.”

This came out of nowhere, but Shiv took it as a sign of comfort as well. Irons didn’t trust him, but he wanted certainty. And that gave Shiv a chance to oblige him. “I’ll try not to start anything here. Don’t wanna hurt any of these ki—uh, students, either. But I won’t bullshit you, the system has it out for me bad, and it will probably have it out for you soon too. You best be prepared for that.”

Irons grunted in acknowledgement. He knew. With his encounter with Daughter, he knew. “You are blooded. They are not. Remember this.”

“I’ll do what I can to keep them safe,” Shiv said, understanding what Irons was trying to stress.

“And exercise more diplomacy and subtlety,” Irons added.

“Magnolia started shit with me. Wasn’t the other way around. I was soft enough with her. The easy thing would be to twist her head backward and paste her body.”

“Mhm. But we have a duty to be responsible—even against those who mean us harm. You don’t need to be soft. But consider what kind of resolution you wish to reach. There is always consequence. We might be able to pay, but other people will not.”

“Then they should be a bit wiser too, shouldn’t they?” Shiv said, scoffing slightly. “She was there looking for a bruising. Hell, I would have been justified to put her down. She was planning to murder a crippled Adept.”

“Yes,” Irons said. “But this is not about her. This is about us. What kind of Pathbearer do you want to be? Maybe the academy cannot give you the refinement of battle, but maybe it can give you something to desire in peace.”

The Deathless thought about that for a beat. “I love cooking. I already have something.”

“That’s good. But you will likely have more. Sometimes, virtue is its own reward.”

Philosophy 32 > 33

Spell patterns arced and twisted above them. They clashed together as waves of mana unleashed new flows of cascading ice. While the massive tsunamis of frost fell, people carried on to their classes and chattered away around Shiv and Irons. Even while they did that, they focused on dodging and avoiding the falling chunks of ice. And Shiv understood why. Irons spoke of play. Getting hit was fun, but it also levied a slight consequence of weightlessness rather than the usual pain. If one could dodge a rain of heavy hail, then one could increase their reflexes skill. It wouldn't be like actual combat, but Shiv had to admit, it wasn't a bad substitute either.

"I guess you're right. I guess we are made for games," he muttered to himself. Instead of dodging the ice, Shiv used his feeble Hydromancy to try pushing the spraying shrapnel and falling chunks aside. He didn't have that much power, so the chunks usually still hit his face. But as they did, he forced himself to remain grounded, using his Shapeless Tides to parry the Dynamancy set to sever him from the floor.

A few hundred meters away, a tower-sized building began to land. It settled into the soft grass, and to Shiv's surprise, he watched as the vegetation retreated, leaving a wide 400-meter patch of soil for the descending edifice to impale itself upon. As it finally landed, Shiv heard a loud ping echo from atop and saw that there was a ring jutting out from the apex of the building. A quivering haze of unattuned mana bled from within the ring, and just then a shriek tore through the air as an automaton student blasted through the center of the ring with flames trailing from its hands and feet.

"And Dynamo is in the lead!" the building declared. Passing through the ring gave the automaton a boost of speed, and folds of air resistance wrapped around it. A second later, a second and third Pathbearer passed through the ring as well, and the chase was on. Shiv realized it was part of a racing circuit. The place truly was a larger playground, but that wasn't so bad. Not so bad at all.

As they walked further inside the academy, Shiv saw the tip of a massive archway peeking over another set of buildings. From the archway came pulses of mana. Mana that fueled the spells constantly shifting above. Mana connected to the four mithril spires that lined each corner of the academy. Mana that flowed forth from a gate beneath that arch, where the preserved remains of a fallen coliseum lurked. And there, Adam and the others lingered. It was strange to be so close, to know a secret about the university that none of the students and most of the faculty didn't.

As that thought weighed on Shiv's mind, he watched as more people filtered inside nearby buildings. The interior of the academy was comprised of semi-circular buildings. They were pointed inward toward the gate, and their curves seemed like a defensive bulwark. Trench lines trailed into them as well, connecting to their sides, and as Shiv swept the area around him using his biomancy field once more, he guessed that the subterranean jump points connected to each of the buildings as well.

"We're going there," Irons said, pointing to the first arching structure before them. It seemed to be a thing made from glossy marble. It had two large panes of glass dotting the outer edges of the building, but the rest was cold and repulsive. A few colonnades stuck out from its top, rusted and cracked. It stood apart from the rest of the campus and seemed to belong more on a battlefield.

"Miriam Hall," Irons said. "The administrative quarters. It's also where the faculty conduct their sessions."

"Why's it look like hammered shit?" Shiv asked.

"Tradition and history mostly. It was one of the few remaining hard points left over from the time this place was a fortress and not an academy. The avatars at the time made their stand here with what remained of the prismatic guard. It was held at a brutal price. The other structures were flattened, but though Miriam Hall sustained brutal damage and most of the Pathbearers assigned to its defense were slain, it didn't collapse, not even after a mana bomb had been detonated within its depths."

But as Irons finished speaking, the Deathless felt a force build within himself. It rattled through his body and tore out from his mind, and he gritted his teeth. “Shit. Great. This again.”

He stumbled. Marcus caught Shiv’s arm. 

“What’s wrong?” Marcus asked.

Shiv didn’t reply. Couldn’t. This close to Miriam Hall, he felt an overwhelming wave of casualty rip into him, and the vulgar hand of the system laid a finger upon him as the system triggered his Non-Sequitur Skill and inflicted a vision upon his mind…