289 (II)

  Downtime [I]

  It all sounded exaggerated and absurd to Shiv, but the faces of the Umbral Guards were deathly serious. They believed every word. It was then that he noticed a distortion in the air, the fear chains threading out from them and ending at his chest. Fear was a form of flattery. Fear was a form of power. And fear was his reward, thanks to Marikos, in this instance. The Dragon-Knight had made this struggle sound all too grand when, ultimately, it was a System trying to resolve its own problem. A creature it had empowered far too much that was rapidly growing to the point where the Ambient Mana Threshold of Earth needed to face an Incursion or to be elevated in another way to sustain itself.

  Briefly, he considered revealing the truth, that things were both more severe and less impressive than Marikos' boast. But two things happened then. Shiv realized he liked being flattered as much as he liked being feared. And on top of that, he realized it was useful to have some layer of mystery over himself. When people looked upon him, that Hidden Quest notification would trigger, and Pathbearers would be enticed to slay him.

  That ultimately caused him to bring a single finger before his lips and make a "shushing" motion at both Umbrals. Their eyes glittered, their jaws tightened, and he could feel the admiration and slight apprehension there arising. As he stepped past them, they immediately began speaking to each other, the words passing through the air like hissing snakes.

  As he walked down a staircase, he hummed to himself. Hm. Wonder how much it'd take to get a limited statuette of myself made. And how much it would sell for…

  For the first time, Shiv took the tower's central elevator and found himself accelerating to the very top. It would have been easier to just fling himself upward, but the finished tower no longer had any easy access. The many gaps and openings that it had during its mid-construction state allowed for direct traversal. As amusing as it would be to explode out of the floor and surprise everyone, he thought it might be quite rude and decided to be civilized for once. He saw well over ten life signatures glowing at the very top. It wasn't hard to identify which one was Adam, which one was Roland, and which one was the Culturist. All three stood out to him due to different reasons: Adam—he was just familiar with him, he practically knew his friend inside out after all the time they spent in combat together. Roland, however, glowed the brightest mainly because he was housing a god inside his soul. The Culturist had a dense life signature, and more importantly, Shiv could also detect the many differences an orc’s biological makeup had from a human's.

  As he arrived at the very top and the doors slid open, he found himself standing before a silken carpet. Shiv took a moment examining the organic structure of the carpet and realized it was likely silk spun by a Weaveress. To his left and right were a set of crystal-clear mirrors. They looked expensive, their frames sparkling beneath the light. On the ceiling, there was a set of engravings that remained half-carved, depicting the Composer playing at the center of a grand orchestra. The Composer was finished, but the rest of the orchestra, excluding one specific Weaveress that looked suspiciously like Null Mont, still lacked detail. But the fact that there was intricate artwork at all annoyed Shiv. It meant that some time was devoted to this; some Weaveresses or Umbrals were taken away from more pressing matters for what amounted to decorating the hallway to a private office—one taken from Adam, no less.

  Finally, there were the double doors. They were wide enough for two orcs to pass through while standing side by side. It was also made from stone slabs. They looked heavy, and when Shiv pressed a hand against them, he realized they indeed weighed a substantial amount. It would take someone with High Adept-Tier Physicality to force the way open; another pointless impracticality. Shiv didn't get the point of the slab doors—and then realized there were unfinished carvings on them as well.

  What is it with weird, incompetent people putting arts and crafts projects ahead of the actual work? Shiv wondered to himself.

  With a final shake of his head, he pushed the doors open with a flick of his wrist, and they slid across the ground, announcing his arrival with a loud rumbling groan. On the other side, the first person Shiv saw was Null Mont actively stuttering and whimpering, while Adam and practically everyone else stared her down.

  The Cherished Weaveress was gesturing animatedly with all six arms, and her words were coming in broken fragments as she jumped from one topic to another. “Ah… so you see… it was all well until the water—the matter at the water, eh, water processing plant proved too distracting. But aid was due to arrive, so, this was—it was all ultimately going to be resolved.”

  And it seemed Null Mont’s words had a lullaby-like effect on Adam, whose eyelids were drooping low and whose body looked on the verge of collapse. Shiv pitied his friend. Null Mont had a “disappointment aura” around her; dealing with her for too long sapped one’s motivation to live. That was part of the reason why Shiv decided to depart and fight the vampires directly. It was more useful to do that than deal with shitty in-Gate politics.

  The others in the office looked no less tired than Adam did. There was Roland, Rose, Can Hu, Valor, Hymn, the Culturist, the Educator, and most of the escaped prisoners. The entire space was barely enough to contain everyone. Seeing the ceiling—featuring yet more carvings—Shiv remembered Adam saying something about an open-air spire top. Instead of having an enclosed office, he would have something like his father, a wide-open room with clear windows that allowed him a direct line of sight to any point within the Gate.

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  Guess that's another thing she messed up, Shiv thought to himself.

  As he arrived at the very back of the room, Five gave him a nod and stepped closer. The wolf-man folded his arms and leaned toward Shiv. "It sure is an interesting creature you placed in charge of the Gate, Deathless. Where did you find this one? If you allow it, I would like to extract and send her back to New Albion for research, see if there's something particular about her brain, or if this is relatively common for Weaveresses over a certain age and born to a certain station."

