280 (II)

  Chrysalis [II]

  Psychomancy 31 > 33

  Eldritch Physiology 4 > 5

  Shiv groaned as he struggled to regain his bearings. The world was spinning. The ceiling was a mess. It looked like a mangled orc had been splattered against it for some reason. His skull throbbed with every heartbeat, and he felt like there was a series of firecrackers going off within his brain matter. He blinked profusely and shook his head. He realized that the orc caked against the ceiling hadn't been a hallucination. He guessed that he probably was to blame for that one.

  With a grunt of discomfort, he tried to force himself to a sitting position, but his head was still spinning, and he collapsed again. A moment later, however, he felt someone hook a strong hand under his arm and pull him up to his feet.

  "You alright, kid?" a light voice asked.

  Groaning, Shiv found himself leaning against Jessica, partly slumped over her tiny form. Her body language gave a hint of slight concern.

  "My brain stuff feels like broken glass…" he managed, but his words trailed off as he noticed the changes unfolding across the Hatchling before him. A sea of eyes were crawling across its body, surging as the right side and left were in a constant clash of warring metamorphoses. The left was utterly subsumed by a Stranger, becoming more like a Fingerling in ways vulgar and subtle.

  Uva's hand sprouted so many additional digits that Shiv felt nauseous just looking at it. More than that, her spider-like wings now resembled interconnected branches of index fingers, and the silken screens that once composed her Psychomancy portals and served as a cage for her trapped consciousnesses were replaced by screens of tarnished Chronology.

  Uva's face was changing as well. The Fingerling side of her lost the additional eyes and gained a large vortex where all the Stranger's glowing red irises were bound to descend. It reminded Shiv of the massive maelstrom resting at the center of every Recollector's palm. If he had to guess, the Stranger himself waited on the other side. It was where the time and mana that the Recollector and other Fingerlings absorbed from people were directed and turned to fuel for Retro-continuity. But there was something different about Uva. Within the vortex growing from her face were faint strands as well, strings of gold. A Skill Fusion between Chronomancy and Psychomancy.

  Meanwhile, the other side of her body remained under the Hatchling's influence. The Eldest was fighting as much as it could, but Shiv could see Uva's instances struggling and rebelling under those wings. The silken screens writhed. The wings were bending and breaking. Aberrant Fractals shivered in a twitch around the Hatchling's right arm. Like a broken constellation. Like an orbit of planetary debris. It cleaved into the Hatchling's body, and it seemed like Uva was fighting against the Hatchling on behalf of the Stranger, trying to usurp control from the Eldest and reclaim the right side of her body first. And true to Shiv's guess, he saw brief flashes where Uva’s form returned to normal, where the lengths of tarnished frost that comprised her body exterior parted and broke, revealing the soft and deathly-pale texture of the Umbral's natural skin.

  It was then that Shiv noticed everyone else on the bridge of the Court Leviathan was looking on, doing nothing to influence her struggle.

  "The fuck…” Shiv breathed, rubbing his head. “Is this supposed to be happening?” He swallowed. “She looks like…”

  A low, reverberating bellow sounded from the Hatchling, but there was an undercurrent of cruel laughter—a chorus that bore Uva’s voice.

  Shiv paused. “Okay, well, seems like she’s doing something to the damned thing.”

  The Culturist next to him tilted his head and gave Shiv a brief smile before returning to doing nothing, regarding Uva as a spectator would a theater play. Hymn, meanwhile, was actively taking notes. He had a book in his hand, but instead of writing himself, he was speaking to a hovering pencil that took on the task of illustration and journaling, while the Headmaster provided the necessary dictation.

  Nearby, Adam, Roland, Can Hu, and Rose watched on. Their faces were tense with worry, but they hadn't done anything either. The Gate Lord shot Shiv a look, and he moved to explain things, but someone else got to Shiv first. A hand gripped Shiv by the shoulder, and he found himself staring up to meet the eyes of another man. He was used to being loomed over by monsters and orcs, but by another person? He could count those instances on his hands.

