492 Glass Gods [II]

Oh, and for all you would-be Seekers out there who assume that you're going to outplay the System simply because you have a reach to something on its very borders, stop. Stop imagining. It's never going to be so easy.

Just because you develop an Eldritch skill doesn't mean that you've escaped the System's grasp. It doesn't mean that you've left anyone's grasp. I know Seekers who went beyond the boundary and who don't even have skills anymore. And I know what happened to them.

Are you aware of what exists beyond Integration? Chaos. Absolute, unfettered chaos. The absence of rules is not the absolution of freedom, but rather the rawness of the wild left to run amok. Without law, there is no pattern, and without patterns, the nature of your life, of your consciousness, of everything about you is all set to be preyed upon by something you can barely comprehend.

The Outsiders we know are contaminated. They are withered. They are quantified. They are known to the System. The Outsiders that loom beyond? They are the unknowable. They cannot be known, and your ignorance will never protect you from them.

There is no escape from the deepest of the black, Seekers. But you can still use it, just as you can use your benefactor's power against themselves. The System and the far beyond are to be wagered against one another. Learn how to do that. You are still a being that is rooted in structure, so use that structure to your advantage.

—Hades Hymn

492

Glass Gods [II]

The Rat King choked to a halt the moment it bled over into the Stranger's Garden. "Choked" was the right word, for it had no more architecture to creep across. There was no bacterium in the atmosphere. The Stranger's Garden was a twisted place, devoid of so many things that constituted an inhabited realm’s ecosystem. Shiv found his Awareness burning, aching, stretched to its limit after seconds, but he saw three figures on the other side: Uva, Hymn, and Valor. Besides that glimpse, his extensions of flaming Awareness failed to ever grow close. They strained against the nothing, but he needed a direct vector to spread himself.

So, for a moment, Shiv refrained from addressing them and just watched.

Hymn and Uva remained ignorant of his presence. They were too focused on their dealings with the Stranger, who noted Shiv with narrowed eyes but decided not to comment, mostly with scorn for his presence. Valor, however, sensed him immediately, angled his head in an acknowledging bow, then went back to watch over Uva and stand ready in case the Eldritch god did anything.

Not that the Stranger seemed particularly inclined toward violence. With every passing day, he was humanizing in the most aggravating way possible. His emotional core was expanding, but it was still a shriveled mess comparable to that of an overgrown toddler, rather than the enormous mass possessed even by the mind-broken and heart-hollowed Ascendants. Ultimately, there was not yet any depth of experience to the Stranger.

The Garden was also changing. The architecture was stabilizing. It was no longer a fever dream that constantly shifted between moods and messes. The branches of the trees were solidifying. They moved more slowly than before, extended, and transformed with far more languor than they used to. Previously, an entire clearing could form and then close up in an instant. It was effectively like watching someone have complete molecular control over their insides. Now, the Stranger was more or less an Eldritch Biomancer, weaving his inner architecture using time and focus rather than raw instinct and will.

“There are benefits, and there are significant downsides. To fall from the heights of such power yet gain actual wisdom. What is the trade-off, and what is the gain? Many things to consider here. I go from pitying this creature to envying it. Between the seconds, you perhaps should do the same.” Kelhaus' words arrived like a mental whisper, gliding over Shiv's thoughts from the past. He realized this was a telepathic message flung into the future, like she had somehow anticipated this. Unsurprisingly, she experienced his history and likely viewed the Stranger through the lens of his context.

Before Shiv could respond, however, he realized Valor was looking upon him again, briefly regarding his form with a hint of curiosity. Something tensed inside Shiv. A suspicion grew. Maybe the Thief of Lost Acheron was whispering to Valor the same way, talking to his subconscious, even if his aware mind knew nothing of the machinations being woven behind. Perhaps the Thief already knew of Kelhaus' presence and was making plans. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Shiv was functionally torturing himself with these assumptions, but he needed to have assumptions.

If he'd learned anything from Kelhaus, even from their brief time together, it was that they needed to theorize, to conceptualize, and to test things. He needed to be cognizant of all things, of all behaviors, for his own advantage. Overthinking was a staple of being a philosopher, and so far, even as an extreme amateur, overthinking had served him somewhat well. After all, he lived in a world surrounded by mystery and sins passed down from high gods to the lowest of mortals. However much he thought he was considering, it likely wasn't nearly enough at all.

