29 | Everything At Once

He did it in the grain loft on the fourth night after the towpath, with the ladder pulled up and the estate asleep beneath him.

Okay, let's get to fusing. First, Uncommons.

<<Loraine: 7. Fuse 5, keep 2.>>

Fuse.

<<5 UNCOMMON → 1 RARE. NO BONUS.>>

13 Rares.

<<Loraine: Fuse 10. You keep 3.>>

<<5 RARE → 1 EPIC. NO BONUS.>>

<<5 RARE → 1 EPIC. BONUS ROLL... 2 EPIC AWARDED.>>

There it is.

<<Loraine: 13 Epic. Which is 13 Profound grade rolls, and I would like you to pull them one at a time, like a person who intends to have a future.>>

We're going all out today, lets see what weeks of effort gets me...Overcharge.

The panel went still.

<<Loraine: No.>>

10 Epic. One roll. 15% for a Mythic.

<<Loraine: I know what Overcharge is, Soren.>>

Then you know it's the only way I get a Heavenly grade roll before Friday.

<<Loraine: I know that 85% of the time it produces nothing whatsoever, and that you would be destroying 10 Profound grade rolls to find out, and that Profound is 3 grades above anything you currently own except a sword you refuse to touch.>>

<<Lilith: Loraine.>>

<<Loraine: Do not take his side.>>

<<Lilith: I'm not taking his side. I'm asking what a Profound grade roll actually gets him.>>

There was a pause.

<<Loraine: ...A technique. A physique. A weapon. Something in the region of Piercing Palm.>>

<<Lilith: And is any of that going to matter on Friday when a woman takes his trousers off and finds nothing where a cage used to be?>>

Another pause, and this one went on.

<<Loraine: ...No.>>

Loraine.

<<Loraine: I heard her.>>

I need one thing. I need any specific thing, and it lives in a tier I cannot reach by being sensible. Soren sat forward in the dark with his elbows on his knees.

You told me on the first night that you are an accountant. So do the arithmetic. 13 sensible pulls that leave me exactly where I am, or 1 roll at 15% that might not.

<<Loraine: The arithmetic says the sensible pulls, this is beyond stupid>>

And?

<<Loraine: And...well I guess probabilities exist for a reason. Fine>>

<<OVERCHARGE. 10 EPIC EXPENDED.>>

<<ROLLING.>>

The wheel that came up was not gold and not purple.

It was a deep, wrong red, and it turned slower than anything he had seen it turn, and it made no sound at all, which was somehow much worse than if it had.

Soren stopped breathing.

He had been here before. Not in a grain loft and not with his soul on the table, but he had absolutely been here before, at 20 years old, on a bedroom floor, with a phone in his hand and a number that was going to be either everything or nothing and no third option available anywhere.

He had been here hundreds of times and it had been nothing hundreds of other times.

The wheel turned.

<<Lilith: Soren, your heart is doing something I don't like.>>

<<Loraine: Leave him.>>

<<Lilith: It's at 140 and climbing, that's not—>>

<<Loraine: Lilith. Leave him.>>

The wheel began to slow.

The wheel spun and spun, the pointer slowly scrapping past a large section of red before falling into a small demarcated area of gold.

<<1 MYTHIC TICKET AWARDED.>>

Soren made a noise.

It was not a word and it was not a laugh. It came out of him the way air comes out of a punctured thing, and he put both hands over his face and sat in the dark shaking while a system that had been running odds at him for six weeks said absolutely nothing at all.

<<Lilith: ...Loraine.>>

<<Loraine: I am aware.>>

<<Lilith: LORAINE HE HIT IT.>>

<<Loraine: I AM AWARE, LILITH.>>

Pull it.

<<Loraine: Take a moment.>>

Pull it, Loraine.

<<HEAVENLY GRADE ROLL.>>

The crimson wheel turned, and this one made a sound after all, low and long, like a bell being rung in a different building.

<<ITEM: THRESHOLD BREAKING PILL.>>

<<GRADE: PROFOUND.>>

<<CURSE TAG: NONE.>>

<<Ozhan steppe alchemy. Dissolves the wall between two adjacent tiers and supplies enough refined mana to fill the capacity behind it. Single use. Effective only on a cultivator standing at Peak of their current tier.>>

The loft was very quiet.

Well fuck my luck...

<<Loraine: Profound.>>

<<Loraine: Off a Heavenly ceiling.>>

Loraine.

<<Loraine: 10 Epic tickets. A 1-in-7 Overcharge that actually landed. A Heavenly grade roll, which you will not see again for a year, and it has produced a pill.>>

<<Lilith: She's going to say something.>>

<<Loraine: I am going to say a great deal.>>

Loraine. What's the wall between Apprentice and Adept made of?

<<Loraine: ...>>

Answer the question.

<<Loraine: Mana-dense ground, a Refined grade method or better, or Ozhan pills. Those are the three. There is no fourth.>>

And which of those do I have.

<<Loraine: ...>>

<<Lilith: Say it.>>

<<Loraine: You have Deepwell, which is Profound, so technically the method is covered, and you would still be looking at somewhere between eight months and four years at that wall, because a method gets you to the wall and does not get you through it.>>

And with the pill?

<<Loraine: One night.>>

Soren took his hands off his face.

<<Loraine: I withdraw the thing about the pill.>>

<<Lilith: SOREN.>>

I know.

<<Lilith: Adept is me. All of me. Uncapped. The full catalogue. Covenants.>>

I know, Lilith.

<<Lilith: I've been running at 38% for six weeks and I did not complain once.>>

You complained constantly.

<<Lilith: I complained charmingly, which is a service.>>

Loraine. What Stage am I?

<<Loraine: 6th.>>

And the pill needs Peak.

<<Loraine: The pill needs Peak.>>

So that's 4 Stages in 13 days.

<<Loraine: 4 Stages in 13 days, yes, and before you get excited about that, the late Stages of a tier are not the early ones. The 8th will take you three days. The 9th will take longer than both and the 10th is a wall in its own right, which is why they call it Peak.>>

So it's not possible.

<<Loraine: It is not possible the way you are currently doing it.>>

Meaning?

<<Loraine: Meaning shop. 4,500 FP. And I already know what you are buying, and for once I do not object to any of it.>>

<<BATTLE SENSE (LESSER). REFINED. 2,600 FP.>>

<<Passive. Reads weight, intent, telegraph, and the half second before a committed movement. Does not make you faster. Makes you correct.>>

<<SERPENT FANG KNIFE ARTS. REFINED. 1,400 FP.>>

<<Close quarters knife style out of the Iron Consortium wharfs. Built for 1 short blade, poor light, and opponents expecting a longer weapon.>>

Both.

<<Loraine: That is 4,000 of 4,250.>>

Both.

<<PURCHASED. 250 FP REMAINING.>>

<<Loraine: Note that Serpent Fang wants a short blade, and you own exactly 1 weapon, which is a Refined knife with a grip made for a much larger hand, which you have drawn once in six weeks.>>

They went in the way everything went in, all at once and finished, and for the first time since he had woken up on a rug in a dead boy's room, Soren sat still in the dark and felt his own body become a thing he understood.

Corrin Bly had gone for his left because Soren had favoured his right shoulder.

He had known that. He had known it while it was happening, two hours before he had been conscious enough to use it.

13 days, he thought. 457 of 800. 4 Stages. 1 pill.

<<Lilith: ...And then?>>

He looked out of the loft's small window, across the black yard, at the one lit room on the second floor where a woman who believed she owned him was awake at half past 2 in the morning.

And then I go and be extremely charming to Lady Vesper Callowmere about a present.