  Valor's near-human visage faded, and the shape of his skeletal core briefly revealed itself before ceding its place to a thin, dark-skinned face once more. Long, black hair drifted around it as if it were underwater, and a thin goatee decorated its chin. More striking than any of its features, though, was that the face was smiling warmly at Shiv.

  "Valor," Shiv breathed, briefly forgetting about Uva's current struggle. He reached and clasped Valor by the arms, his fingers locking around what might as well have been flesh, if not for the lack of physical warmth. "You're back together again. You're whole."

  "Not entirely," Valor said. There were hints of amusement in his voice. “But far closer to my proper self than the shadow I was. And I have you and Adam to thank for this. You two and the Culturist, I suppose. My young friends and one of my oldest enemies. The System’s humor is quite vile, is it not?”

  Shiv saw the Culturist turn to regard the both of them. There was a smile on the orc’s face, but Valor offered him a casual gesture, lifting his hand and beckoning the Culturist toward himself with a curl of his fingers, as if provoking him toward bloodshed right here and now.

  The grayskin guffawed slightly and muttered, “Later. When you are complete and the time is right. There are debts to settle and vengeance to be had.” With that, the Culturist also glanced at Adam, but Roland staggered into position beside his son and glared back at the orc. “More than you have cause to shed my blood, old friend. Best we all sate ourselves in a grand occasion to celebrate this moment. It is only proper.”

  “As you wish,” Valor said with a slight huff. He turned back to Shiv. “Fool orc thinks this will change the inevitability of his death. And so he tries to incense me by terrorizing my apprentices. As if I need an excuse to excise him from this world. Ah. Take note, Shiv, and understand this moment well: You cannot reach a higher level of philosophical gnosis by behaving the way you always did before. And also, resolve your existential crisis first. It gets in the way of actual self-improvement. Now. Speaking of self-improvement, let us see what our good battle-sister might be able to achieve now that we have rendered the false gods of the poisoned Outside desperate.”

  Shiv swept his gaze over the Hatchling and winced as jagged fingers brutally erupted out from its back like cancerous growths. Eyes were tearing open across Uva’s body again, blinding and glaring at almost everyone in the room. “I don’t know, Valor. Uva’s doing something, but it looks like the Stranger’s winning again.”

  “No,” Valor said. “No one is winning thus far. Wait. Listen. Watch. Think. Put what you are aware of together and think. Use your mind.”

  And so Shiv watched on, though the Hatchling’s writhing body filled him with building dread. It was horrific watching Uva’s form get mutated so brutally. She was coming apart at the seams, and the bits of her that were lost and replaced were occupied by things beyond this world—that were originally beyond the System. There was a wrongness to the way she looked, and that feeling of primal alienation only grew within Shiv’s chest, like an ape beholding something utterly foreign to its territory. “You guys… You could use your Animancy to help her, couldn't you?”

  “Potentially,” Valor said. “But there is little purpose in offsetting the balance and depriving her of valuable struggle. We have changed the equation for her already. Previously, she was entrapped and near-damned to a certain fate. Now, different paths stretch out before her. There will be pain no matter which way she goes, but the course is hers to chart. If her mettle proves true, one of these destinations will mean her salvation. And it will.” Valor's eyes flickered a deep green. “I know it.”

  "And there isn't a need anymore," Hades interrupted. "Right now, Seeker Uva stands in a unique position. She has both the Stranger and the Eldest bidding against each other for the full conquest of her soul, though the former isn't even fully aware of the situation. Her position gives her the leverage and allows her to be the kingmaker. The Stranger thinks that she is succumbing to the Dreamtaker’s influence, but he will not miss this opportunity to claim her. He’s just too greedy and gluttonous. And so that gives her a means to squeeze him and the Eldest at the same time, and if she does what I think she's about to do—Oh, yes!" His voice trilled off into a triumphant cry, and he pumped his fist high. "That's right, girl, use them against each other. Just like that!"