At present, the Stranger was offering something to Uva, and a ritual was taking place. A series of spells and different shapes danced around them, Eldritch-colored and psychomantically charged. Shiv noticed a budding figure formed from Uva's extended lightning. They poured out from her mind as tendrils, painted and woven into a humanoid shape. Once more, a mental copy of Eileen Harkness was granted physical form. Devoid of skills and hollow of soul, she was merely a replica sustained by Uva's supporting psychomancy and made possible through a potent feat. That being said, the Recollector being offered by the Stranger held plenty of substance, not only in mana but also skill and soul. Now Uva was anchoring part of her mind, an almost autonomous aspect generated from and harvested from another person, into the Recollector.

As to the why and how, well, that remained to be seen for now. However, a kaleidoscope of Outsider energies and attuned mana types congealed around both the Recollector and the mental construct it was absorbing until the Recollector assumed a semi-humanoid shape. It was still a mess of golden eyes and abnormal temporal wavelengths, but the palm that constituted most of its body shrank down until it disappeared into Harkness' form, as did the rest of its steepled fingers and misshapen limbs. The darkness of its Eldritch flesh shifted inside and subsided like black waters sinking beneath the former Owl's pores, and she looked down upon herself, staggering as if suddenly imbued with an unnatural weight.

“I must admit that I do loathe every arrangement I make with you, Mettabon,” Harkness hissed. Her displeasure, however, was laced with a measure of desperation. Shiv read her newly formed empathetic core immediately. She didn't like this, but she needed this. She needed a form of her own. She needed to regain mass to hold space and be an individual in the actual world. It was the illusion of agency and individuality, but it was the closest thing she got. As a mental clone, every second was existential anguish, and knowing that she was a manifestation which only existed relative to a great enemy's mind must have been another kind of torture.

Shiv briefly imagined existing under such conditions, and it made him shiver. Sometimes, too much enlightenment was a winnowing thing for one's ego.

“One should not flinch away from pain. It is feedback, and you are used to such agonies, are you not?”

Again, Kelhaus' words arrived, part mockery, part encouragement, enough to make Shiv grapple with the thought once more. The discomfort continued, but he took an intellectual curiosity in such a reality. Suddenly he found himself wondering about Uva's exact ethics and how she viewed the world. He loved her dearly, but it occurred to him that neither he nor she might have been the most moral people in this world. Both of them were rather misshapen by their experiences, upbringings, and loyalties.

Nihilist:And so it's a good goddamn thing she's veering toward freedom and individualism rather than tyranny. Imagine if she and Adam decided to get their perspective shifted after their Delves. But you gotta admit Uva would run a pretty good police state, wouldn't she?

Disquieting, though, was the thought that Shiv couldn't reject it outright, and frankly, he wondered if that might have been the more efficient outcome, even if it was immoral.

“And remember, Deathless, everything is juxtaposition,” Kelhaus intoned. “For a decision to be made, other options need to be ignored in turn. Where does the worth of your pragmatism begin, and where does the weight of idealism abandoned start gnawing upon your person and hollowing you out? At what point do you stay you, and at what point do you start becoming a shadow of Veronica Chandler? You have noticed that you are closer to her than ever before. And in this moment, I see you, and you see yourself. The question remains: If someone you cared for decided to go down a darker path, how long would you let them walk it? How far would you let them go? Would you be akin to Veronica and the Ascendants in relation to you and Uva and you and Adam?”

Shiv wanted to deny it, wanted to say that his companions would never sink so low, but Roland must have defended the Starhawk the same way once upon a time. Veronica, her own grandmother, the other Ascendants, they were all heroes. Even Longinus, especially Longinus, as absurd as that seemed, but now… Time was a decaying thing. Time experienced, and trauma, and the longer one lived, the more blows they suffered, or perhaps the more blows were hidden from them, waiting to surface.

Such made him consider Valor once more.