  The Raven’s words painted a slight sneer on Shiv’s face. "We didn't really put her in charge. It's more like she took advantage of our absence and immediately remodeled a bunch of things and made a mess of everything else. From what I'm hearing around the Gate, sounds like her incompetence was partially to blame."

  "As is often the case," Five said with a sigh. "It is a rare individual who is at once extremely opportunistic and willing to backstab or beg to gain a new position, and also utterly prepared to take on the privileges and responsibilities of said position."

  Shiv eyed the Aviary agent. "Are you one of those people?"

  Five placed a metal-clawed hand on his chest and looked at Shiv as if he were jesting. "Ha! No, by the Faceless Queen, absolutely not. I am someone who is best dedicated to a task or a role. Frankly, I'm offended that you didn't hand the Mask of Stolen Paths to me, but I suspect that the lacking trust between us is still a factor. I suppose I should be happy that you haven't thrown me out of this little cadre already."

  "If I was going to throw you out, I'd need to do something about the Educator, the Culturist, and practically half the other people here. Trust is a rare thing these days. And half of everyone I'm dealing with, I'm dealing with in terms of mutual interest or shared enemies. And look at Null Mont there. I might trust her more than you to not completely backstab me, but I also wouldn't believe her if she told me the Gate was running functionally and properly. I guess the lesson there is to temper my expectations."

  "A relatively rare skill that few people have mastered," Five declared with a wolfish grin on his, well, wolf face. "Now, speaking of lacking trust, I would like to speak with you in private after all this is over, and the Educator should be involved as well. It concerns a potential offer of support and a request of in-Gate representation from the Stolen Throne."

  That gave Shiv a moment's pause. "You do realize I killed quite a few of your Ravens and Owls, right?"

  Five clicked his tongue. "A regrettable thing, truly, but as you said, shared enemies, mutual interests. Yesterday's enemies are tomorrow's allies and vice versa. What better way for us to deal with each other than being in close proximity with some interests entwined rather than always at odds, cutting at each other's shadows, and trying to burn one another's houses down? And before you reject me outright, do recall that you acquiesced to grant infamous criminal elements in the form of representatives of High Harbor’s government body a place in your Gate. Now, I am aware you might be housing them with the orcs, and you can do the same thing for us. Just think about it. We can talk at length later."

  "I'm including Adam in that dialogue. Valor too, probably," Shiv said. He also made a mental note to bring Uva along as well, if she was healthy enough to attend. He also noted her physical absence.

  Five let out a satisfied breath. "How quickly this private conversation I've proposed has swollen to a full and official meeting."

  "It's not my Gate," Shiv said. "And I don't think anything we've been whispering to each other has gone unheard by Adam."

  As if to confirm his beliefs, he caught a sudden wink from Adam as his friend quickly snuck him a look.

  "Alright, just to go over all the items of our discussion," Adam announced, intending to get Shiv up to speed. "The hydro-processing facilities of the Gate were sabotaged practically the moment that we left—and remain inactive even now. The forward observing teams, dimensionals, and scouts positioned outside in the Abyss were ambushed—all at the same time. A vampiric infiltration team then also managed to slip into the Gate somehow, causing havoc by staging their assassinations as a series of random serial killings by primarily targeting slaves and refugees while eliminating a Weaveress in charge or an Umbral meant to guard a certain position—and this plot was only unraveled when Angelo managed to catch the scent of his own kind.”

  “That is… a very abridged and unrepresentative overview of everything that has happened,” Null Mont choked out.

  “But we haven’t even gotten to the fun and delightful bits yet,” Hymn said, yawning loudly without putting a hand in front of his mouth. “Tell the Deathless about the last stand you were planning, spider. How you had your magi looking into potential ways to violently destabilize the mana core instead of planning a fighting retreat out of the Surface Gateway.”

  “There is no such thing as a fighting retreat to the surface!” Null Mont cried. “The light of day would see us reduced to nothing but ashes. Better to make a stand here, in the Composer’s name, than—”

  “What about the prisoners who don’t have the Light-Curse?” Adam asked.

  Null Mont froze. “I, well, they are—”

  “Why didn’t you arm the mercenaries?” Shiv asked, squeezing his way through the gathered group from the back of the room. The moment he spoke, the Cherished Weaveress shuddered like her back had been graced by the touch of a whip. A fear-chain shot out from her, and Shiv felt his power build, saw Null Mont take a step back. All that went far to support the words that Tyn and Nunha spoke at the base of the tower: People feared him, and it was likely his looming shadow that kept order.

  “Ah, C-C-Cherished Deathless! It gladdens me to see you return! A-are the vampires—”

  “The attackers are dead. Ugly deaths. Brutal deaths.” Shiv drew his lips back and offered her a grin defined by bared teeth. “I’ll tell you all about it if you tell me about everything you were supposed to do—but didn’t.”

  And that was the moment that Shiv learned Weaveresses didn’t sweat when terrified, but went straight to releasing terror pheromones that smelled absolutely divine.

  Shape of Monstrosity 151 > 152

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