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  And the momentum between the warring metamorphoses shifted before Shiv’s very eyes. Now the Fingerling was losing, and the Hatchling was regaining its hold, and over seventy percent of the Hatchling's body returned to the state that it was. Uva, however, lost all dominion over herself as well. Those bits of her that remained Umbral, purely Umbral, vanished in an instant. Shiv really wasn't sure if she was going to be able to hold on to who she was or if she was simply parceling out bits of herself to see a perpetual stalemate.

  "Have some faith," Valor said, squeezing Shiv's shoulder reassuringly. "And give her time. The Eldritch Gods have overreached, and now they will pay—and pay us in full. The Eldest sought to expand their existential pestilence, and the Stranger knew better than to come and invade Integrated Earth. Both thought the suitable Seeker powerful of soul, favored by the System, and, more importantly than all other factors, functioning but vulnerable of mind. But they have made a mistake, and because Sister Uva’s mind is most resilient, they will be integrated into her skills and soul instead of the other way around."

  "May those who take be taken from in turn," Hymn declared. The Headmaster seemed to be quoting someone, though Shiv couldn't be sure.

  Meanwhile, he blinked at the warring metamorphoses taking place in Uva, and between instances of destruction, regeneration, and chaotic change, he caught sight of Uva’s many consciousnesses shrouded by the Psychomantic fibers lining her wings. She was a legion of shadows within those screens, but where she was overrun and overwhelmed by a swarm of nightmarish Weaveresses and creeping fingers before, now she was in control. The Hatchling and the Fingerling were at war with one another, and with every second, the Uvas switched sides once, twice, and again.

  It was as the Headmaster said: She was playing the role of kingmaker for her own soul. And thus far, it looked like both the Hatchling and the Fingerling were exhausting themselves while an attritional stalemate endured. With that, Shiv realized the victor was already predetermined.

  ***

  “What are you doing? Madness! Stupidity!” the Eldest shrieked in desperate frustration.

  "Why are you so determined to remain a slave, to be bound to a weaker god's whims? Why, why, WHY?" The Stranger's words echoed in equal measures fury and fear.

  Both Eldritch Gods raged at Uva, but the Umbral couldn't help it. Her chuckles grew louder and louder. Thus far, she had proven to be the most apt traitor, exchanging sides on a whim, helping whoever was winning until it hit a point where they were about to overwhelm the other. And then she would switch sides and do it all again. This cycle had continued on time after time, and both the Eldest and the Stranger were being driven to their very limits.

  "I am not like you," Uva said, speaking to both Eldritch Gods at the same time. "I am neither mad nor insane. I am not desperate, nor am I needy. I am the one that decides here, and you have only yourself to blame for this situation. This outcome would not have been possible without you. A moment ago, there was only one fate for me. Now there are two paths—and I despise both of them just the same. As I am spiteful, I will make this as painful and debilitating as I can for you. Unless, of course..." Uva's voice trailed off. She withheld her thoughts but felt the Hatchling writhing and lashing, trying to tear into her deeper memories.

  Rhetoric 44 > 46

  "What? What?" The Stranger called out first, unable to bear the strain. "Tell me what you desire. No one else can grant what I have. No one else possesses such power, such unrivaled glory!"

  But the Eldest was not to be undone by their offspring. "No, ignore the wretch. I hold your future. I can make you beautiful. I can see you changed to reach the perfection you've always desired within."

  "I am the only real path," the Stranger echoed his maker in spirit.

  And both the Eldritch Gods were a mirror to each other. They were parallel in so many ways, clear by their connected lineage, clearer still by the System binding them together. They were powerful. They were capable of so many things. But ultimately they were helpless, for they were now trapped in this cycle of enduring strife. Strife that fed the System, strife that made them ever more individual and monstrous. There was no escape. Not even for the Outside.

  But there was an escape for her. There was a path to ascension that belonged only to her.

  And she was going to claim it from these gods. She was going to lay her terms down once more and command them to submit.

  "You will give your power to me," Uva declared. "And you will surrender your invasive offspring to me. I will only accept the metamorphosis that way. If you do not, then I will turn once more. I will choose the other path. Beyond survival, there is something higher. Something you seem to be aware of. Something you seem to think I am ignorant of. And that is the ability to decide to dominate one's own life, to choose. And you have tried to take that from me. What a great and terrible folly."