“I've given you Recollector. Now go, go wake Roland. Bring Roland here. I need to talk to Roland. Won't talk to any of you anymore until Roland comes and speaks with me. Not even a single second. Especially won't talk to HIM!” A finger exploded out from the branch everyone stood upon, and it came within a centimeter of slamming into Shiv's bound field of time.

All three heads turned, and Uva responded with surprise. She noted Shiv briefly before returning to the matter at hand, stitching more of the Outsider and attuned magics into the Recollector to stabilize the binding and fuse Uva's split consciousness deeper with the Eldritch architecture. Whatever they were planning required an expendable asset spawned from her mind, but also something that had skill, that had weight, that had influence over time specifically. For why else would they bargain with the Stranger? Why else would they purchase a Recollector?

There was plenty of discord within Hymn as well, more than enough bitterness to drown several other souls, but he was wrestling with it admirably. He was taking some satisfaction in beholding the entropy that swallowed his former abuser. It was not a complete revenge, but there was some pleasure to be gained in watching someone who was so much greater than you, who is the architect of so much of your pain, effectively undergo a brutal state of dementia.

The Stranger had fallen in his eyes. Nothing would make up for the pain the man suffered in his early days, but then again, he had a measure of control over the Stranger now. He had perhaps the rest of time to take bits and bits of revenge until that venom inside of him was fully dissipated, or perhaps until he grew bored of this present affair and found another purpose in his life.

And he did have other purposes.

There were more bindings taking shape in the air than the spells Hymn wove into the Recollector. Bindings of love, of people Hymn actually cared for after lifetimes of self-imposed indifference during his personal crusade against an Eldritch oppressor turned petulant child.

“Humanity comes with its own maladies, but also its own benefits. Once more, time and time again, remember this, Deathless: Everything chosen is another thing lost, but everything chosen is also something gained. Imagine the power of gods, imagine cruelty, imagine being separated from everything, and imagine being made glass because nothing grounds you. When your final fundamental thread is severed, you fall, and you shatter. Gods are glass. Mortals are fragile, but the relative endures. For it does not rely on a single concept, a single point of shattering, so weak as to be named a tenet of faith.”

This time, Shiv wasn't sure who was speaking to him. It could have been Kelhaus, or it could have been his own Harbinger. Right now, their voices were blended. He guessed it was both.

While Shiv took in the happenings before him, he realized Uva was fast approaching, and he held up a hand before she could make contact. He blinked, stealing one of his four active bodies out of the Gate. It was his dormant body, currently struggling through some administrative work that Uva once mainlined. He wasn't nearly as good at it as she was, but with his Multitasking spreading through the Gate, his efficiency saw a sudden and dramatic spike, with everything he could process all at once. It was that same Multitasking Skill Evolution that he wanted to warn her about. Somehow, despite infesting almost everyone else, it seemed a little rude to cause his Awareness to creep over Uva the same way he consumed practically all the organics in the Gate.

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“Sometimes hypocrisy can be very romantic.”

“Kelhaus, please shut the fuck up, okay? I wasn't thinking about it before.”

The smile in her voice had the audacity to grow even wider. “I am aware. It is a flaw that veers closer to habit by this point, Deathless.”

“I regret ever opening your godsdamn book, and I regret ever talking to you.”

As his Harbinger flickered back into the Stranger's Garden, he dropped a material body in place and felt his Awareness clash and strain against the Eldritch matter around him. He was slowly spreading, sweeping over the unnatural, unstable substance that made up the Stranger's Garden. Everything around him was technically organic tissue, but also not quite. It didn't function the same as most biologies, and its metaphysics were closer to being tumorous and constantly regenerating, even compared to his own nature.

It was so fundamentally unstable and erratic that Shiv felt his Awareness architecture glide off of its form, barely able to cling or find any purchase. Effectively, he was spreading his influence here, but it wasn't functional. It was constantly slipping like oil across water. It existed, he existed, but he would not colonize this space. Not until his Eldritch Physiology skill was included in the melange, and considering that had already evolved into the garden, his own Garden of Wounds and Broken Things, the opportunity to simulate Eldritch biomass using his awareness was likely lost to him.

But then his Severed Shadow resonated once more, and he felt an odd sensation between his newfound power over metaphysics and the strangeness of the Outside around him.

And once more, the tantalizing and dangerous consideration of carving into himself for deeper and more intimate modifications returned. But that was a harder art form than even Biomancy, for the soul was a brittle thing, and every soul beyond his didn't recover after being carved.

As soon as Shiv emerged from his temporal field, he explained to Uva what was happening and noticed how the Stranger was glaring at his spreading influence. The god tried to shake it off by shuddering his massive branch. When that failed, the Stranger's ire grew sevenfold, and Shiv prepared himself to be smitten out of existence within this realm.

Surprisingly, however, the Stranger refrained, keeping his anger under control, even as Shiv elaborated about how his skill functioned and that it was actually no threat at all. The Stranger had no reason to trust him, but he seemed to care little about what he wanted to do and more about how Roland might feel. Roland, Roland, Roland. That was the Stranger's main source of interest now. It seemed that it actually regarded the poor man as a friend or something more than that. It felt like an imprinted process more than a naturalistic friendship. And once more, the idea of the Stranger being a barely sapient toddler or an overgrown child struck Shiv.

Meanwhile, Uva, Hymn, and Valor shared a common emotion—but it wasn't pride, and instead genuine frustration. Uva's eyes narrowed at Shiv, even though she was slightly happy for him. Valor was aghast and almost offended that Shiv had managed to break through his Multitasking bottleneck by doing something as random as creating a few thousand failed rats. Hymn, meanwhile, just shook his head and regarded Shiv as an abomination, the same way he regarded most Outsiders. After all, what right Pathbearer could be given such rewards without adequate struggle? What right Pathbearer would regard something as simple as a few biomancy experiments as a major struggle, aside from the Deathless?

And yet it wasn't just the Deathless alone who was undergoing an evolution. Something shimmered within Uva, a transitional pulse of Eldritch mana that radiated a far different shade from that which emanated within the Stranger. It was not a thing of time that left her, but an emanation of purest fear. It painted an almost imperceptible trail toward Valor, indicating a bestowal, perhaps, of memories or some kind of other offering from him to her.

“And for once, I do not wish to strangle you for undergoing a surprise evolution.” Uva craned her neck back with pride, and subconsciously, or perhaps not so subconsciously, Harkness mimicked her, and the Recollector within seeped out from her hair like a shawl of black rising through a tangle of fibers. “Legend Hymn. I trust that we are almost concluded with the bindings.”

A frown rose on his face. “What do you mean, ‘we’? I've been doing all the binding myself, while you've been providing the substance, yet none of the effort.”

Uva's chin rose by a few centimeters. She wasn't going to let go of her pride so easily. “And are you close to being done?”

A spiraling staircase of Eldritch mana descended into Harkness. Within her body, a series of resonating peals rose and fell like a chain of octaves, ringing from high to low. An echo sounded from the Recollector within as well, and slowly Shiv saw a sort of vibrational alignment taking shape between the falsehood of the woman and the Fingerling offered by the Stranger.

“It will take however long it takes, but yes, in the grand scheme, when considering all the variables, we are closer to the end than the beginning.”

“Good!” Uva said as if she was the one in charge of this whole affair. To some extent, she was. From what Shiv could tell, she was absolutely essential for whatever they were planning. Valor mentioned something about intercepting Gaia using abnormal axes of time and Eldritch capabilities—capabilities that lingered on the border of the System and couldn't be easily intercepted or read by the Great One upon her throne of thinking flame. Shiv remained ignorant of the mechanics of how it was all supposed to work, and for once he suspected Uva was closer to his side of the pond than the deeper end.

“Well, come then, dear brute. Behold my revenge!” She extended a tendril of sonic lightning that lashed into his mind before he could raise his hands in protest. She continued speaking as Shiv choked and tried to get a warning out, but she was too determined, too headstrong to notice or heed anything he was trying to hint at. Uva continued on for a few seconds more, a few seconds of bliss. “You are not the only one who has a surprise. My Terrorspawn—Oh, oh, Composer… Shiv! Why? Why?”