  "Foolish, wretched, mortal thing!" the Stranger bellowed in agitation. "You would not know how to use my power! You would be lost, a lamb granted the fangs of a wolf!"

  "Greedy, ignorant, lost," the Eldest castigated Uva. "I could give you every bit of my power, and you would not know what to make of yourself. Blind, limbless, yet with the inspiration of a god, you are still but a thing of ruined design. You will never be able to shape a construct of true majesty that is only possible by my hand. You are the vessel; it is the best thing for you to be. You would have faded in the Stranger’s dimension without my help. You accepted me before. I am the best of you. I am the only reason you still live.”

  “And that matters to you more than anything, doesn’t it?” Uva asked both gods. “That you live. That you continue to exist—no matter what it costs you, or anyone else.”

  The Stranger and the Eldest fell silent.

  Uva didn’t. She but laughed. “I am not the same. I am willing to fade and vanish entirely right here and now. If only to see my duties done and my purpose met.”

  “There is no meaning beyond existence!” both gods hissed as one.

  “You miss the reason behind my thoughts: this is not a statement of philosophy, but one of power. You fear nothingness. I do not. Give yourself to me, or I will learn what your final dread tastes like when I drag your children with me into that fathomless black of complete subsumption.”

  The copies of the Hatchling and the Fingerling shuddered in terror all around the shattered and warped ruins of Weave, and Uva sneered.

  The two Eldritch Gods were all too similar in the way they behaved, in what they believed. They too wanted to hold everything under their own dominion, much like any mortal conqueror, and to them, the idea of surrendering anything at all was beyond vile and repugnant. In most cases, she wouldn't have been able to make them consider it at all, but the only thing that they hated more than giving a portion of themselves to her practically for free was to see what belonged to them taken by an adversary.

  "So be it. You think that I'm good as a vessel, but it matters little what you think. Right now, the only one that matters is me. And since I cannot reason with you—"

  “No!” the Eldest and Stranger cried at the same time, trying to interrupt her.

  "—then I think I will deal with the other."

  “NO!” the Eldritch Gods roared, their voices thundering inside her, shattering whatever still remained of this facsimile of Weave entirely, and then their words and thoughts and intentions were joined as one, though the Stranger would never know it. "Fine, damn you, fine! Let this metamorphosis take shape under your terms. Let you be an inheritor instead of a husk. Take this power, and suffer for it! Take this power so that we might still remain, so that we might still endure. Take this power now!"

  “So mote it be,” Uva whispered, barely able to hide her hateful amusement. “It’s been good striking this bargain with the both of you. If only sense could have seized you sooner.”

  And at once, both the Fingerling and the Hatchling were severed from the direct control of their gods, and offered wholesale to the Umbral. The war within her soul stopped. The hostile wills fighting over her Skills ceased. But both the Fingerling and the Hatchling remained, and as they waited for Uva’s judgment, the reduced beings called out to her, only one of each now, drifting in the darkness.

  “Are you to consume me now?” the Hatchling whispered, its voice smaller and weaker than Uva had ever known it to be. “Are you to become what I was meant to be?”

  Uva let out a scoff. “No. Not before I see you both fused once more.”

  And the final step to her deception took shape as she commanded the Hatchling and Fingerling to embrace each other within her soul, within her flesh. From there, a higher metamorphosis began to blossom from the flesh that was Uva Mettabon.

  Feat Gained: Paracosm of Pacts and Flesh (Unique)

  Paracosm of Pacts and Flesh (Unique) - Allows the Pathbearer to draw subsumed consciousnesses into a budding inner dimension shaped from pure thought. The maximum number of minds stored within the paracosm is determined by the Pathbearer’s overall Skill and mana capacity.

  Curse Gained: Apostate of the Eldest - The creatures and Seekers bound to the Eldest will be compelled to reclaim what you have stolen…

  Curse Gained: Apostate of the Stranger - The creatures and Seekers bound to the Stranger will be compelled to reclaim what you have stolen...

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