Shiv's hands became a whirlwind of panic as his insides turned to painful chunks of ice. “No, no, I wasn't trying to peek at them! I just can't stop it. It spreads to everyone I'm aware of, everyone who's organic. It spreads. I can't do anything about it. That's why I wasn't trying to touch everyone here. That's why it's spreading all over the Eldritch stuff. I just tried to pull it back. I tried not to notice. I tried!”

By this point, both of them were clutching their heads as Uva actively carved the unwanted memories apart, casting it out before the System's revenge could sink deeper and fully scar their psyches.

“You didn't try hard enough!” she hissed, slashing and stabbing at her own mind first before going after the source of the pollution rooted inside Shiv. “Why didn’t you alter your own mind!”

“I’ll just make myself brain-dead!” he shot back in reply.

“Brain-dead is better than this, Shiv! Better than this!” Uva drew in a breath as Valor, the Stranger, and Hymn looked upon them with varying levels of concern. “We never tell him about this! We forget this! We forget this now!”

At that final desperate cry, a chain of memories shattered inside Uva and Shiv. A bolt of lightning connecting them burst apart as well, dissipating into fractals as both of them blinked at each other, left with a sense of barely averted foreboding. An urge not to ask or think about what just happened and what had been forgotten.

“Karmic drama is quite amusing,” Kelhaus commented for some reason.

Shiv blinked. Uva blinked. Valor drew in close, worried and uncertain as to what just happened. "Shiv? Uva? Are you two alright? What did you see? Is there a danger to the Gate?"

Both Shiv and Uva looked toward Valor and began shaking their heads with a mutually synchronized pace of denial and vigor. "Absolutely not," they said at the same time.

"Just some unwanted memories we shouldn't think about anymore," Shiv said to Uva. "Let us go and talk about your new Skill Evolution."

Robotically, she nodded. "It is a good idea." These messages were pre-planted by her. She knew that, he knew that, but neither of them questioned it as they fled from the Gate, leaving Hymn to continue on with his work alone, abandoned alongside the Stranger.

***

“It's just a little voyeurism," Hymn mumbled after they left. “Nothing those two haven't done to everyone else already.”

“They haven't done it in front of me yet!” the Stranger whined with a low, sulking tone. “I see and hear some of the memories like you, but I want to see it happen in person! Have Roland do it with them. The rubbing thing. I like the rubbing thing. And the noises.”

That command brought a great sorrow upon Hymn. Its sheer stupidity drove him to go to his happy place, and he recited a mantra: "I'm going to kill myself. I'm going to kill myself, and it'll all be over."

“That's not what I want. Go, dog. Go get Roland. Want to see him do the sex.”

***

Skill Evolution: This Web of Nightmare and Wonder (Unique) > Hive of Winnowed Horrors (Unique)

The blinding brightness above the Gate of Piety was important for more than a Skill Evolution. The small portion of the Eldritch realm bestowed upon Uva by the now-transformed Dreamtaker was undergoing a new metamorphosis of its own, and with it, all its denizens. All the so-called Terrorspawn that were connected to Uva guarded the Gate as a primal, feral army of Eldritch beings spawned from the nectar of nightmares. But so far, despite her evolution notification, the Terrorspawn had not risen in their new shapes and aesthetics.

Most of them were woven tight, wrapped deep inside a blinding, bright cocoon of broken colors. That was the best way to describe them: broken colors, each one twisting and changing. Rather than seeming like a kaleidoscope or prism of hues, it was a disconnected ambiance of colors that drifted closer toward the dreary and gray, but every now and again, Shiv caught sight of faint blue and corrosive viridescence. The colors of necromancy and animancy specifically. Colors that struck pangs of worry inside Shiv, for they had been bestowed upon Uva by Valor. And those colors were also the primary attunements wielded by the Thief of Lost Acheron to mask his true form and exert influence over the world in a way no other mortal could match, in a way that even belied the understanding of most gods.

So far, however, the Gate wasn't under attack. Nothing had burst free from within the cocoon.

Shiv, Uva, and Valor stood upon the crystallized veins spreading out from the Gate’s mana core. As the three of them looked through the translucent architecture, they waited for the Terrorspawn to respawn, but no changes occurred. Nothing followed. Uva's lip twitched slightly as she exerted a portion of her own will. A shudder ran through the crystallized structures. The cocoons vibrated. In tandem, Shiv felt the shudder run up and through his body, but that was all, at least for now. That was all, besides a building pinprick of emotion expanding within them and a spreading umbrella of thought stuff indicating a growing consciousness.

“So, uh…” Shiv sniffled. “Interesting evolution. Cocoons are pretty-looking.” His words earned him a glare, and it took a mustering of will not to wince. “It’s a compliment!”

“It’s not done yet,” Uva stressed. “I expected it to be done by now.”

“Do you know what’s supposed to come out?” Shiv asked.

She pressed her lips together. “I have a suspicion.”

“So you don’t actually know, and this is as much of a surprise for you as it is for us, huh?” Shiv said.

A second glare hit him.

“It will be something puissant,” Uva said. “Of this, I am certain. The final few levels I gained were kindly delivered upon me by Legend Valor. Few have lived longer lives, and I would dare say no other in existence suffers a similar level of existential horror.”

Valor looked off into the distance, staring through the cocoons and into his own past and potential present. Shiv felt a rush of sympathy and was slightly aghast at Uva's actions. “Did you turn… Valor’s suffering into your personal leveling pool?”

“It was for the greater good,” Valor muttered.

Uva nodded once, devoid of all shame, only filled with frustration about why her monsters weren’t hatching. “As he said.”

Nihilist:Hm.Something about this feels vaguely unethical.

The Harbinger sighed in exasperation. “Only vaguely?”

“Ethics is a subjective and relative thing sometimes,” Kelhaus mused.

Nihilist: I can agree with that.

The Harbinger sighed even harder.

“So, uh, aside from the cocoons, did you figure out how to install consciousnesses in stuff like the Great One can?” Shiv added, trying to break the awkwardness.

“I can currently bestow the intellect of a flea upon a rock,” Uva replied with a dour frown. “It usually doesn’t do anything but go insane after it becomes self-aware. Being trapped without senses or a functional body does that to a conscious being. It will take substantial enchantments and investiture to have an object fully develop skills and a soul, but it will be possible if I continue straining the skill. For now, I have a collection of stones that are constantly screaming and rebounding deeper into the throes of madness. I’ve chained their minds together to use as pocket generators of raw trauma that I can draw from when necessary.”

“Is… is that ethical?” Shiv asked Uva for the first time.

She cocked her head, thought for just a moment, and then nodded. “Yes. Because they know nothing else but madness, and will know nothing but madness, and so they suffer no loss for they have no formative experiences. This is optimal for empowering my Dreaming Storm as well.”

“This one would make a terrible philosopher,” Kelhaus said—and commented no more on Uva besides. Despite her best efforts, the Legend-Philosopher failed to hide a sliver of disapproval.

Nihilist:Tell her the questionable mind stuff is easier to ignore when you’re incredibly horny.

“Do not say that to Kelhaus, Shiv!” the Harbinger begged.

A light rose behind Shiv—an incandescent light that sent a rush of alarm through Shiv.

“I—I just noticed—the mana core,” Adam said, gasping as he hovered in the air for some reason. He was also dressed strangely—missing most of his armor and wearing a sweat-soaked doublet with backward-facing trousers and two mismatched boots. On the outside, however, he was utterly covered in the flaming scabs of Awareness that… that…

There was a mental block preventing Shiv from recalling what he saw from Adam’s perspective for some reason.

Nihilist:Hey, Shiv, tell Adam about the questionable mind stuff you ignore because Uva makes you horny.

“Stop saying horny,” the Harbinger seethed.

"Shiv, tell your skills to shut the fuck up!" the girl that didn't exist shouted from Backstage.

Nihilist:Horny.

Shiv’s right eye twitched. Uva couldn’t look at Adam for some reason no one could recall. Adam was rather pinkish of skin tone as well, and Valor continued to gaze down at the cocoons in silence.

Until a loud, resounding crack broke all of them from their mutual stupors, and each of them tilted their head down to see a series of fractures expand and spread from cocoon to cocoon.

“Horny,” Shiv whispered.

Adam's head snapped to him. “What?”

Shiv frowned. “What?”